It was just yet another “public servant” stoking something that didn’t really exist in an attempt to get his budget increased.

It was only ever a twinkle in an editor’s eye.

yep.

and will all the intellectual giants who castigated economists for failing to predict the crisis, and who then went on to predict the demise of the capitalist paradigm (or variants thereof) issue grovelling apologies, if, as looks like, the capitalist paradigm lumbers on?

Don’t these things usually require a long, hot summer? Well, there’s yer answer right there.

Dave, is it something to do with that, despite predictions of a “middle class recession”, the job-shedding in the economy hasn’t turned out to have hit the middle class in the trendy parts of London hard (yet?).

The job losses have been concentrated on the usual sectors in the usual areas eg manufacturing in the West Mids. And those workers don’t riot any more they just grin and bear it.

Are you so sure that if a double dip recession or cuts to the public sector budget ever affect places like Stoke Newington the trendies there won’t riot? So it might be like a weather forecast that predicts a storm but gets the timing wrong, ie it happens next summer not this.

D’you mean to say you missed it, Dave?
On Saturday 22d August it all kicked off big style, and there was a unified, well-orchestrated mass pursing of lips and tutting at dinner parties across Islington,Notting Hill and Hampstead. The action soon spread and parts of Highbury, Crouch End and Muswell Hill blazed with mild indignation. Before long it had gone international with Tuscany and South of France soirées coming out in sympathy.
Sadly, the reactionary forces of oppression stamped out this brave protest movement. That or conversation turned to Jacintha’s marvellous A level results, gap years in Guatemala (but avoiding the unsightly poor) and the Boden catalogue.

They all went to the G8/Climate camp instead.

That’s the beauty of LibCon – it keeps ‘em off the streets.

Alisdair Cameron

Heady days man…crazy, crazy times…felt like we could really shake things up…move the world …or at least get the council to adopt Tristram’s plans for those fairtrade jute recycling sacks for organic garden waste every other Tuesday…what happened to us man?…how did it all turn so sour?

Still…wouldn’t have missed it…comes back to me, every time I hear that Coldplay track…de de dum de…

In what sense did the Guardian “get it wrong”?

They reported what someone else had said, they didn’t come up with the idea themselves. Had that person not said it, then they would have got it wrong. As it is David Hartshorn’s prediction didn’t come about, but the Guardian was, as far as I know, quite correct.

Dave, is it something to do with that, despite predictions of a “middle class recession”, the job-shedding in the economy hasn’t turned out to have hit the middle class in the trendy parts of London hard (yet?).

Try finding a job as an architect, a lawyer, an advertising executive…

Why would the middle classes riot when they have a chance to vote out this appalling government within a year? The middle classes are slowly but surely deserting public services (at great financial burden to themselves and in the face of a recession) and are paying for private healthcare and private schools themselves and will vote accordinggly for lower taxes at the cost of public services. Either that or like many of the ones I know, are trying to emigrate to Australia.

It’s funny, I remember debating with right-wing loons and them using that story and some others, to paint a picture of Britain on the edge and how it would all fall apart.

Not yet.

Although havng watched The Shock Doctrine last night I wished we had all kicked off and perhaps knocked free market style policies back to the shit hole they came from.

Perhaps you missed the summer of rage because you were focusing too much on middle-class dinner parties?

There was the occupation of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight, of Lewisham Bridge, Wyndham, and St Gregory’s primary schools, of the Ssangyong car factory in South Korea, of Thomas Cook in Dublin, and of Sedgemoor Splash in Somerset. There were the running battles between anarchists and fascist in Greece, the general strike and the spate of bossnappings in France, the wildcat oil refinery strikes, labour riots in China, the upcoming postal strikes, Climate Camp, No Borders Camp, the protests against the deportation of striking SOAS cleaners, and riots and strikes in Greece, Egypt, and South Africa.

And that’s to name but a few. Forget the liberals and the chattering classes, the summer of rage is very real, and the only reason it’s underreported is because it’s the working class who are initiating it.

Phil: I think you’re stretching the definition of rage to breaking point.

Indeed. A sit-in at a closing factory != the Brixton riots, or even the Poll Tax riots.

“like many of the ones I know, are trying to emigrate to Australia.”

Because everything’s just fine there, presumably?

“the occupation of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight” Is that really one of the more notable recent events of middle-class anger?

The important point here is the pain the middle class are going to suffer in coming years due to fact that little if any additional revenue will be achieved by further taxes on the rich (just see what happened in the 70s – or in Italy today) and so the tax burden needed to maintain (let alone reduce) our historic deficit will fall largely on them (and indirectly through means testing of child benefit, pensions etc). The question is how this will change their voting behaviour. Whether it is right or wrong for society as a whole, from a ‘selfish’ perspective they would be almost universally better off financially with lower taxes and a diminished public/welfare sector and this is what I expect them to vote for.

As for anger towards financial institutions, the middle classes have got over that, they are now concerned how they pay for their mortgages, holidays and kids education…..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Riots_in_Australia

@11 Richard J: “Try finding a job as an architect, a lawyer, an advertising executive…”

Point well taken, certainly with respect to architecture and advertising, which I can well believe are badly hit (can’t quite see it for lawyers somehow, but happy to stand corrected).

So. Please enlighten us further. How are these unemployed creative types coping with no money coming in and expensive loft conversions and trendy lifestyles to support? How destitute are they getting, are these people losing their homes? (If I had a half million pound mortgage I wouldn’t last five minutes with no income coming in.) Are they upset that the bankers got a bailout when they don’t?If so, how angry are they getting – is any rioting or other political action on the cards?

Serious question, honestly! My social circle doesn’t allow me these insights first hand. Wandering around London there still seems to be plenty of trendies in Soho splashing the cash – is this a false impression?

I’m only on the tenebrous fringes, meself, but most big law firms make cash not through litigation or criminal cases, but through legal grunt work on corporate transactions – drafting documentation, due diligence, etc. When the M&A industry curled up and went to sleep a year or so back, that wasn’t great. As a finger in the air estimate, probably about 5-10% of lawyers have been made redundant in London last year (albeit normally on fairly generous payoffs, which is why there’s not been much turmoil yet. Unless you work for DLA Piper.)

@21 So what you’re saying to Dave Osler is that the summer of rage hasn’t happened because the middle class unemployed are living off their redundancy cheque for the time being.

So what happens if the “M&A” party doesn’t revive before the redundancy money runs out? Can we expect these lawyers to be making fire sales of their expensive homes? That would chuck a spanner in the re-inflation of the property bubble, which would also see the unemployed architects running out of money before their own trade starts re-hiring (and so on, and so on).

The party has re-started for some gambling sectors of the City casino (it’s kind of obscene to call it investment banking when actual investment is down 20% or whatever it is), but that is because they have trousered the trillion pound bailout and put it directly into the private personal accounts.

But this issue of some people getting bailed out but others not is where the riots will come from when the redundancy cheques run out. The political demand is to put everything back as it was in 2007 before the crash, but no politician can deliver that. We only had the money for one bail out and the bankers have swiped it. So if the recession in the real economy continues, then the unemployed are going to get angry – my guess is that anger will crystallise when they are forced to sell their houses at a loss to a hard-negotiating bonused-up banker paying cash.

Unlike the humble hard working families of the West Mids or wherever, these lawyers and architects don’t feel cowed by the sheen of the City slickers, they have the same sense of entitlement and will be far more likely to be pro-active in venting their anger.

All I’m saying is that it’s too early for Dave Osler to be saying that we won’t ever be seeing smashed windows all down Stoke Newington Church Street.