The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

The protest passed cheerfully, with neither violence nor police intervention, much to the disappointment of the assembled photographers. Old Holborn’s tactic was to piggyback on an event staged by the Socialist Workers Party. Their antics are apparently of slightly more interest to the press.

This caused some confusion to the libertarians in attendance, who watched our “guy” pose with his gunpowder barrel, while some Trot mentalist dressed as a Victorian child’s image of a banker ranted about “the dictatorship of the proletariat”. Neither protest was licensed, but the police looked on quietly. Are they under orders not to allow anyone to make news that might embarrass their suddenly-shy political masters?

Afterwards we had a drink and a chat at a nearby pub. OH is quite sanguine about the prospect of scaling down the British mega-state. He thinks the people are close to being ready for real change. Sadly, I think they will be absorbed in their soaps again as soon as they have “chucked the rascals out” at an election. They won’t sustain their interest in politics and a new set of rascals will settle comfortably at the public trough. In my life I have only seen our citzenry roused en masse once. Disappointingly, that was to mourn an aristocratic bimbo.

OH really is quite a character though. I would be delighted for him to be right and me wrong.