Protest - or revolution?

I’m not politically tribal, and I am disturbed by the suddenness and intensity of the “protests” that have sprung up in the wake of the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower.

For sure, there are questions to be asked. For example, I’m amazed that Grenfell residents were advised in a 2014 newsletter that “(unless there is a fire in your flat or in the hallway outside your flat) you should stay inside your flat.” I’ve never seen that on a fire safety notice in any hotel room.

But protests are not spontaneous. They have to be organised. And in the picture above, culled from today’s Daily Mail, the protest at St Clements’ Church yesterday looks very organised.

By whom? Who are the placard-holders here, and why is the fellow at mid-right, front, wearing a copy of Socialist Worker like a tabard? Someone on the left has already got a printed T-shirt. That was fast.

We are in a very volatile period, and modern communications offer the chance to whip up trouble double-quick. When people protested and rioted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they did not have the right to vote. But now they do – and a third of them don’t bother.
I’m suspicious of direct democracy. We need a representative democracy, but one that does listen and does try to act in the best interest of the country. Perhaps these dangerous signs are a measure of the failure of the current, gamed systems in our councils, regulatory organisations and the palace of Westminster.