Biting the hand?

(nb. I am not the Devil's Kitchen)

Put People First - the coalition behind the G20 demonstrations - has provided the biggest bonanza for fake charity spotters since Stop Climate Chaos gathered its forces late last year. Like Stop Climate Chaos, Put People First took to the streets to bang on about global warming and their militant wing were at it again today. Unlike Stop Climate Chaos - who got away with mere sub-zero temperatures - Put People First endured a hail-storm followed by a sleet-storm and then had to listen to Baldrick spouting off about the evils of capitalism. Sounds terrific.

Much has been made of the supposedly broad base of support this new coalition enjoys. According to Newsnight:

"What's striking about these protests - that started at the weekend - is the sheer diversity of groups and their demands, but all united against a commmon enemy: the government and global capitalism."

This claim of "sheer diversity" was immediately undermined by the usual assortment of soap-dodgers, Trotskyists and borderline tramps who were interviewed for the programme. Striking diversity? Only if you consider Unison to be at the other end of the political spectrum to The New Economics Foundation, or if you can't see any ideological link between Greenpeace and the Tax Justice Network.

Far from being diverse, the Put People First coalition is overwhelmingly dominated by public sector unions, fake charities and global warming nutters who are worried that a recession will mean less public money for their members, as its website suggests:

"A typical government response would be to use the global economic slowdown as an excuse to cut back on public expenditure programmes.

Not good enough! Public service must be assured so that the people who did the least to cause this problem do not pay the highest price. Bringing forward public works programmes could also help create jobs and help countries out of recession."

Today, as on Saturday, the ghost of the poll tax riots looms large. As one lefty blogger put it:

The memory of the miners strike, Wapping, Poll tax lingers long and hard. 2009 is our summer of rage

The myth of Thatcher being brought down by the poll tax riots is an enduring one for the men and wimmin of the left, and this fond memory continues to draw socialist throwbacks to Trafalgar Square. It's bollocks, of course, chronologically and politically, but there is a more fundamental difference. The significance of those riots has been much exaggerated but they did represent, in a meaningful way, a clash of extremes. The poll tax rioters would never have voted Tory. They were ideologically opposed to Conservatism and genuinely wanted to destroy it.

The G20 protests are completely different. These are lovers' tiffs - family rows - and carefully orchestrated ones at that. The nearest most of the Put People First marchers will come to genuine dissent will be to vote Lib Dem. To get a real equivalent of the poll tax riots you would have to imagine Thatcher funding Class War out of public money and then imagine that the rioters were demanding to retain the poll tax.

The Put People First coalition's demands for 'green collar jobs', greater public spending, higher public debt and further regulation have been government policy for some now, so what kind of protest is this? It's just noise and flying fists, and in the confusion, the real scandal - that Brown is on a doomed mission to spend his way out of recession - is forgotten.

Does anyone believe that the one-eyed Scottish trouser-snake will be perturbed by having 35,000 marchers call for him to lurch to the left? Does anyone seriously think that Ed Miliband will be upset by having a baying mob demanding higher taxes and more investment for his ludicrous and fictitious 'green New Deal'?

Amongst Put People's First's more risible claims is this little gem:

The G20 leaders don’t want to talk about climate change; but they must.

Beg pardon? Brown, Obama, Rudd et al don't want to talk about climate change?! What absolute twaddle. Not only do they talk about it at every opportunity, they actively solicit public demonstrations to fabricate support for their 'mentalist policies, as the chaps at Climate Resistance pointed out at the time of the Plane Stupid demo:

We have nothing against direct action per se. But what sort of direct action is it when the activists target those who are pushing in the same direction as themselves? And let’s not forget that the government quite likes the fact that a few silly protestors are lending some street cred to its own agenda. We recently quoted Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband on the runway protests:

"When you think about all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes, to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had popular mobilisation. Maybe it’s an odd thing for someone in government to say, but I just think there’s a real opportunity and a need here."

This is what counts for protest in 2009. Politicians resort to begging for 'popular mobilisation' for unpopular policies and when their natural supporters 'mobilise', the media call it a protest.

And that is where the fake charities come in. Even a cursory look at the members of the Put People First Coalition shows well over a dozen contenders for fakecharities.org.

It can't be denied that some of them do meet the dictionary definition of a charity by helping "the poor, the sick, or the helpless" to some extent. This at least sets them on a higher moral plain than blatant government front-groups like ASH and Alcohol Concern. But when it comes to politics, they function like every other fake charity. They manufacture dissent and bay for blood just as the government are lining up to give you a good kick in the balls anyway.

It beggars belief that public money is being spent on some of these socialist wingnuts. War on Want's agenda, for example, seems to have been taken straight out of Das Kapital:

War on Want is leading the campaign for a new system to replace the failed ideology of free market capitalism. We believe that this new system must be based on principles of public benefit not private profit, achieved through democratic control and a redistribution of the fruits of globalisation.

Feel like donating to these Marxist dickheads? Too late. You already do. Last year they got £231,592 from the British government and a further £240,068 from the European Commission.

And this is the tip of the iceberg. The 13 Put People First members that we have so far added to fakecharities.org relieved the taxpayer of over £60 million last year (most of them have been filed under 'Free Trade'.) They include such organisations as Progressio, who want to create a "new world order" and who rely on the state for 63% of their income. They include International Service, who get 69.8% of their income from the state. All of them meet the first criteria for fakecharities.org in that they receive at least 10% of their income (and/or £1 million) from the state. And by taking part in Put People First's anti-capitalist campaign, they manifestly fulfill the second criteria - that they engage in political activism.

Gordon Brown has nothing to fear from these clowns. His real opponents are those G20 leaders who are not far enough through the electoral cycle to engage in scorched earth policies. Even the nihilistic spastics who showed up for a scrap today will only serve to reinforce the illusion that there is passionate public support for whatever Keynesian lunacy Labour has in mind. It is convenient for both sides to pretend that the protestors are embarassing the government but Brown has no desire for them to shut up. If he did, he would stop paying them.