Hung Parliament? We’re not getting everything we want? Right, that’s it. SEND IN THE UNCLEAN!

This is a brief thank you to the group of morons currently camped outside of parliament square in London, in protest at the fact we are not likely to be getting the sort of electoral reform that some of us wanted.

I voted for the Liberal Democrats at the last election and am proud of that fact. I am also proud of the way in which Nick Clegg and his people have conducted themselves after the fact, helping to set up what they would consider the best government we have available at the moment.

I am pleased that when there are issues that are unacceptable there are pressure groups and people who go out onto the streets in protest, waving their banners and placards in safety, given that we live in a country where they are free to do this without being dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets.

What displeases me is the conduct of the idiots that have been out to buy tents from the favela section in Millets and set up on the lawn outside parliament. Why? Because I believe they are doing much more harm than good and because of the slapdash attitude they have taken to the whole affair.

“We will only leave if we are evicted by force or if our demands are met”. Followed by a laundry list of demands including electoral reform, ending the war in Afghanistan, making Ed Balls change his name to something that doesn’t make me giggle and free machines that go PING! for every hospital in the land.

Now if you want to organise a protest that will garner support from the general public, there are a few simple rules which you should follow.

Firstly, it has to have a permit if it is within one mile of parliament square. Was it too much to ask that you organise the damn thing properly? Now the police are immediately involved and as soon as any of you does anything at all that could be considered nuisance behaviour, it will be shut down and you will be moved on and it will be your own fault. Believe me, they are waiting for this to happen and their response will be well organised and rapid, as if they had been expecting this to happen. Funny that…

Secondly, keep it clean! Nobody will sympathise with you if you dump all your rubbish everywhere making the place look like Glastonbury bloody festival. Nobody takes any notice of stupid people in tents, up to their necks in their own detritus. Remember Swampy? He was a media darling for quite some time when the council wanted to build a motorway across Bambi’s forehead, but nobody really took him seriously. He was a novelty, little more. To get something like electoral reform we need to be taken seriously, not as some bunch of bleeding heart Muppets littering Parliament Square with McDonald’s wrappers.

Lastly, if you want something done, even in the dim hopes of a successful protest, you need to have a clear message for the powers that be. Chants of “What do we want?!?” “Your agreement to implement points one to eighteen, with particular attention to annexes one to fourteen in section two and an end to the war in Afghanistan with reference to the issues raised in the appendices section part four, paragraph two” will not work. You need a clear and concise message or you look like a bunch of whining, far left wing idiots. Ordinarily that would not bother me, but this time you are representing an issue that is of great importance to a great many people and your behaviour is acting in detriment to this cause.

The Lib Dems are in a position to make things better, even if not to make them the way that a lot of us want. But you must remember that those that are against electoral reform are going to hold you up as an example of the kind of people that want this reform. We need to be seen as serious, dedicated and intelligent people in order to be given the time of day and setting up a shanty town next door to the seats of power is not the way to do it.

Please either clean up your act, re-organise this properly or simply get the fuck out of London, because you are damaging the cause and making us all look stupid.

Thanks, disgruntled in Cornwall.