Anti-Tory protests expected in Manchester – but will the mainstream media notice?

Last Updated: September 30, 2015By

It seems Manchester is likely to host twice as many protesters against the Conservatives as last time they held their conference in the city – but will the national TV media deign to cover the protests, or will they ignore the impressive list of events, as they did last year?

As many as 100,000 anti-Tory protesters could descend on Manchester this weekend when the Conservative party conference returns to the city, according to one pressure group attending.

Various anti-Tory protests and events are scheduled to take place, including a comedy night, Laugh Them Out of Town, featuring Frankie Boyle, and a rally at which the Labour and Green leaders Jeremy Corbyn and Natalie Bennett are among the speakers.

The main event however, is a huge anti-austerity national demonstration organised by the TUC and the People’s Assembly, which is expecting more than 100,000 marchers, double the number of people that attended last time the Tories were in town. Other projections have been slightly more modest.

Source: Anti-Tory protests expected in Manchester | UK news | The Guardian

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11 Comments

  1. Daniel Margrain October 1, 2015 at 12:18 am - Reply

    Have a peaceful protest of hundreds of thousands and you’ll almost certainly guarantee just 2 minutes of coverage on BBC News 24 at 1am. Have a violent protest of 5,000 and you’ll get wall to wall coverage.

  2. Thomas October 1, 2015 at 5:58 am - Reply

    Protests are (normally) never noticed by the mainstream media unless they get violent.

    • Di ane October 1, 2015 at 10:04 am - Reply

      precisely, then those protesting aren’t affected by [say] cuts: they are pleb scum [to the media]

  3. marcusdemowbray October 1, 2015 at 6:57 am - Reply

    The almost blanket refusal of the media to report in depth on anything bad about the Tories never ceases to amaze me, apart from a very few small newspapers. It is not good for democracy to have such biased media. The astonishing thing is that the Tories are currently SO far to the Right that they think the media are Left wing and need to be bullied or closed down.

  4. Tony Dean October 1, 2015 at 8:32 am - Reply

    Quite, unless someone applies rule 303 to Iain Duncan Smith during a live TV transmission there will be little TV coverage except on RT.

  5. David robinson October 1, 2015 at 8:52 am - Reply

    I watch the B.B.C. news and 24hr news and I didn’t see any coverage of the young doctors protest last week, so I doubt we will see much on TV.

  6. Martin Odoni October 1, 2015 at 8:58 am - Reply

    I went to the protest march at the Tory Conference two years ago and central Manchester was absolutely HEAVING. The principle focus of the protest was to protect the NHS, but it was a wider protest against Austerity too. There were a lot of overlapping, articulate points-of-protest.

    But the only coverage it got on BBC News was a few seconds seen from the door of the GMEX, the view of the huge line of protesters obscured by the raised steps, and with Nick Robinson reducing what we were saying to ‘chanting, “Tory scum” ‘.

    I was so angry when I saw that, it almost felt even worse than if they hadn’t mentioned the protest at all.

  7. Ram K Padmanaban October 1, 2015 at 10:27 am - Reply

    One way it will could get noticed better is peaceful sit-in demonstration. I have noticed even in India, protest where people do hunger strikes, and sit peacefully and demonstrate, most often evokes a diplomatic response from the opponents (as opposed to policing and controling the crowd) and annoys the mainstream media more than anything else.

    The policing of a rally or a march is seen from the viewers eye, as if the crowd is out of control and unreasonable and so generates apathy.

    Sit-in is viewed as a less of a disturbance to the public and commute and generates more empathy from the viewers, through which the views are understood and reverberated along and so it reaches.

    BBC should have a field day after the budget cuts from Osborne, let’s hope that they have the balls to stand up along with the people.

    Good luck.

  8. mrmarcpc October 1, 2015 at 5:52 pm - Reply

    Answer, no, the press are all in the pocket of Murdoch and the right and won’t promote the other side of the fence, the competition, the rival to them as they fear it could wake the nation up out of it’s tory daze and make them realise what’s really going on and the damage the tories have really down to us and the country, hope the march is a success and many, many people turn up in strength in support!

  9. mohandeer October 1, 2015 at 7:49 pm - Reply

    The above two comments are very telling but also deeply worrying. Since I don’t take the daily trash and rely on you Mike, I hope you will let me know if there is any decent mention.

  10. wildswimmerpete October 2, 2015 at 8:47 am - Reply

    100,000 protesters could bring Manchester City Centre to a standstill. Then the BBC together with the mainstream media would have to sit up and notice, especially as any standstill could involve the BBC’s studios. I suspect any violence would be dished out by Greater Manchester Police who have proved themselves as servants of the Tory Party (look at all those cases of booze the police were carrying into the Midland Hotel) and of course Barton Moss.

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