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Back to the 80’s in every way
Can you walk straight binners?
Damn you avadave, I had money on binners being the one to post that clip.
Incedently your foum name auto corrects to 'average.' Sorry about that...
A few couple of points:
The number of Mystic Meg level predictions on here is laughable. Pretty much everything anyone, economists et al, has predicted over the last hundred years has been wrong. I wouldn’t have any faith in anyone who claims to know what’s round the corner.
Every thread like this also seems to result in several forum members (you know who you are) thinking it’s their big chance to do some left wing proselytising, which is very tiring. The Tories have many faults, and I would never vote for them, but the oft-repeated notion (on STW) that they’re part of some sort of capitalist conspiracy to enslave the poor is the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from a sixth form Socialist Worker seller, not a sensible adult.
That is all,
JP
JP - in case you don't know, if you laid all the economists in the world end-to-end they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
I usually categorise your posts alongside chewkw, the well known malaysian (?) geordie (?) troll, which means I ignore them but I agree with your observation about capitalist conspiracy bollocks - johnson's controllers etc.
The hedgies and similar are not influenced by and do not influence johnson and his clown circus.
They make their money by speculating; who, notionally, governs is a complete irrelevance to them.
They will always find an edge.
If you have the funds, take a risk - make more money.
Tory gov may make it 'easier' for them to profit but, I suggest, they are generally apolitical; donations to a political party are for the optics.
All this talk of the 80's reminds me of when I moved into the Hulme Crescents in Manchester in 86. It was beyond the reaches on law and order and normality in general, think of films like 'Escape from New York' or Taroskvy's 'Stalker' It was also a bit like Christiania in Denmark, though maybe a bit more purgatoria if truth be told.
The anarchic (and they were) conditions that existed in Hulme and Moss Side back then were in large part due to the previous generations failure in urban planning, policing and economic decline. It made for a wonderful cultural Petri dish though.... good times.
When I look at how Manchester's city centre has developed this century, I wonder if they haven't designed a city of steel and glass that is as unsuitable for the coming times as the labyrinth of deck access 'Alphaville' type developments that went up a generation before.
The new Manchester city centre is like Logan's Run, everyone under 30, no older people, no families, no doctors surgeries, no green space. Quite simply a temple to consumerism, trendy bars and restaurants. Under lockdown this vision has become only more pronounced. Without all the locals coming in from the surrounding districts the city looks as un cosmopolitan as can be, every person you see is middle class, in their 20's or early 30's at best, and dressed as they are in their ath-leisure wear they resemble the sandmen from the aforementioned movie.
Bit dramatic I know, but the new city does now look like a place made for a different world than the one were moving in to.
Ah yes, chrome and glass palaces of our future.
Come see our stunning development (built on the old gasworks site which we didn't fully remediate), with panoramic views of adjoining high-rises; a *community* where your neighbours are ignorant, noisy, inconsiderate arseholes; open your windows and breathe in those fresh brewed diesel fumes; spacious - really?; zero sound insulation.
Denizens of these 'luxury developments' have run home to mummy and daddy in the suburbs or countryside to escape the shit existence which, until March, they could't get enough of.
Shit becoming real
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53015467
Hope donny remembers that as he claimed credit for Wall Street rising he also owns falls; what a dick.
A couple of good things might come out of this - I reckon Trump and Johnson are both toast. People change governments when their bank balances look worse, regardless of why.
I saw an ordinary family (parents and kids of about 4 8 and 12 respectively) going for a ride on their bikes up Deansgate yesterday. As they bumped up and down the kerbs pooling around like they were in a country park it reminded me of those images of a deer living in the shadow of Chernobyl.
It wasn't just the emptiness and lack of traffic that stuck me, it was more just seeing a normal family, visiting this alien, domed city that existed on their doorstep.
Looking out of the windows of my flat on the edge of the city centre I can see 20 residential tower blocks going up. Back in 2008 worked was stopped on a few that were under construction then and they stayed as half built relics for a few years before eventually being demolished but they haven't stopped working on them this time.
I wonder who will end up living in them? The Hulme I moved into years ago hadn't ended up being populated by the people they were intended for. Why would it be different this time?
inkster - good analogy with Chernobyl.
I think high rise resi developers are well and truly stuffed.
In addition, estate developers are also facing significant problems; short term blip in interest/demand but harsh economic reality will kick in - redunders, short time working - then prices will fall.
Unemployment rising; no new markets/technology to take up the slack.
Lots of talk about green technology but, that's it - just talk.
Furlough, in too many cases, is nothing more than deferred redundancy.
Talking with colleagues in my nationwide construction network confirms that.
A common observation is that sites cannot operate safely even if social distancing was reduced to 1 metre.
Increased prelims to cover costs of enhanced PPE or changed working arrangements are generally being rejected by clients.
Clients are forcing essential safety costs and consequent reduced margins onto their contractors as they won't accept cost increases.
Contractor margins have been too skinny for too long even before this.
Clearly, this is not viable.
My previous glass half empty attitude has changed; I'm now 3/4 empty.
From someone who's seen market turmoil and made money from it.
http://investorfieldguide.com/jeremy-grantham-an-uncertain-crisis-invest-like-the-best-ep-177/
His view is the market is (massively) over-priced.
Twist or stick?
Economy shrinks by I've 20% in April. We all knew it was coming but written down...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53019360
Predictions for how this will affect the lay person in the October and April budgets?
Surely tax increases, fuel duty will go on I reckon as it comes back in use but the prices are low, Beer and Spirits a little bit not too much to revive things and produce some kind of feel good factor, but what’s the betting of a opposing comparison with a C19 Chart, a massive decline followed by a long slow haul back to economic normality paving the way for high taxation and cuts during the conservative reign...
I think the only response is to take an approach similar to post war. Basically huge direct investment by Government in infrastructure and industry to keep the economy going and improve productivity - tax increases will be necessary but mainly massive borrowing. Need to grow ourselves out of this crisis, even the most ideologically hidebound Tories must see this...
Every thread like this also seems to result in several forum members (you know who you are)
And you're always around to do some dissing without any kind of informed comment. How are you doing, JP? Business OK? Did you see this coming years ago and make sure you had the financial resources to ride the storm? Did you live modestly is the boom to prepare for the inevitable bust? Did you go cash rich when it was clear the virus was out of China?
If you can answer all that positively then congratulations and keep gloating. I can but I'm not going to gloat because I've survived being poor, finishing school before the Winter of discontent, graduating in 82 with 3 million unemployed and being dealt a poor economic hand. All those economic lessons have paid dividends, because I was lucky enough to have ten years of being in the right place at the right time in a period of relative prosperity - the 90s.
Junior and his contemporaries are right in the thick of the economic fall out, what they are living now will change the world down the line and I reckon ultimately for the better.
The New Austerity, pay cuts, evictions, bashed heads will all be done in the name of 'saving the economy' with the tentative (but polite) support of Sir Steir Karmer*. Robert Adam Crescent 1980 exemplified how if you treat people like dirt they are more then likely to become it, if they weren't already. It was such a desperate dystopia they put students (!) in to civilise it. Awful circumstances polarise, witness all that and you're either a serious socialist or a fascist. Or today, you'd want to pull down reactionary icons or tug your forelock and venerate imperious statues of your social superiors.
Already on the news we're getting claims of conspirators exploiting the innocent demonstrators, it's all about wrecking shops, Floyd was a bum who didn't deserve a dignified funeral, police being trained in the latest wack'em techniques in the occupied territories. 'Saving the economy' actually means saving people who own businesses (not you, muppet). Forget about CV numbers, get back to work and 'stay alert' meaning 'take your own risks'. I know a lot of self-employed who play the tax system, they won't have had a good time. Despite wanting a bit of work doing, I'm not stirring it all up with employing anyone for quite a while yet. At least Blair's taken one sheet from the Corbyn hymnbook on providing the outrageous, commie pipe-dream, ridiculous, free internet (that the French did through the Metro tunnels years ago). The saddest thing is, I think many people will take it on the chin if they're not already flat on their back.
*shamelessly nicked from an interview with Tariq Ali on FB Counterfire.
We really have to invest and grow out if this - austerity has slowed recovery and increased wealth inequality since the financial crash + and that was nothing compared to this.
Austerity measures taking the money out of the pockets of normal people through pressure on public sector pay, in and out of work benefits is massively short sighted.
The only period of sustained growth in modern UK history is the post WW2 period and that was linked to massive Govt investment in infrastructure, introduction of universal benefits NHS etc. Policies that persisted after the 45 Labour Govt went out of power.
The bullshit about balancing the books and reducing debt will hopefully be exposed as the nonsense they are. No credible economist has thought this for 20 years.
National debt is not to be feared, interest rates are historically low, its time ( or will be when lockdown eases a bit more) to invest and grow our way out of this hole
it’s their big chance to do some left wing proselytising, which is very tiring.
So discussing anything that doesn't fit within the extremely narrow constraints of neo-liberal economics is left wing? That's just plainly ridiculous. Put it this way, if the existing economic and financial system was capable of dealing with the pandemic, would the US and UK governments be rushing to abandon efforts to contain the virus resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths?
capitalist conspiracy to enslave the poor
There's no conspiracy, just the plain reality that those at the top will do anything to protect their wealth and power, irregardless of the impact on everyone else. Do you deny this is the case?
I wonder who will end up living in them? The Hulme I moved into years ago hadn’t ended up being populated by the people they were intended for.
You're familiar with the term Hulmeosexuals? Hulme is now host to Manchesters gay population.
I'm old enough to remember the urban hell that was the crescents. We used to score weed in the Spinners in Mossiside. I remember James Anderton (Gods Cop) coming on telly to state that there were no 'no-go' areas for the police in Manchester. As someone living next to Ordsall at the time, my, how we laughed.
In answer to your question about who will live in the new city centre apartments, they fall into two categories
1. Students. A lot of those developments are being fuelled by the relentless expansion of the Universities. How that will work in a world of online learning and Brexit, who knows?
2. Nobody. Last year 85% of the non-student residential apartments were bought 'off-plan by foreign investors who have moved on from London as it was overpriced. Again... what happens to them in a post-Brexit country in the midst of economic collapse?
I doubt either is going to go well. I suspect a lot of those gleaming glass and chrome palaces are going to sit empty
A question of interest rates.
We're currently historically low.
The '80s saw some high rates, I remember my parents battling a mortgage cost increase.
Back to the start of the thread.
As well as unemployment and stagnant economy, will we see interest rates rise?
As someone due a mortgage renewal next year, I'm borderline cost wise remortgaging early and tying in for 5 years at a lower rate than I've currently got...
I was astonished that all those blocks got planning permission. Some are in each others' shadow and there's little infrastructure in the area to support the occupants. I've read that most of the occupants of 1 Deansgate have had mental health issues arising from their 'life changing' increased debt arising from them having to pay for removing the combustible cladding.
The people who bought the flats off-plan must have assumed there would be sufficient numbers of wealthy people to occupy them. The average income in Manchester is £26k. There's plenty of homeless and people unsuitably accommodated in Manchester and there's new blocks going up. Nah, no chance. They will be derelict before they ever meet people's needs.
2. Nobody. 85% of the non-student residential apartments were bought ‘off-plan by foreign investors who have moved on from London as it was overpriced.
This. After the last recession an acquaintance who was a manc city centre estate agent told me one of his jobs was to go into places like Beetham tower every evening and turn on the lights in empty apartments so potential tenants and buyers wouldn't be put off at the prospect of living in an empty tower block.
Manc city centre is f**** quite frankly. As inkster says it's devoted entirely to consumerism and has precious little function in a world of social distancing and economic deflation. The restaurants, bars and coffee shops will soon be boarded up, the offices will be empty and those who live there will either be trapped by collapsing property prices, or will flee to the suburbs if they have the means. What's left behind won't look like anything that exists now.
Binners in the Spinners eh.
That used to be my local when I first moved to Manchester. I think our paths may have crossed many times sir. (Didn't you say you used to work at the hacienda? I did too though quit in 89 when the 'Hit Man and Her' came to the gaff so we may have missed each other on that occasion.)
The initial, Urban Splash led redevelopment of the city was exciting and innovative. Post millennium the council rolled over and allowed developers to do whatever they wanted. They sell the city as an oasis of urbanity when in truth they've created a monocultural, cultural desert.
Ordinarily, when faced with an economic downturn developments like these would remain unoccupied. However, I think things will be different this time. The homeless problem was more or less solved instantly when empty hotels were temporarily used to house street sleepers. We could see a rise in squatting as well. Whilst these developments arent as easy to squat as an old Victorian house, It wouldn't surprise me if you see a 'squat the block' campaign start up.
One thing about the old Hulme Crescents and similar properties around Manchester was that although the properties were sub standard, they provided plenty of surplus capacity for housing the homeless. You either popped down the Moss Side housing office and they would give you a key on the spot or you just squatted the first empty property that took your fancy.
To have thousands of empty city centre flats alongside a housing crisis will be intolerable under the new normal.
Faisal Islam on Five Live now has just given an overview of what he thinks, as an economist, needs to happen as a reaction to a fall in the economy of 20% and what he thinks will actually happen:
What needs to happen:
Brexit needs to be immediately put on hold and the government should immediately apply for an extension on the withdrawal agreement. The government should then take advantage of record low-interest rates to borrow for a Keynesian response of investment to boost the economy.
What will actually happen:
The Brexiteers running the show have become even more entrenched in their refusal to extend the withdrawal period so we're full steam ahead for a no deal crash out in December and the huge detremental impact that will have on an eceonomy already on its knees. They will not borrow or invest but will instead go for an even more severe version of George Osbournes austerity programme
In short, we have the very worst people we could possibly have in charge at the moment. They are idelogical zealots who will pursue their agenda no matter the untold misery it will inflict on millions and millions of people
The next few years in this country are going to be grim! And this lot couldn't give a shit
Inkster - I did work in the Hac in the early 90's. Our paths must surely have crossed on plenty of occasions by the sound of it. Did you used to go to One Tree Island and the parties in the Crescents that the Hulme Hippies used to put on?
One thing about the Crescents and the general grimness around Manchester at the time was the reaction it provoked in creativity. A lot of which have massively contributed to making Manchester the City it is now, culturally.
I wonder if the same will happen this time around. Because we're in for a carbon copy repeat of the 80's, where the economies of Northern towns and cities will be devastated once again, and a Tory government in power who genuinely couldn't give a toss about us and will simply leave us to our fate. Again
There's a few months to go till the Brexit deadline. Starmer was smart not to push for a Brexit extension, leaving it all on the Tories plate. Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking. I don't think the government has any if We about the shit storm that is about to descend on them.
One reason they've extended the furlough extension till the autumn is that they hope it will sedate the people for long enough that they'll not notice when a no deal is sprung upon them and the public will just take it lying down. That's not going to happen.
Because we’re in for a carbon copy repeat of the 80’s
Only if we're very lucky. It all depends on the pandemic. If a second wave hits and is anything like the first, it'll need a second lockdown. If that happens the 80s will look like a party, as we'll be looking at something like the collapse of American rustbelt cities.
Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking.
I think you're massively underestimating how determined this lot are to see through their grand project. Their paymasters have too much riding on this. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to roll back the state, tear up workers rights and environmental controls, privatise the NHS and god knows what else.
In order to do this, these disaster capitalists need a disaster. A no deal brexit was always going to provide that. Covid just adds to it.
Gove has come out this morning and re-stated that under no circumstances will they be applying for an extension to the withdrawal agreement. He bloody means it too! Brexit trumps everything in the eyes of these zealots. Us lot will just be collateral damage. They'll give about as much consideration to places like Manchester as Thatcher did in the 80's.
Binners,
Hacienda 86-89, Hulme 86 till present (minus a few months living in Longsight, soon realised that mistake and hot footed it back to Hulme.) I worked for the One Tree Island crew, they gave me my first DJ gigs and set me on the way to being a club promoter myself.
The cultural energy around Hulme and Moss Side back then was phenomenal, its why i moved up to Manchester from rural Oxfordshire after leaving school. Id go as far to say no Crescents, no glass and steel metroplis that we have now. Manchester City council rode the Hacienda myth harder than Liverpool humped the Beatles.
I'm wondering the same things as you with regards history repeating itself. Back then failures in planning for the future and economic conditions led to a swathe of unoccupied property. The same situation exists now so the first question we have to ask is 'Why would it be different this time? There are differences, the empty property isn't council owned this time and it's not sub standard (though still pretty shit and not fit for purpose by other metrics.) The other difference that I keep on going on about is that the youth have been furloughed and they've got time and energy to burn.
Manchester is an interesting case study for another reason, Labour have been in charge here since the last ice age, so responsibility for the kind of 'Logan's Run' utopia they've created can't be laid solely at the tories door.
If a second wave hits and is anything like the first, it’ll need a second lockdown.
But they won't.
Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking.
A no deal Brexit is pretty much nailed down in two weeks time. Most of the public won’t even be aware of that when it passed, never mind be in a position to do anything about it. Come January, what the public ‘wishes’ is entirely irrelevant as we can’t turn back time and prevent a whole series of events that made no deal Brexit unavoidable.
But they won’t.
Agreed. We’re being prepared for the virus flaring up again without it triggering a second round of ‘lock down’ style measures being triggered. They think we’ll modify our behaviours enough locally without funding or enforcement.
I'm not suggesting that we won't end up with a no deal Brexit, what I'm suggesting is that leading up to the end of the year we are going to see turmoil the likes of which we haven't seen before. Never mind the turmoil to come once we try to survive in a no deal world.
Both here and over the pond democracy has been dismantled and will need to be put back together from the ground up. One consensus forms around the idea that either Biden is going to save America or Trump is going to drive it into the abyss. I wouldnt pin my hopes on a seventy year old who was the architect of mass incarceration to come to the rescue. Likewise in the UK, were over 4 years away from a GE, politics isn't offering any solutions to the multiple existential threats we're facing right now.
Back at the begining of this thread (or the 'we're all in this together' thread I started with a similar bent) I suggested the coronavirus pandemic would see protests the like of which we haven't seen before and it wouldn't be Antifa that would be leading the charge it would be Aunty Fi with a rolling pin in hand.
I didn't directly predict the BLM protests having the influence they have but when I see the footage my sister in law sent me of the protest in Guildford, where thousands of Surrey mums and their kids are marching up the cobbled high street in the stockbroker belt it does correspond somewhat with my observation that something is awakening in the public that exists outside the conventional political channels and organisations.
I say I didn't directly predict the influence the BLM protests would have but living where I do, looking over Hulme and Moss Side from a high vantage point I knew something was coming, not from reading the papers or Facebook groups but from just looking out of my window and seeing what's going on with my own eyes.
Covid just adds to it.
The impact of covid is of a different magnitude to the impact of brexit. You're worrying about the wrong thing. Not that brexit isn't important, but even the most negative forecasts were saying a <10% drop in GDP as a result of brexit where covid is threatening 20-30%. Figures released today say 20% in april alone. In a depression scenario the scale flips massively from deregulated market policies to Keynesianism. Even the most die-hard capitalists struggle to justify rolling back the state when 30% of people are unemployed and struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Even if they can do that they're more terrified of the social disorder and unrest it will create. We've already had a taste of what that could be like so I'd say the disaster capitalist masterplan is looking unlikely right now.
The Brexit cost is year on year for a generation or more though… the big hit from this medical emergency will be concentrated mostly within 6 months (with longer lasting effects, yes, but it will not be a year on year impact for the rest of our working lives in the same way as us turning our backs on Europe and handing the keys of the country to US private interests).
6 months
Where do you get that from? There are no treatments and vaccines are years away and every indication this will become endemic. Expecting everything to be back to normal in 6 months is a fantasy. And don't underestimate the impact of mass unemployment. It took nearly 20 years to recover from the unemployment crisis of 1981.
What worries me is that if protests were work based like negotiation, work-to-rule, striking, occupation then people can have an influence on capital and maybe leverage a bit of a result. What we have here is many people without work, or no control via zero hours contracts and so anger will be expressed on the streets. Almighty punch-ups with the police do not go well and confused and unfocused anger without political leadership is unlikely to deliver much.
Almighty punch-ups with the police do not go well and confused and unfocused anger without political leadership is unlikely to deliver much.
On the contrary, the riots in the early 80s pretty much overturned tory policy on regional investment. The poll tax riot brought Thatcher down and overturned her central policy. When protests threaten a breakdown in law and order, the politicians suddenly start listening.
Daz - my point is that for any government that wasn't in the grip of some kind of collective ideological madness, applying for an extension would have been an absolute no brainer. They'd have done it weeks ago as it would be the only reasonabl;e thing to do.
Instead, they doubled down and sent out a signal that rather than soften the enormous economic impact of Covid, they're going to petrol on to the flames instead, then sit back and watch it burn
We are being ruled by lunatics, so to try and apply any logic to their decisions is a pointless exercise. This country may never fully recover from the insanity this lot are about to impose on us
they’re going to petrol on to the flames instead, then sit back and watch it burn
I suspect they've calculated that throwing a few more logs on an already raging inferno won't make a lot of dfference. Counterintuitively, now is exactly the time when you can go out on a policy limb. What was sensible before the pandemic is now irrelevant as we're in a completely different world. Worrying about brexit when the pandemic is still raging runs the risk of coming across as ideological remainerism, and will only add to widespread view which was confirmed at the election that remainers will never accept that they lost. Kier Starmer is right to stay as far away from it as possible.
Daz, point taken (I didn't want to mention it) but governments learn by their mistakes. There is no government conspiracy. To conspire is to plot a future criminal act. The government are doing all this in the here and now and they are not breaking the law, they make the law.
applying for an extension would have been an absolute no brainer
It would be like asking to move back in with your ex, because things are currently difficult.
I'm not a fan of Brexit either (and dont want to turn this into the Brexit thread), but the rest of Europe are going to be same economic mess as we are. Its still generally the same situation, just in different surroundings.
I'm many ways Brexit could end up being a positive as when we come out of this situation we'll have the flexibility to do what suits us, without all of the bureaucracy and having to prop up the weaker states within the EU.
I’m many ways Brexit could end up being a positive as when we come out of this situation we’ll have the flexibility to do what suits us, without all of the bureaucracy and having to prop up the weaker states within the EU.
The flexibility to tear up workers' rights, shred environmental legislation and privatise everything in sight? Sounds great.
And when you say propping up the weaker states within the EU, you mean the ones like Greece that locked down when they had their first outbreaks and re-opened their economy again a month ago after only a couple of hundred deaths?
The ones that will be facing nothing like the economic hit we're about to take?
Yeah.... who'd want to be associated with losers like that, eh?
You can't really apply history to a completely new and unique problem to try to work out the future.
The 20% drop in GDP at any other time would be terrifying, drops in GDP have been historically used to measure a collapse in consumer confidence. Frankly the press, taking a single month GDP figures and using words like "Biggest Recession in Decades" are risking all our jobs and indeed lives to grab attention - it doesn't even meet the criteria for a simple recession yet.
Consider this, did you spend less in April than you would otherwise? Did you cancel a few thousand pounds worth of Holiday? Did you miss a few nights in the Pub, or the Cinema, or buy less clothes - of course you did, you had no choice - April was the peak of Lock-down, many people hardly left their homes. In April the UK pretty much shopped in Supermarkets for food and a bit more booze than usual, that was it. Almost every workplace in the UK was closed, on purpose - frankly given all of that we should be saying "20% drop in GDP!!" and panicking, we should be saying "80% of normal GDP in lock down!!".
Things are going to be rough for a while, I know this isn't the place to say anything remotely positive about Tory policy but the Furlough scheme (supported by Labour) will go a long way to help, and when I say thousands of people risking their lives to queue for hours to buy a Ikea coffee table I don't worry too much about consumer confidence.
All the furlough scheme has done is delayed the inevitable. As a pretty lackadaisical person myself when it comes to finances, saving and preparing for the future (no kids, mortgage etc) it's been rather interesting to watch the rest of society slacken off and live for the moment under furlough. A few Billy shelves or a Lack coffee table isn't going to pull us out of the mire.
BillMC,
I'm afraid Daz is right, protests and riots do change policy. I remember Michael Hestltine visiting Robert Adam Crescent in the late 80's for a photo opp. He was on the balcony of my friends flat addressing the media assembled down below and promoting the government's new policy on developing the inner cities. Hulme and Moss Side were transformed, areas that didn't riot saw no investment.
You're absolutely right but people can be provoked to violence or vandalism and that gives the excuse for the heavy hand of the law and for the media to divert the issues. In Brazil the (leftwing) army of anti-Bolsonaro football supporters travel around demonstrations in different cities trying to avoid provocations. The forces against them are equipped and trained to win and ofcourse many of them are very keen to use their new skills.