About 2,000 young people angry over high unemployment have spent the night camping in a famous square in Madrid as a political protest there grows.

A big canvas roof was stretched across Puerta del Sol square, protesters brought mattresses and sleeping bags and volunteers distributed food.

The nature of the peaceful protest, including Twitter messages to alert supporters, echoed the pro-democracy rallies that revolutionised Egypt.

The Madrid protests began on Sunday.

On the first evening, police dispersed the protesters, but on Tuesday they let them stay overnight.

Spain's 21.3% unemployment rate is the highest in the EU - a record 4.9 million are jobless, many of them young people.

Spanish media say the protesters are attacking the country's political establishment with slogans such as "violence is earning 600 euros", "if you don't let us dream we won't let you sleep" and "the guilty ones should pay for the crisis".

The atmosphere in the square has been quite festive, with the crowd singing songs, playing games and debating.

They are demanding jobs, better living standards and a fairer system of democracy.

I can hardly spot any differences between their protest and the Egyptian one. I congratulate the Beeb for making such an amazingly apt comparison.

Not long before it happens here.

“No-one is talking about a general strike – that would be illegal. We hope not....we’re not persuaded that changes are needed, because while you can have a vote for a strike with relatively small numbers taking part, that doesn’t mean that they’ll all come out on strike” said Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude when explaining to the Sunday Times why the Government would not be introducing new anti strike laws in the short term - as demanded by employers organisations such as the CBI.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... rikes.html

During 2010 general strikes took place in numerous European Union member states including in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It is scandalous that unions should be prohibited by law from seeking the support of members to withdraw labour in protest against Government policies on the economy, post office privatisation, attacks on public services and the welfare state etc etc.

Without question Britain has the most restrictive trade union legislation in Europe but is far from unique in big business friendly European Union in outlawing political strikes - they are illegal in but 5 EU member states. However, 20 EU member states permit solidarity action - which is outlawed in Britain. These were some of the findings in a comparative study of the right to strike in 6 EU member states published in 2009 by the Institute of Employment Rights: http://www.ier.org.uk/node/344

The constraints of the anti union laws will be severely felt in the years ahead and it is no wonder that the United Campaign to repeal the anti trade union laws describes the failure of the modest reforms proposed in the Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill as a parliamentary outrage -following "dirty parliamentary tactics employed by the Tories and a lack of support from Labour MP's":

This path is.. risky to say the least. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance it could massively blow up in the Tory's faces. And then, well, I don't know what will happen. People patently don't think much of labour and the lib dems could only be more unpopular if Clegg was shown on national television kicking Kate Middleton. I have to tell you, I'm genuinely nervous about the next year or so.

Quite frankly I am surprised that Spain is the first to look at an over throw of their government. I expected Greece or Ireland to be first.

We must have been reading very different stories, because all I read about was a couple of thousand kids sitting around waving insipid banners and forming pointless committees. The only tenuous link with Egypt is that they are using TwitBook for some of these things.

Appart from some people is a square in Spain the comparison is just banal

The difference
- Egypt a totally corrupt goverment and one party state
- Spain a modern democracy