"Time for the Neo-Diggers?"

I was rather thinking something like that myself.

Since the mass trespasses of Kinder Scout and the like there has been slow but increasing progress with the public's right use of large areas of common ground. Now we have the 'right to roam' and camping is allowed in one or two areas designated as public parks. There are certainly groups who continue to press for greater public access including camping rights in other large areas and that's something I'd like to see more not less of.

Currently the numbers of people who live outside the secure confines of bricks and mortar on privately owned property are relatively few. So far such groups choose to as a matter of cultural tradition or general ideological discontent with 'the system'. But I can certainly see the number of people living outside 'normal society' (of what we perceive it to be from our immediate cultural myopia) increasing drastically in the next decade as these cuts in social housing and housing benefit start to take effect. The key difference being that for those people it will be more of a necessity than a choice.

As far as the fact that the bulk of common land has already been had is concerned, yes that's as may be. Yet the significance and resonances of this decision to take from the people what little is left them, echo deeply.