Well after last year what did we expect? The goal posts have changed in protest with the Arab Spring, the August riots and the Occupy Movements. The attack on Millbank was never going to be allowed to happen to Goldman Sachs.
Cameron is a PR man, the world was watching and him and May and the Met were clearly shitting it. A section 60 covered London from Regents Park down to Southwark! Letters to ‘known’ (including uncharged) activists were sent out warning them to move away from trouble (?) and we had yesterdays headlines MET TO USE RUBBER BULLETS !
“YOU CAN STICK YOUR RUBBER BULLETS UP YOUR ARSE”
But this wasn’t all about the students whatever the BBCensors etc. were saying.
Alarm members, alongside comrades from Hackney Anarchist Group and Solidarity Federation, joined around 400 electricians, students and supporters, as they took unoffical action in defense of pay and terms and conditions. The lively demonstration began at 7am outside the Pinnacle in Bishopsgate. Despite a heavy police presence, the electricans successfully blocked the road to morning traffic and broke through the police lines to march around to other building sites around the capital where bosses are attempting to cut electricians pay by a third.
The electricians occupied Cannon Street station for a while, and also paid a visit to the Occupation at St Paul’s where they addressed the campers and expressed solidarity. The unofficial demo finished at the shard in South London, where the official “Unite” demo and march began. Many of the electricians expressed support and solidarity for the students and said that they intended to join the student demo later in the day.
On the way into London Coaches of students were stopped and searched on their way into London and arrests made for possesion of marker pens FFS! By the time the students all moved off from Malet Street they were surrounded by 2 police every 10 feet.
By midday Twitter was spammed by bots and the Guardian live blog was lagging an hour. Online censorship and mass media blackout, more riot cops than protesters, what is this, Baharain or Britain?
As the march reached Trafalgar Square there was a pop up Occupation, but they were quickly arrested and led away to a waiting coach.
The sparks and students were held back from joining in a mass movement by a kettle on Fetter Lane, which saw some great break outs and de-arrests and the only bit of real excitement.
The whole of the stretch from Trafalgar to St Pauls was a sterile zone, with all the banks heavily protected, every side road double barriered off and every window boarded up.
This was just a mobile kettle, not a march.
Wanker bankers from Lloyds appeared at upper windows to taunt the protesters and antagonise them by throwing objects from above onto the protesters, until someone threw up a potato which broke a window and they all scuttled off scared ( source the Schnews twitter feed. )
By now though the cops were getting jumpy. Undercover police snatch squads were operating and at the point where the black block broke through the police lines Twitter crashed and the only live newsfeed coming from Russia Today without warning went to a dark street in some other city. Suspiciously like Oakland newscopters both running out of gas last week just before the police moved in…
Undercover cops acting as agent provecteurs started to get aggressive and cause trouble, violently pulling people from the crowd and making heavy handed arrests of kids, nasty testosterone dickheads acting like Mubarak’s thugs in Tahrir except this was in EC1!
As Billy Bragg sung in the City, at 4pm the cabbies blockaded Trafalgar all the way down to Whitehall nearly to Buck House! A proper Hackney Massive and probably the most effective part of the day!! Big up the cabbies!
Welcome to the new ‘total policing’ and the bastards changing the rules of the day as they go along. We had been told that we could gather at the end of the march for 2 hours, but as a rave broke out, this was slashed to one hour and we were informed anyone remaining would be arrested. Those who did remain (including journos) were indeed marched off at 5. 41 on the dot. The mainstream press is saying it was a peaceful protest with 20 arrests. More like 60, but bar a few broken windows it was impossible to act smothered in the TSG and dogs and horses everywhere.
We are saying it was a mobile kettle that was enacted by a police state that is living in fear…
Infiltrate Thames House, Vauxhall Cross and the Cheltenham Donut, take pictures of the fuckers working there and post on Fitwatch. Let’s turn surveillance on them! Intimidate them as they do us. Nosey, Cameron brown nosing fuckers that they are!
terrorist, bullying tactics can only be met by ….. if the best the idiots can do is come out in mass numbers, then we must change strategy. They are using machine guns, we have to adopt snipers!
good report back. Tone is a bit fatalistic. Rather than say it was a moving kettle (it wasn’t but i understand the need for a good byline), perhaps a more protest-friendly perspective would be the police were forced to close off vast amounts of london in order for a peaceful protest to take place. The windows thing isn’t true but fits your narrative, as with police surrounding protesters every 10ft (!?).
One new and potentially worrrying aspects the proliferation of undercover police in the demo. Good general report of the day. will stick it on the websiite
source for potato thru the window here, Schnews Twitter feed
SchNEWS SchNEWS
Lloyds bankers antagonise crowd and throw objects at march. Potato smashes through window and they suddenly dissapear! #nov9
It pretty much was a moving kettle, there was no way out, pigs at the back, all side streets blocked with fences and tsg, and horse controll at the front… if it wasnt there were a few hundred who would be out in a flash. and i can back the schnews report, thought it was a rock when i saw it, but thats irrelevant. unfortunately apart from a couple of bottles that was the only thing smashed. the crowd dispersing through swp stands and NUS speakers was pretty effective.
A route should have never been arranged with the police. We said it all along, don’t negotiate with your enemies – we were asking to be kettled, snatched and all the rest of it and that’s exactly what happened.
What a disappointment, so many were up for some real action.
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