Policing: New Labour style

The protest against George Bush’s visit started at 5pm. And the cops (including the imperial stormtrooper look-a-likes were lurking in the background) were behind crash barriers leading into Whitehall.

We congregated around Parliament Square and listened to speeches, I saw lots of young people with placards, couple of TU banners, lots of musicians. It had a cheery sunny carnival atmopshere (including some bloke who brought a ferret on a lead!)

Then at around just before 7pm protesters headed up towards the crash barriers and the cops. And things turned ugly. Cops started to charge us and send out snatch squads to arrest people. I saw some people walking around with blood dripping from their heads.

There was this stand-off, the cops would charge us, snatch people and then things would calm down. Then at around 8 o’clock or so, the imperial stormtroopers appeared out of nowhere at the northwest corner of Parliament Square. I did start to feel really concerned as everywhere I looked the cops were starting to hem us in. The idea was to corral us into a small area in a pincer movement whereby we would be totally surrounded by cops.

The protest had totally degenerated and I couldn’t see many StW stewards. I don’t know what their strategy was but whatever it was it was failing. I did a lot of running from the cops around Parliament Square as a couple of times I found myself at the front of the crash barriers with my camera.

I don’t know how many people were arrested but there were a number of bloodied demonstrators. I saw cops happily whacking people with their truncheons.

And I haven’t seen this heavy duty style of policing since the height of Thatcherism, the cops were utterly provocative and violent. There didn’t seem to be any communication witht he stewards and the cops. The protest was originally for 1pm but was put back to 5pm cos Bush was supposedly somewhere in central London. They shoulda stuck to 1pm as probably more people would have been around.

A war criminal was in London yet the cops decided to attack the protesters in a heavy handed and brutal fashion.

Strike it rich

John Hutton thinks we should praise great wealth. Well, tell that to people who are finding making ends meet tough, pensioners losing out, below inflation pay raises, child poverty increasing and the icing on the cake is the ever widening gap between rich and poor. But hey, Hutton believes we should all hail those great aspirational city slickers.  Yet strikes by tanker drivers aren’t justified says Hutton.

Even Sarkozy wants to reign in the “fat cat” excesses while Hutton is utterly against regulation. The concentration of wealth remains at the top that is based on exploitation and misery, which distorts the economy though Hutton thinks that is something to cheer about. The exploits of the rich are no better than the antics of bank robber John Dillinger! When they work hard they are working hard at being parasites. When tanker drivers, along with hospital cleaners, librarians, teachers etc work hard they work hard at something useful. That’s why it is not nice to people like Hutton when they go on strike.