The BBC isn’t reporting what has happened tonight in London. It’s late and I’m tired. But The Flaneur cannot be muzzled…
See images from the streets of London here.
About 6.30pm. Anonymous were at the North end of Trafalgar Square, singing chants with lyrics that wouldn’t get played on the radio. Flags were being waved and guitars strummed. A march to Parliament was planned, but I was told it wouldn’t be until 8.00pm. Luminous jacketed police lined the bottom of the square, several metres from the protestors. Tourists still walked around the base of the column.
Across the river in Jubilee Gardens a smaller band of protestors had formed. The atmosphere here was more serious and Socialist Worker. Volunteers behind a table sold socialist papers, banners talked of cuts and the NHS. The police presence was minimal. No luminous jackets and those that were around were much more bobbies on the beat.
The protestors started forming behind their banner. A police van started its engine and headed south. The protestors followed, chanting loudly.
They say cut backs,we say fight back.
‘It’s a private road,’ one worried looking security guard told a policeman as the protest walked south. ‘They can’t go down there. I’ve told the police.’
‘Trouble is there’s not enough of us to stand in front of them.’
No ifs, no buts, no public sector cuts.
The march turned right onto Westminster bridge. Traffic had already been diverted, so the protestors had an easy walk to halfway over the bridge, where they stopped and started to burn electricity bills. The first ones may have been real, but there were definitely a lot of photocopied bills thrown on the fire. They were though having a bonfire on Westminster Bridge, which can’t happen very often.
When they say warfare, we say welfare
‘This could get out of control,’ said one man as more paper was thrown on the fire and flames rose above is head. I’m not sure that a full health and safety check was done on this idea, I suppose everyone could jump on the Thames, but that brings its own problems.
‘Anyone got a copy of the daily mail to throw on?’
‘Are there any extra powers today?’ A legal observer asked a policeman. He didn’t think so.
With a fire burning well on Westminster Bridge, several police vans drew up. Here’s where it starts getting messy, I thought, but instead of disgorging policeman, the van doors opened and the police that were watching the bonfire got in. The vans drove off.
When the police drive away from a bonfire near Parliament you can only assume there are bigger issues elsewhere. So it proved. The Anonymous crowd had made it down from Trafalgar Square and were setting off fireworks in Parliament Square, opposite the House of Commons.
‘Can we make a citizen’s arrest on the Houses of Parliament?’ A young man asked a policeman. When he got no reply his friends considered climbing the fence, but he was adamant.
‘I don’t want to climb the fence. I want to make a citizen’s arrest on the Houses of Parliament.’
A double decker bus was caught up in the crowd of people, with passengers looking down from the top level, bemused, but not yet scared. Police lined the black gates of Parliament. Then a second line of police marched down the road, pushing people out of the way. One Police Liaison Officer had his hat knocked off as he made his way out of the mass of people, many of whom were wearing Guy Fawkes masks.
Two policemen stood on the bus doorway, stopping people getting on. Flags were waved, placards brandished. One megaphone owner thanked Goldman Sachs for providing the security, and announced that Barclays would be doing so at the next protest.
The protestors were mainly on the side of the square nearest the Houses of Parliament.
‘How many police have you counted?’ Someone asked me. I told him I hadn’t been counting policemen.
‘295’ he told me authoritatively. Then added, ‘but I’m not sure if I’ve counted twice.’
There was something about him that made me think he had been to this kind of thing before. Maybe it was the balaclava, but it could have been the black helmet. Something marked him out as an expert.
‘What do you think will happen?’ I asked.
‘Because it’s Anonymous there will just be a big party. Unless someone takes out a slingshot and smashes windows. Then they’d crush them.’
Whose streets? Our streets!
The big banner from the bonfire on the bridge had joined the crowd at the Big Ben end of Parliament Square. The police kept changing tactics, sometimes stopping people crossing roads, other times letting them through. Some of the police and protestors chatted amicably. Others didn’t. It was a strange mixture of cyclists, protestors, police and men in suits.
‘We’re facilitating your rights to free protest,’ a policeman said. ‘As long as you remain peaceful.’
A man came up to me and nodded.
‘Reports on Facebook that people have been killed here,’ he said. ‘Is that true?’
‘Killed?’ I repeated.
‘Kettled,’ he said more clearly.
‘Oh.’ I relaxed. ‘Yes there was a bit of stopping people leaving, but they have spread out to let people walk through if they want to.’ A policeman had explained carefully to me that that was what they were doing.
Traffic was still circulating around the north side of Parliament square, and the focus of some of the banners changed to the cars queuing to get past.
Then there was a cheer and part of the crowd started running along the north side of the square amongst the traffic.
‘We’re matching to Buckingham Palace!’
The military wouldn’t have called it marching, but they did head in that direction. Until police appeared in the distance. The protestors wheeled right up Horse Guards and headed towards the Mall. Things were getting raucous, crowd control barriers were knocked over all along the road. Police lined the back entrance to Number Ten.
The protestors turned left onto the Mall and had Buckingham Palace in their sights. The vanguard realised that hey were unlikely to make it there, helped along in their conclusion by the arrival of a band of the serious black suited police.
The crowd turned direction again, north past St James’s Palace and up St James’s Street. The chants had changed to Revolution, the flags were red and black and the march was heading along which ever road the police hadn’t closed off.
Kill the Rich
‘Who are they?’ asked a woman in a long fur coat walking towards me with a man in a double breasted blue blazer, and another woman who looked appalled.
‘Anonymous,’ I answered.
‘Oh.’
They obviously hadn’t heard the last chants. I felt this woman and her friends presented a tableau that could be interpreted as the rich. And theres’s not a lot of debating the finer points of wealth with angry mobs.
‘There are quite a lot of them,’ I said, as they debated whether to continue down the pavement. They decided against it and turned off the main road.
The protest reached Piccadilly, well into the area where people were walking around with no idea that there was a protest coming up behind them. People took out their phones and took pictures as the crowd passed. The police arrived and blocked off any way west, so everyone turned east and headed towards Piccadilly Circus.
By now the chanting had died down. Enthusiasm seemed to be waning and people just walked on, sometimes shouting something but mainly walking. People at bus stops waited, were engulfed and then, well I don’t know what happened then as I was at the front.
At Piccadilly Circus there was a debate about which way to go. Regent street was decided upon. Police backups arrived and started walking along the pavement next to the protest. The other side of the wide street had traffic just as normal.
I expected to be met at Oxford Circus by gleaming van loads of riot police and walked ahead of the crowd, to see how many would be there. It was a cold evening. I was walking up Regent Street with a big protest behind me. Two Americans approached and asked a question. I prepared to explain the little I knew about what was happening. But that wasnt what they wanted to know.
‘Where is Top Shop?’ One of them asked me.
‘Or Next,’ asked the other.
‘Isnt it closed?’ I said.
‘Thats what everyone says. But they said nine.’ He showed me his watch. Ten to nine.
I gave directions to where I thought it was and ran on to Oxford Circus. There were no police at all. The protestors reached Oxford Street and decided to go right towards Tottenham Court Road.
By now there was less chanting and no sense of purpose. Rather than a protest it had become a lot of people wandering aimlessly around central London. As a flaneur I’m all for walking aimlessly around central London, but i prefer to do it without a gang of flag wavers behind me and police to the side. I called it a day, but the protestors marched on.
If anyone can describe events from here onwards, get in touch.
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