Well it certainly wasn't a march where I was. Rather a very slow faltering meander that took nearly four hours to get from Charing Cross Station and back via a sight-seeing tour of the City. I never did get near to Hyde Park and eventually decided on a warm pint of Fullers London Pride at Trafalgar Square before the trek back to Wembley Stadium in order to find the coach. From my perspective the whole thing was a very happy and good-natured occasion and one that parents obviously felt quite safe to take young children to. In the noisy carnival atmosphere there was much banter pretty much all the way round and an almost complete absence of police on the entire Embankment stretch.
You couldn't help but feel that this was a very British sort of affair, despite one placard I saw exhorting us to 'March like Egyptians'. During the whole day I saw a lot of very bored police, a hell of a lot of rubbish and only the odd bit of anti-capitalist graffiti. Nevertheless, when it was possible to get a mobile connection, news began to filter through the crowd that Oxford Street was 'kicking off' and that Fortnums was 'being trashed'. However, now that I've had the chance to see this report and video on the Guardian website I have to say I'm concerned.
The shop doesn't appear to have been 'trashed' at all, but rather peacefully occupied and not apparently to the detriment of customers going about their business. Apart from being morally suspect of the police to be seen offering concern and safe passage to the trespassers, only to then 'kettle' and arrest them, it's a complete public relations disaster and hostage to fortune for the next sit-in. Quite rightly, why should anyone believe what the police say when senior officers decide to deliberately lie as part of a diffusion strategy. Common sense says that works just the once.
Sadly, it only has to work once to go toward someones promotion - they don't care about any long term damage...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is Rupert Murdoch's media influence (xref "churnalism"), so the media feed the lying machine in order to get better headlines and fall in with Rupert's manipulation of politicians, which also sells papers; and the lying continues because it justifies both (a) high-profiling the police, thus inning votes from Daily Mail readers and (b) the condemnation of the protesters in the Minds of All Right-Thinking People.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't in the interests of people with money and political power to have senior officers go about telling the truth out loud. It's not so much a "conspiracy", just a general agreement about how one goes about doing things to retain and limit power.
...akin to saying that any anti police headlines are 'inning votes' to the SWP and Trade Unions.
ReplyDelete