Via the excellent BunkerKRS blog is this video of the protests yesterday…I saw some of the protest and despite what the news outlets say it was peaceful if noisy, the bits I saw anyway.
Similar picture in Bristol apparently with protesters avoiding the police’s kettling tactics and spread out, as with London lead the police a merry dance around the capital.
The picture was much more disturbing later on, around 6:30pm where I shot the below footage of the police kettle…funnily enough the few inside (hard to tell but about 100-200? Not many…) were singing Hokey Cokey and dancing having a party despite the police and cold, which seemed funny. Respect to those who kept it up inside the kettle unbowed in the bitter cold.
It was rather Orwellian though, and disturbing – especially the claims and video above that the Met kettled the march before they’d started that’s very worrying since it’s one thing to stop already violent protesters, but stopping them before or because they might is rather Minority Report or 1984 for my political comfort zone.
The fact that a few yards away commuters were similarly penned in trains trying to get home – including me – didn’t escape my irony alarm. Both sets of people penned by the circumstances – difference is the ones in the Square still have some fight in them, unlike the glum commuters.
I was talking about the kettling tactics versus the new technology last night with John – wouldn’t it be possible to free people in a kettle using a flashmob? For if the police get surrounded on both sides, then they’ll scarper – but it was possible to get very close to the kettle last night…
Plans are brewing for DayX3– seemingly focusing on the likes of Philip Green for their ‘Big Society’ tax avoidance after previous protests at Vodafone who was allowed by George Osborne to avoid a 6 BILLION tax bill – and occupations are across the country, even John’s workplace of Kingston Uni, Cambridge as supported by staff there, Sheffield, UCL in London and Newcastle Uni as pictured below, for instance. And here’s a handy list of all the occupations – 18 in all as of writing!
EDIT: And nice the TSG has learned their lessons from G20 and Ian Tomlinson…not
Punching someone twice is not what police officers should be doing at a protest, especially when out in force and not individually threatened…I’m sure like the officers at G20 he’ll get a pat on the back for this.
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