Whoa-so it all went very wrong again!! And as usual the demonstrators will blame it on the police, the police will blame it on the demonstrators. The truth? well who can say. Probably a bunch of militants ruined it for everyone. Having seen the TV (obligatory picture of bobby with blood on his nice clean shirt) I thought the police were quite friendly by the time I saw them in Trafalgar Square. But there were an awful lot of them. It all ruined the "impact" of the day though by taking out of the media anyting which could suggest a worldwide movement. It's funny, well probably more sad, but the stormng of the LIFFE building was probably the worst thing that could have happened.It gets all to easy to turn into a card carrying conservative on days like this. And that means that those who are that already find it easy to blame the whole thing on a bunch of dirty "crusties" who are on the margins of society. Which is surely the last thing that the demonstrators wanted
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McSpotlight: Well, speaking as an eyewitness, everything was fluffy until the police tried to drive 3 riot vans through a crowd that wasn't prepared to let them through. The police vans came to a halt; then one of them reversed too fast for the people behind them to get out of the way; they drove over one of the protestors; which was the thing that really turned the mood sour; this happened at about 13:10 at the junction of London Wall and Moorgate. After that, the protestors weren't really well-disposed towards the police; there was an air in the crowd that bad stuff was going to happen.
You have to wonder what the police were up to; trying to drive riot vans through a crowd they had no chance of getting through. Either it was a serious cockup on their part or they were deliberately trying to provoke people.
Speaking personally, I sent the afternoon chilling out a safe distance from the trouble ;)
