It just so happened that, due to unfortunate timing, I found myself in the West End today. I say unfortunate, but I'm actually really pleased I was there, as rather than just sniping at the sidelines on Twitter, I've seen up close (sometimes too close) what the march was like, what the policing was like and what the post-march thuggery was like.
It's my sister's birthday next week, so we decided to meet up somewhere in London for dinner, as I didn't really want to do a cross-London trip. We decided to meet today (Saturday 26th March). Having chosen Leicester Square as the place to go, this placed us right next to the march, and as it happened next to the subsequent vandalism.
Peaceful Protest
I decided to arrive around Piccadilly early to see what was happening - what the atmosphere was like, who was there etc. I popped out at Green Park station to encounter a loud, enthusiastic crowd marching to Hyde Park Corner. All fairly well natured at this point, although someone had cracked the glass in the shop window of Iranian Airlines:
Wandering down to Piccadilly showed nothing out of the ordinary, so I got someone money out of the Santander cash machine by Piccadilly Circus. I then decided to pop by the office to make sure all was OK there, then head to Oxford Circus. I went up Regent St and everything seemed fairly standard (apart from the lack of traffic), but with a massive crowd and police vans sitting on the junction at Oxford Circus. Suddenly, just before I got to the station a line of riot police arrived in front of me. When I say suddenly, I mean it - within a matter of seconds, the entire width of Regent St was blocked, a metre away from where I was. I was quite impressed by the speed of it, but then a tad confused as to which side of the line it was most advisable to be on. I gestured to the riot officer in front of me where I was going, and he moved out my way and waved me through, no fuss.
Sticking it to the Topman
Then, I arrived at Topshop, which had been redecorated:
Although I'm not a great fan of criminal damage, most of the paint looked pretty water soluble and there will be plenty of new people in young offenders institutions to help clean it up later. If people really feel they need to take 'direct action', non-violent protest which doesn't cause lasting damage has got to be the most preferable way to do it.
I tucked myself out of the way waiting for the rest of the dinner party to arrive. Listening to the chatter on the Police radios, it sounded under control at this point, despite lots of splinter groups moving quickly around and smashing windows/throwing paint. Not long after this we went to a local pub (most of them were full of people from the march), then decided to see what was going on at Trafalgar Square. There were some interesting things happening in the area: we saw a group of about 15 people protesting with Gadaffi flags (the green ones), a larger group by Nelson's Column flying the Libyan flag (the green, black and red one), a group with Bahraini flags, a couple of lonely Communist Party flags and of course that bloody Olympic clock. I did wonder if it would survive the night - it sounds like the Police moved in to protect it later on, after it was vandalised. There was some fairly entertaining dressing up of various monuments, but no noticeable vandalism from the TUC march itself.
Vandalism
Looking for something more interesting while we were waiting for the final person to arrive, we wandered back to Piccadilly and found the usual trouble-making crowd of communists and anarchists chanting. I saw from Twitter that they'd managed to smash up the Ritz, UK Uncut had occupied Fortnum & Mason and the branch of Santander I'd got money out of about 2 hours earlier had been attacked. Santander, as a European bank, was actually far more careful with its money than British banks, so targetting it was a bit odd.
We couldn't get onto Piccadilly so took a wander up Regent St, to find one of the splinter groups heading back down to Piccadilly:
Throughout all of this, it looked like the Police had 2 helicopters in the air and Sky had their infernal Skycopter above as well. Helicopters in close proximity make me nervous (mainly because of a previous incident):
Frightening Children
Finally, we went to TGI Friday's for food. At this point it was all calm around Piccadilly and it looked like most of the trouble, if any, would end up in Trafalgar Square or down Oxford St. This proved to be wrong, as about an hour or so later I noticed black and red flags in the street outside, and a member of TGIF staff ran through the restaurant from the entrance. Shortly thereafter, another member of staff ran back out with a large fire extinguisher. Smoke and a fairly large fire was visible outside. Various folk with their faces covered then took barriers from the roadworks next to the restaurant, some of which ended up on the fire and others went down the street for other uses. Most of the people inside had children with them, and the ones closest to the windows looked especially worried. It also had a noticeable effect on the staff, many of whom were visibly shaken and worried that one of the barriers might come through a window.
Well done anarchists, you managed to scare children and people working hard to make an honest living.
Riot police appeared after a few minutes, which calmed the situation down. Shortly after the group outside ran off, riot police in pursuit. The fire brigade had arrived at this point, so they might just have been scared of the water. This was the scene outside when we left:
However, the night was not yet over. With much of the area on fire it was all a bit chaotic, but once again, the police were fairly good natured (if they could see your face!). There were officers in both standard hi-vis uniforms and riot gear. It didn't really feel dangerous - the Police were focussing on the people who were involved, and I nearly walked straight into an 'anarchist' and he didn't seem to fussed. It was perfectly possible, with a bit of inconvenience, to go about your business as usual. If you weren't terrified by the chaos. I feel most sorry for the families who were still out at about - it was only 8:20pm at this point. It looked terrifying for a lot of them, and could well put them off coming into London again (well done again - more taxes down the drain).
Just Desserts
The next bit happened a bit close for my liking. There's lots of building work going on at Piccadilly Circus to improve the pedestrian facilities, and one guy was inside a fenced off area loading up with what looked like bits of building debris (glass, concrete or other such weapons). I took a couple of glances wondering what he was doing, then did a quick scan for a policeman, when there was this almighty crash just behind me and a shout of 'you're under arrest', as the barriers vanished and the guy got knocked to the ground by a couple of riot police. Given what he was carrying, they were entirely justified in knocking him to the ground hard and fast. He then yelled 'help, help, solidarity', but most of the onlookers probably had more of an urge to kick him than help him.
With that, we split into separate groups. Heading back home via Trafalgar Square to Waterloo, we encountered another line of riot Police and had to re-route, passed Trafalgar Square which was a complete tip. The area felt quite intimidating, although the people in the square insist it was a 'party atmosphere'. A party on a street corner with a bottle of White Lightning, maybe. There were also various people dressed in black carrying bin bags towards the West End, presumably carrying stuff to set fire to.
Thoughts
The main march seemed mostly peaceful, except for some groups at the back (who were at the back for a reason). Those groups decided to vandalise Piccadilly. This bit of vandalism took place on the main route of the march, while it was still underway.
Splinter groups smashed windows and threw paint. Smashing windows is a big no-no in my book, so I have little sympathy for anything that happens to people doing that. Soluble paint we should probably be able to live with. However, the blockade and attack on Topshop seemed to cause considerable distress to some people who passed me, one of them commenting 'on no, but I need to buy some new jeans'.
As it started to get dark, and the 'anarchists' had consumed more alcohol, they started to run amok around the West End, setting fire to things without any regard for members of the public, particularly those with children and the families around Leicester Square. They frightened staff, frightened children and some of them were intent on causing serious damage to both buildings and potentially the police. At this point in the evening the police were getting more aggressive with protesters in order to prevent such damage occuring.
Trafalgar Square was a bit of an odd mix. I don't really object to people protesting there, but defacing monuments in London shouldn't be tolerated. The police, particularly those who had been covered in paint, looked particularly grumpy. It doesn't surprise me that they treated everyone who remained as troublemakers and started a kettle/'containment'. The Square was being vandalised and there were people all over the West End starting fires and smashing things.
And finally...
I now feel a bit silly for telling my sister that I wouldn't stay out late on Friday because "Uxbridge is like a disaster zone at night, I want to be back in the safety of Zone 1 before chucking out time", then dragging her into a riot.
