Another City protest

It could have easily passed you by that this week is the DSEI exhbition in the Excel Centre in the Docklands, DSEI standing for Defence Systems and Equipment International.

This has attracted the understandable interest of the protesting community and they seem to have chosen a few targets in the City to visit yesterday before heading down to Docklands today. That’s apparently why the City offices of AXA and BT were attacked yesterday as the Metro relates:

“About 60 activists, many wearing masks, stopped traffic as they paraded through the capital to protest against the Defence Systems and Equipment International Arms Fair taking place at the Excel centre in Docklands this week. After storming the BT building in Newgate Street, they moved on to the head offices of Axa Investment Management nearby.”

Probably to their great surprise they actually managed to get into the BT building and the Metro takes up the story again:

A witness at the BT building said: “They came running in and jumped over the security barriers, smashing glasses and telephones. Some of them went up to two floors above, having a look round and writing graffiti. It could have been really frightening but when they started shouting about BT being involved in the arms trade I knew that they didn’t know what they were going on about. Then they must have got bored and left.”

Maybe if an under-employed training company in the City isn’t able to fill its IT and Secretarial courses they ought to offer courses in effective protesting because I’m struggling to find anyone who understands their list of targets and most of the staff at the companies concerned seem entirely mystified about their supposed involvement. Did you know what DSEI was before you read this??

When is the City not the City?

Picture this. A focus group is sat around a table wearing suits and earnest faces and the Head of Marketing begins to speak:
“We need to come up with an idea that’s really going to engage with the City and stage an event that’s going to knock their socks off and get them on board with what we’re trying to do”

“How about something in the heart of the City like we did last time?” pipes up one smartly-clad participant

“Too old. Been there, done that“ chimes in another.

“Tell you what“. Heads turn to view the new speaker. “Why don’t we get our message across to the City by not doing it in the City. Let’s pick somewhere they might not even be able to point out on a map“.

Am I the only one feeling a massive sense of anti-climax about the Climate Camp and it’s decision to set up next to a funfair on Blackheath? I may be missing some ingenious twist to this cunning plan but it almost seems like the decision-making as to where to set up camp has been led by Blackadder’s sidekick Baldrick.

To recap the events so far after playing games with the police on Wednesday by trying to lead them in a guessing game of where the camp was going to be set up they picked the well-known City hotspot of Blackheath to set up camp on the grounds that some protestors did it a few hundred years ago and it’s got a nice view of the City. This was billed as:
The Climate Camp are on the case, join them when they takeover the city of London, the financial heart of global capitalism next week…
Hmmm… If these people were ever to have annual appraisals I’d suggest they’re not making their quotas as from what I can tell most of the 22 identified targets are currently unvisited.

Yesterday morning the BBC reports that around 20 protestors staged a demo on Bishopsgate outside the Carbon Exchange on Bishopsgate and then, according to other reports, went off for lunch and didn’t come back. Sounds like they’ve begun to integrate into City life then!

By contrast Help for Heroes had a collection march of around 100 people which headed through the City on their way to Trafalgar Square. Did the press report that?

While taking pictures outside the Royal Exchange on Wednesday I chatted with Police and journalists and we came up with a list of at least five locations in Central London that would have had:
a) Immediate relevance to one of their targets,
b) Been very photogenic for the benefit of the press,
c) Had a very high footfall so they could get their message across to lots of people,
d) Wouldn’t be a huge disruption so they’d be unlikely to be moved on.

The didn’t choose any of those. Let’s see what today brings.

One week on in the City

The echoes of last week’s protests still linger in the City, from the police van parading anti-capitalist graffiti to the headlines in the news of the ever increasing storm surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson. As more witnesses come forward some of the narratives become more contradictory (drunk v not drunk, only encounter with police or previous encounter) and it will take time to untangle the threads and come closer to finding out what really happened.

In these kind of situations it’s hard to get an idea of context, particularly if you’re not familiar with the City. The image below comes from the Evening Standard’s “This is London” website and shows Ian on the ground after being pushed by one of the police.

The image below is my own picture from across the road showing a wider view. 

If you go forward fifty yards or so you’ll come to the RBS that was damaged by protestors and if you go left just over fifty yards you’ll come to the front of the Royal Exchange, the epicentre of last many of last week’s events, so by any reckoning it occured very close to the centre of the protests. If you head thirty yards or so to the right down Cornhill you’ll find floral tributes attached to a streetsign as a memorial to Ian, which I assume mark the spot where he was treated and subsequently died.

For the sake of the family I hope the truth will out. 

Google Streetview
Location of the picture of the incident
http://bit.ly/15YfM
Location of the damaged RBS
http://bit.ly/6eu
Location of the floral tribute
http://bit.ly/fxYb

The Evening Standard coverage:
“I’ll see you tomorrow if I am still living and breathing”
G20 victim seen on film clashing with police an hour before fatal fall

The City Blog Flickr Page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moorgatemercurius

G20 Protest Update - Early Afternoon Day 2

There’s some tension in the air around Bank if you care to feel it. Police are stopping and searching anyone who looks too suspicious for their liking and the police I spoke to didn’t think it was all over just yet. The police helicopter was just hovering over the Liverpool Street area but it seems unlikely that we’ll see anything on the scale of yesterday as the protesters don’t seem to be that organised, particularly when contrasted with the police.

At 1pm there was a short ceremony to remember the man who died during the protests yesterday, who was himself a protester. The circumstances surrounding his death will no doubt be examined over the coming days but I hope it won’t turn into a political football. Just around the corner police horses were lined up in front of the boarded-up windows of the RBS building (picture top) which was attacked by protesters yesterday and you can find pictures for this and more on my Flickr page and Twitter updates (right)

City Blog Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moorgatemercurius/

G20 Protests Update - The 2nd Morning

Quite a day yesterday. After my last blog post I headed off through the Climate Camp and then on to Bank. The police had it pretty well sealed off but had missed one side street that enabled me to get in between the two police lines on Queen Victoria Street with a number of other people and journalists at the time when the police were pushing the protesters back towards Bank. Every time the police moved forward the crowd reacted and broken bottles littered the streets with the occasional sign of blood. I saw some protesters being treated for injuries incurred in the scuffles, as much through so-called friendly fire as anything. Word to the wise. If you’re going to throw a bottle from five or ten rows back then your chances are slim of hitting the two or three rows of police. It’s much more likely that it’s either going to sail over their heads or catch one of your fellow protesters in the back of the head… as I saw yesterday.

This morning’s 7am demo at the Stock Exchange turned out to be about ten people and a Monopoly board made out of carpet. 200-300 police around the area made sure that there were going to be no surprises and even the journalists outnumbered the protesters.

It’s unlikely the City will see anything like the disorder and disruption of yesterday again today as the focus will be on Docklands and the Excel Centre but if anything happens I’ll keep you posted.

Check out my photos on Flickr or view the slideshow on the right-hand side, and have a look at my Youtube vids.

City Blog Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moorgatemercurius/

City Blog Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/thecityblog

G20 Protests Update - Early Afternoon

Having been out and about I’ve added a selection of photos to the Flickr page but I won’t reproduce all of them here. It seems like 10% of the crowd are protesters, 10% are Police, 10% are journalists and the remaining 70% are curious City workers who’ve gone to see what’s going on. The Climate Camp on Bishopsgate has quite a party atmosphere but there have been some initial skirmishes between the Police and the protesters with injuries and damage to property.

Moorgate Mercurius Flickr Page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moorgatemercurius

G20 Protests Update - Noon

First the “war” protest moved of down Moorgate as planned with the red horse of war keeping up the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” theme.

Next the Liverpool Street march was redirected down London Wall and then made its way down Moorgate to the Bank.

All the marches seem to have met up at Bank now and although there’s been a little pushing and shoving there’ been no outbreak of violence yet, though it may just be a matter of time.

I’m going to head out again shortly to get some more pics…

Squaring up to the Square Mile

Well, the big day dawns tomorrow with the G20 protestors due in force. There was a small protest this morning down by the Bank of England which passed peacefully but I doubt that anybody’s going to lay a bet on tomorrow’s protests being trouble-free.

The Police have issued advice to City businesses and workers as to how to best protect themselves but if I have one thing to add it would be to plan a couple of other alternative routes home should it all kick off and your normal route home be closed. Seeing as I normally go to Bank Station I got my plans already laid.

If you want to know whether your office is likely to be targeted then Indymedia have a handy map which shows the locations of prominent companies and places. Mine’s on there so I’ll be stocking up on pepper spray to keep the oiks away from my snack drawer (i.e. another normal day in the office).

I hope to be out and about bringing you some photos and updates as long as we’re not barricaded in!

City of London Police G20 Protest Advice
http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/Advice/BusinessAdvice/g20advice.htm

G20 Protest Map
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/425202.html