Postcards From The Barricades (Part 5): Before and after in the Tory press

 

Before yesterday’s national day of occupations and walkouts, London’s students were told by Nick Clegg to “look and make up your minds” about the coalition’s proposals. I’m sure I heard someone on BBC London News tell us that Clegg advised protesters not to go on the demonstration. I remember thinking “Who the hell does he think he’s talking to”?

Then the Telegraph published this story,

Mr Clegg’s security personnel are understood to have told him that it was no longer safe for him to bicycle from his home in Putney, south west London, to his office in the Cabinet Office, beside 10 Downing Street.

There were fears that the Deputy Prime Minister could be knocked from his bicycle or pelted with objects.

If I were Clegg I’d be more worried about holding onto my Commons seat than being knocked off my bike. It’s the least of his worries.

During the protests, Clegg appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show. He said that he “massively regretted finding himself in this situation”.  He can’t complain. He brought all of this upon himself.

The Tory press has been full of the usual stories of “violence” and so on. The Daily Mail goes for a more misogynistic/patriarchal approach and says,

Rioting girls became the disturbing new face of violent protest yesterday.

They threatened to overturn a police riot squad van as they smashed windows, looted riot shields, uniforms and helmets and daubed the sides with graffiti.

That’s strange. I was about 20 metres from the van in question and there was a mix of male and female students rocking the van. Painting this as some sort of riot that was led by a bunch of Riot Girls is a bit, well, stupid and typical of the Mail’s reportage.

The Telegraph has a habit of employing recent Oxbridge graduates and the occasional Tory student who is still studying at university. The Torygraph tells us that,

India Lenon is at Oxford University, combining her studies of Classics with all the other joys of student life

Lenon is their eyes and ears within the dreaming spires. She asks “can the rage-filled girl rioters get out of my library now”? She starts by saying,

So we’re told that after yesterday’s student protests the “Girls are leading the charge”. This may be true, but it may also have something to do with the fact that pictures of attractive schoolgirls smashing up police vans are, well, a bit more eye-catching than ones of balaclava-wearing men.

And adds,

And here in Oxford, that’s exactly what’s happened – even among the student body, a lot of people are now thoroughly sick of the way the protests have been handled. First, the march on London on November 10 was advertised as some sort of free day out, then yesterday a group of students “occupied” the Radcliffe Camera, one of Oxford’s oldest and most beautiful libraries. They’re still in there, demanding things and (apparently) dancing, and they even have a website. The only problem is that the Rad Cam is where the history and English books are housed, and there are several hundred students who have history and English Finals coursework due in next week.

Aw, what a pity and they’re dancing. Surely that isn’t allowed at a protest? Lenon is quite possibly one of those students who gets an allowance from mater and pater, drives a Porsche and drinks Pimms. She doesn’t need to protest. She’s all right, thank you very much. She makes what is possibly the worst analogy ever,

“Occupying” our own library to protest about government cuts and the rise in tuition fees is a bit like occupying your own house to protest about council tax and stopping the rest of your family getting in.

Er, no it isn’t. This is quite different. Besides, she has no sense of history. Would it be pointless to say to her, “1968”?

The Sun produced a pretty typical headline “Student mob in cop van rampage”. Oh, the drama!

One student was even seen urinating against the van as crowds swelled during the angry protest against rising university tuition costs.

There are no public toilets on Whitehall save for Portcullis House. I guess that escaped the staff reporter’s attention. Oddly enough, The Sun repeats the story it ran the previous day with a few alterations. What a load of cheapskates.

Terrified schoolchildren who had come along for a peaceful protest – some as young as 13 and wearing their school uniforms – became hysterical as balaclava-clad demonstrators threw flaming aerosol missiles and shouted: “F*** the cops.”

It must have been the two journos who were behind me who wrote this tripe.

Students last night claimed an anarchist group called Black Book were responsible for smashing up the police van.

What? No names?  I’ve just done a search for this “anarchist” group and guess what? Nothing has come up. I found this. It’s for a photography company. Not the same thing.

The Daily Express attempts to spin the Whitehall protest as a case of the poor plucky police  (who are also facing cuts) versus the ugly, angry mob. Its article starts with,

POLICE were injured as thousands of students took to the streets yesterday to vent their fury over tuition fee rises.

London again bore the brunt of the protests, with two police officers badly hurt in the clashes that went on into the night.

One had his arm broken and another was knocked unconscious as violence erupted in Whitehall.

Forget the reason why the protests happened and concentrate on what happened to a few cops. Well done. The Express repeats the same line about the police van,

As a police van parked in the middle of Whitehall was abandoned to the crowd, youths leapt on the roof, smashed the windscreen, and sprayed the vehicle with graffiti.

And like all the other papers, it refuses to ask the question of why the van was there in the first place when the police knew they were going to be blocking access to Parliament Square. This is either a case of police stupidity or deliberate provocation.

Last night I heard that there had been a horse charge in Manchester and London.  The Met denies that it horse-charged protesters. The site Demotix has images. Indymedia has photos from Manchester here.

There was no mention of the horse charges in any of the papers.

Postcards from the Barricades (Part 4)

Road sweepers being used as auxiliary policemen

I decided to cycle to the demo today. I’m on the mountain bike because it’s smaller and slightly lighter than my new touring bike. It also has SPD pedals which allow me to ride faster and more efficiently. I arrive at Trafalgar Square after battling my way through inexplicably heavy traffic on Kensington High Street. The scene is noisy. I can see Paraic O’ Brien from BBC London News talking on his phone and greeting fellow journalists like old chums. Maybe they are old chums. Who knows?  Someone hands me a leaflet. I take one look at it. It has David Icke’s name on it. I crumple it up and snap “anti-Semitic filth” to the man who gave it to me.  He looks bemused.  There’s a sudden surge of noise coming from Nelson’s Column which prompts the cops into action. But there’s nothing for them to get worked up about. The crowd is just being noisy.

We  move towards Whitehall and the police follow us. There’s easily a couple of thousand students here and more are arriving. There are quite a few Sixth Form students here too.  I can even see a few school uniforms. Nick Clegg must be the most unpopular politician in Britain today. Politicians aren’t well liked at the best of times but Clegg is singled out for a lot of abuse on today’s demonstration.  He deserves it. I cycle in low gear down Whitehall. I can see a police van parked in the middle of the road, just past the Cenotaph. “That’s a bit stupid of them” I think to myself.  It’s almost as if the Met wants that van to get smashed up.

I am outside the Treasury. There’s a cordon of police blocking our way to Parliament Square. I’m now beginning to see my bike as a liability. It’s starting to get in the way. There’s a sudden surge of people moving away from the police. For a moment it looks like some of us will get trampled. I make myself look big and stand my ground. Others do the same. Things calm down. It’s clear the police aren’t going to let us through. A fire is started. Why didn’t anyone think to bring any bangers or marshmallows? There are a couple of journalists behind me. They look like tabloid types. I avoid them. They probably think I’m just some bloke with a bike who’s been caught up in the demo.  Little do they know.

The crowd is starting to thin at this end of Whitehall. I suspect that some of the protesters are going to try and get out of Whitehall. I also suspect that the police have cordoned off all exits. I suddenly think of The Charge of the Light Brigade. This is a time when people really need to understand their terrain. The police clearly have the upper hand in this situation. Then some noise. The police van is finally attacked from all sides. That’s a cue. The police remove their casual-looking baseball caps and swap them for helmets and shields. Suddenly I get the feeling that we’re all about to be kettled. I think of Boris Johnson’s recent outspoken advocacy of that tactic.

I finally manage to squeeze my way to the other side of Whitehall. I negotiate my way across a hole that’s been left by the roadworkers.  I make my way up to the northern end of Whitehall. A woman is being carried by the police towards Parliament Square. I am not sure if she is a protester or some Tory MP. I can see another cordon. Towards King Charles Street, I can see another cordon. They aren’t going to let anyone out.  A number of protesters try and force their way through the cordon. It fails to break the column.

I stand around for a bit, trying to figure a way out. Then I move towards the cordon. The cop says “This is an absolute cordon”. To which I reply, “Is that different to a normal cordon”? He doesn’t reply but lets me out. Maybe it’s because I don’t look like student. Being a bit older does have its advantages after all! I cycle up Whitehall at top speed. I need the loo but they’ve closed all the public toilets. I walk my bike along the Strand and go down that road to the side of the station (I can never remember the name of it), lock the bike up at Embankment Station and go into a pub. There’s a group of blokes sitting around, drinking and gawping at the feed from Sky News. I use the loo and leave.

Cycling home, I accidentally take a wrong turn and end up cycling through Imperial College. It used to be federated with the University of London. I can see lots of students through the windows. Do they know about the protests or are they bothered? Maybe they’re having a sit-in. But somehow I don’t think so. This is Imperial College.

Once home, I turn on the telly. Emily Maitlis is interviewing Michael Gove or “Pob” as we call him at Nowhere Towers. He repeats the, by now, standard lie that the protest was “hijacked”. He knows nothing and yet he is the Secretary of State for Education. You know, I don’t think Gove has ever protested in his life. He probably never had the need. Apparently Gove is in favour of “reasoned debate”. He also talked of “logic”. He’s not au fait with either concept.

There have been other protests around the country. I hear that there was a horse charge in Manchester.  You can read the Twitter feed here.

I’ll post up some photos when I get time.