He probably relaxed a little as he arrived in Cirencester later that evening for a meeting of libdem councilers, candidates and supporters. However even the cotswolds aren’t safe for clegg, and a small group of anarchists gatherd outside with bannners to proclaim their hatred of him and the system he represents.

As people left the talk, ten showed their support for the protest, with only two declaring support for their leader. This incredibly unscientific survey reveals that over 83% would prefer anarchy to Nick! Whilst waiting for Clegg, protesters were entertained by security and two vans of police who threatened to arrest anyone who crossed the road (yes, really). The police also attempted to get everyone’s details via an incredibly inaccurate quoting of Section 50, after being quoted it correctly they responded with “we don’t care what you quote” but eventually gave up after a protester retorted “but its the law?“.

When Clegg himself did appear everyone present was treated to the site of him looking back shocked over his back seat as people shouted at him, hopefully he’ll think twice before coming back to the west country!

Here at Anti Cuts Action, we thought we’d give a round up of events across the (south)west as the fight against austerity cuts heats up across the UK (and internationally).

Taunton:
Following the successful ‘Cut Cameron Festival’ early February saw the launch of the Taunton Activist Collective. A busy couple of months have seen anticut banner drops, regular UKUncut inspired actions, awareness raising and a protest with others at the county council.

Swindon:
The Swindon Against Cuts group has been steadilly growing despite early police harrassment of those handing out leaflets on its stalls. In march they organised the most radical protest there in years.
100 people gathered for an anti cuts rally followed by a spontanious march by 30 or so, who dodged police attempts to contain them and popped up with banners and leaflets infront of Swindons worst tax dodgers.

Bristol:
The Bristol and District Anti Cuts Alliance (BADACA) has been growing expontentially, with over a 200 at the last open meeting and many sucessful Local & industry groups springing up including Education workers, Health Workers, and locals in Easton, Fishponds & Bedminster.

February saw people from across the region forming a large march through bristol, and a radical break away group closing nearly every bank and taxdodger in the centre!

The UCU Strikes have seen students reinspired and the UWE activist group is now more active then ever. Additionally after a series of successful UKUncut actions organised by local Anarchists and Students an independant UK Uncut group has formed – getting a whole new group of people involved.

Gloucester:
Following on from a lively march (and sneaky post march ukuncut action) at the end of last year, well over a hundred people took the streets to march against the privitisation of the royal mail. Check out this website for more on the campaign to keep the post public.

Forest Of Dean
Angry protests by locals and supporters in the forest of dean have already caused the condems to rethink their plan to sell off the nations forests. They may have seen what the demonstrators wanted to do to the houes of parliment. The plans aren’t quite finished yet and the fight for the forests continues.

Cardiff:
In March, 1500 took to the streets to protest against both the libdem and tory party conferences, and with active union organising and the South Wales Anarchists reforming thats just going to be the start of this years actions!

Hereford:
Mass student walkouts and protests at the end of last year have been followed by several actions recently including the occupation and closure of Lloyds TSB in protest against cuts and bankers bonuses. Our sources tell us theres something new in the works too so keep an eye on the Hereford Heckler for info!

Bath:
Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance has been meeting every two weeks, and along with supporting strikers its activities have included insuring nick clegg was chased out of the city, protesting against the council, and organising a march which briefly reclaimed the new ‘southgate centre’, and closed several taxdodgers along its route.

UCU Strike:
The first national strike against the ConDem Government saw picket lines around dozens of south west universities and colleges across two days of action in defence of jobs, pentions and education as a whole. Students, activists, and fellow workers joined the lecturers in several demonstraions around the south west.
With staff up for putting up a fight for their futures and that of all further education expect more action to follow…

Temperamental weather and a heavy Friday night had taken its toll on numbers but there was still a good cross section of Unions, students, campaign groups, community groups and various leftist factions. I hung out with the radical types including IWW, Bath Activist Network, the newly formed and very welcome Taunton Activists, AFed and the Swindon Anarchists. We sang songs and chanted chants and moved through the city centre so quickly shoppers we likely to miss us in the time they bought their skinny-grande-capu-frupa-ameri-latte.

The March Passes down a quiet road

Still the guys from AFed dropped a banner from the bridge over the main carriageway that runs through the centre. Not the action of the decade but very noticeable from all the way into town and it stayed there for a couple of hours until we retrieved it.

No Cuts In Bristol

The march was over in less than half an hour as it seemed the important bit was to get on with the rally where a select few get to feel all important and stand on the platform to preach to the converted. There were a couple of decent speeches to be fair but while some comrades argued with the police over the health and safety issues of standing on a public right of way others took a trolley sound system and headed for the corporate tax dodgers in the city centre.

A good group of around 50 to 60 people paraded through the city centre and quickly closed many stores including Barclays, NatWest, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Vodafone & BHS. It was pretty surreal seeing so many stores all closed at the same time. Some shops who hadn’t been targeted closed in solidarity with their high street comrades and soon all the shops on Broadmead’s central square were shut. BHS remained closed to the duration of the day and NatWest kept its doors locked only allowing one person in at a time.

Nat West kept its door locked for the rest of the day

Protesters went inside HSBC, NatWest, HMV and BHS and it was in BHS where the cops made their move. One PCSO was quick to pull his baton and start swinging before one young student was tackled to the floor, when he attempted to defend himself the cops made out he had assaulted the PCSO and arrested him.

After some more fun and games blocking the police vans outside the crowd moved on (via the scenic route) to Trinity road police station to show their solidarity with the arrested. Us just being in the area seemed to be enough of a reason for a few more shops to close as we moved through Cabot Circus.

In hindsight going to the station on mass may have been a mistake because once out of sight of the public the police moved to attack the demo using snatch quads to pick people off and dismantle the sound system. In total a further seven people were arrested outside the station.

The last arrestee did not emerge until 3.15am and it was heartening that about 10 people stayed until the end. Not so heartening however to have one of those arrested say that he would not have waited for us (duly noted!).

Two were released on police bail the others are due to appear before magistrates in the near future some had not even been interviewed.

Sadly we can expect more long evening outside (or inside) a cop shop as the police get heavier and we get angrier.

Keep up to date at http://www.bristolindymedia.org.uk

Yeah yeah, not exactly an exclusive we know. But we aren’t talking about the cops coming down hard on organised groups of international anarchists having secret meetings with their leader Chris Knight. In Swindon, Wiltshire police have been harassing members of their local anti-cuts group who have been organising stalls and giving out flyers about the cuts in the town centre.

The cops, one, due to a spelling mistake on his ID card now known as Inspector Anger (can you be arrested by a cop with incorrect ID?) have been demanding the personal details of these shady leaflet distributers and making up laws to get them.

They have also received threatening e-mails and phone calls about the risks of non-compliance with the Police and some members have been visited in their homes by police searching for information. One sergeant threatened to ban all future actions by the group under section 14 of the public order act.

One member of Swindon Against the Cuts suggested one cop let slip about some information that revealed they are getting “insider information ” some how.

In response the group has done the most sensible and community minded thing and voted through a policy of complete non-compliance with the Police. This made us very happy indeed and we hope other groups will follow suit.

Last week we had the pleasure of meeting up with a group of young activists in Taunton who are beginning to mobilise. They even threw us a cracking Punk all dayer.

Punters & band members relax between acts at Cut Cameron Festival

Here in our city political punk gigs are almost a weekly occurrence. It seems however that nothing overtly political has happened in Taunton for a very long time and as a result the Police panicked. The organisers were forced to have a Police liason and received regular calls from the local plod. Even the venue was visited and the land lady warned off allowing the gig to happen, being told it was a protest rather than a concert and another cop referring to it as a “mini Glastonbury”!

2 Sick Monkeys on Stage at Cut Cameron Festival

Always using their initiative our intrepid comrades took to the streets to spread the anti-cuts message to early evening shoppers and closed the local Vodafone store in the process.

Cops: "We are here for the tea and the crust punk"

We are glad to here this over the top policing had not put anybody off and our new Taunton mates tell us they plan to protest tax-dodging corporations and public service cuts on a weekly basis, more info here.

It’s fantastic to hear groups organising in small towns in the region so let us know whats happening near you or even better invite us to come visit! Great stuff coming from Stroud and Forest of Dean but Cornwall? Devon? lets ‘av it!

Solidarity to anti-cuts activists across the UK. We are everywhere and together we are unstoppable.

The decision was taken to form regional networks of anti-authoritarian groups fighting the cuts. As Bristol Anarchist Federation’s Anti-cuts Action Campaign has already been working on this for a while we hope to further this network. At present we have built links and are in contact with groups and individuals in Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Stroud, Taunton, Hereford, Wiltshire, Cardiff, Newport and slightly further away in north Wales and Northern Ireland.

We don’t look to replace groups like Bristol Anti-Cuts Alliance and our affiliation form is winging its way to their secretary as I type. Our simple aim is to network with groups and individuals in the west to share ideas and mobilise for actions.

We support alliances such as BADACA and believe there are some great individuals working in them, their strong union links and ability to organise large scale mobilisations are vital to the anti-cuts movement. However they are all to often stifled with bureaucracy and party politics making them unable to mobilise at short notice and some within groups such as these abuse the platform to push their party line and show little interest in actually taking action.

The Facebook revolution has made it almost too easy to call demos, although it is great to level the playing field in this way, people are calling events and then not providing and propaganda/placards/banners etc needed, and as a result (like the recent Bristol EMA demo) protests are failing. Conversely where materials are provided and a demo properly organised the group calling the demo can take the opportunity to push their particular brand of politics and puts newspaper sales before fighting the cuts. We are also concerned about certain political parties who are moving to build power by hijacking organisations such as the NSSN and NCAFC.

Radical Workers, Unionist, Anarchists & Students on Bristol demo October 23rd

We reject capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; institutions and governments that promote destructive austerity measures;

We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism.

We condone and encourage a confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying alone can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.

We encourage direct action and civil disobedience, support social movement struggles, advocate forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism.

Dates for your diary:

Jan 22nd – Called by Bristol against the arms trade – Saturday 22nd @ 1pm, Castle Park. Target the banks who invest in the arms trade. While we face austerity measures they make billions from investing in weapons.

Jan 23rd – Activist sports club, organised by Bristol Anarchist Federation: 2pm this Sunday at the riverside park behind staples. A great opportunity to meet other activists outside of stressful demos and boring meetings.

Jan 23rd – Co-mutiny 2011 organising meeting, 4pm @ The Smiling Chair 40 Stokes croft. A great opportunity to build an autonomous activist network and promote the anti-cuts campaign.

Jan 25th – Resources Scrutiny Commission Budget meeting, 5.30pm @ The Council House. Meet on College Green and Make some noise.

Jan 29th – Anonymous Promotion presents Cut Cameron festival:
Raising money for Anti Cuts Action Bristol & Bath and student legal support. All day punk festival at The Winchester Arms in Taunton on January 29th. So if you can’t make London then be there instead and support the cause.

Jan 30th – Taunton ukuncut action:
Anti Cuts Action Bristol and getting together with our friends Anonymous and Taunton UNCut and are calling for a rolling picket of tax dodging corporations Sunday at 30th 1pm at the War Memorial.

Jan 30th – Bristol UKuncut – Anti Cuts Action Bristol have called all previous UKuncut demos but with us sodding off to Taunton we hope others will call a Bristol Demo it its non-sectarian style. Contact us and we can provide you with pdfs of the posters and flyers we have made for UKuncut demos. It is essential to have propaganda on hand so passers by know what you are protesting about.

Jan 31st – Anti Cuts Action Bristol public meeting – The Factory, 3 Cave street off Portland Square, St Pauls, 7.30pm. There will be a feedback presentation about the Network-X gathering and a discussion on where the autonomous anti- cuts movement can go next. Also to propose the idea of hosting the next network-x gathering in Bristol. If you want to get involved with whats happening in the anti-cuts movement, get involved with organisng the next network-x gathering and find out about groups mobilising against the cuts in the region then come along!

February 5th – Anti Cuts Action are calling our for Bristol residents to attend the Big anti-cuts march in Bath. More info to follow.

Feb 7th – Save Legal Aid Demo – 12pm Queens square outside legal aid commission!

Feb 7th – Anticuts film/pannel discusion at the cube – 7pm. Pannel discussion involving IWW, BADACA, Anarchist Federation, Student Representatives and probably other we don’t know about. Should be good!

Resources:

FIGHTING THE CUTS – Pamphlet by Bristol Anarchist Federation about staying safe and knowing your rights on demos – Click Here

DEMO TIPS – This pdf is basically a crash course in staying safe on demos, give it to anyone on a demo, the information could prove vital for some people. Click Here

STUDENT LEAFLET – A little dated but still contains useful information. We often meet students who only want to fight education cuts and dont care about the other austerity measures so we made this. Click here

TAX DODGER LEAFLET – We have been heavily involved in the actions called by UKuncut. We have produced a leaflet of facts about tax dodgers to give out to the public. Click here

22.12 – Defence campaign launched for two anti-cuts protesters arrested on a demonstration in Newcastle last saturday

Last week Croatian students organised actions in solidarity with UK and Italian students

Monday 13th:
The Daily mail wanted to get its readers to vote against the students since the riots, however a backlash against the paper got them the opposite result.

Tuesday 14th:
The Education Activist Network holds a protest at the department of business against the cut of EMA.

In Italy blockades, riots and street protests errupt around the country as Berlusconi narrowly avoids loosing a no confidence vote. (remember, the movement is international!)

wednesday 15th:
National Day of action against welfare and housing benefit cuts!
In Edinburgh,activists invaded the offices of A4E (work for your doll slave labour merchants).

In glasgow brighton, oxford, newcastle, bristol and elsewere campaigners distributed information to claimantsand others and staged attention grabbing protests. Ready for the big fight back against housing benefit and welfare cuts on the on the 24th of january (facebook event)

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) launch their campaign with a protest in london.

Kids lead protest outside county hall nottingham protesting against the closure of gedling school. (Video)

Banner dropped from St Andrews uni libary.

In Greece the EIGTH general strike of the year takes place against the austerity cuts and once again protesters take the fight to the police, government and big business.

Friday 17th:
The PCS union joins with UKuncut and others in a protest outside HMRC against cuts to the department and corporate tax dodging.

Saturday 18th:
More than 50 autonomously organised Ukuncut actions against tax dodging corporations take place around the country. With numerous pickets and occupations closing Vodafone, BHS and top shopstores all across the UK and HSBC occupied with a ‘sleep in’.

Inspired by italian students occupation of the tower of pisa, a banner is dropped from bristol’s iconic suspention bridge reading “join the movement, make the bankers pay”.

Link to video of Ben Browns ludicrously bias interview with Jody Mcintyre: rolling towards police in your wheel chair.

So heres the round up for the last 7 days in the fight against the cuts, if you’re anything like us its getting hard to keep track!

Monday 6th:
- Art Against Cuts occupy tate britain on the day of the turner prize.
- Bristol university occupied
- Bath and Bath Spa occupied
- UAL occupied
- Bradford Uni occupied

Tuesday 7th:
- Demonstrators in newcastle storm the civic centre, occupy the council chambers, then phone libdem councilers and get them to come in, hear their demands and issue a statement opposing tuition fees. Not bad for a few hours work!
- Anti Terrorism officers pull a 12 year old boy out of class because he was organising a protest against david cameron due to his youth centre being closed!
- A march in Exeter ends with a new occupation

Wednesday 8th:
- In Bristol mourners mark the upcoming death of education with a funeral procession and candle lit vigil.
- Euston station hit by an anti-fees flashmob.

Thursday 9th:
- Message of support to the studends from the fire brigades union, here. Lets hope student/worker solidarity continues to grow
- 3000 Students in Newcastle take to the streets, and later a group block the tyne bridge.
- tens of thousands decend on london and the demo ends in riots after the vote on fees is announced. Our Coverage and Indymedia Reports
-Hundred of students in Glasgow give the police the run around and target vodafone, RBS and an army recruitment office amoungst others.

Friday 10th:
- Don Foster a libdem turn coat who voted for the fees gets a rock thrown through his window.
- Protesters in Leeds give David Cameron a less than warm reception on his visit to their city.
- A Gurilla Orchestra performs in Birmingham in protest at cuts to the arts council, local councils and education.

Saturday 11th:
- Actions against rich corporate tax dodgers take place in 11 citys, with more than 40 planned for next saturday! UK Uncut
- Demo calling for Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone to resign

Sunday 12th:
- Anticuts demo in Liverpool:
http://northern-indymedia.org/articles/1154
- Widescale meadia reporting of the damage done to the libdems by the vote. reuters report.

(We’ve collated the first hand reports friends and comrades who were on the streets of london have relayed to us, no hearsay, rumours or corporate media lies).

From the start of the day police attempted to control the march (with the infamous TSG lining up at the front to lead the way) and failed. Hundreds of protesters ran down side streets to keep ahead of the police lines, rendering them useless.
As people made their way into parliment square, fists, battons, horses (and the existing fencing) were used to attempt to keep the demonstration on the whitehall side, and perhaps feed it to the rally point on embankment. Again the police couldn’t contain the angry students who quickly took the whole of parliment square. As police battled the main group there, hundreds broke through police lines into the surrounding area. Many came back to catch the police unaware, charging in to weak spots behind their lines, at one point they ran through lines of parked and empty police vans getting to within a stones throw of parliment.

Although the headlines in tomorrows papers will be filled with condemnation of the ‘violent students/anarchists/protesters’, it was the police we saw pull someone from a wheel chair, charge horses into a crowd, and smash random people in the crowd with batons just for being there… You can only push people so far before they start to wonder what to do with all the breeze blocks that have been left round parliment square.

Sometime after 5pm, news started to filter in about the result of the vote, a victory for the condems sure, but by the slimist of margins, with less than half the libdems supporting the coalition and three senior politicians resigning.

All around westminster anger flared up as the students and their supporters reacted to the news, police lines were pushed back around parliment with renewed vigour, protesters smashed their way into the treasury, the windows of the supreme court were shattered with cheers from the crowd, whilst over in trifalger square a tribute to the greek riots was taking place. People had set fire to the christmas tree. Riot police quickly extinguished the flames around the trunk, but nothing was going to stop the hundreds of people who were now running out of the square towards the west end.

Then one of the most unbelievable things any of us have heard took place, prince charles’ car was attempting to drive through the back of this new march. Bins, boxes and trafic cones were hurled at him and his escorts, the motercycle cops hightailed it out of there faster than you could say “uhh we’ll secure the next junction or something”, the royal cars window cracked as the window of the secret service escort smashed to the floor. The convoy sped off and narrowly missed running into pedestrians, many of whom were unaware it was even there. The few police that could be spared from the defence of the treasury, courts, political HQ’s and parliment faced rows of barricades, as building materials, bins and just about every else was dragged into the street bringing traffic and police vans to a stand still.

The pace quickend as people took out their anger on the tax dodging ultra rich, top shop – smashed, boots – smashed, vodafone and BHS attacked, fires along regeant & oxford streets and the whole area brought to a standstill with 10 angry students/londonders for every police officer in the area. All the while pitched battles with riot police continued to take place along whitehall and in parliment square. As those outside the kettles dispersed into the night, those unfortunate enough to be inside were pushed back onto westminster bridge and eventually released after more than 9 hours inside police cordons.

This was only the start, the first widely publicised vote on cuts, and it led to rebellion in the house of commons and the streets of london. If we continue to fight the cuts with this much vigour, there is no way in hell they can implement them. No one can say what will happen over the next five years (or months), but its starting to look like people are not going to let the goverment screw them over to help out the rich. Not this time.

Solidarity to everyone fighting the cuts, don’t buy into the right wing media hysteria that will doubtless come out in the coming days.

Don’t let them devide us, and they will never defeat us.