Rebellion is in the air – report from the front lines of london

While we’re sure most of you have already seen the news reports, for a slightly more radical take on todays events read on…

(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.