Wednesday of this week marked exactly a year since the glorious day in November 2010 when thousands of students charged into and smashed up the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank. A year on -- and 11 months since Parliament voted through the £9k tuition fee rise -- the student movement was out to prove that it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Despite only token backing from the National Union of Students, upwards of 10,000 students came from across the country to march on London’s financial district in a demo organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC).

A lot has changed since last November -- from the Arab revolutions to the huge anti-cuts demonstration on March 26th to the riots that hit English cities in August. And you could tell as much from the police presence: while the 50,000 strong ‘Millbank demo’ last year was initially policed by around 250 officers, this week’s demo had the much-vaunted figure of 4,000. Not to mention the horses, armoured vehicles, two helicopters, dogs, FIT teams, rubber bullets, intimidation letters sent the previous day and the thousands of twelve page glossy booklets that the police handed out at the starting point warning everyone not to fuck with them -- as if that much wasn’t obvious from the aforementioned 4000 cops, rubber bullets, cavalry… you get the picture. All justified by a bit of the usual pre-demo hysterics about anarcho-extremist infliltrators intent on causing a riot, nevermind that it was a totally legit demo organised in co-operation with the police, well stewarded and with a planned route ETC ETC.

Normally a demo of this size would barely get a mention from the media -- but Wednesday had it all: rolling news coverage, TV helicopters, hundreds of photographers -- all clamouring for things to kick off. And the police were trying their hardest to make sure things did as well: charging around in full Robocop get-up, shields out, and with plain-clothes occasionally jumping folk and dragging them off just cause they got a bit bored.

Elsewhere in London, thousands of electricians -- currently engaged in a huge struggle against the tearing up of their national pay and conditions agreement -- were at a Unite the Union organised demo, having blockaded building sites earlier in the day. While most then marched to Parliament to lobby MPs, a rank and file break-off of a couple of hundred sparks tried to march to join the student demo. Hundreds of militant private sector workers engaged in a frontline struggle uniting with the big student demo would’ve been a powerful image. With the media all over the student demo this would’ve then been hard to ignore, and something that wouldn’t have fit comfortably with the media narrative of middle class students just out to defend their own interests. And this is precisely why the state were determined to stop it from happening, with the sparks’ batoned and beaten up by the cops until being contained in a kettle away from the student demo. News quickly reached the student demo, and there was a bit of a stand-off  at one street when it was found out that the electricians were being blockaded in that direction. Such were the police numbers though that the demo was more akin to a walking kettle, and any attempt to break-off would’ve been verging towards kamikaze.

Electricians blockading sites before rallying later in the day and getting attacked by cops

The march picked up though, with a massive soundsystem emerging and some innovative chants, ‘You can shove your rubber bullets up your arse’ among them. It was a long route, and eventually wound its way to the end point sometime after 3pm, where the police decided to form an impromptu kettle before letting everyone go in a pretty chaotic fashion. A dispersal order was issued for 5.31pm, but most people were well away by that point.

Moving forward, NCAFC have -- much like last year -- called a follow-up day of action for Wednesday 23 November. While it’s unlikely to get as much momentum behind it as last year, given the totally different circumstances -- the HE White Paper is unlikely to garner as much opposition as the brazen, headline-grabbing £9k fees rise - it can be a way of buildng student and anti-austerity activity ahead of what is looking set to be a mass day of action on November 30, when three million public sector workers will be on strike. On that day, let’s meet “total policing” with total resistance.

An anti-cuts activist from Glasgow was sentenced to eighteen months in HMP Wandsworth at a London court on Friday, following his arrest at the March 26th TUC anti-cuts demonstration in London. His crime? Throwing a spent joke shop smoke bomb, picked up from the street, in the direction of a branch of Topshop – apparently enough to constitute ‘violent disorder’ and a lengthy prison sentence despite no damage being done to property or person. This was just one of a number of heavy sentences handed out to anti-cuts demonstrators at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, nearly all of them for similar (non-) offences – throwing sticks or pushing at barriers. Among the only positives on the day was for fellow Glasgow protester Bryan Simpson, who following a high profile defence campaign escaped with 120 hours community service and a four months suspended sentence for ‘affray’ at a student demo in London last November.

Omar Ibrahim was less lucky, and now looks to be in prison until at least next summer. In this statement that he wrote before being remanded in custody last month, Omar describes what happened on the day and draws the links between austerity, crisis and the growing use of draconian sentencing and political policing. Over the past year this has become increasingly visible, from the teenagers locked up for making comments on social media about the August riots to the gradual normalising of exclusion zones and pre-emptive arrests.

Yesterday’s sentences followed both the failure of Charlie Gilmour’s appeal and the recent upholding of the massively overboard sentencing doled out after the August riots. Then, all normal guidelines were thrown out in favour of disproportionate sentences for minor offences, due to their ‘mob’ nature which ‘aggravated’ violence and ‘appalled decent citizens’. What it comes down to is those unfortunate enough to be caught, regardless of what they may or may not have done, being punished massively out of context to their alleged ‘crime’. An assumption of innocence is disgarded – after all, if you made a choice to go on a protest, you’re practically asking to be locked up. Omar went on a protest, picked up a children’s toy off the street – and is now spending at least the next nine months in jail for it. It’s a crazy system, but one designed to scare and demoralise the rest of us – to keep us from protesting and keep us off the streets. As we once again prepare to take action en masse – with the latest round of student demos being kicked off this Wednesday and millions of workers lining up to take strike action on 30 November, we need to be as vigilant as ever. Read up on your rights, stay aware and keep fighting back. An injury to one is an injury to all! Support our political prisoners!

A full list the sentencing for violent disorder (and a selection of others) at London anti-cuts protests since Millbank is available here.

the SDL demo on Waterloo Place

There was a definite sense of deja vu in Edinburgh today as the far-right Scottish Defence League attempted to hold their latest ‘demonstration’, with hundreds of anti-fascists gathering to oppose them. But, unlike last time around, the script could’ve been written well in advance for the way in which events would play out today. And indeed, it had been – Lothian and Borders Police saw to that.

Having been turned down on their initial proposal to hold a march through the city centre, the SDL  were forced to make do with a police sanctioned “static protest” outside the Apex Hotel on Waterloo Place, at which they gathered from early on. Anti-fascists were meanwhile meeting at the foot of the Mound, where a rally had been organised by Unite Against Fascism. After hearing from several trade union and political party speakers, a short, five minute march along Princes Street took place. However, upon nearing the pre-arranged spot for a ’second rally’, it became clear that the march was, in fact, being directed straight into a ‘designated protest area’ surrounded by metal barriers. When a sizeable section of the march stalled and attempted to resist entering this area, and to encourage others not to as well, UAF stewards rapidly intervened. We had to enter the protest area, we were told – and through a mixture of lies, confusion and just following the crowd, most did. Around 40 remained outside, staying mobile and attempting to reach the SDL – both to ensure that they would not be allowed a demonstration publicly, and to let them know that there was an anti-fascist presence in Edinburgh that day.

This was carried out with limited success, a shouting match (from great distance) with the SDL here and dash past police lines there. But with the vast majority of the anti-fascist demo, which had numbered up to 4-500 people, being herded into a pen, there was no scope for the kind of blockade of the SDL that took place last time they visited Edinburgh. With officers from at least four Scottish forces in attendance, the city centre was in a state of virtual occupation, with riot vans, prison buses and dozens of cops on every street in the proximity of the demonstrations. In this context, it wasn’t a victory for anyone but the forces of the state, who gave a textbook performance of flooding the streets with officers, keeping two opposing sides apart, maintaining order and having the whole thing over and done with by 2.30pm.

the fash get escorted away following their demo

Some sections of the anti-fascist movement – namely Unite Against Fascism – are already declaring a massive victory on the streets of Edinburgh today, much as they did in Tower Hamlets last week (where they also succeeded in banning all marches for a 30 day period). The twitter feed of UAF’s Martin Smith is a sight to behold – an utterly delusional portrayal of the day’s events which counts police kettles, the fact that the SDL were “nowhere to be seen” (certainly not from where the UAF demo was situated) and Labour councillors giving grandstanding speeches “evoking the spirit of Cable Street” (lol) as some kind of stunning victory. But in reality, the SDL still numbered around 100+ supporters, were able to have their demonstration on Waterloo Place, and then leave pretty much of their own accord by Calton Hill. Of these 100 or so, though, a sizeable contingent had travelled from England – banners and hoodies were seen from Luton and Newcastle EDL divisions, alongside the EDL splinter group the “North West Infidels”. The SDL are not in a position of strength; whether they were strengthened by today’s demo, though, is difficult to say.

Anti-fascists can claim a success in that the SDL were not able to venture beyond a tightly controlled cordon. The very fact that there was opposition to them in the streets today was key in ensuring that they were unable to come into contact with the general public (with the exception of the unfortunate couple having a wedding inside the same hotel). But the willingness to accept “designated protest areas”, while allowing the police to “do their job” of penning in the fascists in their protest area, is extremely dangerous territory not just in the fight against the far-right, but for the progressive movement as a whole. These very same forces who have spent weeks now fetishising the riots and anti-police sentiment today walked into, accepted and pulled others into a dystopian nightmare-esque vision of “legitimate” protest in “designated” confines. They shall not pass – the police cordons, that is.

You almost have to feel for the police in Scotland over the past few days. Unable to spend their week beating up kids on bikes, shooting each other, executing men in taxis, and ensuring that teenagers are locked up for heinous crimes like stealing bottles of water from Lidl and swearing at cops, polis north of the border have faced something of an identity crisis, unable to join in the spree of attempting to justify their own existence as the upholders of all that’s good in society and thus undeserving of massive spending cuts.

However, to say that the lack of any riots in Scotland has left the polis sitting around twiddling their thumbs would be vastly underestimating their own resourcefulness. No, so eager were they for some of the action, they actually went out and invented some imaginary riots. And so it is that now a number of teenagers across Scotland are sitting in prison – remanded in custody for naively making Facebook pages  for “riots” in their hometown – with, in all likelihood, no intention of ever actually rioting, looting or doing anything more than pissing about on Facebook.

Few would dispute that making a Facebook page calling for a riot on your local high street is, in the current political climate, a pretty stupid thing to do. However, it’s also true that creating something that most people with any vague sense of how online social media works would construe as no more than a prank is not a crime worthy of potentially weeks of imprisonment.

But this clampdown – hailed in typically self-aggrandising fashion on the Tayside Police website – comes part of wider steps to control and legislate over social media and the internet, particularly in light of recent hysteria over encrypted Blackberry messages being used to co-ordinate disorder in English cities. This culminated in an announcement from David Cameron today that the government may seek to disrupt and disable social media networks including Blackberry messaging and Twitter during periods of civil unrest – on par with moves taken by faltering dictatorships in the Middle East over recent months. Of course, attempts to censor the internet are doomed to fail – if people are unable to communicate using one website, they’ll simply move elsewhere, and short of shutting down the entire internet and mobile networks, the authorities will struggle to stifle communications.

But it’s worrying the extent to which the Scottish judiciary have vastly overreacted to these cases, in their successful attempts to deny bail to, so far, two teenagers accused of inciting riots on Facebook. A further three – aged 14, 16 and 18 – will appear in Dundee Sheriff Court on Friday morning. Where perhaps some friendly guidance or a few stern words would’ve been appropriate, the police have instead opted to pin heavy charges on several young people who, we’re being led to believe, are criminal masterminds organising mass disorder from their bedrooms. If that seems fantastical, it’s because it is.

A moral panic has set in among the political and legal establishment across the UK, with any sense of leniency thrown out of the window amid a clamouring for dehumanised “looters” and “rioters” to be locked up, have access to welfare cut off and be evicted from their homes. This failure to even acknowledge that there are reasons for the riots beyond “criminality pure and simple”, as David Cameron put it, will only serve to increase antagonisms that whole layers of alienated young people feel towards the authorities and society at large.

The Facebook sweep this week does, however, reinforce the need for everyone – political activist, wannabe rioter or internet prankster alike – to be vigilant in what they post on all social networks. In the current climate, even an unauthorised demonstration could be viewed as inciting disorder, and in another classic case of old people not getting the internets, weeks in jail could await.

Ever feel like you’re being watched? If you’re a politically engaged person in Glasgow you probably are. Every single demo is followed by hordes of cops in uniform, in plain clothes, in mad vans with rotating cameras on top, on horses, in helicopters, on bikes and motor bikes. Sadly Strathy Police recently had their audacious application for a TARDIS unit rejected.

At the heart of this is all round top guy Nelson Telfer, who we first came across as a shining example of humanity after the eviction of the Free Hetherington Occupation at Glasgow Uni. He went on every TV outlet available to him (radio no big enough for good old Nels, straight to the top) saying there was no arrests on the day, no injuries and that the police response was entirely proportionate. That’ll be four arrests, one serious concussion, numerous bumps and bruises, 100 cops, the dog unit and our old pal the helicopter to you and me then.

Big Telf was again involved at Strathclyde the other day when he was the senior officer at another excellent show by his boys. What is not mentioned in LT’s article is the fact that the polis had a ’spotter’ on the demo. Someone who is paid to collate information on activists. We thought we’d do the honourable thing and show ye a wee picture of her. I fail to see the advantage of dressing your spotter to be the most noticeable person there but maybe I’m missing some elaborate plan from T-Unit.

2nd from left in case you were confused

It seems “T” NT wanted to stick his oar of incompetence into the Slutwalk this Saturday, barging in on a meeting with one of the organisers to intimidate and threaten her with conviction if the march was ‘highjacked’ and went off route. Even though the route was adhered to perfectly by the march, at least one organiser has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal for holding an illegal demonstration. This is unheard of despite numerous illegal marches taking place in Glasgowcity centre recently.

True to form they came to George Square with dozens of cops, two vans with Sauron style rotating cameras on top, four undercover CID, 6 horses, loads of motorbikes and… the helicopter. The same helicopter that we aren’t allowed to know how much it costs to put in the air because then the company they rent it off wouldn’t be able to rip-off businesses who want to rent it privately -- fair play on that one chaps.

This was an utterly ridiculous reaction and was no doubt an attempt to scare off the scores of angry young women who were on their first ever demonstration. Personally though the lowest part of the day was when they accosted me on the way to the shop near Glasgow green and took my details because I am ‘a potential witness to a crime.’ This is the second time in a week that an SSYer has been followed to the shops by the cops (lol rhymes) and had their details taken. It takes someone braver and more well versed in their legal rights than me to tell two CID heavies to get tae. You know shit is serious when you can’t toddle off for some Irn-Bru on a hot day.

Nelson Telfer is such a decent outstanding guy we thought he deserved his own wee slice of the internets:

Is it Libya? Egypt? Tunisia? No, it’s the USA. It may have been overlooked amongst rioting and protests of a much bigger scale in the middle east, but there’s been a battle raging in Wisconsin between the State Government and its own people. Police were ordered to force demonstrators out of the State Capitol building yesterday, but instead of driving them out defected to the side of the protesters.

The occupied Wisconsin State Capitol

One of the police said “We have been ordered by the legislature to kick
you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will
not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!”. For a State to lose control of it’s police force is unprecedented in recent history, and a sign that the Wisconsin demonstrators are now winning groups to their struggle who, to put it mildy, are not generally associated with trade unions and radical struggle.

The origin of these protests lies in an attempt by the Tea Party supported right-wing Republican Governor Scott Walker to destroy the power of the unions in Wisconsin. Walker wants to remove the rights of unions to collectively bargain with the Government over all other issues apart from pay – ie, holidays. pensions, benefits etc.

Walker claims that this is necessary to deal with the state deficit, but the reality is that – just like the Tories in the UK – the Tea Party and it’s allies want to use the national debt as an excuse to do all the things they’ve wanted to do to Trade Unions but didn’t have an excuse to do. It’s the Shock Doctrine for Wisconsin – terrify people into accepting horrendous “reforms” whilst they’re scared of a financial crisis. Whilst attacking collective bargaining for Unions and attacking their members pensions and healthcare, Walker’s budget proposes tax cuts for the richest in the State.

Walker’s plan is summarised quite well here, as a three pronged attack on the unions.

“In part one, their ability to bargain benefits for their members is reduced. In part two, their ability to collect dues, and thus spend money organizing members or lobbying the legislature, is undercut. And in part three, workers have to vote the union back into existence every single year. Put it all together and it looks like this: Wisconsin’s unions can’t deliver value to their members, they’re deprived of the resources to change the rules so they can start delivering value to their members again, and because of that, their members eventually give in to employer pressure and shut the union down in one of the annual certification elections

And because the Unions provide large donations to the Democratic Party, as well as neutering class struggle in the State it also removes finances from a political opponent – OR it forces the Democrats to seek funding from non-union sources, like millionaire businessmen. This means either the Democratic Party loses funds, or has to shift more and more to the right to win the money of big business – shifting right on to a territory the Republican Party already hold. It’s a Machiavellian plan to fundamentally change the political terrain in Wisconsin in favour of the ideas of the Right and business.

The Unions in Wisconsin responded with a protest on February the 15th, as the joint finance committee in the State would hear ALL speakers who wanted to speak in favour or against the bill. Exploiting this loophole rather spectacularly, the Unions managed to rally thousands of people to come to the State Capitol building to testify against the bill.

Given the vast number of citizens who opposed the bill, unsurprisingly there wasn’t enough time to hear them all. Instead of leaving though, the protesters stayed overnight in the Capitol Building and have remained there for two weeks – with thousands more coming to join in their occupation and to protest outside the building.

This militant defiance of union busting by the Labour movement in the USA has even, dragged the Democratic Party in the State leftward. In both the Assembly and the Senate of Wisconsin the Democrats are a minority – having lost out to the Republican Party’s gains in the midterms. They cannot vote to defeat Walker’s proposals.

But instead the Democratic Party’s Senators have gone into a kind of political exile to Illinois. It sounds mad but is actually an inspired counter-move. The Republicans have 19 Senators in the state compared to the 14 Democratic Senators. But in order for any law to pass, there must be a quorate of at least 20 senators – so the Republicans have been unable to pass this law because the Democrats have fled the state! The Democratic Party are effectively acting in defiance of normal parliamentary practice to stop the Republican Party from crushing the Trade Union movement.

Walker has of course found allies from the Tea Party, who have organised counter-demonstrations against the Unions. But they have been massively outnumbered by the pro-Union rallies, which are the biggest demonstrations Wisconsin has seen since the Vietnam War. In a national poll over 60% of Americans opposed Walker’s plan being enacted in their own states, and even contributors from Fox News have realised that Walker’s argument is “malarkey” and that it’s all about union busting.

These protests show that while the USA isn’t normally seen as a hotbed of class struggle, when it happens they don’t mess about. The struggle in Wisconsin is reminiscent of other mass mobilisations of workers in US Labour Movement history – like the Bonus Army, who set up an illegal camp in Washington DC in protest at the President’s refusal to pay them their bonus after fighting in WW1. The US Army was eventually brought in to clear the camps, which it did at the point of bayonets and the use of chemical gas.

Of course this time round, if Walker wants to use the State’s security forces to clear the State Capitol he won’t have the support of the Police. What remains to be seen is if other parts of the State will obey his orders – he’s already declared his willingness to use the National Guard to bust Unions, a tactic that Mubarak would have been happy to use. State Troopers have even been dispatched to try and drag the Democratic Senators back to the occupied Capitol Building, to try and facilitate a “democratic” process through state sponsored kidnapping.

The struggle in Wisconsin shows that the Left in the USA are starting to fight back after being left in the shadow of the Tea Party and Obama’s failures and betrayals. Along the way, they are winning mass support and a few unusal (but not unwelcome) allies to their cause.

Police kettles were smashed, corporate tax dodgers forced to close their doors and Wetherspoons even packed away all their tables in a riot prevention measure yesterday, as militant anti-cuts protests hit Glasgow city centre.

Hundreds of people took to the streets in the city, embracing a diversity of tactics in the latest show of opposition to cuts in local services and education. This comes ahead of Glasgow City Council’s cuts budget, to be set within the next fortnight, and following the announcement, buried just before Christmas, that all of Scotland’s colleges will face cuts this year of 10 percent, meaning direct cuts to student places and courses, and making compulsory redundancies likely.

Beginning with a static rally in George Square organised by trade union umbrella group ‘Defend Glasgow’s Services’, which heard from a number of different speakers, around 200 protesters then took the police by surprise and broke off for a march through the city centre. Billed as “guided tour of cuts and cutters”, the roving demo was organised by new group Glasgow Against Education Cuts, with a list of potential ‘targets’ drawn up in the days before the march, taking inspiration from the UKUncut style of direct action.

After leaving the square to chants of ‘Cameron lose your smile, let’s do this Egyptian style!’, the demo then headed down the city’s central shopping precinct, Buchanan Street. First stop on the tour was phone company Vodafone, where a speaker went into the details of their nefarious tax-dodging activities. Attention was also drawn to the complicit role Vodafone have played in propping up the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, cutting off their signal in recent days in order to stifle communication between protesters.

Having initially been taken by surprise, at this point large number of police began to pile in, with riot vans attempting to follow the demo along pedestrianised streets. Heavy police presence in tow, the tour then headed down to Topshop on Argyle Street, where chants rose up of ‘Shoplift! Topshop!’, before a rapid u-turn from which the tour headed towards offices run by ATOS, the company paid millions in public money to kick people off benefits. However, the police then made an attempt to kettle the demo near Central Station, entrapping around 70 protesters within police lines.

With no one particularly wanting to spend the rest of the afternoon packed into a police kettle on the pavement of a fairly quiet street, a push and shove rapidly ensued with the police, with protesters managing to force their way through the lines. There’s several reports of injuries sustained from police violence at this point, including one young woman who was grabbed around the neck and a school student who was shoved to the ground.

The demo began to break-up at this point, with groups charging up the street away from the police, with a cop helicopter now attempting to keep track of the demo from the skies.

Managing to regroup again on Buchanan Street, most people went back to George Sq. At this stage it was decided to disperse, rather than face the risk of being stuck in a police kettle for the rest of the afternoon, as happened during the tuition fees protests on 9 December and which allowed the police to pick off certain activists for arrest.

However, just as people were beginning to leave, news reached us that, while walking home, 19 year old student Dominic O’Hara had been snatched by the police and bundled into a van, with the police refusing to tell onlookers why. Around 40 people were still present in George Sq, so a decision was made to march to the police station in which Dominic was being held. Ridiculously, the police saw fit to follow the procession with an escort of both on-foot officers and two vans all the way to the station. For over an hour a picket was held outside, with a senior officer eventually telling us that Dominic is being charged with breach of the peace and assaulting a police officer. These are the same charges he is already facing in relation to December’s fees protests; this was clearly a deliberate, targeted arrest of a member of a group who have been facing continual harassment since last summer. Dom is being held over the weekend and will be appearing in court tomorrow.

Saturday’s demonstration showed that we can and will take to the streets whenever we want, where we want and at the time we want. Over the past year, the council have made it virtually impossible for legal demonstrations to be given permission in the city centre, apparently due to its importance to ‘Glasgow’s economic prosperity’. As such, unless we want to march around a park in the west end or hold a static rally in the middle of square, there’s little option beyond taking to the streets without official permission. Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council – you brought this upon yourselves!

The anti-cuts movement must continue to grow, in both size and militancy, over the next year, and can’t be allowed to go down the same dead-end route of A-B marches that the anti-war movement was ultimately reduced to. We need to keep our tactics fresh and exciting, continuing to push for direct action and for outmanoeuvring the police. The demo yesterday was highly successful in this regard, bringing a significant number of trade unionists, students, unemployed people and pensioners together, and adding a radical edge to the morning’s trade union rally.

BONUS: video from the day here

Are you old enough to remember when it was hippies........................hippies everywhere?

Remember those cops dressed as clowns who were kicking about a few years ago? Well it turns out apparently that one of them was….a cop! More details emerge every day in relation to “Lynn Watson,” an undercover cop who infiltrated the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. It comes hot on the heels of the tale of Mark “Stone” Kennedy, another state plant paid to spy on activists.

Let’s be clear. SSY has no gripe with people who want to dress stupidly and/or take direct action against capitalism - particularly given our own penchant for such things. The Clowns occasionally managed to use their incredible irksome behaviour to outsmart the cops and should be admired for that. We did however know that there would be coppers in their midst. No doubt they did too – given that many of them are seasoned activists. There have been a multitude of stories in the press but nothing we don’t all know anyway. But its worth fleshing out some of what has been revealed for the hell of it.

Most of it centres around the actions of Mark “Stone” Kennedy. Mark spent 7 years undercover, spying on environmental, anarchist and left-wing activists. He recorded their meetings using a modified watch containing a micro-chip which were then downloaded onto Inspector Gadgies PCs. Based on information obtained by Kennedy, 114 people were arrested and many put on trial, having done nothing other than talk about occupying the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. 20 were convicted of various nonsensical charges while the trial of 6 others descended into farce. The trial collapsed because the police withheld tapes that would have cleared the activists and the role of Kennedy was also crucial. It was claimed that Kennedy was prepared to give evidence in favour of the activists thus exposing the state plot to plot against the state. The collapse of the trial has led to no less than 3 totally “independent inquiries” by the Association of Cunto Polis Oligarchs (ACPO), the Independent Piggy Confectionary Convention (IPCC) and Serious & Organised Clown Army (SOCA). No doubt the police will decide that the police are bad and need to be abolished. We won’t hold our breathe.

Kennedy’s revelations in the press since being exposed have including the fact that he was basically paid by taxpayers to have sex with activists – a tactic apparently sanctioned as an acceptable form of “intelligence gathering” by his seniors. This week there was a demonstration in support of women from Reclaim the Streets , a group of London activists, among others who were conned into having sex with cops they thought were friends. The former member of the Special Demonstration Squad stated this week that promiscuity helped them to “blend in” because – you guessed it – we’re all fucking. I’d like to point out before we move on that tricking people into fucking you is not OK and in my insanely monogamous experience crazy lefties are no more or less likely to fuck around than anyone else. Obvious exception aside.

Kennedy confirmed this week that he was far from alone and that there were a network of undercover officers paid for with our dosh to check what we are doing. And more importantly, to first provoke and then fuck up any opposition to the political and economic elite. “Lynn Watson” was an activist outed by Mark Kennedy as a spy. She kicked about the Leeds area spying for a bit. She was involved in the Camp for Climate Action as late as 2008 having previously been involved in Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp not to mention an being an Action Medic and of course, a clown. Various tit-bits from her bank details to a video of her in Clown make-up dicking around are coming out every day. But again, nothing we wouldn’t have guessed. She basically came in, made a mess and left like thousands before her.

Every state monitors and disrupts its enemies. That is in fact the PURPOSE of a state. The Black Panthers were destroyed by the CIA flooding the group with drugs, cops and paranoia. The Democratic Socialist Party in Australia counts among its members a former informant who eventually realised that the people she was spying on made more sense than they people she was spying for (I think it was a woman but my googling fails me). The façade of democracy is destroyed when the state acts to disrupt the forces who fight for a more democratic future. I can only imagine the epic boredom state plants must endure to get sketchy details of the half baked plans made by the left. We must avoid the temptation of spending all day asking where the spy is. In the end crippling paranoia is just as dangerous as the actions of the state. But it confirms that the state does watch us and maybe we should be rather more careful at times rather than blabbering our plans all over facebook or even, quite frankly via phone or email. On a positive note it makes you think that maybe, just maybe we are a threat to those we seek to overthrow. We all know they are watching…except them

In a hilarious twist, the UK’s most senior public order police officer, Bob Broadhurst, told Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee in 2009 in relation to the G20 protest in London that:

“The only officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who are wearing full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders. There were no plain-clothes officers deployed at all.”

This week he scurried back to apologise to MPs for misleading them insisting he…didn’t know. I knew there were undercover cops in London at the G20 and I was sitting behind my desk in Glasgow refreshing the BBC News page at work. The claim that the polis didn’t know where the bacon was is laughable.

In short, the entire saga brings new (although hardly shocking) light on the amount of money and time being spent monitoring what we do. Don’t be paranoid – Don’t be disheartened. I distinctly remember my last encounter with the Clown Army, at Gleneagles at the G8 when they shouting “booo…miserable socialists” at us as they passed by. An older man behind me mumbled “we’re only miserable coz we’re surrounded by cops.” Just remember there are infinitely more clowns in the cops than cops in the Clowns.

You may have heard of Jody McIntyre -- he is the wheelchair user who was violently dragged from his chair and along the ground twice at the student demonstations in London last week. McIntyre, who has cerebral palsy, was interviewed by the BBC last night about what happened.

If you have any confusion about who was responsible for violence at the student protests, watch this video in full. You can also read Jody’s account of what happened on his blog.

The interviewer, Ben Brown, is clearly a piece of human shit -- you can make a complaint about his conduct here.

The media have put a lot of effort into making Camilla-and-Charles-were-frightened the main image of violence last week -- the real violence was perpetrated against people like Jodie McIntyre and Alfie Meadows, who had to undergo life saving emergency brain surgery after being beaten by the police.

Bonus: here’s Ben Brown being made a fool of.

by Squeak

Ever since the news began creeping out -- on rolling news coverage and, for a lot of us, jubilant facebook status updates -- about the VICIOUS ATTACK on the car carrying HRH The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Thistle, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen’s Service Order, Privy Counsellor, Aide-de-Camp, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland (to give him his full title, respectfully) and his wife Camilla, the reaction from the press, police and now the government has been nothing less than hysterical,  terrifying and downright fuckin’ hilarious in equal measure.

In fairness, it has been a good few centuries since an heir to the throne in Britain has had to contend with a a baying mob brandishing sticks and chanting “off with their heads”. Mad rioting outside Parliament on Thursday was,  to some degree, expected; indeed, BBC journalists felt the need to remind us every five minutes that “anarchists from the Whitechapel Anarchist Group and the Wombles” were there with the intention of causing trouble. Nevermind that the Wombles disbanded in 2006 and that WAG are, with all due respect, probably about ten men and a dog, the media nonetheless needed some sort of “label” to attach to any disorder, unable to comprehend that maybe, just maybe, ‘normal’ students are pretty angry and like smashing shit up as well.

What definitely wasn’t expected on Thursday was the window of a toff-carrying Rolls Royce getting punted in on its way to a concert in honour of those sitting in its back seat. Three days later, the story continues to dominate the headlines. It’s led to an outpouring of right-wing vitriol about violent hooligans attacking “our royal family”, desecrating a statue of “anti-fascist hero” Winston Churchill and “attacking” the police. Apparently the future Queen may have even been hit with a stick -- or as the Daily Star put it ‘CAMILLA POKED BY RIOT THUGS’. I mean, honestly, haven’t you guys heard of Gandhi?

The tabloid’s moral faux-outrage was all too predictable. More worrying, however, has been the response from the establishment -- it’s added fuel to the fire for reactionary demands that policing isn’t tough enough and needs to be “stepped up” at future demonstrations. Today, it’s revealed that Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is looking at introducing water-cannons for public order policing.

The irony couldn’t be greater when we look at what happened on Thursday, when the tooled-up riot cops successively kettled, horse-charged and brutally attacked demonstrations widely reported in the media as good-natured and peaceful. It’s left one 20 year old student, Alfie Meadows, requiring brain surgery after being bludgeoned by a police baton. And now we’re being told that this wasn’t enough, and that protesters should be getting a “good soaking” as well.

In Glasgow, fortunately, no one required hospital treatment as a result of the police actions on Thursday. However, the treatment of peaceful demonstrators still (as the video below shows) verged well into the territory of brutal assaults on protesters, the pushing around of school children, and flagrant political policing. In a continuation of the harassment and intimidation of political activists that has been ongoing over the past few months, two demonstrators were picked out from a crowd of hundreds and arrested on trumped up charges. These include assaulting and obstructing police officers and attempting to rescue or assist the escape of a person in custody; both are bailed (one with the now customary city-centre banning order) and will appear in court in January.  Their full statement, and call for witnesses, can be read here.

What’s becoming clear is that as the radicalisation of broad sections of society and opposition to austerity and cutbacks grow, the police are stepping up the victimisation of activists and attempting to limit protest though whatever means possible. We need to be prepared to resist this and stand up for the rights of everyone to resist the Coalition’s attacks on the working class -- which, far removed from two aristocrats facing the minor distress of encountering a few of their subjects -- are set to rip apart communities and the lives of millions of people.