Park Strife

Park Strife, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Voices from the demonstration. Bad anarchists, no cookie. Jesus christ, this country is pathetic innit.

..Sent Cops Home

activism etc6 042, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

If only they'd sent more cops home innit. Perhaps we'd have got something done that day!

I wish i hadn't...

I wish i hadn't..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Heh, bad class war, bad SWP. Of course, CW and the SWP weren't actually heavily involved, CW never represented more than a couple of hundred and at this stage probably not three figures. The SWP never start it.It was people. Lots of angry people. Not evil terrorist organisations but unaligned people who showed up to have their say.

finished later...

Tonight: Charge Of the Blue Brigade

Tonight: Charge Of the Blue Brigade, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

This one is great - finally a definitive source and date. So this would have been one of the Criminal Just Bill demos. I wasn't on this one I don't think so I'll let you enjoy the unbiased commentary.

what kind of justice is this?

activism etc6 045, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another article on the Criminal Justice Bill.

In the last couple of years I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals (and indeed rightists) often using the expression "sleepwalking into 1984" or similar. The claim that things like the smoking ban are "the thin end of the wedge". I have no sympathy for anyone who didn;t start protesting in 1993 if they were old enough. This is where the government made the first moves towards a nanny state, THIS WAS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE. Trouble is, no-one cares. It's your own fault, don't come running to me.

M11 link protest confined to tower

activism etc6 047, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

I think this was from the Indie. The chap in the tower survived on his own for at least 24 hours. No food or water. Every time he fell asleep they'd come for him and the crowds below would shout and scream until he woke up and scrambled to another corner of the tower. I think it was Thursday he finally came down, having been up there since Monday.

M11 campaigners in last refuge

M11 campaigners in last refuge, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another POV, this one I think is from The Times. Note that their story on the netting coming down is different to the one I remember - in this case the netting was cut by bailiffs. Either is fucking awful, but I wonder which version is true. To the best of my knowledge only one journo stayed with the protesters, so we both would have gotten our versions from the same source!

Bailiffs move in on M11 protest

Bailiffs move in on M11 protest, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

This is a lovely piece from one of the local papers in Leytonstone - a much more neutral article in many ways, giving voices to some protesters without any condemnation.

Also good for the earliest reference to baby eating anarchists that I've yet found.

Another set of scenes

Another set of scenes, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Apologies for the length of time between posts, I've been a bit depressed recently. Anyhoo, this is the final page of the Indie photo spread of the eviction day. The relevant pic here I think is the local First Aid volunteer being dragged away. It's never nice to see elderly people manhandled, let alone neutral ones who aren't asking very much at all except to be allowed to remain in the area to provide first aid.

More scenes from the papers - No M11

More scenes from the papers - No M11, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Here you can see a poor photo of one of the most useful barricades - ropes stretched across the street from treetop to rooftop. Very hard to evict people from, and you can't cut the tree down or demolish the house until the occupants have been removed. Sadly the rules aren't always kept to. During the eviction a JCB was used to pull down one net resulting in the occupant falling to the ground from rooftop height and landing beneath the digger blade. Fortunately they only broke an arm, IIRC, but of course not health and safety or criminal charges were brought against the JCB driver who had deliberately set out to injure them.

The Battle for Claremont Road

The Battle for Claremont Road, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

An eerie picture of a cop on the roofs. It took four days to shift the M11 Protesters from the roofs and towers.

...ors take to their bunkers

ors take to their bunkers, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Once on the street the police were fairly quick about removing those of us who hadn't made it into the houses (or in our case, hadn't tried. Wish I had now, I really do). There were some surprises in store. Whilst most people who sat down were fairly easily moved, though one woman, an elderly local woman who had showed up to act as a first aid volunteer for the protesters was dragged away by two cops, weeping. Ugly shit, though at that time I'd already watched one of our brave boys in blue shove an elderly woman to the ground in the name of protecting democracy from those who wish to have a part of it. That shit stays with you.

We were pushed back slowly, there was no violent resistance, just the usual catcalls and jeers, and a few protesters who sat down or required being dragged away. A few surprised the police, who upon attempting to move protesters apparently lounging on mattresses turned out to be locked into pipes embedded in concrete. Specialist machinery would be required to shift them. Eventually the street was cleared, and the long process of clearing the houses could begin. This would take the best part of a week.

M11 road demonstrators take to...

M11 road demonstrators take to..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Monday 28th November 1994. I'm in the first year of VI form. For some reason, probably related to lack of money, I've wandered home at lunchtime or during a morning free period, and discover on the news that protesters are massing at Claremont Road for the eviction. [It is worth pointing out here that a wise person might ask how come the protesters knew there was going to be an eviction - wouldn't it not be better for the eviction to be a surprise? The answer lies in police overtime payments, which are pretty generous, leading to tip offs - after all a well defended eviction means lots of overtime.] So i rinsed my mum for information as to why I didn't know about this beforehand and gained the admission I had expected. Yes, there had been a phone call last night but she had neglected to inform me. So what did I do. Well, here I made one of my more regular errors of judgement and went back to school to rustle up some numbers. After all, a lot of my fellow students had attended occupations and protests there in the past. But in the end, the sum total of people willing to join me was one. We headed for Leyton, disembarked, and along with a few hundred others, milled around.

It was an hour or two before the police and security really showed up. The first you heard was the howls and hoots from the rooftops as the protesters up there observed the dozens of police vans blocking off Grove Green Road. People on the streets were now scurrying up ladders into the upper windows or roofs of the houses, as the doors have long since been barricaded - generally hammered shut, then wooden or corrugated iron sheets nailed against the frame, then massive amounts of rubble and concrete behind them. Inside the houses a warren of lock-ons, security gates, barricades, false corridors, obstacles designed to slow the eviction. The first thing the cops have to do is clear the open end of Claremont Road, which they do with remarkable speed, removing the piles of rubble that block the street. Now people are in nets spread between trees and rooftops, like giant hammocks. Some are carabinad to aerial walkways. Hard to shift safely, yet possessed of an ease of movement....

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html

Background to the Bill

Background to the Bill, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

It wasn't meant to be this way, apparently. Well, I guess it depends on what way it was meant to be. A thoroughly nasty bit of legislation.

NO POLICE STATE

NO POLICE STATE, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

oh the irony.

we are, of course, not living in a police state yet. but it's on its way.

criminal justice bill, page two

criminal justice bill, page two, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Another page from the same source., complete with ranks of riot police. It was against the CJB that I attended my first protest march. On my own, because no-one I knew cared about politics (or if they did, they didn't care about my idea of politics). It think it must have been 1993. I don't really remember much of it - this wasn't the protest that ended in mass violence, this was one that ended in dull speeches from newspaper-salesmen. But as we walked up Whitehall there was a bit of a crush, and some noise. I joined the throng, and watched as a couple of black-clad crusty types attempted to scale the gates of Downing Street (incidentally, until Thatcher was in power Downing Street was ungated. Until Churchill's time the phone number was listed in the phone book). The crowd were watching, mostly applauding though of course there were a fair few jeers. Then the crowd shifted and I went down as some old girl with a bike was pushed or fell on top of me. Her bike pedal ripped my trouser leg, but of more concern to me was the fact that as I pushed myself up I saw, rather than heard, the police horses. The hooves were a couple of metres away from my head. The charge had dispersed the crowd alright, and I don't think there were any injuries. But I never heard a warning if any was given. At the time i remember being somewhat shocked - like even though I was on the demo i was clearly participating in a democratic peaceful action, and I was merely observing the gate-climbing. Why should my health have been put on the line then? Of course, now I know better.

The Criminal Justice Bill...

The Criminal Justice Bill..., originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Where's this from I wonder? Never mind, the underground press was full of this sort of stuff in 93 and 94, desperately trying to point out to as many people as possible what the CJA actually meant. In many ways it was the precursor of the erosion of civil rights that has gone on since then. In these less innocent days it seems bizarre to have the freedoms that we had before the CJB, and whenever I hear anyone carping about the smoking ban and the nanny state and the thin edge of the wedge whatnot, I find myself wondering where they were fifteen years ago when this all began. The thin edge of the wedge came when this bill was proposed (although some would say it began when Thatcher smashed the Unions), smoking is only somewhere in the middle. After all, you can't legitimately protest against the smoking ban any more innit!

Stonehenge 2000

Stonehenge 2000, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Advert for Stonehenge solstice party 2000. Even though in 2000 you were still banned from the stones there was still an annual party there. In 1995 this fucked things up for the M11 protesters as a whole load of them went down to Stonehenge, leaving very few people guarding one of the camps, which was promptly taken by security (though if I recall correctly, one bloke managed to hold them off from his tree house for many hours single-handedly). Another case of hippy activism failing the non-hippy activists sadly - there were quite a few debates on this sort of thing.

Squall... ewoks?

Squall... ewoks?, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

While unable to fit the whole of this magazine on the scanner, i think this covers everything. Crusties wrapped up like ewoks? check. The Secret Service? Check. Raving in war-torm climes? Check. Asylum, poverty, pirates? Everything changes, everything stays the same!

Festival Eye Summer 1996

Festival Eye Summer 1996, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Festival Eye has been going for over 20 years now. http://www.festivaleye.com/ In the earlier days it was a bit more political, as we can see here!