I thought a new thread was needed to put together different impressions from the various demos that took place today.
I had an interesting day today, and never even made it to the student demo. I went with Ernie to the sparks' demo at the Shard where there were a few hundred sparks and others. Open mic with some fairly off the cuff speeches and lively responses. There were comrades from Haringey Solidarity and some from South London Solfed and one of the latter plucked up the courage to speak about the need to keep things under rank and file control. I spoke after him to back him up, but by this point the small sound system being used had been switched off and replaced by a bigger one laid on for the union bureaucrats including Len Mcluskey. It was very noticeable that these long speeches were listened to without much response, and they killed any possibility of a discussion. Their whole emphasis was on the need to go to parliament, although others had already pointed out that the students were on the march today and stressed the need to unite with other workers on the 30th. They had also appealed to building workers watching us from the Shard to join the demo
We then marched to Blackfriars and there were more speeches. At the end of the speeches there was some uncertainty about what was happening next, but although a number of the sparks went off to Westminster a break away group decided to walk at some speed up New Bridge Street to join up with the students. We were met with a line of police who tried to block us off, but about half of us eluded them; those who were at the rear got kettled. There was one partially successful attempt to push through this but the police then reinforced the line and about 100 sparks and others were then kettled while the rest of us kind of blocked the road and wondered what to do next. Some of us went off down Fleet Street to find the students and get reinforcements, but by this time the police had also blocked off Fleet Street. Ernie and I went off to St Pauls to take a look at the Occupation and tell them what had happened, although the majority had already gone off to the student demo. We then tried to join up with the student demo but found every street blocked. The police presence was very heavy, with riots gear, mounted police, and odd people being arrested by plains clothes and riot police just for walking about near the demo. On the plus side the spirit of solidarity at the sparks' demo was very good, especially after the police waded in - all sorts of impromptu discussions and a real will to come to the aid of the people who had been kettled.
We gave out a two sided leaflet containing a general thing on the occupations and the struggle against the system, and a more specific article about the electricians. Some other ICC comrades had been to the sparks demo early in the morning or had gone to the student demo.
http://en.internationalism.org/worldrevolution/201111/4563/struggle-against-capitalism-struggle-between-classes
http://en.internationalism.org/worldrevolution/201111/4566/electricians-solidarity-across-industries-key
, one f' libcom tv?
The student march: under control. 1 cop for every 2 and half marchers. There was very little chance of things kicking off (although I heard of a breakaway black block or two tussling with the pigs and I was caught in one very short kettle).
Most interestingly: the effort by the state/City of London/the Met and TSG to keep the sparks and students apart. There was that one bit where the students could have kept marching to meet up both with the St. Paul's occupiers and the sparks, but it was blocked at military levels. That in itself is pretty significant.
The highlight: construction workers obviously taking an non-contracted break to wave arms in support--to much applause from the march.