May Day - What's the Craic?

There will be an IWW presence (banner, stall) at the Edinburgh MayDay on the 29th April (!). There's the May 1st unofficial demo in Glasgow and the May 7th TU demo which I dare say some anarchists and a few wobs will attend. It's been a bit quiet...

Haven't missed a Mayday in 6 years and wasn't about to break that this year. So went along to Buchanan St for 1pm. Fair few folk, but not as many as previous couple of years. No sign of a soundsystem. Good spirits. Cops around the outside, but not /too/ bad.

Finally we set off about 2 o'clock. Cops blocked us in in Nelson Mandella Place. Seemed quite random and arsey of them - it really was just a bunch of folk having a moving party and there was no trouble. Finally they let us move on again, but stopped us a couple more times before we got to Charing Cross. They actually totally surrounded us and we were walking in a bubble of cops. Individuals could mostly go through the line but the cops would randomly also be arsey and not let you through.

When asked under what law we were being detained (during the /long/ periods when they were just holding us still) I was told repeatedly that there was no law they were using, nor a specific police power. Course there wasn't much I could do with the knowledge that we were being held in effect illegally as they were many, and there were children etc with us so we needed to keep it fluffy.

Actually, everyone on the demo stayed in remarkably good spirits, dancing to the drums and soundsystem when it finally caught us up. The clowns were there, as they have been on many other events since the G8 and provided a welcome distraction and lightening of the atmosphere.

As we went up through Anderston (if it extends up behind the Mitchell to the university area - otherwise don't know what that area is called) the folk in the working class area we were going through asking what was going on, what all the police were dong there etc. I had some good conversations with locals about how if you were mugged or whatever and you called them the police wouldn't come but here there were so many just for a party. The folks on the demo looked so obviously fluffy with children, silly costumes etc. Even the folks with bandanas on looked just part of the party.

Into the park, again the police trying to be as intimidating as possible, making us walk practically in single file through a corridor of them.

But then the sun reappeared, the tunes went on and we danced till the sun went down.

No arrests, no severe injuries (just minor folks being roughly handled by cops)

Nice day. Good to mark Mayday. Shame about the overbearing cops.

Hah! Half of us were still dancing in the park! You can't stop the workers having the day off on 1st May! Not even for a chalkboard meeting. :naughty: ancing:

Thank you. Now we just need a cheeky wee protruding tongue such as please!

Ay. They're short of cash but they are also planning to look for better premises and will continues to meet, so it's not all bad news.