So just as predicted if not required there was it seems a certain amount of trouble at todays G20 protests. Having been sat at home working I can only go by the reports sent in by the BBC, blogs and other media outlets. Which probably gives me as much authority to comment as most people we’ll see on TV or read in the papers.
Apart from the numpties that tried to bring an armoured car into the city, which I’d expect to encounter no small degree of interest even on the best of days. Especially when it does look so very confusingly like a real police vehicle:
The rest of the reported violence seems to have been to at least some extent remarkably staged managed, here we have a spontaneous bit of violence surrounded by a veritable wall of photographers.
So it would seem that someone at least was making sure that the reporters got good images of things kicking off. There are also reports of “masked black clad” demonstrators running to the more peaceful bits of the demo (the climate camp) to make the atmosphere there more aggressive.
Given the banks that were attacked are already being bailed out by the Government, one way or another this was effectively state sponsored violence against state property. Even if the state didn’t directly provide a detailed script. With Barricades and fires being set up in the city there should be plenty more action for the mornings papers, certainly enough to drive any talk of expenses or problems at the G20 summit from the front pages. What remains to be seen is if how much more nonsense tomorrow will bring and if we’ll discover whose agenda this is all serving.
I do find myself left with one question still, what are these protesters actually protesting about? Given the mixture of interest groups and banners on display it seems that either:
a) G20 is just a convenient event for people with little to no commno ground to protest at
or
b) The protest is in favour of “Something being done” and “down with that sort of thing”
