I decided to start the day by following the Silver Horse to symbolise that I was running late and it was the easiest for me to get to. When I arrived at London Bridge the march had already assembled and had begun to move off. There were less the 1000 people in the march so the police moved in to kettle the group in a moving cordon followed by several police vans.
As the march got halfway across London Bridge blocking the southbound carriageway the police stopped it moving forward. The police then went into the crowd to forcibly remove the masks of protesters so they could be identified and photographed by the Forward Intelligence Team. This process looked like it was going to go on for quite some time so I went on ahead to the Bank of England / Royal Exchange. When I arrived at around 11:40 none of the 4 horsemen had arrived but there were around 1000 people (mostly press) mingling around. The police had erected crowd control/crash barriers to separate the Royal Exchange courtyard from Cornhill and Threadneedle streets. There were police in soft uniform lining those crash barriers and dozens of police vans waiting in support along side streets such as Princes street, Cheapside and Queen Victoria street. At this point I got distracted by something and wandered off across Southwark Bridge. By the time I returned to the Bank at around 12:15 all of the four marches had arrived. The police were using soft cordons to try and keep the four groups separate and had established a porous cordon around the entire area. Then at around 12:40 the police began to withdraw from inside the cordoned area and stopped people passing through the outer cordon sealing the Kettle. They then brought up police vans in support of that cordon.
Next the police vans were turned side on preventing onlookers from seeing what was going on within the kettle. More officers, some with NATO helmets and short shields, then got out of the vans and lined up to establish an outer cordon. These two cordons then pushed out from the police vans in opposite direction in order to establish a so called sterile area.
This process of separating groups of friends coupled with the fact the police did it by pushing, punching and kicking people raised the tension. This led to scuffles with the police in which batons were used and missiles were thrown. With the kettle firmly closed and the adrenaline pumping the protesters heard that the Climate Camp Protest had successfully set up on Bishopsgate at the other end of Threadneedle Street. A group then decided that they were going to attempt to push through police lines and link up with the Climate Camp. Having no desire to get involved in this I retreated to the Threadneedle Street / Bishopsgate junction. This was not the best vantage point but from where I was standing it seemed that the 200+ police officer, 25 police vans and 10 police horses were having no trouble whatsoever repelling the charge of underweight vegans. At this point I went off to see what was going on at the Climate Camp itself and that is a whole other post. Although I did not see it myself I believe that at around 13:15 the police took the interesting decision to withdraw their cordon 20-30 metres back along Threadneedle street. This put the branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland with the mysteriously un-boarded up windows firmly within the Kettle. You've all seen what happened next.
I then went off to see what was happening with the Stop The War Coalition march assembling outside the US Embassy which again is a whole other post. When I returned to the Bank of England demonstration at around 15:30 the atmosphere had noticeably changed. The first thing I noticed was several ambulances lined up along Gracechurch street. The ambulance crews looked as though they'd been kept busy over the last few hours running a sort of field dressing station. All the police were now in full riot gear wearing NATO helmets and carrying circular, short, shields. There was a sense from the groups of exhausted protesters and police officers littering the pavements that this was a lull in the fighting and boredom had begun to set in. I then nipped into a pub to have a beer and watch the news to catch up on what had happened in the G20 summit itself. While in the pub I decided it was time to go home because I had to cook the kid's dinner. As I was walking to the station I noticed several worrying incidents. The first was a Metropolitan Police officer swearing at, spitting at and generally goading passers-by on, I believe King street. Next on Queen Victoria street the line of riot police were withdrawing 50-60 metres back towards the Royal Exchange. This caused members of the public to follow them as it appeared the street was being re-opened. Ahead of the advancing public, up one of the side-streets, there was a large deployment of riot police who looked ready to spring out and form a new cordon.
To me this seemed like an attempt by the police to draw as many people as possible into the Kettle. I did not stick around to find out what happened next.
The final thing I saw before I left the area was a City of London Police dog handler violently shaking his own van. This is an old police trick I remember from my football days. The idea is that the dogs inside the vans will get whipped up into such a frenzy that the moment they are let out they will viciously attack the first thing they see. It is normally a sign that the police are about to move in and give someone, anyone, an absolute fucking kicking and yes that is the technical term.
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