Stop The War Coalition G20 March.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts I left the Climate Camp protest at around 13:45 and headed straight for Grovesnor Square where the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) were assembling outside the US Embassy before marching to Trafalgar Square. To say I went straight there isn't exactly true. I actually got the Tube to the Embankment and stopped by a pub to rest my feet and quench my thirst. After about 20 minutes I made my way up to Trafalgar square and not really looking where I was going almost clattered into four police officers carrying machine guns. If they'd been walking a little further to the right or if I'd looked up a moment later this could have led to an incident that would have taken quite some explaining. As it happenend the police couldn't get any further to the right and I fortunately remained un-shot carrying on by way of Haymarkets and Shaftsbury Avenue. At Cambridge circus I realised I got a little bit lost and headed back along Shaftsbury Avenue and Piccadilly before cutting up through the Mayfair backstreets to Grovesnor Square. In spite of this little diversion when I arrived at the Embassy the STWC march still had not moved of with about 750 people assembled.

What can I say? It was standard Socialist Worker Party (SWP) fare; wave a pre-approved placard, sign a petition, buy a newspaper and don't dare do anything that might actually change things. Most of the protesters seem to have been gathered from the SWP's sister organisation the Muslim Council of Great Britain (MCB) and were waving placards calling on America to help the Palestinians and bring peace to the middle east. After about another 15 minutes or so the group still hadn't formed up into a march so I got bored and decided I'd go and wait for them in Trafalgar square. As I was leaving I almost got run over by what I presume was a Saudi motorcade which was just leaving the Embassy. The occupants of the vehicle's looked less then happy so I can only assume that the meeting did not go well. As the Saudis are one of the regional power brokers in the Arab / Israeli conflict it looks like by protesting outside the US Embassy the STWC might actually have made things worse.

After another shambolic walk through London I found myself sitting in a pub just off Trafalgar square listening while the pub bore gave a loud and incorrect lecture on the G20 summit and three police riot vans stood guard outside in their now standard Sovereign's gone to the pub formation. I then went outside and saw stragglers milling around SWP stalls in Trafalgar square. I therefore, wrongly, assumed that the march had arrived and broken up so I headed back to the protests at the Bank of England.

I'm sorry if this is the shortest of all my G20 reports but nothing really happened and the whole thing was a bit rubbish really.