Violence. Britain's Only Language.

Ahead of expected Mayday protests this weekend today has seen two interesting events. First the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) have been ordered to pay £85,000 compensation to five protesters who were arrested at a demonstration outside the Mexican Embassy in 2006. The compensation was awarded after the court ruled the five had been illegally arrested, unlawfully detained for forty hours and then maliciously prosecuted. The event that got the most media attention though was Haringey Council's decision to sack a social worker and three managers over the Baby P case. Cecilia Hitchen was sacked for a "loss of trust and confidence" while Maria Ward, Gille Christou and Clive Preece were dismissed for gross misconduct over the case in which they sat back and watched while a 17 month old child was tortured to death.

Both of these cases, along with the killing of Ian Tomlinson, were expected to fuel widespread violence at this weekends protests. The decision to take such dramatic action so close to the protests seems to be an attempt to diffuse tensions using a tactic known as de-escalation. De-escalation is a public order technique widely used by the British Police and the general idea is to allow an aggressive crowd to score some small and largely symbolic victories like burning a flag of hanging a banner in order to give them a sense of accomplishment that will discourage them from taking further action. Perhaps the most public example of the de-escalation strategy was the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith's decision to declassify the Hillsbourogh documents early in the wake of Ian Tomlinson's death at the G20 protests.

Of course both of these events only represent small victories for the protesters because the police, who have a long history of defying court orders, won't actually pay a penny of the compensation nor will any of those sacked from Haringey be prosecuted instead getting soft landings with a generous pensions or new cushy government jobs. It does however demonstrate Britain's attitude to negotiation; If you co-operate with them they'll laugh at you, If you speak to them nicely they'll stare at you blankly, if you threaten violence they'll make concessions and if you actually use violence they'll cave in straight away. The whole business could even be considered a British endorsement of violent protest because the Mayday demonstrators have already scored five victories before anyone's even pulled on a balaclava.

Compare that the the Ghurka's campaign. For decade these Nepalese soldiers who serve with the British Army have been campaigning for the right to live in the country they've risked their lives defending. So far their long running campaign has managed to unify both the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in a strange coalition that today defeated the ruling Labour party in a Parliamentary vote on the issue. The only reward they received for their efforts was a promise to speed up the naturalisation process for those Ghurkas who have already been granted the right to settle. While I wish the Ghurkas every success in their campaign I fear they are doomed to failure. After all they still make the mistake of saluting the Monarch even though it is the Monarch not the government of the day who's stopping them settling in the UK.