We have been fighting to get something started in Britain, we’ve been looking to the Arabs (in a remarkable and much appreciated change in point of view), to Tahrir Square and beyond. We’ve also been chanting “London, Cairo, Wisconsin! We will fight! We will win!” We’ve looked to Greece, to Madison, and now to Occupy Wall Street for inspiration. No one here knows quite what it is that could spark the wave of reaction and protest, but most of us are sure that’s what we need just to save what our parents and grandparents won from utter destruction, much less improve it.

The Tory conference took place just over a week ago in Manchester. So, I embarked on my first-ever coach journey full of my fellow activists, and however much we disagree about almost everything, I do appreciate the Right to Work folks for arranging a 10 quid ticket up and back. We left at 7 am from Leshisham and and it was a good 5 hours up to Manchester. Awesome. We then marched as we always marched.. Manchester was a beautiful and fascinating city, their firemen were goodlooking, their people turned out in masse as far as I can tell.

Sadly, although the Guardian reported 30 to 35,000 people at the march, I must confess it never felt that there were so many. It is the problem of a march without hills, where you can never be above or below and look upon the great stretch of people who are there on the streets with you. What was most visible was the police presence. I have never seen these mobile CCTV units, nor the metal police ‘cordon’ protecting the art museum from the evil protestors. The snipers training conspicuously large guns on us as we stood at the only place you could actually see the conference centre and yelled for a bit. No one was up for much of anything else, but that was hardly surprising.

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Below are three very different dipatches from friends in London about what’s going on in the streets and in the media:

• DEPTFORD UNITED, a Lewisham activist.

• ANDREW SANCHEZ, an anthropologist.

• DAVID HARVEY, the well-known radical geographer.

DEPTFORD UNITED

The mass media reports are, as usual, not telling the whole story. The latest developments appear to be a result of a combination of factors; policing, state racism, unemployment, poverty, lack of opportunities, the increasing cycle of desperation which so many people find themselves in and of course the public sector cuts. I read in Socialist Worker online that one witness saw someone looting nappies and toilet rolls.

All of this needs to be put in some perspective. Apparently there was some looting in our local High St. but this was unconfirmed, I went to take a look–there had been no looting but I believe there was some looting in the centre of the borough. There has clearly been some disorder, burning of cars, some buildings and some looting etc. at various locations across London & some other British cities. Terrible for those people burnt out above stores, small shopkeepers affected and so on but affecting relatively small numbers of people. Disorder appears to involve relatively small numbers of young people at present. The mass media have been hyping up a disorder situation in some streets in some boroughs into “mayhem in borough x” as if the whole of borough x is affected. Disorder broke out about a mile away from me so some bloke said “don’t go up there this afternoon mate!” as he was calmly walking along the road to probably get a pint of milk or something like that. Unless it generalises into clear political demands over the next 2 days I think it will fizzle out. What counts now is justice for the murdered man’s family and social justice for the rest of us.

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Saturday’s London march was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and it was absolutely brilliant. In spite of the miles walked I was still bouncing up and down when a handful of us arrived at the Westminster Arms to toast the end of the day with the some of the folks from the Bakerloo RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) branch. We only heard last meeting that they’d affiliated to Lambeth Save Our Services, my radical home now that I’m away from SAJE, so it was grand to get to know some of them better. But that’s jumping ahead, so back to the beginning.

The call was for everyone to meet centrally, but like other more community based anti-cuts groups, we figured we’d be able to draw more people to the full march if we called a meeting point closer to home and marched from there. In spite of the TUC disowning the feeder marches, ours was a tremendous success for all the trials and tribulations. The police reported we had 5,000 people there, so you know that we had more. I’m going to miss people from this list because there were so many groups there, so apologies! Southwark SOS, Lewisham Anticuts Alliance, BARAC, Colacor, all the South London union branches, pensioners, teachers, No Cuts for Kids…and more. Amazing.

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On Saturday I marched. Again. We keep marching. They’re still cutting student funds, and raising student fees after the lib dems promised to get rid of them. Don’t we share a value in absolutely everyone having the chance to learn and grow and go as far in school as they wish, and become everything they want to be? When I was sat down in my summer-school / job program as just another ‘at risk’ youth (albeit a shy and extremely geeky ‘not-at-risk’ one) and lectured about the evils of early pregnancy and flipping burgers, I was told specifically that education was the way out. No one said a word about massive debt for life.

The point is, marches are in part about anger. We’re angry. No justice, no peace. You know how that goes. It feels good to march and yell and stop some traffic. This issue touches everyone, no one is separate from it.

Marches are also about coming together with others, about sharing the burden of that anger, and celebrating the movement made visible on a city street. What does this resistance movement means to us? A struggle for a better world, deep conversation about how to make that happen, laughter, hard work, music, old friends and new ones, generations coming together.

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London is one of my favorite cities, for its architecture, art, culture, history, diversity, grit, humour…and I am entirely in love with how all of these come together in its public spaces. I was thinking about the place I love most, an impossible question really, and realized that for me, public space isn’t quite a distinct category of plaza or building or park, but involves the flows along the street connecting them together and making them both accessible to, and used by, a wide variety of people in different ways. To me the city as a network of transportation, walkable streets, plazas, parks, and the unfolding of vistas forms the perfect public space. So I decided to give just taste of how this works in London.

I started at Embankment Gardens. I love parks that are also gardens, combining beauty with grassy spaces to sit and lie in the sun. Even on a day of light rain and sunshine like yesterday, these are full of gorgeous flowers and people: families, groups of friends, elderly couples, young lovers. And the city has recently set up a number of ping pong tables, which were in great demand and produced immense joy and laughter.

Only a minute away you find Embankment Station, across the Thames is Southbank, the Tate Gallery, the London Eye, I could have gone there but they are too shiny and new for me, I like old things. So I turned right and headed up the hill along a narrow street full of people. You pass small lunch places with a wide variety of food and businesses on top, and an array of pubs. They’re a bit dodgy here really, but there are some really nice ones in the area. I could write a whole other blog on the joys of pubs, but we’re about to arrive at the main attraction. You pass alongside St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a beautiful church with some of the most amazing classical concerts you can find, at the top of broad steps that you can always sit on to rest and enjoy the view. Because across the road you come up to the National Gallery

An amazing art gallery. Like most of London’s museums it is free to the public, which allows you to wander in for an hour and wander out again, gradually working your way through the wonders of the world without getting gallery overload. There are plenty of places to sit, eat, and chat outside. And if you turn left you see the square proper

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