Watching the news right now on the May Day protest in London. The media has featured ridiculously hyped stories about 'secret anarchist organisations' and 'armed organised gangs of eco-warriors', all primed up to invade the city, which has resulted in the largest number of police I've seen since 1990's poll tax demo. They've managed to contain the protest, preventing any damage to Nike Town and its ilk, and the remaining protesters are as I write all jammed into Oxford Circus, cold and wet and probably gagging for a wee. Most shots show the protesters as skipping loonies or dodgy thugs with funny haircuts. The usual stuff.
One thing strikes me particularly here: where the hell have all these police come from? You never see police on the streets any more in London: it's rare to spot cops on the beat outside the West End, and as the stats on muggings in Leicester Square and the surrounding area show, there aren't any round there when you want them. When my family were burgled last year it took hours for police to arrive on the scene. The media, until very recently, were bleating heavily about the lack of police on the streets and the recruitment crisis. So how come thousands and thousands of police are currently out in the city? And how much crime has there consequently been elsewhere?
By some odd coincidence, there's a national general election planned in a few weeks' time. Big business, having been saved from damage by all these miraculous instant police, will presumably now keep the government in power for another term. The opposing party, purveyors of an even more noxious form of capitalism, splatter the city with posters. YOU PAID YOUR TAX (insert picture of worried old lady) SO WHERE ARE THE POLICE? and other such questions which we all ask, but which the Tories are unlikely to give us any answers to. Last week our current Labour government, according to the Metro paper, got a little wrist slap for spending £62 million (no, that's not a typing error) on advertising to combat it. Meanwhile, teachers strike and there are 94 kids in one class; doctors strike; the tube workers threaten another strike; the farming industry is in ruins, and it seems there are only police when something more important than ordinary people is threatened.
And somehow there are still people out there - probably even in here - who think that voting for one side or the other is going to change anything. Protest may not seem to achieve much. But you have to admire the protesters for at least getting off their arses to do something.
For more comprehensive news coverage of the protest try http://uk.indymedia.org/