Wednesday 30th November 2011

Today was strike day.

As those of us picketing were expected to do so between 8:00 and 10:30am I got up at 5:30 and wearily got through the daily palavar of my physio exercises before having a slight crisis over what to wear for the day. Not in the sartorial sense, purely in the ‘should I wear a jumper?’ sense. After breakfast (always start a long day with porridge) I headed out to the bus stop and immediately cursed myself for not going for a jumper in the end and put my long sleeved fingerless gloves on to make up for it…

Oxford Road train station and the Cornerhouse

It was still dark when I arrived in Manchester so I walked fairly quickly down Portland Street and Oxford Road, taking in the mise-en-scene. The first picket I saw was a PCS picket nearish Portland Tower, followed by a UCU Salford one just down the road. On Oxford Road there was an MMU picket for either UCU, Unison, or both outside John Dalton building. A bus driver honked as he went past, and it was presumably a positive honk as one of the pickets raised his placard in salute.

It was gradually getting light as I moved down Oxford Road, and by the time I’d passed the picket outside the Tin Can it was pretty much daylight.

I arrived at my own building not long after eight, where I was greeted by three of my colleagues who had beaten me to the union office (for flyers etc) by mere minutes. There were no union reps about so one of my colleagues had stepped into the breach and was organising things herself, despite having only ever been involved in one other strike action before. We appeared to have been left to get on with it, so we got on with it and were pleased to be joined later by a further four colleagues.

So far as successful picketing went, we weren’t that successful as the only two people we persuaded not to cross the picket line were two people who’d already decided not to. We got a lot of indifference from people, including colleagues, and were blanked by a lot of people as well (again, including colleagues) but we did also get some supportive noises and good luck messages from people, even if they did cross our picket line. We were also given homemade chocolate chip cookies by a young UCU picket, coffee (unofficially) from staff, and tea from an ex colleague who is now a student.

We left for the union meeting/breakfast at Kro safe in the knowledge that we’d done the best we could with what resources we had, and that at least we’d now be fed and be able to get warm. Alas such was the turnout that Kro were completely overwhelmed, and the service was so slow that we had to leave for the march before most of us had had our drinks and food. We were in a minority of people leaving, as I don’t think everyone intended to march, or at least, not until they’d had their breakfast.

We had missed the student feeder march which left from All Saints park, so we hopped a bus and tried to get as far down Oxford Road as possible before hopping off and walking as fast as we possibly could in the direction of Liverpool Road.

As we got closer, we could hear the noise: a sonic sea of whistles and instuments that may or may not have belonged to the vuvuzela family. The sea of people was pretty damn admirable too, and it was headed up by a row of mounted police in high visibility gear. They weren’t allowed to strike themselves, so were on official business, but they looked magnificent. On studying the horses later in Whitworth Park, I noticed that they had the equine body armour equivalent of shin pads on, which suggested – along with the usual helmets – that caution was being employed. Either that or the police were worried that the horses knees might get cold.

Liverpool Road

The march literally set off from Liverpool Road as we arrived, so we carefully inserted ourselves in amongst a group of ambulance staff. I can’t remember the exact route of the march, but we did Deansgate and the area between Deansgate and Albert Square. The reception from people on the streets was pretty good, and there were quite a few points on the march where people had lined the streets and were applauding as we marched past. Albert Square was one point where this happened, but there were points prior to that, and after that too.

One low point was going past the banks/commerce area on Deansgate, where someone had hung a banner from an upper storey office block which read “Why should we pay for public sector greed?” This caused a lot of booing and hissing, plus one Unison bloke was so irate that he shouted “WANKERS!” persistently and loudly until we had passed. RBS’ offices, which had their own police guard on the doors, got even more boos.

RBS under guard

There was a nice part of the march immediately after these incidents when we came to pause for a few minutes by the John Rylands Library. Given that we weren’t going anywhere, we took it in turns to pose for pictures with our placards outside it’s magnificent Victorian facade.

John Rylands Library, Deansgate

Albert Square, what with the Christmas markets and decorations around the town hall, was very picturesque. We were applauded by crowds on the pavements here, which was a very touching and moving experience after the indifference encountered on our picket earlier.

Albert Square

Portland Street also went well, and soon we were on Oxford Road again. We had heard via a friend whilst going through Albert Square that our own building was possibly in lockdown, and we speculated as we marched as to whether it might have something, or nothing, to do with the frankly adorable bunch of students we’d left looking after the site of our picket at half ten.

That aside, the overall student response on Oxford Road was pretty disappointing, but we’d already concluded that those most likely to be engaged with the days events were probably on the march anyway. The response we got at the hospital end of Oxford Road as we headed for Whitworth Park was much better, as you would expect: lots of staff watching and applauding.

It took a long time to get everyone from the march into Whitworth Park for the speeches, which were polemical and rabble rousing in character, as was befitting the situation. I liked the UCU woman and the NHS Salford woman best. The UCU woman had great charisma and rhetoric, and the NHS Salford lady was wonderfully articulate and to the point. And very brave as well given she apparently hadn’t spoken to a crowd that big before.

After that, it was all over. Most of our colleagues had parted company with us pre Whitworth Park, so that just left three of us. We walked wearily back down Oxford Road and took refuge in a café where we had a long overdue cup of tea and compared digital camera pictures whilst discussing what we felt we could have done better so far as our picket was concerned. Since we’d been pretty much left to our own devices with it, and none of us had organised a picket before, we thought we’d done really well. But now we know we will have to organise it all ourselves then we’ll prepare accordingly next time.

The unions reckon 30,000 people marched today in Manchester, and I’ll be interested to see if this figure matches or differs from figures in the media and, if so, by how much and in which respect.

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Protest songs: 90′s and teenies

Watching the Marivaux’s video for their debut single ‘Horns’, all proceeds from which will be donated to the Student Hardship Fund, I couldn’t help be reminded of the 90′s state of the nation address that was The Family Cat’s ‘Bring Me The Head Of Michael Portillo’

The Family Cat record was pre-internet, and was subject to a government ban (as was it’s follow up ‘Jonathan Aitkin is a twat’) but the Marivaux song appears to have largely slid under the radar.

Will more protest songs follow? and will they be any good?

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2nd October 2011

Feral underclass against the Tories

Today was the big march/protest in Manchester, called by the TUC but supported by a much wider base of groups. The main march was from Liverpool Road off Deansgate to GMEX where the Conservative Party conference is being held this week, but I’d heard that there was going to be a feeder march from University Place on Oxford Road and, given I’d enjoyed marching with the students last year, I decided to march from there instead.

The crowd by University Place didn’t seem that big when I arrived, but the police were out in large numbers again. Having said that, I think a lot of the mounted police were there to clear Oxford Road before moving on to other parts of the main march. We also had official observers this time, who were clearly labelled as such, and who were giving out ‘bus cards’ containing legal advice and phone numbers in the event of arrest.

The students had a giant black bird-like creature, made largely from bin bags and held aloft by giant poles. It had a pair of scissors for a beak and was called ‘The Culture Vulture’. There was also two or three mobile sound systems, a few people with drums, and quite a few protesters with dreadlocks. I’d say that the crowd was a mixture of students from both universities, academic staff, and unionists from both universities, plus some sixth formers and members of the public. Around half eleven a particularly boisterous young NHS contingent arrived, and my friend laughed upon getting a text from one of his friends to say that said NHS contingent had arrived fresh from chasing Tory delegates around the back of their hotel. Another of our friends arrived as the speeches were going on.

The speeches were a bit of a mixed bag as a lot of the speakers were from student groups, or the student union, and as such weren’t necessarily practised public speakers. The woman from UCU was probably the best, and there was also a speaker from Unison. The last of the speakers was an impassioned sixth former from Xavarian College, who was still speaking as we slowly began to form up and move out onto Oxford Road.

By this point we’d begun to collect an impressive amount of leaflets and flyers for various groups, including one for the current Jarrow March, which is taking place 75 years after ‘Red’ Ellen Wilkinson led the original marchers to London. The march is going on now, and whilst not passing through Manchester, will be passing through Sheffield next weekend. It is due to arrive in London on the 5th November, and the final leg of the march will be from Temple Embankment to Trafalger Square.

I picked up so many leaflets and flyers that, very quickly, I had to start decanting them into my bag. Upon arriving home and emptying my bag out I found three ‘Occupy! 2/10 Manchester Against The Cuts’ flyers, two flyers advertising a single by a band called Marivaux Horns, the profits of which will go to the student hardship fund, one flyer for an SWP meeting on Marx, Crisis and Revolution, one which was a timetable of discussions by the Northern Communist Forums at the Friends Meeting House, one flyer for the NHS Health Bill protest next Sunday (9th) in London (a protest called by UK Uncut, which is supported by Unite, Right To Work, Health Worker Network, and the NHS), one for the co-ordinated strikes on November 30th, another one about the 30th November but from Right To Work, one from Youth Fight For Jobs about the Jarrow March, and a massive Coalition of Resistance Newsletter.  When I emptied my pockets out, I also found DAN – the Disabled Peoples Direct Action Network (email contact only, to join the mailing list, danmail-subscribe@yahoogroups.com , and the Education Activist Network as well. I think I missed being given a few here and there, but had my friends and I emptied our bags out and compared notes, I think between us we would have had everything.

There was a young cub reporter from Key 103 moving around the crowd  by University Place, and that crowd was a lot bigger by the time we set out at about 11:50. Whilst there were a lot of people with cameras by University Place, the media seemed fairly low key and the police seemed friendly.

Progress down Oxford Road was slow and a bit clumsy, mainly due to the size of the group I think. We got approached by a woman from the BBC not long after setting off, who asked us if we were students. Two of us exchanged looks whilst the other confessed, yes, he was a student. They went off towards the very back of the march, but from what he said later his answers were probably too intelligent and literate to get used.

I’m not very sure of the route we took, but I know we turned off Oxford Road by McDonalds and started heading towards Deansgate. There seemed to be a period where it felt as though we were going round and round the town hall from various directions, but it’s probably more likely that we just went down every side street possible between Oxford Road and GMEX. Deansgate was good though: Our feeder march ended up in the middle of the whole march, which stretched all the way down Deansgate.

Culture vulture in flight on Deansgate

The Occupy! set peeled off at Albert Square whilst everyone else continued marching towards the party conference at GMEX. It was around this point that some protesters spotted some Tory delegates leaving their hotel and swarmed towards them, chanting ‘SCUM! SCUM! SCUM!’ and waving placards. We were near the back whilst this was going on, so we didn’t actually see much, just some men in suits trying to get through the crowd and a swarm of people in front of us.

The media were very much in evidence throughout the march, as were the police, and there was a helicopter overhead constantly throughout. Was it a police helicopter? or did it belong to Sky News?  As we passed GMEX both media and police were present and visible in high numbers. I noticed that the nearer we got to the conference the older and more expensively dressed the journalists became. I also, throughout the march generally, noticed two different police forces (GMP and Lancashire) plus Tactical Aid and police CCTV vans, all in significant numbers. I had my picture taken and got filmed a lot, so I made a big effort to look smiley, approachable and peaceful.

By the time we came to GMEX we were very, very strong...

Some of the marchers had brought their kids with them, and I spotted a toddler asleep on her mums shoulders at one point. I also spotted marchers representing Unite, UCU, the NHS (including a contingent from Leeds), and some WOBS (no, we didn’t know either, but it sounded cool) from Sheffield.

When we passed through Saint Peter’s Square there was a confusingly delivered call for all banners to be lowered until we were past the tramlines, which we eventually worked out was so that no one with a particularly high flying one would get themselves electrocuted by catching it on the overhead wires.

When we got past GMEX, the field was full of stalls and a stage had been set up at the far end for the speeches. We were starving and in desperate need of the loo by then though, so we headed over to Piccadilly for food, tea and relief.

Afterwards we headed back over to Albert Square to see how the occupation was getting on, and passed a group of people just off Saint Peter’s Square, who were petting and feeding the police horses. It probably did nothing for the animals digestions, but probably helped their nerves.  In Albert Square there were quite a lot of people sitting around whilst a smaller group played football as a soundsystem played Junior Murvin’s ‘Police And Thieves’.

After a bit of this we headed back towards GMEX, but people were heading back over to Albert Square by then as everything by the conference had finished. We  saw a very exuberant and slightly scary group of figures in David Cameron masks at this point, and not long after whilst we were heading back to Albert Square we got snarled at by a bloke in a grey suit, ‘If you push that in my face I’ll ‘ave yer!’ being the broad translation. This was ironic in that the incident occurred as we were strolling along with our placards unconsiously held at half mast, not really protesting demonstratively at that point.

Albert Square again

Things had livened up a bit by the time we got back to Albert Square again, but the rain was coming down quite hard by then. People danced to the sound system, now playing old school rave, under canvas held aloft on poles whilst protesters in harnesses scaled wet lamposts to hang banners. One of the banners already hung on the opposite side of the square read ‘If they won’t let us dream, we won’t let them sleep’, a reference to an idea put across on their flyers: that if enough protesters were in the square by nightfall, they would try to maintain a presence in the square throughout the night and see that the delegates in their nearby hotels didn’t get any sleep.

If you won't let us dream, we won't let you sleep

The police presence was robust but friendly at the point when we left, but I don’t fancy the occupations chances of an all night knees up: too many police, not enough protesters.

I overheard a nice conversation on the bus on the way home between a group of sixth formers who’d been on the march and one of their friends, who hadn’t. The one who hadn’t told them his mum had voted for David Cameron, and he freely admitted that he probably would have done too because he ”didn’t know anything about politics”. But since the election, and the protests, he’s done a lot of reading, he’s educated himself, and now knows a lot more about politics. He’d had a deadline though, so he hadn’t marched.

One of the group of boys who had been on the march got off at the same stop as me. He turned off down a side road just before I reached home, still carrying his placard.

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Roscoe Occupation: The Return…

The occupation at the Roscoe Building at Manchester University is now into day 5, and chalked urls for their website can be spotted on Oxford Road and around campus. I first spotted one yesterday or the day before, at the same time as a student. We both paused by Manchester Museum, turned around, and read the url. ‘They must be up to something again’ I said. ‘Oh, great…’ she replied, in not entirely enthusiastic tones.

Today the Socialist Equality Party were out and about, and I talked with an earnest but sincere volunteer near the library….

You can read more about the Roscoe Occupation here:

http://roscoeoccupation.com

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EMA Protests – really this time. 19th in London, 26th nationally, 29th in Manchester and London

From SCHNews:

“Labour politicians have now put forward a motion to push a vote on
the decision to scrap the EMA payments, and a date for the vote has
been set for the 19th January. Campaign groups are calling for
students to rally outside parliament on the day of the vote – meet at
4pm at Piccadilly Circus to march on parliament at 5pm.

Another date for your anarchist diary is the 26th of January, when a
national day of walkouts has been planned for schools, colleges and universities across the country. Demonstrations have also been
organised in London and Manchester for the 29th – a Saturday,
giving workers the opportunity to join the fun. The walkouts and demos
will go ahead no matter what the outcome of the vote on the
19th.Campaigners are calling for students to join the actions and
refuse to let parliament snatch away the only support available for
people on low incomes to go into further education.”

*www.anticuts.com
www.schnews.org.uk (more students and stories here)

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Student Action Group at MMU today and tomorrow

From SCHNews, wish I’d found out about this sooner…

“ Network X, a gathering of non-hierarchical action groups is taking
place this weekend (15th/16th January) at MMU – Manchester
Metropolitan’s Student Union. Go along to join a working group
for action planning on cuts action, environmentalism, human rights and
anti-capitalism campaigns and meet the network of UK-based collectives
working on these issues. See www.networkxuk.wordpress.com“

http://www.schnews.org.uk/

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EMA vote/protests (via SCHNews)

Spotted this in this weeks SCHNews, expect everyone on Facebook already knows about it, but if not…

“The Tory scum and their treacherous Lib Dem lackeys have already
voted on their plans to jack up the cost of attending university, and
now stage two in their plans to brutalise the education system is
about to pass. On January 11th, Parliament will vote on scrapping
Education Maintenance Allowances – support payments made to help
the poorest with the costs of education. But as with the fees, the
young and the angry aren’t ready to quit just yet. Mass school
and college walk-outs followed by a demo is what’s planned for
London and activists are encouraging people around the country to
follow suit.

* For more information or help email againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com or
ring 07775 763 750 or see emacampaign.org.uk for campaign materials. “

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Harry Potter and the Student Protests

In the end, it hasn’t been the knowing, self-referential, and media referential placard slogans, such as ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Thatcher’ that have marked the tone of the student protests out as different, nor has it been the age of the protesters. The 2002 and 2003 Stop The War protests against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq included a number of under 18′s only demos, and inspired placard slogans such as ‘Leave Him Tony, He’s Not Worth It’ and ‘Every Time We Bomb Iraq A Kitten Dies’, and on the student left there’s also been student occupations in sympathy with those in Gaza in the past 12 months. No, what is new is the presence of Harry Potter on the marches.

Think about it for more than a few minutes, and anyone familiar with either the books, the films, or both will see that the attraction is irresistable: The good vs evil, with shades of grey, narrative, the young vs old motif that is linked to this (The Death Eaters are, after all, mostly of an older generation to Harry and co), plus the educational link: the threats to Hogwarts throughout the Potter chronicles are frequently conveyed as being just as serious as the threat to the characters themselves. Perhaps crucially though, it’s also suggested throughout the books that many of those at Hogwarts, despite it being an exclusive boarding school, are there on merit and despite bank balance: No one asked the Weasley’s to pay £9,000 a year per child we are to presume.

This isn’t the first, or presumably the last, time that the Potter books and their author have been used for political ends. Remember how both the Labour and Conservative parties courted JK Rowling for endorsement in the run up to the 2001 General Election? Given Rowlings failure to endorse either, it is perhaps apt that Harry Potter has become the poster boy for the student protests.

The NME recently penned a piece lamenting the lack of a soundtrack to the student protests, recognising that youth rebellion in whatever form usually comes accompanied by a suitably revolutionary soundtrack, and that this is as important as, if not more so, than the reading list. I did see  ’Cam out, Gaga In’ on a placard in Manchester on the 30th, but compared to the number of placards mentioning or referencing Harry Potter, it’s nothing.

Let’s get the obvious point in quickly: Nobody was ever going to be inspired to March, riot, or scream ‘TORY SCUM!’ by Coldplay or any X Factor alumni. I’ll admit that at the height of ‘Clocks’ over exposure I did consider smashing up the TV on a regular basis, but that was out of despair, not rebellion. NME has John Lennon on the cover this week, and despite it being the anniversary of his death, I can’t help think that his presence on the cover suggests more than they would probably like to admit: Possibly that there’s a strong yearning for the rebellious rock stars of the past in their office.

The tone adopted by many of the writers and commenters in the Guardian displays a related nostalgia: for the strikes and protests of the 1980′s, as well as a barely concealed glee that The Yoof have woken from their slumbers and are well and truly kicking against the pricks, whilst at least acknowledging that The Yoof are getting well and truly kicked by the pricks as well. There’s something a bit questionable about people standing on the sidelines and yelling ‘Go on! Yeah! Revolution!’ from the safety of their West London penthouses, as they hide behind the lucrative security of their media careers. I have noticed that it isn’t the Guardian stalwarts on the marches, in their thermals, dodging batons to cover the days events: it’s the cub reporters. Whilst that is how it should be, it does make the pose adopted by star columnists such as Suzanne Moore harder to take.

I’m very conscious in writing this of being both 31 and of having only been on one of the demos. My aforementioned protesting friend (see earlier posts) did make it to London yesterday, he is a PHD student, and has been involved with the Roscoe Occupation as well as the marches. I texted him last night to see if he was O.K. He replied “On coach, unhurt. Only a third of us made it back, everyone else got kettled. Numerous accounts of police brutality. Lots of protesters injured.” I have checked the Roscoe blog, but it hasn’t been updated since before yesterday, so can only assume that they’ve either been evicted, or are still in London. Fond regards whichever is the case.

Whilst the only (one can only assume coincidental) outcome of the NME’s yearning for a soundtrack to the student protests so far has been the uniting of Morrissey and Marr for the first time in years, not in support of the students but in banning David Cameron from liking The Smiths, Billy Bragg has been supporting the students, but it’s getting to the point now where musical support, much like NUS support, seems to be one of those things that is just detail. The students have utilised Facebook, their blogs, and twitter, as well as text messaging and the more traditional pickets, posters and flyers to recruit supportors, and they’ve done it largely without the support of their union, so the support of a few musicians and columnists is also, presumably, addition not necessity.

As for their poster boy, well, Marx is useful sometimes, but often dismissed, and the Suffragettes in this case are seen as only partly representative. The boy wizard serves as a sort of catch all everyprotester: Beyond class, beyond gender, the quintassential hero, battling evil.

(Note: Since I wrote this, the Roscoe Occupation have been back online. You can read of their response to the fees bill being voted through at http://roscoeoccupation.wordpress.com/  and they also discuss their current and future plans)

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Tuesday 30th November

I woke up to find that it had snowed at last, or should that be inevitably? It looked very pretty, but was definitely more than a little chilly, despite the bright sunshine.

Bright snow, blue skies

Today was the second round of student protests, and I arrived at University Place at 12 midday on the dot. En route from Grosvenor Street I saw an awful lot of police, including several vans and a number of mounted police, which only increased in presence the nearer I got to University Place. The crowd by the tin can was somewhat sparser than last week, and the mood was a bit different too: a lot quieter, and not so eager or excited. The organisers tried to get people geared up with the chant ”You say cutback, we say fightback!” plus there was a little bit of rapping, and a spirited new chant: “He’s got the EMA in his hands, and he wants the fucking lot!” The police seemed friendly enough, some were smiling and talking to students. I spotted some of the schoolkids from last week, who seemed wary but still dedicated. There were some excitable sixth formers who, bored with waiting for the march to start (this seemed to be an issue last week too) and, spotting some fellow sixth formers, began to chuck snowballs. The other sixth formers soon reciprocated, and it wasn’t long before the sporadic chants were accompanied by speedy and ferociously accurate volleys of snowballs: I detected at least one future England bowler in the ranks. Soon, the university students were joining in, and then, at last, it was time to march.

As we headed out onto Oxford Road, we almost immediately marched into a car that had stopped, unable to move now that a seething mass of protesters were heading towards, around, and past it. The youngish (20′s, 30′s) occupants wound the windows down and waved cheerily at us as we walked past. Some of us waved back. Shortly after this, I overheard an initially friendly, then increasingly cagey, discussion between one of the students and one of the police concerning a statement made by the GMP chief, concerning use of “reasonable force.”

The mounted police by Kilburn building watched us pass, and the bridge linking both sides of the Business School across Booth Street East and Booth Street West was full of people, some leaning out of windows, watching and taking pictures. As we approached MMU, I overheard a couple of the students discussing what could only be described as a new interpretation or meaning for the phrase ‘Riot Girl’: Apparently The Daily Mail had printed a picture of a girl rioting at one of the marches, and ran a ‘ladies don’t riot’ type story with it. Dear me, how quaint…

As we passed All Saints park, I came to be standing next to some very giggly male sixth formers, who had a large cardboard placard, written in Arabic. As we walked along, one of them giggled “Did you see her face?” and did a very good impression of someone’s jaw hitting the floor. “What’s on that sign?” I asked them, curious, and they showed me but I couldn’t read it. One of them very gravely translated it into English: It was very rude, and involved called Nick Clegg a prostitute, amongst other things. I lost track of them not long after this, and fell in in front of a couple of boys solemnly and intelligently discussing media manipulation and newspaper bias, proving that media studies, formally taught or otherwise, is rarely a waste of time. We arrived at the BBC not long after this, where more people were on the pavements taking pictures and so on. One of the quainter aspects of marching, I’ve decided, is the waiting at the traffic lights. It makes sense, given the traffic has to as well, but it does feel vaguely surreal: Like being part of a moving mass of people makes you a big lorry or something.

It was as we approached the BBC that I spotted my favourite placard of the day: “Save Defence Against The Dark Arts”. People in offices watched as we continued down Oxford Road, some friendly, some curious.

I’ve had to get my A-Z out to map the rest of the route I think we took, and I think I’ve got it right. If I’ve got it wrong, I think it’s only a few streets out, and I apologise in advance. If I discover from other people who were there that I am wrong, I will correct the streets accordingly.

We went along Peter Street, near Saint Peter’s Square, then along Mount Street, with mounted police at our backs as we came to Albert Square. Some of the protesters at the back weren’t happy about having mounted police right behind them, and someone made a few comments about horses, presumably not thinking that it isn’t the horses in charge, but the riders. I suppose if I’d had someone charge me on horseback, I’d be annoyed as well, but I grew up on the Cheshire border on a street with fields of horses very nearby: I like horses and I don’t have any bad experiences of them, so aside from being a bit nervous as to what might happen if the police decided to exercise a less relaxed form of crowd control, I didn’t feel anything much.

We passed by the Christmas markets in Albert Square, then we were onto Cross Street and heading for Corporation Street,  an enthusiastic chant of “Tory Scum!” went up, along with “Our Street, Our Street!” and “You say cutback, we say fightback!” and so on. Because this is an area where tourists and posh people tend to graze, our presence was met by aghast glances and appalled stares in the main. Well, it was near Selfridges after all… A small and rather optimistic section of the crowd attempted to get some of the fur coated, aghast middle-aged on side by calling out “It’s your children’s future too!” and a brief but spirited chant of “Join us! Join us!” went up. Needless to say, the invitation was not taken up, and many probably went home to leave “Disgusted of Nether Alderley” type comments on todays reports instead…

As we approached URBIS (or rather, what was Urbis, and what is soon to be the new football museum) I spotted a number of protesters up at the front who were waving large red flags with the communist hammer and sickle design. They seemed to be welcoming us to Cathedral Gardens, where we were shunted up a small hill onto a largeish bank of grass for the speeches.

I left at this point, as I had to get to work and didn’t fancy the speeches much, so I once again missed what happened next.

The Manchester Evening News has reported tonight that 5 people were arrested, two for public order offences, two for assaulting police officers, and one for breach of the peace. This all appears to have occurred post Cathedral Gardens, either on the return journey to Oxford Road, or on Oxford Road itself. They give the number attending the march as 1,500, which would make it half the attendance of last weeks march, which sounds about right.

I also have it on very good authority (ie – not from the MEN) that the Roscoe Building occupation now numbers considerably more than last night, as 400 people got in and many have “stayed to help out”.

www.roscoeoccupation.wordpress.com

www.standagainstcuts.wordpress.com

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Wednesday 24th November

Today was the second anti-cuts, anti-tuition fees protest, but it was local protests this time, not a big one in London. Or not just a big one in London. The Manchester one assembled at 12, but people were there before then, so I wandered around for a bit outside the Tin Can (University Place), watching and listening, and looking for a friend of mine, who had been handing out leaflets the day before. Didn’t spot him, but spotted some good banners and placards (‘Cut Pizza, Not Education’ on a Pizza Hut box), several involving witty yet vulgar plays on ‘cut’ and ‘cunt’, plenty that simply said ‘Tory Scum’ (the chant of a generation, post Millbank), a Socialist Worker ‘Fuck The Cuts’ one… seemed to be a lot of nervy, gee-d up protesters, who were either new to it and didn’t know what to expect, or fairly new to it and for whom the novelty hadn’t worn off. There were also some sixth formers and school kids, looking very small and excited… Seemed like quite goodish numbers at this stage, and the idea was for the contingent outside the Tin Can to march towards MMU, and hook up with the malcontents there before continuing onto the town hall. There were a lot of police, even at this stage, and some GMPTE staff (for traffic reasons, presumably, given it was Oxford Road) and campus police from the University. It all looked pretty relaxed, and still seemed pretty relaxed when the march started at 12:30, but I didn’t get to see anything after that.

There haven’t been that many accounts of what happened next, but from what I’ve been able to cobble together from commenters on The Guardian, and the article that the Manchester Evening News did, then there was some kind of stand off near the train station, with students sitting in the road and being charged by police on horseback. Anyone who was in that bit of Manchester could tell you that the traffic was thoroughly gridlocked for a number of hours, but comments on both the Guardian and MEN articles would suggest this isn’t the full story, and that a full account has yet to emerge… if anyone would like to write and send me one, feel free, (cakemaiden@gmail.com) but I expect it’ll emerge on one of the protest blogs soon…

http://standagainstcuts.wordpress.com/the-hard-times/

http://roscoeoccupation.wordpress.com/

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