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What an amazing day! So many people, was easily half a million, with small chaotic breakaway marches all over the place. Here's my account of the day, which is necessarily incomplete. I would be very interested to see other people's accounts.
I started pretty early this morning (well, for me…), went with my girlfriend (her first-ever demonstration) and a couple of friends, one of whom it was their first demo as well.
We went to meet up with the education feeder march, as we thought it would be the most fun. We got there about noon and it had recently left so we caught up with it. Seemed like 3-5000 people. Big samba band, so quite lively with drumming, apparently there was a small book bloc at the front, didn't see the militant workers bloc but there were quite a few anarchists scattered around.
Marched along to meet up with the main march on the embankment, and it was taking forever because there were just so many people. Went along with the main march for a bit. This was a bit after 1 PM - we heard that the front of the march had already arrived in Hyde Park at this point, and even going high up we couldn't see the end of the demo. Over the megaphone someone shouted that the media were reporting 400,000 people, and it was clear that there were at least this number.
Then we split off and went straight to Trafalgar Square to skip some of the walking. Lots of people milling around the square, as the march went through. A big black bloc of maybe 300 came through quite quickly, looking pretty cool (although playing shit music) and headed straight up Charing Cross Road, I presumed going to Oxford Street.
We saw a group of anarchists who shall remain nameless (unless they are happy with it) who led a small breakaway March of maybe 300 up Haymarket to Oxford Street, was good fun. Got to top shop which was being guarded by ordinary police, who by this point were covered in paint, as was the store, with a couple of the large windows broken.
Hung around Oxford Street for a bit, lots of stores had been targeted with paint bombs, like Boots. Then we cycled around, just seeing what was going on, which included:
-Porsche dealership on Park Lane getting trashed, along with some of the Porsches inside
-HSBC on Charing Cross Road getting trashed
-the Ritz getting fucked up, paint bombed, windows broken and apparently a flare gun fired at it. Apparently one copper tried to stop the attack, who promptly got knocked to the ground, and his helmet thrown up in the air by the crowd.
-Fortnum & Mason being occupied by about 300 people, a huge crowd also gathered outside, got pretty vandalised. Just narrowly avoided getting kettled here; heard that a lot of the occupiers were later arrested
-various other stores throughout the West End windows broken and paint bombed
-in general quite a lot of chaotic, lively breakaway marches, a few with sound systems
-a massive black bloc going through Oxford Circus just before 4 PM
-apparently it kicked off in a pretty big way around Piccadilly in the evening, some people broke through a police line and went on a rampage
-heard that people attempted to attack Ed Miliband when he tried to speak - anyone know more about that?
-Lots of police vans had circled A's spray-painted on them
Two main thing stood out, one was just the sheer size of it. It was huge. I bumped into so many people I knew, including loads of people I haven't seen in years, former work colleagues etc. Quite a lot of people it was their first protest. Getting back home I see loads of other friends attended as well via pictures and statuses on Facebook, including a lot of people who aren't political.
The second thing was that it was a lot more chaotic and disobedient than the big anti-war demo back in 2003. I think this was mostly due to the student presence and the student demonstrations at the end of last year, and also UK Uncut. There were also a lot of anarchists around, a few different blocks and loads of scattered individuals, small groups and red and black flags.
I hope that next week in work things feel a bit different, I'm pretty psyched up and want to get on with going on strike now, hopefully for many other people it is the same.
I haven't looked at the media reporting yet, will do that now…