Stick that in your kettle

One of my distant superiors was involved in the design and defence of 'kettling', the police tactic of imprisoning legal protestors for long periods, allowing them out only if these innocent people surrender their details and images to cops for a database that's been declared illegal.

Well yah boo sucks to you, Professor: your methods have been described as 'inadequate' and outdated by the official report into the G20 events.

Some highlights:

Commanders appeared not to properly understand basic human rights laws or the legal requirements surrounding the use of kettling, the report said. However, O'Connor said this was the case for only some senior officers, and refused to identify those at fault.

It says police are currently failing in their human rights obligations, and describes public order policing guidance issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers – adopted by all forces across England and Wales – as "insufficient".

The national policy should be overhauled, it says, to "demonstrate explicit consideration of the facilitation of peaceful protest".

contrary to claims by senior Met officers ahead of the demonstrations, there was "no specific intelligence which suggested any planned intention to engage in co-ordinated and organised public disorder".

Despite that, senior commanders gave "no consideration" to the idea that the protests might be peaceful and planned how to deal "robustly" with unlawful activity.

Just to be clear: there are some individual officers behaving insensitively and criminally, but this report, and my point, is that there's a structural and institutional problem with policing when it comes to protest: the police force is far to the right of the population and shows no sign of recognising citizens' rights to peaceful protest.

Policing: nature's way

I knew I'd seen the police tactics ('kettling') employed to kill Ian Tomlinson and beat up numerous other inoffensive protesters somewhere else. Sorry about the appalling hyper-America voiceover - I couldn't find the staid BBC footage.

Atten-SHUN

Already overrun with ex-bizzies expounding the joy of 'kettling' peaceful protesters, my esteemed institution is toying with the idea of a degree for squaddies. As we've just merged with the Law school, how about 'Spotting an Illegal War for Dummies', and 'What Actually Constitutes Torture and Why It's A Bad Thing'?

Never trust a copper, never read The Sun

Do the police lie to us? Of course they do. But most of the time, they merely mislead, dissemble and distort. Why? Because every branch of public service has been encouraged to see itself as a 'player' in the information game. Each agency has an internal PR team - which isn't the same as a communications team - trained to play offence/defence spin rather than to provide accurate, cautious, checkable and honest information. The police have their friendly media contacts and they know which papers (I'm looking at you, The Sun - 'G20 anarchy' indeed, and you Daily Mail) will print whatever they say without bothering to check using boring old journalism - and in the case of Tomlinson, may have added further imaginary details simply to suit their pre-mixed 'story', as Nick Davies points out:

There were six days of substantially false coverage about a man who apparently died of a heart attack as he walked home while a screaming mob of anarchists hurled missiles at the police officers who tried to help him. Any inquiry into this media misinformation will want to find out whether that was simply the hyperbole of ignorant reporters or the product of bad practice at the Metropolitan police, the City of London police or the IPCC.

They got caught this time thanks to citizens ignoring threats to treat filming cops as 'aiding terrorism', but it must make you distrust pretty much every account of any major event prior to this. Nick Davies has a good piece in today's Media Guardian. How's this gem?

when an IPCC investigator came to the Guardian, with a City of London police exhibits officer, he asked for the video to be removed from the website on the grounds that it could prejudice the police inquiry and would upset the family. The deputy editor-in-chief who met him declined and pointed out that the Tomlinson family at that moment were in another part of the building, talking to Paul Lewis, the reporter who had driven the story, and publicly thanking the paper for its help.

But this isn't simply a problem for the rozzers. It's a fundamental journalistic failure brought about by financial concerns (investigative journalism is expensive: transcribing 'sources' and press releases can be done by the office monkey) and by the collapse of a public sphere independent of hegemonic forces: papers have grown dependent on 'authority' and close to power - they'll automatically cite established, discrete power blocs such as police forces and governments rather than test their claims (except for climate stories, in which case they'll print the ravings of any mad liar (Johnny Ball, Bellamy, Lawson, Monckton) rather than the 99% of actual climate scientists who know we're screwed).

'ello 'ello 'ello part 2

I've seen the police behave appallingly on various marches and protests, and even ticked of a WPC for over-reacting to some loud skate-kids once, so it's no surprise to me that the rozzers were up for a riot at the G20 protests.

When they were founded, they required leather collars to protect them from garrotting down dark alleys, such was the antipathy towards them from the rest of the working classes, who viewed them purely and simply as class-traitors, thugs hired by the upper-classes to defend property and privilege, much as the 'volunteer militias' put down any opposition to enclosure, oppression or union activism, such as the Chartists. There will always be an element of the police, armed forces and security forces motivated by the desire to violently deal with anyone not espousing the beliefs of the Daily Mail.

Monbiot expresses these feelings much more eloquently.

Julian Cope - we salute you

Julian Cope is a full on rock god, druid and genius. Also he's one of the most entertaining performers around, even for non-hippies. His account of being nicked at the G20 protests while wearing a burka and stab vest with a wig is hilarious and depressing.

Ian Tomlinson RIP

I said a few days ago that the G20 riots had descended into the traditional police riot, and the footage of Ian Tomlinson (a man trying to get home from work) being bludgeoned by the police despite the fact that he was walking away with his hands in his pockets vindicates this. Is he our Blair Peach?

There is a cultural problem with the police at the moment, one which reminds me of the 1980s. They're spending an awful lot of time quietly briefing politicians and newspapers that mass violence is coming, and that they'll be going in hard: the very antithesis of their legal duty to FACILITATE protest. The police in this country have always been a reactionary and politicised force - witness the industrial disputes and the weirdo religious pronouncements of the 1980s, and the backlash which greeted Ian Blair's attempts to humanise the Met.

After the facts, their PR people are concentrating on selling a rosy version of events, as though they're working for a washing-powder company rather than a service supposedly existing to serve the public. Public bodies must be held to account, but they also have a duty to take far more care. Police PR mustn't be a marketing exercise, or be seen as an offence-defence role. One appalling example was the police injury list from Kingsnorth's environmental protest. The cops told the media and politicians that 70 officers had been injured during the £5m+ operation. However, a Liberal Democrat Freedom of Information request revealed no injuries sustained by attacks or scuffles with protestors. The 'injuries' ranged from toothache to bee stings, taking in 'officer injured sitting in car'.

This isn't just funny: it's a serious attempt to deceive readers of already pro-police newspapers and legislators. There's a sustained attempt to consolidate the extra powers afforded to the police after September 11th and use them against all forms of protest, as Mark Thomas et al. have repeatedly demonstrated. The National Extremism Tactical Unit is undertaking surveillance of peaceful protestors and journalists as though they are terrorists, and other secretive units are prepared to treat us all as threats to state security, rather than as concerned citizens.

Nor should individual policemen be allowed to escape scrutiny by ordinary citizens or by the courts: the ban on filming cops is an attempt to hide misdeeds, and a recent police brutality court case saw officers refusing to give evidence.

We've all been conditioned to see the police as 'on our side', despite their track record: the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad (aptly named: they committed a lot of serious racist crime), the Miners' Strike, and on and on. I've challenged a police officer for completely over-reacting to some loud kids at Wolverhampton station - a minor but scary event - and I'd recommend you do the same. They work for us and need reminding of this sometimes,

Now the day is over…

Today was sort of successful: I didn't buy any books - though I did receive one, James Naughtie's The Accidental American, a biography of Blair. Thanks (and Happy Birthday) to Sarah, who spotted it in a library sale. Happy Birthday to Mark too!

Meanwhile in London, police were only allowing protestors to leave if they identified themselves and allowed themselves to be photographed. This just isn't legal. The police don't have the right to demand identification unless you've committed a crime. Photography seems to be a grey area, but why should innocent people go on a database unless they've committed an offence?

Know your rights!

I've had a couple of gin slings

Ben rightly points out the essential silliness of today's protests because he's a democrat. I accept this, but would like to suggest that it's a start: I posted this in his comments but cross-post for your delectation.

Tie-die and slogans don't equal effective protest. But the argument is usually: wear a suit, get elected, then we'll take you seriously. But the syndicalists made the point that engagement with the system of established values blunts the legitimate objection to the system. Sometimes, violence is legitimate. Not the kind of pathetic protest we saw today, but the kind of serious, sustained resistance which the Tolpuddle martyrs, the Diggers, the Fifth Monarchists, the Peasants Revolt, the Monmouth Revolt, the '45, the Rebecca Riots, the Luddites, the Victorians who made early Peelers wear leather collars, the suffragists (just to cite British examples because it would be too easy to mention Irish and other ones) indulged in. One of the things I really respect about the English, Welsh, Scots etc. is that the people used to know how to resist. You cut Charles II's head off and ran plenty of other despots out of town, then forgot about it. Stop accepting that protest has to be 'legitimate': what does that mean? Who defines legitimacy? The American revolutionaries saw themselves as British patriots resisting illegitimate state control, and the police force nothing more than the armed wing of the upper classes for a couple of centuries ( and again during the miners' strike).

Slogans, witty placards and a few smashed windows won't bring about the revolution: it will delay it because it lets off steam. Serious, organised and sustained violence will, as it did in Kenya, Ireland, the 13 colonies, Poland, France, Italy, Cuba and many other countries. The problem with Britain is that the people were trained to legitimise the state because its power was trained on others (marginal groups, foreigners) to the extent that the British (or English, Welsh and Scots) forgot that power resides with them. Goverments rule by assumed consent - time to withdraw it. Today's protests were schoolyard histrionics - the lessons from history are that serious weaponry and strategic plans are required if you want to achieve serious change. Unless, of course, people just want a softer version of the status quo.

Thwarted

I was going to do lots more work, but got turfed out for a fire alarm. Now I just have to go for a drink for Laura's birthday.

The G20 demonstrations seem to have turned into the traditional police riot. Monbiot sums it up but most other accounts seem to tally.

Oops, I Did It Again

Oops. I went out to buy a birthday card and accidentally bought 4 more books: Ackroyd's retelling of The Canterbury Tales, Mark Steel's What's Going On?, Mark Radcliffe's Thank You For The Days (I interviewed him once - what an incredibly decent, kind man) and Madresfield: The Real Brideshead, because I know the area and quite like some of Waugh's work.

Meanwhile, while I buy books and write essays on blended learning, my heart's in London, where comrades are expending their energy in ineffectual but fun ways.

Read all about it

Sppof Financial Times for the G20 meeting: also handed out in print this week. Genius