St Paul’s anti-capitalist camp
Much of the encampment and debacle at St Paul's is good and even hilarious news, but the best bit is that it has produced a nearly perfect confrontation... Read more...
Protest.
Nice middle class rioters and looters: wa’s up?
Here's a stab at an explanation for these nice, middle class rioters and looters. It's clear that they are not immoral or wicked, or even all that badly brought up. Read more...
Protest update: Ritz and Fortnum & Mason, 26 March 2011
It's early days, and I've seen no definitive accounts of the mini-riots in the West End of London on Saturday 27 March 2011. But they produce further evidence that the police are being told or are assuming that they should not maintain public order in the face of protest, even if the organisers (or non-organisers) signal that they won't co-operate at all, or much. Read more...
RDN on Libya on BBC R2
I had a fairlydecent outing on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 today. Since I was defending the UK's behaviour toward Libya in recent years, that was about the best one can expect, I think. Read more...
Undercover cops and protest
The case against six protestors collapsed today in the wake of an extraordinary saga involving an erstwhile undercover policeman. Even now, early in the story's unfolding, it is worth saying that in principle the police are probably right to operate undercover amongst protestors, even at considerable expense. Read more...
Student protest needs a rethink
I won't rehash my previous arguments about protest: you can find them here easily in the "handling protest" category. Now's the time to redefine the right to protest. Read more...
RDN, the Pope’s visit, and BBC R4’s “Sunday”
I had a v brief outing on Radio 4's Sunday religious current affairs programme, and it's a privilege to be asked. Here's the crib I prepared for the event, in which I was asked about the protest dimension of the Pope's forthcoming visit. Read more...
Sky gets Ratcliffe climate protest wrong
Typically, the media (I've just been watching Sky news) has got in a muddle about the latest direct action protests. Read more...
Protest shouldn’t break the law
I'm due on the BBC's The Big Questions show in the morning. One of the subjects is protest and in particular the Climate Camp. If you save the planet, can you break the law? Read more...
RDN evidence to the JCHR on protest
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights is revisiting its inquiry into policing protest in the light of the G20 protest, the Iona School mass arrest and the Tamil takeover of Parliamentary Square. Here's what I sent in evidence. Read more...