It would cost a lot of money to use some of the 30 000 cops to stop a rave, and more against the protests, but unlike provincial areas there are still 30 000 regulars on standby, actually there’s about 4 000 specials too, and 3 000 PCSOs – whilst PCSOs can’t usually get involved in heavy stuff they can still watch and herd people. If Cameron really wants to lock off the London raves he could do so. it would cost loads, a lot of folk would get hurt (even policemen) and the damage to London would last decades (some area are still blighted by the aftermath of riots in the 1980s) but the damage would be passed to the working classes just like how Thatcho broke the miners.
There’s a bleaker picture – both the protests and the parties are being hijacked by angry thuggish men who enjoy gang activity – and not all of these are in Police uniform! I was watching the protest footage and whilst there is Police brutality, I also saw a masked up lad elbow a innocent member of the public (who looked a bit “middle class”) out of the way. OK conspiracy theorists may suggest he is CID, but there would be little point in them doing this (unlike planting the van) as it only attacks one person and provides little useful intelligence – I got the impression this was this lad taking his own bit of direct action and seizing an opportunity to rough up someone just for the fun of it!
We all know at London parties how you now have to be on guard against being robbed (something which didn’t happen as much at squat parties in the 90s – maybe its because few people had mobiles then other than dealers even thieves didn’t want to fuck with – or maybe they were paradoxically more a middle class arty thing!) I know there is security nowadays but they can’t be everywhere and incidents still happen. Worse, it seems that when the Met caused a break in the security checking at Scumoween, all the same hood rats what fought the Police robbed or at least tried to rob people later…
There is also even less support for a rave amongst the wider populace than there is against budget cuts for unis or public services.
@students – your budget cuts and the weekend hedonism of a rave are two separate issues, just like they were 20 years ago (when I went on both student marches and to raves).
If you really want your protest to make a difference join an occupation of your uni (or the one you plan to attend) – it is the uni authorities bleating for the fees increases and the uni management taking the high salaries. For the ordinary taxpayer citizen, paying for stuff like NHS, education from age 5-18 in conventional schools, roads/transport, even defence comes first. I disagree with the war BTW but we need to “finish what we start” otherwise the world becomes more unstable and fuel prices rise more which fucks everyone over.
Try and distance the student protests from the raves/drugs culture as otherwise this link will be used against you by the right wing, and they do still have power.
