Right in the thick of it
If you've been following the G8 news, you'll know that an anarchists' demonstration was planned for today in Edinburgh. It got sufficiently serious for us to be sent home early, but rest assured, I'm safe and in one piece.
Things weren't to kick off until 12 noon, but there were various ominous events during the morning which did not bode well: Standard Life employees had been asked to come to work dressed casually, without their security passes showing, as their place of work was to be one of the prime targets. The city was placed on level two alert, no doubt partly because the demonstrators' route was unknown (they were congregating all over the place) and, as if that wasn't enough, there were dark clouds coming in from the south.
Twelve noon came and went, a police presence obvious on Princes St, and about half an hour later I looked out of the window to see two men being handcuffed immediately opposite, a task which required the presence of six policemen. It took quite a while before they were bundled into a police van, by which time several armoured vans had also appeared on the scene, and suddenly I noticed a growing crowd outside our main door, which I assumed (correctly) had been closed for the safety of staff and those members of the public we had inside.
This was but small fry compared to what happened next: an unknown number of demonstrators appeared from the east end of Princes St, police officers closing in one them from either side, while yet more anarchists came from the west end without much sign of anyone keeping an eye on them. What struck us all (customers, my colleagues and I) was the number of ordinary people out and about, watching events unfold, despite the risk to their safety. Some even had young children with them, which was incredibly irresponsible.
The commotion to the east was well within our sight (though it was difficult to tell how far it extended), but nothing much seemed to happen for quite a while. In the meantime I went off upstairs for my lunch break - I'd have wanted to stay if I'd not been curious about what coverage this was getting on the news, which was pretty minimal (save to say that the financial district, for which the demonstrators had been aiming, had been sealed off) - and when I got back an hour later, the street was just about deserted.
Princes St was still sealed off, to all intents and purposes, and despite the odd flurry of activity outside it was obvious all the shops would be closing sooner or later. To say the last hour was boring as hell would be an understatement.
On a more serious note, I would hate to think that the disruption caused in the city centre could undo all the good work put in during Saturday's Make Poverty History event. I would hope that the G8 leaders have more sense than that ...
Things weren't to kick off until 12 noon, but there were various ominous events during the morning which did not bode well: Standard Life employees had been asked to come to work dressed casually, without their security passes showing, as their place of work was to be one of the prime targets. The city was placed on level two alert, no doubt partly because the demonstrators' route was unknown (they were congregating all over the place) and, as if that wasn't enough, there were dark clouds coming in from the south.
Twelve noon came and went, a police presence obvious on Princes St, and about half an hour later I looked out of the window to see two men being handcuffed immediately opposite, a task which required the presence of six policemen. It took quite a while before they were bundled into a police van, by which time several armoured vans had also appeared on the scene, and suddenly I noticed a growing crowd outside our main door, which I assumed (correctly) had been closed for the safety of staff and those members of the public we had inside.
This was but small fry compared to what happened next: an unknown number of demonstrators appeared from the east end of Princes St, police officers closing in one them from either side, while yet more anarchists came from the west end without much sign of anyone keeping an eye on them. What struck us all (customers, my colleagues and I) was the number of ordinary people out and about, watching events unfold, despite the risk to their safety. Some even had young children with them, which was incredibly irresponsible.
The commotion to the east was well within our sight (though it was difficult to tell how far it extended), but nothing much seemed to happen for quite a while. In the meantime I went off upstairs for my lunch break - I'd have wanted to stay if I'd not been curious about what coverage this was getting on the news, which was pretty minimal (save to say that the financial district, for which the demonstrators had been aiming, had been sealed off) - and when I got back an hour later, the street was just about deserted.
Princes St was still sealed off, to all intents and purposes, and despite the odd flurry of activity outside it was obvious all the shops would be closing sooner or later. To say the last hour was boring as hell would be an understatement.
On a more serious note, I would hate to think that the disruption caused in the city centre could undo all the good work put in during Saturday's Make Poverty History event. I would hope that the G8 leaders have more sense than that ...
posted by Anthony at
15:34
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