Police And Protesters Prepare For Climate Camp

Rachel Holdsworth
By Rachel Holdsworth Last edited 175 months ago
Police And Protesters Prepare For Climate Camp

And lo, it begins again. The cat and mouse dance between climate change protesters and the Met, as this summer's Camp for Climate Action prepares to set up on a green- or brownfield site 'somewhere within the M25' on Wednesday.

With revelations about how the police (mis)handled the G20 camp still coming out (notebooks reveal coppers blithely reporting "I punched him in the jaw and he moved backwards", and that the decision to kettle was taken just five minutes after a report saying the protest had a "party atmosphere. No issues"), the Met are trying to take a softly softly approach. They're twittering - because that's everyone's answer to dealing with idealistic yoof these days - and the officers in charge of the operation are women. It's a move to be applauded on one hand - we can't imagine female officers telling the media they're "up for it" - but on the other, we can't help sighing a little bit. Surely the answer to effective public order policing is a shift away from macho bullshit culture all round, instead of putting the ladies in charge every now and again?

Anyway. Based on previous encounters, Climate Camp are still wary of the police and are refusing to tell them where they're setting up, so the police are saying they can't rule out kettling if they don't know what they're going to be dealing with. (And a big round of applause to the Times there, using the least inflammatory photo they could find to illustrate that article.)

Given the almost blanket condemnation over police tactics in April, we can't imagine there'll be a repeat performance; but it'd be a fool who'd think there won't be some level of tension between the two sides. Oh for a world in which everyone can be friends...

Last Updated 24 August 2009