In particular, the craven C.Raven of the Guardian (see yesterday's G2). She doesnt mince words, our Charlotte: the protesters are "fools", according to her, deluded fresher dilettantes who seem to think they single handedly discovered the need to oppose capitalism for the first time in history. "I KNOW", she wants to shout to the protesters , whom she describes as being on unicycles for some reason. Chillingly, she shows that not far beneath the surface of the Guardian lies a sinister Stalinism:
" there is no collective will... which is deferred to" she says of the Mayday Monopoly organizers.

Now, Charlotte, what you see in actuality is a new generation discovering ideology, issues and the art of protest not for the first time ever, but for themselves, in an atmosphere where the Labour left has abandoned such miserable theory as it ever had (instead, the rule of Capital is stronger than it has been for a century), where setbacks on the international scene have been enormous, and where nobody of the 1968 school really seems to be giving any help to speak of: They seem to prefer NATO.
As for "Collective Will", can you deny that any left wing hero you care to name has shown a remarkable ability to break with the conventions of the left and re-establish the principle of the struggle? Not just the anarchists, mind you: Guevara, Marx himself, Trotsky (the real one, not the SWP), even Lenin, all showed a propensity to break with a left which was rotting away with its own conceits. Having put into power the reactionary social Christian Blair, and as I said, helped put Capital firmly in place, perhaps the pro- NATO Guardian should criticise a little less, and try to understand a little more...
The most worrying aspect of all this is how Livingstone, who has ditched any socialist principles he ever had, can still exert such influence on the remainder. It only shows how badly they've been defeated, how little confidence they have in themselves.