nice one mi compadres. give em greif. i'm watching from the states (yeh, i got that sick of the fuckin election i legged it!) and it looks pretty cool up there in mani. shame about the scumfuck filth, but they know no better. anyway, got grizzly bears and racoons to dodge......laters!

To find out about the ideas behind the events in Manchester go to Http://www.x32.org/uninvited. That voting changes nothing is now more than just an anarchist slogan -- turnout accross the country 58%, in Manchester central less than 40%

I was in Manchester and I thought it was a great day. There was a really good turnout, and a positive atmosphere among the protesters. It's just a pity that the critical mass cycle ride was spoilt by the police.

We congregated in All Saints park at 5pm and when we tried to set off we found that 3 of the four gates to the park (where the stations would be on a Monopoly board!) were blocked by police in metal boxes, or on donkeys. About 50 of us got out of the 4th gate before that too was blocked. Others had to resort to passing their bikes over the fence. As a result of this, and the fact that police kept blocking certain stretches of road on route to our destination, I ended up in a group of about 40 cyclists trying to rejoin the others only to be confronted with more police standing in the road, looking like bright yellow lemons. A couple of us were pulled off our bikes as we tried to avoid them. We ran out of luck when we were hemmed in in a Hulme estate at about 6pm where we were kept for an hour to avoid a "breach of the peace". Fair enough though, because every one of us were armed with one of those 2-wheeled weapons of mass destruction. The officer claiming to be in charge said that if we'd just stuck with our leaders we'd have got to our intended destination. Funny that, seeing as the whole police operation seemed designed to split us up into smaller groups. While we were being held a cameraman, supposedly from the BBC, turned up to film us but said it coulnd't be shown on TV until after 10pm in case it influenced voters. The animals were (eventually) let out 2 by 2 and told to go straight home, without passing Go etc etc.

Anyway, I rejoined the state funeral on Oxford Road, which as a said at the start was held in just the right spirit.

Intro:
we did media work for Manchester election event The Uninvited, www.x21.org/uninvited
It received precisely zero mention in any mainstream media, including one person's report posted to various web-based mainstream media fora being taken down, with one such sending an email to say 'stop posting'....
=====================================

Media ignored anti election protests.
by undercurrents 3:19pm Fri Jun 8 '01

17 million people chose not to bother voting yesterday. In
Manchester, hundreds of people got on their bikes to spread the
message that they had lost faith in party politics. Police first of all
failed to block them into a park but did later succeed in splitting the
protest up forcing 50 cyclists into the Hulme housing estate. A
tight cordon was put in place with police vans and lines of officers
blocking both ends of a busy road . Protesters calmly sat down as
police intelligence went into disarray. Some people managed to
walk in and out of the police cordon as senior officers tried to
decide what they could achieve by detaining the protest. Local
residents also got blocked in. Chaos soon turned to farce as an
elderly Labour supporter displaying a red rosette pushed cyclists
through the police line and let them continue with their protest.

A lone Television cameraman quickly appeared and then
disappeared explaining that because the protest was political, the
news outlet couldn’t report it due to a law stating that broadcasters
were prohibited from screening anything which may sway the
voters decision on election day. A frustrated media spokeswoman
for the protest questioned why none of the media had told her this
when she was trying to obtain media coverage in the previous four
days. The blockade finally ended after an hour of negotiation and
cyclists were released one by one, only to rejoin the larger protest.

Only five minutes away, activists had taken to Oxford street to
stage a “State funeral” for the death of democracy. A full size coffin
was carried by black masked pall bearers as a giant skeleton
danced to the New Orleans style Jazz band. The march came to
an abrupt stop outside the BBC HQ as dozens of police, some with
video cameras quickly blocked the entrance. Street theatre and
dancing on the street erupted as one activist said “the media say
that there is apathy amongst the young people today but they
continue to ignore anyone actually challenging the farce that it is
called a democracy”. With police under the huge BBC logo, an
Anne Robinson lookalike, stood on the coffin and read out the last
Will of the state. Another speaker added “Blair is an irritating man
having made many speeches claiming 'all of us are equal' whilst
vast profits did the corporate coffers fill. Did this to you seem
democratic?”

Not one microphone or camera was pointed out the window of the
BBC thus the country's largest grassroot protest against the worst
turn out in an election since 1918 went unreported. Undercurrents
however ensured that the protests did get reported.