yeah, it was excellent. best thing since 18.6.99. and plenty of positive results to build on for next year.

yeah, i agree totally, i went to London w/2 others yesterday, got to Mayfair about 12.30 and after 20 mins of wandering around looking for the crowds we saw+heard a large group of people/banners/colour/noise the next couple of hours were spent walking round the Oxford St. Mayfair area w/thousands of partying, happy people in the sunshine without the danger noise and stink of cars/lorries etc. The highlight for me was when all the groups finally met up on Oxford St and everyone got their footballs out (!) At this point we were near the back of the demo, with approx 30 police vans full of uniformed thugs right behind us. When our ball hit the wheel of one of the vans one of the pigs jumped out grabbed the ball and jumped back into the van with it !!! Evidently balls come under the heading of potentially dangerous weapons....we went to ask for it back, pointing out that it was hardly going to hurt anyone, unlike the vans which were close a couple of occasions to running into people, but we were met with shrugs ..... maybe they fancied a kickaround after their shift....when the crowd arrived at Trafalgur Sq, we made our way home, exhausted but in good spirits.....watching various news programmes yesterday evening though, it turned out that the police were succesful in 'preventing' trouble.... news to me, the atmosphere was fluffy and happy thruout and it seems the only trouble was later in the evening when people were penned in by the police and tried to break out.....

The Globalise Resistance/TUC march was totally crap though only about 1000 were on it and it was the most boring march ever that moved slowly to the traditional chants! I finally caught up with the Mayfair march whcih was much livlier but this only about 1000 strong too. I think a lot of people failed to join up with it as I heard from people later. The organising of this event was crap as it just told people to go to Mayfair at 1pm with no suggestion of any where to meet up with the protests. Mayfair is massive so it must have been really hard for people to find the main protest. I only found it by chance after leaving the TUC march and spotting it in Regent Street while on the way to Mayfair.

Another bad thing about the days events was the Sex Workers march from 5pm which moved extremely slowly around Old Compton Street, Shaftsbury Avenue and Wardour Street. It hardly moved at all for the last two hours and this allowed the police to pen in the remaining protesters. That march would have been much better if it had kept moving around the streets of Soho.

All in all not the best Mayday. The numbers were bad as well, maybe due to loads of people failing to meet up with the protesters in Mayfair. There were only about 3,500 people on the whole days protest I would say no where near the 7,000 suggested in the press.

yeah, seems like a good day all round! we got a good response from the public, we chatted to loads of people, had fun, evaded the cops- made them look over-the-top & thugish and didn't get a kicking till the very end, when they realised they'd better rustle up some argy-bargy for the cameras! nice one peeps :)

yeah i thought it was great too - about the organisation thing, last year it was announced where everyone was going to meet and the pigs just penned everyone in - this year we just met up in mayfair and spent the day running away from them - it was great! we got to go wherever we wanted, stopping traffic and reclaiming the streets everywhere we went. the police just about kept up for most of it, but after a couple of early attempts they gave up trying to direct us anywhere or stop us going anywhere. it was a really successful, defiant demonstration that didn't ask or get permission from the powers that be - we just went around london wherever we fancied! this had the advantage that we came in to contact with a lot more of the general public than normal, and hopefully infused some of them with a sense of the joy of breaking free of the established, alienating order of things that dictates that some places are for work, some are for shopping, some are for 'entertainment' (for a price, of course) etc by turning the streets of central london into a bizarre party zone! and that carniball idea was fucking brilliant, it really kept everyone enthusiastic and interested despite the fact that we were hot and knackered and it got the non-demonstrating public to join in with the festivities by kicking the ball themselves (few people can resist kicking a football when it lands at their feet) breaking down barriers and all that.... has anyone played football down the middle of oxford st. before? fantastic! i want everyone to bring footballs to all demonstrations in future.
the sex workers thing was also wonderful, i thought i was too knackered by then but it was such a great atmosphere that i ended up dancing like a maniac for hours. also really great that we linked up with the sex workers' union, we should do more of that kind of thing. shame about the riot pigs, just had to show who was boss didn't they - we should take heart from the fact that they feel the need to attack us like that, it shows we're a threat - street parties are all about fun and love and enjoying yourself but the point is that those qualities are a threat to capitalism, which needs to keep us all isolated, in competition with each other, unable to have fun without buying it from the man. so street parties are (obviously) supposed to be a threat to capitalism - if they just let us get on with it then i for one would feel like we were probably wasting our time. the fact that they have to clamp down shows that we are doing something revolutionary and that's great. the same goes for coverage in the corporate media - if they didn't attack us and try to isolate us from the rest of the population then that would be because we were not threatening their power. but we are - in many ways i see negative media coverage as a positive sign. our task is not to get the rupert murdoch to like us (something we could only do by ceasing to be active anti-capitalists) but to help people to understand that the capitalist 'free press' is a myth, and to turn them on to indymedia, schnews etc for coverage without corporate bias.
many congratulations to the organisers - i know you all put in a lot of hard work and faces a lot of police harassment - we all appreciate it very much. i had a wonderful time, and it was a great success. THANK YOU

Yeah, I really enjoyed yesterday. I hadn't been to many protests before sept 11 and all, but this really was something special, away from all boring authoritarian lefty politics. Had some problems finding everyone at first coming out of Oxford Circus, but helicopters and police helped in finding everyone. Mayday was excellent, happy, a real coming together of everyone, lots of fun, and my feet now hurt from dancing..getting rid of moldy ideologies and replacing them with real liberation-a joyful revolution for everyone, not a moralistic vanguard claiming to speak for everyone. Also managed to get out of a side street just before the police were penning people in.
My aim is to agitate and disturb people; I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast ~ Unamuno

also many thanks to the sex workers' union for inviting us to your party - it rocked!!!

I love you all. We keep affirming each other.

Was Mr Steelgate really on the TUC march? There were a few more than 1000 on the march, more like 10,000 I reckon (and it was fun too). And I'm sure the people who were in Mayfair aren't telling porkies when they say there were thousands more in Mayfair, Oxford Street etc.
If we're all in one place next time the police won't be able to say there were only 7000 and if there are enough of us they won't be able to pen us in either.

big thanxs to the ball van man on mayday.
for those who don't know, as the march started to appear in oxford street ( out of the small alleyway) a nice white van man pulled up, his van was full of balls!so if u were wondering how the big red anarchy balls, inflatable footballs, beach balls etc, made there way into central london, it was all thanxs to this guy. nice one.

big thanxs to the ball van man on mayday.
for those who don't know, as the march started to appear in oxford street ( out of the small alleyway) a nice white van man pulled up, his van was full of balls!so if u were wondering how the big red anarchy balls, inflatable footballs, beach balls etc, made there way into central london, it was all thanxs to this guy. nice one.

The conservative British working class it is indifferent to this celebration. The queen attracts more people. Unfortunate that is the truth, and tony Blair knows it. You don't believe it?. You kids, stop playing football,and your "radical" yoga, try to work in your communities.

I want to apologise to the ball van man for being so paranoid :)

sorry mate

May Day isn't about one really coherent message, it's just a general anti-capitalist protest.
Of course working in our communities is more effective than anything else but what are you saying? We should never do big days of action? Of course not. May Day gets people interested and this is especially true within working class and ethnic communities who are constantly harassed by police. People are curious and will approach and ask about what, why, who, how, when etc etc. I had long conversations with many groups of young people of all colours (mostly black and asian but then again I live in a mostly black and asian estate) and genders. May Day is a consciousness raising day like most protests (you should have seen the people on my estate when Carlo Giuliani was shot in Genoa, they were pissed!!).
But I do agree with you about community organising being more important than anything else, I just disagree with your meaning of May Day.

Yes Mayday in Mayfair and Soho was great!! Police spent £8 million and never controlled things till the end..People had a great time ..Old Compton street was brilliant...but it's only a celebration of Mayday , it's just a step in the right direction, just a small part of all the other stuff that needs doing...who suggestted this means we don't work in the community ..since when does community/local activism mean you can't have a beano sometimes???!!!The point is that, only in recent memory ,has the working class had Mayday and it's celebrations stolen from it...if communities are to rebuild they won't just do it as a negative to dumped cars, dog shit and anti-social behaviour..there needs to be a positive too..Part of the collapse of the Left in this country is that it is unimaginative boring and humourless..
Numbers were down though i think..and sorry but i saw the whole of the Union/Left march at the Strand and it was no more than a couple of thousend...and pretty tedious p.s. i'm a union member for over 15 years and i tell you marches like that arent going to rebuild a militant labour movement!

I don't know why I've never gone before, I had so much fun, and I felt like everyone was really trying to make a difference...walking round Mayfair, all the people watching us I feel sure we made ourself heard =)

I'll be sure to make sure I'll attend next year as well...thanks to my friend for *dragging* me along...I won't need dragging next year...that's for sure.

Oh, and if the Jo/Joe that kept stealing my water at Trafalgar Sq. is on here, tell him I said Hi. =)

Does anyone one here really believe the agreed figure of £5 million pounds quoted by the media that businesses estimated to have lost on this year Mayday Protest? (£3 million for policing hence total figure £8million).

Correct me if I'm wrong wasn't last year trading loss quoted greater than this year lost? As far I can remember only a tiny number of shops in Oxford street were boarded last year.

In any case where did the figure £5 million come from in the first place?

The Police, the government or was it some sort of cover up?

Whatever the true financal figure was, it's certainly caused far more financal disruption than any of the Protest I've ever seen. I've walked the whole of the Park Lane, Oxford street, Regent Street, Piccadilly, Whitehall, Pall Mall and The Strand. Every shop was either shut or boarded up. Brill! What's more every "single shop" in the Mayfair area was shut up. Ha ha ha. It was a great laff. O.k. the newspapers say that "they" got the upper hand but from where I was standing I think we clearly won the day.

Stuff the rich (Whoops Srry!)

Yeah!!!!

Fuffie Protester (The Pink Bobber!)

:)

I know what you're talking about.

Believe me I tried and tried to move the soho drummers into other surrounding streets. Even a small group of people feeling the same way as me tried make them to follow us but the musical band had other ideas. That is to move slowly once a round the block and that was it. It was a case of following their leader.

As an after-thought it was no doubtedly apart of "their" plan whatever "their" was. "They" did an excellent job of avoiding the police all day. Well Done! I'll take nothing from you. Brill!

Another after-thought was the leader of the musical band a copper?

:D

I spoke to a number of ppl on that day outside the impeded area. There veiws got were, "It's excellent how we manage to move between the police lines but at the sametime boring." (I felt the same why was it boring? I haven't a clue, maybe it because of the lack of ppl who knows maybe someone can tell me why? Don't get me wrong I fully enjoyed myself but there was just that nagging doubt in the back my head.)

Other views were where was the main protest taking place? At that point I said I haven't a clue and I felt people were going home as soon as the march was over. I even directed a number of ppl in the wrong direction (Whoops sorry!) Next time just follow the sound of the helicopters!!!!!!!!!!

My personal veiws are us joining the TUC march was a mistake. It not going to very appealing to many people.

I think Mayday protest has had it day. People are finding it hard to take mayday off every year. Maybe it time to move the date back to J18 or any other date? I think it would be beneficial so we can get international protesters involved with us again. And it would also help increase the numbers taking part in the protest.

There was also lack of warning of the mayday protest taking place. I only heard about it taking place two weeks before hand. In the past in was a month or so! (What happen to the stickers? Problems with the press?)

I feel we failed to get any politic messages across. What were we protesting about? I saw no anti-McDonald leaflets etc. We got nothing across on the media. Last year we manage to get a breif but positive note of the problems of homeless across on T.V. (Well done gurls who ever you are!)

Lastly hard to believe I know for all those who took part in this year demo, I spoke to a student friend of mine in the midlands (She keeps moving about!) She replied "What Demo?" when I told her about it.

It just shows we fail to get anything across.

I could go on

I think we desperately need to change the date of this demo or otherwise it will fall on it knees. There too many things happening on that date around the world any hope of us to grap any media headlines on that day.

I better go or I never go!

BuByeee until nextime

Fuffie Protester

(The Pink Bobber!) (Smash Le Pen) Yes that one!