I attended the demo in Parliament Square on Monday and video a little with plans to put something together for the newswire. The demo was poorly attended, perhaps reflecting the total lack of faith people have generally with the institution of parliament. This seems to be backed up by people I spoke to who did not attend the demo, saying things along the lines that lobbying the government was pointless and that there are far more effective targets to apply pressure. Indeed, I believe that anybody who had faith in the government actually responding to public concerns would have found it better use of their time to have written to or visited their MP to discuss the issue rather than stand outside parliament on Monday.

Anyway, bored with the demo I decided to go into Parliament which is the first time I have done so. It took ages to queue and go through the various stages of security but eventually I found myself in the public gallery. The gallery is now seperated from the people government by thick glass that goes all the way to the ceiling of the vast chamber. This is aparently their to stop terrorists from shooting polititians but since it was impossble to take as much as an orange or a bottle of water into the gallery it is clear that the new barrier was simply a responce to the high profile action of anti-war demonstrators who heckled the PM and others that threw black confetti over the rail last year.

I didn't have the heart to tell Brian Haw (or any of the others outside using the loud hailers) that thei efforts are completly inaudioable inside the building they stand outside lobbying. Instead I rushed to East London for the climate change 'counter summit' organised by rising tide to find out what alternatives were being put forward compared to Blairs business as usual approach to global warming.

Arriving late I was supprised to find over twenty police officers outside the venue. A welcoing force clearly aimed at imtimidation. It wasn't really the usual FIT squad with big cameras and flash guns, instead there apeared to be just one video camera which would be almost useless for identification in the dark of the winter evening. Never-the-less it struck me as interesting that not a single inteligence gathering officer attended the protest outside parliament earlier in the day and yet they had twenty officers at a meeting to discuss promoting alternative energy and reducing consumption.

What does this tell us? Well to me it seems clear that what the authorities find more threating is not traditional banner demonstrations but people talking, discussing and organsing. This is why they resort to such blatent attempts or intimidations in order to scare people away. It is all part of the age old devide and rule.