I use the term ‘notorious’ in reference to their frosty receptions in various other UK cities and towns [the march left Northern Ireland on 14th July], or, more-so their own frosty reception of other groups who they were meant to be welcoming; in Birmingham, they tried to force Midlands Vegan Campaigns to stop handing out vegan literature and otherwise fall in line, by taking down their banners and placards, as well as the CA stewards inviting police to mildly harass animal rights groups in other towns. As a reaction to this heavy-handedness, Animal Aid brought out a range of ‘Cut The Crap’ leaflets, which further added to hostilities. I believe also that Rising Tide groups elsewhere received some pressure? So we held our ‘Reduce Carbon, Cut Capitalism’ and ‘Earth First, Profits Last’ pro-direct action placards, our ‘Social Change not Climate Change’ banner and flew our red ‘n’ blacks proudly, just to lend our angle to the festivities – although not speaking for all of BAN, obviously!

As it turned out though, there was no such fascism present here – the mayor and head of the church diocese gave their speeches, calling for increases in planned carbon reductions from 60% to 80%, and demanding that corporations be forced to display publicly their greenhouse gas emissions, and Christian Aid marchers [many who turned out to not be of faith] mingled with the crowd and seemed quite happy with the diversity of messages. Likewise, Greenpeace canvassed the crowd to sign their ‘light brigade’ pledge to outlaw inefficient bulbs. The rally was actually very brief, with some local press snapping away and a circle of attentive crowd, but although some of us BANners would call for heavier commitments to combat planetary rape, some constructive debate was had, and we all seem to be facing the same foe – that one being corporations and big government.

Cut The Carbon left Bath this morning at 8.30am for Trowbridge, and I guess the saga continues.