as parliament was state-opened today, the democracy village carried on with its main campaign to bring the troops home from afghanistan. the papers have gone apoplectic saying there should be no "permament" protest, but as the camp is clearly a protest about an admittedly long, but ongoing issue, there is no reason for the camp to remain indefinitely. with more and more troops coming out and agreeing with the majority of the british people that this war is a nonsense, the solution is obvious

the day started with a police search of all the tents in the square. some of the campers passively resisted the searches, but avid readers will know of brian haw's doubts that the searches are legal. in fact it is quite telling that although his supporter barbara tucker has been arrested many times for "obstructing the police in the course of their duty" over this very issue, the cases are all yet to be heard in court, where she will argue that the searches are in fact unlawful, and are meant to cause maximum harrassment.

once again, police took brian and barbara's objections as an excuse to violently assult/arrest them and took them to belgravia police station before 8am this morning. even the right-wing 'evening standard' described the arrest - "carried off by four officers with his whole body weight on his forward soldiers". other witnesses described the arrest as unnecessary and heavy-handed.

the rest of the morning passed pretty much without incident. policing was of course impenetrable, but in a public relations sort of way, police mingled with campers in a 'community policing' style approach giving the square the appearance of a festival.

there was a slightly silly 'alternative queen's speech' pantomime going on, and there were various groups present including guantanamo protestors, but aside from the huge 'troops home' banners, there actually wasn't much in the way of shouting as the elite and powerful rolled past.

brian's arrest has provoked some media coverage, and channel 4 did an interview with one of the camp's spokespeople that might appear on C4 news later if not edited out

the camp itself is intent on remaining until the troops are withdrawn. eviction will be resisted both physically (there is already a permamently manned tripod on site) and in the courts.

they are becoming better organised everyday, but need regular reports, are screaming out for tech help (as they have a partially constructed and functional comms tent which could do with extra 'leisure batteries' and techy knowledge), and could of course use donations of time, skills or money to keep going.

each day sees open meetings, and there will be more direct actions coming like the ones we have already seen reported here.

for more info and news, check out their blogspot - http://democracyvillage.blogspot.com/