It began just like one of the many townhall protests in south London recently: Several hundreds of people had gathered outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton Square to protest, while the council inside was supposed to make a decision about implementing governments cuts. To the suprise of many, it became a great spontanous protest.

Briefly before 7pm some poeple entered the building to access the public gallery. It became soon obvious that only one of the two galleries was open two the public, obviously to limit the number of people allowed in the meeting. In addition to that, townhall security tried to check people after entering for banners and cameras, but seemed suprised by the amount of people and the energy of people pushing forward, while most police was busy to manage the crowed outside the building.

The poeple inside were finally kept from accessing the public gallery because security staff had closed the doors to the staircase, trying to enforce to let people in one by one, but completely failed to do so. Poeple started chanting and shouting, finally pushing the doors to the stairs open and soon about 100 people had occupied the public gallery. They then shouted down at the councillors to demand that the rest of the public waiting outside is allowed inside. The Mayor of Lambeth made an almost comical attempt to silence the public when his statement that their disturbance would "stop democracy from taking place here" drowned in laughter.

Meanwhile some people had also managed to get access to the floor of the council chamber, taking the microphones and talking to the councillors, giving the whole scene a chaotic flavour. After about 20 minutes the mayor and the councillors gave up their attempts to control the situation and all councillors left the chamber. At that point about 100 more people had managed to access the building , now taking over the councillors seats in the chamber. When sombody occupied the mayor's seat and annoucned the start of a public meeting, people cheered and applauded.

The occupiers then held a public meeting about organising against the cuts in the council chamber, with many speakers from different groups and initiatives, talking about the effects of the cuts on health care, public libraries, education and children. Speakers expressed disgust about Labour Councillors who, instead of fighting with the protestors against the governments plans, would readily implement the cuts on a local level. The march on 26th March was much discussed, with several speakers stressing the fact that this day can not be just a march through London and listening to some speaches.

There were several callouts to use 26th March to start occupations, strikes and direct action. As one speaker phrased it: "It is up to us if we use this day for our protest and make this a powerful movement, or leave it to the unions and politicians. If we leave it to them, this movement will end on the 26th March."

Personally, i have to say that some of the union (Unison) people speaking in the chamber annoyed me big time. Their contant request to "behave orderly" and to "vote on how long we want to occupy the townhall" seemed completely to ignore the fact that the occupation was a spontanous and un-orderly act itself, and any attempt to make the situation "orderly" seemed heavily misplaced here. After about 3 hours most occupier left the chamber, as nobody was really prepared for a longer occupation.

Meanwhile people were told that the council had met in secret and had quickly - protected by police - made a decision in favour of the cuts. This however was to be expected. If this is how councils will have to meet in the future, then we clearly see what this society is like. As a friend of mine recently stated: "It seems every council meeting is now becoming a mini-G8, well-protected from the people, and loosing any legitimation to represent the local communities."

After all, it was a great protest and very encouraging. Let's hope the momentum will stay, the cuts won't be a one day decision, there are numerous council meetings to come. We will have to see if councillors can flee the public forever or if they will have to face the fact that people are genuinely angry.