This is how 'Big Society' looks like, Lambeth Town Hall Occupation.

We arrived to last night's second demonstration against the Lambeth Council cuts budget meeting slightly late, and as we were approaching the Town Hall the first thing that surprised us was the loud noise coming out from the demo, a cacophony of car horns responding to the 'Honk Against The Cuts' placards, mixed with the chants of 'No ifs, no Buts, No Public Services Cuts' that the 250 strong crowd kept chanting. It seemed obvious to us straight away that this was not going to be the usual 'picket' trying to 'lobby' some politicians (aspiring politicians in this case!) but a determined rejection to the £32 million worth of cuts Lambeth Council was due to vote on.

The crowd stood for an hour or so at the doorsteps of the Council building, listening to several speeches, dancing to a small mobile sound system, and  leafleting passers-by whilst getting the support from passing cars.

Eventually, and quite spontaneously too, at around 7pm most of the crowd started to enter the building amidst the confusion of the security staff that immediately tried to stop people from making it to the chamber were the councillors meeting was taking place. Security staff repeatedly tried to shut doors, to pen people in corridors, and some even got quite violent pushing and heckling protestors whilst trying to prevent them from reaching the chamber's public gallery. But the determined crowd took none of it and the first wave of 100 or so protestors managed to take over the chamber's balcony.

What happened next it is already very well explained in this and this reports, so there's no need to get into details once again here, but if anything, last night's protest clearly proved, once more, that when people take action collectively and decisively there are no barriers that can prevent them from achieving their aims.

Council leader Steve Reed is quoted in the BBC stating that "You can't have people just storming through town hall" ... well Steve it's really not that surprising that people, the very same people that the Council are supposed to 'serve', are strongly reacting to this set of unnecessary, unjust and deeply damaging cuts. That's what happens when people start to be concerned about their futures as a consequence of the massive rip-off most of society is being subjected to. We see it happening all over the world, don't we?!

Here there a few pics of the protest:

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