several hundred people took part in a march to parliament this afternoon. but a huge police operation ensured they couldn't exercise their democratic duty to protest outside the democratic heart of the nation. however, with non-violent persistence the protestors got close, ending up outside the house of lords, a stone's throw (not that any were) from the square.

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more than a thousand people gathered outside st paul's early this afternoon, and listened to a succession of speakers from many fields and from many nations. city of london police handed out a notice stating that they would prevent any attempt to march to parliament, but perhaps due to a combination of negotiation, the sheer weight of numbers, and maybe the realisation how bad the PR might be, they relented and several hundred people followed a large "occupy LSX" banner and headed west along fleet street and the strand.

policing at this stage was fairly light and good-natured. some people played football while weaving in and out through the front line of police. along the strand, more police joined the sides of the march, but at trafalgar square TSG appeared from side streets and several vans and lines of police completely blocked the access to whitehall.

there was a little bit of scuffling at this police line, with attempts to push through it, but the crowd remained generally peaceful and soon withdrew, looking for an alternative route to parliament.

moving west along pall mall, they took a left down the steps to st james park, and broke into a run. police panicked and poured into the park, forming arbitrary lines, stopping some people, while others walked nonchalantly past. one particularly crazy bunch stood in a line among the autumn leaves with batons raised, halting the progress of some protestors while others strolled past each end of the line.

the crowd found a well-formed cordon at birdcage walk, and after some short remonstrations, they changed direction heading up towards the palace and then doubling down petty france. again as they neared parliament square they were met by police cordons on storey's gate and victoria street, so they again avoided direct confrontation and headed towards millbank, eventually approaching the square once again in front of the house of lords along st margaret's street.

at this point they were met by just a single line cordon, but again, the principle of non-violence was adhered to, although there were easily enough demonstrators to push through. soon though, more vans arrived and blocked access, and police re-inforcements from both the met and city of london were soon deployed to effect a powerful cordon pushing protestors back along the road, threatening arrests for 'unlawful protest' (section 132 of the about-to-be-repealed serious organised crime and police act 2005). at the rear of the crowd, a looser cordon was occasionally letting protestors leave, although there were apparently a few SOCPA arrests too.

by about 6.30, the crowd had been dispersed, with some ending up in trafalgar square and others returning to st pauls.

interestingly (and if you know anyone that was arrested, please pass this information on), earlier in the week,
chris coverdale, the long-time war law activist, put in official notifications to the charing cross events team for two protests in parliament square this saturday afternoon from 3pm, with numbers between 1500 and 15000. as, under the SOCPA legislation, the police must by law authorise protests that are notified according to the law, it was in fact the police who were behaving unlawfully in preventing people from attending the protests in the square, and anyone who was arrested should know that the two protests chris coverdale notified were under the banners of "democracy village" and "make wars history". assuming you followed good practice and gave 'no comment' interviews to the police, then this information could be of great value to your defence.

chris is contactable at ccovers{AT}gmail[d0t]com - i strongly suggest arrestees or their representatives contact him for more details.

as people left the area, one activist decided to protest the continuing closure of parliament square to the public and he jumped over the fence and stood with a peace flag on the grass. in what must surely count as the most crap arrest of the day, no less than eight city police approached him across the grass and arrested him for allegedly breaking an injunction, and for "aggravated trespass".

the definition of aggravated trespass involves "the intention of disrupting, or intimidating those taking part in, lawful activity taking place on that or adjacent land."" now, given that the only people taking part in any 'activity' in parliament square were the security guards (euphemistically named "heritage wardens"), and as their lawful activity involves making sure members of the public don't go on the grass, it seems to me that the activist was actually facilitating their work and engaging them in their lawful activity (in fact stopping them from simply sitting around wasting taxpayer's money), so the charge of 'aggravated trespass' is spurious, laughable, and possibly even malicious. on the subject of taxpayer's money, it also seems a total waste that eight police were deployed to arrest a single demonstrator who was not only completely peaceful, but was also carrying a 'peace' flag.

the bbc local news tonight mentioned that protestors from LSX marched to parliament square this afternoon, but somehow overlooked that they were presented from doing so by a ridiculous overblown unnecessary police operation costing huge amounts of money. what planet are these news editors on?