Saturday 21st June 2014, the summer solstice, the first official day of summerand the People’s Assembly March Against Austerity.

From wikipedia:

"In late 15th-century England, John Mirk of Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire, gives the following description (of the solstice): "At first, men and women came to church with candles and other lights and prayed all night long. In the process of time, however, men left such devotion and used songs and dances and fell into lechery and gluttony turning the good, holy devotion into sin."

Lechery, gluttony and sin eh? Sounds good but first to the serious business of marching from one place to another, telling the great and the good how we feel about their plan of a neo-con takeover of public services and the accompanying public service cuts.

They would listen. Changes would be made and then to the lechery and gluttony. That was the plan, except despite the march starting from the BBC in Portland Place bugger all attention was paid to the 50, 000 people that were assembled outside this bastion of state funded,unbiased reportage.

Nothing of all the different groups that had come together under the People’s Assembly umbrella. The TUC and countless regional unions with their intricately embroidered banners, Left Unity, NHS protesters, Anarchists, Black Block, Class War,, PCS, Stand Up to UKIP, NUT, SWP, Stop the War Coalition, individuals, families, old, young, the disabled. the abled bodied and many others.

Nothing of the drummers, the dancers and the choir that sang the Internationale.

But we were oblivious to this as our glorious leader Owen Jones finished his champagne and ordered the start of the march.

As we moved off I looked up to the BBC building and for a second I thought I saw a silhouette of Clarkson looking down at the assembled mass, playing eeny-meeny-miney mo to decide which one of us he was going shoot in front of our families as promised on the One Show.

The march took a full 45 minutes to pass the beeb and Clarkson put his sniper rifle down, having resisted the urge take pot shots,at all the commies, and retired to his personal boudoir, donning a smoking jacket and with pipe in hand he settled down to a continuous loop of Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech, interspersed with grainy photographs of Belsen inmates, drifting in and out of opium induced reveries, whispering “Rosebud”.

The march snaked its way towards the den of vipers in Parliament Square. As we came to Whitehall, Class War had made a brief stop at Downing Street to impart their particular brand of invective.
By the time we had got to the square the celeb speeches had started.We rested a while under the ever present gaze of FIT teams and TSG, who were obviously there just in case Owen Jones had overdone it on the Moet and started kicking off at Ian Bone.

Papers were sold, leaflets were handed out and the speeches continued. For a People’s Assembly there wasn’t many ordinary types up on the stage and come to think of it there wasn’t a plebs block assigned for the march either. It has also come to light that DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, had been refused a talking spot, something which is incredible considering how much great work they do. Maybe these issues could be raised for the future.

Tired and thirsty we made our way to a nearby pub and reluctantly forced some booze down our necks and discussed the day’s events. We all agreed that it was a great turnout and a good day barring the above concerns. Then in the haze of intoxication we gorged ourselves upon lechery, gluttony and sin.

One march rarely produces the required effect but several coordinated marches, along with sustained political action in other spheres are needed if anything is ever going to change.

A twitter storm on Saturday forced a piss poor effort by the BBC to make amends for their complete lack of coverage: A thirty second video of the beginning of the march with no commentary and two anodyne paragraphs which would not upset their corporate masters
It was all over. Clarkson can breathe a sigh of relief. He can go back to making his coarse remarks, fully funded by the very people that gathered outside on Saturday afternoon, in the shadow of the behemoth of the BBC - the British Blackout Corporation.
Crow