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Nearly an hour after we arrived real things started to happen. We bid a sad farewell to the PAOK fans and ran after the scattering crowd of Occupy protesters. A turn to the right onto Haymarket and a flare went off, we followed it down a small street where another was lit. Through red smoke and shouting a number of people ran into a building, Panton House. With police playing catch-up the energy carried through and people milled into the bulding while others surrounded the entrance. Quickly, though, several scores of blue-capped policemen appeared and wrestled with those closest to the doors of the building.The building had been targeted because it is owned by mining company Xstrata, who, besides being a mining company, are very good at paying their CEOs an awful lot of money, this woman with a big mouth explained.Over the next few minutes, heated exchanges took place between an increasing number of police and the still-hot crowd, and those who had entered Panton House were removed, or left. (It has since been reported that some got onto the roof and at some point later were arrested and removed.) Here's some people being pushed down the stairs by police:
Now kettled in, most of the protesters outside kept themselves busy by uncovering an undercover cop or three or, quite literally, clowning around.Exposing secret bobbies is becoming an increasingly common protest game, following footage of an undercover snatch arrest at the student demo earlier in the month.
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What is perhaps more shocking than the sheer number of secret police was how unbelievably bad their "disguises" are. No one comes to a protest dressed to watch their son's football game down the park on Sunday morning, or as a member of the EDL (unless it's an EDL protest, which this was not). They would have been better off dressing like the clowns.After a while, the crowd was dispersed, the kettle dissolved and some arrests made. Occupy didn't occupy Panton House, but that was the highlight of a long day of marching and a much-needed shot of energy for the movement. Until the next big Union-backed demo, there will be debates covering: the protest's effectiveness as a bargaining tool for pensions, how much it's pissed off the government and, in certain arenas, how much it's supposedly cost us all.Whatever they decide it cost and whatever its effectiveness in the pensions outcome, it did irk David Cameron. Calling the strike a "damp squib" but being happy for the WHOLE country to take a day off for the Royal Wedding – and we're going to employ the cherished "at the taxpayers' expense" argument here – at the taxpayers expense (!!) doesn't help his argument. You are probably also aware that Jeremy Clarkson waded in with his usual subtlety, calling for all strikers to be "be executed in front of their families." He's a lovely man, and 21,000 public complaints should definitely not put him off his quest for glory (sarcasm). Let's just hope he doesn't find out who signs his paycheck before turning the gun on himself (irony).As for the day: well, marches can be boring, but they do send a message. Occupy stepped up to the plate, but it's a pain in the arse that useful direct action will too often be demonised as unnecessary violence. However, opinion pieces and blog posts can only get you so far. Set off a flare and point it at a guilty party and you've got a yourself stew, baby. That shit will get people pumped, I don't care who you are.WORDS & IMAGES: DAVID ALEXANDER & HENRY LANGSTON