Arriving at Charing Cross station, I noticed a helicopter hovering above Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. The turbine engine giving off that distinctive high pitched whine seemed to merge with the sirens of the fleet of police vans screaming down The Strand towards Whitehall.
“Might be worth following”, I thought to myself clutching the camera I had brought with me. Just at the top end of Whitehall where it empties out into the expansive Trafalgar Square was a phalanx of police with their dayglo yellow smocks and their antique English police helmets...looking a bit bored.
Bored cops...below:
“Where’s all the trouble? It all looks pretty serene and peaceful to me” I thought. “Still worth a photo I suppose” as I snapped the bored bobbies with Whitehall behind them sweeping down and away towards Big Ben and Parliament. Inside the House of Commons, MPs were voting to raise university tuition fees which looked like it was going to happen even before the students decided to start their protests many weeks ago. The setting sun glinted off the tower of Big Ben as I turned and went about my work.
London always looks better when there’s a demonstration or protest on as the streets are emptied of traffic leaving the pedestrian to wander around without fear of black cab, double decker bus or white van man knocking you over.
The huge Christmas tree was glittering in the pre dusk sunset in the middle of the square and Canada House looked empty and abandoned. The building had no lights on, the doors were shut and even the provincial flags out the front seemed to be muted and hanging limp. With no breeze, no sounds of London traffic and a bright blue-turning-to-pink sky; it was an eerie, muted and calm atmosphere.
After doing my usual rounds and briskly walking through Leicester Square, up through the back streets of Soho and then up Berwick Street, I turned and headed back wanting to see how the students were getting on with their protest.
The streets really did seem to be extraordinarily quiet and there wasn’t the hustle and bustle you would usually expect during the rush hour.
4 PM and it was easy to pass through the Christmas shoppers on Oxford Street as I supposed all of the protesters were in Whitehall trying to get as close as they could to The Houses Of Parliament. The street market down Berwick Street was packing up. Discarded fruit and vegetables were crushed into the pavement. The few hawkers selling warm hats, gloves and over priced chunks of funny smelling cheese were easily bantering with each other about how the day’s business went.
The sleazy strip clubs and adult video shops next to Raymonds Revue Bar were gearing up for the usual clientele of tourists. Regular punters and a few seedy characters were out either looking for trade, drugs or a warm place to crash for a few hours before being moved on by the old bill.
It all seemed mundane and just like any other day except for that clattering helicopter in the now dark sky being the only indication that something was going on down in Westminster.
There were a few lonely police sirens that echoed around the West End Streets and a few low murmurs of some shouting, but again, nothing that unusual about rush hour in W1.
By the time I got back to Trafalgar Square, the tourists were taking pictures of themselves in front of the now lit up Christmas tree. The pigeons were being fed and there wasn’t a single bus, taxi or suicidal cyclist to be seen. Peering down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, the flag indicating The Queen was home was fluttering in the now chilly breeze coming in from the north. A spotlight seemed to make it glow.
The line of bored looking cops at the top end of Whitehall was gone to be replaced by a few students aimlessly walking up the middle of the road. “Looks like it’s all over” I thought to myself, “but still how often do you get to walk down this road without any traffic?”
It always amazes me to think of the history that’s been shaped and evolved on this half mile stretch of real estate - so much Empire won and lost, so many wars started, lost and won. Horse Guards, Scotland Yard, The Ministry Of Defence, Downing Street, The Cenotaph and a bit further on, The Treasury, The Supreme Court and into Parliament Square and the Houses Of Parliament, all this in a 15 minute walk. Just over there on the left is The Banqueting House - scene of a bloody royal story. Charles the 1st lost his head there in 1649; accused of being a tyrant and a murderer. The republic didn’t last long though. Too bad - they had it right for a brief 11 years! Now all these buildings were shut up, dark and quiet except for The Ministry Of Defence because there is a war on, don’t you know. Have you ever wondered why they call the armed forces ‘defence’ when there’s been so many offensive wars started down here along Whitehall? By the way, you can rent out the main room in the Banqueting House for posh meals, fancy celebrations and all sorts of aristocratic fun and games. My, haven't we come far!
A lonely looking matrix traffic board was flickering a message - its bright dots spelling out: “TURN LEFT HERE” warning traffic which didn’t exist...and then apologising “SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED”.
There was the large mass of a crowd off in the distance and a few muffled roars coming through a loudhailer. “WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!” chanted the crowd. I could see the crowd clearly now. It was like one melted, black mass strung out across Whitehall itself, a few banners and flags being waved by the crowd at what looked like nobody in particular.
To the right there were a dozen or so cops all dressed up in their riot gear with shields and helmets at the gates of Downing Street. There was a definite increase of tension in the air. That helicopter was now joined by another over Parliament Square, where MPs were just about to vote on increasing education fees from £3,000 to £9,000 a year.
I couldn’t see beyond the first hundred or so protesters and asked a guy next to me if anybody was allowed near Parliament. “No mate, they’re not letting anybody past that line”.
What line?
This line: Looks like they’re doing the conga doesn’t it? Popular slogan during 2010 was “You’ve Been Clegged”.
I had to peer over the heads of the protesters, but there, all in black and in riot gear with linked, strung out arms were at least 200 cops preventing anybody from getting anywhere past this point. Off to the left there was loud bang as somebody let off a firecracker which drew a cheer from the crowd.
Turning to the guy I was speaking to earlier, I told him to watch it because the cops were waiting en masse back along the side road next to the MOD. They were obviously waiting to form a barrier from that end of Whitehall to hem and kettle the protestors. He said “Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that”.
I wandered back up Whitehall to go across the Thames on The Hungerford Bridge but there was another group of 200 protesters coming down from Trafalgar Square. They were noisier and were shouting, swearing and knocking over the crash barriers erected to keep apart the crowds - “FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT”. A couple of burly skinheads had joined them, this bunch had a different more menacing manner about them...but I left them to it as I still had a few errands to do on the other side of the river.
Up on Hungerford Bridge, I stopped to have a look at The Houses Of Parliament and Big Ben which were lit up by flashing blue lights and the dim glow of flames coming from Parliament Square. The MPs inside were voting - doing the so-called democratic thing they were selected to do by the people. Obviously not a happy process as smoke, helicopters and now a rising roar could be heard coming from very close to where the nominated members were sitting.
I could see flashes of light reflecting off something moving down the Embankment. It seemed there were little sparks bouncing off something which looked like a long, irregular shape - sort of like a snake squirming its way around a right angle in a side road towards Whitehall and the crowds I had just left. It was a long line of riot police the light reflecting off their upturned visors on their helmets. They were coming up around the back of the crowd and that last mob who looked like they wanted a fight.
It was a surreal sight. Daylight had melted into the black of night. Two helicopters were circling, their navigation lights flickering and their spotlights tracing trouble down below not 100 yards from the democratic process in action. Smoke from fires raging in Parliament Square was now almost obscuring the clock face of Big Ben. As a spectator, I could see the police unfolding their controversial ‘kettling’ technique ready to smother and surround the trouble makers as well as the peaceful marchers and young teenage students - everybody. They wouldn’t let them out. They cut them off as if depriving them of the oxygen to fuel their fires and protests.
“This is going to be nasty”. As I headed back across the bridge, I could feel the adrenalin surging through my body getting swept away by the sense that perhaps history was going to be made tonight.
Ok yeah, I’m a ‘protest tourist’, but you gotta admit, violent protests have their use especially if they happen this close to where governments are forming policy. Besides, this part of London has a long history of this sort of civil disobedience that goes back centuries. In 1886 living conditions for the poor were becoming intolerable and mixed with a deep recession a hard winter and high unemployment the scene was ripe for a mass demonstration in Trafalgar Square. The ensuing riot saw shops in Mayfair looted and the wealthy rich in their private clubs along Pall Mall thumbing their noses at the marchers while throwing bread rolls on to their heads. Socialism was on the rise and the wealthy establishment realised they couldn’t sit aloof away from the unemployed ‘street toughs of the East End and Deptford’ any longer.
But I digress. There was a definite change of atmosphere along Whitehall – the tension was rising and coming back along The MOD’s building, the noise was definitely louder. That mass of 200 aggressive protesters had broken away from that other crowd and was making their way back up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. Not a cop in sight.
One of the helicopters was slowly following this splinter group, its searchlight tracing out the hooded heads. The black clad mob chanting and waving sticks where clever banners used to be such as “You’ve been Clegged”. More of those steel barriers were upturned and thrown across Whitehall. Tourists cowered in a pub’s door way - the inviting light coming from inside belying the anger and frustration coming from the crowd outside. A few people came out of the pub and joined the mob as it emptied into Trafalgar Square toward the Christmas tree. A chant went up, “BURN THE TREE! BURN THE TREE! BURN THE FUCKING TREE!”
Somebody had something on them which seemed to ignite it in an instant. The tree caught fire another huge roar went up and two civilian security guards retreated very quickly...presumably to the pub.
Still no cops - just a couple of police vans blocking the way down the mall toward Buckingham Palace, so the mob wound its way past Canada House up Haymarket and into Piccadilly Circus. The chants were getting louder as the street narrowed and I could feel the anger getting more intense. The traffic was still flowing through Piccadilly Circus as I followed behind the main crowd. The bright lights of Piccadilly Circus advertising McDonald’s, SONY and all the other excesses of a rampant capitalist society seemed to spur the mob on and chants of “TOP SHOP! TOP SHOP! TOP SHOP!” could be heard. These weren’t the jolly students with their witty slogans and humorous placards, more like professional anarchists with destruction and vengeance on their minds.
The object now seemed to be, to go up Regent Street with all its festive Christmas lights and Christmas shoppers, towards Oxford Street where the main branch of Top Shop was. There was another crowd of protesters coming down in the opposite direction clogging up the road - the traffic stopped.
The first thing I noticed was the siren and then the flashing blue lights coming up quickly behind me. At last the cops had arrived. There seemed to be a massive pause, a perceptible lull in the mob’s chanting for a brief second - like a sudden realisation; an awareness.
The blue lights and sirens didn’t belong to the riot police. It was motorcycle outriders, one police van, a sleek black Jaguar, one marked police car and one of those state cars that you often see sweeping along London streets delivering some royal to some appointment somewhere.
You can tell if there’s a royal inside by the emblem stuck on the roof like some badge of honour but it’s more like a mark and that a member of the elite wants to come this way and for you to get out of the road.
But not this time.
Not 20 feet from where I was standing I could see the future King of England Prince Charles and his wife Camilla looking a little bewildered in the back of this very obvious looking state car stalled in the middle of a pack of a now screaming and chanting mob. Charles was actually waving his hands in greeting, smiling a little nervously, as if he thought the crowd wanted to kiss the very earth he walked on.
Their passenger windows were wound down about half way and for some reason I thought, “Isn’t it a bit cold to be driving through London with your windows down?”
There was nowhere for them to go. The two crowds had stopped the traffic dead. At least 300 protestors had now turned into an angry mob intent on ransacking the posh shops along Regent Street.
Almost at the same time windows were being smashed, a fire was started in the shop front of De Boers. Tourists and Christmas shoppers started screaming and running in terror down side streets towards Soho and into Mayfair. The thick black smoke from a couple of fires was starting to curl into the air up through the Christmas lights strung out from one side of the street to the other.
The lone helicopter’s spotlight now piercing the night gloom with its arcing white light giving the whole scene a feeling of urban chaos as if this was Brixton in 1981.
A couple of police officers ran to the car which had now come to a full stop but this didn’t stop one mob member running up and shouting in through the open window, “All right Charles mate. How are ya?” He reached in through the window and grabbed something from around Camilla’s neck. The look on her face was sheer fear and terror. Obviously senses she had never experienced before in her privileged life.
“TORY SCUM TORY SCUM TORY SCUM, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” The shout went up and the car began to rock back and forth as the rioters were now kicking the doors and banging their fists against the still open windows. A copper shouted, “SHUT THE WINDOWS!”
I noticed something sailing through the air off to my left, a trail of liquid following it as it smashed with a metallic thud along the rear, left side wing of the car. Another cheer and more paint came from somewhere splashing all over rioters and cops alike.
What happened next is still a blur but all I remember is the “CRACK CRACK CRACK” of what I thought was more firecrackers. There were more screams from the crowd as they panicked and started to stampede away from the royals and the cops two or three of which had now drawn their concealed weapons and were pointing them at the crowd. “ARMED POLICE, GET BACK!” they shouted. I could see bodies lying on the ground and people scrambling to get away but falling over. Then there was a dull crack, like another firecracker - but this time brighter and more like a flare, and it came from inside the royals’ car. All of a sudden there was massive “WHUMP” and the car filled with a bright orange flame, the windows blew out and for about 50 feet around the car everybody was flattened by the force of the explosion.
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During the next few weeks after the national state of emergency was lifted and the troops were sent back to their barracks and the public enquiry had started, it was disclosed that some of the rioters had milk bottles full of petrol. I remembered how quickly the tree went up in Trafalgar Square. With all the high tech police helicopters, CCTV cameras and mobile phone footage nobody has ever been caught and nobody remembers seeing who threw the petrol bomb in through the open window that killed the future King Of England that cold December night in 2010.
