Mark Thomas, banning demos, and the whole of Aldershot is a SOCPA zone
I went to hear Mark Thomas a few days ago.
For those with their heads in a bucket, he’s a comedian campaigning against iniquitous SOCPA laws (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005) by following them to the letter.
Those were the laws under which a woman was arrested for reading out a list of war dead at the Cenotaph, and ban demonstrations without advanced permission within around 1km of Parliament, and - apparently - the whole of Aldershot and Farnborough (hat tip Wat Tyler who was SOCPA’d outside a Porsche dealer IBM (IBM Waste Watch Video 2 minutes in), while the confirmatory email is on my PC which died this morning (sorry).
Even though I follow Mark Thomas from time to time, I hadn’t noticed the fact that SOCPA means that you can now demonstrate - with permission from SOCPA - in Downing Street itself.
The law says that the police must give permission for people to demonstrate within the area covered by the law (see previous article and map)which includes Downing Street. So for the first time since the gates went up in 1989 we were allowed to demonstrate in Downing St itself rather than being herded into the metal railings in Whitehall opposite. So in groups of twos and threes we were allowed into the hallowed grounds, having gone through various metal detectors and escorted by police. I had made a blue plaque, announcing that Tony Blair Lived here - Prime Minister and War criminal. My friend Tony happily waved his banner declaring “Shame on me for voting Labour”.
There was apparently a demonstration in Downing Street against Gated Communities. Wonderful.
Highly recommended, especially if you have not been following the campaign.
There’s more coming in the next months, but I’m not posting about that - go to the show or read the website.
Blogging may be intermittent over the next few days due to PC hardware problems, and a sick broadband connection. Any email should be sent to mattwardman AT gmail FULLSTOP com.
[...] mentioned recently that the whole of Aldershot and Farnborough is a “sensitive area” under the Serious Organised Crime and Po… - at least as reported by the police officer who considered Wat Tyler to be a threat to national [...]