The People's Assembly is a national coalition of people opposed to austerity. It includes many trades unions and political groups as well as people unaffiliated to any organisation.
The SWP has taken an active part in helping to build the People's Assembly and it was great to see between 15 and 20,000 people filling central London for yesterday's demonstration.
The weather was on our side and the atmosphere buoyant and noisy as we marched from the BBC to Parliament, pausing only to boo deafeningly outside Downing St. There were a range of great speakers including Francesca Martinez who had taken off her comedy hat especially for the occasion.
Members of local People's Assembly groups should certainly feel energised by such a lively event!
One particularly brilliant feature of yesterday was the trades union presence. There were large contingents from the FBU, RMT, PCS, Unison, Unite, and the NUT - all unions that are either already taking action or will soon be taking united action against austerity measures. Workers are the ones with the real clout to bring down this government, because of the vital role we play in the economy: no workers, no wealth, no services. It was good to see the People's Assembly recognising this by giving the unions such prominence in the demonstration.
Best Placards
Some of our comrades are seasoned demonstrators, and those readers who are no stranger to marches will know that one of the best things about a good demonstration are the placards people make for the occasion. Here's our hip-and-with-it-Buzzfeed-style roundup of the Branch Secretary's Top 10 Placards and Placardeers!
No. 10 - Not a home-made placard, but brilliantly held, I'm sure you'll agree.
No. 9 - Heartfelt and stylish, this had no trouble catching the eye.
No. 8 - Fresh from his appearance at the NUT national conference at Easter, Derby favourite Gove the Childcatcher.
No. 7 - Pithy and topical, with extra kudos for explicit anti-racism. Only mildly marked down for spelling.
No. 6 - Reminding the ruling class of how the exploiter / exploitee relationship really works, with a nice ransom-note motif.
No. 4 - Wordy but heartfelt, and in this socialist's heart there's always room for wordy but heartfelt.
No. 3 - I felt this one, rather uniquely, had resonances both of Goya's 'black paintings' period, and Janet and Allen Ahlberg's Funnybones. That has to be a winning combination, surely.
No. 2 - But, on the other hand, I've never been able to resist something from the Profanisaurus end of the political spectrum.
And finally, the coveted Number One slot. Topical and relevant, particularly as Birmingham is only just down the road. The outrageously opportunistic and racist actions by Michael Gove (easily my least favourite Tory) show no regard for either the truth or the impact on communities of high-profile attacks and slurs on them. But of course Gove is also extremist in his policies, which attempt to utterly destroy any chance of good-quality comprehensive education for all students. Here's my pick for Best Placard and Placardeer of the day!
Thanks you for putting this up so quickly. i am going to steal some of your text and images for a mailing from Derby Peoples assembly. Just a question about the numbers. The guardian on-line article suggested there were 50,000 people. My instinct tells me you are closer to the mark. Any thoughts/
ReplyDeleteHi Peter, that's fine.
ReplyDeleteA regards numbers, they are notoriously hard to gauge, but those were the numbers floating around the Twittersphere at the time and it felt about 20k-ish to me - about double the size of a 10k demo against Operation Cast Lead I was on a few years ago and not quite as big as the demo against the Tories last September. Others may disagree of course.