Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Brighton under siege
Residents of Brighton and Hove have been living under a virtual police state for the past few days thanks to the Labour Party conference. Steel barricades, swamping surveillance, the constantly hovering chopper, the incongruous sight of cops with machine guns strolling round Regency Square.
This has given police carte blanche to stop and harass anyone they fancy - a crusty with a can of brew minding his own business on the sea front is hardly a threat to the security of the government.
They don't take too kindly to being photographed and I've been moved on or had to scoot off sharpish a few times for daring to snap back at the state which has been filming and photographing me constantly for the past 30 years - at least on Sunday's demo there were so many of us photographing that we managed to get away with it trouble-free.
While I'm not into conspiracy theories, I get the feeling that this show of strength and so-called Ring of Steel is not so much for the benefit of protecting Brown and co but as a practice run for controlling and subduing the civilian population as a whole at some point in the not-so-distant future.
Labels: Brighton 2009 Labour party conference demo demonstration police state surveillance
