Council calls police on peaceful Labour demo

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Regular readers will remember the campaign by Battersea Labour Party and others against Tory Wandsworth council’s plans to charge children to use a local park. On Wednesday, activists headed down there to continue their fight against the proposals and to celebrate national “playday”. However, things did not work out as planned, and the council decided to call the police. According to a local party member:

“The morning got off to a wonderful start and with the sun beaming, posters printed, flyers made, petitions on clipboards, drinks and snacks ready, Jack and I set off to the park (poor young Jack carrying the pasting table full of posters and flyers all the way there…and back). We arrived just before twelve midday, I went to the Parks Office (I had been advised to do this) to let them know we were there and what we planned on doing, the lovely lady there said it was fine so we set up our beautiful stall.”

“Unfortunately, the people from the council weren’t too pleased about this, Kathy Tracey — Cabinet Member for Education — was due any minute and they felt it wasn’t really the look they were going for, so they decided the best course of action was to call the police. In fact not only did they call the police but they told them there was a ‘group protest’ taking place without stating any numbers. Next thing we knew three police cars turned up and they had us surrounded.”

You can read the full story of this spectacular over-reaction at the Labour in Wandsworth blog.