There’s something delicious about seeing very rich and powerful people take on a fight and then realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. They’re not used to it and sometimes seemingly small victories are the best we can hope for.

Last week Class War founder, Ian Bone, promoted globally on facebook the idea of redressing the balance on housing in London by occupying the Shard. There are multi million quid apartments in the building laying empty year and after year, meanwhile homelessness is on the rise and the vast majority of Grenfell survivors have still not been re-housed.

Before I go further I should say I’m part of Class War. My PhD research from the inside of the group has unearthed many examples of both the authorities and the media imagining that Class War just has to press a button somewhere and the unruly mob of thousands rises from the streets to literally devastate the avenues where the wealthy live. Class War are organising protests all the time and the size of a protest doesn’t really have an exact science behind it; some things take off and most things don’t. The vast majority of Class War events pass without any media interest. This means that when they do take off and large numbers attend a demo and boisterous things occur the police and others can look terribly inadequate so there has become a standard theme to policing Class War events: they send at least a van of cops along, hours in advance just in case, presumably with others on standby if they feel it necessary.

Continue reading “Class War smash Qatari Royals and promote Protest Rights”