Police Kettling Cyclists outside Olympic Opening

You are hilarious captain. I can’t think of anyone LESS IN TOUCH with the ‘Man on the Clapham Omnibus’ than you.

Repeating the same old bollocks doesn’t make it real. I’m pretty sure it won’t stop you though.

but a few of us can see the bigger picture…..

Yes, a few of US can. And we can see that CM antagonise and wind up the general public. That’s the US that see their rides, that have been on their rides, that have been affected by their rides and that have seen the effect.

So, yes, you’re right, a few of us can see the bigger picture…..

How do you know that I’m not in touch, Useless? From what I post on the interwebz?

Well, seeing as I live, work and commute in London (By bike), I’d say I’m rather close to them, thanks. They are the other side of the river in Clapham, but that’s what the moat’s for, isn’t it? 😉

Cfh.
Is that the royal we?
Have you thought that stw might not be representative of other cyclists.
Have you seen how many “skinny jeanen hipsters” there are in east london.
How many “hippies”
Have you thought, that people who ride bikes, but aren’t “proper” cyclists might agree with them?

Have you thought, that people who ride bikes, but aren’t “proper” cyclists might agree with them?

Yes, they might. But then again…

How do you know that I’m not in touch, Useless? From what I post on the interwebz?

I assume this is for me. You forget how long we’ve bantered captain…if your online persona is not an accurate reflection of who you are I’d be deeply sceptical of either half of you.

Well, seeing as I live, work and commute in London (By bike), I’d say I’m rather close to them, thanks. They are the other side of the river in Clapham, but that’s what the moat’s for, isn’t it

Living (or working) near the river doesn’t make you a spokesman for the common man flashy, quite the opposite.

I, on the other hand am more common than the green expanse in Wimbledon inhabited by Wombles. If such a subject is capable of uniting myself with El Cap, shouldn’t CM at least be taking note?

Ask the man on the Clapham Omnibus and he’ll say something along the lines of….

Have you asked “him”?
Have you even been on the Clapham Omnibus? 😉

Nealglover– you were a ski instructer, then worked in IT, now you clean posh cars— your world view is possibly tempered by your experiences….

Oooh, Jesus is back, look busy…

Have you even been on the Clapham Omnibus?

Nah. I use my bike! 🙂

creakey — you split my sides with your wit, bet you had lots of spotty friends at college

I think what is being lost here is that this is a cycling forum & most people agree with what CM are trying to achieve = loosely speaking is better conditione for cyclists. The argument should be about CM helping to achieve it or not. It is kinda symptomatic of STW that this can be derailed by a couple of people with a chip on their shoulder tying to demonstrate how authentically working class they are..

…and the weather in Poplar?

I think what is being lost here isbthatbrhis is a cycling forum & most people agree with what CM are trying to achieve = loosely speaking is better conditione for cyclists. The argument should be about CM helping to achieve it or not. It is kinda symptomatic of STW that this can be derailed by a couple of people with a chip on their shoulder tying to demonstrate how authentically working class they are..

Have you actually read anything that’s been written?

We’d love better conditions for cyclists, but we don’t think that pissing people off is a good way to achieve that…

😆 at you, rather than with you.

rudebwoy – Member
Nealglover– you were a ski instructer, then worked in IT, now you clean posh cars— your world view is possibly tempered by your experiences….

Please explain ?

I’m yet to see how my Job has anything to do with my opinion of CM (as you previously claimed)

Mine bold the rest you for clarity

some people who have nothing to do with the protest/celebration of cycling have been caught up in it.
The problem lies with CM.

you are right there the Police were literally powerless and bullied into arresting innocent folk by C M …the bastards

We really need a belm emoticon.

[BIG FAT IRONY]…cos that’s just what I said…[/BIG FAT IRONY]

well i rather wish I had not googled Belm what a lovely turn of phrase you have. At least debate with me on the isssue rather than use insults…if you can of course manage that 🙄

anyway i happy you now accept that the Police are responsible for when they arrest people rather than CM
Thanks

You’ve a fair point neal.
I’m a truck driver ffs.
It’s in my job description to hate all cyclists 😀

well i rather wish I had not googled Belm what a lovely turn of phrase you have. At least debate with me on the isssue rather than use insults…

Sorry, I didn’t appreciate how delicate you are. Belm was and still is a way of expressing irritation at the inability of someone to understand your point of view, perhaps it means something else when you google it.

However, you still appear to be dodging the issue by accusing me of being insulting.

I have nothing else to add.

Five ‘undred!

I have done nothing but comment on the issue with an aside asking you to not insult and debate the issue. You could of course have quoted my reply re that if you wished but hey you preferred another ad hominem and some BS about me avoiding the issue whilst you avoided the issue
I shall keep you to your word about nothing further to add 😉

never in my 8 years on STW have I felt the need to request that a thread is closed…. until now.

I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves…

goodbye horse, goodbye horse,

he was saying goodbye to his horse,

and as he was saying goodbye to his horse,

he was saying goodbye to his horse…..

Please explain ?
I’m yet to see how my Job has anything to do with my opinion of CM (as you previously claimed)

Yesterday’s guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/cyclists-like-pedestrians-must-get-angry

It has been a vivid, ironic, sometimes brutal, sometimes tragic, week for cyclists. I don’t mean the Olympians, I mean regular cyclists. Last week Critical Mass did their monthly cycle through central London – they’ve been doing it on the last Friday of the month for the past 18 years. There was really no need for the police to have a cow, but a cow was had, resulting in kettling, CS gas and 182 arrests. (Three people have since been charged with public order offences.) Y ou can sign this petition if you like…

The petition:
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/metropolitan-police-criminal-justice-system-uk-justice-for-the-critical-mass-182

On Friday 27th July, 182 cyclists were held in a police kettle for two hours, handcuffed in buses for three hours, and held in a police cell from six hours to two days. These included a 13 year old boy. Police also confirmed the cyclists reports that CS gas was used during these arrests.

Out of 182 cyclists, only 3 have been charged with any offence. However, ALL have bail conditions imposed on them until September 18th 2012 restricting their freedom to move, assmeble, associate and live their lives.

We have the following demands:
1. All bail conditions should be discharged
2. All data including DNA, fingerprint, addresses etc taken from those cyclists should be removed from all paper and comupter records of police & other agencies.
3. An independent review of the police behaviour on Friday 27th July should be conducted as a matter of urgency.

All this for continuing the 18 year tradition of a bike ride through the streets of London on the last Friday of every month.

This political policing to crush dissent and restrict peoples rights without charge must be stoppped. Help us stand for a police and legal system which we can believe in, sign our petition today.

N.B
See one eyewitness account of the harrowing experience: http://www.scriptonitedaily.org/2012/07/the-total-policing-of-critical-mass-eye.html#disqus_thread

I still don’t get the problem here.

They had conditions imposed upon them, lawfully, and chose to ignore them in order to court controversy and make a point.

they were told in advance that if they chose to ignore the conditions , then there would be repercussions.

so whats the problem? if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

Anyone want to set up another petition requesting that the privileges that Critical Mass had previously been granted be reviewed, and that by using antagonising and provocative tactics to step beyond the limits of police request, turned that cycle ride into an illegal assembly and illegal procession?

Nice impartial blog there

Some cyclists see it as a political statement for better conditions for cyclists, promoting the environmental and health impacts of cycling over cars, or reclaiming public space. Some see it as an awesome bit of fun and civil disobedience and others simply love cycling in their city. The best bit is that none of these opinions is wrong; they are all present and all welcome.

Well if they’re all present and welcome, then they forgot some cyclists see it as a bunch of reactionary nobheads whose juvenile and confrontational bell-endery ‘activism’ does our cause more harm than good, in fact sets it back years in the eyes of the general public

Why don’t these CM morons get this?!! FFS!!

They could have ‘celebrated cycling’ anywhere in the capital. They didn’t! They went to the one place they had been specifically (and perfectly reasonably IMHO) requested not to go! So in my mind, there’s only one reason anyone would do that. And that’s if you’re specific goal is confrontational – to provoke a reaction from the authorities

Its blatantly transparent that was the idea. There’s no other reasonable explanantion. So ultimately …. you got the ruck you wanted. So stop bitching about it you moaning half-wits! You’re convincing no-one. Hence the public indifference, or open hostility, to your supposed ‘injustice’. The fact is you got what you went looking for. End of. What infuriates me is the patronising way in which you think we can’t all see this

****ing idiots!!

“better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

For the innocent bystanders dragged in, kettled, and wrongfully arrested.

I’ve already commented on this thread with my disapproval, and reasons, of CM’s actions on Friday. That’s one problem
But “asshats” (as this forum likes to call them) or not, there were innocent people treated disgracefully by the Met. That’s a different problem.

what he said …iirc that there London is a big place and they could have gone anywhere within it’s boundaries so why go to the one place that you could not if not for a ruck?
you cannot claim police state if they give you the entire capital to cycle in bar one area and then you go there.

As i siad earlier aware of their own rights and how to protect them but very little interest in anyone elses rights or theor responsibilities to others.

A police statement said:
People have a right to protest and it is an incredibly important part of our democracy … What people do not have the right to do is to hold a protest that stops other people from exercising their own rights to go about their business – that means athletes who have trained for years for their chance in a lifetime to compete, millions of ticketholders from seeing the world’s greatest sporting event, and everyone else in London who wants to get around.

FFS I am quoting the babylon as th reasonable ones here 😯

For the innocent bystanders dragged in, kettled and wrongfully arrested.

No, stop, there’s an important division here – being arrested and then later shown to be innocent and no charges being brought is not the same as being wrongfully or unlawfully arrested.

No need to get shouty and sweary about points made by both you and me pages earlier. That’s just boring, but louder and more abusive.
CM were wrong.
But the debate has moved on, and for me, singletrackhor’s story shows that there were non-CM cyclists who suffered at least wrongful arrest, and possibly brutality. The Met were wrong too.

Met Police in being up for a ruck with a bunch of ‘activists’ out looking for one Shocka!!!

People have a right to protest and it is an incredibly important part of our democracy … What people do not have the right to do is to hold a protest that stops other people from exercising their own rights to go about their business – that means athletes who have trained for years for their chance in a lifetime to compete, millions of ticketholders from seeing the world’s greatest sporting event, and everyone else in London who wants to get around.

lets pick this apart shall we?

people have a right to protest when you, the police say they can – if you say they can’t because whitehall have told you to oppose it then they actually are being denied the right to protest aren’t they?

all marches and protests invlove roads and areas being closed off which naturally ‘stops other people from exercising their own rights to go about their business’. This is a totally mute point and is only made because it sounds reasonable but actually is crap.

would two hundred cyclists really prevent ‘athletes who have trained for years for their chance in a lifetime to compete, millions of ticketholders from seeing the world’s greatest sporting event, and everyone else in London who wants to get around’ from doing pretty much whatever they wanted to do? Would it cause more problems that a tube station beiing closed or an RTA? No it wouldn’t and no it didn’t.

Bombastic bullshit peddled by the police, to see it as any other than that is naive.

all marches and protests invlove roads and areas being closed off

and legally arranged marches / protests / processions (at least in central London) are registered in advance by so many days, and have a pre-determined route coordinated with the Police.

and legally arranged marches / protests / processions (at least in central London) are registered in advance by so many days, and have a route coordinated with the Police.

yes and whats your point? they still disrupt other people’s lives.

So if the police, on this occasion, had given CM to hold a demo outside the Olympic opening ceremony, do you reckon the muslim brotherhood, the EDL etc, etc, etc would be asking to do the same?

lets pick this apart shall we?
people have a right to protest when you, the police say they can – if you say they can’t because whitehall have told you to oppose it then they actually are being denied the right to protest aren’t they?

Well let’s pick that apart too then shall we ?

It’s not a “protest” is it ? That’s what we keep getting told ……

It’s a few people out for a ride together.

So that’s all irrelevant.

Interesting, but not in the slightest bit relevant to CM.

so?
so do strikes

at least by being planned and legal, the Police can put in place measures and diversions to minimise disruption.