I’ve been watching anger build for weeks about the G20 summit, including in myself. The paradox of 85% of the world’s power and wealth coming to London in the form of world leaders to discuss the crumbling financial system vs years, as a campaigner, telling the same world leaders that the financial system that served them so well is not working for the world’s poor is glaring.

I protested at the Put People First march on Saturday as we’ve reached a pivotal moment when the same system that’s screwed over the world’s poor for decades has finally reached our shores, so we get our window of opportunity to push the ‘fairness’ agenda. I decided not to go to the 1st April protests as I didn’t want to fuel the media hype of anarchistic anger. Campaigners will always campaign on these justice issues but I believe we are so close to getting wider public support for these issues, so the anti-capitalist message overtaking the voice of the poor really annoys me.

So as predicted we get the headlines of protester riots and vandalism. I have angry friends, fierce about the wrongness of protester actions as the consequences impinge in minuscule ways on their lives. i.e. they are advised to work from home by their bank/ insurance company/ government employer.

As predicted, the friends I know who went to add their voices to the protest tell me about the peaceful march and the heavy-handedness of the police. They come back far more militant and anti-authority than they ever were before.

How ironic that we’re calling for justice and our justice system, i.e. the police force with their arrogant ‘police-state’ attitude, betrays us.

How ironic that we call for valuing human life by destruction, violence and with a lynch mob.

I’ll ask again, Put People First please.