Insta-reaction post.

Shit.

I just got back from an Indelicates gig, which was not as good as the one I saw last summer, but was at a club night designed to promote disabled access to live music, and therefore among other things had a rather wonderful man on stage signing all the lyrics including the opening lines to New Art For The People. I had a good time.

But.

There’s a video of Ian Tomlinson being grabbed from behind, unprovoked, walking down a relatively quiet street on his own, and beaten by a police officer. God.

You know, the man who died at the G20 protests, when initial reports claimed (without foundation) that protesters had impeded and attacked police medics trying to help. As I said in an email to my parents last week, riffing off a point cannonsatdawn also made: Gosh, the Murdoch press are claiming that the unwashed masses were responsible for their own misfortune by attacking policemen, based entirely on anon police testimony. Where does that sound familiar from…damn, it’s on the tip of my tongue…I just can’t imagine why I have this nagging sense of scepticism!

I wish I hadn’t been right to be cynical. I really don’t want to fall into the trap of making blanket statements about the police any more than the protesters, even if there were clear failures in strategy last week and it is just true that some people will take advantage of a uniform and club. But, ugh. Gods, his poor family.