The Olympics is notorious for its brand protection; the value of sponsorship runs into billions of pounds, and no-one is allowed to put that at risk, writes Alex Hern

For the most part, those protections will only affect some unlucky shopkeepers in the Stratford area who will be forced to scale back some of their hoardings…

But some protections go a bit further.

Schedule 4, chapter 3 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 details the specific expressions which are deemed to suggest to the public that there is a specific relationship to the London Olympics, and it is rather broad.

The verboten phrases are any containing something from the first group with something from the second:

(3) The following expressions form the first group for the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)—

(a) “games”,

(b) “Two Thousand and Twelve”,

(c) “2012”, and

(d) “twenty twelve”.

(4) The following expressions form the second group for the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)—

(a) gold,

(b) silver,

(c) bronze,

(d) London,

(e) medals,

(f) sponsor, and

(g) summer.

Some of these combinations look fair – “London 2012″, for instance, probably brings to mind the Olympics. Others, not so much.

Want to promote something happening in “Summer 2012″? You should probably rephrase that. “August 2012″ ought to be fine. And if you’re running a school sports day, you can give out medals, but you probably shouldn’t call it “school games” if you do – that might be a bit too far.

Going beyond the primary leglislation reveals yet more terms which one ought to steer clear of. The brand protection guidance (pdf) issued by LOCOG reveals that the words “javelin” and “2012″ are protected trademarks.

Diamond Geezer suggests some helpful alternatives (colourful bullet points his):

• Instead of “Today is January 3rd 2012″ say “Today is three days after 2011.”

• Instead of signing legal documents “03/01/2012″ write “03/01/12″

• Instead of “My baby is due in June 2012″ say “I’m having a baby in a special year, I am very blessed.”

• Instead of “Do you have any 2012 tickets?” say “Do you have any Inspirational National Event tickets?”

• Instead of “2012 is turning out to be a shit year already” say “I think I’ll just pop down to John Lewis and buy a cuddly Mandeville.”

This legislation is six years old, so the blame for the overbearing protection of an international brand falls squarely at the feet of the last government.

Hopefully those in charge of enforcing the 2006 Olypmic games act legislation concerning the August sporting jamboree in the year 2012 twelve months to come focus on what really matters – winning gold medals shiny bits of metal.

See also:

• Sports minister: School sport “nothing to do with me… but the School Games are” – Shamik Das, December 15th 2011

• A toxic cloud over London 2012 – Barry Gardiner MP, November 4th 2011

• How we sold off the right to protest to the one per cent – Alex Hern, November 3rd 2011

• Boris fiddles as London prepares for transport chaos – Alex Hern, October 19th 2011

• Here’s what Boris didn’t say… – Alex Hern, October 4th 2011

If you want to get your MPs attention, write them a letter. Don’t “like” them, don’t give them +1s or retweets, and certainly don’t post comments on their YouTube videos. Dust off your primary school textbooks on whose address goes where, and don’t forget to end “yours sincerely”.

This is according to a report released by PR firm Edelman, who surveyed 91 MP’s staff members to find out the best and worst ways to get their attention.

Although the majority of the report is concerned with campaigning methods, from twitter to face-to-face meetings, the most interesting results were those for the question, “How important are each of the following in turning a policy issue into a policy priority for you?”:

Politics remains, fundamentally, local. For some, this will be common knowledge, but it is instructive for those fed up with the ineffectiveness of campaigns run through appeal to weighty national interests: appeal to the economy, or tell your targets how it affects their local area.

But once you’ve written your perfectly targeted campaign, how should you get it to your MP?

The response to the question, “When constituents contact your member, how effective are each of the following modes of contact?” can help.

Largely, the old methods remain the best. All the various forms of personal contact – writing, phoning, or meeting in person – are head and shoulders above the rest.

Social media is noteable less for its effectiveness as it is for its rapid rise. While two years ago, less than one in ten surveyed could could Twitter being effective or very effective, now it is over a third.

Whether this rise will tail off or continue is anyone’s guess; however, based on track record, it may not be best to listen to staffers’ predictions on that matter.

Not a single staffer surveyed last year thought they’d be using twitter by 2013, but this year over 40 per cent think they’ll be using it by 2014. Politically aware they maybe, but when it comes to predicting technological trends, MPs and their staff seem just as swayed by fads as the rest of us.

So to be an effective campaigner, the old rules remain as true as ever: work on a personal, local level.

Don’t be distracted by new tools which seem to make life easier to contact many people at once, because even if the politicians themselves like them, chances are they’re more likely to read a letter or listen to a phone call.

And don’t invest in start-ups on the advice of an MP.

See also:

• What kind of “civil disobedience” tactics will the unions use? – Dan Whittle, September 15th 2011

• 36 hours in Old & Sad – Dave Roberts, January 15th 2011

• Fighting the cuts: The false choice between networks and organisation – Nigel Stanley, December 2nd 2010

• Suffragettes remain campaigning role-models a century later – Deborah Grayson, October 10th 2010

• Community campaigning is Labour’s messy futureDr Jon Wilson, September 30th 2010

Mark Pack is head of digital at MHP Communications and is a co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice

Liberal Democrat peers used to be in a remarkably privileged position in the party. Not only because they have held office without the pesky need for elections but also because for many years the third party in the House of Lords has been the key swing vote when the government has been wanting to get legislation through.

That has meant many peers were well used to having direct access to ministers, and moreover being in a strong position to extract some concessions. As a result, many peers can point to numerous changes they have achieved to legislation.

By comparison, Liberal Democrat MPs, despite having the democratic mandate, have usually had very little power as votes in the Commons have been a foregone conclusion.

But since the party has gone into coalition, the balance of Parliament influence amongst the party’s peers and MPs have reversed. Rather than being the key swing vote, Liberal Democrat peers are now but part of an overall coalition government majority.

In the Commons, many Liberal Democrat MPs are now in government. It is not even a matter of it being easier to get to talk to a minister, they are the minister.

Moreover, helped by the primacy of the Commons, revolts by Liberal Democrat MPs which could cost the government its majority are now no longer the neglected, poor relative of revolts by Liberal Democrat peers - but the patterns of rebellions have, so far, received relatively little attention.

That is why over at my day job, MHP Communications, we’ve put together this infographic looking at the Liberal Democrat rebels:

The most rebellious and the least? Andrew George 28; David Laws 0.

See also:

• Clegg under fire over voter registration, party funding and youth unemployment – Shamik Das, November 15th 2011

• Baroness Williams: Coalition “bewitched by a flawed US system” – Shamik Das, September 3rd 2011

• Tory and Labour peers look set to frustrate Clegg on Lords reform – Shamik Das, June 17th 2011

• Govt. must go beyond cosmetic changes to health bill warn Lib Dem activists – Dr. Prateek Buch & Dr. Evan Harris April 5th 2011

• Clegg set to face tough time over health, schools and spending cuts – Shamik Das, September 20th 2010

Throughout this Eurozone crisis, we’ve heard a lot about David Cameron’s ‘red lines‘ on Europe – the measures he absolutely will not agree to, no matter what the result.

But what we have heard little of are the ‘yellow lines’; those areas which the junior partner in the coalition will not compromise on.

If you had asked grassroots Liberal Democrats twelve hours ago, they may well have told you that Britain’s role in the centre, rather than the periphery, of the EU was one of those lines.

Nick Clegg himself gave that impression in November, when he said:

“We must move together. The greatest danger we face is division. That is why, while the United Kingdom fully supports deeper fiscal integration within the euro zone to support monetary union, we would not wish it to become a club within a club.

“To retreat from each other now would be to leave ourselves isolated in extremely tempestuous times.”

Today, he is singing a different tune:

“I regret that last night it proved to be impossible to find a way forward as a group of 27 on European treaty change. I have said for months that it would be best to avoid arcane debates about treaty change altogether and if we had to proceed down that road, it would be best to do so in a way that did not create divisions in Europe.

“The demands Britain made for safeguards, on which the Coalition Government was united, were modest and reasonable. They were safeguards for the single market, not just the UK.”

The question on the lips of Liberal Democrats today must be: Are there any areas on which Nick Clegg will not compromise?

The common view of the Lib Dems before the election was as the party of students, civil liberties and Europe. The betrayal on the first of those three is legendary. The Lib Dems went from a manifesto committment (pdf) to “scrap unfair university tuition fees” (p33) to voting for a near tripling of those fees.

The party hasn’t been much better on civil liberties. Their commitment to end child detention has become a commitment to end some types of child detention. They have supervised a creeping militarisation of the police, been silent on the use of kettling during peaceful protest, and voted for removing the right to see a solicitor for free after arrest.

These may have been what Lib Dem voters thought were the priorities, but the leadership can reasonably claim that they detailed four very different priorities (p6-7):

• Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket

• A fair future creating jobs by making Britain greener

• A fair chance for every child

• A fair deal by cleaning up politics

Are these the yellow lines? That doesn’t look hopeful either.

The Lib Dems did manage to pass measures raising the tax threshold to £10,000, but as we’ve reported, by breaking the key promise – that they would be “paid for in full by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the wealthy and polluters” – and instead paying for it with the VAT rise, the overall package becomes highly regressive.

Making Britain greener doesn’t look like its a no-compromise promise either. We’ve reported time and again (and again and again) about how the self-styled ‘greenest government ever’ is nothing of the sort. They’ve done no better on their promise to clean up politics. The right to sack MPs has been forgotten, civil liberties are on the back-burner, and they have been thoroughly stitched up on Lords and electoral reform.

So the Lib Dems’ last hope for something that they can point to as a line which they will not cross is their promise to children. The pupil premium is a mere reallocation of funds, and class sizes have risen since the election. The one promise that Clegg’s party have kept from their “first priorities” appears to be their pledge, in line with Gove’s reforms, to “give schools the freedom to make the right choices for their pupils”.

It appears that the only lines Lib Dems won’t cross are the ones which Tories don’t want them to. If that is the case, it is no wonder that grassroots activists told us this morning that they don’t know what to think anymore.

See also:

• Lib Dems: We are delivering on our End Child Detention pledge – Tom Brake MP, November 18th 2011

• Hammond hammers another nail in the coffin of the “greenest government ever” – Alex Hern, September 30th 2011

• Clegg’s defence of Human Rights Act as welcome as it is timely – Dr Prateek Buch, August 26th 2011

• Clegg’s £10k tax allowance is no Tory concession; it’s a Tory dream – Tim Horton and Howard Reed, May 12th 2010

• Cameron’s misleading claim on schools funding – Sunder Katwala, January 26th 2011

Occupy LA became the latest American occupation to be forcibly evicted today, as police moved in just after midnight to clear City Hall Park where the protestors had been camped for exactly two months.

The LA Times reported:

Hundreds of police officers in riot gear swarmed out of Los Angeles City Hall early Wednesday, batons across their chests, surprising and engulfing the Occupy L.A. protesters who had been camped in the surrounding park for two months.

“Shame on you!” protesters shouted, as the officers ran to pre-assigned spots, instantly dividing the park into small, easily controlled segments. “Get back!” police shouted to those who came too close.

The operation began at 12:13 a.m., on orders from Deputy Chief Jose Perez, watching from the steps of Los Angeles police headquarters across the street.

Two minutes later, it was effectively over.

Through a combination of effective tactics, daunting numbers and — significantly — restraint by both sides, police managed to bring the encampment to a largely peaceful end, avoiding the melees that marred the eviction of protesters from similar camps in Oakland, New York and elsewhere.

The LA occupation had managed to survive through the wave of evictions which occurred two weeks ago, as Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, Oakland, and New York City were all evicted on the same night. These evictions were, we now know, co-ordinated by Homeland Security, in a concerning extension of its powers.

Wonkette reported, in their characteristic manner:

Remember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment?

That day is now, and has been for some time. But it’s also now confirmed that it’s now, as some Justice Department official screwed up and admitted that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated the riot-cop raids on a dozen major #Occupy Wall Street demonstration camps nationwide.

The reports of the conference call reveal that more was co-ordinated than just time:

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear.

In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.

The struggle for a legal reason to evict the protesters – the strength of the first amendment would likely render any attempt to directly end the protest illegal – also explains the mysterious obsession that has suddenly taken place in America with sanitation. All of which makes recent headlines such as “St Paul’s Cathedral cleaners outraged over ‘dirty protest’” in the right wing press a mite concerning.

See also:

• How we sold off the right to protest to the one per cent – Alex Hern, November 3rd 2011

• The movement to evict Occupy London gains pace – Alex Hern, October 31st 2011

• The privatisation of public space is harming our ability to protest – Alex Hern, October 30th 2011

• Occupy London needs to catalyse a new Left – Ben Mitchell, October 27th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

Virtuosos of the blogosphere – who wrote the following words?

“[Laurie] Penny is… cheered on by the youth for whom she speaks… she expresses the views of many in coherent and well thought out articles… is surely one of the most vibrant young journalists that we have [and] this country would be poorer without her.”

Was it some fawning leftie, overwhelmed by the stylishness with which Penny is expressing everything he/she thinks about the world of UK politics? Or a fellow young hack, not ashamed to show their admiration?

In fact the author is Michael Ezra, Harry’s Place blogger, anarcho-capitalist, self-confessed hedge fund guru, and someone who dedicates a good deal of time highlighting everything that is wrong about British Trotskyism and left wing movements in general.

Such is the power of Penny’s red pen - which she holds in her hand on the front cover of her new book “Notes from the New Age of Dissent”.

The volume is a collection of previously published blog entries piecing together her activism, but also writings on other topics serving as a reminder that, as well as being the “voice of a generation”, she is also a very serious writer all round.

In the heady days of student occupations before and after Christmas 2010, the Jeremy Bentham Room in the University College London (UCL) - an unofficial headquarters for much of the protest movement intelligence - had a dedicated media team drawing up pages of press copy on demand in the hope that it would reach news desks across the country, and play havoc with the bias reportage being presented in the mainstream.

For that team Laurie Penny was a gift from the heavens. Someone who has spent much of her life campaigning on issues key to students’ demands and who has a foot in the door of big press outlets.

This was not just a place where Penny could offer unique insight (though this is true) but somewhere she was really part of.

Unlike Orwell, Penny is fully incorporated into the fold of despair and pessimism for the future, in spite of her upbringing and success as a journalist, because more than the balance of material possessions, what our generation anticipates today is a bleak tomorrow - and, loath as I am to say it, this will affect everybody.

With Laurie hope is important. It’s vague, but that’s because late capitalist society breeds spectacle and inertia.

Today, the problem, as always, is systematic inequality, but it is also personal hopelessness.

Some of the old guard will tell you that in order to understand why this hopelessness will necessitate a different type of resistance than in previous times, it is vital to know the ins and outs of what put Left socialists and vanguardist Marxist-Leninists at loggerheads (see for example the argument Penny had with Alex Callinicos – not, unfortunately, included in the new collection).

This is not so. Laurie is able to put into words the angst and the anxiety that many feel today, in a way which draws on considerable empathy, not loathing or snobbery; indeed, Penny’s unique feature is not that she is young, female or politicised; it is that she is bringing back what journalism wrongly disavowed: committed, literary and stylish journalism.

Anyone who claims Laurie is an example of the “hacktivist” holds the ideological weight of one trying to tar her with the brush of bias. In fact, she is emphasising what Dennis Chase in a 1972 article referred to as “truth” over “facts”. She is the eye in the storm, not the interpreter of facts.

With this truth there is a real feeling of personability. What she does so well is draws you in to her narrative, to the point where on reading her blog posts you find yourself asking questions such as why did she giggle and say nothing? Did she ever contact the policeman on Facebook?

As author Warren Ellis says in the introduction to her book:

“Subjective journalism isn’t a crime [because] reportage needs to be a ‘living thing’.”

But not only that, her style will inevitably break down those barriers between journalist and reader – and even more importantly between activist and reader.

Unlike the conclusions to emerge from the sixties by fashionable post-structuralists, the becoming of the reader does not necessitate the death of the author. Laurie has instigated a co-existence between the two, and the political consequences of this will be crucial.

Gay Talese once said that himself, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson “were the best magazine writers going in the 1960s. They [journalism school students in the 1980s] should be better than us… Nobody is even half as good”. With Penny, may those writers – on whose work she surely styles herself – rest assured that this is no longer the case.

See also:

• How we sold off the right to protest to the one per cent – Alex Hern, November 3rd 2011

• The privatisation of public space is harming our ability to protest – Alex Hern, October 30th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

• Left needs to learn lessons from the States – Shelly Asquith, January 15th 2011

• Beware of pushing Catholics out of the progressive club – Kevin Meagher, September 18th 2010

We reported this weekend about the problem that the privatisation of public space in the UK, and London especially, poses to the exercise of free speech in the form of public protest.

On Sunday, we wrote:

Paternoster Square, despite appearances, is not a public square. It is a private development that is owned by the Mitsubishi Estate Company and is open to the public 24 hours a day, which just so happens to be on the site of a previous public square.

When the protesters came along Mitsubishi Estate Company, as is their right, decided to close the square indefinitely, and obtained a high-court injunction preventing anyone from entering.

Occupy London then found themselves with nowhere to Occupy. Since St Paul’s Churchyard is one of the biggest truly public spaces left in the City, it’s as good a place as any to set up camp.

Their options are just as curtailed further afield, as well. Canary Wharf, which is almost as big a centre for finance as the City is, has a lovely big park in the centre of it.

Unfortunately, that park, as with 99 per cent of the land in Canary Wharf, is owned by the Canary Wharf Group. Again, access is conditional; the company may choose to allow a protest, or they may not.

As we feared, Canary Wharf Estates has indeed acted to prevent any exercise of free speech on the over one hundred acres of land that it controls in the Docklands.

Occupy London report:

[We were] intrigued to learn this morning that Canary Wharf Group plc has obtained a high court injunction preventing “any persons unknown remaining on the Canary Wharf estate in connection to protest action”.

We understand that this court order will remain in place indefinitely.

You can view a map of the area where all protest is banned below:

View No-protest zone in a larger map

Although Canary Wharf is private land, it contains one Underground station, two DLR stations, two A-roads, four bus routes, and a post office. All of these are provided through public funds. In addition, the estate has three parks, over 150 apartments, as well as the headquarters of the publicly owned companies the London Olympic Group, the FSA, and the European Medicines Agency.

To treat the Canary Wharf estate as though it were merely a large office is to neglect the extent to which it has usurped, and been subsided by, public facilities.

Allowing it to unilaterally decide that there should be no protest within its borders implies a chilling future for free speech in the UK.

See also:

• The movement to evict Occupy London gains pace – Alex Hern, October 31st 2011

• The privatisation of public space is harming our ability to protest – Alex Hern, October 30th 2011

• Occupy London needs to catalyse a new Left – Ben Mitchell, October 27th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

• The “occupy” protests come to the City this Saturday – Shamik Das, October 12th 2011

Over the weekend, the Bishop of London spoke to Occupy London, answering questions on a number of topics, and speaking passionately about his desire to avoid violence, but notably avoiding any commitment to oppose an eviction of the camp.

The Guardian reported:

Speaking minutes after addressing Occupy London protesters on the cathedral steps for the first time, Dr Richard Chartres said he believed that “getting the legal situation clear is probably a sensible precautionary measure”.

He added: “I don’t myself subscribe to the idea that it’s instantly going to lead to violent confrontations…

“A prudent organisation has to be prepared and we just don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody knows. The camp could be taken over by people who are very different from the ones who are in charge at the moment. I think it is a prudent measure.”

Adding:

Chartres told the group: “Nobody wants violence… we all want to avoid that.” But the first protester to take the microphone told him: “Violence will be visited upon those people in a brutal way [if an eviction takes place].”

Johnny Remlap, a student at the camp, said: “For all the sophistry and rhetoric about avoiding violence, how can they reconcile that with being OK with evictions?

“They’ve given their tacit approval to it. They’re giving de facto licence to violence because there will be violence. I’m not violent. But I’ll get hit by a baton.”

The movement through the courts to evict the protesters is gaining momentum; David Rose of The Times is tweeting:

Protesters at St Paul’s Cathedral to be served legal notice today giving them 24 or 48 hrs toremove tents or face court action.

More and more politicians have recognised that they can’t keep silent on the matter forever.

Ken Livingstone has spoken out in favour of the protests, saying:

“It is completely unsurprising that some people are going to protest: in modern Britain directors’ pay is soaring but ordinary people are losing their jobs, seeing their services cut, and being hit with higher fees, fares and VAT. The top one per cent is doing well, the rest are being squeezed.

“One in ten Londoners are out of work, fares are going through the roof, hospitals and NHS services are under threat. Last week’s figures on top directors’ pay add to the powerful feeling of unfairness.

“The Mayor of London’s office has wildly misjudged this issue, making the Occupy movement the enemy but failing to act on public concerns about jobs and growth. Conservative London actually stands for more unfairness, demanding a lower top rate of tax for the richest. That’s not surprising in a city where the mayor meets bankers more than the police.”

Opposing the Occupation on the Politics Show on BBC1 on Sunday, Nick Herbert, the policing and justice minister, used an argument decried on this site just yesterday, saying that it was necessary to deal with invasions of private property:

“Everybody agrees there should be a right of peaceful protest in our country. People have an entitlement to make their view known. It’s fundamental to our democracy and the coalition is committed to protect that.

“But we saw – for instance in Parliament square – where there was a permanent encampment which had gone on for years there and was very disruptive to the enjoyment of Parliament Square by others. You cannot protest peacefully at parliament square because its closed off to others. We are taking action to deal with that.

“And if necessary we will take action to deal with other invasions of private property that involved permanent encampments.”

We detailed the problem with this line of reasoning on Sunday:

A private company on private land can deny any person access at any time for almost any reason. That is fine if that private land is, for example, a shop or an office block. But when it is a street, square or park, and when it is indistinguishable from the private land around it, it creates problems.

With the trend of allowing property companies to purchase the streets and squares they build around, as well as the land they build on, banning protest on private land is becoming equivalent to banning protest altogether.

Those seeking to discredit the movement are grasping at more and more tenuous straws in their efforts. Paul Staines is accusing a movement which had a several-hundred strong Yom Kippur service, and which exists in Tel Aviv, of anti-semitism, while claiming that their calls for democratisation of the Corporation of London are those of the “loony left”.

In case you didn’t know, the Corporation of London is a public body which allows corporations votes based on their number of employees, a situation likened by Maurice Glasman to the voting rights of chattel owners in the pre-war American South. It is also the body that gets to decide if the protestors are allowed to stay, or violently evicted.

Finally, Jeremy Hardy presented on the News Quiz on Friday what will surely become the absolute last word on the idiotic claims of Louise Mensch. It is a minute long, and you can listen below:

See also:

• The privatisation of public space is harming our ability to protest – Alex Hern, October 30th 2011

• Occupy London needs to catalyse a new Left – Ben Mitchell, October 27th 2011

• The Mail’s rent-a-rev called for gays to be tattooed with health warnings – Alex Hern, October 27th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

• The “occupy” protests come to the City this Saturday – Shamik Das, October 12th 2011

One of the most common responses to Occupy London is to question why exactly they are camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral. After all, aside from its location, the Cathedral has little to do with the issues that the protesters are campaigning against. Shouldn’t they be somewhere else?

The answer of course is that they should; they wanted to; and would be if they could. The original plan was to occupy, not St Paul’s, but the London Stock Exchange based next door in Paternoster Square. Although this would hardly have resulted in fewer complaints (as we have seen, some people will find any excuse to condemn a protest) it may have made it easier for Occupy London to gain support in those crucial first few days.

So why didn’t they? Because Paternoster Square, despite appearances, is not a public square. It is a private development that is owned by the Mitsubishi Estate Company and is open to the public 24 hours a day, which just so happens to be on the site of a previous public square. When the protesters came along Mitsubishi Estate Company, as is their right, decided to close the square indefinitely, and obtained a high-court injunction preventing anyone from entering.

Occupy London then found themselves with nowhere to Occupy. Since St Paul’s Churchyard is one of the biggest truly public spaces left in the City, it’s as good a place as any to set up camp.

Their options are just as curtailed further afield, as well. Canary Wharf, which is almost as big a centre for finance as the City is, has a lovely big park in the centre of it. Unfortunately, that park, as with 99 per cent of the land in Canary Wharf, is owned by the Canary Wharf Group. Again, access is conditional; the company may choose to allow a protest, or they may not.

Boris Johnson – and Ken Livingstone before him – has been instrumental in making London the home of international finance. Want to camp outside City Hall? Unfortunately, More London Estates is unlikely to allow that.

Occupy a major shopping district, so as to draw attention to the problems of consumerism!? It had better not be Carnaby Street, Westfield Stratford or Westfield White City, although if you’re lucky and the police permit, you may be able to march down Oxford Street or Regent Street.

All of these areas were once public land and therefore the public were free (within reason) to protest on them. A private company on private land can deny any person access at any time for almost any reason. That is fine if that private land is, for example, a shop or an office block. But when it is a street, square or park, and when it is indistinguishable from the private land around it, it creates problems.

Concern over this privatisation of public space isn’t new. Naomi Klein highlighted it ten years ago in No Logo, although then her prime concern was its link to the growing ubiquitousness of advertising. And whenever a new corporate development uses words like “town hall”, “village green” or “central park”, there is always someone arguing that whatever they may be called, these private replacements for public spaces cannot fulfil the same role.

But it is only now that we really see what that difference means in practice. If all you do in shopping centres is shop, why would the owners try to stop you? When you are making the owners money, then of course there is no problem. It is when you try to do other things – busk, sleep rough, or protest – things which don’t earn a profit for the owner of the space, that you learn what is and isn’t allowed.

Occupy London have filled up St Paul’s Churchyard. They have mostly filled up Finsbury Square, which is across boundary lines in Islington. Unlike some, they have had the good sense not to go to the war memorials in Tower Hill. Public space is running out. The answer to “can’t they go somewhere else?” is becoming “no”, and the command “go somewhere else” is becoming “stop protesting”.

I think it’s a travesty that St Paul’s chose to close its doors just as I have a deep sympathy for the employees of the Sainsbury’s in Paternoster Square, who have not been allowed to work for nigh-on two weeks. However, the fact that Mitsubishi Estate Company would rather shut up shop than put up with some tents is their decision, not the protestors’. They merely want to exercise their right to protest.

As the cases of Maya Anne Evans and Brian Haw show, that is not too easy in the seat of political power. Occupy London is demonstrating that it is no easier in the seat of economic power.

See also:

• Occupy London needs to catalyse a new Left - Ben Mitchell, October 27th 2011

• The Mail’s rent-a-rev called for gays to be tattooed with health warnings – Alex Hern, October 27th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

• The “occupy” protests come to the City this Saturday – Shamik Das, October 12th 2011

• Are “Occupy Threadneedle Street” protests on the way? – Shamik Das, September 19th 2011

We’re starting to get used to the sight of people camping out in tents throughout a number of cities in the world. We have a pretty good idea of what the ‘Occupy movement’ wants; Occupy London has issued its own mini-manifesto.

The movement has even won support from some unlikely circles. In the US, a poll for Time magazine found 54% of Americans supportive of Occupy Wall Street.

However, and most significantly, an even greater number sympathise with many of its principal grievances, namely:

“Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington,” (86% agree) “executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted,” (71%) and “the rich should pay more taxes” (68%).

Disappointingly (or maybe that should be realistically), only 30% of those questioned believe the protest movement will have “a positive impact on American politics today,” with 56% saying it will have little impact at all.

And this is the trouble with the Occupy protests. Most of us are now aware of them; we’ve seen the images of make-shift kitchens, the library, the witty banners, and of course the inevitable sounds of someone in the distance strumming an acoustic guitar.

But, now what? How long do they stick around for? Surely the last thing they want to be is just a tourist attraction?

“The iron law of insurrection holds that it must grow in menace or lose momentum. Once it subsides into encampment, it becomes mere scenery.”

So said Simon Jenkins last week.

And in this sense surely he is right. Of course, we are only a couple of weeks into Occupy London.

In Spain, for example, the “indignados,” or “15-M” movement, as they are more commonly known, have been protesting for several months. Yet despite widespread support, their political impact has been negligible.

According to the political analyst Miguel Murado:

“Political movements have to be measured against their demands, and I can’t think of a single measure the government has taken or the opposition proposed that meets their [indignados] demands. So you have to say it’s a failure.”

Indeed, Spain’s socialist government is widely expected to lose next month’s general election. And if a socialist government refuses to engage with the protesters, what hope a new right wing government?

But, this is to miss the point in the view of another Spanish commentator. Diego Beas believes that the protesters are redefining Spanish politics with:

“a hybrid and novel experiment of online and offline activism that has steered clear of the traditional and weary avenues of political engagement…[and] experimented with bottom-up networked approaches to challenge the rigid, top-down, party driven system.”

For him, it is all about not being drawn in to ‘ideological agendas…and [the world of] professional politicians.’

I can’t help but disagree.

The movement and the protests in the UK have naturally started out as something grassroots, but surely to have a lasting and very real sway over how things are done, they need to be able to have political influence. Without it, they will simply wither away, leaving in their wake an array of discarded tents and catchy slogans.

And this is where everyone’s favourite radicals, the Tea Party, come in. Over the last couple of years or so, they have successfully hijacked the Republican Party and steered it even more to the right (if that was ever possible), towards their own puritanical and evangelical agenda.

At last year’s mid-term elections, Tea Party endorsed candidates succeeded in winning seats for five senators and 40 congressmen and women. This represented victory for 32 per cent of all their backed election candidates.

Some argue that this number was fairly small and illustrates that the Tea Party brand isn’t as strong as it likes to believe, yet this is still an impressive showing for an organisation in its infancy. Of course, being funded by billionaires helps.

Its impact is felt when one glances at the current Republican candidates for next year’s general election. Proving yourself pure enough to satisfy Tea Party criteria still holds sway. Especially when current GOP favourite, Mitt Romney, is viewed with such suspicion by those in the Tea Party who see him as a tainted, corrupted, Republican.

It is about time that those on the Left came up with the UK’s answer to the Tea Party: a ‘New Left Coalition’ built on shared values and beliefs; a movement which comes together and embraces the key tenets of social justice, fairness and equality; in fact, many of the things that the Occupy movements are calling for, few of which could be described as outlandish or outrageous.

Most importantly, this coalition should avoid aligning itself to any political party, but instead seek to inspire a new set of, as well as existing, parliamentary candidates, willing to sign up to its goals, in return for support on the ground.

In practice, this would mean providing backing both before and during election campaigns. Thousands of volunteers ready to do the tireless, dogsbody work of door knocking, leafleting and phoning, in exchange for representatives in parliament who stand first and foremost for their supporters on the ground and not the party whips.

The supporters would come from all walks of life, all those who feel marginalised, ignored and excluded from society; unfair victims of the government’s cuts agenda, and most crucially, all those disaffected with mainstream political parties.

Yet in reality, this could mean endorsing a Labour, Lib Dem or Green candidate, so long as they agree to the New Left Coalition’s terms. Even a Tory one, though highly unlikely.

Now, admittedly, this means we urgently need to see more in the way of the open primaries that David Cameron spoke about in opposition. A system, imitating what commonly takes place in America, whereby the general public, and not just party members, are able to select their own local parliamentary candidates.

This would give members of local New Left branches the chance to scrutinise and ultimately plump for the person they feel best echoes their own objectives.

It would also be a long overdue wake up call to today’s complacent and detached politicians.

Ed Miliband has been making the right noises about ‘the squeezed middle,’ but he needs to recognise that it isn’t just the middle being squeezed, but the majority.

The Lib Dems, despite everything, still have politicians in their midst who could easily satisfy the demands of this New Left.

And in order for this to have any chance of success, this new coalition needs to find itself a stream of wealthy backers, sympathetic to its cause: a British George Soros or Warren Buffet.

This is just an idea, a work in progress. But, none of this is beyond the realms of possibility. The camps and the protests are a start, but they need to grow and develop into something more tangible, more vocal, more permanent.

In short, it’s time for the British Left to be as organised, as focused, and as determined as the American Right. They have the goals, the slogans, and desire for change. Now this needs to be translated into real political victories.

See also:

• The Mail’s rent-a-rev called for gays to be tattooed with health warnings – Alex Hern, October 27th 2011

• Top five reasons why you can’t protest (according to the right) – Alex Hern, October 26th 2011

• The “occupy” protests come to the City this Saturday – Shamik Das, October 12th 2011

• Are “Occupy Threadneedle Street” protests on the way? – Shamik Das, September 19th 2011

• Anti-cuts networks are more flexible and effective than big organisations – Aaron Peters, November 30th 2010