On the first of May Two Thousand
We Reclaimed Parliament Square,
Planted blooms and used our trowels and
Redeveloped Churchill's hair.Then people smashed McDonald's
And the little shop next door
And the police in their riot gear
Decided this meant warSo they drove us out of Whitehall
Trapped us in Trafalgar Square
As if our society might fall
If they didn't keep us there.So we sat round Nelson's Column
Smoking spliffs and drinking beer
While police stood looking solemn,
Immune to all the cheer.Their line got slowly nearer
As we chilled out in the sun
And they made it ever-clearer
They didn't want us having fun.They blocked off all the corners
So we had nowhere to pee
And they tried hard to ignore us
When we asked why we weren't free.Then they drove off the ice-cream vans
So we had nothing to drink
Except whatever beer cans
We had - clever, don't you think?Then they drove us from the platform
So we had nowhere to sit
What did they do that for?
Just to piss us off a bit.So we stood around for hours,
Wondering when they'd set us free
While policemen gave us glowers
Let us out in twos and threes.When I finally left the Square
I was longing for my home
For the food and toilets there
And a bath-tub of my own.But it wasn't yet to be
They had closed off all the stations
No bath-tub, then, for me
And no food or relaxation.So I crossed the nearest bridge
Passed a drunkard smashing cars
He was causing lots of breakage
But he can't have got too farThe police were waiting for us
When I reached the other side
For three more hours they would bore us
As the air grew cold outside.They marched us through the dark streets
At a slow and halting pace
Still no drink and no thing to eat
Shuffling from place to place.Eventually we reached a stop
In Kennington somewhere
Opposite a grocer's shop
No food for us from there.Then we sat there for an hour
With policemen all around:
In some strange game of power
We got lost and we were found.The tragedy of Mayday:
Propaganda victory
For the hypocrites who say they
Are defenders of the free.
by Fergus Crawshay Murray
May 2000
