''Oi!''

A police officer tries to restrain the police medic who is brandishing his baton with what looks like the intention to bring it down hard. We don't know if he managed to restrain him, only that he knocked the medic's hat off. Photos copyright of LittleRichardJohn and used under creative commons non-commercial licence, as yet without explicit originator permission. via Justin

FITwatch blogs are already publishing numerous photos of the officers involved in the kettling of the climate camp and the showdown in Threadneedle St and surrounding area. I've seen two names given as the identity of two officers, but it's not a good idea to publish them without any proof of correct identification.

This is what happens when groups of hyped up human beings are pitted against each other in a small space. It's human psychology, and police officers are no less susceptible to behaving like a furious pack than any other member of the human race, although they should be trained in managing themselves in crowds as well as crowd-management techniques.

And kettling - corralling people for hours as a technique is sorely in need of urgent review: it's dangerously counter-productive - if you're there trying to keep the peace. Which we must all assume was the idea, not provocation.

At least this storm of outrage must have done for the stupid new addition to our terrorism laws, that you can't photograph the police; who could argue against the right of the public to film and photograph the police now?

Hopefully the police will have plenty of chances to practise better demonstration policing techniques over what is shaping up to look like a year of people taking to the streets, and if the idiots who think smashing things up is the way to go could get a grip and stop playing right into the hands of those who want to make peaceful protest more difficult, that'd be nice too.