5th March 2009
About 100 people gathered outside RBS this lunch time.
Environmental “Climate Rush” activists gather outside RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) to protest the pension pay out to Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS Chief Executive, of 16 Million GBP.
The second event organised by Climate Rush in less than a week, around a hundred people gathered outside the RBS head offices near Liverpool Street Station, although a large percentage of those were press or others with cameras. The police were there to in great numbers guarding every door to the vast RBS building and plenty more in reserve in vans hidden away in the back street just in case. An uncomfortable mix of Met and City cops, they needn’t have worried as the hastily organised ‘rush’ had attracted only a small crew and the action turned into more of a picnic than an full frontal assault on the bank.
Despite being a climate rush event it did attract the local Whitechapel Anarchist, the Government of the Dead and Class War’s Ian Bone. So-called ‘FIT’ were there too to take some snaps and make voice inaccurate observations about people personal lives. Crowds of city workers took photos with their mobiles from vantage points on the opposite side of the road and RBS employees watched from the balconies inside their glass fortress.
Speeches where made (amplified over the tandem towed trailer sound system) and highlighted the how this bank which is now mostly owned by the tax payer continues to supply funding to industries complicit in climate crimes. Much was made of a certain wankers retirement pay-off and a cap was handed round to top up his pension should he choose to forgo his undeserved wind fall (the £8.27 collected was later given to a homeless person who seemed more in need). Also raised during the speeches was the mobilisations being planned around the G20 in April.
Many passers by enquired what was going on, at least one joined in. There were no arrests, no rush. Lots of cameras, little to shoot. Some food, some tea, little anger but a bit of dancing.