The riot police have today begun raiding London social centres and market gardens in a move presumably meant to intimidate anyone considering protesting against the sycophantic drivel of tomorrow's royal wedding.

The raids began early this morning with the RatStar and OffMarket Social Centres and Transition Heathrow's market garden Grow Heathrow all getting visits from the Territorial Support Group. That's right, the ones who have a fetish for kettling anyone with a banner and are often nearby when protestors like Ian Tomlinson or Blair Peach die.

^{Photo courtesy of Transition Heathrow}

Apparently the warrant at the RatStar was for stolen goods. One might think it more than a little dodgy that so many riot police would turn up in that case. One might even be tempted to believe that we are witnessing a police force that has been turned into an organ of the monarchy's PR people. Because there is to be a royal wedding tomorrow, in case you'd forgotten. And nothing must be allowed to interfere with the fawning lackyism that our rulers like to refer to as patriotism. There have been a number of arrests. And the Green and Black Cross have set up a legal helpline for those affected on 07946 541 511.

During the attack on Grow Heathrow, sleeping people were dragged out of their beds by up to 40 cops.  The police left having seen mostly vegetables and some bees. I'm unconvinced that vegetables (organic or not) required the possibly illegal presence of dozens of riot cops to stop them from being repurposed as guillotines or whatever mad nonsense the cops will inevitably say they had specific intelligence about in the press release which will be sent out just in time for the evening news. Perhaps it was the bees that were troubling them. We know how many injuries the poor old police have suffered from gangs of (presumably terrorist) buzzing insects in the past, after all.

In a blog post on the events, Joe from Transition Heathrow writes:

The raid was one of many acts of intimidation happening right now across London. This is a crackdown on people who are bored of the state and the police controlling our lives.

Ain't that the truth.