On the bus, not long out of Glasgow we were diverted away from the right road and told to take a circuitous route round. Some buses were actually diverted over the Forth road bridge.

Upon reaching Bannockburn we came upon this happy site.

About 40 (maximum) protestors were walking down the road flanked by an enormous number of police. At one point there were seven vans, 2 motorbikes, a jeep and a car. This procession carried on right down the middle of the road, causing a massive tailback of protestors and non-protestors alike. There were plenty of opportunities for the police to have pulled the procession off the road to allow the traffic to pass. Many people on the bus thought this was a police ploy to slow everyone down, which it may well have been. People started phoning radio stations to complain and were getting questions back like “ah, but aren’t they anarchists?”

The police in the run up to the G8 have talked often of not wanting to upset or alarm locals. This charade in Bannockburn surely did upset the locals and it was no fault of the protestors. When questioned the police said that this group were responsible for smashing up a burger van.

Phone calls were coming in saying that G8 alternatives had cancelled the march and that it had been announced on the radio. Another call told us that on an English radio station it had been announced that the police strategy was not to let anyone past Stirling. We phoned G8 alternatives and were assured that the march was most definitely not cancelled. ‘JUST GET HERE’ was the message.

We took a sharp left at one of the roundabouts to get away from the procession and found ourselves being pulled over by police who informed us that they would like nothing better than for us to get to Gleneagles (seriously, they said this). They then redirected us another way. We tried to cut down a country lane but the bus driver thought better of it and we had to reverse back up it. Someone phoned with an alternative route that we began to try. This involved going over a flyover on the A9 which we noticed was open again. We parked for a bit discussing what to do whereupon we noticed that a car had been following us. It looked like a private taxi hired for the day. Someone got out and started taking photos of us all. He assured us he was a journalist but had no NUJ card or any info as to what publication he was working for. He continued to follow us when we started again. There were also people dressed in tracksuits with walkie-talkies on the bridge and the same silver jeep went by four times.

We nipped down onto the A9 and joined the main road to Auchterarder from the opposite direction of most of the buses that were now arriving. Upon seeing the others singing started on all the buses..”The people, united, will never be defeated” was interspersed with “the people, united, will sometimes be diverted” which got a big laugh.

We arrived in Auchterarder about 1.30pm – in other words what should have been a journey of around an hour and a half was made to last about 3 hours. The police have consistently been saying that they want to protect the democratic right to protest. In this light, they failed us and they failed themselves. However, if they actually had other priorities or people whose rights to speech they feel should be protected more than the public then this might explain their actions.

Next Blog – the demo itself.