Despite assurances from spokesman Will Harvey yesterday to the contrary, it seems that many, if not most, if not all of the "anti-gentrification activists" in Brick Lane were not working class types after all. The shock is palpable. From the Times (£):
When a mob of class warriors carrying flame torches attacked a specialist cereal café on Saturday night, it was seen as the opening salvo in the battle against middle-class hipsters.
Yesterday, the activists announced the next battle against gentrification in east London will take place on Saturday at the nearby Jack the Ripper museum.
The anti-gentrification protesters claim to be protecting Shoreditch for the poor but key figures are middle-class academics, originally from outside the capital. Lisa Mckenzie was photographed at last weekend’s march in her usual position behind a banner belonging to the left-wing anarchist group, Class War. The group played a key role in organising the protest, during which the Cereal Killer café on Brick Lane was vandalised by a small breakaway group. Dr Mckenzie, 47, is research fellow on the great British class survey team at the London School of Economics. The daughter of a Nottingham miner, she has spent 15 years in academia, taking a degree in sociology and a masters in research methods before completing a doctorate on “finding value on a council estate”. In May, Dr Mckenzie was charged with criminal damage and threatening behaviour during a Class War protest after she placed a sticker on the east London home of Taylor McWilliams, a friend of Prince Harry....
Simon Elmer, a poet, was one of the first to defend the attack on the café, although he said he arrived afterwards. He posted a message on the protest group’s Facebook page with a photo of himself wearing a latex pig mask.
“Opening a shop that sells children’s cereals for £4 a bowl in a borough in which 49 per cent of the kids are living in poverty is an insult to the thousands of Tower Hamlets residents who have to eat on less than £4 a day,” he wrote.
The former professor of art history has taught at universities in the UK and America and now lives in east London. He runs an online poetry magazine and is a founder of the Architects for Social Housing campaign. Dr Elmer — who describes himself as “a poet, writer, photographer, propagandist, Dadaist and cyclist” — said that the protest had helped raise the issue of the loss of social housing.
Adam Barr, 23, the editor of Freedom News, a left-wing online newspaper, dismissed criticism of the protest as “reactionary bourgeois drivel” in a blog post on his website yesterday. “The Cereal Killer café is a legitimate target for protest as a symbol of the invading hordes that have taken over Shoreditch,” he added. Mr Barr, the son of a company director from East Yorkshire, could not be reached for comment.
"Invading hordes"? Whoops - bit of a give-away there.
Staff at the Cereal Killer café, where a bowl of one of 120 types of cereal and 30 varieties of milk costs £3.20, have described barricading the door as a mob carrying fire torches in pig masks attempted to break in. Jasiminne Yip, 29, who runs a vintage clothing shop close to the café, described seeing the mob arrive. “What struck me was that a few of the people walking past had very upper-class accents,” she said. “I did think it was a bit ironic that they were attacking a small independent business and claiming to be against gentrification.”
Sherford Makk, who runs a clothes shop nearby, described the protesters’ views as “nonsense”. He added: “They are just slightly envious xenophobes, it’s the fascist left at work again.”
Indeed.
"Opening a shop that sells children’s cereals for £4 a bowl in a borough in which 49 per cent of the kids are living in poverty is an insult..."
Quite right. I hope the local authority are able to issue free torches and masks to those who are too poor to redress these insults.
Posted by: Whyaxye | September 29, 2015 at 11:47 AM
Opening a shop that sells children’s cereals for £4 a bowl and employing people to serve rich customers would seem to be an excellent way of relieving those who have more money than sense of some of their excess wealth. I thought these people were in favour of redistribution of wealth? I say open more shops - more jobs for the workers!
Posted by: lurkingmeggie | September 29, 2015 at 01:04 PM