G20

Tomorrow the G20 summit kicks off in London. I am not sure if these summits ever achieve much other than mutual back slapping and general sage-like scratching of chins. The protests are always the spectacle... and London is braced.

The targets listed are innumerable and as a public sector employee I was emailed a comprehensive map produced by protest organisers showing targets and recommendations to work at home, or dress down.

I love protest and strongly believe in the right to do so. I marched against the war in Iraq (for all the good it did) and I used to go to the Reclaim the Streets too. However, if the violence and unrest forecast tomorrow manifest the only thing that will be achieved is justification for those who think that an Orwellian CCTV society is right and will tar all those who protest peaceably (and with good will for change for better world) with the same brush as that of those who want to cause destruction and unrest. Everyone will be seen as a bunch of lefty, soap-dodging anarchists. Protest is also the right of ordinary people with the same concerns as most of us about the future.

I am not sure what all the protesters are marching against as there are many disparate views on-line, but largely against those who allowed the financial system and the greed to those running it to cripple so many people. Banks are an easy target, their avarice encouraged people who couldn't afford loans to embark on one. Estate agents and greedy vendors who turned homes into profit. The bubble had to burst. As stupid, greedy and naive consumers whacking holidays and designer garb on to credit cards we are all to blame to a degree. But the people who pay the price are not the few who made money while it was there to be made, or who had a D&G handbag, but those at the bottom who never really benefited from the "good times". Woolworths staff for example. Those who produced the £4 tee shirts - how can they be so cheap without someone being exploited or undercut?

Hopefully my town won't get trashed tomorrow but we all need to look at consumerism as a model (against government advice to spend our way out of recession) and the impact this has had on the poor and the climate. What model can take it's place for a better world?