First, I was arrested. Extinction Rebellion protesters were sitting blocking Whitehall, opposite Downing Street, where we’d been for a day and a half. There was a sudden switch by the police from benign presence – glorified bollards, basically, occasionally cracking a smile at a witty placard – to machines of power and control. An officer bellowed, “If you do not fall back you will be arrested!”
They surged towards us looking twice as big – yellow torsos padded and squared by stab vests, bristling with chattering radios, glinting handcuffs and coshes, a robotic army. They were backlit by the blinding headlamps of their vans and blue flashing lights. The officer who bent towards me was a gigantic shadow whose face I couldn’t see. There were hammer blows of sound – horns? sirens? – which enveloped us in a nightmare.
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