Stay of execution: a video report from Parliament Square's "Democracy Village"

Conor Pope reports from SW1A

Friday afternoon at 4pm was the deadline given to the permanent protesters in Parliament Square’s “Democracy Village” to vacate the area, at which point their occupation of the land would become illegal. It is well documented that many of the campers had no intention of leaving. So armed with nothing but a camera, an intern stolen from Portcullis House and a strong sense of justice, this Scrapbook reporter braved the end of the week rush hour traffic (there seem to be no pedestrian crossings onto the Square) to do some serious investigative blogging and find the real story. You know, the one Murdoch wants to blind you from with his paywall, man.

Being right next to Big Ben gave an odd sense of foreboding, a collective countdown. Not that this stopped one man trying to convince us all that it was four o’clock at 3:58 and that the politicians, sat up there in their castle, had secretly changed the most-watched clock in the world to trick us. Why they would want to confuse us in this way wasn’t clear to me, but it was no doubt part of some wider sinister scheme. Machiavellian bastards.

Unfortunately, very little else was happening, other than people with megaphones shouting. Oh, except for the guy who was against the war, but didn’t hate capitalism – he was booed off (Woo! Free speech!). One protester strummed an acoustic guitar wistfully so that he could get in the paper oblivious to those photographing him. Meanwhile, I tweeted contradictory unsubstantiated rumours from stoned hippies which surely lost me any small amount of respect I may have had in the serious investigatory blogging community, and filmed this:

It would’ve been nice to get an interview with Friend, but technical difficulties were encountered and an executive decision was made to track proceedings from the pub. Maybe next time.

Despite the overtly mocking tone of this piece, I thought it was quite a nice place really; surprisingly clean, a laid back atmosphere and the people are genuinely lovely so long as you pretend to agree with them. I think my moonlighting intern was less impressed. “I remember when there used to be grass here,” she remarked as we arrived. Good job she didn’t go to Glastonbury.

Scrapbook will continue to keep its beady eye on happenings at the doomed encampment.