Police go softly softly as protesters reclaim the streets of

THERE were jugglers, stilt-walkers and dancers. Some brought their babies, others wore fluffy slippers. A bicycle, weighed down by speakers blasting out drum beats, circled the thronging crowd endlessly.

It looked more like a student Freshers' Week than the protest that organisers had claimed would bring chaos to the capital.

Instead anarchist group Reclaim The Streets simply annoyed fed-up motorists and drew sniggers from passers-by.

A secretive group which organises demonstrations over the internet, Reclaim The Streets has no leader and no policies. And if the people behind the group were present they had no intention of showing their faces for fear of arrest, or more likely, in case they were seen on TV by their parents.

Men in white paper boiler- suits and dark glasses handed out leaflets containing legal advice in the event of arrest or detention as a handful of police officers looked on.

Protesters carried banners which proclaimed "Festivity in the arms of people, not business". However, the atmosphere was one of apathy rather than anarchy. In blistering heat, onlookers were treated to nothing more anarchic than the odd swear word and the vigorous shake of maracas.

Lothian and Borders Police, mindful of violent scenes during Reclaim the Streets' May Day protest in London, said they wanted to avoid a stand-offs.

As the group blocked the city's Clerk Street, bringing traffic to a standstill, one officer said: "We're not going to move them on. We don't want another London. They can stay there all night if they want to and hopefully they'll get bored and go home."

As the group made its impromptu stop outside an off-license, any hopes of an early night were optimistic.

Swigging from a bottle of Buckfast, one boilersuited man said the protest was about "urban regeneration." A 32-year-old Glasgow woman who brought her toddler son, insisted that the protesters were delivering a serious message.

"I am worried about the world I've brought my son into. When he sees people lying homeless in the street, I don't know what I'm going to say to him. How can I explain that?

"We're also protesting against corporate baddies, global warming, clogged roads - all the things that make life intolerable. It's come to a critical mass."

Robin Harper MSP met the protesters but distanced the Green Party from the demo.

Fresh from addressing the Scottish Allotment and Gardeners' Society, he told the Sunday Herald: "I don't want to be seen as approving of the way in which this group has gone about its protest although I appreciate the aims.

"The aims do seem very diffuse but some of the ideas are ones which my party agrees with.

"One guy came up to me and called me an ironic capitalist bastard, and another shook my hand and said that he'd voted for me, so it's not been a complete waste of time."

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