Protests should embody the carnival sense of the world. They should be fun, they should be peaceful and they should be anti-authoritarian and non-hierchical.

They should be the antithesis of the humourlessness, violence and authoritarianism of those they oppose.

This is what distinguishes genuinely *popular* protests from mobs like the EDL or religiously inspired wackjobs.

1 – the problem is that if they become too carnivalesque the protesters end up looking naff. I believe I’ve mentioned it before but leftie John O’ Farrell pointed out in his brilliant autobiography “Things Can Only Get Better” that one reason people didn’t pay much attention to the CND in the 1980s was because they didn’t appreciate being preached to by people using floppy missile costumes, loud annoying whistles, unicycles and facepaint. They saw the CND demonstrations and thought “what a bunch of middle class twats!”.