Anti-war protesters throwing missiles, anarchists organising battle troops, communists smashing up a virtually state-owned bank, and anti-globalists who'd travelled from across Europe to spread their message.
The G20 protesters, eh?

If anyone's going to convince me to become an authoritarian, neo-Thatcherite war-mongerer who believes in the prolonged and deliberate exploitation of the Third World, it's them.

Then again if anyone's going to make me become an anti-capitalist anarchist, it's police officers – protectors of law and order – lashing out at innocent men walking home from work with hands in pockets.

Don't get me wrong here, there's no beating a good protest (as long as you can watch it on TV), it's just what happened in London wasn't one.
It was a jamboree.It was a day out for the anarchist and for the rozzers and for the vegetarian; for people with no defined cause, just a few excuses.

Compare that with an altogether more civilized, more worthy and absolutely less contradictory protest in Halifax this week.

About 60 pensioners, academics, politicians and members of Halifax Antiquarian Society – you know, boring people – gathered outside the Central Library on a chilly Saturday morning to demand (or at least politely request) the centre stays where it is.

This follows a decision in 2008 to try to sell it and Northgate House to create a shopping precinct there. And so these protesters – worried the library could be shipped out of the town centre and the attached archives slung in a basement at Shaw Mill – held their demo.

They waved petitions and banners. The police didn't turn up. The windows of the next-door Halifax remained intact.

But these protesters had a point, no?

Why are there plans to destroy a library, complete with internationally recognised archive system, only 25 years after it was purpose built? And why do these plans exist before solid proposals for a replacement have not been created?

And – the important one – how will Halifax ever become a higher-education town if it values acquiring a Primark more than its prime educational facility?

Of course, progress is all.

Show me plans for another, fully funded, purpose-built centre – perhaps in the heart of a cultural quarter – and I'll support the destruction of Northgate in favour of a Top Shop. Everyone needs cheap skinnies once in a while, right?

But for Calderdale Council to talk of getting rid of a library – one of the most important buildings in any town – before it has plans to replace them, is not just misguided, it's negligent of duty. It's horse before cart.

It's the same problem as the anti-capitalist who smashes bank windows before reading Das Kapital – a complete inability to prioritise what's important in the rush to take some – any – kind of action.