We rarely could!

I've not been on protest for some time. Last one was in Easton, Bristol, several years ago. We congregated in the park, and within a short time the Police had created a cordon around the park's perimeter, and refused to let us out. Most of us were harmless vegetarians in Paisley headscarves and Peruvian knitwear, with plenty of toddlers and children dancing about and spinning diablos. Having been herded to a corner of the park, the Police formed a line, bearing batons and riot-shields, and began to advance menancingly towards us. The attitude of those PCs forming the cordon was that we deserved whatever we got (simply for being there), and there was no dispensation for children. The protest kicked off in another quarter, and their attention was sufficently diverted to allow us freedom of movement, but it was fairly typical of the pre-Kerfufflian attitude to protest: platitudes from MPs about the right to do so, juxtaposed with suppression by any means necessary, on the front-line, of those who dare to do so.

Did you see Mark Wallinger's re-creation of Brian Haws's Parliament Square protest at Tate Britain a couple of years ago? A rare example of truly consciousness-raising Art; but, it was only possible because of Brian Haw having done what he did (and the Government's reactionary response).

What should be the response of artists to such phenomena? Aesthetic violence?