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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

—Margaret Mead

There comes a time when you have to say, “Enough.” Draw a line in the sand—this far, and no further. To stand up for what you hold dear.

That’s all very well and noble, but how do you actually do it, especially when we’re talking about something as apparently gargantuan and unstoppable as government policy?

Sometimes all it takes is a little catalayst. For cell biologist Jenny Rohn the catalyst was the twitterstorm that followed the now-infamous ‘45%-gate‘ by Vince Cable, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (under which umbrella, oddly enough, comes public funding of basic research in the UK). Tired of the hand-wringing, she proposed a march on London:

No more Doctor Nice Guy, no more hiding behind our work, no more just taking things lying down like we take everything else in our profession — poor job prospects, poor funding, low pay, poor life-work balance.

I’ve always been a bit of a loose cannon, speaking my mind when perhaps a wiser head would counsel against it. But now, there was more than a matter of opinion or reputation at stake. I immediately threw my hat in the ring, and a few days later found myself dashing back from Cambridge (after giving a presentation to the lovely people at PLoS, and chatting about open data with Perter Murray-Rust), for our first ‘war cabinet’ meeting at the Prince Arthur, just behind Euston station.

We were lucky, very early on, to recruit the services of Evan Harris, erstwhile Member of Parliament for Oxford West & Abingdon, as well as the Campaign for Science and Engineering, fronted by Imran Khan. Jenny and I had listened to Evan urge practising scientists to get involved with policy at the Science Online London conference at the beginning of the month. And quite unexpectedly, Shane McCracken offered his services, snapping up the scienceisvital.org.uk domain name the same night I was creating a twitter account and facebook group. He also provided web hosting and database services. As the movement gathered momentum, we gathered a dedicated collection of agitators who were determined to make the voice of ordinary scientists heard at the highest levels of government.

But time was tight. We had five weeks before the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) that will determine the fate of publicly funded research in the UK. We decided we had to do something before then, and the sooner the better. We committed to Saturday 9th October, and I started making “how do we hold a demo?” noises at the police.

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I wasn’t really getting anywhere. The date was fine, but I needed to choose a route (for a march) or a place (for a rally), and Form 3175A languished on my desk. “New regulations” were stopping groups of every political flavour holding marches, and I was running out of time. My contacts in the police seemed reluctant to help. I really needed to meet with someone who knew what they were doing, and get their advice.

Fortunately Evan has friends in interesting places, and after they applied a little grease to appropriate axles, I found myself together with Jenny, Evan, Imran and Stephen Curry, at Charing Cross Police station in front of a 1:1,200 scale map of Westminster. We had a very pleasant and friendly discussion with Superintendent Morgan and Sergeant McIntyre (who obviously hadn’t got the “good cop/bad cop” memo, and they both assured us they were keen to help us exercise our democratic right, nay duty, to demonstrate): and we walked out with an agreement that we would hold a static rally for two thousand people on Saturday 9th October, in front of the Treasury building off Whitehall. The police told us that they were treating our estimate with a huge pinch of salt: experience taught them that organizers’ estimates were usually out by an order of magnitude or more. “We’ll see,” I said.

They wouldn’t let me take the map, unfortunately.

Less than two weeks to the rally. I filled in Form 3175 and dropped it off the following day (and there’s a whole different blog post in the looks you get when you rock up, smartly dressed, at a police station, and a Sergeant comes out and shakes your hand). But there were two more things we had to sort out, quite apart from trying to get people to come along: insurance and a permit for a public address system.

The PA form was simple enough, if long-winded (and requiring 21 days’ notice). At T minus five days I was cycling through central London with the completed form and a cheque for 200 quid to deliver the application to City Hall. But insurance was becoming a nightmare—most of the brokers I called wouldn’t cover such an event, and the only leads I did have dried up because I didn’t have any previous experience. Tweets and emails grew ever more frantic as the week accelerated towards Saturday.

My state of mind wasn’t helped when Sgt McIntyre called me saying that although the Superintendent had given permission for the rally, Westminster Council were having jitters because a supporter from Cambridge wanted to bring a samba band to the event. This made them nervous because samba bands are apparently associated with the sort of demonstration where there is (unspecified) trouble, and wouldn’t be covered by the terms of the PA licence. After all, he said, there will be people in the Treasury working on the CSR on that Saturday afternoon. Good, I thought. Nonetheless, frantic emails and phone calls followed.
And then there were the ‘supporters’ on Twitter and elsewhere who were giving me public relations headaches. One said that “ten people standing outside an embassy in the rain” would be pathetic; another asked if we’d considered what would be the effect if only a few people turned up. Then there was the tweet saying it was dangerous to hold a rally in a street, because she’d been to demonstrations where people were “crushed by the police.”

By Thursday morning we had decided that the drums would not be coming, and I spoke with Sgt McIntyre again. He told me that Westminster had “no objections” to the PA, and I told him we had 1500 signed up for the rally. He gave me the name of the duty Sergeant, who, along with two officers, would be the sum total of police presence on the day. That night—after a quick meeting of the core group in another pub in London—I drew up a risk assessment and briefing notes for my stewards: having obviously decided that the website, the twitter account, the Facebook group, and liaising with the police and the council wasn’t enough, I was also head steward and had the responsibility of driving a 10-foot tipper van—our stage for the event—from South Wimbledon and back.

T minus one day. We still had no insurance. Then, within an hour, Stephen and Jenny both had offers. Stephen’s was cheaper, so I emailed my signature to him and he sent in the proposal, the policy documents returning just after lunch. Jenny’s contact, after we said thanks but no thanks, donated 100 quid to the campaign. Win. All seemed to be going well, at last, and that evening I went along to the party to staple placards together.

The day of the rally. Five hours sleep. More adrenaline than Pulp Fiction. Early Tube to South Wimbledon—early morning traffic at the Elephant and Castle: picking up bottled water, binbags, a stepladder and cordon rope. Last minute checks: insurance documents, permission letter, briefing notes, walkie-talkies. Heavy traffic over Westminster Bridge. King Charles Street. Security.

And right here, the whole machine almost came unstuck. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) security guards said they didn’t know we were coming. Little Hitlers or communication breakdown—either way, they weren’t letting us in. We parked the truck off to one side, just as the van towing the generator and PA turned up. We asked the driver to go around the block: I pulled out my iPhone, but the Charing Cross police station wasn’t answering. I googled the police’s central number, and spoke to someone who assured me my liaison would be there in ten minutes. Jenny chatted to the security guards, telling them what we were doing: and we found ourselves two new supporters. Their shift changed, and she went to work on them, too.

I saw the PA van pull up across the road. I gave him an optimistic thumbs up, and he pulled over by the gate. Then my Sergeant turned up, and after a few words marched straight into the FCO, emerging a few minutes later with a sheepish head security officer in tow. The barrier lifted, and we were in.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Tom Hartley’s mashup of the event

And of course, there are more people involved than I’ve mentioned here. Michelle Brook, Della Thomas, Nick Hall, Hilary Leevers have all worked very hard. There are many thousands of people on Facebook and Twitter who have helped out, not to mention the petition signatories.

Thank you all.