G20: Make or break for Brown, but not for the obvious reasons

Well here we are, G20 week and already the protests have started. By all accounts yesterdays protest in London organised by the Put People First network was well attended, well humoured and went off with out major incidents or trouble. I would like to think that the protests planned for the rest of the week will be of a similar good nature but the media is keen to tell us that trouble is almost a certainty.

This years London Summit of the G20 has been built up to be the meeting in which the solution to the worlds financial problems will be solved. It will be attended by world leaders who many consider to be responsible for the economic mess we are in, in the first place. Massive political egos and reputations are at stake and the fact that different camps have emerged already prior to the meeting almost guarantees that some political careers will suffer greatly as a result of a lack of unity. There is a definite chance that this meeting of nations with so much more to loose than they already have could fail, in which case the hopes and expectations of billions will be dashed and international cooperation will diminish as nation states and unions will seek to protect their own interests.

Without going further down the hypothetical road to global apocalypse, the immediate aftermath may be much more pivotal for the future of our loony PM than the fact that the rest of the civilised world disagrees with his economic policies. The problem as I see it is that the police who are to be mobilised in huge numbers this week in anticipation of trouble at the protests will be primed and ready for it. This means that trouble is an inevitability and the chances are that the police will initiate it. They will be looking for it and at the first sign of it, they will be ordered to crush it. They will be under orders to crush it efficiently and decisively. After all, this will probably be the highest profile display of our security as a nation ahead of the Olympics in 2012.

With the police primed for a scrap and an angry mob marching towards them, I regret that I predict a riot. It will be well reported by the press and unfortunately, the police will make mistakes. Children will be terrified or worse, hurt. Innocent people will end up bloody and some in hospital or jail. There will be fire, mess and massive damage to property which will not look good to a nation already sceptical and disappointed with the government. This week could do to Gordon Brown's reputation what the Poll Tax riots did to Thatcher.

If open dissent by Bank of England governor Mervyn King was a defining moment last week for Gordon Brown, then the events that will happen this week will be a deciding moment. Usually, I like to be able to say "I told you so" about my political predictions. I hope I am wrong on this one...not for the sake of the PM but for the sake of the UK and to some extent the rest of the world.