Boomer Review March 2013 | Page 28

Statistics: More than 200 people arrested, 86 people for injuries, 50 were taken to hospital including up to 25 police officers.

Legacy

The Grosvenor Square demonstration succeeded in one object at least in making sure that the Wilson government resisted sending troops into Viet-Nam. But at the time the Labour party’s refusal to condemn US actions succeeded in moving the party more to the right and pushed more of the thoughtful progressive left away from the party and traditional politics. The one lasting cultural product to come out of the demonstration was the song Street Fighting Man. Jagger had participated in the protest and his ambivalence about demonstrations and political change make the song’s lyrics more memorable and significant than just a good rocking party tune. It reflects Jaggers’ sense that protest can be glamorous and cool but there is no way forward for someone who senses that the time is right for a “palace revolution” but “where I live the game to play is compromise solution..There's no place for a street fighting man, no” There is independent confirmation that Mick was there from a Guardian reader Mike Davis, then a student at Hornsey College of Art, who recalls that he "attended the demo even though I didn't

much like crowds, and I didn't think invading the US Embassy was likely to be very productive. After the event, Sue, one of my fellow students, said that Mick Jagger had lifted her out of the way of a police horse. 'Mick rescued me,' she sighed. As Jagger states in a later interview there

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