There has always been an element of police infiltration into activities & marches. There was a thought when i was first in contact with protest/subversive elements that anybody starting on police to escalate riots/whatever was probably undercover police themselves.

You'd hope that was just paranoid but I think it was pretty widespread.
Do know that Conintelpro the late 60s US infiltration programme has been documented &would expect the UK to follow whatever lead the US had.

real shame cos it does undermine the message.

The Solidarity camp has been made wary of various people who they suspect of being undercover cops. People who turn up with some information but no outside contacts etc. thought being that anybody who did turn up in Northwest Mayo would presumably know people on the grassroots network in whatever town they supposedly came from.

In a crowd as large as the G8 protest there are bound to be a lot of people not known to any one individual who are probably thought to be known to others. Great way to infiltrate, cause trouble and get it blamed on those actually protesting.