Arts Council aides May Day demo

Anarchist leaders plotting the May Day demonstrations across London are organising their protests with the help of an Arts Council grant. They are planning a timetable for mayhem on an internet site hosted by a company that has received £43,000 of taxpayers' money in the past two years.

The site, hosted by Greenwich internet arts organisation spc.org, identifies a number of places where demonstrations are expected to start on May Day. In the past seven days alone, agitators have accessed the site more than 10,000 times.

As well as providing a timetable and location of demonstrations designed to stretch police resources across the capital, the anarchists also advertise a workshop for squatters on how to: siphon electricity from the mains; make DIY body armour; and avoid arrest by police.

However, a spokeswoman for the London Arts Board - the regional body of the Arts Council that awarded spc.org £21,500 last year - said: "The passing of information is not incitement to violence. One of the ways spc serves individuals is to provide an opportunity for freedom of discourse without censorship.

"The site doesn't incite violence and we wouldn't support anything that did. One of the ways artists have developed over the years is through free and frank discourse."

Asked what artistic merit could be found in the site's plans to bring London to a standstill on 1 May, London Arts said: "Mayday celebrates an ancient cultural festival and arguably that is an artistic event."

Nigel Pittam, Executive Director of London Arts, said: "London Arts refutes any suggestion that it supports organisations that promote or incite public disorder."

This year's May Day demonstration is being orchestrated by protest group the Wombles - White Overall Movement Building Liberation through Effective Struggle. Their members wear padded white overalls to break through police lines in imitation of Italian anarchist group Ya Basta!, which took part in demonstrations at last year's G8 summit of world leaders in Genoa. These ended in violence and the killing of one protester by police.

Although spc.org chiefs say groups wishing to be hosted on the internet should pay them £100 a month, one of the leaders of the Wombles, identified only as Sara, pays just £25 a month to place their plans on the internet.

Anarchist leaders routinely disseminate their plans for demonstrations on the internet in the run up to May Day, which has become a showpiece for often violent anti-globalisation protests.

Last year agitators used the internet to identify a number of sites for protests around London based on the Monopoly board but were foiled in their attempts to bring chaos to London when police corralled the vast majority of demonstrators in Oxford Circus for eight hours. The demonstration led to 65 arrests and cost around £20 million in lost business, police pay and extra security.

In 2000, the Guerrilla Gardening website attracted thousands of people to Parliament Square and Whitehall. The result was tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage - the Whitehall branch of McDonalds was destroyed and a number of statues, including that of Winston Churchill, were defaced - and 97 arrests.

Internet designer James Stevens, 39, set up spc.org. Mr Stevens said: "It is not out of the ordinary for us to host stuff like this. It just encourages people to look at the issues and participate in a positive way. I think it calms the waters and is a quite appropriate thing for us to be doing."

Leaders of the May Day demonstration are planning a mass medieval football match along Oxford Street and the picketing of Horseferry Road magistrates court, where seven members of the Wombles will be on trial following alleged public order offences committed last October.

Anarchist leaders admit they expect violence. At a meeting in Conway Hall in central London - led by 24-year-old Womble chief Allessio Lunghi - one speaker said: "We have a healthy disrespect for property. We can't be responsible for what individuals do on the day."

However, the largest element of Wednesday's protests is likely to be a huge peaceful demonstration by trade unionists and anti-capitalists from Clerkenwell Green to Trafalgar Square, which could attract as many as 10,000 people.

The socialist umbrella group Globalise Resistance will for the first time march side by side with trade union members angry at planned privatisation of public services and job cuts.

Also for the first time the march, backed by the TUC, will be allowed to enter Trafalgar Square while Parliament is in session.

Organisers from the London Mayday Organising Committee hope the weight of numbers on the march will swamp any elements looking for trouble.

Guy Taylor, of Globalise Resistance, said: "We are all very excited about marching with the trades unions.

" It makes sense really, because we are both anticapitalists and, together, we are a powerful force to be reckoned with. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among the public and workers at the moment over privatisation, terrible public services, thousands of redundancies and the prospect of a war with Iraq.

"We think this will bring people out to protest in record numbers.

"We believe that unity with trade unions is more effective and can do more to damage corporations than smashing shop windows."

Roger Sutton, secretary of the London Mayday Organising Committee said there had never been trouble on the trade union march in the past and he did not expect any this year.

The organisers are hoping the official march and rally will be swelled by thousands of angry members of the National Union of Teachers, the RMT rail union and the Communication Workers Union, all of whom are involved in disputes over pay, redundancies and privatisation.