Dressing up as a Barclays eagle to highlight food speculation

Steve Rolfe, Glasgow WDM group member

It's not often you get the chance to dress up as a blue eagle or a profit-crazed banker (or a bit of both!) in the middle of Glasgow. But it's fun when you do.

On a surprisingly warm spring day, a bunch of us from the Glasgow WDM group set up a market stall outside Barclays on the busy pedestrian precinct on Argyle Street. Now I know Glaswegians are hardly renowned for their spendthrift ways, but even so we weren't surprised that no-one seemed to want to buy a bag of pasta for £140. Our bankers tried their best to sell the over-priced goods - and you'd have thought bankers could sell anything after recent years, but obviously the public are a bit wary of anyone in a sharp suit these days. Even our barrow-boy market trader couldn't shift the £120 loaf of bread. People did want to know what we were up to, though - after all it's not often that they see anyone dressed up as a blue eagle or a profit-crazed banker!

And shoppers didn't like what they heard. We're all having to pay a bit more for our food these days, so no-one was too impressed when they found out that part of the reason for high food prices is the reckless speculation of bankers, gambling on global food prices. And people we talked to were even more horrified when they heard about the impacts of rising food prices in poorer countries. A number of people commented that the bankers seem to be able to get away with murder.