Saul Alinsky was a legendary community activist/organiser. If you haven’t read his “Rules for Radicals,” then stop browsing the goddam Internet and do so.

This, from an interview he did in 1972, is worth your time.

No matter how burning the injustice and how militant your supporters, people will get turned off by repetitious and conventional tactics. Your opposition also learns what to expect and how to neutralize you unless you’re constantly devising new strategies. I knew the day of the sit-in had ended when an executive of a major corporation with important military contracts showed me the blueprints for its lavish new headquarters. “And here,” he said, pointing out a spacious room, “is our sit-in hall. We’ve got plenty of comfortable chairs, two coffee machines and lots of magazines and newspapers. We’ll just usher them in and let them stay as long as they want.” No, if you’re going to get anywhere, you’ve got to be constantly inventing new and better tactics.

Meanwhile, Manchester’s activists might like to google “repressive tolerance” from ol’ Herbie Marcuse.