Giant G8 campsite opens

A flag hangs outside the perimeter of the Niddrie G8 camp today. Photograph: Neil McIntosh

I've spent part of the day in Niddrie, in the south of Edinburgh, where the giant G8 campsite has been set up at the Jack Kane centre - a sports complex surrounded by lots of playing fields and grass. To some demonstrators' chagrin, it's a long way from the city centre, and not particularly easy to get to, although buses are running to shuttle people into town.

The joke among Edinburgh natives, aware of Niddrie's sometimes tough reputation, is that the high double fence around the site is to keep the locals out, rather than the protestors in. I thought that was slightly unfair but, as one member of the campsite management told me this afternoon, "there's not a city in the world where you'd want to leave all your stuff all day while you were away". Indeed - never mind anger at world poverty, capitalism or George Bush - what might really tip things over the edge would be thousands of marchers returning to find their tents had been swiped.