Taken with Nikkie
London 10th Nov 2010
This afternoon, around 30,000 students and lecturers took the street of Westminster to protest against sharp increase in university tuition fee.
What started off as a peaceful demonstration turned into a rather violent clash between students and police. I wasn't part of the march but I happened to be nearby around 2pm, when the demonstation seemed to be at its peak. It took me a long time to get to Tate Britain, having to take the south bank route to get to that end of Millbank. As I passed by the Conservative HQ, there was a large crowd of protestors and it started to look a bit out of control. I thought they had only started a placard bonfire there and was surprised that they were allowed to; let alone an hour or so later they had almost taken siege of the building.
What started off as a peaceful demonstration turned into a rather violent clash between students and police. I wasn't part of the march but I happened to be nearby around 2pm, when the demonstation seemed to be at its peak. It took me a long time to get to Tate Britain, having to take the south bank route to get to that end of Millbank. As I passed by the Conservative HQ, there was a large crowd of protestors and it started to look a bit out of control. I thought they had only started a placard bonfire there and was surprised that they were allowed to; let alone an hour or so later they had almost taken siege of the building.
The Met Police really did underestimate the risk of this demonstation, which was extremely alarming. Critics say this may have been due to the criticism of their handling Ian Tomlinson's death last year during the G20 Summit protest (so they had a softer approach this year?). But 200 unarmed police dealing with a potential risk from a crowd of 30,000 people (no matter how peaceful most of them are)... let's look at the maths here! There are always people abusing and taking advantage of the situation. Even though, I know, people tend to have a negative thing with the police, they are there for a reason... to prevent these kind of things from happening/getting worse.
Fortunately most of the people attending the protest came with peaceful intention so things did not spark out of control any further.
The turn out was massive, showing how much students really care and want to be heard but the incidence that took place really left a sad, sad mark over Britain.
