Demonstraties in Europa: Engeland.

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 07:29 schreef Transport_Ink het volgende:
Het feit dat het huidige systeem niet werkt en de "ideologie" van "de markt regelt het wel' volgens mij door iedereen met meer dan 3 hersencellen wordt afgewezen, maakt me nog geen communist volgens mij.

Dus ik snap niet zo goed waar die noodzaak vandaan komt iemand met een dergelijke mening als zodanig te bestempelen.

Geen enkel systeem is perfect, maar het lijkt me toch vrij duidelijk dat we met de huidige opvattingen niet door kunnen blijven gaan.

Wat betreft een planeconomie... Met de huidige IT zou zoiets best eens het proberen waard zijn op kleine schaal. Volgens mij zijn dergelijke systemen het bedrijfsleven ook niet vreemd. Zolang je maar inzicht hebt in de vraag moet het toch te doen zijn.

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Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said:

"Cameron and Clegg have launched a war on working people and today's demonstration is the start of the fightback. They expect us to suffer tax increases, pay cuts, unemployment and devastation of our pensions to pay for the crisis their friends in the City caused. They should expect the fight of their lives."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)rnative-live-updates

1.04pm: Paul Lewis has sent through an update, describing the wide range of groups who have joined today's protest.

"Standing here watching hundreds of thousands of people stream past, you get a real sense of the broad coalition against the government. I noted down every banner that past through over a couple of minutes.

"Somerset Teachers Association, Vulnerable Chinese Migrants Association, Society of Radiographers, Prison Officers Association, Don't Cut Out The Disabled, Southend On Sea Unison Branch, Ipswich Labour Party, Cut Trident, Nurses Uncut, Met Police Group PCS Union, Calderdale Division of the NUT, Chelsea Anti Cuts Alliance, Colchester NHS SOS, South Ribble Children, The Bohemian Storm is Rising, Parents Alliance of Community Schools, Isle of Wight Uncut."

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 14:30 schreef sitting_elfling het volgende:
Ik kan je verzekeren hier in Londen is het echt vies druk met mensen die protesteren etc. Van het park tot aan de Eye.

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 14:44 schreef eriksd het volgende:
Vraag mij af hoeveel van die mensen zelf aan het staatsinfuus hangen.

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 14:53 schreef Scorpie het volgende:

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Een hoop, vandaar ook de afgunst jegens bankiers.

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 14:54 schreef Pietverdriet het volgende:

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Waarom denk je dat ze demonstreren?

Het is een beetje als boos zijn op de tandarts omdat hij een bankier een wortelkanaal behandeling geeft omdat ie een verrot gebit hebt door jarenlang niet poetsen en teveel snoepen

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philphfy phil fuhr
Kicking off at Topshop there are round 500 #BlackBloc Anarchists breakaway and are around #SOLIDARITY #UKuncut #26march #march26

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cllrfay Fay Howard
Violence outside to shop Oxford st, smashed windows, breakaway group 200-300 dressed in black many faces covered #march26

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 14:56 schreef eriksd het volgende:
Betaal jij veel belasting, papierversnipperaar?

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2.14pm: Journalist Shiv Malik says that a legal observer has been hurt.

A male legal observer has a head injury outside of HSBC on Oxford Street about 50m from Topshop. He is being attended to by volunteer medics who are wiping the blood from his face. It looks like he has been struck over the head with something but it's unclear how it happened. Police officers are also in attendance.

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otingocnimi otingocnimi
Just reached Hyde Park. What a great atmosphere. Kids, oldies, whole families. Fantastic. #march26
46 seconds ago Favorite Retweet Reply

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 15:29 schreef Morendo het volgende:
Wat is eigenlijk het doel van de demonstratie? De regering omverwerpen?

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 15:33 schreef Morendo het volgende:

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En ik weiger te betalen voor uitkeringsfraudeurs en Afrikaanse dictators.

It's all in the game.

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Op zaterdag 26 maart 2011 15:43 schreef Morendo het volgende:

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Jij ziet meer in een facultatieve belastingheffing, waarbij de burger kan aankruisen waarvoor hij wenst te betalen?

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2.27pm: Paul Lewis says that the demonstration is fragmenting into different sections, with the most violent protests taking place on Cambridge Circus.

You've got the main march which is absolutely huge, bigger than police were initially reporting. Then you've got two elements - one in Trafalgar Square which is occupied by protesters draping banners around Nelson's column and turning it into a kind of Tahrir Square. Then you have a second group of 500-700 anarchists in the West End of central London setting off smoke bombs, over turning litter bins, setting off bangers and stopping traffic. The worst I've seen is police outside HSBC covered in paint bombs. There are protesters throwing bricks and sticks, and as always there are a lot of journalists. I can see fireworks going off at Cambridge Circus and they are now attacking the HSBC bank.

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Anti-cuts march swells to 400,000

Around 400,000 people have joined a march in London to oppose the coalition government's spending cuts.

In what looks like being the largest mass protest since the anti-Iraq war march in 2003, teachers, nurses, midwives, NHS, council and other public sector workers were joined by students, pensioners and direct action supporters, bringing the centre of the capital to a standstill.

Tens of thousands of people streamed along Embankment and past police barriers in Whitehall. Feeder marches, including a protest by students which set off from the University of London in Bloomsbury, swelled the crowd, which stretched back as far as St Paul's Cathedral.

The biggest union-organised event for over 20 years saw more than 800 coaches and dozens of trains hired to bring people to London, with many unable to make the journey to the capital because of the massive demand for transport.

"I'm sure that many of our critics will try to write us off today as a minority, vested interest," said Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, which organised the march.

"The thousands coming to London from across the country will be speaking for their communities when they call for a plan B that saves vital services, gets the jobless back to work and tackles the deficit through growth and fair tax."

Barber is expected to tell this afternoon's rally in Hyde Park that there is an alternative to the "brutal" spending cuts, which have already led to the threat of 170,000 council job losses and another 50,000 elsewhere in the public sector.

"No part of our public realm is to be protected. And don't believe it when ministers say that the NHS is safe in their hands. With over 50,000 job cuts already in the pipeline – nurses, doctors, physios, midwives – in the name of so-called efficiency savings of £20bn, the NHS as we know it is already in intensive care.

"With David Cameron talking about selling it off to any willing provider out to make a profit, the NHS is facing the gravest threat in its history. Today let us say to him: we will not let you destroy what has taken generations to build. Let's be brutally clear about these brutal cuts. They're going to cost jobs on a huge scale – adding to the misery of the 2.5 million people already on the dole."

The education secretary, Michael Gove, acknowledged the public's concerns about the planned cuts, but insisted they were necessary.

"Of course people will feel a sense of disquiet, in some cases anger, at what they see happening," Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "But the difficulty we have, as the government inheriting a terrible economic mess, is that we have to take steps to bring the public finances back into balance."

Labour politicians will join the march, and party leader, Ed Miliband, will address the rally in Hyde Park.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the Unison union, will tell demonstrators that the government faces being wiped out in May's elections.

"Every month when a library closes, a care home shuts its doors, or services for struggling young people are withdrawn, I want them to feel the fear, and anger of the people who have come here today from every part of the UK to vent their frustration and to stand up for a fairer future."

Banks and stores in Oxford Street are being targeted by the anti-cuts group UK Uncut. There are also plans to target a secret location with a mass occupation.

Around 4,500 police officers were on duty, with the human rights group Liberty sending 100 legal observers to monitor their actions.

The senior Scotland Yard officer in charge of policing the protests, Commander Bob Broadhurst, has pledged that the controversial tactic of "kettling" protesters into a confined area will be kept to a minimum. "The issues will be with the fracture groups who might want to spoil the party," he said.

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3.57pm: Ellie Cumbo, a Labour party activist on the demonstration, says that her experience of the march is much more peaceful than most media reports.

We've not seen any violence. The media is ridiculously hyped up; we haven't seen anything like what they're reporting. Right now we are walking up Regent Street behind the pink UCU banner "knowledge is power" and Suffragettes posters. The atmosphere is very much like a carnival – the crowd is loud and full of whistles. No one is pushing and shoving, in fact there is quite a lot of humour on the signs. It is not in any way intimidating or threatening.

I think everybody here is united against these particular cuts that are hitting the most vulnerable. The people in the firing line are those who use youth services, domestic violence services and those for the elderly. I started off marching with the women's block, which has a really large presence here. A lot of people here are asking why aren't we making the cuts on those who can afford it rather than those that can't. That's the real point of consistency here.

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4.17pm: Jamie Kelsey, a contributing editor of the New Internationalist magazine who is at the demonstration, says that the protest is providing a political education to many young people in attendance.

We're at Oxford Circus at the moment and it's a really excellent festival atmosphere. I just spoke to two teenagers aged 17 and 19 who have come from the comedy show in Soho Square, and they said that what they heard there made them think more than anything they have ever learnt at school. It's their first demonstration and when I asked why they came they said they realised that the demonstration is about more than just the UK. They can understand the connection between the shops and the banks that people are targetting and the global situation that is effecting everyone. They've heard Mark Thomas and a disabled comedian and Johann Hari speak. For these teenagers the protest is absolutely opening their minds to a much wider picture. It's very exciting. We've heard that Anne Summers windows have been smashed and Topshop has been covered in paint, but that doesn't seem to link with what young people are saying down here.

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Anti-cuts march draws hundreds of thousands as police battle rioters

More than a quarter of a million people have marched through central London to deliver a powerful message about the government's cuts in public spending. The generally good-natured mood was soured by violent and destructive attacks on symbols of wealth including the Ritz, banks and a luxury car dealer, and an occupation of the upmarket food store Fortnum and Mason.

Trade union organisers said that the turnout had exceeded their expectations, and thousands had travelled by coach and by train from as far as Edinburgh to vent their anger at the government's cuts by marching through London to a rally in Hyde Park.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, the public service trade union, said that the turnout was "absolutely enormous and showed the anger of ordinary working people".

But the day was marred by a violent minority of anarchists who went on the rampage, smashing windows and attacking property around Oxford Street. Prentis said he regretted that the actions of "a few hundred" risked diverting attention from the message that the "political heat is rising on the government".

At one stage 13 shops in Oxford Street were closed following skirmishes between activists and riot police. Topshop – owned by Sir Philip Green, who has been accused of tax avoidance – and HSBC had windows smashed, while paint and bottles were thrown at a Royal Bank of Scotland branch. A dozen police officers were surrounded and beaten by a masked mob in Sackville Street, off Piccadilly.

Police said 211 people were arrested for offences including using threatening or insulting words or behaviour, criminal damage, aggravated trespass, violent disorder and for going equipped with intent to cause criminal damage. They said video evidence would be used to make further arrests.

Thirteen officers were injured, and one was among 16 people taken to hospital. A total of 66 people were treated for injuries. By mid-afternoon the main focus of police activity was a sit-in at the upmarket grocers Fortnum and Mason, organised by anti-tax evasion activist group UK Uncut. Hundreds of riot police sealed off the area.

Last night police appealed to people not involved in the disorder to leave Trafalgar Square as they came under increased bombardment from a group of protesters who said they planned to stay there all night. The protesters were throwing items such as coins and water bottles. Scotland Yard said that light bulbs filled with ammonia had also been thrown at officers earlier. But Commander Bob Broadhurst, the Scotland Yard officer in charge of policing the protests, said the TUC had done an excellent job in ensuring that the march was "very professional, very well prepared". But he said a hardcore element had been intent on making trouble.

"Unfortunately we've had in the region of 500-plus criminals – people hiding under the pretence of the TUC march – who have caused considerable damage, attacked police officers, attacked police vehicles and scared the general public. Unfortunately, because of their mobility and the fact they are aware of some of our tactics, we have been unable to contain them and so we have had these groups wandering around the central London area."

Broadhurst said they had learned lessons from the student protests last year, which were heavily criticised for the use of "kettling". "We've worked hard on communication, making people aware by using text and Twitter and a better informed website," he said.

The main group of marchers demonstrated peacefully and walked along the planned route from Embankment to Hyde Park. Steel bands, choirs and dancers performed while the mass of people, many with their children, blew horns and whistles as they passed alongside parliament.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, told protesters at the TUC rally in Hyde Park that the government was wrong to make such deep cuts in public services. He was heckled by a small number of protesters when he said "some cuts" were needed, but most people applauded his speech.

Miliband said: "Our struggle is to fight to preserve, protect and defend the best of the services we cherish because they represent the best of the country we love. We know what the government will say: that this is a march of the minority. They are so wrong. David Cameron, you wanted to create the 'big society' – this is the big society. The big society united against what your government is doing to our country. We stand today not as the minority, but as the voice of the mainstream majority in this country."