I started off outside Lambeth College and UCU picket line where we marched, along with ATL, PCS and NUT members to Windrush Square for speeches. It was lively and loud! Lots of support from passing motorists as well!! Then I went to Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the demonstration, it took me ages to get to the front to take pix and also Holborn tube station had been closed. Fortunately, there were loads of people making their way to the demo. There were so many people (approximately 750,000) that there smaller demos leaving at other times…. It was a good humoured, lively and fun.
I saw a group of cops in one of the side streets, one lad was handcuffed. Protesters chanted, “Let him go!” Nobody knew what the lad had done though someone said he had been arrested because he was smoking a spliff (I don’t know if that was true or not except to say the cops took him away). Around Charing Cross Road the cops grabbed 4 teenagers (again, I head it was because they were masked up/wearing scarves). One of them was a muslim woman. Some of the demo stopped and chanted, “Let them go”! The cops took one of them inside the station. Not sure what happened to them to either or why they were arrested.
I got to Westminster but didn’t stay for the rally. It was an excellent day where people came out in thousands to protest against attacks on pay and conditions. This is the start.
Oh, saw people I knew. Great to finally meet the lovely Clare Solomon. Didn’t get to track down Simon kept missing each other.
Solidarity!
I noticed the coppers picking on two young lads in Lincolns Inn Fields I dont know if they were arrested as I passed I remonstrated ‘why are you picking on these two lads?’ but no one else chipped in Are the police taking revenge for the brave fight the students put up late last year? The powers that be keep saying ‘we dont want to end up like Greece ‘ but i wish we were more like the Greeks .