At last, the police have become efficient. They may have stumbled slightly with their investigation of News International, but they haven't made the same mistake with the people sitting around by St Paul's.
Last year, presumably, if they'd been asked to evict Occupy London protests who camped at St Paul's Cathedral, they'd have written a report saying: "We have left no stone unturned in pursuing the occupiers, but after driving round the cathedral hundreds of times we have no evidence of any tents anywhere, or, indeed, of any cathedral."
London
The crackdown on whistleblowers to protect national security is "neo-McCarthyist hysteria" and Julian Assange says he has the emails to prove it.
The Europe Against Austerity conference held in London on October 1 was attended by 681 people, including 150 from outside Britain. This happened the same weekend that two big demonstrations took place.
In Glasgow, a 鈥淧eople First鈥 demonstration of 15,000 called by the Scottish TUC took place on October 1.
The next day, 35,000 joined a demonstration in Manchester outside the governing Conservative Party conference, which was called by the Trades Union Congress and backed by the Coalition of Resistance and the Right to Work Campaign.
Living in north London, I often travel via the interchange in Tottenham. Walking between stations I found myself on Ferry Lane Bridge on the evening of August 14, the spot where Mark Duggan was shot by police on August 4.
鈥淢ob rule鈥. 鈥淲anton destruction鈥. 鈥淢indless thuggery鈥. 鈥淪heer criminality鈥. Media, politicians and police always say the same thing about urban riots. Riots can spin out of control and engulf ordinary people. But that does not alter the fact that they are rooted in social oppression.
Why is it that the same areas always erupt first, whatever the cause? Pure accident? Might it have something to do with race and class and institutionalised poverty and the sheer grimness of everyday life?
You've probably heard it said a dozen times today: "It's like 28 Days Later out there." Every thirty seconds, there's a new riot zone. I've rarely known the capital to be this wound up.
How do YOU聽suggest we cut Britain's deficit then? You'll be asked this if you ever oppose a cost-cutting scheme, such as merging the sewerage system with the library service or something.
So here's one answer, we could pay a bit less to ATOS, a private company that receives 锟100 million a year from the British government for assessing who should be cut off from disability benefit.
About 500,000 people marched in London on March 26 against the British government鈥檚 program of huge spending cuts. Called by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the march drew people from every part of Britain 鈥 a splendid cross section of the country with numbers dominated by the working class.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke to reporters outside a London court following his bail release from prison, where he has been held since Dec. 7th.
鈥淩ise like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number!/Shake your chains to earth, like dew/Which in sleep had fall鈥檔 on you/Ye are many 鈥攖hey are few.鈥
These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley鈥檚 鈥淢ask of Anarchy鈥 from 1819 may seem unattainable. I don鈥檛 think so.
Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a British government spreadsheet.
At first glance, you might have mistaken London鈥檚 packed streets on November 10 for a Mardi Gras carnival. There young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet-blasting and drum-beating. All mixed together to form the din of student protest.
The noise took shape and all of a sudden burst from the centre of the crowd, picked up by everyone else: 鈥淣o ifs, no buts, no education cuts鈥 鈥 the main chants of the 50,000 students marching forward from Westminster to the destination of the Milbank headquarters of the Conservative Party.
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