Rioters battle UK police after anti-cuts rally

[Skip_In_Boulder]

Reuters) - Black-clad, masked youths battled riot police and attacked banks and luxury stores in central London on Saturday, overshadowing a protest by more than a quarter of a million Britons against government spending cuts.

Police said they had arrested more than 200 people after anarchist groups splintered from the main union-led protest march and fought running skirmishes with riot police across the West End shopping and theater district.

They threw flares and paint bombs and smashed their way into branches of HSBC and Santander banks. Banks are blamed by many Britons for a financial crisis that helped prompt the government to implement the deepest spending cuts in a generation.

Hooded figures climbed on to the roof of luxury food store Fortnum & Mason while other protesters attacked the exclusive Ritz hotel and started fires at several locations.

Late in the evening, 200-300 protesters occupied Trafalgar Square where they tried to damage an electronic clock counting down to the 2012 London Olympic Games before helmeted riot police moved in to disperse them amid a hail of bottles.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/26/us-britain-protest-idUSTRE72P0YN20110326?WT.tsrc=Social%20Media&WT.z_smid=twtr-reuters_%20com&WT.z_smid_dest=Twitter

[socialist_n_TN]

1. Well, I can't say that I blame them TOO much...........

This stuff is enough to piss you OFF to the max. I'm surprised things have been as peaceful as they have been.

[dipsydoodle]

2. The anarchsits arrested didn't account

for not being simply charged with public order offences. They're being charged with criminal trespass, breaking and entering and burglary amongst other things. Maybe if they're lucky they won't get the max 2 year sentence.

You gotta be pretty thick to break into a bank which is closed for business for the day.

So much for turning Trafalgar Sq into the Tahrir Square.

[Fool Count]

3. That brings up the question: What's the deal with UK police?

Are they and their families not affected by the same cuts as everybody else? Why didn't they
defect to the protesters' side already?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Defect in what way? The protest about jobs and government cuts went ahead peacefully

There was no clash between the police and the marchers. The confrontation was with the anarchists who were breaking into banks and the Ritz hotel.

The occupation of Fortnum and Mason's was by UK Uncut, who are protesting mainly at companies that dodge paying their taxes (admittedly with their point being that public services are being cut when that tax could have paid for them). They claim there was no violence in that occupation; I can't tell how many arrests there were there, as opposed to at the banks or shops that did have damage done.