Tens of thousands of students marched from ULU through central London to the City to protest against the rise in tuition fees and withdrawal of EMA.
There were some scuffles with police on the march, but there was not vandalism and destruction like that seen at Milbank the year previously.
One breakaway group of protesters setup more than dozen pop-up tents in Trafalgar Square in an attempt to occupy it, similar to the current occupations of St Pauls cathedral, Finsbury Square and Wall Street.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through central London as members of the PCS, UCU, NUT and ATL unions took part in a 24 hour strike over pensions.
The government is proposing to increase the retirement age to 68 for public sector workers as well as numerous other changes that would reduce the size of the pension whilst making employees contribute more.
The march passed off peacefully, however after the main march had finished there were scuffles with police as a group of protesters marched back up Whitehall.
Photos: Tens of thousands march to save public sector pensions
Around 4,000 people joined the SlutWalk march through London, protesting against a culture of blaming sexual assault victims because of the clothes they wear wearing or they were drunk.
The SlutWalk movement began in Toronto, Canada after a police officer told female students that they should “avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.
Thousands of people, including healthcare professionals, marched through central London from outside University College Hospital to the Department of Health on Whitehall.
Protesters called for the health secretary’s plans to reform the NHS to be scrapped and the prime minister to sack him from his role.
Photos: Protesters march to Save the NHS
Conservatives, libertarians and eurosceptics rallied outside Parliament against Government debt. Many said that the Chancellor, George Osbourne, was not cutting public spending deeper or faster enough.
Organisers of the rally, the Taxpayers Alliance, had expected around a thousand people to turn up, but only a few hundred actually attended. The rally was addressed by Conservative MPs Priti Patel and Bill Cash as well as the leader of UKIP Nigel Farage MEP.
There was a small scuffle when stewards took placards from two protesters that said “Libraries suck” and “School is for Fools”. After the speeches an EU flag was burnt on the steps of the statue of George V, opposite Parliament.
Covering the TUC March for the Alternative yesterday I was hit above my left eye, just below the brim of my helmet, by a rock thrown by a protester as it ricocheted off a police van. I was photographing a group of protesters who’d broken away from the main march and had attacked a branch of HSBC in Cambridge Circus.
The wound needed 9 stitches and my glasses are broken beyond repair. I just wanted to offer some thanks to everyone who helped me yesterday:
Thank you to the two photographers who got me away to safety and to a nearby fire station for first aid.
Thank you to the firemen who let me into their station, cleaned and bandaged me up.
Thank you to my friend and colleague Marc Vallée who got me to A&E, waited with me and made sure I got on the train home safely.
Thank you to the doctors and nurses at A&E who looked after me and the maxillofacial surgeon who stitched me back up again.
Thank you to my Dad who gave me a lift home.
Thank you to my housemate Ellie for keeping an eye on me for the last 24hrs.
And thank you to everyone who rang, text and sent messages via Twitter & Facebook.
Last night I went to see the Civil Unrest show that my photographs have been included in. The show is in a series of tunnels under London Bridge at Debut London and forms part of the Coming Up festival.
Entering the venue two actors stand costumed, quite convincingly, as riot police guarding the gallery. After a few minutes to buy drinks and a programme the audience is invited through to the next tunnel with the two police checking the stamps on people’s hands that they were given in exchange for their tickets on the door.
The ‘gallery’ is a smoke filled tunnel with photographs of protests, some are simply hung by cable ties to metal fencing whilst others have been collaged with newspapers. The room is lit by bare bulbs strung across the room and a bright red stage light in the corner that backlights some of the photographs.
Soon the police come and bark at people to move on to the next section, which includes artwork by Peter Kennard and video by Fil Kaler, the audience is contained in a small area surrounded by more metal fencing and riot police. Small groups of people are then allowed through by the police to a kitchen hatch and handed a cardboard tray of food and pass onto a canteen. The canteen is made up of two long rows of tables and benches, surrounded by scaffolding that makes walkways above and patrolled by riot police as people eat below.
The food initially looked unappealing in it’s compartmentalised cardboard tray; a bread roll, beetroot, roast vegetables, a slab of meat on a thick grey sauce and a large blob of bright yellow mustard. But after trying some with the provided plastic spoon you find that the bread roll is soft and fresh, the vegetables are delicious, the meat has been cooked slowly and crumbles away and the sauce is a creamy mushroom one. Drinks are brought round by a man wearing a navy jumpsuit, pushing a trolley with enamel mugs containing a small serving of Courvoisier punch.
After people had finished eating two of the tables were removed from the middle of the canteen to form the centrer stage for Ben Ellis’ play Unrestless. The play is about three siblings different approaches to the student protest outside Milbank last year.
The play utilised the space in the tunnel quite well, with scenes taking place on the walkways over the audience and others with the actors walking over the tables where people had been eating and were still sitting. I don’t often go to the theatre but there were a few scenes I couldn’t quite suspend disbelief, but that’s probably more because I covered the events depicted rather than any fault with the acting.
Unfortunately the show has already sold out for the rest of it’s run, but there will be a private view at 4pm today, just drop me note via email or in the comments and I’ll get you on the guest list.
You can see more photos from the show in my archive.
A protest group calling itself ‘TakeVAT’ were chased by police around Heathrow airport as they attempted to get inside terminal 3.
The group targeted the airport because they claim the aviation industry pays no VAT on fuel or aircraft, avoiding £9 billion in VAT.
The protests come after a similar group called UK Uncut protested outside shops that they say avoid paying taxes such as Vodafone and Topshop, temporarily shutting down hundreds of retail stores across the country. Both groups say that if big businesses paid more tax then there would be no need for the coalition governments proposed cuts to public services.
Police eventually managed to contain the protesters in a stairway in the arrivals lounge of terminal 3 and escorted them away to the train station.
My photos of political protest have been included in the Civil Unrest project curated by Spike Laurie at the Old Vic New Voices and is part of the Coming Up festival.
It includes photographs by:
It will also feature theatre Unrestless by award winning playwright Ben Ellis
The show is on March the 2nd, 3rd and 4th only at Debut London Bridge.
Unfortunately all of the free tickets have sold out already, but paid tickets are still available and include a meal devised by Mark Jankel.
Thousands of student protesters took to the streets to protests against the Governments plans to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and increase in university tuition fees.
The protest split into smaller groups throughout the day, with some blockading Topshop on Oxford Street and others joining the protest outside the Egyptian embassy.
A similar protest was held in Manchester on the same day, backed by the National Union of Students and the TUC. NUS president Aaron Porter was targeted by protesters there calling him a ‘Tory too’ and had to be protected by police.
