Protest at Downing Street

Chancellor of Britain, George Osborne, announced the UK spending review last week, and it brought an uproar with it. In order to get the country out of debt, large cuts will be made, lots of public service jobs will be cut, and the cost of university education will increase tremendously. more details can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/spending_review/

so, of course, there was a protest at Downing Street, near Parliament in Westminster, and of course I went to observe. I find it fascinating to compare the situations and the performance of the demonstration from what I have experienced in the US. I was quite impressed by the amount of people that showed up for the march, there had to have been upwards of 2,000 students and workers participating in the march. But I found the crowd to be less aggressive and the police presence to be very weak and submissive as compared to the couple of large protests I've attended at home. There were only a handful of cops spaced here and there, and they did not seem to carry weapons, at least not guns (as opposed to an armed riot cop for every protester in Arizona this past summer). When the speaker on the platform asked the police to withdraw to allow the march to enter into the area, they stepped away immediately, obeying the organizer at the mic. I've never seen this before, but I suppose it was meant to be a peaceful march, and it remained faithful to that, so there was no need for armed or aggressive police.

I do find we are all fighting for similar things. The organizers at this rally made it clear that if those in power, the cabinet of millionaires, would make paycuts to their own salaries, the country would be in much less debt, and the general public and working class would not have to pay for it. The students here are refusing to accept their tuition being jacked up (though it would still be much less than we pay in the US), and I honor them all in solidarity. We are dealing with the same issues in the US, as are people across Europe and around the world.

Instead of doing work, I have taken the time to edit a few photos to show comparison between the protest against SB 1070 in Phoenix, AZ this Summer 2010 and this protest on Downing Street last week. This is not to compare the reasons for demonstration, because they are quite different, but just to notice a difference perhaps in the atmosphere of the event. or anything, really, any comments or points of discussion are welcomed. thx.

Phoenix, July 2010








Downing Street, London, October 2010







Unfortunately, blogspot is too weak to upload video files straight onto the post. So here are more photos from the protest:

http://s931.photobucket.com/albums/ad151/maple018/Protest%20at%20Downing%20Street/

and here is an album of video footage i took:

http://s931.photobucket.com/albums/ad151/maple018/Protest%20at%20Downing%20Street/Videos%20from%20Downing%20Street%20March/

I don't know how many people are really interested in this, but I put it up in case anyone is. Not sure how familiar anyone is with the British government. One of the videos didn't upload because it was too long, and I'm not very savvy on how to splice video clips. Also, photobucket doesn't let me order them, so they are in backwards order I believe. Should be the introductory speaker first, then the first wave of the march, then more of the march, then more speakers. If you watch them all, that was the order in which they occurred.

anyway enjoy.

xx