More than 500,000 people took to London’s streets to protest the toughest spending cuts since World War II as riot police wrangled smaller groups of violent activists. More than 200 people were arrested.
Although most of Saturday’s demonstration was peaceful, clashes continued into the night as dozens of protesters pelted officers with bottles and amonia-filled lightbulbs. Groups set several fires and smashed shop windows near tourist landmarks such as Trafalgar Square.
Teachers, nurses, firefighters, public sector workers, students, pensioners and campaign groups all took part in Saturday’s mass demonstration.
“They shouldn’t be taking money from public services. What have we done to deserve this?” said Alison Foster, a 53-year-old school teacher. “Yes, they are making vicious cuts. That’s why I’m marching, to let them know this is wrong.”
Britain is facing 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) of public spending cuts from Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government as it struggles to slash the country’s deficit. The government has already raised sales tax, but Britons are bracing for big cuts to public spending that are expected next month. More.
In Hyde Park, the leader of the opposition Labor Party ridiculed Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision of a “Big Society” full of citizen volunteers who plug the holes left by cuts in government spending.
“You wanted to create a Big Society. This is the Big Society, the big society united against what your government is doing to our country,” Ed Miliband said in a speech that invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights movement. “We stand today not for the minority. We stand today for the mainstream majority of Britain.”
The Labor Party, which was kicked out by voters in May after 13 years in power, acknowledges that some cuts are unavoidable to shrink a deficit built up largely under its watch. But it says the scale and pace of the austerity plan put forward by the Conservative Party-led government will strangle Britain’s fledgling economic recovery and hurt the most vulnerable members of society.
Effects of the belt-tightening will begin to be felt more acutely next month, when libraries start closing down, youth programs disappear, social workers get laid off and fewer buses ply the streets. In the northern city of Manchester, police are bracing for the elimination of nearly 3,000 jobs — a quarter of the department’s workforce.
Analysts say the spending cuts could change the fabric of British society in a way not seen since the free-enterprise revolution of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. More.