Today was a strange day, after the big protest yesterday everyone expected even bigger protests for today. But it turned out that there were only a handful protesters, twice as many photographers and around four times the police at Bank and at the ExCel Centre.
A lot of people expected disruptions and violence but no one showed up. Over half of the protesters at the ExCel Centre were good spirited Ethiopians. It was strange and a bit disappointing indeed that not much happened. Reminded me of a slogan I read: "What if they gave a war and no one came?"
After my criticism of the police yesterday, I have to say that they were great at the ExCel Centre today, they allowed people to demonstrate and did not bully them around. The police near Bank however was a bit rude in the way they dealt with people, still it was overall not quite the same as yesterday.
The way the police deal with the crowds depends very much on which force they come from.Because of the large number of police required, reinforcements have been called up from many forces. The Met are totally different to the City of London constabulary. You can spot which is which by the colour of their shirts.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Miners Strike the Met were hated even by the local police forces.
I did notice a difference in behaviour between the police so this does explain it.
ReplyDeleteGreat images as always
ReplyDeleteThanks James!
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