Police braced for 'summer of rage'

[luke]

Police braced for 'summer of rage'



Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan Police's public order branch, said he feared there could be "mass protest" at rising unemployment, failing financial institutions and the downturn in the economy.

He said that "known activists" were planning returns to the streets, and intelligence revealed that they may be able to call on more protesters than normal due to the unprecedented conditions.

He said: "Those people would be good at motivating people, but they haven't had the 'footsoldiers' to actually carry out (protests).

"Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest."

Supt Hartshorn, who is regularly briefed on potential causes of civil unrest, singled out April's G20 summit of the leading developed nations in London as one of the events that could kick start a series of protests.

"We've got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the sites as the highlight of what they see as a 'summer of rage'," he said.

The officer added that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions of aid from the taxpayer, has also become "viable targets" for protesters.

Other parts of Europe have already seen large-scale protests against the handling of the economy.

Up to 120,000 people marched through Dublin on Saturday in an emotional and angry national demonstration over the Irish Government's handling of the economic crisis.

In the UK earlier this month, hundreds of oil refinery and power station workers carried out a series of wildcat strikes over the use of foreign workers.

And across the Channel in France, a million people joined demonstrations to demand greater protection for jobs.



i might have to move back to london!

[luke]

Britain at risk of serious social unrest, report warns
Britain is in danger of serious social unrest and public disorder in response to the economic crisis, according to a new report.

Bouts of social upheaval are set to disrupt economies and topple governments around the globe over the next two years, the Economist Intelligence Unit warned.

Britain is at "moderate risk" of the protests with "far from a clean bill of health", the study said, in contrast to previous years when western European states were almost automatically rated at "low risk".

The paper, called Manning the Barricades, identified Britain as one of a group of "heavily indebted economies that experienced housing bubbles" and "are particularly vulnerable to deleveraging and asset price declines".

It added: "The UK has been among the worst-hit developed countries by the global downturn and the majority of the population fears a deep and long recession and the onset of mass unemployment.

"Popular discontent and anger are likely to rise, and populist sentiments to strengthen. The news of big personal payouts to bankers who have failed spectacularly has incensed public opinion."

Ninety-five countries were ranked in the "high" or "very high" risk bracket, while Britain was placed 132nd on the list, alongside Ireland, and behind France and the US.

Top of the list were Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia and Sudan, and there were three European countries among the 27 rated as "very high risk" – Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia & Herzogovina.

Citing a recent poll for Prospect magazine, in which 37 per cent predicted serious social unrest in British cities, the report identified the use of immigrant labour at a time of soaring unemployment as a possible flashpoint for unrest in Britain.

It said: "The mood of the country is also revealed by the results of a recent FT/Harris survey that showed that almost 80 per cent of British adults believe that immigrants should be asked to leave the country if they do not have a job."

The most serious economic downturn since the 1930s is driving up poverty and unemployment and fuelling demands for protectionist policies which could deepen the recession into a lengthy depression, said the report.

It added: "Popular anger around the world is growing as a result of rising unemployment, pay cuts and freezes, bail-outs for banks, and falls in house prices and the value of savings and pension funds.

"As people lose confidence in the ability of governments to restore stability, protests look increasingly likely.

"A spate of incidents in recent months shows that the global economic downturn is already having political repercussions.

"This is being seen as a harbinger of worse to come. There is growing concern about a possible global pandemic of unrest."

from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5025714/Britain-at-risk-of-serious-social-unrest-report-warns.html

[luke]

Policing dissent

MORE than a few coalminers will be rolling their eyes on Tuesday at the pronouncements of Parliament's joint committee on human rights.

Policing of protests "has become more heavy-handed in recent years?"

Tell that to the miners at Orgreave during the Great Strike of 1984-85, when police were given free rein to launch baton-wielding cavalry charges on picket lines with a brutality which reminded miners' leader Arthur Scargill of a "Latin American state" - back when that meant a vicious Western-friendly dictatorship, not a peaceful socialist democracy.

For that matter, tell it to the scores injured in Grosvenor Square during the anti-Vietnam demo of 1968.

Tell it to those attacked at the huge protest against Margaret Thatcher's poll tax, the Greenham Common peace camp or the 2005 G8 summit in Edinburgh.

The long litany doesn't stop there, but those few examples are proof enough that the police have long been ready to break out the truncheons against anyone who stands up for their class or their cause.

That said, though, the committee's comments do amount to more than gravely informing us that the sun has suddenly started rising in the east.

New Labour may not have invented police harassment, but it is to blame for expanding police powers which give them even more freedom to target the most peaceful of protests.

A series of repressive laws on terrorism and anti-social behaviour have made it easier than ever to ban demonstrations and arrest or intimidate protesters.

They also, as the National Union of Journalists points out, allow police to crack down on those troublesome reporters who keep exposing their behaviour.

This is partly due to new Labour's habit of rushing through sweeping, ill-thought-out laws. Time and again it has passed anti-terror legislation which is worded so broadly that it could affect just about anyone.

Ministers' only defence is to ask us to trust that these laws won't be used on the innocent - but that defence is pretty threadbare now that anti-terror laws are routinely used against peaceful protests.

But new Labour's other, more sinister, motive is its absolute refusal to listen to dissenting voices.

Witness its ban on protests around Westminster, which was brought in specifically to stop Brian Haw's peace vigil in Parliament Square because new Labour could not bear being reminded of its war crimes.

And this intolerance of dissent could rear its ugly head in a number of ways this year.

Only last month, David Hartshorn of the Metropolitan Police predicted a "summer of rage" sparked by the recession, job losses and bankers' greed.

Superintendent Hartshorn was most likely getting his excuses in early for another round of police brutality. But the discontent he identified is real and growing. And it is entirely justified.

On top of anger over climate change, war and Third World poverty, there is now a mounting backlash against new Labour's feeble response to the recession.

We may indeed get a summer of strikes, protests and marches - not driven by "rage" but by a desire to tell new Labour loud and clear that its policies have failed and that people want an alternative to the free-market madness that got us into this mess.

Next week's G20 summit in London will set the tone for the summer in this respect.

The police's treatment of protesters there will tell us a great deal about whether new Labour is willing to listen to the people, or whether it will continue to stamp out dissent.

from http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/comment/policing_dissent