After blitz of the Ritz, it's the siege of Fortnum & Mason: Anarchists hijack the anti-cuts demo and go on rampage in central London.
- Hooded anarchists attack London landmarks linked to luxury and wealth
Splinter groups broke off from the main body of more than 250,000 demonstrators marching from Victoria Embankment to Hyde Park to launch an assault on the capital’s main shopping district.
Some were hellbent on storming – or destroying – any London landmarks synonymous with luxury or money. Others targeted companies associated with tax avoidance.
Riot: Police officers stand in front of a fire lit be demonstrators in central London tonight
Hundreds laid siege to The Ritz hotel, attacking it with paint and smokebombs. A Porsche showroom was also smashed up and upmarket department store Fortnum & Mason was occupied by about 1,000 activists.
On the streets outside, anarchists battled police. Some officers in Oxford Street were attacked with lightbulbs filled with ammonia, a sinister new weapon that can be assembled by following simple instructions on the internet. Other officers were hit with paint and flying bottles.
By the end of the day 75 protesters had been arrested and 28 people injured. Five police officers were also hurt and one was one taken to hospital.
Scotland Yard commander Bob Broadhurst said of the rioters: ‘I wouldn’t call them protesters. They are engaging in criminal activities for their own ends. We’ll never have enough officers to protect every building in Central London.’
Nightfall: Riot police form lines in front of burning dustbins as they try to control protesters run rampage after the TUC's anti-cuts demonstrations (left) and protesters occupy Trafalgar Square tonight
Civil disobedience: Demonstrators use a giant road sign to smash through a plate glass window at the Ritz Hotel
Salmon sandwiches amid the rioting
Breaking past a small group of police, nearly 1,000 protesters charged into Fortnum & Mason, famed for its wicker picnic hampers and for delivering tea to the Queen.After forcing themselves through the ground floor doors into the area selling luxury cheese and chocolate at around 4pm, the mob ran amok. Afternoon shoppers, among them dozens of Japanese and American tourists, fled up the stairs, followed by police officers who tried to stop the occupation from spreading.
Activists made speeches on the ornate spiral staircase and baskets full of £5 bags of Easter bunny chocolates were pushed over and spilled on to the floor.
Under siege: Anti-capitalist protesters surround Fortnum & Mason, climbing on the roof to daub activist graffiti before making their way inside
'Tax the rich': Campaigners claim they targeted Fortnum & Mason because its owners are at the centre of a £40million tax avoidance row
Black-clad anarchists, wearing face masks to hide their identity, shouted abuse at customers and launched into tirades about class war. One threatened to attack a customer in a restaurant, outraged that they were carrying on eating salmon sandwiches.A group of menacing extremists stood under the crystal chandeliers and hung posters from metal stair-rails. They threatened to smash display cases full of luxury goods if the police tried to drag them out. Two others daubed anarchist symbols on the dark pink walls as smartly-dressed shop assistants tried to bring order by restacking upturned shelves. Some activists from the group called UK Uncut, which protests against tax avoidance, helped clean up the mess.
Police finally cleared the store of protesters just before 7pm.
Campaigners claimed they targeted the 300-year-old store because its owners are at the centre of a £40million tax avoidance row. Protesters also occupied Vodafone, Boots and BHS stores on Oxford Street for the same reason .
Sally Mason, one of the protesters who occupied the store, said: ‘Fortnum & Mason is a symbol of wealth and greed. It is where the Royal Family and the super-rich do their weekly shop and a picnic hamper costs £25,000.
‘This sits in stark contrast to everyone else who is struggling to make ends meet, fill in their tax returns and benefit forms and facing huge student debts, unemployment and the closure or dismantling of local services such as the NHS, libraries and leisure centres.’
Canadian businessman Garfield Weston bought Fortnum’s in the Fifties and the store is now run by his granddaughters, Jana Khayat and Kate Weston Hobhouse.
Sit in: Police finally cleared the store of protesters at about 7pm
Ritz guests evacuated as windows smashed
Further along Piccadilly, extremists laid siege to The Ritz hotel. The building was pelted with paint, fireworks and smoke bombs.Police forced back a hardcore of around 30 protesters, whose faces were covered by balaclavas and scarves, after several of the ground floor windows were smashed.
Unable to get inside, they instead daubed the words ‘fat cats’ on the walls and launched paint missiles through open windows on the first floor. Bins and a temporary traffic light were upturned on the street outside.
Around 50 people were evacuated to a function room at the back of the building. Windows of the restaurant’s Rivoli Bar were also pelted with paint while those of Ritz Fine Jewellery were smashed. The famous afternoon tea was cancelled, and walls of the building were daubed with anarchy symbols.
Neil Cox, a 30-year-old project manager from Redhill, Surrey, was staying in a room on the fourth floor overlooking Piccadilly, where the attack was launched.
He said: ‘I could feel the reverberation of missiles and paint hitting the building and other windows.’
The Ritz restaurant was reopened after an hour but only guests were allowed entrance to the building following the attack.
As a result people with restaurant reservations booked months ago were turned away.
Carla Sibley had travelled from Bournemouth to celebrate her 65th birthday with her three children, but was refused entry. She said: ‘We booked to have tea four months ago and it’s ruined.’
Attack: Police forced back about 30 protesters, whose faces were covered by balaclavas and scarves, after several of the ground floor windows were smashed
'Smash the banks' daubed on walls
Around 300 extremists tried to storm a branch of HSBC in Cambridge Circus.They threw paint at police officers and smashed windows. Some of the group painted slogans such as ‘smash the banks’ and ‘thieves’ on the building before trying to get inside.
The building was quickly surrounded by riot police and it is thought that one protester was questioned inside.
A Piccadilly branch of Santander was also targeted by rioters who tried to break in. The bank’s glass front doors and windows were smashed and paint bombs were thrown at the building.
'Pay your tax Philip Green'
Owned by retail tycoon Sir Philip Green,Topshop was another main target.For several hours shoppers were trapped inside the Oxford Street store as masked protesters pelted police who were defending it with rocks and paint bombs. Elsewhere along the shopping street, black-clad activists smashed windows and left officers ducking for cover and spattered in paint.
Topshop customers – mainly teenage girls – were still going in and out of the front door seconds before the missiles started flying. Many of them were trapped inside as chaos erupted outside.
The protesters chanted, ‘Pay your tax Philip Green’.
The tycoon has saved an estimated £285million in tax by paying a £1.2billion bonus to his Monaco-based wife, Tina.
The biased BBC... marching alongside their anti-cut allies
As usual, they didn’t even know they were doing it, but the BBC took sides on the TUC protest, even before it had begun. The Corporation and the TUC instinctively recognise each other as allies. Both depend on public money.This helps to explain the Corporation’s spasm of blatant partiality this weekend. It began with a bizarre report on Friday night on Newsnight. Reporter Anna Adams provided minutes of free publicity to protest group UK Uncut, whose spokeswoman was identified only by her Christian name, Lucy.
Here’s a sample: ‘UK Uncut is a new kid on the block. They only got together after the Chancellor’s Budget cuts last year but they’ve already got quite a following. They are a social media success story and more than 1,000 of them will be out tomorrow. They think that’s more than enough to close down shops and banks.’
So what are their policies? Where do they get their funds? Are they linked to any political organisation? No idea. Nobody asked. Ms Adams then asked the mysterious Lucy: ‘So what’s to stop hooligans or hardline protesters who really have no care for your cause joining in and making this something that it shouldn’t really be?’
Lucy completely failed to answer this question (and it was not pressed). She was too busy making banners and using the BBC to speak her mind, uninterrupted. She did say: ‘I am concerned that the police will react with violence against protesters in the way that we saw at the student demonstrations before Christmas. But it’s up to us to be there on the streets and saying that the banks should be paying for the crisis, tax-avoiders should be paying their fair share. That’s what we want to do.’
The report concluded with some editorialising about undercover policing: ‘It must be necessary, proportional and lawful, and that’s something that many activists would seriously question.’ No doubt activists would question it, and others too. But by ending her account in this way, the reporter appeared to endorse this view. That is not her job. The Corporation went back into action yesterday, on the Radio 4 Today programme.
The atmosphere of much of its coverage was what might have been found in a Left-wing London household as Granny got out her old Aldermaston marching shoes, the head of the household dusted off his anti-Thatcher placards and the children dressed excitedly for their first demo.
There was a curious anxiety on the programme to say that the march was a ‘family event’. Presenter Evan Davis then stressed that trouble on the streets shouldn’t reflect on the protest as a whole.
At 8.35 Mr Davis said: ‘100,000 people expected to turn up, coaches are heading for London, even as we speak!’ He then interviewed Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who warned that the march ‘could I’m afraid move from being a family event into something darker’. Mr Davis hurriedly added: ‘Not organised by the TUC though. The TUC bit will be very peaceful.’
Why did he feel it necessary to say this?
The programme ended with a jokey item in which Guardian writer Zoe Williams and advertising man Jason Berry chatted about march placard slogans. Mr Berry suggested one: ‘The real deficit is in between your ears, Mr Osborne.’ Presenter Justin Webb laughed.
There was nobody present to say: ‘Actually, I don’t support this demonstration.’ The whole programme seemed to have identified with the event. Mr Webb said: ‘I remember my mum used to go on CND marches.’
But apparently she didn’t like the way they were covered.
Mr Webb’s Ban-the-Bomb mum wouldn’t have had any complaints about the BBC’s coverage of yesterday’s events. But millions of people who pay heavy taxes on small incomes to keep the public sector afloat, and who also finance the Corporation, have much to complain about. Will anybody ever listen?
I’m proud to stand with you, Miliband tells cuts rally...and then it turns violent
Defiant Labour leader Ed Miliband told demonstrators at yesterday’s anti-cuts rally in London that he was ‘proud to stand with them’ – just as the protest turned violent.
More than 250,000 people marched on the capital to object to the Government’s programme to tackle the deficit. Anarchists later broke away, bringing chaos to the city and targeting buildings such as The Ritz and Fortnum & Mason.
Mr Miliband – heckled by some protesters when he said that ‘some cuts’ were needed – was quick to say that he condemned ‘any action that was taken other than peaceful action’.
But he rejected claims by the Conservatives that he should have stayed away from the rally, which was also attended by Shadow Ministers Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper and Harriet Harman.
‘Our struggle is to fight to preserve, protect and defend the best of the services we cherish because they represent the best of the country we love,’ said Mr Miliband.
‘David Cameron, you wanted to create the Big Society – this is the Big Society. The Big Society is united against what your Government is doing to our country.
‘We stand today not as the minority, but as the voice of the mainstream majority in this country.’
Treasury Minister Justine Greening said later the rally would not change the Government’s course.
She added: ‘We are making sure that we are doing everything we can to protect frontline public services.
‘But there is no doubt that we do have to get on with tackling the financial problems we have been handed by the Labour Party. We are going to stick to the course that we have set.’
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