Agence Press France has this to say about the riots. Notice that EDL members went and cleaned the Winston Churchill statue.
A selection of British daily national newspapers shows December 10, 2010, headlines about the attack by protestors on a vehicle containing Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duches of Cornwall, in London during student demonstrations. British police defended their tactics Friday after students protesting against higher university fees attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife in London’s most violent riots for years.
Photograph by: Stringer, AFP/Getty Images
LONDON – Wreckage, shattered glass and debris littered London’s Parliament Square on Friday after student protests descended into a violent rampage.
Tourists coming to the heart of Britain’s democracy were instead taking pictures of the damage and statues of world leaders daubed with obscene graffiti following Thursday’s demo over a hike in university tuition fees.
Workmen were busy cleaning up after the onslaught, measuring up the smashed windows, cleaning the iconic red telephone boxes and surveying the defaced sculptures of statesmen like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln.
The iconic statue of World War II British prime minister Churchill, daubed with offensive slogans by demonstrators, stood behind a pile of twisted metal fencing.
On the ground read the message scrawled in paint: “Churchill, common gangster, traitor, killer.”
The square’s newest statue, of former South African president Mandela, had graffiti on the plinth and a rag tied around the neck.
Protesters were contained in the square in front of the Houses of Parliament for hours as lawmakers voted to pass the fees hike, which students claim will discourage people from lower-income families from going to university.
Some demonstrators blamed the disorder on the police’s “kettling” tactic of containment which blocked protesters in place for hours, while police said they had no alternative but to detain them given the level of violence witnessed.
The chaos that unfolded could also be seen at the historic Westminster Abbey, where monarchs have been crowned since 1066, and where Prince William will marry Kate Middleton in April. Wrecked sections of metal fencing lay in the grounds of the abbey.
Members of the far-right English Defence League organization had turned up to clean up the mess around the Churchill statue — at their own initiative.
(please click more for the rest, as well as some photos of the EDL members not in the AFP story)
One EDL activist, who did not give his name, was on his hands and knees with a brush and some turpentine scrubbing away at graffiti.
“Churchill’s a legend. It’s disgusting,” he said. “He is the best of Britain. This is an insult to our country.
“They (the protesters) are fools. If they’re complaining about tuition fees, they should spend that money on getting some history lessons.”
Elsewhere, the Supreme Court’s front windows were smashed in, a tangle of twisted lead and shattered glass after a protester attacked them with a spade as the riots raged.
On Friday, workers measured up the Treasury windows and began covering them with plywood boards.
Much of the graffiti had been hosed off the historic building, while the southern doors were still daubed with white paint, the wood chipped and scratched.
Below, the three red telephone boxes, familiar from countless tourist photographs with parliament’s famous clock tower in the background, were a desolate scene, having had all their windows smashed.
At the foot of Mandela’s statue, a group of fine art students from Kingston University in southwest London were preparing to stage an alternative cleaning-up performance to protest against the fees hike.
Armed with brooms, they said they planned to write messages in the debris.
Student Georgina Brinkman, 18, said: “We are the ones who are going to have to clean up this mess in the end.”
Most interesting that the signs all seem printed by “Socialist Worker”, indicating the major role of socialist/communist-leaning trade unions co-opting these useful idiots into their ideology.
C’mon people, let’s wake up to the danger of world socialism! This idiotic ideology has never worked, never will, and only results in subjugation and tyrany.
Not to mention mass slaughter on a scale that would give most of us PTSD if we could actually grasp it. If you get a chance, try and see the film, ‘The Soviet Story’ about the Holidomor, the mass starvation of the Ukranians because Marxist doctrine called for it.
You may be able to find this film online at kitmantv.blogspot.com
Those who haven’t the brains enough to create, destroy. So much for public education.
I paid for my Collage education with three years of my live in the US Army, those punks have never had to pay for anything themselves, other people have always paid for everything they have.
I disagree with the socialist workers and the anarchists because they base their ideology on bitterness.Bitterness leads to chaos,BUT it is refreshing to see students and even the troublemakers on the streets protesting as the uk has for too long become a stagnant mind numbing pool of conformity.The people are getting the piss taken out of them by the corporations,banks and govt. The cost of living is rising,wages stagnate or decrease,immigration rises because it is ‘good for us’,the immigrants as well as ourselves are being exploited because big business wants their shareholders to have higher profit margins.We are told what to think and say,while being watched from 4 million cameras.Companies like vodafone are ‘exempted’from paying 6 billion tax,while pensions,education,public services are being cut.
So richard while I applaud your service to your country ,just remember that my country is slowly shafting us in the UK.
Sorry that £6 billion pounds. Also the govt claims that benefit fraud is costing the country £5 billion.All the while corporations get away with around £120 billion tax ‘avoidance’.Who are the crooks?and why shouldnt the students riot.
I dont go along with the line that they are dishonouring our war dead.Many of those that died in WWII would have been working class men from the pits,coal faces,factories and docks.Otherwise why did Churchhill lose the election to the labour party after the war.
I bet those men like my grandad fought for a better and fairer world .They would be applauding the students.Dont feed into the establishments lie,which is some rose tinted vision of the past.They didnt die so the rich and the Socialist marxist elite can rake in the money and tell us to live with an ideology like Islam infecting our country.They fought to stop someone like Hitler telling them what to think and do and their grandsons will stand and fight again.
So there!
kloutlichter If you knew real economics rather then Marxist class warfare economics (that doesn’t work) you would know it is the socialist policies of the leftist politicians that are shafting the people, not the banks and corporations. All of the efforts to make the rich (the achievers) pay for everything for everyone is simply telling the achievers of the world not to do too much and not to make too much. Another problem in Britain is the class warfare, we have it to a lesser extent in the US but it is usually contained within the political arena and kept out of the business side. In Britain on the other hand you are condemning people to low wage jobs simply because of what type of job their parents had. I have held jobs in major corporations and no one ever ask what my parents did.
You might want to learn more economics (preferably free market economics since that is the type that works and doesn’t cause economic chaos) and check out other news sources rather then the MSM.
The Lame MSM describes the criminal rioters, anarchists, and communists as ‘student demonstrators’. Nothing could be farther than the truth, they are ‘useful idiots’ and’ cannon fodder’ for the left. It’s not about tuition, it’s an attempt to bring down the existing form of government, and the situation will worsen unless the criminal rioters, and leaders are identified, arrested, tried, and if found guilty given the proper sentence for their crimes.
This may start happening, the attack on Prince Charles and Camella is going to make a lot of upper middle class and upper class people scared and angry. This riot may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
As an american watching this from the outside, you better pray these protesters succeed otherwise you are going to find yourself mired in poverty. We have what you’re about to get and it is tremendous in the amount of anxiety and debt it brings about on the education system. People are about to be locked out of higher education; that is shameful.
Richard, you’re a god damn tool. No body should be enslaved to the state just to receive an education.
No body hears quiet protests. Quiet protests are an utter waste of time. But people do listen to riots.
president kucinich no one should be enslaved in anyway, you are wanting to enslave the achievers of the world to pay for an education for the non achievers. As to me being a fool, I got my education through hard work, I will bet yours was a student loan you haven’t bothered to pay back.
president kucinich I almost forgot, socialism mires countries in poverty, not refusing socialist demands, socialism in all of its variations has been tried many times through out history. It always ends in dictatorships and poverty, learn real economics rather then Marxist econ.
Well actually you’re all wrong, a totally un-regulated free market system only leads to wealth settling at a specific location in the class system, causing mass poverty and modern serfdom. Also a unregulated market leads to businesses running unchecked (think early 1900’s meat industry and for a more modern interpretation cadmium in kid toys). While pure socialism is almost as anemic causing uncontrolled spending and misappropriation of funds. We have this problem in the U.S. the government spends most of the tax money on defense and broken social programs. Meanwhile corporations lobby congressmen and senators to back bills that hinder competition in the market while simultaneously receiving tremendous tax breaks. If trickle down works then why isnt it working now? Corporations are making higher profits than ever before, so where are the jobs? The problem with these ideologies is that they fail to incorporate human nature and greed into the equation.