Angry students attacked a police van and clashed with officers on Wednesday as thousands of people marched through London in protest at government plans to triple university fees.
An estimated 10,000 people took part in the second mass protest in London this month, but demonstrations also took place across Britain on Wednesday.
About 3,000 students marched in both Manchester and Brighton and around 1,000 vented their anger in Cambridge, home to one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In London, where an estimated 10,000 people took to the streets, an angry mob besieged a police van parked on the march route and tried to overturn it, smashing the windscreen and jumping on the roof.
Other students daubed the white walls of the Foreign Office with graffiti reading “Revolution” and “Smash The Cuts,” while a handful jumped over barriers to try to enter buildings housing the Ministry of Defence.
“We’re here to show the government how angry we are when we rise up,” one student said after climbing onto a windowsill at the Foreign Office and trying to break in.
“I want to go to university, I want to do something good with my life, but these cuts will make it almost impossible,” said 15-year-old Bethany Hawker, who admitted skipping school to attend the London protest with two friends.
Still wearing her black school uniform with a blue striped tie, she said: “My mum is on benefits and struggles to make do as it is.”
Unlike the violent protests two weeks ago when Scotland Yard admitted to being caught off guard, hundreds of police were on duty on Wednesday to contain the crowds and at one point beat back demonstrators with batons.
As darkness fell and -temperatures plummeted, frustration grew among a group of students who were penned in by a police cordon. A bus stop was set alight on Whitehall, the London street which houses many of the government’s major departments.
A total of 32 arrests were made and two police officers injured, one with a broken arm and the other was knocked unconscious, police said. Fifteen members of the public suffered minor injuries.
Students are furious at plans by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government for a sharp rise in university fees as part of a program of deep public spending cuts intended to pay off a record deficit.
Up to 50,000 young people protested against the cuts on Nov. 10, but an otherwise peaceful march degenerated into riots as dozens of students ransacked the lobby of the offices of Cameron’s Conservative party.
On Wednesday, the London protest began peacefully and some demonstrators remonstrated with those smashing up the police van to calm down.
As the crowd progressed -towards the Houses of Parliament, brandishing placards reading “Tory Scum Here We Come” and “Fight The Cuts,” police surrounded them and forced them to a halt in a controversial tactic known as “kettling.”
“The police are really badly organized,” said 21-year-old student Hannah Capella, who was held inside the police line for six hours.
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