Students at the Mill Bank, photograph by Alexandra Santarelli
Article by Alexandra Santarelli
10th of November 2010 is a date to remember, because it marks the first fightback against the ConLibs and their policies.
The demonstration for the increase of tuition fees started off near Embankment and then carried on with the students walking through Parliament Square with drums going to the beat of shouts, music and chants, saying
“No if, no buts, no education cuts.”
I was walking and joining in with the singing and you could feel the adrenaline rising, growing stronger; but no one was as powerful, as shocking as the people outside number 30 MILL BANK where the Conservatives have their HQ.
At the start the situation outside the MILL BANK building seemed controlled. Later on though, I realised that at that point there were already people inside the building shouting, singing and inviting others on the demonstration to come inside.
But this meant having to go through the line of police officers. After some shouting and pushing, some more students managed to get inside, though the police escorted them outside again after just 10 minutes.
Students were shouting and throwing everything that was in their hands at the police. It was just when I thought that things were going to calm down, and just when the protest would become civil, that the situation got worse.
The students at Mill Bank became more aggressive and the police too. If you had been able to put your head above the shoulders of the crowd to catch some fresh air you would have seen a shower of beer cans, wooden sticks and bottles.
A few second later the crowd screamed with joy. A fire was alight in Mill Bank Square. They started to shout:
“Build the bonfire, build the bonfire put the Tories on the top and the Lib-Dems in the middle and we’ll burn the fucking lot”.
After all this shouting and pushing some students managed to get inside the building again and they all disappeared into the Tory offices, others went to the roof and started throwing what they had found over the edge. And a fire extinguisher. Which wasn’t appreciated.
Below we started shouting at them:
“Stop throwing shit! Stop throwing shit!
“Stop throwing shit! Stop throwing shit!
The situation went out of control. The police called for reinforcements and tried to get into the building, but the students blockaded them.
Things became serious when the police decided to hit a girl on the head repeatedly with a truncheon after she fell on the floor in front of them.
I berated them:
“That wasn’t cool, what was the reason for beating that girl? She didn’t do anything.”
In response, of one of the policemen hit me across the legs. I still have a limp.
The girl was carted off to hospital. In total the police caused 8 peopleto be hospitalised.
Four hours from the start of the protest, some students had been arrested, some had broken noses and bleeding faces and they had all lost their voice.
To me this demonstration showed how angry students are and it proved to me again, the that the police are incapable of handling such situations without using arbitrary violence.
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