Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

Why do so many of them have scarves hoods and balaclavas and then fail to use them?

Learn from the police. They keep their visors down throughout. They also wear uniform which helps to hide their individual characteristics. Some of the students are wearing distinctive clothes as well. Very silly. Clearly they did not go there to cause a riot or they would have been more careful. Best bet is to wear black. A snood or similar over the lower face and head. Hood up. Dark glasses. Gloves. Boots. Reversible jackets can be a good idea.

Why do so many of them have scarves hoods and balaclavas and then fail to use them?

Learn from the police. They keep their visors down throughout. They also wear uniform which helps to hide their individual characteristics. Some of the students are wearing distinctive clothes as well. Very silly. Clearly they did not go there to cause a riot or they would have been more careful. Best bet is to wear black. A snood or similar over the lower face and head. Hood up. Dark glasses. Gloves. Boots. Reversible jackets can be a good idea.

or just protest peacefully?

*not defending the police!

The answer to that is probebly that most of them went to protest peacefully but were provoked by the violence deployed by the police. If they hadn't gone to protest peacefully, they would have been prepared.

'kin 'ell CliveO, is there something we should know about you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR1GZVogy24

Apparently there was a group of about 20 odd guys in hoodys and balaclavas walking around attacking protesters, tv crews and breaking things without the police even stopping them.http://www.presstv.ir/detail/154992.html
there's a video somewhere but I can't find it now.
They also allegedly stopped protesters getting treated in the same hospitals as police. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155273.html
There were also coppers not wearing their numbers, just like in the G20 protests:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/student-protests-met-police-chief

well that's the implication. Just like how they "abandoned" that police van without number plates and led the royals through an angry mob with hardly any protection and their windows down.

So the police went equipped for trouble and the demonstrators didn't and there was trouble.

Perhaps the police were responsible. Perhaps that's why they orchestrated all the nonsense with the minor royals as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaeuV2RNL3o&feature=player_embedded

The BBC correspondent during the live coverage, Ben Brown, really got on my tits too. He tried so hard to play up the violence that he wouldn't even let the people he was interviewing speak if they weren't talking about it.

G20 in Toronto:

Police in france have also been known to do this. The way they got found out was by their police issue shoes.

There is a photo doing the rounds of a police arresting someone while wearing camo trousers, so either some army guys got brought in or he was ready to take his jacket off and pretend to be a protester.

you can get the same boots from an army surplus store

Yup. It's possible. But there are endless exmaples of this happening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8

I actually know who one of these characters is, in fact he is reasonably famous (albeit z-list famous), I am surprised he's not been shopped yet.

Isn't Paul Merton too old to riot?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/student-protests-met-police-chief

From the article
"I was very distressed at the demos that we've seen and I think that trust has broken down completely between students and the police and somehow they have to put it right."

This is the problem isn't it and I feel it goes far beyond just students. There is no trust at all from most of society with regards to the police. A doctor practices medicine for the love of healing. A teacher teaches for the love of education. A police person polices for the love of authority. The job attracts bellends with no natural social power.
[/mini rant]

So the police went equipped for trouble and the demonstrators didn't and there was trouble.

Perhaps the police were responsible. Perhaps that's why they orchestrated all the nonsense with the minor royals as well.

It's the photographers. Shit stirrers, every last one of them.

also from that article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/student-protests-met-police-chief
"May, who insisted she had not considered resigning in the wake of the incidents, would not rule out using water cannon to control protesters in the future, insisting "it is right that we look across the board at all the options that are available"."

want to see what happens when a water cannon hits you in the eyes? They get ripped out

jesus. listening to daily mail fm (aka lbc) this morning, it amazes me how much average joe taxpayer will evidently more than happily relenquish social order to the police so long as it means prince fucking charles isnt inconvenienced.

^^ is a young scoble helping out mr no-eyes?

eww please delete eye pic. did he have his sight restored, or blind after?

This is the problem isn't it and I feel it goes far beyond just students. There is no trust at all from most of society with regards to the police. A doctor practices medicine for the love of healing. A teacher teaches for the love of education. A police person polices for the love of authority. The job attracts bellends with no natural social power.
[/mini rant]

In addition to that, the attack on students is an attack on the middle classes, a class that the police really cannot afford to alienate. If the police act without the support of the middle classes, the only people backing them are the ruling elite and the idea of a police force which just serves the ruling elite is very scary indeed particularly when they have shown that they are willing to act with total disregard for the rule of law.

Young men are being killed and maimed in Afganistan by the Taliban. That is horrendously sad but, we are tiold, the Taleban are evil men who do not share our morality. That young men and women of the same age should be attacked by our own police with the full support of the Conservative and Liberal government and the Royal Family is totally unacceptable particularly in these circumstances.

Not in my name!

blind forever, he is suing the German Authorities for the use of a cannon on him when he was just trying to help injured protesters.

footage of the guy getting pulled out of his wheelchair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQV9P61FUwg&feature=player_embedded

So often - like on Bloody Sunday - it is completely innocent people who are killed or maimed by government forces.