A video on The Guardian website clearly shows UKUncut protesters being conned into being arrested en masse as soon as they step over the threshold of Fortnum & Mason’s. Before these arrests had taken place, the rolling news channels had claimed that the posh supermarket had been trashed by axe-wielding crusties.
Campaigners for the tax-avoidance protest group UK Uncut have claimed senior police officers “tricked” them into a mass arrest after a peaceful protest inside Fortnum & Mason’s in London on Saturday.
Activists say they were given repeated assurances by a chief inspector from the Metropolitan police that they would be shown to safety after the protest, which she described as non-violent and sensible. However, when protesters left the luxury Piccadilly store on police instruction, they were kettled, handcuffed and taken into custody.
Read the rest and watch the video here
Today, the Tory press is full of a load of guff about how Fortnum & Mason’s donate to charitable causes. Of course, what they fail to mention is that donating to charity is great to offset the tax bill – which is why companies do it in the first place. The only reason the right have gotten into a funk about all of this is because Fortnum & Mason’s is a symbol and nothing more. For them,though symbolic as it is, the occupation was good as an assault upon the person. It wasn’t so much the fact that people were protesting there, it was more the fact that these people were filthy anarchists (which wasn’t true). How dare they?
Personally, I think there is more here than meets the eye.
Yes, there is always more than meets the eye, that is for sure.