Just as Assange's release was announced as breaking news on BBC World, someone decided to let off 5 mins of fireworks just below me by the river.
A good thought, of course it must have been coincidence, but well done that Lithuanian.
It's interesting that there is so much faith expressed in the British justice system, just at the time when students are busy complaining at the policing of their demonstrations.
It seems to me that the police have lost their institutional memory of how British demonstrations work, just as recent students have never done much demonstrating.
On the first demo outside the Tory party HQ, they got a sudden shock and have overreacted since. Kettling seems such an infringement of civil liberties when we have hardly got to the petrol bomb or even brick throwing stage. Of course there was some violence, there always was, and the police should know who causes it and round them up out of the way. Or are they scared to do that?
Instead they corral people for hours in the cold, without real reason, so that people become angry and want to get out. Being kept against your will in a kettle is not much different from being arrested.
Stories of police photographing people as they were released show that the police are really over reacting. And there are stories of ripping of their identification number so they can't be identified.
These stories come from what Bee saw herself so I am inclined to believe them.
