Well, I was expecting it to look worse than that. I wonder what the fuzz were trying to achieve with that charge? But the magic thing is that, thanks to mobile phones and cameras, now nothing can be done in private. We are watching Big Brother (yay!)and the more of this is posted, the more unsavoury the police's methods are going to look.

The ability to monitor and report on the behaviour of the authorities is the big difference between now and previous periods of social upheaval. It'll be interesting to see how this era pans out when it's virtually impossible to prevent the distribution of this sort of information.

Perhaps they simply thought it would be fun.

It annoys me that the media- even the BBC- are mostly reporting this story from the point of view of the authorities.

there were kids there, under 16 etc... protesting as is their right- saddens me so much to see this, and things will get worse I'm sure.

In the Independent today there was a piece about how they were 'kettling' the protesters many who were 16 or under, who were lawfully protesting- these were children, it should be illegal, and someone should be held to task about it-they made many stand for hours in the cold.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-truth-about-kettling-its-just-boring-even-for-the-police-2144071.html

Kettling is a stupid, stupid tactic. It is designed to make people frustrated and - oh, ha ha - induce situations to boil over. Just letting people proceed on a sensible route, being seen, being heard, is all most demonstrators want. The police should spend their time on the few that want to take more direct action and leave the majority to protest in peace.

The police have a duty to protect the citizenry. They should not be used as a paramilitary arm of government.

This was a legal protest. Those people had every right to be there and not be intimidated and harrassed by the police.

As you say, many of the protesters were children.

As I wrote in steepholm 's LJ, the British state is waging war on its young people.

When did the future actually become a dystopia?

Since forever.

This video reminds me of "The Battle of Orgreave"- in 1984- when the Thatcher government used police cavalry against striking miners.