In the recent past there have been a number of people very critical of the police crowd control tactic called containment, many call it kettling. The tactic is used to prevent small groups of protesters splitting off from the main protest and causing damage in the surrounding areas.
Today we have seen why the police defend their right to use this tactic. The main student protest was around Westminster, Whitehall and Parliament Square but a number of protesters split off and moved up to the Oxford Street where they caused a great deal of damage and attacked the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall who were in a car in the area.
The people who claim that kettling has no place in public order policing need to explain what the police should do to prevent violence and vandalism spreading through the streets of London when the organisers of protests lose control. It seems that just asking nicely doesn't work.
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I can think of some people who should have been kettled at a demonstration. The public could have used this opportunity to ask a group of people who let public services deteriorate so badly during their last tenure why it is they might suddenly have caught on to saving a vital local service whilst they couldn't go anywhere. A facility that once they achieved power, is now shut. I don't believe QMH is off topic here - but it would be easier, if as suggested, you give a weekly brief describing what you're doing about the situation where people could comment.
Water canons, CS gas and baton rounds are the only thing that the anarchists who travel to every type of demo from EDL protests to G20 understand.
I think Mr Cleverly would happily use those tactics with anyone who brings up the Queen Mary's A&E debacle!
'Kettling' : deliberate containment until it boils over.
This is an outdated tactic that is designed to escalate problems, not solve them.
It is disgusting.
If the police are planning to kettle protesters they need to provide toilets and allow peaceful protesters to leave the area of the kettle. It is the use of kettling a large number of peaceful and violent protesters together in one small area that has led to protesters deliberately breaking away from the main demonstration and making the police's job harder.
Kettling is a counter-productive measure and I'm not sure if the damage it has done to the way protests are (dis)organised will be fixed within a few years. Kettling has always led to an increase in tension, resulting in increased violence, within the kettle.
Now it is clear that the problem is not with the peaceful protesters who get caught in the kettle, but those intent on anarchism who are able to avoid the kettles for hours. Prince Charles was not being driven through the kettle, he was being driven through streets where small groups were able to escape the police. While the vast majority of peaceful and innocent protesters were freezing in a makeshift prison camp which would not meet the Geneva convention if used against enemy forces.
James, please, please read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/sheffield/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9276000/9276699.stm
And the HMIC report on G20:
http://www.hmic.gov.uk/sitecollectiondocuments/ppr/ppr_20090706.pdf
Then ask yourself, have the Met learnt the lessons of G20? I was there as a law abiding citizen. I didn't even raise my voice! That brave girl's testimony closely mirrors my own.
breaking a kettle is easy. Pull an officer into the kettle and make sure the cameras are rolling.
Simples!
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