London protests escalate to 60 arrests made

Protesters took to the London streets Saturday with demonstrations leading to several altercations with the police.

Officers have made over 60 arrests due to a number of offenses including protesters breaching restriction rules

The protests was initially meant to start in King’s Cross, but due to a last minute change the protest began in Marble Arch. Members marched to Carnaby Street, Regent Street, and Oxford Street.

#London is heating up with protesters shouting ‘SHAME ON YOU, SHAME ON YOU!!!’ #londonprotest #COVID19 #lockdown pic.twitter.com/scTV8kBL4h

— London Glossy (@LondonGlossyMag) November 28, 2020

Other scenes include crowds of people gathering outside the House of Parliament shouting “SHAME ON YOU” as police arrested a protestor in a Santa outfit.

It’s a dark day for London when the police are now running from protesters #lockdown #londonprotest #COVID19 #Antilockdown pic.twitter.com/gHcvsH85AR

— London Glossy (@LondonGlossyMag) November 28, 2020

Protestors were dispatched in several areas including King’s Cross, Westminster, and the largest on in Oxford Street where tensions escalated between the police and the crowd.

The lockdown is set to end December 2, but with the new tier restrictions to take its place. London and Liverpool are assigned to the second highest level as tier 2.

Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, urged citizens to “see these restrictions not as a boundary to push but as a limit on what the public health advice says we can safely do in any area.”

Try telling that to the employees of hospitality. According to bar chain owner Martin Greenhow, the hospitality sector will be “decimated” if they continue to run business under the new tier system. Mr Greenhow’s take was given after Mitchells & Butlers, owner of the All Bar One and Harvester chains, revealed it had cut 1,300 jobs while Fuller Smith & Turner made 350 redundancies.

Here’s a statistic, on the Friday before lockdown Mr Greenhow’s Manchester bar took £175. On the same Friday a year before, it took £10,000.

The rules with the tier system have changed with regards to households:

• Tier 1 – rule of six applies everywhere, indoors and out
• Tier 2 – rule of six applies outdoors, but there is no household mixing anywhere indoors
• Tier 3 – can only meet other households in outdoor public spaces like parks, where the rule of six applies

Currently, there are 68 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, according to John Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Research Center. The UK has over 1.5 million cases with more than 57,000 deaths.