Lewisham protesters have been pushed to the edge posted by Richard Seymour

Hundreds of angry protesters besieged Lewisham town hall in Catford last night, as the council forced through cuts. They stood outside and demanded "Let us in!", as councillors voted behind closed doors. Before long, about a hundred of them got into the building, some letting off smoke bombs. Soon dozens of police vans loaded with riot squad had arrived, and were engaged in combat with some of the protesters.

This was the furious response to Lewisham council's decision to implement half of the long-term projected cuts of £60m – or "efficiency savings", as the official euphemism has it – to local services. These cuts affect services for children and young people, libraries and support for schools. The immediate cost in jobs will be 446 redundancies. This is a microcosm of what is happening to local services across the country, with the total cuts package costing half a million jobs. And the protest comes amid a wave of student action, which some of the protesters said had inspired
them.

Labels: austerity, capitalist crisis, cuts, labour, lewisham, metropolitian police, protest, public sector workers, tories