London bonfire night protests

2013-11-06 64

About 250 anti-austerity campaigners occupied Westminster Bridge near the UK houses of parliament for a heated protest.

They lit a fire fuelled with giant energy bills to highlight the impact of rising living costs and falling wages.

Tuesday's event coincided with Britain's traditional Bonfire Night commemorating a plot in 1605 to blow up the House of Lords.

(SOUNDBITE)(English) OWEN JONES, WRITER AND ACTIVIST FOR THE PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY, SAYING:

"The big six energy companies are effectively holding consumers across the country to ransom. They've hiked energy prices by to..over ten per cent in many cases at a time of the longest fall in living standards since Queen Victoria sat on the throne of this country. It's going to drive nine million people into fuel poverty, it's going to kill elderly people."

In a separate protest in the same area demonstrators aligned with hacktivist movement Anonymous were also on the march.

The protest erupted in scuffles

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