Dec 2014 - my london diary

	Cleaners Xmas Protest in John Lewis John Lewis, Oxford St. Sat 13 Dec 2014
	A few police have arrived and are going down with the protesters. On the ground floor, things are crowded and confused with a lot of customers and more police, some of whom try to prevent the protesters from leaving the store while others are trying to hurry them out. There is a lot of pushing by police, and by security, and most of my pictures are blurred. The protesters seem simply to be trying to leave, and eventually most of them manage to get onto the pavement outside where the protest continues. We hear that there have been some arrests inside the store, but police won't let anyone back in. Outside one officer tries to stop the protest by grabbing the amplifier, but some hold on to it an others shout at him and film him. He manages to pull out the leads, but then steps back, and the protest continues.
	The protest has just come to an end when police rush by carrying a protester who is still shouting for the cleaners to get the London Living Waget They put him onto the road on Oxford St at the back of a police van and then into the back of the van.
			December main page