thousands of protestors were held for up to ten hours against their will for daring to protest on the streets of london. a police van left in the centre of a kettle became the focus of ire, and offered the press their iconic riot images. the question must be asked whether this was orchestrated.

as students gathered in malet st this morning, the mood was carnivalesque but defiant.

as the march set off around 11.30, it was completely surrounded by police.

meanwhile a group of school students were marching/running along millbank and through parliament square. police were finding it hard to keep up, but about a dozen vans chased through the traffic after them as they made their way up whitehall to meet the carnival at trafalgar square.

in trafalgar square, the students had taken over the base of nelson's statue, watched and documented by several FIT teams back in their blue tabards for the day.

the publicised itinery for the protests involved a rally in the square and then a march down to parliament square, followed by a further rally outside downing street at 5pm.

however, the students were impatient and decided to head down to parliament square immediately.

as they made their way swiftly down whitehall, little did they know that the police were not going to facilitate the peaceful demonstration advertised as marching to parliament square.

at the bottom of whitehall, just as it reaches parliament square, police set up a solid block and anyone that in their eyes looked vaguely like a student was simply not allowed through.

meanwhile, behind the crowd, more police were forming a kettle, and mysteriously, a solitary police van was left unwatched right in the middle of this kettle.

at the parliament square end, although the crowd was generally peaceful, their anger grew at not being allowed to pass. a few made an attempt to dismantle some work fences that formed part of the trap, and at that point riot police began pushing forward into the crowd, causing reactions and scuffles.

i witnessed the shocking sight of a police medic putting his arm through the officers in front of him and spraying a BCF halon fire extinguisher at the faces of some caught at the front of the crowd.

as the crowd realised they were being held against their will, more scuffles broke out, and the sole abandoned police van became the object of anger and was graffitied, broken into and will of course become one of the iconic news images of the day.