Big anti-government demonstration in London, England

This video from London, England is called A documentary of the People’s Assembly national demo April 16th 2016.

People’s Assembly demo: WE WON’T BE IGNORED

Monday 18th April 2016

Britain held one of its biggest demos in years, yet you wouldn’t know that judging by the mainstream media coverage.

THE MAINSTREAM media has been accused of “ignoring” one of the biggest anti-austerity protests in recent years attended by 150,000 people who marched through London.

The number was announced on stage at the anti-cuts rally by organisers the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, while the Metropolitan Police estimated that around 100,000 people had taken part in the “four demands” march earlier in the afternoon on Saturday.

Online, the BBC reported that just “tens of thousands” of people had turned up, prompting US whistleblower Edward Snowden to quip: “Ever wondered how to downplay a colossal protest?”

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett — a former journalist who spoke at the rally — told the Star that the BBC was “under a lot of pressure from government” to make around £100 million in “savings” while right-wing media barons controlled most of the press.

To compete with Murdoch-owned Sky News — whose reporters were also absent from the protest — the BBC is relying on hiring well-known and expensive presenters to attract a bigger audience, she added.

The broadcaster was “entirely missing the discontent in British society” and funding cuts have rendered it unable to cover issues that matter to ordinary people with enough depth, according to Ms Bennett.

She continued: “The BBC is desperately lacking a broader range of voices. But we need to protect the broadcaster from attacks by the right-wing media.”

Instead of covering the demo in great depth, the BBC had also chosen to feature the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on a trip to India as its main website story.

The Star asked the BBC to provide a statement in light of claims that it had not covered the protest sufficiently. But the BBC didn’t respond by the time the Star went to press.

People’s Assembly organiser Ramona McCarthy told the Star: “The BBC doesn’t report, it holds up a mirror to the political elite.

“It doesn’t matter to the BBC that the Prime Minister has been called on to resign by the shadow chancellor, MPs, the leader of the Green Party and the leaders of the trade union movement.

“Plus, Britain’s largest organisations with six million members and 150,000 protesters mobilised by one of the largest political campaigns in the country.

“They think it’s better to report two royal scroungers on a cynical PR stunt in India.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — who was in Merseyside for local elections — sent his solidarity to all attendees of the rally in a video shown on huge screens.

He added: “Austerity is a political choice and that means the poorest in our society are paying the most.

“The issues are enormous. We need to take action to defend the NHS and the government has refused to act over the steel industry.

“There is a housing crisis that affects millions in our society. We can and must invest in housing for all.

“The power is in our hands to bring about change and it’s working.”

A PORT TALBOT steelworker made a plea to save his industry to 150,000 protesters during the People’s Assembly anti-austerity rally in central London on Saturday. Mark Turner, a Unite branch secretary at the Tata steel site, said that Britain’s manufacturing sector is at serious risk of collapse. Nearly 100,000 employees and affiliated workers could lose their jobs, according to Labour — who confirmed that it would work to nationalise the steel sector: here.

JUNIOR doctors slammed the government as a bunch “of tax evaders for tax evaders” on Saturday ahead of their all-out strike next week. British Medical Association member Yannis Gourtsoyannis told the huge crowd at the People’s Assembly rally in Trafalgar Square that the doctors “plan to escalate industrial action in the coming weeks.” Junior doctors are striking for 18 hours on April 26 over Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s attempts to impose a contract on them that the BMA says would endanger patient safety: here.