Anti-cuts protest at Barclays bank in Upper Street
Published: 18th February, 2011
by PETER GRUNER
POLICE were called on Tuesday after 15 anti-cuts campaigners, chanting “books not bonuses”, held a sit-down protest inside a bank at Angel.
The mainly young campaigners carried bags of books and a bookshelf into the customer lounge of Barclays, in Upper Street, where they set up a makeshift library.
The protest by UK Uncut, the anti-cuts direct action group, coincided with reports that Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond will receive a bonus of around £9million and that the bank’s total bonus pot is more than £2billion.
The demonstrators sat on the floor of the bank branch reading books, including Paul Mason’s End of the Age of Greed, and chatted with customers. They left after 15 minutes just as police arrived. Police questioned the group but there were no arrests.
A spokeswoman for the group, Angela Walker, said: “The government is barely lifting a finger to stand up to the banks or to clamp down on tax avoidance.
“Instead, they are making a political choice to privatise and slash spending on the NHS, libraries, day care for the elderly and people with disabilities and free school meals. The banks are holding the government and country to ransom.”
She added that the campaign was not aimed at ordinary bank workers whose pay is about average or less.
One of the campaigners, Toni Palmer, who lives in Islington, said: “The banks caused this economic crisis because of their greed and reckless gambling.
“But the people who are really being made to pay for it are ordinary people.”