Corporation Tax protests - UK Uncut set up kids' breakfast club in Tottenham Court Road branch of Barclays Bank

Published: 24 February 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY

BARCLAYS might have wished it had never thought about opening branches on Saturdays after a headache of a weekend.

Accused of not paying enough corporation tax by anti-cuts protesters, its Tottenham Court Road branch in Bloomsbury was taken over by parents and children who turned the bank into a breakfast club for youngsters.

Organised by UK Uncut, campaigners claim the multinational bank only pays a slither of its annual profits in corporation tax, amounting to 1 per cent.

Their logic is: if the bank paid more, local authorities like Camden would have enough money to keep play centres and nurseries open.

Three quarters of all funding to breakfast and after-school clubs and holiday schemes, vital for working parents, is due to be cut by Camden Council, which claims it has been starved of money by Whitehall.

On Saturday, protesters stormed into the branch at about 10am, with children setting up board games to play in the foyer.

Bank managers were confronted with youngsters enjoying  games of snakes and ladders as placards were put up in the shop’s glass windows.

It was one of 35 branches hit by direct action from UK Uncut at the weekend as ‘reading groups’ and ‘crèches’ sprang up in shops.

Barclays figures revealed last week that it paid £113million in corporation tax in its 2009 accounts – the same year it posted £11billion in profits.

Pictured: Saturday’s read-in at Barclays

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