Sam Bamber, Nick Harrison, Alex Wilkes & James Lamin

What Were They?

The race riots that occurred in 1981 in Brixton, South London were cause by the Metropolitan Police when they began Operation Swamp 81 and introduced the sus law.
The sus law allowed the Police to stop and search any persons under their own suspicion, when the sus law had been passed through Parliament (see task 5), the Police took advantage of it and searched almost every ethnic minority because they had the power to do so. The riots/protests began due to someone being searched, the riot escalated on Friday 10th April due to a black youth (Michael Bailey) being stabbed. In the space of 5 days, over 1,000 people were searched (mainly of the black population) and there were 250 arrests!

How Did They Effect The Public Services?

These riots had a dramatic result on the Police service, the rioting left 299 Police Officers injured, at least 65 civilians (including criminals) injured, 61 private vehicles and 59 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed, 28 premises were burned with another 117 buildings damaged and looted. 82 arrests were made throughout the whole process.
Members of the public also lost trust in the Police service as they were institutionally racist and they therefore could not make a reasonable and necessary arrest because they believed that all ethnic minorities were criminals, and this lead to the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. This also resulted in the Ambulance service being stretched to their limits due to the number of casualties and the Fire service was required to put out the fires that were made to buildings and vehicles.

What Were The Results Of The Riots?

When the riots had finished, Lord Scarman was appointed by the Home Secretary to hold a Public Enquiry. Lord Scarman focused on the policing during the riots and the Police service was advised to recruit more people of the black population to make the service more diverse and so they dont discriminate against ethnic minorities.
The government created the PACE Act 1984 and the Human Rights Act 1998 which introduced equality into communities in Britain which resulted in the Police service becoming more trusted by the members of the public as they have the duty to provide equal service to ALL people in society.

What Were They?

Students began protesting in London due to the increase of tuition fees made by the government.
Students from at least 12 universities and colleges within Central London participated in the protests and even some school pupils left their lessons to join in with the students. Students became violent as the protest lengthened, fires were started, shops and vehicles were sprayed with graffiti and other acts of vandalism were committed.

How Did They Effect The Public Services?

The protests made by students caused 50,000 worth of damage and over 1,500 Police Officers were used to prevent any damage being caused and this cost the government 77,000.
During the demonstrations, there was few casualties so the Ambulance service were not put under any major stress; however, the Police service was under a lot of stress due to the large numbers of students protesting and causing damage to property.

What Were The Results Of The Protests?

Police have reported that 17 people were injured, including two Officers as protesters were contained on Whitehall. There have also been occupations in at least 12 universities, including Oxford University's Bodleian Library. School pupils walked out of lessons to join university and college students on local protest marches across the UK. Towards the end of the day, fires were started, graffiti sprayed and windows broken in Whitehall by demonstrators who were being contained by police. Hundreds of remaining protesters were gradually released by police throughout the evening. Earlier a Police van was attacked and barricades thrown as protesters tried to break through Police lines.

What Were They?

In 2000, the cost of fuel in the UK went from being the cheapest in Europe to the most expensive. Haulage companies said that due to the higher transport costs, business is hard to make competitive because the price of oil went from $10 a barrel to $30 a barrel. Lorry drivers in London went on protests against the rising costs of fuel, on the 29th July 2000 the Conservative party organised a day of protest to draw the attention of the protesters and say how the price of fuel had increased under Labours power.

How Did They Effect The Public Services?

When the public heard that the price of fuel was going to increase, they began to buy as much fuel as possible before the prices were finalised.
Some fuel had to be transported by military vehicles as lorry drivers went on strike and refused to deliver. One protest that was made by truck drivers was contained by the Metropolitan Police and no disruption was caused.

What Were The Results Of The Protests?

In his pre-Budget report of 8 November 2000, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced a number of changes which could ease the tax burden for motorists, and which included the taxing of foreign lorries using British roads.
These changes included a cut in duty on ultra-low sulphur petrol, a freeze on fuel duty for other grades of fuel until at least April 2002, placing more vehicles into the lower vehicle excise duty (VED) band, an average cut of more than 50% on VED for lorries, and a Brit Disc vignette scheme requiring all lorries, including those from overseas, to pay tax to use British roads. The fuel duty freeze has been estimated to have cost the Treasury 2billion pounds annually in a 2004 report by the Economic and Social Research Council.