With the dust settling on the march I feel that I should at the very least recommend that people consider attending such future events very carefully, because violent clashes could reoccur.

The police eventually contained the rioters into a "kettle", a controversial but efficient tight holding area, and processed each individual separately and thoroughly. In that kettle would also be people seeking to report on the march.

My sympathy is firmly with the police rather than the rioters. I'm a peace protester and when I was asking police and the rioters to show restraint, the police responded very well. Maybe we also got some momentarily enraged people to disengage from the rioters too, I don't know.

I'm blogging these event back on my Multiply blog, to work it out of my system and do a bit a of amateur journalism.

If anyone spots any collections of pictures or videos about the march, please let me know. I've already looked at YouTube and Flickr last night.

I'd especially like to track down the flash point that I was trying to calm down. I want different views on it so I can put the events in perspective.

It was the second event, I think, that happened on Kensington High Street where the riot police where facing off the stick-throwing rioters from a side-alley next to a Chinese cafe of some kind.

Anyway it's time for me to move get back to volunteer work for my Oxfam bookshop.

Unfortunately Guy there would have no doubt been gangs bussed in especially for the intention of causing trouble, sadly that happens alot.
Look at the Countryside March a few years back, several bus loads of people went in total ignorance of rural issues, armed to start riots.
It happens.
Ruins it for the rest.

Fortunately though I think there was enough regular people there to put the violent ones in a strict minority.

It turned out that the planned rally at the end actually went ahead successfully and was well-attended. This appeared to be completely separate from the violence, which had it's own momentum.

One things that struck me in retrospect - while confronting all those young rioters I didn't see a single knife being drawn.

I guess there is always a bright side ...

It was a shame about all that confrontation about the hunting laws. In the end we all found a very English compromise where the law is currently on the statue books but people are still able to hunt, as prosecutions appear to be just too complex!

As for me, I always thought that fox hunts had allowed for the continued survival of the fox, which is one of our largest, remaining predators.