Previous | Next :: Poll Tax Riot : Trafalgar Square : London | January 23, 2007, 12:40 am

The Poll Tax Riots, as they became known, were major acts of civil disobedience carried out in London. They were in protest against the poll tax introduced by Margaret Thatcher and her government. The most prominent riot arose from a demonstration which started around 11am, 31 March 1990. The rioting and looting finally ended at around 3am the next morning. This riot is sometimes referred to as the Battle Of Trafalgar, particularly by those opposed to the poll tax, because the main rioting took place in Trafalgar Square. wikipedia

Yes its true Brits really know how to riot.......I met up with Christopher Morris of Time that day he was in state of shock and amazement that Brits were behaving in this fashion even though he had flown in especially to photograph the protests.

I was struck on the head by a flying brick but not injured badly but i had pretty convincing blood down my face as if I'd been really done in by the end of the day.

It was a pretty incredible day and then most of my pictures of the riot were seized by the police in controversial action against newspapers using new laws to obtain evidence from the media. These laws are no longer on the statute in Britain.

I still have the odd image like this one above. This image I always felt had a great 'Thatchers Britain' kind of vibe. I hadn't looked at these pictures for ages but Matt and I were going through some old library stuff and then I clicked through to Joe'sNYC.com and he had up to date NYC riot style cops on his blog today so I just decided to go with the flow to put this image up.

Cheers Jez XX