Talk about relief! The streets of Luton yesterday were like that of a ghost town. Literally no-one was out. Even to go out for a pint of milk gave me second thoughts! Luton was officially in shutdown mode. Most shops in the town centre were closed, and even if they were open, it is highly unlikely they would have got any business.
The day saw two main protests; one of them being the English Defence League of course who numbered in the range of approximately 1500, much lower than speculated figures of 7000. The other protest was the United Against Fascism group which was attended by 1000 anti racism supporters. This was meant to be a counter demonstration which involved different groups of the community coming together and basically showing the EDL that their presence is not wanted.
I did have a drive around just to see the numbers of police officers about. I must say, there were probably officers in every street, going from Town centre towards Bury Park and beyond. Apparently the policing operation involved officers from 27 different forces in the country and has thus has cost the tax payer £800,000. Looks like EDL will gain more haters with this ridiculous cost.
On the day there were only seven arrests, and 19 people were treated for minor injuries. Frankly I’m glad no more people got hurt and that the day went by ‘boringly’ smoothly.
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