London braces for G20 protests

Climate change activists, anti-war campaigners, trade unionists, charity workers and students are among tens of thousands of protesters planning to take part in rallies, marches and stunts from today to coincide with the G20 summit in London.

Organisers of some of the protests have complained that police briefings have given the impression that the demonstrations will be mounted by anarchists intent on causing trouble.

Thousands of police officers will be on duty in central London next week for the run-up to the summit on Thursday and to deal with any violence in the run-up to the conference.

The series of events will start today with a march for “jobs, justice and climate”, organised by an unprecedented alliance of more than 150 unions, environment, charity, faith and development groups.

Thousands of people from across the UK will join a rally at Hyde Park, which will hear calls for action to save jobs, support a low-carbon economy and stricter control of the finance sector.

Organisers of the protest rejected as “smears” claims that the event will be anything other than peaceful and law-abiding.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Never before has such a wide coalition come together with such a clear message for world leaders.

“The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work, and have brought the world’s economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy.

“Of course the G20 will not solve everything in a day’s work, but leaders must sign up to both boost the world economy and govern it better, and show us that they are trying to build a better world.”