Scotland Yard chief: We face a new era of protest riots

Scotland Yard chief Sir Paul Stephenson today warned there will be more disorder on the streets of London as Britain enters a new era of protest.

The Met Commissioner said the "game has changed" for demonstrations and predicted police would be forced to change tactics to prevent trouble.

Speaking after a second mass protest brought chaos to Westminster, he said: "We have not seen this sort of behaviour and this sort of demonstration for some considerable time.

"The likelihood is for more disorder on
the streets, that is obvious."

Sir Paul said he believed the Millbank riot of November 10 had triggered a "new period" of activism.

Anarchists joined thousands of student protesters who stormed the Tory HQ. They were seen waving extremists' banners and flags from the seventh floor of the Millbank Tower.

Sir Paul, speaking to the Metropolitan Police Authority, admitted the force had been caught unawares by the first student demonstration two weeks ago. It was strongly criticised for failing to prevent the damage to Millbank after up to 50,000 young people marched through London.

He said a review of the operation found that not enough officers has been deployed. He added that the force did not have intelligence there would be serious disorder and that the previous history of student marches had been peaceful.

"The game has changed and we missed it," said Sir Paul. "We should have put more officers on and we did not." In future, he said, police would take a "more cautious" approach involving the deployment of hundreds more officers to prevent disorder.

He revealed that more than 800 officers were deployed to deal with the student marches in London yesterday, compared with 250 at the first protest.

He praised his officers' actions yesterday, saying that at one point there was a danger of protesters breaking through their lines and storming the Houses of Parliament.

His comments came after tens of thousands of students across the country took part in the second day of mass protest in a fortnight over higher tuition fees.

Westminster bore the brunt of the trouble, with two officers and 15 people injured and 35 arrested as the Met was forced to carry out its controversial tactic of "kettling" to contain the protesters.

The protests continued today, with a group of students demonstrating at the London constituency office of Simon Hughes, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat party.

Police were called to the offices after about 40 students stormed in, chanting: "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts."

One of the students said they would remain in the office until Mr Hughes spoke to them.