2010-06-20
Trevor Hemmings
The policing of the G20 summit in London in April 2009 has been severely criticised following an allegation of manslaughter and 270 complaints of police assault. Part I of a report on what happened and its aftermath The London G20 summit of world leaders at the ExCel conference centre on 2 and 3 April 2009 was headlined as a platform for international cooperation in the face of global economic disaster. The “greatest gathering of leaders since 1946” 1 was estimated to have cost £19 million 2, less than a quarter of the cost of the 2005 Gleneagles summit, and a price apparently considered to be value for money by participants hoping to adopt a rescue plan for the global banking crisis. However some leaders, such Brazil’s President Luis da Silva, pointed out that it was the behaviour of western financiers that had brought the economy down in the first place. (download pdf at statewatch.org)