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    PM denies lack of policing at student protest

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    18th November 2010

    David Cameron has denied that a violent student protest against tuition fees was due to a lack of police resources.

    The prime minister said last week's protest in which demonstrators stormed Millbank tower in Westminster, had been a "failure of intelligence and a failure of planning".

    During Cameron's appearance before the House of Commons liaison committee, Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East) asked if a lack of resources had contributed to the problems faced by the Metropolitan Police.

    The home affairs select committee chair asked: "If it is found that a lack of resources contributed to this problem, would they be provided by the government in future?"

    Cameron, who was in Seoul attending a G20 meeting at the time, said resources had "not been mentioned at all" in a conversation with Met Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson.

    The prime minister told the committee: "I'm not surprised because frankly this was a failure, as he put it - I'm not criticising him, I think he was very candid and up-front and honest about it - this was a failure of intelligence and a failure of planning and it shouldn't happen again.

    "It was an extremely thin blue line in front of that building.

    "We saw that blue line frankly pushed away, swept away almost by that badly-behaved crowd of people, who did appalling things when they got into that building, by the way."

    He added: "Now that shouldn't happen again and I know Paul Stephenson won't let that happen again. There are plenty of numbers of police officers in London to stop that happening again."

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