And the response . . . . .

I had feared that the attempts at torch grabbing and scuffling with police might have sullied the protests in the eyes of the British public, but it seems that the reaction has been fairly positive. Meantime the Chinese have responded in predictable fashion, arguing that it was a small minority of people following 'Tibet independence forces'. I would say that from the look of the Chinese flag weilding, armbanded fen qing-type 'security' that the Chinese embassy had arranged to accompany the flag that the real foreign-influenced prescence was not the people who objected their streets being used for a CCP PR stunt. The scandal surrounding the blue-suited Chinese toughs accompanying the flag has hardly been good publicity for the Chinese government either.