Similar rallies were held in cities worldwide as part of Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration of a failed effort to blow up the British Parliament in 1605. In London, protesters gathered on the Westminster Bridge to collectively burn their energy bills in what organizers called a “Bonfire of Austerity.”

Owen Jones: “So what people are doing is piling energy bills on the bonfire, because at the moment energy bills are soaring, because the big six energy companies are effectively holding consumers across the country to ransom. They have hiked energy prices by up to over 10 percent in many cases, at a time of the longest fall in living standards since Queen Victoria sat on the throne of this country. It’s going to drive nine million people into fuel poverty. It is going to kill elderly people, as well.”