Before the 2010 election Dave Cameron made repeated claims about his new vision for his "big society", whilst Nick Clegg made a
pre-election pledge to oppose any increase in tuition fees. Then when the Coalition Government announces that they will introduce
tuition fees for students within a year of coming to power, they are surprised that people in general and especially students are
up in arms. Nick Clegg on the one hand can't make a pledge and then renege on it and David Cameron must realise that free education
should be a right, not a priveledge. This is just another of the Tories austerity measures, why not scrap Trident and it's nuke
missiles, save £76 billion and use the money to fund free education? To me it just seems like normal Tory policy - "Putting the 'n' into
cuts"
So the students decided to protest against the proposed rise in tuitions fees, which is within their democratic rights. Once the protest
began the police began to moan because the, "students have failed to stick to the agreed route", which to be honest is exactly the same
as what the Lib Dems did.
During the protest there were some outbreaks of violence, the police blame the students, whilst the students blame the police - and
people say we live in a society of blame culture! Someone said on Twitter, "I don't condone anyone's
violence tonight in London, but if you can't understand it, you're frighteningly stupid", which is a statement that I would agree with.
There were 1,000,000 in London to peacefully protest against the Iraq War and that had no effect on the government and so now it looks
like direct action is the only method left. The Iraq war protest didn't have any police in riot gear and there was no trouble, the student
protest had Met Police Officers in riot gear and there was violence. But there is definately no relation between police in riot gear and violence -
just look at the G20 for an example. People were very quick to call the students a disgrace for aggression but ignored the cops doing the same.
Here you can view Police on horseback charging at protesters, which would probably
intimidate you or provoke a reaction.
At some point in the late afternoon a few students began to throw paint balls (this shows that even the arts students were pissed off),
a tactic used to temporarily blind the police until they can wipe their riot visors clean. It was probably at this point
or around this time, that the police began to start using their controversial tactic of kettling protestors, basically just boxing them
in somewhere and then treating them like cattle. One of the most amusing soundbites of the day was when the Met Police's Supt. Julia Pendry
said on Sky News, "I would say to any parents who are watching if they've got any, any people they have obviously control over, give
them a ring and if they haven't committed any offences and they're not committing violent disorder to go towards the Whitehall
entrance to be able to leave Paliament." 'cos Dad's at work watching Sky News and my Mum'll be at home in the study with a police
radio scanner on, she'll probably tweet me, whilst my Dad simultaneously e-mails me. Fucking morons and I don't mean my parents!
One interesting comparison during the protests was to watch the mainstream media's different over-reactions, some more so than others.
The 24 hour news channels have scrolling tickers at the bottom of the screen, if you were to watch say BBC News 24 and Sky News at the
same time they would be covering the same issues with the same camera positions but the tickers would vary quite wildly. A perfect
example of this is summed up in a tweet I read at the time, 'BBC News 24 coverage: "Policeman falls off horse". Sky News 24 coverage:
"APOCALYPSE!"'
From the student protests we have seen that, a lot of Met Police officers are not very good at riding horses, their cavalry can't even
stay in the saddle so to speak or it could just be that even police horses hate the Met's mounted cops! We have also for the first time
seen Dave Cameron's Big Society in action. Another great tweet proclaimed that, "They're not protestors, they're big society community-to-government
engagement offices", which made me smile.
Nice of Charles and Camilla to join the protest. It's ironic that this time it may have been photographers
and press that saved the royal couple, rather than the police that actually led them into the trouble. Shame on the Met Police for kettling them in the
Palladium after their ordeal.
