Just watched this clip from the BBC which shows Boris being saddened by the violence yesterday yet being proud of London's history of allowing people to protest.
Three things spring to mind...
Firstly the students were probably protesting outside the wrong HQ. The Lib Dems are far more culpable than the Tories on student fees - they are the ones who are breaking their promises.
Secondly, how much violence was there? 36 arrested but far more have been arrested at completely peaceful protests, so I wonder just how small the numbers of trouble makers were. Probably similar to the number of students in the Bullingdon Club. Not that they would have had any involvement in the protest as the student fees won't hurt the rich but, I would guess this type of violence would have been right down the Bullingdon Club's tradition of violence, which makes Boris's comments all the more cynical.
Finally, Boris talks about London's tradition of allowing people to protest. I supect the right to protest goes a bit deeper than tradition!
Green Party campaigner in Kent. Also a nurse, academic, former manager, writer, Druid, husband and father...
7 comments:
And ditto to the noble PM on the hypocrisy front.
Bully boys eh? Happy to put it out but not to get it back.
Seems to me the 'Right to Protest' is limited to doing so in a way the politicians can easily ignore: we'll let you protest as long as you you cannot actually get your point across".
The fact that they were unprepared for the scale of the situation just goes to show how arrogant they are.
"Secondly, how much violence was there?"
I'm surprised you even need to ask this. The place was completely trashed.
"36 arrested but far more have been arrested at completely peaceful protests"
A complete non-point. Seriously, what the hell are you trying to say here?
"Probably similar to the number of students in the Bullingdon Club."
You're so clever. You think that because the Bullingdon club existed that you can use this to make some sort of point. I've never been in the Bullingdon club and neither have the millions of people that are disgusted with those violent thugs trying to convince us to fund their education.
It was not completely trashed. They broke some windows and other objects that are not alive or needing to earn an income for the next 50 years, unlike the Lib Dems and Tories.
Condemning the anger of students who are facing serious financial problems entirely caused by the ConDems is frankly obscene.
There were a handful of minor injuries reported - this is not serious violence.
You Tories are hacked off as your property was invaded and damaged. This shows me where your priorities lie.
"Condemning the anger of students who are facing serious financial problems entirely caused by the ConDems is frankly obscene."
I am more than happy for people to get angry. Anger isn't violence.
By the way, I'm not a Conservative. If it means anything I'm completely fed up with politics in general because they're all a complete joke.
On a completely separate issue from the violence...
In addition to the loan only paid back only when you earn...there are some sensible solutions available to all.
I was predicted 3 As at A-level and could have been accepted to pretty much most universities. My local university is a very mediocre one but I took the uncool option and stayed at home with my parents and rode the bus in and out every day saving a fortune. 95% of the people in my year all went to universities hours away creating massive debt for themselves and complaining about it.
If you're worried about a two tier uni system then we already have one since many reject their local uni but if top students (I guess I was close to top) start going to their local unis then we can level that out a bit.
To be honest, it looks like we need to cut down student numbers if a substantial minority are violence-supporting. TheStudentRoom is the UKs largest internet forum of real students chatting about real student life etc. Their polls on support for the violence should make you cringe.
Hi Chris,
Actually I'm not convinced that we need as many people going to university as Labour had us believe. The strange target of 50% of school leavers is arbitary and probably too high. However, I am concerned that those who would benefit from going are being put off.
I agree that there are other options. For example, I didn't do a degree until I was in my late 20's and I started my masters in my mid thirties.
We need more vocational courses and apprenticeships, rather that filling kids aspirations with degrees, let's get the trained in skills that will ensure that they are able to get jobs that society needs.
Hi Stuart,
"Actually I'm not convinced that we need as many people going to university as Labour had us believe."
Then perhaps you don't think what's happening to fees is so bad then. I'm all for taxes being used for good but it's more than clear that the heavily socialising of higher education costs is not such a good thing when you just know that a not insubstantial proportion of students are there just for the ride either doing crap degrees or valuable degrees+alcohol. Let's not try to deny that (maybe you don't). Of course the NUS would deny that flat out.
I really, really find it hard to believe that someone talented from a family of low earning non-graduates getting A grades (or close) at A-levels, keen to specialise in engineering or physics (or whatever) is going to say "No, even though I can get funding for all this upfront and not have to pay unless I can earn enough to pay it back, I'm not going and I'll go work in Tesco instead". I don't buy it. I really don't.
You'll get talented well-grounded students showing you their admittedly large bill for fees (payable only based on ability to pay though remember) but you'll never see a group of small business people of our country being able to show so simply the costs the waster students are weighing them down with.
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