The politics of the student protests

The student protests really are throwing up some extraordinary images. Who’d have thought that they’d end up smashing their way in to the lobby of Tory HQ, setting fire to placards, hurling bricks
and other objects – and all as news helicopters buzz insistently overhead? It’s not Paris ’68, but it’s certainly not traditional British reserve either.

I’d be tempted to say that this is the fury of a generation which, as I’ve written "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3563763/Were-our-young-born-to-live-on-debt.html">before, has generally been excluded from the political conversation – if, like "http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/11/thugs-disrupt-student-fees-protest.html">Iain Dale, I didn’t suspect that this demonstration had been overtaken by a bunch of dubious fringe groups. So,
instead, I’ll refer CoffeeHousers to this argument made by the Guardian’s Julian Glover a few
months ago, and which I’ve highlighted before. His contention? That violent protest may
actually end up helping the coalition’s cause:

"UK politics is often characterised as a contest for the centre ground, but that misdescribes the nature of the quest. Centrism implies banality, but I don’t think voters want their
governments to be mundane. There is a willingness to endorse radical action if it is explained and if it looks practicable. It worked for the left under Attlee and Blair; it worked for the right
under Thatcher; and it is working – so far – for this government.

That a large number of people oppose what you are doing, very strongly, can become a strength, so long as they are seen to be opposing something rooted in a kind of imperative. Eight years
ago almost half a million people marched through London with the aim of blocking the hunting ban – and to their dismay, the public took the government’s side. The miners’ strike, the Iraq
war – examples are legion. Half a million people and more will probably be marching against the budget cuts soon, and will feel just as strongly that their solidarity brings
invincibility. They may be proved wrong."

Discuss.

Tags: Coalition, Higher education, Liberal Democrats, Scandal, Spending cuts, Strikes, Students, Tuition fees, UK politics, Violence

Dennis Churchill

NUS Subs are paid by us, the tax payers, so stop payment until the costs of policing and damage has been repaid.
If we get any arrests it will be interesting to see what the background of these “students” turns out to be.
Dave B

1. Where were the police?

2. I hope the film leads to some prosecutions.
davidk

Wait until the striking workers get into their stride.

The Coalition have to accept that if you poke a stick into a hornet’s nest then you’ll provoke a big reaction.

Much more to come like this as the unprecedented cuts hit home.
TomTom

Poor Old Colin was asleep when John Major created Universities ad infinitum before being booted out in 1997.

BOTH Front Benches conspired to keep Tuition Fees awa7y from the election by letting ex-Civil Servant Lord Dearing produce the ready-made answer AFTER the election. Conservatives and Labour conspired AGAINST the electorate not once, but several times.

Like Immigration, the EU, Tuition Fees were NOt to be discussed before the Children ie. the Voting Public and they were to be presented with a Fait Accompli.

This time the saddling of people on £43,000 with an Education Mortgage before they even get a Housing Mortgage and loss of Child Benefit is showing just how far The Middle is going to be screwed over by the Leisured Welfare Classes and the Bailed-Out Banker Classes.

This is building just the Coalition to blow the Conservative Party to pieces. It is using the middle income groups as Kulaks and it shows just how far Clegg, Cameron and Osborne are adrift of normal people that they think those earning little more than their annual school fees can possibly afford the crippling rates of Marginal Taxation being piled upon them.

Cameron is becoming The Undertaker of the Conservative Party driving out those whom Margaret Thatcher had attracted
yank

I think the Spectator was on to it with yesterday’s series of posts.

What you lot need is to hire a BUNCH more SpAds. Oh and a Chief of Staff for everybody.

That should give you enough governmental horsepower to sort this all out.

You lot seem to believe these poor MP’s should work out of the trunks of their cars. Skinflint bastards, you are.
Jez

Police statement; “…A small minority…. response (will be) proportionate and appropiate to the situation”

About 2000 student / Left wing kids have tried to burn down the governments political HQ.

I take it the ex-left wing students that monopolise the media are now going to close ranks and mis-inform the rest of us in defence of their younger colleagues’ work this afternoon.

(The kids are throwing fire extinguishers on to the police from the top of the building for goodness sake!)

The Police NEED to raise batons and steam into these idiots!
strapworld

Honestly, Mr Hoskins, ‘Fury of a generation’

Students so hard up they pay £40+ to travel down to London to demonstrate. Left wing rabble rousers, from a union that did hardly anything when Labour renaged on their election promise NOT to bring in student fees, stirring the young people up. Fed on what propoganda we shall never know!

The police woeful in their preparation. Letting the demonstrators believe they could get away with it by just having a handful of police in normal uniform walking about. I think an enquiry should be conducted by the Home Office into the police arrangements. You have got to be ready to stamp down immediately on any trouble makers. WHY have they been allowed to do so much?

Remember when they blocked demonstrators in London for hours? Great tactics why not here?

But, Mr Hoskin are you related to the scaremonger in chief Kay Burley? by any chance?

Quite quite nonsensical language.

I will apologise if this goes on for a week.
EyeSee

Violent protest is now OK again because a Tory administration is (partly) in power. This is the real Left, this is true Labour. It is all a posturing farce, just as the Poll Tax ‘protests’ were.
Jonathan Woolf

The number of “students” with digital SLR cameras (normally costing a few hundred quid) grinning as they take photos to show off how hard they are in the bar later suggests this lot aren’t exactly strapped for cash.

The politics of the student protests

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