Students are revolting.
Today has seen the second student revolt in a couple of weeks.
The first student revolt didn’t go down too well. There was bad behaviour, wanton destruction, mindless vandalism and mob rule.
Yes, the police were caught with their trousers around their ankles; they admitted as much.
But for today’s revolt, the police were prepared for a violent, rampaging mob of uncontrolled thugs, vandals and violent protesters.
Anyone who thought the police would not come down hard on today’s protest is clearly devoid of all common sense.
Let’s ask a question.
Do you:
- think the police would, as happened last time, paddle about ineffectively, whilst fires are set, public buildings are ransacked and private property is wantonly vandalised? Or do you
- believe that, at the first validated report of serious crime, the police would assume full riot mode, and come down hard?
If your answer is 2. welcome to planet Earth. If your answer is 1., you’re wasting fresh air, please leave now.
And let’s stretch things even more: what do we imagine is going to happen at future protests?
I have seen 400,000 protesters – get that kids, at least four times the number of the people you have turned out with – peaceful protesters turn out for the Liberty and Livelihood march in 2002.
I have seen one million peaceful – I’ll say that again – peaceful protesters take to the streets of London for the StWC march.
And yet less than 100,000 students, who expect to be taken seriously and treated like adults, are incapable of organising, policing and passing off a peaceful protest.
In what I can only take as a sign of irony, various Tweets are being pulsed around the internet this evening.
I’ve seen several people retweet the thoughts of @josayoung:
- Wish Teen Son would come home from protest. Last time he got kicked in the shins by a policeman for getting too close.
What? Last time out he got so close to a policeman that he got kicked in the shins? And this time you *let him go out again*? Really? See question 2. above. Where was your common sense? More importantly, where was his?
- They were kettled immediately, even though to begin with they were simply and peacefully protesting. They are all young students
Young students who caused damage assessed at hundreds of thousands of pounds. Of course they were contained! How dim does a person have to be to imagine that riot procedures *would not* be enacted?
- Young were not trying to cause trouble, just making their views known. Education is lifeblood and leads to jobs and social order
There has been no evidence on this, or the last student revolt, of education or social order. Well, maybe in your world, but not in that of anyone else.
- The protesters are not revolutionaries, quite the opposite. They want the right to eduction (sic), development and jobs. They are very worried.
I’m worried too. I’m worried at the obvious lack of common sense and intelligence of the protesters. I’m worried about the lack of common sense and intelligence of the parents of the protesters. And also, not wishing to contradict you but… these little thugs are behaving *precisely* like revolutionaries.
Therefore they’re going to get their arses kicked.
I appreciate that @josayoung was concerned for the welfare of her sons during the riot. But a person with just a smidge of foresight would have been able to see what was probably going to happen.
I see no evidence of ‘learning by repetition’ here, not by the parents, not by the offspring.
As examples of of dumbed-down Britain, I don’t need to look any further.
But, just to refresh the collective memory:
Well said. Don’t get me started on the idiots who threw fireworks at the police horses in Bristol :o(
Hiya Bren! Those pics you showed are from a protest a couple of weeks ago, where the Conservative Election Campaign headquarters were stormed… and apparently infiltrators were there to cause trouble.
Given that the Conservative election campaign ended a couple of months ago, and the Conservative Headquarters are based in a completely different place to their campaign quarters (at Millbank)…. how much evidence do we have of student violence?
Ummmmm.
P.S. If I was a student, I might be protesting too!! Jeez Anarchy rule!!
Well said Bren.. I watched aghast over here… which part of global recession do they not understand, or perhaps they’d like to come over here and pay $120,000 for 3-4 years at an ‘ordinary’ university (thats just tuition fees) where payments start as soon as you finish college and are at normal interest rates.. My student loan in the UK (which I chose to start paying back before I met the required earning credentials) was 30 pounds a month(!)..I paid it off quicker to get it over with… As with most youth of today (in whichever country) they expect something for nothing and are full of entitlement… Grrrr…
I saw one of the protesters being interviewed on telly.
He was asked if the violence was justified.
“We’ve been oppressed for so long, this is what happens.”
Oppressed?
Really?
Wait till you join the real world!
Annie; yes, that was the first student riot – and it was a couple of weeks, not months ago. My source for those photographs is the AP database. Those were student rioters that stormed Millbank, the most celebrated of whom, threw a fire extinguisher off the roof at the police. That student is currently being processed through the courts and he has said ‘sorry’. We do not have an enshrined right to protest in this country and we certainly have no right to violence.
These student rioters have displayed no qualities of adulthood and precious little of intelligence, therefore I reserve my right to withdraw all tax subsidies for their primary, secondary and tertiary education, because these people are clearly not worth spending my money on.
Most of those I saw on the news last night came across as stupid, immature, out to cause trouble or a charming combination of all of the above. There were a few chavs behind the presenter yelling “We want a future” at the tops of their voices which is odd because I don’t recall the choice being ‘uni or firing squad’. Then were some in hoodies with scarves wrapped round their faces throwing stuff at the police and a stoned looking lad up a traffic light. If they want to be listened to as adults, they need to act like adults. Sure, the powers that be want at least 50% of all achool leavers to go to uni, even if it is only to do Keira Knightley Studies at the University of Central Suburbia but what the little darlings need to understand is this – if vastly more people want to join the subsidised piss up it becomes unsustainable. That is life.
Sometimes I think that it is justified to stick your fingers up to those in power and remind them that they work for us. Students can afford to be idealists but they can’t really afford to be idiots. Peaceful protest must be the order of the day or they will lose the little support that they have with the rest of the population and end up about as popular as a bin man on strike.
I would hope that NUS leaders condemn the violence and try to distance themselves from it. I would also hope that they continue the peaceful campaigns and civil disobedience in order to get their message across. Even if I really feel like reminding them that it is our money that pays for their education and they should be grateful that they’re getting any of it.