UK students clash with police/ Prince Charles' car attacked

[MacCruiskeen]

As George Osborne says, anyone scared out of University by a bit of debt doesn't deserve to be their in the first place.

You are joking, I hope.

I hope so too, 'cos it was Michael Gove that said it. Osborne's probably said it too, though.

Or Gideon Kray, as he should henceforth be known.


Ronnie Kray

The Face of Democracy, 2010. Isn't it lovely? Just the latest fine achievement of Universal Suff'ring.

By contrast:


The mob

[semper occultus]

Sorry, semper, I completely misread you.

...not at all, my fault entirely, a rare lapse in my usual standard of posting…

It makes a mockery of universal suffrage, especially when those who will suffer most from it don't even yet have a vote.

..oh but just wait til the next election – they’ll be voting alright..what price Clegg’s Sheffield constituency then ? Or Norwich or any other Uni constituency they’ve got ?

surely you would imagine that many if not most Lib Dems are seriously worried about that time-bomb ticking underneath them ?

The tactic has to be to split them off from the Govt position hasn’t it ?

Some V for Vendetta style scenario that ends in tears will only make the sheep run back into the fold cowering for the sheep dogs to come running – no politician Lab or LD can ever put themselves on that side of the argument.

In the Nineties, the same number of people went to University as now

OK that surprises me….

The Universities will then begin to fail for lack of revenue - and they will then be pointed out by the privateers, either in this current government or in the next one, as yet another example of public institutions failing because they are public.

mind you these wankers are doing their job for them already aren’t they ?

Cuts, what cuts? University vice-chancellors' pay up by 10%

Despite funding cuts of £900m which threaten 14,000 academic posts vice-chancellors pay and benefits rose by 10.6% last year
www.guardian.co.uk

[MacCruiskeen]

[justdrew]

strange goings on are afoot...
note - despite the headline, this tree was not 2000yo, from the article it sounds like it was from 1952. Although there theoretically were earlier trees there, FWTW.

Were anti-Christians behind pilgrimage site attack? 2,000-year-old Holy Thorn Tree of Glastonbury is cut down
By Luke Salkeld
Last updated at 2:24 PM on 10th December 2010

Standing proudly on the side of an English hill, its religious roots go back 2,000 years. But a single night of vandalism has left an ancient site of pilgrimage in splinters.

The Holy Thorn Tree of Glastonbury has been chopped down in what is being seen by some as a deliberately anti-Christian act.

A feature of the skyline surrounding the Somerset town, the tree has been visited by thousands retracing the steps said to have been taken by Joseph of Arimathea, who some say was Jesus’ great uncle.

Police tape surrounds the vandalised Holy Thorn tree on Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury as stunned locals look on. The branches were cut off overnight and a police investigation has been launched


The tree in all its glory before it was hacked apart. Legend says it sprang from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, the man who helped Jesus of the cross. To the right of the tree, in the distance, is Glastonbury Tor

According to legend, Saint Joseph travelled to the spot after Christ was crucified, taking with him the Holy Grail of Arthurian folklore.

He is said to have stuck his wooden staff – which had belonged to Jesus – into the ground on Wearyall Hill before he went to sleep. When he awoke it had sprouted into a thorn tree, which became a natural shrine for Christians across Europe.

To add to its sacred status, the tree ‘miraculously’ flowered twice a year – once at Christmas and once at Easter. It survived for hundreds of years before it was chopped down by puritans in the Civil War, but secret cuttings of the original were taken and planted around the town.

It is from one of the new plants that a replacement tree was planted in the original spot over 50 years ago.

Yesterday residents of Glastonbury wept as they surveyed the damage done to the tree on Wednesday night. Katherine Gorbing, curator of the town’s abbey, said: ‘The mindless vandals who have hacked down this tree have struck at the heart of Christianity.

A member of the public gathers sprigs from the chopped branches while (right) onlookers cry and say prayers
BROUGHT TO LIFE BY JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA, CHOPPED DOWN BY CROMWELL'S ROUNDHEADS, REBORN THANKS TO LOCALS

Christian legend dictates that Jesus's great uncle, Joseph of Arimathea (pictured below) came to Britain after the crucifixion 2,000 years ago bearing the Holy Grail - the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper.

He visited Glastonbury and thrust his staff into Wearyall Hill, just below the Tor, planting a seed for the original thorn tree.

Roundheads felled the tree during the English Civil War, when forces led by Oliver Cromwell (pictured) waged a vicious battle against the Crown.

However, locals salvaged the roots of the original tree, hiding it in secret locations around Glastonbury.

It was then replanted on the hill in 1951. Other cuttings were also grown and placed around the town - including its famous Glastonbury Abbey.

Experts had verified that the tree - known as the Crategus Monogyna Bi Flora - originated from the Middle East.

A sprig of holy thorns was taken from the Thorn tree by Glastonbury's St Johns Church on Wednesday and sent to the Queen

The 100-year-old tradition will see the thorns sit on Her Majesty's dinner table on Christmas Day

‘It is the most significant of all the trees planted here and can be linked back to the origins of Christianity.

‘When I arrived at the Abbey this morning you could look over to the hill and see it was not there.

‘It’s a great shock to everyone in Glastonbury – the landscape of the town has changed overnight.’

Every winter a sprig of thorns from one of the town’s trees is sent to the Queen to be used as a table decoration on Christmas Day.

Glastonbury mayor John Coles, 66, took part in the annual cutting ceremony last week using the tree at St John’s Church.

Yesterday he recalled watching a tree being planted on Wearyall Hill in 1951 for the Festival of Britain. Although that specimen died, it was replaced the following year and stood firm until this week. Mr Coles said: ‘It’s the saddest thing I’ve seen in Glastonbury. Some of the main trunk is there but the branches have been sawn away. I am absolutely lost for words.’

Experts had verified that the tree – known as the Crategus Monogyna Bi Flora – originated from the Middle East.

Avon and Somerset police have begun an investigation but because there was no tree preservation order on the Holy Thorn, it means the vandals are unlikely to be prosecuted. The land on which the Holy Thorn stood is owned by Edward James, who was arrested this week in connection with an investigation into failed currency exchange firm Crown Currency Exchange, of which he is a director.

According to the administrator’s report, Crown Currency collapsed owing £16million with little more than £3million in the bank. Last night there was speculation that the attack on the Holy Thorn may have been part of a vendetta against him.

[MacCruiskeen]

Confirmed: the plan is indeed to create a population of lifelong debt-slaves:

Only a quarter of all graduates will pay off loans

The rest in debt for life as Government's own figures suggest new university fees system is unsustainable.

By Brian Brady

Independent, Sunday, 12 December 2010

Only one in four graduates will pay back the full cost of their tuition fees under the coalition's new system for financing higher education in England.

Internal government figures, seen by The Independent on Sunday, reveal that a small minority of students paying fees of up to £9,000 a year are expected ever to pay them off in full. Ministers believe most graduates will spend their whole working lives making monthly payments to cover their loans and interest – without ever being able to settle their debts.

...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 58168.html

And these conniving bloodsucking creeps have the audacity to complain about "violence". Well, they ain't seen nuthin' yet.

[semper occultus]

I promise this'll be my final word on the subject mac but why do you suppose they employ provocateurs to actually create the trouble - its what they want !

[MacCruiskeen]

No, semper. What they want is for people to "exercise their democratic right to peaceful protest", i.e., to take a pointless stroll and then go home meekly and continue lapping it up.

I promise this'll be my final word on the subject mac

Oh, don't let me put you off! Seriously. This is an important issue - the legitimacy or non-legitimacy of violent (or "violent"*) protest - and it's only going to get more important in the very near future.

*I'm not splitting hairs. Language too is a weapon, and a battleground. And if we allow damage against property to be conflated with serious harm done to people, then we concede far too much.

[MacCruiskeen]

Re: "police provocateurs" - this Press TV video shows "a group of about 20 unidentified youths" masked with balaclavas who were allowed to move through the kettled protestors in Parliament Square, "inexplicably" attacking students. When the reporter tries to investigate, they then attack him and his cameraman, "within view of the police, who failed to intervene":

[MacCruiskeen]

Gorgeous George supports the protestors:

Traitors will pay the price

By George Galloway on Dec 11, 10 09:33 AM in

THERE is a social contract in this country upon which internal peace is built.

When a party campaigns on a platform of the complete abolition of tuition fees in England and Wales and then brings forward plans which triple those same tuition fees, well, that's asking for trouble.

And trouble, by the paint-bucketful, is what we have now.

I was there in central London when 50,000 students took to the streets to make their feelings of betrayal known.

I'm against people breaking windows and defacing war memorials. But I'm even more against breaking the hearts of a generation and defacing the education system with the scar of privatisation. In a long political life, I have never seen betrayal on such a scale.

Clegg and Cable and Cameron and Osborne and all the rest of them got a free university education - at my expense as someone who paid taxes all my life.

I never resented it. I knew that university education for our brightest children was an investment in the future.

And if the graduates went on to earn more money than me, I was content that a fair system of income tax would make sure they made their contribution.

But this government are doing nothing to make the rich pay their share.

In January, VAT - a poll tax indiscriminately hitting rich and poor equally - will go up.

Meanwhile, £100billion a year in tax is being dodged by the rich in Britain - more than the whole budget deficit.

It wasn't just the principle of education for all up to the limits of their ability which died this week. It was the second death of the Liberal Party.

Come May and the Holyrood elections, it is up to the Scots to wipe this jaundice, this party of cowards and betrayers, off the face of the political map.

Whoever you vote for, don't vote Liberal Democrat. Don't reward treason.

If the Lib Dems are destroyed in Scotland, the coalition will fall in Westminster.

Just like with the Poll Tax, it falls to us to bring about the end of a sociopathic group of hard-faced men who hope to do well out of the war against public services.

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/

("Hard-faced"? Shurely "putty-featured"?)

[vanlose kid]

Student protests: pressure mounts on Met police chiefSir Paul Stephenson faces increasing pressure after footage emerges of a police officer not wearing ID at this week's protests


Adam Gabbatt and Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 December 2010 19.10 GMT Article history


YouTube: Riot officer with no identifying lapel number at London student protests 9th Dec 2010 Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson faces mounting pressure after footage emerged showing an officer policing Thursday's student protests not wearing identification.

Following the G20 protests last year, during which Ian Tomlinson died after being pushed to the ground by a police officer not wearing ID, Stephenson said it was "absolutely unacceptable" for officers to cover or remove their shoulder tags bearing identification numbers.

However, a video taken by one of the protesters at the London demonstration clearly shows one officer not displaying her numerals.

The footage emerged as reports said Stephenson had offered to resign in the wake of this week's protests, with the Met heavily criticised after a protester was left requiring brain surgery due to allegedly being struck by a police baton, and protesters were able to attack a car carrying Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Today the home secretary, Theresa May, confirmed there was "contact" between Camilla and one of the protesters, reportedly involving the wife of the heir-to-the-throne being poked with a stick.

May, who insisted she had not considered resigning in the wake of the incidents, would not rule out using water cannons to control protesters in the future, insisting "it is right that we look across the board at all the options that are available".

Video footage showing the police officer not wearing identification was recorded by Chris Dowdeswell, a 27-year-old web developer from Gloucester, and posted to Youtube.

"We were in the kettle from the beginning on Parliament Square," Dowdeswell said.

"We were walking to the different police lines trying to find out what was going on, and someone told me we should go and film this one officer who was without her lapel numbers, without her identifying marks.

"When we questioned her at first, this is just before we started filming, she said: 'I'm a human being, not a fucking number'."

Dowdeswell, who runs the Brutal Cops website which aims to draw attention to police corruption and violence, said after he began filming the officer she "looked awkward and embarrassed".

Shown the footage by the Guardian yesterday, a spokesman for the Met said the force would investigate why the officer was not wearing her identification tags.

"All officers were briefed before the demonstration that their shoulder numbers should remain visible at all times," he said.

"The demonstration command team is now aware of this footage. The Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed and steps are being taken to identify the officer in question, and obtain an explanation."


The Met commissioner also promised to take "proportionate" disciplinary action against those officers who did not carry their ID badges at those demonstrations.

His comments were echoed by the chief inspector of constabulary, Denis O'Connor, who said it was "utterly unacceptable" for officers not wearing their numerals. "I would expect people in public order and other situations to wear their numbers … it acts as a good check and balance," he said.

A spokesman for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary – the government body which assesses the performance of the police – said it could not launch an investigation of its own accord, but would have to be commissioned, in this case by either the Met or the Home Office.

The Sunday Times today reported that Stephenson offered to resign after Prince Charles' Rolls Royce was attacked on Oxford Street, a source telling the newspaper that the commissioner had "made it clear that if [the palace] thought he should resign, he would do so".

Theresa May, who is due to make a statement to MPs regarding the policing of Thursday's protests today (Mon), described the incident as "incredibly regrettable" in an interview with Sky News and praised Charles and Camilla for fulfilling their engagement.

"The Metropolitan Police are looking into the details of that incident to find out exactly how it arose and of course they will be wanting to learn the lessons from that," she said.


Police were also criticised after a 20-year-old student, Alfie Meadows, underwent a three-hour operation to treat bleeding on the brain after allegedly being hit on the head by a truncheon. Yesterday his mother, Susan Matthews, claimed that when Meadows was taken to Chelsea and Westminster hospital police objected to him being treated there as it was being used to treat injured officers.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has since launched an investigation into the incident. Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, is said to have so-far made a good recovery from the operation, with his mother, Susan Matthews, saying "he's improving day by day".

Today police released images of 14 people they want to speak to following clashes during the demonstration, asking the public to help identify those pictured. The appeal came as Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave, was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and attempted criminal damage after he was photographed swinging from a flag attached to the Cenotaph on Whitehall on Thursday.

He is the 35th person to have been arrested following involvement in Thursday's protest. A total of 176 people have been arrested in the four protests so far.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/1 ... lice-chief

*

[MacCruiskeen]

And our topic is topsy-turvy: civil disobedience. As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem. We recognize this for Nazi Germany. We know that the problem there was obedience, that the people obeyed Hitler. People obeyed; that was wrong. They should have challenged, and they should have resisted; and if we were only there, we would have showed them. Even in Stalin's Russia we can understand that; people are obedient, all these herdlike people.

Howard Zinn, 1970.

via DU

[semper occultus]

Police could use water cannon to disperse rioters, Theresa May says
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has opened the way for water cannon to be used on the British mainland for the first time if future demonstrations escalate into uncontrollable violence.

www.telegraph.co.uk

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor 12:10PM GMT 12 Dec 2010

Ministers will not stand in the way if senior officers wanted to use it, she said.

And in the wake of last week’s shocking scenes in central London’s West End Mrs May warned that future demonstrations needed to be policed “robustly.”

The sight of an out-of-control mob vandalising parts of Westminster has led to accusations that the Conservatives are weak on law-and-order.

In the UK water cannon has only been deployed in Northern Ireland, at various points throughout the Troubles, and its use has been resisted until now by senior police officers elsewhere in Britain. However, it is widely used as a crowd control tactic abroad.

In a sign that the introduction of water cannon to the mainland is being seriously discussed in Whitehall, the Home Secretary, when asked about it, said she did not want to “give the game away about anything that might be done in the future.”

She told Sky News: “Whether or not they choose to use water cannon is an operation issue. I think it is right that we look across the board at all the options that are available.

“It is a matter for them to decide which tactics they wish to use. They (the police) will look across the board at the powers that are available to them, at the operational things that they can do and make decisions to ensure any future demonstrations that take place are also policed robustly.”

At last week’s demonstrations in central London police appeared either powerless or reluctant to tackle violent demonstrators who vandalised the Supreme Court, HM Revenue and Customs as well as desecrating Sir Winston Churchill’s statute and other monuments in Parliament Square.

Privately, some police officers have said it could be time use water cannon rather than allow a mob to run amok. Ministers have previously ruled out the use of water cannon, instead remarking that traditional British methods of crowd control should be maintained.

The Metropolitan Police has trialled water cannon but has never used it. Similarly, it has officers trained to use baton rounds – plastic bullets – but has also never deployed that tactic.

One Met officer who was in a mock mob as part of a trial for water cannon ( before putting his balaclava on & disappearing back into the crowd no doubt ) told the Daily Telegraph: “It is very effective. The truck simply comes up, a plate goes over the nozzle and it sprays, rather than jets.

“It is like being in a power-shower times 10 and it takes the air away which makes it difficult to breathe so you have to move. After last week it may be time that a method which gets people away from an area quickly has to be looked at seriously.”

Rank-and-file officers feel senior commanders lack the will to use new methods of crowd control. Sir Paul Stephenson, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said in an interview two weeks ago that he was not “very keen” on using water cannon on London streets.

However, Sir Paul is now under severe pressure after a series of student protests in the capital have ended with the police appearing to lose control. Last month he was forced to apologise to David Cameron after inadequate policing allowed Conservative headquarters to be attacked and vandalised.

In the wake of Thursday’s violence which saw the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall attacked in their car Sir Paul has had to again apologise, this time to the Prince.

Sources at Scotland Yard say the Commissioner “considered his position” after the events of last Thursday.

Sir Paul said that one reason they have not been used is that the Met does not own any. However, it was reported last year that senior officers in the capital had considered buying six water cannon at a cost of around £5 million.

Cost constraints in the wake of Whitehall budget cuts would, therefore, also be a major consideration.

But Labour yesterday came out against the possibility of using water cannon.

Ed Balls, the shadow home secretary, said: “I am very sceptical about the use of water canon or rubber bullets because every time in the past you then have a minority who seek to force the police to use that kind of technique.”

Mrs May also confirmed that Camilla had come into "contact" with the mob who surrounded the car in the West End as she and her husband were driven to the Royal Variety Performance.

Asked to confirm that Camilla had been jabbed in the ribs with a stick by one of the protesters, the Home Secretary replied: "I am not sure about the term poked with a stick. I understand there was contact made. This is an incident that needs to be looked at by the Metropolitan Police."

Mrs May will make a statement to MPs on the tuition fee protests on Monday

[AhabsOtherLeg]

In the Nineties, the same number of people went to University as now

OK that surprises me….

I'm not surprised it was surprising, because I got it wrong. I didn't realise quite how drastically New Labour expanded the intake to Universities in the late 90s/2000s...no doubt as a way of finessing the unemployment figures, like you said. You was right, and I was babbling.

I promise this'll be my final word on the subject mac but why do you suppose they employ provocateurs to actually create the trouble - its what they want !

They want controllable, manageable trouble, of a type that will frighten and intimidate the demonstrators (and stop them from demonstrating in future) rather than the kind of trouble that would have a serious impact on the police or their bosses (or business as usual). They also want trouble that will play to old prejudices in Middle Britain against the young and agitated - stuff that will look bad in the press, and sap public sympathy - people swinging from the Cenotaph (I'm seriously starting to wonder if Charlie Gilmour is a psy-op or something, or just being used as one - he's become the gormless, spoilt, over-privilleged media face of the demonstrators somehow), pissing on the Churchill statue, etc. - symbolic stuff that will get the Daily Mail audience frothing. That's the kind of trouble they'll be wanting to create, but I don't think it's the (only) kind they're going to get.

No one is hoping for violence, except some elements of the police and the usual brawlers who would turn up to any old ruck, but it will come, I think, on a large scale, when the rest of the cuts kick in, and it'll be hard to condemn...

I for one can't blame anybody for reacting to the government's attack. A lot of people's backs are up against the wall, financially and socially, and they know who is to blame for it. How can they be expected to not fight back?

It's true that a violent movement is far easier to infiltrate with provocateurs than a wholly peaceful one, though.

In the UK water cannon has only been deployed in Northern Ireland, at various points throughout the Troubles, and its use has been resisted until now by senior police officers elsewhere in Britain. However, it is widely used as a crowd control tactic abroad.

What it's used as is a crowd dispersal tactic. You can't kettle people then turn the hoses on them - you'd have a stampede in a confined space, and another Hillsborough, with the police acting as the barriers holding them in, instead of helping them out. It's a ridiculous idea. Not surprised to hear it, though.

Sir Paul said that one reason they have not been used is that the Met does not own any. However, it was reported last year that senior officers in the capital had considered buying six water cannon at a cost of around £5 million.

Cost constraints in the wake of Whitehall budget cuts would, therefore, also be a major consideration.

Cuts cuts cuts. As the students chanted at the police - "Your turn next!"

"The police grant for 2010/11 has already been cut by £125million, and bonuses and allowances are likely to be examined as well as policing quangos in a bid to save money.

However, there are fears that the cuts will have to go deeper and hit frontline numbers when departmental budgets are set because of the scale of the depth of the hole in the public finances."

"The chief constable of Greater Manchester Police admitted the service to the public "could deteriorate" after it emerged the force will shrink by a quarter in the next four years.

Peter Fahy said he was working to ensure the loss of nearly 3,000 staff will not result in a cut to 'frontline' policing but appeared to confirm that there will be fewer officers on the beat.

Mr Fahy said: "Although there will be a significant reduction in the size of the middle and back offices, it is clear that over the four year period there will also need to be a reduction in frontline police officer numbers."

Most of the PCSOs already got sacked and sent home, didn't they? Not even Thatcher was this stupid. She knew she would need a strong police force if she was going to take on the entire country. I suppose you don't need as many officers if they are armed with water cannons and plastic bullets... and no doubt private security firms which can "bolster" the police are already being looked at as an option... Grrrrr....

At least we know that water cannons and plastic bullets worked really well in Northern Ireland. They ensured that both the police and public were completely safe, and nobody got hurt. Oh... wait.

The lopped Holy Thorn Tree in Justdrew's post is quite a fitting symbol for the country at the moment. Cuts cuts cuts.

[82_28]

It's true that a violent movement is far easier to infiltrate with provocateurs than a wholly peaceful one, though.

The WTO shit that went on out here was peaceful. It wasn't until weirdos in black started running around that shit just started to get outta hand. A peaceful protest too, can also be infiltrated and quite easily. Once the masses get it into their heads that anything goes, all bets are off -- the dudes with kids in strollers get the fuck out and then they work their magic on the youth who are basically now just partying and playing drums and shit. I just bet that all "important" meetings set in all the cities they like to hold them in come with a team of infiltrators. They would be stupid to not do it. They have all manner of other security precautions, why not provocateurs? In fact, perhaps it wasn't provocateurs in Seattle 1999, but they know the scenario and now they create this shit at will before it even happens on its own.

The Gilmour thing is weird too. Hmmm. . .

[KudZu LoTek]

As an adjunct to the question of water cannons coming into play - are police forces in the UK equipped with LRAD/ADS gear?

If not, is it due to a lack of finances or to a lack of legality?