UK students clash with police/ Prince Charles' car attacked

[MacCruiskeen]

If the vote passes today, higher education in England will become practically unaffordable for all but a very wealthy few. What the Tory-LibDem coalition govt. is planning amounts to a complete and brutal transformation of English society.

Live BBC coverage here, live Guardian coverage here.

The cops are currently trying to "kettle" the protestors, but some barriers have already fallen:

[AhabsOtherLeg]

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The presenter is currently very happy that the police have it "under control" and that the Palace of Westminster is "safe and well-protected". I can't watch it, or listen to that "unbiased" viewpoint. It's making me rage.

Just read a piece by the new Education Secretary Michael Gove, from way back in 2003 at the TimesOnline, that had me throwing up in my mouth a few times.

anuary 21, 2003
If I'm paying for your education, so can you

The proposed £21,000 in university fees isn't a burden, it's a bargain
Michael Gove

The Government is about to introduce a new test for those considering a university career. The central question will be punishingly direct. Do you want to run up a debt of £21,000 in order to go to the best British universities? Some people will, apparently, be put off applying to our elite institutions by the prospect of taking on a debt of this size. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is all to the good.

The first point that needs to be made about the so-called deterrent effect of a £21,000 loan is that anyone put off from attending a good university by fear of that debt doesn’t deserve to be at any university in the first place...

Those of us who are net contributors to the State, graduates or not, are getting a terrible deal for our money. We could guarantee far superior healthcare and schooling for our families if only the Government gave us back the money which it confiscates from us in taxes and then spends on the schools and hospitals which it runs so badly... But of all the money wasted by the State there is perhaps no greater scandal than its mismanagement of the funds it takes to spend on higher education. The system it has built to disburse our money is inimical to equity, liberty and excellence.

Higher education is now a nationalised industry, with universities utterly dependent on state support for their survival. Like all the nationalised industries which taxpayers had to subsidise in the past, from British Coal to British Leyland, UK Universities suffer from grotesque inefficiencies, low motivation, ministerial second-guessing, poor salaries, and a stifling excess of bureaucracy...

More at link, showing exactly what we're up against. But, of course, these cuts are non-ideological, and are only intended to reduce the deficit. FFS. He sounds like a literate Teabagger, and now he's in power.

...A protestor with a head injury being carried away unconcious now. Overall, the protest seems quite well spread out, and should resist kettling so long as they keep themselves in a few separate groups, and stay mobile, like they did last time.

Jesus, a mounted charge just there. Police now getting driven back! Lashing out a fair amount as they try to force the crowd back... Are they aware that most of the demonstrators are just kids, or does that not matter anymore?

[AhabsOtherLeg]

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University College of London Occupation have posted a map, showing the disposition of police resources and areas of concentrated protest. Very clever stuff - should be handy for those who are there..

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF ... 09645&z=17

Have a look around on it - it also shows Godzilla emerging from the Thames to support the students.

[MacCruiskeen]

Like Cameron, Clegg and Cable, Michael Gove is a gobshite. This is government by the gobshites, for the gobshites, made possible only by the police.

A gobshite writes:

#1556: E Davis in Littlestone, Kent writes: "Shouldn't all these protesting students be sitting at their desks learning, instead of making a nuisance of themselves and costing the taxpayer big money to pay for police overtime?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

^^That, too, is what those students and schoolkids are up against.

Jesus, a mounted charge just there. Police now getting driven back! Lashing out a fair amount as they try to force the crowd back... Are they aware that most of the demonstrators are just kids, or does that not matter anymore?

Did it ever? (They led a mounted charge last week too. At first they denied having done so, then they were forced to admit it because one of the protestors had caught it on his camera-phone.)

I tell you, Ahab, I don't want to see anyone getting hurt, least of all schoolkids. But I can't see anything changing without what the Beeb and the Guardian insist on calling "violence", i.e. sustained occupation and - whenever necessary - destruction of property. That includes both private property, such as banks, and public property, such as the Houses of Parliament.

If this disgraceful vote passes, I sincerely hope the students will succeed in invading and occupying Parliament, because it doesn't (yet) belong entirely to David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Michael Gove and the rest of those entitled liars and shameless fucking thieves.

#1602: The BBC's Phil Herd, in Westminster, says police are trying to reinforce the line of officers. However, there is a lot of pushing backwards and forwards against the weight of 3,000 or so protesters.

#1600: Melanie Frame in Bangor, Wales writes: "I am shocked at the scenes in Parliament Square. These are not disaffected youth rioting, these are our brightest children, the ones who studied hard at school so they could go to university and make a bright future for themselves. They are being charged by fully grown men in riot gear and by horses."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

[vanlose kid]

this is belongs here.



by protesting in the streets you bring on a lockdown of the streets.
should you then cease to protest?
are you working for the powers that be? (compare wikileaks.)

listen to this kid.

*

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I tell you, Ahab, I don't want to see anyone getting hurt, least of all schoolkids. But I can't see anything changing without what the Beeb and the Guardian insist on calling "violence", i.e. sustained occupation and - whenever necessary - destruction of property. That includes both private property, such as banks, and public property, such as the Houses of Parliament.

If this disgraceful vote passes...

If it passes, this will only be the start, and there will be plenty of violence before it's over. I agree, for the record - peaceful protest, so far, has been useful in keeping the issues in public view, but the issues are bigger and deeper than just education funding or spending cuts. They have to be fought, violently if necessary, because they have to be beaten. The Poll Tax riots worked because they weren't peaceful. The government was out of office a year later, and fatally weakened in the meantime, but you know all that already. They have to be beat decisively this time, so that they'll never come back.

You'll like the vid that vanlose posted. It should be ported over into this thread. It gives hope.

[MacCruiskeen]

Well, that's the most inspiring speech I've heard for years. Thanks, vanlose kid. The times they are a-changin', I hope.

- Can any of you actually see the BBC's live video-feed from Parliament Square?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

It's been entirely inaccessible here for the last hour or more. Seems mighty convenient that the BBC's cameras have gone suddenly blind, just as mounted riot cops stampede against the nation's uppity schoolchildren.

[vanlose kid]

Well, that's the most inspiring speech I've heard for years. Thanks, vanlose kid. The times they are a-changin', I hope.

- Can any of you actually see the BBC's live video-feed from Parliament Square?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

It's been entirely inaccessible here for the last hour or more. Seems mighty convenient that the BBC's cameras have gone suddenly blind, just as mounted riot cops stampede against the nation's uppity schoolchildren.

hey mac,

just found this. live bbc coverage.

http://atdhe.net/watch-bbc-news.php

*

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks very much, vk. I'm watching it right now. I think there will be an explosion of anger on the streets when this vote goes through in about five minutes.

[MacCruiskeen]

17:40 GMT - Vince Cable's Bleed-the-Children Act is passed in the Commons with a majority of 21.

A few stones and firecrackers are now flying on the Embankment, and maybe in Parliament Square too. Fires burning, police helicopters circling, protestors chanting "Shame on you".

150 students are now staging a sit-in at the National Gallery.

http://atdhe.net/watch-bbc-news.php

Student: "We've gone from 1,000 pounds to 6,000 pounds [annual fees] in six years. Now it's going to be 9,000! Who's to stop them raising it yet again?"

That's what this gobshite government wants: a population that's permanently heavily in debt, and therefore passive, fearful and pliable.

[tazmic]

That's what this gobshite government wants: a population that's permanently heavily in debt, and therefore passive, fearful and pliable.

Time to go away now.

For something like 100-150 years that System required an educated, skilled workforce to tend machinery and manage empire. Thanks to advances in technology, most of that educated, skilled workforce is now surplus to requirements and the System would like Us to, thanks for everything, go away now

And before We go away, that System would like to hoover up whatever crumbs of capital We managed to collectively accumulate over those last 100-150 years

All of which should be bleeding obvious but a lot of people just don't seem to get it and insist on believing that news like this...

...is somehow an unfortunate consequence of the harsh economic times we live in and not part of a Systematic eradication of a class of people that is now surplus to requirements

[MacCruiskeen]

Live: Police now helmeted and heavily armoured. Treasury buildings graffiti'd, windows broken. Kettled protestors getting increasingly angry, chanting "Shame on you" at the cops.

[justdrew]

and the night before...


A dramatic meteor “fireball” exploded over Britain on Wednesday night, creating a spectacular light show the length of the country ahead of the Geminid space shower.
The “very bright” meteor lit up the skies from Somerset to Aberdeen.

Excalibur returning to earth

pretty damn auspicious if you ask me

[MacCruiskeen]

The Christmas tree is on fire in Trafalgar Square.

Future debt-slaves are using a metal barrier as a battering-ram to smash in a door to the Treasury building. Numerous windows broken. Police are now stationed inside.

http://atdhe.net/watch-bbc-news.php

Michael Chessum, co-founder of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, very angry and talking very good sense, speaking of "class war" and linking the student-fees issue to a general social crisis.

(Also interviewed: Aaron Porter of the National Union of Students, a cringeing slippery opportunist careerist gobshite. The NUS's planned "candlelit vigil" [!] at the Embankment was attended by literally nobody, and no fucking wonder.)

[justdrew]

live protest map