Some windows were broken at Tory party head office during today’s protest but, as Lindsey German argues in this article on Counterfire’s site, the real violence is being inflicted on the poorest and most vulnerable by the ConDem government.
(I do think Lindsey could have been a bit harder on the thoroughly unimpressive Aaron Porter. There’s a young man looking to follow the Phil Woolas route of student “leader”, union functionary, Labour MP if ever you saw one. There are lots of photos here and Junius has another good report here.)
What a brilliant student demo today. Tens of thousands from every sector of education – a pretty good group of school students, as well as FE and Uni. They were political, aware, militant, totally fed up with the government. They came in large numbers from universities not normally associated with protest: Bath, Southampton, Reading, Brunel. They signify a new mass movement formed by a generation which is facing attacks on education, welfare, pensions, housing and jobs. What kind of a future is the government offering these young people?
I received what I regard as an extremely good education and it never cost me a penny. In fact I was paid to study and came out of college without any debt. Imagine that now. Yet why should students pay for tertiary education when they don’t have to pay for primary or secondary education? All that it does is say that education is for the rich. Those discriminated against will be from working class and ethnic minority families, where the money won’t be there, especially when EMA is abolished.
Like most people I knew, I was the first of my family to go to university. Back then, quite a lot of people used to question whether it was worth educating women …because they would get married! I cannot imagine my family thinking university would be a good idea if they thought i would have had thousands of pounds worth of debt at the other end …let alone the tens of thousands debt students now face.
I was reflecting on this after hearing NUS president Aaron Porter’s condemnation of the occupation of Tory head office as ‘disgusting’. I’m not surprised that students are angry, or that they occupy, or that a few windows are broken. What is this in comparison with the violence which this government is inflicting on the poorest and most vulnerable, who will face cuts in benefits, enforced moving out of their homes because of benefit cuts, and forced to work if they are unemployed? They are condemning working class students to a worse education than previous generations. Shouldn’t Porter be reserving the epithet of disgusting for the people who really deserve it?
Above all, his duty to his members today was to challenge a government which is attacking his members. Nick Clegg signed a pledge against tuition fees and is now implementing them. Surely he, Osborne and Cameron – all recipients of the best education money can buy – should be the focus of his wrath.
Liam redux 
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