Student Protests!

Surely she`s getting on a bit for that kind of thing!

I seriously think that Water Cannons should be used - possibly Rubber Bullets and Snatch (Ooh Matron) squads as back ups.

While I can fully understand how the students feel, I was very saddened to see all the trouble that took place in London yesterday. I'm not one who would ever want to have any debt around my neck so I'm not sure if I was a young person now, I would choose to have further education.

But the facts are I suppose the country can't afford to provide free further education and so it has to be paid for somehow. If the figures I heard were correct, then having to pay £7.50 back per a month when you earn £21.000, does not sound that much and must surely be worth it for the education received by going to university.

I was reading on Wednesday that the London police were expecting trouble makers hell bend on causing trouble and attacking the police, to be joining in with the protests. I'm sure that happened and they were ones who caused a lot of the trouble, but I suspect some of the students were equally guilty.

In the past when I have watched TV coverage of protests etc, I have felt the police were in some way a part of the problems that might have happened, but I think they did a very hard job yesterday so very well.

Its sad to see some of the things that got damaged and attacked, its a disgrace what they did to the Royal car and you wonder if they felt such acts would help their fight.

The last time violence got a result was the Poll tax riots and you wonder if the mentality was it worked back then and this was the only way to win this time.

The one million peaceful protesters against the war sure never made any difference, but then getting ones way by using any violence should never be allowed to happen in our country.

It only went through on a very slender majority and my fear is it won't get the returns that are expected and I can see the £21.000 figure being lowered in years to come.

I wouldn't be so harsh upon the students for what happened mid week. The fact is that there is always a hardcore band of radical anarchists and socialists who target these demonstrations. They are quite active on my university campus spewing utter nonsense all the time and trying to recruit people to get involved with their campaigns against organised society. They hijack these events and use them as an excuse for their own agenda.

You don't see any of it in Devon but in London there is a strong far left presence amongst some groups of people. Besides the vast majority of students who protested a month ago weren't even at these events, they'd had their say and that was it.

I don't agree with the points of the protestors, didn't last month either but don't tar normal students with the same brush as these radical idiots. They're the same kind of people who burst in on the meetings between British Airways and their union causing havok and saying they were protecting the rights of the union when they were in fact harming the union and the union itself didn't even want them there. Also the same kind of people you see wandering around wearing Keffiyehs, praising the Palestinians and calling our own government murderers while supporting regimes such as Iran's. George Galloway is a good example.

As an aside I was more annoyed at them vandalising Churchill's statue than attacking the Royal's car. I couldn't give a stuff about Charles and Camilla, they're both awful people. The best thing the monarchy could do would be to skip Charles and go straight to William.

While all this was happening I was actually in a Political Theory class. My Professor is a crazy left winger who actually told my classmates to ditch class a couple weeks back and go to the protests. Anyways he was getting us to debate whether violence was right in protests and it was fairly obvious he considered that it was legitimate.

The problem is exactly what you've just pinpointing. When a minority uses violence to protest it overshadows the point the majority are making. No one in a few years time is going to remember the student protests for being protests against raising tutition fees. They'll remember Millbank getting smashed up, the violence and fires in the midweek and the heir to the throne's car being smashed.

The media focuses on these things and ignores the peaceful protestors. So saying where were they is kinda missing the point, they were there but they don't make a good sensationalist new story when people are setting fire to christmas trees, graffiting Winston and attacking the Prince's car.

Completely wrong.

The Council Tax is a tax based on the old Rates system, which the Poll Tax ("Community Charge") replaced. Although Council Tax 'bands' are a blunt instrument and a poor way of assessing a person's ability to pay, they do at least recognise that a person's ability to pay should determine their contribution. The Poll Tax made no such allowance in principle, even if there were token efforts at reductions for the very poorest in practice.

It boils down to the same f*cken thing mate, or do you not have to pay it? Tax is tax what ever you call it! They relabelled it, got away with it, and are laughing all the way to the bank! Blagged the lot of you didn`t they? Poll tax = council tax give or take a penny or two!