Let Their Own Words Condemn Them ….

The mood was angrier than it was last time, as thousands of demonstrators seized their final opportunity to persuade MPs to scrap plans for an increase in tuition fees.

Yes, anyone with half a brain could see, on Thursday morning, that this demo was going to be bigger and far more bad-tempered than the last couple.

Which rather begs the question, doesn’t it, why so many ‘peaceful’ protestors still attended, despite the increasingly fraught atmosphere?

They had been allowed to march through Trafalgar Square and down towards Buckingham Palace, before turning to head for the Houses of Parliament as MPs debated the issue.

There the march halted as police and stewards alike tried unsuccessfully to direct it up Whitehall.

The crowds, only "vaguely" under the stewards' control, according to eye-witnesses, just refused to comply.

That’s the thing with crowds, though, isn’t it? The police and stewards were never ‘in control’ of its progress, they merely had the illusion of control, so long as the crowd was willing to comply.

And when they no longer were…

Barriers had been erected by police, stopping protesters crossing the road in front of Parliament and getting on to the grass in the centre of the square. But protesters tore them down and bonfires were soon burning under the shadow of Winston Churchill's statue. It was then daubed with graffiti, saying: "Fuck police", "Clegg eat shit" and "Education for the masses".

I believe we’ve had ‘education for the masses’ for the last 50 years, as a commenter noted yesterday. Look what they’ve done with it!

As Leg-Iron points out, these changes aren't even going to affect the majority of courses, but they WILL serve to weed out the courses we can no longer afford to support.

Julyan Phillips, 23, whose face was covered with blood as he staggered away from the melée, said: "I was in the front line. People were trying to push forwards. I had my hand behind my back and was shouting at the officers that I was not trying to resist and one of them just decided to baton me. He gave me no warning. A few people around me were hurt.

"All the rises in tuition fees will do is perpetuate the divide between the rich and the poor," he added.

Just marvellous, isn’t it, the incomprehension that if people in the crowd start off their pre-planned violence, the police will be forced to up their game too?

The refusal to take heed of the fact that these planned changes to tuition fees won’t even affect the genuinely poor, they will – once again – mainly affect the squeezed middle classes?

And it doesn’t stop there…

James Samuel, 17, a London sixth-former going to university next year, said: "I have seen a girl get trampled and people squeezed against the fences. I think violence by the protesters is OK if that's what it takes to get things done. It's about time the English showed their passion for issues. This is our last chance to show them that the vote is not OK."

Ah, the wisdom of youth – not! I do hope he doesn’t plan to study politics….

Nigel David, 18, from Preston, Lancashire, said: "I feel there's a whole overtone about what the Tories are doing to this country: their idea of cutting things; removing key components of the welfare state; making it harder for people from underprivileged backgrounds to move up the ladder."

No, they are making it easier, actually, as Fuel Injected Moose points out. Do try to keep up…

I’m in agreement with Blue Eyes and Patently – on this dire showing, these prospective students don’t deserve a university education on our taxes, and certainly not to study pointless subjects leading to worthless pieces of paper.

The 'Guardian', meanwhile, was (rather unwisely) picking through its comments section and selecting what it thought was the comments which showed a brutal state clamping down on poor innocent students in a bid to make London look like Tiananmen Square.

Presented here are a representative sample for your delectation:

"Violent thugs? I am a 21-year-old literature student and I am a protester. I danced to music on Parliament Square as people spray painted NO on the grass, I shouted 'tory **** tory ****' with pride..."

"I was tired and cold and hadn't eaten for 12 hours or had any water."

"I saw that people were being kettled until 1am on Westminster Bridge. They were held there without toilet facilities, without water or food for 10 hours. We don't live in that kind of regime ... What we experienced is horrendous for a democratic regime."

"Three cold teenagers in T-shirts came past, looking upset, and I asked if they were OK. "They won't let us out," they said. "My Dad's called Scotland Yard and everything.""

"A group of around 20 protesters stormed a line of police keeping protesters in the square, managing to break through. As lots of protesters flocked to that corner, police reinforced their lines with more officers, before mobilising officers on horseback to try to push protesters back."

"Almost all of the defacement, fires, etc occurred after kettling – this is not to excuse that... I did try to step in and stop some of it, as when I told a kid to stop breaking up concrete to throw, but the people being violent were in no mood to listen. There were quite a significant number of those people there.."

"At one point, when we were told we could leave via Westminster Abbey, there were underage children crying and being crushed in the confusion caused by police officers."

"I was pushed backwards into the people behind me in the initial charge but the crushed and scared crowd pushed back to stop everyone falling over. I saw several around me hit by batons and fall, screaming. I was then hit over the head by a baton, hard enough to knock me sideways, then again, I think by the same officer. My ears rang and I couldn't hold my balance. I fell over and an officer stepped forward and deliberately stamped his foot into my chest, winding me.

A man next to me picked me up and held my bleeding head in front of the police (this I have heard from him as I was semi- or unconscious). They did not hit him but did not move aside. He repeatedly screamed for a medic but the police pretended not to hear him although it was clear to look at me that I needed one. He pushed his way through the police line who did not resist but hit a man who tried to follow.

Next to him, a police officer spontaneously collapsed, apparently feigning unconsciousness. As the officer was not on the front line, had had nothing thrown at him and was wearing full body armour including helmet with visor down, he could not have been injured (Ed: ORLY?). The only nearby medic immediately tended to this officer, who had apparently faked an injury."

"There were a series of short speeches from student union leaders and an RMT union official. Over half an hour or so these speakers invited protesters to "bring down the government" and " bring this country to a halt" (Ed: David Thompson was right about the 'warm glow of socialism' as a driving force for this demo...) and there were a number of references to what was felt to be over-aggressive policing.

The crowd, by the end of all this, was absolutely itching to get going..."

You can almost feel the baffled incomprehension in those accounts, the sudden realisation that this is the real world, where actions have consequences, where you are not allowed to do as you please, disrupt other people's activities, smash other people's property, without so,meone doing something to stop you.

Is this the first time some of these people have ever heard the word 'No'..?