Don't Worry Danielle, We Can All Read Between The Lines Here...

A British law student who “made a very stupid mistake” has been jailed for life in Dubai, her family claimed in a now deleted post. Mia O’Brien’s mother Danielle McKenna, 46, launched a heartfelt plea on a fundraising site for help with travel and legal fees, according to reports.

That ‘stupid mistake’ being what, exactly? You don’t need to worry about that little detail, just give us the money! 

O’Brien, 23, from Huyton, Liverpool, got “mixed up” with the wrong so-called friends and “is now paying the price”, Mrs McKenna said without specific details.

I think we can guess!  

It is understood GoFundMe removed the page because it violates its ban on the raising of funds for the legal defence of certain alleged crimes.

A clue! A verifiable clue! As if ‘young and dumb strumpet from Liverpool alone in Dubai’ wasn’t enough of one.  

Mrs McKenna reportedly told the Daily Mail: “She’s going through it at the minute. She’s just been transferred to another prison after getting a life sentence. “It’s been a massive shock.”

She must not have paid a lot of attention during her law lectures then?  

The family has not disclosed the crime Mia has been convicted of, but the country generally hands down life sentences for the following offences: drug trafficking and possession; murder or attempted murder; human trafficking and terrorism-related activities. A life sentence in the UAE typically means 25 years of imprisonment.

Whereas over here, she’d probably have been out in 25 weeks. If she ever saw any jail time at all. Oh well… 

It’s OK Gaby, The Ones Smart Enough To Not Believe This Are Doing Just Fine…

Young people in line for good degrees from good Russell Group universities, who have for years obediently jumped through every hoop provided, are working in bars, going travelling, or despondently applying to companies that they know use AI not only to sift their CVs, but sometimes to conduct first interviews.Meanwhile LinkedIn – and yes, students have all been on LinkedIn for years – only feeds the gnawing fear that other people seemingly have their futures much more sorted, just as Instagram used to feed their teenage anxieties about who was going to all the parties.

Oh, weep! Weep for the students!  

Last year’s Institute of Student Employers recruitment survey recorded a ratio of 140 applications for every graduate job. Part of the reason for that deluge of applicants is perhaps because kids who suspect their forms won’t be read by humans anyway are using ChatGPT to fill in and fire them off en masse, to the point where AI is in effect talking to AI.

Well, the way things are going that’s a good grounding for the future work they will be taking up! 

It’s the betrayal that hurts. We drilled it into them that if they worked hard at school and made it into university then the world could be their oyster, but our stagnant economy just hasn’t generated enough graduate-level jobs to match – especially outside London, where we have simultaneously managed to ensure most of them can’t actually afford to live.

Well, the ones that saw this coming and took up a trade instead of a useless degree in grievance studies are earning a good living now. They were smart enough not to believe the hype.  

We can’t keep doing this to young people and then be surprised when they’re angry. If we keep whipping them through the education system on the promise their efforts will be rewarded, and then fail to deliver, sooner or later, the consequences will boomerang back on us.

What consequences will those be? More overqualified baristas in Starbucks?

Well, You Got Something Right, Shaima...

...it was the right thing to do!

Welcoming the probe when it was announced in April, she told The Guardian: ‘The investigation is the right thing to do. I know quite a few Jewish students feel alienated.

‘This is the first step to start bridging the gap and reaching out to Jewish students and ensuring that they feel like they have a place in NUS, so I do welcome it.’

I look forward to you resigning, and not fighting this suspension, then.  

Student Priorities...

XOXO was recently rated the best spot in Brighton for bottomless brunch by The Bottomless Brunch Student Report. The report scored venues in the city out of 110, based on factors including value for money, the food menu size, vegan options and the proximity to a university campus.

XOXO scored a total of 62.96 out of 110, with high scores for their availability, proximity to a university campus, food menu size and vegan options.

It's amazing what students consider a priority, isn't it? How does this place score on the things those of us who have grown up and have some worldly knowledge think is a pr...

Oh. 

A brunch and cocktail bar has been ordered to carry out major improvements after scoring zero in a food hygiene inspection.

XOXO in Prince Albert Street, Brighton, was given the rating - meaning urgent improvements are necessary - following a Brighton and Hove City Council inspection on February 16.

A report published online stated that improvements were necessary in the cleanliness and condition of the facilities and building, including having appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control. It said urgent improvements were needed to the management of food safety, relating to the system or checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat and evidence that staff know about food safety.

Well, I guess food poisoning is pretty indistinguishable from overdoing it on cider and black the night before... 

Just Leave Them To It...

The group of mainly University of Brighton students booked out the room on Wednesday. Once inside the campus room, called G4, in Grand Parade, Brighton, they barricaded themselves in and are now refusing to leave until their demands are met or until an ongoing staff strike ends on Friday.

It would have to be Brighton, wouldn't it?

The students want the striking university staff’s demands met and also want the Student Union to show its support for them. They also want compensation for missed lectures.

They support the people making them miss lectures, and think they should be compensated by the people who are the targets of such action..?

Humanities student Izzy Smith, 21, said: “We wanted to support those who are striking and so we decided we would occupy a room.

“There is a fair amount of space in here, there are windows to put banners up and it was fairly easy to barricade.

“We are well versed in our rights – they told us that they were going to get someone called Barry to get us out.

“He still hasn’t turned up, we keep saying ‘where’s Barry?’, we think he might be myth.”

I hope 'Barry' is the head of the police riot squad, and he kicks down your flimsy barricade, pepper-sprays you, and drags you out by the hair...

The group. who call themselves The Brighton Student Lobbying Group, are taking it in turns to stay inside the room, with some sleeping overnight while others bring in supplies such as biscuits and Doritos.

One striker said she had to go to the toilet in a bottle.

Wait, hang on. That's all normal teenage life, isn't it? Just nail the door shut and use another room for the duration. 

Israel. It's Always Israel...

Muslim students have berated Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the victims of the New Zealand mosques massacre, saying she is to blame for the attack.

*blinks*

Wait, what...?

Has Chelsea Clinton been a part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy© all along...? Has she been hanging out on 4chan?

Leen Dweik began castigating her in an astonishing moment caught on video. 'This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,' says Dweik, gesturing to the vigil for the 49 who were killed in Christchurch when a white nationalist shooter stormed two mosques.

'And I want you to know that and I want you to feel that deeply - 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there,' Dweik continues, jabbing her index finger toward Clinton as other students snap their fingers in apparent approval of her words.

And now I'm feeling like I must have missed some vital part of US political news that I really should not have missed.

And then I read on...

According to NYU student Rose Asaf, who posted the video on Twitter, students at the vigil were angry about Clinton's accusation last month that Rep Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, used 'anti-Semitic language and tropes' while criticizing Israel.

And these students are the supposed products of progressive US politics. Just as Chelsea Clinton is. There should be no difference between them.

But there appears to be one. And if modern progressive educational opportunities can't fix it, can anything?

Laying The Blame On Everyone Else....

Concerns about the speed of the lorry and the driver’s visibility were raised by her family during the hearing.

...

The student’s family - who said they were “broken” by her death - also raised questions about measures put in place by the bonfire society organising the event and of the company which owns the lorry, Maritime Transport.

I'm not entirely sure why it's any of these people's responsibility to make sure their daughter didn't drink herself into a stupor.

Reports found she had a “significant blood alcohol level” of 194mg per 100ml of blood in her system and would have been “severely intoxicated”.

Sussex Police forensic collision investigator Julian Taylor said the size of the vehicle meant speed would make little difference if it hit a pedestrian and it would have been hard for any driver to avoid the crash.

Marks on the lorry were consistent with the theory she had been lying down at the time of the crash but Mr Taylor said he “could not explain” why she was in the road.

I think we all can, can't we?

Generation Snowflake Faces Adversity

Rather than spending the afternoon studying, students at University Centre Shrewsbury (UCS) enjoyed a break from their exams as they got close with guide dogs from the town’s Mobility Team and help raise money for the charity.

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association brought the puppies and adult dogs to Guildhall, UCS’s learning and research base.

The visit also helped raise funds for the charity and was part of the Stress Less campaign for students which has been running during the exam period.

Jeez. It's not like they are being asked to go over the top at the Somme, is it?

“Sitting exams can be a tough time so we’ve organised a series of activities to help to reduce stress levels including yoga sessions and things like having fresh fruit in the common room to keep healthy.

“The cuddle a puppy activity has proved extremely popular – there are lots of dog lovers here. It’s also given us a chance to raise some money for Guide Dogs and learn more about the charity.

“We’d like to say a big thank you to the Shrewsbury Mobility Team from the Association for bringing Farley, Leyland, Quilla and Krista to meet us today.”

They have a big wake-up call awaiting them when they start work. Their first induction day promises to be something to behold:

"So, here's the tea point, the stationery cupboard and..." 

"Wait, where the cuddle room?" 

"The...the what?!" 

"You know, with the puppies. For when we start feeling stressed?" 

"Yeeees. Right. OK, let me have a word with the HR Department..."

This Is The Future – A Sensible Shoe Stamping On A Human Face, Forever…

Boux Avenue - the underwear chain owned by Dragon's Den's Theo Paphitis- received complaints after displaying scantily dressed women hanging out washing in their Churchill Square shop window.

The shop was accused of "demeaning women with outdated ideology" through the display - but said that they had misjudged the display as simply "fun and engaging".

The company said the controversial displays would be removed from Brighton this week and not repeated across its chain of national stores after Brighton student Sarah Derby made a complaint.

Oh, I might have known! Just what is she studying, I wonder?

Miss Derby, 23, said: "I understand sex sells but this window displays a picture of women as sexualised domestic beings.

"They seem to be saying that to be sexy you also need to be able to do the laundry.

"I live in Kemp Town and walk past all the sex shops every day. This isn't about being prudish but sexuality shouldn't be linked with domesticity.

"The implications of women as being nothing more than sexualised domestic beings reinforces anachronistic gender roles of 50 plus years ago."

In her full complaint to the company, Miss Derby questioned why the firm had not chosen to display attractive women in the House of Commons, laboratories or succeeding at sport.

Because none of those things are likely to be done in your knickers and bra, which is what this shop sells, you dim little harridan?

However other shoppers questioned whether the display caused any harm. One woman said: "I think there are probably more important things to get offended by than this.

"Surely people would be just as offended if they advertised their frilly knickers with MPs in front of the House of Commons."

Of course they would.

Because for so many of today’s coddled little kidults, ‘being offended’ is their raison de etre…

Hasn't York Suffered Enough..?

Renowned broadcaster and writer Trevor Phillips OBE, a one time head of Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission and outspoken critic of multiculturalism, will be at a York Union event in February, for a debate organised by the student-run society.

The public event will see him go head to head with commentator David Goodhart, director of the think tank Demos; Bristol-based academic Prof Tariq Modood and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams; on whether multiculturalism has "failed" Britain.

Blimey, the locals must be hoping the floodwater never recedes...

York Union's spring term programme in now "shaping up nicely", organisers added, with the multiculturalism event on Thursday, February 11 and Oxford University social geographer Danny Dorling due to speak on 1 percent" on Monday, January 11.

The group is also working on a debate on campus free speech - which they say promises to be a controversial topic in the light of strong No Platform policies at many student unions.

Worth getting your canoe out for...

Diversity Officer - Yr Doin' It Wrong!

/facepalm

Update: Might decide that mocking selfie wasn't a good idea after all, Bahar....

No Advertising Please, We’re Students!

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on the awful injustice of … getting an advertising email in your inbox?

If you needed further proof that education has become little more than a commodity, then the news that Ucas is selling access to millions of students to advertisers might just be it.

Just advertisers? Good lord, from the pearl-clutching going on, you’d think she’d discovered they were planning to sell students’ personal details to white slavers...

And anyway, aren't teenagers supposed to be clued up on all this technology stuff? Just set up a divert for these emails to go straight to the trash folder – job done!

Yes, you can opt out of receiving the digital marketing emails, but only by also agreeing to miss out on the education and careers newsletters, too.

And how many students even read these in the first place? Will they miss them?

But it seems Rhiannon has been perturbed by commercialisation even from a tender age:

Even as a teenager I knew instinctively it was wrong. It was about 10 years ago that the first advertising posters cropped up at my school, in the corridors and canteen, advertising films and junk foods. Prior to that we had been using Pepsi-branded exercise books, but the posters were a step too far.

Couldn’t you have just hurried past, eyes cast firmly on the ground, shielding yourself from the awful sight..?

“Consequences? What, Me..? Surely Not!?”

Konstancja Duff, 25, was arrested, ordered to pay an £810 fine and given a three-month conditional discharge after writing slogans in coloured chalk during a protest for the rights of cleaning staff.

Ms Duff, who has taught part-time at Birkbeck College and is now studying for a PhD in philosophy at Sussex university, said: “Any normal person would think chalk could be rubbed off.

“It is an accepted form of campaigning around the university to write things in chalk.”

Well, guess what, honey, out in the real world we call it ‘vandalism’.

Fifty London academics have written to university bosses to complain about her “vindictive” treatment. They also sent dishcloths, which they said could have been used to clean the chalk off.

Cool! If I was the university management, I’d put out a news report thanking them for the free dishcloths and the subsequent reduction in the cleaning supply bill...

A university spokesman said: “The graffiti on the foundation stone required high-pressure hydrocleaning, which resulted in the removal of the gold lettering, which needed to be replaced.

“The university did not press charges against the individual.”

Well, no. Because this isn't America.

*Shrugs* It’s Not Like They Hurled A Fire Extinguisher At You From A Tall Building, Is It?

Students today accused police of a “heavy-handed” response as more than 100 officers armed with batons broke up a sit-in at the University of London.

Cue Student Grant howling about the ‘unfairness’ of it all…

A 24-year-old student and part-time teacher told the Standard: "I have never seen a student occupation treated like this. This was a civic matter, but the university got at least 100 police officers in to deal with it which seems extremely heavy-handed."

Awwww….

Just to show I care...

A statement from ULU said: "We are still investigating what happened but initial reports indicate protesters were assaulted by both police and security, thrown to the ground, kicked and punched, and dragged to the ground by their hair. When supporters gathered outside to show support for the occupation, they were beaten back and assaulted.

"Occupations are a legitimate form of dissent. When our university shuts down our student union, and are utterly unaccountable to the students and staff that give it life and make it function, students have no choice but to gain leverage in whatever way they can."

And when that way contravenes the law, you’ll be dealt with. Like you have been here.

Take it away, chaps!

  

Doreen St Felix – The True Face Of Modern ‘Activism’

On Tuesday, we engaged in public discourse.

Heh! Yes. Just the sort of 'public discourse' we can expect from the modern student, as taught by the modern lecturer, as David Thompson has so exhaustively documented...

Discourse facilitated, legitimized, and moneyed by the few in power is not true "discourse" at all. Those who asserted themselves in protest – an organized, deliberated and strategically executed protest, to be clear – exposed the falsity of these terms. As a young black woman, I am proud to be a part of this community.

Really? I can't think why. Even at CiF, most of the comments (and there's only 43 at time of writing!) point out just what a hopeless, losing tactic it was.

When organizers spoke with Taubman Center officials, they were told that it would not be cancelled. This is not surprising. The institutions comfortably occupying the uppermost echelons of our unequal society seem to only recognize a particular type of conversation, one in which there is only one microphone.

These intellectually rigorous, fearsome ‘speak truth to power’ activists wanted the talk cancelled. Yes, cancelled.

I saw Kelly assume his position of power on that elevated platform. We saw this, and we got angry. As planned, the young black man in front of me stood and raised his fist in protest, and we followed suit. We read a statement, demanding accountability from the Brown institution for bringing Kelly to the university under the auspices of a "successful policing policy" and for its role in perpetuating systematic oppression. For the next 30 minutes, people in the audience stood up – some heckling, some reading prepared statements, until the talk was cancelled.

So, you got your way, through force, and by showing yourselves up to be afraid to counter his argument by anything but force. Go, you!

And then you find out that, instead of being hailed for your bravery, you are almost universally condemned. Hoe unfair!

Since Tuesday, the responses to the action show unambiguously the dangerously circumscribed place of true discourse and conversation in this country. Dozens of posts on my Facebook news feed from former and current students expressed shame at a "minority" group for their "screeching", their "uncivilized behavior", and for their disregard for "freedom of speech". Intelligent individuals wielded bluntly the "civilizing" project that sanctioned centuries of oppression. The Daily Beast, among other outlets, diluted the situation to a false dichotomy of campus liberals and free speech.

Oh, how that must sting! The truth always does.

And most disappointing to me, my own university president both misunderstood the true nature of educational discourse, chastising not only students but hard-working individuals in Dare as "disruptive". President Paxson failed to mention the racist and unconstitutional nature of stop-and-frisk in her statements – she could only reduce and allude to the policy as an "opposing view".

Because it is. Weren't you listening in any of your lecture? Did you learn nothing? Why are you even at university anyway?

A community forum attended by over 600 students held at the university Wednesday evening did not include, and furthermore did not even acknowledge the achievements Dare and other organizations have reached through decades of activism against racial profiling.

Because they are as sick and tired of your pathetic attempts to foment revolution as the 'establishment', perhaps?

To frame the protest as an "infringement of free speech" for one of the most influential white men in America, is to deny what the protest so powerfully communicated: protest is discourse on the terms of the oppressed, and it takes a "disruption" for marginalized communities to have their voices heard.

We've heard your voice. And dismissed what it has to say. So, I guess you did learn something, after all. It probably won't do you much good in whatever job you manage to get once you leave university, though...

Welcome To The Real World!

Students have been “let down” by private landlords in Brighton and Hove according to the Student Union.

Oh? How?

A survey by Sussex University's Student Union revealed students looking to rent accommodation can find it a stressful and expensive process.

Ummm, newsflash, folks, it’s not exactly a walk in the park for anyone else, either…

In its annual Rate Your Landlord report, based on the response of 1,586 students, the union found a third of students felt under pressure to pay fees immediately in order to secure a house they had viewed.

Yes, again, just like anyone else anxious to secure a property. Welcome to reality, kiddies. Get used to it.

Almost half of all respondents received their deposit back in full but among those who had their deposit withheld (either in full or partially) only a small percentage felt the deductions were reasonable.

But were they, in fact, reasonable? Who cares how the students ‘felt’ about it?

Sophie van der Ham, Students' Union Welfare Officer, said: “This report shows that students are a particularly vulnerable group of users renting in the private rented sector.

“Often students are living independently of their parents for the first time, and don't have the experience and information needed to make informed decisions about properties.

“Students need specific, accessible and clear information available to them about landlords, letting agents, properties, and their rights.

"There are also inequalities and specific issues within the student population, with non-UK students at a particular disadvantage when they are required to provide a UK-based guarantor to letting agents.”

Well, can’t the Union provide that information? What else is it spending its money on?

The union is lobbying for greater regulation of the private rented sector as well as a reduction in the fees students must pay to private landlords and an improvement in property standards.

Ah, right. Because if they have to pay more for their accommodation, that leaves them short of union dues money, I suppose?

Alice Ain’t So Smart….

The University of Leeds' student union has said that it will not play Robin Thicke's controversial song 'Blurred Lines', following the lead of Edinburgh University which banned it a week ago.

Alice Smart, an officer at Leeds' student union, told The Independent that the song would not now be played in any of the three nightclubs and two bars operated by the union.

So, are you going to also go around ripping the headphones off people to see if they are playing the 'forbidden' song?

Or is this just another symbolic and pointless gesture, like we're used to from student unions?

She said that the decision had been taken collectively by the union's sabbatical officers, because it "undermines and degrades women".

"The reaction has been mainly positive," she added. "A few students are asking why if we have banned this song, we aren't banning everything, but we've chosen this one as an example, because it's so popular."

And does that popularity perhaps have anything to do with the 'outrage'?

"Blurred Lines" has been a worldwide hit, reaching number one in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. With more than 5m sales in 22 weeks in the US alone, it is the fastest-selling digital song in history.

Clearly, Thicke's not so thick, and Alice ain't so smart...

Let Them Eat Pot Noodle!

Students are protesting against the high food prices in their cafeteria which they say are adding to student poverty.

I thought they just lived on Pot Noodle, baked beans and beer? And pot?

The students' union handed out free sandwiches at lunchtime today, and yesterday, to encourage students not to use the canteen.

They hope that this boycott will force the caterers to think again about the prices they charge.

If people are still paying it in sufficient numbers, it’s unlikely.

The students' union president, Manoj Iyer, 30, claims that the external company which provides their catering compares its prices to those at Marks and Spencer, not to other student outlets.

He says that the canteen charges 99p for a can of coke while many shops charge as little as 60p.

Mr Iyer, who is in his second year as students' union president, also argues that the canteen charges up to £7 for a meal of chicken and chips with salad and a drink.

So buy your coke elsewhere and take sandwiches. Job done!

Oh, wait. I see someone’s already ahead of me there:

Mahdi Abuka, 20, a television production student, said: “The prices are really high in the canteen. We are students so we don’t have that much money to spend.

“I go and buy food elsewhere because it is too expensive on campus.

“I only buy food here when I have to.”

There you go! You didn’t need the Student Union to help you in that decision, clearly!

Pro Vice-Chancellor Warren Forsyth, from Middlesex's Estates and Facilities Management Service, said: "We meet with the Students' Union regularly and acted on recent feedback by introducing a greater choice of offers and a new lower price range of sandwiches starting at £1.

“This was implemented immediately after calls for cheaper options.”

It doesn’t seem to have satisfied them much. I guess there’s just no appeasing some people?

"Student satisfaction is a core priority and we continue to keep the dialogue open with our students, including acting on feedback from a University wide survey into our catering which launched in March and comes to a close at the end of April."

So the SU is organising a protest, you’re running surveys, the canteen is getting on with running a canteen, and the students are happily making their own decision on whether to eat in the expensive canteen or bring sandwiches.

Is anyone doing any, well, teaching or learning..?

Somehow, I Seem To Feel No Sympathy…

Farah Al-Nahda (student activist and aspiring journalist) whinges to CiF about the Met Police’s ‘Send a letter to a protester’ initiative:

The night before 30 November, I considered joining the rally in central London. I hadn't been on a protest since being arrested last year at the student protest at Millbank.

Oh? And what were you arrested for?

I was one of the last people to enter the building that day, and I was curious: my passion for nonviolent direct action and a journalistic nose made me go in. We took the lift to the roof, I filmed and tweeted away, and after 10 minutes decided that it was probably best to leave. By then, however, the police had put the building on lockdown and started making arrests.

Ah. Right. Aggravated trespass. Hope you think it was worth it?

Could I finally move on? It doesn't seem like it. Exactly a year on, I received my first letter from the Metropolitan police reminding me not to involve myself in any "criminal or antisocial behaviour".

Most of us don’t need telling. They must have thought you a special case...

I ran upstairs to read it. The words were the same as the last one, but this time I found the repeated initiative to be intimidating and sinister. The letters thankfully came in plain envelopes and didn't have a logo on them – had they seen it, my parents would have been very upset. I put them through a lot while I was on bail, and they have been scared ever since. The last thing they need is a reminder of those dark times.

Don’t they have one every time they look at you?

Will I receive them every time there is an anti-cuts protest? For the rest of my life? What if my political opinions change one day?

I’d be astounded if they did.

I wonder if the Met send letters to members of the EDL every time they rally, telling them not to cause racial aggravation or commit a crime?

I doubt it, they never pose the same horrendous threat of disorder, do they?

How much money are they wasting on these letters? Even with a first-class stamp, they didn't make it in time to scare protesters off. What is the point? After being arrested, I am naturally more cautious. I definitely do not go out of my way to make trouble.

Good! Working as intended, then. I don’t begrudge them the stamp…

I just want to get on with my life, and be able to protest without intimidation.

You can protest. You can’t commit aggravated trespass. There’s a difference.

I just wish I could get myself removed from this database. The crime I committed is subjective, depending on your beliefs. But I don't deserve to get these letters intimidating and scaring me from my right to protest.

Yes. Yes you do. Because you don't seem able to separate the right to peaceful protest from the chance to run wild smashing up public and private property, clearly...

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'..?