Blog: ‘I predicted a riot’
Thursday 11th November 2010, 6:00AM GMT.
Shrewsbury student Liam Thomas gives his view of the violent scenes that erupted at Millbank Tower, the Conservative Party Headquarters, during yesterday’s protest against plans to charge students up to £9000 a year in university tuition fees.
A couple protest outside the wrecked front of Millbank Tower
I got home from college, switched on the TV and saw that the student protests were out of hand – and it didn’t surprise me at all.
I knew something like this was inevitable – that was my reason for not joining the coachload of students from Shrewsbury.
I can see why the protests happened, but what I don’t understand is why a it had to get so out of hand.
I know everyone’s going to feel the pain of the cuts, but potentially tripling university fees – up to £9000 – is insane.
If they had to be paid upfront, I’d never think about going to university, but with student loans, it does look look possible for me.
Under Government proposals for student funding published earlier this month, universities will be able to charge £6,000 per year in fees from 2012, and up to £9,000 a year in “exceptional circumstances”.
This could potentially affect me a lot. If I’m earning under £15000 for 30 years after graduating I won’t have to pay anything back, but if I’m earning over £15000 I may be stuck paying back for a long time.
I support the peaceful protest, but rioting? What were these people thinking? I suppose that smashing up a building gets a bit more press coverage, but it’s pathetic to be violent and injure people.
This will end one of two ways: Government will stop the fees rise, so that there are no more riots and protests, or they will increase the fees even more,making us students pay for the damage the riots have caused.
The government says that the fees increase won’t affect us until graduating, but I do wonder how much of this is true.
One of my friends says that his favourite mythical creature is the honest politician.
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People must demonstrate however it cant be used as an excuse to riot.
All those identified by photo should be arrested charged with public order offences, criminal damage etc etc . The complaint then with regards tuition fees will not be a problem for them as who wants these people working in their company? and the their chosen career would be in ruins . The blame for that would be at the feet of those who commit the crime.However I think if they have plans to repeat this the police and riot squad will be ready and they may wish they attended college instead.
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Makes ya heart swell with pride. Young people doing something collectively for the community they live in. There’s yer ‘Big Society’ idea in action right there. And so it begins.
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Hypothetical thinking time…
Ten years ago this wouldn’t have happened because 50% of those demonstrating wouldn’t have secured a place in higher education, fewer places being the reason. The other 50% wouldn’t be demonstrating because there would be enough money to go around fewer students.
Discuss.
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10 years ago most of them would have been at primary school where riots can be easily quelled with a swift broadcast of ‘In the Night Garden’ (funnily enough featuring Iggle-Piggle, a noted David Cameron look-a-likey; it’s something to do with the large forehead, slight quiff, bean shaped head and just off centre gob).
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You know what I meant!
I happened to see In The Night Garden for the first time yesterday evening, as my 1 year old dozed off on top of me. I see what you mean about Iggle Piggle.
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I think this has been blown up out of proportion. There was a much larger turn out than expected and you always get some troublemakers in any crowd situation, that’s why the police do not allow a build up of people unless in a controlled setting.
What made me annoyed was the woman from the Daily Mail on R4 this morning saying that in her day students rioted about important things like Vietnam etc but not about other people paying for their education.
Who paid for hers all those years ago?
She wrongly said students had never marched before about fees.
When you just look at the footage of the miner’s strike in the 1970s the students in Shrewsbury were protesting about the talk at that time that grants were to be withdrawn.
The miners would not have been a worthy cause to protest about either according to this Janet from the Daily Hate Mail, I imagine whereas supporting another country and foreigners was a far greater cause in her youth. Funny how time change eh!
My son went to uni for a year and was horrified at the debts he saw students were accumulating. One of his friends had to go back to Derby as his older brother had gone back to live at home with a massive £40,000 debt, was unable to get a job and his mum was fending off bailiffs trying to take her possessions, supporting her son being not what she expected to have to do again.
So you simplistically reckon you can stay earning under the limit for 30 years until your debt is paid off. Well in some respects you may be right. It is harder and harder to get full time work (a reason for not spending given by folk in Germany who are doing better than us apparently)
As well as that the marvellous money you are going to earn with a degree under your belt is a fallacy too so good luck in evading the constant phone calls and threats regarding your debt you will be fending off whilst trying to get on with all the other rites of passage in life like a home and kids.
In the past you lived very cheaply and were not a commodity to be milked and if you didn’t go to uni there were other ways of climbing the career ladder and no real lack of jobs.
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This would be the Daily Mail whose headline today is ‘Hijacking of a very middle class protest’. Because that’s reassuring – it was non-Middle Class leftist anarchists – Not Middle-Class right wing anarchists like the Libertarians who are just fine and dandy. Because that’s reassuring cos the middle classes aren’t in revolt – because their readership is middle class and they couldn’t possibly disagree with university fee hikes ‘cos they voted Conservative, for sure, they always do, cos they’re Middle-Class not the ‘can only be self-interested & lazy’, if only they pulled up their boots working class, what else would they do.
Like there ever has really been a Middle Class. Like the supposed Middle Class isn’t afraid of what would happen, how they’d cope, if they lost their jobs and ceased to work. Because they have to work. Because they’re (the ‘Middle Class’) really working class with pretensions.
Here’s some basic algebra for students, David Cameron = DC = Divide & Conquer.
Blimey, I’ve just channelled the spirit of Jimmy Reid. I don’t know what came over me. Please accept my apologies. Normal service will be resumed when the Shropshire Star publishes an emergency story on rabbits, ghosts or UFOs.
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Nystagmus: “Normal service will be resumed when the Shropshire Star publishes an emergency story on rabbits, ghosts or UFOs.”
I don’t know about that – you’ll probably have to make do with another punch-up at Bishops Castle Town Council….
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You are talking through your hat. I voted for the Tories and I totally and utterly object to the massive hike in student fees, indeed, given the right circumstances, like a guarantee that the anarchists and extreme left wingers wouldn’t hijack it, and of course that the the organisers were credible, articulate and educated people unlike many of the morons on yesterdays demo, I would also go on demos with Uni students. And, just in case you doubt which side of the political/social spectrum most of the violent hijackers came from, you perhaps are not aware of the various left wing groups that together make up the species known as “Anarchists”. These, on demos can be identified by those rallying to people carrying red and black flags, invariably they go carrying banners indicating “class struggle” and in many cases they also go carrying tools to break glass, do damage etc. By their appearance and antics should they be known. Some carry workers helmets, many wear scarves and the last thing on their minds is what the genuine, well behaved demonstrators are about, they are bent on violence pure and simple and they probably wouldn’t know what anything above the level of a primary school looks like. No jokes, excuses, praise or one iota of credence should be given to this scum, they are not friends of genuine students and do their cause much harm. Even the daily Mail got it right today if that was it’s headline – bully for them.
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THESE PEOPLE WHO DEMONSTRATED NEED SUPPORT AS THIS GOVERNMENT IS TEARING UP DEMOCRACY FOR SELF INTEREST I REMEMBER THE 80′S THEY SOLD EVERYTHING FOR TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH AND SOD ANYONE ELSE.THEY MIGHT HAVE BEENSCUM IF THEY HAD DONE IT FOR NOTHING BUT THEY WANT A EDUCATION WITHOUT A MORTGAGE AT THE AGE OF 23 THESE ARE OUR YOUTH. HE WHO HAS YOUTH HAS A FUTURE? KEEP FIGHTING AS YOU AND I WILL NEED THIS TO HAPPEN MORE AS OUR SERVICES DWINDLE.
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I apologise if I am also blowing this out of proportion, but I think that the sight of someone aiming a fire extinguisher off the top of a building on to police officers below is slightly more annoying than the views of a woman from the Daily Mail.
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Phew! Those two look they could kick off any moment..no wonder Robocop is holding back
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These yobs have managed to ruin any integrity that the protest might have had. Are these the people that tax payers should have to pay to educate? Forget it, you’ve lost your argument & the sympathy of a lot of the general public. You’ll have to make do with the Primary, secondary & college education already funded by taxpayers – if you want more then you’ll have to pay your own way!
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Students should have to pay towards their education as it’s an investment in their future… If I decided to leave my job and re-train, I’d be expected to pay for it out of my own pocket. However, a 3x rise in fees is insane and unfair… the value of a University education is limited nowadays (unless you’re going to Oxford or Cambridge in which case you can probably afford it anyway), and having a degree no longer guarantees you even a halfway decent job; I work with (and get paid more than) numerous people who have got degrees.
The universities will suffer as a result of these changes; they won’t be able to keep offering silly, pointless courses anymore because people are going to be reluctant to get themselves £40k into debt for the sake of a media-studies degree which gives them no conceiveable advantage over their non-degree-holding peers.
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I must disagree with the statement here that those students attending Oxford or Cambridge ‘can probably afford it anyway’… Just because people are intelligent enough to attend the most prestigious universities in the country does not necessarily mean they are wealthier… however, given these proposals it soon will.
I think the issue is not just with the increase in the cost of a degree, but it will be an opportunity for universities to be elitist, with the top universities charging more because they are better, and as such only people from wealthier backgrounds will be able to afford a good education.
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I have a child who is working towards his GCSE’s at the moment…. At his age I would have loved the opportunities afforded by University but this was something which I knew my family could not support.
I have no problem with funding a fair part of my son’s university education, and would do so willingly – IF – I had been made aware of this some time ago and could have taken steps (as they do in America) to create a fund for this purpose. Now, with just a few years before he would go to University I do not have the means to find such a vast amount of money and neither do I want to blight his future with a huge debt overshadowing him.
If the Government don’t want to rule ‘poorer’ families out of university education they need to give families time to save for his rather than burden them with debt.
The thought of any young person starting off their working lives with a £30K debt horrifies me as that was what my first mortgage was and I haven’t finished paying that off 22 years later!
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For the remainder of the week at least, the focus in Government will no longer be Tuition fees but the police due to the lack of officers on the scene. the minority have ruined it for the majority.
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I probably should have said in Parliament rather than Government. My bad.
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Clearly the funding of universities is a difficult ‘circle to square’ for the government, so to speak.
However, the fee rise seems to be a complete slap in the face to prospective students, delivered from those who reaped the benefits of free degree education. The best message they can send is ‘if you want to aspire to a degree education, you’ll have to take on a load of debt to get it’. Then, when they do graduate, they are increasingly expected by unscrupulous employers to work as ‘interns’ in order to get a foot in the door.
One final point: raising the fees will not, as many seem to think, get rid of ‘mickey mouse’ courses. Those whose parents can afford to bankroll their time at university will still go regardless.
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It’s easy to call courses Mickey Mouse and to denigrate anything not considered vital like art is perceived to be.
I know medics who scoff at any art courses yet they wear clothes, use products everyday some of which are well designed and some not, sit on furniture,live in houses,watch TV programmes, films I could go on.
The problem is we do not have enough jobs and if the govt try to use less challenging work as a punishment that takes away even more work.
Since the Thatcher years where the concept of ‘time is money’ was promoted, families are supposed to workelsewhere and rear chidren at the same time and it has been shown in many ways not to work. That’s not to advocate all women staying at home if they have children but the responsibilities of family must be more fairly considered.
Only higher education for the well off is criminal.
Only healthcare for the well off is criminal.
Only a decent old age for the well off is criminal.
Any one person can only do a certain amount in the same amount of time but some people are paid ridiculously inflated salaries without the end responsibility for their actions entailing any real sort of risk.
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why do i have to pay more to go to university
that’s not fair,
but david cameron apparently thinks otherwise
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