British students in piss poor attempt at mimicking the French

[afleitch]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11726822

"There have been clashes between demonstrators and police in London, as students and lecturers protest against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England.

Protesters have broken into the building housing the Conservative Party headquarters in Westminster.

They have set fire to placards outside.

Student leaders condemned the latest action as "despicable". They say about 30,000 people took part in a march earlier.

A stand-off is taking place between students and the police, with protesters surging forward at Millbank Tower, chanting.

Some protesters are on a roof terrace at the top of the building.

Missiles have been thrown at the police, as thousands of demonstrators crowd the street outside.

According to Scotland Yard, nine people have been taken to hospitals in London for treatment - both police officers and protestors."

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[afleitch]

Note: Winston i've deleted your post. You're lucky I deleted it before it was reported and infracted. I will not have incitement to violence on this board.

[afleitch]

The protests are in part (motivated by the NUS) political. Such action would have been welcome over the past 13 years under which Labour introduced tuition fees, then top up fees restructured the student loans system, effectively abolished student grants and privatised the Student Loans Agency. But of course, those apparently trivial developments aside, the proposal to increase the levy of tuition fees to a higher maximum was the result of Lord Browne's report which began it's deliberations in November of last year on the orders of Lord Mandelson. The Browne Report was criticised for a possible lack of impartiality given Lord Browne's business links with Labour and close friendship with Mandelson.

Labour essentially got the report it wanted. But of course now it doesn't. Despite this all 3 major parties have essentially committed themselves to meeting the cost of higher education through either an increase in tuition fees or a graduate tax (Miliband backs a graduate tax) What has been proposed is a flat upper limit of £9,000 (much lower than was expected when the commission was first set up) while also raising the threshold for paying it back from earnings of £15,000 to about £20,000

Interesting to see some Labour MP's appearing condoning the violence given the 'tweets' by John McDonnell and Alex Cunningham. Welcome to the Tea Party...