From a report on the student protests:

Few seem to be older than 18, and several I have spoken to were under 16, having sneaked away from lessons without the knowledge of their schools

Wouldn't it make more sense to stay at school and get the qualifications necessary to get into university? Because I'm pretty sure that playing truant doesn't look great on a UCAS form...

Those Protestin' Blues

The usual caveat that students, like everyone in our increasingly limited democracy, applies to this post. That said...

...the latest protest against spending cuts in education/tuition fee rises left me wondering just what the hell those involved wished to achieve. If it managed to achieve anything, it was simply alienating even more people. You could, as the students protested again, hear the whole of Middle England tutting in unison as their preconceptions about students were reinforced. Hell, even I muttered something under my breath about that combined "workshy" and "students", and I'm one myself at the moment. Way to win support, ladies and gents. Next up, you should have someone punching an old woman to make your "point". That should work even better. Assuming, of course, that your objective is to alienate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

I dare say that the point of these protests was to draw attention to their cause. Which, in a sense, meant that these protests worked. In the same way that the tramp on the bus on the way home who has pissed himself also gets attention. Another protest so soon after the last one and before any real negotiation with the government takes place is the clearly the best way to make all those protesting look like gargantuan tools. And in the long term, it will cease to even get them attention. Tedious people doing tedious things over and over again is never the best way to capture the national imagination.

Of course, I suspect that there is a sense in which this was not a protest to actually make a point, but rather because protesting has become (probably briefly) very fashionable again. It's what all the cool kids are doing, see? At least until they get bored and find some other way of posturing.

Sure, I sound cynical - but guess what? That cynicism is borne from experience. These protests will achieve nothing - and the more there are of them, the more self-indulgent the students will look and the more powerful the government will become in this matter. If you want to stop these rises in tuition fees, then you need to work out a much better way of doing so. The efficacy of protesting can always be questioned; continued protesting is just plain dumb.

Student Morons

Via the ever melodramatic Penny Red*, an interesting comment from one of those idiotic students who rioted last week:

"Look, we all saw what happened at the big anti-war protest back in 2003," says Tom, a postgraduate student from London. "Bugger all, that's what happened. Everyone turned up, listened to some speeches and then went home. It's sad that it's come to this, but..." he gestures behind him to the bonfires burning in front of the shattered windows of Tory HQ. "What else can we do?"

What else can you do? Well, perhaps you could try negotiating in the year or so before these fee and cuts rises come into effect before you resort to violence.

See, there is this thing you might have heard of called diplomacy. It allows for people to talk, to negotiate with each other and come up with a peaceful solution. It is what countries do when they don’t agree on things – a dispute between rival nations tends to lead to further talk, rather than sending in the bombers.

What else could you do, Tom? You could have talked – tried to persuade the government to change their plans, or persuaded the people to back you in your dispute with the government. Instead, you and your idiotic ilk have managed to alienate pretty much all moderate people in this country at the same time as making the government – and the Tory party – into the victim in this little drama. The riot, the broken windows, the possible attempted murder charge – what you and your friends did, Tom Not Nice And Dim, is pretty much the worse thing you could have done. Any sympathy most people may have had has gone – and it is your fault.

*As an aside, check this article out for some more jaw-dropping hyperbole from Ms Penny - where the student rioters are compared to the suffragettes.

The Student Protest(s)

So... the student protests. How did they work out for you, my student brethren? Well? Do you think you achieved something positive? Because if you do, then you're an idiot.

Before we start out on just why the protest/demonstration/second-rate riot was a shit idea, let me first declare categorically that it is the right of everyone in this country to protest on any issue they so wish. It is one of the few remaining privileges our increasingly misanthropic and patronisingly paternalistic leaders allow us. We should protest; it gives volume to our often muted and forgotten voices.

However, before anyone does protest they need to work out (a) what they are protesting about and (b) what they hope to achieve from the protests. And on both of these counts, the student protest(s) on Wednesday failed.

First up, let's look at what the protest was about (and in the process, what it wanted to achieve). It wanted to make a near bankrupt government (consisting mainly of Tories, with some Liberal Democrats thrown in for good measure) reverse its decision on tuition fees. Fair enough - self-interest has always been a big part of politics, and it always will be. The problem, though, lies in some of the messages being broadcast by the protestors. To claim that Nick Clegg was nicking the money of students, or carrying signs and shouting chants along the lines of "Tory scum" is hardly likely to get the incumbent government onside. But the fundamental question (and challenge) remains - what are you protesting about? The fact that tuition fees will go up in the future? Or that the incumbent government happens to be Tory and is propped up by an increasingly compromised Liberal Democrat party?

But there is another problem inherent in the protest(s) - the idea that students are in some way owed this money. If the money is coming from the government, then it isn't their money. It isn't even the government's. It is taken by the government from the taxpayer using inherently coercive measures. If you want the money supplied by the government, then you need to convince the person who ultimately parts with the case - the British taxpayer - that you deserve the money. And a lacklustre protest that occasionally flared into vandalism and violence is not the best way to do that.

The reality is that universities will get less money moving forward, and that fees will rise. Therefore, what students needs to do is convince the government (and, I'd humbly suggest, the taxpayer) that their courses, and their institutions, contribute something to society that warrants the cost incurred by that society - if, that is, they want to keep the fees down and the funds up. So guess what? You have to sell your course and your university. And yes, that will be easier if you are talking about PPE at Oxford than if you are talking about Media Studies as De Montfort. But it can still be done, even if you are studying the latter.

The point is this, though - you have a democratic right to protest. But if you want to get the government and the people of this country on your side then you need to do something a little more convincing that heading out on a midweek protest that descends into political point-scoring, anti-Tory chanting and pathetic vandalism. This protest will have set you back, Mr and Ms Student. It will have set you back one hell of a lot. You have come across as feckless, unthinking morons. And I say this both as a postgraduate student, and as someone who hopes before to long to teach at university level.

Student Radicalism

Or rather, the lack thereof.

Once upon a time, and for a fleeting moment, students were genuinely radical and – in the case of France – actually looked, for one fleeting moment, like they could have a real impact on political history. Indeed, some Marxists – such as Herbert Marcuse – began to see students as the impetus for revolution rather than the proletariat. But that faded… until now, in this day and age, we have the spectre of student protests again. Not over war or discrimination in society, however, but rather over the amount that they have to pay in order to get their university education.

I’d imagine that some of the potential protestors – such as the socialists shouting “Stop the Tory Axemen!” on campus last week – see themselves as radicals, taking direct action and “fightin’ the power”!

In a sense, of course, they are right. They are fighting the government, and the right to protest is something I absolutely support. But I do think that those involved in the protests should be under no illusion what they are doing. They are not being radical, they are being fundamentally conservative. By definition, conservatives resist change – and what are these protests about? Conserving the status quo. Resisting change. Nothing radical about that.

And what motivates these conservative protests? Self-interest. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with self-interest – it motivates vast swathes of politics, and always has done. But this is a world away of protesting to end the Vietnam War, or for civil rights.

Following on from this, you can see just how student radicalism is at least wasting away, if not a terminal case. Look at what has happened over the past few years – the police killing people, the attempts to bring in extended periods of detention, the bailing out of failed banks with public money (that could have been spent, among other things, further education) and so on – all met with nary a mutter from the majority of students in this country. Yet come a potential increase in the costs of education or a reduction in the amount of money some institutions have to spend, and the sleeping student behemoth awakens.

So by all means, have your protests, make your voices heard – that is your right as participants in a democracy. But please don’t pretend that you’re being anything other than self-interested conservatives.