Kettling Reaches Boiling Point.

At around midday I was on the train to London Waterloo with my girlfriend Alicia; we were heading to Norfolk for a gig at the UEA. Ali, like a little wrinkly busybody, pointed out the window and said "Look at that. Wonder what's going on over there?" I rolled my eyes, typically bored of other people's nosiness, and nonchalantly looked out of the window to see four helicopters in the sky around the Westminster area.

My first thought, admittedly, was "Oh fuck. Terrorists." because of all the scaremongering that goes on in newspapers and on TV (e.g., the propaganda posters around town saying "A bomb didn't go on in this area because a neighbour noticed these bottles of chemicals in the bin on her street" like we all have terrorists as neighbours and should always be snouting through any dark skinned neighbours rubbish.) Ali checked Sky News and we realised it was another student demonstration going on in Whitehall. Four helicopters seemed a bit excessive but I guess the police needed to show they weren't going to put up with any of the nastiness of last time.

When I got home I checked the news again and saw more violence had erupted at student protests around the UK. A police van, allegedly costing 80 thousand pounds, was rocked back and forth as hordes of people surrounded it. The windscreen was smashed; the inside broken into and looted by opportunists / thieves. Police ended up assaulted again, one officer ended up with a broken hand (hopefully his baton holding hand for the little shit that broke it).

It bewilders me how these young people, possibly our future doctors and nurses but more likely our future shop assistants and journalists, can be so stupid as to pick a fight with the police. Did the police promise to lower tuition fees only to then triple the cost? No, they did not. Did the police promise us a new Britain with opportunities for young people only to then take away college students £30 a week EMA? No. That is why it is obvious that anarchists and antagonists, wanting to stick it to the man, are taking advantage of this mass of people fighting for a good cause.

I'm sure some students out there did get carried away, but overall I imagine they probably just put a load of effort into their placards and rhyming chants in the hours they weren't asleep, playing Call of Duty, working part time or drinking cheap alcohol.

The police attempted a new tactic called "kettling" to calm the crowd. I rather imagined kettling to mean they all had a nice cup of Tetley and had a chat about it all in a nice, relaxed fashion; but no. It actually means keeping a pack of people in one place for hours on end, then letting them trickle out a few at a time. "Cattling" would be a better word, really.

I doubt this will be the last we will hear of this battle between students, aggressive trouble makers and the government. The students should have the right to shout, to be heard, to demand to be heard when we, as a country, are expected to remain silent and submissive. We should also have the right to do this in a peaceful and non violent manner. The police will soon get sick of this aggression towards them and will start to fight back in a way that the public won't win; remember the G20 protests? As a graduate with a debt of nearly £30,000 I genuinely hope the students do beat the system; just hopefully not at the price of a tragedy.