to be very heartened by the student riots!

[Heathcliffscathy]

apathy be damned...I predict more riots...looks like the youth have found their teeth.

Oh god I'm always doing this. Sorry to interrupt

What do you mean?
It's an open discussion, open to all.

Sidge Wed 10-Nov-10 22:40:05

No it's not the nature of their job.

Nobody should be physically hurt by a protest.

I disagree. If you join the police, you have to accept there is a chance you may get injured. Same as the army. Its that kind of job.

And moondog, the youth of today were pressured to go on to further education. IMO that was wrong, but who could blame them for taking the opportunity when, lets face it, they don't have many other option (no dole or jobs). So making them pay prohibitive fees is a bit bloody rich IMO.

YANBU. I loved the WTF are we going to do now looks on their faces when the window came in and they finally had access to the building. The students are revolting, others should follow. This government is not listening to the people.

ffs so it is ok for people to hurt the police, and these are the same people you want to get help to go to university!!!

I don't condone violence but sometimes I think it's the only way we will be heard, sadly.

I am glad that students are protesting though. My old lecturer used to despair at the apathy of students.

How many police were hurt? And how many thousands of students are going to be denied a third level education because of the cuts?

I love all this hysterical talk of 'cuts'.

So much of it is complete hype, whipped up by socialists. A lot of the so called 'cuts' were merely a sensible curtailing of Labour's hysterical spending spree.

Thank goodness they were out there and protesting. I am totally heartened by this it's about bloody time people started showing the government that they do not agree with their plans. Tis the Autumn of Discontent.

YABU, I don't see what a degree does to get you experience to work well. DH never went to university and is now a director at the company he works at because he learnt on the job and because he started at the bottom he also has the support of his colleagues and those he manages.

I went to university and got a good degree, I worked bloody hard at uni every day of term time between 9 and 5 because it was a vocational degree. I use it every day at work now. So yes I guess I would be pissed off to pay but dh is the one on the bigger bucks without the degree!

I also know many people who did degree's because they could and those degrees we just done in subjects that interested them for 2-3 hours per week. They all wanted to go into banking or some such fuckwittage where they would earn loads of money. What the fuck was the point in their degrees?

I agree with free speech and with the ability to protest but frankly what empathy and sympathy I had for the thousands of students doing degrees that would be useful in day to day life has been ruined by the few.

The more riots, the less sympathy there is going to be. Kind of sullies the ability to protest peacefully and ensures that peaceful protests won't garner any pr at all. Sad really.

This was not an anti-tuition fee protest, it was an anti-Tory protest.

If this was really about Tuition fees then why were there no protests of a similar magnitude when the Labour Government introduced fees a number of years ago? Do people really think that a Labour government would not have put fees up? After all, they comissioned the report that recommended the increase.

Unrulysun, my thoughts exactly.

ShriekingHarpy, and what would you say to Ian Tomlinson's family btw?

there was no need for the mindless violence but its good to see people standing up for something. i have just started 1st year and am glad i did because i even though i probably still would, the idea of £27,000 worth of fee debt alone would terrify me.

trebling fees with two years notice is completely unfair. the thing is that due to the previous govt's attitude you need a degree to ever earn more than minimum wage and in these times even be considered for a job, minimum wage or not. Degrees are not worth what they used to be. I have a definite career plan and my degree is crucial for it, but there is so many people doing degrees and doing fuck all with them like doing a degree in geography and then going into tesco management program. there is no need to have a degree to be a store manager. I bet someone who has worked in tesco from they were 16 would be an awful lot better than someone with a degree in drama but knows fuck all else, but that person who has worked from they were 16 will never get the chance to do anything more than work behind the till because they cannot afford to pay thousands and thousands of pounds to get a degree and join the millions of over qualified graduates out there. there should be alternatives to degrees, more on the job training, promotion from within, without the need for everyone to have a degree simply to get on the starting block. or even have it that you need a specific degree for a job like if you want to joint the tesco graduate scheme you need a degree in business studies, economics, advertising etc or universities only have as many places for a subject as there are jobs in the field.

degrees have become under valued and now over priced.

why do people insist on bringing up a man who was not at this protest?
is it to make it seem better that police got hurt?
as I said before I think this will only damage the protesters cause, as most people will just be sickened by the way it panned out.

Well said haRPY.
A voice of reason.

ChoccieDoodl..etc

Does our definition of a 'useful' degree have to be so narrowly egalitarian?

I did an arts subject, loved my work and did very well. I've forgotten a lot of the actual subject matter, but I learnt to write well (okay, not at this time of the night), assimilate a large amount of information, and form a logical argument. All of this is useful in my day-to-day work, and I find that people who have not done so well academically often don't have these skills. But in spite of the fact that my education does make me more economically productive, my degree subject will no longer get government subsidy.

Looking more broadly, my degree has encouraged me as a consumer of art and literature. It has made me realise how priviledged I am, and I hope made me a better and more thoughtful citizen and neighbour. Most importantly, it helped me to develop life long interests which will help me fend off boredom and depression for the rest of my life.

Don't worry about the policemen being hurt, it gives them a cast iron excuse to kick the shit out of anyone they feel like. Not that they need one of course.

Moondog, I assume from your comment that you will be able to afford to send your children to university? How wonderful for you. To hell with all the poor folks, eh?

Sophable, 150,000 people protested in London against the Iraq war. It didn't work but we bloody tried.

No, I do not like violence, vandalism etc but do I prefer it to people who sit around on their arses, whinging about "hating politics" and doing nothing? Yes. Why on earth do young people not care about things anymore?

I'd sadly agree that it seemed to me like a chance for students to have a day off lectures to go to London, be right-on, cause some trouble and bash the Tories. They'd probably heard stories from mummy and daddy about the good old days of protesting against Maggie. I expect some of the boys went along to impress some fit girl from the Labour Students' Club.

I doubt many of them are really that concerned about tuition fees. Most of them will have finished university by the time the hike kicks in.

And in ten years, if people I knew as students are anything to go by, they'll all be earning obscene salaries in the City, paying for their offspring's education as a matter of course, and will look back on their period of posturing student leftie-ism as a vague aberration.

It hasn't taught you how to spell 'privileged' properly though, has it?

Arrgh 'utilitarian' not 'egalitarion'. bedtime for me.

No, I've always had a mental block about a couple of words, and I think that sneering at dodgy spelling on a chat room is down there with sarcasm in the wit rankings.