To wonder if these riots will change anything?

[poshsinglemum]

I think it's getting totally out of hand. I think that HE should be accesable but that's what the students loan company is for-no? i have no money; I have a student loan. When I start to earn enough again I shall continue to pay it back.
I have no problem with demos but attacking a car etc is not helping the cause.

Poogles I had heard that the fires were started to keep warm. What was fire damaged?

Could I just point out smallwhitecat- that is not tiredemma!!!

Iggy - you'd be proud to see your child taking part of this violence?? The mind boggles!

I do hope that out of the current parents in this country, you are in the minority!

iggly- christmas tree in trafalgar sq I believe.

Were the fires really strted to keep warm? Setting fire to park benches and trees is OK and safe?? When the gas price goes up, why don't we all go to the park and burn it down to keep warm!

And "Proud" Iggly??? Really???

Can't believe any parent would be proud of their child getting a criminal record so young!

So do you actively teach your children that if someone doesn't agree with them they can go and smash things up and set fire to them? Must be fun in your house when you try and set boundaries/enforce house rules!

A christmas tree was damaged

It's a statue. A bit of metal.

I have to go now, anarchist boy child to raise and all that.

Iggly - the fire could have got out of control and killed someone. Honestly!

Lest we think the police are entirely blameless, take a quick look at this, which clearly shows police hitting protesters cowering with their hands over their heads

and this delightful story of a protestor who suffered head injuries.

I'm not condoning the violent minority one bit, but there were thousands and thousands of peaceful protestors there who should never have been treated the same way.

ffs have you ever been on the recieving end of police brutality? I have, beleive me the police were in a much better postion than the protesters-how can you say that 3 police standing over a young girl curled up in a ball hitting her with batons is ok? had that been your daughter im sure you would have said, well you did dare to turn up to speak oyur voice you deserved it darling.

Honestly some of you have no fucking clue.

I went past it yesterday several times. My goodness I felt sorry for the police and those horses :( who were getting pelted with missiles.

I sometimes think people in this country do not know they are born.

I have been in France when a protest was going on and was attacked by riot police and had tear gassed fired at me to disperse a crowd.

I was once caught in South Africa and had gun fire shot over my head.

Have also seen large crowds dispersed by water cannon.

I know loads of people will come on here and defend this apparent majority that wanted to demonstrate peacefully but I have to say, from what I saw yesterday (mainly on TV), it seemed to be far more than a small minority intent on causing violence.

They do have a point though. None of the parties mentioned this in their manifestos from what I recall. None of us voted for this sodding coalition, we had it inflicted on us. I think it's a disgrace but I would never condone violence for something like this.

I don't remember condoning any police violence and had the police behaved in this way when the protestors had protested legally, the police would be in the firing line and the students would have rallied people to their cause. But hey, lets all blame someone else!

But it didn't. I am deliberately provocative but I so think we need to look at the bigger picture here.

Iggly - "A christmas tree was damaged"

Yes, the Christmas tree that is given annually by the people of Norway to the people of Britain as a symbol of thanks for the sacrifices made by Britain during the war.

I'm wondering if you're incredibly stupid, or just incredibly badly read not to have known that.

Also, are you sure youre old enough to be on the internet without your mum's permission?

(I've only read the first page so far)

I hope that the protests do bring in to the light the poor quality crowd control by the police. charging crowds with horses I think it's probably too late for anything to be done about tuition fees now, but it's defiantly time that the police were better trained and prepared. Kettling seems to do nothing but make people angry - I think that's probably counter productive and they need to come up with a more sophisticated way of dealing with rioters. People who are just protesting peacefully should not be kettled anyway. I think there also needs to be some serious discussion about proportionate responses because there are many clips from the past few weeks of police behaving with unacceptable violence, and I fail to see anyone benefiting from that.

Just because you know something I don't Bagged, doesn't give you the right to sneer down your nose at me. There are plenty of things I'm sure you haven't got a clue about.

FFS.

well said bagged its unfortunate that some people here obviously didnt know where the tree came from, maybe they should do their homework

Fine, but dont base your argument on something you know nothing about "FFS". The news of the Norwegian Christmas tree being burned by "protesters" has been on the front page of every newspaper in the cpountry today.

Buy one. Read it. Educate yourself on what happened yesterday. Then feel free to bang on about how proud you are of the scum that caused all this damage.

One of my Facebook friends has a comment from a friend on her status today which ends "Without violence there would be no fear, without fear there would be no change." Hmm. Mandate for terrorism, anyone?

have read it and am still proud of the scum- the scum im really ashamed of is the scum in gov.

"So we marched day and night to the watch tower, they have the plans but we have the power"

Well, the "Scum" that caused all the damage are the Government that NO ONE voted for but somehow came into power.

So no, I am NOT proud of the scum that caused all the damage.

The reactionaries who are trying to stand up for something they believe in and using the only means that seems to get people have any more of a reaction than "Meh..." has me being proud of them.

People seem to give more of a fuck about who's going to win the cunting X-Factor than whats going on in this country!

I'm sure they burnt it because it was a gift from Norway tagged, I'm sure.

I have listened to the news (radio 4) and read it (guardian) and it wasn't mentioned. So I maintain my FFS.

what do you want them to do Teddy? They were being pelted with concrete blocks and sticks, had a flare thrown at one of the police horses...

what do you want the police to do in that situation?

we allow peaceful protest in this country but how do you suggest they deal with thousands of protestors where the crowd has turned violent?

when they aren't allowed to use water cannons, tear gas or anything like that, how else can they contain a violent crowd other than by kettling?

unless you want to let the police use other more violent tools, which I understand even they aren't keen on, then if you go on one of these protests, where the chance of violence is always going to be very high, you have to know that you are going to be kettled and pushed around!

I don't condone police being over violent, but my goodness, I don't envy them that job.

I think it's a divide. You will always get people like me who think the police, on the whole, do the best job they can given their resources. You will always get people who think the police are scum.

Watching isolated clips of police charging with horses doesn't tell you the full story. They may have been trying to split the crowd to isolate the more violent lot at the front. But as I said, there will always be people who don't see the good side of what the police do, for whatever reason.

Nerdyface- so who do you think should be the government then? Labour? They got even fewer votes. If the government should be who got the most votes/seats then it should be the Conservatives on their own so that argument doesnt really work.

I dont agree with the tuition fees, but I also dont agree with smashing stuff up to make the point as it is REALLY obvious that it's not going to get them anywhere, quite the opposite in that it alienates the undecided. Actually, violent popular protest in the UK does not have a very successful track record in terms of effecting change if you actually look in detail at the circumstances around major periods of unrest.

I agree about the X-factor thing though. I might actually go and burn Simon Cowell's house down