From The Huffington Post:
LONDON — In Britain's worst political violence in years, furious student protesters rained sticks and rocks on riot police, vandalized government buildings and attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, after lawmakers approved a controversial hike in university tuition fees.
Demonstrators set upon the heir to the throne's limousine as it drove through London's West End shopping and entertainment hub. Protesters who had been running amok and smashing shop windows kicked and threw paint at the car, which sped off.
Charles' office, Clarence House, confirmed the attack but said "their royal highnesses are unharmed."
Police said it was unclear whether the royals had been deliberately targeted, or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The couple arrived looking composed at the London Palladium theater, where they were attending a Royal Variety Performance. Their Rolls Royce limousine was left with a badly cracked rear window and was spattered with paint.
Protesters erupted in anger after legislators in the House of Commons approved a plan to triple university fees to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) a year.
....
The controversy has highlighted regional educational differences in the United Kingdom.
The Welsh regional government has pledged to subsidize the higher fees for any student from Wales who enrolls at an English university. Student fees in Scotland are just 1,820 pounds per year, sparking fears of a future stampede of bargain-hunting students from England. Northern Ireland's fees are capped at 3,290 pounds a year.
Tripling the fees from £3000 to £9000 is a hefty increase - very worrying for students and their families. Protests are fine, but violence is wrong and counterproductive, in my opinion.
The violence was minimal, but as you say counterproductive as this is all that is being reported in the press.
ReplyDeleteThe violence was minimal....
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it. I'm glad, too that people took to the streets.
I don't know what I think about the breaking of windows etc, in fact. The bill passed by 21 votes, which is scarily narrow for the government. Maybe if the protests had not been so heated it would have passed by a much wider margin. Having said that, it has passed - so the protests have not achieved their aim at all.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-Iraq war protests were peaceful. The government took no notice of those either. So, what wins?
As I just said at MP's, I don't want a Republic to come to the UK this way! :-0
ReplyDeleteCathy, I don't like the destruction of property, either. Why should the merchants or car owners suffer because of a vote by MPs?
ReplyDeleteGandhi and Martin Luther King did it right. No violence. No destruction of property. That kind of demonstration has a moral force behind it that will overcome in the end.
ReplyDeleteJCF, why would you want England to be a republic?
Mimi, I agree that merchants and car owners should not suffer. I was more thinking of the fact that at one of the protests the students broke in to Conservative HQ and occupied it. That doesn't seem that outrageous to me, though there was a big kerfuffle over it. They did damage a door.
ReplyDeletePS Even I don't want England to be a republic :-) Well, not most days.
Cathy, I wouldn't mind at all taking part in a peaceful demonstration, even to occupying buildings or sitting at lunch counters where I'm not allowed.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish we had a parliamentary government, but when I see the present mess in England, I change my mind.