Two lads, shirtless and drunk, climbed up the black metal gates of the Treasury and yelled to the crowd below them: “Revolution!”
The crowd cheered. “That really sums it up,” I said to my friend. This was December 9 2010. It was a cold, damp night and we were stuck in Parliament Square. The police had ‘kettled’ us for several hours. Everyone wanted to go home, but we’d been denied that choice. We’d be protesting for a month by this point.
What did all of this achieve in the end? The Cameron government saw its majority dwindle on the question of tuition fees to 21 after many petrified Lib Dems and a few Tories decided to rebel and either voted against the policy or abstained.
We listened to the results of the vote on the radio as we were still being kettled. It was a defeat, yet it was clear that the student movement had startled the establishment. It was close, too close.
The student protests had rocked the UK and proved that the young are not so apolitical and apathetic after all. Though I was 19 and already very political by that time, it was a sight to behold: Teenagers getting radicalised by cops charging them on horseback.
Read the full article at the Morning Star.
Joshua White 