18 What is violent disorder?

March 26th saw the biggest demonstration against government policy since the Stop The War marches in 2003, when I was 10 years old. Half a million people marched from Victoria Embankment to Hyde Park to be lectured to by the likes of Ed Miliband and Brendan Barber. Meanwhile a group of activists took some more direct action against the establishment that is necessitating unprecedented cuts to public services.

We've all seen the news coverage and the videos of "anarchists running rampage around Oxford Street". We've seen the headlines of "Anarchist group UK Uncut run riot in Fortnam & Mason". Some of us may even have seen Diane Abbott's rare attempt at humour on twitter . This post is a very personal one, because on Saturday I stood with friends being beaten by police, watched friends being violently arrested for doing nothing wrong, slept in a hospital chair looking after a girl who's arm had been broken by police thuggery, and in the aftermath watched the 50p tax rate abolished, watched Vince Cable tell us that no amount of action would make a difference, watched as Theresa May informed the country that all of the violent demonstrators had been arrested and charged when this couldn't be further from the truth.

201 demonstrators were arrested on Saturday. Of those, 138 were arrested after exiting the UK Uncut sit in at Fortnam & Mason. UK Uncut is possibly the politest and most well-behaved activist collective this country has seen in a while. They're the sort who clean up as they leave, who have civil conversations with the police, who turn banks into comedy gigs. They are not the sort of people who smash up £15 easter eggs and smoke inside. They are in fact the sort of people who would trust a police officer if she told them that they would not be arrested upon leaving the store, and whose main protest to actually being arrested is chanting "you promised us you wouldn't do this. You promised".

So it shocks me that these people, these friends, were arrested and labelled as "violent anarchists" by Commander Bob Broadhurst. It is not so shocking that the police were so callous as to lie on film to the activists, nor is is so shocking that they kettled them outside the doors.

My friends have now been released, facing court dates and charges for aggravated trespass, while up and down Oxford Street banks were trashed and The Ritz smoke grenade'd. My opinion on smashing up banks and fucking up The Ritz is fairly relaxed actually. A few smashed windows are nothing by comparison to the mess the banks have created for us. I am slightly pissed that the police went for the easy, peaceful, unarmed and polite targets as they were duped straight into a kettle and claims to have dealt with "violence". But let's define what violence actually is. It's a very easy word to bandy around if your name happens to be Theresa May. The law defines physical violence as an act of harm against other persons or animals. This conflicts with the establishment's line on "violent anarchists", because I've always been fairly sure that shop windows are inanimate objects. Even if we turn to the injury figures, it's worth pointing out that far more demonstrators were injured by police, than police injured by demonstrators. That's mainly because police have batons and shields while demonstrators have placards and megaphones. The odds are stacked in favour of the boys in blue already.

I got home on Sunday morning and explained to my parents how I'd been to Trafalgar Square and their instant reaction was "you went looking for trouble". Funny how the media has so easily spread the idea that people on Trafalgar Square were there for a riot. That could not be further from the truth. There had been a peaceful occupation of the Square planned months in advance, just as there was a peaceful occupation of Hyde Park. We were aware of the presence of police snatch squads who were looking for "trouble-makers" from earlier in the day. Having found none, they attempted to arrest a young man for putting a sticker on the Olympic Clock. This was the damage Commander Bob Broadhurst spent 10 minutes raving about on BBC News 24. Attempting an arrest in this crowd was a tactful decision to spark something to make an example of. As soon as police had grabbed this lad, he was dearrested by a surge of around 20 people against 4 police officers. This was all they needed to spark a police response. Within 2 minutes there were lines of police advancing from both sides of the square. The atmosphere of partying and laughter had dissipated. People chanted "Shame on you! Shame on you!" as police used their shields to bat people back towards the southern edge of the square. I would define this as violence. Unfortunately Theresa May defines it as legitimate public order policing.

It's around 10:30 in the evening and we're being hemmed in as batons rain down on our arms and bodies. I find myself standing beside a blonde girl who must be around 19. She's on the phone to her mum and doesn't seem the baton above her head through the tears in her eyes. The next few minutes happened incredibly slowly. I see two friends about 10 metres away from me and I want go over to them. As I move away the baton comes down on the girl's shoulder and she screams and drops her phone which is immediately stepped on by police boots. The officer responsible begins kicking her and screaming at her to get up and move. I count as the kicks rain down on this defenseless girl lying in pain on the ground. 5 kicks and then I hear a scream of absolute pain as I realise that the final kick was in her arm. I know I can't pick her up without being subject to the same brutality so I push forward and stand in front of her, arms crossed over my face to defend myself from the subsequent barrage of batons and shields. I shout at the top of my voice at the officer in front of me to call an ambulance and point to the girl he's just been kicking. It takes about 8 attempts but eventually he steps back, and I bend down and drag her out. He follows us and pushes me to the ground with a swift baton to the nose as he takes a look at her arm. I remember shouting at him to apologise to her and explain why he'd done it.

He never did, but two minutes later I see an ambulance backing up to us and I help the paramedics lift the girl inside. They take a look at my nose and tell me I better come with them, and it's only at this point I realise that my face is covered in blood.

I can remember sitting in the ambulance as we wove through police trucks and vans out of the trafalgar square area, holding the girls hand (I later learnt that her name was Hannah and that she was from Bristol) and trying to comfort her while keeping a tissue pressured on my nose.

We arrived at Royal Free hospital at around 11:15pm. I wanted food, a hot drink and sleep, but all I could do was sit in the A&E ward staring in disbelief at BBC news as it propagated lie after lie about the day's events. I felt physically sick, and I'm not sure if it was from the mild concussion or the nature of what I was watching. I must've fallen asleep at some point, but I remember waking up around 6:30 as Hannah wanted a cuddle, which is difficult with a broken arm and fractured elbow. I lend her my phone to call her parents, and realise that I have to see my friends. I didn't know at this point that a lot were in various London police cells.

We say goodbye at 8:30 and I get a kiss for my efforts. I can vaguely remember zombying my way home and crashing out, dazed and confused.

All I know is that the violence yesterday was not from demonstrators. If you know me, you'll know that I wouldn't hurt a fly. Yet somehow I've been labelled a violent anarchist yob.

I woke up at 2:30pm on Sunday to a host of texts, some from unrecognized numbers, asking if I was okay and if I'd like grapes. This made me smile. I know now that some of us really are all in this together, and we genuinely care about each other, that's why I headed to Charing Cross police station to watch my friends be released. At least I know they're safe, but I'm not so sure about how safe our supposedly civil society is to live in anymore.

I'm genuinely shaken.

0 The Cameron and Clegg Constituency Calamity.

I can picture it now. It sounds like a circus act. Two bumbling idiots running around the pit throwing pies at each other and guffawing at the incredibly unamused crowds watching. Unfortunately for the UK, these two clowns are privy to national intelligence briefings and the country's defences. Even more unfortunately for democracy, they've also got the power to fiddle with Great Britain's constitutional machinery. 

As we've known for a little while now, Clown Cameron and Sideshow Clegg have been wanting to get their greasy fingers on our electoral system. In some respects, this isn't such a bad thing. If, as is alleged, there are some constituencies which numerically favour one party over another because there are fewer voters, then by all means the constituency boundaries should be amended. When I say "amended" I mean amended. I do not mean "kick out 50 MPs for no good reason". There is no reason why we cannot have 650 equal constituencies. But this goes a lot deeper. Let's skip back 6 months or so.

It's April 2010, next month the country goes to the polls for one of the most important elections of a generation. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are coming off well so far in the series of American-style Leaders' debates, namely by pushing forward their credentials as the party for change. The party that will make votes count; the party that will oppose any rise to tuition fees; the party that has never lied. Specifically, Nick and the Lib Dems are very big on the Proportional Representation voting system whereby parties can cash in on their share of votes for an equal share of seats in the House of Commons. It's seen as a very progressive and bold move to make. Over the next few weeks, as an outright majority becomes less and less likely for any party, the Liberal Democrats realise they may have to form an agreement with another party and so they'll begin to promote the benefits of the Alternative Voting system. 

Back to November 2010. 

So you can see, the Liberal Democrats like to think of themselves as the movers and shakers of the progressive front. They're the ones bold enough to introduce such radical ideas as AV (I'd make a sarcastic remark here, but I don't think it's needed), and greater power to the people.

How very sad then, that after only six months they're backing such regressive ideas as VAT hikes, tuition fee rises and a step backwards in Peoples' representation. Yes, that's right. For all of their talk of a referendum on AV (which will most probably reject the motion), the Liberal Democrats and their puppet leader are actually making every person's vote worth LESS.

The maths here isn't particularly hard, but I will outline it to keep us all on bored. 

Welcome to Happyland.

In Happyland there are 4,000,000 people. 

They are represented in parliament by 80 MPs. This means that (if we assume the constituencies are of an equal size), each constituency consist of 50,000 electors. Every elector in the country has a vote that is effectively "worth" 1/50000th (0.00002).

Now we cut the number of seats to 40. Every constituency consists now of 100,000 electors. Every elector's vote is now "worth" 1/10000th (0.0001). Simplistic I know, but bare with me.

The problem goes deeper. Proportional Representation was supposed to give smaller parties the chance to get a few MPs in (in fact, one of the major criticisms was that it would give the BNP and other extremist parties a legitimate platform) which can only be good for democracy. 

In our original 80 Member House, lets say we have 20 MPs from the blue party, 15 from the yellow party, 44 from the red party and 1 from the green party.

Our one MP from the green party has had to win the most votes in his/her seat. It means that for instance, our green MP has secured 23,000 of the 50,000 votes cast and has a majority of say 2,000.

If we make that seat bigger - up to 100,000 electors, our green MP has to win a lot more votes in order to be returned. It's not likely s/he will be able to do this if the previously neighbouring seats were comfortable blue or red seats with relatively little green support. 

Of course, this is primarily a failure of the First Past the Post System that we use, and only exacerbated by the reduction in the number of seats and the subsequent decline of a vote's worth. Would AV redress the balance? No. Because a lot of green voters would still list one of the big parties as their 2nd/3rd preferences, meaning that should the green candidate come last in the first round of voting, the green candidate's votes are redistributed to the two bigger parties. 

This paragraph of triviality is indeed unnecessary, however, because the likelihood is that this May, the public will vote against AV. Not necessarily because most of the nation disagree with it in principle, but because most of the nation who get out to vote at the polling station will.

This Government's undemocratic and regressive tendencies don't stop there, however. Clown Cameron and Sideshow Clegg have been performing a few opening tricks for the crowds, you see. Unfortunately, it's all gone wrong for Clegg. He was strapped to a board, and Cameron was throwing knifes around him - demonstrating his infinite ability to cut without hurting the rich - except that last throw went very badly and Sideshow Clegg now has a knife firmly through his back. Cameron wants to stuff the House of Lords with more Conservative peers. 50 more, to be precise. Remember, peers aren't elected. So, what Mr Cameron is doing is removing 50 elected members from the Commons (estimated to be 27 Labour, 12 Conservative and 6 Lib Dem, 5 Other) and replacing them with 50 unelected members in the Lords (50 Conservative).

Now, it may be that our Clown has discovered the joys of slapstick comedy involving aquatic life, but this entire affair smells a bit fishy to me. 

and I think the audience want their money back.

0 Why a rise in tuition fees could spell disaster for the coalition in 2015.

Today, Lord Browne recommended that the tuition fees cap should be scrapped, and universities should be allowed to charge anything they want. Bearing in mind that Government support for universities would be limited to £7k/annum, the likely result of Browne's report is that from 2012 university fees will be doubled, meaning a Bachelor's course would leave your average student in around £21k of debt, and a Master's would leave them in around £28k of debt. Couple that with potentially crippling interest rates by the time they come to pay it off, and you can see that the future looks incredibly bleak for students starting university next year (that's if they get in, with record demand and record cuts to supply it's obvious that a smaller percentage of applicants will win a place this time round).

Of course, the problem for the government is that students can really kick up a stink when they don't get what they want. I'm sure most parents could verify that. Yes, I appreciate that comparing a rise in tuition fees to large scale social injustice as a trigger for student activism is an unfair and perhaps somewhat cynical comparison, but my point is that students were able to influence politics on a huge scale, and fundamentally, there is no reason this couldn't happen again.

Am I suggesting that come Wednesday morning Parliament Square will be teeming with students holding placards and chanting lamely? No.

In fact, the political influence I'm talking about is the simplest form of political influence any individual can have. Voting.

Before 2015, there will be a lot of students who either will not be able to afford university or who will be emerging with a lot of debt. The Coalition government is going to see a big backlash in areas where it holds student controlled seats. The Liberal Democrats won't be fairing too well at local elections in student areas next May either.

Let's not forget the long run repercussions of this. By allowing universities to charge what they like, we'll be limiting access to Higher Education for thousands of students, while offering no alternative to them by means of apprenticeships or additional training courses. We're decreasing our skilled workforce and eventually aggregate supply will slump. The economy will not grow in the future if we don't give the tools needed for it to flourish.

Increasing fees reduces demand for Higher Education, and it therefore reduces the Supply of skilled labour. This is AS economics, no more, no less. This Government cannot be recognised as a credible authority on economic management if it fails to consider the long term implications of it actions.

How can students from low and middle income backgrounds possibly afford to get to university on a level playing field with their more fortunate counterparts without feeling like charity cases?

The "Access and Success" fund which Browne recommends should be set up would suggest that those from less fortunate backgrounds should indeed be treated as charity cases.

Browne suggests that there should be a minimum entry standard that must be met by students in need of financial support. So it's alright if you're thick and can get into university because mummy and daddy can pay, but it's not okay if you're thick and mummy and daddy can't pay?

University should be universal and Browne's recommendation certainly isn't in the spirit of the universality of educational opportunity.

Vince Cable today announced that the Government accepts the recommendations and would shortly respond to the report formally. Yes. Vince Cable. The very same Vince Cable who signed a pledge not 6 months ago that read: "I pledge to vote against any increase in [university] fees in the next parliament, and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative".

Now, I'm the first to admit that politicians change their minds and tell lies fairly often. But when a political party believes itself to be so high and mighty and infallible that it can sign a pledge specifically in relation to one policy, and can fly that policy as its flagship policy for years, and then in it's first 6 months in government, completely renege on that policy after having falsely led on millions of voters..? That's not on.

On November 11th, 2010, the NUS and UCU will be marching against rises in fees and cuts to universities.

Fancy a walk?

0 Impossible, they say.

I've been off college ill for the last two days (everyone say 'Awww!') which has given me plenty of time to reflect on the political landscape we seem to have found ourselves in. A year ago the very suggestion of Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister would have drawn a mirthful laugh, and the idea of having to type 'The Right Hon. Vince Cable MP' would have been equally mundane. Clearly, times have changed.

First and foremost, I should say that I am surprised. If we look back to the slightly naive sense of optimism I may have shown in my last blog post, this will be apparent. It transpired that Gordon's resignation wasn't enough to bring about any serious change of attitude from the Lib Dems towards Labour. Equally so in reverse. It was apparent on Tuesday morning that a number of senior Labour figures were doubtful of their ability to work with the Liberal Democrats. More surprising still, however, was the amount of control and policy influence the Lib Dems have managed to get out of David Cameron.

Having said that, I suspect that the Conservatives were generous because it was in their interests to be. At the end of the day, the Tories cannot afford for this coalition to break down. They need the Lib Dems to be inextricably tied to them, otherwise there remains the possibility of partisan dissent. What better way to ensure such a link than give several Liberal Democrats Cabinet positions and promote their leader to Deputy PM? This works well in Cameron's interests too. By ensuring the Lib Dems are aboard, he can reaffirm the idea that the Tories are no longer the "Nasty Party". After all, he has the backing of the Liberals! He can implement their much-admired policies and take the credit for it while the rest of his own party remain in obscurity as he promotes only the most squeaky clean of them to the Cabinet, filling up extra positions with Lib Dems. It's actually a great arrangement for Cameron.

I wish I could say the same for the Liberal Democrats. They have the Climate Change brief, they have the Business brief, they have Chief sec. to the Treasury and they have the Scottish brief. Let's look at that properly:

DECC was a new department created by Brown in an almost tokenistic fashion to pay lip service to the growing Climate Change concern. DECC wield relatively little power, and almost seem to be a de facto junior partner to DEFRA. Essentially, it's a non-department.

Scottish Secretary Danny Alexander only got the position because the Tories have only one MP in Scotland. It would be ridiculous for a party that is so clearly disliked to attempt to represent Scottish people, so they gave the Liberal Democrats that job because at least they're not hated as much. This is an appointment of convenience rather than meaning. Worth acknowledging also is that the Scottish Office doesn't have a huge amount of power. It's another lip-service department created to keep the devolution junkies happy.

Vince Cable at BIS and David Laws as Chief Sec. are also posts that essentially have been placed under Treasury control. David Laws is George Osborne's junior partner, and Vince Cable is leading a department that holds no real spending power, but is more of a structural support to Treasury spending. It can't be a position in which Cable could have envisaged himself working best. Having said that, Business Secretary is a nice title.

How about Nick Clegg? The "office" of Deputy Prime Minister holds no actual power, other than Power-by-association. Deputy PM is not a constitutional role, and is as much or as little as David Cameron lets it be. That's something we'll have to wait to see, but I can't help but feeling that Clegg will have little of the grandeur that he might expect.

The Conservatives have clung onto key departments - Home Office, Foreign Office, Education, Health and Communities. They've given essentially non-jobs to Liberal Democrats, and have made a number of policy concessions that they must have known would be unpopular with the public anyway and so were no great loss.

I can't help but feel that Nick Clegg and his party have been the losers in this deal. Not only will they be forced to prop up a Conservative administration in return for relatively little power, but they'll be forced to abstain on key policy areas that they oppose - for instance, the Lib Dems will have to abstain on the vote about introducing tuition fee rises. That must be painful for them. On top of all of this, if the coalition does badly, the Liberal Democrats are set to lose more voters than the Conservatives will, because their own supporters will blame them for allowing a Conservative government in power.

This coalition has to be successful for the Liberal Democrats' sake, because otherwise they lose a lot of voters, and they also lose their argument for Proportional Representation - something they've campaigned on for a long time (and something that's been denied them by the Conservatives).

So for now, Labour are heading off to the to opposition benches. A place where some cynical members have pointed out we will do well from as we're able to criticise the inevitable ConDem spending cuts and say we wouldn't have done it like that. This coalition, I believe, will end in tears, with the Lib Dems losing a lot of voters to Labour, and the Conservatives losing that floating voter support. Whether it's in 5 years or 10 years, Labour will be back. We'll be back because Labour believes in the very values that the Tories cannot understand, and the values that the Liberal Democrats have betrayed. Fairness. Openness. Families. Education.

The late Labour government has had its problems. Questionable civil liberties records, a war that was debatable in the first place and is now unjustifiable, and a few MPs whose expenses were an affront to good spending tastes (let alone public trust). But Labour will learn from it's mistakes, unlike the Conservatives.

The fightback starts now.