"You said we could stop them Sergeant! Can we fuck!"

SSY apologises for the sweary word in the title, but the above quote was taken from a panicky (hard to say which one tbh) Polis at the demo against tuition fees today arguing wi fellow officers over who was responsible for the titanic fuck up that was the vague attempt at maintaining control over streets in Glasgow.

And what a fuck up; hundreds of school, college and university students had more or less total control of the entire city centre. The demonstration was free at will to blockade/shut down 3 different vodafones, 2 banks and break out of no less than FIVE kettles over a period of roughly 3-4 hours.  This is despite the Polis presence going from a few confused officers to 5 riot vans and a helicopter, a bit like in GTA when you keep going on a continuous rampage and they send the swat team and the army after you.

When the Polis got reinforcements, they tried to force folk into a kettle to “Join your colleagues” – I’m not daft, I’m not walking into a kettle – a couple of teenage girls who were taking pictures of the demo didn’t want to go in and were violently pushed and manhandled by the cops. Fortunately they got their story taken from the Herald, so lets hope there’s an embarrassing story waiting for some of Strathy’s finest tommorow.

Today’s demo stands as an example that Millbank wasn’t a one off, and that there’s nothing the French or Greek can do that we can’t do as well. Seeing these demonstrations it’s clear the Lib Dems will need nothing less than a full scale military escort the next time they want to court student votes on campuses, that is if they even bother next time.

Unfortunately despite today’s massive protests, the numbers on the streets were unable to terrify enough Libdem MP’s into openly rebelling agains the Coalition’s plan. Tuition fees have been introduced into England on 323 votes to 302 – 21 Libdems voted against the proposal, while 8 abstained. If these MP’s had any bottle they would have kept to their pledge and voted against. Obviously they think that abstaining will spare them from losing their seats. Think again.

Tuition fees may have been increased in England, but they have not been introduced Scotland or Wales. What we’ve had a is very effective dress rehearsal for fighting any attempt (which is likely) to introduce tuition fees into Scottish education, and making it clear to the next Holyrood administration the political consequences of doing so. It’s also politicised thousands of young people – who would have imagined this time last year that hundreds of school kids would give the Polis some exercise bolting down Argyle Street to try to shutdown tax evaders Vodafone?

We didn’t succeed in stopping tuition fees from being increased, but student protests have cut down the government’s majority from 84 to only 21 – if this is the kind of blood that students alone can draw, what happens when the coalition tries to put a million workers on the dole? This coalition is over its head and today shows we have a far better chance of destroying it than we previously imagined.

Camilla is shocked at the terrible revolting students.