Student Fury as Day of Protest Ends Without Incident ….
November 10, 2011
….. or anybody noticing …..
Organisers of the student march through central London yesterday expressed bitter disappointment that 2000 demonstrators marched peacefully in a protest against higher tuition fees and “privatisation” in universities without making a blind bit of difference to anybody or anything anywhere apart from police overtime payments.
Media coverage was scarce apart from a brief teatime report of the protest on Sky News sandwiched between the announcement of this year’s “I’m A Celebrity” contestants and an item on Jimmy Savile’s funeral.
Professional “student activist” 81-year-old Clare Solomon was livid. “I’ve been organising student protests and rabble-rousing since I started my degree 50 years ago and I’ve never seen anything like it. Where is everybody? I was expecting at least 50 thousand. Maybe even 50 million. We are the 99% Club after all.”
Solomon and the other organisers blamed threats of police brutality on the poor turnout. “Last year tens of thousands marched. All hell broke loose just like I said it would. People came with rocks and snooker balls to chuck at the Feds. Somebody chucked a fire extinguisher off of the top of Millbank Tower. Loads of windows were smashed and I got on the telly and everything. It was brilliant. This year we have to stick to the agreed route and behave ourselves or else. And there’s loads more police so we can’t break windows or go running around anywhere we want to or break into buildings or anything. Call this a democracy? Britain’s nothing more than a police state. It’s worse than Syria.”
There was a brief flurry of excitement around lunchtime as a small motley group of demonstrators broke away from the agreed route and quickly set up 30 “pop-up” tents at the base of Nelson’s Column. These however were quickly removed by a chasing group of constables within about half an hour.
“We were going to stay here until at least March just like the St Paul’s lot,” said media studies student Dave Miggins as he was led away to a police van “but the Filth lured me out of my tent with a Pot Noodle and a couple of Curly-Wurlys and I couldn’t help myself. Fascist bastards.”
When asked to comment about the latest attempted occupation, St Paul’s Anti-Capitalist Camp spokesperson Sago Soresson said: “Who were those awful copycat proles in Trafalgar Square? We thought of it first. How dare they? They’re just putting more money into the capitalist coffers of Millets. We, at least, have been knitting our own tents.”
Millionaire Guardian columnists Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot came with megaphones to address the protesters at the end of the march to offer their solidarity and to assure everybody that it was only their newspaper (from the tax-dodging Guardian Media Group) that would report the protest in a fair and unbiased fashion. The megaphones weren’t needed however, as there were just three protesters and two dogs left at Moorgate by the time they arrived. All the others had quickly dispersed – as the police had requested – the minute Billy Bragg started singing.
“He was doing my head in,” said one student later on the tube. “That tuneless old git turns up at all the marches. Why? Who is he?”
U2 megastar and charity fund raiding god Bono had been invited to join the march but had to pull out at the last minute because he had misplaced his sunglasses. There was also a diary clash with an accountant in his Dutch tax haven so “No can do – sorry”.