Six lessons from the student riots
Posted on December 12, 2010In the aftermath of the tuition fees vote, what are the lessons we can learn now that the blood has been mopped up, the flares have sputtered out and the Ayes and Noes have been counted?
1) It was indeed a stupid idea to leave the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree in place during a pyromaniac riot. As I warned yesterday, the poor old tree did get set on fire.
2) Police communication still leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. The reputation of the police has been shielded somewhat by the appalling behaviour of the rioters they are fighting against. Their failure to communicate why they employ particular tactics, such as cavalry charges or pulling individuals from the crowd, is a serious problem that stirs up future trouble. While the first student riot began peacefully and kicked off later, apparently yesterday’s march saw protesters attacking the police from the get-go – they need to try to defuse that tension, not fuel it through further confusion.
3) The rioters themselves don’t really know what their movement is. I don’t buy this NUS line that the troublemakers are all Socialist Worker infiltrators. The entire SWP membership could fit into a camper van with room to spare, while the rioters yesterday filled Parliament square to the brim. Plenty of those interviewed at the protests have indeed been students or at college. However, the mob is a confused one.
Some claim to be anarchists, but are campaigning for more state power. Others claim to be socialists, but spend their time destroying public property. Others are just “Gap Yah” kids who are doing what everyone else is doing because it’s fun (though take it from me, being kettled is mostly boring). They have a broad anti-cuts dogma, but there is little to no coherence so far.
4) The Government has failed to communicate its key messages. The amount of misinformation and misunderstanding about the fees proposals is massive. Even protesters interviewed in the kettle yesterday were largely unaware of the fact that no-one will pay anything back until they earn £21,000 a year, for example. The battle to discuss these as graduate fees rather than student fees was lost early on, too.
The launch of the Facts on Fees site on Wednesday showed that Ministers belatedly realised and acknowledged all this, but by then it was far too late. For many political campaigns the battle is fought in terms of perceptions with language as the weapon – just having a good policy is not enough to win.
5) Violence gets you noticed but it doesn’t get you listened to. The riots have certainly made headlines, and there are plenty of good-looking photos from each event, but ultimately MPs still voted in favour of the plans.
I feel sorry for those students who did the right thing and actually argued with their brains rather than their fists. Those debating with MPs in central lobby were contaminated by the knuckleheads out attacking the Cenotaph on Whitehall through no fault of their own. In fact, I know that some MPs shifted from No to abstention or from abstention to Yes because they actively did not want to be seen to be giving in to thugs. At minimum violence is irrelevant, and at most it is totally discrediting to their case.
6) This is war. These riots have set a precedent – we can expect more and more protests to turn out this way in future. The half-baked ideology of “No cuts to anything” that many of those in attendance were espousing gives an incredibly wide range of topics to fight on, and they clearly have acquired a taste for violence and arson. I wish that wasn’t the case, although strategically it would be stupid not to acknowledge that it’s quite helpful to have the Left building themselves such an unpleasant reputation. There will be more blood and fire in the next few years of spending cuts – but the worse the deficit deniers behave, the stronger and more dedicated to pushing ahead the Government must become.
Tags: Britain, Christmas Tree, Coalition, Communism, Labour, Liberal Democrats, opinion, Parliament, Politics, public spending, Strikes, Student riots, Students, Trafalgar Square, Tuition Fees
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Westminster
“While the first student riot began peacefully…”
Nice choice of words. As for the Christmas Tree, I think delaying its installation would have been a capitulation to the thugs. You wouldn’t cover the Cenotaph in plastic, you leave these symbols on display at all times.
10.12.2010 20:35
I agree in general. Point 1, the fact that the tree was attacked just shows the utter stupidity of the protestors that did it. Do they think it’s there for politicians?
Point 4 is the crunch. The new site was lauched THIS WEEK, the message should ahve been put across far far earlier and this is a serious communcation failure of the Coalition. I know certain media BBC included have other agendas but there are ways of getting the mssage across despite poor reporting.
11.12.2010 13:17
Great post (and Mr Potarto is spot on too). The white text on black is a bit sore on the old eyes though!
11.12.2010 13:39
I find it amazing that you had to link all the way to Wales Online to get the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree story! (see told you Wales was great)
11.12.2010 23:01
The Govt has really got to get it’s communication act together.
11.12.2010 23:42
It is worse than you think. See My “Demonstrations For Dummies” of Sat 11 December.
12.12.2010 14:14