Student rage hits London

“This is just the beginning,” headlines the Guardian, after more than fifty thousand students marched in the UK capital on 10 November to protest the tripling of tuition fees to as high as £9,000 (€10,572) along with 40% cuts to university teaching budgets. The protest, “by far the largest and most dramatic yet in response to the government's austerity measures,” spiralled out of control as a group of protestors stormed Conservative party HQ. “Demonstrators shattered windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building, while masked activists traded punches with police to chants of ‘Tory scum’” – an expression that harks back to the bitter protests of the Thatcher years. Writing in the London daily, a university lecturer argues “This protest – in both its peaceful and more violent dimensions – is a sign of a country unafraid to fight back, for the first time in a long time.”