Violence solves nothing but it sure makes the headlines

You know what's sad? That people in a modern civilised society feel they have to fall back on violence as the only way they'll be listened to. Because the ideas that David Cameron puts forward about 'asking the public' about where they want the budget cuts and 'measuring happiness' are just gimicks, and not even convincing ones. David Cameron doesn't care about the British people or the vulnerable members of society or the potential that's being wasted by making further and higher education fees prohibitively expensive except for the rich - but I think he does genuinely care about Britain and its economic prosperity. The budget cuts are tough and highly unfair, but you can't fault him for cutting spending. Unfortunately, he's hamstringing the average person as he goes.

And to anticipate one of the tiredest and most depressingly selfish arguments I've heard about this whole matter, it does affect everyone. OK, so some people went straight into work and never got the chance for university, but what if they had wanted the chance? What if they wanted more than anything to be a doctor or an environmental scientist? Hell, what if they wanted to be a plumber and needed a vocational qualification? What if they wanted to be a teacher? For that matter, what if the next great film-maker or an inspiring politician who could one day be PM doesn't follow their dream because they can't afford it? Just because you never had the opportunity (and are just fine without a degree), it doesn't mean your kids shouldn't have the opportunity. You're going to be the one telling them they can't study law because you can't afford it. You're going to be the one who has to put everything you earn into paying for their degree because with all the funding cuts, surely universities are going to only provide the minimum amount of bursaries they have to. If your children are grown and got through university already, how will they feel about their children coming out of university with truly crippling amounts of debt? Launching into the start of their adult life owing tens of thousands of pounds already with no guarantee that they'll get a job any time soon. This affects everyone. Except the people who are implementing it, because they can easily afford the new fees.

In this article in the Guardian the education secretary says that he will respond to arguments but not violence. Because, frankly, violent protests do not achieve anything beyond vilifying those who commit the violence. An awful, awful lot of people who would otherwise have shown sympathy for the student protests now say "Yes, but I can't condone or associate myself with a cause that involved violence towards the police." Hell, I truly care about the top-up fees issue (or, rather, the wider spending cuts issues) but I have a good friend who's a special in the Met (and would have been a full police officer now if the recruitment hadn't been cut) and if he was injured, my sympathy with the cause would be really difficult to maintain. But to anybody who justifies it by saying that to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs - well, I suspect that's rather the PM's attitude too. And stop having a go at Nick Clegg - he's certifiably a slimy bastard who's ruined his political career now, but he probably did have pretty good reasons for betraying his voters.

My problem with the above quote from Michael Gove is that it's a lie. People tried arguments and no-one listened because as long as violence isn't involved it's OK to ignore protestors. The coverage is limited to one or maybe two articles per newspaper and it just reads a variation of "Students protest - nothing interesting happens". When peaceful protest is ignored, people who are both ideological and frustrated will take matters into their own hands, and they will get an awful lot more coverage in the newspapers. That photo of a hooded, anonymous student spraying 'Revolution' on a wall is now iconic. It's not right, and it's counter-productive, but it's also the way things go. Ignoring public dissent about measures that directly influence their finances and even their livelihoods has far-reaching consequences.