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Has the time come to take back control of the streets of London?

I will try to resist the urge to go on a rant about my feelings towards the latest riots (besides many others have eloquently expressed their anger towards such scenes, not least Cranmer's reaction. I also appreciate that this blog has devoted a significant amount of space to the current fall-out about tuition fees, so I will simply concern this post with what to do about the riots going forward.

The editorial in the Sunday Telegraph mused today about how to police these protests going forward, but didn’t come to a certain conclusion. I would suggest that the government refuses to grant permissions for any further protests for an interim period. This would allow there to be a period of consultation between police and protest organisers in which protest organisers should be required to give certain assurances about the conduct of the protests, something that is clearly not occurring at the moment. It would also allow the police and CPS to further pending prosecutions in respect of the criminal violence and damage that has been carried out. These measures are vital, in that potential troublemakers would see the consequences of their actions should they consider taking part in criminal violence at future protests. At the moment, despite various arrests, there is a feeling that you can merely put a hood up and get away with murder. I use that phrase quite intentionally as it is something of a small miracle that on two occasions of complete havoc no one has been killed. There have of course been many injuries, some serious.

I accept that this suggestion is rather controversial. What’s more it could also be a tactical threat, as such a move could risk a further backlash from rioters reacting to a perceived heavy- handed response by the government. I think, however, that it is worth such a risk. The right to protest peacefully is of course of fundamental importance to our liberal democracy, but that right, granted by society, can be taken away if it is abused or misused.

This is entirely the situation here.

These ‘peaceful’ protests are nothing of the sort; they are being hijacked and turned into a gratuitous rampage and terrorisation of the public. On Thursday, the public were indeed caught-up; people going about their daily business (probably to work. Notice the irony of this - creating the wealth that currently subsides students so that they are free to protest on a Thursday afternoon) prevented from accessing Oxford Street, as well as many busy tube stations. Then there was the incident with Charles and Camilla – the climax of the entire debacle. The protestors must have felt that they had momentarily achieved their aim to create total anarchy.

Based on these public disruptions, we must surely use the tools we have available to us to restore order. If that means using them a little more forcefully than we would otherwise like to, then so be it.

The reason why I also believe this will not misfire as a tactic is because of where the public sit on this issue. These riots are not the poll tax riots of the 1990’s which reflected a society that was more generally growing tired of Margret Thatcher’s Britain. While some of the public may have sympathy with the argument against the tuition fee rises, they are most certainly not sympathetic towards the appalling public disorder we have witnessed. In fact, a straw poll of people I have talked to are particularly angry about the rioters. Further, as many commentators have pointed out, this could be the beginning of a long period of social unrest. After all, the savage cuts of which we hear so much about haven’t even really begun in earnest yet. As the saying goes, the worst is yet to come.

When the government has to make policing decisions about protests from those who have lost their jobs because of the cuts, then will be the time to make much more sensitive decisions. In reality, these protests have not been about social unrest, they have simply been an excuse for a young and violent minority to gratuitously rampage and destroy.

I believe the time has come to step in and nip this in the bud. There will be greater battles to come if the government and the police rest on their laurels at this crucial time. They must ensure order now to avoid greater, more bloody demonstrations in the future.

Students need to consider tuition fees issue with a little more sophistication than ‘It’s not fair’

A few weeks ago, I was happy to blog about why tuition fees needed to be raised, however, thanks to the gratuitous rampage that the students went on, we have been a little side tracked about the real issue. So on the eve of the vote today, I will finally address the issue at hand.

The question about whether student fees should rise is not about fairness, per se. Rather, the starting point should be the question that has its basis in reality rather than fantasy. That question is: what can we afford?

Over 45% of the population now goes on to higher education. Can we as a society afford to subsidise that? The answer to this is not in debate. The resounding answer is no. I wish we could afford it. I think the experience of university obtained by graduates is extremely valuable to society and I refer not only to that which can be measured in GDP.

In actual fact, if we were starting again from scratch I would recommend that only 20-25% of the population should go to university; those who have achieved a certain accredited standard. If this were the case, (as was the case not so long ago) we could seriously consider funding this cost. However, the great rush over the last twenty years or so to keep as many people in education for as long as possible at any cost, has meant that that is not the reality we have to deal with.

If you want world-class universities, like Oxford and Cambridge have been since their founding, (although struggling to keep up because of recent under funding), then you have to fund them properly. First-rate education cannot be provided cheaply. If we compare the average yearly fees to go to Havard or Yale, (over $30,000) two of Oxford and Cambridge’s competitors, £3,000 a year to go to university here looks scarcely believable. The reality is that universities have been grossly underfunded for years and that was the situation even before the advent of this new age of public expenditure austerity.

Please don’t interpret this post as a brutal, heartless assessment of this issue. This is not an easy issue. I myself could not afford to go to university without a full loan from the government, and still have a serious amount of debt to my name to this day. No, I am certainly not insensitive to the realities of a potential student considering university, but is put off because he or she happens to come from a poor background. Such an outcome would be highly regrettable and certainly not the type of society we should be seeking to create.

Which is why the Coalition government should be commended for coming up with various ways in which the likelihood of a poor student being dissuaded from applying to university is kept to a minimum. Indeed, a poor student under the current proposals would actually have more grants and bursaries available to them than under the old position, as well as not having to pay back any government loan till later in their working life. This issue is not as simplistic as some of the slogans and chants on the protest would have you believe. It is not about simply putting up fees and the government being nasty. This is a very complex challenge, to balance on the one hand the harsh realities of funding the cost of higher education and on the other ensuring that going to university remains a meritocracy and not simply a reflection on the wealth of your family.

Well done to the government for broadly achieving that delicate balance. It has not been easy. If only the students could stop aimlessly shouting their childlike response ‘It’s not fair’ and give some further thought to this, they might also see that the government have come up with a very reasonable response to a very difficult issue.