... From the streets of Horse Guards Avenue to the corridors of Parliament: ‘NO IFS NO BUTS NO EDUCATION CUTS’...
London Demo 10/11/10, produced and edited by Veronica Frydel and Madeleine Klippel
It was the biggest student protest since 1998. They say about 50,000 people took part in a march through Westminster earlier on that day. The protests were the reaction of the Lord Brown’s proposed education cuts which also forced the tuition fee cap to rise to £9.000.
The proposal is that the tuition fees would rise from 2012. The funding is planned to be cut by 40%, teaching grants are meant to be got rid of except science and maths and the costs of teaching other courses is expected to be funded only by these tuition fees. As it was written in the article on BBC on tht day Universities Minister David Willetts said the new system would be fairer than the present one, offering more help to the poorest students and the students would only have to pay back their tuition fee loans once they were earning £21,000 or more.
Intentions of the protests were peaceful and music of the drums singing and chanting spread along the street uniting students from all over UK against the proposal.
Aaron Porter National Union of Students President spoke at the meeting earlier on that morning:
“We are here today to send out a clear message about how devastating the cuts to the Higher education will be really troubling and how some of the students I think, will find themselves priced out of higher education (...) This is a government that runs its election campaign, the Tory half at least, saying that we cannot sustain an economy on debt while simultaneously passing on a record level of debt onto the next adult generation (...) “It’s right that we continue to focus on the issue of the fee cup because I don’t think it is right that we will sit back and watch the student contribution to treble in from of our eyes whilst state funding is just simply withdrawn.
(...) The Liberal Democrats need to stick to their word they made a promise at the general election to vote against the higher fees. They had election broadcast where Nick Clegg said ‘no more broken promises’, the students are laughing at their faces right now, and they face wipe out unless they reverse what they are doing.(...) “ said Aaron Porter, National Union of students president.
A group of students fro the University of Winchester decided to tke upon themselves a challenge to cover the student demonstrations that took place in London on 10/11/10. The film we made was produced by Madeleine Klippel and I, filmed by Madeleine, Andrew Giddings, William Cooper and myself. Will's voice appears as the voice over.
Couple of our reporters Madeleine and Andrew went to the press conference and filmed it.
Aaron also said that they wanted it to be peaceful protest as that was what they have signed up for and if students go violent that would be what will be a matter for the police and they would have to hand it over to them.
After the conference they video interviewed Aaron as well as Alan Whitaker, University and College Union President, who said that if we end up with the riots on the street the press will focus on that, that is not what my union want the press to focus on, we want the press to focus on not increasing fees, not scrubbing the educational maintenance, those are the messages we want to get across.
While Andy and Maddie focused on sending the materials over to the studio William and I were already among the crowd filming the demonstrations. ‘No ifs no buts, no education cuts’ was the students’ leading chanting phrase. Millions of different banners were raised into air and demonstrated with a strong feeling and determination to represent what the demonstrators felt.
“Education is a right not a privilege”
“Who nicked our Education”
“Don’t cut a child’s future”
“Death of Education”
“We miss Gordon”
“RIP Education”
Trumpets, drums and significant phrases flooded the streets. Students were trying their best to have their voices heard. Will and I decided to speak to few of the participants to get the genuine feeling and intentions from the Protestants. We spoke to number of people while marching along with them trying to capture an amazing feeling of higher purpose and unity of the crowd that stood out and marched to make a difference.
We spoke to students from universities and colleges all around UK. Head teachers, unions who said that they were there because they think that the costs of education are unfair and they will not stand back, and they are against it. College students were saying that if the fees go up they won’t be able to afford to go to university and they don’t want the ones who will go to university to be paying their debts till the rest of their lives. Head of school teacher came along to the demonstration to support the cause. Our interviewees were saying that it should be a principle of our society that we should all be there, not only as parents supporting our children but also to politicise the younger generation. Most of our interviewees were full of hope for a significant and decision breaking outcomes of the demonstration and others admitted that they were there to have their voices heard but they were not sure if they would be listened to.
We even managed to find a member of parliament in the crowds, Lisa Nandy, Labour MP for Wigan who was there to show the support for the young people in her constituency who won’t be able to go to the university as a result of the announcements. She has just come out from the inside of the house of Parliament and said that there was a real anger amongst the MPs in there about what’s happening and the demonstrations are fuelling it.
We were taking pictures at the same time and sending them over to the newsroom so that it could use it in the news bulletin. As the main protests wound down Will and I decided to head towards the coaches to head with our student union back over to Winchester around 3.30pm. We got to the coach sat and ready for the last students to join us we received a message that just across the bridge at the Millbank, Tory Head Quarters “are being trashed” from one of our colleagues Jason who was at the protests photographing it.
Jason Curtis is our WINOL’s photographer and was covering it for the website, whereas Will (sports deputy editor for WINOL) and I (Feature Editor for WINOL) were filming it for the Feature section of the website. Will and I had a big dilemma in that we had only few minutes to solve. It was around 4pm and we had only 1min left on our tape and the coach was just about to head back to Winchester.
We stormed out of the coach and run across the bridge with only one minute left on the tape and run to 30 Millbank to capture at least minutes of footage of what was happening there. We made sure we stayed together and safe in the crowd and when our last tape run out we started filming with our mobiles. We informed our tutors and editor where we were and kept them updated of what was happening constantly sending the pictures over to the newsroom.
We could not get hold of Maddie and Andy throughout the demonstrations until later on that day. We bumped into them while filming the fireplace, banners burning on the pavement right in front of the Millbank. They happened to have a spare tape! From now on the four of us were filming the events at the Millbank with two cameras and had no concern of tapes running out.
The atmosphere was filled with a lot more anger and attitudes ready for action rather than just peaceful drumming and marching. It felt as if all the peaceful demonstrators wend back on the coaches and deferent intentions were pushed the people in front the Tory HQ to put their words into action. When we got there the windows were already broken and the police started forming a wall trying to push people away from the building. Lots of journalists around trying to do their’ piece to camera’ from the heart of the situation at that stage... and we, observing and filming trying to paint the whole picture of the day.
We were scared but excited at the same time we were at the right middle of the history happening. We were determined not to leave until it all finishes... or our tapes run out.
There were objects flying above our heads, police and media helicopters above and fire places below and crowd trying to sustain not movable from the place. Swearwords and people with their faces covered only showing eyes could not mean anything good in their intentions. Where some of the people there were only observing and the ongoing phrase ‘no ifs no buts no education cuts’ was still coming out of part of the crowd just standing there and manifesting with their presence there were also those who decided to climb up the roof and throw things from up above and these on the ground kept pushing trying to get into the building.
We decided to interview with some students at the place. We managed to find few. They said that they only just got there. We were trying to get the feeling whether the remaining students there though that this part of the protests was planned. As you can see on the film and from interviews with union presidents earlier on that day, it was all not part of the plan the fact that it turned into a trouble for the police and that the police looked to be outnumbered made it quite dangerous for some.
Unfortunately at that stage press was not focusing on the message that was meant to be the main message of the day but on the ‘violence’ that it turned to at the 30 Millbank House.
BBC news published an article at 8pm‘Violence at Tory HQ overshadows student fees protest’, starting the report with words , ‘there have been violent scenes as tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England.” Then it went to ‘demonstrators stormed a building in Westminster housing the Conservative Party headquarters, smashed windows and got on to the roof. Outside, a crowd of thousands surged as placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown.” And then it looks like they tried to make a balance saying: ‘student leaders condemned the violence as "despicable".’
A stand-off is still taking place between about two dozen demonstrators and the police, with 32 people having been arrested so far.”
On of their Educational Correspondents, Sean Coughlan at the scenedescribed in the BBC article that “This siege of Millbank Tower was a violent break-away from what had been a noisy but good-natured march.
As demonstrators crowded around the building, some masked and hooded, the mood began to turn ugly. Missiles began flying towards the large plate glass windows, with only a thin line of police, with metal truncheons raised, guarding the building's entrance.
Outnumbered and overwhelmed, they were slowly but relentlessly hemmed against the front of the building.
As protesters surged, a succession of windows were smashed and then demonstrators flooded into the building entrance. Security guards scattered and the handful of police inside were completely overrun. A few yards away, in surreal calm, guests carried on eating in the adjacent Pizza Express.
Inside the building, demonstrators wearing police hats danced on tables. A protester ripped a security camera from the ceiling and danced in triumph, slogans were spray-painted on walls. (...)” He also said in his report that according to Scotland Yard, 14 people have been injured, including seven police officers but no-one was seriously hurt.
Will and I heard that some people got hurt and at that stage we also heard that some also got arrested. As we were doing our last interview with a girl who summarised the situation saying that it was a disgusting that the press was only focusing on ‘the riots’ of the protests rather than the facts that thousands of students turned up this day to disagree with the coalition. She also said that it would be a waste if the group of people that did what they did have made the point of that day overshadowed.
After that interview Will and I felt that we have had enough footage for our film and Maddie and Andy also agreed that it was time to head back to Waterloo. I think it was around 5pm when we decided to leave however to our surprise the police surrounded the area and said that we cannot get out.
We explained that we were there acting as journalist and were there to film events of that day purely observing but they did not let us out. When Maddie and Andy who are at the same year studying Journalism at Winchester University with us were standing next to us and had the same camera. They were let out because they had press passes and Will and I did not have one as we did not expect to be there at the first place. We tried to explain to the police that we were studying at the same course acting as journalists but they did not take that for an answer. In front of our eyes two of our classmates were let through and we were kept back because we didn’t have press passes.
Hours went by and we were standing there in cold waiting and frustrated to be kept for such a long time.
BBC report from 1700 GMT said that the police had "largely taken control" of the building, some protesters were escorted out by officers and the crowds outside were gradually dispersing.
Well, there could have been around hundred of us standing there surrounded by the police I think, and every now and again the huge ‘police wall’ was getting closer and closer. We figured that it was part of the system to tackle the crowd but we could not believe that we were kept with that crowd. I heard in a distance a young guy speaking to a police officer, the guy mentioned the word ‘kettling’, which I felt fitted well description to what was happening around us.
I remembered a definition of Kettling from Wikipedia, which is simply a police tactic for the management of large crowds during demonstrations or protests... large cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a limited area- was exactly what was happening.
We heard from someone that we were being kept there for breach of public piece.
When kittling, protesters are usually left only one choice of exit, determined by the police, or are completely prevented from leaving, detainees can be denied access to food, water and toilet facilities for a long period- yes, this part was of my big concern as unluckily we happened to be in that ‘doomed circle of kettled people accused of breach of piece’ and could do nothing about it.
The part of the definition that was of my biggest concern was that sometimes all or some of those kettled are mass-arrested and that was the least thing that we wanted.
Well, there was nothing else that we could do but wait for the police to let us out.
About four hours later on our ‘way out’ we were searched ‘for sharp objects’ and requested to have our pictures taken and then let out.
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