THE STUDENTS ARE REVOLTING!

(nervous laugh)

So naturally there's some amount of carefully-repressed reaction in my mind, yesterday after the news I went straight to the internet to vent. Because I'm slowly learning to accept, if not embrace the fact that I have possibly now fully integrated myself into this manner of doing things. This was my rant/essay/call to arms that I posted on tumblr. It's not the most eloquent thing I've written because it takes me a long time to find non vulgar adjectives when talking about those b***** f****** Tory c****.
Here's a slightly more calmed-down take on things, although yesterday I wrote before the hijacking of the royal Rolls Royce so I'll try and tackle that with an air of slight control. Or not. Who knows, I haven't written it yet.

The headlines! The headlines! Have you seen the headlines? The title of this post is what I expected the headlines to be today. No. They are, from those god awful tabloids that I feel nautious at the sight of, comments on Camilla's fragile disposition with that image of the couple making faces of alarm and distaste. I think the Daily Mail called it 'terror' but personally I thought it looked like 'surprised disgust'. Whatever it was, it was all over the papers today. The Guardian had the most neutral and therefore appropriate headline, I felt, with 'Charles and Camilla caught up in violence after student fees vote'. Nice. Smooth, calm, realistic. The Mirror was my favourite, however, for its minimalist approach of 'CAMILLA ATTACK TERROR'. I mean, it's so wonderfully ambiguous. Let the imagination run wild. And so on.
The cause of this attack, terror, and Camilla, was of course those bloody kids again. When I say bloody, I do mean quite literally. Although I will go on to why and how Camilla was attacked and terrified, the point I'm trying to make here is that I feel it is an absolute travesty that these two people, out of everyone who was actually injured yesterday, just these two are the ones to make the front pages of almost every newspaper. I understand fully the press agenda and the fact that the public interest lies with the royal family and of course the attack on the car was dreadful, and must have been frightening for the people inside of it but I am once again met with the sense of an overpowering question as to why we even care about these people. To be awfully brutal about it, the story here ought to be the fact that the disparity between rich and poor is about to grow even larger. That thousands of students are rioting because our supposed leaders are finding it impossible to sustain a fair country, that a certain leader has gone against every principle he won his vote by supporting, and that many have been grieviously injured in the last twenty-four hours and that yesterday marks the country's inevitable descent into chaos. Yesterday is the first day of the rest of Britain, my question is, do the papers reflect this? Perhaps it could be argued that this is exactly what they do. This symbol of the strength of Britain has been defaced with broken glass and paint, these people who supposedly represent have been terrified and faced with a never before experienced vitriol. I personally am a republican, I disagree with a monarchy, and this is me bemoaning the fact that the papers grieve for two extraordinarily mediocre people when those who are attempting to make a difference, or, for the police, attempting to prevent people making a difference, have suffered far worse.
This is a symbol of the gap. This is a war of class. Perhaps the headlines were correct, perhaps that glowing image is in fact an incredibly accurate representation of the state of things. This said, no journalist is thinking that far right now. This said, in actual fact the news is reporting the fact that we ought to be worried for the royals.

The question I promised to return to- why did it happen?
Yesterday, I watched Vince Power flanked by Nick Clegg and David Cameron deliver his reasons as to why this move to raise the cap on tuition fees is a perfectly reasonable and logical thing to do. The question of economics here will inevitably lead me back to the Philip Green fiasco, if the Tories weren't allowing the unapologetic tax dodging and the corruption in systems that allow such people to get away with such disgusting sums of money, there would be far less need to cut costs. The ridiculousness of this situation hits me again with every new headline.
So Vince Cable outlined his plans, David Cameron looked sickeningly supportive and Nick Clegg looked pleasingly pained as they nodded and patted backs. I like to think there was quite a struggle in the questionably existant moral section of the deputy PM's psyche. Hopefully it will lead to some kind of break down, in which we shall see the inevitable Titanic demise of the Lib Dems catalysed. It wouldn't be perfect, but it might be quite satisfying to watch.
Anyway. That was a horrific moment for British television/Britain in general. The result of the vote was hugely disappointing, and somewhat expected, although the closeness of it I found slightly heartening.
I often find with these posts that I get about halfway through and completely forget how I was going to link each section, so I'll now attempt to distract you from the fact that I'm going to begin a conclusion by making you aware of it in a dazzling and startling manner.
Of course it detracts from the susbstance of the piece, but perhaps I'm inventing a new trend of talking about important issues whilst retaining a disposition so entirely not-quite-there that the whole thing is given an edge of pastiche.
It's paragraphs like that that prevent anything from being taken seriously.
On a much more severe note though, TAKE NOTE. As I said, the students are revolting (ha...ha...ha...ha...) and everyone needs to join in.
If this hasn't become clear through my overly flowery and slightly bitter descriptions that just go on and on, my message, if I'm qualified to have one, is that Britain is about to be in even more chaos and in order to get some order we need to add to said chaos.
So, we must protest, riot, shout, write angry letters and pour our angst onto the internet whilst starting viral campaigns against those evil bastards that are stealing our money/education/future. Because the young people of Britain actually caring about something is really inspiring to me. I love it. I hate what's going on, and so does everyone else, and that's what I love. Now is exactly the right time to do that thing you've always been talking about doing- caring about something and making a difference.

If any of the above was at all connected to any of the other above, I suppose that's my mission accomplished.
A very small mission.
What's important is that there is a huge mission. A really huge mission at hand. This is the best opportunity we've had to start making Britain a fairer place. Only when things are this out of hand can people trying to act positively be truly noticed. Make sure people notice. Make sure things get fixed.

Over and out.