The Students are Revolting

The sale of Che Guevara t-shirts went through the roof yesterday as student radicalism came back in vogue for the first time since the 1980s. It follows on from last year's trend for Converse trainers and Hoxdenchester haircuts. The astonishing display of solidarity must be applauded as 50,000 students got out of bed before midday and managed to make it to the march on time. The event had been organised by the National Union of Students as part of their campaign against the Coalition's proposal to increase student fees to as much as £9000 a year.

Things really must be pretty awful to raise students out of their post-Thatcherite political lethargy although I note that the organisers, not wanting to over-burden their members, had left a very generous four hours to walk the one mile between Horseguards Parade and Millbank. Having attended universities during the 1980s, 90s and noughties, it struck me that student political apathy had increased relative to how well-groomed they were. The more hair products they used the less Marx they knew. Yet yesterday, much better dressed and smelling far sweeter than in the 80s, students had finally decided enough was enough.

Armed only with banners and vitriol - which many students from newer universities were astonished to discover was not a type of shampoo - the event began in a noisy but peaceful manner. Most of their anger was directed at Nick Clegg for breaking his election promise to scrap student fees altogether. In a moment of clarity on ITV1's Daybreak, Clegg commented, "I should have been more careful perhaps in signing that pledge." Yes Nick, 'perhaps' you should. Of course, telling the truth might have damaged your election chances so it was a tough call.

The students were angry but having walked around many universities I have never been conscious of their threatening atmosphere. They are not like tough housing estates or even a taxi queue in any provincial town on a Friday night. If you have got to grips with the language of 'Finnegan's Wake' your natural instinct is almost certainly not to attack policemen. That is one of the reasons wider society benefits from educating its young properly.

Yet the most unsurprising aspect of the whole event is that it turned into a scrum with the police. A Barbour deficit amongst anarchist groups may have deterred them from infiltrating the Countryside Alliance marches but it was clearly a danger on this demonstration. Interviewed by the BBC, former Flying Squad commander John O'Connor said, 'It's an absolute disgrace. It was naive of them not to anticipate the threat from anarchist groups.' He accused the Met of having 'no tactics and nowhere near enough people' at the scene.

Who benefits? Unfortunately for the students, attention has been directed away from the issues and instead we have a shell-shocked NUS President Aaron Porter having to apologise. I suspect the NUS's only real crime is being a little naive.

Let's give them an A+ for effort.