Shame

Photograph: Karel Prinsloo/AP

I know this is my third post about the tuition fee and education cuts issue but tonight the vote went through and it was passed - in September 2012 any student who wants to go to university is facing tripled fees of up to £9k a year. They are facing a life of debt and no positive effect on the standard of education they receive at all.

I am so ashamed of our supposedly wonderful democratic government.

I am also so angry - angry that I was taken in and believed the Liberal Democrats were credible and filled me with hope at the general election.

The protests have been long, sometimes violent and I don't think over.  The dismissive tone of criticism about how violent the protests got totally misses the point. They are angry, they don't feel their voice is being acknowledged so they will rage and destroy in order to be heard and I feel they weren't left with many alternative options. Why on earth would you expect these young people to respect a government and system which has ruthlessly betrayed them. The student body overwhelmingly chose the Lib Dems to represent and speak for them. Now they are entirely disregarded by the very party they voted for.

There has been much criticism of the violence and extent of the protests, lots of tutting about how it could have been a perfectly acceptable peaceful protest. But what does that achieve?

I attended the enormous anti war peaceful protest because I wanted my voice along with over a million others to be heard - it was systematically ignored.

For the disapproving MPs and mainstream media to demand respect when none has been shown is so incredibly patronising and comically out of touch. It appears from eyewitness reports that the police were particularly aggressive and that the majority of protests were peaceful. This makes me wonder if all the media hype about how violent the protesters were is all just an attempt to discredit their voice. Maybe I'm just very cynical but can you blame me?

There are more cuts coming and many appear to be aimed at the lower economic sections of society or at least affect them the most. This is not the last of the protests and hopefully soon, our disenchanted and angry voices will be acknowledged. That is the point of democracy right?

“In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.”

-Aristotle