Millbank

Among the chatterati there seems to be agreement that the taking of Millbank detracted from the aims of the demonstration. In the crowd at Millbank was a Guardian worker who said he witnessed students calming down their more fiery colleagues - basically telling them 'not to be a knobhead.' Their response to the dropped fire extinguisher was to chorus, "Don't throw shit." And they are angry at the unfairness of it all. Among the demonstration were many FE students who really have been clobbered. 

John Harris wrote in the Guardian, "While the coalition comes over all Churchillian, endlessly talking about the "national interest" and the spurious idea that we are "all in this together", there is also a low hubbub of noise about their shortage of a mandate. On Wednesday, the ire of the marchers was focused on all those Lib Dems who blithely signed the NUS's anti-fees pledge ("I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative" – yesterday, Nick Clegg limply said that he "should have been more careful" than to put his name to it). But there are also serious questions about the Tories – not just that they are pushing what Cameron recently called a "revolution" with the support of around one in five of the electorate, but also when it comes to the pronouncements they made during the election campaign."

"Consider, for example, a now-infamous quote from the PM, issued on the Andrew Marr show on 2 May: "What I can tell you is any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says: 'Here are my plans' and they involve frontline reductions – they'll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again." And really: they wonder why some people are increasingly angry."

Harris ends his article by bringing it back to the root cause of all our problems; outrageous greed.

"..on 3 November, a Treasury minister named Lord Sassoon served notice that the coalition's work on City bonuses was done: "The government has taken action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the banking sector," he said, and that seemed to be that. Six days later, Barclays announced that its latest bonus pot would total £1.6bn – which is about a third of what the government currently spends each year on university teaching. The annual season of big executive payouts is about to commence once again; at this rate, do not be surprised if the seditious spirit of Millbank spreads – and fast." Guardian 12/11/2010

One final thought. Apparently the Tory party rent Millbank from an offshore company.........