Putting in this post from Vamp - it's just made the last few pages of the politics thread worthwhile.
QUOTE (Vamp @ Dec 11 2010, 13:25)

The simple truth about the violence of the streets is this, its not soley anyone's fault. I think the media, both left and right, is looking to point the finger at specific groups and go "yeah, its all their fault" but its pretty obvious who should get the blame for the violence on the streets; the Government for lying and then not being able to win people over through rational arguments, the rioters who should never have gone to that level of violence, the police who have made questionable decisions from the start, the media who have shown that the only way to get so much attention is to be violent and controversial and those who have given any money to the media which continues, on both sides of the political fence, to be nothing short of awful.
So it isn't those 'bastard' Tories who are to blame, or those 'lying, treacherous' Lib Dems, or those 'sulky middle class' students, the violence on the streets of our nation's captial is essentially the fault of our entire country (or at least those over the age of 15 or so). People arn't going to like admitting it, and I dare say that my view will be met of "oh, how is it my fault", but it is. We've had, in the past two years or so, an expert come out and explain how the reporting of murders has celebrated murders to the point where it can be seen as appealing to certain people, and what he said made a lot of sense, and there's not a single person who can rationally argue that the student protests would have gotten this much attention if they didn't act so violently. The media has encouraged it, and we've all supported the way the media have been and will continue to do so. Not that I condone people who have used violence to get attention, personally I'd rather people used sheer numbers and words to fight their battles, but I'm certainly not shocked (and nor should any rational person be) that people felt that violence was the only way of getting their message across.
So there you go, that's the violence explained. There's no one section of sociey to pin this all on. Even if you do agree with the government's policy I find it hard to believe that anyone would argue that they did a very good job of getting their message across. People will no doubt argue this with "oh, well, these sulky students just put their fingers in their ears and didn't listen because they were too busy shouting' but in doing so they'll just be part of a rhetoric which has become a major problem with this country today; the fact that youngsters are constantly derided. The more and more you put down a section of society, the more and more you pin them as something, the more and more likely they are to take on your words, take on your comments and then throw them back at you, taking on those negative connotations and throwing them in your face. For years people have suggested that 'violent youngsters have taken over the streets at night' making them feel its unsafe to walk about town, the student protests ended with a mass of youngsters taking on that image and chanting about the streets being theirs.
The only part of this that has shocked me is this basic assumption that all students are middle class, or that it's only the middle class complaining. I'm a student from a working class background and I'm deeply concerned about the new cost of tuition fees. My reason is simply this; I'm a Beaver leader and I know that one day those six year olds will grow up, and some of them will want to go to Uni and some of them won't, but I live in a working class area and I know for a fact that the new numbers that students will now have to face would have put me off from going to University. I would have had second thoughts. Some of those kids will have to see those figures and face such high debts and make a decision; go to Uni or not, I would hate it some of those kids decided not to persue their dreams because of those numbers. And I know for a fact that some of them will. That's not debatable. Of course the debts that the entire country must face have be taken into consideration, but there are those out there who have simply brushed any problems with all this aside as "they haven't got a point at all, this isn't going to stop anyone from going to uni, its just the middle class sulking" which simply isn't true. An entire country is, of course, more important that one simple person, it would be foolish to argue that it wasn't but we must all face the fact that the decision this government has made, a decision that by and large it seems this country agrees with, will stop certain people from doing what they want to do with their lives. This generation is guilty of stoping people from achieving their dreams. Whether it was the right decision or not will still be debated for a while but anybody who's tried to wipe their noses of this guilt must face those facts. Not all right decisions are easy, I grant you, and maybe there was no choice but the fact still remains, those who claim that it won't really have any effect are as blind as any leftist cries that education should have been made free.