I was at the NUS march yesterday. The mach started off brilliantly, atmosphere was buzzing, and everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. The vast majority of people there, marched, rallied, and then went home. They didn't disappear off because they were bored as somebody suggested earlier, but because we had said what we had come to say, made our point, and followed the plan. I'm strongly opposed to such a drastic rise in fees, but I got that accross with chants and banners, not smashing up buildings, abusing police officers who were only doing their job, or setting fires all over London.
Considering how excited I was about both how the march had gone(during the arranged times, not what happened afterwards), and my first ever visit to London, I came away feeling dissapointed, deflated and embarrassed. That was caused by such a small minority of the people who were there, and it has completely undermined what everybody else had done on the day. The head of my student union at Teesside University Laurie Wheatman was on the phone to the radio; when asked how long it was going to take us to get home, she commented that we had been on the bus for an hour and a half, and were still not yet out of central London. His response to that, was that it was a hold up that we ouselves had caused. This was an unfair and untrue comment to make. Teesside University were amongst the peacefull protesters, hence us all being on the bus at the planned time, not being detained by the police, and I for one really resent being lumped in with the students who behaved in that disgusting way.
