Be Excellent To Each Other

Very true. The news crews seem to actively seek out the ones that are borderline vegetable. One of the reporters ended up questioning a foreign student.

Thre was also some young lad on the Beeb who said something like "I'm from a slum in London. How am I supposed to afford to go to uni? If they don't pay for me, what's to stop me turning into a drug dealer?".

Aye. That's kind of the drawback with the cuddly, Ladybird book view of policing.

Good job they give a balanced report on what the police are doing, though


That's the BNP shining through


That's what they should be painted as!

Well, in so far as they portray the protesters as people we'd ALL like to shoe in, yes...



Oh, haha.

Of course, as a foreign student, he's not entirely relevant, as he pays full fees already.

His (or her) opinion is still relevant, though.
None of the students there will be paying these fees (unless they go twice, of course).

Or all of those there that were under 18, of course.

The main thing that amused me was the reporter's reaction, who very quickly tried to end the conversation.

Hang on - I'm implanting my own memories. This is something I read about on that police blog...

Here we go:





Heh.

Heh.

You can rest easy knowing that you were entirely correct, of course.

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

It sickens me that as someone who has more free time than me you're not putting it to good use by sleeping. I want to sleep vicariously through you.

Hang on. No. That sounds a bit odd.

If I were you, I'd want to be me. Anwyay, I've got a computerator to build.

uote="GoodKingWrongceslas"]Of course, as a foreign student, he's not entirely relevant, as he pays full fees already.[/quote]Depends if EU Foreign or Other Foreign. No idea of this specific Foreign, having not seen the footage in question.

I imagine £9000/year fees will deter a lot of EU Foreigns from studying as undergraduates at English universities, unless they seriously want to learn English: The Language 'natively'. I mean, speaking of people whose situation I am familiar with, if my g.f.'s sister goes all the way to get a PhD in Theology, her student debt would be less than if she spent a single year studying at an English university...

Yeah, sorry, I keep forgetting about the EU arrangement!

What do EU students pay at present, then, the same as the nationals of the country in which the university is in?

They're not paying far off that now, are they?

Yes, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Grim..., it's just over £3000/year now. So significantly higher. Plus there's the issue of whether their own country's student support system will cover the cost of English universities. That varies country-to-country though. Some are more generous than others (Germany's BAföG is capped at €10,000, as I've been reminded).

That does beg the question of whether UK taxpayers should be funding any costs of non UK nationals using our university system, particularly at time of fiscal tightening, deficit reduction, all in this together etc etc. I understand that there's reciprocity, but how does the balance sheet on that really work out? Given how parochial people in this country are, are there really that many UK students studying in, say, Stuttgart?

I asked that almost word-for-word a couple of weeks ago. I think the answer is "we don't really know".

Take an educated guess.

He can't, he went to Aston.

No idea of the figures, but it'd be disastrous in the long-run if we pull out of reciprocal arrangements; who knows where it'll end? There would be a real knock-on effect to British citizens holidaying or working abroad, perhaps irreparably. Also, talking specifically about students, some EU students use our student loan system, so will be paying back into the system, if that worries you.

Also, we aren't the only nation doing "fiscal tightening". The rest of Europe are doing exactly the same in some form, which the British press seems to completely ignore. But eventually things will go back to 'normal', here and elsewhere in Europe, so it is unwise to damage something positive for short-termist nationalistic reasons.

It's more a question of wanting to know what it looks like in practice. I'm pretty certain many, many more EU students study in the UK than UK students study in the EU, mainly because we have much less students who are competent in a foreign language. So are we subsidising, when we likely can't afford to, or is it balanced against other things like trade subsidies and the like?

Yes, indeed, that was my point. Rather than suggesting "Urgh, forrins, coming over here and taking our university places and shagging our easy wimmins. INGERLAND".

Ah, OK, no problem, sorry Kf. I imagine much more come here than the other way round, as studying English is compulsory in so many other EU countries as an 'international' language, but we're collectively crap at Foreign languages, and our native tongue is basically the main way many Foreigns speak to each other. I'm sure the cost of it balance out somehow, anyway, with our HE having more expensive user fees than European norm.

Students to try kettling Scotland Yard.

Hopefully this will lead to their kettle being kettled, and some sort of feedback loop will eventually produce the first truly perfect cup of tea.

Do they still have armed police wandering around Scotland Yard? They did at the beginning of the year.

They did last time I was there (June or July).

Scotland Yard is a proper dump inside. I was really disappointed.

Fun game, though.

The clue's in the name.

That would tend to do the opposite, no? If us paying for EU students is more expensive than EU countries paying for our students, then the balance would shift even further in the other direction.

I'm interested to see how it's all worked out.

We get it all back in our rebate.

No, hang on...

Anyway, good for the students. Presumably as kettling is so lovely and fluffy and a great day out for the family, the Great British Plod will take it with the redoubtable good humour for which he is so well known (i.e. look for someone in a wheelchair and give them a shoeing).

Or hassle them for taking photographs

Jesus telegraph has three articals on what a poor innocent little ba lamb this Jody lad is. 90% of the comments are pointing out that if you read his blog then it's obvious that he's not.

He made a good point as far as I'm concerned: what threat did he pose to police to merit being dragged about and whacked with a baton?

He wasn't whacked with a baton, was he? Just pulled out of his wheelchair (which he didn't need). He hasn't alleged that even on his blog.

He didn't obey lawful instructions from a police officer, and so got made to obey. Simples.

Massive "heh" at the Telegraph siding with him, though. Just goes to show the standard to their journos' research. 10 years ago they'd have been over him like Craster on a badger.

In the interview he said he was hit, idunno.

Still, does "not obeying instructions" now justify a beating? If it didn't happen to him it's certainly happened to others, by the sounds of it.

"Drop the gun!"

If he'd had a beating, then no, it wouldn't. As he didn't appear to suffer anything other than reasonable force in moving him in the video, he can shut up.

He mentioned on his blog he got hit when he was in the scrum, but that was before the police tried to take him out of his wheelchair - that's not on, obviously, as I'm not in favour of the police lashing out with their big, thick truncheons with impunity.

True, but hardly comparable with "Leave this area, even though we're on shaky ground legally asking you to do so".

Two incidents, apparently he was the first time round.I'd still argue that he probably does need it. It's not that unusual for folk in wheelchairs to have some mobility.True, but he could've just wheeled him over to the side of the road and if he'd suddenly leapt out of the chair & started smashing fucking out of him then he could've smashed him back.

Again, where's the physical threat to police in this case?
That's the only instance in which they're allowed to dish it out.

Yup, as I've mentioned above - he mentions that in his blog. It's unrelated to being dragged out of his wheelchair, though.



Yeah, but he talks on his blog about running around, and running up several flights of stairs at one point.



Not as much fun, though.

He got moved because he had positioned himself in the no man's land between the protesters and the horses, he refused to budge, police made him, he then got up and walked back to where he was and stood there. That's his account of events not the police's. I doubt they could have wheeled him nicely away because if you put the wheel lock on or manually grab hold it's not going anywhere.

Also as I have said, he himself said he walked up 18 flights of stairs to get up on the roof at Millbank.

Walking wasn't quite the same as running the last time I did it. Anyway, I never thought I'd be able to haul a 20 stone unconscious/drunk man out the water by myself but adrenaline's a funny thing & I dare say he had assistance.Agreed. I edited that bit, it's betterer now

Are you saying the wheelchair is a prop, and he's faking it?

There's jogging up 18 flights of steps with ease, or there's painfully hopping up them supported on both sides by helpers or somewhere in between. It seems a bit disingenuous to suggest the former just because you don't happen to agree with his views.

I'm not disagreeing that he's a bit of a twat here, just it is illustrating the sort of heavy handed, provocative tactics that are apparently being employed.

I'm just going on what he said. He didn't say "limped up the stairs with the help of X and Y". You may well be right, of course.


I'd have thought it's fairly obvious from this thread I don't need convincing of that having happened quite a lot at each of the protests, Kal.

That was more to Decca really

Consider my neck wound in then.