London NUS Demo2010

Got up at 4, got ready, left here at quarter to 5 to go to the Union for a flapjack + drink for the coach.

We took 3 coaches and 3 mini-buses, I was on Coach 3 :) Not a lot happened for the next 4 hours - went South Wales and past Bristol direction, to get there... stopped at services but was packed so didn't have time to get anything. 3 hours later we got to London :)

Were about an hour late for the start so missed the first speeches, but the police opened the barrier at Westminster and made us get in there. We were right at the start of the protest!! 8)

The other Aber coaches were in different places but we managed to find them on the walk to Millbank. Everything was happy, chanting + singing with banners but then there were about 30 men in balaclavas with activist banners that ran into Millbank House.

How close we were to Millbank Tower

Only 2 security guards there at the time so they ran out and called the police. Not a lot happened, just shouting and running around with the press filming it.

Took about 15 mins for the police to get there and thats when it started to get violent - a lot of us notices a few of the press turned their cameras off at the point?

We carried on and had the speeches, watched a few videos - shouted a bit more!

Then we were told to carry on walking past the Tate and to leave the protest, it took about an hour(?) as people walked past and the NUS secretary thanked the different Uni's over the loudspeakers but by then it was pretty quiet.

An hour or so later was when all the riots kicked off, people throwing things, fires, about 30 people on the roof?! We kept away, went to the London eye and got some food.



We were meant to be getting the coach back at half 5, but coach 3 was "a mile away in traffic" ... 2 hours later, after standing in the freezing cold at Albert Embankment it turned up! We couldn't go anywhere 'cos we didn't know how long it'd be. To make it even better my phone had 10% battery so was playing up and the died!

Anyway, warmed up on the coach, fell asleep for about an hour - we went up to Brum and across on the way back so I knew were we where! :))

There were a few posters that I liked:

What I don't understand is, why, if they knew thats what we were protesting and there would be 50,000 students walking right past, they didn't either shut off the building like a lot of others did, or at least have Police and more security there waiting?!

Shame that out of the 52,000 people there, 500 minority activists spoilt the whole day.
Now people are fixed on moaning about how bad students are rather than the £9,000 tuition fees, 40% budget cuts...

All I wanna say is that, They don't really care about us