Kick that window

Few celebrities have managed to get slightly different versions of the same image on the front page of every newspaper on the same day. All this guy did was kick a window.

This image was so powerful that all of the newspapers have decided to use it. We should take the image and see it as a symbol of us breaking down the wall between the people and what is supposed to be their government.

Yes, breaking down party headquarters was undemocratic. But so was putting up tuition fees to some of the highest levels in the world while Labour and the Conservatives dodged the question and Nick Clegg signed a pledge not to put fees up.

Through that window we see the cynicism of our political class as they pretend to be sad about
making cuts they always wanted to do anyway.

The response of the protester should have been, “Well I don’t normally kick down windows but it’s the deficit you see…” And all this to justify the same policies that made the Great Depression great.

You don’t see Clegg or Cameron marching up to the CBI to say, “Look, I’m sorry guys – we would love corporate tax rates to be some of the lowest in Europe but it’s the deficit, you see, it’s just got to go up.” No. The poor must pay for the mistakes of the rich.

Cameron said that parliament was the place deciding these things. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Doesn’t matter that the public were never consulted or were betrayed. We should just stay behind the glass and watch as our wise, benign political class make decisions for us in our (their and their supporters) best interests. Our rights that we have won were won with a fight.

On the other hand, maybe shock is what we need. A broken window and some blood patches may be enough to awake our conscience: we are not what we are told to be, and need not settle with the stereotyped image of the passive student.

We should be democratic even if they won’t be. But we nevertheless should smash the window between them and us. We are not going to sit down and watch, which seems to be the suggestion every time someone says the word “deficit”.

Will this be enough to guarantee us victory? Much will depend upon what we mean by victory. And even more will depend on the origin of our idea. For a start, a victory need not be necessarily the end of government’s cut. A greater triumph could be securing a wider network of students finally aware of what they stand for. The sense of belonging to something (a group, a movement, an idea) is the hardest thing we can achieve.