Student protests, round 1, 10 November

Panic on the streets of London as some disaffected students, confronted with actually having to pay for a service, riot. Well, I say riot, they actually broke a few windows and burned a few banners. Their own banners, actually. One wonders at the sort of intellect that decides to burn their own property.

The French do a good riot, as do the Greeks and as a result their police have a reputation for brutality and no sense of humour. The Americans rarely riot but when they do it's spectacular, like a big budget remake of a European art house movie. The only problem is that Americans riot in their own neighbourhoods. This is always a mistake as the benefits of not having far to tote your looted wide screen tee vee are offset by pitching up at your favourite breakfast place the next morning and finding it a burned out husk...and yet the juice bar is still standing!

The students attacked Conservative party offices. Security in that building looked daunting, consisting of two very nice ladies behind a desk. To be fair, the desk looked pretty substantial but lacked an AK 47 in the top draw that would have been more useful than a book to ask the rioters to sign in.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument about fees, one thing is for sure; if you kick off some trouble in the centre of London you should expect water cannon and police with badge numbers removed. As it was the police response was somewhat feeble and some rioters got away. The plan is to set everyone an essay titled 'what I did on my trip to London' and arrest anyone who makes reference to any activity other than 'caught coach to demo, dipped out of protest and went to see Billy Elliot instead'.