The law at UK student tuition-fee rise demo

Today I watched on television from work as London police officers rode their horses into a demonstration, apparently in order to disperse a protest against a tuition-fee hike increase of up to 9,000 pounds for UK students, up from 3,290 pounds.

Under the plan 75 percent of graduates will pay more than under the current system, despite the introduction of a sliding scale repayment scheme.

I later went down to the demonstration, which was at Parliament Square, but found my way into Whitehall blocked by a row of riot police. People standing around the barricade told me to go south to Embankment, so I did. There were maybe 1,000 demonstrators there chanting, listening to music and being told by organisers not to go to Parliament Square, but to head east along Embankment and up to the Strand or Trafalgar Square.

It was difficult to know what had happened to the students who had been kettled by the police earlier. I couldn't figure out how to find them given that Whitehall was blocked off.

Not many people left while we awaited the results of the vote in Parliament, which showed that it was approved by a majority of 21 votes, with 27 members of the coalition parties voting against it and a handful abstaining.

Afterwards most people marched west along Embankment past Portcullis House, protected by a row of police, to Bridge Street.

But there was a barricade of police and police vans stretching across the road and sidewalk. Protesters stayed for about half an hour chanting, playing music and hurling abuse and the odd bit of rubbish at the police.

What we didn't know was that in other parts of London at around the same time, there were reports of protesters breaking into the Treasury, attacking the car of Prince Charles and Camilla, burning a Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

I have attended a lot of demonstrations and rallies in various cities, including Ottawa, Toronto and Washington, D.C. and I have never seen anything like this.

I wonder if this was an appropriate way to treat young people trying to exercise their democratic right to demonstrate in Parliament Square against a decision that will have a huge impact on their future.