There is a visceral hatred of the Conservative Party in this country, even among my generation and younger. I’m not sure why; maybe it’s because people are rationally looking at their record and honestly disliking them. Maybe it’s because they’re not really conservative in many respects. Maybe the hatred is justified.

Just kidding; in most cases it seems to be because people of my age and younger have learned hatred from an earlier generation and are blindly following it. Thatcher was a milk snatcher, don’t you know, and other Tories burnt babies while laughing about it and getting rich off selling the smoke.

So why were people surprised when some of the students at yesterdays march decided that the best thing was for violence and destruction aimed at CCHQ? I mean, there are literally thousands of people who grew up knowing that gravity keeps them on the ground, corporations are evil (US ones doubly so) and that the Conservative Party will grind up the poor to feed the furnace of their industry.

So of course you were going to get mindless violence given the least possible excuse. It doesn’t matter what the coalition does, as long as it has Tory ministers there will be a layer of society that will react violently.

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Footnote: I’m not a Tory. For one thing, they’re not right wing enough on economic issues to please me, and on another they’re too happy trying to be authoritarian. And I’m not sure about the raising of tuition fees to the level proposed; I haven’t really heard better options but I’d dearly love to.