Clegg 'in danger of losing seat' as student anger boils over

NICK Clegg has been warned by student leaders he faces a "backlash in his own backyard" and will lose his seat if he continues to support Government plans to treble university tuition fees.

The Liberal Democrat leader, who campaigned on a pledge to abolish fees and vote against any increase during this Parliament, was yesterday forced to defend the coalition's proposals which could see fees soar to 9,000 a year.

As up to 50,000 students protested against the move outside the Houses of Parliament, the Sheffield Hallam MP insisted they were "fair and progressive". Before the General Election, Mr Clegg had warned an audience of Yorkshire Post readers that if Tory cuts were implemented it could cause major civil unrest.

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Joe Oliver, Sheffield University student union's education officer, said the Deputy Prime Minister would now be the target of student anger at the next election.

"Students queued up to vote for Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam at the last election, mainly because of his opposition of tuition fees.

"Students waited for hours at polling stations to support him and there will be a backlash in his own backyard if he goes back on his word."

There were thought to be more than 1,000 students from Sheffield at the London protest which quickly descended into violence when many left the planned route and headed to Tory party headquarters at Millbank Tower.

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A number of arrests were made and numerous people were taken to hospital as police clashed with large groups of trouble-makers, some wearing scarves to hide their identity.

One man was seen smashing a window with a hammer while another brandished a piece of metal as he tried to break into the building.

Around 50 people got onto a roof, dropping a large metal fire extinguisher onto riot police.

Water fire extinguishers were also let off from the roof and eggs were thrown.

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On the ground, sticks and other missiles were thrown at police from a crowd of at least 1,000 spilling out onto the normally busy road alongside the building.

There were scuffles at the front of the crowd, with protesters throwing missiles and hitting officers with sticks.

Placards and banners were being burnt, to cheers from the crowd, while protesters inside the building used chairs as they smashed and kicked their way through more of the glass frontage, effectively opening up the whole atrium to the crowd.

A red flare was let off as the atmosphere within the crowd became increasingly volatile. The crowd responded to the heavy police presence with loud booing, screaming and chanting.

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Demonstrators who had got inside the building's atrium tried to pull down the few remaining huge sheets of glass, while others hurled pillows to chants of "Tory scum".

The demonstration, one of the biggest seen on London's streets for many years and the largest student protest since 1997, had started peacefully, with a march from Whitehall past Downing Street and Parliament.

Laura Mackenzie, current editor of the university paper Leeds Student, was at the protest and said many feared for their safety when the violence erupted.

"When the doors got smashed in that was when people started to get scared, that was when some started to panic," she said.

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"Violence cannot be condoned, but people have to realise that students have being trying for more than a year and a half to get the Government to listen to them and it has not worked."

She added: "People say that you cannot trust MPs and Nick Clegg proved it by signing a pledge that he went back on.

"I think he will lose his seat now."

Call for inquiry in wake of protests

Britain's most senior police officer has called for a thorough investigation into the policing of the protests, condemning the clashes as "an embarrassment to London".

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson was responding to criticism that his force let protesters run amok as they threw missiles.

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Dozens of police officers stationed outside the entrance of the Millbank complex were overwhelmed as the crowd pelted them with rocks and bottles and other protesters smashed windows on the fourth floor of the building in central London.

"It's not acceptable, it's an embarrassment to London and to us and we have to do something about that," he said. "I just do think that we cannot accept that level of behaviour.

"I think we've also got to ask ourselves some questions. This level of violence was largely unexpected and what lessons can we learn for the future."