Seven o’clock in the morning is a very early time to catch a bus, especially when its pissing it down with rain, but so began my day trip to London for the NUS demo against tuition/“top-up” fees. Unfortunately the rain continued all the way to London and through the early stages of the march. Arriving late we fitted in at the back once it had already started.

The march followed a winding route which made it impossible to gauge its size, but it was clear we were some way from the front and other groups were appearing out of nowhere and before long we found ourselves in the middle rather than the rear of the march. The attendance was diverse with many of the attendants clearly being demonstration virgins. The one surprise for me was to see the Lib Dems out in force, trying desperately to present themselves as a left-wing party. There was also a very good samba band from the Royal Academy of Music and another smaller band of people who might have been students, but perhaps not.

As the march reached Waterloo(?) Bridge things became a bit more interesting. A group made up of SWSS types and assorted others started a sit-in, blocking traffic, much to the irritation of the police who quickly tried to separate them from the rest of the march (which included myself). Before long most of the march walked past, encouraged by the NUS stewards who did an excellent job of kissing police ass. Eventually I got onto the other side of the police line (in truth, I only had to walk along a bit and that was probably the case all along) and we were soon all surrounded by many, many cops who seemed to think we were moving on. Of course we had little choice and resumed marching, but with our very own police escort (I was so honoured!). It was clear that this, now separated, part of the march consisted of many of the lefty militants and onlookers were blasted with an arsenal of anti-fees, anti-war and anti-capitalist slogans (“grants not bombs”, “resist, resist, top-up fees, they take the piss”, “drop our debt not the bomb” etc. etc.).

We marched the rest of the route, which seemed like fecking miles, and eventually arrived at Kennington Park three hours after the march had begun. Here we were greeted by a veritable army of Socialist Worker sellers (and I have to admit that I did eventually give in and buy a copy) and a sea of mud which may once have been a park. In the middle of all this a stage had been set up from which various speakers could tell us why we had just marched. Unsurprisingly, by this point many students had made their excuses and left. Although Jeremy Corbyn gave a very powerful speech I decided that I’d probably join them and made my way towards the tube. Hours later I arrived home, exhausted.

But of course I'll do it all again on Saturday. See you all there.