university vice-chancellors held a meeting yesterday at woburn house in london. students planned a protest outside the meeting against cuts to the EMA grants, rises in tuition fees, and the coalition's idealogical attack on education.

a planned university occupation failed after an apparent factional dispute, but the protest then transformed into a more general anti-cuts demonstration with visits to known corporate tax dodgers, some disruption around central london, and finally a solidarity visit to a libyan protest outside the american embassy.

the new politically-aware generation connected the dots beautifully with a series of spontaneous decisions and the impromptu marches passed off peacefully with little police interference, and in fact, text-book 'facilitation'.

clicking on pics brings up bigger version. all pics "some rights reserved" - free for non-commercial grassroots use (credited 'rikki indymedia'). no commercial usage without permission.

at about 2pm yesterday afternoon, a small crowd of around 100 students with a few lecturers and other activists gathered near woburn house in tavistock square to protest the tuition fee rises and EMA cuts, while university vice-chancellors held a meeting there.

at about 2.15, numbers were swelled by about a hundred more students from the LSE who arrived with a bicycle sound system and took over the road. there were about a dozen police at the protest, and they gave up some half-hearted efforts to move people, and instead helped find motorists an alternative route.

the students then held a short impromptu march round the square, with some mild scuffles with police on the main road as a few students ran forward to try and enter the building. police then started to put up some metal barriers to close off the road in front of the building, but students interpreted this as the precursor to the kettle, and soon ran over and stopped it, as well as sitting on piles of barriers to prevent any further movement.

again, the dozen police stood down, and although there is little doubt there must have been reserves nearby, none appeared.

with no sign of vice-chancellors or any other movement in the building, the students decided to go on a walkabout, first heading up upper woburn place, where they held up traffic for a few minutes, and then on to the busy euston road junction in front of the station, where they sat down for about ten minutes, bringing the traffic to a standstill at around 3pm.

earlier, notes were passed round telling people to follow the 'red umbrellas', and as the crowd walked west along euston road, the umbrellas were raised. a plan was afoot, and a university occupation seemed to be the aim. the umbrellas took us down goodge street and then turned left towards the university of london union building - clearly this was the target.

however, at the doors there was a strange stand-off, with none other than clare solomon, the socialist president of the ULU, standing shoulder to shoulder with the university security guards, clearly ready for the incursion and determined to fight it off. there were angry exchanges between activists from both sides of the occupation divide, but many of the crowd seemed unaware of the division, and inertia took them further down the road.

if you have time, there is a possibly pertinent and interesting opinion piece here (http://london.indymedia.org/articles/6060) which sheds an anarchist perspective on some of the socialist would-be leaders of the students' struggles, however, despite her socialist leanings, there is some favourable support for her tenure among many activists, and her speeches to date have often spoken of direct action, so it's difficult to know what exactly the division was about at ULU yesterday.

down the road, there was a small fracas with police attempting an arrest. students showed powerful solidarity and performed a classic de-arrest, during which the target made a swift escape, and one policeman lost his helmet, while several others lost their tempers. however, the skirmish was soon over, and surprisingly, still no re-inforcements arrived, leaving the same dozen officers to follow the crowd as they once again set off on a walkabout at around 3.15.

reaching tottenham court road, there was another short roadblock, before someone spotted a barclays branch, and called out to occupy it. police raced against  protestors along the road, but at least a dozen activists managed to enter the branch before police gained control of the door. the branch was then closed for several minutes, eggs were thrown at the glass front, and a banner unfurled on a balcony, but those inside decided to leave together after a short while.

again, there was no visible sign of police re-inforcements other than the appearance of a squad car and a van at the bottom of tottenham court road redirecting traffic to close the road off.

chanting exuberantly, and with the bicycle sound system pumping out beats, the protest then took to oxford street. the first stop there was a vodafone shop, which immediately closed its doors while police formed a line in front.

advance warnings were clearly in operation, as the boots chemist branch further along already had its shutters down, trapping bemused customers inside. topshop at oxford circus had lines of security and police letting customers out but no would-be customers in.

the customary blockade of oxford circus lasted about ten to fifteen minutes at around 4pm, and again, there was no interference from the police. in fact, it was by now quite a good-natured interaction, and i also saw two officers warning off a couple of gentlemen who appeared to be attempting to pick bags amongst the students. other police chatted with motorists, calming them and no doubt telling them the protest would be moving along soon. one group sat right in the middle of the junction while others stood around, and some danced joyously to the sound system in the surprisingly warm sunshine.

after more discussion, and some googling to find out its location, the call went up to head for the libyan embassy. this is near the american embassy in grosvenor square, but as the students approached, it became clear that there were a group of a couple of hundred libyans already protesting outside the american embassy, so the students joined them.

LSE students made an announcement about the way the LSE has become a university for hire, and about their recent dicovery that the libyan dictator gaddafi had made a 'donation' to the university of one and a half million pounds. they described how within hours of this discovery they had organised an overnight occupation, and then negotiated with university financiers that in return for ending the occupation, a promise be made whereby all the money would be ring-fenced and used to provide bursaries and grants to future libyan students.

this announcement was met with much cheering and applause, and followed by more open mic speeches from the libyan protestors in front of the american embassy.

i left them there at around 5.30, but i believe a smaller number then marched on to UCL and began an occupation there. (more on this, and some other pics from the day at http://london.indymedia.org/articles/7577).

back at woburn house, police were still on guard at the doors.

after the extreme policing of student protests at the end of last year, it is difficult to second guess the police approach from event to event, but today's passed off well, with a hands-off approach avoiding violence, allowing freedom of movement and speech, and in return finding a positive, exuberant, spontaneous and powerful protest not forced into defence or retaliation.