Something of an impassioned debate has been taking place re; the future of the student movement. Despite seeming new and exciting its my view that this debate has run pretty much along firmly established lines. One side, throws the baby out with the bath water and declares everything that has gone before is rubbish. The other says ‘hold on a minute’ and makes some timely and no doubt prescient arguments about the things from the past that were not all that bad. We then enter the stage of completely false counterpositions. For example, leadership is counterposed to the ‘spontaneous movement’ as if one existed without the other. For every demo there are people behind the scenes organising in at least a rudimentary fashion and where would those people be and what would they organise if not the people who attended to ‘spontaneously’ express their anger? On the left, sometimes even the debates are distinctly old-hat. Continue reading →