Why are young people on the streets? Why is direct action suddenly so prevalent - sit-ins, protests, internet campaigns?
The answer is simple - disillusionment and a sense of betrayal.
Disillusionment, because a generation of young people see their elected (so-called) representatives pouring billions into the coffers of big financial corporations whilst slashing away at the services and jobs of ordinary people, and apparently are rapidly pulling up the ladder behind them.
Betrayal because a man - Nick Clegg - and a party - the Liberal Democrats - that promised them so much, that took the votes of many thousands of first-time voters, has promptly dropped the vast majority of its pledges, apparently for the promise of power.
For the most depressing thing to come from Clegg's "new politics" isn't that it's given a mandate to a Tory government that comprehensively failed to gain one. It is because it has created a whole new generation of people that are now disappointed in politics and politicians.
And, typically, only the anti-government Right has anything to gain as a result.
Simon Hattenstone puts this far more eloquently here.
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