I think the conclusion I draw is that organising protests is a fool’s game. The NUS organisers couldn’t control the miscreants, and the police appear to have been ill-prepared and “hands-off” in their approach.

The NUS must bear some responsibility for creating a situation that could only lead to bad behaviour. I would suggest they were naive at best, and possibly complicit in the events that unfolded. Listening to interviews on the news during the afternoon, there were plenty of otherwise reasonable-sounding students who appeared to think that the illegal behaviour was entirely justified.