Last week saw a group of our fellow students shout down government minister David Willetts as he began to deliver a speech in Cambridge. They chanted a pre-written ‘epistle’ denouncing the government’s reforms to higher education funding. Subsequently, other students have rallied to the liberal flag with admirable gusto, attacking their assault on free speech.

Felix Danczak rightly invited us to ‘imagine the outcry should the state seek to disrupt protest rallies by storming the stage’. Freedom of speech is critical in preserving the integrity of our university as a place of independent thought and debate. It is invaluable on the national level as a bulwark against the propensity of those with strong beliefs to silence those who do not share them, one demonstrated time and time again throughout history and throughout the world today.

Yet it was with a sigh that I read the letter of apology to Mr Willetts currently being circulated among Cambridge students online. It begins by stating that ‘interrupting talks and “striking” from studying convinces no-one that students value their education’.  The grounds for this statement are not immediately obvious. The protestors’ epistle contained such lines as ‘we do not wish to “rate” our teachers/we wish to learn from them’. They are prepared to occupy parts of the university to protect the current education system.

Furthermore, to equate striking with lack of appreciation is somewhat disingenuous. Few would surely argue that women striking for better pay in the late 1970s, ‘convince[d] no-one’ that they valued their growing employment opportunities or the Equal Pay Act passed at the beginning of the decade.

‘We hope you’ll return to Cambridge to engage in meaningful debate on university funding’, the letter continues. The phrase ‘meaningful debate’ demonstrates a misplaced optimism about the potential for a change of course - a charge one could indeed level equally at the protestors. In the first place, some have suggested his visit reflected less a desire for debate than a useful PR stunt. There is certainly scope for political capital to be made from appearing to engage sympathetically with the constituency directly affected by his extensive reforms.

More crucially, key decisions on higher education policy have long since been made. It is highly doubtful that resistance to funding cuts and higher tuition fees will again be able to captivate even a substantial section of the student body, let alone the wider public. Without such a wave of pressure from politically important segments of the population, why would ministers dream of embarking on a U-turn?

The signatories clamouring for ‘reasoned’ and ‘full’ debate appear to have a naïve faith in the power of their reason to influence political decision-making. Politics takes place in the real world, not a seminar room. Do they picture Willetts succumbing to the superior logic of his audience’s arguments, conceding his plans are foolish after all? What may seem the right policy when looked at ‘practically’ or ‘logically’ must be adapted to reflect what is sensible for politicians from political, economic, ethical and other important perspectives. The forces constraining their room for manoeuvre are myriad: take the opinions of the press, the public and the party, to give but a few.

The most objectionable aspect of the letter lies less in what it contains than what it omits, however. It states that  ‘the actions of the protesters were an embarrassment to students at Cambridge and everywhere’. Perhaps they were. Perhaps ensuring that a counterbalance to the protestors’ intolerance appears in the public domain is prudent in the long run to prevent politicians and the public from putting students into a box marked ‘beyond the pale’. Nevertheless, the greatest embarrassment of all is the fact Cambridge students wish to apologise to Willetts without a single mention of the colossal and calamitous implications of the government’s programme.

As Cambridge student Daniel Benjamin pointed out, ‘the amount of time and energy JCRs (and others) have put into condemning action taken against the [Higher Education] White Paper far exceeds the amount of time and energy they've put into fighting the White Paper.’ The crippling burden government policy will place on students is well-known, but there is mixed student feeling on the matter. Yet what is stopping us from unequivocally condemning the other deplorable actions of Willetts and his colleagues?

Regardless of their positions on deficit reduction, it is extraordinary that Cambridge students are failing even to express opposition to some of the ruthless and regressive ways in which it is being carried out - not least for the young. The abolition or vast reduction of health and maternity grants, child tax credits and child trust fund payments for the poorest leave disadvantaged children substantially worse off. 124 Sure Start centres have been closed, and the future of the rest hangs precariously in the balance. Support for sixth-form education, university applications and careers advice is vanishing, with EMA, AimHigher and Connexions seeing drastic cutbacks. Youth unemployment has recently broken through the 1 million mark.

How can we bring ourselves to organise to protest our fellow students’ rudeness, and yet be so dismally lacking in sympathy and solidarity with our fellow young people, so unconcerned by their blighted childhoods, so indifferent to their ever-bleaker prospects? Let Willetts apologise for all the devastating consequences of every pound his government is pinching from the poorest. Then we can think long and hard about whether to issue our own unambiguous apology.

Until then, let no Cambridge student grovel at the feet of David Willetts. We cannot close our eyes to the countless lives they are trampling into the dirt. Let us support the protests and strikes against the government on Wednesday. It is perhaps the last opportunity for resistance sufficiently broad and disruptive to be in with a chance of breeding serious misgivings in government - albeit a slim chance. Shouting and striking are regrettable methods but as Sartre once observed, refusing to engage in objectionable acts will seldom end the objectionable.

Tom Belger blogs for Varsity here.