Paul Owen with all the latest fallout from yesterday's student protests, which culminated in attack on Prince of Wales's carRead Paul Owen's evening summary Send any accounts or photographs from yesterday to paul.owen@guardian.co.uk To watch videos on this page, turn the auto-refresh option below off

8.52am: Good morning. The level of violence used by student protesters against the increase in tuition fees seemed to rise yesterday, culminating in an attack on a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla through Regent Street in central London. The couple were unhurt, although the windows of their Rolls-Royce were cracked and paint was thrown over the vehicle. Police said 12 officers were injured in the demonstration yesterday, and 43 demonstrators. At least 26 arrests were made.

Here's a video that gives some insight into the mood during the incident.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has condemned the "thugs" who carried out the attack. He said the royals' protection officers showed "enormous restraint". This is from our news story on the incident:

The commissioner said it was a "hugely shocking incident and there will be a full criminal investigation" but added "short of locking everything down we have to try and find that balance" of allowing protest and stopping violence. He praised his officers and the royal protection officers for their actions on coping with a "very unpredictable demonstration ... and very difficult night ... They showed enormous restraint in the most difficult of circumstances." Stephenson was supported by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said that there would inevitably be questions of "why exactly they [Charles and Camilla] were on that route", but defended the police, saying it was regrettable people's first reaction was to attack the police.

We'll be following all the fallout from this attack and the tuition fees protests, as well as political reaction to last night's vote – which saw the Liberal Democrats split three ways and the coalition's majority cut from 83 to 21 – throughout the day.

Photograph: PA

9.07am: David Cameron (left) condemned the violence and said those involved would "face the full force of the law":

In our democracy people are fully entitled to protest peacefully and make their views known. But the violence in London today is totally unacceptable. It is clear that a minority of protesters came determined to provoke violence, attack the police and cause as much damage to property as possible. They must face the full force of the law. The police have confronted considerable danger, and a number have been injured as they sought to uphold the right to peaceful protest.

Talking specifically about the Charles and Camilla incident, the prime minister said:

It is shocking and regrettable that the car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall was caught up and attacked in the violence.

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

9.12am: Vince Cable, the business secretary (left), was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning defending the Lib Dems' coalition with the Tories in the wake of his decision to vote for the rise in fees, despite all Lib Dem MPs signing a pledge before the election promising not to do so. Cable has become a key target of criticism because his department is responsible for universities; he also seemed to "flip-flop" in recent days over whether or not he would personally vote for the rise, which in the end he did.

Cable told the BBC:

I'm absolutely confident that [Nick Clegg's] leadership will continue and indeed we will continue as a party within the coalition agreement. It was a very difficult day yesterday; we knew this was coming and we had to face it. But I think actually we are stronger as a result of having been through this experience. I've spoken to many of my colleagues who actually voted against this – the abstainers of course were in accordance with the coalition agreement – and we are united. We will go forward and I think the coalition will be stronger not weaker for this experience.

The coalition agreement struck between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems in May included this provision:

If the response of the government to Lord Browne's report [into higher education funding, which recommended raising fees] is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.

In the end 21 Lib Dems voted against the reforms last night, and five abstained. Only 16 Lib Dem MPs voted in favour.

There were also six Conservative rebels, and two Tory abstentions. I'll post up full lists shortly.

9.29am: Here are the full details of which MPs voted which way:

Lib Dem MPs who voted against the plans

Annette Brooke (Dorset Mid & Poole North), Sir Menzies Campbell (Fife North East), Michael Crockart (Edinburgh West), Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale), Andrew George (St Ives), Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South), Julian Huppert (Cambridge), Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber), John Leech (Manchester Withington), Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne), Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West), John Pugh (Southport), Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute), Dan Rogerson (Cornwall North), Bob Russell (Colchester), Adrian Sanders (Torbay), Ian Swales (Redcar), Mark Williams (Ceredigion), Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire), Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central), and Simon Wright (Norwich South).

Lib Dem MPs who voted for the plans

Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey), Norman Baker (Lewes), Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley), Tom Brake (Carshalton & Wallington), Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane), Malcolm Bruce (Gordon), Paul Burstow (Sutton & Cheam), Vincent Cable (Twickenham), Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland), Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam), Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton), Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey & Wood Green), Don Foster (Bath), Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay), Duncan Hames (Chippenham), Nick Harvey (Devon North), David Heath (Somerton & Frome), John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley), Norman Lamb (Norfolk North), David Laws (Yeovil), Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk), Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove), Jo Swinson (Dunbartonshire East), Sarah Teather (Brent Central), David Ward (Bradford East), and Steve Webb (Thornbury and Yate).

Lib Dems who did not vote

The energy secretary Chris Huhne and backbencher Martin Horwood, who were in Cancún for climate change talks, were among those who did not vote. Sir Robert Smith (Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine) was also out of the country.

Lib Dems who abstained

Lorely Burt (Solihull), Martin Horwood (Cheltenham), Simon Hughes (Bermondsey & Old Southwark), Chris Huhne (Eastleigh), Tessa Munt (Wells), Sir Robert Smith (Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine), John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross), and Stephen Williams (Bristol West).

Government whip Mark Hunter (Lib Dem, Cheadle) acted as a teller.

Tory MPs who voted against

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden), Philip Davies (Shipley), Julian Lewis (New Forest East), Jason McCartney (Colne Valley), Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole), Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood)

Tory MPs who abstained

Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford), Lee Scott (Ilford North)

9.32am: A 20-year-old student was left unconscious with bleeding on the brain after a police officer hit him on the head with a truncheon yesterday, the Press Association news agency is reporting:

Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, was struck as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey during last night's tuition fee protests, his mother said. After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, he underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain. Susan Meadows, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon. He said it was the hugest blow he ever felt in his life. The surface wound wasn't very big but three hours after the blow, he suffered bleeding to the brain. He survived the operation and he's in the recovery room." Mr Meadows was with a number of friends, including two lecturers, Nina Power, a colleague of his mother's, and Peter Hallward, a philosophy lecturer at Kingston University. But as they tried to leave the area where protesters were being held in a police "kettling" operation, the second-year undergraduate suffered a blow to the head.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "We are aware of a 20-year-old male with a head injury who is currently in hospital. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been involved."

9.34am: Boris Johnson has praised Charles and Camilla's "great fortitude of spirit". The mayor of London said:

"Clearly, it is very regrettable that in the heart of London, the heir to the throne can be surrounded by agitators and his wife can be put in a position where she's plainly alarmed."

He blamed a "large number of agitators who were determined to cause the maximum possible trouble and provocation and they succeeded", adding:

There will be people, of course, who now denounce the police and people who call for more thorough investigations into how the thing got out of control. They would be the very same people ... who would attack the police if it turned out that there were more young people whose heads were broken in the course of restraining the riot.

Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

9.36am: Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader (left), has been speaking out about yesterday's vote:

This was a very difficult vote, especially for Liberal Democrats, on a highly complex issue. We always knew it was going to be very difficult. What I now hope is that in government, and the Liberal Democrats generally, we will now explain to people, especially to students who are wanting to go to university in the future, given the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in, and there is very little money around, given that we are asking millions of other people to make sacrifices, this was the best and fairest possible approach for the future, which I genuinely believe will stand the test of time.

Asked if he would be able to reunite his divided party, Clegg said:

We, internally within the Liberal Democrats, knew that we wouldn't be able to find complete unanimity on this. Clearly we did not. It's no surprise to anyone this was going to be a difficult issue for us. But we've talked to each other and our party has discussed this in a calm and respectful manner, which I think will now allow us to move forward without rancour and in a united way, not least in the coalition government so we can deliver the liberal, fair things we want for Britain as a whole.

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

9.47am: The prime minister (left) has ramped up his rhetoric a bit over the protests and the Prince Charles attack, calling those involved in the car incident a "mob" that had to feel the "full force of the law of the land". Significantly, he also refused to characterise the violent protesters as "a very small minority. It wasn't."

Cameron went on:

There were quite a number of people who clearly were there wanting to pursue violence and destroy property. I know that the Metropolitan police commissioner is going to be working hard to report on this.

This marks a difference in emphasis from the prime minister's comments yesterday, when he said: "It is clear that a minority of protesters came determined to provoke violence, attack the police and cause as much damage to property as possible."

Cameron's new stance echoes that of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met police commissioner, who said this morning that a "significant number" of protesters ("thugs") had behaved "reprehensibly".

Asked about the apparent lapse in security around Charles and Camilla, the prime minister said:

Of course I'm very concerned about it. I immediately rang the Prince of Wales' private secretary and discussed it with him and I spoke to Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

But he added that it was "not the fault of the police; it was the fault of the people who tried to smash up that car. Let's be very clear about where responsibility lies: responsibility for smashing property, or violence, lies with the people who perpetrate that violence and I want to see them arrested and punished in the correct way.

"But of course we must learn the lessons from what was a very regrettable lapse of security and that needs to be dealt with, and the lessons need to be learned."

10.16am: My colleague Michael White has filed a blogpost on last night's events. He reckons protesting students will be in despair after the attack on Charles.

Michael White Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

It elbows the purpose of their demo, condemnation of the coalition's tuition fees hike, right out of sight.

Worse than that, it turns the whole agenda on its head. The BBC this morning is talking all about security at public buildings and why the police were not protecting Prince Charles and his moll more effectively on their way to the Royal Command performance ...

It would be silly as well as cynical to imagine that David Cameron is privately pleased to see public indignation so easily deflected from his government's controversial policy. Or that Nick Clegg is positively thrilled to have a day off from his new constitutional role as air raid shelter for the Tories.

Why? Because they're not wicked or stupid. Trouble on the streets means political trouble and ill-affordable expense for the coalition. Two thousand coppers on overtime cost money.

Mike adds of the royal couple: "It must have been scary for them both, though Camilla strikes me as the resilient kind who will be chuckling about it all over a large G&T by lunchtime while Charlie splutters indignantly about ungrateful subjects."

10.20am: A reader who wishes to remain anonymous and attended yesterday's protest has emailed to say he was "disgusted" by the policing:

I was outside the kettle in Parliament Square yesterday watching as riot police fought with protesters and then split like the Red Sea to allow two charges of police on horseback into the crowd. It was absolutely horrific to witness. These are dispersal tactics used on the continent but the Met are using it against people who have nowhere to run because they are kettled. The horses charged at high speed and from where I was they seemed to end up wading through the protesters. It's a miracle that no-one was seriously injured, or even killed. Will they keep using this tactic until someone falls and their head is trampled on? It makes absolutely no sense. Do they want to kettle (if so, police it properly with the right numbers) or disperse (if so, give people somewhere to disperse to)?

Please send any other accounts or photographs from yesterday to paul.owen@guardian.co.uk.

10.38am: My colleagues at the Guardian's Datablog have published all the data relating to yesterday's fees vote in an accessible form here.

10.47am: My colleague Roy Greenslade has been speaking to Matt Dunham of the Associated Press, the photographer who took the picture that appears on the front of today's Guardian, Times, Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, and, the jewel in the crown, at the top of this blog.

Dunham told Greenslade:

There was a cry about going to Leicester Square. They were kicking bins and trying to smash windows. It was all very fluid, moving all the time, so I just followed them. When we got to Piccadilly, they smashed the windows of Starbucks and were shouting about going to Top Shop. There were very few police around. By this time there were probably 300 people. Some seemed to be joining in after work.

Then they spotted the royal car.

It was unable to move because it was surrounded. It was stuck in a gridlock. There were people kicking it and screaming. So I raced towards it and then saw it was Camilla and Charles. Charles seemed to be waving calmly at first, trying to be amicable, but then he looked worried. Camilla was visibly agitated.

It's a great piece (you can read the whole thing here) and, as Greenslade points out, Dunham's photo is "one of those shots that will surely appear endlessly in future":

It will have historical value and be republished endlessly in future because it catches a moment in the political life of Britain and the life of the heir to the throne.

11.14am: Here's the best of today's press coverage on the tuition fees vote and the attack on the Prince of Wales's car:

• The Daily Mail has a rather breathless account of the Rolls-Royce incident, which begins:

With terror written across her face, the Duchess of Cornwall comes under fire from a snarling mob of student fees rioters last night. In the worst royal security breach for a generation, the car carrying her and Prince Charles was kicked, rocked and hit with paint bombs. A "steaming gang" of masked protesters ambushed them as they were being driven to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium, raising echoes of the 1974 kidnap attempt on Princess Anne.

• In the Independent, Oliver Wright notes:

Apart from their leader, not a single Liberal Democrat MP representing a university seat voted in favour of raising tuition fees yesterday. But their rebellion may not be enough to save them at the ballot box. Across Liberal Democrat constituencies, councillors and activists fear that the "great Clegg betrayal" will be what voters remember in 2015 – and not the votes of individual MPs against the whip of their party leadership. Liberal Democrats are particularly vulnerable in three key university seats: Norwich South, Manchester Withington and Cambridge.

• ePolitix.com marks the resignations of Lib Dem MPs Mike Crockart and Jenny Willott as parliamentary private secretaries – the lowest rung on the government ladder – in order that they could vote against the tuition fees rise. Crockart said:

I believe that access to higher education is a key enabler of social mobility and the best way to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest in society. I cannot therefore vote for a system which I believe puts barriers in the path of able students.

• The Times's leading article comes down firmly against the protesters and in favour of the government:

What happened on the streets of Westminster yesterday was a disgrace. Defacing a statue of Winston Churchill, smashing bricks into the windows of the Treasury, mindlessly assaulting the car of the Prince of Wales, swinging from the union flag on the Cenotaph: such stupid, graceless acts of violence do nothing to help the cause of student protest. They are proof only of a grotesque lack of respect and decadent failure of perspective. For the police, too, it was a signal failure of competence and preparedness. Where the protesters disgraced themselves, the coalition graduated with honours. This was its first serious challenge and the government proved to be decisive and resolute on an important but emotive issue ... When their rage has dissipated, students should find that they have a better deal.

• The Daily Mirror takes a different position:

We are with the tens of thousands of students who demonstrated peacefully outside parliament. But we utterly condemn the mindless violence of the rioters, which was totally unwarranted. At the same time, we hope their appalling behaviour will not undermine the issue of access to university - that bright people of all classes should be able to study for a degree.

• A Sun headline admonishes the students sternly: "It's your right to demonstrate but how dare you insult your country."

• The Economist makes a couple of clear-eyed points about what the fees vote means for the Tories and Labour.

David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, has hardly been scratched by the row over his coalition government's plan to raise university fees. He has certainly never looked likely to lose the parliamentary vote on the issue ... Mr Clegg's only consolation is that the Labour party rivals the Lib Dems for confusion on the fees issue. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has denounced the government's plans and backed a new tax on graduates as an alternative way of financing higher education. Others, including his shadow chancellor, Alan Johnson, have been less certain about that approach. Then, on the eve of the vote, Mr Johnson suddenly claimed that there was "a strong case" for a graduate tax.

• In the Guardian, Jessica Shepherd and Allegra Stratton provide this informative Q&A on exactly what MPs were voting on yesterday.

And Simon Hoggart sketches the parliamentary debate:

Simon Hoggart. Photograph: Linda Nylind

A great prolier-than-thou fight began between those from humble origins who had only got an education because they hadn't had to pay fees and those from equally humble origins who believed the new system would make it easier for poor people to go to university. We heard dozens of times that only 40 people who got free school meals had gone to Oxbridge.

Meanwhile Patrick Wintour explains his conclusion that the fees row has inflicted "some kind of permanent damage" on the Lib Dems.

An image may be being embossed on Clegg's party that is indelible. Just as it became an article of faith for some Tony Blair took the nation to war in Iraq on a lie, so Clegg will be charged with grubbing for votes in 2010 on a deception.

And, for good measure, here's Steve Bell's great cartoon on Cameron and Clegg.

• Finally, today's YouGov poll shows a slight rise for the Lib Dems from yesterday's 20-year low of 8%. Clegg's party is on 11%, with the Tories on 41% and Labour on 39%.

11.22am: My colleague Hugh Muir asks if Sir Paul Stephenson is up to the job of Met chief.

11.25am: It's worth going back to take a look at the tweets from yesterday from my colleagues Adam Gabbatt and Esther Addley, who were covering the protests. You can see them all here, but here are a few key extracts:

estheraddley: though i shd add that at least until 7pm or so, protest overwhelmingly peaceful except at fringes. hope that not forgotten #demo2010

AdamGabbatt: Plaintive cries of 'help' from middle of bridge. Drum still going #demo2010 #dayx3

AdamGabbatt: about five boys just beat up another teenage boy. Diff gang collrcting chunks of concrete. Senseless #dayx3 #demo2010 "#solidarity"

estheraddley: Police horses pushing protesters back through parliament square, many now in grounds of wminster abbey #DEMO2010

AdamGabbatt: One is burning a GCSE mock exam paper. The subject? Economics. #demo2010 #dayx

11.34am: A reader who wishes only to be identified as Gary sends this disturbing account that he wrote after returning home from the protests last night:

I just got home after attending the embers of the protest at the end of Victoria Street. While there I got chatting to a 17year-old girl. A while later a group of people who I believe to be neo-Nazis turned up and started causing trouble. They were trying to start on an old man of about 60. A policeman calmed him down. They then started picking on this girl. They all started to scream "Cunt!" at her and she called them this back. The group (about 12-15) walked up to her in a very menacing way. We backed off towards the police and then one of the group pushed the girl violently in the head, causing her to fall down on her back. I pulled her away to the police and asked for help. Two of them smirked at each other and one said: "You wanted free speech." They then continued to watch as the neo-Nazis caused trouble. This occurred at around 7pm.

11.38am: A reader who wishes only to be known as Tom sends this:

Three things I saw:

One, a guy running away from police along Whitehall getting being unable to run further because of a stray barrier. Before he could jump over, two police charged into him with their shields and repeatedly hit him with their shields, against the barrier.

Two, other people have mentioned it, but still: a V-shaped wedge of mounted police charging into a crowd of teenagers – whose only objective at the time was to leave Parliament Square.

Three, someone trapped behind police lines with two policemen standing over them, repeatedly bringing their batons down, while the rest of us were pushed back.

There were people seriously hurt. I saw a couple of people prone being tended by police medics.

11.44am: Reader Doug Rouxel takes issue with the Independent's claim no Lib Dem MPs for university seats voted for the fees rise. Don Foster voted for the rise, "and he is MP for Bath, which has two universities, both of which are sizeable and should certainly be considered a 'university seat'".

11.46am: Bob Brecher, who is professor of moral philosophy at the University of Brighton, suggests police were "ordered to frighten people into not demonstrating again", although he says some individual officers seemed uncomfortable about this:

The "violence" that occurred — and the disproportionality of physical violence against the person used by the police as against that used by demonstrators is significant — was deliberately engineered. The twofold intention was to ensure that the demonstration received "a bad press"; and to dissuade future protesters.

Three of our students, I have just been told, are unable to attend classes today, having been physically attacked by the police.

11.51am: Here is some dramatic video of Charles and Camilla's car making its way down Regent Street. The protesters can be heard shouting, "Off with their heads," "Off with his head," "Tory scum," and "Whose streets? Our streets." Surprisingly, Camilla seems to open her window at quite a late stage.

11.57am: My colleague Patrick Wintour points out that the Lib Dems are as divided in the country as they are in parliament over the fees issue. He points me to the resignation of Richard Huzzey, a former Lib Dem councillor in Oxford, and member of the Lib Dem Voice blog. In his explanation of his decision, Huzzey raises a prospect that may give Clegg and Cable cause for alarm:

There are – understandably – concerns about the wisdom of conference delegates triggering a special conference to "recall" the leadership's policy and subject it to a full and open debate. Yet, in the absence of stomach for this, and in the absence of meaningful ways to pressure a change of course from within the party, there seem to be few viable alternatives to resignation.

12.01pm: My colleague Jessica Shepherd has pointed me in the direction of comments from the CBI director-general, Richard Lambert, suggesting that businesses should be influencing what students study at university much more and earlier. Lambert has said business will have to "play a much more active role than it has in the past in informing students about its likely future needs".

It will need to help them to choose the right subjects to study, to offer relevant work experience, and where appropriate to work with universities to develop courses that will provide attractive employment for graduates. In a demand-led system, employers will have an interest in helping to shape the choices made by the most talented students, rather than waiting until their university career is almost over ... Some businesses will also want to rethink their relationships with universities, as well as with individual students. If they are looking for a particular set of skills, companies may find it makes sense to work more closely with those institutions that are best able to develop relevant courses.

12.03pm: Reader Morgan Hill-Murphy sends a collection of photographs he took during the demonstration yesterday. Here is one of them:

Photograph: Morgan Hill-Murphy

Morgan reports:

Shortly after the 21st photograph tactical police rushed in to the front of the march shortly after it had started and "cordoned" everyone, punching and forcing many to the ground. I was punched in the stomach, though luckily I ricocheted off the policeman behind me and out of the cordon. I was surprised to see such treatment so early on, though largely the police were very restrained during the day.

12.10pm: Elizabeth Draper, an MA student at University College London, has written to say she was one of the protesters kettled in Parliament Square. She too was "disgusted" with the police's tactics. She writes:

We were told at 8.30pm that the police would lead us across Westminster bridge and then let us leave, but we were actually held on the bridge until 11pm. I estimate that there were at least 2,000 of us. People were fainting from being so crushed, and from not having eaten since before we arrived at Parliament Square. We were told nothing about why we were being held there, and, as frustration understandably rose, people began to push forward. Were the police waiting for someone to be crushed, to break a limb, or to be pushed over the edge of the bridge by the force of people behind them?

I was quite close to the police line, and could not stop myself being pushed towards them. I saw people being hit and forcibly pushed back even though they were not the ones doing the pushing. Most of us were not trying to cause trouble, just get home, and the police tactics caused problems rather than solving them.

In the comments below (9.42am), raindance77 tells a similar story:

Comment icon: Business Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Violent thugs? I am a 21-year-old literature student and I am a protester. I danced to music on Parliament Square as people spray painted NO on the grass, I shouted 'tory **** tory ****' with pride, I got pushed to the police front line and charged by horses on two occasions (please see footage of charges on 24th and 9th). I am not ashamed.

If you want to look at thugs then look to to the police.

I am a girl of five foot two, I was pushed several times in the face, dragged on the floor and laughed at by police when I told them I had asthma. This is why people get angry, because people were being trapped and wanted to get out.

All afternoon we were told people were able to leave from various places but this was just not true.

I asked a policeman were I could go to the toilet; he pointed at the floor by his feet.

Another shouted: "Move, bitch, or I'll squash you with my horse."

Eventually, when the protests had died down and people were desperate to go home, a group of around 1,000 protesters were finally escorted to Westminster Bridge to exit; however this was a trick. What then happened was we were held on the bridge for hours in the freezing cold. The crowd remained calm, but after hours of freezing people began to chant "let us out" and then the crowd pushed forwards. Being small I was carried by the crowd and ended up by the police line. I was tired and cold and hadn't eaten for 12 hours or had any water.

I screamed at the police not to hurt me because I was being pushed but they still went for my face, almost pulling me to the floor. A man to my right put his arms over my face, screaming, "Leave her alone, she's a girl, she's not harming you," but the police began to hit him several times on the head.

When we were finally let off the bridge it was one at a time through huge crowds of jeering officers. We were told we were being photographed in case we had damaged royal car. But how this could have happened whilst we were kettled in parliament i don't know.

What I will say is that by this stage the anarchists had fought their way out, and just lots of women and children were left to freeze.

12.19pm: The Press Association news agency has just filed this (see 9.32am):

The police watchdog launched an independent investigation today after a 20-year-old student was left unconscious with bleeding on the brain after being hit on the head with a police truncheon.

12.31pm: Charles and Camilla have praised the police after yesterday's attack on their car. A spokesman for Clarence House said the couple understood the "difficulties" the police faced and were "very grateful" for the job they did in "very challenging circumstances".

Tory backbencher Mark Pritchard has called for an independent inquiry into the incident – rather than an internal police one – possibly led by a retired high court judge. Pritchard said:

This was an incident that was so very serious – and could have been even more serious – that it should not be left to an internal Metropolitan police inquiry. There needs to be an independent inquiry, given the many questions that need to be answered about why the royals took that route ... There are serious questions to be asked at the most senior levels of the Metropolitan police about why they were allowed to take that route. It's not rocket science to know that that part of London would at least be chock-a-block with displaced traffic.

The prime minister's spokesman said earlier that Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met chief, was the best person to look into the incident "because he's responsible for the police. I think the police are best placed to make judgments on these operational issues."

12.36pm: Ed Balls, the shadow home secretary, has called for those behind yesterday's violence to be "swiftly brought to justice".

The police have an incredibly difficult job to do in very difficult and fast-changing circumstances. This was the fourth major protest about the government's grossly unfair tuition fees policy in the capital in as many weeks. Thousands of officers have had to be deployed and a number have been injured. It is right that there is an urgent investigation into what happened yesterday, including the disgraceful attack on the Prince and Duchess's car. The majority of students protested peacefully, but those who hijacked the demonstration and perpetrated acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice.

And Mark Berfield of the Education Activist Network has accused the police of "brutality":

I saw 14-year-olds carry out their friends with cracked heads and things like that. I saw that people were being kettled until 1am on Westminster Bridge. They were held there without toilet facilities, without water or food for 10 hours. We don't live in that kind of regime ... What we experienced is horrendous for a democratic regime.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, he said, were just in "the wrong place at the wrong time".

But unions such as the University and College Union (UCU) have distanced themselves from the violence and raised concerns that it would distract from the protesters' message about fees. Sally Hunt of the UCU said:

We organised peaceful protests yesterday to send a clear message to the government. It was therefore incredibly disappointing that the message got lost in the news coverage of clashes between protesters and police.

Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

12.41pm: Boris Johnson (left) has come in for some criticism for claiming that protesting students were being "egged on" by their parents.

The mayor of London said today:

Every time it happens [protests take place], and every time everyone eggs on their children to go out and demonstrate, the police are obliged to abstract their forces from the outer boroughs, from keeping our streets safer and from cracking down on burglary.

But James Mills of Save EMA (the educational maintenance allowance which is being cut by the coalition) took this with a pinch of salt:

Can you imagine if your parents told you: 'You're going to a protest'? That lacks any street credibility. It's almost idiotic.

12.46pm: Aaron Porter of the NUS has written about the tuition fees vote for Comment is free here:

Our fight is not just an issue of policy, but one of principle. The government has blamed the financial crisis and told us there is no alternative. The first people who will pay these astronomical fees were aged just 13 when the banks fell. They didn't cause the crisis but they are becoming its victims.

12.48pm: Reader Gary Hill has sent the following video. He writes:

In the video you can clearly see a boy no older than 11 and two girls slightly older trying to get out and being turned back by police. I was scared; I can only imagine how they must have felt facing repeated cavalry charges. Also watch for the moment when three mounted officers charge their horses through the narrow laneway opposite Downing street to stop people escaping the kettle. It was a miracle nobody was killed or seriously injured during this reckless exercise in terror. Also note the moment when a regiment with badges covered up comes forward to confront the crowd.

12.54pm: Jacqui Karn, a writer on crime and justice, has sent this description of being "kettled".

At 9 o'clock, Big Ben tolling, we were moved onto the bridge, thankful to be at last free to go home. But no. Again we stopped. Of course, the police simply wanted to move those causing damage away from buildings. By this time I was cold, hungry and tired ... Three cold teenagers in T-shirts came past, looking upset, and I asked if they were OK. "They won't let us out," they said. "My Dad's called Scotland Yard and everything."

They were 15 and I was sure police were obliged to let minors go. I went up to the line of riot police and explained that there were three 15-year-olds here. Could they let them go? "No, no one is to leave." I asked if a senior officer could come who could make that decision. "The decision had been made," he said. I politely asked him to lower his visor so that the children could take his number so that his parents could file a complaint.

At around 11pm, 7 hours after I was trapped on Whitehall by a line of police horses I was

released with a camera filming me with more police lining the exit than I have ever seen.

Someone in front of me said something to an officer about being kettled. He replied, "We don't call it kettling." I pitched in: "Whatever you call it, it is still unjust."

"Fuck off," he muttered.

"Kettling" is justified as a tactic to reduce disorder without the use of police violence. But I saw police charging on horseback into a crowd of children and police lines formed where there was no disorder. Like anyone else I do not expect to be held for seven hours on a freezing cold night for no reason when I have done nothing and when officers themselves tell me they can see I am doing nothing. To emerge to see the news coverage completely ignoring the crowds calmly waiting, frightened on the other side of the sqaure from all the mayhem, simply rubs salt into the wound. I sympathise with Charles and Camilla. I ask them and others to imagine what it was like when you were not in a car and couldn't leave.

1.00pm: My colleague Adam Gabbatt, who covered the protests yesterday, has posted this video of mounted police at the demonstration.

He writes:

Adam Gabbatt Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

I was at Parliament Square as protesters were kettled yesterday afternoon. While the vast majority of demonstrators were peaceful, there were clashes between protesters and police, first in the south-east corner of the square – nearest to the Houses of Parliament – and at around 3pm in the south-west corner, where it meets Little George Street. A group of around 20 protesters stormed a line of police keeping protesters in the square, managing to break through. As lots of protesters flocked to that corner, police reinforced their lines with more officers, before mobilising officers on horseback to try to push protesters back.

1.20pm: Here is a lunchtime summary:

• David Cameron has condemned violent protesters at yesterday's demonstrations in London against the government's decision to raise university tuition fees. The prime minister said it was wrong to characterise those who were violent as "a very small minority. It wasn't." He called those involved in attacking the Prince of Wales's car a "mob" that had to feel the "full force of the law of the land" (see 9.47am).

• The Metropolitan police will investigate the decisions that led to Charles and Camilla's car being confronted by violent protesters. A Tory MP has called for an independent investigation into the incident (see 12.31pm).

• A student leader has attacked "police brutality" (see 12.36pm). The Guardian has been flooded with emails from demonstrators attacking the police's tactics and their treatment of the protesters. "Kettling" has come in for particular criticism.

• Nick Clegg has defended the rise in tuition fees – which contradicts a pre-election Lib Dem pledge – as "the best and fairest possible approach". The Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister said his party would now be able to "move forward without rancour and in a united way" (see 9.36am). Twenty-one Lib Dem MPs voted against the tuition fees rise, with five abstaining. Only 16 followed the leadership in voting for the policy. (See 9.29am for a full list.)

1.28pm: My colleagues on the video desk have produced this video following protesters from Birmingham University and Westminster Kingsway College yesterday.

1.32pm: A Cambridge student who wishes to remain anonymous blames kettling for the violence:

Almost all of the defacement, fires, etc occurred after kettling – this is not to excuse that but to point out that kettling did not contain the destruction as much as incite it. I did try to step in and stop some of it, as when I told a kid to stop breaking up concrete to throw, but the people being violent were in no mood to listen. There were quite a significant number of those people there but it wasn't everyone by any means. News reports and the police have said that people who wanted to leave, could. We certainly could not and we tried every exit.

1.35pm: A reader who wishes to be known only as Ems is also critical of kettling.

At one point, when we were told we could leave via Westminster Abbey, there were underage children crying and being crushed in the confusion caused by police officers. We were being told to go back, but there was no way to go as those in the back of the crowd were unable to hear the police. And so anyone at the front ended up being crushed, with one girl extremely close to passing out.

I think the only thing that prevented people from suffering as a result of the cold was down to how tightly packed in we were. There was very little room to breathe, and at times people had to stand on one leg as there was nowhere to even put your feet. It was absolutely terrifying to be in such a situation – and the police just made matters worse.

1.39pm: Aaron Porter of the NUS has said Boris Johnson's comments about student protesters being "egged on" by their parents risked "alienating an entire generation". Porter said:

Peaceful protest is an integral part of our heritage and it is the responsibility of the police to help facilitate that. Throughout this campaign, thousands of young people who have been in the past dismissed as politically apathetic have engaged with the issues and are seeking a way to express their opinions. Of course any protest should be peaceful but for Mr Johnson to suggest that these young people are being forced to protest and shouldn't do so risks alienating an entire generation who have only just begun to engage in the political process.

The mayor of London's spokesman said: "The mayor was not accusing parents of provocative or irresponsible behaviour, merely pointing out the fact that large demonstrations divert police resources away from vital everyday police work in local neighbourhoods, and that there should be recognition of risk when there are some protesters intent on causing harm."

Porter also said that "violent protest is not only morally wrong but counterproductive".

"We have the public on our side, but every scene of violence erodes that vital support," he said.

1.43pm: A Birkbeck student, who wishes to remain anonymous, has sent this message about being attacked by the police:

I was pushed backwards into the people behind me in the initial charge but the crushed and scared crowd pushed back to stop everyone falling over. I saw several around me hit by batons and fall, screaming. I was then hit over the head by a baton, hard enough to knock me sideways, then again, I think by the same officer. My ears rang and I couldn't hold my balance. I fell over and an officer stepped forward and deliberately stamped his foot into my chest, winding me.

A man next to me picked me up and held my bleeding head in front of the police (this I have heard from him as I was semi- or unconscious). They did not hit him but did not move aside. He repeatedly screamed for a medic but the police pretended not to hear him although it was clear to look at me that I needed one. He pushed his way through the police line who did not resist but hit a man who tried to follow.

Next to him, a police officer spontaneously collapsed, apparently feigning unconsciousness. As the officer was not on the front line, had had nothing thrown at him and was wearing full body armour including helmet with visor down, he could not have been injured. The only nearby medic immediately tended to this officer, who had apparently faked an injury. Both medics and police ignored me and my friend who shouted repeatedly for assistance. Giving up, he half-walked, half-carried me to hospital. Once there he attempted to get police to take a statement from me but was told there were none available. I spent three hours in hospital, dizzy, bleeding from the head and being repeatedly sick. My speech was apparently slurred and I have poor memory of what happened for the rest of the day. I had been told to stay overnight but feeling scared and victimised from being hit I left and returned home.

1.53pm: Reader Antonio Sansica has sent me some good photos from the protests yesterday. Here is one of them:

Photograph: Antonio Sansica

1.57pm: More photos, these from photojournalist Marco Mega.

1.58pm: A reader who wishes only to be known as John sends the following report:

At around 5.30pm, the police charged down Whitehall. To try and escape, fearing violence, I asked an officer where I should go. I was directed, like a number of people wanting to leave the area, down an narrow alley by the Ministry of Defence. Seconds later, with no warning, we faced a charge by several mounted police. Luckily, as I was by the edge I was able to cling against the metal fence. However, several others, mainly scared children, wanting to go home were hurt. Afterwards, many were left crying on the street and were finding it very difficult to acquire medical assistance. It felt miraculous that nobody fell and was trampled to death.

2.02pm: Luke from Kingston University also feels kettling is to blame for ramping up tensions:

The march was very much peaceful until the police began their kettling. This started almost the moment we all gathered in parliament square. Although at this stage and for a couple of hours, people were allowed in and out, rows and rows of police had already enclosed us and this was very intimidating. Fully kitted out in riot gear with truncheons and shields, the atmosphere in the containment soon turned to one of hostility and fear when police began keeping us there. Whatever rubbish the Met might come out with, I saw at first hand the intimidation by the police and I am in no doubt this provoked people who were not only angry at the outcome of the vote but also now at the police for not allowing them to leave peacefully.

2.09pm: Celal Teber of Teber Photographer has sent some dramatic images, including this one:

Photograph: Celal Teber

2.10pm: My colleague James Meikle has written about the protester who was operated on after allegedly being hit with a police baton here.

2.20pm: My colleague Jeevan Vasagar, the Guardian's education editor, sends this news through:

Jeevan Vasagar. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

Imperial College London has notified 14 academic staff in its life sciences department that they are at risk of redundancy. The university says that a "restructuring exercise" is under way in the department which will disband two sections and replace them with a new section of Integrative Cell Biology.

The move is not related to the spending review, which cut the overall higher education budget by 40%, the university says. However, analysts have said the spending review created greater urgency for all universities to pursue savings.

Ministers intend to replace much of the teaching grant to universities with the higher tuition fee levels pushed through the Commons yesterday.

Imperial's Life Sciences department is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe, and has a staff-student ratio of one to 12.

The university says the proposed redundancies will make no change to courses this academic year, or to the breadth and depth of degrees long-term.

A "small number" of PhD students will be affected, and Imperial says the department will make changes to their supervision once the redundancies have been settled.

A spokesman said: "The aim of the restructuring is to ensure that the department is internationally competitive in all major areas of research and to strengthen its financial sustainability."

Life sciences graduates go on to work in research and management for industries including pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology, food technology and brewing, as well as laboratories involved in medical research and public health.

2.23pm: Freelance photojournalist has put up a set of evocative black and white pictures of the protests yesterday here.

2.27pm: I have been sent this video showing quite aggressive behaviour from the police. At around 1min 20secs a woman is quite gratuitously hit in the knees by an officer. At 40 seconds in the protesters fling a piece of fencing at the police in quite a violent manner.

2.32pm: On a visit to Leeds, David Cameron has repeated his condemnation of the "completely unacceptable, violent, thuggish behaviour" at the protests in London yesterday. The prime minister said demonstrators behaved in an "absolutely feral way":

The scenes people saw on their TV screens were completely unacceptable. I don't think we can go on saying a small minority were there. There were quite a lot of people who were hell bent on violence and destroying property. When people see flags being torn off The Cenotaph, when people are despoiling a statue of Winston Churchill, police officers being dragged off police horses and beaten ...

2.34pm: Reader Paolo Di Brina has written to complain that on this blog "all the images of the protest depict moments of violence and riots". He writes:

I took a day off to attend the protest and I spent a great time with students and profs from SOAS, UCL and LSE. There were lecturers giving brief lectures on different topics, from economics to Asian cultures. They were talking of how culture and education is important and should be supported regardless of any austerity policy. It is sad not to see this on the Guardian or any other newspaper.

Here is one of Paolo's pictures:

Photograph: Paolo Di Brina

2.42pm: Reader Hannah Wilson has sent a picture she says shows a police officer lifting up a protester by their scarf. She writes:

This is from yesterday's protest and occurred whilst protesters were sitting down peacefully waiting to leave the kettle. The police line moved forward and started to physically lift and kick those sitting down. The picture depicts one of the people sitting being pulled up by their scarf. I think you would agree extremely dangerous and unwarranted in the situation.

Photograph: Hannah Wilson

2.47pm: The Daily Mail is reporting that "royal protection officers were seconds from drawing their weapons after the Duchess of Cornwall was physically attacked by rioters" during yesterday's incident.

Camilla was prodded in the ribs with a stick through the open window of their Rolls Royce as she and Charles were driven to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium. One of the vintage car's windows was left open by mistake before the vehicle was surrounded by a snarling mob of rioting students and activists.

The London Evening Standard reports:

A rioter managed to push a stick through an open window of the limousine and jab her in the ribs. Camilla's terrifying ordeal came as a baying mob surrounded her and husband Prince Charles when they rode through central London in the vintage Rolls-Royce last night.

Or, as the US Drudge Report website puts it:

Drudge Report page on attack on Charles and Camilla

2.58pm: My colleague John Domokos has written about his experience filming the protests yesterday (he was one of the journalists who made this video).

When protests have turned violent, we haven't shied away from showing it. But it comes at the end of the films, following the sequence of events of the day itself. The violence is not the whole story, and should not drown out the many peaceful voices.

3.02pm: More photos here, these from Nassia Matsa.

3.05pm: A reader who wishes only to be known as Dave from London writes:

Why don't you ask all these people complaining about the kettling yesterday: why did they not stick to the agreed route? The police were loudly telling people that if they stuck to the agreed route they were free to move on.

3.29pm: A police officer who wishes to be known only as Daniel has emailed to say he feels "betrayed" that the Guardian's "constant portrayal of the protests – all of them – have been deeply antagonistic and negative towards the police".

Unfortunately, as you know police were responding to serious violent disorder. The video clips have been quite clearly heavily edited to look like consistent "brutality" but if an officer commands to "MOVE AWAY" after four times, why should they not use the force to move them back? By this stage at night in Parliament Square/Victoria Street, the protesters should never have been there and so they were effectively breaking their part of the plea. I think it is fair to say that a lot of people at the front of these demonstrations are there to get their own back on the police; to be excited and if you're in that position, and do not move, you will be at the full front of the law.

3.32pm: Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News has posted an interesting account of the day's events yesterday. He says it was "inevitable" that there was going to be "considerable street violence".

Yesterday was markedly different from previous marches which I have been on concerning student fees. Even outside London University, forming up, there were at least 200 youths at or near the front of the march already masked up. The police too were much more in-your-face. At this stage still hard baseball caps on the heads, but riot helmets already hooked up to their belts. Then, the march stopped almost as soon as it began. There were a series of short speeches from student union leaders and an RMT union official. Over half an hour or so these speakers invited protesters to "bring down the government" and " bring this country to a halt" and there were a number of references to what was felt to be over-aggressive policing. The crowd, by the end of all this, was absolutely itching to get going and set off at a fast walking pace. That's significant. There was urgency. Urgency to get to Parliament Square.

He also wonders if Charles and Camilla were "keen to see what was afoot and insisted on making the journey" to the West End.

Not entirely impossible, but seemingly discounted in the current absurd hysteria surrounding a rather minor moment of violence an a day of rather widespread confrontation.

3.38pm: Clare Byrne, a PhD student and teaching assistant at King's College, London, writes to explain her experience. She too says "I saw absolutely no violence of any kind until the police began containing and ramming people with a level of aggression that was utterly absurd in the face of the fact that, at that time, most people were standing about in clusters in Parliament Square chatting or perhaps chanting a little".

She adds:

As we stood around drinking coffee, a huge number of police vans drove up Parliament street, each full of riot police. These swarmed from the vans, pushing and ramming those who, like us, were around the edges of the square. We found ourselves in the absurd position of being shoved and screamed and sworn at by extremely aggressive and very frightening riot police dressed top to toe in black – we had been standing in a small group sipping coffee and found ourselves treated like criminals. One of my female friends was knocked to the ground by three male riot policemen, her glasses stamped on. Luckily, because they hadn't quite formed the line yet, we managed to grab and pull one another along and run away.

3.42pm: Some replies to Dave from London, who asked why people did not stick to the agreed route (see 3.05pm).

"A Student" writes:

Why don't you ask Dave how a protest can really be a protest if it's route is decided by people who make no secret of the fact that they don't want a protest to happen at all.

Sam Carpenter writes:

In response to Dave from London, the police directed us to Parliament Square from the back.

Meanwhile Graeme Stewart says he agrees with Daniel, the police officer dismayed by the Guardian's coverage (see 3.29pm):

It's not your job to deliberately balance the madness of the Murdoch press or the Daily Mail. There were clearly large groups of people who attended yesterday intent on violence. Stop giving them the air time they crave and focus on the issues.

A reader called David disagrees:

I find the comments of the officer (Daniel) a bit misleading ... Yes, maybe there are some people who want to get there own back on the police, but equally I think there are many police who quite enjoy dealing out a bit of pent-up frustration on the public that they can't get away with day to day.

3.50pm: My colleague Patrick Kingsley has just come down to tell me there is a meeting for student activists at the Hong Kong Theatre in Clement House at the London School of Economics at 6pm tonight. The meeting will plan a day of "national assembly" for student protesters to take place next month. Delegations from a lot of the occupations still going on will be there too, Patrick reports.

3.53pm: My erudite colleague Ian Jack, the former editor of Granta magazine, has written a short analysis piece on the picture of Charles and Camilla that appears at the top of this blogpost. He notes:

A mob is a fearsome thing and no heir to the British throne has faced the dangerous, fun-loving wrath of one for a very long time – not in Britain, certainly, and not in my lifetime and probably not since the pre-Victorian monarchy. Loners with pistols, strange men creeping into the royal bedroom at two in the morning: such events can be put down to obsessive and deranged personalities. An agile young crowd chanting "Off with their heads" as they bash their royal highnesses' car is a new kind of behaviour. As the Duchess of Cornwall said later on leaving the theatre: "There's a first time for everything." But is there a last time? Many of her husband's future subjects surely felt a tremor of foreboding.

The picture shows panic, shock and fear in the eyes of the royal couple. As Jack asks: "One of the duties of the royal family is always to present themselves as composed – without composure, what's left?"

3.57pm: My colleague Steven Morris, who covers the west of England and Wales, reports that a brick has been thrown through the window of Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster's constituency office in Bath. Steve writes:

Steven Morris byline picture Photograph: Guardian

Foster voted with the government. Earlier in the week he had confronted protesters outside his office in Bath and told them he would not make up his mind until the last moment. Foster is one of those on the NUS's "hitlist" of MPs who represent places with large student populations. The NUS has said it intends to "decapitate" either before or at the next election.

4.03pm: Steve from Brighton University reports the following:

I was at the protests yesterday and witnessed many examples of police brutality. My 19-year-old sister was forced to the floor by police when caught in a crowd and when attempting to get up was punched in the face by a male officer. She is sporting a black eye this morning. I was also punched in the face by an officer and when I went to make a note of his numbers, two of his colleagues spotted me doing so and placed their hands on his shoulders, making sure I couldn't see them. I continuously asked for him to make his numbers visible. His response was to smirk and say that he couldn't hear me. The police behaved in a totally disgusting manner. I saw many, many examples of this type of behaviour throughout the day.

4.04pm: Dave from London responds to his critics (see 3.42pm):

I would point out that the route was agreed by the NUS, UCU, and ULU. This just pulled from the web:

"The NUS, the UCU, together with ULU, discussed their plans fully with the Met Police Service Public Order Branch agreeing to the following: Rally along Victoria Embankment from 15.00hrs - 16.30hrs and then a candlelit vigil in the same location from 16.30hrs until 17.00hrs."

NUS, UCU, and ULU didn't want a protest huh?

4.06pm: Another response to Daniel the police officer (see 3.29pm), this one from Donald Edwards, who was not at the protest:

A couple of queries regarding Daniel's comments. He seems to suggest that if you merely do not respond to his directive to move, after the fourth repetition he is then able to hit or assault you?

People at the front of a protest surely will be hard pushed to move as there will be people pushing from behind. Despite his anger at the Guardian's view point on the protest, his comments appear to betray a sense that it is OK for the protesters to be beaten if they do not conform to exactly the rules laid out by the police ... Could you please ask him for a comment on this?

4.09pm: Here's a chaotic video of mounted police charging.

4.26pm: My colleagues Alex Macpherson and Andy Beckett both attended the protests.

Alex writes:

This was not containment of violent protesters – the line disingenuously suggested by Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and run by that a disturbing proportion of an inadequate and cowardly media. It was an unjustifiable and illegal means of punishing wholly non-violent and rather docile protesters – chants included "This is not a riot" and "We are peaceful, what are you?"; protesters put their hands up in unison to signal non-violent intent – in pretty much the coldest, most uncomfortable place possible. It was roughly the sixth hour of the kettling protesters – many of whom, it can't be restated enough, were children ... It seemed more to be motivated by traditional aims of kettling that are rarely stated: to demoralise protesters so much that they are dissuaded from taking part again, and to exhaust them physically so that they go home quietly (not that there was any need for the latter by this stage of the night). While queueing to leave Parliament Square, a woman next to me jokingly told a police officer that if they let us go, she would promise that this would be her last demonstration. The officer replied, "That's the point."

Andy writes:

I was with the demonstrators before the march set off. I also felt the atmosphere was hyped-up from the start – more hyped-up, even, than the early stages of the London poll tax march/riot, which I went on as a student in 1990. Yesterday outside London University there were lots of excited groups of teenage/school-age boys with face masks, and within minutes of the march heading off some of them started breaking away from the main demonstration, at a run, into the side streets of Covent Garden. At about 12.45pm I followed one knot of about 50 who had outpaced the police and were chanting at bemused passers-by, jumping on top of parked cars, and thumping on the sides of passing vans. At this stage it seemed reasonably good-natured, and there quite a few honks of support. But by the time we got to Parliament Square, about 1.15pm, the small portion of the square the march had been permitted to use was already jammed – probably not a good environment for hyped-up teenagers. I went over to the police cordon outside Westminster tube/the Parliamentary Bookshop at about 1.30, and officers were already putting on their riot helmets – despite the fact that at this stage, I had only seen one flare and a couple of placard poles thrown. About 1.40pm, I walked across to the Treasury to see what precautions the police were taking against it being attacked, and saw a line of riot vans in the side street immediately to the north, but with no officers in them. I remember thinking that was a bit of a risk. The rest we know.

4.31pm: I'm going to wrap up for the night. Thanks very much for all your accounts and photos from yesterday, which I think have helped build up a picture of what happened from the protesters' point of view.

Here is an evening summary:

• David Cameron has condemned violent protesters at yesterday's demonstrations in London against the government's decision to raise university tuition fees. The prime minister said it was wrong to characterise those who were violent as "a very small minority. It wasn't." He called those involved in attacking the Prince of Wales's car a "mob" that had to feel the "full force of the law of the land" (see 9.47am). Demonstrators behaved in an "absolutely feral way", Cameron said (see 2.32pm).

• The Metropolitan police will investigate the decisions that led to Charles and Camilla's car being confronted by violent protesters. A Tory MP has called for an independent investigation into the incident (see 12.31pm). Unconfirmed reports have claimed Camilla was poked with a stick (see 2.47pm).

• A student leader has attacked "police brutality" (see 12.36pm). The Guardian has been flooded with emails from demonstrators attacking the police's tactics and their treatment of the protesters. "Kettling" has come in for particular criticism. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an independent investigation after a 20-year-old student was left unconscious with bleeding on the brain after being hit on the head with a police truncheon (see 9.32am).

• Nick Clegg has defended the rise in tuition fees – which contradicts a pre-election Lib Dem pledge – as "the best and fairest possible approach". The Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister said his party would now be able to "move forward without rancour and in a united way" (see 9.36am). Twenty-one Lib Dem MPs voted against the tuition fees rise, with five abstaining. Only 16 followed the leadership in voting for the policy. (See 9.29am for a full list.)

4.53pm: One last thing: a video from Henry Langston of Vice magazine, who was injured in the protest.