Perhaps your reporter left early from the student demonstration against Vince Cable last Thursday.

You reported (October 29) that: “a few (students) attempted to get through to the High Street, but were stopped by the police.”

There were 1,000 students in the High Street. You can view the protest in several clips on YouTube.

I am writing to say how good it is to see students in a peaceful and positive protest that should be an example to the rest of us in the face of draconian cuts.

I particularly liked one of their slogans: “This is what democracy looks like”.

I have been in your paper recently complaining about the cuts and, on another day, complaining about students.

If only all our students would use their energy to organise intelligently and sensibly like this, instead of wasting their precious youth being drunken and mindless nuisances in our residential areas, what a better world we might have in the future.

Penelope Newsome, Oxford