When AP photographer Matt Dunham took the picture of an outraged Prince and Princess of Wales when their royal car came under attack from “yobs” on 9 December, he must have thought Christmas had come early. The picture (surprisingly clear and well framed) of the royals gasping in horror, took the front page in the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Mirror, The Sun and The Times the following morning. Only the FT opted for a different cover picture on the day after the Commons’ vote to (potentially) triple tuition fees. The FT opted for a group of rampant “protesters” – appropriately, perhaps for that publication – trying to break into the Treasury.

 

Dunham, who took advantage of the student-led “assault” on the royal limo, must have trousered a small fortune after the picture was plastered almost everywhere.

 

Even though, pictorially, the papers hammered home the message of the attack – The Mail spoke of “pure terror” in Camilla’s eyes – it’s interesting to note how two dailies handled the story from an editorial perspective.

 

Take, for example, comparative treatment of the day’s leader pieces from The Times and The Mirror. While both condemned “the mindless violence” (Mirror) and “stupid, graceless acts” (Times), their interpretations of the day’s events were like chalk and cheese.

 

While The Mirror turned its guns on “doubledealing” Nick Clegg, The Times praised the coalition’s “decisive” action. It had faced its first serious challenge and had stood “resolute”. Same event, completely different readings.

 

The Mirror piled more political pressure onto a beleaguered Clegg – his name is easily the most prominent in the word cloud. The previous day it had poked fun at “Pinickio” and had photoshopped poor Cleggy’s nose to a ridiculously comic length. By Friday 10 December, however, The Mirror was claiming Lib Dem principles had been reduced to ashes by “the mother of all sell-outs”. Never again would the electorate trust Clegg nor his “crony” colleague, Vince Cable.

 

The Times, meanwhile, stuck to its argument that the real problem was not Nick Clegg (who wasn’t even mentioned by name), but the universities themselves who had to get real when it came to quality service.

 

The line went thus: introducing a market in tertiary education should end up giving students a better deal. Institutions needed to be sure that the education they offered “warrants the price they charge”. They would be freer now they were allowed to set their own tuition fees (up to £9,000). But with such price hikes, warned the paper, came certain responsibilities. Students had been let down previously by “poor levels of contact” with academics and “too narrow a range” of activities.

 

The Mirror’s view was that David Cameron and “his sidekick Clegg” were, once again, making higher education a privilege, not a right. This was a “struggle which isn’t over”, and the paper stood alongside the “tens of thousands of students” who had demonstrated peacefully outside Parliament.

 

The Times, however, opined that when student rage had dissipated, they would then realise they had a better deal and would start paying more attention to value for money. The market, as the royal car cameraman had realised, would win in the end.