Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

I wouldn't lightly dismiss that as a straw man.

The straw man is the "They are not horrible little greedy monsters that should shut up and do what they're told." line.

I don't think peppering the conversation with this kind of stuff really helps when no one has said anything of the sort, it just kind of colours things in badly.

For me the implication is that this is something being levelled against your opponent's argument - plus having the paragraph start with an unambiguous reference to me runs the obvious risk of attribution. (intended or not).

horatio's main point from the last few pages: that it's reasonable for students to protest given what they see as happening to them.

He might well be right, I don't really know enough about that side of things to comment.