Student protests Demo 2012 live blog Hello, and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of today's student protests in London. I'll be live-blogging all the events today as an expected 10,000 students demonstrate against tuition fees increases and poor employment prospects for young people. My colleagues Shiv Malik, Rebecca Ratcliffe and John Domokos will be on the march and keeping in touch throughout the day. The marchers are due to assemble in Temple Place, near Temple tube station on the north bank of the Thames at 11am, and the march will set off at 11.45am. The march heads south down the Thames to Westminster Bridge, where it turns left across the bridge in front of the Houses of Parliament and heads into south London, travelling down Kennington Road before turning into a rally at Kennington Park at around 2pm. At 3pm the rally is due to end. Speakers include comedian Josie Long, columnist Owen Jones, singer Grace Petrie, NUS president Liam Burns, Kathy Taylor of the UCU and Roger MacKenzie of Unison. You can see full details of the march - called Demo2012 - here. Here is Peter Walker and Rebecca Ratcliffe's full story on the background to the march. As they explain, today's protests focus not just on the tripling of tuition fees and the loss of the educational maintenance allowance (EMA), but also the dire employment prospects faced by young people. Today's is the first national protest organised by the NUS since more than 50,000 people took part in a demonstration two years ago, during which there were some violent clashes with police, and there were a number of arrests and injuries and students were "kettled" by officers. Student protests that autumn and winter saw objects thrown from the roof of Tory party HQ in November, and a month later the windows of a car carrying Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were cracked and paint was thrown over it. Here is a map of the route: The route begins at Temple on the north bank of the Thames ... ... crosses Westminster Bridge and continues south through Lambeth ... ... and ends at Kennington Park, where there will be a rally