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Around noon on Thursday 9th December, students
gathered in various parts of London to march towards the centre of the
city. All over London the students had made a conscious effort to bring
out school students in the morning and the days before with leaflets. At
least half of the protesters were school students probably more. Many
were working class kids from poor areas. Even The Financial Times admitted that some 20-30,000 students participated.
With the bosses media foaming at the mouth over the throwing of a bit
of paint at the flash car being used to drive the Prince of Wales and
his wife to another shindig (no cuts here then), we reproduce an article
written for the Militant Student website just before the marches on Thursday which deals with the role played by the big business-owned press and media.
Following a successful day of action on November 24th that saw up to one
thousand school, college and university students mobilise across the
city Glasgow students again took to the streets and demonstrated on
their campuses on December 8th and 9th with the vote on fees looming.
This was despite the terrible weather conditions that had seen snowfall
down transport across much of the west of Scotland and close the M8
between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Schools were closed and the Universities
had cancelled exams but this wasn’t enough to deter the movement.
On Saturday December 4th in freezing weather around 400 trade
unionists, students and youth marched from Coventry City Council House
to a rally in Millennium Square outside the world famous transport
museum to protest against the cuts and the rise in tuition fees. The
event was jointly organised by the Unison and Unite trade unions from
the city council and the Coventry Trades Union Council (CTUC) campaign
Coventry Against the Cuts (CAthC).
On the 9th of December, MPs will vote
on whether or not to burden our youth with massive debt and force
working class kids out of further education by removing their EMA.
Drastic times call for drastic
measures. The price the Tories want ordinary working people to pay for
the crisis of their system is the wholesale destruction of the basic
minimum living standards of a civilised existence for millions. There
are no two ways about it. This is open class conflict, where one class
will succeed and one class will fail.
From the leaders of the labour
movement, in particular the Labour Party, the idea that the Tory cuts
are “ideological” is often put forward. The idea is that the Tories are
doing this out of ideological commitment against the welfare state. This
is misleading. The cuts are a product of the crisis of the Capitalist
system.
The small print at the bottom of the EU/IMF
Bailout would be an enough to make an Asset Stripper’s hair curl. If
anyone in the state was labouring under the delusion that all this snow
meant that Santa had come early then the announcement last night of the
conditions attached to the loans would have put paid to that.
At around 12:15 on Wednesday the 24th
of November, UCL students who had gathered in the main quad for a rally
as part of the ‘National Day of Action Against Education Cuts and Fees’
marched into the Jeremy Bentham Room in the UCL main building amidst
chants of “no ifs, no buts, no education cuts”. A vote on whether to
occupy was then immediately taken and passed by an overwhelming
majority.
Students occupying Leeds University’s
most important lecture theatre have now been in occupation for a week,
in opposition to the Tory attacks on higher education.
Last Wednesday around 480 students and
staff filled the largest meeting room of the Bristol Students Union.
This was an Extraordinary General Meeting, called as a result of a 24
hour occupation of the union last week.