The day, 15th of November was a partial success....

15,000 students marched through London to protest against the current trends within our system that is gradually selling off our education. The Government has already ended the student grant, introduced Fees and a Loan system to support the impoverished student, which was sold to private banks last year. Now they plan to introduce top up fees that allow high tier Universities to increase their fees. Students believe this would create a two tier education where the best Universities are those with exclusive access for the rich. The Labour Government has now written their education plans for the next year (should they win the general election) which includes the complete selling off of higher education. This would mean a student's fees would reach up to 60,000 pounds! It comes as no suprise that our education, like so many other public services, is suffering the effects of neo-liberal economics. It is a global trend that the students utterly reject.

The march started on Malet street under heavy Police presence. An activist student group broke through the Police lines at Holborn and marched up Oxford street - Regents street - Trafalgar - where they were met with a line of MET on Whitehall. But they forced their way through, and ran to Parliament singing and chanting "this is what Democracy looks like!" At Parliament they were swiftly stopped by a large force of Police and vans. Meanwhile in Holborn fights broke out between students and Police, the President of North London Uni was arrested, students over-zealously tried to push over a double decker bus onto the MET! A third activist group took Waterloo bridge for a few hours .... jumping on cars and causing chaos...! All groups eventually met back in Kennington Park where the rest of the march had located themselves, out of sight of the general Public.

There were several arrests for minor offenses, criminal damage, obstruction of a public highway etc. Many students have since expressed their support for direct action and now see it as a effective and fun form of protest. News coverage was small (as expected) but better than last year. There were short news bites on ITV regional about student activists taking Waterloo bridge and Whitehall! It also got a very brief mention in the Telegraph, Independent and Evening Standard.


Overall the objectives were not achieved because of lack of coordination and a rapid response by the MET...

But a good days chaos never the less!!