StudentInnenprotest in London 10.11.2010
Hier eine kleine Übersicht, über die Ereignisse und Hintergründe der aufflammenden StudentInnenproteste in GB. Unmittelbarerer Stein des Anstosses ist die von der aktuellen konservativen Regierung geplante Verdreifachung der Studiengebühren auf bis zu 9'000£. Verschiedene KommentatorInnen sehen die Proteste aber auch im grösseren Kontext der aktuellen Sparmassnahmen...
weitere Infos bei Indy.org.uk
Jeevan Vasagar, Jessica Shepherd and Allegra Stratton, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 November 2010
Elite universities welcomed the government's plans today to raise tuition fees to £9,000, almost three times the current level, if colleges agree to increase scholarships intended to ensure that the poorest are not priced out of a degree.
The universities minister, David Willetts, announced proposals for what he described as "progressive" reforms to raise the "basic threshold" for tuition fees from the current £3,290 a year to £6,000.
Institutions will be able to charge up to £9,000 only in "exceptional circumstances" and only if they agree to much tougher targets to fund undergraduates from poorer families.
The elite Russell Group of universities welcomed the plans, though the Million+ group of new universities said it was "unlikely" that the proposals would sustain university funding in the long-term and expressed concerns over social mobility. The National Union of Students attacked what it described as an "ideological move" to transfer the costs of university education away from the state, and the British Medical Association warned it could have a devastating impact on young people from poorer backgrounds who aspire to be doctors. Labour said the fee rises were "a tragedy for young people".
Many Lib Dems are still wavering over the move – since they have all signed a pre-election pledge with the NUS promising not to support any rise in fees. A senior coalition source said tonight there was "Lib Dem blood sweat and tears all over this" – though some Lib Dems planning to vote against the legislation admitted it was "more progressive" than they feared.
Graduates will pay a contribution towards the cost of their degrees once their earnings have risen above £21,000 a year, repaying 9% of their income above this level. A quarter of graduates will pay less overall than they do at present under the new proposals. Ministers gave the example of a graduate earning £30,000 who will pay back £15.58 a week.
There will be a penalty on early repayment for the highest earners. "It is important that those on the highest incomes are not able to buy themselves out of this system," Willetts said.
The plans follow sharp cuts to higher education teaching budgets in the spending review last month.
The Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, asked Willetts which students would be better off financially than under the current system. Willetts said the increase in maintenance grant would benefit around half a million people.
Hughes said the proposals were an improvement on Lord Browne's plan published last month, but would not say whether he would vote to support this increase in fees. Former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, however, told Willetts and the business secretary, Vince Cable, that he was not prepared to "go along with this particular direction of travel". The junior home office minister Lynne Featherstone, meanwhile, wrote on her blog that she had still not made up her mind.
In a speech to Microsoft government leader's forum tomorrow, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, will set out ways in which the package is one the Lib Dems can accept, highlighting students who will repay less per month under than they currently pay, detailing the £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme and tough new sanctions of universities who fail to improve access to poorer students.
But today Aaron Porter, the NUS president, said the plans would "force students to shoulder the bill for devastating cuts to teaching".
David Barclay, president of Oxford university student union, who was one of seven student leaders invited to meet Clegg today, said: "It's not impossible to imagine a situation where a graduate going to an interview is asked, did you go to a 'cap 6' university or a 'cap 9' university?"
How the increase in student fees will bite
What is the government proposing?
Ministers want to allow universities to raise their fees – capped at £3,290 – to £6,000, and in "exceptional circumstances" up to £9,000 from 2012. Students will still not have to pay fees up front. Instead, they take out loans and pay them back when they graduate and are earning £21,000 or more. At the moment, graduates start repaying when they are earning £15,000. Ministers want part-time students to be able to take out loans as well. At the moment, they have to pay up at the start of their courses. Interest rates could also change; ministers want to charge 9% of income (RPI plus 3%) instead of no real rate of interest.
How is this different?
At the moment, almost all universities charge the maximum of £3,290 a year so there is no market in fees. There could be different fees for different courses within a single university.
What happens to students in Wales and Scotland?
These proposals affect only English universities. Scottish and EU students studying in Scotland do not have to pay any fees. Students from the rest of the UK studying there pay £1,820 per year. In Northern Ireland and Wales, fees are a maximum of £3,290. However, if the fees charged by English universities are much lower than those charged in Wales and Scotland, universities there could fall behind English institutions.
What happened to Lord Browne's proposals?
Lord Browne's review, published last month, proposed a free market under which universities could charge the fees they thought they could command. He suggested a levy on fees over £6,000 to stop some institutions charging prohibitively. The idea of unlimited fees and a levy have been scrapped. The coalition has adopted some of Browne's proposals, including the £21,000 threshold and parity for part-time students .
How much will universities charge?
It will depend and they will have to decide this quickly – their prospectuses for 2012 are published in April. Most will charge £7,000 to £8,000. Ministers think many will charge £6,000 by reducing their courses to two years. Some – mainly the former polytechnics – will not charge as much as £8,000 because they believe their students would be put off by the likely heavy debt.
What do the universities think ?
The most sought after, research-intensive universities say that the government's plans provide "a life-saving cash transfusion". Under the plans, universities – particularly Oxbridge – will have to do much more to encourage poor students to apply. Those that charge more than £6,000 will be subject to "much tougher" rules on access. They will need to show the regulator – the Office for Fair Access – that they are encouraging students from the poorest families and from under-represented ethnic minorities to apply. The regulator could fine them if they are not widening their pool of applicants. But the top universities say they already make serious efforts to attract students from deprived homes; higher education is seen as an asset to an individual, rather than to society.
What do students say?
The National Union of Students say the plans are an "unprecedented ideological move that will push all of the costs of higher education onto the shoulders of students who already face much of the financial consequence of the economic downturn".
Is this going to stop poor students from going to university?
Students may be put off by the thought of having to pay back a lot more. But the government insists that a quarter will pay less back than they do now over the course of their lives. Monthly rates will be lower because the annual income required to trigger repayments will be higher – up to £21,000 from £15,000. There will also be £150m available in national scholarships to cover the first year of university for students who are very bright, but poor.
What evidence is there that students from poor homes are put off applying to university if fees go up?
The Office for Fair Access – the admissions regulator – found a widening gap between rich and poor at the most selective universities, but says there is no evidence that this has worsened since top-up fees were introduced in 2006. However, research by Leicester University suggests many students would be deterred if they were charged £7,000. Some campuses would see a "potentially disastrous drop" in numbers.
Will the plans get through?
Highly likely. The government can withstand as many as 42 MPs voting against it. The Lib Dems have only 57 MPs; of those, some 26 are either ministers or have some kind of role with Nick Clegg which would require them to vote with the government. However, some ministers and whips may decide to go with their pre-election pledge not to support any increase in fees rather than toe their party line.
Paul Lewis, Jeevan Vasagar, Rachel Williams and Matthew Taylor, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 November 2010
Protesters smashed windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building housing the Conservative party headquarters as the fringe of a vast rally against university funding cuts turned violent.
The scale of the London protest defied expectations, with an estimated 50,000 turning out to vent their anger at government plans to raise tuition fees while cutting the state grant for university teaching.
Protesters who broke off from the main route of the march occupied the lobby of the building at 30 Millbank, in central London, where police wielding batons clashed with a crowd hurling placard sticks, eggs and bottles.
Activists who had masked their faces with scarves traded punches with police to chants of "Tory scum". The exchanges were recorded by broadcasters' helicopter-mounted cameras and protesters' mobile phones.
Police said at least eight people – "a mixture of police and protesters" – had been injured, and a number had been arrested. Riot police were believed to be inside the Millbank tower, attempting to restore order.
Speaking outside New Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said the force should have anticipated the level of violence "better", adding: "It is not acceptable. "It's an embarrassment for London and for us."
He said his officers would go through a "thorough operation to get full control of the building", and there would be full investigations.
The message to the protesters was that they could not get away with "that kind of behaviour in daylight on the streets of London", he said.
The vast majority of protesters were peaceful, and those at the front of the march watched videos and heard impassioned speeches against the cuts.
Footage of the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, promising to scrap tuition fees was greeted by abusive chants.
Clegg, who deputised for David Cameron at prime minister's questions today, came under sustained attack in the Commons over tuition fees.
Meanwhile, one student won an unexpected concession from the coalition as Cameron, on a visit to China, said raising tuition fees for UK undergraduates would mean there was less pressure to charge very high fees to overseas students.
In answer to a question from a Chinese student, the prime minister said: "In the past, we have pushed up the fees on overseas students as a way of keeping them down for domestic students.
"Yes, foreign students will still pay a significant amount of money – but we should be able to bring that growth under control."
Today's huge protest was organised by the NUS and lecturers' union the UCU. Both unions have attacked coalition plans to raise tuition fees as high as £9,000 while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets.
The higher fees will be introduced for undergraduates from 2012 if the proposals are sanctioned by the Commons, with a vote due before Christmas.
The NUS president, Aaron Porter, today condemned the actions of "those who are here to cause trouble."
He tweeted: "Disgusted that the actions of a minority of idiots are trying to undermine 50,000 who came to make a peaceful protest."
The NUS president said the march was the biggest student demonstration in generations, telling protesters: "We're in the fight of our lives ... we face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun.
"They're proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalise our colleges and universities."
This "miserable vision" would be resisted, he said, imploring students to take their protests to their constituencies and adding: "This is just the beginning ... the resistance begins here."
Protesters who attacked the Millbank building used their banners to light a bonfire in the outside forecourt. Police drafted in the Territorial Support Group riot squad.
Liberal Democrat sources indicated that the party's headquarters, in nearby Cowley Street, had not been targeted.
At PMQs, the deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, said she hoped Clegg would go and tell the students protesting outside parliament how "fair" the government's plan was.
The Liberal Democrats fought the election on a manifesto promising to phase out tuition fees, and the party's MPs have signed a pledge to oppose any rise. The coalition agreement allows them to abstain in a Commons vote.
Harman said: "In April, he [Clegg] said that increasing tuition fees to £7,000 a year would be a disaster. What word would he use to describe fees of £9,000?"
Clegg claimed there was "consensus" across the parties about the need to reform the system. Harman replied: "None of us agree with tuition fees of £9,000 a year."
She said the rise in fees was not part of the effort to tackle the deficit, but was instead about Clegg "going along with Tory plans to shove the cost of higher education on to students and their families".
"We all know what it's like – you are at freshers' week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret," she said.
"Isn't it true he has been led astray by the Tories? Isn't that the truth of it?"
Clegg insisted the government's plans were a "fair and progressive solution to a very difficult problem".
"The proposals we have put forward will mean that those who earn the least will pay much less than they do at the moment, those who earn the most will pay over the odds to provide a subsidy to allow people from poor backgrounds to go to university," he said.
Last month, the business secretary, Vince Cable – whose department includes universities – told the Commons the Lib Dems' pre-election pledge was "no longer feasible".
"The roads to Westminster are littered with the skidmarks of political parties changing direction," he said.
Nina Power, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 November 2010
Today's protest against the education cuts was uplifting: students, staff and others from all over the country gathered in their thousands to walk the route between Embankment and Tate Britain, pausing to boo at Downing Street. The weather was bright and clear, and the mood decidedly upbeat. Staff, students and others marched together under banners from colleges all over the country, while drums and chants protesting at the fees rang out for miles. There were a sizable number of Lib Dems protesting against their own party's U-turn on fees, and a sit-in outside parliament – the peace protesters who reside there were happy to give the students a quick lesson in the true meaning of anarchy.
Numbers were massive too, with around 52,000 turning out – more than double the NUS's original estimate. Police helicopters circled above the crowds, as protesters carried giant vultures, carrots, coffins and effigies of Tory politicians. But media reports will inevitably focus on one thing, namely the spontaneous occupation of and protest in Tory HQ at 30 Millbank Tower. Aaron Porter, the NUS president, was quick to condemn the breakaway protesters, describing their actions as "despicable".
As I write, about 200 people have occupied the building, and bonfires burn outside. Some arrests have been made and eight people – protesters and police officers – have been injured. Protesters have broken windows and made their way on to the roof. Twitter reports indicate that some have taken a sofa from inside Millbank and put it outside, with the quite reasonable argument that "if we're going to be kettled we may as well be comfy".
Direct action this most certainly was, the kind writers such as John Pilger have recently been calling for. It is hard to see the violence as simply the wilfulness of a small minority – it is a genuine expression of frustration against the few who seem determined to make the future a miserable, small-minded and debt-filled place for the many.
The protest as a whole was extremely important, not just because of the large numbers it attracted, and shouldn't be understood simply in economic terms as a complaint against fees. It also represented the serious anger many feel about cuts to universities as they currently stand, and the ideological devastation of the education system if the coalition gets its way. It was a protest against the narrowing of horizons; a protest against Lib Dem hypocrisy; a protest against the increasingly utilitarian approach to human life that sees degrees as nothing but "investments" by individuals, and denies any link between education and the broader social good.
The protesters – students and others – who occupied Tory HQ will no doubt continue to be condemned in the days to come. But their anger is justified: the coalition government is ruining Britain for reasons of ideological perversity. The protests in France and Greece and the student occupations here, such as the recent takeover of Deptford Town Hall by Goldsmiths students on the day cuts were announced, are indicators of a new militancy. At this point, what have we got to lose?
The best moments on any protests are when there is a real feeling of common purpose and a recognition that we are all on the same side. This is the true meaning of "big society" – the very thing that the coalition seems set on destroying, despite its rhetoric. This protest – in both its peaceful and more violent dimensions – is a sign of a country unafraid to fight back, for the first time in a long time.
weitere Infos bei Indy.org.ukzum Kontext
Jeevan Vasagar, Jessica Shepherd and Allegra Stratton, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 November 2010
Elite universities welcome flexibility to triple students' fees
But universities will be able to charge the £9,000 top rate only if they agree to fund more undergraduates from poorer familiesElite universities welcomed the government's plans today to raise tuition fees to £9,000, almost three times the current level, if colleges agree to increase scholarships intended to ensure that the poorest are not priced out of a degree.
The universities minister, David Willetts, announced proposals for what he described as "progressive" reforms to raise the "basic threshold" for tuition fees from the current £3,290 a year to £6,000.
Institutions will be able to charge up to £9,000 only in "exceptional circumstances" and only if they agree to much tougher targets to fund undergraduates from poorer families.
The elite Russell Group of universities welcomed the plans, though the Million+ group of new universities said it was "unlikely" that the proposals would sustain university funding in the long-term and expressed concerns over social mobility. The National Union of Students attacked what it described as an "ideological move" to transfer the costs of university education away from the state, and the British Medical Association warned it could have a devastating impact on young people from poorer backgrounds who aspire to be doctors. Labour said the fee rises were "a tragedy for young people".
Many Lib Dems are still wavering over the move – since they have all signed a pre-election pledge with the NUS promising not to support any rise in fees. A senior coalition source said tonight there was "Lib Dem blood sweat and tears all over this" – though some Lib Dems planning to vote against the legislation admitted it was "more progressive" than they feared.
Graduates will pay a contribution towards the cost of their degrees once their earnings have risen above £21,000 a year, repaying 9% of their income above this level. A quarter of graduates will pay less overall than they do at present under the new proposals. Ministers gave the example of a graduate earning £30,000 who will pay back £15.58 a week.
There will be a penalty on early repayment for the highest earners. "It is important that those on the highest incomes are not able to buy themselves out of this system," Willetts said.
The plans follow sharp cuts to higher education teaching budgets in the spending review last month.
The Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, asked Willetts which students would be better off financially than under the current system. Willetts said the increase in maintenance grant would benefit around half a million people.
Hughes said the proposals were an improvement on Lord Browne's plan published last month, but would not say whether he would vote to support this increase in fees. Former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, however, told Willetts and the business secretary, Vince Cable, that he was not prepared to "go along with this particular direction of travel". The junior home office minister Lynne Featherstone, meanwhile, wrote on her blog that she had still not made up her mind.
In a speech to Microsoft government leader's forum tomorrow, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, will set out ways in which the package is one the Lib Dems can accept, highlighting students who will repay less per month under than they currently pay, detailing the £150m for a new National Scholarship Programme and tough new sanctions of universities who fail to improve access to poorer students.
But today Aaron Porter, the NUS president, said the plans would "force students to shoulder the bill for devastating cuts to teaching".
David Barclay, president of Oxford university student union, who was one of seven student leaders invited to meet Clegg today, said: "It's not impossible to imagine a situation where a graduate going to an interview is asked, did you go to a 'cap 6' university or a 'cap 9' university?"
How the increase in student fees will bite
What is the government proposing?
Ministers want to allow universities to raise their fees – capped at £3,290 – to £6,000, and in "exceptional circumstances" up to £9,000 from 2012. Students will still not have to pay fees up front. Instead, they take out loans and pay them back when they graduate and are earning £21,000 or more. At the moment, graduates start repaying when they are earning £15,000. Ministers want part-time students to be able to take out loans as well. At the moment, they have to pay up at the start of their courses. Interest rates could also change; ministers want to charge 9% of income (RPI plus 3%) instead of no real rate of interest.
How is this different?
At the moment, almost all universities charge the maximum of £3,290 a year so there is no market in fees. There could be different fees for different courses within a single university.
What happens to students in Wales and Scotland?
These proposals affect only English universities. Scottish and EU students studying in Scotland do not have to pay any fees. Students from the rest of the UK studying there pay £1,820 per year. In Northern Ireland and Wales, fees are a maximum of £3,290. However, if the fees charged by English universities are much lower than those charged in Wales and Scotland, universities there could fall behind English institutions.
What happened to Lord Browne's proposals?
Lord Browne's review, published last month, proposed a free market under which universities could charge the fees they thought they could command. He suggested a levy on fees over £6,000 to stop some institutions charging prohibitively. The idea of unlimited fees and a levy have been scrapped. The coalition has adopted some of Browne's proposals, including the £21,000 threshold and parity for part-time students .
How much will universities charge?
It will depend and they will have to decide this quickly – their prospectuses for 2012 are published in April. Most will charge £7,000 to £8,000. Ministers think many will charge £6,000 by reducing their courses to two years. Some – mainly the former polytechnics – will not charge as much as £8,000 because they believe their students would be put off by the likely heavy debt.
What do the universities think ?
The most sought after, research-intensive universities say that the government's plans provide "a life-saving cash transfusion". Under the plans, universities – particularly Oxbridge – will have to do much more to encourage poor students to apply. Those that charge more than £6,000 will be subject to "much tougher" rules on access. They will need to show the regulator – the Office for Fair Access – that they are encouraging students from the poorest families and from under-represented ethnic minorities to apply. The regulator could fine them if they are not widening their pool of applicants. But the top universities say they already make serious efforts to attract students from deprived homes; higher education is seen as an asset to an individual, rather than to society.
What do students say?
The National Union of Students say the plans are an "unprecedented ideological move that will push all of the costs of higher education onto the shoulders of students who already face much of the financial consequence of the economic downturn".
Is this going to stop poor students from going to university?
Students may be put off by the thought of having to pay back a lot more. But the government insists that a quarter will pay less back than they do now over the course of their lives. Monthly rates will be lower because the annual income required to trigger repayments will be higher – up to £21,000 from £15,000. There will also be £150m available in national scholarships to cover the first year of university for students who are very bright, but poor.
What evidence is there that students from poor homes are put off applying to university if fees go up?
The Office for Fair Access – the admissions regulator – found a widening gap between rich and poor at the most selective universities, but says there is no evidence that this has worsened since top-up fees were introduced in 2006. However, research by Leicester University suggests many students would be deterred if they were charged £7,000. Some campuses would see a "potentially disastrous drop" in numbers.
Will the plans get through?
Highly likely. The government can withstand as many as 42 MPs voting against it. The Lib Dems have only 57 MPs; of those, some 26 are either ministers or have some kind of role with Nick Clegg which would require them to vote with the government. However, some ministers and whips may decide to go with their pre-election pledge not to support any increase in fees rather than toe their party line.
Die Ereignisse von heute
Paul Lewis, Jeevan Vasagar, Rachel Williams and Matthew Taylor, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 November 2010
Student protest over fees turns violent
Protesters smash windows and get onto roof of Tory HQ as estimated 50,000 attend London rallyProtesters smashed windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building housing the Conservative party headquarters as the fringe of a vast rally against university funding cuts turned violent.
The scale of the London protest defied expectations, with an estimated 50,000 turning out to vent their anger at government plans to raise tuition fees while cutting the state grant for university teaching.
Protesters who broke off from the main route of the march occupied the lobby of the building at 30 Millbank, in central London, where police wielding batons clashed with a crowd hurling placard sticks, eggs and bottles.
Activists who had masked their faces with scarves traded punches with police to chants of "Tory scum". The exchanges were recorded by broadcasters' helicopter-mounted cameras and protesters' mobile phones.
Police said at least eight people – "a mixture of police and protesters" – had been injured, and a number had been arrested. Riot police were believed to be inside the Millbank tower, attempting to restore order.
Speaking outside New Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said the force should have anticipated the level of violence "better", adding: "It is not acceptable. "It's an embarrassment for London and for us."
He said his officers would go through a "thorough operation to get full control of the building", and there would be full investigations.
The message to the protesters was that they could not get away with "that kind of behaviour in daylight on the streets of London", he said.
The vast majority of protesters were peaceful, and those at the front of the march watched videos and heard impassioned speeches against the cuts.
Footage of the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, promising to scrap tuition fees was greeted by abusive chants.
Clegg, who deputised for David Cameron at prime minister's questions today, came under sustained attack in the Commons over tuition fees.
Meanwhile, one student won an unexpected concession from the coalition as Cameron, on a visit to China, said raising tuition fees for UK undergraduates would mean there was less pressure to charge very high fees to overseas students.
In answer to a question from a Chinese student, the prime minister said: "In the past, we have pushed up the fees on overseas students as a way of keeping them down for domestic students.
"Yes, foreign students will still pay a significant amount of money – but we should be able to bring that growth under control."
Today's huge protest was organised by the NUS and lecturers' union the UCU. Both unions have attacked coalition plans to raise tuition fees as high as £9,000 while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets.
The higher fees will be introduced for undergraduates from 2012 if the proposals are sanctioned by the Commons, with a vote due before Christmas.
The NUS president, Aaron Porter, today condemned the actions of "those who are here to cause trouble."
He tweeted: "Disgusted that the actions of a minority of idiots are trying to undermine 50,000 who came to make a peaceful protest."
The NUS president said the march was the biggest student demonstration in generations, telling protesters: "We're in the fight of our lives ... we face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun.
"They're proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalise our colleges and universities."
This "miserable vision" would be resisted, he said, imploring students to take their protests to their constituencies and adding: "This is just the beginning ... the resistance begins here."
Protesters who attacked the Millbank building used their banners to light a bonfire in the outside forecourt. Police drafted in the Territorial Support Group riot squad.
Liberal Democrat sources indicated that the party's headquarters, in nearby Cowley Street, had not been targeted.
At PMQs, the deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, said she hoped Clegg would go and tell the students protesting outside parliament how "fair" the government's plan was.
The Liberal Democrats fought the election on a manifesto promising to phase out tuition fees, and the party's MPs have signed a pledge to oppose any rise. The coalition agreement allows them to abstain in a Commons vote.
Harman said: "In April, he [Clegg] said that increasing tuition fees to £7,000 a year would be a disaster. What word would he use to describe fees of £9,000?"
Clegg claimed there was "consensus" across the parties about the need to reform the system. Harman replied: "None of us agree with tuition fees of £9,000 a year."
She said the rise in fees was not part of the effort to tackle the deficit, but was instead about Clegg "going along with Tory plans to shove the cost of higher education on to students and their families".
"We all know what it's like – you are at freshers' week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret," she said.
"Isn't it true he has been led astray by the Tories? Isn't that the truth of it?"
Clegg insisted the government's plans were a "fair and progressive solution to a very difficult problem".
"The proposals we have put forward will mean that those who earn the least will pay much less than they do at the moment, those who earn the most will pay over the odds to provide a subsidy to allow people from poor backgrounds to go to university," he said.
Last month, the business secretary, Vince Cable – whose department includes universities – told the Commons the Lib Dems' pre-election pledge was "no longer feasible".
"The roads to Westminster are littered with the skidmarks of political parties changing direction," he said.
Ein Kommentar
Nina Power, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 November 2010
Student protest: we are all in this together
The occupation of Conservative party HQ is about so much more than fees. At last the country is beginning to fight backToday's protest against the education cuts was uplifting: students, staff and others from all over the country gathered in their thousands to walk the route between Embankment and Tate Britain, pausing to boo at Downing Street. The weather was bright and clear, and the mood decidedly upbeat. Staff, students and others marched together under banners from colleges all over the country, while drums and chants protesting at the fees rang out for miles. There were a sizable number of Lib Dems protesting against their own party's U-turn on fees, and a sit-in outside parliament – the peace protesters who reside there were happy to give the students a quick lesson in the true meaning of anarchy.
Numbers were massive too, with around 52,000 turning out – more than double the NUS's original estimate. Police helicopters circled above the crowds, as protesters carried giant vultures, carrots, coffins and effigies of Tory politicians. But media reports will inevitably focus on one thing, namely the spontaneous occupation of and protest in Tory HQ at 30 Millbank Tower. Aaron Porter, the NUS president, was quick to condemn the breakaway protesters, describing their actions as "despicable".
As I write, about 200 people have occupied the building, and bonfires burn outside. Some arrests have been made and eight people – protesters and police officers – have been injured. Protesters have broken windows and made their way on to the roof. Twitter reports indicate that some have taken a sofa from inside Millbank and put it outside, with the quite reasonable argument that "if we're going to be kettled we may as well be comfy".
Direct action this most certainly was, the kind writers such as John Pilger have recently been calling for. It is hard to see the violence as simply the wilfulness of a small minority – it is a genuine expression of frustration against the few who seem determined to make the future a miserable, small-minded and debt-filled place for the many.
The protest as a whole was extremely important, not just because of the large numbers it attracted, and shouldn't be understood simply in economic terms as a complaint against fees. It also represented the serious anger many feel about cuts to universities as they currently stand, and the ideological devastation of the education system if the coalition gets its way. It was a protest against the narrowing of horizons; a protest against Lib Dem hypocrisy; a protest against the increasingly utilitarian approach to human life that sees degrees as nothing but "investments" by individuals, and denies any link between education and the broader social good.
The protesters – students and others – who occupied Tory HQ will no doubt continue to be condemned in the days to come. But their anger is justified: the coalition government is ruining Britain for reasons of ideological perversity. The protests in France and Greece and the student occupations here, such as the recent takeover of Deptford Town Hall by Goldsmiths students on the day cuts were announced, are indicators of a new militancy. At this point, what have we got to lose?
The best moments on any protests are when there is a real feeling of common purpose and a recognition that we are all on the same side. This is the true meaning of "big society" – the very thing that the coalition seems set on destroying, despite its rhetoric. This protest – in both its peaceful and more violent dimensions – is a sign of a country unafraid to fight back, for the first time in a long time.
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