The students aren't just angry about education cuts. They see themselves as a vanguard for a much wider protest campaign
When I was asked to speak at University College London's campaign for a living wage for college cleaners, a couple of months back, I was not expecting that many students to turn up – but things turned out differently.
On Thursday, the day of the meeting, a student occupation was in full swing. The epicentre in the Jeremy Bentham room – where protesters are still camped out – was packed to bursting. A living wage, with the outsourced cleaners brought back in-house, had become one of their key demands. Here, as elsewhere, what started as protests about tuition fees accelerated into a political movement against cuts of all kinds. Inequality, poverty, the shredding of public services, unemployment, bankers and boardroom bonuses had become part of the protest. One fight, one struggle, they said, as if 40 years had suddenly fallen away. Not exactly Paris 1968, but in their sit-in meetings they were beginning to see themselves as the vanguard for a wider campaign. Thatcher's children, selfish, materialist, apathetic? Not at all.
The scandalous abolition of the education maintenance allowance (EMA), which gives £30 a week to sixth-formers from the poorest families, is as central to their protest as their tripled fees. I read out a heartbreaking email I had just received from a Hackney sixth-former: she and her twin brother live with their disabled mother. Together they will lose £60 a week in allowance and wonder if they can stay on. She went on her first march on Wednesday, peacefully, far from any violence, and was horrified at being kettled by the police for five hours. Are police and government conspiring to turn peaceful young people into outraged militants?
By Friday morning the UCL students had won a living wage of £7.80 for their cleaners, joining 11 other London universities and colleges that have now signed up. This is part of the Citizens UK rolling campaign to raise poverty pay for cleaners, security guards, hotel chambermaids and others.
How will protest develop over the next 18 months, as the speed and scale of the cuts are felt? Every day more stories of cuts pour into my inbox, many never reported in the press. Five council youth centres are shutting in Haringey, north London, more elsewhere. Education for Choice – a small charity that arranges balanced debates in schools about abortion – is losing its grant and may fold. Here is a particularly mean-minded one: abolishing the mobility part of the disability living allowance means young and old in residential care will be trapped indoors, losing the money to hire a taxi to go out. Meanwhile, this week's official report on stricter health tests for incapacity benefit revealed widespread cruelty and error.
Another eye-opener: the coalition has U-turned to shelve its pledge to protect public sector workers who blow the whistle on dangerous, corrupt or incompetent practices. Why? Ministers just realised it would also protect anyone revealing damage done to services by their own cuts.
Nothing, though, will shield the public from discovering how slap-happy Eric Pickles has arranged his budget: the Local Government Chronicle just reported his department in a state of panic as they realise, as predicted, their plans mean huge sums taken from the most deprived areas such as Barrow-in-Furness will be redistributed to the likes of Tunbridge Wells: the cabinet secretary is conducting an urgent review of how many more jobs will be cut by poor councils than by rich ones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/26/student-protest-public-sector-cuts
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