The Socialist 16 June 2010

Millionaire ministers savage public services

'Bloodbath budget' day protests and meetings

Comprehensive education under attack

Opposing 'Dickensian' academy schools in Waltham Forest

Come to the NSSN conference

Unison local government conference: Delegates face huge struggles

Northern Rock throws workers on the dole

Wales Unison: Socialist Party member elected

NHS Scotland - ConDemned to terminal decay

Southampton library staff strike to save jobs

Save the Big House

Labour leadership contest dominated by right wing

TUSC plans for future elections

BP's value plunges as oil spill worsens

Willetts approves tuition fees hike

Bloody Sunday report appears 38 years late

IDS's 'anti-poverty drive' attacks the poorest!

High speed trains and high priced fares

Why we don't back the Queen's pay claim

Fast news

Diary dates

Tower Hamlets: Jobs, homes and services - not the racist EDL!

Greece: A test bed for 'austerity' and resistance

Spain: Millions of public sector workers strike over brutal cuts

Portugal: Mobilisation against austerity reaches new level

Socialist Party Scotland launched at packed and inspiring meeting

Previous issues, etc

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Willetts approves tuition fees hike

ON 9 June the new universities minister, David Willetts, gave his clearest indication yet of his government's intention to raise tuition fees. The announcement comes in advance of the fees review, which will be completed in September.

Claire Laker-Mansfield

The review - which has been chaired by the former BP chief executive, Lord Browne - is likely to recommend an increase in fees to between £5,000 and £9,000 a year.

Higher tuition fees will deter many young people from going to university for financial reasons, with those that do being left with a burden of crippling debt.

With so few jobs available, young people are left with few options when it comes to deciding what to do after leaving school. It is estimated that students studying longer courses, such as medicine, could end up leaving university with £90,000 worth of debt.

The government's plan will spark the anger of young people, who are struggling under the burden of already high tuition fees and the prospect of long term unemployment.

The University and Colleges Union, UCU, has condemned a rise in tuition fees, arguing that this would be the "most regressive piece of education policy since the Second World War". Students and workers must unite in struggle if these attacks on education are to be defeated.

It is important that students take part in the national day of action called by UCU and Unison on 21 June, which coincides with strike action against cuts at Sussex University.

Socialist Students, which has been involved in a campaign to defeat fees for many years, calls for the formation of a mass national campaign against cuts and fees. The calling of an anti-cuts conference by the National Union of Students (NUS) this June is a welcome development, but it must resolve to take concrete action.

Socialist Students delegates to this conference will argue that NUS should call a mass demonstration in the autumn against both higher education funding cuts and tuition fees. Only with a strong national campaign uniting education workers, university, college and school students and young people currently not in education, can these attacks be pushed back and defeated.

In this issue

Millionaire ministers savage public services