By IRNA,
London : The British government was accused Saturday of “betraying an entire generation” at the latest student protests in London and Manchester against the higher tuition fees and public spending cuts.
Thousands attended a joint rally organised by students and trade unions in Manchester, while thousands more took part in a noisy protest march in the British capital.
‘From sacking lollipop ladies and closing youth clubs to axing college grants and trebling tuition fees, this is a government at war with our young people and therefore at war with our future. It is betraying an entire generation,’ said general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt.
Sporadic struggles broke out when pockets of students broke away from the march route in Manchester and headed towards the city centre, chanting for the removal of the president of the National Union of Students Aaron Porter from office.
Police were seen containing breakaway groups and forming lines to prevent some from gaining entry into the University of Manchester Students’ Union building.
Earlier, Assistant chief constable Neil Wain warned that Greater Manchester Police will ‘act very robustly’ towards troublemakers, saying that they had met Metropolitan Police colleagues to ‘learn the lessons’ from previous student demonstrations in London.
Banners in London included the message that students were ‘Still angry, still here’ in a warning that the campaign against the trebling of tuition fees and the removal of Education Maintenance Allows will not disappear.
Saturday’s rallies are the latest in a series of demonstrations and occupations by students and come after four mass protests were held in London, the largest since the height of opposition to the Iraq war in 2003.
The police have been criticised for using horses to charge at demonstrators and for ‘kettling’ students within confined spaces for hours in freezing weather, without food, drink and sanitation at previous demonstrations.
But according to the BBC, protesters taking part in the London rally were using technology to avoid being held in a police ‘kettle’ – with the launch of a mobile phone application designed to identify blocked routes.