This was the first public gathering of a new activist group, going by the name of CACHE - Cambridge Academic Campaign for Higher Education, mainly comprised of university lecturers, although there were many students present in solidarity with them.

It was a short event, slightly marred by constant rain, although despite this the overall mood was good natured and peaceful, and it got the message across succinctly that, to quote from the Cambridge Defend Education website:


"Huge cuts in government funding and spiralling tuition fees threaten the future of our universities by transforming them from sites of open and unfettered research, teaching, and learning into providers of commercial products to paying customers.

CACHE calls on Cambridge academics to begin the New Year and Lent Term by registering their opposition to the coalition government’s disastrous higher education policies."


I for one, along with many others, would not like to see further and higher education being privatised (you can keep your "academies"!), so the campaign will continue long into this new year.

December 9th 2010 was just the beginning, despite the police's worst efforts.