Many of them were university academics, who symbolically turned up in their black robes to represent the wider body of higher education tutors, whom are affected by the government's cuts to higher education funding.
Translation: "One who praises past times".
Spelling it out...
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.
Homepage: