Tagged with University of Cambridge

University pays staff poverty wages – and spends £3 million on wine

King's College, CambridgeLast year, the University of Cambridge spent almost £3 million on wine. It also employs a total of over one thousand people paid under the living wage.

King’s College, the university’s most recognisable institution, has both the highest expenditure on wine, and the highest number of employees paid under the living wage. While the college’s fellows sip Merlot, those who serve it remain at risk of in-work poverty. In fact, the lavish £50,000 spent on free wine for lecturers would be more than enough to cover the cost of raising all full time worker’s pay to the living wage. Continue reading →

The British state is rapidly alienating a whole new generation

police-state-dangerSeven days ago, the Guardian revealed that Cambridgeshire Constabulary had attempted to infiltrate activist and student groups through the recruitment of informers. The news prompted outcry from students, academics and campaigners alike. If you haven’t yet seen the videos secretly recorded by the Guardian’s mole, they provide a fascinating insight into the inner workings of our surveillance state. At both its most transgressive, and its most amateur.

In a blog for the London Review of Books on Tuesday, I objected to the position adopted by management at the University of Cambridge, who have refused to comment, saying it is a “matter for the police”. “You might expect an educational institution to be concerned by solid evidence that the police are gathering information on its law-abiding students,” I wrote. “But the university has form when it comes to collaborating in the crackdown on student dissent.” The fact that Cambridge’s vice-chancellor remains silent, after over 130 academics called on him to speak out, alerts us to the wider significance of this story: that Britain’s youth are becoming increasingly alienated from the institutions they once thought were there to protect their interests. Continue reading →

Student “debt-in” in protest at loanbook privatisation

Debt-in 1Students and staff at the University of Cambridge this week (Tuesday 5th November) staged a “debt-in” on King’s Parade, in opposition to the government’s plan to privatise student loans, which could see interest on such loans being retrospectively doubled. This comes after a number of actions taking place in London last month, including the targeting of a number of Lib Dem MPs’ offices.

To symbolise the burden of student debt, activists performed a game of “Stuck in the Debt” from 12pm, a spin on popular playground game Stuck in the Mud, this time involving students being captured by debt-wielding bankers. Cambridge Defend Education, the activist group organising the protest, handed out a briefing on the student loan privatisation to passers by, who stopped in surprise at the spectacle of scores of red boxes symbolising student debt. Continue reading →

Anti-fascists: five reasons we’re protesting Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen is due to speak at the Cambridge Union Society today. Unite Against Fascism, Cambridge University Students’ Union activists, the NUS Black Students’ Campaign, the UCU, Cambridge Defend Education and others will join a demo outside from 2.30pm. Demonstrators explain why:

The Front National (FN) is a modern fascist party. It was formed in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was backed by wartime fascists, including ex-SS officers and supporters of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, and a new generation of fascists, or self-styled ‘revolutionary nationalists.’ Their strategy was to seek respectability to win wider support and then transform these supporters ‘in our image.’

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Gove’s ideological war must be challenged wholesale

It wasn’t long after Michael Gove took office as Education Secretary before he was called a “miserable pipsqueak” by Labour MP Tom Watson and got savaged by an angry parent on a radio call-in.

But last week, when the abolition of the AS-level – an exam taken by lower sixth-form pupils – faced the staunch condemnation of both teaching unions and Cambridge University, it became clearer than ever that Gove has shifted the terms of the education debate beyond recognition.

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