The Student Assembly Against Austerity's debt-in outside the Conservative Party Conference this afternoon had disability cuts campaigners and activists joining in with the constant chanting...
`What do we want? Free education! When do we want it? Now!'... `David Cameron can't you see we can't pay tuition fees...'
After a march past the Conference entrance, the students, carrying red boxes reading `Keep The Grants', `Free Education' and `Grants Not Debt', lay down in the road to the bemusement of conference delegates gawping from the venue's balcony.
"I'm here to stand in solidarity with all the other organisations, trade unions and activists that oppose all the cuts that the Tories are inflicting on us, the most marginalised getting the backlash of the Tory cuts" said Shakira Martin, National Union of Students Vice President, Further Education
"Me as a single mother, black working class woman, I am one of the most hit by this Tory Government" she added "But I'm going to stand up and say `No!'...We want free education, because not until we get free education will we have a diverse society that can be represented in Parliament. No wonder the Tories don't want to give free education because they'll have people like me coming through, and why would they want that?
"We know what it's like to be at the bottom of the food chain but we have so much potential" Shakira explained "And that's why it's vital for me to go out and use all the platforms to encourage, inspire and help to motivate our young people and the future generations to take a stand..."
This afternoon the students did more than make a stand they lay down in the street, they chanted, they marched and, like every other protest today, they shamed the policies of the Conservative Government and its sneering conference delegates...
For a round up of all the day's protests click here
Main photo by Steven Speed
For more photos of today's protests see the Salford Star photo blog click here
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