As the unrest simmers we’ve received this inspiring report of resistance at Goldsmiths.

Students at Goldsmiths occupied Deptford Town Hall last week for 24 hours to protest against the proposed higher education cuts, the marketisation of education and more immediately the proposed closure of the university nursery. See http://savegoldsmiths.tumblr.com/ for details, images and video of the occupation and messages of support from local trade unions and community groups.

Yesterday many staff and students joined those of you who came along to the magnificent 50 000 strong anti-cuts demonstration (10 November), opposing the coalition government’s devastating proposals for education and the wider attacks on the working class. The divisive and counterproductive statements issued by the UCU and NUS leaderships concerning the occupation of the Conservative Party HQ are contemptible but unsurprising. The real violence in this situation relates not to a smashed window but to the widespread destructive impact of all the Condem cuts. Included in these are the attacks on young people, their families and the public services that include Further and Higher Education. As well as the very real attacks on the most vulnerable in Britain, the ideological attacks on critical thinking in higher education have solidified in the form of massive tuition fee hikes and the end of funding to Social Science, Humanities and Arts subjects.

The 10^th Nov demonstration proved the deep hostility across the country towards the cuts announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review. We must keep making the links between the diverse struggles of resistance that have emerged if there is to be any chance to building solidarity for a mass movement to counter the wholesale attack on us all.

All welcome to the rally against the cuts on Thursday 25^th November at 6.30pm at Goldsmiths College that will include Tony Benn and speakers from Goldsmiths Student Union, UCU and Coalition of Resistance.

Meanwhile Guy Aitchison has stitched together an excellent overview of social media responses at

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/guy-aitchison/student-protests-and-storming-of-tory-hq-story-in-social-media#comment-540552

In his words,

I’ve put together a storyboard collection of pics, video and social media showing the November 10th protest against tuition fees and its aftermath. There’s so much material out there on the web, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to try out the new collation service Storify, which is currently available in Beta.This is a bit of an experiment, so I’d be interested to know what you think.

Well worth a visit, bringing together a diversity of alternative responses.