University Challenge

We can demonstrate until we are blue in the face, but as long as the government keeps a firm hand on the state (the police and army), they will get their way in the end. So targeting Lib-Dem politicians and threatening them with electoral defeat is the surest way of putting on pressure.

But the question is, who will take their seats if they are ousted? Almost certainly another candidate that stands for cuts and austerity. Lib-Dems, Conservatives, Labour and the Greens are all simply factions of the Capitalist Party, the party that supports a system that needs poverty and unemployment simply to exist. So we'll all be back on the streets protesting again.

We need to get organised to use elections to not simply change personnel within the Capitalist Party, but to rid ourselves of the system that demands these cuts. If we stand together, we can drive away the owners of the world whose interests have created this crisis. We can abolish poverty and unemployment.

If we organise for common democratic control of the resources of the world, then not only education need be free, but food, clothing and housing. We can be free. We can get rid of lying leaders, and run our own communities in our own interests.

Leaflet issued by the Socialist Party

Meantime, class in the class-room

Wellington College is set in 400 acres of lush Berkshire countryside. With annual fees approaching £30,000, a year at Wellington costs more than the salary (around £25,000) of the average person. Its 1000 students enjoy not only small classes and pioneering teaching methods, including lessons in happiness, but an astounding array of extra-curricular opportunities. The school has 16 rugby pitches, two floodlit astroturf pitches, a state-of-the-art sports hall, 22 hard tennis courts, 12 cricket pitches, an athletics track, two lacrosse pitches and six netball courts, a shooting range, an acclaimed nine-hole golf course, six art studios, a professional recording studio, several concert venues, its own theatre and TV crew.
From The Guardian

SOYMB also reads that one of Britain's other posh schools Eton College, where fees are around £30,000 a year, which boasts Prince William and Prince Harry among its old boys and that David Cameron is the 19th Prime Minister to be educated at it, is paying “poverty” wages to its staff. And it avoids falling foul of the minimum wage law by making cleaners and chefs take unpaid leave. In its job adverts before the start of term next month the school offers pay rates only just above the national minimum wage, which goes up 15p to £6.08 an hour in October. One post for pantry-dining room staff pays £10,745 a year for 40 hours a week, including weekend work. The advert says the job comes with four weeks’ paid holiday but adds: “The remainder of the school holidays constitutes unpaid holiday.” Two assistant chefs are also wanted for £13,080 a year for a 40-hour week. One of the posts is to “live in” – but the advert warns that is deemed a benefit in kind worth £1,929 a year to the taxman.