Cuts rebellion
Reporter: Richard Hooton and Lewis Jones
Date published: 25 November 2010
THIN blue line . . . Labour councillors and residents launch their petition against police cuts, with leader Councillor Jim McMahon pictured front
‘Public services are being demolished’
OLDHAMERS kickstarted a new Winter of Discontent yesterday with protests against education spending cuts and the axing of 3,000 police staff.
Teenagers walked out of classes to protest at the slashing of grants and the proposed hike in tuition fees, while campaigners opposing savage cuts in the police force displayed their anger.
However, protests in the borough passed off peacefully with no arrests.
Oldham Labour councillors led campaigners wearing police helmets outside Oldham Job Centre to launch a petition against cutting 3,000 Greater Manchester Police staff, including 1,387 police officers, by 2015 — saying it will increase crime and set Oldham back decades.
Added to fire services redundancies and £80 million cuts at NHS Oldham, local Labour leader Councillor Jim McMahon said: “Public services in Oldham have taken decades to build up and overnight they are being demolished.”
Labour’s crime spokesman Councillor Steve Bashforth added: “We will not see any police on the beat, they will become an endangered species. It will be a disaster.”
Unison backed the demonstration with unions already campaigning against 800 jobs facing the axe at Oldham Council that they claim will turn Oldham into a ghost town.
Meanwhile, more than 100 chanting teenagers staged a walk-out at Oasis Academy Oldham to rally against plans to scrap the Education Maintenance Grant of £30 a week for 16-19-year-olds who stay in education and university fees rising to up to £9,000.
Youngsters held banners declaring “degrees not fees” as they marched. Pupil Chad Timmins said: “Facing a debt of up to £50,000 will segregate communities.” They joined 3,000 students who marched through Manchester with schoolchildren walking out of lessons to unite with university students and parents in the protest, which was chaperoned by a police presence.
Four people were arrested in the city centre, a man and a woman for a public order offence, one man for obstructing a police officer and another for failing to remove his face covering.
Following violence in Westminster two weeks ago, when a protest from 50,000 students resulted in a breakaway group overrunning police to smash into Tory HQ at Millbank, lines of police held back thousands of students in London.
Officers contained protesters in Whitehall, but there were clashes including a police van becoming marooned.
Two police officers and 15 people injured, and 32 arrests in total.
They were being held in custody as the clean–ups began today.
