Image: Adam Sunman

Students from UPSU travel to Bitterne to lobby MP John Denham over rising student debt

Students from Portsmouth University descended on Bitterne on the 2^nd February to lobby the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills over student fees.

The many cold mornings that you may have seen the Campaign Coalition collecting signatures came to a climax on Saturday morning when students from Universities from as far as Oxford came to show their anger at the state of Higher education, and the direction in which it is going.

After a rowdy demonstration, the participants held a meeting to discuss further action on the campaign.

Mr Denham spent around an hour in his surgery, answering questions from his constituents, while being hounded from outside through a megaphone with chants of ‘Spend the money on Education not Occupation'.

On emerging I managed to catch Mr Denham who told me that he felt the protestors were impolite as he had found out about the protest through Google, and not been informed, therefore would not speak to us.

However, the protestors maintain that UPSU's President Elle Gray wrote to the MP asking him to share his views on the matter and that someone from the MP's office responded.  

Denham then briskly escaped, ironically stopping at the bank and refusing to talk to anyone at the protest. The Portsmouth Campaign Coalition is continuing to fight the fees, with a target of stopping further inflation at the imminent discussion of the infamous ‘cap' and the effects it will have on students. 

UPSU's Student Activities and Development Officer, Ben Norman stated that "We are here to represent millions of students today, who have been consigned to a life of debt by Mr John Denham, who, since coming into power, has seen spiraling student debt, mass privatisatation of the education system. this is a disgrace.' 

Norman went on to state that ‘we have seen £55 billion worth of student debt being handed over to private banks... Mr Denham promised us that this would have no effect on the lives of students.. but the interest rate has risen to include £500 million worth of debt for students in their first year creating a McDonaldisation of our education'

But the protest was not simply designed to ‘point the finger' at John Denham, but to call upon him in the name of students across the country to create a system of higher education based on the ability to learn, not on the ability to pay.