Education cuts define Labour conference

Higher education policies and attacks on government cuts marked the talking points for the Labour party's annual conference in Liverpool last week.

In his speech to the conference, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray attacked the Scottish Nationalist Party's “lack of investment in young people”, claiming that they have “slashed college budgets and started to close universities”.

Gail Lythgoe, student convenor for the SNP, spoke to The Journal commenting on the Labour leader's speech:

"Most commentators understand, unlike Mr Gray, the difficulties faced by ordinary Scots and the Scottish Government alike when our budget was slashed by Westminster as a result of the recession.

"The wrong decisions have been taken by a series of UK governments hundreds of miles away with horrendous consequences for ordinary people.

"It's easy for Mr Gray to return to his usual SNP-bashing rather than offer an alternative. The truth is that the Scottish electorate knew Scottish Labour hadn't done their maths before the election."

UK Labour leader Ed Miliband's keynote speech announced a proposal to cap higher education fees in England and Wales at £6,000, drawing both praise and criticism from commentators.

Former president of the National Union of Students (NUS), Aaron Porter, said that Miliband's proposals “deserved both a first and a fail”.

Rory Weal, 16, received a standing ovation after he spoke out against cuts being made by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, and recounted his personal experience of their effects.

Mr Weal, a student from Kent, attacked the government's decision to cut Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), and said that young people across the UK are getting “a pretty raw deal”:

“Two and a half years ago, the home I had lived in since birth was repossessed... I owe my entire well-being and that of my family to the welfare state. That is why I joined the Labour party.

“That very same welfare state is being ruthlessly ripped apart by a vicious, right wing Tory-led government”.

Commentators such as The Guardian's Zoe Williams compared Weal's performance to that of current British foreign secretary William Hague's as a 16-year-old at the Conservative's 1977 annual conference.

Another student Helena Dollimore, 17, also attacked the government's decisions on education cuts, claiming that they drove her to “teach herself chemistry”.

Miss Dollimore, from East Sussex, insisted that the UK government is “stealing the future of the next generation”.