A June conference -and another demonstration in the autumn - are among the next steps being planned by the Fight Against Cuts in Education (FACE) campaign after its successful March 25 demonstration. Socialist Outlook spoke to FACE National Chair SUE LISTER. SO: YOU must have been very pleased with the turn-out in London on March 25? SL: Yes, it was a tremendous day for the campaign, to turn out between 15-20,000 people on a national march just six weeks or so after FACE was set up.
There were coachloads from all over the country, from Newcastle to the West country - even some from cities where there are no education cuts this year.
I was especially pleased that we got over 1,000 people from Warwickshire, where FACE was first set up, and another 1,000 from Oxfordshire, where I'm a chair of governors and where the NUT called the first one-day strike.
It was good to have Ben Elton: on the platform.
But on the day the precise numbers and personalities didn't matter quite so much as the enormous amount of media coverage that we got for the issue in the run-up to the march - we were on every national radio and television network, putting the arguments against these cuts. SO: You seem to have got the Tories pretty much on the run. SL: Yes, there were some good clashes on Newsnight and on the radio. It's interesting that we had summed up the campaign as 'the rise of middle England', and it seems that now the Tory party is going out to try to win them back.
We argued that the education cuts were being imposed by the government to finance tax cuts, and now the press is full of suggestions for cutting taxes to win the next general election.
I think the strength of our campaign in reaching wide layers of what were formerly Tory voters suggests that John Major has got it wrong this time, but we have to keep up the pressure, keep the issue in the headlines, so people can't forget that their kids' schooling is being cut in order to buy a tew extra votes SO: Has there been any feedback since the march? SL: Yes, it seems that in many areas people who came on the demonstration have gone back and begun building new FACE groups where we didn't have them, or planning new activities.
The phone keeps ringing with requests for us to send speakers. There is no sign that the campaign is dying down. SO: It must be hard to sustain the momentum, with the new financial year having started, and the cuts beginning to take effect. SL: The anger is still there. And many councils are already warning that there will be more cuts next year. People want to fight on.
In some areas it is a question of exposing the cuts that are being imposed, the numbers of teachers to be lost. In others it is easier to keep up the pressure, because FACE