Remember when you were young and you were having a birthday party, and for the hour running up to when people were meant to turn up, you were really nervous about whether anyone was going to show up?

Well I’ve felt like that for the 6 weeks in the run up to the Demo, having recurring dreams that it was just my mum, my dad, my dog, some NUS staff and some of the NEC in the middle of Trafalgar Square and all the press and MP’s pointing and laughing at me! The morning of the Demo was the worst for nerves, until I started getting texts from all the buses heading to London.

First things first, thank you to all those who worked so hard to mobilise students for the Demo, it would have been nothing without you despite all the hard work put in by NUS Staff and most of the NEC. I know I had a great day and from what I’ve heard so did you!

My day started at half 6 with radio interviews, before heading down to Victoria to get interviewed by the Press Association that would go out on the print and broadcasting news wires for any journalist to pick up! I then headed over to ULU where NUS Staff, some NEC and Student Steward volunteers had been hard at work unloading all the placards and setting up for the day ahead. I went off to do a live interview with BBC news24 as loads of students started turning up to assemble for the demo, it was then back off to the Press Conference where we had student press, radio, TV and print press waiting. (photos are online)

Wes and I then went up and down the long line that was forming down Malet St, seeing the massive efforts everyone had made with T-Shirts, banners, placards, costumes, whistles, horns, megaphones… it was truly brilliant!

We were due to set off at 12 so I went to the front of the demo, where the liberation campaigns were assembled right at the front. I got a bit of a shock, but now find it extremely funny, when I got handed a leaflet of myself with the caption above, “education will only be free when the last bureaucrat is hung with the guts of the last capitalist” now this eventuality is obviously a long way off, and actually there are far far worse bureaucrats than me who would probably be on the hit list first, but it was a bit ridiculous! These “anarchists” caused problems to the disabled students on the demo and also frightened the Children, now fine have your “cause” and your little pathetic leaflet (not sure how anarchistic that is either) but you are seriously a vile person if you have no regard for the way your behaviour effects others. I think I will frame that leaflet as it is my first death threat!!

But that was my only gripe on the day, the weather was beautiful, the turnout great, the Stewards and NEC Stewards all worked so hard, the rally was fabulous with the range of support from prominent MP’s, Trade Unions and Celebrities all shown through speakers and through the DVD shown at the start, the balloon launch didn’t go wrong (always a concern!) and the Cardiff sabbs song and performance were amazing – thank you!

Actually I tell a lie, I did have another gripe on the day, the fact that you can no longer use megaphones in a one mile radius around Westminster is disgraceful and a real example of how peoples right to peacefully protest is being eroded in this country.

By the end of the day I was shattered, as were all of you I’m sure. Thank you for your hard work in the run up to the demo and on the day, you were absolute stars.

This campaign doesn’t end with the demo, its time for sustained local action, then our national lobby. Keep checking officeronline for more info, pictures, videos, blogs and campaign materials. And remember to send any in that you have for us to stick up online!

Here is a copy of the speech I made on the day:

Firstly, thank you, thank you for coming, many of you from hundreds of miles away. You’ve come from across the whole of the UK – from north and south and from east and west. This is your campaign – and we cannot win without you.

I’m proud that you’ve all turned out today to say…

NO – soaring levels of student debt;

NO – to any attempt to lift the cap;

NO – to marketisation of education

And YES – to free education and access for all!

Because let’s talk about the reality of this new so-called ‘funding’ system:

• 15,000 fewer students entering higher education;

• Student debt running at an all time high and set to escalate even higher;

• Variable fees creating a market, where courses – and careers – are chosen on affordability not sustainability, bank balance not brains.

So much for social mobility; so much for the Britain of opportunity. So much for study for its own sake; so much for education for the many, not the few.

Let us be in no doubt today – it is the Government, not NUS, who are putting people off entering higher education. How can ministers speak of widening participation when their actions drive the poorest students into five-figure debts? This contradictory policy is recreating the very class divide that the widening participation agenda was supposed to end.

NUS does not scaremonger, we tell the truth about the new funding regime – it was the government that lied through their teeth on their manifesto; it is the government that has betrayed students and generations of students to come. Their disgraceful record of confusion and contradiction needs to end and it needs to end now!

As we are here today, campaigning for the end to this regressive and damaging policy, we cannot forget the students who are forgotten in the system, the international students facing unregulated variable fees, used as cash cows to fill the funding gap in higher education and the part time and post graduate students who have for years faced unregulated and extortionate fees for their education.

We must not forget students in parts of the UK who have different funding systems; some of those students are better of today thanks to the tireless work of the NUS in the nations, but that can only be sustained if the cap stays in place. So we must fight for them today. We must not forget the students who remain unfairly disadvantaged in this system because of their gender, race, sexuality or disability. They too need a funding system that does away with barriers to participation, instead of creating yet more of those barriers. For so many of our members, the fight for free education is not just about cost – it is about the gateway to liberation.

I want to thank our allies in our campaign for free education. To those Labour MPs who haven’t forgotten their principles and also to the Liberal Democrats – we thank you and implore you today to remain solid in your support. We thank the TUC for their wholehearted solidarity with our campaign, for their continued support – especially for the financial support we have received from individual unions for this very demonstration. We thank our friends, colleagues and comrades standing in solidarity with us under the Friends of NUS banner. Why are these groups supporting us? Because like us, they believe that we must draw a line in the sand, not for ourselves but for our brothers and sisters, our cousins and our children, and our children’s children.

You have come here to Trafalgar Square today to make a very clear statement. And you have been heard. You will not allow the further marketisation of our education system. You will not allow students of the future to be burdened with even more debt than YOU are today. You will not allow the £3,000 cap on fees to be lifted or removed altogether. And it’s about time that you were not just heard, but listened to.

In the battle ahead, we know we are right – and we need to keep up the pressure, every day in the media, in Parliament, on the streets and at the door of your VC office. Winning the arguments, building support, mobilising, agitating and organising our membership to take action, just as each of you has taken action today.

We can do it- we must win if we remain united, determined and strong. Today, at this rally, we announce our return to the front line of the struggle for free education; tomorrow the fight continues.

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