Santiago Snogathon

My favourite news story of the week involves the occupation of a girls' school in Chile - Carmela Carvajal in Santiago - which reminded me of the heady days of the UCS work-in.

I'm sure my old comrade Jimmy Reid - would have heartily approved.

Because the teenage girls seem to have been inspired with his ''there will be no bevvying' - admonition to union members on the Upper Clyde.

The student occupiers have voted in their own set of rules to maintain discipline and public support - no sex, no boys and no alcohol.

Wow - I bet their parents were delighted and queued up to offer support

The occupation of the school has been going on for five months - and shows no signs of coming to an end.

In fact it appears to have encouraged a national debate - about who gets what and why? - which can only be a good thing for Chilean democracy.

The students are demanding a guaranteed place at university - and a return to the 1960s when public education was free.  

Quite how the school will continue to function when the new 'first year' intake comes around is not clear - since that may divide parents and stretch resources to breaking point.

But for the moment the students are in control - and by a strange quirk of Chilean law - the government is even obliged to feed its tormentors - while they remain at school – even the students who have shut down the day to day education routine.

Heady days indeed - the girl students from Santiago have encouraged others in Chile to follow their lead - and even succeeded in bringing the government to the negotiating table.

Not least because of their imaginative protests - designed to keep the public on side - including a kiss-a-thon in which 3,000 couples - groped and smooched for exactly fifteen minutes.

Whether anyone would like to snog Len McCluskey - the union boss of Unite - or any of his colleagues - is another matter entirely. 

But you never know.

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