HARDLINE students are organising a national rally and plan to lobby Parliament to protest about shock redundancies which look set to rock Lancaster University. The announcement comes as140 academic and non-academic positions are under threat due to the University's financial crisis. Activists from the Lancaster Staff & Students Against The Cuts - a grass roots body of people working and studying at the University - claim the cuts are symptomatic of national neglect.

They say that Lancaster's plight is not an isolated incident but a reflection of systemic problems generated by the present Government's ill-thought plans, which they say are ill-thought through.

The organisation also claim staff and students are being asked to pay for costly decisions and mistakes which they see as totally unjust.

A spokesman from the university's Department of Politics, said: "Local mismanagement and Government cutbacks have left our university in a financial crisis.

"Ordinary staff, students and the local community are once again expected to bear the consequences of policies and decisions not of our making.

"As well as 140 jobs being axed, departments are threatened with closure, working conditions and morale are worsening and the future holds still more cutbacks.

"Now is the time to call a halt to the cuts. We need to mobilise staff and students nationally and locally.

"We are demanding that there are no further job losses, no further education cuts and a full public inquiry into the university's finances."

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