This week, activists in Cambridge took action against Churchill College, where this year’s Multi-Generational Leadership Program was taking place. The program, organised by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, alongside Philip Marcovici- a wealth management expert with ties to the royal family -and Iraj Ispahani of the Ispahani dynasty, is exclusively for those with “multi-generational” wealth, and seeks to teach them to “evolve their legacy”, and all for the summary cost of just under £14,000 (not including accommodation). Activists specifically targeted Churchill’s large plaque, in defiance of its overt dedications to prime ministers Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom laid the groundwork for Britain’s enormous class divide, privatisation and expansionist capitalist-colonialism.

In taking action the activists wrote the following:

“We aren’t stupid, we know what this really means, it’s yet another scheme by CISL to foment the ultra-wealthy as leaders of the world, while we- the ordinary people whom the wealthy rely upon for their extraordinary wealth -face the consequences of the environmental destruction laid out by their greed and imperialism. As recent document leaks have shown the ultra-wealthy’s complicity in sex trafficking, and recent history has shown their participation in environmental destruction and genocide in Sudan, Lebanon and Palestine, we take umbrage with any notion that ‘Multi-generational Leadership’ can be anything but a disaster for our planet and its denizens. Cambridge is the most unequal city in the country, if we- its residents -want any resolution to that, we must demand one thing: BILLIONAIRES OUT!”

This action follows a May 17th rally outside Great St Mary’s in which spokespersons from a number of Cambridge groups called out the Multi-Generational Leadership Program and the university’s dealings with the ultra-wealthy, and a noise demo against Tyler Goodspeed of ExxonMobil’s visit to the university’s Bill Gates Sr. building.

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