! This post hasn't been updated in over a year. A lot can change in a year including my opinion and the amount of naughty words I use. There's a good chance that there's something in what's written below that someone will find objectionable. That's fine, if I tried to please everybody all of the time then I'd be a Lib Dem (remember them?) and I'm certainly not one of those. The point is, I'm not the kind of person to try and alter history in case I said something in the past that someone can use against me in the future but just remember that the person I was then isn't the person I am now nor the person I'll be in a year's time.
The SNP has announced a bill to abolish the graduate endowment in Scotland making university education totally free of charge for any Scots studying in Scotland.
Under EU rules, any EU citizen studying in Scotland will automatically be entitled to the same free university education, as will the children of asylum seekers who have lived there for more than 3 years.
English students, meanwhile, will have to pay for their university education in Scotland and pay for their fellow students’ free education if they get a job and earn enough to pay taxes.
So much for Broon’s Britishness then and once again England pays whilst the rest get the benefit.
As someone who is just about to apply for uni, in fact i have just been working on my personal statment, i think that is is unfair that those of us born in England have to pay tuition fees, while my Scottish counterparts get it provided for by Hollyroot.
Also, if i went to a Scottish Uni i would have to pay fees, while my fellow Brits who just happened to be born in Scotland would have it paid for.
I am British, i want to go to Uni in Britain, so why do a portion of my fellow Brits get it paid for, when i have to pay for it myself. It is unfair, and it acts as a deterrent for people thinking about going to Uni. The Government, rightly in my opinion, want more people, especially more kids from working class families, to go to uni, yet they have this big deterrent, it just doesn’t make sense. There is no real equality of opportunity if some people get it free, while others cannot afford it. It will merely reinforce and reintroduce many class divisions, ill at odds with Government aims to create an almost classless society.
“It will merely reinforce and reintroduce many class divisions, ill at odds with Government aims to create an almost classless society.”
Oh how I laughed at this. Under New Labour the UK is a tax haven with Tax breaks for the super rich and the burden placed on the backs of working people and our public services are being slowly sold off, yet you believe they want a classless society? Seriosly?
Calum, the reason for this is simple. The British establishment is run by Scots for the benefit of Scotland. To Britishness Brown, England is merely a personal feifdom to be plundered for the benefit of the celtic master race. England will continue to pay for Scotland whilst a British establishment exists – Liebour and the Illiberal Dipshits need Scotland and Wales to give them the extra MPs to impose minority rule on England and the imperialist Conservative & Unionist Party just want the biggest country possible to govern.
Wonko, I disagree with you about the British establishment “being run for Scots”. What about the eighties when Scottish voters didn’t elect a Tory government? It just doesn’t stand up. The UNion is being propped up by subsidising Wales and Scotland – as Blair has explained in the past. But surely the British state is structured to serve the interests of the ruling capitalist class rather than a “celtic master race”, and there are those in the capitalist class who think Scottish independence would be profitable and those who do not. As there would be a hell of a struggle (one would hope!) for the future of Scotland after independence, and the haute bourgeoisie might come off badly – current elite thinking is that it is better to keep the Union…
The Scots didn’t vote for a Tory government in the 80’s but in the 80’s there was only one government for the whole of the UK so that wasn’t unfair. Now there is a Scottish government north of the border and a Scottish government south of the border. England is encouraged to provide as much wealth as possible so that it can be used to prop up the dismal economy of our celtic neighbours and provide the (until recently) vote-winning subsidies that pay for the extra services the rest of the UK gets.
Scotland is a socialist state – in some parts of the country the civil service accounts for something like 60% of the local economy. Without state jobs unemployment would be rife and the local economy decimated. Of course, there are parts of England that are like that but it’s only a small part of the national economy and we don’t rely on hand-outs from our neighbours. I’d rather have capitalist England than socialist Scotland.
The reason the civil service accounts for so much of the economy is because it has been decimated in the last thirty years — this does not make it a socialist economy. That would have economic planning, public ownership of the monopolies, etc. Scotland does not have this — and nor do the main political parties want it, becuase they are pro-capitalist politicians.
I think our understanding of the terms “socialism” and “capitalism” are quite different… either that, or you are actually a capitalist 😉
Of course I’m a capitalist comrade!
The only reason Scotland isn’t a fully fledged socialist state is because it’s got to go along with the bizarre socialist-capitalist policies of the left/right Liebour government. When Scotland declares independence the SNP will be free to pursue their dream of a socialist independent Scotland within the EU.
I would regard a capitalist as someone who lives by employing others, rather than by working. Does this cap fit, Wonko? I’d be very surprised…
A dictionary deifintion of capitalist:
I’m number 2.
my point about the Govt trying to create a classless society, i am merely saying what they claim. i know that isn’t what they do, but it is what they have said. That doesn’t mean that i am wrong in saying that fees are ill at odds with the said goal.
Other stuff is interesting. The Scots have in reality been until recently ruled by a government in which they may have elected only 1 or 2 MP’s for – under the Tory’s. This ‘scottish raj’ is a load of bull, if anything we have in the UK been ruled by an English raj for centuries, in face, what do i mean if anything, i mean we HAVE been ruled soley by Englishmen for centuries.
You just cannot take it when our partners in the Union do something, when the english monopoly on the Union is broken.
Why oh why would a sane man like you, neither wealthy nor an investor (if you mean that you are number 2 alone) advocate capitalism? What do you get out of it?
It’s like turkeys voting for christmas
So some of you are saying that because England doesn’t get it, Scotland shouldn’t? That’s a bit selfish. I personally think you should be happy that at least your neighbours will benefit.
Also maybe if it was to go well In Scotland, then it will be implemented in England too. You gotta test the grounds before you go all out.
Plus, on a final note. The more money students have, the more money flowing in the economy – which means England will benefit aswell.
Dear Naomi in Aberdeen with a Scottish surname, I’m not saying that Scotland shouldn’t have free university education – you clearly don’t understand how it all works. Let me explain why the current situation is wrong:
1. Scotland gets away without paying university top-up fees because it has its own government that decided to let Scottish and EU students study for free but charge English students.
2. Scotland spends £11.3bn a year more than it pays into the Treasury so English taxpayers are paying for Scottish students to study a university for free.
3. It won’t be implemented in England because the Scots run the British government and ensure that the English money that could pay for the same treatment for English students gets given to Scotland first.
4. Scottish students are only a relatively small percentage of the total number of university students throughout the UK and they’re studying in Scotland, not England. I have as much interest in the Scottish economy as I do the French economy or the Peruvian economy or the Fijian economy – my country is England, as long as the English economy does fine (which it might do if it wasn’t run by a succession of incompetent Scots) then I’m happy.
re point 1) I dont think we ever paid ‘top up fees’ up here, the scottish office went down a different route from that.
MSPs decided to vote against tuition fees but when the majority of British MPs from English constituencies voted against tuition fees for England, Liebour whipped it’s British MPs from Scotland to vote it through even though it didn’t apply to Scotland.
pls i want to be admitted as one of your international student.thanks
Just somin for Charlie Marks
People nowadays mostly support capatalism because they grew up with it and learned that it has some benefits.In class we discussed our standpoints on capatalism and I was asked several times why I wasnt on the capitalist side(I have more of a socalist standpoint).Their argument was that I grew up with it and had benefitted from it and therefore had to support it.The truth is that many people think that anything else than capatalism is either communist or dictatorship.
But I think there is an in between and the people just dont see because they are to scared or stubborn to question capatalism.
Capitalism works as a way of making money, which is good.
Let the capitalists do their thing and tax them, i see that as the way forward, the more they earn, the more tax they pay, that sounds reasonable does it not?
Everything costs money
Socialists are good at spending but not so good at earning, so ideally we need some way of keeping the left wing types away from earning the money and the right wing types away from spending it.
So, wonko as prime minister, me as Chancellor and charlie as DWP/Health minister?
does that make sense? our whole view of left\right is holding us back
england is scum,
scum get nothing.
why should we not have to get education for free?
just because you dont.
just because ENGLISH people say we shouldnt
FUCK OFF.
We pay for it, that’s why.
Really interested in knowing any free tuition university cos am in a college now and am studing business administration. I will really appreciate if u could help me or give me an hint. THANKS
i be glad if i could gain addmission i n any of the tution free university in scotland
i will be very glad if am link to any of the tution free university in scotland