Dear All
Johann Lamont has decided to lay out her
plans to continue as opposition leader in Holyrood.
Her plan is simple, get policies that are
vote losers and place them in front of the public.
The latest stone dead killed in the water
proposal centres on the issue of free higher education.
There is no such thing as free higher
education, it is paid for by all of us out of general taxation but what it does
do is allow people in poor and deprived areas to get up and out.
We have seen countless reports and heard countless
instances that poor students are less likely to get accepted at university and
those who do get in, it is a few.
St Andrews record of admitting the poorest
students tells you all you need to know about the glass ceiling.
Johann Lamont has started a ‘debate’, the
debate however is when Ken Macintosh will take over the leadership of Scottish Labour
from her.
Lamont starts off her proposal by saying
that students should pay a ‘modest contribution’ but as we have seen down
south, it starts small and then grows.
£9,000 a year is charged in some
universities down south.
Another part of Ms. Lamont’s ‘strategy to lose’
is to end universal services such as free prescriptions.
And as well as that other ideas just a return
to the graduate endowment is "the most obvious option" has been
floated.
That idea was floated and sunk by public
opinion.
In a speech to mark her first anniversary
as Labour leader which the successes can be measured by the SNP putting their
foot in their mouths, she has produced a vision of enlightenment.
It is true that a conversation about how free
higher education is funded and the disgraceful way the SNP has botched the
college sector, but she has no answers.
One retired college principal described
Labour`s review of universal services as "courageous". Funny how
people find their voice while exiting the building, courageous, is that what
Ms. Lamont is?
Where is the courage of her convictions?
If she had courage she would have something
to show the rest of us, no apparently she hasn’t, others have to fight the
battle and she steps in at the end takes the credit.
Lamont isn’t the future of the Scottish
Labour Party, she is the past, Macintosh represents the future and the only way
they can return to power at Holyrood.
A student member of the Labour Party has warned
that tuition fees could be "the tipping point" for some students and
discourage them from pursuing their education.
And also voting Labour, there is a third
way to solve higher education; it is called four tier education which I have
written about and blogged on previously.
Ms Lamont said: "We don't support
up-front tuition fees because people perceive that as a barrier.
We just support back end tuition which is a
barrier?
Lamont added:
"But we also have to recognise that,
currently, the tuition-fees policy is being paid for by colleges. That is
simply not sustainable and I think we need to have an honesty about how we
perhaps make sure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greater
burden."
The broadest shoulders being universities
themselves which need to be slimmed down from the ‘days of empire building’ in
various CAPU units where expansion without thought was allowed to occur without
an adequate plan!
She added:
"This argument is sometimes framed as:
you are either in favour of free education or you are not”.
As someone who benefit from free education
she apparently wants to ‘pull the ladder up’ from the poorest getting in.
Her ‘plan’ in the round is to keep the
current broken corrupt system and transfer the problem onto students, it’s
called screwing people out of money.
Lamont highlights by saying:
“I'm saying we need to have a much more
mature debate about what is actually happening and a modest contribution."
Will she support retrospective fees so that
the full cost of her education can be reclaimed?
Maybe someone should ask her!
Let’s go back a step and return to Ian
Graham, retired principal of Glasgow`s John Wheatley College, he said:
"In the period since my retirement a
year ago, I have witnessed the virtual dismemberment of Scotland's colleges. It
is really an attempt by the current Government to maintain the fiction that it
is possible to have free services in Scotland without cost."
The problem with the current SNP Government
is that Alex Salmond appointed a loser called Mike Russell who is another one
of his cronies who hasn’t an intellectual pot to piss in.
His tenure of education has been ruinous as
he tries to shore up the same corrupt broken system that Lamont wants to keep
afloat.
She is right to criticise Russell but less
we forget, she is also in the same leaky boat, the only difference is she is
paddling in a different wrong direction to Russell.
Universities need slimmed down, the college
sector needs revamped and allowed to grow, a new tier of community colleges
needs set up and secondary and primary education reviewed.
Ian Graham has described universal services
as "a cruel and wicked deception" which is "unsustainable"
in the current circumstances.
He added:
"Johann Lamont has not dodged the hard
issues. She has made some courageous statements about the sustainability of
free services."
But is totally vacuous regarding fixing it.
Ms. Lamont clear has an agenda not to move
into Bute House, she must want her weekends free, she can have this by step back
and allowing Ken Macintosh to become leader of Scottish Labour.
Lamonts should face up to the real hard
choices and that involves her stepping down as Labour leader.
She can waffle on playing the ‘concern
citizen’ who shafts the poor but in the end, she is producing vote losing
policies and taking Labour into a cul de sac.
Maybe if she had less of a ‘ball’ at
Glasgow University we would be treated to this unimaginative crap.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
No comments:
Post a Comment