Thursday, September 8, 2016

SNP PR Con trick 101, Nicola Sturgeon’s incompetent Government pledges to increase poorer student numbers as Universities Scotland scaremonger that the Middle classes will be 'squeezed out of universities', if Sturgeon was serious about inequality she wouldn’t be willing to wait for 14 years to get a miserable 20% admission of the poor by 2030, pledge hope where none exists!
















Dear All

In my youth which ended up as a 20 years stint, I spent my time at Glasgow University pottering about the place.

The place is corrupt which is why when you want the George Laird view you type into a search engine the name of this blog which flagged this up in the past.

Question, do you know how universities work?

Chances are you don’t, they are filled with all manner of people who are members of different little organisations such as the University Administrators crowd, the Royal Society of Edinburgh crowd and a host of other groups.

When one university does something, the same thing more or less can be found in all other universities, you might ask how is that possible.

I have blogged on my experience at Glasgow University, but here is someone else to give you a flavour that of what goes on.


Universities admit few working class disadvantaged students, the staff who are all middle class are selecting people from their own middle class backgrounds to become students. Every now and then, the universities pay lip service to the poor at the behest of their political masters to organise some kind of initiative that they are helping the poor.

It is all bollocks!

20 years at Glasgow University seeing these people up close tells me all I need to know about education and how it works.

Now, the poor are centre stage (window dressing) as a new initiative is leading to warnings that the middle classes will be 'squeezed out of universities'.

At Saint Andrews, sometimes the English University in Scotland, they allowed in 13 disadvantaged working class people as first year students. The University’s front group Universities Scotland is scaremongering.

The middle class squeezed out is so disingenuous as to be worthy of the deepest contempt.

You can see who runs Universities Scotland by going to their website.


The key mouth piece of that organisation is Alastair Sim, Director, I remember him from my time at Glasgow University, previously his CV lists him as working for the Court service; you might want to look him up if you want to find out more.

Although you might be impressed with the title, Universities Scotland, don’t be, it is a meaningless organisation based in Edinburgh, on their website, you can find all the lingo and buzzwords of meaningless pap!

Here is an example of how musical chairs work at higher education, this character called Andrea Nolan.


Previously Nolan was part of Glasgow University, did Vet Medicine and Veterinary Pharmacology, I spent two years stuck out at the Vet School at Garscube; so I am familiar with some of the characters out of that place.

The rich middle class have no problems travelling around the university system in Scotland, the working class are lucky to get in the door.

Anyway here is Professor Andrea Nolan, convenor of Universities Scotland, saying:

“It is a political choice how you fund a higher education system and if we are to increase places to hit the 20 per cent target without there being a change in demand and in a fixed cap system there is only one obvious conclusion which is that some people will be displaced.

There may be other choices that are developed for those people. Demand may change, but that is the reality of where I see we are now.”

The SNP Government want to increase the volume of students from the poorest households so they represent 20 per cent of all undergraduates by 2030.

Why 2030?

Its 2016 now, and if you add 14 years, that comes to 2030, but the time distance is so that the SNP making this phoney commitment will be long gone from power and will not be held to account when the target is not met.

Why is Nicola Sturgeon not making a pledge to hit the target in the life time of this parliament?

Because I would humbly suggest, it is not con trick, Nolan hits it when she talks about political choices.

A Scottish Government spokesman said:

“The number of funded places available in our universities has increased for 2016/17 by 1,734, enabled by over £1 billion investment from the Scottish Government this year. This includes additional places for widening access that are primarily taken up by Scottish domiciled students. This government believes in access to higher education being based on a student’s ability to learn, not their ability to pay which is why over 120,000 undergraduate students enjoy free tuition every year.”

Under the SNP, a 100,000 plus college places have been lost; this was the price to shore up the bloated university sector covered up by the failed merger scheme.

So, if you are middle class, there is no pressure at present, and I would suggest in 14 years no pressure either because the history of politicians and higher education is protecting the status quo since most the Holyrood Parliament leaders et al all come from a University background, most what is the termed the ancient universities.

As to the SNP helping the poor, this is just spin and worthless, utterly worthless, the truth of education is that middle class protectionism lies at its very core, this was happening long before the tactic by the SNP of middle class welfare-ism became popular to use public funds to ‘buy’ the vote.

Finally, to show that nothing is going to get done, and that the politicians are in bed with university sector heads read this:


No one will be rocking the boat!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University 

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