Irony on Student Fees

I have never been a fan of University tuition fees and enthusiastically supported the Conservative Party's opposition to them in 2001 and 2005.

However, I reluctantly complied with the advice from CCC in 2010 not to sign the NUS pledge to vote against tuition fees, because by that time Britain's financial situation had become vastly worse and honesty demanded that candidates should not sign pledges which any government their party might form would be unable to honour.

And here you have the irony of both today's student protest, and the one a few years ago, when students protesting about tuition fee increases attacked a party headquarters.

All three main political parties have introduced or increased tuition fees when in office.

All three main political parties have voted against them when in opposition.

But in terms of keeping promises, we have one party which has twice promised not to introduce or raise student tuition fees and then twice broken the promise, one party which has once made such a promise and broken it, and one party which has not broken a promise on tuition fees.

So when students smashed up or attacked a political HQ, did they attack the headquarters of the party which broke two promises on tuition fees, the party which broke one promise on tuition fees, or the  party which has not broken such a promise?

You guessed it, they attacked Conservative HQ, that of the party which had voted against tuition fees after both the election campaigns in which we promised to do so, rather than that of the Labour party which had introduced the fees in the first place after promising not to and then increased them after promising not to do that.

Not that I am suggesting that violence against Labour HQ would be the right thing to do either, you understand, but at least in their case the charge of broken promises would be justified.

Likewise the charge of hypocrisy, as Labour have repeatedly vilified Nick Clegg for breaking his election promise on student tuition fees for which he has at least had the courage to apologise, when they broke similar promises twice and have not shown an atom of repentance.

Students have legitimate grounds to be upset with the politicians who broke their election promises on this subject, and I have no quarrel with those students who exercised their freedom of speech in non-violent and legal ways.

But those who not only resorted to violence, but violence against the party against whom they have the weakest grievance, reminded me of a comment made by C Northcote Parkinson (creator of "Parkinson's Law") at the time of the sixties student protests, when he said of certain protestors that

"Some of them may be registered as students of a University but they have been admitted in error and should be expelled at once, not for the criminal offence of causing a riot but for the academic offence of regarding reiteration as proof."

Quite. And if the "students" who attacked Conservative HQ today are actually attending an institution of Higher Education, they should be sent down, not just for criminal behaviour but for stupidity.

Comments

Jim said…
Students tend to be of an age where they all believe that socialism offers a great society. They dont or wont realise its been tried countless times and failed every single time.

Those wanting to do something worthwhile, like a science degree or mathematics, do have my sympathy, tens of thousands of pounds of debt at a young age is not exactly a good start to a career.

Though i dont tend to have much time, or any incline to pay taxes to fund those in university studying none subjects like Sports science and Media studies.
Jim said…
I would like to see the return of apprenticeships and things, with a chance of a real career at the end. Not really one for saddling younger people with a load of debt when they dont really need it.

I went to workington college where the community hospital now stands.I done my A levels at nights, I hated school so i started work in sandstone masonry, and attended "night school". Though I still remember in the toilet cubicles one of the toilet roll dispensers had "sociology degrees, please take one" written on it, the other one was "Manchester Utd season tickets".

I do believe that on the job training, such as an apprenticeship is a far better approach for many people than a degree in a worthless subject, costing thousands

Chris Whiteside said…
Agree that we need more apprenticeships, and the government does have a set of policies designed to increase the number of them available.
Jim said…
Perhaps a system where students could return their degrees rather than pay the student loan could also work, in fact there is a new policy that Labour will no doubt steal, (of course, never realising i typed it as a joke policy)

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