ThunderDragon Blog

Student debt, for the first time, has topped £3 billion. Yes, three billion pounds of debt owed by students, a rise of more than £620 million owed by undergraduate in England. This student debt of £3 billion is three times that owed by students in 1997.

Whilst Student Loans may be the cheapest loan anyone is likely ever to get [as interest is only at the rate of inflation] it is not nice to know that there is such a huge amount of debt hanging around your debt. I have more than £9,000 of student loans debt and several thousand pounds of other debt accrued through my time as a student [finally ending in September]. And first-years now will end their time at university with at least £18,000 of student loans debt - so from that perspective, I’m lucky - although my younger brother isn’t. I can, however, understand that to some extent students loans are necessary to fund the massive increase in the number of students - despite the fact that I think it is not a good thing.

What really annoys me is that Scottish students are set to have no fees at all - and most annoyingly, funded by English taxes:

“BRITISH taxpayers are to meet the £2 billion cost of reintroducing free university education in Scotland – but students from England and Wales will still have to pay the full fees.
Under plans to be announced by the Scottish executive on Wednesday, Scottish students who now pay £2,000 on graduation will be charged nothing from 2009. From 2011 at the latest they will also see loans wiped out and maintenance grants reintroduced.” (The Times)

It is outrageous that Scottish students get free education whilst English and Welsh students are paying through the nose, especially when the money to make it possible for this to happen is coming from England and Wales. It really is hypocritical that the Scottish Nationalist Party will fund their policy on free university education through funding that they would not have were they an independent state. If they want to prove that they can act and live as an economically viable independent state, then they should only use Scottish-raised taxes to fund the elements of Scottish policy on which the Scottish Parliament currently controls.

If the SNP were to provide free university education from their own taxes, I could have no opposition to it - and I would in fact applaud their prioritising. But when they plan to provide free university education off English taxes when English student debt has breached £3 billion, I can have nothing but contempt for their hypocrisy and for this government for allowing it to happen.

That a British Prime Minister can have his constituency where his own educational policies are not applied, and where indeed the opposite is happening, I don’t understand either.

Sources: The Telegraph, The Times

The expected rainbow coalition in Wales has fallen apart as the Liberal Democrats pull out of the plans. Since the reason that a rainbow coalition was proposed was due to the Liberal Democrats pulling out of talks with Labour, that they then decide not to enter a coalition with Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives doesn’t show them in a good light and opens the door for a minority Labour administration. Ieuan Wyn Jones, Plaid Cymru leader and the man who would have been First Minister said:

“The Liberal Democrats have turned their backs on their duty to the people of Wales and have shown absolute contempt for the electorate… It was as a result of their decision to suspend talks with Labour that Plaid Cymru was required to offer an alternative government. The Liberal Democrats have now shown that they are unable to take serious decisions and are undeserving of government.”

And he’s quite right. The Liberal Democrats have shown themselves unwilling to take serious decisions and their inability to commit to a coalition has thus meant that in both Wales and Scotland there will be a minority government - which can never be truly effective at governing.

It is for this reason that it is damn good that our electoral system has not fallen into the trap of Proportional Representation, which is claimed to be “more democratic”. But is it? Not in the slightest. If anything, PR means less democracy. The PR electoral system means that it is very very rare for any single party to have a majority of seats in the legislature, and in a parliamentary system such as ours, that really is a very bad thing for several reasons:

1. There is a complete lack of accountability to the electorate. It is not possible to vote a party out of government under PR. Instead all it is possible to do is decide their relative strengths.
2. Coalition governments are not effective. Since there will be many different views on various policies amongst the parties, all issues will cause arguments.
3. Coalition governments are rarely stable. They fall apart as infighting and political differences arise.
4. Under Proportional Representation you do not, ever, get to vote on who runs the government. That is decided by the political elites within the parties as they argue over who gets what and what concessions they get, etc etc.
5. PR encourages social cleavages and disunity within the state, as every conceivable minority will end up with a different party to “represent their views”.

Of course, the points above don’t mean that PR never works, and never can, but they are huge arguments against it. PR could only be necessary in a very heterogeneous state where social cleavages are gaping chasms. In Britain - and in most countries - that certainly doesn’t exist.

As far as I can see, proportional representation has far more definite negative effects than potential benefits. Especially since it produces minority governments such as now in Wales and Scotland which are thus crippled by the lack of a majority and minimal chance of orchestrating any real change.

There is no gold at the end of any rainbow coalition. (Well, some fool’s gold, maybe.)

Sources: The Times - article 1, article 2; BBC, ePolitix