English GN's referendeum

Ah so the journalist from STV must be right. Silly old Guardian.

Not necessarily, but unlike the BBC and all the mainstream press, STV has at least attempted to show some balance in its coverage of the referendum campaigns.

I tend to regard the Guardian and Independent as reasonable bench marks of the truth these days. I note that Milliband was badly treated badly in Edinburgh today by pro-independence low-life. Perhaps that's how they treat the Leader of the Opposiion up there.

Yes I agree papa I also think the Guardian and the Independent are usually truthful reporting such events. It certainly looked and sounded a very rowdy and ugly outing for Ed Milliband on the ITV news. I feel so sad we are now seeing the knock on effect nationalism brings out in the rest of this tiny island.

God help us all

Thanks for that info, Elegran. I couldn't understand how Scotland could go it alone when there was no union then anyway.

The link was supplied if you found it confusing.

I have just been watching the debate on tv in which young people of Scotland from both the 'yes' and 'no' sides get to put their questions. One thing that struck me was about education: if a 'yes' vote is achieved, only English and Welsh students will be charged and to enable them to do that (as they don't intend charging students from other EU countries) is to go and argue their case to the EU for permission to charge English and Welsh students. The Scottish independence chap (can't remember his name) said that he promises that if the UK government scraps tuition charges then Scotland will scrap them for the English and the Welsh as well - can anyone make any sense of that?

Er,-- no!

Anyway, will our students want to go to a foreign uni?

And possibly be subjected to taunting and ridicule?

Oh! And would student loans be available to them?
I suspect without English fees the scots unis would be in difficulties

It was nice to see one young Scottish woman (probably only about 17/18) tell the Scottish Independence chap that she considered his actions would racially motivated and wrong. Actually, her comment got a huge round of applause from her side of the audience.

Actually, it makes sense to me.
The Scots have to pay tuition fees if they go to English and Welsh universities, I presume. Salmond is just making it an even field. I agree that the best thing is to scrap tuition fees in the whole of the British islands.. It's just a game of call my bluff.
The reason that the Libdems will have hardly any MPs after the next election is because they went back on their promise about tuition fees.
I do not know any student who will vote for them.

But it wasn't Scotland branching out on its own, because there was no union in place anyway. That's what I meant, Holly.

They were attempting to build their own empire durhamjen and if failed (maily because the chap leading it never visited the place first to make sure it was what he thought it was - it's all in that link). I probably misworded it with my head full of independence talk!

Duh! It, not if.

We may think tuition fees are unfair but at least it's a level playing field in the rest of the UK jen not so in Scotland. We all pay in the rest of the UK, Scottish students are treated no differently to other UK students. Whereas in Scotland as Holly has mentioned the English, the Welsh and the Northern Island students have to pay but not students from the rest of the EU.

Perhaps if Scotland vote yes and go their own way then perhaps Wales will get a better deal from Westminster as far as finance goes.

Oh dear sorry my last post, good old IPad spell check, Northern Ireland not Island.

Because Westminster will not want to lose another country, rose? My brother-in-law would like that, living in Chepstow, the Welsh bit of it.

Holly, it happened in England as well. Lots of Lords and MPs put money into a scheme which was basically to do with slavery, at about the same time as slavery was being abolished. I think Isaac Newton lost about 20 thousand, which was a lot of money then. He had been in charge of the Mint before then! So it's not just Scotland that needed rescuing.

If Scotland goes independent, maybe they'll be able to rescue us with the money from the oil reserves.

According to one English Vice-Chancellor, it would be the other way round, and Scottish Universities, if Scotland became indeoendent, would have to start charging fees to prevent being swamped by rUK students:

"Any attention on universities during the campaign has been on fees. Scottish Nationalist politicians insist that the status quo will remain - Scottish and EU students outside of the rest of the UK have their £1820 fees paid for by the government in Holyrood; English students on the other hand are charged up to £9000.

But Yes campaigners are misguided. This discriminatory approach seems unlikely to continue in an independent Scotland. Student mobility is enshrined in EU law, as is the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of nationality. There is absolutely no precedent of an EU member state successfully applying for derogation from the provisions on student mobility.

So assuming an independent Scotland becomes a member of the EU, students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland will enjoy the same privileges as their Scottish peers, putting huge pressure on the Scottish higher education budget. Universities in Scotland receive around £150 million from rUK students, but that cost is likely to be much more in an independent Scotland with no tuition fees because Scottish universities would become extraordinarily attractive.

After all, why go to Durham or Newcastle and pay £9000 a year when you could go to St Andrews or Edinburgh and pay nothing? Scottish universities would be swamped with highly qualified applicants from rUK reducing available places for Scottish students.

The Scottish government would then have the choice of Scottish taxpayers subsiding English students or introducing tuition fees. It would surely be the height of irony if independence forced the Scottish government to copy, or come close to copying England’s higher education policy?"

The full article is at The Conversation

Not everybody who applies to a university gets into it. They do have a limit to the numbers they can physically take. They can decide whether to take English students or not,just as English universities decide on numbers of Scottish or overseas students.

Do you mean that English and Welsh universities have a quota for Scottish students, jen? I hadn't realised that.

Of course not everybody who applies to university gets a place, but that's not the point. The point is that at the moment the Scottish universities get a 150million GBP in fees from English and Welsh students, and if Scotland joins the EU after independence, they will have to charge everyone the same, or not charge anyone at all.

It's ironic that the vote to introduce university tuition in England and Wales would have been defeated were it not for the Scottish MPs in Westminster at the time.

That's an absolute disgrace, absent, and must be put right now.