Green support for students

Last week, thousands of students marched to Holyrood to make clear their hope that funding for higher education in Scotland will receive top billing in the forthcoming election campaign for the Scottish Parliament.

Both the SNP and Labour have now committed not to reintroduce tuition fees or a graduate contribution, but the Scottish Greens are going considerably further. Patrick Harvie MSP, who addressed the student march outside Holyrood, said the Scottish Greens believe graduates ‘already contribute enough through the tried and tested method called income tax.’ He stressed that education ‘supports the common good’, and said that Scottish Greens believe university education should be paid for collectively through fairer taxation, with no risk of  deterring students from poorer backgrounds.

Green assault on Osborne’s budget

Patrick Harvie, co-convenor of the Scottish Greens, described the budget as seeming to mean that ‘profits must be hoarded by the rich and losses covered by the taxpayer, while public services are forced out onto the open market. This coalition government is firmly entrenched in Thatcher-era economics, and today brought no sign of respite for a Britain battered by cuts. Corporation tax is to be slashed while the rest of us keep coughing up for the deficit through VAT. Once again, it’s a giveaway budget but only for the rich in Osborne’s Britain.’

Well, that’s telling them.