Interim cap on non-EU migration bad news for Higher Education

There are many reasons why the Libservatives cap on migration is a badly thought out policy, but the reason which concerns me the most is the effect it will have on Higher Education.

Universities and colleges are already facing hardship, closing departments and making wide spread redundancies, and this is before the implementation of the 25% cut on the Department of Education announced in the budget.  With the cap on migration it will also limit the amount of non-EU students who can attend UK universities.  This will have a devastating effect on university funding if it loses the income from overseas tuition fees.

To quote the article from the BBC News article on the interim measures which are being introduced:

Tim Finch from the Institute of Public Policy Research, said the measures were just a stopgap and would have a detrimental affect on the higher education sector.

He added: "Do we really want to have restrictions on foreign students at a time when the higher education sector is facing funding cuts and is going to rely on the fees that those students bring in?"

According to the Guardian there are 250,000 non-EU students.  This wreckless move will have a devastating effect on higher education.  I hope when the full policy is implemented the government think twice about include non-EU students in their cap, or we may begin to see the closure of whole universities rather than just departments, as there will simply not be the demand out there for the current number of student places.

Do you believe this man when he says 'We're all in this together'?

I feel nauseus each time I hear him say 'we are all in this together'.  The government has a majority of millionaires in the cabinet completely out of touch with real life.

The Lib Dems put out the following poster during the election:

They have now let down those who voted for them who believed they would not raise VAT.

VAT hits all regardless of income and raising it to 20% will hit the poorest the most, where as capital gains tax was only raised to 28%.  Raising this higher would have been fairer as the it would not affect the poorest in the country unlike VAT.

On top of this public sector workers are faced with a pay freeze for two years. Considering RPI is currently over 5%, this is in real terms a significant pay cut.  On top of this many are likely to lose their jobs in the public sector due to real terms cuts across all government departments of 25% over four years (with the exception of health and foreign aid).  How can making thousands of workers redundant and putting them on unemployment benefit help the economy?

The Tories have always been in favour of rolling back the public services and now they can use the fig leaf of the economy to do just that.  Harriet Harman was right when she said that the budget was driven by "ideology not by economics". 

Why I'm supporting Diane Abbott for Labour leader

Today Diane Abbott launched her campaign website at http://www.diane4leader.co.uk

I was very pleased to see her reach the required amount of nominations to enter the race.  If Diane becomes leader of the Labour Party we will see a real difference between Labour and the Con Libs, a difference which I believe will bring many more people back to the Labour Party who have either stopped voting or voted for minor parties in recent years.

I stopped voting Labour after the Iraq war and refused to vote for party again until Blair had left office.  During this time there were still many Labour MPs who inspired me, who voted against the exceses of the Blairite era, such as Diane who voted against the Iraq War, tuition fees, Trident and ID cards.  These are not radical views, a large amount of the electorate were against these policies.

I also greatly respect Diane's position on immigration.  Some of the leadership candidates have chosen to empathise with Mrs Duffy and argue that we were wrong on immigration and that it helped us lose the election.  I do not believe this is the case, and it is good to see a candidate who is willing to challenge the misconceptions about immigration and to focus on the core issues behind discontentment amongst the electorate such as housing and jobs.

I feel it is important that we focus on what Labour did right in the past 13 years such as the minimum wage, equality legislation, Northern Ireland peace process. improved public services.  I feel Diane is best placed to carry on this agenda, and to steer us clear of unpopular policies.

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