INTELLIGENT DECISION MAKING?

I was away for a few days (in London), where from previous experience and observation any matters pertaining to Wales are understandably mostly out of sight and out of mind. In various after dinner conversations on Saturday night the issue of free prescriptions [in Wales, we have them, they don't in England], University Tuition fee costs [ours are (and will be) cheaper in Wales, theirs will be more expensive] and public services - here in Wales efforts are being made to protect them from the worst excesses of the Conservative driven Con Dem Government.

In England it appears alarmingly to be open season on the public services and some seriously deep, damaging and severe cuts are under-way, which will probably do some serious damage to the provision of public services in the NHS (in England) and in Education. The fate of the Forestry Commission (which was not sold off by Mrs Thatcher) is also going to be different with Forests in England may well end up as private land (sold of to the highest bidder, but, in Wales, that's not going to happen - a different path has been chosen.

This is just the start, over the next few years the differences between what goes on in Wales and what goes on in England are going to broaden, that's what devolution does. Ironically We may get more than a few envious glances being cast in the direction of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland over the next few years.

The people of England will be the ones to suffer from the medium to long term consequences of decisions made by the Con Dem Government in relation to cutting public services and the new wave of potential privatisation of state agencies and services. Down the line the electoral prospects for the Con Dems may be pretty bleak, but, that will bring no comfort to those who have found their public services wrecked and flogged off on the cheap.

LOSING THE PLOT ENTIRELY

There are times when even the hysteria of the Middle English Right Wing Press can make me sit up and blink - buying a morning paper the other day, I could but, not notice the near hysterical headlines that followed the National Assembly's decision to support Welsh students by guaranteeing that there will be no increase in fees for Welsh students wherever in the UK they choose to study. The Daily Telegraph (30th November) ran with "Higher tuition fees but only if you are English" picked up and ran with the educational "apartheid" line.

The following day the Daily Mail (1st December) no advocate of devolution (or even Wales) had also thrown a wobbly the emergence of education apartheid over the National Assembly's decision to support Welsh students, and I kid you not ran with "Punished for being English: Welsh students join Scots in being spared tuition fees rise". This did strike me as odd because I seem to remember that the Daily Mail and it's ilk was a reasonably keen support of apartheid when it was applied in South Africa (prior to Nelson Mandela's release and apartheid's demise in the late 1980's).

Not content with the hysterical headlines then then followed up with  "The injustice of these Welsh and Scottish student fees is grotesque. Soon the English will insist on THEIR rights" (2nd December) and also "If the Welsh want voter gimmicks they should pay for it themselves" (2nd December) and finally naturally  "Even EU students will pay less in fees than the English as apartheid row escalates" (2nd December).

The bottom line is that access to higher education should be on the basis of the individuals potential to benefit and not on the basis of what they can afford to pay. Plaid has long been opposed to the idea that higher education should be organised on a market basis. The Middle / Little Englander right wing press can kick off as much as it likes, but, the question they are failing to ask is why the Con Dem Government (in London) failed to follow the Welsh and Scottish example? And as for paying for it that's what we (via the National Assembly) are doing!