A post about politics (or I will just let Mr Clarkson explain my feelings via icon form)
I was going to make an lj post saying hi to the new people on my flist (akdj hey guys!), and to talk about the film I saw last night (Monster), but right now I am so angry that I can only focus on one thing; the increase in tuition fees.
For those of you who don't follow British politics, over the last two weeks there have been protests every single day in London regarding the coalition governments' plans to increase tuition fees from £3000 a year to £9000 a year. I'm not a politics student, and I'm not going to pretend this that is a deep thoughtful post, it's just a way for me to explain what this will mean for me.
I graduated from university last year, but I remember when in 2006 they increased tuition fees from £1000 a year to £3000 a year. I remember the protests then, the emails I received from the National Union of Students (or the NUS) calling for people to protest about this increase, to have their say. So we went, we protested and it made no difference.
And here we are four years later, with the same thing happening. Now I don't intend to return to university for another a year, and even then I know I will be looking to pay roughly £6000 a year for an MA program anyway. But my brother is 16--in a year he will be looking to go to university, and for him its not going to be a simple case of "which university shall I choose?" Instead it will be a case of "will I be able to afford university?" "Can I pay back my loans after I graduate" and more importantly "will it not just make more sense to go abroad?" Because you know what--at least in the US they offer scholarship programs.
But the thing that really overshadows this entire issue and perhaps the most important part is that
the Liberal Democrats lied. Yes, politicians lie, yes it's naive to think they don't, but it doesn't change the fact that they explicitly promised their supporters and their voters that they would not support a vote to increase tuition fees. And yet here we are, less than a year in power and they're broken every promise they've ever made.
I don't support the violence, I don't support the police kettling people and forcing students to have their photographs taken by police before they're free to go (and I have this on good authority that this is happening right now). But right now I know I won't be the only person who will submit a blank vote in the next general elections.
Cookies to whoever read all of this. Much thanks to mnemonic-psych for a. listening to me rant about this and for reading over it to prove I wasn't insane.