Tuition fees in Scotland

Now this one, gets my goat.

See this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13951685

So the Scottish parliament gets to vote FOR tuition fees here in England and yet gets to not have them in Scotland, and now gets to say that English students wishing to study in Scotland will get charged an increase rate!

Now, lets ignore the fact that I believe education should be free for the moment, likewise lets leave alone the subject of devolution and just concentrate on the utter hypocritical nature of the Scottish MPs (and I will say, it's not all of them).

But to vote against it for home students and to vote for it for 'foreign' students, if they feel that strongly about the issue on their home soil they should not vote on it down here.

Now, tuition fees in general. I hate them, hate them, hate them, hate them. Education is the corner stone of our society, the foundation of generations and should be free at the point of delivery, in full, for ever! This can be paid for in other ways, Universities can offer other services at a profit such as conference facilities, private tuition during non-semester time etc. Those with a university degree should have an altered income tax band, looking at my plan for income tax in my other blog post, I would amend it so that if you have a degree, you pay 1% higher than non-degree holders, if you have Masters then 2% and PHD 4%.

Now, devolution. I hate this too. That's not to say I hate countries having independence, that's an entirely different matter. If a body of people wish to rule themselves then they should have that right, but devolution, this half-way house is a mess, creates inequalities, creates division. To sum it up in easy language 'if you're going, go'. But we all know in the case of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland that none of them could stand economically without the rest of the UK, and they could definitely not stand independently and keep no tuition fees (or prescriptions). So the MPs vote to keep the current devolved status, to keep the division and the issues it creates, is that moral? Is that just? They will argue they are doing the best they can for their constituents, however surely they also all have a responsibility to work for the whole of the UK as their role as Her Majesty's Government / Opposition etc.