Labour plan to cut the maximum university tuition fee from £9,000 to £6,000. The implication, although they don't say so explicitly, is that the difference will be funded by the government. In other words, and extra £3,000 funding per university place - mind you, those are my words not theirs.
So how is that going to be paid for? By charging a higher rate of interest on student loans for those earning over £65,000. As though any young person earning that much (note more than an MP's salary) would actually leave a loan with a high rate of interest outstanding. The most likely scenario is that by the time any whizz kid had pushed up their £25 k salary on graduation to a figure three times as much, they would have set aside enough cash to pay off the £18k loan balance.
Funding source number 2, and this is another play right out of the new Labour spin book, is to fund the measure by not reducing the rate of corporation tax. Yes, you read that right. Raise money by doing nothing. The whole thing brings back horrible memories of a time past when facts and numbers meant nothing and the country was run on myth and spin.
Which is probably why Mr Militwaddle nows says the pledge would apply if he were in office now, but might not appear in his election manifesto. Yeah, and if I was in government today I would guarantee abundant motherhood and apple pie plus unlimited sunshine, but it might not appear in my next manifesto.
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