Letter: The real culprits

LAST Wednesday's 50,000-strong National Union of Students/University and College Union demonstration was a magnificent show of strength against the Con Dems' savage attacks on education.

The Tories want to make swingeing cuts, introduce 9,000 tuition fees and cut Education Maintenance Allowance in England, and politicians in Scotland are preparing the ground for equivalent attacks on Scottish education. These attacks will close the doors to higher and further education for a generation of young people.

During the demonstration, over 5,000 students showed their determination to defend the future of education by occupying the Tory party HQ and its courtyards for several hours. The mood was good-spirited, with chants, singing and flares.

We, the undersigned, as individuals working in higher education in Scotland, stand with those students in defending higher education. We will not condemn students for fighting to defend their education and our education system. Instead, we condemn those who seek to undermine the welfare state, throw over a million people on the dole and wreak violence on the most vulnerable on society.

(DR) CARLO MORELLI and 15 others from Scottish universities

c/o University of Dundee

As a disillusioned (ex) Liberal Democrat voter who now feels the party hangs on to the coat tails of whoever is in power - Labour when they were in office in Scotland and now with the Conservatives at Westminster - I can empathise with the students' anger at Nick Clegg's signed pledge regarding student fees.

If he had said to David Cameron during the coalition discussions that he and his cohort, Danny Alexander, had made a promise to the students that they could not break that would have been the honourable thing to do.

Harold Wilson famously said a week was a long time in politics, so with almost five years ahead of them, Clegg and Co have a long time to redeem themselves. The question, though, is: will they?

JOHN R MURDOCH

Aldour Gardens

Pitlochry, Perthshire