Three cheers to our Liverpool Organiser Veronica Hind. She managed to get a letter in the Liverpool Daily Post speaking out in favour of our report into University non-courses. For your interest it is reprinted here:
"Letter: You say - What a waste
Veronica Hind
6 September 2007
Liverpool Echo
The recent Taxpayers' Alliance report into university Mickey Mouse courses shows how much waste there is. Liverpool John Moores University has two prime examples of such waste with degrees in Outdoor Education with Adventure Tourism and Physical Activity, Exercise and Health.
Do these really need to be degrees? Although students pay tuition fees, taxpayers still pay huge sums for degrees and end up subsidising non courses like Outdoor Education.
This taxpayer cared for her family while both working full time and paying full fees for degree studies with the Open University, yet now finds herself at the age of 67 and retired in 1997 on the grounds of permanent ill health, still paying income tax plus 12.5 % of my income in council tax.
We need more scientists and innovators, not more students encouraged to defer entry into the real world by spending three years in university learning what they easily could do via effective on-the-job training in the workplace.
Veronica Hind, Liverpool organiser, the Taxpayers' Alliance"
Veronica’s letter is a prime example of an activist letter. It’s short, to the point and makes a clear argument. Moreover, her letter is open to a readership of over a hundred thousand. If only a handful read it and want to get in touch, that’s more potential recruits, more people to write letters and continue the paper-campaign for lower taxes. If you want to do as Veronica did and get involved, you can write into the Epping Guardian about our non-job or to the Tower Hamlets Recorder about public libraries using taxpayers money to stock books inciting violence and hatred. The more people see that we are the campaign on the rise, making our voice heard and the more willing they’ll be to join the winning team.