Radical political action usually happens in response to significant physical changes in circumstances experienced by voters, rather than from mere perception or interpretation of statistics.
When people see the negative impacts of decisions made by politicians up close and personal, on their families and in their neighbourhoods, they are more likely to take notice and demand something different.
Devolution came about largely because of the social and cultural vandalism wrought by Thatcherism on the fabric of former industrial communities in Scotland.
Brexit happened, principally because people in deprived communities resented the mass influx of eastern European immigrants, whom they perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be responsible for depriving them of jobs, housing and school places for their children.
In Scotland, something significant is happening in higher education, prefacing a growing tide of opinion in favour of change that may soon become irresistible.
Supposedly ‘free’ university education, intended to benefit Scottish students from all backgrounds, appears to be doing so for comparatively fewer young people.
While demand continues to increase, opportunities have remained static, because of a cap on the number of publicly funded places for home-based students.
This is more than an esoteric statistical pattern affecting only those at the margins. Rather, it is impacting on the traditional core of university applicants from aspirational working class and lower middle-class backgrounds, as well as for those who are better off.
Because of an algorithm applied by universities to maintain a high number of paying students from outside of Scotland, if your child attends a successful state school, does well in their Highers and wants to attend a top performing university, the chances are they will be negatively affected, denied a place at the institution of their choice.
