ONE reference in Iain Macwhirter’s column on triggering Brexit (March 30) should give pause for thought: “Ask universities like Edinburgh which are finding that students and staff just don’t want to come here any more.”
Given that Edinburgh University has long ago ceased being “The Tounis College” in part because of a Scottish government cap which restricts the entry of Scottish students; given that the non-Scottish 80 per cent majority have taken over every available scrap of land in the Southside, the Old Town, and Leith Walk in the form of barrack blocks for students who pay not a penny in council tax; and given that a total student population of 80,000 (as much as 100,000 if staff are included) out of Edinburgh’s population of 450,000 is a demographic scandal, I’m not so sure that some diminution of Edinburgh University’s rapacious global business model is necessarily such a bad thing.
It’s just a pity that it took the folly of Brexit to slow down this particular runaway train.
David J Black,
6 St Giles Street,
Edinburgh.
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