IN less than four months the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly will be holding elections.

The Scottish Greens, the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru, all believe in a free university education and no tuition fees.

Glasgow and Edinburgh are closer to many of us than London.

Instead of travelling to the capital to protest about tuition fees, people should be going to Scotland and Wales to help these parties in the forthcoming elections.

The proportional representation voting system makes every vote count – and every vote is important.

I suggest students from Manchester and Newcastle should travel to Glasgow and Edinburgh to help out over the next 12 weeks.

Even York is only two hours from Edinburgh. It takes the same time to reach London.

Birmingham students are as near to Cardiff as they are to London.

The best efforts of tuition fees protestors could make a huge difference.

Donations to these parties, I am sure, would also be very welcome.

A good showing in the forthcoming May elections will have an enormous impact on the coalition, particularly the Lib Dems.

Perhaps even Ed and David Miliband may change their minds on this issue too?

Nigel Boddy, Darlington