EDUCATION Secretary Michael Russell said he was wrong to oppose universal benefits in a 2006 book on the future of Scotland.
In a surprise climbdown, he repudiated conclusions in his study Grasping the Thistle that universal benefits drag down public services.
Speaking as fellow SNP ministers attacked Labour proposals to review a string of popular entitlements, he said: "I am more than prepared to say today that my experience of the recession and the loss of 25,000 university places south of the border makes me believe I was wrong."
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