MPs vote on tuition fees increase today in UK.

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YOU may not have said as much, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head as regards the media-peddled view of anyone not in full-time employment. If you haven't been working 26 hours a day since you were 8 years old then you're some kind of scrounger who should be herded off to the nearest workhouse to die an inexpensive death.

churchill was an extreme racist, eugenicist, white supremacist and generally unpleasant character. not mentioned here is that he also warned about an 'international jewish conspiracy' and advocated sterilization for the british 'feeble-minded and insane classes' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 18317.html



a) were dealing with a multinational so those purported benefits are not specific to this nation.

b) doesnt the exact same argument apply equally to small local businesses?



ever heard of keynesian economics? the multiplier effect?

the prevalent ideology is that you incentivise the rich by giving them things, incentivise the poor by taking things away. humane issues aside, it simply hasnt seemed to work.

Remember that the protests have had a wider agenda than just tuition fees. There is an upcoming vote on EMA (educational maintenance allowance) that funds people from the poorest backgrounds to stay in education after school leaving age (16). If thats taken away many many people will find themselves without the college education needed to even apply for uni, so the fes/debt becomes an academic (lol) point.

People realise that pretty much all the concessions the 'elite' have made in the last century have been deemed obsolete and are about to be stripped back. The welfare state was built in the aftermath of WW2 when the deficit was much higher (keynes,multiplier effect) so the excuse that 'cuts have to be made' is a complete lie. The only chance of defeating them is through solidarity - there were trade unionists, public sector workers, EMA kids, socialists on that march with the students and rightly so.

I can see some argument in that the country doesnt need so many academic-type graduates, but i also realise that the government pushing this agenda doesnt care about trying to fix things, in fact they are actively hostile to me and my class. So even if there are changes which need to be made these people, these ideologies arnt the ones to be trusted to do so; nothing good will come of their proposals - itll just be an endless pantomime of smoke & mirrors, divide & rule at the end of which everyone will be worse off. Therefore the most sensible approach is to put aside the finer points of issues and simply oppose pretty mucheverything that this government proposes..

You set an impossible standard for historical figures. Was Churchill perfect? By no means! Who is? Name one historical figure that you admire and you could come up with any number of serious flaws by the moral standards that we hold important at this point in time. No doubt in 50 years they will have a different set of standards to judge Churchill by, but no matter.

Trafalgar was a an adulterer. King David was a murderer. The Dalai Lama is a homophobe. Mother Teresa was a reactionary who took money from dictators. Ghandi was a racist. But we don't respect them because of their flaws. We respect them because of the great things that they did.

And this is what my problem with the actions of some of the protesters is. A massive lack of respect. I guess the war dead honoured by the cenotaph were all racists and probably wife-beaters too?



No surprises I guess if I tell you I'm not a fan of Keynes at all.

But I'm not advocating the extreme other end either, with Reagan-style trickle-down economics.

I just think that the private sector is far better at creating wealth, and that public money should be spent on the public good.

But I'm not so familiar with the UK system as I'd need to be to continue this argument. I'm coming to this argument from my experience through the Australian system, which sounds quite similar to the one they are trying to move the UK to.

Yes, I'm an MBA student. But I'm not in any way some spoon-in-mouth tory.

My dad is a sheep shearer, my mum stayed at home to look after the five of us, and I grew up and live in one of the poorest regions in the country. I've had five jobs in the last five years, and I've been on unemployment benefits inbetween each one. My eldest has an ASD DX and we rely on government funding a lot for his therapies.

But from what I've seen, both in university and in the workforce, is that routing people straight from grade 10-12 to university is really not a great option. So many people go to university in Australia because they don't know what else they want to do. Now, that's fine and all, but it costs the taxpayer a lot of money. Not only is the gov't picking up the tab for most of the cost of the course, a person who would otherwise be working full-time and paying taxes is actually a net drain. Further, many of the courses (especially in my fields of business and political science), would have made so much more sense after a couple of years in the workforce. It is just more efficient to have people studying at uni in their mid 20's or later than in their late teens/early 20's.

But this is a separate point to people who are unable to work because of disability. Completely separate.

If you have crippling anxiety because of ASD, it's not a choice between you living on benefits or going to work. The choice is between living on benefits and living under a bridge (or worse). The state is not losing anything at all by providing support to people who cannot work, and indeed is providing a measure of comfort to us all, because it is only through the grace of God that one child is born with ASD or a disability and another not.

But, the state does lose out a lot when they encourage people to take an expensive course of study that does not increase their productivity. It's a cliche in Australia, but many hospitality workers have tertiary degrees. That's maybe $15k AUD debt for themselves and about $70k for the government, that they are going to have to repay through a job they obtained through a six-week technical course.




Ahh, the tea-party approach. Let me know how it works out.

we'll have to disagree on churchill. Its not just the odd personality flaw, even if you want to allow for cultural relativity, imperialist attitudes of the day the unpleasantness of his character goes way beyond that.

Thanks for the personal info, always intersting to know who your discussing things with

fyi trainee nurses and IIRC social workers do get subsidised.

I share some of your thoughts about higher education, many british universities used to be the more practically-focussed 'polytechnic' establishments until a big shift in the last decade or so. Its not an ideal situation at all, but i cant agree to overhaul it to this extreme on the proposed basis that 'we cant afford it' when the public revenue is held to ransom by corrupt bankers & the richest people pay little or no tax. However their businesses are completely dependant on the public sector which they dont pay into; they use our transport system, civil amenities ie. refuse collection, emergency services, ther staff were educated at out schools and use our health service etc.. and of course if you complain its 'our' police will give you a beating. I would support any unions (short of emergency services) ie refuse collection refusing to service tax-dodging outlets.

If the richest were taxed, even at the same rate as the rest of us, there wouldnt be a deficit. Any politician wants to address that issue first, then they will have my attention, ill listen to their proposals about educational reform and how to manage the public sector. But if (as now) they are actively pushing things in the opposite way, whilst grossly misleading the public then i wont hear them out. especially when they have the nerve to employ one of the most notorious tax-dodgers as an advisor telling them which public services to cut first and when i know their coming for me next. does that seem fair?

are you joking? the tea party are in government!

So the tuition hikes are only on degrees which are typically paid well?

Wow. In Australia the wealthiest I think 30% of the population pays about 85% of the tax base, but people still think they don't pay enough tax. XD



I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think David Cameron, Eton boy notwithstanding, has more intestinal fortitude than Obama. Also you guys have your next elections in what, four years? That's a long time to maintain the rage.

Also the tea party aren't in government. Obama is still president and the Dems still hold the Senate. If they only realised that they might get more done. I'm not on their side of politics, but it always amazes me how ineffectual at achieving their goals the Democrats are. If the Republicans had large majorities in both house & senate, and a President swept in with a historic mandate, you can bet that the US would be a noticeably different place after two years.

Those are 2 courses ive mentioned which lead directly into a state job. I think the bursaries exist simply because without a sweetener there would be a chronic shortage of nurses & social workers. These jobs are not just under-paid, but you have a huge burden on you from being overstretched, perhaps doing unpaid overtime and possibly taking a surprising amount of abuse & spite from the public.

The wider issue IMO is whether excessive fees will intimidate poorer people off from following their chosen career path. Its asking people to take on what must seem to them to be a collossal amount of debt with no guarantee of a job at the end of it, especially where university allready seemed bordering on the prohibitively expensive side, even before fees. Despite all the assurances given re. repayment thresholds etc sensible people dont like having that amount weight hanging over them, and i suspect many people dont trust that something in the details wont change, or the debt be sold to another firm voiding those assurances.

Also, break that fees down into termtime months/weeks - i struggle to see how on earth a huge amount is justified. what value are students getting for all that money?



What i meant by that reactionary and flippant remark is that the tea party are in government in britain. The tory agenda is broadly along similar lines to the US tea-party (i dont mean the 'astroturf' movement so much as the elite funded lobby co-ordinating and instigating it - we even have what you might call an equivalent lobby called the 'tax-payers alliance' presenting itself as 'for the people' when its basically a tory front rallying support on behalf of corporate interest.

Which is to say that if theres one particulary compelling tea-party comparison to made here, i dont think its with me or the coalition of unions and groups resisting the cuts.

The rage will most definately hold up. the movement against the thatchers poll-tax in 1990 worked, even after the bill had been passed. Whats being proposed now is cuts to public spending significantly harder and faster than that era, and the austerity hasnt really kicked in yet. historically, coalition governments in the UK dont tend to be very strong, although the majority is reasonably big i think 3 members have resigned allready.

Well there goes my chances of studying animal biology and conservation in uni . I was planning to do that once I'd left college.
I and no one else in my family has the money to pay for uni. I might just have to start work straight away.

The polls at the moment are saying that there will be a labour-liberal(left) pact. So i think in 5 years or (alot sooner) we'll have a graduate tax. The important thing is keeping up the political pressure on this government. Something the british people (with their maudlin defeatist ways) arent very good at.

it hasnt passed the lords yet. vote tonight.

theres a small mob gathering outside atm.

E2A: its through.

update: we were told (repeatedly) that the maximum £9000 p.a. fees would be the exception, and only apply to the few most prestigious UNIs, for the average student it would be much lower. Now the real figures have become available.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/201 ... ities-2012

Hold on, I know this has nothing to do with me, but I'd like to step in and say that what he said was exactly right. The Labour government expanded the public sector far too much, and while a lot of people in the public sector do good work (NHS staff, policemen, etc), there are also a lot of useless bureaucratic jobs which are not needed. And guess who gets to decide what's cut, the people who do the real work, or the useless bureaucrats who pay themselves massive salaries?

What needs to happen for our economy to recover, and for our economy to prosper in the future, is for the private sector to generate more jobs than the public sector, because the government makes money from private sector employment via taxation, whereas taxation on people working in the public sector simply gives a small percentage of their own money back to them, and where did that money come from the first place? Right, private sector workers.

As for people living on benefits, it's the government's responsibility to reduce unemployment as much as possible, and your responsibility to seek that employment. If those conditions are being met by you, there's no reason for anyone to call you a bad person. But I do think the government's current policies are against the economy's interests.



Well that's not good at all. I'm increasingly thinking I shouldn't bother with uni.

And Dave will act all surprised and shocked and "OMG" about it, and blame the Universities instead of his own policies. Same old same old. Its getting tediously predictable.

And his kids won't be affected by it at all.