The General Election Thread

[biffvernon]

And here's how the police treat a 12 year old doing nothing unlawful:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/10/schoolboy-quizzed-cameron-office-picket

"On Tuesday 7 December, our schools officer for west Oxfordshire attended the school in Eynsham and spoke to a 12-year-old boy in the company of the pupil's head of year, about a planned protest. This was not with the intention of dissuading him from organising it, but to obtain information regarding the protest to ensure his and others' safety. As with any demonstration, we always aim to facilitate a peaceful protest."

Can we assume that you're not in favour of anyone advising a 12-year old of the potential consequences of his actions then? Especially when organising such an event over the internet and not being in control of who might become involved.

Flyfisher, you have selectively quoted from the report. Please read the whole article. This is England not Russia.

 

[biffvernon]

Biff - I'd love to hear the explanation behind how hurling a fire extinguisher from the roof is understandable......

The guy who did it explained it - he admitted to being an idiot and was very sorry. He handed himself in to the police. It is quite possible for people to do really stupid things when they are not thinking through the possible consequences. It was wrong. It should never have happened. I've not heard a single voice condoning the action. Even if you were an anti-police psychopath it wouldn't have made sense - the fire extinguisher dropped near to both policemen and demonstrators.

 

[biffvernon]

And you didn't answer my question as to why they don't get jobs.....many uni degrees involve less than 25 hours of lectures and tuition per week...plenty of time to earn some money.

I've had four children through uni, two in science and to in the arts. The scientists did more than 25 hours lectures and lab-work, the artists less, the one that read philosophy much less. For each of them university education was a full time job. Reading and writing may not count in the lecture timetable but is essential. I'm glad that none of them had to spend much time earning money.

 

[Moo]

I never condone violance and destruction but let's not be too quick to criticise the kids who ... have the excuse of immaturity.

They seem to have it all ways, don't they? Old enough to do all sorts of adult things, like voting, having children, fighting in the armed forces, drinking, driving.... but forgiven for criminal behaviour because of immaturity.

The guy who [threw the fire extinguisher] explained it - he admitted to being an idiot and was very sorry.

Ah. That's all right, then.

 

[biffvernon]

It will be interesting to hear an explanation for the police behaviour to the wheelchair user who described how he was attacked by the police, twice, whilst doing nothing unlawful. If you missed it listen again to Radio 4 Today programme this morning just after 8.30am: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm

Moo, 'forgiving' is a word that you have used. I have not.

 

[biffvernon]

No, Moo, dropping fire extinguishers into crowds was not right. End of.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments for a switch in university funding from general taxation to individual fees the question what I am now pondering is whether this is bad politics, in the way that the poll tax was bad politics. In other words has the coalition done itself serious electoral and reputational damage with a key part of the electorate? This can only be answered psephalogically so it will be interesting to see opinion poll results on the specific issue. This, ultimately, is the feedback loop in our democratic system.

 

[Moo]

Sorry, Biff. I should have said "treated with understanding".

 

[Nigel Watts]

university education was a full time job

I don't buy this. When I studied Engineering at Cambridge in the late 1970s we had lectures and practicals for four hours a day, six days a week (total 24, so pretty much the same). Add to that the tutorials in college and you get about 26 hours max. Add say 8 hours a week on set work (more than I did, but probably what I should have done) and you get low 30s per week for 3 eight week terms plus a small commitment in the long vacation. Living in the college there is no travel time, no chores like cooking, no making beds, no cleaning.

I doubt if things have changed much. This is not what I call a full time job.

 

[Moo]

As a simple-minded seeker after truth, I'd love to know the answer to this -

If students are so poor, how can they afford hangovers?

 

[Pford75]

I don't buy this.

Me neither.

I'm still in my 30's, so it was not that long ago that I was in university myself. I studied a BSc and MSc for what (in comparison to some arts subjects) was a fairly tutorial/lab intensive subject (Computer Science and Business Information Systems). Yet somehow I managed to hold down multiple part time jobs through neccessity.

I wasn't able to go out partying every other night as many of my fellow students did. But my university work certainly didn't suffer from the extra hours spent working. When the time finally came for me to leave university, i was better prepared than many others and still today regard the weekends working in a city centre McDonalds as the hardest work i've ever had to do.

The guy who did it explained it - he admitted to being an idiot and was very sorry

I mentioned this incident since you claimed it was possible to have an understanding for why the protests/riots happened. My point was that I can understand the protest bit and perhaps even some minor civil disobedience...what I simply cannot understand is the wanton violence directed at whoever happened to be nearby (this was only one incident of many).

These things have nothing to do with protest, nothing to do with the issues at hand and they discredit the student union movement and destroy any vestiges of sympathy which some might have held. As Nigel points out, many of the so called protesters will be unaffected by the issues - either because they have no intention of going to university or because Mummy and Daddy are so rich.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Students' union leaders have not played their hands well. Interviewed on Radio 4 the student leader at UCL refused to comdemn the mob violence.

She is probably not mature enough to understand that very often less is more. Gandhi often infuriated his supporters by appearing to side with his enemy and disavowing his own side when his disapproved of their behaviour. But this was far more lethal to British rule than supporting violent protest.

 

[Feltwell]

No excuse at all for violence from any side. Regrettably any type of major protest will attract those who are intent on trouble.

Have the Lib Dems just signed their own death warrant? Hard to say - I suspect they have - it will make them very difficult to trust ever again. To sign a pledge to say they will scrap tuition fees - and to then, shortly afterwards as part of a coalition government actively support the trebling of fees, when their own coalition agreement would allow them to at least abstain - does not engender trust for their future election pledges.

Like Pford, I too am in my 30's - just. I went through university with no tuition fees and we still received a local authority grant, although it had been frozen for years and wasn't worth much. I worked - it was a sandwich degree so I had periods working in industry. I also worked every Saturday in a motorbike shop and during any holidays I drove trucks for a TNT contractor. I enjoyed myself and came out with a modest overdraft and a small student loan.

So, the state funded my education. I'm now at a career level that I would not have been likely to achieve had I not gone to university - I'm far from rich but I'm paying a good degree of tax and to my mind that is my payback. Did every higher rate taxpayer go to university? No, of course not. Does every graduate end up paying higher rate tax? No. Is it more likely that a graduate will end up paying higher rate taxation than a non-graduate? I'd say so - be interesting if anyone does have any figures.

I have 3 kids now - all a long way off university age. Say for arguments sake they were of University age now - with £9k of fees, plus accomodation and living expenses, that must come to at least £14k needed per year. How exactly is a part-time student job - which will inevitably be near minimum wage levels per hour - supposed to pay for that? It can't. Would I want my kids to come out with around £50k of debt - no matter how it is structured - each? No. Can I afford £150k to put them all through university? No.

Fundamentally, I want my kids to have at least the same opportunities that I had - really I want them to have more. I don't see that as an unreasonable ambition.

 

[biffvernon]

Here's the best collection of pictures from the demos that I've found: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

Since this in Period Property we should concentrate on picture number 37 that shows the broken window in the Treasury building was of toughened glass so can easily be mended. Had it been a piece of crown or cylinder glass...well...bloody hooligans.

And comment #162: “Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.” David Cameron 1986

 

[Flyfisher]

Flyfisher, you have selectively quoted from the report. Please read the whole article. This is England not Russia.

Biff, of course I read the entire article, which was the basis on which I chose to quote what I thought was a reasonable summary of the police actions.

A 12 year-old schoolboy organises a demonstration targeting the Prime Minister over the internet. He (probably) has no idea of the type of people this might attract. The police talk to him to find out more about it and warn him of the potential consequences if it turns into a riot. The police did not try to cancel the demonstration.

Perhaps you could explain why you disagree with the police action?

 

[Gervase]

But because they are responsible, and understand the mess the country is in, they are prepared to take it on the chin like proper Englishmen.

No, it's because they can't accept that there is an ideology behind this, and that what they're being told by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph isn't actually true. The sweet, naive and deferential fools just won't accept that this is an exercise in social engineering which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fiscal mess the country is currently in.

The figures simply don't add up.
To quote from the government's own website:

A graduate earning £25,000 per year would repay their loan at a rate of £6.92 per week. If earnings fall, then the repayments will fall as well. Graduates won’t have to pay back anything until they are earning more than £21,000 a year...Any outstanding payments will be written off after 30 years. If you are in lower paid work or unpaid work (which may include time bringing up a family) you won’t be asked to make a contribution.

Given the average earnings of around £25K, paying back £7 a week means that the government is only getting £11K back over 30 years and writing off the rest of the debt. The only way to recoup the money even on a salary of £25k, using the government's own figures for interest, is to pay a hell of a lot more money each month than it is claimed must be necessary. Someone isn't telling the whole truth.
So is this just an exercise in getting money off the government's balance sheet, similar to PFI, or is there an unspoken plan to ratchet up the payments/costs hugely in the future?

And we ask ourselves just why the fees are being raised.
We're told it's because we are horribly in debt. Yet, according to Osborne, structural deficit will be written off by 2014. The payback on fees doesn't kick in until 2016, so they can't be used to help write off the structural deficit, despite what Cable tells us - unless either he or Osborne is horribly wrong.

So, if higher tuition fees aren't part of debt reduction, what are they?
Is there a move within the Con-Dems to 'keep the oiks out', and to ensure that universities are once again populated by 'our sort'?
It's the sheer bloody dishonesty that gets my goat. Why can't they simply say 'There are too many people taking on tertiary education'?
Of course it would be hoping too much for them to admit publicly that 'too many of them are from undesirable backgrounds, and the lower orders really shouldn't be over-educated,' but at least you'd know where they were coming from.

It's worth noting that there is another aspect to this policy which will be almost as damaging, which is the removal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance. However, because most journalists earn more than the threshold, and it's only for poor people, very few actually know about that, and that's another story...

Essentially we have a government that favours wealth over ability, hence this piece of social engineering.
But what do I know; a simple builder who didn't go to university at all. I never had the chance to smash up restaurants, let off fire extinguishers, trash people's offices and all the other japes that the Bullingdon Club got up to.

 

[skier-hughes]

or maybe, just maybe that is the way that the lower paid are being subsidised and it is something you should be applauding instead of denigrating???????????
Glass half full and all that.

Once you get paid more you pay back more, so those who earn more pay more towards the cost of their education, those earning the most pay back all of it??????

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something but it all sems quite simple to me, but then again I'm not a graduate of university just life

 

[Flyfisher]

Essentially we have a government that favours wealth over ability, hence this piece of social engineering.

Well if it is social engineering then the current government is only following on from the lead provided by a previous government, so please let's drop the political dogma can we?

I also think you're confusing deficit and debt. The structural deficit may well be eliminated by 2014, but what about the outstanding debt? The figures I've read suggest that UK debt is costing £30bn per year in interest alone - that would pay for a lot of education wouldn't it?

Edit: Actually, that £30bn interest figure was from 2008. This information suggests it's £43bn for 2010, or £1800 per household, and is a rather sobering read: http://www.debtbombshell.com/uk-national-debt.htm

 

[Nigel Watts]

But because they are responsible, and understand the mess the country is in, they are prepared to take it on the chin like proper Englishmen.

No, it's because they can't accept that there is an ideology behind this, and that what they're being told by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph isn't actually true. The sweet, naive and deferential fools just won't accept that this is an exercise in social engineering which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fiscal mess the country is currently in.

I was including myself in the "they". Actually I feel rather flattered to be called a

sweet, naive and deferential fool

Dostoevski's The Idiot, a story of such a person, is one of my favorite books.

Three observations:

An ex-boss of mine, now vice-Chancellor of the UK's finest University (and I dont mean the one in Oxfordshire - apologies to Joce if she is reading this), was very clear in his belief that if the top universities had to rely on state funding they would not be able to keep pace with the top US universities in the medium to long term as the state would never be prepared to pay enough.

The Brown report which recommended this (and whose likely outcome was well known in Whitehall circles before the election) was commissioned by the Labour government, who introduced fees in the first place.

The US, still the strongest economy in the world with a culture which encourages social mobility, has much more expensive fees for its top universities than £9,000 per year. This, of course, is accompanied by generous scholarship schemes funded by generous rich benefactors.


It may not prove to have been good politics in UK terms but none of this leads me to believe that it is a Tory plot to keep the oiks in their place. In any case this is much better achieved by denying younger kids good primary and secondary education.

 

[citizensmith]

So, if higher tuition fees aren't part of debt reduction, what are they?
Is there a move within the Con-Dems to 'keep the oiks out', and to ensure that universities are once again populated by 'our sort'?
It's the sheer bloody dishonesty that gets my goat. Why can't they simply say 'There are too many people taking on tertiary education'?
Of course it would be hoping too much for them to admit publicly that 'too many of them are from undesirable backgrounds, and the lower orders really shouldn't be over-educated,' but at least you'd know where they were coming from.

Absolutely spot on.
Are there too many in tertiary education doing degrees that will be of little benefit to them or us? - IMO Yes
Should there therefore be more doing more realistic vocational training at 16+ - IMO Yes

Should this be engineered by pricing the Poorer & Lower Middle classes out? - Not in my opinion!

I have seen/taught many wonderful, bright gifted kids who have gone off to Universities to fulfill their potential and i KNOW that in the new order of things their families would have had little choice but to encourage them to stay at home, get a job and forget their aspirations. Its just plain wrong.

Its the typical Tory way of approaching things and the Lib dems have been suckered in to it and will be one of many reasons why they in particular will face total annihilation when the next election comes.

If we want to cut Numbers at University then make exams more stringent and take away the stigma from pupils and schools who then get 20% A=B grades instead of 50%+ Be honest about it.

The current way of things will be engineered by price and not merit.

Rant Over.