Despite Labour continuing to hold up well in the polls, Sporting has them 8 seats behind the Tories, at mid-spreads of 275 and 283 seats respectively. Spreadex have them 5 seats behind on 278 vs the Tories' 283. Very little movement though in reality over the past few weeks.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I'm a little worried that a decent number of the Labour and Liberal parties truly do not understand that only the private sector generate wealth in this country...And that directors are the highest paid in the private sector...and therefore pay for the majority of public services
Could you explain how the publicly owned DOR consistently made profits then?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
And that chant encourages people to say "nope, your dead right, I'll vote Tory after all" does it ? Or do they say "For f*cks sake, he's at it again" and move a little further from the blue camp. I'm a Conservative as well, I don't want Miliband, but I am far from convinced hurling fatuous slogans at waverers actually helps.
TGOHF There are over 1 billion Catholics on the planet and 814,000 in Scotland, most of them are decent charitable people, including Pope Francis, sadly a few are not
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
And that chant encourages people to say "nope, your dead right, I'll vote Tory after all" does it ? Or do they say "For f*cks sake, he's at it again" and move a little further from the blue camp. I'm a Conservative as well, I don't want Miliband, but I am far from convinced hurling fatuous slogans at waverers actually helps.
Meh - vote for who you want - no desire to convert you. But the smugness sticks in the craw.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
And that chant encourages people to say "nope, your dead right, I'll vote Tory after all" does it ? Or do they say "For f*cks sake, he's at it again" and move a little further from the blue camp. I'm a Conservative as well, I don't want Miliband, but I am far from convinced hurling fatuous slogans at waverers actually helps.
I'm expecting a Labour-led government in May. I'm also expecting pb's Waldorfs and Stadtlers to be railing against that government, quite forgetting that they saw no difference between Labour and Conservatives now. Indeed, I expect they will blame David Cameron for the state of affairs.
Which will be amusing for us bystanders, but lacking in consistency from the paleo-Conservatives.
End of Feb snapshot on Party images (the differences are bigger than I recall, and one a lot closer)
Con vs Lab net (vs mid-Feb) Kind of society it wants broadly kind I want: -1 (+2) Led by people of real ability: +13 (+1) Leaders prepared to take tough/unpopular decisions: +37 (+5) Seems to chop & change a lot: -17 (-2)
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
Shitstorm of what?
The rich being asked to pay some tax? Trade Unions not being made to jump through ridiculous hoops to exercise their fundamental right to withdraw their labour Sanctions being used to sanction genuine offenders not as a way of fiddling the unemployment figures Small businesses being given help and support they need instead of the huge Corps all the time The hated and despised NHS privatisation bill being repealed The hated and despised Bedroom Tax being scrapped MPs being asked to work solely for their constituents and not for hire?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
Is it in Bangladesh ?
I think that's where ultimately where Osborne wants me to off-shore to.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
And that chant encourages people to say "nope, your dead right, I'll vote Tory after all" does it ? Or do they say "For f*cks sake, he's at it again" and move a little further from the blue camp. I'm a Conservative as well, I don't want Miliband, but I am far from convinced hurling fatuous slogans at waverers actually helps.
Im expecting a Labour-led government in May. I'm also expecting pb's Waldorfs and Stadtlers to be railing against that government, quite forgetting that they saw no difference between Labour and Conservatives now. Indeed, I expect they will blame David Cameron for the state of affairs.
Which will be amusing for us bystanders, but lacking in consistency from the paleo-Conservatives.
I am expecting a Labour-led government as well, but I am not expecting it to last long. They have managed to keep the Dennis Skinner Tendency in their box during the campaign, it wont last when there is a Labour government trying to bring in austerity.
Regarding it being Cameron's fault, how the votes fall, and who ends up in power is entirely down the the party leaders and their advisers collectively, and how they respond to events. In effect they have each set out their party stall, in the run up to the GE the voters will be looking that their record, sampling the goods, and will eventually decide which one they like most (or dislike least).
How the vote falls is entirely about those leaders ability to manage their party, and attract voters. EIC, he is struggling to attract voters, but will probably get enough. Cameron is less crap, but he has turned the Conservative Party into a very narrow church, which might be loyal, but probably isn't broad enough to command a majority. That was choice of those parties, now they get to see what the voters think.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Do you have that response ready on a cut-and-paste somewhere, every time anyone suggests any imperfections in the Blue Team, or even hints at the possibility of voting for someone else, out it comes as regular as clockwork.
Not keen to write off 5 years just because of a lack of absolutism. I will have to live here through the shitstorm.
Shitstorm of what?
The rich being asked to pay some tax? Trade Unions not being made to jump through ridiculous hoops to exercise their fundamental right to withdraw their labour Sanctions being used to sanction genuine offenders not as a way of fiddling the unemployment figures Small businesses being given help and support they need instead of the huge Corps all the time The hated and despised NHS privatisation bill being repealed The hated and despised Bedroom Tax being scrapped MPs being asked to work solely for their constituents and not for hire?
Bring on the shitstorm!!
Rich are paying more tax now than they did under Labour trade union reform won't be repealed as it is too successful Universal credit has bee terrific so far. only unions care who provides NHS services - patients just want free care. The single room subsidy was scrapped under Labour for private tenants.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
Is it in Bangladesh ?
I think that's where ultimately where Osborne wants me to off-shore to.
And what marvellous Miliband policies would soothe your forehead ?
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
Is it in Bangladesh ?
I think that's where ultimately where Osborne wants me to off-shore to.
And what marvellous Miliband policies would soothe your forehead ?
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
So the Conservatives should bear significant electoral costs rather than the SNP?
I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're playing the blame game, you need to be a bit more subtle than that.
Labour are going to get decimated (for once there is a possibility the literal definition of the word might come true!) in Scotland in May. The political dynamics have changed there post referendum and they've changed for good.
No problem that can't be solved by some class war...
@BBCNormanS: Understood Labour tuiton fee cut to be paid for by "better off mums and dads"
student.
that.
Except the current and forecast repayment rates are not recovering the fees. There will be a massive shortfall. Since this is public debt only the taxpayer can pick up the tab.
So the current Conservative offer is:
- give your kids an extra £18-24k debt - give them an extra 9% marginal tax when they start work - tax them all over again in 10 years time because the scheme has a massive shortfall.
And that's just the scheme, Do you seriously imagine this won't have a follow effect in the real economy in say kids ability to fund a mortgage or everyone else having to pay more money for to fund higher salaries so graduates can live ?
To put this in context the SNP are more fiscally coherent. Yes it's that bad.
Surely it is not as bad as that?
What we have is a graduate tax in all but name. It is not a very efficient one. A graduate premium through PAYE would undoubtedly have been more cost effective. But if you aspire towards a system where 50% of the population are to go to University then it does seem reasonable to me that some of that cost is borne by those who are lucky enough to go to University as opposed to the other 50% who don't.
Your point is that many of those with the debt will not in fact pay it back. They will fail to do so because they have not earned enough income in the UK to repay it. That would also apply of course if we had a PAYE type graduate tax: they wouldn't be paying much on that system either.
The problem is that far too many graduates end up with non-graduate level jobs. About 1/3 of them 5 years after they have graduated. When you strip out the medics, the lawyers, the dentists, the vets and the accountants that seems to me to suggest that about 50% of arts based graduates are not getting a degree level job. Is paying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
The old fraud Vince is certainly doing the rounds this morning
What a disgusting liar he is..a typical Lib Dem though..remembered only in this parliament for four things
Dipping his hands in the blood along with the rest after GE 2010 Lying to some cute girlie "constituents" about what he could do re Murdoch Flogging off the Royal Mail (or as the Bow Group put it selling ten pound notes for a fiver) Launching an embarassingly inept bodged coup against Clegg after the Euro disaster
Isnt it time this old has been was put out of his misery by the electorate?
They Royal Mail was sold of at 330p a share - current price 424p - which is less than a 30% gain (bearing in mind that the FTSE is near a record high now).
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
So the Conservatives should bear significant electoral costs rather than the SNP?
I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're playing the blame game, you need to be a bit more subtle than that.
No, the Tories had no potential cost when they were down to virtually no representation in Scotland. Between 1987 and 1997 they could have ended Apartheid and it would not have cost them. Certainly between 1992 and 1997 it would have been costless.
Considering their core support, it might actually have kick started them. The Tories used to run Glasgow.
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
So the Conservatives should bear significant electoral costs rather than the SNP?
I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're playing the blame game, you need to be a bit more subtle than that.
No, the Tories had no potential cost when they were down to virtually no representation in Scotland. Between 1987 and 1997 they could have ended Apartheid and it would not have cost them. Certainly between 1992 and 1997 it would have been costless.
Considering their core support, it might actually have kick started them. The Tories used to run Glasgow.
The SNPers keep telling us the Scottish Executive is the most popular administration in history, yet they are not prepared to use that popularity for the good of the populace.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
Labour are going to get decimated (for once there is a possibility the literal definition of the word might come true!) in Scotland in May. The political dynamics have changed there post referendum and they've changed for good.
I think it'll be worse than literal decimation; SLab look like losing much more than 1 in 10 seats.
No problem that can't be solved by some class war...
@BBCNormanS: Understood Labour tuiton fee cut to be paid for by "better off mums and dads"
student.
that.
Except the current and forecast repayment rates are not recovering the fees. There will be a massive shortfall. Since this is public debt only the taxpayer can pick up the tab.
So the current Conservative offer is:
- give your kids an extra £18-24k debt - give them an extra 9% marginal tax when they start work - tax them all over again in 10 years time because the scheme has a massive shortfall.
And that's just the scheme, Do you seriously imagine this won't have a follow effect in the real economy in say kids ability to fund a mortgage or everyone else having to pay more money for to fund higher salaries so graduates can live ?
To put this in context the SNP are more fiscally coherent. Yes it's that bad.
Surely it is not as bad as that? ying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
You are correct in that many graduates aren't going to end up with what we would have called graduate jobs. The root cause of this being an over expansion of higher education.
Whether paying for all of this remains a good deal for the country is a moot point we appear to be producing too many of the wrong kind of grads. However the fact remains we are paying for it. or rather we're borrowing to pay for it and pretending we will get the money back. We quite clearly will not.
To me it makes more sense to stop pretending we have an asset and recognise what we have is a cost and pay for it as we go rather than create a problem in the future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
the Apartheid education system which the SNP will not tackle before Independence.
The SNP are deliberately leaving a bad system in place when they could reform it now? That's shameful.
No politician can tackle Apartheid without a significant electoral cost. The SNP's goal is Independence, they will almost certainly deal with it post Independence. The fault lies squarely at the door of the Tories who should have ended it in the late eighties or early 90s when they had nothing to lose but ran the Scotland Office which were in charge.
So the Conservatives should bear significant electoral costs rather than the SNP?
I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're playing the blame game, you need to be a bit more subtle than that.
No, the Tories had no potential cost when they were down to virtually no representation in Scotland. Between 1987 and 1997 they could have ended Apartheid and it would not have cost them. Certainly between 1992 and 1997 it would have been costless.
Considering their core support, it might actually have kick started them. The Tories used to run Glasgow.
As I said, you expect the Conservatives rather than the SNP to take difficult but necessary decisions. That's very revealing.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
It's every Northern Irishman's right to be gloomy about the future. They have long experience of being let down by reality. Dont be racist about it.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
I post positive things all the time, I suppose the problem for you is that your assumption that people would flock back to Cameron at election time just isn't holding up and you zero in on posters who point out your Emperor has no clothes.
To fund the gap caused by reducing tuition fees to £6k would cost what? £2bn?
For heavens sake.
What a mess this country is in when it obsesses about how to fund 0.3% of public expenditure. Just do what the coalition is doing with the current system - borrow it.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
It's every Northern Irishman's right to be gloomy about the future. They have long experience of being let down by reality. Dont be racist about it.
Surely it is not as bad as that? ying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
You are correct in that many graduates aren't going to end up with what we would have called graduate jobs. The root cause of this being an over expansion of higher education.
Whether paying for all of this remains a good deal for the country is a moot point we appear to be producing too many of the wrong kind of grads. However the fact remains we are paying for it. or rather we're borrowing to pay for it and pretending we will get the money back. We quite clearly will not.
To me it makes more sense to stop pretending we have an asset and recognise what we have is a cost and pay for it as we go rather than create a problem in the future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
If we expect to get say 10% of the money back at the end of the day, it would be the same fiscal effect, and much safer and more honest to go back to first principles, start with the premise of free education for all, and then put on a charge equivalent to that 10%, which at current rate would be about (£9000 x 10%) £900 each per year to go to University. Plus we would get that 10% immediately, not eventually when a few people get into their 40's and earn enough to start making repayments. This compares favourably to the 500 Euros per term most European countries charge for people to go to their universities.
Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, described the Labour plan as ‘financially illiterate’. He said: ‘The biggest problem with cutting tuition fees is that it helps exactly the wrong people – only affluent graduates will gain.
‘This all stems from an illiteracy about how student finance works. People worry about “how much I borrow” whereas what really counts instead is “how much I repay”, and changing the level of tuition fees doesn’t do much to change that.’
The mainstream media have been shameful in their explanation of how the new system works since its introduction. Luckily it seems potential students have got the message that how much you really pay is down to how successful you are in the future and it hasn't put off poorer students.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
It's every Northern Irishman's right to be gloomy about the future. They have long experience of being let down by reality. Dont be racist about it.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
You are getting more and more grumpy as time passes. You no longer have any real sense of reality.
Depends on your reality I should think.
Quite... when was the last time you posted something positive.. 2 yrs ago?
It's every Northern Irishman's right to be gloomy about the future. They have long experience of being let down by reality. Dont be racist about it.
Neil, I'm one of the bright and cheery optimists.
Oh, I know, compared to my former in-laws you're positively happy clappy!
No problem that can't be solved by some class war...
@BBCNormanS: Understood Labour tuiton fee cut to be paid for by "better off mums and dads"
student.
that.
.
Surely it is not as bad as that? ying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
You are correct in that many graduates aren't going to end up with what we would have called graduate jobs. The root cause of this being an over expansion of higher education.
Whether paying for all of this remains a good deal for the country is a moot point we appear to be producing too many of the wrong kind of grads. However the fact remains we are paying for it. or rather we're borrowing to pay for it and pretending we will get the money back. We quite clearly will not.
To me it makes more sense to stop pretending we have an asset and recognise what we have is a cost and pay for it as we go rather than create a problem in the future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
I think that is getting closer to the heart of the real problem here. When we had the massive increase in tertiary education far too much of that increase was in arts based subjects (relatively cheap to put on) which did not teach skills that added value to the prospective employer. Having a few odd bods researching medieval history was affordable when there was a relative handful of them but as the numbers have increased it has become less so. Even worse are so many of the new courses such as Events Management. It is the new Media Studies de nos jours.
One of the attractions of loans should have been that students might have applied their minds to what they were paying for and what they were going to get out of it. That has not really happened and I think market analysis would suggest this is mostly because of the poor quality of information available to the customers.
Perhaps if all Events Management courses had to specify the number of their graduates who are actually earning a living in that field 5 years after they graduated this might improve.
So Labour are proposing a tax cut for rich graduates?
The only graduates currently repaying the last £3k of their student loan are those graduates who earn the most over the 25 yr life of the loan. Poor graduates would not repay even the first £6k.
So Labour's policy favours rich graduates as the funding of writing off loans favours the poor.
That would be all those graduates fuelling the brain drain then ? You know the ones who were reported to be leaving the country yesterday. So who is meant to be paying for the fee system ?
When I went abroad for a short while, I still had to pay. And they made the effort to actually get my details and make me pay.
Try New Zealand.
Been there, done that, HMRC know. Reciprocal tax arrangements.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's
The SNPers keep telling us the Scottish Executive is the most popular administration in history, yet they are not prepared to use that popularity for the good of the populace.
Shameful.
Perhaps the SNP's Rosanna Cunningham will be the person to take on the Catholic Church ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes of course I can be bothered by some of Miliband;s stupidties but it's not as if Cameron hasn't had enough stupidities of his own. This isn't all the fault sits on one side and not the other. All politicans are going to parade some stupidities around
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
The SNPers keep telling us the Scottish Executive is the most popular administration in history, yet they are not prepared to use that popularity for the good of the populace.
Shameful.
SCons, powerless, unpopular and confused.
'Ruth Davidson takes over as Scottish Conservative leader Glasgow list MSP supports Catholic schools but, as part of a same-sex couple, takes over new role during controversial period as Scottish Government contemplates legalising same-sex ‘marriage’'
'Tory spokesman John Lamont in 'sectarian' school attack The Tory MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire - whose party officially supports faith schools - said the education system of west central Scotland had, "produced many, if not all, of those who are responsible for the shocking behaviour which we have witnessed in recent months".'
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes of course I can be bothered by some of Miliband;s stupidties but it's not as if Cameron hasn't had enough stupidities of his own. This isn't all the fault sits on one side and not the other. All politicans are going to parade some stupidities around
Do you live near a wind farm?? All i can detect from you is a continual whine.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
This week's 'weaponising' Directors should send a chill down any business owners spine.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
Ukip spring conference in Margate today... Dan hodges covering it for telegraph, and first thing he sees are a load of nazis driving tanks through the high street
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Why are Labour so intent on attacking those who save for their pensions?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
I've lost count of the factories that have gone bust because we have and haven't banned snapchat.
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Why are Labour so intent on attacking those who save for their pensions?
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Why are Labour so intent on attacking those who save for their pensions?
Tall poppy syndrome.
What is the automatic reflex of a Labour minister when he sees a big chunk of money. Yep, tax it and piss the results up against the wall. Pensions are a nice big static obvious chunk of money which is well documented and hard for people to hide or move. What could be better for a nice little earner that can be disguised as soaking the rich (where rich obviously means any responsible person earning above the minimum wage)
No problem that can't be solved by some class war...
@BBCNormanS: Understood Labour tuiton fee cut to be paid for by "better off mums and dads"
student.
that.
.
Surely it is not as bad as that? ying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
You are correct in that many graduates aren't going to end up with what we would have future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
I think that is getting closer to the heart of the real problem here. When we had the massive increase in tertiary education far too much of that increase was in arts based subjects (relatively cheap to put on) which did not teach skills that added value to the prospective employer. Having a few odd bods researching medieval history was affordable when there was a relative handful of them but as the numbers have increased it has become less so. Even worse are so many of the new courses such as Events Management. It is the new Media Studies de nos jours.
One of the attractions of loans should have been that students might have applied their minds to what they were paying for and what they were going to get out of it. That has not really happened and I think market analysis would suggest this is mostly because of the poor quality of information available to the customers.
Perhaps if all Events Management courses had to specify the number of their graduates who are actually earning a living in that field 5 years after they graduated this might improve.
The choice of degrees is always a strange topic.
While obviously as a nation we need more STEM graduates, there's bugger all point in training them if they head off to accountancy or law which many of them do as the professions seek them out and offer them much greater salaries. Ironically I'm and arts grad who has worked all his life in Engineering and know other people in the same boat. Funny old world.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes almost too good to be true.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
I've lost count of the factories that have gone bust because we have and haven't banned snapchat.
That's because you are technically illiterate as well.
Either you ban encryption well enough to actually stop terrorists using it, which will drive our entire finance and IT industry off shore, or you piss around banning things like Snapchat which will make no material difference to anything except pissing off a few teenagers.
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
Except I won't be voting Conservative until they come to their collective senses. Since we have 5 voters in my house and I'm usually GOTV Cameron and Nadhim Zahawi can do their own work with the other 4 :-)
Will that holier than thou feeling be worth 5 years of Ed and Eck ?
I won't notice any real difference frankly.
Not working then ?
I own a factory, Osborne scares me more than Miliband.
And you're not bothered by Labour's continual ramping up of the attack on SME's, and business owners? Unreal.
Yes of course I can be bothered by some of Miliband;s stupidties but it's not as if Cameron hasn't had enough stupidities of his own. This isn't all the fault sits on one side and not the other. All politicans are going to parade some stupidities around
Do you live near a wind farm?? All i can detect from you is a continual whine.
FEARS were mounting last night that ministers were preparing to hand a £350 million contract to supply water to Scotland’s schools, hospitals, prisons and Government offices to an English private water company.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
As I said stop quibbling, the actually percentage is beside the point. Maybe its only 25% in total, are you happy for that much to go offshore ? Tories, the party of business.
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
As I said stop quibbling, the actually percentage is beside the point. Maybe its only 25% in total, are you happy for that much to go offshore ? Tories, the party of business.
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
What encryption ban has ever been suggested ? . Should SIS be able to shut it down temporarily if a major terrorist operation is in full flow ? I'd say yes. But nobody is seriously in favour of banning snap chat or Amazon book buying.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
As I said stop quibbling, the actually percentage is beside the point. Maybe its only 25% in total, are you happy for that much to go offshore ? Tories, the party of business.
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
What encryption ban has ever been suggested ? . Should SIS be able to shut it down temporarily if a major terrorist operation is in full flow ? I'd say yes. But nobody is seriously in favour of banning snap chat or Amazon book buying.
Emwazi's brother, whom the Mail had decided not to name, is a member of the Woolwich Dawah group, who once harboured the killers of Lee Rigby.
The university graduate, who like his sibling has taken a keen interest in computer networks, listens to the teachings of radical preacher Khalid Yasin.
Several of his friends use images similar to those used by extremists online and last night at least one of his 68 friends on Facebook was displaying the black flag of Islamic State.
He has also commented on videos, supporting one in which a woman is mocked for praying in a clumsy manner.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
As I said stop quibbling, the actually percentage is beside the point. Maybe its only 25% in total, are you happy for that much to go offshore ? Tories, the party of business.
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
Minitel had a bearing on the lower uptake of the Internet in France.
No problem that can't be solved by some class war...
@BBCNormanS: Understood Labour tuiton fee cut to be paid for by "better off mums and dads"
student.
that.
.
Surely it is not as bad as that? ying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
You are correct in that many graduates aren't going to end up with what we would have future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
I think that is getting closer to the heart of the real problem here. When we had the massive increase in tertiary education far too much of that increase was in arts based subjects (relatively cheap to put on) which did not teach skills that added value to the prospective employer. Having a few odd bods researching medieval history was affordable when there was a relative handful of them but as the numbers have increased it has become less so. Even worse are so many of the new courses such as Events Management. It is the new Media Studies de nos jours.
One of the attractions of loans should have been that students might have applied their minds to what they were paying for and what they were going to get out of it. That has not really happened and I think market analysis would suggest this is mostly because of the poor quality of information available to the customers.
Perhaps if all Events Management courses had to specify the number of their graduates who are actually earning a living in that field 5 years after they graduated this might improve.
The choice of degrees is always a strange topic.
While obviously as a nation we need more STEM graduates, there's bugger all point in training them if they head off to accountancy or law which many of them do as the professions seek them out and offer them much greater salaries. Ironically I'm and arts grad who has worked all his life in Engineering and know other people in the same boat. Funny old world.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), Cameron wants the whole internet to be effectively saved for a year. Disregarding the security risk of that information being stolen, it necessitates that encryption can be unlocked by the state, which rather undermines the whole point of encryption and makes it dangerously less secure.
It's an incredibly stupid proposal, and it's astounding people close to him don't realise it.
My hope is that this becomes an 'ambition' rather than an actual policy, because it's bloody dense.
To be fair, Miliband would have to come up with another half a dozen mind-bending stupid policies to come even close to the technically illiterate unconscionably moronic policy of attempting to ban encryption in a country that makes most of its money from finance and software.
Which country's that?
The UK.
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
You've just stated that the UK 'makes most of it's money from finance and software'. Where do you get those figures? Finance must be around 10-15% max, so you're telling me that software accounts for another 35-40%. Really?
As I said stop quibbling, the actually percentage is beside the point. Maybe its only 25% in total, are you happy for that much to go offshore ? Tories, the party of business.
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
Minitel had a bearing on the lower uptake of the Internet in France.
Funny enough that wasn't the reason quoted by the French Government when they lifted their much loved laws banning encryption, it was explicitly stated as being because France was getting left behind as the world embraced e-commerce.
Ukip spring conference in Margate today... Dan hodges covering it for telegraph, and first thing he sees are a load of nazis driving tanks through the high street
Mr. Flashman (deceased), Cameron wants the whole internet to be effectively saved for a year. Disregarding the security risk of that information being stolen, it necessitates that encryption can be unlocked by the state, which rather undermines the whole point of encryption and makes it dangerously less secure.
It's an incredibly stupid proposal, and it's astounding people close to him don't realise it.
My hope is that this becomes an 'ambition' rather than an actual policy, because it's bloody dense.
" The prime minister made comments widely interpreted as proposing a ban "
I stopped reading there. There is no ban nor any likelihood of one,,,
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Why are Labour so intent on attacking those who save for their pensions?
Because we waste a disproportionate amount of money subsidising the retirement plans of the most well off. It's why all three major parties have each restricted tax relief on pension contributions for the highest earners.
If you increase the supply of graduates their price (wages over a lifetime) will tend to fall as a whole. Simples really, and why on earth the last Govt peddled the nonsense that the average graduate got a £400K (I think it was) wage hike over a lifetime when by expanding graduates from 5-10% (or whatever it was) of a given age cohort to 30-40% that figure was never going to hold.
Now some increase in graduates was probably needed to remain competitive in an increasingly educated world, but I simply cannot believe it was necessary to expand the way we did. I fear all that has been achieved is an arms race of confetti qualifications among 21 year olds. I think about 25% of 16 year olds had 5 O levels/GCSE's in 1980, meaning a degree differentiates you less per se in the job market for 21 year olds now compared to having a few O levels 30 years ago. We've simply conned the young that it's worthwhile getting a degree (when for a lot it really isn't) and got them to pay for it in the process.
For those wishing to bet on UKIP in Thanet South, the current best price is to bet with Coral at 8/13 that Nigel Farage will be an MP after the election.
Labour are going to get decimated (for once there is a possibility the literal definition of the word might come true!) in Scotland in May. The political dynamics have changed there post referendum and they've changed for good.
You think Labour are only going lose 1 in 10 of their Scottish MPs? Brave....
Comments
Which will be amusing for us bystanders, but lacking in consistency from the paleo-Conservatives.
Con vs Lab net (vs mid-Feb)
Kind of society it wants broadly kind I want: -1 (+2)
Led by people of real ability: +13 (+1)
Leaders prepared to take tough/unpopular decisions: +37 (+5)
Seems to chop & change a lot: -17 (-2)
The rich being asked to pay some tax?
Trade Unions not being made to jump through ridiculous
hoops to exercise their fundamental right to withdraw their labour
Sanctions being used to sanction genuine offenders not as a
way of fiddling the unemployment figures
Small businesses being given help and support they need instead
of the huge Corps all the time
The hated and despised NHS privatisation bill being repealed
The hated and despised Bedroom Tax being scrapped
MPs being asked to work solely for their constituents and not
for hire?
Bring on the shitstorm!!
@NickBolesMP: Miliband's tuition fee plan is "tax cut for future bankers" according to former Labour advisor Phil Collins http://t.co/WfWX7TRJJA
Populus Predicition:
Lab Lead 1%
Regarding it being Cameron's fault, how the votes fall, and who ends up in power is entirely down the the party leaders and their advisers collectively, and how they respond to events. In effect they have each set out their party stall, in the run up to the GE the voters will be looking that their record, sampling the goods, and will eventually decide which one they like most (or dislike least).
How the vote falls is entirely about those leaders ability to manage their party, and attract voters. EIC, he is struggling to attract voters, but will probably get enough. Cameron is less crap, but he has turned the Conservative Party into a very narrow church, which might be loyal, but probably isn't broad enough to command a majority. That was choice of those parties, now they get to see what the voters think.
Still a long way to go until the vote, and I think the blues still stand some hope in that seat.
trade union reform won't be repealed as it is too successful
Universal credit has bee terrific so far.
only unions care who provides NHS services - patients just want free care.
The single room subsidy was scrapped under Labour for private tenants.
You should write the PPB for the Conservatives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31656670
What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Got it
I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're playing the blame game, you need to be a bit more subtle than that.
What we have is a graduate tax in all but name. It is not a very efficient one. A graduate premium through PAYE would undoubtedly have been more cost effective. But if you aspire towards a system where 50% of the population are to go to University then it does seem reasonable to me that some of that cost is borne by those who are lucky enough to go to University as opposed to the other 50% who don't.
Your point is that many of those with the debt will not in fact pay it back. They will fail to do so because they have not earned enough income in the UK to repay it. That would also apply of course if we had a PAYE type graduate tax: they wouldn't be paying much on that system either.
The problem is that far too many graduates end up with non-graduate level jobs. About 1/3 of them 5 years after they have graduated. When you strip out the medics, the lawyers, the dentists, the vets and the accountants that seems to me to suggest that about 50% of arts based graduates are not getting a degree level job. Is paying for this a good deal for UK plc or should they bear some of the cost of it themselves?
Considering their core support, it might actually have kick started them. The Tories used to run Glasgow.
My muddled thinking thought it meant "reduce to 10% of..." Time to get out the Chambers again!
Shameful.
Anyway, at least it was an understandable error, unlike people who think it means annihilation.
Whether paying for all of this remains a good deal for the country is a moot point we appear to be producing too many of the wrong kind of grads. However the fact remains we are paying for it. or rather we're borrowing to pay for it and pretending we will get the money back. We quite clearly will not.
To me it makes more sense to stop pretending we have an asset and recognise what we have is a cost and pay for it as we go rather than create a problem in the future. Really all that's happening is a financial leger de main to make the national accounts look pretty.
I've somehow managed to write a thread with compares Nick Clegg and The Lib Dems to King Leonidas and The Spartans.
But I'm not sure who should play the role of Xerxes I and The Persians?
Any suggestions ?
For heavens sake.
What a mess this country is in when it obsesses about how to fund 0.3% of public expenditure. Just do what the coalition is doing with the current system - borrow it.
Or a more fitting historical comparison.
Cameron is Aspamitres the eunuch.
‘This all stems from an illiteracy about how student finance works. People worry about “how much I borrow” whereas what really counts instead is “how much I repay”, and changing the level of tuition fees doesn’t do much to change that.’
The mainstream media have been shameful in their explanation of how the new system works since its introduction. Luckily it seems potential students have got the message that how much you really pay is down to how successful you are in the future and it hasn't put off poorer students.
I beg to differ.
One of the attractions of loans should have been that students might have applied their minds to what they were paying for and what they were going to get out of it. That has not really happened and I think market analysis would suggest this is mostly because of the poor quality of information available to the customers.
Perhaps if all Events Management courses had to specify the number of their graduates who are actually earning a living in that field 5 years after they graduated this might improve.
'Ruth Davidson takes over as Scottish Conservative leader
Glasgow list MSP supports Catholic schools but, as part of a same-sex couple, takes over new role during controversial period as Scottish Government contemplates legalising same-sex ‘marriage’'
http://tinyurl.com/qh88r4s
'Tory spokesman John Lamont in 'sectarian' school attack
The Tory MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire - whose party officially supports faith schools - said the education system of west central Scotland had, "produced many, if not all, of those who are responsible for the shocking behaviour which we have witnessed in recent months".'
http://tinyurl.com/6zaje4q
Not even shameful, just a bit crap.
Mr Dancer, I was thinking of The election being the Lib Dems' Thermoplyae.
Hopefully with Nick Clegg kicking Oliver Coppard in the stomach and saying
"This is Sheffield"
No, don't bother, I am not interested in your pointless nitpicking to defend the indefensible.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11438422/UK-Independence-Party-Spring-Conference-Live.html
What is the automatic reflex of a Labour minister when he sees a big chunk of money. Yep, tax it and piss the results up against the wall. Pensions are a nice big static obvious chunk of money which is well documented and hard for people to hide or move. What could be better for a nice little earner that can be disguised as soaking the rich (where rich obviously means any responsible person earning above the minimum wage)
While obviously as a nation we need more STEM graduates, there's bugger all point in training them if they head off to accountancy or law which many of them do as the professions seek them out and offer them much greater salaries. Ironically I'm and arts grad who has worked all his life in Engineering and know other people in the same boat. Funny old world.
Either you ban encryption well enough to actually stop terrorists using it, which will drive our entire finance and IT industry off shore, or you piss around banning things like Snapchat which will make no material difference to anything except pissing off a few teenagers.
FEARS were mounting last night that ministers were preparing to hand a £350 million contract to supply water to Scotland’s schools, hospitals, prisons and Government offices to an English private water company.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/350m-scottish-water-deal-could-go-to-english-supplier-accused-of-tax-avoidance.584
Its not just software makers anyway, anyone that wants to do e-commerce needs encryption, Even the French figured that our, when the internet revolution started in most of the rest of the world and didnt in France because people where having to telephone Amazon with their credit card numbers. That is why the French government that used to ban all encryption, lifted the ban.
. Should SIS be able to shut it down temporarily if a major terrorist operation is in full flow ? I'd say yes. But nobody is seriously in favour of banning snap chat or Amazon book buying.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/cameron-ban-encryption-digital-britain-online-shopping-banking-messaging-terror
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/david-cameron-encrypted-messaging-apps-ban
and especially
http://boingboing.net/2015/01/13/what-david-cameron-just-propos.html
The university graduate, who like his sibling has taken a keen interest in computer networks, listens to the teachings of radical preacher Khalid Yasin.
Several of his friends use images similar to those used by extremists online and last night at least one of his 68 friends on Facebook was displaying the black flag of Islamic State.
He has also commented on videos, supporting one in which a woman is mocked for praying in a clumsy manner.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971727/Jihadi-John-s-younger-sister-film-hooded-serial-killer-chasing-schoolgirl-says-Revenge-NEVER-right-answer.html
I am sure CAGE will be along soon to tell us but he is such a lovely boy.
It's an incredibly stupid proposal, and it's astounding people close to him don't realise it.
My hope is that this becomes an 'ambition' rather than an actual policy, because it's bloody dense.
"Springtime for Farage and xenophobes
UKIP is happy but not gay.."
The prime minister made comments widely interpreted as proposing a ban "
I stopped reading there. There is no ban nor any likelihood of one,,,
On the other hand, I think I've found the best political position for him:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31653765
Game was over there.
Yes agree with that.
If you increase the supply of graduates their price (wages over a lifetime) will tend to fall as a whole. Simples really, and why on earth the last Govt peddled the nonsense that the average graduate got a £400K (I think it was) wage hike over a lifetime when by expanding graduates from 5-10% (or whatever it was) of a given age cohort to 30-40% that figure was never going to hold.
Now some increase in graduates was probably needed to remain competitive in an increasingly educated world, but I simply cannot believe it was necessary to expand the way we did. I fear all that has been achieved is an arms race of confetti qualifications among 21 year olds. I think about 25% of 16 year olds had 5 O levels/GCSE's in 1980, meaning a degree differentiates you less per se in the job market for 21 year olds now compared to having a few O levels 30 years ago. We've simply conned the young that it's worthwhile getting a degree (when for a lot it really isn't) and got them to pay for it in the process.
Should be very interesting to see how Lab's plan on HE rolls out with the public. Seems pretty obvious that Ed B doesn't agree with it.