The bottom line is: if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, make whatever pension contributions you can before April. It ain't gonna get more generous, that's for sure
The measure itself is inconsequential to me, though I am a higher rate taxpayer and do stand to lose money.
I post the article because of the wider issue. What drives Osborne's budgets is nothing more than short term publicity for Osborne.The article suggests the penny is dropping with conservative backbenchers. They now realise that Osborne does not have a conservative bone in his body, and that the house is being re mortgaged to support his personal ambitions and nothing else.
@BBCNormanS: Corbyn aide on Falklands "There shd be a dialogue (with Argentina ) about sovereignty with no preconditions
To which about 90% of the British public (and more importantly 99.9% of the Falkland Islanders themselves) will give Corbyn the reply famously given by the respondent in Arkell vs Pressdram
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
The better question is perhaps, what has he been correct about? From memory, it's not much better than stopped-clock.
OK, but I was thinking more of something specific. For example, Dan Hodges has recently opinined that the pollsters deliberately lied. It's a point of view but I think most people here are aware that the pollageddon was a structural thing and not deliberate malice, so this is something I can confidently say Hodges was wrong on.
David L has given a far better answer than I but the underlying point is one of always predicting disaster, particularly with respect to Europe. This is perhaps something that The Telegraph requires and he can be more nuanced than that: there is little evidence of it.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
Would you have it paid for solely out of general taxation?
certainly.
And I'd chop the shit out of the DfID budget to pay for it.
The back benchers may swallow his dogsh!t 'tax the middle classes' budget for now, but when it comes to the leadership election......
That speculation is of course completely different from (and incompatible with) the other speculation we have heard about going to a Pension-ISA type of approach. I think it's a much more likely change, as it would be much easier to implement and it's very easy to defend on fairness grounds.
The bottom line is: if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, make whatever pension contributions you can before April. It ain't gonna get more generous, that's for sure.
A friend of mine, and I agree with this, believes that at some point a government will make contributions fully taxable and withdrawals tax free. Basically, give us money today, some other guy can worry about the future shortfall.
If this does happen then I think I might write a book on how to become an ISA millionaire. More and more people I know are using the new ISA as a retirement option, I'm doing it as well. The allowance is very generous and I find it hard to see any future government mess around with ISAs like they do with pensions.
An Iraqi lawyer is being paid £150 an hour by the Government to help build war crimes cases against British troops, it has emerged.
British-trained Zainab Al Qurnawi is representing the families of Iraqi civilians who were allegedly wrongfully killed during the Western invasion of the country.
She is claiming money from the State as part of the investigation into UK soldiers - even though all of the troops involved have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
The bottom line is: if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, make whatever pension contributions you can before April. It ain't gonna get more generous, that's for sure
The measure itself is inconsequential to me, though I am a higher rate taxpayer and do stand to lose money.
I post the article because of the wider issue. What drives Osborne's budgets is nothing more than short term publicity for Osborne.The article suggests the penny is dropping with conservative backbenchers. They now realise that Osborne does not have a conservative bone in his body, and that the house is being re mortgaged to support his personal ambitions and nothing else.
"the house is being re mortgaged to support his personal ambitions and nothing else"
An Iraqi lawyer is being paid £150 an hour by the Government to help build war crimes cases against British troops, it has emerged.
British-trained Zainab Al Qurnawi is representing the families of Iraqi civilians who were allegedly wrongfully killed during the Western invasion of the country.
She is claiming money from the State as part of the investigation into UK soldiers - even though all of the troops involved have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
If anybody wants an example of what is wrong with UK university education, London Met is about the best. Worst ranked uni in the country, pissed money up the wall like it is going out of fashion, and done for aiding illegal immigration.
As its in Jez's back garden, I bet he thinks it is a wonderful institution.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
Your simply saying the whole premise of degrees leading onto higher slaries is a con. I agree.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
I post the article because of the wider issue. What drives Osborne's budgets is nothing more than short term publicity for Osborne.The article suggests the penny is dropping with conservative backbenchers. They now realise that Osborne does not have a conservative bone in his body, and that the house is being re mortgaged to support his personal ambitions and nothing else.
Poppycock. There are extremely strong arguments for targetting tax relief more effectively and/or less generously. You might not agree with them, but it is bonkers to argue that it's about short-term publicity or Osborne's personal ambitions.
As for Conservatives, I'm not sure who you think did have Conservative bone in his or her body. Certainly not Maggie, by your reasoning. In around 1985 I stood up at a packed meeting of small businesses where the guest speaker was a Cabinet minister to complain bitterly about a huge tax increase on companies (employers' NI contributions). It was under Maggie that MIRAS was phased out.
''Probably be inundated with work now everyone knows he's only charging £150 an hour.''
Apparently, David Cameron is 'deeply concerned' by this.
Whilst the campaign to persecute our troops intensifies....
Surely it can't be out of order to suspend payments to Lady Nugee's favourite firm of lawyers, pending the disciplinary action by their professional body that could result in the company and several named law professionals losing their licence to practice?
Mr Nabavi is advising hard working middle class people to act now to avoid being clobbered....by a 'conservative' government he has defended to the hilt.
@BBCNormanS: Corbyn aide on Falklands "There shd be a dialogue (with Argentina ) about sovereignty with no preconditions "
The Falkland Isles are a British Overseas Territory – which bit does Jeremy not understand?
Jeremy Corbyn still believes, deep down, that he can run the country.
It's just that the country is Argentina....
Remember his favourite place is Bolivia...he said he found its development in recent years “absolutely fascinating”. I wonder which bit? The massive murder rate and huge issue with drugs / drug trafficking? Or perhaps he is more attracted to the dodgy Socialist leader who has been rewriting to constitution so he can fix it to remain in power.
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
There are no votes for Labour to be won over the Falklands. And large numbers to be lost. Even the most disinterested voter will have sussed that only three sheep and two penguins on the islands think his position has any attractions. The Falkland islanders have decided that whatever Corbyn might want for them, they want to stay British. That should be end of. STFU. Go away.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
And my view is that we should fund worthwhile courses at quality institutions for students for whom it makes sense. At the same time we need to find a way to rebuild the vocational sector without the historical stigma. There are a lot of people for who 3 years at a pseudo-academic institution makes no sense in terms of personal development - and it makes no sense for the government to fund it either.
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
The back benchers may swallow his dogsh!t 'tax the middle classes' budget for now, but when it comes to the leadership election......
That speculation is of course completely different from (and incompatible with) the other speculation we have heard about going to a Pension-ISA type of approach. I think it's a much more likely change, as it would be much easier to implement and it's very easy to defend on fairness grounds.
The bottom line is: if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, make whatever pension contributions you can before April. It ain't gonna get more generous, that's for sure.
More and more people I know are using the new ISA as a retirement option, I'm doing it as well. The allowance is very generous and I find it hard to see any future government mess around with ISAs like they do with pensions.
Moving to Pension ISAs does seem to be the logical way to go. We already have Help to Buy ISAs where the government contributes some money to an individuals saving that is capped at a certain level so the principle is there.
It probably will require some raising of the Higher Rate threshold to make the change palatable however.
An Iraqi lawyer is being paid £150 an hour by the Government to help build war crimes cases against British troops, it has emerged.
British-trained Zainab Al Qurnawi is representing the families of Iraqi civilians who were allegedly wrongfully killed during the Western invasion of the country.
She is claiming money from the State as part of the investigation into UK soldiers - even though all of the troops involved have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
Has the original been tracked down? Or has it been smashed up and hidden in the four corners of the realm?
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
There are no votes for Labour to be won over the Falklands. And large numbers to be lost. Even the most disinterested voter will have sussed that only three sheep and two penguins on the islands think his position has any attractions. The Falkland islanders have decided that whatever Corbyn might want for them, they want to stay British. That should be end of. STFU. Go away.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
I’m sure the Penguin News is reporting Corbyn’s every word to hand them over to Argentina.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
Whatever happened to that Vince bloke who was always right about everything ;-)
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
Your simply saying the whole premise of degrees leading onto higher slaries is a con. I agree.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
I'm in favour of reducing fees for proper courses and uncapping them (with no loans) for the guff.
An Iraqi lawyer is being paid £150 an hour by the Government to help build war crimes cases against British troops, it has emerged.
British-trained Zainab Al Qurnawi is representing the families of Iraqi civilians who were allegedly wrongfully killed during the Western invasion of the country.
She is claiming money from the State as part of the investigation into UK soldiers - even though all of the troops involved have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Probably be inundated with work now everyone knows he's only charging £150 an hour.
I, as a paralegal, bill out at £210...
Blooming heck. I pay the senior partner that I work with most often £270 per hour...
As I said nobody ends up paying £210/hour for my time (I work for a single client). The same client pays not much off £270/hour for partners' time (except they do end up paying that).
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
And my view is that we should fund worthwhile courses at quality institutions for students for whom it makes sense. At the same time we need to find a way to rebuild the vocational sector without the historical stigma. There are a lot of people for who 3 years at a pseudo-academic institution makes no sense in terms of personal development - and it makes no sense for the government to fund it either.
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
Yes I'd agree on the vocational route. Germany has a much better way of linking vocational and academic with a system that allows all to progress through it. The "stigma" as you call it tends to be an english class thing regrettably which does the country no favours.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
I hope there is an injunction out to prevent the destruction of the Edstone, surely an item worth saving for the nation...?
Well maybe, but there's the thing. Maggie inherited an economy akin to that of a former eastern block. It took decades to turn it around.
The modern British economy is (thanks to her entirely) a money machine. Any conservative chancellor worth his salt should be able to balance its books and its not unreasonable to expect the books to be balanced after almost six years in the job.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
I hope there is an injunction out to prevent the destruction of the Edstone, surely an item worth saving for the nation...?
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
Your simply saying the whole premise of degrees leading onto higher slaries is a con. I agree.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
I'm in favour of reducing fees for proper courses and uncapping them (with no loans) for the guff.
You then get in to a debate about what is proper. Years ago games design courses would have been described as guff, now they're part of our world leading creative industries.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
Has the original been tracked down? Or has it been smashed up and hidden in the four corners of the realm?
A plucky team of constituency workers from Doncaster are currently lugging it towards Mount Doom, the only place it can be safely destroyed....
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
Has the original been tracked down? Or has it been smashed up and hidden in the four corners of the realm?
A plucky team of constituency workers from Doncaster are currently lugging it towards Mount Doom, the only place it can be safely destroyed....
The plans for the new Spurs stadium were designed with an NFL team in mind.
London is an awful long way to come and go from the West Coast every week though, it will be interesting in seeing how the logistics of having a permanent 'franchise' rather than a one-off match would work out.
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
Corbyn's obsession with unpopular foreign affairs rather than domestic politics is quite bizarre.
Withdraw from Nato, cut the military, scrap Trident, hand the Falkland Islands to Argentina, antagonise the USA - if the Soviet Union had placed him as a sleeper agent in the Labour Party, they couldn't have done better.
Can I just say that whilst I've true respect for Times Andrew Norfolk re Rotherham, his report on red doors is embarrassing. And almost all Times readers wonder WTF he's thinking or was it written by some hack elf.
Well maybe, but there's the thing. Maggie inherited an economy akin to that of a former eastern block. It took decades to turn it around.
The modern British economy is (thanks to her entirely) a money machine. Any conservative chancellor worth his salt should be able to balance its books and its not unreasonable to expect the books to be balanced after almost six years in the job.
It's entirely unreasonable, given the size of the inherited deficit combined the poor world economic conditions. The simple fact of the matter is that, by any standard, Osborne has done astonishingly well: the UK is one of the very few success stories amongst major economies, from an initial position of being amongst the worst. His macro-economic judgement has been perfect (an upgrade from my tentative 'near-perfect' assessment of around 2012). The deficit is half what it was as a share of GDP, growth is amongst the best of the bunch, unemployment has fallen dramatically, living standards are now rising nicely. Any one or two of those would be good; to achieve all of them simultaneously is a major achievement, making him clearly one of the best Chancellors of the post-war years.
Well quite. But don't let a bit of law get in the way of Labour making feeble excuses for their own inadequacies.
More likely, even if Labour had spent three times what the Tories spent, it would not have been enough to convince the voters that Ed Miliband should be their Prime Minister. Putting forward lots more posters and pumping literature into all letter boxes - all with the purpose to promote the idea of Prime Minister Ed Miliband - would probably have led Labour to an even worse defeat...
They could have afforded a much bigger Edstone, though. That would surely have clinched it for them.
Has the original been tracked down? Or has it been smashed up and hidden in the four corners of the realm?
A plucky team of constituency workers from Doncaster are currently lugging it towards Mount Doom, the only place it can be safely destroyed....
They;re doing it wrong.
Strap it to a large eagle and fly it there.
I literally LOLed at your post Mark! In reply to this one, surely a well aimed trebuchet is more appropriate?
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
And my view is that we should fund worthwhile courses at quality institutions for students for whom it makes sense. At the same time we need to find a way to rebuild the vocational sector without the historical stigma. There are a lot of people for who 3 years at a pseudo-academic institution makes no sense in terms of personal development - and it makes no sense for the government to fund it either.
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
Yes I'd agree on the vocational route. Germany has a much better way of linking vocational and academic with a system that allows all to progress through it. The "stigma" as you call it tends to be an english class thing regrettably which does the country no favours.
I thought the idea floated at PMQs today of graduate level apprenticeships being highlighted through the UCCA portal was an interesting idea.
I seem to recall at school reading government reports from the 1870s admiring the German vocational training system. We might catch up one day!
Well maybe, but there's the thing. Maggie inherited an economy akin to that of a former eastern block. It took decades to turn it around.
The modern British economy is (thanks to her entirely) a money machine. Any conservative chancellor worth his salt should be able to balance its books and its not unreasonable to expect the books to be balanced after almost six years in the job.
It's entirely unreasonable, given the size of the inherited deficit combined the poor world economic conditions. The simple fact of the matter is that, by any standard, Osborne has done astonishingly well: the UK is one of the very few success stories amongst major economies, from an initial position of being amongst the worst. His macro-economic judgement has been perfect (an upgrade from my tentative 'near-perfect' assessment of around 2012). The deficit is half what it was as a share of GDP, growth is amongst the best of the bunch, unemployment has fallen dramatically, living standards are now rising nicely. Any one or two of those would be good; to achieve all of them simultaneously is a major achievement, making him clearly one of the best Chancellors of the post-war years.
Never mind all that, he managed to get the government re-elected (in fact, better than that). Near miraculous in the circumstances, although Labour did assist.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
Your simply saying the whole premise of degrees leading onto higher slaries is a con. I agree.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
I'm in favour of reducing fees for proper courses and uncapping them (with no loans) for the guff.
You then get in to a debate about what is proper. Years ago games design courses would have been described as guff, now they're part of our world leading creative industries.
Allegedly.
Games design courses are still guff (I say this having worked in the industry). The people serious about going into the games industry would study ComSci, AI, physics and such. There may be modules on games design within some of these courses, but to specifically do a degree in it is a poor idea. When I was hiring people with a degree in games design would get their CVs thrown thrown in the digital bin and we instructed agencies not to send us applicants who didn't have a speciality. My point is that guff tends to always be guff no matter how much the proponents try and dress it up. Most of the people who did game design at university ended up in QA/testing, not exactly the most fulfilling career.
Well maybe, but there's the thing. Maggie inherited an economy akin to that of a former eastern block. It took decades to turn it around.
The modern British economy is (thanks to her entirely) a money machine. Any conservative chancellor worth his salt should be able to balance its books and its not unreasonable to expect the books to be balanced after almost six years in the job.
It's entirely unreasonable, given the size of the inherited deficit combined the poor world economic conditions. The simple fact of the matter is that, by any standard, Osborne has done astonishingly well: the UK is one of the very few success stories amongst major economies, from an initial position of being amongst the worst. His macro-economic judgement has been perfect (an upgrade from my tentative 'near-perfect' assessment of around 2012). The deficit is half what it was as a share of GDP, growth is amongst the best of the bunch, unemployment has fallen dramatically, living standards are now rising nicely. Any one or two of those would be good; to achieve all of them simultaneously is a major achievement, making him clearly one of the best Chancellors of the post-war years.
The plans for the new Spurs stadium were designed with an NFL team in mind.
London is an awful long way to come and go from the West Coast every week though, it will be interesting in seeing how the logistics of having a permanent 'franchise' rather than a one-off match would work out.
I presume they will have to do some sort of fudge. I have to say, I never fully understood the fixturing system in NFL, as obviously you play other teams in your divisions to get to the 16 regular season games.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
And my view is that we should fund worthwhile courses at quality institutions for students for whom it makes sense. At the same time we need to find a way to rebuild the vocational sector without the historical stigma. There are a lot of people for who 3 years at a pseudo-academic institution makes no sense in terms of personal development - and it makes no sense for the government to fund it either.
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
Yes I'd agree on the vocational route. Germany has a much better way of linking vocational and academic with a system that allows all to progress through it. The "stigma" as you call it tends to be an english class thing regrettably which does the country no favours.
I thought the idea floated at PMQs today of graduate level apprenticeships being highlighted through the UCCA portal was an interesting idea.
I seem to recall at school reading government reports from the 1870s admiring the German vocational training system. We might catch up one day!
Never.
In England Education is simply class war by other means.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
It doesn't make sense with 50% of all people ending up at university. When attendance was 25% or below then grants made sense as the courses held a much higher value, therefore the graduate would go one to earn a higher amount of money and repay it. I can't say the same for London Met students doing marketing studies though.
Your simply saying the whole premise of degrees leading onto higher slaries is a con. I agree.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
I'm in favour of reducing fees for proper courses and uncapping them (with no loans) for the guff.
You then get in to a debate about what is proper. Years ago games design courses would have been described as guff, now they're part of our world leading creative industries.
Allegedly.
Games design courses are still guff (I say this having worked in the industry). The people serious about going into the games industry would study ComSci, AI, physics and such. There may be modules on games design within some of these courses, but to specifically do a degree in it is a poor idea. When I was hiring people with a degree in games design would get their CVs thrown thrown in the digital bin and we instructed agencies not to send us applicants who didn't have a speciality. My point is that guff tends to always be guff no matter how much the proponents try and dress it up. Most of the people who did game design at university ended up in QA/testing, not exactly the most fulfilling career.
It is the same as uni's who offer "computer programming" rather than Computer Science.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
He's still around. Was predicting another soon, on the basis of an 84 year cycle or something equally 'interesting' only the other day.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
Hunchman is a bit of a legend. I'm sure he will be on late at night soon telling us he was right and we're all doomed.
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
There are no votes for Labour to be won over the Falklands. And large numbers to be lost. Even the most disinterested voter will have sussed that only three sheep and two penguins on the islands think his position has any attractions. The Falkland islanders have decided that whatever Corbyn might want for them, they want to stay British. That should be end of. STFU. Go away.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
There are no votes for Labour to be won over the Falklands. And large numbers to be lost. Even the most disinterested voter will have sussed that only three sheep and two penguins on the islands think his position has any attractions. The Falkland islanders have decided that whatever Corbyn might want for them, they want to stay British. That should be end of. STFU. Go away.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
There are people who complain about the cost of defending the islands (which I think they should direct at Argentina, but hey). They would probably agree with Corbyn. They won't be swing voters though.
Games design courses are still guff (I say this having worked in the industry). The people serious about going into the games industry would study ComSci, AI, physics and such. There may be modules on games design within some of these courses, but to specifically do a degree in it is a poor idea. When I was hiring people with a degree in games design would get their CVs thrown thrown in the digital bin and we instructed agencies not to send us applicants who didn't have a speciality. My point is that guff tends to always be guff no matter how much the proponents try and dress it up. Most of the people who did game design at university ended up in QA/testing, not exactly the most fulfilling career.
It is the same as uni's who offer "computer programming" rather than Computer Science.
I haven't been involved with graduate recruitment for a few years, but we generally treated comp sci graduates Max describes above wrt Games design courses.
Generally the best programmers and engineers did not from comp sci courses. For some reason, I know a number of excellent programmers who have geography-related degrees. I can understand physicists making good programmers, but geographers?
Perhaps the state of comp sci courses has improved...
Falklands sovereignty - now there's a vote-winning front for Labour to move on to.
There are no votes for Labour to be won over the Falklands. And large numbers to be lost. Even the most disinterested voter will have sussed that only three sheep and two penguins on the islands think his position has any attractions. The Falkland islanders have decided that whatever Corbyn might want for them, they want to stay British. That should be end of. STFU. Go away.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
I’m sure the Penguin News is reporting Corbyn’s every word to hand them over to Argentina.
Generally the best programmers and engineers did not from comp sci courses. For some reason, I know a number of excellent programmers who have geography-related degrees. I can understand physicists making good programmers, but geographers?
Presumably because geography is so tedious that they are pathetically grateful for the opportunity to do something else, and so work harder.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
Hunchman is a bit of a legend. I'm sure he will be on late at night soon telling us he was right and we're all doomed.
FTSE now: 5,700 FTSE c. 5 yrs ago: 5,700 Posts on here about intra-day declines: 5,700 Posts on here about intra-day gains: 57
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
Hunchman is a bit of a legend. I'm sure he will be on late at night soon telling us he was right and we're all doomed.
FTSE now: 5,700 FTSE c. 5 yrs ago: 5,700 Posts on here about intra-day declines: 5,700 Posts on here about intra-day gains: 57
I think Uni when I went had it about right, fees of ~ £3000 a year, ~£12k of debt on graduation. High recovery rate.
You are making me feel old. Only paid the ~£1k a year, although had ~£12k of debt at the end because of a four year course. The loans were not just for the fees, but also living expenses (beer).
I know me too!
I was pre-fees... but it was ludicrous that the taxpayer paid up for me to spend 3 years educating myself.
Why ?
Don't you believe in a knowledge economy ?
Is it equally ludicrous that the taxpayer paid for primary education ?
The taxpayer makes his money back from more of us educated folk paying higher rate taxes.
Sure. But my parents would have paid for me to go to university anyway so effectively I was a free rider. I'm all in favour of subsidising value added courses as a way of encouraging people to study things that are useful for the economy.
I'm afraid Charles the issue for you is your background, you had options which werent open to most people. My view remains we should fund tertiry education and that the loans system is a huge screw up which impoverishes the young and the bill for which will still come back to the taxpayer.
And my view is that we should fund worthwhile courses at quality institutions for students for whom it makes sense. At the same time we need to find a way to rebuild the vocational sector without the historical stigma. There are a lot of people for who 3 years at a pseudo-academic institution makes no sense in terms of personal development - and it makes no sense for the government to fund it either.
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
Yes I'd agree on the vocational route. Germany has a much better way of linking vocational and academic with a system that allows all to progress through it. The "stigma" as you call it tends to be an english class thing regrettably which does the country no favours.
I thought the idea floated at PMQs today of graduate level apprenticeships being highlighted through the UCCA portal was an interesting idea.
I seem to recall at school reading government reports from the 1870s admiring the German vocational training system. We might catch up one day!
Never.
In England Education is simply class war by other means.
Labour may look utterly unelectable now, but what if some of the doom-sayers at Davos are right and another gigantic, asset-bubble fuelled crash is about to hit us?
You've been reading AEP again. Really, its not a good idea.
Is AEP actually rubbish? He writes *terribly* (consistently using overcomplex phrasing, obscure references, non-English tags) but I find if you sit down and work you what he's actually saying it's quite interesting. But I am a bear of very little brain and I have no idea whether his wideranging worldview and sweeping conclusions are actually gibberish or not. I know he's been wrong on the collapse of the Euro, but that was a common mistake of the Anglophone commentariat. Has he been wrong on other things as well?
He was, and continues to be wrong about deflation, inflation, sovereign solvency, the German Constitutional Court and the Euro and many other matters (Robert will no doubt give the details if he is around, some of them are quite bizarre). But to be honest it is his writing style that bugs me the most. Prices never fall, they "crash". Every movement or even non movement is hyperbolically described.
Today's effort is pretty typical. He has found a kindred spirit who thinks we now have a worse debt bubble than we had in 2008. This is rubbish but it is not enough for it to be a concern; it has to be the end of the world as we know it. All counter-measures are "exhausted". Presumably that means that no more QE, for example is possible?
Sometimes, I will admit, it is possible to extract some interesting statistical information from his pieces. But he really needs to calm down.
I think he is really trying to "predict" the next major crash, so all of his articles are about a future crash, so when one does come he can come across as "prescient". Vince Cable did this to great effect. What takes real nous is doing what Peter Lilley did in 1997 and predict the exact failures (almost to the last detail) of the new regulatory system being brought in by Brown and Balls 10 years ahead of time.
You are probably right. I am pretty sure we used to have a poster on here who used to predict stock market crashes with great precision if little accuracy.
Hunchman is a bit of a legend. I'm sure he will be on late at night soon telling us he was right and we're all doomed.
To be honest I always found him good fun and he did not take himself too seriously. Not sure I would take his investment advice though.
The plans for the new Spurs stadium were designed with an NFL team in mind.
London is an awful long way to come and go from the West Coast every week though, it will be interesting in seeing how the logistics of having a permanent 'franchise' rather than a one-off match would work out.
Firstly, wow! I would be delighted if this happens.
Secondly, yes, it's goijg to make their scheduling even more complex than it is already. I guess they'll try to schedule bye weeks after the longest trips. They could even change the scheduling rules to reduce the number of west-east games.
Generally the best programmers and engineers did not from comp sci courses. For some reason, I know a number of excellent programmers who have geography-related degrees. I can understand physicists making good programmers, but geographers?
Presumably because geography is so tedious that they are pathetically grateful for the opportunity to do something else, and so work harder.
Or just maybe (speaking up for friends in the Edinburgh University Geography Department) because modern geography requires such complicated computer models they get quite good at it!
My 12 year old son had me helping him with his geography homework last night. The geography of crime and murder rates around the world. Really quite interesting and not a damn contour line in sight!
Generally the best programmers and engineers did not from comp sci courses. For some reason, I know a number of excellent programmers who have geography-related degrees. I can understand physicists making good programmers, but geographers?
Presumably because geography is so tedious that they are pathetically grateful for the opportunity to do something else, and so work harder.
Or just maybe (speaking up for friends in the Edinburgh University Geography Department) because modern geography requires such complicated computer models they get quite good at it!
My 12 year old son had me helping him with his geography homework last night. The geography of crime and murder rates around the world. Really quite interesting and not a damn contour line in sight!
Believe the NY Daily News editor Colin Myler is the ex-News of the World journalist who did the disgraceful sting on Max Mosley 7 years ago.Wished there was a campaign to stop people like him working ever again in the media rather than being allowed to run hate campaigns against Trump and Palin
Comments
The measure itself is inconsequential to me, though I am a higher rate taxpayer and do stand to lose money.
I post the article because of the wider issue. What drives Osborne's budgets is nothing more than short term publicity for Osborne.The article suggests the penny is dropping with conservative backbenchers. They now realise that Osborne does not have a conservative bone in his body, and that the house is being re mortgaged to support his personal ambitions and nothing else.
And I'd chop the shit out of the DfID budget to pay for it.
If this does happen then I think I might write a book on how to become an ISA millionaire. More and more people I know are using the new ISA as a retirement option, I'm doing it as well. The allowance is very generous and I find it hard to see any future government mess around with ISAs like they do with pensions.
It's just that the country is Argentina....
Gordon Brown redux
Apparently, David Cameron is 'deeply concerned' by this.
Whilst the campaign to persecute our troops intensifies....
But in any event nobody gets it. My time is written off/down, fixed fee, etc. etc.
As its in Jez's back garden, I bet he thinks it is a wonderful institution.
However currently we have a government which wants to let the problem roll and dupe the young into acquiring £40k of debt.
As for Conservatives, I'm not sure who you think did have Conservative bone in his or her body. Certainly not Maggie, by your reasoning. In around 1985 I stood up at a packed meeting of small businesses where the guest speaker was a Cabinet minister to complain bitterly about a huge tax increase on companies (employers' NI contributions). It was under Maggie that MIRAS was phased out.
Mr Nabavi is advising hard working middle class people to act now to avoid being clobbered....by a 'conservative' government he has defended to the hilt.
There's a grim satisfaction to it, I suppose.
But he keeps picking at the scab, determinedly ensuring it will leave a scar for Labour.
http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2016/01/18/photos-heckler-koch-ar500-builds-mandalorian-ballistic-armor/
If you can reduce the scope of the obligation, then funding should be generous.
It probably will require some raising of the Higher Rate threshold to make the change palatable however.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/35360989
Well maybe, but there's the thing. Maggie inherited an economy akin to that of a former eastern block. It took decades to turn it around.
The modern British economy is (thanks to her entirely) a money machine. Any conservative chancellor worth his salt should be able to balance its books and its not unreasonable to expect the books to be balanced after almost six years in the job.
Allegedly.
Strap it to a large eagle and fly it there.
London is an awful long way to come and go from the West Coast every week though, it will be interesting in seeing how the logistics of having a permanent 'franchise' rather than a one-off match would work out.
Withdraw from Nato, cut the military, scrap Trident, hand the Falkland Islands to Argentina, antagonise the USA - if the Soviet Union had placed him as a sleeper agent in the Labour Party, they couldn't have done better.
I seem to recall at school reading government reports from the 1870s admiring the German vocational training system. We might catch up one day!
http://www.stone-circle.com/about-us
In England Education is simply class war by other means.
Generally the best programmers and engineers did not from comp sci courses. For some reason, I know a number of excellent programmers who have geography-related degrees. I can understand physicists making good programmers, but geographers?
Perhaps the state of comp sci courses has improved...
FTSE c. 5 yrs ago: 5,700
Posts on here about intra-day declines: 5,700
Posts on here about intra-day gains: 57
Secondly, yes, it's goijg to make their scheduling even more complex than it is already. I guess they'll try to schedule bye weeks after the longest trips. They could even change the scheduling rules to reduce the number of west-east games.
My 12 year old son had me helping him with his geography homework last night. The geography of crime and murder rates around the world. Really quite interesting and not a damn contour line in sight!