I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
That's perhaps a misconception of the word vocation then.
What's your definition? A vocation is merely a trade of profession. I know you mean "practical" or "blue collar" but I see why no reason why these should be handled under separate institutions.
All blue collar professions are getting more technical anyway as technology improves, and require just as much skill and dedication as "white collar" professions. Why shouldn't those who train in such professions earn a degree, albeit through practical work as part of a university?
Why are "degree" and "university" such dirty words?
When someone says "vocational" qualification, I take that to mean formal training in something like plumbing or as an electrician. I don't take that to mean training as a theoretical physicist.
Nothing dirty with the word. I don't see why you can't have separate words to describe academic work, and technical work.
But the LPC is a vocational course exactly as you describe. It isn't a course to study the law, it is a course to learn how to be a solicitor. It's exactly the same as learning to be a bricklayer, or as an electrician, or a plumber.
So is the course to train to be a theoretical physicist. That doesn't mean I'd describe it as vocational, and I suspect neither would the vast majority of people.
No it isn't though. It's a practical course. You are assessed in interviewing clients, in drafting documentation. It's not the same as training to be a "theoretical physicist" at all.
It's exactly the same as training to be a plumber. It's assessed in exactly the same way.
OK, so vocational courses are distinct from academic ones?
Yes, but universities already offer vocational courses, such as the one I'll be studying in September. That's my point. There's no reason why a higher-educational institution can't offer practical, vocational qualifications and still be considered a university.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
If you're going to go to the trouble of doing a U-turn, you might as well make it a simply massive one. It just won't be called a Customs Union. We will freely decide to unite our customs.
I don't think that is possible under EU law. What you always have to remember is that the EU can't act outside the powers given in the formal treaties (well, they can sometime creatively fudge it a bit at the edges, but no more than that).
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
It has nothing to do with being held in the same regard. Unless I'm mistaken, bricklaying is a skill (I've little direct experience, did a tiny bit as a kid as my Dad is in construction) yes with underpinning theory, but with the majority of learning best delivered practically, in the workplace. Stretching the principles of bricklaying into a three year academic course is a misallocation of resources. It leads to piss easy courses that don't really deliver the skills required. That's what really brings bricklaying into disrepute.
Who said it had to be 3 years? Who said it had to be academic?
I'm saying that currently a lot of these courses are in "colleges" and rightly or wrongly these are less prestigious than "universities".
Why shouldn't we stop offering pointless courses at "universities" and offer world-leading practical courses in bricklaying, plumbing, etc in such institutions?
Stop being logical! Universities about to close. Shortage of plumbers. Should universities train plumbers? Never!
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
It has nothing to do with being held in the same regard. Unless I'm mistaken, bricklaying is a skill (I've little direct experience, did a tiny bit as a kid as my Dad is in construction) yes with underpinning theory, but with the majority of learning best delivered practically, in the workplace. Stretching the principles of bricklaying into a three year academic course is a misallocation of resources. It leads to piss easy courses that don't really deliver the skills required. That's what really brings bricklaying into disrepute.
Who said it had to be 3 years? Who said it had to be academic?
I'm saying that currently a lot of these courses are in "colleges" and rightly or wrongly these are less prestigious than "universities".
Why shouldn't we stop offering pointless courses at "universities" and offer world-leading practical courses in bricklaying, plumbing, etc in such institutions?
Because there are already institutions that offer such courses? I don't see why you need to adapt Oxford or Cambridge to teach electricians and plumbers in addition to what they already do on the academic side.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 from 1st August £157.50 to watch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Why is charging pensioners who do not watch the BBC any more wrong than charging working age people with less disposable income who don't watch it but need a licence?
What's special about pensioners here? The licence fee is wrong regardless of who is charged.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
The issue isn't you using the words you want to use. The issue is that others who choose to different words are being fired from their jobs and being subjected to mob justice.
People being fired for saying something that their employer deems unacceptible is clearly the free market at work. Philip_Thompson is entirely consistent with his libertarian principles in viewing that as fine and good.
What I can't comprehend is the right-wingers who think that polluting rivers, exploiting workers, harming consumers, stripping assets, stifling competition, bribing politicians, engaging in the odd coup, etc., are all good because they're part of the rough-and-tumble of business, but that a company protecting its bottom line by firing somebody for saying the n-word is beyond the pale.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
Correct but that has nothing to do with universities or degrees
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 from 1st August £157.50 to watch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
I dont see that it's wrong? A tiny reduction in direct benefits for pensioners, compared to the significant cuts many other people have experienced, and poor older pensioners on pension credit will continue to get it free anyway.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Why is university the wrong word? I want to remove all element of snobbery from universities.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
Bloody wife of mine must be racist then, being married to an Asian bloke. I'll need to make a note of it and report her to my local BLM officer for re-education, maybe she'll end up on the same classroom as Starmer.
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
I saw this a few days ago - most digital nomads head for lower cost destinations not higher costs ones.
Given that the last lunch I eat in Barbados was £40 for 2 with a single beer I wouldn't be rushing there to work - the last evening meal we eat there (although granted it was in Holetown) was over £120 with a single bottle of wine.
These negotiatiors, on either side, could at least come up with new ways to descibe what they are doing, as all these statements are so obviously meaningless placeholders that could have been released at any point in the last 4 years.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
You would assume that anyone training as a bricklayer would have ambitions to progress in the building industry and even start his/her own business. You do not have to be a bricklayer until 70
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
Well that makes it so much better then (!)
Why would people abandon getting paid to do an apprenticeship to learn a skill and instead opt for years of university leading to lifelong higher tax rates for the same earnings?
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
I saw this a few days ago - most digital nomads head for lower cost destinations not higher costs ones.
Given that the last lunch I eat in Barbados was £40 for 2 with a single beer I wouldn't be rushing there to work - the last evening meal we eat there (although granted it was in Holetown) was over £120 with a single bottle of wine.
That'll be in the tourist traps.
I would imagine that if you are living there properly, there's cheaper and better.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
They're a de facto tax now, most won't pay them back and nor do they need to.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
Well that makes it so much better then (!)
Why would people abandon getting paid to do an apprenticeship to learn a skill and instead opt for years of university leading to lifelong higher tax rates for the same earnings?
I haven't suggested anything of the sort. That's a completely separate discussion.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
It has nothing to do with being held in the same regard. Unless I'm mistaken, bricklaying is a skill (I've little direct experience, did a tiny bit as a kid as my Dad is in construction) yes with underpinning theory, but with the majority of learning best delivered practically, in the workplace. Stretching the principles of bricklaying into a three year academic course is a misallocation of resources. It leads to piss easy courses that don't really deliver the skills required. That's what really brings bricklaying into disrepute.
Who said it had to be 3 years? Who said it had to be academic?
I'm saying that currently a lot of these courses are in "colleges" and rightly or wrongly these are less prestigious than "universities".
Why shouldn't we stop offering pointless courses at "universities" and offer world-leading practical courses in bricklaying, plumbing, etc in such institutions?
Because universities are set up and suited to deliver academic courses lasting about 3 years (sometimes 4) based on lectures, seminars etc. Why are you so keen to stretch universities and the concept of university to cover all post-sixth form education? Why not create something new that has its own vision and can accrue its own value and esteem?
Personally I really liked the idea (hopefully still happening) of a Manchester Institute of Technology, and hopefully other institutes of technology would follow. Qualifications would have a shorter period of study than uni but with workplace placements.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Why is university the wrong word? I want to remove all element of snobbery from universities.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Higher Education and Further Education are not the same thing.
Technical skills learnt via an apprenticeship are not Higher Education.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
You would assume that anyone training as a bricklayer would have ambitions to progress in the building industry and even start his/her own business. You do not have to be a bricklayer until 70
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
It's actually an old clip, I hadn't realised that. Pre her appointment as SCoftE by wise Sir Keir
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Indeed - the reason it was done that way, instead of actually being a Graduate Tax, was concerns that such a tax would cause an exodus of people from the country to avoid it.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
It has nothing to do with being held in the same regard. Unless I'm mistaken, bricklaying is a skill (I've little direct experience, did a tiny bit as a kid as my Dad is in construction) yes with underpinning theory, but with the majority of learning best delivered practically, in the workplace. Stretching the principles of bricklaying into a three year academic course is a misallocation of resources. It leads to piss easy courses that don't really deliver the skills required. That's what really brings bricklaying into disrepute.
Who said it had to be 3 years? Who said it had to be academic?
I'm saying that currently a lot of these courses are in "colleges" and rightly or wrongly these are less prestigious than "universities".
Why shouldn't we stop offering pointless courses at "universities" and offer world-leading practical courses in bricklaying, plumbing, etc in such institutions?
Because universities are set up and suited to deliver academic courses lasting about 3 years (sometimes 4) based on lectures, seminars etc. Why are you so keen to stretch universities and the concept of university to cover all post-sixth form education? Why not create something new that has its own vision and can accrue its own value and esteem?
Personally I really liked the idea (hopefully still happening) of a Manchester Institute of Technology, and hopefully other institutes of technology would follow. Qualifications would have a shorter period of study than uni but with workplace placements.
Your last paragraph is what I am suggesting. However there's no reason why it can't call itself a "university". MIT is still a university.
As I keep saying, the LPC, what I am studying in September, is a practical, 1 year course that is not based on lectures and seminars. It's taught at a university.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
She's useless. She can get away with such ravings surrounded by Corbynistas but Andrew Neil is never going to let her get away with that.
Doesn't inspire with confidence that Starmer is changing the Labour Party. Getting rid of antisemitism which is good, credit to him for that, but still the same denial of reality extreme nonsense elsewhere it seems.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 from 1st August £157.50 to watch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
I dont see that it's wrong? A tiny reduction in direct benefits for pensioners, compared to the significant cuts many other people have experienced, and poor older pensioners on pension credit will continue to get it free anyway.
Quite right. The bit about paying Lineker's salary is one about how well the BBC spends its money, it isn't a point about whether over 75's paying the fee is wrong, so I don't see what connecting the two achieves. I've yet to see a coherent explanation of why it is 'wrong' for over 75s to pay the fee. Why should pensioners not pay it when others do, many of whom would also use arguments of not watching it or struggling to afford it?
Although the situations are not directly comparable, and if this is truly unfair I am sure I will get it in the neck for saying this, but it puts me in mind of hte WASPI women - 'we don't like it therefore it is wrong and unfair'.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Having been involved in further education and "modern" apprenticeships in particular they are a joke. The colleges are paid on results therefore fools qualify at all costs.
I believe everyone should have opportunities to improve themselves via education. That said, the quality of instruction was very poor when was at what is now a Russell Group University some 35 years ago. From what I have seen of the support my son's receive for their £9250 per year it isn't much better now. That said I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
People under 75 have not enjoyed free TV licenses before and many are already in distress and financial hardship, made worse by covid.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Why is university the wrong word? I want to remove all element of snobbery from universities.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Higher Education and Further Education are not the same thing.
Technical skills learnt via an apprenticeship are not Higher Education.
I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be the same thing, other than to separate "white collar" and "blue collar" for no reason at all.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
That's perhaps a misconception of the word vocation then.
What's your definition? A vocation is merely a trade of profession. I know you mean "practical" or "blue collar" but I see why no reason why these should be handled under separate institutions.
All blue collar professions are getting more technical anyway as technology improves, and require just as much skill and dedication as "white collar" professions. Why shouldn't those who train in such professions earn a degree, albeit through practical work as part of a university?
Why are "degree" and "university" such dirty words?
When someone says "vocational" qualification, I take that to mean formal training in something like plumbing or as an electrician. I don't take that to mean training as a theoretical physicist.
Nothing dirty with the word. I don't see why you can't have separate words to describe academic work, and technical work.
But the LPC is a vocational course exactly as you describe. It isn't a course to study the law, it is a course to learn how to be a solicitor. It's exactly the same as learning to be a bricklayer, or as an electrician, or a plumber.
So is the course to train to be a theoretical physicist. That doesn't mean I'd describe it as vocational, and I suspect neither would the vast majority of people.
No it isn't though. It's a practical course. You are assessed in interviewing clients, in drafting documentation. It's not the same as training to be a "theoretical physicist" at all.
It's exactly the same as training to be a plumber. It's assessed in exactly the same way.
OK, so vocational courses are distinct from academic ones?
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Whatever mate, convince yourself what you like. The fact you're wrong is neither here nor there.
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
I saw this a few days ago - most digital nomads head for lower cost destinations not higher costs ones.
Given that the last lunch I eat in Barbados was £40 for 2 with a single beer I wouldn't be rushing there to work - the last evening meal we eat there (although granted it was in Holetown) was over £120 with a single bottle of wine.
That'll be in the tourist traps.
I would imagine that if you are living there properly, there's cheaper and better.
The lunch wasn't - it was a random choice based as we drove around the island. If you've been to Barbados or elsewhere in the Caribbean you will know how expensive it is, if you haven't you are going to be in for a surprise...
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Whatever mate, convince yourself what you like. The fact you're wrong is neither here nor there.
I'm not wrong. It's you that is wrong. Stop pretending you know what you're talking about, when you don't.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
Whereas for working age people with less disposable income than many pensioners having to find £157.50 is a piece of piss is it?
There is a fitting circularity in Kanye West's 'announcement' and the SCOTUS judgment, both events with no impact on the likelihood of Trump winning in November, having equal but opposite impacts on the market such that it is back to where it was a week ago.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
But that's false. As in its completely untrue. The UK has grown faster than France, Japan and Italy all in the G7. Only the US, Canada and Germany have grown faster and our growth is closer to Canada, Germany and the US than it is Italy or France.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
You would assume that anyone training as a bricklayer would have ambitions to progress in the building industry and even start his/her own business. You do not have to be a bricklayer until 70
Deary me, have you ever worked in construction?
Most of my career was involved with the house building trade
My favourite part is where the writer completely dimisses the idea someone might legitimately think Starmer is more attractive (him being 'very average') than Sunark. Now, whether one agrees with him being more attractive or not, it's amusing that someone doing so is treated as 'revealing'.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Whatever mate, convince yourself what you like. The fact you're wrong is neither here nor there.
I'm not wrong. It's you that is wrong. Stop pretending you know what you're talking about, when you don't.
Haha! Always good to know when you stumble across a dope
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
She's useless. She can get away with such ravings surrounded by Corbynistas but Andrew Neil is never going to let her get away with that.
Doesn't inspire with confidence that Starmer is changing the Labour Party. Getting rid of antisemitism which is good, credit to him for that, but still the same denial of reality extreme nonsense elsewhere it seems.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Having been involved in further education and "modern" apprenticeships in particular they are a joke. The colleges are paid on results therefore fools qualify at all costs.
I believe everyone should have opportunities to improve themselves via education. That said, the quality of instruction was very poor when was at what is now a Russell Group University some 35 years ago. From what I have seen of the support my son's receive for their £9250 per year it isn't much better now. That said I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything.
No edit on mobile app.
The rogue apostrophe on sons was a correction by my phone. Do Chinese phone programmers not attend English punctuation courses? Evidently not.
As usual the last 3-5 days is subject to revision. Last 5 days included for completeness
The isolation of the bulk of Covid cases into a few remaining clusters is reassuring. Just 13 local authorities accounted for 50% of the total cases on 6th July and just 2 accounted for almost a quarter. There will be further clustering within parts of those local authorities. That opens up the potential for very intense further lockdowns if necessary, but ones localised to a tiny fraction of the whole country only. An effective lockdown in Leicester could cause a significant further drop in cases, without impacting on the economy of the remaining 99.5% of the UK.
Bloody wife of mine must be racist then, being married to an Asian bloke. I'll need to make a note of it and report her to my local BLM officer for re-education, maybe she'll end up on the same classroom as Starmer.
Break it to her gently, she may be surprised at her own prejudice to say the least.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Whatever mate, convince yourself what you like. The fact you're wrong is neither here nor there.
I'm not wrong. It's you that is wrong. Stop pretending you know what you're talking about, when you don't.
Haha! Always good to know when you stumble across a dope
You're contributing nothing to this discussion, you know that?
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
You are right. It is a graduate tax - almost totally. You can buy out of the tax by settling early - which is unusual for a tax. Other than that, it is a tax.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Why is university the wrong word? I want to remove all element of snobbery from universities.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Higher Education and Further Education are not the same thing.
Technical skills learnt via an apprenticeship are not Higher Education.
I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be the same thing, other than to separate "white collar" and "blue collar" for no reason at all.
They shouldn't be the same thing as they're not the same thing.
Its not about separating them either and there's nothing to be looked down upon with good apprenticeships.
You don't make apprenticeships for becoming an electrician better by embarrassingly trying to pretend they're university rather than calling them what it is. That kind of attitude only exists if you look down on apprenticeships rather than holding them up as a good thing in their own right.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
She's useless. She can get away with such ravings surrounded by Corbynistas but Andrew Neil is never going to let her get away with that.
Doesn't inspire with confidence that Starmer is changing the Labour Party. Getting rid of antisemitism which is good, credit to him for that, but still the same denial of reality extreme nonsense elsewhere it seems.
It was a very odd appointment. There are a number of Labour MPs who would immediately be able to do a decent job as Shadow Chancellor. You'd have thought it would be the one role where Starmer wouldn't want to take a risk on an inexperienced person.
Good old Labour - claiming to know it all and yet being exposed as knowing absolutely nothing by the most basic questioning. She wants to replace Rishi? Good luck with that!
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
Whereas for working age people with less disposable income than many pensioners having to find £157.50 is a piece of piss is it?
I think on the whole pensioners are more reliant on TV for their wellbeing than younger people.
It's really cute that @BluestBlue seems to have an emotional cultural bond with the word "blacklist". Really demonstrates that they should probably get out more, or get a hobby.
It's just as bad as those who seem to have an obsession with Rachel Riley or JK Rowling. They need to get out more and get a grip.
Your way of 'arguing' is incredibly dense - what I have an emotional bond with is the principle that ordinary linguistic usages should not be effaced simply to pander to the offense-seeking of woke idiots. I know that you prefer mindless compliance with whatever the last person told you to say or not to say, but not everyone embraces unthinking orthodoxy with such gusto, I'm afraid.
As I've previously stated, I don't really care. I'll use whitelist, or blacklist, or allowlist, or blocklist. I don't care because it doesn't matter.
It really seems to matter to you though and you should probably have a think why.
I just explained why it matters. There's an entire global movement busy effacing or censoring monuments and cancelling historical figures on solipsistic grounds. Now they're moving effortlessly on to the heart of culture: language, books, art, authors, academics, public figures, films etc. I think they should be resisted, others will just lie down in front of their cultural steamroller for the sake of a quiet life. Your choice; others will make their own.
If you actually paid attention to what I write instead of dismissing it all as "woke nonsense" you would know that I have continuously opposed the removal of monuments and the "cancelling" of historical figures.
Then you should appreciate that all these activities do not exist in isolation from one another, but are all part of a continuous spectrum, with the same ideology motivating them all. I entirely agree that the fate of one word or one statue is unimportant and can always be justified in one way or another - the point is that it's an incremental, salami-slicing technique to get people used to much more pervasive changes because 'Well, we got rid of those words and no one cared, so why should they care when we do X Y Z...'
If you believe this - which imo is florid in the extreme but let's go with it - you have no choice but to leap upon every single change of a word, to a street name, to a habit or custom, and fight it. Fight it with everything you've got until you are completely spent. You may lose, you probably will, but you will at least be able in 40 50 years time, with the woke world established all around you, to point at it and tell your grandkids, "See all this shit? Nothing to do with me. I took a rebel stand. Ask your dad."
It will be my greatest pleasure to be able to say so
You'll be a right old pain in the pipe, rabbiting on about when you could chew tobacco and call a spade a spade.
The literal refusal to call a spade a spade actually goes back to Tacitus, who refers to those things 'per quae egeritur humus aut exciditur caespes' ('by means of which soil is dug out or turf is cut away').
Things were bad enough by the Silver Latin period. There's no need to let the rot spread any further...
You know some surprising things, I'll give you that.
But look, perhaps you would like to sign up with your fellow r/w culture warrior, Laurence "Lozza" Fox. He is "creating music and writing to challenge the narrative".
3 levels to choose from. "Fox Club" at £5 pm. "Sly Like a Fox" at £20 pm. Or really push the boat out and go £100 pm for "Top Fox".
I'm being serious. This is what you're hanging with.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
You are right. It is a graduate tax - almost totally. You can buy out of the tax by settling early - which is unusual for a tax. Other than that, it is a tax.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
Thank you. Someone who actually understands the system.
Its seems the disease has followed almost exactly the path predicted for it by Professor Gupta and the Oxford team. Predictions that were widely mocked and scorned when I first mentioned them on here weeks ago.
Recently Professor Gupta commented that lockdown and social distancing risk weakening our immune systems because we are not coming into contact with bugs and germs in the normal way.
I suggest we listen for a change.
What?
I don't intend to be mean, but are you perhaps posting from an alternate timeline?
The cornerstone of Gupta's argument was that the actual IFR of covid was about 1 in 10,000. At the absolute most, 1 in 1,000. And we should therefore abandon social distancing as unnecessary.
1 in 10,000 means that the maximum death toll in England for covid, if literally everyone in England was infected and with no hint of herd immunity and including all the shielders who've been assiduously practicing the most strenuous restrictions - would be just over 5,000. We blew past that in English hospitals alone in just one week at the peak of the infection.
Even 1 in 1,000 gives us just over 50,000 dead. That would mean that literally everyone has had it, remember, and had it a while back. You've had it. I've had it. My shielding 79-year-old Mum has had it. People locked up on their own since the start with no-one coming in have had it. And still the death toll has gone past that.
It would mean that, with social distancing, the infection rate would have dropped to literally zero quite a while ago. Because we all had already had it by the time the excess death toll in England had passed 50,000. No, actually, we'd all have been infected by three weeks before that point.
That's following Gupta's begrudging absolute top rate for IFR, as well. Remember, it's more likely that we'd all had it when the death toll in England passed 5,000.
So while I'd love for that to be true, allow me to take it with a mountain of salt. Except maybe in an alternate timeline where this was true, which would indeed lead to people being flummoxed at the restrictions being taken, I suppose.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
But that's false. As in its completely untrue. The UK has grown faster than France, Japan and Italy all in the G7. Only the US, Canada and Germany have grown faster and our growth is closer to Canada, Germany and the US than it is Italy or France.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
There is a reason. Electricians are trained via apprenticeships.
Do you have one good reason why people should pay tens of thousands of pounds in fees to be taught how to be an electrician, rather than get an apprenticeship where they are taught how to be an electrician and are paid while they learn on the job?
You are still required to attend a higher educational establishment as part of an apprenticeship. The "fees" element is a completely different conversation.
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
An apprentice who attends a higher educational establishment attends the establishment part time and is paid to attend it.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
Why is university the wrong word? I want to remove all element of snobbery from universities.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Higher Education and Further Education are not the same thing.
Technical skills learnt via an apprenticeship are not Higher Education.
I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be the same thing, other than to separate "white collar" and "blue collar" for no reason at all.
They shouldn't be the same thing as they're not the same thing.
Its not about separating them either and there's nothing to be looked down upon with good apprenticeships.
You don't make apprenticeships for becoming an electrician better by embarrassingly trying to pretend they're university rather than calling them what it is. That kind of attitude only exists if you look down on apprenticeships rather than holding them up as a good thing in their own right.
But what do you think is "university"? What is the difference between training for years to become an electrician that requires equal amounts of study and practical work, and say training to become a speech therapist, that also requires equal amounts of study and practical work?
You are right. It is a graduate tax - almost totally. You can buy out of the tax by settling early - which is unusual for a tax. Other than that, it is a tax.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
Weird decision by the government to tax me less than my lower-earning peers.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
Yes but working until near 7O as a bricklayer is a tough call. I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police. Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
You would assume that anyone training as a bricklayer would have ambitions to progress in the building industry and even start his/her own business. You do not have to be a bricklayer until 70
My father did just that. However I can assure you many a bricklayer I knew ,were not able or had the inclination to run their own construction firm. To retire currently at 68 is to high for manual work. So many leave the industry for other occupations.
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
In that Andrew Neil interview she ranted on about the UK having the lowest growth rate in the G7 since the financial crisis.
She's useless. She can get away with such ravings surrounded by Corbynistas but Andrew Neil is never going to let her get away with that.
Doesn't inspire with confidence that Starmer is changing the Labour Party. Getting rid of antisemitism which is good, credit to him for that, but still the same denial of reality extreme nonsense elsewhere it seems.
It was a very odd appointment. There are a number of Labour MPs who would immediately be able to do a decent job as Shadow Chancellor. You'd have thought it would be the one role where Starmer wouldn't want to take a risk on an inexperienced person.
It makes him look good in comparison, look at how Boris is struggling against Sunak. Maybe Starmer didn't want to create a second power base in the party and chose someone useless to prevent that from happening.
Its seems the disease has followed almost exactly the path predicted for it by Professor Gupta and the Oxford team. Predictions that were widely mocked and scorned when I first mentioned them on here weeks ago.
Recently Professor Gupta commented that lockdown and social distancing risk weakening our immune systems because we are not coming into contact with bugs and germs in the normal way.
I suggest we listen for a change.
What?
I don't intend to be mean, but are you perhaps posting from an alternate timeline?
The cornerstone of Gupta's argument was that the actual IFR of covid was about 1 in 10,000. At the absolute most, 1 in 1,000. And we should therefore abandon social distancing as unnecessary.
1 in 10,000 means that the maximum death toll in England for covid, if literally everyone in England was infected and with no hint of herd immunity and including all the shielders who've been assiduously practicing the most strenuous restrictions - would be just over 5,000. We blew past that in English hospitals alone in just one week at the peak of the infection.
Even 1 in 1,000 gives us just over 50,000 dead. That would mean that literally everyone has had it, remember, and had it a while back. You've had it. I've had it. My shielding 79-year-old Mum has had it. People locked up on their own since the start with no-one coming in have had it. And still the death toll has gone past that.
It would mean that, with social distancing, the infection rate would have dropped to literally zero quite a while ago. Because we all had already had it by the time the excess death toll in England had passed 50,000. No, actually, we'd all have been infected by three weeks before that point.
That's following Gupta's begrudging absolute top rate for IFR, as well. Remember, it's more likely that we'd all had it when the death toll in England passed 5,000.
So while I'd love for that to be true, allow me to take it with a mountain of salt. Except maybe in an alternate timeline where this was true, which would indeed lead to people being flummoxed at the restrictions being taken, I suppose.
The more interesting possibility arising from her work (and others) is that there might be significant population levels of pre-existing immunity (or at least worthwhile resistance) arising from previous exposure to other coronaviruses. That remains a possibility and would certainly help explain some of the data patterns (while having no impact on Covid IFR)
Hmm - that is abysmal. After all, she was the one making the bonkers claim about the comparison with the G7. Even as a complete newbie she should have known it was bonkers, or if she didn't know, she shouldn't have said what she did. This is pretty basic stuff.
What's she said this time?
It's actually an old clip, I hadn't realised that. Pre her appointment as SCoftE by wise Sir Keir
The funniest thing about that clip is that the other panel members go white when she's being put through the ringer by Neil because they are obviously thinking "me next!"
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
Whereas for working age people with less disposable income than many pensioners having to find £157.50 is a piece of piss is it?
I think on the whole pensioners are more reliant on TV for their wellbeing than younger people.
So for instance a young single mother with young children struggling to make ends meet should be forced to pay £157.50 if her children want to watch cartoons even if not on the BBC
But wealthy pensioners who own their own home, have a great pension and have little expenditure . . . they should get it for free?
"People working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be given the opportunity to relocate to the Caribbean under a proposal from the Barbados government.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is considering introducing a "Barbados Welcome Stamp" which would allow international arrivals to live on the island while working remotely for up to a year."
I saw this a few days ago - most digital nomads head for lower cost destinations not higher costs ones.
Given that the last lunch I eat in Barbados was £40 for 2 with a single beer I wouldn't be rushing there to work - the last evening meal we eat there (although granted it was in Holetown) was over £120 with a single bottle of wine.
That'll be in the tourist traps.
I would imagine that if you are living there properly, there's cheaper and better.
The lunch wasn't - it was a random choice based as we drove around the island. If you've been to Barbados or elsewhere in the Caribbean you will know how expensive it is, if you haven't you are going to be in for a surprise...
On St Liucia the prices can drop 50% in 50 metres, in some places.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
My late father was a lecturer in Building Studies. Specifically bricklaying. Your idea would posthumously promote him to professor. The FE sector has been brutally decimated in the era of full employment. Staff on ZHC. Fees through the roof. Colleges closing. No one left with the skills to train the soon to be unemployed. Needs fixing asap.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
That's perhaps a misconception of the word vocation then.
What's your definition? A vocation is merely a trade of profession. I know you mean "practical" or "blue collar" but I see why no reason why these should be handled under separate institutions.
All blue collar professions are getting more technical anyway as technology improves, and require just as much skill and dedication as "white collar" professions. Why shouldn't those who train in such professions earn a degree, albeit through practical work as part of a university?
Why are "degree" and "university" such dirty words?
When someone says "vocational" qualification, I take that to mean formal training in something like plumbing or as an electrician. I don't take that to mean training as a theoretical physicist.
Nothing dirty with the word. I don't see why you can't have separate words to describe academic work, and technical work.
But the LPC is a vocational course exactly as you describe. It isn't a course to study the law, it is a course to learn how to be a solicitor. It's exactly the same as learning to be a bricklayer, or as an electrician, or a plumber.
My brother-in-law did a third-level, university degree equivalent, course in welding in Ireland.
I know nothing more about it, except that he is gainfully employed, using his skills, and could afford to have a house built.
We could probably learn a lot from Ireland in terms of education.
You are right. It is a graduate tax - almost totally. You can buy out of the tax by settling early - which is unusual for a tax. Other than that, it is a tax.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
Weird decision by the government to tax me less than my lower-earning peers.
I`m not sure what you mean.
Basic rate tax rate 20% (29% if you are liable for the graduate tax (student loan if you like) but only on income over £26,500 pa (I think)) Higher rate tax rate 40% (49% if you are liable for the graduate tax (studentloan if you like)) Etc
You are right. It is a graduate tax - almost totally. You can buy out of the tax by settling early - which is unusual for a tax. Other than that, it is a tax.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
Weird decision by the government to tax me less than my lower-earning peers.
I`m not sure what you mean.
Basic rate tax rate 20% (29% if you are liable for the graduate tax (student loan if you like) but only on income over £26,500 pa (I think)) Higher rate tax rate 40% (49% if you are liable for the graduate tax (studentloan if you like)) Etc
Yes, overall my income tax is lower, but the amount I pay for my student fees is lower because I'll pay it off sooner and therefore incur less interest.
I'd like to think I have a better chance than most people of recognising Cabinet Members, even if I might not get their names, but next to the headline of 'Minister to signal further lockdown easing' I had not the slightest wiff of recognition of Oliver Dowden, or at his name.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
Whereas for working age people with less disposable income than many pensioners having to find £157.50 is a piece of piss is it?
I think on the whole pensioners are more reliant on TV for their wellbeing than younger people.
So for instance a young single mother with young children struggling to make ends meet should be forced to pay £157.50 if her children want to watch cartoons even if not on the BBC
But wealthy pensioners who own their own home, have a great pension and have little expenditure . . . they should get it for free?
How is that logical?
Not just cartoons, BBC bitesize an important educational tool without schools open.
I don't agree ditching the 50% target. A "university" is just a name for a higher educational establishment. There's no reason why "Steve" cannot go to to university to do bricklaying, or to train to be an electrician.
But the preconception is university is academic, not vocational. I don't think there are degrees in bricklaying.
But why isn't there? Why shouldn't bricklaying be held in the same regard as other vocations?
I'm going to be studying the LPC at university in September and that's essentially a vocational qualification.
Teenagers who want to be bricklayers (good for them, they'll always have work), won't want to be saddled with debt.
There's plenty of space for thick kids from well off families happy that their child is doing Media Studies at what used to be a polytechnic. Working class kids have a much better understanding of debt and value
It's not debt. It's a tax.
I thought they were called student loans
It doesn't matter what they are called.
Oh really? I see you're somebody that's prepared to talk bollox in discussion.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
I bet you too old to actually have to participate in the system, and thus you have no idea what you're talking about.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Whatever mate, convince yourself what you like. The fact you're wrong is neither here nor there.
I'm not wrong. It's you that is wrong. Stop pretending you know what you're talking about, when you don't.
Haha! Always good to know when you stumble across a dope
You're contributing nothing to this discussion, you know that?
I think it might be early closing on Thursday at Clown College. There are a few about this afternoon.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
I think you are over egging it. £13 per month.
Yet Netflix is only £5.99 a month.
The BBC is disgracefully incompetent and expensive and the licence fee should be abolished.
It's really cute that @BluestBlue seems to have an emotional cultural bond with the word "blacklist". Really demonstrates that they should probably get out more, or get a hobby.
It's just as bad as those who seem to have an obsession with Rachel Riley or JK Rowling. They need to get out more and get a grip.
My only problem with the words blacklist / whitelist is finding replacements that don't cause bigger issues during development.
allowlist and denylist seem reasonable, if a bit awkward.
Some companies already use safelist/blocklist. I'm really not sure it makes much of a difference.
There's plenty of combinations. I like allowlist/blocklist.
Really there's no reason not to change this at all. Its just simple decency this one.
How would you phrase the legal instrument and what would be the penalties for disobeying?
What legal instrument?
Common decency doesn't require a legal instrument.
No indeed but one man's common decency....
The discussion, perfectly summed up by @MaxPB, is facile.
Don't use the words fine. But you are banging on about (society, presumably) changing. Unless all you are doing is posturing, or you advocate some sanction, it is indeed facile for you to tell everyone how they should be talking.
I don't believe in sanction no. I don't believe sanction is necessary. Why would there need to be sanction?
Society can change through people's actions it doesn't need government sanctions to evolve change.
So you are seeking to influence others' use of language because of your particular belief of what constitutes decency. Not 1/100% sure exactly how libertarian that is.
Free people making free arguments using free speech without government sanction . . . how is that not libertarian?
It is the effective but informal repression via sackings, disciplinary hearings and boycotts that are the biggest problem.
The impression is sometimes given that loads of people are losing their livelihood due to slips of the tongue, or to simply speaking or joking around in non PC fashion, but this is simply not the case. The "problem" is wildly exaggerated by reactionary bad actors in order to whip up the backlash and to win votes in elections from the exploited and bamboozled ignorami.
I think this is sometimes the case, but very much not always. The recent case of the averagely immature, young-ish scientist who was recently sacked by twitter for having a pattern with naked women on his shirt during a press conference comes to mind.
You mean the 2014 case of Matt Taylor who still works for the European Space Agency? Ok!
It's good that he still works for them, but that was an example of the misdirected and sometimes quite extreme censoriousness that Chomsky and others were talking about yesterday.
It's most recently exaggerated by the actions of corporations firing employees after twitter trends, and there's a link between the most stridently expressed identity politics and ultra-individualised capitalism.
As I said yesterday if its disproportionate of course it is wrong and should be stopped. No-one really came up with concrete cases where this was the case. Its all anecdotes that are incomplete or incorrect, as your "recent" "sacking" shows when its from 2014 and he wasnt sacked.
Do people get rubbish and unwarranted abuse on twitter for this? Absolutely.
Do a significant number lose their jobs disproportionately? Not seen any evidence of that at all.
There's two processes at work - a sometimes excessive social-media driven censoriousness, which has for some people definitely affected careers and quietened others, and a reactionary parody of this which is extremely useful for the radical Brexiters and Trumpists of this world, and are like the opening act of their own extremism. They are the two sides of our current extreme identity politics.
The paragraph that Chomsky, Rushdie and others put their name to yesterday is fairly accurate, I think.
"But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes."
1 Editors are fired for running controversial pieces - always happened, any recent examples to discuss? 2 journalists are barred from writing on certain topics - its never been easier for journalists to write about what they really want and publicise it. 3 professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class - investigated for what? was there any disproportionate action taken? 4 a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study - peer review is not always a particularly robust process, if I was in charge of an academic department that wouldnt be a sufficient defence for promoting a study if it was weak, incorrect or misleading. 5 the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes - always happened, any recent examples to discuss?
If these issues are as widespread as believed there should be a dozen well known answers to 1 & 5. During McCarthyism people could have given a dozen examples easily of people impacted - can it be done today? I dont know but I doubt it.
Most of the disproportionate actions taken against them are simply other people on twitter not liking them or speaking unfairly about them, nothing to do with their jobs or preventing academia or journalism functioning.
I don't really agree here. I think we're living in an age where not only can social media make or break people's careers, but can exercise enormous control on what is and what is not acceptable for debate.
I think a number of different things have happened simultaneously over the last ten years that mean that this issue can't simply be dismissed as the "PC gorn mad" tabloid caricatures of yesteryear, about Christmas being cancelled by Labour councils.
A vast expansion in the influence of social media, and a powerful herd mentality among identitarians left and right online ; natural corporate receptiveness to this extreme politics of personal identity ; and a totalising identity narrative from campuses which has gradually grown since the turn of the century, the mirror image of white nativism and anti-elite conservative populism in our identity age.
So the BBC are going ahead and charging pensioners over 75 £157.50 to eatch their output irrespective of whether they do
It will take 11,111 pensioners payments just to pay Gary Lineker alone
It is just wrong
Its very wrong Gary Lineker is paid so much for so little work. Why is it wrong to charge pensioners the same fee as everyone else?
Pensioners over 75 have enjoyed free tv licences for the last 20 years and to many the sudden shock of finding £157.50 will cause distress and even financial hardship
I think you are over egging it. £13 per month.
I also love the argument 'We've had this for free for a long time, so no longer getting it for free is wrong!'
Comments
I worked in the building trade after leaving school, but once the recession hit in the early 80s decided to join the Police.
Working in construction is a fit healthy young man's game.
https://twitter.com/MahyarTousi/status/1281167398763143169?s=20
I'm arguing that there's no reason why we can't have world leading "universities" in technical vocations, as part of apprenticeships. In fact some of the ex-polys are in the perfect place to do just that.
What's special about pensioners here? The licence fee is wrong regardless of who is charged.
I'd scrap the whole thing and let them all find their true worth
I think there's a quid pro quo in place, if England's tour to India is postponed then England will go to the West Indies instead.
What I can't comprehend is the right-wingers who think that polluting rivers, exploiting workers, harming consumers, stripping assets, stifling competition, bribing politicians, engaging in the odd coup, etc., are all good because they're part of the rough-and-tumble of business, but that a company protecting its bottom line by firing somebody for saying the n-word is beyond the pale.
A student who attends a further educational establishment pays the establishment for going.
We don't need "universities" in technical vocations. University is the wrong word.
"University" can mean higher educational establishment. It doesn't matter if some courses are paid for using student loans and others are paid for in a different way.
The way to equalise higher education is to recognise that trades taught using apprenticeships are just as valuable as what is taught at universities. You've spent all day arguing that language is important - this is a prime example.
Which is that on a rational analysis that is the rational decision to take: close flights to destinations with a higher incidence then your nation.
It's the Welsh Gmt who are being irrational - lower incidence than Spain, remember.
Given that the last lunch I eat in Barbados was £40 for 2 with a single beer I wouldn't be rushing there to work - the last evening meal we eat there (although granted it was in Holetown) was over £120 with a single bottle of wine.
People take out loans to pay for a degree course which they pay back at a later date, to call that a tax is wrong, pure and simple
It was The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rishi-sunak-conservative-crush-vogue-white-women-flora-e-gill-a9456036.html
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/17872737.looking-back-anneliese-dodds-mps-oxford-student-activism/
Why would people abandon getting paid to do an apprenticeship to learn a skill and instead opt for years of university leading to lifelong higher tax rates for the same earnings?
I would imagine that if you are living there properly, there's cheaper and better.
I actually have student loans, and am about to get another one.
They are a tax in the sense you only pay them back if you are earning, and earning over a certain amount at that.
They are not like an other loan because if you stop working, you stop paying. You never have to worry about paying the debt because its automatic.
If it smells like a tax, and tastes like a tax then its a tax.
Personally I really liked the idea (hopefully still happening) of a Manchester Institute of Technology, and hopefully other institutes of technology would follow. Qualifications would have a shorter period of study than uni but with workplace placements.
Technical skills learnt via an apprenticeship are not Higher Education.
As I keep saying, the LPC, what I am studying in September, is a practical, 1 year course that is not based on lectures and seminars. It's taught at a university.
Doesn't inspire with confidence that Starmer is changing the Labour Party. Getting rid of antisemitism which is good, credit to him for that, but still the same denial of reality extreme nonsense elsewhere it seems.
Although the situations are not directly comparable, and if this is truly unfair I am sure I will get it in the neck for saying this, but it puts me in mind of hte WASPI women - 'we don't like it therefore it is wrong and unfair'.
I believe everyone should have opportunities to improve themselves via education. That said, the quality of instruction was very poor when was at what is now a Russell Group University some 35 years ago. From what I have seen of the support my son's receive for their £9250 per year it isn't much better now. That said I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything.
- It's a tax applied based on which age cohort you belong two
- It's a regressive tax above a certain income level
My favourite part is where the writer completely dimisses the idea someone might legitimately think Starmer is more attractive (him being 'very average') than Sunark. Now, whether one agrees with him being more attractive or not, it's amusing that someone doing so is treated as 'revealing'.
But it's certainly not a "loan" in the normal sense of the word.
https://twitter.com/MattGarrahan/status/1281238937357422593?s=20
That was excruciating to listen to
The rogue apostrophe on sons was a correction by my phone. Do Chinese phone programmers not attend English punctuation courses? Evidently not.
It was very badly presented - as a loan when it isn`t - I see that now they have stopped sending annual statements out with a big "debt" showing. Good. The debt is irrelevant and if you pay it off early you need your head examined.
Its not about separating them either and there's nothing to be looked down upon with good apprenticeships.
You don't make apprenticeships for becoming an electrician better by embarrassingly trying to pretend they're university rather than calling them what it is. That kind of attitude only exists if you look down on apprenticeships rather than holding them up as a good thing in their own right.
But look, perhaps you would like to sign up with your fellow r/w culture warrior, Laurence "Lozza" Fox. He is "creating music and writing to challenge the narrative".
3 levels to choose from. "Fox Club" at £5 pm. "Sly Like a Fox" at £20 pm. Or really push the boat out and go £100 pm for "Top Fox".
I'm being serious. This is what you're hanging with.
https://www.patreon.com/Lozzafox
I don't intend to be mean, but are you perhaps posting from an alternate timeline?
The cornerstone of Gupta's argument was that the actual IFR of covid was about 1 in 10,000. At the absolute most, 1 in 1,000. And we should therefore abandon social distancing as unnecessary.
1 in 10,000 means that the maximum death toll in England for covid, if literally everyone in England was infected and with no hint of herd immunity and including all the shielders who've been assiduously practicing the most strenuous restrictions - would be just over 5,000. We blew past that in English hospitals alone in just one week at the peak of the infection.
Even 1 in 1,000 gives us just over 50,000 dead. That would mean that literally everyone has had it, remember, and had it a while back. You've had it. I've had it. My shielding 79-year-old Mum has had it. People locked up on their own since the start with no-one coming in have had it. And still the death toll has gone past that.
It would mean that, with social distancing, the infection rate would have dropped to literally zero quite a while ago. Because we all had already had it by the time the excess death toll in England had passed 50,000. No, actually, we'd all have been infected by three weeks before that point.
That's following Gupta's begrudging absolute top rate for IFR, as well. Remember, it's more likely that we'd all had it when the death toll in England passed 5,000.
So while I'd love for that to be true, allow me to take it with a mountain of salt. Except maybe in an alternate timeline where this was true, which would indeed lead to people being flummoxed at the restrictions being taken, I suppose.
I hope that there will be money for technical education, but I have my doubts.
However I can assure you many a bricklayer I knew ,were not able or had the inclination to run their own construction firm.
To retire currently at 68 is to high for manual work.
So many leave the industry for other occupations.
But wealthy pensioners who own their own home, have a great pension and have little expenditure . . . they should get it for free?
How is that logical?
The FE sector has been brutally decimated in the era of full employment. Staff on ZHC. Fees through the roof. Colleges closing.
No one left with the skills to train the soon to be unemployed.
Needs fixing asap.
£13 per month.
I know nothing more about it, except that he is gainfully employed, using his skills, and could afford to have a house built.
We could probably learn a lot from Ireland in terms of education.
Basic rate tax rate 20% (29% if you are liable for the graduate tax (student loan if you like) but only on income over £26,500 pa (I think))
Higher rate tax rate 40% (49% if you are liable for the graduate tax (studentloan if you like))
Etc
The BBC is disgracefully incompetent and expensive and the licence fee should be abolished.
I think a number of different things have happened simultaneously over the last ten years that mean that this issue can't simply be dismissed as the "PC gorn mad" tabloid caricatures of yesteryear, about Christmas being cancelled by Labour councils.
A vast expansion in the influence of social media, and a powerful herd mentality among identitarians left and right online ; natural corporate receptiveness to this extreme politics of personal identity ; and a totalising identity narrative from campuses which has gradually grown since the turn of the century, the mirror image of white nativism and anti-elite conservative populism in our identity age.