Students at it again

[hoolahoop]

Answers to this tomorrow but like the cracks you've papered over. I won't do you justice i fear at this time in the morning.

[hoolahoop]

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

Since the Tories came to power this year, they have implemented the following policies which discriminate particularly against the poorer folk and areas in the country.

1) VAT increase.
2) Removal for EMAs from 6th form kids
3) Deeply skewed council funding
4) Massive increases in tuition fees

And that's just 4.

Now. Imagine if, within 6 months of coming to power, a far-left Labour Govt implemented the following (roughly equal) policies.

1) Increased top rate tax by 10%
2) Charged kids from upper middle class families £30 a week to go to 6th Form
3) Gave huge subsidies to Inner City councils and slashed the funding to the Shires.
4) Increased income tax by 3% to provide free University education to all kids from families earning less than £20k.

Can you begin to contemplate the explosion from the Tory press? Can you? And THAT is why (1945 apart) Labour have always been so timid when coming to power. The Tories are cheered from the rooftops when they wage Class War - Labour have to spend a decade or more making slow changes to try to change the balance of society.

In the first ten years in power, Labour increased Govt spending as a proportion of GDP by about 2%. By 2007, the Labour Govt was spending about the same proportion of national welath as John Major in 1996 and Harold MacMillan in 1960.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, they dragged us away from the vicious ideology of the 80s and 90s, reversing the damage done by rampant Thatcherism. This increase in public spending paid for an NHS improved beyond recognition, better schools, better railways and massively improved town centres across the country. And the Tories howled that it was irresponsible and profligate. (You argue the same Hoola, although I suspect you haven't looked at the numbers. So does Mr Frost, although he has but the most tenuous grasp on logic and facts, so we don't expect any better there - maybe he should have gone to University.)

Labour tiptoed.

The Tories, with support from your lot, are planning to reduce Govt spending by about 5% in the next 5 years. In other words they are going in their direction FIVE TIMES FASTER than Labour moved us leftwards. THAT is what I mean about the way in which the Tories implement their policies gung-ho. And they know that they can do so with barely a peep of complaint from the Press.

OK BST let's try to get to the bottom of this, are you saying to me that the last Labour Govt. wouldn't have looked at introducing an new VAT rate of 20% had they been elected ? I know I would have given it serious thought as a way of raising revenue in at least the short term whilst it affects all it affects those with higher incomes to a greater degree surely ? They spend more on high value luxury goods therefore would be affected more!
Tuition fees , yes I have had a look at the numbers and I can't possibly see how this is a major hike and please let's accept that they were introduced by the Labour Govt. in the first place. Ideally in a Utopian world the vast majority of folk would be prepared to pay for the lot if they could but they basically can't afford to subsidise education to that extent in our current situation. Would you suggest to a pensioner living on/near the poverty line that they should forego their annual increase for instance to subsidise the shortfall ?.........I wouldn't. I refer you to the comments made by bfyp earlier who has just left Uni and has done the calculations on this very point. The threshold has been raised for repayment and that therefore does not affect those leaving Colleges to anywhere near the same degree (sorry for that) as before. Those that are leaving and taking up lower paid jobs will not be immediately saddled with the debt, however I do accept that it is higher and still exists.
Those are my responses to points 1) & 4).

As for points 2) & 3), I can't possibly justify the mentality behind either of these actions and agree entirely with your assessment that they are NOT reasonable.

To address what the Labour Party could have done , I have no truck with many of your suggestions, however I don't think that a Labour Party with 3 terms under it's belt would have been terrified by the Tory Press......sorry I don't buy that. A 3% increase in direct taxation would have alienated even their own voters and we both know that. In fact they sought to do the very opposite i.e. reduce PAYE taxation to boost spending and support. Strange if it was so difficult then why not leave it alone completely ?

'Money to the Inner cities' , come on there is plenty of evidence out there that the Urban areas of our country did fairly well out of the last 12 years. It was in their (Labour) interests to do this after all that is where their core support lay. I would be interested to see if as you said spending in the major cities/towns of our country dropped or even remained steady during the last decade........evidence please ?

Finally if this Labour Party is as scared to implement the policies that you have advocated , could it just be possible that they aren't nearly as radical as you appear to be judging by your 'class war' comments et al ?

[BobG]

MrFrost wrote:

Talking the talk again I see Bob. Why don't you do something about it and act on your comments, rather than moaning about the Tories?

Interesting Frosty. Tell me, how do you know what I do, and do not do, in my political life? You'd be more than surprised. Once again we see the unthinking making free with his assumptions and prejudices. Not a single fact in sight. Not a single shred of evidence to back it up. And not a single element of truth either. You're a natural Tory Frosty. Unthinking, uncaring, unable and unwilling to distinguish fact from prejudice. Knowledge is wasted on those without the ability to see it - never mind use it.

Cheers chaps

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

hoolahoop wrote:

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

Since the Tories came to power this year, they have implemented the following policies which discriminate particularly against the poorer folk and areas in the country.

1) VAT increase.
2) Removal for EMAs from 6th form kids
3) Deeply skewed council funding
4) Massive increases in tuition fees

And that's just 4.

Now. Imagine if, within 6 months of coming to power, a far-left Labour Govt implemented the following (roughly equal) policies.

1) Increased top rate tax by 10%
2) Charged kids from upper middle class families £30 a week to go to 6th Form
3) Gave huge subsidies to Inner City councils and slashed the funding to the Shires.
4) Increased income tax by 3% to provide free University education to all kids from families earning less than £20k.

Can you begin to contemplate the explosion from the Tory press? Can you? And THAT is why (1945 apart) Labour have always been so timid when coming to power. The Tories are cheered from the rooftops when they wage Class War - Labour have to spend a decade or more making slow changes to try to change the balance of society.

In the first ten years in power, Labour increased Govt spending as a proportion of GDP by about 2%. By 2007, the Labour Govt was spending about the same proportion of national welath as John Major in 1996 and Harold MacMillan in 1960.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, they dragged us away from the vicious ideology of the 80s and 90s, reversing the damage done by rampant Thatcherism. This increase in public spending paid for an NHS improved beyond recognition, better schools, better railways and massively improved town centres across the country. And the Tories howled that it was irresponsible and profligate. (You argue the same Hoola, although I suspect you haven't looked at the numbers. So does Mr Frost, although he has but the most tenuous grasp on logic and facts, so we don't expect any better there - maybe he should have gone to University.)

Labour tiptoed.

The Tories, with support from your lot, are planning to reduce Govt spending by about 5% in the next 5 years. In other words they are going in their direction FIVE TIMES FASTER than Labour moved us leftwards. THAT is what I mean about the way in which the Tories implement their policies gung-ho. And they know that they can do so with barely a peep of complaint from the Press.

OK BST let's try to get to the bottom of this, are you saying to me that the last Labour Govt. wouldn't have looked at introducing an new VAT rate of 20% had they been elected ? I know I would have given it serious thought as a way of raising revenue in at least the short term whilst it affects all it affects those with higher incomes to a greater degree surely ? They spend more on high value luxury goods therefore would be affected more!
Tuition fees , yes I have had a look at the numbers and I can't possibly see how this is a major hike and please let's accept that they were introduced by the Labour Govt. in the first place. Ideally in a Utopian world the vast majority of folk would be prepared to pay for the lot if they could but they basically can't afford to subsidise education to that extent in our current situation. Would you suggest to a pensioner living on/near the poverty line that they should forego their annual increase for instance to subsidise the shortfall ?.........I wouldn't. I refer you to the comments made by bfyp earlier who has just left Uni and has done the calculations on this very point. The threshold has been raised for repayment and that therefore does not affect those leaving Colleges to anywhere near the same degree (sorry for that) as before. Those that are leaving and taking up lower paid jobs will not be immediately saddled with the debt, however I do accept that it is higher and still exists.
Those are my responses to points 1) & 4).

As for points 2) & 3), I can't possibly justify the mentality behind either of these actions and agree entirely with your assessment that they are NOT reasonable.

To address what the Labour Party could have done , I have no truck with many of your suggestions, however I don't think that a Labour Party with 3 terms under it's belt would have been terrified by the Tory Press......sorry I don't buy that. A 3% increase in direct taxation would have alienated even their own voters and we both know that. In fact they sought to do the very opposite i.e. reduce PAYE taxation to boost spending and support. Strange if it was so difficult then why not leave it alone completely ?

'Money to the Inner cities' , come on there is plenty of evidence out there that the Urban areas of our country did fairly well out of the last 12 years. It was in their (Labour) interests to do this after all that is where their core support lay. I would be interested to see if as you said spending in the major cities/towns of our country dropped or even remained steady during the last decade........evidence please ?

Finally if this Labour Party is as scared to implement the policies that you have advocated , could it just be possible that they aren't nearly as radical as you appear to be judging by your 'class war' comments et al ?

Not bad Hoola, but not quite good enough.

1) VAT is THE most regressive tax there is. It has been established beyond all doubt that it disproportionately hits the poorest. Yes, the richer pay more VAT as an absolute value. But as a PROPORTION of their income (which is all that matters), the very poorest pay the highest amount of VAT. That is because VAT is charged as a flat rate on the things that we all consume. The poorest paid person pays EXACTLY the same VAT per litre of petrol as the billionaire. The poorest pays EXACTLY the same VAT on the same train tickets, shoes, sandwiches from Greggs, bus fares etc. So, since the poorest spend MOST of their money on these things, they pay VAT on MOST things that they buy.

The richest, by contrast, pay not one penny VAT on their biggest expensitures. Houses. Public School fees. Shares.

Income Tax by contrast, hits people in direct proportion to their income.

Why do you think that the Tory Party introduced VAT and subsequently raised it every time they had a need to squeeze large amounts of tax revenue quickly? Because it disproportionately hits the people who they don't give a shit about. The Labour Party by contrast, has raised VAT only once in 40 years (in the mid-70s crisis - and Thatcher quickly trebled that increase) and took reducing VAT as a key weapon in addressing the massive recession. Because it puts money back into ordinary people's pockets. Cameron and Osbourne howled with rage when they did that back in 2008.

2) You don't think increasing tuition fees threefold overnight isn't a major hike? Can I get you to foot the bill next time I go out on the piss if that is your maths?

3) On the other points, you make my point for me. I said that Labour, when they changed things at all, changed them slowly, measuredly and with a certain amount of timidity. You agree that \"over 12 years\" inner cities did OK by Labour. Your lot are reversing that in 6 months! That is the whole point I was making! The Tories wage unalloyed Class War the moment they get in power. Every fcuking time.

EDIT: PS: 35,000 public Sector jobs gone in today's figures. Not a single, solitary extra Private Sector job created. So much for Gideon's grasp of macro-eco-fcuking-nomics eh? Some of us have been screaming from the rooftops that manically cutting public sector finances in the current climate was madness. It's been fcuking obvious since Keynes wrote his General Theory, but no t**t in the Cabinet will have read that because it's heresy to the Thatcherites.

Interesting times ahead.

[donnyproletarian]

VikingJames wrote:

MrFrost wrote:

VikingJames wrote:

Maybe because the current generation are being made to pay silly prices by a load of people who went to Uni for nowt.

Spot on

I'm fairly lucky (providing I get in) in the sense that I'm applying for Uni now for 2011 entry, but the poor buggers in the year below me will be racking up even bigger debts. If they've got the ability, everyone should get a fair crack of the whip, no matter how wealthy they are. If the government want to cut University places, fine, make entry requirements higher so that all the riff-raff doing useless degrees don't get in, and make sure that the people who deserve to study at University can do so.

It was a Labour government who introduced fees in the first place.

I may be wrong, but aren't the Government just lifting the cap on tuition fees? The fees will be set by the uni's themselves?

I agree regarding the \"riff-raff\". Many people attend uni for the sake of getting pissed up and shagging about. I didn't bother with uni, I know alot who did. 95% of them haven't got a job off the back of their degree, and probably half of them are working in call centres at the age of 30.

Going to uni is seen as the fashionable and in thing to do. In alot of cases, it has sod all to do with education.

I'm not talking Labour v Conservative. Leave that to all the other smartarses on here who are more clued up politically than I am.

And yeah, they are just lifting the cap on the fees, but I think most Uni's charge the maximum they can now, so when the cap is lifted, its unlikely that they're going to keep the fees down, especially when government funding is being withdrawn.

And you are right about the last part, there ARE too many idiots going to Uni who put no effort into their A levels, just go to Uni for the sake of it and come out with a mickey mouse degree. A rise in tuition fees may well put many of these people off from going, but it also has the potential of putting off deserving people who have the ability, but are affected by the financial side. Getting a degree is becoming more about whose got rich parents who can soften the financial blow, to make it worth their sons/daughters going to Uni, rather than who deserves to be there on merit. The sad thing is, a lot of talented people will probably not bother going because it just won't be worth it financially, and therefore they might never fill their potential; and surely that'll be bad for the economy? Skilled people who COULD get the top jobs missing out as they couldn't go to Uni.

EDIT - Another point is, it seems that the genuine student protestors who know what they're talking about were the ones demonstrating peacefully. Sadly the idiots who were just there for a punch-up and a bit of mindless destruction seem to be the ones who turned it violent.

[donnyproletarian]

The choice for working cless kids in the future will be
1 Go to college maybe get a job get in debt
2 Stay on dole get in debt
3 Get a job if lucky on minimam wage get in debt
4 Turn to crime not get in debt but be prepared to do some time
5 play for the rovers do alright