At least the Lib-Dems have 2 mp`s with principles!

[CusworthRovers]

The money is not paid up front as in I need 36k (for example) now to go to Uni....however it is still 36k that will have to be paid back (isn't that with interest too). Effectively you will need to find 36k at some stage to pay back to the government. I cannot think of a worse scenario than any young kid fresh out of education and ready for the big bad world who is instantly saddled with a massive massive debt. The very fact that you will have to pay a considerable amount back over a period of time is off-putting enough. In all honesty I don't want my kids to start out their adult life with that noose around their necks, yet I cannot afford to pay for it.

My belief is that education should be free per se. That way all kids of any background get the same chance. Is that not a just society?. How will we pay for that I hear you cry?; then tax either everyone or the wealthy.

The helping of the kids who come from parents with a less than 21k salary. Again, how many will actually qualify for that out of the millions and millions? And then how many kids from that type of background will actually be geared towards University education from the up-bringing they have had?

Same old same old, it's the masses who are being punished in every aspect of government legislation ie mums and dads both work or dad earns a decent screw so mum doesn't have to work. That's the mass in our society and they are being hit constantly, they are the easy pickings....and this isn't political party specific either, as both the tories and labour do it constantly. It's time we either hit the chuffin rich very hard and take back our industries into public control or hit the spongers very hard or both. Stop hitting the easy pickings and focus on the real root problem of this country

[BobG]

if I'd been there I'd have been in there throwing the Molotov cocktails. But I wasn't - though I did walk down Victoria Street mid morning. And you know what was scaring to me? Not the people arriving for the demo. They were out for a laugh, a demo and to make a point. No. The scary thing was to see the vast - and I do mean fcuking VAST - hordes of tooled up, face hidden, baton wielding plod. A lot of you will know that it is my belief that the policing we employ is the cause of a pretty significant amount of the troubles we experience. You can see it, any week you like, at and around football grounds. I stood and watched, appalled, the police in action during the miners strike. I am being serious about this: the plod were actively and continuously provoking trouble. I saw 'em do it. At Rosso pit for one. At Markham Main for another (and that was downright criminal that was). I could give chapter and verse, but I won't here. Those coppers down Victoria Street yesterday were doing exactly the same thing. And why might they do that, I hear you ask? For two reasons: one, the majority of plod are not intelligent beings. They enjoy a scrum. You ever talked to plods about the highlights of their life? Try it. And two? Two, because when they succeed in provoking an incident, a riot, they, and the smug gits behind them can point to it and say it's all the fault of the students/miners/steel workers etc etc etc. It provides the justification for ever more overt, bullying and heavy handed policing. And that entrenches the establishment ever more strongly.

Agendas run deep. Far, far, far deeper than 95% of people in this country ever realise. There is rarely, rarely ever an action without a reason somewhere behind it. Yes. That applies to both sides in most disputes of course. But for goodness sake don't ever think that the establishment is innocent. It is not. I'll have to dig out some ISBN's for you all to have a look at won't I?

BobG

[BobG]

Double post. Sorry.

BobG

[Filo]

BobG wrote:

I stood and watched, appalled, the police in action during the miners strike. I am being serious about this: the plod were actively and continuously provoking trouble. I saw 'em do it. At Rosso pit for one. At Markham Main for another (and that was downright criminal that was).

In both incidents, the students and the miners were battoned by the same force, the Met, and like you say Bob, they are itching for it to kick off every time, also in both instances it was the Tories in government, but yet you see the PM on the news condemning violence, they are hypocrites and are terrified of the masses, the only way they know is to beat the living daylights out of em, we saw it with Thatcher (spit) and now we`re seeing it with Cameron!

[BobG]

Aye, mate. And it goes back a hundred years and more now. As Billy has said on several occasions, it was Churchill himself, as Tory Home Secretary, who ordered the army in to sort out those rascals in South Wales who'd been locked out of their pits in 1910. Tonypandy it's called.

BobG

[MrFrost]

What a load of crap Bob. So you are blaming all the violence on the police then? Dear me.
The cause of the problem is the mindless idiots who are hell bent on causing damage and destruction. Just remember which party introduced tuition fees. These riots are nothing more than an anti coalition bandwagon and the real message has been long lost.

[Barmby Rover]

Filo wrote:

BobG wrote:

I stood and watched, appalled, the police in action during the miners strike. I am being serious about this: the plod were actively and continuously provoking trouble. I saw 'em do it. At Rosso pit for one. At Markham Main for another (and that was downright criminal that was).

In both incidents, the students and the miners were battoned by the same force, the Met, and like you say Bob, they are itching for it to kick off every time, also in both instances it was the Tories in government, but yet you see the PM on the news condemning violence, they are hypocrites and are terrified of the masses, the only way they know is to beat the living daylights out of em, we saw it with Thatcher (spit) and now we`re seeing it with Cameron!

Too young to remember the SPG then? By the way, an awful lot of the \"policemen\" at the miners demos were army, and some of them special forces, I have since met lads from the forces who told me about being there.

[Boomstick]

hoolahoop wrote:

big fat yorkshire pudding wrote:

Shouldn't this happen more often, I think towing the party line is part of the reason many get frustrated at politics.  Only a few years ago Labour put the current policy of 3000k+ into place from the old system and they even initiated the review that recommended this, suddenly they're all against it. Amazing what difference being in opposition makes isn't it?

Just thinking the same myself, also noticed that prat Milliband won't have any truck with the suggestion of reversing the decision.
The left-wingers on here are obviously targeting Clegg and the Lib-Dems to derail the Coalition.
ALL parties at ALL times break pre-election pledges or haven't some of you noticed. It depends on the circumstances, how on earth can everybody expect the very minor party in a Coalition to have a huge influence on policy.
Break up the Coalition and a new General Election would give the Conservatives even more power along with the seats against a very weak and obviously struggling Labour Party.
Btw these students who are protesting by destoying/defacing national monuments and buildings do themselves a massive disservice in the public eye. There is never a situation where gratuitous violence and destruction have a place in a modern democratic society. Enough is enough, I have no problem at all with peaceful marches and protests but get greatly concerned when many of those marching have to cover their faces up. This protest has been hijacked by far Left wing activists.  :angry:

Absolutely spot on, the protest was hijacked by neo-stalinist, far left wing communist, anarchists. The same rent-a-mob who go to anti globalisation and anti capitalist marches. Alot of students WERE involved in the violence, like that cambridge history student, the Pink Floyd star's son swinging from the Union flag on the cenotaph. 'oooh how very Che Guevara' he should be booted out of uni and do community service cleaning the mess up. I didnt think the students had a leg to stand on, and this has really pissed alot of people off that I have been talking to. Especially the SCUM that defaced the cenotaph, Churchills monument and attacked the heir to the throne. They have done nothing to help their cause.
In no way shape or form in this time of austerity, can you say the tax payer should fork out for micky mouse degrees that do the country no good. Just so they can have 3 years on the piss.
Oh and who pays for the clean up, and the police costs?, yep its the tax payer again!

[Barmby Rover]

So let's make it illegal to protest or demonstrate or disagree with government policy then. North Korea must be your nirvana.

[Boomstick]

MrFrost wrote:

What a load of crap Bob. So you are blaming all the violence on the police then? Dear me.
The cause of the problem is the mindless idiots who are hell bent on causing damage and destruction. Just remember which party introduced tuition fees. These riots are nothing more than an anti coalition bandwagon and the real message has been long lost.

They can't see past their nose end mate. The police did an absolutely brilliant job under enormous pressure in controlling those idiots. Remember those police didnt go to uni, and dont earn alot of money. But when some of those protesters graduate and atart 'running' the country, the same police will still be on the streets dealing with all the shit that society's idiots throw at them.

[CusworthRovers]

Sorry boys, I'm generally in agreement, but look at what was happening.

Hordes of idiots intent on violence were quite evident. Nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. I know what I saw and heard and it needed stopping. What would you have us do, allow them to wreck every statue in London, burn every bus shelter, smash every window, destroy/damage all the history of this great nation. The Police were there to restore order as I saw it. Had they not been there, then god knows what would happen. What do you want our Police service and Army to do...tickle their opponents with feather dusters. Half the little tommy ten men in their balaclavas looked like they needed a clip round the tabs to be honest.

Let's say an angry vicious mob were intent on destroying your street and your house for whatever reason. I bet you'd both be ringing for the Coppers then.

Bob mi old fruit, I would suggest what was going on fits nicely with your anarchic viewpoints, but each to their own.

[The Red Baron]

Barmby Rover wrote:

So let's make it illegal to protest or demonstrate or disagree with government policy then. North Korea must be your nirvana.

There's nothing wrong with peaceful protest- but that's not what we saw in London the other day. Up in Birmingham the students mounted a protest outside the Town Hall. They were noisy, but there was no violence and no-one got hurt.

Personally I'd give the police power to arrest anyone who turned up to one of those demos with their face covered. They're there to cause trouble, and probably have a criminal record as long as your arm.

[MrFrost]

At last someone talking some sense.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. Uni to many these days is nothing more than a social fashion statement

[Barmby Rover]

The increase in the proportion of people going to do Uni I do think was a mistake, but then employers still use the degree to discriminate between employees when considering promotion, jobs etc. If you then restrict that to the rich and the upper middle classes who can afford to take on such large loans for their education how should people react?

Maybe we should all be like Ronnie Corbett in the famous sketch, saying \"I know my place!\"

Large scale unrest of ANY kind has always been suppressed by the state in this country, and it has always had it's knockers, usually from those whose attitude is \"I'm all right Jack, so shut up\"

[Filo]

Large scale unrest seems to work in places like France

[Barmby Rover]

Where there is a healthy disrespect for their politicians and a history of winning important rights through protest. It is when I see the old chestnut of \"why bother, nothing is going to change\" attitude that I despair of others who can't see what the problem is.

[BillyStubbsTears]

MrFrost wrote:

At last someone talking some sense.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. Uni to many these days is nothing more than a social fashion statement

See. One of THE most important things that gets hammered into you at University is that just because you say something repeatedly, it doesn't automatically become correct. You have to marshall facts, evidence, examples. You have to craft an argument. You have to consider how the argument looks from the other side and consider the alternatives. If you just state an opinion and leave it at that, you look like a right f**king dick. And quite rightly - the world progresses by sensible, reasoned, fact-based discussion, leading to conclusions that are more likely than not to be correct.

So, in that spirit, tells us what the evidence is for your claim that University is just a fashion statement?

[BillyStubbsTears]

hoolahoop wrote:

I haven't got the time or the energy to dissect the pre-election manifestos of the previous Governments but you know as well as I do that the same criticisms could be levelled at all of them.
There is little point in going through all of this again as your ideas and bitterness are so deeply entrenched that it would be a one-sided debate i.e. Billy is ALWAYS right!

Incidentally I couldn't help but chuckle at your comment ''They have fcuked up for a generation now''........remind me how we got into this financial situation again please.
I would be interested to on why our schools are failing so dismally in the European league tables and why the NHS is struggling having had the benefit of extra £billions whilst the Party that you so fervently support has been in power.
Pot and Kettle spring to mind here fella, the Labour Party has squandered and frittered money away faster than a Chinaman in a casino!!
I would however be interested in your views re. the recent protests

Hoola. Poor feasible facts again.

If you voted Lib Dem, you really OUGHT to have known what was in their manifesto. Otherwise, what did you base your decision on?

For the record, every Party in Government makes compromises with what they promise. Of course they do. But never in history has a party jettisoned so many core promises and core BELIEFS within 6 months of taking office. It's entirely unprecedented, and is of course the reason that their support has fallen by 3/4s since May (also unprecedented). Folk have woken up to what was obvious to some if us- that voting Lib Dem is pointless. You will get either Tory or Labour Governments, so vote for whichever if those is preferable to you. If you vote for the Lib Dems, you are abdicating responsibility for affecting the shape of the Government - you leave the decision to the whim of whichever gormless, immature chuff happens to be in charge of the Lib Dems.

As for manifesto promises, given that the Lib Dems have shed them like autumn leaves, presumably the Tories have equally compromised? Struggling to think if anything major at the moment, but I'm sure there's something.

Nope, it's not coming to me.


Oh aye. Proportional Representation. And because the Lib Dems are now so unpopular, they will also lose that referendum.

Finally, I've already told you what my take on the student protests is. I think the way the comfortable middle aged middle class gas f**ked all over the young generation is a disgrace. The middle aged, middle class are the ones who f**ked up, with over inflated house prices, over valued pensions and a refusal to pay sensible amounts if tax. Now they are passing the bi to the next generation. It f**king stinks, and if I were 20, I'd set up a Molotov Cocktail factory.

PS. One day, you'll look at the facts and stop trotting out this rubbish about Labour having a spending splurge. They didn't. By 2007, the Govt was spending less than Major's Govt in 1996. What hit our economy was NOT reckless Govt spending. It was a collapse in tax revenue from the banks. A shame that the facts don't mesh with your prejudices, but facts are notoriously unhelpful to prejudice.

[MrFrost]

BST my argument is based on the fact that off the top of my head I can think of ten people I know personally who openly admitted the fact that the only reason they went to uni was to get pissed and get laid and the offer of a degree was a bonus.

[Nudga]

I can't fault the protests, my only concern is that the council workers, the railway workers, nurses, firemen and whoever else is getting shafted by the fat cats massive cocks, weren't there to help smash the place up some more. You wait until petrol prices rise again in january, hopefully the refinary guys and farmers will show us the way and blockade every petrol station and every slip road on every major motorway. This country is in shit state and it it's about time that everybody stood up against these Kitsons. I hope all the big unions get their heads together and arrange one massive week long protest and strike.

[The Red Baron]

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

hoolahoop wrote:

As for manifesto promises, given that the Lib Dems have shed them like autumn leaves, presumably the Tories have equally compromised? Struggling to think if anything major at the moment, but I'm sure there's something.

Nope, it's not coming to me.


Oh aye. Proportional Representation. And because the Lib Dems are now so unpopular, they will also lose that referendum.

BST- you need to try harder- although I dare say the Tory manifesto isn't regular reading in your abode.

How about repeal of the Human Rights Act- dropped. Scrapping of inheritance tax for all estates under £1M- dropped. Repatriating powers from the EU- \"forgotten about.\" Building more prisons- Clarke intends to reduce prisoner numbers. Carry a knife and you go to jail- dropped. No plans to raise VAT- VAT up to 20% in the first Budget.

Just like Labour's promise to hold a referendum on the European Constitution- and no doubt plenty of others they'd have broken if they'd got in.

I'm no fan of the Lib Dems, but they're by no means unique in breaking promises.

[hoolahoop]

Nudga wrote:

I can't fault the protests, my only concern is that the council workers, the railway workers, nurses, firemen and whoever else is getting shafted by the fat cats massive cocks, weren't there to help smash the place up some more. You wait until petrol prices rise again in january, hopefully the refinary guys and farmers will show us the way and blockade every petrol station and every slip road on every major motorway. This country is in shit state and it it's about time that everybody stood up against these cnuts. I hope all the big unions get their heads together and arrange one massive week long protest and strike.

That's democracy is it Nudga ? Sounds like Communist shite to me similar to Bob's , Barmby's and BST's crap.
So we don't like who the people have voted into power eh ? Do the usual just set the Unions on to them, put the common man at a total inconvenience, let Companies go to the wall and this will solve it........?
NO IT WON'T.  :angry:
The 'wooly' thinking behind some of your suggestions are frankly fookin bizarre , set the people onto the people, totally mad. I await your next 3year Stalinist plan with baited breath.  

[Nudga]

My opinion would have been the same with whatever party was in power at the moment. Are you happy that the price of everything is rising at the moment? i give you the petrol price rise again, is it right that the petrol that is already in the pumps can have a price rise when it was bought 12 months ago? When are energy firms gonna get their hands slapped for the same thing? They won't because governments get their share of the pie. All this has a knock on effect on such things like the price of food. I wish our government would be brave and do the right thing by it's own people, ALL of it's people.

[BobG]

\"I wish our government would be brave and do the right thing by it's own people, ALL of it's people.\"

That's a cracking statement Hoola. It raises the question of just what, and who, Government is actually for? It's a question that has become more relevant every single year since the early 1980's. And it's a question that no one, no one at all, ever asks. This country gets what it deserves. Because it hasn't got the bottle, or the intelligence, to ask questions in any meaningful manner.

I'll give you a just a few examples of why I reckon this should be THE question of the next decade;

1) the database and surveillance state. Who, exactly, profits from its existance?
2) the traditional 'working man'. Who, exactly, looks out in his interest?
3) pay and bonuses. Just who is the current system designed to benefit? And why?

There are a million similar issues that this country does its level best to ignire. But anyone with a brain and 2 minutes to refelct will understand the point.

Oh. And Mr Frost. When you learn to read, I'd be very happy to debate issues with you. But until you do, there's no point replying to posts I, or anyone else make, since you seem incapable of doing anything other than inventing statements by those people. Read my post again. If you can. and then compare it to what you said in reply. You must live in a fantasy world because you attribute statements and opinions to me that are nowhere to be seen in what I wrote. You simply reinforce your position as the leading dick on this site.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

The Red Baron wrote:

BST- you need to try harder- although I dare say the Tory manifesto isn't regular reading in your abode.

How about repeal of the Human Rights Act- dropped. Scrapping of inheritance tax for all estates under £1M- dropped. Repatriating powers from the EU- \"forgotten about.\" Building more prisons- Clarke intends to reduce prisoner numbers. Carry a knife and you go to jail- dropped. No plans to raise VAT- VAT up to 20% in the first Budget.

Just like Labour's promise to hold a referendum on the European Constitution- and no doubt plenty of others they'd have broken if they'd got in.

I'm no fan of the Lib Dems, but they're by no means unique in breaking promises.

You'd be surprised what I read. As Sun Tzu said all them years ago, \"Know Thy Enemy\" and all that.

I'll give you Inheritance Tax, The Human Rights Act and knife crime. There's a couple of sops to Liberal consciences that the Tories could quite well chuck into the pot (especially since Ken Clarke, the most left wing of all Tories is taking the rap for one of those decisions).

As for the others, there was not one, single, solitary mention of VAT in the Tories' manifesto. Not one. So, no promise broken there. And on repatriation of EU powers, the Tory manifesto was fuzzy in the extreme, and very, very carefully spoke about \"seeking a mandate to negotiate.\" So that, when they didn't have the mandate, Cameron could face down his own far right Bulldogs and put to bed the one issue likely to split the Tories. Clever politics, that.

All in all, what you are left with is a few scraps that the Lib Dems have been chucked in return for capitualtion on the Great Big Issue. THE biggest one at the Election which was how far and how fast you cut the deficit. The Lib Dems signed up lock, stock and barrel to a Tory policy that was 180 degrees opposed to their own on this one. That is the one that is going to shape the country for the next 20 years. That is the one that has a deeply right-wing ideology behind it - the desire to return us to a Thatcherite Utopia of limited State and unfettered Free Markets being the leitmotif of British Society. THAT is what the Lib Dems have signed up to support, when precious few of their voters cast their ballots for that sort of future. THAT is why Cable has been humiliated into supporting tuition fee rises - it's all part of the same dogma and is the logical consequence of giving up the argument on the big issue.

[hoolahoop]

I see you haven't addressed the last but one paragraph of the Red Baron's post, convenient as usual. Lots of blurb, double standards and tosh as usual.
Yes Billy that was one of many broken Labour promises.      

[BillyStubbsTears]

And just to hammer home the message, Lord Ashcroft has tonight published results of his own private polling into Lib Dem voters' attitudes.

The results include the following (and, think on, these are the opinions of folk who VOTED Lib Dem in May):

1) 28% of Lib Dems voters believe that the Lib Dems have mitigated the worst of the Tories' spoending cut plans.

2) 11% of Lib Dem voters think that having the Lib Dems in Govt has improved the outcome on tuition fees.

3) 18% of Lib Dem voters think that having the Lib Dems in Govt has improved the outcome on Trident.

And it goes on. On every question, the overwhelming majority of Lib Dem voters think that the Lib Dems' presence in Govt has either had no effect on the Tories' policies, or has even made it worse.

And here are the real killers.
49% of folk of voted Lib Dem in the last election agreed with the comment \"The Liberal Democrats have shown they don’t really have any principles, they are just going along with what the Conservatives want in return for some jobs in the government.\"

41% of folk who voted Lib Dems agreed with the statement \"My view of the Liberal Democrats has changed for the worse\".

And, to cap it all, 51% of folk who voted Lib Dem at the last election said that they would like to see Labour in power after the next election.

Kind of backs up what I have been saying. The Lib Dems won their moment in the sunshine under false pretences. Judgement Day for them will be harsh and long-lasting.

[BillyStubbsTears]

hoolahoop wrote:

I see you haven't addressed the last but one paragraph of the Red Baron's post, convenient as usual. Lots of blurb, double standards and tosh as usual.
Yes Billy that was one of many broken Labour promises.      

I'll give you that one (in 13 years) Hoola. And they were quite rightly castigated for it.

List me the others...

Oh aye. And while you're at it, grow up and stop spouting this \"Commie\" shite. It's Soooooooo passe.

[MrFrost]

Yet again when Bob doesn't like something he resorts to name calling and insults. It's ok though. He can do that though. He's got a higher IQ than me.

[BobG]

I came across this earlier today. Posted elsewhere by someone called 'Pearl Handel'. I suppose quite a few on here won't like it at all, but the message, and the erudition, are clear. Don't bother reading it Frosty. You won't understand it. And for those puzzled by the reference in the title, the biggest library in the ancient world was in Alexandria. It was famous. It stood for about 300 years. Until people - Romans - enforced a new orthodoxy and burnt it to the ground in about 48BC. It's a cracking metaphor right now. The penultimate paragraph just blows me away....

\"New Alexandria

Sheets of paper, sheets of flame. The Romans are burning the Great Library again. Today the Liberals and Tories, the British ruling class’s oldest parties, are voting on their own plans to eat the young. Like the Labour government before them, they have realised that educating working-class youth is an unnecessary expense. University fees must rise, subsidies to support teenagers through school must go, and there need be no more pretence that education is for the benefit of anything other than capital.

While the MPs are voting, students will be protesting and resisting heroically, as
they have been over the last few weeks, and the ruling class will once again send squads of riot police against them. Schoolkids whose future educations are being stolen from them will instead receive extra lessons in applied batons and horse charges.

As revolutionary Surrealists – and as students, ex-students and education workers, and people who have been taught to read and write – we hardly need to say that we are viscerally opposed to this assault on youth and education. We will fight these education cuts with all the means at our disposal. But we will not do so in the name of defending education. Britain’s education system in its current form is frankly not worth defending.

Cringing Liberals have been pointing to the post-1992 expansion of higher education to justify the fee hikes, arguing that the massive increase in student numbers has made the system unsustainably expensive. Many of those who oppose the rise in fees – including the so-called left wing of the very Labour Party which introduced tuition fees in the first place – say that this newly accessible university is precisely what must be ‘defended’.

But those of us who have worked and studied on these intellectual factory farms know that education in this country has been nothing short of a disaster, from Key Stage 2 SATS to the Research Excellence Framework. Children fed poetry that’s been reduced to the literary equivalent of Turkey Twizzlers; students told that politically flabby post-New Left bullshit is the way to make sense of ‘culture’; academics chasing ever-decreasing funding by publishing in elitist journals with ever decreasing readerships… Defend that crap? Not on your life.

Where, in all of this, is the beautiful savagery of the mind? Where are the things that are appalling to know, that score the flesh with their uselessness and wonder? Learning is no commodity: it’s an acid to burn money. Bound in human skin, it’s the toxic arcane to be championed, explored, succumbed to, seduced by, conquered. It’s traced in golden words of fire that fall blazing from the page, flaring and dying as we read them, gone in an explosion of unknown suns.

The only library that we defend is the one that’s set alight by its own blazing. Sheets of paper, sheets of flame. The Great Library will burn down Rome.\"

BobG