The Politics Thread

[Lord Kangana]

Governments pretty much always get a portion of blame vote, as its very easy to see how they'd run the country - they being the ones running it. In 2015, many people (most significantly in the SW) turned their votes from Liberal to Tory. Lets be clear, it was because,in the main, of their supposed record in government. Which is unfathomable, if you think that statement over for a minute.

And not because Brown was making a horse's arse of it. OK!

I'm pretty certain even Gordon Brown couldn't f*ck up running the country from the opposition back benches. Even if he'd had 5 years at it by that point.

[Bruce Rioja]

Governments pretty much always get a portion of blame vote, as its very easy to see how they'd run the country - they being the ones running it. In 2015, many people (most significantly in the SW) turned their votes from Liberal to Tory. Lets be clear, it was because,in the main, of their supposed record in government. Which is unfathomable, if you think that statement over for a minute.

And not because Brown was making a horse's arse of it. OK!

I'm pretty certain even Gordon Brown couldn't f*ck up running the country from the opposition back benches. Even if he'd had 5 years at it by that point.

Apols - I hadn't read your post properly. Brown's still a c*nt though.

[Lord Kangana]

I'm not going to argue that point very vociferously.

[Worthy4England]

Right, I'm off to build a space station. Who's in?

[Prufrock]

Slagging Gordon Brown off (and Clegg tbf) at the moment is absolute insanity. Both (along with Cameron) politicians of a much higher pedigree than anything either front bench has to offer at the moment, and by some distance.

[BWFC_Insane]

Quite like Vince too. I always liked Nick Clegg, though, too, and agree with David Cameron's assessment that he unfairly faced the flak for Coalition policy.

What was Clegg meant to do? If he'd been difficult and dug his heels in over a coalition agreement he'd have been painted as the villain preventing the country moving forward. He couldn't win.

I'm sure that the Tories were delighted to see the Liberals being held to account, while they kept quiet and tutted years later at how unfair it was. Clegg and Co only had themselves to blame though. The student loans thing was their flagship policy, a line in the sand.

Look at the current lot already running around hinting at sweeteners to keep the DUP on side. The Liberals would have won a great deal more respect if they'd dug their heels in on at least one Tory proposal rather than wave all their austerity measures through

Scrapping tuition fees was a stupid policy then and an even more stupid one now. The cost of doing so enormous. The University sector has spent two decades reforming their business models to accomodate tuition fees and various changes to the system. The reverse it now would be chaos and the whole model of University and Higher Education would need to be re-thought again.

The idea behind it to allow for wider backgrounds of entrants is totally flawed. And the biggest issue is with the perception of tuition fees...people wrongly see it as being saddled with debt. YOU ONLY REPAY A SMALL MONTHLY AMOUNT WHEN YOUR EARNING A CERTAIN AMOUNT. If you never earn that amount you never repay and it is written off. Instead of scrapping them Labour should have looked at assisting students from lower income families more with the cost of living whilst at University. Which is the real reason those from less disadvantaged backgrounds may be less likely to go (and obvious disadvantages in secondary and further education).

[TANGODANCER]

Slagging Gordon Brown off (and Clegg tbf) at the moment is absolute insanity. Both (along with Cameron) politicians of a much higher pedigree than anything either front bench has to offer at the moment, and by some distance.

And therby is the answer to a lot of unanswerable questions. A bit like a few Bolton managers of late, nobody quite sure exactly when or where the rot started and how to stop it, only that it had and we hadn't a clue when a saviour would arrive. In our case, it happened; in the national one......

[CrazyHorse]

Right, I'm off to build a space station. Who's in?

Sounds great. What do you need from me?

[Worthy4England]

Right, I'm off to build a space station. Who's in?

Sounds great. What do you need from me?

Plenty of silver foil and a HS2 rail link so we can quickly move the launch site, when the moon goes behind buildings n stuff.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Teresa May's cat

[Prufrock]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

[Hoboh]

Right, I'm off to build a space station. Who's in?

Sounds great. What do you need from me?

Plenty of silver foil and a HS2 rail link so we can quickly move the launch site, when the moon goes behind buildings n stuff.

Sod HS2, you need hyperloop, that's the future.

[Hoboh]

Slagging Gordon Brown off (and Clegg tbf) at the moment is absolute insanity. Both (along with Cameron) politicians of a much higher pedigree than anything either front bench has to offer at the moment, and by some distance.

Who do you think was responsible for what we have now got?

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

The sensible thing would be to assist financially those studying things that we have skill shortages for. Rather than say making student nurses worse off when we need more of them, especially with Brexit. For stuff like GPs and nurses it would be easy to tie them in to a period working for the NHS as a condition.

That and triple the fees for media studies courses.

[BWFC_Insane]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

Oh absolutely, should have been called a graduate tax. Having said that there is an advantage to fees and variation in fees in that students get a more defined service from their University. And there is a certain expectation on both sides that perhaps wouldn't be there with a universal tax.

[Hoboh]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

Oh absolutely, should have been called a graduate tax. Having said that there is an advantage to fees and variation in fees in that students get a more defined service from their University. And there is a certain expectation on both sides that perhaps wouldn't be there with a universal tax.

Nice idea's but non-starters.
May/Tories-business as usual.
Compo/militant-freebies all round.

Now the Lib Dems might run with some of it so they have something to sell if ever they want to share in government again.

[Beefheart]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

Oh absolutely, should have been called a graduate tax. Having said that there is an advantage to fees and variation in fees in that students get a more defined service from their University. And there is a certain expectation on both sides that perhaps wouldn't be there with a universal tax.

Nice idea's but non-starters.
May/Tories-business as usual.
Compo/militant-freebies all round.

Now the Lib Dems might run with some of it so they have something to sell if ever they want to share in government again.

I think Vince Cable did propose a graduate tax at one point. Might make a re-appearance in his party leadership bid and attempt to claim the middle ground between tuition fees and completely free university education.

[Prufrock]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

Oh absolutely, should have been called a graduate tax. Having said that there is an advantage to fees and variation in fees in that students get a more defined service from their University. And there is a certain expectation on both sides that perhaps wouldn't be there with a universal tax.

What does a "more defined service" mean?

I agree that fees have made the student-uni relationship more like one of customer-service provider, but I think this is a bad thing.

[Prufrock]

And it already *is* a tax, it just only applies to people who went to uni in certain years.

[BWFC_Insane]

Tuition fees were a terrible policy. Too scared to call a tax a tax, we'll call it a loan (and therefore a debt) it put all the burden on the young and made it sound scary.

That said, abolishing them completely would be a middle class tax break and can't be justified.

I'd replace them with a low level tax on all graduates earning over £x (say £25k)

Oh absolutely, should have been called a graduate tax. Having said that there is an advantage to fees and variation in fees in that students get a more defined service from their University. And there is a certain expectation on both sides that perhaps wouldn't be there with a universal tax.

What does a "more defined service" mean?

I agree that fees have made the student-uni relationship more like one of customer-service provider, but I think this is a bad thing.

It means the offer goes both ways. Unlike yourself I don't think it is a bad thing. Universities defining what they offer for a student and thinking beyond the teacher student relationship. If we are to produce a modern and varied workforce it is very important. Some Universities can rely on their traditional academic background but many can not and therefore have to offer something different to appeal if they want to charge the same fee.

There are downsides of course to creating an artificial market in this way, but in my view they are outweighed by the benefits.