The fall of the Tory party

I think he is missing concern for the environment as a potential factor.

Educated people, at a population level, don’t vote Tory unless they have significant environmental factors (see : I’ve got mine and fuck you) in play.

Which is why the Tories want to restrict higher education to those that have said factors- and leave the plebs who are vulnerable to culture war bollocks to file to the polls.

Ironically this may be a Thatcher own goal from upgrading the polys to unis in the early 90s.

Or maybe the point is that BITD the Tory party was less focused on the culture war shit and felt that there was a coherent centre right economic platform to promote.

“Rage, rage against the lying of the right”.

Wish I could claim that I came up with this

I always assumed that people with a university education are more likely to become right wing because they will earn more, get better jobs, get promotions, nice houses and expensive possessions and then strive to preserve that. See boomers pulling the ladder up after themselves.

Labour needed an uneducated and low earning workforce to get the voting numbers
This is why it was Labour that abolished the assisted places scheme, abolished the student grant and brought in tuition fees.

Student grants had been on their way out (means tested on parental income) since the 80s, and student loans came in from 1990/91 - under Thatcher, not even Major.

True but I was a student at the time and remember the Tory plan was to stop when it was 50% loan 50% grant.
Blair came in and just abolished the grant completely.

I’m old so can remember Blair announcing in 1999 a target of getting 50% of people to university (today we’ve just got there and now he says 70% would be better). In 1990 it was 25% that went.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49841620

Nah just the red trouser brigade.

Tories trying to ignore the NHS when what's left of it's support are dying in corridors is a real galaxy brain move.

Don’t be daft. It’s a Labour plot to murder Tory voters; put in place by brown.

Tapsnose

I think the next election could come down to split-voting on the left or right, maybe?

• Farage&co could run (or cummings could be brewing something) and split the vote on the right, annihilating the Tories.
  
• Alot of disillusionment with Labour moving to the centre ground will loose them votes to the Greens. I hope the Labour shift is just a ploy to keep the press at bay and get into power, then be more radical. I'm finding it hard to stay optimistic.
  
  

Maybe.

Blair came in and just abolished the grant completely.

I think that was part of the idea of getting more folk to go to university by expanding loans rather than a means to exclude: I suppose it's part of the idea that individuals should be able to invest in their own future, rather than the dangerously subversive notion that as a nation we might consider education as an investment in the country's future.

The move to tuition fees that went along with it was based on a study/report (Dearing, according to Wikipedia) - no idea what the terms of reference were though.

I think the grants went after the LIB Dem Coalition finished.
I fortunately got a grant for my tuition fees 2005-2008 at the time it was about £1500 a year normally.
A few years later my sister was paying £9k a year.

And then the Tories sold off our debt to private companies, so my large interest payments are now lining the pockets of a company instead.
https://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/student-loans-sales-debt-private-companies-treasury-graduates-ps12bn-a7565716.html

I personally think education IS an investment in the future of the country - we invest up until 16 years old and then FE until later if studying locally - for that very reason, surely?
....I suppose the argument is if that investment should carry on until 21/22 years old.

Alot of disillusionment with Labour moving to the centre ground will loose them votes to the Greens.

I think there will be a bit of this but, it’s more likely to happen in urban areas where they already have massive majority’s and more likely to gain them seating in the red wall.

But I also think we shouldn’t under estimate just how much this Tory government are hated by people who could swing to the greens. Hopefully they’ll bitch and moan about Starmer but once they’re in the voting booth they’ll put the cross in the box most likely to unseat the Tory’s( but that could be my wishful thinking)

50% at university is great in theory, but saddling young people with decades worth of debt isn't. I too think that subsequent taxation should be how the bill gets paid. There should have been a lot more effort to get apprenticeships and similar working properly, so that people had an alternative. That has happened since I think. I am too old to know anymore :-D

Anyway, none of that matters because old Tory/Labour policies have been swept away and now it's just naked greed and corruption on one side and desperately trying not to be controversial on the other, all of it revolving around Brexit. It's anyone's guess how the next election will go.

I don't think Labour moving to the centre is a vote loser. It's the only way they have got themselves elected for the last 40 years. They'll gain more by staying in the centre, not mentioning the B word and mopping up disaffected tory voters.

Agree with both of you there.

On apprentices - there are healthy grants for employers to take apprentices - enough to cover them at minimum or living wage for the 1-day a week they are paid and in college studying.
But some industries are just not appealing to young people anymore it seems - with apprentiship schemes or not. The training colleges are not attracting young students to the welding/engineering courses near me unfortunately - I was told they have been well under capacity.
Manufacturing in the UK is currently relying on 50/60+ year old men who are fed up and are desperate to retire - and their kids don't want to take over. A wild generalisation, but based on experience.

Society in general seems to associate getting your hands dirty with either:

• Lower category of job that is not aspirational
  
• Not very skilled.
  
• something to be done in your spare time as a hobby/craft.
  
  

... When it's actually some of the most skilled, technical and rewarding work out there, eh.
We need to get young people excited by doing these jobs, that needs to start way earlier than university doesn't it.

There's also the cultural thing of not valuing 'education' that isn't recognised by academic certificates, whether that's degrees or A-levels/Highers, and often not valuing professions that aren't seen as academic or at least built on book learning - accountants tend to be perceived as in some way superior to engineers, none of this Herr Doktor Ingenieur for us, thank you.

Funding - I'd take it all from general taxation. If you've done a degree and parlayed it into a well paying job, you'll be paying more tax; if you're in a less well-paying job then either there's a direct social value from how you're using your education (teacher? nurse? artist?), or there's an indirect value simply from the fact that you've had an opportunity to study, learn and think.

But we definitely need to find a way of revaluing paths that are not traditionally academic.

Funding - I'd take it all from general taxation.

It's pretty regressive to select one group of kids to put into a higher earning bracket and fund it with the public purse. The argument about paying higher tax rates is OK, but that still means 60% of the benefits of HE are accruing to the individual.

I think the grants went after the LIB Dem Coalition finished.

I fortunately got a grant for my tuition fees 2005-2008 at the time it was about £1500 a year normally.
A few years later my sister was paying £9k a year.

I was well out of university by then (no grant, but only because of parental means testing, but I could take out a loan if I wanted), but remember the furore that did for Clegg: the LibDems had promised to abolish tuition fees, but then, seduced by office rather than power, they supported the rise to £9k a year.

The argument about paying higher tax rates is OK, but that still means 60% of the benefits of HE are accruing to the individual.

It's pretty narrow to suggest that the only benefits of HE are financial.

If I become an accountant or a civil servant or a lawyer, there's a pretty damn big benefit to society in me helping to enable a functional system of corporate audits, or a competent government executive, or an effective justice system.

(Not that we necessarily have any of those at the moment, of course, because decent education might be necessary to enable them, but it's certainly not sufficient.)

It's pretty narrow to suggest that the only benefits of HE are financial.

Yep, I think my post is not brilliantly phrased. The point is that even if you only look at the financial benefits to the individual, they are more than big enough for the individual to be "net up" after they pay for their own education. Gov't has a role in widening access (which is what well designed loan or grad tax schemes can do) but doesn't mean they should fund it from general taxation in the long run.

The problem with a graduate tax is it adds a price to education that doesn't need to be there, it will always add a mental hurdle to people from low incomes going to university. We need to uncouple the relationship between education and cost, as the key value of HE isn't measured in £.
The only way to start to do this is free education for all, paid for from general taxation.

All other things remaining equal, why should spending on higher education be more valuable than spending on basic education, which is woefully underfunded.

Surely they're equally valuable and should both be funded to the same extent, and by the same method.
I would argue too that HE is underfunded in its current model.