Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

So if you vote for a party that wins you then have to agree with everything they do?

Indeed, you can say "make a difference at the ballot box" untill you're blue in the face, but the fact is with our current system that actually means very little.

No, what I am saying is don't vote Conservative or for any party that would contemplate going in to government with them. Because as we are finding out, it does make a difference. The Tories have not changed and they never will change. The alternative - a Labour government - may be a piss poor one but the price being payed by the poorest and most vulnerable would have been considerably less.

I think it's important to turn up and at least have a go at trying to pressure about change. But it's just as important that pressure is applied to the MP's who signed the pledge to try to get them to vote against the proposal, for example, Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, and Stephen Lloyd, MP for Eastbourne.
It's also important that the voice of those who will suffer at no longer gaining EMA allowance is heard, as this is another area of education being hit.

Fuck it, they're all cunts. (I didn't vote for either of them btw)

I'll be there with the QMUL lot.

Fair enough but you are, like it or not, protesting against the consequences of your own actions. No wonder you are so pissed off. Luckily in another five years you will have the chance to make a protest that might actually work - at the ballot box.

Don't underestimate the emotional power of betrayal. I still begrudge labour my vote after they way they took us into the Iraq war, because i believed their lies, at first.

Not forgetting it was the Labour party that introduced fees in the first place, so with thier form they were just as likely to do the same thing.

Protesting against the tuition fees is a non-starter. Save your energy for something that might succeed. When so many people are facing genuine hardship sympathy for students is going to be in very short supply. Not that I agree with £9000 tuition fees and I am sure Labour would have raised them too. Fuck, I am so old the government payed me to go to university.

It's also the 1500 pound a year cuts of the EMA that are being protested against, which have been there to help kids who otherwise would probably have had to go straight into work, rather than allowing them to gain further education.

Fuck, I am so old the government payed me to go to university.

B.A. in spelling eh? ;)

. Fuck, I am so old the government payed me to go to university.

Bollocks, that's an urban myth that old folk perpetuate e.g *We never had to lock our doors when I was a kid.
*

No, what I am saying is don't vote Conservative or for any party that would contemplate going in to government with them. Because as we are finding out, it does make a difference. The Tories have not changed and they never will change. The alternative - a Labour government - may be a piss poor one but the price being payed by the poorest and most vulnerable would have been considerably less.

I understand your position more now, but even so im not sure i entirely agree. especially seeing as new labour have effectively become neo-tories anyway.

Protesting against the tuition fees is a non-starter. Save your energy for something that might succeed. When so many people are facing genuine hardship sympathy for students is going to be in very short supply. Not that I agree with £9000 tuition fees and I am sure Labour would have raised them too. Fuck, I am so old the government payed me to go to university.

While I agree tuition fees is not necessarily the most important issue on the agenda, it is something that effects me as an academic in a humanities subject, hence why i feel strongly about it.

But to be honest, im just glad people are striking and taking to the streets at this moment in time, no matter what the cause, Its nice to see that the country has not fallen into irreversible political apathy, which is what its felt like for a very long time.

B.A. in spelling eh? ;)

Oops. I even noticed spell-check had highlighted that. But why be bound by the bourgois conventions of spelling that have kept the working man down for centuries and, er, fuck the rich, er, fight the power, er.

Bollocks, that's an urban myth that old folk perpetuate e.g *We never had to lock our doors when I was a kid.
*

A full grant, unemployment benefit during the holidays (with no interviews or any expectation that you would find a job), train and accommodation expenses for interviews paid in full..... it really was a different world. Only about 4 or 5% of people going to University for one thing.
*[QUOTE=Mrlemon;1762540

But to be honest, im just glad people are striking and taking to the streets at this moment in time, no matter what the cause, Its nice to see that the country has not fallen into irreversible political apathy, which is what its felt like for a very long time.[/QUOTE] *

Trouble is people have been protesting all along; as I said earlier the protests just don't have any effect or are even noticed at all. Maybe, maybe, massive and frequent demonstrations might have an effect now or once the consequences of the cuts start to be felt but I doubt it. As per my earlier point I could never decide whether street protests were worth it or not regardless of their impact.

As per my earlier point I could never decide whether street protests were worth it or not regardless of their impact.

What alternatives are there?

That's part of why I could never make my mind up. I could write a book on it. But I won't.

[QUOTE=wiganwill;1762554]

A full grant, unemployment benefit during the holidays (with no interviews or any expectation that you would find a job), train and accommodation expenses for interviews paid in full..... it really was a different world. Only about 4 or 5% of people going to University for one thing.

QUOTE]

Yup - I got about 80% of a full grant in the 1970s - some people only got a percentage of the full grant, the remainder was to be made up from Mummy and Daddy depending on their income ...

and you could leave your bike outside the papershop unlocked overnight and it would still be there in the morning and you try telling the young these days ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/05/students-low-pain-pecking-order

Unfortunately, since the end of quasi corporatism in the early-mid 1980s we've increasingly had government by special pleading - whoever has the ear of government wins the argument. So now since the cuts have emerged - which would have happened whatever government was in power - we have pure government by special pleading, with every institution in the land bleating, exaggerating their case wildly. State spending is being 'cut' so much to keep overall spending flat over the next few years. The promises of the last part of the last government were just fantasies.

I'll protest when the ultimate aim of the protest is not to demand someone else pays for a benefit the protesters are enjoying.

What are the cuts, specifically?

What are the cuts, specifically?

The money allocated by central government to universities will be cut from £3.2 billion per annum to £600 million.

My other half works for a university and they expect their funding to be cut by at least 75%.

yeah but at least margaret cameron will be photographed from a tasteful angle while he's fucking us all in the ass.

If all the children in private education moved over to the state sector, the cost to the state would be in the order of £4.5 billion (based on a cost per child of £9k pa and 500,000 kids in private education - although the figure for the latter may be higher) plus the capital costs of school building to accommodate them all. I see no reason why privately educated kids should not pay for their university education provided that they are not discriminated against at the point of entry.

i have to agree with Will here. protesting doesn't really solve much does it?

but then, we know who made us think like that eh?

yes.

THATCHER.

Unfortunately, since the end of quasi corporatism in the early-mid 1980s we've increasingly had government by special pleading - whoever has the ear of government wins the argument. So now since the cuts have emerged - which would have happened whatever government was in power - we have pure government by special pleading, with every institution in the land bleating, exaggerating their case wildly. State spending is being 'cut' so much to keep overall spending flat over the next few years. The promises of the last part of the last government were just fantasies.

I'll protest when the ultimate aim of the protest is not to demand someone else pays for a benefit the protesters are enjoying.

I understand the sentiment of what you are saying, but think it is misplaced somewhat:

Tony Blair's confusingly random 50% figure of the population going to university was probably the worst thing possible for both higher education and the job market, as it did absolutely nothing to eliminate elitism or ensure people from a less wealthy background can afford to go. Now there are just lots of universally indebted people out there who expect a good job, although they maybe only have an average degree who's quality is dubious if you listen to what employers are saying about graduates now, and Universities became dependent on this 'income' from fees which seems to have replaced government spending commitments. Worst of all, rather than end elitism, it has just further stigmatised people that don't have a degree.

So yes, I'm inclined to agree it is stupid to subsidise so many people go to University if all they are going to achieve is a larger debt ratio per capita and a mediochre education, when they might be better served by good training schemes in businesses, but it doesn't discount the essential good that the higher education sector does the economy in stimulating growth, research and development, attracting intellectual/skilled people from abroad etc-it's all massively important and pays later on down the road to everyone's benefit and to a far greater sum than is put in. It would be perhaps more realistic to follow a Dutch/Scandinavian model of 15-25% of the population going on to higher education with the means-tested grant system in place as it will ensure people with the ability can afford to go, keep quality high and retain the value of actually having a degree in the first place.

Not forgetting it was the Labour party that introduced fees in the first place, so with thier form they were just as likely to do the same thing.

What? When? I'm pretty sure that they were introduced by the tories, just a few years before I went to uni.