Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

we've got to pay of the debts some how
our country would be broke otherwise in same situation as greece and ireland and brazil in the 90's
and once the debts are paid hopeully students will get some of the £20bn we save in debt payments currently we pay £70bn a year to service our debt thats a whole education budget going to bankers

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

Tories proposed them just before they were kicked out, Labour argued against them, then did it anyway whilst blaming the Tories for the necessity. Hence why my sisters didn't have to pay and I did...

I wouldn't listen to any election commitment any more-they are openly 'forgotten' as soon as they get their office keys. Alex Salmond basically got elected in Scotland under the premise he would not only abolish fees but ERASE student loan debts. That was a concrete pledge. Four years later... Both he and the LibDems are totally silent on the issue and the slimy gits will probably get re-elected anyway.

to be fair - the libdems could have promised free harribo for everyone and a unicorn in every driveway and still gotten away with it - it's not as if they'd ever get a sniff at being in power... wait... what?

we've got to pay of the debts some how
our country would be broke otherwise in same situation as greece and ireland and brazil in the 90's
and once the debts are paid hopeully students will get some of the £20bn we save in debt payments currently we pay £70bn a year to service our debt thats a whole education budget going to bankers

Here's a revolutionary concept, maybe if we managed to get the likes of Vodafone, Phillip Green, to actually pay their fair share of taxes it might help. Rather than dispensing knighthoods and peerages for services to tax avoidance/evasion.

to be fair - the libdems could have promised free harribo for everyone and a unicorn in every driveway and still gotten away with it - it's not as if they'd ever get a sniff at being in power... wait... what?

I'm looking forward to the LibDem vote collapsing at the next election, and them going back to their 3 or 4 seats status. I am most assuredly looking forward to the end of the smug LibDem twat in my constituency too.

Panorama last night did a show on the HMRC-they reckon there is 45 BILLION out there in uncollected tax, and the idiots have cut their task force from investigating the top 45,000 tax payers to the top 5,000as it is easier to go after the little guy and more cost effective. Nice.

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.

That's assuming this radical change was not accompanied by any others; what if the parents' tax arrangements were altered too so that the money they now pay in school fees was instead taken in tax and hypothecated for state education? And what capital costs would there be if the existing private schools were simply transferred to state ownership? I am sure there are many local working class kids who would suddenly flourish were Eton to become their local state school.
oh and perhaps a little levy on re-insurance would raise some funds too? ;)

Here's a revolutionary concept, maybe if we managed to get the likes of Vodafone, Phillip Green, to actually pay their fair share of taxes it might help. Rather than dispensing knighthoods and peerages for services to tax avoidance/evasion.

I'm not against taxing the rich / getting what is owed to us, but we need to cut down the labour created nany state and get things more manageable level

would you therefore agree cutting child benefit to phillip green is agreeable ?

I'm not against taxing the rich / getting what is owed to us, but we need to cut down the labour created nany state and get things more manageable level

would you therefore agree cutting child benefit to phillip green is agreeable ?

no, because the child benefit shouldn't be going to philip green, but to his children (or, at least, the person who looks after his children).

whether it does or not is, of course, another question.

but the point is, there are far fewer people than you (or most people) imagine who actually do not need child benefit. there was a good example in the guardian a few weeks back:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/09/child-benefit-stay-home-mother
  
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/oct/16/income-45000-pounds-does-not-go-far
  
  

furthermore, improving the health of the lower classes in society also improves the health of the wealthiest/upper classes in society. it is not entirely clear why, but there is ample evidence to support this as being true.

no, because the child benefit shouldn't be going to philip green, but to his children (or, at least, the person who looks after his children).

whether it does or not is, of course, another question.

but the point is, there are far fewer people than you (or most people) imagine who actually do not need child benefit. there was a good example in the guardian a few weeks back:

[]http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/09/child-benefit-stay-home-mother
[]http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/oct/16/income-45000-pounds-does-not-go-far
furthermore, improving the health of the lower classes in society also improves the health of the wealthiest/upper classes in society. it is not entirely clear why, but there is ample evidence to support this as being true.

We had to moveto expensive Cambridge for his work, we live in a small village and he has to commute 140 miles a day for his work. Something doesn't quite add up there.

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.

disagree
well worth protesting aginast funding cuts to education.
studied development economics at soas. niether that nor the fact that i'm now a soho media twat qualify me to forecast the consequences of removing state subsidies for education but i do know that there's a well known correlation betweem gdp and tertiary education.
"...research proves the long held expectation that human
capital formation (a population’s education and health status)
plays a significant role in a country’s economic development.
Better education leads not only to higher individual income but is
also a necessary (although not always sufficient) precondition for
long-term economic growth."
from http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/policy-briefs/pb03-web.pdf but the same position is voiced all over the place - google it.

ie, fuck the unis, fuck the nhs, consign us to a bleak future.

^ obviously fucking never learned to spell during my four years at uni :(

yes. but taking the money from 16-19 year olds in FE to give to those in HE does not seem fair.
(i just read polly t's article)

also, cutting funding to research science, probably not the coolest thing to do.

@ soho media twat: You make a good case as to why cuts to education funding are a bad idea. But that's not the same as saying protesting against them in the street is worth it; if, that is, your aim is to get the government to change its mind. If your aim is to show that a lot of people are angry and disagree with the policy then fine, they have some effect. And my point was solely about tuition fees.

see: Stop the War.

I love that we got into this mess because the banks fucked up so badly that we had to pick up their tab... But hang on, who are we paying back? Oh, yeah... The banks... Double penetration, baby...
I fucking give up...

Damo, the protest is being supported by those who will be struck by the EMA cuts, and indeed many college students are being actively encouraged to take part in tomorrows march. I just get annoyed at things such as this, this and this how a group of people are allowed to defecate on our society, and then instead of being tasked with cleaning it up, just allowed to go straight back to what they were doing before. I'm just of the opinion that whilst it may not do anything, if I don't go on the march tomorrow, in the future it may be something I really regret.

go, i'm not trying to stop you. (really i'm not).

i am old and jaded and fucked off with the same people you are. but am unsure how best to direct my ire.

but... but... but... if we don't pay these over indulged gamblers the hugely inflated bonuses they so richly deserve, they might get the hump, up sticks and go not pay tax somewhere else, taking their much sought after expertise with them, and then the arse would fall right out of the imported supercar/penis substitute market, not to mention the good works they do keeping dirty, criminal poor folk out of city centres by buying up all the affordable properties like they're shopping for bogroll at Makro - do that and it's as if the terrorists have already won.

/this was genuinely the opinion of some goat felching shyster on the wireless not too long ago. gotta stop listening to LBC - it's basically Daily Mail FM

^ this.

...that's not the same as saying protesting against them in the street is worth it....

yeah guess i did hope nobody would notice that i tried to cover one point with another.

i doubt whether protesting in the streets is going to have a policy-level effect, ie convince the government not to implement tuition fee increases. i suppose the best case scenario would be that a winter of protests covering a range of issues might affect political change at some level.

i guess we're about to reap our reward for a generation's worth of allowing the erosion of our civil society. we no longer have non-statal organisations to represent us. no more unions, barely even workng men's clubs or a local fucking scout troop.

damo - i dont think anyone is seriously suggesting that protest results in direct and immediate action by those in power, however it does serve to get the message accross that, come election time you'd do well to remember all those dirty oiks yelling on the street - cos those dirty oiks have a vote, and theres lots of em.

I'm not in favour of funding cuts, but I'm in favour of tuition fee rises, cos the former represents reduced investment, whereas the latter represents reducing a subsidy to the middle class*.

*as long as tuition fees are accompanied by funding for those in financial need.

damo - i dont think anyone is seriously suggesting that protest results in direct and immediate action by those in power, however it does serve to get the message accross that, come election time you'd do well to remember all those dirty oiks yelling on the street - cos those dirty oiks have a vote, and theres lots of em.

see: Stop the War.

i blame the people who bought 1 Series BMW's on credit
ran up £10,000 on their credit cards
thats where the debt has come from
banks only provided the outlets for the cash
it was the people who borrowed the money