DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

It's no coincidence that the universities and departments that pay well in the US are the ones that pull in lot's of research grants or big fees. This is why (after largely self funding her Phd) E. is apply to business schools and not sociology departments.

"everybody wants the same thing" gets my vote for the title of the next rolling UKpol thread.

everybody wants the same thing: sb at the point of entry

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/12/tuition-fees-vince-cable-lib-dem-rebellion

this early repayment penalty idea sounds pretty stupid.

"At a difficult meeting with his backbenchers last night, the business secretary urged his party to recognise that not all student funding could go towards universities and in the name of fairness some cash had to go those needing to learn basic skills."

so gracious! but lib dem backbenchers think they should just take the only remaining educational opportunities from people who are unemployed or in very low paid work to fund cheap university places. that's "progressive" for you.

noodle dyou reckon that maybe polytechnics etc weren't *that* bad?

The Polys started out in life with a clear-cut purpose and they were intended to help up-skill a section of the workforce. No doubt the decline of British industry undermined some of what they did but the change to University status mostly came from a misguided attempt to avoid the snobbery directed at them by idiots who had as little as possible to do with industry anyway. Problem is once they became universities they sank into the same muddy waters as the rest of the HE sector, plus they were forced to compete with institutions that had - at least - superior snob value.

I sincerely feel for anybody caught in a declining field of employment but I think if we want to assert the importance of education in an increasingly market-oriented society then we need a stronger case for an expansive HE sector than "it keeps a lot of people in jobs".

And a lot of people out of the job market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11525031

"There is a feeling that the rich can afford it - and the poor will quite rightly be protected - but people in the middle could find themselves really penalised," says Justine Roberts of the Mumsnet website.

Is Mumsnet the lazy journo's new way of taking the pulse of Middle England?

Anyone else get the sense that the tories caving to the LDs and middle classes on tuition fees will be the stick to shaft them with for the rest of the parliament?

About the early repayment thing: can't they just decouple the amount payable from the time it takes to repay the loan? So you just assume a nominal repayment period, say 15 years, calculate what the total repayment would be over that period and allow the graduate to pay that total back over a period of their choice (though you'd probably want to factor in inflation somehow).

Anyway, it's clear the outcome of this will be fewer working/lower-middle class students at university. Whether this is a net good or bad is subjective, depending on whether you think that having an educated population is important, that there are too many people doing Media Studies at Thames Valley, or both.

whether you think that having an educated population is important, that there are too many people doing Media Studies at Thames Valley, or both

I kind of think both, but am too lazy to extrapolate a wider view based on this

Additional ramifications of this that we haven't yet considered = the effects on aspiring architects or doctors. At least doctors are more-or-less guranteed a decent salary at the end of it, although give the Tories a few more years...

..and they'll be guaranteed even bigger salaries.

although I'm in favour of learning for learning's sake and think that is a fine reason for going to university. I also have no problem with using education as a tool of economic and industrial policy. I don't see anything wrong with subsidizing certain subjects to create the workers we need for a successful economy. I wouldn't be so narrow as to limit this to scientists, engineers, doctors etc. The creative industries add a great deal of value to the UK economy as do academia and teaching. The dissolution of the polytechnic system and the 50% target were daft, though.

This laissez-faire system isn't going to improve the mix of graduates coming out. It will inevitablye xclude some of the best and the brightest. It may even lead to science and engineering subjects costing more as they are more expensive to teach, and unlike the system of broad based academics in the US, you know exactly who the chemistry students are from the date of application. I worry that only top class research institutions are going to be able to afford to teach technical subjects to the highest levels. Many "uneconomic" departments will close.

It seems like this is a moment wasted to review the purpose and delivery of Higher Education but its going to be missed in a fight over fees.

Also, many of the 'good' vocational programmes - here I'm thinking of the fashion colleges eg. LCF and St Martin's - are ultra-competitive because they attract massive numbers of foreign students paying top-whack fees, possibly at the expense of less lucrative British applicants. People come from all over the world to go to these schools because - outside of some places in Belgium, France and NYC - there are no better places and you will probably find yourself up to your eyeballs in opportunity after a degree at St Martin's, for example.

the 50 per cent target wasn't daft: it was for people by the age of 30, to have taken some higher level study, not necessarily a three year degree.

john denham's laying it out pretty starkly right now - some universities are basically being privatised, losing 90 per cent of public funding - the lse is one.

50% target was daft in that there weren't many attractive or even strongly promoted alternatives to a 3 year degree.

If graduates earn more over a lifetime then why can't we just use straight income tax to fund universities. Graduates (and others who clearly benefit from having graduates around) will pay more tax.

I really hate the idea that it is only the individual who benefits and only the individual who pays. It's a slippery slope from this to privatised everything.

Cable has approved the Browne report according to the BBC.

Elizabeth Truss, a Tory, says other countries that have variable tuition fees, like the US, have a higher rate of university participation from low-income groups than the UK. Cable agrees.

Anyone know the background to this statement?

although I'm in favour of learning for learning's sake and think that is a fine reason for going to university. I also have no problem with using education as a tool of economic and industrial policy. I don't see anything wrong with subsidizing certain subjects to create the workers we need for a successful economy. I wouldn't be so narrow as to limit this to scientists, engineers, doctors etc. The creative industries add a great deal of value to the UK economy as do academia and teaching. The dissolution of the polytechnic system and the 50% target were daft, though.

This laissez-faire system isn't going to improve the mix of graduates coming out. It will inevitablye xclude some of the best and the brightest. It may even lead to science and engineering subjects costing more as they are more expensive to teach, and unlike the system of broad based academics in the US, you know exactly who the chemistry students are from the date of application. I worry that only top class research institutions are going to be able to afford to teach technical subjects to the highest levels. Many "uneconomic" departments will close.

It seems like this is a moment wasted to review the purpose and delivery of Higher Education but its going to be missed in a fight over fees.

Ed OTM throughout this post.

4.43pm: John Hemming, the Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley, says that, like Cable, he signed the NUS pledge and that it committed MP to pressuring the government "to introduce a fairer alternative". Browne's system is fairer, Hemming says. "But that does not mean it's fair enough." Hemming says he would like to propose changes that could make the system even more progressive.

Good weaseling here

If graduates earn more over a lifetime then why can't we just use straight income tax to fund universities.

Exactly. But we can't raise income tax because all the people who avoid it already will flee the country if we do.

I really hate the idea that it is only the individual who benefits and only the individual who pays. It's a slippery slope from this to privatised everything.

Slippery slope that we're a long way down already. The average 19 year-old seems to have fully assimilated the idea that a degree is solely an investment in their employability.

Plenty others have assimilated the idea of it as a three year pissup, tbf- there's a balancing argument when state money goes in there too imo. but not disagreeing with you that employability shouldn't be the only consideration

What makes this worse that the american system is that there (or here even) there is a system of public and private subsidy; pell grants, GI bill, university endowments, athletic scholarships, charitable foundation money (cf. Pittsburgh Promise, everyone one at a city high school get $10,000 a year for HE funded by an endowment shaken out of local businesses that benefit from graduates).

Britain has none of this infrastructure and does not have nearly the same tradition of Liberal philanthropism (and obscured government subsidy). indeed the US is going the other way from the UK, nationalising student loans, increasing Pell grants. You get a tax credit on (already subsidised) repaid student loan interest if you earn under $80,000 as well.

It comes to something when the system starts to look less progressive than that in the USA.

NUS making early repayment an issue is moronic. So what if rich people abuse loans as cheap finance? Removing the subsidy is going to make this issue go away anyway. You are removing incentive for people to be financially responsible.

this is making me really fucking angry (not just the NUS, the whole thing).

In other news Lid Dem Father Jack Hackett MP is being investigated for "inappropriate behaviour" towards a female constituent.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49170000/jpg/_49170170_000500203-1.jpg

FECK! ARSE! GURRRRRLS! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!

Hancock declined to comment on the details of the case, but has previously denied any wrongdoing and insisted he only offered "help and support" to a 36-year-old woman.

A total of 192 public bodies are to be scrapped in the Government's reform of quangos, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said today. Another 289 will be reformed.

Double-plus ungood:

Mr Graying argued, however, that cuts of up to 20 per cent of Government departmental budgets – which are to be unveiled next week – was the key to "long-term sustainable employment".

He told the Western Morning News: "If we don't cut the deficit fast, and make a real commitment to sorting out the public finances, then what we do is create economic uncertainty for the future.

"Economic uncertainty reduces the likelihood of business growing and creating jobs, which is what we need to do to have proper sustained growth in the future."

Jack Hackett MP is only of only two Lib Dem MPs who's actually been open critically of the Coalition (the other's that Russell bloke)... I reckon he's been set up by Andy Coulson... especially, if the woman in question used the phrase "I made my excuses and left" at any point

London Assembly Member Brian Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority which runs the London Fire Brigade, was on LBC this morning saying the city has too many fire engines and the number needs cutting "to make London a safer place".

Last month he was saying fortnightly rubbish collections should be stopped for causing fire hazards.

Dick.

He's got his own website:

http://isbriancolemanatediouscock.co.uk/

As Mr Cameron welcomed Mr Schwarzenegger to 10 Downing Street, the PM joked: "He's going to help me terminate the budget deficit."

Schwarzenegger isn't exactly who I'd ask for advice on that.

Although who knows, maybe Cameron thinks that borrowing against the National Insurance pot is a good idea.

he won't be so chirpy when arnie's wandering hands find SamCam's cans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/14/kennedy-against-tuition-fee-rise

don't really give a fuck about the soul of the liberal democrat party,* but it'd be lol if they tore themselves apart over this

*im not sure 'no tuition fees of any kind ever' is that realistic now, and fuck a grad tax coz why not just tax rich people? all of this is cock coz i don't really want a society of great wealth/power disparity such as a 'tax the rich' programme depends upon, or a university system that helps keep it going, but you know, 'playing along'

What happened with that NoTW phone hacking thing, did that just get quietly dropped or something?

Coalition may pass TV licence fee bill on to BBC

Ministers are considering handing £556m bill for free licences for the over 75s, onto corporation

The cuts could lead to a real terms decrease in its programming budget of up to 26 per cent – the equivalent of the entire budget of BBC2.

If this is true... seriously, fuck the tories so much.

Entire defence budget to be replaced by £50 donation to Help For Heroes.

Aircraft carriers are now mobile force projection platforms due to lack of aircraft.

fucking joseph heller level shit, this

The final gutting of Social housing looks like being the next manifesto point on which the Lib Dems will roll over. any of them look like having the decency of resigning the whip?

Coalition expects 490,000 public sector jobs will go.
Scale of expected job losses revealed as Danny Alexander "inadvertently" allows two pages of tomorrow's spending review to be photographed:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2010/10/19/1287492590644/A-draft-copy-of-the-compr-001.jpg

Still, I'm sure the private sector will magically manage to soak up all of that...

In happier news, it looks like Marmite are about to bring the BNP to the brink of financial ruin.

Marmite, love it or love it.

think i'll emigrate, liking the look of kerguelen

So Murdoch gets what he wanted.

The BBC licence fee is frozen at £145.50 for six years - a 16% cut in real terms, and it is forced to fund the World Service & S4C that will total £340 million of the license fee money.