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

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.

490,000. Fuck me!

As a currently serving Civil Servant, I can tell you that we're all finding this shit abso-fucking-lutely terrifying. All the comments on the various websites along the lines of "LOL - they'll have to get proper jobs now!" are just totally fucking annoying. We have got proper jobs now, fuckfaces!!! We'd like to keep them. We were busy running your fucking country, and being woefully underpaid for it, while you lot were out spending your copious bonuses on stupidly large mortgages (which most of us don't get paid anywhere near enough to get) and buying all sorts of shit on credit that you couldn't afford.

The framing of the debate along the lines of "they're all massively overpaid!" is pretty galling too. The current pay settlement, which gives pay rises to those earning less than £21k came up with a figure of 58% of current civil servants who'll get pay rises (which includes all of the admin grades and actually includes some members of the lower management grades too), and the average UK income (root mean square iirc) is approx £26k. So even the government's own figures show that we're paid substantially less than average. Then there's the pensions thing; the only decent prospect we had was a good ish) pension at the end of it, which will now be looted to pay the Child Benefit for couples with a household income of up to £80k. btw Large portions of the Civil Service haven't had a final salary pension scheme for nearly 7 years.

The Tories all fucking know this stuff! But they still choose to frame the debate in that way so that it plays to the mouthbreathing Daily Mail reading public who believe that the entire Civil Service is living in the lap of luxury. And the stupid fucking country is dumb enough to fall for it.

Then they spout off all these money saving benefit initiatives, as if they just thought of them, that have been fucking policy for the last 10 years! It's a wonder my head doesn't explode every time I read the news.

Thatcher admitted to hospital by the way. She'd better not die tomorrow and blow the cuts off the front pages.

Unless she dies minutes before they're announced, thus depriving her of the satisfaction of her legacy carrying on.

Oh I think she's had that for a while...

lol @ defence cut related masterchef tonight

Whose idea was it to unveil the defence cuts the day before everything else? It's just getting the public and the media in a cuts-bashing mood a day early...

The framing of the debate along the lines of "they're all massively overpaid!" is pretty galling too. The current pay settlement, which gives pay rises to those earning less than £21k came up with a figure of 58% of current civil servants who'll get pay rises (which includes all of the admin grades and actually includes some members of the lower management grades too), and the average UK income (root mean square iirc) is approx £26k. So even the government's own figures show that we're paid substantially less than average.

otm - when the minimum wage was introduced 30% of our office got a pay rise but all the headlines are about "four times the average wage" and only apply to senior civil servants. The vast majority of jobs lost will be clerical and technical staff earning less than the average wage.

Good to see the LD's falling on their swords for their overlords.

What you will see today is all the things that we had as our priorities in the election reflected in the statement...They will see the Liberal Democrat footprints, if you like, over the announcement. This is not something where the Tories have imposed their will on us.

The more they say that, the more I realise how far I've gone down the line from fury to laughter to just a pathetic shake of the head.

my lib dem mp julian huppert is a fucking douchenozzle (no idea what an actual douchenozzle might be) and even worse the lil scrote was at school with me

recent tweets:

So it's a big day today ... The Comprehensive Spending Review, or, what to do when someone else has spent all the money ...
about 1 hour ago via Echofon

what happened to revenues during the recession? why did the government have to borrow shit tonnes of money? stop being a cunt.

geekofhearts no credit to lib dems whatsoever in @guardian leader on trident cancellation. rapidly losing my respect for the paper.
about 21 hours ago via web
Retweeted by julianhuppert and 5 others

maybe that's because trident hasn't been cancelled you appalling twat.

hypnotic Had a good chat with @julianhuppert earlier. So reassuring to hear the words of commitment to scrapping tuition fees straight from him.
2:06 PM Oct 17th via web
Retweeted by julianhuppert and 3 others

how in the fuck can you tweet this with a straight face?

n e ways, ha bloody ha

I'm now so angry about the "someone else spent all the money" line that every time someone says it I have to shout at the radio/TV/computer "There was a fucking banking crisis you lying cunt!"

By the end of the day I think my shouting will just be reduced to fuck and cunt.

http://www.countdown.org/cover/countdownlogo.jpg

For me, nothing justifies democracy better than a bunch of randomers who don't understand the first fucking thing about economics having a radio debate about economics refereed by Nicky Cunting Campbell.

Wonder if DC will be hanging out with Anna Soubry in Nottingham today as planned despite her constituents taking a petition on council housing cuts to Number 10 yesterday?

Shout outs to all my Lib Dem brothers and sisters who've done so much to water down today's dismemberment of the welfare state.

Your public sector cuts are gonna be fucking grisly. and used to beat us with over here within a new york second.

» First they came for the quangos,
And I did not speak out because they're a bunch of squandering bureaucrats who perform no useful function.
» Then they came for the students,
And I did not speak out because I got through university when it was free so stuff them.
» Then they came for half a million civil servants,
And I did not speak out because there are 172 civil servants who earn more than the Prime Minister and that made me very angry.
» Then they came for the police,
And I did not speak out because I'm looking forward to committing more crimes and not getting caught.
» Then they came for the BBC,
And I did not speak out because Rupert has repeatedly assured me that the BBC are evil leftie wastrels.
» Then they came for the armed services,
And I did not speak out because I never thought they were all heroes anyway.
» Then they came for mummies on child benefit,
And I did not speak out because anyone earning 44K a year can always cut back on au pairs and tapas.
» Then they came for the arts,
And I did not speak out because a couple of DVDs on a Friday night is all the culture I need.
» Then they came for council tenants,
And I did not speak out because only losers live in council houses and I am not a loser.
» Then they came for rail subsidies,
And I did not speak out because I can drive there cheaper.
» Then they came for my pension,
And I did not speak out because I'm not going to be old and poor for ages.
» Then they came for the community centre round the corner,
And I did not speak out, although I'll miss the Spanish evening classes, and the jumble sales they used to run were good, and my nan went there a lot, and I guess they kept those annoying kids off the streets.
» Then they came for the benefit cheats,
And I did not speak out because anyone on benefit is a cheat in my book.
» Then they came for my local hospital,
And I did not speak out because I'm not planning on being ill any time soon.
» Then they came for the bankers,
And I said Oi! No! Bankers perform a crucial role in our economy and their obscene bonuses must be protected at all costs.
» Then they came for my children's future,
And I did not speak out because they can jolly well make their own way in life.
» Then they came for all the projects the last government started,
And I did not speak out because the entire global crisis was Gordon's fault.
» Then they came for the public sector,
And I did not speak out because the private sector can easily absorb half a million unemployed losers on part-time minimum wages.
» Then they came for something fundamental,
And I did not speak out because "we simply can't afford it".
» Then they came for the welfare state,
And I did not speak out because I'd forgotten what life was like before we had one.
» Then they came for my next-door neighbour,
And I did not speak out because cuts aren't a problem when they happen to someone else.
» Then they came for me,
And by then mine was just another livelihood on the bonfire and nobody gave a damn.
» And then they smiled, state rolled back, job done.

t-shirt.