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

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Where's Mad Uncle George?

Probably in the Treasury where he usually is...

If I owned a pub in Westminster I'd be putting all prices down by £2 just for the day...

Oh yeah, it was Kronenberg. See, I can't even remember what that shit looks like.

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There's a riot going on...and it's in my pants!

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i see what he did there

some kind of lied/laid pun?

I like this "Cut us at your peril" statement from the fuzz

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Federation has said today's protests should serve as a reminder to the government to maintain police numbers.

He said officers had shown "great restraint and professionalism", but added:

"It is a reminder that the Government must maintain the number of fully warranted police officers to ensure that policing these spontaneous incidents, along with their everyday duties, can be sustained in the capital," he added.

"While we understand and support the right to peaceful protest, police officers must be supported when dealing with such unprovoked violence."

So: LibDems get a nice excuse to stand up to these fascist bully-boy protesters, Cops get a nice excuse to angle for no pay cuts, Protesters get some nice pictures for their Facebooks. Everybody wins.

Sky News get to wank on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it.

:D @ this. Shame I forgot it was on, was thinking of going.

Heh: http://twitter.com/chickpeajones/status/2443956113641472

did everyone else know dcams is a fifth cousin of the queen?!

which would make harriet harman what? sixth?

Lots of mixed feelings about this - hopefully it might be the catalyst for an extra-institutional anti-government coalition, I don't think students-protesting-about-fees will by itself change the mood of the government or the nation but tying together all the groups that are being screwed over and continually hammering the government on their priorities might lead to something happening.

One potential difference between this and the anti-globalisation protests is that it's hard to paint the broad student body as an extremist community. The media can focus on the vandalism/violence but most people will know someone who is affected by and feels strongly about the increase in fees.

Nick Clegg has admitted he "should have been more careful" about signing the pre-election pledge to oppose any increase in tuition fees.

He told ITV1's Daybreak it was a policy he thought could put into practice.

The Lib Dem leader and deputy PM said compromises had had to be made as part of the coalition deal.

But he added the planned changes were "better than" the existing fees regime and would help generations of "poor bright kids" go to university.

this fucking guy

I guess it's encouraging to see any political sentiment other than frustration or apathy (I find it hard to muster anything else myself). But this is a single issue protest only possible because of the makeup of the crowds - the last thing the government wants is bloodied middle class students protesting a policy most people disagree with anyway I think).

Even supposing the protestors get their way, the momentum of these events isn't going to carry on into further social change, i.e. living wage, social housing, transport reform, climate change, raising taxes on the rich. As soon as any bourgeois support vanishes (if there is any) the Coalition agenda will continue at full steam.

Given supposing the protestors get their way, the momentum of these events isn't going to carry on into further social change, i.e. living wage, social housing, transport reform, climate change, raising taxes on the rich.

ok, but it's a start, you know. don't really want swp types to 'get their way' but do think it's ok to break a few windows at tory hq, basically.

What's the harm in breaking a few windows?

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History Mayne OTM. It's just that it's fairly small as far as expressions of anger goes. It's not Paris '68 ("beneath the cobblestones, the cable TV, high speed broadband etc."). Guess I trust union action over student protest anyway.

Of course there'll be bourgeois support for the protests, it's an inherently bourgeois thing the coalition is attacking. And yeah, a hell of a lot of people will be affected including Middle England parents.

But he added the planned changes were "better than" the existing fees regime and would help generations of "poor bright kids" go to university.

Simon Hughes was on Newsnight last night repeatedly saying the poorest students will pay nothing at all, but I've no idea a) whether that's true and b) what the upper threshold is for that.

They keep saying the hike is necessary because it ensures universities are well funded. The thing they're conveniently forgetting to mention here is that it's because they're cutting higher education funding massively. And I'm not sure what universities are meant to do in between the cuts taking place and the post-graduation fees repayments coming in.

you don't have to pay anything until you earn £21,000, and that will rise with inflation. any repayments scale with earnings. the browne proposals are much better than labour's former fee regime, but the withdrawal of 40 per cent of the teaching grant is kind of an insurmountable obstacle.

would like to know why it costs more than twice as much to teach a university student than a kid at school, though. suspect that teaching is also paying for research time, which i guess students benefit from but idk if they should be paying for it really.

Simon Hughes was on Newsnight last night repeatedly saying the poorest students will pay nothing at all, but I've no idea a) whether that's true and b) what the upper threshold is for that.

yes exactly. there will be a few places for the very poor indeed. i don't think there's much getting round the fact that the tuition fees cut into the middle class more than anyone else, but the middle class is 1) large, 2) not restricted to horrible people who shop at waitrose and can probably afford it anyway.

dowd, i dunno if you've read about may 1968, but the unions were actually against it.

the browne proposals are much better than labour's former fee regime

yeah there is some truth in this

suspect that teaching is also paying for research time, which i guess students benefit from but idk if they should be paying for it really.

― joe, Thursday, November 11, 2010 9:55 AM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

research is one thing that distinguishes a university from a school

yeah but there's a separate research funding system. that's one bit that really should be picked up by the taxpayer imo.

the research funding system, i.e. the research councils, doesn't come close to covering the cost of research

Also the LibDem excuse now appears to be "well we didn't know we would be in a coalition when we made those promises", which is some bullshit given the chances of them propping up one party or another were exponentially higher than them winning an overall majority.

They've effectively given the electorate license to ignore every pre-election pledge they make next time. It also edges them ever closer to the question they're probably dreading, which is "why would anyone vote LibDem when they could vote Labour or Tory?"

clegg:

I guess the easiest thing for me would have been for me to say I've signed this pledge, I'm going to put my head in the sand, I'm not going to come up with a fair sustainable solution to universities and simply refuse to deal with it. I don't think that would have been the right thing. I wouldn't have been able to live, now that I'm in government, with the idea that because, yes, I had a policy before we went into government that I now realise we simply can't implement in practice, that I wasn't going to try and put something in place that will really help generations of particularly poor, bright kids who don't presently go to university.

so the real sell-out would have been... not selling out! makes you think, eh?

So he's saying "we couldn't put together a realistic policy for shit", then?

The U-turn is also bullshit given that the deficit is now lower than it was when they made their pledge.

Any opinions on the "no benefits for six months if you turn down a job interview" thing??

I'm not sure they can actually implement that.

But if they do, hey, good luck dealing with that spiralling crime rate, dudes.

the chances of them propping up one party or another were exponentially higher

Yeah, but they were presumably expecting a loose "We'll vote with you most of the time" pledge, but were able to get a "you can be DepPM" and went "ooh" without fully realising what kind of Faustian pact it was.

dowd, i dunno if you've read about may 1968, but the unions were actually against it.

Well, it depends on when within the period you focus. There were initial strikes and support, but given that the two groups wanted different things (the unions saw it as an opportunity to push for traditional economic/pay advantages - though more radical demands occurred), as the students wanted a (vague?) revolutionary change. Wildcat strikes, such as the Renault occupations represent a de facto union action, even if the leadership of the unions were unsupportive.

But yes, the unions eventually sided with the government (after both the Communists and socialists had made attempts to co-opt the struggle). And that's the difficulty here - the bourgeoisie in the UK don't take much to sour; make someone late for work and Clarkson will be rallying Tory support in a minute.

(I just watched Grin Without a Cat again a few days ago, which along with reading about 60s student protest has had me thinking about Paris quite a bit)

It'll be interesting to see whether the removal on rail fare caps radicalises the zone 6 Evening Standard Borisourgeoisie.

I now realise we simply can't implement in practice, that I wasn't going to try and put something in place that will really help generations of particularly poor, bright kids who don't presently go to university.

this is pretty much bullshit. of course university students are mostly middle-class. if he wants to help poor bright kids get into university, he needs to improve school-age (and pre-school) education. however many scholarships the new system creates, the recipients will have had to have got the grades by age 17. the new system won't radically increase the number of poor people at uni because it won't improve their chances of getting good a-levels.

there were rail fare caps??

http://conversation.which.co.uk/transport-travel/time-to-rage-at-rail-fare-price-rises/

...put something in place that will really help generations of particularly poor, bright kids who don't presently go to university.

If this happens I will, literally, eat my hat (but I don't just mean that one guy who wasn't going to go and then did, ok?).

however many scholarships the new system creates, the recipients will have had to have got the grades by age 17. the new system won't radically increase the number of poor people at uni because it won't improve their chances of getting good a-levels.

Surely if there are a set number of scholarships or funded places, then they'll be filled no matter what the grades are?

it might look a *bit* tokenistic

Mottos For Life #1 - Stop throwing shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAGNJMQD1rA

Jesus, nice attempted murder there.

I guess the easiest thing for me would have been for me to say I've signed this pledge, I'm going to put my head in the sand, I'm not going to come up with a fair sustainable solution to universities and simply refuse to deal with it. I don't think that would have been the right thing. I wouldn't have been able to live, now that I'm in government, with the idea that because, yes, I had a policy before we went into government that I now realise we simply can't implement in practice, that I wasn't going to try and put something in place that will really help generations of particularly poor, bright kids who don't presently go to university.

this is incredible basically admitting that libdem never thought through the things they pledge because they never expected to be voted in anyway? good job

the condems are really trying to get people to swallow the idea that when they opened the Sekrit Box of Govt Knowledge it was filled with creepy crawly things they had scarcely imagined in their worst fever dreams, when in fact deficit projections are lower now than when he made the pledge