divvent knaa

No numbers given on abstentions.

There are 650 seats in the House of Commons aren’t there?

That would suggest that 25 people either didn’t or couldn’t vote.

Hmmm

There’s always a few unable to vote – visits abroad, hospital etc.

A sit-in in an art gallery. That’s really showing them, eh!

here we gooo!

same again

We are all in this together says Multi Millionaire Cameron ……..

I really don’t want another ban on this forum – but this is making me absolutely fLAMing SICK!!! One rule for those who can afford higher education, and another for those who can’t. 👿

now a petition on bus services in Wallsall

the 639 has been taken out of service in the Kingshill area

Asked if he would promise to cut the cost of education for students, Ed Miliband says the lesson of the vote had been to never make promises unless you are sure you could keep them.

Spoken like a true politician.

the lib dems won a lot of their seats by bagging the student vote all based on their catchy anti fees signing photo ops

as it turned out to be a massive lie thats a lot of 1st time voters learning the hard way that politicians are not to be trusted
i imagine a lot of them will never trust the political class again

now a petition on bus services in Wallsall

the 639 has been taken out of service in the Kingshill area

You should be grateful, after all: any man who finds himself on a bus and earning less than £35k a year after the age of 30 can count himself a failure

One of the interesting this – and highlighted in the CLegg pic on this thread – is the overuse by politicians of the word “fair” and its derivatives.

Fairness, as a concept, appears to be different from the older notion of equality (a heavily studied philosophical concept). However, what we all fail to see in buying into the idea that the society we create must be fair, is that very rarely is it anything of the sort.

I disagree very strongly with the introduciton of tuition fees for any university degree (I just escaped paying any being the last year of no fees), but I also disagree with the massive expansion of higher education that has created a proliferation of mediocrity and loafing by otherwise stupid people. See: I don’t believe in fairness.

And this is the problem: this crop of students having higher fees (and a necessarily complicated taxation system for their recovery) is palpably unfair. But, so too, is the idea of diverting money into higher education for people to take degrees in intellectually undemanding subjects.

We just have to balance which inequalities (oops, there I go) we prefer over others. This unfairness will, I think, pale in comparison with other socio-economic changes we’re bound to encounter.

It’s good to see a bit of rioting again.

My mum was in a pensioners’ march in Dublin not so long ago. Coach companies bussed them in for free from all over Ireland meaning there were a hell of a lot more than expected in town. It got a bit shirty outside the Dáil. My first cousin who’s a Polis sergeant in Dublin said none of the lads would go out and police it in case they ended up meeting their grandparents.

She shames me 🙂

but the typical debt is already so high that most will never pay it off

Really? I’m on an average wage and had a fairly average student debt, and I’ll have it paid off fairly soon with the standard minimum payments taken out by my employer, especially with the interest rates as low as they are? You must be on a different system to me? Or I’ve done some serious mis-calculations.

ourmaninthenorth – while I hate to say it, I believe you have some valid points.

A Labour MP got chucked out for fibbing in his election campaign- why shouldn’t Clegg et al get chucked out too?

What was your total debt CK? I bet it’s a lot less than the students of tomorrow will have with their £9k/year fees.

My mum was in a pensioners’ march in Dublin……..It got a bit shirty outside the Dáil.

Irish grannies with attitude…….

It’s not labour or conservative…every time a government gets in, the taxes go up.

A Labour MP got chucked out for fibbing in his election campaign- why shouldn’t Clegg et al get chucked out too?

They didn’t “Win” the election so they can’t have all their policies.

A Labour MP got chucked out for fibbing in his election campaign- why shouldn’t Clegg et al get chucked out too?

They didn’t “Win” the election so they can’t have all their policies.

The Lib Dem policy was to abolish fees – obviously they can’t do this as they did not win.

They also pledged to vote against a rise. This is a separate issue and one which they can fulfil even if not in power.

They haven’t, they lied, I can’t think any student (or most sensible people for that matter) would ever trust or vote for them again.

They only lied if you think that what’s said in a campaign is definitely what they are guaranteed to do. Only an idiot would think in those terms.

Manifestos are just what they WANT to do. There’s no way anyone can promise that stuff. Of course there isn’t. Far too much is unforseen.

Like having to compromise to get an influence in government. If they’d stuck to their guns there’d be no lib deb influence in govt at all.

Stop seeing everything in such black and white terms, it’ll get you nowhere.

coffeeking – Member

“but the typical debt is already so high that most will never pay it off”

Really? I’m on an average wage and had a fairly average student debt, and I’ll have it paid off fairly soon with the standard minimum payments taken out by my employer, especially with the interest rates as low as they are? You must be on a different system to me? Or I’ve done some serious mis-calculations.

yes, really.

i only owe about £12k – the last statement i got told me the interest for the previous year was about £600 per year, which is more or less the same as my repayments.

the interest you pay on a graduate loan has nothing to do with the bank-of-england base rate, it’s based on inflation. i can’t remember if it’s RPI or CPI, but it’s almost certainly the higher one…

today’s graduates typically owe around £20k

They only lied if you think that what’s said in a campaign is definitely what they are guaranteed to do. Only an idiot would think in those terms.

Indeed. Where were the riots about the non-achieved manifesto promises from the last government?

the new loans/fees system will mean most graduates pay back a lot less.

can i transfer my graduate debt to the new system that this lot are rioting about please?

and it was Labour that introduced fees and loans.

How so?

I now feel lucky to be finishing next June with a debt of just £28,000.

It’s irrelevant that they’ve upped the threshold to pay it back from £15,000 to £21,000, as an engineering graduate I’d hope to be earning more than £21,000, and hopefully will be in the position to pay back my full loan over within a reasonable period of time. The total amount payable is what is relevant. Under the new system, I’d have debts of up to £50,000, a massive amount to most people.

What about people who do a degree but go into a less well paid but equally beneficial (to society) job, such as nursing or social care)? They will likely spend most of their lives under a massive debt.

Wouldn’t a small addition to income tax to graduates be fairer? If I end up in a well paid job, I’d feel grateful for the benefits I’ve gained from my degree, and be happy to pay.

remember that we’ve basically got a conservative government, there’s a whiff of lib-dem about it, a few bits and bobs here and there, but there are about 300 conservative MP’s coalitioned up with about 40 lib-dem MP’s.

a conservative policy* is brought in, and this makes Nick Clegg is the bad guy?

wtf?

(*apolicy that i quite like – and i’m a socialist)

Wouldn’t a small addition to income tax to graduates be fairer? If I end up in a well paid job, I’d feel grateful for the benefits I’ve gained from my degree, and be happy to pay.

No, no, no. You must riot, protest and generally whine about teh eviltoryscum, apparently.

Your point of view is far too rational, logical and correct to be accepted.

right,

under the current system, an average earner (£26k) will pay back about 10% of everything over £15k = £1100/year

under the proposed system, an average earner will pay back about 10% of everything over £21k = £500/year.

remembering that the average earner will almost certainly never clear their debt UNDER THE CURRENT SYSTEM (yes, i’ve done the maths)

if our average earner puts the £600/year that the new system saves them into an ISA, they’ll have about £40k by the time their debt is cancelled.

Ed: i’m a graduate ‘engineer’ i have a good job that i like very much, i earn approximately the national average salary, and every year, the graduate loan statement that i receive reminds me that after 9 years i haven’t made a dent in my debt.

(chuck in the odd period of unemployment, and any ground you’ve gained is very quickly lost)

They only lied if you think that what’s said in a campaign is definitely what they are guaranteed to do. Only an idiot would think in those terms.

Manifestos are just what they WANT to do. There’s no way anyone can promise that stuff. Of course there isn’t. Far too much is unforseen.

Like having to compromise to get an influence in government. If they’d stuck to their guns there’d be no lib deb influence in govt at all.

Stop seeing everything in such black and white terms, it’ll get you nowhere

All Lib Dem MPs signed a pledge to vote against a rise. That is in black and white.

This kind of policy is what you’d expect from the Tories, I don’t agree with it, but I have to accept it.
There is nothing to stop the Lib Dems sticking to their pledge, to vote against it. Most voted for it, even the coalition agreement lets them abstain, I’d be interested to hear the real reasons why they’ve changed their views.

right,

under the current system, an average earner (£26k) will pay back about 10% of everything over £15k = £1100/year

under the proposed system, an average earner will pay back about 10% of everything over £21k = £500

Which gives lower yearly repayments, provided they stay on the same wage for the rest of their lives, which is unlikely, but that doesn’t mean that they will pay less overall, they’ll just take much, much longer to pay off an even greater amount.

What about people who do a degree but go into a less well paid but equally beneficial (to society) job, such as nursing or social care)? They will likely spend most of their lives under a massive debt.

It is a bit odd that it’s quite a recent thing to need a degree to be a nurse, or to work in social care, or to be a paramedic. I know quite a few and none of them have degrees.

To get 50% of the population getting degrees they’ve invented degrees for them to have, and now they cost £50K.

With a bit of luck people won’t bother with degrees. Degree requirements will be dropped and we’ll be back to normal and £50k better off.

re read my edit please Ed…

X

(cheeky i know, but i wanted to get it all down in one box)

That assumes you’d be on the average salary for the rest of your life, which many graduates wouldn’t.
An average graduate engineer starting salary is around £25,000, and the average engineer salary is much higher.

I’m surprised you’ve not made a dent in your loan after 9 years, surely (by your maths) you’ve paid off around £10,000, and your loan (assuming it was £20,000 to start off with) would have acquired no more than around £3000 – £4000 in interest, which means you should’ve paid off a fair chunk of it. Under the new system, you’d have put £5400 into an ISA, but still have around £40,000 still to pay.

PS. I quite like the fact that the BBC are showing clips with pretty offensive graffiti in it 🙂

I just don’t know what to say. They will ruin this country.

SpokesCycles – Member
I just don’t know what to say. They will ruin this country.

Don’t be so hard on them. They’re only students.

Actually, no. Let me continue. The real students are fine and have a legitimate right of protest. The idiots who have latched on to this protest as an excuse to cause damage are the ones who will ruin this country. Who do they think pays for all the damage and the policing required? Oh yeah, the taxpayer. So, that means there’ll be even less money in the public coffers to pay for things like university education.

Idiots.

Which gives lower yearly repayments, provided they stay on the same wage for the rest of their lives, which is unlikely, but that doesn’t mean that they will pay less overall, they’ll just take much, much longer to pay off an even greater amount.

Not when you consider that if you graduated between 2001 and 2005ish, you get to pay off your loan until you’re 65, the new terms are what, 30 years after you graduate?

I know a lot of people who are in a similar position to me, where nearly 10 years after graduating they haven’t made a significant dent into their student loans. Mostly because they’ve gone on to do further study (masters/phd etc) whilst racking up interest on their loan (which was 4.3% the other year, and despite saying that it would always match the RPI or base rate + 1% whichever was lower they brought in an exemption when the RPI went negative).

Ok, maybe I’m distilling this down a little too much but here’s my take on it. Everyone should have the right to go to university irrespective of their financial situation in order to study a degree, right? However, this costs money, right? Where’s the problem in getting those who are so desperate to go to university to pay for it or to shoulder the debt? If they want it, then pay for it. But how many people go to university because they like the idea of studying a little, but mostly because they’re attracted to the idea of a 3 year party? Maybe this will make a lot of people reassess whether or not they really need to go to university, get rid of worthless degrees and make having a degree a little bit special like it used to be…

As for students rioting, what’s the point? If they’re causing trouble, then treat like with like and baton charge them. Simple.

we should start a face-book group:

‘graduates from yesteryear who want their debt transferred to the new system please’

i honestly think it will catch on…

🙂

(Ed, don’t be surprised, it’s true! – the interest is about £500, and my repayments are only now a little bit more than that, for many years the interest was running away from me. i know i could have earned/be earning more money, but i’m having far too much fun to regret something so vulgar!)

Alpha1653 – You’re missing the point!

Why should they have to pay for their own education, when your tax money could pay for it instead?

At this rate, students won’t be able to afford biking holidays in the Alps or shiny bike bits.