The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 4

[Ignitionnet]

Surprised Gary hasn't picked up on this yet.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

We do, right up through to Higher Education level. Being a graduate is quite diluted enough by government pushing people to go to university as it is. Universities are complaining about having to remedial courses for their intakes to bring them up to standard already and far too many degrees are of little use in finding jobs.

We do not have the capability to send all our citizens to University and it is quite pointless to. Canada and the States are far more horny on degrees than we are yet charge tuition fees.

If people are doing degrees in engineering, sciences, maths and the like, where skills are in short supply and will equip them to compete with the hordes of graduates in these subjects being churned out elsewhere then definitely. Someone doing an obscure arts degree or the ever famous International Football Business Management degree not so much.

Vocational courses for those who don't have the ability to manage degree level education and financial incentives to those able to pursue a course in sciences, mathematics and engineering would surely be wiser than simply 'Go toss it off at University for 3 years doing a pointless degree no employer wants as they've about 3,000 graduates with a BA in BS applying for every job' surely?

Not that I'm an expert in education, just speaking from the POV of a taxpayer and a potential employer, one who has no degree in anything at that, though I am commencing one in October.

I do and I wouldn't IF I had had to pay tuition fees..This is my point entirely that many useful and highly intelligent possible future teachers,doctors,solicitors,research scientists,engineers etc are put right off because of tuition fees.I KNOW this for a fact as I see many students who won't even consider accepting the burden.A country gets the workforce it deserves if it won't pay the necessary basic funding for it..

However I don't want to derail this thread too far.

---------- Post added at 10:11 ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 ----------

Originally Posted by Ravenheart

Nice article by Armando Iannucci in the Independent

Only thing.. "Turned the media into a pack of shrieking gibbons".. I thought they were like that all the time!

Thanks for the link.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I do and I wouldn't IF I had had to pay tuition fees..This is my point entirely that many useful and highly intelligent possible future teachers,doctors,solicitors,research scientists,engineers etc are put right off because of tuition fees.I KNOW this for a fact as I see many students who won't even consider accepting the burden.A country gets the workforce it deserves if it won't pay the necessary basic funding for it..

However I don't want to derail this thread too far.

---------- Post added at 10:11 ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 ----------



Thanks for the link.

If the level of commitment is such that if a few thousand pounds extra, ignoring the prodigious maintenance loans, is too much to invest in their future perhaps it's best they don't follow that course. My wife took her degree, tuition fees and all, on without a second thought or a moment's hesitation because it's what she wanted to do. It's a fairly simple equation and if the frankly fairly small tuition fee scares people away one has to question their dedication, especially if it is specifically tuition as you suggest rather than maintenance loan and other costs that is the issue.

If you want tuition fees have a look at this.

The experiences of Canada, the USA, Australia and several other countries throughout the world would appear to disagree that tuition fees are a critical impediment to educating the work force. The amount of people piling into university to study a variety of somewhat precariously relevant courses appears to suggest it isn't greatly dissuading people.

No-one likes paying but they can either take out a loan and pay it back on a means tested basis or pay higher taxes later. They pay either way with the difference that one way takes account of ability to pay while the other to an extent does not.

Winding this into the thread I find the Tories' suggestion of keeping tuition fees but expanding bursaries far more realistic than the abolition of tuition fees which was the point I was trying to make somewhere along the line, that with finances as they will be for the foreseeable future tuition fees will at best be held static.

Originally Posted by Escapee

I think you are spot on there.

I also think that if the election had not been due for a few years they would have made huge public service cuts, but this has not happened because they are more interested in keeping their place in number 10 than doing the right thing.

Whoever gets in will have to make massive cuts, if Labour gets in (I certainly hope not) the electorate will have sent a message that they can carry on doing as they like with the country.

Another term of Labour would be unbearable

It matters not one jot who gets in.
Once the feet are under the table, if you work you will be hammered, plain and simple.
Their manifesto's are not worth the paper they are written on, income tax and vat will rise, regardless of what they say.
They bailed the banks out and now whoever gets in wants that burden lifted asap.
The only real vote is a no vote.
Send a message that people have had enough of the corruption of politics and the spin.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

If the level of commitment is such that if a few thousand pounds extra, ignoring the prodigious maintenance loans, is too much to invest in their future perhaps it's best they don't follow that course. My wife took her degree, tuition fees and all, on without a second thought or a moment's hesitation because it's what she wanted to do. It's a fairly simple equation and if the frankly fairly small tuition fee scares people away one has to question their dedication, especially if it is specifically tuition as you suggest rather than maintenance loan and other costs that is the issue.

Especially when you consider that if they do the right degree (and a good one), it should increase their potential earnings way beyond the tuition fees..

[Derek]

Wow. A truthful candidate at last!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...10/8659440.stm

Labour candidate Manish Sood has branded Gordon Brown the "worst PM ever" saying he has "totally put this country into a mess".

[Ignitionnet]

He's the candidate for North West Norfolk. Should put him outside of Nokia range for now.

Good on him for telling it like he sees it though.

[mikegreen]

For all readers of The Sun...

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/hungparliamenttr

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by mikegreen

For all readers of The Sun...

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/hungparliamenttr

oh you mean Arthur

[mikegreen]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

You're still yet, by the way, to actually give a serious policy position for anything.

If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It...

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Ministers encourage tactical voting.

Just to carry on the positive vibe that oozes from a Labour campaign proud of their achievements over the past 13 years and campaigning on continuing their record of achievement.

Yes and lets face it they've 'saved the world', 'broken the cycle of boom and bust', 'taken control of our borders', 'sorted out crime and antisocial behaviour', 'ended child poverty' etc. etc. etc. so ought to have plenty to boast about....

New Labour's supporters ought to dwell on the fact that it really isn't difficult to spend money like so much confetti. This is especially true when it is money you don't have but can borrow (or 'steal' for that matter), the real pain of paying for which is passed on to future generations but the kudos for which sates even the most egotistical politicians.. The difficult bit is 'earning' the money then ensuring every penny of it is spent as wisely as possible, providing the required level of services etc. whilst ensuring value for money for the taxpayer so that more is achieved for less. New Labour have consistently done the reverse - achieved so much less for so much more! Brown's 'prudence' was nothing more than a cynical con trick aimed at the gullible, the naive and those so clouded in judgement by their disdain for the previous Tory government that they'd have voted for and accepted just about anyone or anything other than them. Now they're on the run, having finally been rumbled as the opportunist idiots they are, we can expect any amount of negative campaigning, smears and slurs from people who turned political spin into an art form.

[mikegreen]

Originally Posted by Derek S

Wow. A truthful candidate at last!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...10/8659440.stm

Bigot!

Originally Posted by Osem

The difficult bit is 'earning' the money then ensuring every penny of it is spent as wisely as possible, providing the required level of services etc. whilst ensuring value for money for the taxpayer so that more is achieved for less. New Labour have consistently done the reverse - achieved so much less for so much more!

So much less compared to what?

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by mikegreen

Bigot!

absolutely any one who is against Brown is a bigot [new labour new rules

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Damien

So much less compared to what?

Compared to what they should have achieved had they been more prudent with the money they spent but all too often sadly wasted.

---------- Post added at 13:01 ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 ----------

Originally Posted by papa smurf

absolutely any one who is against Brown is a bigot [new labour new rules

.... But New Labour have been telling us for ages that they understand the need for a debate on peoples' concerns surrounding immigration.... Since coming under much pressure from the possible BNP vote, their candidate in Barking, Margaret Hodge, has been much more 'understanding' of those who're worried about it... Is she a bigot too or just another of those cynical New Labour MPs who say/promise one thing before an election and subsequently do another.