General Election 2017

[Demitri_C]

53 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Currently people take out student loans and then when they drop out just don't bother paying them back. What if people change their mind on what they want to study? Why financially hold people to keep doing something they don't want to do? And also all the other issues I mentioned, what if someone is mentally ill and just cannot face going to classes, or even getting out of bed....    should they have to pay the whole thing too?

Having to pay to drop out won't make people not drop out, it will just be more money to write off. 

Some going points there pieface. My concern is that you just have people taking the piss (not everyone) but just signing up to a number of courses and wasting spaces and money.

I am not sure how true this is but I've heard, but it is same for police. You do all this paid training for free take a wage and then at the end you can just quit if it's not for you.

My concern is the country is broke; would not the money be best used for other things ? 9k per student is awfully excessive to not pay a penny towards. 

[jon_c]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Since nobody in the Labour party actually believes that they can win, or even gain seats, in this election, the purpose of the manifesto is not to lay out a programme for government but to shift the Overton window to the left a bit and see if any of the policies 'take off' at all. The purpose is much the same as those free comedy nights where stand-ups test new material (feel free to make the obvious joke here). 

I can't emphasize enough how this is clearly the case. 

[StefanAVFC]

12 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

My concern is the country is broke; would not the money be best used for other things ? 9k per student is awfully excessive to not pay a penny towards. 

Is it though? For a 'broke' country, we're remarkably well off.

Also, lets start questioning why it's 9k a year. It was 3k only a few years ago. And 1k before that. And free before that.

Edited May 17, 2017 by StefanAVFC

[Risso]

37 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Is it though? For a 'broke' country, we're remarkably well off.

Also, lets start questioning why it's 9k a year. It was 3k only a few years ago. And 1k before that. And free before that.

Too many people doing shit degrees.

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, Risso said:

Too many people doing shit degrees.

What makes you think that has changed? They just pay 9K a year for them now at the University of Wherethehellisthat

[Risso]

14 minutes ago, bickster said:

What makes you think that has changed? They just pay 9K a year for them now at the University of Wherethehellisthat

Good.  If people want to do a Media Studies degree at some crappy former Poly, they can do, but why should society as a whole stump up for it.

 

 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Risso said:

Good.  If people want to do a Media Studies degree at some crappy former Poly, they can do, but why should society as a whole stump up for it.

 

 

Because they'd be signing on anyway, this way they get to work in McDonald's part time and start on the work ladder without ever becoming an unemployment statistic

[PaulC]

1 hour ago, jon_c said:

I can't emphasize enough how this is clearly the case. 

Yes its a blueprint for the way labour have to go in the future. We need clear choices! Blair's labour there wasn't much difference between both parties. Milliband went a little to the left and Corbyn has gone the whole way. Thats good but nobody will trust Labour can deliver its manifesto. The Keynesian approach does it work? Will it plunge our Country into much further debt

Edited May 17, 2017 by PaulC

[darrenm]

I'm not sure how the BBC are getting away with this 

 

[PieFacE]

Lib Dem manifesto out, proposing another referendum on the eventual Brexit deal, which should definitely happen imo. 

[HanoiVillan]

48 minutes ago, Risso said:

Good.  If people want to do a Media Studies degree at some crappy former Poly, they can do, but why should society as a whole stump up for it.

I don't understand the issue people have with Media Studies.. The media and entertainment industry is a growing, high-value-added industry at which the UK is one of the global market leaders, which is a major export earner for the UK and helps with our balance of trade. We're not talking about learning Klingon here, it's a real, massive industry that needs people who know what the **** they're talking about for us to maintain our industry-leading role. 

[choffer]

58 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I'm not sure how the BBC are getting away with this 

 

BBC London did a thing in an allotment in Dagenham last night (I kid you not!) where they picked three people at random to speak about their thoughts on the Labour manifesto. I'm not sure any of the three had even so much as heard of a manifesto before but all three of them were unequivocal in their belief that anything and everything Labour was proposing was unfair and unworkable. How's that for impartial?

[Demitri_C]

44 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Lib Dem manifesto out, proposing another referendum on the eventual Brexit deal, which should definitely happen imo. 

This could make me vote lib dem. But are we allowed to do that? that's my concern i thought once triggered no going back?

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

This could make me vote lib dem. But are we allowed to do that? that's my concern i thought once triggered no going back?

The deal, not the result.

[MakemineVanilla]

48 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Lib Dem manifesto out, proposing another referendum on the eventual Brexit deal, which should definitely happen imo. 

If the UK electorate are to have 'the final say' then it would be necessary to hold a referendum after every iteration.

And if individual voters reject the deal for different reasons where is the mandate to base the next negotiation on?

 

Edited May 17, 2017 by MakemineVanilla

[Jon]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

I'm not sure how the BBC are getting away with this 

 

I'd Imagine they could get done for this. Their coverage is meantto be both accurate and impartial, and this is clearly neither.

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

If the UK electorate are to have 'the final say' then it would be necessary to hold a referendum after every iteration.

And if individual voters reject the deal for different reasons where is the mandate to base the next negotiation on?

 

What was the mandate to base this negotiation on?

The point is the person who decides is the one in power at the time. 

[dAVe80]

So Philip Hammond has spent most of this morning, telling journalists, Labour's sums don't add up, then went 'full Abbott', and got his sums wrong on HS2, but a mere £20b. It's OK though, it's not like it's his job to get figures right or anything...

[magnkarl]

56 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't understand the issue people have with Media Studies.. The media and entertainment industry is a growing, high-value-added industry at which the UK is one of the global market leaders, which is a major export earner for the UK and helps with our balance of trade. We're not talking about learning Klingon here, it's a real, massive industry that needs people who know what the **** they're talking about for us to maintain our industry-leading role. 

True that. I read a good article on this yesterday. PWC is forecasting that we'll have the biggest media industry in EMEA by 2020. I don't think media studies is the problem - rather high volume modules like Gender Studies, Race and Gender, American Studies etc. Walk past the humanities department in most universities and you'll have a good chuckle at the obscurity that they offer.

Edited May 17, 2017 by magnkarl

[magnkarl]

3 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

So Philip Hammond has spent most of this morning, telling journalists, Labour's sums don't add up, then went 'full Abbott', and got his sums wrong on HS2, but a mere £20b. It's OK though, it's not like it's his job to get figures right or anything...

I just saw this, I had to spit out my tea to laugh when he made that fluke. I think we need to sponsor a Westminster course in maths, or ideally how to avoid mentioning specific sums unless you have them in front of you..