Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
If abolishing student loans would cost a putative Labour government £30billion and simply can't be afforded, how is going to be any more affordable?
UK General Election
- Thread starter Darat
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If abolishing student loans would cost a putative Labour government £30billion and simply can't be afforded, how is going to be any more affordable?
Noztradamus
Illuminator
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Because nothing says fauxtrage like an internet petition.
But these "other demands" are the raison d'être of Orangeism. They are its "culture". To say. "playing drums and flutes and wearing orange sashes is fine as long as you don't do it in such a way as to insult or intimidate or humiliate your Catholic fellow citizens" (so koningsdagWP is perfectly acceptable, also it's good patriotic fun, even if it's
an opportunity for "orange madness" or oranjegekte, a kind of frenzy named for the national colour)
and anyway "farm subsidies and border customs posts are obviously important but banning gay marriage is not so urgent an issue that you must impose it on the other countries of the uk" makes no sense to these bigots. That is their "religion". Think Taliban. Think Born Again Evangelical. These are the sorts of people May is seeking to cohabit with. ETA link
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The DUP are old fashioned politicians where they don't vote for anything unless they get something in return. More money for NI, no border etc. However, at least 3 of their MPs were elected because of pressure against the Alliance party by the UDA and the UVF in Antrim so they are also under great internal pressure to ensure that they stick to their core principles. We are at a tipping point where the UK Government, such as it is, needs to ensure that it plays fair in NI or it runs the danger of upsetting both the Nationalist and Unionist communities and that never goes well. The last thing we need is a return to the politics of the troubles.
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We'll see. For a start, they won't be abolished, but instead of every graduate who earns over £20,000 making a contribution, maybe they'll contemplate something like a £50,000 starting point, but with higher repayments such that those taking the highest paid jobs subsidise those graduates who earn less. There might even be higher rates for those reaching other salary points. They might also consider a scheme for direct subsidy of fees for courses in areas the country needs graduates most pressingly. I don't know. I'm just guessing, on the premise that they can't let the student dissatisfaction thing fester.
The stupidity of all this is that students seem to have forgotten that tuition fees were introduced by a Labour government.
Archie Gemmill Goal
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Oh it absolutely does otherwise what deal was done to bring it about? They got something for their votes and we don't yet know what it was.
Archie Gemmill Goal
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angrysoba
Philosophile
Hmm... I think I was under the misapprehension that this agreement was a confidence and supply arrangement whereby they vote alongside each other on motions of confidence hence keeping the minority government in power and on budgets. But obviously such an arrangement would favour the Tories but not give much to the DUP, so it would make sense for them to make their own demands in return.
It looks like the DUP may be driving a hard bargain behind the scenes what with all the confusion about what deal is going to be made.
Wow! The Tories have really got themselves and the country into a massive mess. Now they have to delay the beginning of Brexit talks to deal with a new whack-a-mole constitutional issue of the week. Will the Troubles erupt again? Will they push Northern Ireland out of the union?
Next week I expect May and co to contrive some problems with Wales and Cornwall just for the hell of it.
It looks like the DUP may be driving a hard bargain behind the scenes what with all the confusion about what deal is going to be made.
Wow! The Tories have really got themselves and the country into a massive mess. Now they have to delay the beginning of Brexit talks to deal with a new whack-a-mole constitutional issue of the week. Will the Troubles erupt again? Will they push Northern Ireland out of the union?
Next week I expect May and co to contrive some problems with Wales and Cornwall just for the hell of it.
You are of course free to say this.
Then again maybe you are just a more tolerant and reasonable person than I am and have a higher tolerance for the kinds of casual sexism, racism and homophobia that still exists. Maybe you half tune out the conversations in the local pub or perhaps put down what's said to "banter" - or maybe you do indeed live in a much more enlightened part of the UK.
OTOH I hear rather too much of the "Don't drop the soap.... hur, hur, hur" when talking about gay men, uncritical regurgitation of the lies in the Daily Mail and Daily Express when talking about immigrants and a fear and distrust of living in anything other than a monochromatic society.
angrysoba
Philosophile
To be honest, I think a lot of the "banter" you might hear from Tories are things you would likely to hear from Labour voters too.
Perhaps, but in my experience of the Labour Party (I was a member for around 20 years until I couldn't stand the dual Blair taint of Iraq and PPI), Labour Party members tend to be more self aware of their prejudices (perhaps because they are surrounded by people who will be only to happy to point them out) and less likely to spout off in public about them.
Certainly among the small circle of my "lefty" friends and acquaintances, I cannot recall banter of that type but they may be unusual.
edited to add....
Of course what is amusing is hearing lefties like myself describing someone whose primary distinguishing feature is their race, religion, sexual orientation or disability, such as....
"Which one is Dave ?"
"Errrrrrm, the man in the light grey jumper"
"You mean him ?"
"No, that's Mike - the guy further over to the left with the glass in his hand"
"You mean him ?"
"No that's Steve - the guy right in the corner"
"Oh the black guy in the wheelchair"
"
"
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Student loans pay for this year's tuition fees, the money has to be found to pay it *now* so must have the money (or not) now, whether the students have to pay some or all of it back later doesn't alter that.
Given that interest rates are currently less than inflation it would be cheaper to borrow the money now and pay it back when the money is worth less!
On a governmental scale, yes, but you trying borrowing from a bank at Base Rate. Real interest rates for Joe Public are well ahead of inflation. This doesn't affect the point you are making.
Archie Gemmill Goal
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It does seem to be a C+S arrangement but unless the DUP are very silly indeed I doubt even that was obtained for free. Of course that doesn't mean they have agreed anything on the DUP's more erm... colourful... policies but equally they may well have because they haven't told us. And apparently don't plan to.
Whether the DUP reveal what they managed to extract remains to be seen. Of course the very idea of secret deals between the Government and the DUP goes contrary to the idea of the GFA if not the letter of it.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
The trivial issues do not matter. The government will be looking for support in key Brexit and social issues. DUP does not see eye-to-eye.
The DUP-Conservative majority is tiny. In most White Paper/ Bills there are always abstainers and MP's who fail to honour the whip so I can't see the alliance as anything other than fraught with difficulties.
Which is what we are talking about here - the government gives the students the real money to give the universities. That money has to come from taxes and borrowing.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
IMV the only solution is going to be to make the university selection process more restrictive. Back to pre-war levels.
Imagine the surge of people applying for uni if tuition fees are abolished.
It'll be back to local authority grants.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Perhaps employer sponsorship might work. All of my £20K+ accountancy tuition fees were met by my employers, in return for a couple of year's loyalty. My ex-brother-in-law was sponsored for >£42K on a top MBA course. They fully expect you to move on after that, as two-thirds do.
It's hardly the point, though. When you slur "Tories" as "hating wogs, poofs etc" you aren't talking about the banter of dinosaurs in the pub (and if you are, FFS, there isn't a party in politics which is going to come out of that squeaky clean), you are just spouting unsustainable bollocks, tarring both a government and an entire portion of the electorate in a repugnant manner, and in direct contradiction to the facts. Interaction with people who argue in such way isn't compulsory.
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