Here comes tomorrow
So unsurprisingly, we're already knee-deep in the pre-prepared narrative: that the unacceptable and shameful violence of the student protests has destroyed all public sympathy, and there'll be no more softly-softly treatment.
Thank heavens. I'm all for protest, but I won't stand by and watch the police have to face down a terrifying bunch of 15-year-old kids, some of them armed with sticks, with no protection other than their body armour, riot shields, truncheons, horses, vans and helicopters.
Now, I should say this: in broad principle, I'm not convinced the tuition-fee changes are all that evil. Even the newly-increased payback threshold of £21,000 is far too low – that's already barely a living wage for a single person in many parts of the country, including this one – and the repayment of £70 a month out of that amount could easily make all the difference between a viable income and a non-viable one, and therefore serve as a serious deterrent to the children of the poor taking up further education.
But as a general concept and were the figures adjusted appropriately (which of course they won't be), I don't think there's much wrong with the basic idea of people who gain significant financial benefit from going to university without up-front payment returning some of it to the taxpayer afterwards. (And those who don't gain significant benefit don't have to pay their loans back at all.)
I went to university for free, but the world has changed since then. We've all chosen, through our votes, to live in a society where everyone being in debt is the norm, so that banks and property owners and privatised utilities can make huge profits because that's good for everyone on account of [RIGHT-WING ECONOMIST FILL IN SOME TRANSPARENTLY UNTRUE BULLSHIT HERE]. I don't see that students particularly merit an exemption, particularly since it was mostly their parents who chose that path for society.
(All that said, the removal of EMAs – one of the few genuinely progressive and worthwhile things done by Labour in their years of power – in these measures is nothing short of a disgusting and senseless attack on the disadvantaged, which will save a relatively trivial amount of money in return for scenes of absolute educational carnage in poor areas, condemning many thousands to lives of shelf-stacking and wasted potential. It is a move absolutely and nakedly driven by ideology, not the nation's debts, and one designed with the purpose of securing future generations of low-paid wage slaves, particularly when combined with the coalition's reforms of the welfare system.)
But there are two far bigger issues at stake as the coalition government really starts to get its hands bloody in order to ensure the bankers don't go hungry.
One is the palpably increasing disintegration of the BBC as an impartial broadcaster. The reports of yesterday's scenes in Westminster were startling in their open bias, as news anchors repeated official police lines in direct contradiction of what their own reporters on the scene were telling them – cutting those reporters off if necessary in order to do so – and flatly reporting the exact opposite of what we could see happening with our own eyes.
Ever since the death of David Kelly (and accelerated by the trivial farce of Manuelgate), the BBC has become more and more cowed in the face of government pressure, and now censors itself long before anyone else can do it for them. On Breakfast yesterday I watched in astonishment as one of the presenters said that Lib Dem MPs who'd said they were going to vote for the fees increase "had been accused by students of reneging on the pledge they signed before the election", as if this plainly empirical fact was a matter of some dispute or doubt.
(Conversely, I attended the student protests in Bath three days earlier, and was mildly surprised to see the subsequent local-ITV news report make the protest look and sound considerably larger and more exciting than it had actually been. Indeed, so sparsely-attended was the event – perhaps 150 people in all – that the ITN crew interviewed both me and Rock Paper Shotgun's esteemed John Walker, two people who it ought to have been obvious left their student days behind some considerable time ago.)
(I have mostly cropped myself out of the above image, because you simply wouldn't be able to handle how astonishingly excellent my hat is.)
But more important than even the emasculation of the BBC is the vast hammer-blow to our already tissue-thin veneer of democracy that the Lib Dems' pathetic capitulation represents. BBC News played the democracy angle hard with various student representatives on Thursday, repeatedly challenging them with the contention that they should accept the democratic vote of their democratically-elected representatives.
But at no point did they question any Lib Dems over how democracy was exercised by having MPs get themselves elected on the basis of a specific, explicit, written promise to represent a particular point of view and then do the exact opposite once safely ensconced in Portcullis House.
Politicians break promises all the time, of course. Particularly in the circumstances of a coalition, junior partners can't expect to have policies enacted when they directly conflict with those of the larger partner with five times as many seats and four million more votes. But how do you cope with that situation in a supposed democracy?
Because clearly you can't just say "the Lib Dems are the smaller party, so everyone who voted for them, often having been entreatied to do so with the specific purposes of keeping the Tories out, effectively gets their vote changed to a Tory one", because that's a complete reversal – indeed, a destruction – of the whole concept of elected representatives. (The clue there being in the word "representatives".)
Where compromise is impossible – and it's hard to compromise on a black-and-white signed promise that you will "vote against any increase in [tuition] fees in the next parliament" – then the voters who elected those Lib Dem MPs are entitled to absolutely demand, in the name of democracy, that their representatives adhere to their pledge.
Should they not do so, there is only one acceptable alternative – those MPs must be recalled, sent out to explain to their constituents that in the light of the economic situation they've changed their minds, and made to ask people to vote for them again in the knowledge of this new position.
According to Thursday's votes, that would have resulted in 28 byelections. Which would be an inconvenience for a month and cost all the parties some money (giving them incentive not to break their promises, of course), but hardly the end of the world compared to the destruction the Lib Dems' betrayal has wrought on the entire basis of British democracy. What's the point of voting for someone whose promises, even when they sign their name to them in public, are meaningless lies?
The consequences are also serious in terms of the wider UK political picture. Clegg and his 27 treacherous colleagues (including, shamefully, my own MP) are on current polls – which put the Lib Dems on a catastrophic 9%, down from over 30% just seven months ago – likely to see their party almost wiped from the face of the map at the next General Election.
That will cast the nation into a hideous Lab-Con false dichotomy (can you have a monochotomy?) for a generation, forcing almost seven million Lib Dem voters to pick between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or just give up in disgust altogether. Because if politicians' promises can be so easily, so quickly and so totally turned into the exact opposite actions, if you can't believe a single word they say even when they sign their name to it, then why would you – how could you? – vote for any of them?
It was fragile and badly flawed before. But as of this morning, this country is incontrovertibly no longer a democracy. It's been stolen from you – from us – and the only people fighting for it are a bunch of kids. Are you going to sit back and let that happen just because one of them kicked Prince Charles' car?
*applauds*
that sounds depressing, you can borrow, or keep our mozart idiot wilders, to stir things up, which might awake some form of ideology in the parties…
The best treatment of the issue I have read anywhere on the internet, even the LRB(!!).
Even worse is the fact that the vote last night was to raise fees under the current system of loans. They haven't even got round to any of the 'progressive' bits yet, so the Lib Dems can't say that's why they voted for it last night.
I am turning this into a videogame. It's an Arkanoid/Breakout clone, with Clegg instead of Doh.
I also recommend this article if you haven't read it yet – http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/12/young-protesters-police
There are certain things in this piece that do agree with, although I have no time whatsoever for the scum urinating on war memorials etc. (NOTE – these less savoury incidents weren't even reported in most of the leftwing press if we're talking about press bias.)
I would support the notion of political parties being legally bound by manifesto commitments; even if this would have brought the coalition down as the LibDems have proved to be even more craven in their thirst for influence than Bliar was, U-turning, smarming and obfuscating at every available opportunity. All 3 main parties are so self-evidently craven and unprincipled it's not funny.
I also agree with your assessment of the Blair Brainwashing Corporation, insofar as its obvious bias. I would hope that you might have noticed this years ago – maybe you did. However its latest examples of bias are small fry compared to the past decade or more of unquestioning multicultural doctrine that it has forced down the throats of its viewers (who have to pay for the privilege by law). Hence the reason I never watch anything resembling news or political comment on the BBC, including the weekly farce known as "Question Time" with its laughably partial audience of 60's educated lecturers and foreign human rights lawyers. Its political bias is not even confined to news output; even its dramas are riddled with propaganda designed to make me – as a white male – feel bad about myself. And for the last two months, every time I turned the radio on all I heard was drivel regarding the Labour leadership election, when at the same time they were trying to strike during the Tory conference. No wonder all their studios have got red everywhere.
Seeing the Beeb's recent subtle changes in angle, it seems possible that it is now aiming simply to echo the views of the government of the day, its sole aim no doubt to safeguard its own privileged taxpayer-funded status. If it is aiming to do this, it's going to have an almighty job tearing down all the institutional bias it has so assiduously constructed over the last 13 years.
Oh yeah, and re your last point about a false choice being all the voters will have left – it appears the choice has been false along with the main 3.
This is why I fully support voting reform, which I presume you support.
I imagine this is skewed by part time workers, but even so, it seems that the the majority of people earn less than £20,000, with only 25% of people earning over £30,000 …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#Percentile_points_for_income_of_individuals_before_tax
… which would be my only reason for contending that £21000 is a fair level to start paying back.
It's been interesting to hear over the past few days how people genuinely feel betrayed by the Liberal Democrates; I didn't vote for them because of tuition fees, but because I broadly agreed with the four main pledges that they said they'd stick to if they were elected to a coalition (the pledge to students wasn't one of them). It's been hard for me to understand why people would feel betrayed, but it seems that I missed a lot of things Clegg had promised (since I've been out of the country on and off for two years) and I'm starting to appreciate what a mess they've made of things.
if watching the bbc makes you feel bad about yourself (because there are more non whites on there then you feel should be) then you can fuck off.
Malc
even its dramas are riddled with propaganda designed to make me – as a white male – feel bad about myself.
Seriously, man. Grow the fuck up.
"Ever since the death of Andrew Kelly"
David Kelly?
Matthew Kelly.
When reading Sage of Hamswell's post, imagine it being read aloud by Nick Griffin. It then makes sense.
Also, please bear in mind that the first people to pay these new fees back will graduate in 2015. If the inflation rate stays as it is at the moment, or even drops to 2%, then the £21,000 wage threshold for repayments will be equivalent to the £15,000 threshold now.
Actually, it was Kelly Kapowski. The only person prepared literally to cheerlead the war lost, so young, so young.
Whoops. Got muddled up with Andrew Sachs. Fixed now.
And yes, inflation would make the £21K figure even more unviable. Although I’m sure I heard on the news this week that it was now going to be inflation-adjusted.
"It was fragile and badly flawed before. But as of this morning, this country is incontrovertibly no longer a democracy. It's been stolen from you – from us – and the only people fighting for it are a bunch of kids. Are you going to sit back and let that happen just because one of them kicked Prince Charles' car?"
Over exaggeration much? You sound as bad as the girl that was interviewed saying this is a break down of the social fabric of Britain. Complete bollocks. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were democratically voted into power, and the passing of the higher tuition fees were passed democratically by voting as well. A pledge is not a legally binding document, it isn't a promise. It saying 'we will do our best'. However, given the circumstances of the creation of the coalition, this is one thing where a compromise occurs.
I don't quite get the logic of making a even higher minimum earnings fee that just shifts more of the cost onto the higher earning graduates, which are already inputting the most in the economy. Remember its a fixed fee as soon as you pass £21000 in earnings, its still a percentage, so those earning £60000 will be paying back considerably more than those earning on the boundary.
Anonymous X, don't make assumptions of peoples comments, especially when you haven't come up with a reasoned argument. Its like me calling you a communist just because you called him someone heavily right wing.
Finally, nobody take this personally. I do feel very sorry for those who have to pay the increased fees. However, there does seemed to be a lot of uninformed or very biased argument, where people don't actually think about the facts, and instead go by the group mentality. That is what irritates me. 🙂
“Over exaggeration much? You sound as bad as the girl that was interviewed saying this is a break down of the social fabric of Britain.”
I don’t think it’s even slightly an exaggeration to say that the UK’s electoral system no longer constitutes a democracy in any meaningful sense of the term. When people can completely and openly reverse the policies they stood for election on in just seven months, how can they possibly claim to be democratically representing the electorate that voted them in on the basis of those polices? And that’s on top of what was already a massively broken first-past-the-post system, which delivers representation wildly at odds with what the populace voted for.
And of course a pledge is a fucking promise. Any dictionary will tell you that.
“I don’t quite get the logic of making a even higher minimum earnings fee that just shifts more of the cost onto the higher earning graduates,”
So you DO get the logic of it, then.
newsflash: the libdems did not win an overall majority.
Also, its the klabour party who introduced fees when they claiemd they would not, so its hardly fair to blame the lib dems.
They still remain the only party to even claim an aspiration tos crap fees. Maybe if the torys let them cancel trident they could afford to do so.
Students whining about 'the death of democracy' are frankly just showing their hormones. There was an election, people voted. the tories got more votes than anyone else.
Sorry thats inconvenient for those wanting to write scary proclamations of doom.
"and the repayment of £70 a month out of that amount could easily make all the difference between a viable income and a non-viable one, and therefore serve as a serious deterrent to the children of the poor taking up further education"
I'm sorry, I'm having trouble parsing that. 21k is the new theshold, so at 21k you should be paying sod all per month. Even with the threshold at 15k, I make it you'd have to have been earning 24.5k for the repayment rate to be 70 quid a month. With the new theshold, that should be 30.5k before you're paying back 70 quid.
Unless I've made a huge mistake in my figures somewhere,,,?
"There was an election, people voted. the tories got more votes than anyone else."
And yet, nowhere even remotely near a majority of those votes. In proper democracies, getting barely over a third of the vote doesn't qualify you to implement all your policies. If the public wanted you to have unchallenged power and supported your entire manifesto, more of them would have voted for you.
And if the Lib Dems knew they couldn't keep to their pledge (and they were obviously never going to be the biggest party, a coalition was the most they could have hoped for), then you DON'T FUCKING SIGN IT. They didn't introduce fees, but then nobody's saying they did. They're being blamed for voting to triple them – nothing more and nothing less.
"I'm sorry, I'm having trouble parsing that. 21k is the new theshold, so at 21k you should be paying sod all per month."
The array of conflicting figures being hurled around by everyone is hard to navigate, so the £21K = £70 figure may well be wrong, though it doesn't really alter the core principle – even £30 a month could easily be the difference between a viable and non-viable income for those on borderline-liveable wages, which £21K will certainly be by 2015/16.
However, this makes an interesting read:
http://opennet.co.uk/student_payback.xls
Those figures suggest that anyone paying back a middling debt of £21,000 (not the potential £27,000+ that students at more expensive unis will be saddled with), and who is earning an pretty decent £28K a year, will be getting into MORE debt every year even once they start paying it back.
That table shows a graduate on £28K paying back a sizeable £54 a month and still seeing their student debt go UP. And facing a situation where you have to be earning almost £30K just to START actually reducing your debts is a serious deterrent.
that spreadsheet uses the same calculations for repayment as I did (9% of the salary over threshold), so at least I didn't cock *THAT* bit up 😉 – at 21k you will pay ZERO. The amount you pay yearly is 9% of the difference between your salary and 21k. To be repaying 360 a year you need to be paying 4k more than the threshold ie 25k. And unless there's some really unexpectedly large inflation of wages, 21k will be around MEDIAN income by the end of 2016 (ie 50% of the working-full-time population will be earning less)
Also, a starting salary of 28k and a loan of 21k has the loan being paid off in 20 years according to that spreadsheet (note that neither starting salary nor loan defaults to those values)
The average graduate starting salary is nowhere near £28K, though. This page suggests under £20K:
http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Main_menu___Research/Labour_market_information/Labour_market_FAQs/What_is_the_average_graduate_starting_salary_/p!epmglcg
Which means that graduates will face years of paying off their debt but still seeing it increase.
None of this is really the point anyway. The point is whether the size of the debt and the mechanics of paying it off will act as a deterrent to students from poor backgrounds, and if you need a starting salary of close to £30K to even start reducing the debt, I think it’s pretty fair to say that it will.
"And unless there's some really unexpectedly large inflation of wages, 21k will be around MEDIAN income by the end of 2016"
er…median salary is 26k already. Unless you're expecting massive deflation between now and 2016, the 21k threshold will be well below the median income.
@Ian: cheers, that'll teach me to do something by memory instead of looking the sodding figures up again :/ You are quite right, I was 10k a year short.
@RevStu: I agree that 28k isn't a typical starting salary, but it was you who quoted that figure originally
Speaking as someone from a poor background, the prospect of a loan that can never result in bankruptcy, baliffs, house repossession etc. and which gets written off if you don't pay it back by the time you retire, wasn't, and wouldn't, be a deterrent at all. Remember you can pay it back faster if you wish, you just aren't compelled to.
@Klo, that isn't an assumption. SoH's post contains the stereotypical BNP type "white men are an oppressed minority" discourse.
Klo, hear hear. I've attempted to make a reasoned point, and the best some people can do is come up with ad hominem one-line insults, even sometimes with the token rabble-rousing swear word in place of any rational response.
I notice that Anonymous X disregards his own presumed standards of superiority with laughable ease through the use of his stereotype. Rather intolerant, don't you think? At the risk of shattering your preconceptions, I've never denied the holocaust. Sorry if that means you need to add an extra row to your list of cut-and-paste blog responses.
I wonder if "Malc" was so apoplectic at Greg Dyke when he accused his own corporation of being "hideously white"? I'm guessing not. Since then the BBC has itself admitted to fast-tracking non-white staff into senior positions – I'm no legal expert but I'd be amazed if this policy isn't illegal under Race Relations law, and is even more incredible given the Beeb's taxpayer-funded status.
For a comprehensive (and continually updated) list of examples of Beeb propaganda try here:
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/
Or the report (commissioned by the BBC ITSELF) as reported by the Daily Mail here (it contains verifiable quotes and facts from the report, before you shriek in horror at sullying the innocence of your browsers with the evils of the Mail). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html
This last piece is from 4 years ago, so the BBC's acknowledgement of its own bias is hardly breaking news. I can forgive cave-dwelling invertebrates (and perhaps the Amish) for missing all this, but for everyone else all this should have been pretty damn clear over the last decade.
I won't be dignifying any further one-line insults with a reply. Good day to you all.
As for the actual topic of discussion, if there weren't so many people being conned into going to university as a result of Labour's arbitrary – and way too high – targets, there wouldn't be any need for tuition fees. Of course, with the Tories hamstrung by their obsession with not being viewed as nasty, and the LibDems sailing with the wind in truest mainstream political tradition, there's no prospect of this situation being rectified.
Safeguarding free further education for the brightest 10 or 15% (ie. those actually inclined towards academic study) whilst leaving the remaining universities free to charge, would seem to me to be a sensible solution.
Ah, Cavey is back after his latest flounce, I see.
Er, not me I'm afraid Mr X, as I'm sure Stu will be able to verify. Plus, sock puppets aren't really my thing.
Can't say I subscribe to SoH's sentiments re. the 'race card', frankly, though I welcome his being able to air them? He does make a good point in his last post as well – we clearly DO try to channel too many young people into university, where a vocational apprenticeship or similar would actually be much more appropriate.
I'd also mention aat this point that if I were Stu, I'd be pretty pissed off at yet another opportunity of intelligent, reasoned debate, with interesting people having disparate views (surely the intended demographic, indeed principal purpose of this entire blog in the first place) stymied yet again, for the usual entirely predictable and tedious reasons.
Um, what's been stymied? People can debate all they like. But posters who use phrases like "Blair Brainwashing Corporation" and "the past decade or more of unquestioning multicultural doctrine that it has forced down the throats of its viewers" can't exactly act surprised when people view their comments through a filter of "Oh, it's some Daily Mail loony". It's a bit disingenuous to lay the blame for that at the door of the people who reacted to it with disdain.
Well, it's your blog, man. Personally I really can't see how such comments as 'grow the fuck up', 'your post makes more sense when read in a Nick Griffin voice' or 'it's Cavey back from his flounce' [i]et al[/i] as being anything other than ad hominem trolling, precisely designed to discourage and truncate any meaningful discussion from those of a different POV.
Speaking for myself only and by way of example, under different circumstances I'd positively relish the prospect of taking on some of the assertions you make in your interesting article – but what's the point? It's not that there's anything to be scared of people calling me, or anyone else rude names and/or caricaturing us in the usual trite manner, it's just that it's a complete waste of mine, and everyone else's time.
That said, I do applaud the likes of Klo and SoH for sticking their heads over the WoS parapet, albeit I most certainly do not agree with all that has been said by them, far from it. Still, it made a refreshing, brief change; a glimpse of how things [i]could[/i] have been here, and on the forum.
What ARE you talking about? I haven't been rude to anyone.
I didn't say you were (on this occasion at least, though even you'll surely admit you're no stranger to being rude on the internet to those who hold polar opinions to your own), but there's been plenty of that from other usual suspects, one in particular, again.
The point I am making is that, I'm assuming you actively want reasoned participation and debate on this blog, Stu, otherwise you doubtless wouldn't go to all the considerable effort and trouble as you do – with some success I might add, as I've said to you before.
So it's a great shame, then, that others are incapable of reasoned debate, and are so intolerant as to not even permit others, including new and sufficiently interested posters, to even have their say at all without being subjected to the usual rude treatment right from the off, yet offering precisely nothing constructive whatsoever to actually counter the views that they find so abhorrent with anything of their own.
Anyway, you know the score by now. I only got visibly involved here at all because I was being accused of something I hadn't done, though I seriously doubt that any apology will be forthcoming any time soon.
I can categorically state that I am *NOT* Captain Caveman.
If people are wont to categorise others as "Daily Mail loonies" that's fine (I'm actually more of a Telegraph man myself) – but that's no excuse to immediately apply a "filter" and subsequently restrict responses to one-line curses. There are numerous examples of people with views closer to mine who make the same mistake whenever bloggers with opposing views jump into the fire.
My point was simply that the BBC has indulged itself in a weird form of inverse racism and cultural bias for years, and that this has largely been acknowledged from within the BBC itself.
FWIW I think most mainstream news outlets are guilty of ignoring stories that don't fit their worldview, not just the BBC. Yet the problem with the BBC is that it is taxpayer-funded, and has a charter of impartiality that it flouts with laughable frequency. As Jeff Randall put it:
"It's a bit like walking into a Sunday meeting of the Flat Earth Society. As they discuss great issues of the day, they discuss them from the point of view that the earth is flat. If someone says, 'No, no, no, the earth is round!', they think this person is an extremist. That's what it's like for someone with my right-of-centre views working inside the BBC."
Away from their news reporting, there are so many examples of bias in their dramas their are frankly too many to list here.
From the Telegraph – The BBC's controller of DRAMA commissioning, Ben Stephenson, drew criticism last year when he said that the corporation should foster "left-of-centre thinking".
He later tried to fudge this by saying he meant "left-field". Yeah right, whatever. Spooks, Dr Who, Eastenders – I can't list all the examples or I'll wear out my keyboard – but every time there is an accusation of bias reported in the press, by a magic coincidence it always has the same political slant. The evidence is pretty overwhelming.
I didn't want to hijack the discussion over tuition fees, but I feel compelled to point this out in light of accusations of bias being levelled at the Beeb over its reporting of the protests. Don't take my word for it – just google 'bbc bias' and start ploughing through the 2,070,000 hits.
PS. I've just seen the footage of Charlie Gilmour doing his obnoxious bare-chested dance in front of the police line. The fact he walked away without a truncheon rammed up his sphincter illustrates remarkable restraint from the Plod, IMO.
Sorry, Cavey. Genuinely. That was a damn bad move on my part to assume that CoH was you. Your views can be cranky and often not my cup of tea, but you have never expressed any views that that could be inferred to be borderline racial or ethnic prejudice, for which you have my respect.
OK, thanks. Appreciated.
I accused the BBC of having a warped worldview, and you then accuse ME of prejudice. You are obviously one of those people that never actually addresses conflicting views with any attempt at logic or reason, but who instead cheerfully applies prejudice (the rich irony of which is obviously lost on you) by skim-reading posts and then blurting out the same tired old accusations one can find ad nauseum in the Guardian whenever anyone dares to point out facts contradicting their dogma.
Why don't you try re-reading what I said and tell yourself where the "prejudice" is? In any case, you can relax as I shall be gracing these pages with my counsel no longer. Instead, I shall go back to having a life, and leave you free to go about your business jerking off over the Socialist Worker and lobbing fire extinguishers off roofs.
I accused the BBC of having a warped worldview, and you then accuse ME of prejudice. You are obviously one of those people that never actually addresses conflicting views with any attempt at logic or reason,"
Well, nor did you. In what ways has the BBC "forced an unquestioning multicultural doctrine down the throats of its viewers", exactly? Got any examples?
You might be the world's least racist person for all I know, but if you use the language of the BNP you can't get all huffy when people suggest you might be prejudiced.
I've long held the opinion that protests/demonstrations of this nature are ineffective and toothless. They look impressive, the media gets to fill column inches but ultimately they elicit no change. The problem is that the tools of democracy, those of influence and power have been removed from – or perhaps were never in – the hands of "the people" into Parliament. No Government elected, or otherwise, takes any notice of protests simply because the people can't do anything except replace the ruling party with another bunch of much-the-same, smartly dressed, well groomed, silk-tongued centre-rightists come the next election.
For a Government to remain in power it needs one thing and one thing only, and it ain't the consent of the people but money. Or the people's money, to be precise. Without that, the business of government becomes impossible. If a popular grassroots movement were to feel strongly enough about an issue and withhold income tax, they'd exert significant influence of the sort that changes policy. Of course, this particular problem was dealt with long before I was born with the introduction of PAYE; it's very difficult to withhold your income tax when the Government takes its cut before you've even seen it.
What remains then, as far as successful protest is concerned is to find another way to make the business of government impossible. I don't think I'm enough of a radical to come up with a scheme that was generally popular, focussed and effective – but in this day and age of instant and easy mass communication I'm certain somebody will.
I had a quick look at that BiasedBBC blog. Strikes me as exactly the kind of stereotypical right-wing siege-mentality horseshit Sage is trying to distance himself from – unless the first two pages aren't representative, what with their demands for more positive coverage of the Tea Party, the EDL, the evils of Islam, how global warming is a scam, and less of the obvious arse-kissing of the SNP (I know I'm certainly sick of all the positive coverage Scottish nationalism is always getting.)
Linking to a site on which someone proudly claims "I agree with James Delingpole!" and others nod sagely? Not the ideal way to proclaim "I AM NOT A LOON", is what I'm getting at.
"BBC… obvious arse-kissing of the SNP"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm a bit late to this party, but I'm getting so annoyed by people who point out that "the Lib Dems didn't win the election", as if that's in any way relevant.
Each Lib Dem MP signed a pledge to "vote against any rise in [tuition] fees". "Vote against" being the key term here: they wouldn't use that phrase if they were expecting to form a majority government themselves, because then they'd be dictating policy: in which case the only way they could vote against a rise would be to introduce one themselves and then vote it down. I wouldn't put it past that shower of self-serving bastards, but it'd be a bit much even for them.
The words "vote against" make it quite clear that they expected one of the other parties to increase tuition fees, and they'd – wait for it – vote against it. The fact they didn't win the election is totally irrelevant, as there's a clear and obvious implication (well, clear and obvious to anyone who isn't a fucking idiot) that they weren't expecting to win the election outright, but that they'd oppose any party on this issue if they tried to raise fees.
A lot of people, particularly students, voted Lib Dem specifically because of this: they wanted as many Lib Dems in Parliament as possible as they were the only party promising to vote against a rise in fees.
They have every right to feel betrayed and to protest.
I agree with Lucky Jim. Also, as a close relative of that stupid line, how about "Being in government means the Lib Dems having to make some tough decisions"? No, the tough decision would be would be to stick to your guns, not cave in at the first barked order from your senior partners – that's a piece of piss, not "tough". It doesn't show character or maturity or even pragmatic acceptance of the facts, it just shows a complete lack of conviction.
Also, Lib Dem zealots asking rhetorical questions along the lines of "What were they supposed to do? If they'd opposed the Tories and not joined the coalition, the media would have slaughtered them and they'd have suffered at the ballot box, likely leaving us an outright Tory majority and WHO KNOWS what evils might have come from that!". Yeah, and? Who is it exactly who gives a shit about whether major decisions are in the best interests of the short-term electoral prospects of the Liberal Democrat Party? If a single disapproving look from David Cameron makes you willing to abandon stuff you've signed giant photo-op pledges over, I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt to act as a credible moderating influence. I don't even care about tuition fees that much, but I'm far more concerned at how quickly a juicy ministerial appointment or two has turned not only Lib Dem politicians, but also Lib Dem supporters, into meek, obedient Tory lapdogs who apparently can't hear what they sound like when they talk.
(also also, just to avoid confusion, I wasn't suggesting the BBC was biased towards the SNP, it's a particularly crazy and hysterical claim on the BiasedBBC site Mr Sage linked to up there, at which I was poking fun.)
I got that.
I would've been interested to develop the argument with the likes of SoH re. positive discrimination. I don't deny that such practices exist within the BBC and other similar public institutions and nor do I seek to 'bury' such arguments in PC-induced ire. I'd want to take the issue head on and suggest that yes, given the massive historic discrimination (whether intentional or incidental) suffered by minority groups and women, it's only right that we should use such practices to break the status quo, for the greater good of having a much more representative demographic within senior management and indeed government?
Still, fat chance guys, eh. It's only ever going to be a half dozen or so familar faces all nodding in agreement around here, same goes for the tumbleweedville forums.
Thing is, it would've been genuinely interesting and far more reader-friendly to see how constructive debate centred around a *real* Tory around here would've progressed, rather than the same tired, old, endless pot of god at the end of the rainbow 'play it again, Sam' nonsense. Are you all afraid of genuine debate? Or is it that you're so intolerant that you just don't want anything to do with people who don't agree with you?
What debate is being stifled, exactly? As far as I can tell, the only things being carped about are, essentially, sideshows: the mechanics of tuition fees reform itself, and the question of the BBC being some sort of general, unspecified left-wing propaganda machine with a PC agenda painted as though it's a sinister conspiracy.
I haven't got anything to contribute to the former – quite honestly I think it's the sort of issue followers of any mainstream political party treat as though it's their favourite football team, in that nobody can confidently assert the correct way forward, if there is one, and yet everyone seems to be ready to not only insist their party's current stance is the correct one but decry all other options as idiotic (even though, as I understand it, the present proposals don't exactly mirror any of the major three parties' pre-election stance?) I freely admit I don't have the answers; I'm not convinced anyone else does, I'm certainly not prepared to say they do just because I voted for them, and I'm genuinely aghast at the ease with which pre-election promises as firm as it's possible to make pre-election promises can be brazenly cast aside with no more reason than "Oh, we changed our minds." Bad enough when you're talking about broad, hazy ideological shifts, but when you say "If elected, I categorically pledge I will definitely do X", and when the time comes you do the exact opposite, this is just wrong. That's the issue, for me anyway, and that's what I want to debate.
The BBC business is a smokescreen, which I zeroed in on because like I said, it's illustrative of the sort of siege-mentality bullshit often spouted by the kind of right-wingers who go on predominantly left-wing fora to cause trouble, decrying a lack of grown-up debate when what they mean is "people not prepared to agree I'm right" (no better, of course, than the slightly different but equally lazy and tiresome bullshit spouted by left-wingers who wander onto predominantly right-wing fora, but that's another issue); if someone says "I think you'll find I'm right, but don't take my word for it – look at these guys!" and links to a borderline-crazy incoherent rant like Biased BBC, it's legitimate to call that into question.
Generally, though, I find that if you have "extreme" opinions compared to the people you're trying to debate with (left/right, libertarian/authoritarian, gay/straight, Arsenal/Spurs, it doesn't matter), then fun though it is, the way to generate that debate isn't by just wandering in, saying "You're wrong, she's wrong, HE'S wrong, [insert gratuitously offensive generalisation], [insert reference to distraction side-issue], answer me THAT!" and then being surprised when people call you extreme and tell you to fuck off. It doesn't mean you're dealing with a closed-minded clique who can't debate like grown-ups, it just means you haven't convinced anyone you're more than a closed-minded ideologue yourself, someone who isn't worth debating with.
Well said. I voted libdem. Okay, so a conservative held his post in our constituency (Francis Maude) but I feel so terribly let down by the libdems, first when they agreed to work with the conservatives and again and again every time they break an election pledge. You think I'd espect that from polititians by now, at age 40+…
A question: Where does the £9k a year figure come from?
I got my first degree from the OU – as a mature student, having bummed out of uni when it was free – and that didn't cost anything like that amount. Plus I was still able to work, raise a family and etc. etc. So much so, I'm now doing a second degree with the OU.
I'd agree with the blog post in a broad sense, but the thing that stuck out for me was this:
"I don't see that students particularly merit an exemption, particularly since it was mostly their parents who chose that path for society."
I'm…. not really sure how that would ever be fair, blaming kids for their parent's choices, but I can accept it in the interests of good polemic.
My main point of disagreement is that the student rioters didn't go far enough. I'd barely call what happened a riot. A few policemen got owie-booboos? Tough shit. Some statues got pissed on? Oh no, civilisation has surely ended.. There was grafiti and window smashing? Well it's a good start. Until they drag Charles and Camilla screaming out of their car and hang them from the nearest lamp post I'd say that things are only just warming up.
Well, the point wasn't that kids were to blame for their parents' choices. The point was that their parents made those choices, and now those same parents are the ones who're going to get landed with the bill for paying their kids through college.
And yeah, so far the protests have been pretty trivial petty vandalism at the end of the day. But I'm not sure Charles and Camilla are the issue – they don't make the laws. If you want to drag Cameron and Clegg out of their car and decorate the street lighting with THEM, I'll hold your coat and your petrol can.
Oh no I only mention Charles and Camilla as they happened to be passing, I'm sure we'll get to the royals eventually though. I'll bear in mind you generous offer of coat holding for the new year, thanks!