At least we haven't seen her disgusting £1000 leather trousers so far in this election. She might be 60 but she has the body of a 90 year old and should dress appropriately!
At least we haven't seen her disgusting £1000 leather trousers so far in this election. She might be 60 but she has the body of a 90 year old and should dress appropriately!
None of this crap, please
Are you the only one allowed to post crap then?
We all post it at times, just maybe move the conversation away from someone's appearance.
At least we haven't seen her disgusting £1000 leather trousers so far in this election. She might be 60 but she has the body of a 90 year old and should dress appropriately!
None of this crap, please
Are you the only one allowed to post crap then?
We all post it at times, just maybe move the conversation away from someone's appearance.
Why should he. Jeremy Corbyn takes enough stick for his somewhat casual appearance.
I would like to return to the topic of University fees
Today my Swedish buddy called me from his car. He was on his way to Copenhagen with his daughter, who is following her brother to study there.
Under a pan-Nordic agreement (a sort of mini-EU which includes Norway) the unis of all four countries are open to citizens of all those countries.
Fees? None. Paid by the State from general taxation (and possibly not even re-imbursed from the student's State to the State where the Uni is. He isn't sure).
Living costs? Paid by student from a 0% loan. However State writes off 50% if student successfully graduates.
My buddy's kids are both one year younger than my sister's two kids. My buddy is CEO and chairman of Haki, a big Scandi company in scaffolding. His kids Uni is basically costing him nothing beyond his tax.
My sister's husband is a postman. She herself has worked most of her life too, as a secretary. So not exactly CEO income. Without my financial support she wonders if either of them would have opted for Uni.
Denmark can under no circumstances be described as a "socialist" country, although it does have a relatively high tax base. My buddy says the uni. policy described above is not a political issue in any of the four countries.
How come they are willing to and can afford to invest in the education of their young people from general public budgets and the UK allegedly cannot? And has anyone ever met a Scandi university graduate who didn't appear at least as smart and educated as his or her British counterpart?
Why do we have such a fucked up policy towards Uni fees and why are more of you not seething with anger about it?
Corbyn is right on this one.
In an ideal world education whether you are 5 at primary school, 19 at university or 55 doing a flower arranging course should be free.
But it's like anything we don't have at the moment, how will it be funded? I think the estimate for free University that Labour announced was £11bn. The proposed income tax increases only gross 6.5bn before any 'behaviour effect'.
All that said we afforded it pre 1998 or whenever it was but now we have (I believe) more than twice the amount of people going to Uni than back then. Out of interest tax rates 1995 and prior were 25 & 40% (small amount at 20%) with the higher band being at circa 25k which I guess is circa 40k now, so not disimilar at the upper end.
I'm not adverse to the loan system for University, however the fee's are too high, maybe the half way house is to subsidise the fee's to bring them down.
I think business could do a lot more (and I'm seeing signs that they are). Many large companies in the city are now taking A Level graduates and training them themselves in the industry (Banking, finance, insurance, accountancy etc). To me this is much more practical. I see many graduates coming into Insurance (or trying to) who have a degree in politics or geography etc and then have effectively do an insurance degree (that the employer pays for).
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
"Two pence a week, and jam every other day." Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire me – and I don't care for jam." "It's very good jam," said the Queen. "Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate." "You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day." "It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected. "No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."
So much of this election thread just seems like the day to day at the Valley. By the way @DamoNorthStand I know you worry that a Labour win would damage you financially, but how can you bear to move out of South East London now that the regime at the Valley have learned from their mistakes?
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
I think what we are seeing a lot of during this election, perhaps more than any other, is that many Tory supporters (think they) know the cost of everything and the value of very little.
Other countries have free unis, better public services, a functioning housing market, more wealth equality, less food poverty, still manage to attract investment without becoming a low rent tax haven, have a healthy GDP, etc. and yet have an enviable standard of living for its citizens. We have the 5th biggest economy in the world but are told we just have to expect things will get worse for most of us and like it, lump it or leave.
I'm a bit fed up with the whole austerity, "we can't afford to fund it..." nonsense myself but it seems the majority of the public can't get enough of it and will happily vote on that basis on Thursday. All a bit unambitious for UK PLC really.
They don't understand economics. Now if you earned big money - much more than £80k a year - I can undertsand you preferring not to be out of pocket for selfish reasons, but it is the people nowhere near that, who just can't grasp the straightforward maths involved. You can't pay for things with what you haven't got - if you believe this in simplistic terms you are forgetting that is what most countries have been doing for centuries, and getting richer to boot!
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
I think what we are seeing a lot of during this election, perhaps more than any other, is that many Tory supporters (think they) know the cost of everything and the value of very little.
Other countries have free unis, better public services, a functioning housing market, more wealth equality, less food poverty, still manage to attract investment without becoming a low rent tax haven, have a healthy GDP, etc. and yet have an enviable standard of living for its citizens. We have the 5th biggest economy in the world but are told we just have to expect things will get worse for most of us and like it, lump it or leave.
I'm a bit fed up with the whole austerity, "we can't afford to fund it..." nonsense myself but it seems the majority of the public can't get enough of it and will happily vote on that basis on Thursday. All a bit unambitious for UK PLC really.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you are saying - however the label 5th largest economy is misleading - we are around 25-30 in the ranks (depending where you look) on GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). That's the important measure and all the Scandinavian countries apart from Finland are bigger (Finland about the same as the UK) - Belgium, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Netherlands, Australia - just some of the bigger countries by GDP per capita.
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
I think what we are seeing a lot of during this election, perhaps more than any other, is that many Tory supporters (think they) know the cost of everything and the value of very little.
Other countries have free unis, better public services, a functioning housing market, more wealth equality, less food poverty, still manage to attract investment without becoming a low rent tax haven, have a healthy GDP, etc. and yet have an enviable standard of living for its citizens. We have the 5th biggest economy in the world but are told we just have to expect things will get worse for most of us and like it, lump it or leave.
I'm a bit fed up with the whole austerity, "we can't afford to fund it..." nonsense myself but it seems the majority of the public can't get enough of it and will happily vote on that basis on Thursday. All a bit unambitious for UK PLC really.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you are saying - however the label 5th largest economy is misleading - we are around 25-30 in the ranks (depending where you look) on GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). That's the important measure and all the Scandinavian countries apart from Finland are bigger (Finland about the same as the UK) - Belgium, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Netherlands, Australia - just some of the bigger countries by GDP per capita.
Yeah, apologies. I was just going by what the Brexiteers told everybody last year as reassurance everyone else will bend over backwards to accomodate us ;-)
You Tories always see promising signs before an election, they soon disapear after. Public spending is important as long as it is spent well and not wasted. And we can afford it - countries with less wealth than us can afford it so your argument is compete tosh on that front!
I think what we are seeing a lot of during this election, perhaps more than any other, is that many Tory supporters (think they) know the cost of everything and the value of very little.
Other countries have free unis, better public services, a functioning housing market, more wealth equality, less food poverty, still manage to attract investment without becoming a low rent tax haven, have a healthy GDP, etc. and yet have an enviable standard of living for its citizens. We have the 5th biggest economy in the world but are told we just have to expect things will get worse for most of us and like it, lump it or leave.
I'm a bit fed up with the whole austerity, "we can't afford to fund it..." nonsense myself but it seems the majority of the public can't get enough of it and will happily vote on that basis on Thursday. All a bit unambitious for UK PLC really.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you are saying - however the label 5th largest economy is misleading - we are around 25-30 in the ranks (depending where you look) on GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). That's the important measure and all the Scandinavian countries apart from Finland are bigger (Finland about the same as the UK) - Belgium, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Netherlands, Australia - just some of the bigger countries by GDP per capita.
Yeah, apologies. I was just going by what the Brexiteers told everybody last year as reassurance everyone else will bend over backwards to accomodate us ;-)
Overall GDP is still a significant measure, in terms of market size for trading - but wealth (and the ability to spend on public services) is linked directly to GDP per capita.
In the context of university fees, has anyone seriously examined their cost bases? European unis don't generally charge anything like 9k a year even to foreign students. Are we seriously suggesting our bog standard unis are so much better than their equivs. in say the Netherlands? That's the trouble with the island mentality. If we spent more time comparing these issues with how our European friends do things, instead of turning our backs on them, we would have some serious ammunition with which to interrogate our politicians.
To answer your question, where is the money coming from, my response is, how do the Scandis, Germany the Netherlands etc afford it? These countries are not profligate bankrupt basket cases, are they? And they don't seem to have a social care crisis like we do either.
Increasingly I look at the UK, and ask myself, where does all the money go?
On Abbott, I cringe during the 3 second silence we see between a complex question and her answer. She's a gift for the Conservatives, and neatly wrapped one.
Something has certainly changed about her. I actually used to find her entertaining and quick witted on This Week with Andrew Neil but now she comes across a bit punch drunk and only seemed to show some fight when answering the question about Donald Trumps state visit. Well out of her depth by the looks of it.
She is not good at knowing the numbers. Boris Johnson is just as bad but people seem happly to let him mumble his way through. For a foreign secretray not to know the answers to questions he was asked on itv breakfast this morning and being a member of COBRA is completely astounding. Especially as one of the numbers was 1!!!!! He probably draws pictures on his notepad as discussions go on. If he was Labour he would get just as hard a time as Abbott, but the Tory press love to cultivate this self effacing nice guy angle when he is really a corrupt git! Oh well, never mind - clear he isn't my favourite politician.
Some will still fall off their chair but at least give it a chance despite it coming from Nuttall, the comments are getting support from labour voters believe it or not.
In the context of university fees, has anyone seriously examined their cost bases? European unis don't generally charge anything like 9k a year even to foreign students. Are we seriously suggesting our bog standard unis are so much better than their equivs. in say the Netherlands? That's the trouble with the island mentality. If we spent more time comparing these issues with how our European friends do things, instead of turning our backs on them, we would have some serious ammunition with which to interrogate our politicians.
To answer your question, where is the money coming from, my response is, how do the Scandis, Germany the Netherlands etc afford it? These countries are not profligate bankrupt basket cases, are they? And they don't seem to have a social care crisis like we do either.
Increasingly I look at the UK, and ask myself, where does all the money go?
What percentage of the young go to university in these countries? According to wiki the UK has 20% more of young people going to uni than Germany. What's the figures for the Scandis and other European countries? What are the outgoing costs compared to ours? From what I can find, expenditure is 31bn per year for the UK, I wonder if Germany is that much. I seem to recall seeing something recently that public funding was not sustainable over there too and it might not be long until fees are introduced. Will see if I can dig it out.
The UK has 18 of the top 100 ranked universities in the world, what about these other countries who are funded by the tax payer? Us and the States account for 40 of the top 100. No doubt we both have some of the highest in uni fees in the world, so is it a coincidence that we have the top unis as well? I don't think it is.
So how do they afford it? They don't plough as much in as we do, which reflects in the standards.
In the context of university fees, has anyone seriously examined their cost bases? European unis don't generally charge anything like 9k a year even to foreign students. Are we seriously suggesting our bog standard unis are so much better than their equivs. in say the Netherlands? That's the trouble with the island mentality. If we spent more time comparing these issues with how our European friends do things, instead of turning our backs on them, we would have some serious ammunition with which to interrogate our politicians.
To answer your question, where is the money coming from, my response is, how do the Scandis, Germany the Netherlands etc afford it? These countries are not profligate bankrupt basket cases, are they? And they don't seem to have a social care crisis like we do either.
Increasingly I look at the UK, and ask myself, where does all the money go?
What percentage of the young go to university in these countries? According to wiki the UK has 20% more of young people going to uni than Germany. What's the figures for the Scandis and other European countries? What are the outgoing costs compared to ours? From what I can find, expenditure is 31bn per year for the UK, I wonder if Germany is that much. I seem to recall seeing something recently that public funding was not sustainable over there too and it might not be long until fees are introduced. Will see if I can dig it out.
The UK has 18 of the top 100 ranked universities in the world, what about these other countries who are funded by the tax payer? Us and the States account for 40 of the top 100. No doubt we both have some of the highest in uni fees in the world, so is it a coincidence that we have the top unis as well? I don't think it is.
So how do they afford it? They don't plough as much in as we do, which reflects in the standards.
Some quick points
1. There is a very good reason why there may be more UK kids at Uni than in Germany ( I am taking your source as accurate). Germany has thriving apprentice colleges, which supply all those myriad German companies of all sizes, which make stuff.
2. Google "Global rankings of universities" and three different ones come up, all with different results. While the usual suspects are in most of them, its noticeable that in the Times Ed Supp. one, KU Leuven, at 40, is well ahead of Manchester at 55. I mention this because of course Leuven produced RD and KM...so we'll ignore that one, shall we? :-) There are of course different tables for different subjects.
3. If the Nordic countries are going to significantly change their financing model, I think my buddy would have heard about it, not least because all four countries would need to agree, and the political discussions would be pretty high profile.
4. Using fees as a measure of quality is dangerous, since you pay the same at Manchester as you do at my old gaff, Portsmouth, which is a former polytechnic. Patently, there's a world of difference.
5. At least as far as business goes, if the Uk unis were so superior, you might think that UK managers would dominate the European units of global companies such as P&G and Unilever. They don't. They are there but not really overweight to population size. And Unilever could be described as part British. I accept that the story could be different in something like medicine, where I have zero knowledge, but overall the proof of the pudding..is the average Danish graduate thicker than the average British one? Not the ones I met. They are all sharp as razors.
Following this from out of the country and obviously without as much as stake. Been impressed by Corbyn's campaign/general principles but he is up against the narrative of the Sun and the Mail and I am not convinced at all by his shadow cabinet - some of them are right out of the Student Union.
Hoping he can at least give a bloody nose to May and that the Tories will dump her after the election. Conservative win but Johnson next PM?
Comments
But it's like anything we don't have at the moment, how will it be funded? I think the estimate for free University that Labour announced was £11bn. The proposed income tax increases only gross 6.5bn before any 'behaviour effect'.
All that said we afforded it pre 1998 or whenever it was but now we have (I believe) more than twice the amount of people going to Uni than back then. Out of interest tax rates 1995 and prior were 25 & 40% (small amount at 20%) with the higher band being at circa 25k which I guess is circa 40k now, so not disimilar at the upper end.
I'm not adverse to the loan system for University, however the fee's are too high, maybe the half way house is to subsidise the fee's to bring them down.
I think business could do a lot more (and I'm seeing signs that they are). Many large companies in the city are now taking A Level graduates and training them themselves in the industry (Banking, finance, insurance, accountancy etc). To me this is much more practical. I see many graduates coming into Insurance (or trying to) who have a degree in politics or geography etc and then have effectively do an insurance degree (that the employer pays for).
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire me – and I don't care for jam."
"It's very good jam," said the Queen.
"Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate."
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."
"It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."
Other countries have free unis, better public services, a functioning housing market, more wealth equality, less food poverty, still manage to attract investment without becoming a low rent tax haven, have a healthy GDP, etc. and yet have an enviable standard of living for its citizens. We have the 5th biggest economy in the world but are told we just have to expect things will get worse for most of us and like it, lump it or leave.
I'm a bit fed up with the whole austerity, "we can't afford to fund it..." nonsense myself but it seems the majority of the public can't get enough of it and will happily vote on that basis on Thursday. All a bit unambitious for UK PLC really.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39920572
https://fullfact.org/economy/uk-worlds-5th-or-9th-largest-economy/
However we measure it and despite all the bullshit around "living within our means" we ain't scrapping around the bottom of the barrel.
In the context of university fees, has anyone seriously examined their cost bases? European unis don't generally charge anything like 9k a year even to foreign students. Are we seriously suggesting our bog standard unis are so much better than their equivs. in say the Netherlands? That's the trouble with the island mentality. If we spent more time comparing these issues with how our European friends do things, instead of turning our backs on them, we would have some serious ammunition with which to interrogate our politicians.
To answer your question, where is the money coming from, my response is, how do the Scandis, Germany the Netherlands etc afford it? These countries are not profligate bankrupt basket cases, are they? And they don't seem to have a social care crisis like we do either.
Increasingly I look at the UK, and ask myself, where does all the money go?
Some will still fall off their chair but at least give it a chance despite it coming from Nuttall, the comments are getting support from labour voters believe it or not.
The UK has 18 of the top 100 ranked universities in the world, what about these other countries who are funded by the tax payer? Us and the States account for 40 of the top 100. No doubt we both have some of the highest in uni fees in the world, so is it a coincidence that we have the top unis as well? I don't think it is.
So how do they afford it? They don't plough as much in as we do, which reflects in the standards.
1. There is a very good reason why there may be more UK kids at Uni than in Germany ( I am taking your source as accurate). Germany has thriving apprentice colleges, which supply all those myriad German companies of all sizes, which make stuff.
2. Google "Global rankings of universities" and three different ones come up, all with different results. While the usual suspects are in most of them, its noticeable that in the Times Ed Supp. one, KU Leuven, at 40, is well ahead of Manchester at 55. I mention this because of course Leuven produced RD and KM...so we'll ignore that one, shall we? :-) There are of course different tables for different subjects.
3. If the Nordic countries are going to significantly change their financing model, I think my buddy would have heard about it, not least because all four countries would need to agree, and the political discussions would be pretty high profile.
4. Using fees as a measure of quality is dangerous, since you pay the same at Manchester as you do at my old gaff, Portsmouth, which is a former polytechnic. Patently, there's a world of difference.
5. At least as far as business goes, if the Uk unis were so superior, you might think that UK managers would dominate the European units of global companies such as P&G and Unilever. They don't. They are there but not really overweight to population size. And Unilever could be described as part British. I accept that the story could be different in something like medicine, where I have zero knowledge, but overall the proof of the pudding..is the average Danish graduate thicker than the average British one? Not the ones I met. They are all sharp as razors.
Hoping he can at least give a bloody nose to May and that the Tories will dump her after the election. Conservative win but Johnson next PM?