Student Riots in London

[Happy Face 29]

Are these the same tution fees that should be paid for with student loans instead of on getting shitfaced, loafing in pubs, buying video games, going to festivals, etc?

 

You mean "living"?

 

No those loans are to live on, housing and such. Fees are on top.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Happy Face

[Nyff 0]

The tuition fees aren't even seen by the student, they go straight from Student Finance to the University. The only time they will really feel the effect of it and 'see' the money is when it comes to paying it back.

 

It is the rest of the loan that the student gets that is there for covering accomodation costs and general living. And yes, 'general living' when you're student is doing all that you mention above

[Guest alex]

Are these the same tution fees that should be paid for with student loans instead of on getting shitfaced, loafing in pubs, buying video games, going to festivals, etc?

No.

[ChezGiven 0]

Matt, the dominant macro-economic issue is not recession, its the debt and the deficit. Caused by the banking bail out. The data tells you that.

[Park Life 71]

Good for the students, its about time the UK woke up from its apathy.

[Gemmill 42737]

Matt, the dominant macro-economic issue is not recession, its the debt and the deficit. Caused by the banking bail out. The data tells you that.

 

YEAH Matt. *tch*

[Monkeys Fist 41354]

In Fop's absence , I feel duty bound to post;

[Tom 14002]

 

Non pointy shoes - Check

London - Check

 

SloopJohn!!!1one!1

[SloopJohn 0]

 

Non pointy shoes - Check

London - Check

 

SloopJohn!!!1one!1

 

Guilty

[Rob W 0]

should arrest aall them cameramen for not intervening..........................

[Sonatine 11128]

Revealed: Lib Dems planned before election to abandon tuition fees pledge

 

Exclusive: Documents show Nick Clegg's public claim was at odds with secret decision made by party in March

 

 

The Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to abandon Nick Clegg's flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees two months before the general election, secret party documents reveal.

 

As the Lib Dem leader faces a growing revolt after this week's violent protest against fee rises, internal documents show the party was drawing up proposals for coalition negotiations which contrasted sharply with Clegg's public pronouncements.

 

A month before Clegg pledged in April to scrap the "dead weight of debt", a secret team of key Lib Dems made clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, the party would not waste political capital defending its manifesto pledge to abolish university tuition fees within six years. In a document marked "confidential" and dated 16 March, the head of the secret pre-election coalition negotiating team, Danny Alexander, wrote: "On tuition fees we should seek agreement on part-time students and leave the rest. We will have clear yellow water with the other [parties] on raising the tuition fee cap, so let us not cause ourselves more headaches."

 

The document is likely to fuel criticism among Lib Dem backbenchers and in the National Union of Students that the party courted the university vote in the full knowledge that its pledge would have to be abandoned as the party sought to achieve a foot in government. Within a month of the secret document, Clegg recorded a YouTube video for the annual NUS conference on 13 April in which he pledged to abolish fees within six years.

 

"You've got people leaving university with this dead weight of debt, around £24,000, round their neck," the future deputy PM said in the video.

 

Clegg also joined all other Lib Dem MPs in signing an NUS pledge to "vote against any increase in fees". The leaked document showed that during the preparations for a hung parliament the Lib Dems still intended to fulfil that commitment.

 

The Lib Dems, who are now under intense pressure after agreeing in government that tuition fees should be allowed to rise, said the document was designed to work out how to reach agreement with the Tories and Labour, who were "diametrically" opposed to them.

 

As the party was isolated, the negotiators concentrated on trying to win ground where they could find consensus. Sources say that, in government, they have succeeded in tackling the discrimination against part-time students identified in the secret document.

 

The Lib Dem document is disclosed in a new book on the coalition negotiations by Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East. Wilson, who interviewed 60 key figures from the main parties for Five Days to Power, reveals that:

 

• The Lib Dems made no attempt to stand by their two key economic election pledges – no deficit reduction this year and opposition to a VAT increase – in the coalition negotiations. A Clegg aide told Wilson: "The thing that changed minds was George Osborne saying that he had seen the figures and it was quite horrific in real life as opposed to spin life."

 

• Alexander, appointed by Clegg last year to lead a secret four-strong coalition negotiating team, had thought the Lib Dems would only support a minority Tory government and not a coalition because of a "substantial gulf" between the two parties. In his confidential document on 16 March, Alexander wrote that it "would make it all but impossible for a coalition to be sustainable if it were formed, and extremely difficult to form without splitting the party."

 

• Chris Huhne, a member of the secret team, wrote a dissenting report to Clegg saying the Lib Dems would have to form a full-blown coalition with the Tories, and not prop up a minority government. He warned there was no precedent for a minority government delivering a fiscal consolidation, raising the prospect both parties would face a backlash. "Financial crises are catastrophic for the political parties that are blamed, and we should avoid this at all costs."

 

• George Osborne, who had long feared the Tories would struggle to win an overall parliamentary majority, persuaded David Cameron to allow him to form the Tories' own secret coalition negotiating team two weeks before the election. The Tory leader demanded total secrecy and asked only to be given the barest details for fear that he would blurt it out "unplanned in an interview".

 

• David Laws, a member of the secret Lib Dem negotiating team who briefly served in the cabinet, predicted on 24 February 2010 that the Tories would make a "very early offer of co-operation or coalition" in the event of a hung parliament. Laws told Wilson that he has a high regard for Osborne who tried to persuade him to join the Tories in 2006.

[Kid Dynamite 6845]

 

 

What an absolute cunt face

Edited November 13, 2010 by Kid Dynamite

[Park Life 71]

Not really sure what people expect from politicians. It's just a career to most of them.

[Kid Dynamite 6845]

No-one minds a bit of spin. But to have scrapping tuition fees as one of your major campaign promises, then 6months later agree to bump them up 600% is a bit of a pisstake imo

[NJS 4266]

It's not so much that they broke the promise as a consequence of compromise in a coalition - it's the fact they they specifically planned to do that before hand while making it a core pledge. I'm sure there were a people on here and a few on N-O who said they voted liberal on this issue alone - more fool them.

[Billy Castell 0]

The Lib Dems are going to get buried in the next election. Those who hate the Tories and the whole New Labour nonsense will not see them as an alternative option, and those who belived in their ideas will probably view them as have betraying their principles to cosy up with the Tories for a bit of power.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

The lib dems have been a joke for a long time. If you look at some of the candidates they put forward in constituencies you can tell they're a bunch of incompetent morons.

[Meenzer 15147]

Same applies just as much to Labour or Tory candidates in unwinnable seats, though - there are just far fewer of them than there are for the Lib Dems.

 

Still agree with the long-term outlook though - until and unless we get used to consensus politics and the idea that this kind of "betrayal" is what happens in pretty much every other European country, including the ones far better off than we are, there'll always be a 20-year pattern of the third party gradually battling its way towards potential relevance then having the same thing happen to them and ending up back at the 8% mark again.

[manc-mag 1]

Realistically speaking the Lib Dems need to withdraw from the coalition after another couple of years if they're to have any political future tbh. If they were to have to go back to the electorate at the end of this Parliament having propped up the Tories as they carried out their ideological cuts for a full term then they'll be fucked for good.

 

If they withdrew and forced an election then they'd be fucked that instant time round but I think the act itself would mean they'd be forgiven in future.

 

Get the impression Clegg's too happy playing deputy PM to care about any of that any more though.

[Rob W 0]

well in countries were they run coalitions regularly people don't have a problem with long term alliances

[TheMoog 0]

The lib dems have been a joke for a long time. If you look at some of the candidates they put forward in constituencies you can tell they're a bunch of incompetent morons.

 

That applies to most politicians though, and after watching the memorial service yesterday Labour's stuffed in a big way judging by their mong-like looking leadership.

[LeazesMag 0]

The lib dems have been a joke for a long time. If you look at some of the candidates they put forward in constituencies you can tell they're a bunch of incompetent morons.

 

That applies to most politicians though, and after watching the memorial service yesterday Labour's stuffed in a big way judging by their mong-like looking leadership.

 

he does look like a right weirdo

[AgentAxeman 166]

politician in 'going back on promises' shocker!!!

 

:o