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Protesting Over Government Policies
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undiscovered



Joined: 15 Sep 2010
Posts: 650
Location: Peterborough

PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eric Shone wrote:
Yes indeed, a Lib Dem admitted on radio that he was voting yes so as not to "reward" protesters (the violent ones presumably - arguably the ones that aren't students and just hijacked it for the hell of it)

Quote:
EM: How are you going to vote on Thursday?
JH: At the moment I’m very likely to vote for the increase simply because we cannot reward the bad behaviour from today. I have … [interrupted]
EM: Just a second. Part of your thinking might be to punish protesters?
JH: The problem you’ve got is this. If you reward this form of behaviour, if it has any effect which is a positive effect, you’re encouraging the behaviour in the future.
EM: Part of the reason you’re going to reach your decision is based on the protests?
JH: Part of the reason has to be based on the protests because I cannot allow that to influence me in any favourable manner whatsoever.


Source

Gotta love this government.


There's a good reason for policy Rolling Eyes
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Eric Shone



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aha I've found the show and quote!
I'll make a youtube account and upload the clip to it.
For other sad individuals like me who have the .mp3 of JV's shows it's dated 30/06/2010 and it's about 39 minutes in.

JV: David tredinnick is in our Westminister studios, Conservative MP for Bosworth, good afternoon.
DT: Hello, Jeremy.
JV: What do you think about what we've just heard?
DT: Well I've no objection to demonstrations, but I think there's a major security issue here in Parliament Square, and I also think having this long demonstration is a symbol of a weak government and it should have been shut down a long time ago...

EDIT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWNYo-4KOQ

There we go!
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Helen May



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SantaFefan wrote:
Why is it "the mood of the country"?
In my world the general feeling is that students are in the wrong and simply are not listening to the facts and figures... times are tough for all so they should pay their way too. From what I understand, the pay back scheme seems perfectly reasonable.
Funny how they spout off that the rich should fund their education and yet the proposals require that once they're "rich", they should do just that! but suddenly it's unacceptable because the boot is on the other foot..

I wasn't shocked to see the Police charge at all.. but I was genuinely shocked and angered to see a Royal Car attacked by brainless, disrespectful morons.. and I was livid to see the defaced statue of Sir Winston Churchill.. I'd lock the bastards up and lose the key for that.

We must be the laughing stock of the world right now, a Royal car attacked in London! can you imagine the US response to something like this? their Police would have pepper sprayed the culprits without a second thought.
Broken Britain is another notch up the ladder imo... Disgraceful behaviour and shouldn't go unpunished.


I agree with you SanteFe.

Maybe they should have to pay up front as they do in the US to go to university?

At least they wouldn't then have the debts that they constantly bleat on about. In my day when you were a student you were poor and expected to be so. You didn't have credit cards to run up debts on what you couldn't afford.

I know that 5 years ago it was $25,000 a year for the daughter of our expat friends and the younger one has just finished having had 3 years of at least the same amount spent on him.

I'm sorry but it's a total disgrace. It's not a divine right for everyone to go to university. If it was degrees would be worthless as they are fast becoming anyway. Some of the subjects, well I won't tell you what I think about them!

H
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ruddlescat



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You have a good point there Helen

When I was at University in the 70s only about 10% of people of my age went to University but now it is over 40% so inevitably the cost of the system has rapidly escalated

I still don't think its right that future generations of students should be in a more difficult position compared to me but something has to be done about a system which leaves thousands of graduates unemployed after all that studying

As well as doctors lawyers and merchant bankers we need plumbers dustmen road workers etc and perhaps there should be some financial incentives given to get young people into jobs which society needs to be filled
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Angela W



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps the students doing useful courses such as medicine should not pay at all and those doing airy fairy courses should be the ones who get charged.
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mark occomore



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Most of the shits will have trouble finding a job after being to Uni. So the £9.000 can sit there until they earn, if I'm correct over £25K before they have to start to pay it back?
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Eric Shone



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Angela W wrote:
Perhaps the students doing useful courses such as medicine should not pay at all and those doing airy fairy courses should be the ones who get charged.


I'd go with that, so long as optometry was a useful course.

Incidentally, I don't get why all the students in Scotland studying...
speech and language therapy/pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiography, podiatry (chiropody), orthoptics, dietetics, prosthetics and orthotics
Get extra funding, and optometry students don't.

But to all that are saying how easy the students have it, it's very easy to say that when you're not affected.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
Most of the shits will have trouble finding a job after being to Uni.


Completely untrue. You've obviously been reading the Daily Mail again.
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mark occomore



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ColinB wrote:
mark occomore wrote:
Most of the shits will have trouble finding a job after being to Uni.


Completely untrue. You've obviously been reading the Daily Mail again.


This has nothing to do with reading the Daily Mail, or listening to the media. You reckon every single student will have the opportunity to get a job at the end of Uni. I think this country needs to wake up and open there eyes. I'm not really here to argue with people.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
ColinB wrote:
mark occomore wrote:
Most of the shits will have trouble finding a job after being to Uni.


Completely untrue. You've obviously been reading the Daily Mail again.


You reckon every single student will have the opportunity to get a job at the end of Uni.


I didn't say that - but a very small proportion of graduates are "shits" (as you so eloquently put it) because most graduates are actually hard-working and well-intentioned people. I know - my work brings me into contact with lots of under-graduates and graduates alike (plus PhD students) and they're far from "shits". Many I know work a bloody sight harder than I did back in the 70s - we were in a post-hippy laid-back haze and only wanted to doss about. Lots of good students who have good degrees will get good jobs; the pity is that more and more of them will now get on their bikes and take their skills to other countries thanks to the policies of gormless idiots running this country. We already invest less in higher education than many other developed countries and now it's going to be even less. Clever or what? Where are the new scientists coming from? Not here....

mark occomore wrote:
I think this country needs to wake up and open there eyes.


I think you'll find that ordinary people have been awake all along and it's the eyes of ordinary people that are already open. It's those running the show who need to open their eyes; sadly they choose not to.

mark occomore wrote:
I'm not really here to argue with people.


Really? Rolling Eyes
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Cherskiy



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I see claims from dozens of undergraduates every day in my job. If their ability to complete simple tasks correctly such as filling in their names, dates of birth, addresses, term dates and telling us what course they're doing is anything to go by, then around 50% of them should give up any notion that they're going to obtain a degree, and should practice the time-honoured phrase "would you like fries with that?".... university should be a priviledge based on ability, not simply a three-year long extension of Sixth Form which it appears to be heading into. Does the country really need legions of Media Studies graduates, most of which will find in short order that their degree is pretty useless when trying to apply for a job outside the media?
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cherskiy wrote:
Does the country really need legions of Media Studies graduates, most of which will find in short order that their degree is pretty useless when trying to apply for a job outside the media?


Actually, a Media Studies degree is utterly useless if you're aiming to work in the media.
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Helen May



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cherskiy wrote:
.... university should be a priviledge based on ability, not simply a three-year long extension of Sixth Form which it appears to be heading into.


I've been thinking it's that for sometime Cherskiy!

H
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undiscovered



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cherskiy wrote:
university should be a priviledge based on ability, not simply a three-year long extension of Sixth Form which it appears to be heading into.


You forget that these students have the ability set out by the universities. What more must they do?

What is hardly being mentioned, we when we were students had grants to pay for our living expenses, these tuition fees are only to pay for the courses the students are on NOT to survive so the added £21k for a 3 year course (and it will be £9k per year as universities won't sell themselves short by being less) will be added onto the £15-20k of debt that they already have for food and expenses.
Yes Helen Students are supposed to be poor, but not for the rest of their lives.

We are going to end up with only the very rich goiong to university just like the victorian times, oh and maybe a few very poor who will get subsidised.

maybe that is what the millionaire cabinet are really proposing, that we all go back to the victorian times.

Also when Dave moans about theese revolting students he needs to remmeber this
[quote=David Cameron 1986"] ‎"Things got out of hand & we'd had a few drinks. We smashed place up and Boris set fire to toilets" [/quote]

And while we're on the subject since when did a 12 year old organising a protest outside Daves witney office against closure of his youth club warrant anti terror arrest ? I thought the police state was bad under NL this is worse, and it will get worse
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undiscovered



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cherskiy wrote:
university should be a priviledge based on ability, not simply a three-year long extension of Sixth Form which it appears to be heading into.


You forget that these students have the ability set out by the universities. What more must they do?

What is hardly being mentioned, we when we were students had grants to pay for our living expenses, these tuition fees are only to pay for the courses the students are on NOT to survive so the added £21k for a 3 year course (and it will be £9k per year as universities won't sell themselves short by being less) will be added onto the £15-20k of debt that they already have for food and expenses.
Yes Helen Students are supposed to be poor, but not for the rest of their lives.

We are going to end up with only the very rich goiong to university just like the victorian times, oh and maybe a few very poor who will get subsidised.

maybe that is what the millionaire cabinet are really proposing, that we all go back to the victorian times.

Also when Dave moans about theese revolting students he needs to remmeber this
David Cameron 1986 wrote:
‎"Things got out of hand & we'd had a few drinks. We smashed place up and Boris set fire to toilets"


And while we're on the subject since when did a 12 year old organising a protest outside Daves witney office against closure of his youth club warrant anti terror arrest ? I thought the police state was bad under NL this is worse, and it will get worse
Schoolboy warned by police over picket plan at David Cameron's office
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

undiscovered wrote:
And while we're on the subject since when did a 12 year old organising a protest outside Daves witney office against closure of his youth club warrant anti terror arrest ? I thought the police state was bad under NL this is worse, and it will get worse


Isn't the anti-terrorism Act a convenient act of Parliament? Originally designed to give the authorities the power to combat very real terrorism in the wake of 9/11 and 7/7, it's now a convenient tool by which to crush ordinary people's everyday freedoms. Highly predictable, of course... the establishment always wins.

I also think it's interesting that the powers can be used to stop a 12-year-old staging a legitimate protest. The fact that the youth centre will be a victim of local authority cuts is significant. This lack of investment in young people will result in their roaming the streets at night (there must another law that they use to limit that) and then ending up with Asbos. Then the Daily Mail runs the story that Cameron's constituency is being over-run by yobs, gosh, horror, how disgraceful, bring back the birch.......... .etc etc.

The words "joined-up thinking, lack of" comes to mind.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I never went to a Youth Club... at all... I don't think there even was one around here and, I roamed the streets at night too but I didn't break the law. I didn't need to be told more than once what the consequences would be if I did.
I think we've lost the plot in this country big time... the yobs who caused the destruction during the riot should be punished... would any sensible person even think about wrecking a government building or worse still, a statue of our most respected person?
As for the attack on the royal car, the more I think about it, the more angry I get and so should any other UK citizen imo.. it's a very serious incident which should never have happened in this country, No doubt, the vast majority of right minded people wouldn't even contemplate such an act.
I'd like to see the cretins who did this behind bars for a very long time. I'd also like to know why the security guys in the following car didn't act with force.. students or not, they should have brought them down - instantly.
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littlepieces



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SantaFefan wrote:
I never went to a Youth Club... at all... I don't think there even was one around here and, I roamed the streets at night too but I didn't break the law. I didn't need to be told more than once what the consequences would be if I did.
I think we've lost the plot in this country big time... the yobs who caused the destruction during the riot should be punished... would any sensible person even think about wrecking a government building or worse still, a statue of our most respected person?
As for the attack on the royal car, the more I think about it, the more angry I get and so should any other UK citizen imo.. it's a very serious incident which should never have happened in this country, No doubt, the vast majority of right minded people wouldn't even contemplate such an act.
I'd like to see the cretins who did this behind bars for a very long time. I'd also like to know why the security guys in the following car didn't act with force.. students or not, they should have brought them down - instantly.



So what do we do then?Just lie back and take the crap dished out by parliment? We have the right to protest and ok it turned out a bit violent but as i said at the begining of this post a bit of violence gets a point across more.
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Cherskiy



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No mention, then, of the non-means tested and non-repayable bursaries that universities are giving most students (i.e. those from families earning below £25K and reduced amounts for those between £25-40K). Seems these are conveniently forgotten about. Some of these bursaries reach £2K a year (the minimum is however £329).

No pain, no gain. Ability may be set by the universities themselves but that's largely down to them receiving cash from the previous administration based on numbers of students signing up. Ergo, now we have lots of sixth formers going onto university without the necessary funding to look after them/teach them properly once they're there. Add to this problem the little known fact there's no money left in the kitty and well, where is the extra cash going to come from? The Home Office budget? Sorry, extra money needed to be spent paying for the increased police presence to keep law and order on the streets. If you're out there causing damage and trouble, clearly you're not particularly bothered about trying to save the country money.

The repayments on present student loans are laughable. Ask your bank for a £20K loan with stipulations such as "I won't pay anything back unless my income is over a certain level" and "the interest rate will be ridiculously low". I often see recent graduates' payslips with their loan repayments listed. Those who are earning around £25K pa look to be only paying back about £20 a month. The liability ceases totally after 30 years (?), by which time you might only have paid around £9000, not the £20K debt that students are bleating on about. Don't get me started on the numbers of students who receive plenty of money from their parents in addition to their loans and bursaries, then still complain that they're hard up.

If Barclays were to offer me £20K today with those stipulations, I'd bite their hands off.

"It's not fair!" is the constant cry. Well, shock, horror - life isn't fair: if you think it should be, and everything should be handed to you on a plate, clearly you're deluding yourself. My colleagues and I are currently trying to do two days work in a single day at the moment just so we might still have jobs in the New Year - so forgive me if the bleatings of what seem to be a spoilt, ungrateful and clueless rabble fall on deaf ears.
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Cherskiy



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SantaFefan wrote:
I'd also like to know why the security guys in the following car didn't act with force.. students or not, they should have brought them down - instantly.


I think they showed tremendous restraint - apparently according to insiders they were seconds from doing so, however. Imagine if it had been the Secret Service protecting the President in a similar situation. There'd have been a lot of dead and seriously injured around that car in a short period of time, and I'll bet the folks down at Liberty would have been wetting their pants in eager anticipation of condoning the police on the TV at any and every opportunity.

Another thought that struck me watching the aerial shots of huge mobs of students/agitators/hangers-on was what if those poor misguided souls with a predilection for blowing themselves up were to turn up in the middle of said crowd wearing a large backpack and then setting it off? Carnage? Certainly sounds like a rather inviting target.
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Cherskiy



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

littlepieces wrote:
as i said at the begining of this post a bit of violence gets a point across more.


Actually, I tend to think the complete opposite - if you have to resort to violence to put your point of view across, it can't be a particularly strong one in the first place.

YMMV, however.
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John W



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cherskiy wrote:
Actually, I tend to think the complete opposite - if you have to resort to violence to put your point of view across, it can't be a particularly strong one in the first place.


But in this case the public sympathy was high for the students who'll be lumbered with these huge 'loans'. How difficult will it be for an earner on £25k to pay back the loan AND a mortgage?

So a strong case worth getting their view across. But of course, if the demo went peacefully along its route and everyone went home safely we wouldn't be talking about it, and just saying the vote went through?

What makes me mad is the public sympathy is surely diminished by the vandalism, and the desecration behaviour at the cenotaph memorial and statues, yeah it just had to be a rock star's stepson Rolling Eyes
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Cherskiy



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

John W wrote:

But in this case the public sympathy was high for the students who'll be lumbered with these huge 'loans'. How difficult will it be for an earner on £25k to pay back the loan AND a mortgage?


Well, you say that, John, but I have had a hard time trying to find many people (apart from students) who actually have any time for them. Would the same public sympathy be high if HMG had decided to up VAT to 21% to pay for the little darlings, or banged an extra 2p per litre on fuel, or raised income tax by a penny in the pound? The same students who were regularly propping up the bars around Newcastle drinking their student loans away every weekend - where I used to live in town, there were large student flats along the road. Each weekend, there'd be a steady stream of revellers heading back to said digs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night from 11pm until 4am. Hard up students? Don't make me laugh. This isn't me having a go at you, John, but based on what I used to see, students were prepared to splash money around like it was water.

Paying back the loan and a mortgage? People generally are renting more nowadays than buying if their finances can't stretch. People shouldn't live beyond their means if they don't want to get into huge debt - running up huge debts and living on readily available credit is part of the reason we're in the financial mess we're currently in. I live on my own and have to find the money to pay bills, run a car and pay the mortgage. I saved/worked the extra hours to make enough money to pay off my credit card bill, so I can live within my budget. I've therefore got no particular sympathy for graduates who may earn half as much again as I do.

I also get rather annoyed about spokespersons for one cause or another who come on Today or Snooze 24 and say things along the lines of "the majority of the British public believe that xyz" - when they can't possibly know what, er, the majority actually think, because they're basing their opinion on a poll of probably 310 people collared for their views one wet Saturday morning in Peckham, which is then extrapolated into "89% of the great British public". One student said to a roving reporter on Snooze 24 that the public were behind their actions 100%. Sorry, mate - I'm not, and I could name at least fifty people in my circle who hold similar views. Clearly you haven't counted properly, or you're talking out of your a**e.

Everyone's feeling the pinch right now. Students have the prospect of achieving high(er) earnings in the future, with the safety net of not paying any/much back if they don't.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SantaFefan wrote:
I never went to a Youth Club... at all... I don't think there even was one around here and, I roamed the streets at night too but I didn't break the law.


I've known lots of people who have worked in Youth & Community Work over the years, either as salaried or voluntary workers (and I've also been involved in youth-orientated community work myself since the 1970s) and it's proven - yes, proven - that if there activities that actively involve and stimulate people in the early/mid teens then local communities reap all sorts of rewards compared to those that don't.

Remember that in years gone by, the majority of young males left school at 15 (up until 1972) and went into training or apprenticeship schemes. That acted as another means of "keeping them off the streets and doing something useful".

Good youth clubs and centres definitely have a positive role to play, so when a local authority orders the closure of such a facility on finiancial grounds, they're actually stacking up problems which are going to cost more money in the long run. I guess the issue is that they're merely passing the cost from one government / local government agency to another.

Like I said before, it lacks any semblance of "joined-up thinking". It's a typical Tory policy which proves that the spots really don't change at all.

The Big Society? Hmmmmm.
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Angela W



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eric Shone wrote:
Angela W wrote:
Perhaps the students doing useful courses such as medicine should not pay at all and those doing airy fairy courses should be the ones who get charged.


I'd go with that, so long as optometry was a useful course.



Yes, I would say so! Smile
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Helen May



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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

undiscovered wrote:
Yes Helen Students are supposed to be poor, but not for the rest of their lives.


If they lived within their means as students they wouldn't have to be.

H
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Helen May wrote:
undiscovered wrote:
Yes Helen Students are supposed to be poor, but not for the rest of their lives.


If they lived within their means as students they wouldn't have to be.


It's not an option for FE students existing on EMA though. And this is being cut completely.

The whole further/higher ed funding proposal is an ill-conceived nonsense; on the surface it's very appealing to Daily Mail readers but only when you start to explore the small-print does one begin to see the flaws. But the Daily Mail won't report those, of course, because they're pre-occupied with publishing nice juicy pictures of "students" (well, some of them were apparently) smashing windows and kicking police in Westminster.
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undiscovered



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the Police have apologised to 12 year old Nicky Wishart

Quote:
At least however the police have decided to finally apologise to the 12 year old boy.

Chief Inspector Jack Malhi, the police commander for West Oxfordshire, said: “With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been far more appropriate to have made the inquiries from Nicky in the presence of his mother.

hindsight, the only reason they were allowed to talk to him at all without a parent was because they used anti terror laws


Quote:

“I deeply regret and apologise for the impact that it might have had on Nicky and his family.”

He added: “I would like to reassure people that our contact with Nicky was primarily to make him aware of the risks and have an idea of the scale of the protest.”


Public-spirited Nicky, one of the PM’s constituents in the Oxfordshire seat of Witney, said: “All this is because Mr Cameron is our local MP and it’s a bit embarrassing for him.”


along with Telegraph piece where the police are thinking about banning future protests because of public order offences, police state here we come

Cherskiy wrote:
but I have had a hard time trying to find many people (apart from students) who actually have any time for them.

currently in the Daily Mail polls there is a 75% support for the students, a little surpising in that paper but it goes to show a broad support rather than just the "left"
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

undiscovered wrote:
currently in the Daily Mail polls there is a 75% support for the students, a little surpising in that paper but it goes to show a broad support rather than just the "left"


I can't decide whether that surprises me or not. I guess the Mail has a large proportion of middle-class readers who might not be welcoming the prospect of their offspring racking up even greater debts at a time when we're being told that debt is a bad thing.

No, on second thoughts, I do understand why there's support among Mail readers. What I don't get is the lack of joined-up thinking on the part of the ConDom coalition government!
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Clive55



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting that the Lib dems have gone back on their opposition to the Prevention of terrorism Act.
I heard a Lib Dem spokesman being questioned on this yesterday
I can't recall his name but, in between the waffle, he said this wasn't a u-turn in Lib Dem polocy because-
The Lib Dems were STILL opposed to the act being used against Islamist Terrorists
BUT he said the act was now necessary for the government to use against those suspected of being against the government, such as supporters of the opposition Labour Party.
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undiscovered



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 11:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ColinB wrote:
undiscovered wrote:
currently in the Daily Mail polls there is a 75% support for the students, a little surpising in that paper but it goes to show a broad support rather than just the "left"


I can't decide whether that surprises me or not. I guess the Mail has a large proportion of middle-class readers who might not be welcoming the prospect of their offspring racking up even greater debts at a time when we're being told that debt is a bad thing.


I'm not sure the Mail thought it would go that way when they put the poll up, but you never know.

They have also come out in support of protesters on tax evasion in todays edition The great tax heist so I am assuming the government are too right wing for even the Mail?

Clive55 wrote:
said this wasn't a u-turn in Lib Dem polocy because-
The Lib Dems were STILL opposed to the act being used against Islamist Terrorists
BUT he said the act was now necessary for the government to use against those suspected of being against the government, such as supporters of the opposition Labour Party.


Was he not picked up on this? why is it better use of the act against non government supporters than it is against suspected terrorists?
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mark occomore



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:46 pm    Post subject: Student Protester Jailed For Throwing Fire Extinguisher Reply with quote

A student who admitted throwing a fire extinguisher off a central london building has been jailed for two years and eight months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12159581

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Bloody fool could have killed someone. At least he's been made an example of, and tells others who want to carry out these violent acts they also could be jailed.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Student Protester Jailed For Throwing Fire Extinguisher Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
Bloody fool could have killed someone. At least he's been made an example of, and tells others who want to carry out these violent acts they also could be jailed.


Which is what one would expect to happen, demo or no demo.
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Eric Shone



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Love how "heat of the moment" behaviour is okay for police (Link) but not for protesters.

I agree he should have been punished, but surely it's far too harsh a punishment - people who have actually killed someone have had shorter terms.

I don't think this is justice.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree. It's been made to "make an example of" rather that to mete out justice - and serves only to appease readers of the Daily Mail.

That said, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do and I'm not condoning the action of the teenage idiot in any way.
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mark occomore



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

He goes to a young offenders institute, and won't be eligible of parole for 16 months. Seems a harsh sentence, but he could have been looking at manslaughter if he had killed someone.
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Eric Shone



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
He goes to a young offenders institute, and won't be eligible of parole for 16 months. Seems a harsh sentence, but he could have been looking at manslaughter if he had killed someone.


But he didn't kill anyone. It didn't injure anyone though I concede it had the potential to do so. He seems to have been convicted based on the worst outcome of his actions rather than the actual. Imagine if we did that for everyone who was speeding. "Speeding can kill you know, off to the cells with you!"

I'm not for a moment saying that this was as minor an offence as speeding, but I'm just saying that the punishment seems to be weighted as if injury or death had resulted from his actions.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
Seems a harsh sentence, but he could have been looking at manslaughter if he had killed someone.


Did he kill someone? I thought he dropped a fire extinguisher from the roof of a building to the pavement below. So, if some unruly oik goes up to the roof of a building near me and drops a fire extinguisher onto the road below, can he expect to receive the same punishment?
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mark occomore



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There was no intent to kill. He could have! The judge is making an example of him.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
There was no intent to kill. He could have! The judge is making an example of him.


In which case, I repeat my previous statement:

"So, if some unruly oik goes up to the roof of a building near me and drops a fire extinguisher onto the road below, can he expect to receive the same punishment?"

Can he?
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