anothersaintinsouthsea

The real issue for me is how you can get such a lenient sentance for a hit and run that leaves a dead person?

Lighthouse - plase tell me that's made up?! Edit: Answered my own question, it is (was probably a bit obvious) http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/gameshows/millionaire.asp

Dune makes himself look like an idiot most of the time. Let him continue posting, he provides a laugh and is great advert for not being a reactionary right-wing nut-job.

This. Whenever it snows you can always rely on some bright spark to say something like "so much for Global Warming then...."

Some sweeping generalisations here. I do quite a bit of work with civil servants, they earn considerable less than their private sector equivalents (equivalent in terms of grade etc),

Of course it can have high productivity but the reverse isn't true, highly paid and low productivity aren't a sustainable partner in the long term. What a sweatshop has to do with this situation I don't know. You can only increase prosperity if you increase the value being added. Higher wages only benefit an economy if they are the result of doing something better. But in this case there are no shareholders - Transport for London is owned by the public and doesn't make profits. Highers cost are passed straight to the customer because there are no profits to take the hit. Either that or tax payer has to provide a greater subsidy or investment in service has to decrease. As I said earlier the Tube workers are simply increasing their share of the pot. We've already established that they want more money for the same level of service so the pot is not being increased. The RMT are acting purely in their own interest and are seeking to maximise the wages (i.e. profits) of its members. They are very effective capitalists.

Now you're just getting confused. Only high productivity can sustain a high wage economy. Union action doesn't create value in itself, only increases in productivity create value. Some people other than the tube workers may benefit from increased spending from tube workers, but those same people (and more) have already paid for those wage increases anyway. Above inflation wage increases for tube workers don't add anything to the pot, they just increase the share of the pot going to tube workers.

Do you really think that? How does the RMT negotiating a better deal of its workers make anyone else better off? Tube strikes cost unsalaried workers that don't get to work on time and the higher salarise of tube staff are passed on to consumers i.e. other workers.

You're a legend. Just as I was beginning to lose all heart you've returned to offer new hope!

There was an interesting interview in the Guardian the other day with Bob Crowe. He sees that his job is to get the best deal he can for his members. From this point of view he is an undoubted success. However, despite his £100k+ a year salary he thinks of himself as a marxist who cares about "the working class" but can't see how his unions actions cause massive disruption to millions of ordinary workers. In my view he is actually a very effective capitalist. He abuses the monopoly position of his drivers in a vital industry to extract the maximum return to his members - no matter the cost to anyone else.

I wouldn't have said that Bankers were lazy.

The Dell Days, are you using this thread to audition for a writing position on the Daily Mail? Think you've got the moral outrage and indignation down to a tee.

I should've known it wouldn't take long for someone to bring the EDL into the discussion....

what the entire protest? Have they got the whole scene covered in one camera angle while you keep a tally of the injured? I don't wish violence on anyone, indeed the last time I got involved in any violence was a minor scuffle at school when I was about 9 years old. Having said that Delldays, this is small beer compared to political protests of the past, you better steer well clear of 'library' footage of the Poll Tax riots or the Miners Strike - it will give you nightmares.

Depends where you're getting your information from. The Guardian blog is reporting an unconscious protester being attended to by paramedics and wheelchair bound protester being dragged away by police without his chair. Who to believe?! BTW, it mentions paintballs but implies they were thrown, not SHOT!

Have a mate in the force, he confirmed that a large element of those who regularly take part in the riot squad are complete tits. Having said that, it is never the police's fault. never ever.

its never the fault of the police.

You've missed my point, the perception held by many many young people means that they wouldn't have bothered even applying to medschool in the first place.

Well I don't disagree that having contacts helps you a long into Oxbridge and then into good jobs. But many kids from disadvantaged background don't even bother applying for university because their expectations are too low. Rightly or wrongly the perceptions held in relation to the whole tuition fee debate will and indeed are putting off kids from poor backgrounds from considering university - this has been reported serveral times in the last few weeks in mainstream media reports.

Lenders want to know your salary and also all of your outgoings for which you are committed e.g. credit card/personal financing. Someone on £25k with no student loans to repay is a more attractive customer than someone on £25k with student loans being deducted from their pay packet, no?

Many of the media reports which have spoken to school age kids in "disadvantaged" areas have confimed that many are put off going to university by the talk of tuition fees and post-uni loans. I make no comment as to whether they are right or not to think that or not, regardless it is an unfortunate and damaging perception.

I hope you're only saying that because I've not been clear. I don't mean that people from poor background are unlikely to be able to become successful. What I mean is that young people from poor backgrounds might have less confidence that they will become wealthy post-university than someone who comes from a background of high earning family.

It's quite simple, people will be put off by the thought of a huge debt hanging over them. If you are from a family background of not having much money then it will be offputting to take on a huge debt when you're earnings post degree are uncertain. I don't consider a £21k salary to be a lot of money when you're having to repay a £30-40k debt on top of rent, council tax, travel costs etc. People from more wealthy background will have a much greater confidence of getting a very well paid job because they've seen their parents do it, and the grandparents do it etc. Plus many of them will be backed up by the bank of mum and dad to either wipe out the student debt or help them with a mortgage. If your parents have struggled on low wages for years it is a bit of a punt to expect that you'll become a high earning lawyer after univeristy.

I hope all of you in favour of the changes realise that it will have an absolutely neglible impact on the deficit in the short to medium term. It's been quoted several times that it will take the average student around 20 years to repay their loans. Meanwhile it won't come in until next year. This together with the fact that they won't start repaying until after their course has ended (say 3 years) means that the Government won't be breaking even for another 24 years! Furthermore the upfront £3k that is currently received will now be deferred into the loan. Not great from a cash flow perspective. If you're in favour, fine. But don't justify it on the basis that it will do anything to address our immediate public finance problems.

But education is a public good so it is about taxation. Taxation pays for public goods. If Billy goes to uni and then gets a job that has a social as well as personal benefit but only pays a little more than the repayment threshold then why should he pay the same as Johnny who pursued a more lucrative career but one with less social benefit? To an extent, which is why I told some Blairite wannabees at University back in 1997 that this was the thin end of the wedge and why I didn't renew my only year of Labour party membership and partly why I've never voted Labour. I'm not sure about losing the argument. Labour were only able to bring it in after claiming they wouldn't. By the time of the following election it was pretty much a distant memory and rightly or wrongly not enough of an issue for most people. On the other hand the Lib Dems made this a big part of their pre-election campaign, they are going to get minced at the next election - it might be argued that they will lose the argument on tuition fees.