Letter: Why I’m backing the students
Monday 13th December 2010, 9:01AM GMT.
Letter: I write in support of our students who are protesting against huge increases in fees, and call on our two MPs to vote against the proposals.
A well-educated population benefits us all, not just the individuals concerned, as the devolved regions of Scotland and Wales have recognised. In Scotland higher education is free, while in Wales fees will not rise. Why should students in England be priced out of similar opportunities?
We are all being misled into believing that cuts in public services and the increase in fees are unavoidable. The Government argues that the cuts will help clear the deficit. But experts have warned that they will harm the economy, not help it and that the resulting unemployment will lead to the Government raising less in taxes and paying out more in benefits.
Green MP Caroline Lucas proposes tackling the deficit by increasing taxes for the very wealthy, introducing a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions, clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance (over £100 billion), and scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme.
These measures must be better than cuts in public services, that put the most vulnerable in our society at risk. We must make our preferences clear to the Con/Dem Government.
Felicity Norman
Leominster
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good on you, china is churning out graduates by the tens of thousand, any one who thinks cutting university education in this global knowledge based economy is a sensible idea, well they must be economically illiterate
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Is there anyone out there who actually understands that Student’s only pay if they graduate and if they enter employment of over £21K a year. When it gets to the point that Students have to pay up front before entering university, then I’ll support them all the way until them work hard get a good job and then pay back the loan you took out like everyone else has to, another alternative is to work during the time in Uni to minimise what they owe, and yes I did have a child who went to uni and no I am not indipendantly wealthy
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Did you have to pay 9000 pounds a year for them to attend?
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Are you saying that every university is going to be charging £9000 a year for every degree?
I though that the fees would be vary by university and by course and that £9000 was the upper limit….
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No but if my son gets a job he will have to pay back the money he borrowed, what more incentive is required to work hard and paty less.
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I feel sorry for many of the student protesters. but How many of these students parents voted for the present Government?
They have no right to protest on the streets because at least 40% of their parents voted for the Conservative faction of this Government.
Has for the Lib-dems, the British public wont forget their U-turn on University fees for a long time! (To the Lib dems I say “A plague on all your houses”!
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Plague’s 40% may need a second look.
According to the BBC, 65.1% of those eligible to vote voted.
The Conservatives got 36.1% of the vote and 306 seats, Labour got 29% and 258 seats, the (previously anti-tuition fees) Lib Dems got 23% and 53 seats and others got 11.9% of the vote and 28 seats.
A healthy democracy needs to watch out for misinformation, Plague.
36.1% of 65.1% does not equate to 40% of parents.
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Totally in agreement with post no.2 from ‘fed up’.
Also when will people stop bleating about the Libdems ?, they made their ‘pledge’ stating that IF THEY WON THE ELECTION this would be a policy and they DID NOT WIN THE ELECTION……..so people get over it, and also its fairly obvious that a lot of the Libdem voters left ‘NEW’ labour to purely try and stop the despicable ‘Tories’ getting into power and oh dear the poor luvvies didn’t get their way.
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Stephen,
If the Lib Dems disagreed with the policy, they could still have abstained or even voted against it – and I applaud those who did.
Instead, the majority of Lib Dems preferred the option of remaining as puppets to keep the Tory government in power. If I were them I’d keep a weather eye on vacacies for ‘I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here’ as a potential career option for the future…
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I have not noticed any cuts in MPs expenses and the cost in running the Houses of Commons and the House of Lords. As usual take it from the people not their own over generous expenses and pay.
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I am a student currently and i already have to work 30 hours a week along side full time education to be able to afford university. Even still i have had to take out a loan.
£9000 a year is a ridiculous amount of money!
I think cuts in public services will make things worse! cuts should be made on wasted benefits and the over paid salaries of MPs etc.
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“£9,000 is a ridiculous amount of money!”
Even a student paying £9,000 a year is having their fees subsidized by the taxpayer. Foreign students coming here have to pay a much higher figure for the same course.
£9,000 may be a “ridiculous” sum, but that is how much it costs and would otherwise have to be met by the taxpayer. Why should a school leaver on minimum wage help contribute towards this?
Given the fees don’t need to be repaid until the graduate is on a reasonable salary, then I can’t really see what the fuss is about.
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Welcome to the real world. I have to work 65 plus hours a week and have done so for 35 years to fund my family and pay my bills. Should I also pay for your university education? No. I would also like to know who funds the ever growing population of foreign students. As another thought, how many students are studying for so called degrees in subjects such as drama, fashion, film studies etc etc.
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There are several areas to explore over the costs of higher education!
One might be why are Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on something that will not affect the people who voted them into to office.
The Greens Caroline Lucas has her own list of cuts in government expenditure others might choose a different set of proposals; perhaps not paying the EU, or spending billions in so called developing countries that are also developing nuclear armaments or possibly scrapping expenditure on unilaterally attempting to reduce C02 levels.
Or perhaps the desirability of educating students in such things as media studies.
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1) Green MP Caroline Lucas proposes tackling the deficit by increasing taxes for the very wealthy.
Why do you think this is a bad idea, Ken?
Surely introducing policies like this would make the ‘all in it together’ rhetoric a little more credible, while simultaneously cutting the deficit.
2) Caroline Lucas wants to introduce a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions.
Shouldn’t banks, hedge funds and the rest of the financial sector pay their fair share to clear up the mess they helped create?
Or should it be up to students to shoulder the burden?
The Robin Hood idea is to tax 0.05% of banks’ international financial transactions.
Surely this tiny tax is a better way of generating billions for the government, and would be popular with the public if it was more widely discussed, debated and understood.
3) What is wrong with Caroline Lucas’ proposal to clamp down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance (over £100 billion)?
Media Studies students, looking at ownership of the media, might have some interesting ideas as to why this reasonable proposal is dismissed so rapidly and discussed so infrequently.
4) Finally, could you explain why UK tax-payers should continue to shell out billions on the Trident nuclear weapons programme, Ken?
In this debate thread ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2010/04/16/lib-dem-victory-after-historic-tv-debate/ ) it was unclear exactly what spending these billions is going to achieve for taxpayers. Bloggers supportive of Trident said those billions helped Britain’s prestige in the world. However, they were not so convincing in saying it made Britain any safer, against terrorists for example.
Surely countries would have more prestige in the world if they obeyed binding international agreements on the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and invested their scarce resources in their people.
5) You said that the UK should not be ‘unilaterally attempting to reduce C02 levels’, Ken.
First of all, as most people know, there is nothing ‘unilateral’ about the UK cutting CO2 emissions, investing in low-carbon technologies and creating green jobs.
ALL 192 of the world’s countries signed up to cut emissions at the Cancun Climate Summit last week.
For those that don’t know him, by the way, Ken Adams is against cutting carbon emissions. In this debate thread ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2009/01/20/everyone-will-pay-for-airport/ #146) he even disputed Arctic Sea Ice was melting.
6) Another of Ken’s mis-representations above was the idea that the government is ‘spending billions in so called developing countries that are also developing nuclear armaments’.
Pakistan, the country presumably referred to by Ken, suffered its worst floods in 80 years in 2010, and this affected at least 8 million people there.
These people did NOT receive ‘billions’ from Britain, Ken.
They received £64 million from our government to help provide food, shelter and stop the spread of disease. The British public donated at least £35 million to the DEC for the same purpose, suggesting that the government had read the generosity of its citizens correctly.
If we are to talk about billions of pounds, we ought to talk about the amounts that well-educated UK citizens (today’s and tomorrow’s students) will bring to our economy, expenditure on Trident, the amount we could recoup from tax evasion and the amounts we could raise with a Robin Hood Tax.
What do you think, Ken?
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Sorry Huw, we have done to death our differences on global warming – in this paper – I think we should agree that you take one view and I take another and leave it at that! As I am sure that the moderators would not tolerate another very long exchange between the two of us on this subject.
I did not intentionally attack the Green suggestions or argue against the proposals made by Lucas or support Trident, I was trying to point out that there are many other areas where we could ALSO as a nation save money, we have been living beyond our means for quite some time. So if you do not mind I will not respond to your individual points as I do not take the positions you seem to think I do.
I did say there are several areas to explore over the costs of higher education! I did not mean just those areas where we could make cuts but the whole debate; why should Scottish MP be allowed to vote on and matters that only apply to English students, why should English students be forced to take out even higher loans for their education whilst those in Scotland do not, why should our students be forced accept a drastic increase in their fees whilst at the same time we are sending even more money to the EU, which is not tightening its belt but demanding even more money and MEPs are allowed to increase their pay and perks ect.
It seems to me that IF we take the basic argument that WE must all suffer for the actions of the few, the first things to cut are those things which do not affect our own people standards of living and nothing should be ring fenced; not the green policies of this government, not our payments to the EU, not MPs and MEPs pay and perks, not the several levels of government. If there is – a them and us – it is not between rich and not so rich, it is between those who seek to govern and the people.
We should not allow ourselves to be corralled by the politicians and the media into only debating within their own preferred limits.
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I would prefer readers interested in the tuition fees debate not to be coralled away from examining your distortions on other topics, Ken.
I think the extra context I have given might be helpful to others, particularly students who are interested in how reliable your information is, and whether you really support their cause, as your third paragraph suggests on the surface.
1a) On global warming, you said that ‘[I] take one view and [you] take another.’
97-98% of climate scientists most actively publishing in the field say they support the tenets of man-made climate change outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
You take the other view.
(Readers can google the April 9th 2010 paper in Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences by William R. L. Anderegg, James W. Prall, Jacob Harold and Stephen H. Schneider to confirm this).
b) You also said that the UK’s carbon cuts were ‘unilateral’.
This is false.
193 countries signed up to cuts at Cancun. Carbon cuts are therefore multilateral, not unilateral.
c) You disputed the fact that Arctic Sea Ice is declining in another thread (see above). According to the NSIDC, which monitors this, November 2010 had the second-lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records and the linear rate of sea ice decline for the month is –4.7 % per decade.
2) You made a sweeping assumption and suggested that people accept ‘the basic argument that WE must all suffer for the actions of the few.’
However, this is not the case.
The students DON’T accept that basic argument, Ken. Students protesting outside Topshop and Vodafone shops want big corporations to pay their way like everyone else.
In her letter above, Felicity Norman of the Green Party proposes cracking down on tax avoidance as a way of showing that we are all in this together. She also proposes a Robin Hood tax on bank transactions, as it was banks that started this whole crisis.
You avoided discussing these proposals.
Why, I wonder?
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Again sorry Huw; I will not address these points because of the complete divergence of our views on the matter of Global Warming and also the politically motivated Co2 reduction policies, hence the probable protracted exchange between us. In evidence; you are trying to introduce points fully debated previously.
May I suggest you read what I wrote, which was; (and please note the caps)
“IF we take the basic argument that WE must all suffer for the actions of the few”
I did not say we SHOULD!
In fact I think the oposite! I cannot understand why we the people of this country should be forced by our government to pick up the bill for the greedy and careless actions of the get rich quick brigade. I do not see why we the tax payer should insure them against their own greedy actions, hence I say I want to widen the debate rather than accepting the premis that student fees must be increased. And if cuts are needed these should fall on the culprits before anyone else. I do not see making higher education conditional on the wallet is helping anyone.
I did not offer a debate on the Green suggestions on tax avoidance or a Robin Hood tax on bank transactions, because as I said I do not take an opposing position. But I already put that in the previous post.
My point about the British carbon cut targets being unilateral was made on the basis of the reports in the Guardian on 7th Dec
“Committee on Climate Change advises UK to cut emissions 60% by 2030
Britain is to set world-leading carbon emissions cut target requiring complete overhaul of energy, farming and motoring” and also the already anounced legally binding 34% cuts in the 2009 budget, again reported in the Gardian.
Britian, it would seem, accoring to the Gardian at least, is leading the world in legally binding carbon cuts?
Perhaps you do not consider this unilateral, I will agree when the other 192 countries also intoduce similar legally binding cuts, but so far all the devloping countries have done is sign a non legally binding pledge to look at a ways of cutting carbon. So I do not consider my unilateral comment to have been false, but I am always willing to listen to oposing views.
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I think students reading this might be interested in knowing that Ken’s willingness to listen to opposing views, apparent support for the student cause and support of Green alternatives to drastic fee increases is illusory.
Links on Ken’s website, Eurealist, to Daniel Hannan’s, John Redwood’s and other free market fundamentalist blogs give the game away. They would all hate the Green alternatives.
Increasing taxes for the very wealthy, introducing a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions, clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance (over £100 billion), and scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme would be anathema for all of them and for you, Ken.
Why disguise this?
It’s much easier to debate topics if you can count on the good faith of your interlocutor.
Sadly I cannot.
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Huw, I don’t think it is your privilege to decide what my position on anything might be, in contradiction of my statements. What you have done is what you always do, and that is to gift your own interpretation rather than actually debating any point I might attempt to make.
I suppose you really have no alternative as you seem only to be able to debate by putting people in boxes of your own choosing, thus often reversing what is said so that you can continue to see only black and white, when the world is so many different shades.
If you would think for a moment you would see that my attitude with regard to the EU Global Warming and the politically motivated Co2 reduction policies does not contradict my belief that education should not be based on ones ability to pay. Because I believe the EU is antidemocratic is not code for believing that those who caused this mess should be the ones who pay and not the ordinary citizen. And nothing I have ever said can lead anyone – with the one obvious exception – to believe that I support Trident.
Do please try in future, if you wish to challenge me, to see more than monotones Huw, then we can both count on the good faith of our interlocutor.
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It’s pretty obvious that cuts are needed. How about cutting the number of students entering higher education? Between 2004 and 2009 there was a 25% rise. Fewer students, fewer courses, less money needed to run them.
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This is a sound comment! …. the big mistake that was made was to turn the “Polytechnic’s” into “Universities” .. you have effectively degraded the very concept of a Classic Education that would be worthwhile both to the Graduate and to Society. What Employer worth his/her salt is going to employ someone holding a Degree issued by one of these “Mickey Mouse” institutions .. try Googling “Waste Management and Dance” for an example! …..
Education is too important a resource to squander so aim your resource in the right and meaningful direction.
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How how about cutting the pay of the lecturers? To reduce training costs at work we now use recorded video lectures and e-learning.
And why does everyone need a degree anyway? Surely there should be a variety of different education paths? Degrees should be reserved for the intellectually elite with other avenues for people who have different talents.
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Don’t give a monkeys as long as I’m not expected to pay the bills for a uni student. No-one offered to pay mine so I couldn’t go so they getting no worse a deal than I did. I got over it and qualified as an accountant so is it really that much of a hardship? For some subjects yes support should be offered but some spotty kid with a degree in Media Studies isn’t going to make mine or anyone else’s life any better so why should I pay taxes for them to learn how to use a tv camera?
And going on destructive rampages isn’t going to get the decision reversed. Since when has any government changed their mind through being held to ransom? Doesn’t work for terrorists, why should the same methodology work for students?
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We do not need tens of thousands of people on BA courses for media studies and other ‘soft’ options.
We need engineers (real engineers, that is) plumbers, motor mechanics, etc., etc.
But lefty teachers were always putting people off doing training for jobs!
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There are plenty of unemployed graduate engineers in Britain today. You say ‘we need’ them, but where are the jobs?
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Fully agree with those commenting that there are both far too many so-called universities and equally too many so-called students attending them. When I did my degree it counted for something because access to a university education was restricted to those academically able and gifted to cope with its demands. There is no God-given right to attend university.
Thanks to past socialist governments, we have seen an explosion in the number of universities – by the conversion of polytechnics. Most of these new institutions are not worthy of the name of university; did no-one stop to think where the money was coming from to fund both these institutions and the students attending them? Evidently not.
Entrance standards have been dumbed down and “Mickey Mouse” degrees made available to those who, in my opinion, are not even suitable to be employed in a fast food chain.
Maintain the redbricks and Oxbridge;close down three quarters of all the rest of these so-called universities,thus restoring our university system back to the pre-eminent position it once enjoyed. As for those would-be students who can’t get into university? Tough – you’re not bright enough, stop whinging, you aren’t owed a place at university paid for by the rest of us and get yourself a job.
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Me
[Why should a school leaver on minimum wage help contribute towards this?]
A school leaver on a minimum wage is not going to be paying very much tax nor is he or she going to be taking on much responsibility or work that needs special aptitude.
The loan taken out by a school leaver who has sufficient grades to get a place at uni will be a future deterrent to him or her being able to get a mortgage, start a family, take on higher responsibilities with possibly a bit better pay which will mean paying more in tax as well as paying back the loan. The loan is contunually growing and there is no guarantee that the interest rate will not be increased either. Politicians are renowned for saying one thing then doing another!
It may not sound like waste management is worthy of degree status but it is a complex and growing problem that will need scientific knowledge to try to find solutions. Most of our seas are full of toxins from waste.
As for media studies, my neice did this for a degree. She then worked for the Halifax BS before becoming a CPO and then after having eye laser surgery acheived her ambition to join the police force.
Life experience and a qualification that specifically studies communication were ideal.
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Grim reaper you are daft.Close down all”the so called universities” and only the wealthy and those whose parents have influence will get in.
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good on you, i support the students too
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“And if you don’t like it? Then leave.
Or use your right to protest on the street,
Yeah, use your rights but don’t imagine that it’s heard, Oh no no…”
Come on, join in. It’s a sing along.
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As design, marketing, and the media have such an enormous influence on every single day of our lives how can you make such a simplistic and unqualified comment Matt? The way we portray ourselves abroad, the products we use and sell, the constant need to improve the way we live environmentally as well as aesthetically and competitively are all part of the creative sector.
The film industry makes us money, the fashion industry makes us money, selling our TV shows abroad make us money.
In a lot of respects studying maths, medicene etc are rather straightforward and do not ask for the kind of input that the Arts demand. Creativity and entrepreneurialism go hand in hand unless you are merely providing a service be it as a doctor or like my nephew who studied pure maths and is a manager in a fast food outlet.
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students are the future of this country, without them we will all be poor, tax the old to fund the young robin hood would agree, the old have masses of wealth in property and had it all on a plate for them with free dentistry, healthcare, presciptions, parking, education etc etc, they lived in an era of cheap food, cheap energy and cheap cars, now us younger folk are paying the price, its so unfair
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Dai, would you not agree that increasing taxes for the very wealthy, introducing a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions, clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance and scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme would be s popular alternative to the cuts if they were more widely discussed and debated?
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Huw; you charge me with being less than truthful when I say I do not oppose the Greens suggestions with regard to finding alternatives to the hike in Student fees.
You claim partly as evidence for your charge that I am anti – EU, hence, I believe you said clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance would be anathema to me.
Firstly, tax evasion is the term for efforts not to pay taxes by illegal means! I imagine this was a mistake on your part and you did not intend to suggest that I would condone illegal activity? Please confirm!
Tax avoidance however is the utilization of the tax regime to one’s own advantage, hence it is legal.
So how can I be both anti – EU and at the same time pro – efforts to clamp down on tax avoidance? That was your implication.
Quite simply the two are not mutually exclusive and only those who have an agenda to discredit EUsceptics or who simply do not understand would try conflate the two.
In fact the EU has ruled against the British tax office on several occasions in favour of British based multinational companies. For instance; allowing them to legally claim against the HM Revenue & Customs for losses incurred in other countries, but of course the British government cannot claim for profits made by the same companies in other countries. This particular tax avoidance scheme has reputedly cost the British tax office billions of lost revenue and was given legality by the EU court.
I feel that targeting the companies who use the tax regime to their own advantage and directing protests against their shops will only have the effect of bringing the matter into the limelight – no bad thing- however how are we in Britain going to actually close the loopholes and force these companies to pay more tax and help our students when the British government does not have the power and has lost its cases in the ECJ.
Hence the EU is part of the problem and therefore I can be both Anti- EU and pro clamping down on tax evasion and pro the student’s case.
I do hope this helps you to understand my stance more fully than you have so far indicated.
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I just think it would help students make up their minds who backs their cause and who doesn’t if they know what perspective we are both coming from.
On your EUrealist website you have links to Lord Monckton, who -like you- denies anthropogenic climate change.
On this subject you have been refreshingly open.
However, you also have links to John Redwood, Daniel Hannan and mainly Conservative supporting blogs, all of whom support the tuition fee cuts and disagree with the Robin Hood tax.
Why the attempt to dissimulate support for the students?
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Well I don’t think I was trying to conceal my true motives, and do not believe I am being hypocritically, I also do not believe that any links from my Blog indicate I was.
A Blog link is just that, it does not mean I support every utterance in every post of the recipient Blog or their political party, in fact in some cases I oppose but still link. I am not a “party political” sort of person and do not offer any support to any party. To me they are all very much the same and offer very much the same polices confined as they all are by the same overarching government structure.
For instance; why worry about the 100 million we expect to get if the government tightened the rules on Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR) but not about the 20 billion we would get if we did not allow British conglomerates to claim tax relief on losses outside this country. As I said all parties are tarred with the same brush and all are forced to work within the same rules and so all will come up with basically the same answers and within this system the people are the ones who must pay and that includes the students, all the parties do is to offer pretend choices and pretend solutions and point to pretend differences.
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You said you are ‘not a “party political” sort of person and do not offer any support to any party.’
You claim ‘they are all very much the same and offer very much the same polices confined as they all are by the same overarching government structure.’
Above you claimed that you supported the students and the Green Party’s suggestions for raising funds for the Exchequer ( December 16, 2010 at 10:49 ).
If you really believe ‘they are all very much the same and offer very much the same polices’, then could you explain what Lord Monckton, John Redwood and Daniel ‘the NHS is a 60-year mistake’ Hannan, along with the Conservative bloggers you have links to would think of
1) increasing taxes for the very wealthy
2) introducing a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions
3) clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance
4) scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme
Should students reading this really believe your ridiculous claim that politicians ‘offer very much the same polices’?
And when you have admitted that they do not offer the same policies, could you engage with the ideas in Felicity Norman’s letter and explain why you think these policies would not work in an honest and open way?
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I don’t know what those people think of the suggestions! I recommend you ask them, as I said a link is not a conformation that I support every utterance in every post of the recipient Blog or their political party or even that I support them at all.
The point I am making is that all parties must work within the EU system, hence the suggestion to clamp down on tax avoidance schemes can only be applied to those tax avoidance schemes that do not have an EU influence. They can do nothing about the many tax avoidance schemes where the ECJ has ruled against the British government. So all the parties are really doing is to big up the minimal differences on a national perspective, whilst not even talking about their own limitations.
To amplify:
Picking up on the “Daniel ‘the NHS is a 60-year mistake’ Hannan” (I disagree) however, the NHS, like Higher education, the post office, rail service and all the other NATIONAL services are having to face the fact that they are no longer simply NATIONAL services. The question that needs addressing is not where the money will come from to continue to fund the NHS and Higher education ECT. But can they continue to survive at all as NATIONAL services whilst we remain in the EU?
Personally I do not see that they can and I feel that we need to understand the full ramifications of our membership of the union, there is the problem, as the political parties are not discussing this aspect, all they do is find fault with one parties attempts at solving the insolvable. You cannot on one hand have a NATIONAL service and at the same time open the doors to any and all who wish to partake right across the EU the two concepts are incompatible. That is where all the political parties are playing a big game of masquerade, simply by ignoring the effects of the EU on our NATIONAL services and disguising the changes being wrought as necessary for other reasons.
Of course there are differences between the parties but only within the limits set at the EU level and there are of course some areas that are not yet fully influenced by our membership hence the Trident debate. Also many times EUsceptics have to point out that ministers are making commitments that they cannot fulfil because EU rules prohibit the idea “British Jobs for British workers”! Some times I actually wonder if those who govern us actually understand what they have agreed.
I have already engaged with the ideas in Felicity Norman’s letter I have said I do not oppose them, you however seem to have not understood that, because you keep asking me – why I think they won’t work. If however you want a debate on why they might not work perhaps you should read John Redwood, he might offer suggestions, don’t know for certain, but he presents alternative thoughts on the economy.
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With regard to the Robin Hood tax, I am not fully acquainted with this, but it seems to be a movement backed by many charities and promoted by NGOs where not only the tax raising method is suggested but the revenues are also directed towards international development and climate change efforts, with a 50% 25%25% split suggested.
For my part I do not oppose the raising of the tax, but do oppose the distribution as it is yet one more area that will be removed from government and democratic control and placed in the hands of some perhaps new form of international government structure. The British government would then be collecting tax for this other organisation. I do not know the legality of that but do know that it is an ethical question if we as a nation have given our government the authority to allow an international organisation the power to tax British citizens. This is an entirely different procedure than any international aid our government might offer.
Also the question must be asked; by proposing this particular tax are you really supporting English students or pushing your own political agenda?
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You said you are not acquainted with the Robin Hood Tax.
I would recommend that those interested should google it and go to the official site, where they would be able to read that…
…50% of the money raised would be spent in the UK,
…while 25% would be spent on fighting poverty in poor countries
…and 25% would be spent on combating climate change.
It is clear from your first contribution (where you stated -falsely-that we are ‘spending billions in so called developing countries that are also developing nuclear armament’) and from other discussions on climate change that your protestations that you ‘do not oppose the Green suggestions’ (December 20, 2010 at 15:42, line 2) are misleading.
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I certainly oppose Green suggestions in some areas! That does not mean I also think the students should be charged for their education or that big corporations should get off of paying tax or that the suggestions made in this case are lacking merit. Where is your balance?
Robin Hood Tax
Correct 50% to the British people and 50% to go to some other organisations please confirm. The difference between the Robin Hood Tax and a Bank Levy is the proposal to give 50% of the funds raised to an external organisation, do I have that right? Or would 100% of the money be in the power of the British government to spend on British people.
If you are suggesting that the British government tax the British people for the benefit of an external organisation then where is your ethical argument for such a suggestion, consider that these are your views and this is your agenda not that of the British people and you are suggesting increasing tax for everyone.
Are you rather than being interested in helping English students, just using it as method to advance you own agenda, which has actually nothing to do with student fees, in fact your proposals work against English students because you are siphoning off 50% of the money raised to use for your own causes.
You took my comment of spending billions in developing countries to mean I was only referring to Pakistan, and then called it misleading. This is not the case, I was actually refering to the Climate Change Fund. Further I was suggesting that others might have alternative suggestions to those made by the Greens and throwing in some areas for debate. I was not offering a comment on my position to enable you to twist it out of context to somthing you could then opose. If we are going to talk about funding higher education, I am sorry but the Greens are not the only voice to be heard on the matter.
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You say you do not oppose any of Felicity Norman’s suggestions, and ‘do not know for certain’ whether John Redwood or others on links on your website oppose them.
Why should students believe you when it is crystal clear on your website that you and the people you link to viscerally hate Greens, climate scientists and those who are advocating a muscular and multilateral approach to climate change?
Where on your website do you decry the tax avoidance schemes, to which the students of UK Uncut have drawn the British public’s outraged attention?
In this thread http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2009/01/20/everyone-will-pay-for-airport/ #118, I asked you what you thought of the Guardian newspaper’s Tax Gap investigation in February 2009 into tax avoidance by corporations?
You never responded to this particular point.
Should students reading this believe that you truly support a clampdown on corporate tax avoidance?
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We are not talking about Global Warming so I assume students, being intelligent, would not mix up any thoughts I might have on that subject to any I have on their increased fees.
Perhaps they should though as I would scrap all spending on Global Warming measures, which I consider to be a useless and incredibly expensive exercise in transferring funding from the West but will have no affect at all on CO2 levels, which are going to rise no matter what we do in Britain. As with the EU and its rules, the Global Warming scam is a drain on the national wealth and for as long as students continue to vote for the main parties they will be lumbered and like the rest of us have to make sacrifices. So some people will decide not to further their education, and other will be lumbered by personal debts. That perhaps is the price they must pay for these government extremes which you support and I do not. I can promise you that our MPs and our MEPs children will not have to make that choice.
Save money! Lets not pour ever increasing amounts of money into an outlandish power system that is not fit for service does not work unless the wind blows so requires a fully functioning back up system that itself requires imported gas that will put our power dependency in the hands of a third country, probably eventually Russia.
Funny before Global warming costs and before the EU costs and its rules, we could as a nation afford to educate our students without making them contribute. So much for the brave new world.
I do know that you as a bagman for the Greens, just like the other parties are only offering a fig leaf and are not addressing the real problems we face. Choosing to stay in your boxes and ignore the really big picture and the fact that whilst we remain in the EU we cannot continue to retain any of our national services, they will all be privatised or communalised and whilst we spend billions on building windmills we won’t have the money anyway.
I don’t know if students should believe me or believe you when you say I am not being truthful! I will leave it to them to decide.
My website; You are quite right I have not mentioned “the tax avoidance schemes, to which the students of UK Uncut have drawn the British public’s outraged attention?” But then I have not mentioned anything for a whole year, so perhaps you will excuse the particular omission. Also I would have thought that students would recognise the implication you make as a logical fallacy, the omission on the site does not prove your point that I am not being truthful.
Tax avoidance: I have already commented, and suggested that the political parties being tied to the EU will not look at the big Tax Avoidance schemes that the ECJ has invented; you may or may not believe me your choice!
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