Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Bruce Wayne]

This stinks of a guy that hasn't done a day of manual labour in his entire life.

I'm not sure it's sensible to judge a policy that would affect many people on my personal experiences. Doesn't seem very subjective to me. The reality is that pensions are now the 3rd biggest spending item in the state budget, and for that to be sustainable, there needs to be some give and take. The reality for most young people today is that they will have multiple careers during their lives, so not only is the belief that you'll do one thing for 40 years quite quaint, but that this one thing would be all someone is capable of doing is pretty insulting to the ingenuity of people.

I've worked zero hours, and it's complete crap. I'm fortunate enough to have not had to do it since 2012, but many of my friends still find themselves on them, unable to save, unable to plan.

Sure, and many people work in the gig economy and enjoy it enormously. As above, we shouldn't base policy on experiences drawn from a very small sample. Contingent labour has been around for the best part of 70 years (Manpower were founded in 1948, for instance), so this is nothing new, but what has changed is many more people work this way now than ever before. There are things that need to change, not least of which are the various social legislations that are wrapped up in 9-5 jobs, be they holiday entitlements, maternity pay or sick leave, none of which apply to contingent labour. Rather than banning this form of work outright, Labour might do better to explore how they can provide the same social advantages salaried workers enjoy to the entire workforce.

We need to do more to get people away from private forms of transport, and having a well funded and fairly priced rail system is part of that. Moreover, having a more educated populace is beneficial to every single one of us. I dare ask how you went about funding your University education, but that may be cynical of me - maybe it's because I'm in > £30,000 worth of student debt for having the temerity to seek education.

I've no doubt, but call me a cynic if you like, but I somehow imagine a Labour run railway would be run in a very particular way. For instance, staffing currently accounts for ~25% of the costs associated with running the railways, this despite technology existing to automate the driving of the trains. I'm not sure either of us expect a Corbyn government to be anything but a boon for railway workers, which scarcely seems conducive to lowering costs for commuters?

With the universities, it's no different at all really. You don't pay your tuition fees back until you earn a certain amount, and if all of that 30k was loaded onto the tax payer, all that would happen is your taxes would go up to pay for it, whilst also requiring all those who didn't go to university to cough up as well. If you truly believe in the 'many, not the few', then I don't see how you can expect the many to pay for the few, just because you're among the 'few'?

 

[roydo]

The North is a desert for railways.

Mold lost its passenger link in the early 60s (though the line remained until the mid-80s, until obliterated by a Tescos), and now its a commuter town for Wrexham, Chester and even the fair city that protects the country from the Wirral. If the line hadn't been destroyed it would be well used by people using it to commute now.

I used it not that long ago though. Skirts the north coast of the Dee then the North Sea.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Throughout the country.

One of the potentially unforeseen risks with improving transport links is that it concentrates economic activity even more. If it's easier to get to Manchester from Oldham and Wigan than it was before, then it's easier for the talented people of those towns to go to the bigger city where their talents can coalesce with a much larger bunch of other talented people.

Now for the economy as a whole, that's undoubtedly a good thing, but for Oldham and Wigan it's not so good as they become dormitory towns. We've seen with the Brexit how such 'left behind' communities feel about this economic concentration.

 

[tsubaki]

I used it not that long ago though. Skirts the north coast of the Dee then the North Sea.

You used the railway from Mold?

 

[roydo]

You used the railway from Mold?

Not as far as I now.. I travelled from Bristol to Llandudno by rail a few years back. I am sure that some towns dont have a rail link, (mine doesnt), but remain to be convinced that linking every town in the UK by rail is either feasible or necessary.

 

[tsubaki]

Not as far as I now.. I travelled from Bristol to Llandudno by rail a few years back. I am sure that some towns dont have a rail link, (mine doesnt), but remain to be convinced that linking every town in the UK by rail is either feasible or necessary.

If the argument was that every town should be connected to the rail network then I'd agree with you, but there are many towns that should (and could easily) be.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Not this again.

Under the old system, people who got "free" education paid it back because they usually got higher-paying jobs, which resulted in them contributing more in taxation.

Universities were not in financial crisis, nor were billions and billions built up in student debt. Now, as the result of policies grounded in "fairness" arguments like yours, universities are in such a state that they will not be able to survive fees being capped and the debt mountain is currently £105 bn (and on course for £330 bn by 2050).

Or take the railways for example. SNCF is a quasi-nationalized entity that has a debt of 47 billion euro, built up over 81 years which and runs national and international rail services, freight services, has built and operates numerous high speed lines and owns its trains, rolling stock, stations, yards, sidings and millions of acres of land. A flexible first class single ticket between Paris and Marseille, for Tuesday the 15th, is 160 euro.

National Rail is a quasi nationalized entity that has a debt of 51 billion euro, built up over 14 years, and runs no services, owns no high speed lines, has very few of its own trains and has spent the ten or so years of its existence selling off its assets in utterly futile attempts to pay off its debt. A first class flexible single ticket between London and Glasgow, for Tuesday the 15th, is £244.

All this "fairness" nonsense boils down to is that we, the taxpayer, pay far more for services that are worse (and getting even worse). It is the very opposite of fair, especially for the generations that will have to deal with the money we have wasted.

Yes, and 28% of the 18 year olds in England go to university, which is waaaaaay higher than it ever was in the 'free' days. This number includes vastly more students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Not only does it seem that you want the many to pay for the few to go to university, but you also want to restrict the number of poorer students who can go. Very progressive.

 

[roydo]

If the argument was that every town should be connected to the rail network then I'd agree with you, but there are many towns that should (and could easily) be.

Well I asked @Number_25 where in Wales he would need a new railway when he told me we should "invest" there. My personal experience is that Wales is pretty reasonably linked to the UK and itself by the current network.

 

[tsubaki]

Yes, and 28% of the 18 year olds in England go to university, which is waaaaaay higher than it ever was in the 'free' days. This number includes vastly more students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Not only does it seem that you want the many to pay for the few to go to university, but you also want to restrict the number of poorer students who can go. Very progressive.

... which is just daft.

For a start, people are going to university because they think they have to - and for many jobs (nursing, policing, social work etc) they are right to think that, because a lot of what used to be vocational training is now something the trainee must to pay for. Once people might have gone off to a relatively stable job in the private sector at 18, but those are increasingly scarce too.

Secondly, how on earth is saddling disadvantaged students with a debt of at least £27000 before they have ever started proper work "progressive"?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

... which is just daft.

For a start, people are going to university because they think they have to - and for many jobs (nursing, policing, social work etc) they are right to think that, because a lot of what used to be vocational training is now something the trainee must to pay for. Once people might have gone off to a relatively stable job in the private sector at 18, but those are increasingly scarce too.

Secondly, how on earth is saddling disadvantaged students with a debt of at least £27000 before they have ever started proper work "progressive"?

Because by virtue of them requiring a certain level of income before that debt has to be repaid renders them no longer disadvantaged. I guarantee, had it been called a graduate tax or something instead, there would have been no such fuss.

 

[edge]

... which is just daft.

For a start, people are going to university because they think they have to - and for many jobs (nursing, policing, social work etc) they are right to think that, because a lot of what used to be vocational training is now something the trainee must to pay for. Once people might have gone off to a relatively stable job in the private sector at 18, but those are increasingly scarce too.

Secondly, how on earth is saddling disadvantaged students with a debt of at least £27000 before they have ever started proper work "progressive"?

Any idea of how many of the students actually go into work in the field,s they study in?
Most of the ones I know don't and end up doing other work just to get a job,
My two girls both went to uni, my lad is there now, one has a law degree, got fed up with really low wage offers , and ambulance chasing, got a job in banking fraud department to get a decent steady wage , the other one has a master's in phycology , wants to work in that field and has given it another year to get a job in it or change direction as it's either dead man's shoes or basically minimum wage, currently working for the NHS on just over that, if I didn't help her out she wouldn't be able to keep a roof over her head.
I don't blame the students but this country doesn't put enough value into them or there futures , to busy looking at the bottom line on everything.

 

[peteblue]

Any idea of how many of the students actually go into work in the field,s they study in?
Most of the ones I know don't and end up doing other work just to get a job,
My two girls both went to uni, my lad is there now, one has a law degree, got fed up with really low wage offers , and ambulance chasing, got a job in banking fraud department to get a decent steady wage , the other one has a master's in phycology , wants to work in that field and has given it another year to get a job in it or change direction as it's either dead man's shoes or basically minimum wage, currently working for the NHS on just over that, if I didn't help her out she wouldn't be able to keep a roof over her head.
I don't blame the students but this country doesn't put enough value into them or there futures , to busy looking at the bottom line on everything.

Totally agree. And btw, both your girls will do O.K.....

 

[tsubaki]

Because by virtue of them requiring a certain level of income before that debt has to be repaid renders them no longer disadvantaged. I guarantee, had it been called a graduate tax or something instead, there would have been no such fuss.

So basically what you are saying is that if they remain at a level below the level at which they have to pay it back, they are no longer "disadvantaged"?

edit: a graduate tax would have been a lot better way of doing it, though keeping the old grant system would have been best

 

[tsubaki]

Any idea of how many of the students actually go into work in the field,s they study in?
Most of the ones I know don't and end up doing other work just to get a job,
My two girls both went to uni, my lad is there now, one has a law degree, got fed up with really low wage offers , and ambulance chasing, got a job in banking fraud department to get a decent steady wage , the other one has a master's in phycology , wants to work in that field and has given it another year to get a job in it or change direction as it's either dead man's shoes or basically minimum wage, currently working for the NHS on just over that, if I didn't help her out she wouldn't be able to keep a roof over her head.
I don't blame the students but this country doesn't put enough value into them or there futures , to busy looking at the bottom line on everything.

I think it depends on what they study. The vocational subjects like nursing probably have a greater retention rate, though thats may be more to do with people having invested more of themselves into it (as in the sense of they have put themselves in debt for a subject that may not be of that much use in other fields).

The comment about "dead mans shoes" is spot on though; for the next ten-fifteen years people like your kids will be competing with people who got their education for free (and who also found it a lot easier to buy a house) and who also have less of an incentive to sod off at 50-55 because their pensions have been cut.

 

[peteblue]

So basically what you are saying is that if they remain at a level below the level at which they have to pay it back, they are no longer "disadvantaged"?

edit: a graduate tax would have been a lot better way of doing it, though keeping the old grant system would have been best

There should be no graduate tax. All students should be treated the same and given appropriate grants. However the universities must stop this proliferation of ego degrees......