Monday 17th July 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good morning.

Swimming with the school this morning - last one for this year - then hospital visiting this afternoon, and my final Governing Body meeting this evening. We're just waiting for a place to be found in a home or hospice for 'er indoors as things aren't that great at the moment.

[RogerOThornhill]

How much of this focus on 'poor quality' university courses is to do with the amount that Goverment has to write off the student loan book as jobs aren't paying enough for loans to be repaid?

From Sunak's article:

Fairness for taxpayers
Put simply: our young people are being ripped off. They’re being saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt from bad degrees that just leave them poorer, and dissuaded from pursuing more vocational options because they are led to believe that university is the only route to success. It’s not fair on them – and it’s not fair on you as taxpayers, forced to pick up a big chunk of the bill despite getting nothing back for our economy.

It was easy to ignore when loans were written off way into the future but I believe the ONS ruled that the Government debt numbers had to recognise the potential write-off now.

[gilsey]

I'm sorry to hear that, best wishes to you both.

[gilsey]

How much of this focus on 'poor quality' university courses is to do with the amount that Goverment has to write off the student loan book as jobs aren't paying enough for loans to be repaid?

Student loans are designed not to be repaid, just look at that lovely income stream.
But your point stands if some don't even earn enough to make significant payments.

[gilsey]

Re sky's comments on North Yorkshire yesterday, the Friarage is a small hospital compared with James Cook in M'bro and there's been plenty of chat about closing various parts of it over the years since 2010. Many of the doctors work across both hospitals and there'll be plenty of brown faces among them, but the rest of the staff will be predominantly white, finding half a dozen tory-sympathising nurses for the selfie wouldn't be a problem. I've only been in it a couple of times over the years.

I'm surprised by sky's 'thick brexit dickheads in Bishop Auckland' comment, one of the most famous anti-brexit vox pops was a chap in Bishop, talking good sense.

[AnatolyKasparov]

But given the last GE result in BA, quite a lot didn't agree with them unfortunately.

[frog222]

Sorry to hear that Roger . Tough times . xx

Strange times in so many countries , where many people will not go for treatments precisely because the staff are tasting their new freedums to spray viruses at each other and their often immuno-compromised patients .

[refitman]

Love this guy

[AnatolyKasparov]

Fair enough, but that surely applies whether it is social housing or private sector. Bottom line is that we need to build more houses!

[gilsey]

[RogerOThornhill]

This might not last long before she deletes it...

[AnatolyKasparov]

Strange woman, always has been - though her dad was always a bit odd too.

[refitman]

Oh no, they're losing the centrists

[refitman]

Just masterful work

[AnatolyKasparov]

Oh no, they're losing the centrists

This is very unpopular beyond the usual suspects, yes.

Which is why I expect something, if not a total u-turn, to happen with it in the fairly near future.

[refitman]

Well, Sarwar and Rayner have both said "the policy is terrible, I stand by my condemnation about it...but what can you do? *shrug*".

[AnatolyKasparov]

They are hardly going to rock the boat in public days ahead of vital byelections, are they - who says they aren't making their views known behind the scenes?

Two things that may be worth noting (whilst not excusing what Starmer said yesterday)

1) the 2017 Labour manifesto did not pledge to reverse this, that doesn't mean it wasn't an excellent offering overall;

2) the SNP/Green administration in Scotland has the power to scrap this restriction, however it has not done so.

[refitman]

They are hardly going to rock the boat in public days ahead of vital byelections, are they - who says they aren't making their views known behind the scenes?

Two things that may be worth noting (whilst not excusing what Starmer said yesterday)

1) the 2017 Labour manifesto did not pledge to reverse this, that doesn't mean it wasn't an excellent offering overall;

2) the SNP/Green administration in Scotland has the power to scrap this restriction, however it has not done so.

Yeah, but at the same time, they didn't publicly denounce the restriction and then go "nah, only joking. We're gonna keep this thing I called hideous".

The SNP don't need to scrap it in Scotland, you can still get payments even if you have more than 2 kids

Scottish child payment is £25 a week per eligible child, payable every four weeks. There is no limit on how many children within a family can get Scottish child payment, so it will still be paid for a child affected by the two child limit in universal credit or child tax credit.

https://cpag.org.uk/scotland/welfare-ri ... ld-payment

And even if they didn't, that's still not an excuse for Starmer being such an uncaring, technocratic dipshit.

[refitman]

G'wan Andy

[frog222]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Won a mediocre victory in 2019 and seems to think he is Nelson Mandela because of it.

Labour's candidate is much better (no really, she is) and if there is any justice she will defeat him comfortably.

[gilsey]

Labour's candidate is much better (no really, she is) and if there is any justice she will defeat him comfortably.

So wouldn't it have been better for her to defeat him in the selection process? Isn't that what it's supposed to be for?

[refitman]

Remember when Starmer said it was unacceptable for Central Office to impose candidates on local areas?

Might want to check the Labour candidate's comments about travellers.

[gilsey]

Quite enjoyed John Harris' piece

Keir Starmer is threatening to leave our crises unchanged. So what social forces will he unleash?

if Labour wins, what will it actually feel like? Whatever is in its manifesto, and irrespective of the narratives that Starmer does or doesn’t campaign with, a victory will self-evidently be a huge moment, replete with at least a momentary sense of relief and euphoria. But on the current evidence, what Labour will actually do with power is less interesting than what the simple change in regime will trigger, whether Starmer and his allies like it or not.

The last 13 years have been so full of underinvestment, cuts and serial cruelties that from the moment they take power, calls for change will be overwhelming. Along with the party’s regional mayors, the Labour people who run councils, faced with a £3bn funding gap over the next two years, will rightly demand greater financial autonomy, and a level of funding from Whitehall that at last begins to make up for the cuts that they are still being forced to inflict on their communities. Whatever Starmer’s antipathy towards the green movement, its activists and organisations – such as Green New Deal Rising, whose supporters disrupted his recent speech on education – will sense the door being at least slightly more open, and push on it all the harder.

As a weak economy continues to make the case for renewed ties with the EU, there may well be a revival of the movement that pushed for a second referendum on Brexit, this time focused on membership of the single market. More urgently, I can easily foresee the kind of community activists who have parried the worst aspects of the Conservatives’ record on poverty and inequality – the people who run food banks, homeless shelters and all the rest – sooner or later making a great deal of noise about the intolerability of living with both a centre-left government and the continuation of such awful social problems.

As things stand, I am not sure Starmer, Reeves and Streeting will have the policies, authority or political talent to tell all these forces to keep quiet, something that particularly applies to a re-energised trade union movement, whose grievances have hardly been silenced by recent moves on public sector pay.

"I am not sure Starmer, Reeves and Streeting will have the policies, authority or political talent to tell all these forces to keep quiet"
You can say that again.