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Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

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Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby macgamer on Thu Nov 11, 2010 10:03 am

The Order-Order blog has couple of posts on the tuition fee riots, this one in particular:
http://order-order.com/2010/11/11/nus-w ... emo-lition

highlights the presence of NUS members getting involved i.e. encouraging the violence and criminal damage.

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Guido Fawkes wrote:The crowd was mainly made up of middle-class students with a couple of hundred of youths clearly up for trouble, masked and tooled up. Many of the protagonists were wearing official NUS hi-vis tunics and had loud-hailers, they were not calling on students to disperse or refrain from violence, they were in the thick of it. Officially the NUS is condemning the violence to the media, but that line was not taken on the ground. NUS activists were revelling in the moment. Look at the video evidence and you can see many of the rioters are in official NUS garb.

Pretty damning really.

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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby rham on Thu Nov 11, 2010 4:29 pm

Sounds and looks like standard right wing scaremongering to me.

Anyone on any demo (possibly except fox hunting) knows that rent a mob people turn up and love nothing better than a rumble with the police. Last time I looked yellow jackets were available in shops and anyone can write NUS on themselves. What happened was wrong but no more a reflection of actual middle class students than Friday night in the town centre is a judgement on the working class. In fact if some students were not mindless thugs then I'd be surprised. Every collection of human beings has them so far as I know. (Aren't we always told that about police, soldiers, priests and MP's, can't expect them all to be perfect). I imagine the proportion of mindless thugs and / or truly violent is lower amongst students than the general population.

Next point, how did he know they were middle class (handing out income forms or parental occupation)? 40% of people (and probably more) classify themselves as students. Its just a term of abuse to say they were middle class (the meme here is people who oppose fees are middle class squealing for perks).

As to watching the "riot", yep. The same reason people slow down for a traffic accident. I have been to football games where there was "off the pitch" action, sometimes you just watch amazed.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Thu Nov 11, 2010 6:09 pm

macgamer wrote:Pretty damning really.

Damning? Is that blog meant to be a parody of itself, or is it serious?

Demonstrations of this size usually rally at Trafalgar Square or in Jubilee Gardens on the Southbank. Before yesterday the NUS leader Aaron Porter was telling students they needed to be not just on “the streets of London” but “inside the rooms where the deals will be made”. The protesters took him at his word and managed to get inside the governing party’s headquarters, the buck stops with Porter and he should accept ultimate responsibility for inciting this riot. His members could have killed a copper or one of their own yesterday…

I mean... seriously...(?)
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby wild_quinine on Thu Nov 11, 2010 6:55 pm

rham wrote:Next point, how did he know they were middle class (handing out income forms or parental occupation)?


If you're in HE you're pretty much middle class, I think.

rham wrote: 40% of people (and probably more) classify themselves as students.


So the middle class is pretty big. Seems like a pleasant state of affairs, though I do say it will be harder to keep up with the Joneses.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby rham on Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:07 pm

So the middle class is pretty big. Seems like a pleasant state of affairs, though I do say it will be harder to keep up with the Joneses.


Ah but the fashion is to be working class, prole-ier than thou.

Guido Fox is a populist nihilist (everyone is a crook etc). A British (in fact Irish) Rush Limbaugh.

To figure the sort of people who follow him, read the comments on Harriett Harman or women in general or WIlliam Hague. (hate mongering)

(Side issue
Working class (defined by parental income / occupation) do go to Uni. They might transform into middle class afterwards. I'd say you can find plenty of working class students who stay at home and study at big ex poly civic Uni's.
)
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby David Bean on Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:19 pm

So the NUS has nothing to do with the riots, and condemns them unequivocally as the actions of a small minority, eh?

Well, here's an idea: let's ask them.

http://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/?p=3543

...No, not so much.

During the demonstration over 5,000 students showed their determination to defend the future of education by occupying the Tory party HQ and its courtyards for several hours. The mood was good-spirited, with chants, singing and flares.

Yet at least 32 people have now been arrested, and the police and media appear to be launching a witch-hunt condemning peaceful protesters as “criminals” and violent.

A great deal is being made of a few windows smashed during the protest, but the real vandals are those waging a war on our education system.

We reject any attempt to characterise the Millbank protest as small, “extremist” or unrepresentative of our movement.

We celebrate the fact that thousands of students were willing to send a message to the Tories that we will fight to win. Occupations are a long established tradition in the student movement that should be defended. It is this kind of action in France and Greece that has been an inspiration to many workers and students in Britain faced with such a huge assault on jobs, benefits, housing and the public sector.

We stand with the protesters, and anyone who is victimised as a result of the protest.


Signatories include three NUS executive officers, as well as officers and sabbaticals at some of the NUS's core member institutions.

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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Thu Nov 11, 2010 10:56 pm

wild_quinine wrote:If you're in HE you're pretty much middle class, I think.

Class is a meaningless meme. It only exists if you think that it exists.

I'm happily classless.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby wild_quinine on Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:37 pm

rham wrote:Working class (defined by parental income / occupation) do go to Uni. They might transform into middle class afterwards.


I don't dispute that there are many students from working class backgrounds who go to University. I don't think that the majority of them go back, other than maybe temporarily, to what we might consider working class jobs. Why say they 'transformed' afterwards? It is the education that makes the difference, I would say.

These things are not unambiguously defined, I'm not married to this argument. But I tend to consider Higher Education as a fairly middle-class occupation, whatever your background.


RedCelt69 wrote:Class is a meaningless meme. It only exists if you think that it exists.

I'm happily classless.


A luxury afforded to you by your cla... socio-economic status.

If your statement above weren't so deliberately playful, I would call it naive. Class status is very much something that is applied to oneself, not something one chooses. Ignoring it just because it is based on demonstrably false or ambiguous premises does not get you off the hook of other people's pre-conceptions. And, in the real world, they damn well do affect you.

I never really understood where I would fall into the class equation myself. My parents came from a working class background, but my father was plucked out of the estates and placed in a grammar school for the crime of being unashamedly intelligent. He got a University education (eventually) and a well-paying job in senior management.

But then my brother was born severely handicapped. Thank goodness for the NHS, don't get me wrong, but there were a lot of costs associated with that. We were never very well off, and my parents have spent most of their lives giving him full time care. By the time I went to University the whole family was living off part of a pension and benefits.

Through it all I never doubted that I would achieve a decent job, a decent wage, have a chance of a decent life, because money wasn't seen to be an obstacle to that.

I wonder, how many times in my life did I change class? Was I always just middle class, because my Dad once had a good job and we weren't breadline poor? Actually, I kind of suspect so. But it's not really my decision to make, and if it were I would find it confusing and contradictory. What I do know is that I was never very well accepted by anyone with any notion of class. Perceptions of my class have always been used against me.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Sat Nov 13, 2010 5:11 am

wild_quinine wrote:
RedCelt69 wrote:Class is a meaningless meme. It only exists if you think that it exists.

I'm happily classless.


A luxury afforded to you by your cla... socio-economic status.

You're a cog in the machine. Embrace that machine as much as it embraces you - and hold your ears when you encounter those who might suggest that the machine is a memetic folly.

I'm not into heirarchical yardsticks regarding who is "better" than who - based on something as ambiguous as you readily admit it to be. Let the monkeys assign their pecking order; you have no need to join in.

You really don't.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby jollytiddlywink on Sun Nov 14, 2010 2:43 pm

David Bean:

The Lib Dems pledged to "vote against any increase in fees." And look what's happening now.

Does the phrase 'banged to rights' mean anything to the people in the Cabinet?

Perhaps we could find out by asking the News of the World to tap their phones!
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby DACrowe on Sun Nov 14, 2010 5:26 pm

'Jollytiddlywink's remarks seem a convenient juncture for me to stick my oar in

A) NUS and riots

I should start by pointing out that in contradiction to the passage David quoted I tend to view crimes as crimes and government decisions as government decisions and not the other way around, but be that as it may - while I grant to Guido and macgamer and anyone else who wants to assert it that there was a fair amount of 'rioty' words used by the NUS and most likely (though they deny it, I'm sure) a fair number of the NUS officers got involved in the action (carried away with the moment), knowing what little I know about the particulars if it came across my desk to judge it I wouldn't say it passed a sensible standard of 'incitement to riot'. The best one could hope for is that the NUS gets fined and/or Aaron resigns but I think that's unlikely. He can't have long to go anyway as, not knowing how long it is until the next NUS conference but it must be soon as I notice that Wes Streeting has started campaigning for his (Wes') re-election.

B) The LibDems and Tuition Fees

I've never really got to play the role of 'government apologist' before so I'm happy enough to concede that my view might be distorted by various emotional attachments I have to my political party of choice (the LibDems) but as I see it a lot of words are being thrown around in these debates ('responsibility' 'betrayed' and so on) without careful consideration as to what they mean.

The Manifesto - The first point to make is that a manifesto does not constitute a list of binding promises. We would expect that a party /ought/ to honour their manifesto promises other things being equal but we (or at least 'mature, sensible people') routinely accept that some manifesto policies need to be scrapped because of ("events, dear boy") unforeseen circumstances. I think it's less forgivable in situations like that New Labour were in where they had an overwhelming majority in the commons and still reneged on various manifesto commitments (such as the one not to introduce tuition fees) but they would say, I imagine, that media criticism and the like forced it upon them or the need to balance various budgets did. I find it much more forgivable, and I think you should as well, in the case of a party which is acting as the minority in a coalition government. In that case I'd be more concerned with whether they seem to be acting in a way consisting with the values they claim to hold, correcting for the circumstances they find themselves in.

The NUS Pledge - While I can conceive that other people might feel differently I've got to admit I don't see a clear distinction between a manifesto promise and a 'pledge'. I agree that it was foolish for Simon Hughes etc to say "I will always vote 'no' on tuition fees" as it was obviously foreseeable that there would be situations (vote yes on tutition fees or I shoot this puppy) in which he would be willing to vote yes but I think when we start rounding on politicians for not maintaining their foolishness instead of the initial foolishness itself we just create the circumstances for a worse political culture. Were I in charge, instead of being a participant, in anyone election campaign I would have strongly discouraged signing any such commitment particularly when offered by is was a de facto wing of the Labour party (e.g. Wes Streeting campaigned during the election in debates etc as a representative for Labour Students identifying himself as NUS President, the NUS is part of the TUC which is part of the Labour party infrastructure etc). As to why they did I suspect in most cases it was simply because all the LibDem candidates who took the pledge earnestly expected to be voting against tuition fees if it came to a vote, not foreseeing the situation they would be in.

The Situation - The Labour party, wishing an external body to blame for a rise in tuition fees, appointed the Brown Commission to look into higher education funding. Then they lost the election. The party with the plurality of MPs (the Tories) is heavily committed to increasing tuition fees as, in their view, it is unfair to ask the taxpayer to pay the costs of higher education undertaken by individuals and in addition market effects in the university system might be beneficial both for the individuals taking degrees and for international competitiveness of universities. I don't agree on most of these points, but that's the background to the present situation. Then the Brown Report comes back and it calls for a rise in tuition fees, largely in line with Conservative proposals. LibDems are then faced with a choice - to agree, to disagree or to negotiate. They chose to negotiate. Unable to get the policy switched to something like a graduate tax they managed to get the Tories to agree to a number of points - a) Universities will be financially incentivised to take students from poorer backgrounds, b) repayment of loans taken out to cover tuition fees will be income contingent (you pay more the more you earn), c) there will be no demand for 'up front' fees and repayment will only start above £21,000 (so if you earn less than that you will not repay it). There was discussion about a sunset clause (outstanding loans disappear after a certain time), I can't remember off the top of my head whether that discussion was successful.

The Choice - So LibDems are then faced with the choice again, whether to agree to this compromise position where the most which can possibly be done, has been done (and frankly the difference between a graduate tax which will be implemented via loan arrangements (so as to cover overseas students) and an income contingent long-term loan repayment is fairly technical and concerns cross-subsidisation and sunset clauses might lead you to prefer the latter) to prevent it creating a disincentive for low income students or to vote against it. Let's split LibDems into 'those who have government jobs' and 'those who don't'. Let's assume that a 'no' vote wouldn't actually bring down the government. If those who don't have government jobs vote against it you can expect nothing will happen - there aren't enough to make a difference to the outcome and there would be any consequences for them. You'll almost certainly find this is what actually happens - Ming, Julian Huppert, Bob Russell and a few others can be expected to vote against it, even with the compromises. If those who do have government jobs vote against it there will be very strong pressure for them to resign. That's the established precedent, that's what's always happened - look at Clare Short and the Iraq War. Now those LibDem government officials who did vote against it would have to be replaced by either Tories or LibDems, but likely the only LibDems around are those who voted against the tutition fees from the backbenches - they can't be used. So the more LibDem government officials who vote against the bill the fewer LibDems in government there would be - to the absurd lengths that if Nick himself voted against it there would be /no/ LibDems as government ministers. Now obviously the coalition would fall apart if there were no LibDems in any position. The Tories might lumber on via a confidence and supply arrangement but voting for Tory policy without having any input isn't something the LibDems want which is why we chose to go into coalition rather than have a confidence and supply arrangement in the first place, so it's much more likely fresh elections would be the result.

So the choice that LibDems who do have government jobs have is whether to vote against a policy which is the end result of a) Tory Policy b) a Labour ordered report and c) quite considerable compromises on the part of the Tories to prevent it negatively affecting access and which, at base, is a demand that students pay over the long term for their education rather than the taxpayers or else vote against it and by so doing either a) achieve nothing or b) bring down the government. Bringing down the government in a time of economic crisis is quite obviously a very bad idea and much as I've always been opposed to tuition fees on general principle I'm happy enough to say I think it's a worse idea than tuition fees were when Labour brought them in.

Nick 'planned to betray' - The Mirror, the Guardian and the Tory press are making a lot of Hay about the fact that Danny Alexander wrote a briefing memo during the coalition negotiations about dropping the manifesto commitment on tuition fees. Just to help make sense of this - obviously during the negotiations they were considering which compromises were and weren't possible and given both Labour and the Conservatives supported tuition fees Danny argued it was advisable to be willing to give way on that to 'avoid headaches'. In the end, of course, that's not quite what happened as the final coalition agreement included an option for LibDems to vote against the Brown Report's findings. In the event with Labour having apparently changed their minds (quelle suprise) and the final policy being a Tory-LibDem compromise the LibDem ministers are effectively committed to voting it through both to avoid bringing down the government via forged resignations but also the fact that it's generally bad form to get someone to agree to a compromise and then oppose them on the compromise anyway.

C) What does this mean to you?

I should point out that this (probably) doesn't affect any of you directly as you are (probably) students at a Scottish University. Moreover, your term time residence is in the constituency of a Lib Dem MP who has said he will vote against the fee rise. There will be efforts to make him change this decision I'd imagine - probably along the lines of saying 'look what we've got the Tories to give us in return, it would be bad faith for LibDem MPs to vote against the compromise bill' but I suspect Ming will stick to his guns, in part because he's got nothing to lose by doing so (he has no official role in the government). So this policy doesn't affect you and at least if you voted in St Andrews none of you have been 'betrayed'. Obviously there will be indirect consequences as the cuts to the education budget in England will result in a decrease in the Barnett consequentials paid to Scotland. The Scottish government - most likely, the government which is in place after the election - will then be in a position to decide what to do about that and I suspect they will decide to adopt some sort of student-payment system and blame it on Westminster. The majority part will be Labour or the SNP both of whom will want to use parts of the budget on fiscal stimulus (putting more pressure to reduce the education budget than otherwise) and both have incentive to blame the Westminster government for decisions they don't like. The policy adopted will /probably/ be a graduate tax. This is my view and also (so far as I'm aware) the view of NUS Scotland who have started lobbying for graduate tax. That said, given you can't levy taxes against foreign citizens (or indeed, your own citizens if you're the Holyrood government) it's looking fairly likely that any graduate tax will be administered as if it's... a loan arrangement. So as I said before the distinction between tuition fees and a graduate 'tax' may end up being very hard to spot.

I'm trying to look for any lacunae in the above. To clear a couple of holes in brief; if you thought manifesto promises were morally binding regardless of circumstances - you were wrong. If you think it's a good idea to make cuts in the education budget without covering the shortfall in university income - you're crazy and should try floating that idea at a meeting of your faculty board. One thing the LibDems (read; Jo Swinson) is looking for feedback on is how you feel the current student loans system could be improved. There's already been a number of suggestions about how to treat student loan 'debt' as regards people applying for mortgages and so on (LibDem MP for Cambridge to thank). Personally I find myself in the bizarre situation of watching a bunch of Labour MPs and voters going on about how the LibDems have 'betrayed' people when they (the LibDems, not Labour) seem to have acted in the manner most consistent with their stated principles, under the circumstances. But I'm happy enough to concede I might be confused somehow.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:11 pm

DACrowe wrote:if you thought manifesto promises were morally binding regardless of circumstances - you were wrong.

So. Sell the idea of this kind of "democracy" to me, please. Every 5 years, we get to choose a party (and it is the party that most people concentrate on, not their individual MP) that will best represent us; what with this (allegedly) being a representative democracy. All we can go on is what's in the manifesto; clairvoyancy not allowing. But, regardless of what's in the manifesto, the party can actually do what they like for the next 5 years? And you don't consider that to be morally problematical?

The LibDems are a dead party. I thought that it could potentially be dead in 5 years, but the flatline has come much sooner than that. Wield the defibrillator as much as you like, DACrowe.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby DACrowe on Mon Nov 15, 2010 2:46 am

Look, the 'regardless of circumstances' clause is important which is why I included it. Manifestos are plans which represent what you hope you will do if you win a majority and from what you state in your manifestos it's reasonable for people to read into those things political attitudes you have. But the idea that the LibDems are committed to vote against the tuition fees bill, as the minority partner in a coalition during a recession, when doing so would forseeably bring down the government and trigger fresh elections and a Conservative majority, because of either a) they said they would in their manifesto or b) because of a pledge made to a branch of the Labour party seems kind of bizarre to me.

As a philosophy student I trust you've come across ceteris paribus clauses before: read manifestos as having attached to them big ceteris paribus clauses. Whether you consider someone culpable for having broken their manifesto pledges depends on which things not being equal to the ideal situation - a large, ideologically coherent majority with a healthy economy - have prompted a change in position and whether or not their other actions are consistent with the values they claim to hold (or such seems reasonable to me). Let's compare the situation of the Labour party when they brought in tuition fees in England with the Liberal Democrats now, shall we?

Labour have an overwhelming majority most of whom would oppose tuition fees in ideological grounds, other things being equal. They have a very healthy economy (allegedly) and a budget surplus. They have promised in their manifesto not to introduce tuition fees. There would be no obvious negative consequences of not introducing tuition fees. - They introduce tuition fees. There are limited protests from the NUS and no punitive action taken the following election (indeed NUS officials actively campaign for Labour candidates).

The LibDems are the minority partner in a coalition government, the majority of whom are ideologically in favour of tuition fees. There is a 'global financial crisis' and severe pressure to cut every budget going. It has not been possible to prevent moves to cut the education budget. They promised in their manifesto to oppose and raise in tuition fees and to get rid of them altogether if possible. If they vote against the raise in fees either a) there will be major holes in university budgets throughout the country (assuming the bill fell but the cuts to the education budget went ahead) and/or b) the coalition government would break up either directly or indirectly as a result resulting in either a Tory minority administration or more likely fresh elections which only the Tories have the money to fight. - The LibDems with ministerial posts will vote to increase tuition fees subject to various changes being made which will plausibly prevent it from discouraging low income students from applying to university. There are several scheduled protests at least one of which has turned violent so far and the NUS has proclaimed that it will campaign to oust at least four LibDems at the next election or earlier*

*Which seems particularly strange in the case of Bath as if they did unseat Don Foster they'd get a Tory instead.

Politics is a game in which there are a finite number of moves available at any one time. In this case (and indeed, since the coalition agreement so far as I can see) the LibDems have taken the move most consistent with being a social liberal party available at the time. The concerns that I do have are more to do with 'New Politics' not having been followed through (it's supposed to be able getting rid of spin and institutionalized lying (what others call 'collective responsibility') but a lot of Tories seem to be appearing on Newsnight every so often saying it's about 'being realistic about budgets'), some of our parts of the coalition agreement apparently being moved to the bottom of the agenda (civil liberties) and a general concern that the cuts seem to have gotten away from us (which I suspect was the motive behind the rather neat political assassination of David Laws) and have been taken over by the more ideologically-driven cutting of the Tories. The tuition fees discussion just seems a bit mad and unreasoned; I'm kind of surprised that this 'betrayal' meme has gotten beyond the Mirror's frontpage and into the heads of otherwise intelligent people such as yourself.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:08 am

My point (however simplistically put) is that a representative democracy has to be built upon something, else it isn't a democracy. The only way that the people can determine how they will be represented is by determining which party will, actually, represent them. The mechanism for that is the party manifesto. If the manifesto is meaningless, then so is everything else. We don't have a democracy; we have something else, entirely.

Now. Justifying post-election promise-breaking based upon changed circumstances does, in this situation, lead us to ask just how much of the known situation was actually unknown. I've heard from various sources that the state of the economy (and all that entails) was readily discernible. If it wasn't, why wasn't it? But if it was... we aren't facing changed circumstances. We're facing known circumstances, which the coalition didn't fully address prior to the election. Because being truthful costs votes.

Ideally, the election should be re-run with all of the parties giving *factual* manifestos - manifestos which they must abide to. Arguing that the Tories are the only party that can afford to run another election campaign does little (to put it mildly) to strengthen the argument for democracy. Unless it's power of the wealthy people, instead of power of the people. Again - that isn't democracy.

If such a situation can't happen (and I'm enough of a realist to know that it can't) the next best "ideal" situation would be for the LibDems to grow a spine and (on whichever policy - and education is a strong contender, considering the pre-election promises that the LibDems made) refuse to cooperate with the Tories. The Tories can appease the LibDems, or they get to run for office again. Regardless of how much money they could throw at the campaign, do you seriously think that the Tories could get re-elected? They would cave. The LibDems would actually have the power to adjust the course of the government, rather than getting appeasing footnotes for their supporters showing so-called "progressive" changes to Tory policies.

The alternative is for the LibDems (who managed to get official-sounding posts) to cling on to their positions with as little smugness as they can possibly exhibit, whilst hoping that the people who campaigned for them (and voted for them) can avoid the growth of their own spines. At least for the next 5 years.

As for the cuts themselves - they can be made at a slightly slower pace, taking much less from so many so quickly. It would mean a slightly lengthier* climb back to prosperity, but with a chance of actually having a society worth bringing back to prosperity. Or we can cleave the axe in any and every direction. Because quick fiscal prosperity in the money markets is worth so much more than anything else a society can provide, isn't it?

In short, I hate what the Tories are doing to our country - and I hate the LibDems for not stopping it. Telling the two parties apart is, regardless, more and more difficult to do. But no matter, as the next general election won't see a LibDem party that will get an electorate to vote for them or believe a single word they say.


* Assuming that the huge loss of employment and spending power (and the opportunity for new business growth that relies on people having money to buy their products) doesn't cause us to nosedive into a deeper recession.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby macgamer on Mon Nov 15, 2010 1:28 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:As for the cuts themselves - they can be made at a slightly slower pace, taking much less from so many so quickly. It would mean a slightly lengthier* climb back to prosperity, but with a chance of actually having a society worth bringing back to prosperity. Or we can cleave the axe in any and every direction. Because quick fiscal prosperity in the money markets is worth so much more than anything else a society can provide, isn't it?

In short, I hate what the Tories are doing to our country - and I hate the LibDems for not stopping it. Telling the two parties apart is, regardless, more and more difficult to do. But no matter, as the next general election won't see a LibDem party that will get an electorate to vote for them or believe a single word they say.


* Assuming that the huge loss of employment and spending power (and the opportunity for new business growth that relies on people having money to buy their products) doesn't cause us to nosedive into a deeper recession.


Every time I read something or even feel critical of attempts to balance public spending with tax receipts I remind myself of this:
Image
Government deficit (L) and debt (R) as a percentage of GDP. Source: ONS

ONS wrote:In the financial year 2009/10 the UK recorded general government net borrowing of £159.8 billion, which was equivalent to 11.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

At the end of March 2010 general government debt was £1000.4 billion, equivalent to 71.3 per cent of GDP. In the financial year 2009/10 the UK recorded general government net borrowing of £159.8 billion, which was equivalent to 11.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).


At the end of March 2010 general government debt was £1000.4 billion, equivalent to 71.3 per cent of GDP.[/quote]

But the when ONS included a £1 trillion to £1.5 trillion liability for the Government's stakes in the part-nationalised banks, equivalent to the relevant portion of their total liabilities, £1.35 trillion for state pension liabilities, and £1.2 trillion for public sector pensions the figure come to between £3.68 trillion and £4.84 trillion.

- Thanks Gordon!

And if Gordon Brown wasn't malicious enough he increased top rate of income tax to 50% so that tax receipts would fall even further making it harder for the next Government to reduce the deficit. The rich take flight and everyone in Britian gets poorer. It's a pity that Osborne doesn't have the courage and sense to abandon the tax increase.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon Nov 15, 2010 1:49 pm

What would those graphs and figures look like without the global financial crisis? You know - the part that Gordon wasn't responsible for. When you include things like the part-nationalisation of banks, you're not allowing for the eventual return/profit. If Labour's failure was tied to a relationship with the banks that was overly-reliant on them... ask yourself how the Tories would have dealt with the same situation - with that financial behemoth George Osbourne. The Conservatives have never exactly been an enemy of the banking system. And, at the time, they had no alternative plan on offer.

Your last paragraph wasn't too clear. Perhaps you were too angry to type lucidly?

The whole Gordon-was-malicious thing you have going, there... could you perhaps remind yourself (from time to time) that you claim to be a Christian?
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby macgamer on Mon Nov 15, 2010 2:21 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:What would those graphs and figures look like without the global financial crisis?

Not similar but not as bad:
Image
Government deficit as percentage of GDP.

Following the costs of the early 1990s recession, the Conservatives were bring spending under control up until the '97 election and Labour inherited a good financial situation. In the intervening years, public spending has increased significantly beyond tax receipts, so that when the banks had to be bailed out there was not surplus to cushion it.

Your last paragraph wasn't too clear. Perhaps you were too angry to type lucidly?

I suggested that GB increased the top rate of tax to 50% in full knowledge that it would result in a decrease in tax revenues (Laffer Curve), and delayed its implementation until a month after the election so that in the likely event of a Labour defeat it would be easy to scare the Cameroons into keeping it, due to their fear of going easy on the rich. One has to admire the genius of that really.

The whole Gordon-was-malicious thing you have going, there... could you perhaps remind yourself (from time to time) that you claim to be a Christian?
[/quote]
I think he was responsible for some of the problems faced by Britain today. He opposed Tony Blair's plans for reforming welfare so Britain now living with the consequences of that inaction. Why did he oppose them? Out of principle? Or because he hated Blair for getting the Premiership? The latter reason is pretty reprehensible - damaging Britain for the sake of personal gripes.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby DACrowe on Mon Nov 15, 2010 3:33 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:Now. Justifying post-election promise-breaking based upon changed circumstances does, in this situation, lead us to ask just how much of the known situation was actually unknown. I've heard from various sources that the state of the economy (and all that entails) was readily discernible. If it wasn't, why wasn't it? But if it was... we aren't facing changed circumstances. We're facing known circumstances, which the coalition didn't fully address prior to the election. Because being truthful costs votes.

[b]Ideally, the election should be re-run with all of the parties giving *factual* manifestos[b] - manifestos which they must abide to. Arguing that the Tories are the only party that can afford to run another election campaign does little (to put it mildly) to strengthen the argument for democracy. Unless it's power of the wealthy people, instead of power of the people. Again - that isn't democracy.


I've cut out all except what I take to be the most significant paragraphs cause I hate repeating myself, responding to unfounded character assassination etc and I don't want to be here all day.

You're correct about the economic situation being known at the time of the election. But the political situation wasn't. The economic situation plus the changed political situation have important consequences for budgetary constraints. Let me explain; we agree on the need for 'factual manifestos' which is why the manifesto the LibDems produced was more thoroughly costed than that produced by the other parties. It also included more details about what cuts to the deficit we would make than the other parties (if you root around in the IFS website they have a report which confirms this to a point though they say we underestimated... I'm saying 'we' as if I wrote it... they say the LibDems underestimated the amount of cutting needed doing though to a lesser degree than the other parties, and so there was still something like 40% of necessary cuts unnominated. The significant difference is that both Labour and ourselves laid out plans for limited cuts in the short term and deficit reduction funded in part by tax increases and (what were felt to be realistic) growth predictions.

The trouble with this was two-fold a) the Tories, who are the majority partner in the coalition felt otherwise and b) the economic situation did change in a few significant ways. As far as the first point again we have the problem that large scale changes to the agenda cannot be made without bringing down the government - we can't not vote the budget through, that really does automatically trigger fresh elections in Britain. Do the cuts have to include the education budget? I'm obviously not convinced they do, but what I am convinced is that Vince especially will have done everything he can to talk the Tories out of it. There are hopes that protests and so on might change the government's collective mind on it so you'll notice I'm not condemning the protests above though I do think they might well be futile. The major change to the economic situation was Greece and the EU bailout. The former meant the case for immediate cuts was majorly strengthened. As I think I've said before on here Adonis reports that the LibDems had changed their minds about early cuts by the coalition negotiations - Vince when accused of 'flip flopping' on Newsnight said it was Greece which had changed his mind, I believe him. If you don't then believe Lord Adonis and input a plausible explanation... Greece. The concern was that our government bonds would be devalued because of the size of the government deficit compared to other countries so immediate cutting had to take place. This meant the LibDem budget plan thereby was no longer valid. Furthermore the EU bailout (and disagreement over whether it was a good, bad or catastrophic idea) and further problems with Ireland meant that the European economy and therefore British Economic growth because much harder to predict meaning that the LibDem growth estimates were no longer valid either. Even if we had been a majority government this meant that we would have to have changed from what we had planned out in the manifesto. As it was though we were the minority partner in a coalition in which the majority were already in support of an instant cuts agenda and had a plan mapped out (however gappy it might have been - again see the IFS report). If do wonder whether we'd be in the situation we are in at the moment (having to justify and unwanted policy on the grounds of some improvements we made to it, which is necessitated by cuts to the education budget we didn't want to make) if David Laws hadn't been pressured to resign, but then I guess the public just wasn't able to parse 'minister claiming less on expenses than he could do in order to cover up homosexual relationship' so soon after the expenses scandal.

As for the last points (a) manifestos being binding and (b) it being a sad thing that the Tories are the only ones who can afford and election campaign. I agree with (b) but you have to remember it's not just as issue of very wealthy tax dodgers from overseas funding them, most of their money comes from ordinary people making donations just like ours it just so happens that very rich people tend to favour the Conservative party for some reason. That part, though regrettable, is at least more honest that what Labour was doing as regards Unite (giving the Union taxpayer money for 'educational purposes' and receiving back slightly less money in the form of campaign contributions). There have been proposals made by... er... the LibDems to publicly fund election campaigns so the best thing you can do to solve both problems is donate to the LibDems but I gather that's not top of your agenda right now? At least we're not as messed up when it comes to campaign finance as the states and unlike France, Canada, Australia and so on we manage to have something which looks plausibly like a multi-party democracy. I think we're doing okay but the fact of the matter is that we have no cash, Labour has massive debts and the Tories are the only party who could afford an immediate election.

As for binding promises... "events, dear boy"... I can see the theoretical appeal but look at a situation the above re:Greece. Are you honestly saying you would prefer a government (any government) to stick to it's commitment to cut nothing for a year say if it would have forseeably caused the devaluing of Britain's government bonds to the point of major economic meltdown. That just seems a bit silly. Election promises are binding within reason and the point I'm trying to make is as an intelligent individual you ought to judge these things based on whether the decisions the people you're morally evaluating are in a position to make are consistent with their stated political values. As for your defibrillator point, you could be right. I know you could be right. Nick Clegg certainly knows you could be right. Imagine how he feels, having gone from topping opinion polls during the campaign and been feted as a hero by the party he's now receiving hate mail on a daily basis and everyone and their dog are predicting the decision to go into the coalition is going to cost us considerably at the next election, despite the fact that at every stage he appears to have acted (subject to what is politically feasible) in a manner consistent with his political principles. Saying he's evil and the like because he's not going to vote against the tuition fees bill is a bit like holding him accountable for not flying because he wrote a manifesto which said 'in the event I grow wings, I shall fly') despite the fact he's got no wings and therefore flying simply isn't possible.

Edit

RedCelt69 wrote:As for the cuts themselves - they can be made at a slightly slower pace, taking much less from so many so quickly. It would mean a slightly lengthier* climb back to prosperity, but with a chance of actually having a society worth bringing back to prosperity. Or we can cleave the axe in any and every direction. Because quick fiscal prosperity in the money markets is worth so much more than anything else a society can provide, isn't it?

* Assuming that the huge loss of employment and spending power (and the opportunity for new business growth that relies on people having money to buy their products) doesn't cause us to nosedive into a deeper recession.


Actually I think I'm right in saying it's generally believed that overly-aggressive early cutting would be more likely to trigger a second recession (unless of course government deficit/debt gets to the point that the bonds are heavily devalued which would probably do so as well) as it takes money out of the economy (in the form of jobs and government-as-a-purchaser). This is why any strategy has to run between the Charybdis of taking too much money out the economy and the Scylla of not doing enough about the deficit (the deficit obviously turns into debt which then has to be serviced, increasing the deficit). Doesn't help is to have fantasists like Macgamer (tax increase reduce revenue, cut the deficit now!) or Ed Balls (the way out of the recession is to spend more!) sticking their oar in. I'm a bit biased as I obviously prefer the Darling-Cable consensus on slow cuts but a) as I said I'm not sure how viable that is/was after Greece (Vince doesn't seem to think it was) and b) the Tories think early cuts can be done in a way to promote growth and so far they seem to be right (the argument would have something to do with restoring faith in the markets. I don't know, I'm not an economist).
Last edited by DACrowe on Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby DACrowe on Mon Nov 15, 2010 3:44 pm

I think [Brown] was responsible for some of the problems faced by Britain today. He opposed Tony Blair's plans for reforming welfare so Britain now living with the consequences of that inaction. Why did he oppose them? Out of principle?


I think it must have been out of principle, yes. After all the deal with Blair was set up as a quid-pro-quo - he goes with the reform agenda and in return Blair will step aside. Certainly that's the Blairite explanation for Blair reneging on his commitment to do so (see Seldon). So for him not to do so at the potential cost of something he cared deeply about... I'm assuming it was principle, yes.

macgamer wrote:I suggested that GB increased the top rate of tax to 50% in full knowledge that it would result in a decrease in tax revenues (Laffer Curve)


Laffer Curve... lol. No seriously, the evidence for that claim would be what exactly? The Laffer Curve is a theoretical construct which says 'conceivably at some point in the tax scale an increase in taxation will result in a loss of government revenue' (whether due to retrieval costs, costs to growth, or tax evasion). Everyone is willing to concede that this is true at, say, 98% taxation. This doesn't show that it's true of moving the top rate of income tax up to 50%. If someone told you that the Laffer Curve 'proves' that all tax increases result in an overall loss of revenue a) they were wrong b) that is almost immediately falsifiable - if that were true then the optimal government revenue would be achieved at a 0% tax rate at which the yeild would be 0 so therefore it must follow that the government currently makes a negative total from the current x>0 rate of taxation. Which is not true. If you can find me empirical evidence that an increase to 50% causes an overall loss in revenue I will be thoroughly amazed because it isn't true. If you want to look you could check out the Thatcher years as Thatcher had the top rate at 50% for a while.

Delayed its implementation until a month after the election so that in the likely event of a Labour defeat it would be easy to scare the Cameroons into keeping it, due to their fear of going easy on the rich. One has to admire the genius of that really.


Huh. I wasn't aware he did that. Makes me like the guy a little bit more. Are you honestly telling me, Laffer-curve inspired fantasies aside, that you wouldn't attempt to fund deficit reduction in part through tax increases?

Edit

[
macgamer wrote:
RedCelt69 wrote:What would those graphs and figures look like without the global financial crisis?

Not similar but not as bad:
Image
Government deficit as percentage of GDP.


That's not 'without the recession'. That big blue spike is caused by the 'quantitative easing' and the costs of bank bailouts. Obviously a large percentage of the government deficit is caused by the need to service the government debt, therefore as the government debt goes up by large amounts to finance things like bank bailouts, the deficit goes up too regardless of things your graph has taken out like what the effect that the recession has on revenue streams is. Present a graph of deficit spending with the cost of servicing government debt removed and you've have a more accurate depiction of the Brown government's non-recession related spending behaviour.
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Re: Tuition Fee Riots - NUS implicated?

Postby macgamer on Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:16 pm

DACrowe wrote:Laffer Curve... lol. No seriously, the evidence for that claim would be what exactly? The Laffer Curve is a theoretical construct which says 'conceivably at some point in the tax scale an increase in taxation will result in a loss of government revenue' (whether due to retrieval costs, costs to growth, or tax evasion). Everyone is willing to concede that this is true at, say, 98% taxation. This doesn't show that it's true of moving the top rate of income tax up to 50%. If someone told you that the Laffer Curve 'proves' that all tax increases result in an overall loss of revenue a) they were wrong b) that is almost immediately falsifiable - if that were true then the optimal government revenue would be achieved at a 0% tax rate at which the yeild would be 0 so therefore it must follow that the government currently makes a negative total from the current x>0 rate of taxation. Which is not true. If you can find me empirical evidence that an increase to 50% causes an overall loss in revenue I will be thoroughly amazed because it isn't true. If you want to look you could check out the Thatcher years as Thatcher had the top rate at 50% for a while.

Yes well that was probably a reduction from high tax rates of the Labour years, so by comparison, and perhaps that of the rest of Europe at the time, relatively low. If the whole world had a 50% tax rate and there were no tax loop holes then there would be no where for the rich to flee apart from the Moon or Mars so the Laffer curve would be rather meaningless. As it stands there is a threshold at which via tax avoidance by Non-Dom status or crafty accounting the rich will pay less tax than if that threshold had not been passed. The threshold will vary depending on the tax regimes in other territories and cost of avoidance. A flat tax in Hong Kong certainly hasn't done it or its people any harm - quite the opposite: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/feb ... ainsection . They've an St Andrews alumnus to thank for that.

Huh. I wasn't aware he did that. Makes me like the guy a little bit more. Are you honestly telling me, Laffer-curve inspired fantasies aside, that you wouldn't attempt to fund deficit reduction in part through tax increases?

Oh I understand it, but I think that if such increases are going to damage Britain's access to the majority of its revenue then I may well reconsider. If people are allowed to take home more of their own income, then they'll be less reliant on state welfare payments, which are rather like taking with one hand and giving with the other. As with Hong Kong there's something to be said for taken the lowest paid quartile out of the tax system entirely, especially as their proportional net contribution is negligible. That way the richest still contribute the most, compared with any other.

That's not 'without the recession'. That big blue spike is caused by the 'quantitative easing' and the costs of bank bailouts. Obviously a large percentage of the government deficit is caused by the need to service the government debt, therefore as the government debt goes up by large amounts to finance things like bank bailouts, the deficit goes up too regardless of things your graph has taken out like what the effect that the recession has on revenue streams is. Present a graph of deficit spending with the cost of servicing government debt removed and you've have a more accurate depiction of the Brown government's non-recession related spending behaviour.

I couldn't find such a graph, but the one above helped illustrate my point indirectly: that the deficit was structural and pre-existing to the financial crisis. If a country ingnores the costs of servicing debt, it is like a dodgy company cooking the books to make it look as if the company is running a profit. You cannot plan a sustainable economy by ignoring those facts, you end up over-spending with realising it, or at least without the public realising it, which was probably the hope all along.
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