the snap general election thread

chucknorris

Herzlos wrote: »

Isn't having an educated population a good thing?

Not when a significant percentage of the class can't cope, there are too many students going to university. The numbers have vastly increased since I was at university, you can't just double the numbers and expect the quality to remain as it was. It is really annoying/dissapointing when I have to go over lecture material again and again because the bottom quartile just don't get it. I'm not annoyed for me, I'm annoyed for the students that have to sit through it again (and again). This year I gave up my lunch hours to give tutorials, as a way of attempting to get around this. But it was the better students who took advantage of these additional tutorial slots, not the weaker students, so the knowledge gap just got larger (and the marks reflected that too).

This summer I'm going to have a think and try and come up with some strategies for coping with classes of a wide range of ability, the problem is helping those that can't cope, without slowing down the pace of the lectures for the better students.

Herzlos

setmefree2 wrote: »

FWIW - there is no actual evidence that nurses use food banks.

As I understand it, they aren't allowed to. The criteria for food banks is exceptionally strict.

I'm not saying they don't need to, or that they are paid fairly, but I remember someone talking about the bar for foodbanks being pretty high - you needed a referral from somewhere and in income of under (IIRC) £4k/year.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

TrickyTree83

Herzlos wrote: »

That's only guaranteed by A3 of the HRA: https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/article-3-first-protocol-right-free-elections

If they scrap it, which we welcome because someone it'll help with terrorists, then there's nothing stopping them changing the way we vote, because terrorism.

I'm not saying that's what'll happen now, but it's the thin end of the wedge, and we're giving a future government the ability to do these things later. Who knows what the PM in 2037 will want to do with the ability to change these things?

There's what is possible and what is probable and they're two distinctly different things.

Were a government in the UK ever to attempt to remove the vote for the general populace (removing it for terrorists, extremists, prisoners is going to resonate with some) then I would fully expect to see that government brought down either peacefully or by force.

When things like this are allowed to happen because of human rights

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/appeal-over-hit-and-run-asylum-seeker-2163330.html

I can fully appreciate why we would need to remove ourselves from the agreement and draft our own bill of rights. Someone who whilst disqualified from driving, hits and kills a 12 year old girl and drives off leaving her either dead or dying in the road cannot be a good parent in my mind under any circumstance. Therefore his having children in this country to me is totally irrelevant as they'd be better off with their mother alone or in the foster system than having this idiot as their mentor.

Herzlos

chucknorris wrote: »

Not when a significant percentage of the class can't cope, there are too many students going to university. The numbers have vastly increased since I was at university, you can't just double the numbers and expect the quality to remain as it was. It is really annoying/dissapointing when I have to go over lecture material again and again because the bottom quartile just don't get it. I'm not annoyed for me, I'm annoyed for the students that have to sit through it again (and again). This year I gave up my lunch hours to give tutorials, as a way of attempting to get around this. But it was the better students who took advantage of these additional tutorial slots, not the weaker students, so the knowledge gap just got larger (and the marks reflected that too).

This summer I'm going to have a think and try and come up with some strategies for coping with classes of a wide range of ability, the problem is helping those that can't cope, without slowing down the pace of the lectures for the better students.

That's definitely a concern, but how many of them would take a loan out for it and default on it anyway?
I know people who were let in anyway after missing the entry criteria and struggling, and some who dropped out, but I'm not sure that they wouldn't have done the same if they had to potentially pay £7k a year to do so.

Harsh as it sounds, but maybe the solution is to let those that struggle with it fall off the bottom and go onto to do a lower level course first (HNC/HND) and rejoin the degree track later on?

Enterprise_1701C

This reminds me of an encounter at the school gates a few years ago.

This woman at the gate was large to say the least, wearing designer gear, and chain smoking. She was ranting on at her mates about how she couldn't get any more money off the council for school uniform.

I could not resist, I mentioned that maybe if she didn't smoke quite so much then she could afford the school uniform.

You should have heard the language that came out of her mouth, at the school gate fgs!! As far as she was concerned it was not up to her to pay for her kids uniform, or anything else for that matter.

It is the entitlement culture that labour want, they want people to feel that the state owed them everything so that they will continue to vote for labour.

That is why I have always thought that free school lunches are a bad idea. If people cannot be bothered to put together sandwiches then prepare a decent meal in the evening them there is something wrong. Education is required here. If someone is on benefits, then those benefits provide enough to feed their kids, it is the phone contracts, satellite contracts, cigarettes and booze that a lot of them seem to prioritize that eats into their money.

I have a friend, she and her "boyfriend" were way too young to have a kid, but they did.

They live in a rented house, the grandmother provides childcare free when it is needed, they both have cars, they both smoke heavily and have phone contracts, they have satellite TV etc. They apparently cannot afford to feed themselves.

The fact is you could hand some of today's youth any amount of money each month and they would still end up broke.

If people are struggling so much then we should start by going back to having any housing benefit going directly to paying for the housing costs (making sure it is not inflated). Any further money should be paid in the form of vouchers that can be used to pay for the essentials such as food, electricity etc. Selling these vouchers should be made a criminal offence, with the punishment being unpaid work in homeless shelters.

ukcarper

Herzlos wrote: »

See I don't get this, but then we have free university up here and it's great. We haven't plunged into any kind of debt fueled anarchy.

Isn't having an educated population a good thing?
Don't a huge number of graduates have their debt written off anyway?
Isn't there a lot of money wasted administering the whole fee scheme?

Since a large chunk of it's never going to be paid back anyway, and having to be paid for by the taxpayer, why not just make it free for everyone and cut out all the hassle?
Those that get a good job out of it will pay tax like everyone else over their entire working career, rather than having to pay 9% of their salary above £21k for the first 10 years of their adult life, making it hard for them to get on the property ladder etc.
Those that don't get a good job wouldn't be paying anyway.

I had a minimal student loan, maybe £4k in loans over my course and it took 3 years to pay off from a decent job, and then I could spend the money elsewhere. If I had to borrow for my fees, I'd have been borrowing £32k and I'd still be paying it back 11 years later.

Though to be fair, if we did have to pay fees to go to uni, a lot of the people I knew wouldn't have done, and would be working minimum wage somewhere instead of paying 40% tax.

Education is a good thing it's the aim of getting most people into university that is wrong in my view. The majority of jobs do not need university education so if the majority go to university a large number will be disappointed. We need to get back to the stage where there are good opportunities and training for people who don't go to university and reduce the number of university places to jobs that require a university education then they will be able to be funded properly.

Herzlos

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

There's what is possible and what is probable and they're two distinctly different things.

Were a government in the UK ever to attempt to remove the vote for the general populace (removing it for terrorists, extremists, prisoners is going to resonate with some) then I would fully expect to see that government brought down either peacefully or by force.

When things like this are allowed to happen because of human rights

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/appeal-over-hit-and-run-asylum-seeker-2163330.html

I can fully appreciate why we would need to remove ourselves from the agreement and draft our own bill of rights. Someone who whilst disqualified from driving, hits and kills a 12 year old girl and drives off leaving her either dead or dying in the road cannot be a good parent in my mind under any circumstance. Therefore his having children in this country to me is totally irrelevant as they'd be better off with their mother alone or in the foster system than having this idiot as their mentor.

How many instances of that sort of thing are there though? A dozen a year?

I'm not saying that removal of voting is going to happen, now or soon, but it becomes possible as a side effect of scrapping the HRA.

The ability to protest those changes is also covered by the HRA (A11): https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/article-11-right-protest-and-freedom-association

So again, if they were eroded enough, then things could change and we could be jailed for protesting them.

These things also don't tend to happen overnight, but a gradual erosion. Things like voter suppression become a lot easier (making the conditions to become eligible to vote a lot more strict, for instance).

So there's a lot of rights we're potentially giving away that could really impact us in major ways, just so that we can deport some foreigners a little bit quicker?

Herzlos

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

This woman at the gate was large to say the least, wearing designer gear, and chain smoking. She was ranting on at her mates about how she couldn't get any more money off the council for school uniform.

It happens, but is she representative of the people receiving benefits (disability, PIP, working tax credits, child benefit, jobseekers)? Or is she the outlier that is skewing your perception of them?

I know more people on benefits that live very frugally in very basic houses, spend almost nothing on themselves and still struggle to get by, than I know people on benefits like the above. Of course, they rarely get to be on "Benefits Street" or whatever the reality shows are, because they make really crap TV.

TrickyTree83

Herzlos wrote: »

How many instances of that sort of thing are there though? A dozen a year?

I'm not saying that removal of voting is going to happen, now or soon, but it becomes possible as a side effect of scrapping the HRA.

The ability to protest those changes is also covered by the HRA (A11): https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/article-11-right-protest-and-freedom-association

So again, if they were eroded enough, then things could change and we could be jailed for protesting them.

These things also don't tend to happen overnight, but a gradual erosion. Things like voter suppression become a lot easier (making the conditions to become eligible to vote a lot more strict, for instance).

So there's a lot of rights we're potentially giving away that could really impact us in major ways, just so that we can deport some foreigners a little bit quicker?

I see no problem in a British bill of rights. It will basically be the same document with amendments that we do not have to petition others to make, just our own parliamentary system and legislature. There would be sufficient checks and balances.

I can appreciate the need to remove ourselves from the agreement based on cases like that one and others. The human rights legislation is protecting those who should not be afforded that protection in its current form.