General Chat

I am confused !

"The Government" doea not have any money of it's own-only what it takes from the rest of "us"

Where are the students suggesting the money for their education should be coming from ?

Probably from the same place I stated before."The Tooth Fairy"**M**.Mind If they decided to become Airline Pilots,they would really have a moan.Costs about £130.000 to £140.000.to train and it has to be paid by you, no goverment grants,and when trained can only expect around £24./26.000 to start with .the Big money comes much later,with experience. **M**.

' "The Government" doea not have any money of it's own-only what it takes from the rest of "us" '

Which would, of course, be because our governments are us.

Did we think they were aliens from outer space who have colonized our countries?


' Where are the students suggesting the money for their education should be coming from ? '

Maybe from the same place that the money for nuclear submarines and bullets and bombs, and everything else governments spend money on, comes from: taxes. The money that 'we' in each country decide to pay into the common pool, to be spent on things to benefit the country.

People who obtain post-secondary educations generally end up paying quite a lot of taxes over their lifetimes, so it seems like not a bad investment by government, to me.

Of course the government doesn't have any money of its own. It has my money, and the money of everyone else who contributes via the tax system. shame that my vote counts for zilch. As do the votes of most people. Governments are elected, or otherwise, on the "strength" of a few marginal seats.

I don't know how old you are, Merlin, but accusing Brown of "selling off the family silver" is a bit naive.

I remember Margaret Thatcher's radical policy of privatisation. Parts of Britain's steel industry and railway network, and infrastructure from British Gas to the National Bus Company, were sold off in one of the biggest national sales in living memory.

Just what we needed. I only have to say Tata to Corus to make my point.

Sue x

Merseyside students march over rise in tuition fees


More than 2,000 students from across Merseyside have staged a protest in Liverpool against a rise in university tuition fees and education budget cuts.

Students from Liverpool's universities and prospective students from colleges and schools gathered at the Liverpool Guild of Students at 1100 GMT.

They marched to Liverpool Town Hall, where they were addressed by Labour councillor Nick Small.

Some students later staged a sit-down protest at the top of Bold Street.

The group of about 300 people blocked three major city centre roads to traffic - Bold Street, Berry Street and Renshaw Street.

Sit-down protests were earlier staged at Lime Street station and outside the town hall.

Students chanted "No ifs, no buts, no to education cuts" as they marched through the city.

There was a heavy police presence, with officers being helped by student stewards to help ensure a peaceful protest.

The action is part of a day of protests taking place across the country.

It follows a protest in London two weeks ago, when the Conservative Party's offices were badly damaged.

The government plans to increase tuition fees at English universities to up to £9,000.

'Get message across'

Public funding for university teaching budgets would also be reduced for many subjects.

The plans have been backed by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, whose party had pledged to vote against a rise in fees in the run-up to the general election.

Mr Clegg has urged students to examine the government's proposals before taking to the streets.

But Lewis Coyne, one of the organisers of the Liverpool march, said: "It is important to get the message across that we aren't happy about what they are doing to the education budget and the rise in fees."

About 4,000 people have joined a Facebook group about the protest, he said.

He said he had hoped the protest would be peaceful, unlike the previous demonstrations in London.

"The overwhelming consensus among students is that it was a negative thing and the protests were seen in a negative light because of the violence," he said.

A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police said officers had been "committed to facilitating a peaceful protest".

She said officers had contacted secondary headteachers across the region asking them to "ensure that their pupils are aware of any potential consequences of them leaving school to attend the demonstrations".

They had also liaised with several groups involved in the protest.

"Officers will not tolerate criminal behaviour, disorder or anti-social behaviour during any demonstrations or within Merseyside," she added

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-11827446

We had protesters outside where I work today. It was lunchtime.
They 'stormed' the building - well a couple got inside - wherepon a couple were seen by their mums who were having lunch in the cafe just inside the door, who waved, and told them to get back to college before the end of lunch. The students turned tail and went!!! LOL

How embarrassing!!!

I can only repeat again that people are becoming increasingly angry at the policies of this wretched government.I take comfort though from the fact that youngsters in this country are saying to the government;This far and no further,think again!

Regards
William Russell Jones.

Rita, I do hope you'll listen to some of the things that have been said.

People who wear facemasks to demonstrations are NOT there to protest, or to voice their opinions.

They are there to cause damage to property and to provoke the authorities into taking action against them, that will (they hope) result in more problems, and in the police being blamed for them.

If somebody wearing black clothing and a facemask turned up at your Christmas nativity play and started throwing chairs through the church windows, would it be your fault? Even if they *were* a member of your congregation?

No more is it the fault of the students and student organizations who organize protests against government policies -- protesting being an absolute right and an important feature of a free and democratic society -- if other people, or even other students, use those demonstrations as a chance to cause damage.

I think that those found guilty of criminal damage should be thrown out of uni & told to pay back their student loan in full within 24hrs. Or off to jail they go.

Penfold

A few of them are going to start life with a Criminal Record if they are not careful

Island, if that lot on thereare Babies,( The size of them ) Pity the poor Midwife who had to deliver them,and the mother who gave birh to them.( Must have been very painful ) Almost like the "Born again Christians" **M**.PMSL.:o)>

A lot of the protesters causing trouble not peacefully protesting were actually school children there 'for a laugh'. And the woman who took the wheel of the abandoned police riot van (abandoned because the 'children' were threatening to overturn it, was a 23 year old unemployed woman who gave her name to the paper. The Uni students who were peacefully protesting were annoyed that it had all been 'ruined' for them. So they said. You would think that intelligent young people would have read what happened before and would have expected it to be 'ruined' for them. There is a photo of a young school girl wearing a riot helmet stolen from the van.

Rita lectures at university don't take place 9am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday. Degrees tend to have 12/15 hours of lectures a week and then students work by themselves/with friends the rest of the time doing essays/presentations/exams etc the rest of the time. That time can take place whenever they wish.

When I used to organize demonstrations -- at a particularly major one, the first ever counter-summit held to what was then the G7 summit -- we took the position that it was the job of the police, not us, to police the demonstration.

We are there voicing our opinions and calling on our governments to make the policies and laws we believe should be made. That is our right (and in fact, we get parade permits here when we're going to be using the streets), and I consider it my moral and demoratic duty. We are not there to cause property damage or personal injury.

I have demonstrated many times. From the war on Vietnam to the war on Iraq. About wars, reproductive choice, government economic policies. And campus issues.

(And in reference to something mentioned in this thread -- the first time I went to a Vietnam War demonstration, I was 15 ... my mother showed up just as it was starting, and told me my father said I must go home ... then she started chatting with a cop !! ... I slipped away and started walking off with the demonstrators; there weren't very many of us ... she came after me, toting my baby sister, and hauled me back to the car ... and a couple of years later, at a "women's lib" meeting back in that town after I'd left home, somebody looked at me and said: "Aren't you the one whose mother made her go home from that demonstration?" The person who remembered me was a Maoist ... she's now an Anglican priest, and she and my old anti-Zionist Jewish friend, now her husband, are still my good friends. ;) )

Anyhow. Back during that summit, we liaised with the police before and during the demo. We particularly wanted to make sure there was no trouble with a small outfit called CPCML. They infiltrated other people's demonstrations and tried to take over. No violence, just the loudest voices you've ever heard.

So Sgt Larry, the Mountie we were meeting with, leaned back at the end of our meeting and put his cowboy boots up on his desk, and said: CPCML - who are those people, anyway?? And I couldn't resist. I said: Why, we always thought they were you people!

People peacefully demonstrating to convey their views to their government are not responsible for what anyone else does. They do not have the power or authority to stop anyone from trashing cars or throwing things or breaking windows. That is the job of the police.

And no one should be intimidated into not exercising that right because of the possibility of someone else showing up to cause trouble.

I was at school when I went on my first demo and both my parents were very proud that I cared enough to get involved.

I've been "involved" ever since and agree with what Janey has said. We went/go out for a peaceful demonstration and accept no responsibility for the behaviour of others. My son is no longer a student but if he were one I'd be proud that he cared enough to go onto the streets to exercise his right to peaceful protest.

I applaud my grandmother's generation for marching for the right to vote.

If we all sat at home and didn't want to be any trouble we'd still be living in tied cottages in the dark ages and doffing our caps to the gentry.

I'm glad that the students are giving the government a hard time. And proud of the vast majority who are doing it with good humour and peaceful intentions.

Gwynne

I don't know if it was in the tabloids...I suspect not!

But in the free 'Metro' I picked up on the bus is a photo of a schoolgirl ...who with others made a 'daisy chain shield' around an abondoned police van to prevent protesters overturning it.... "she said later " I was just trying to get across to them that the cause that we're here for today isn't about "I hate the police....and i want to destroy everything they represent".

As the headline says "The other face of the student protests"...

Edit

This was in response to a post that has "disappeared".

I think they hope that most people are intelligent enough to see that the trouble makers are, on the whole, not students. I certainly don't tar them with the same brush as the anarchists who hijack many demos, not just student ones.

I've paid back far more in tax than the country ever paid for for my student years, as has my husband and most of our friends, and most students still do. But now they are expected to carry the additional burden of fees.

You say they are forced to accept lower paid jobs. Yet they are still expected to pay back thousands in fees, that hardly seems fair, does it?

As I said, if we all just sat back and let the goverment ride roughshod over our rights most men and all women wouldn't have the right to vote. Peaceful protest is part of the British way of life and the vast majority of the students were non-violent and spoke out against the violent few.

This government knows that the children of the rich will still be able to go to university, with no worries about the eventual debts, but what about the children of the low-paid or the unemployed? They have a right to an education without being saddled with crippling debts in their twenties.

The fact that a few go abroad to find work is a different issue entirely.

Gwynne

"with these young people they are like sheep.,just following without any idea why they are doing it.?"

Why would you say that, Rita? Were you a sheep? Was I a sheep? Why would you say that young people out trying to protect their ability to have a successful future, to better themselves, as all parents supposedly want for their children, are behaving like sheep? No idea why they're doing it? What sense does that make?

Are you just referring to the violent ones? Why can't we get it through to you that these are Two Different Things?

The students protesting the government policy -- the broken promise -- are, for the vast majority of them, not breaking anything and not burning anything. And not wanting anyone among them to be doing that.


"People think they have the right to everything nowadays and they dont stop to think that it is the taxpayer who is financing their education."

Guinevere has just pointed out, as I did some time back -- people with university educations overwhelmingly pay far more taxes during their lifetimes than people without.

They get an education, they get good jobs or start businesses, they pay taxes. More taxes than they would have paid if they had not got their educations. Their parents pay taxes, their grandparents paid taxes.

Who are these taxpayers financing their eduation? The same ones whose children might have the opportunity to go to university if tuition fees aren't priced out of their range, and they don't have to assume crippling debt it will take them decades to pay off?

They don't have to pay back loans if they have low-paid jobs? I'd doubt that, but maybe somebody can tell us. I might think they'd get a break on interest accumulation or some such. Free loan, I wouldn't think.

Why shouldn't a post-secondary education be a right? Why should it be just for the rich? Are hospitals and fire departments and secondary schools just for the rich? They used to be, didn't they? Somebody must have protested, I think ...

I for one have no secret agenda,all I believe in is justice and fairness for all,which means that a child that lives in a council house in my street has the same opportunity to an education as those that go to Eton.If it means demonstrations on the streets I'm with them every single step of the way.

Regards
William Russell Jones.

To reply to Janey re paying back student loans

"Graduates could be forced to pay off their student loans even if they are on the minimum wage, the shadow business secretary claimed during a debate on plans to rise tuition fees.

Unless the proposed £21,000 threshold for repayments is increased along with earnings, in 2022 the lowest earners will still have to start paying back their loans, John Denham said."