post election blues

[Otta]

Anyway, what did you mean about education Quids? I'm genuinely interested.

[????]

Free schools scrapped.Anti-academy rhetoric. Less choice, all run by our 'betters'

[Otta]

Don't know where you get the "betters" bit from, but I'd like to see free schools scrapped, and there is plenty wrong with academies.

Oh, and not all parents do know best quite frankly.

[keekybreeks]

current regressive education policies are economic and social apartheid by the back door.

[uncleglen]

If you are suffering withdrawals you could watch ALL the speeches and progs on catch-up tv

[Otta]

RE education, I believe in inclusion (in most cases), and (some) academies actively work against it. That's my issue with them.

[lostcat]

This is so sad. Apart from a few exceptions, I seem to have found myself among a sea of tory voices. Is this representative of east dulwich or is it just representative of this forum?

[Otta]

lostcat Wrote:

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> This is so sad. Apart from a few exceptions, I

> seem to have found myself among a sea of tory

> voices. Is this representative of east dulwich or

> is it just representative of this forum?

If it was representative for East Dulwich, then East Dulwich would have a tory MP.

It doesn't.

And not everyone on here is a Tory voice, even if they are not speaking up for Labour. Quids for example has been open about the fact he didn't feel he wanted to vote for either main party this time around, although it's clear he was less inclined to vote Miliband's Labour than the Tories. I've no idea how Loz votes.

And of course any Tory people are going to feel emboldened at the moment because the fact is they smashed it out of the park at the GE.

The thing I find depressing is that people are now trying to bury the left and say that the only way forward for Labour is to fight the middle ground, and basically just be Tory lite. Miliband is scolded for being socialist and lefty, and yet their manifesto was not dissimilar to the conservative one.

In Scotland the party with the anti austerity manifesto has wiped the floor with everyone, although there is far more afoot there than just economic concerns, and we shall see how that all works out...

Just after the election I was all for joining Labour (I did) and inviting change. Now I listen to the leadership candidates and I just feel like I can't be bothered ever voting again.

It's all media friendly, scared to offend anyone, souless bollocks.

Only potential positive is that Labour might have a oman at it's helm, which can only be a good thing for women. Even if she is an uninspiring Blairite gobshite.

[Loz]

lostcat Wrote:

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> This is so sad. Apart from a few exceptions, I seem to have found myself among a sea of tory

> voices. Is this representative of east dulwich or is it just representative of this forum?

You are just falling for the old "if you don't agree with me you must be a Tory" fallacy. I didn't vote Tory. I'm just not of the limited outlook that Tory governments are inherently nasty and evil. Especially when there is a fag-paper difference in most Labour and Tory policies. Your "Labour-good, Tories-bad" view just doesn't bear scrutiny. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, good ideas and bad ideas.

ETA: For Otta: after long consideration of changing my vote, I decided to vote again for the Lib-Dems in hope they would the regulating part of a coalition once again, but unperturbed about whether that was with either of the big two.

[Otta]

I considered going with Lib Dems, and bow Clegg has gone I may well do again...

I do think they did important work in the coalition, but I don't think I'll ever be convinced that Clegg's first priority was getting to play with the big boys and feel important for a while.

[????]

lostcat Wrote:

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> This is so sad. Apart from a few exceptions, I

> seem to have found myself among a sea of tory

> voices. Is this representative of east dulwich or

> is it just representative of this forum?

Labour in only wanting to talk to Labour shocker - that's the party's problem. Never voted Tory in my life, nearly voted LD this time but I would have possibly voted Tory this time if it was a labour/Tory marginal. Didn't vote. Snorks, talk us through how scrapping tuition fees for the richest graduates was anything but regressive?

[keekybreeks]

i am willing to play, but what does your last statement mean ?

[????]

The tuition fees only have to be paid back to those that earn above a certain amount, progressive taxation in essence. Labour was going to scrap them just to get a load of privileged middle class lefty students votes whilst the poor workers pay for it - regressive.

[keekybreeks]

OK, I understand what you are saying now.Its wrong though.

The effect of fees is to stratify at a young age, eerily remininscent of secondary modern' Grammar skools of yore. The Rich right or left middle class are going to go anyway, irrespective off the presence of fees or not. The poor, faced with a ?50K debt will invariably goive it a miss or go for something terminally dull and vocational where the gamble of the education has a good chance of being paid back.

We do not need nore lawyers or accountans with first class degrees from University of scunthorpe. No one except New Zealand prodces as many accounts as us nowadays, and that is a hell hole of drabness. We need more arts graduates, thinkers and soft subject specialists - not something you can place a tangible value on, not something that lord carpetright of minimum wage wants to see either.

I can feck off ( well not really ) to the Sorbonne or Frei berlin for a few hundred quid a term in fees and actually study a suject that I am interested in.NO one grows up wanting to be a lawyer or an accountant. Education isnt about getting a qualification, its about growing up and thinking.

Of course you wont agree with this, as you probabaly see everything as a bottom line balance sheet.

I interviewed 4x graduate this week for a still to be defined role in a fast moving , etc evnironment. working for me I may add. Thye were terribibly dull people, all with 21 or firsts. having spent all their lives working towards success and qualifications, they had nothing to show, nothing to say, no ideas, no originality.NO spark that makes them stand out . It made me cry

/ ends

[keekybreeks]

ps my spalling. yes its bad, but got me through a decade of higher education.

[maxxi]

There used to be a difference between further education (aka job training) and higher education. Both were open to all but the latter often placed an emphasis on the experience of education rather than the qualification obtained or how fitted it made one for a particular job.

Then Tony ushered in shit degrees for all so everyone could boast a degree on their cv (no matter how debased it now was) and the qualification became all that mattered but, as they were in coat-hanger recognition and button polishing, were less than valued (as qualifications) by industry so became worthless anyway.

The people who suffered were those who had actually dedicated their lives to new ways of polishing buttons or had spent a decade classifying half a million different coat hanger varieties and who were now as ridiculed as the shiftless tossers who did those degrees because they looked an easy route to the qualification.

I once joined a picket line outside my college to protest the fall (in real terms) of the value of student grants. That seems a world away now and I am positive that I would never have attended a degree course if it hadn't been free.

We get the younger generation we are prepared (or not) to pay for.

[keekybreeks]

like wow

[maxxi]

keekybreeks Wrote:

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> like wow

See? All that education wasn't wasted.

[Loz]

Maxxi has it right - Blair's mistaken approach that 50% of leavers should go to Uni was a waste of resources. You don't need a degree for theatre studies, etc. Hell, even accountants and nurses don't really need a degree. I'd return things back to a nice balance of degrees, vocational qualifications, apprenticeships, etc, etc. Get degrees back to the traditional higher education areas where they belong.

Germany has it right. Differing ways (indeed, different schools) to get to the qualification you need, depending on if it degree/technical/vocational. But it's so damn sensible it would never catch on here.

And it always amuses me that lefties howl about the current fees system simply because it is Tory policy, as you couldn't really devise a more left-wing approach: the richer pay, the poorer don't. Australia has a similar system and, tellingly, was implemented by a left-wing government.

[maxxi]

Just to clarify Loz - I think higher education should be free to all students regardless of income and an integral part of the welfare state - just as free as it was when we were young. But maybe I'm a bit of a 'lefty howler' (surely that was a blues singer?).

[aquarius moon]

It's really interesting how you find out things after the event, but might have been better finding out before?

I'm referring to Otta's post and the fact that he didn't know who regular posters were voting for.

Neither did I, but the posters whose opinions matter to me (most don't), have waited this long to even reveal that, even after posting continuously on the election thread & revealing nothing.

It might have been nice to get some advice or at least find out why they didn't agree with me. And I might have PM'd them (so as not to look stupid) if I had any idea who they were voting for. But because I didn't know, I didn't dare!

[Loz]

Sorry Maxxi - I meant in terms of the "give everyone a degree" point you made, rather than funding. I don't have a problem with free university places either (as you say, I benefited from them), but if you shove everyone into a uni, then costs skyrocket and funding becomes an issue. It's all tied up together. And if you are going to charge then the graduate tax concept isn't too bad an approach.

And AqM - dunno of you meant me, but I outed myself as a "usually vote LibDem" person ages ago. But I don't rule out voting for anyone, though - in various election (national, mayoral and council) over the last 20-odd years I've voted Labour, LibDems and (more rarely) Tories.

[aquarius moon]

I did mean you Loz (but others too)

I must have missed your ages ago 'usually vote' post.

Irrelevant now. I did ask for advice on the election thread, but you chose humour over a sensible reply.

And it would be good if the ones who are so clued up and know so much about politics (like yourself), could help those who don't.

(will continue this conversation in 5 years time)

[keekybreeks]

.

[Loz]

To be fair, AqM, one of your your first gambits was to tell people off for having opinions on the poor, sick, young, unemployed, disabled or foxes when they were supposedly issues that didn't directly affect them. (And erroneous, as I scored on two of those. Though sadly not the 'young' one.)