Royal Attack

[ionnsaigh]

Wave Charles, wave and smile.. " my word they are kicking the car Camilla ".. wave and smile, wave and smile.
It's so funny - I haven't had, such a good laugh in ages.. Did you see the state of her emerging from the luxury car....
Right you Two, into the back of the van.. nae smiling or waving, and keep your heads down.. how gloriously undignified.
The Met are the laughing stock... A wonderful Keystone Cops caper... Mind you heads will roll.

[Bertie]

Yes, I'm sure that will boost the students cause no end, attacking a couple on a night out!!

[ionnsaigh]

Yes, I'm sure that will boost the students cause no end, attacking a couple on a night out!!

You bring it down to the lowest common denominator - the reality, the students attacked a car - that belongs to them.
Do you admire the British Monarchy ?

[Bertie]

Do you admire the British Monarchy ?

I admire the right of people to go about their business without being physically or verbally abused, no matter how great the cause may seem. My feelings on the monarchy are immaterial.

[ionnsaigh]

Do you admire the British Monarchy ?

I admire the right of people to go about their business without being physically or verbally abused, no matter how great the cause may seem. My feelings on the monarchy are immaterial.

The point is that they, members of the Royal Family ( who incidentally cost Joe Public, £1 Million each and every week, for security ) were as far as I can make out, on an official engagement. As such, the members of public who where protesting against savage cuts, are also paying for these expensive and outdated parasites, to travel at our expense. So no they were not conducting their own business. There is a first time for everything, BANG

[Bertie]

Once again you contradict yourself. If they were on an official engagement they were, in fact, going about their business. Also I doubt that any of the people who attacked them have paid anything towards their upkeep.

[giantredwood]

Do you admire the British Monarchy ?

I admire the right of people to go about their business without being physically or verbally abused, no matter how great the cause may seem. My feelings on the monarchy are immaterial.

The point is that they, members of the Royal Family ( who incidentally cost Joe Public, £1 Million each and every week, for security ) were as far as I can make out, on an official engagement. As such, the members of public who where protesting against savage cuts, are also paying for these expensive and outdated parasites, to travel at our expense. So no they were not conducting their own business. There is a first time for everything, BANG

If it wasn't for the thugs and morons who carried out the attack then it wouldn't be necessary to spend £1 million a week on security. The only expensive parasites were the retards who attacked the royal couple and damaged their (our) car and caused hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage to buildings and streets and then daubed the statue of Winston Churchill in graffiti. If it wasn't for him then maybe their idiotic petulant riots would have been crushed beneath the heel of a Nazi jackboot.

Students are just going to have to realise that the money is done, gone, kaput, finito and that they will have to suffer just like the rest of us. They don't even have to pay the money from their loans back until they're earning decent money from jobs that their uni education has enabled them to get. Why should I pay to educate someone so that they can then get a job and earn much more than I can. You can argue till you're blue in the face about who is to blame etc etc etc, the bottom line is THERE'S NO F*****G MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!

[Govangirl]

The point is that they, members of the Royal Students are just going to have to realise that the money is done, gone, kaput, finito and that they will have to suffer just like the rest of us. They don't even have to pay the money from their loans back until they're earning decent money from jobs that their uni education has enabled them to get. Why should I pay to educate someone so that they can then get a job and earn much more than I can. You can argue till you're blue in the face about who is to blame etc etc etc, the bottom line is THERE'S NO F*****G MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!

No, the point is actually that is that Scottish students do not pay a penny for their university education. Welsh students are also subsidised. Because England has no parliament their students have to pay £9,000 a year. You think that's fair?

The future children of these students would never forgive them if they DIDN'T protest at these disgraceful policies. This is what happens when people feel that they have been treated unjustly. It has happened many times in our history and it will happen again. Really, don't you understand why this is happening? It's 'Tory Boy' and Clegg we should be condemning for causing this violence.
And the outrage because someone poked Camilla in her Rolls Royce and there are graffiti bits on the London tourist treasures!!!!!!!!!! Sorry but it's sickening that there is so much approbation and indignation being expressed here regarding the damage to a car (If there was that much danger to the heir to the throne the protection squad would have started shooting protesters, as they amazingly pointed out tonight).
Will it take the deaths of protesters before Condem finally listens to the other side of the argument? Or won't the odd dead student matter because they weren't born to wealth and privilege like Charlie?

I, along with a million others who believed in what was right, marched in London over Iraq and there were no problems at all. Yet the current Met can't handle 10,000 students?

Thousands of people will suffer appallingly with these cuts: the weak, the jobless, the poor, the young and the old - our very fabric of society is being torn apart, yet some on here are worried about an attack on a Rolls with a couple of the world's richest people inside who were never in the slightest danger. Please folks, get a grip.

[Govangirl]

Why should I pay to educate someone so that they can then get a job and earn much more than I can.

And that is what worries me most. This attack on education is simply the first - wait until they do their worst on the rest of us. When our government breaks promises, when they lie and cheat, when they destroy democracy, people will take to the streets.
You argue that you do not want to pay for education because they will earn more than you.
Well, I'll go along with that. I don't want qualified doctors and suchlike either.
And I haven't got any disabled children so why should I pay for their needs?
I'm healthy, why should my taxes go towards people who are not?
And while I'm at it,I have a good job with plenty of security, why should I pay so the unemployed can eat?

I could go on . . .

But just finally, you say there is no money. Really? We can afford to bail out Ireland's banks, we've given billions to the bankers who screw us time and time again, we've found the money to kill innocent civilians in far-off lands, we've gone easy on tax-dodging parasites like Mr Topshop, etc. etc.

Frankly, most of us feel we are no longer being represented and feel entirely disenfranchised.

[LANDROVER ROGER]

Govangirl.You should run the country!Excellent post,although the bit about Camilla being poked in a Rolls Royce did make me feel ill. The right to protest is un-deniable.The way it is currently policed is wrong.I feel that crowd control tactics are in need of an urgent review.

[Isa]

GG, first and foremost the police, no matter what they personally feel have a job to keep property and the public safe and reasonable force is acceptable but one of the pictures I saw made me wonder if there are thugs on the police force as well. A student lying on the ground in the fetal position with his hands over his head trying to protect himself whilst 2 policemen beat him with a baton is not reasonable force.

I have a reasonable knowledge of the further education in Scotland but can you tell me how it works in England? Do they get student loans and are there facilities for accomodation costs for rural students. What is the status quo.

[gizmo]

The fact that Scottish and Welsh students do not pay towards their education is a completely different argument, would you be happier if they did?
£9000 is the maximum that can be charged. Oxbridge may cost that, unlikely in Hull. We already have a two/three tier system.
Tory boy and Clegg didnt travel to London with ski masks, hoods, balalavas and an intention on rioting, I am quite sure neither of them pulled the policeman from his horse, launched fencing at coppers merely trying to police the event or pissed on Churchills statue.
Why were there so many students and their camp followers free of studies on a weekday anyway. I was busy helping gritting pavements outside shelterred accomodation for the elderly, unpaid.
In an ideal world it would be nice if I could knock in an extra couple of hours a week to pay for the free education of our future doctors, dentists, lawyers and politicians. Unfortunately my taxes are being used up at the moment leaning up the capital.
I left school at 16 and have paid my own way ever since, I pay national insurance in case I ever need the states help,(no objection here to aid for the weak, the jobless or the poor). I would be a bit miffed however if I was paying the full cost of educating the next generation of the uber-rich and they never contributed an iota. The principal of investing in your own future is surely logical, whether or not they have the right balance yet is still open to debate, however you do not need half a brick to debate it.

[gizmo]

Isa,

A couple of years ago the cost of a years study at university was £3600. Accomodation in university or the surrounds cost about £3000. Both were covered by student loans which are paid back after you qualify and are earning more than £15000 per year (in effect a graduate tax)
The Government is proposing the study costs can be increased by the universities up to a maximum of £9000 per annum paid back after earnngs exceed £21000 per year.

[Govangirl]

The fact that Scottish and Welsh students do not pay towards their education is a completely different argument, would you be happier if they did?

I think it is very much part of the argument.
No, certainly not, to your second statement but the division in what is supposed to be a UNITED kingdom is a blatant one. Scots would be quite rightly jumping up and down if the roles here were reversed.

£9000 is the maximum that can be charged.

Yeah and only a few will take advantage of it Seriously, I'm not saying it should be free but it needs to be FAIR.

Isa, as you know, LEAs paid students' tuition fees until Blair’s government passed a new education act which introduced tuition fees of £1,000 in 1999. The previous maintenance grants were replaced with repayable student loans for all but the very poorest students. Scotland decided to abolish these tuition fees for Scottish students studying at Scottish universities (although because of some EU rule, anyone in Europe but not England also gets it free too if they study in Scotland). Then the Welsh government gave their students a tuition fee grant and this year told them they would not have to pay the extra amount imposed by this new government. Oh to be living in Wales or Scotland!
In 2004, they increased it to £3,000 for English students. As a result, billions was owed by English students. Also (and I believe that in an ultimate act of irony, the student loan company is based in Glasgow and employs thousands of people, you couldn’t make it up!) of all the dozens of people I know with student kids, there are reports of great difficulties with loan processing, late payments, etc. – it really is a nightmare dealing with them. In fact, this year the one in charge of it all – on a salary of around half a million – was forced to resign over the sheer chaos of it all.
So, students have to apply for a loan of £3,300 per year for tuition. The government has now voted this week to raise the cap to £9,000 per year. Students can also apply for a maintenance loan to pay for their accommodation and living costs while at Uni – around £3,500 and more for London students. So when they graduate, they are going to be in debt to the tune of £37,500.
Once the student starts earning (not sure of the amount but think it is £15,000) the repayment is then taken out of their wages with an interest rate at 1% above the Bank of England base rate. It’s a myth to suppose that graduates will all earn big money so when they are earning a half-decent wage they will never be able to afford to go on the property ladder as they will be paying back their loans.
In a nutshell, fees have gone from £1000 to £9000 in 10 years and it depends on where you live as to how much you will pay. My middle son has applied to Glasgow for 2011, the same year as his nephew. My son is facing £27,000 debt and his wee cousin, zilch. We either pay taxes to support education or we don't. Gizmo reckons we shouldn't have to pay for these students but my taxes are going to Scottish students and our own children are paying £9,000 a year! Sorry, that is definitely part of the argument.

[gizmo]

For clarity.
Gizmo is not happy about the discrepency.
Gizmo was not happy about everybody and his dog being blamed for the behaviour on the protest except the tossers in the masks.
Gizmo also believes that the Scottish system will fall in a bag of crap before much longer.
Gizmo also wishes his son was at a Scottish university instead of running up debt in England.
Gizmo wishes everything was pink and fluffy but isnt daft enough to think it ever was or ever will be.