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Reply | 32 years ago today....
at 11:52 25 Apr 2024
That was the first season that I supported ITFC. I don't have a clear memory of it, just a vague feeling from that era! |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 11:25 25 Apr 2024
I think you interpretation of what I was saying is a bit off.
"why should working class people pay taxes towards people on a jolly at uni?" still stands. That statement does not mean that I believe that all people are on a jolly at uni. My point is the fun part of uni is a byproduct of the experience and not the motivation behind the funding. We have to be very careful with public money. Public money is supposed to benefit society as a whole and not just individuals.
Going to university can be a very good opportunity for people to better their economic position, but it should also be understood that university can also be a debt trap and have a negative effect on your life if a better option was available. I just hate the one-size-fits-all approach that Blair's 50% target embodies. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 11:12 25 Apr 2024
Exactly, education is only as valuable as what you are learning. There was way too much focus on degrees over vocational training. I am wondering whether my kids would be better off skipping university and going straight into a paid position to learn on the job. The problem is, the system has been changed to gatekeep a lot of job with degree requirements for jobs that don't really require degrees. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 10:24 25 Apr 2024
I don't know how old you are, to give you context, I'm pushing 40.
I've only just saved enough to buy a house it has been a struggle. Through a lot of hard work and sacrifice as well as enough luck I've managed to earn a good living, but I have about 10 to 15 years less than would be optimal to pay off the loan so with the job market even with a comfortable level of income, I don't feel financially secure.
I don't think you should take my comments about the system too personally. Also, anyone who has racked up student debts will have a sunken cost that they want to justify. My point was a general one that 50% higher education does not make sense financially. Even now it is about 35% with a peak level of 38%. The number or yearly applicants was 405 thousand in 1994 and was 757 thousand in 2023. Still that is a huge jump.
You should add a point 6. crippling student debt repayments with scandalous interest rules.
I don't know you so I wasn't calling you an activist. There is a trend towards young people feeling like work is beneath them especially at the level they would have to start at and having high expectations of the lifestyle they should be able to lead. I know that I personally experienced the shock of finding out that my market value was actually pretty low straight out of university. Universities are not at all focused on getting their students good employment opportunities. There should be a focus on getting students to realistically consider their options early on in their courses. I loved being at uni and in my group of friends and playing videogames whenever I wanted and watching Neighbours twice a day, but the last year of my degree was a total waste of time and not good value for me or the taxpayer. I was glad to be done with it and get out into the real world.
You should exercise a bit of magnanimity for people in the older generations, much as you baulk at you or your generation being labelled activists or work shy. I'm guessing that you don't have children from the what you have said. Having children makes you much less self-centered and gives you a better appreciation of older generations. People with children have a stake in the future so I care more about the future more than I did as a child or young adult.
I agree with the home ownership problem you identified. I think it's an absolute disaster to commoditize housing. However many hundreds of thousands my house is worth makes no material difference to me. I would be totally fine in slashing the value of homes across the board as long as a few years were taken off my mortgage repayments.
My impression of an activist is a person who is all talk and no action. They will attend a protest against climate change, but won't go litter picking in their own community. It is a really big problem that we have taught people to focus on huge problems that they have no hope of solving. It is unfair to put the responsibility on people to achieve the impossible. Older generations have cared about the environment for a long time. When you say "For my generation, it is pretty simple, our futures are screwed on multiple fronts, due to the selfishness of some of the generations before us" you also don't mention all of the amazing opportunities that you have been afforded by the hard work of previous generations, so that has to come into consideration too. I think most people are on board with being environmentally friendly and even a move towards net zero, the thing you have to consider is how those policies will actually affect people. You must know that the poorest and most vulnerable will take the brunt of the negative affects from the net zero policies. Anyway, in the end the fact is people won't go along with these draconian policies en masse if they are putting them in poverty or worse.
Public spending has gone up dramatically and that is because we have disintegrated society, moved away from family and required much more state intervention. We have to have a serious conversation about how we would fund public services to the level that we expect. The problem is that there seems to be a direct correlation between an increase in public spending and a decrease in the competence of the people running the country. We can't just abdicate responsibility for things that are important to us.
The reason why the definition of a woman is such a key issue is because it is very basic and underpins your entire concept of reality and how facts work. If we define things as they observably are, then we can have rules and a functioning society, but if we let people self define and demand that people must interact with them conforming to a self-identity that can change, it is a recipe for chaos. Polite people will try not to offend people, but at the same time a polite person would not expect too much from others to placate them. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 08:09 25 Apr 2024
It's a very neutral way of phrasing it to say "Blair's push on education". The whole point is that education is only as good as the content being taught. Blind targets of trying to get 50% off people into university are not considering what is best for the individual and not really considering return on investment. It made sense to fund higher education for solid subjects, but why should working class people pay taxes towards people on a jolly at uni when there is little economic benefit?
It is a damning indictment on the quality of the British education system that students didn't understand the direct link between university fees and the vastly increased number of students. All of that money was a gravy train and of course signing up students was the goal regardless of what was best for them.
Many people would do much better going into a real job and learning on the job and they wouldn't be left with ridiculous debts paying to be indoctrinated.
I think that pushing so many people to university is part of the current problem of young people refusing to work because they are over educated and underskilled and have an inflated valuation of themselves on the market.
University infantilizes young adults who put off growing up. I suppose that is part of the Labour plan because people get more conservative as they grow up. The knock on effect is that people are getting married later and women are having babies later, which is counter to their biology and a lot of women who wanted children are struggling to conceive.
Unless you understand how the world works, it is inconceivable how we are wealthier than ever before in human history and yet most of us are materially worse off than previous generations where even middle class families have two parents working full time jobs really only to fund ridiculous house prices, childcare and the cost of living, working class people have to use food banks and worse. |
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Reply | Just seen who West Brom are playing on Saturday…
at 00:45 25 Apr 2024
I think people are putting far too much emphasis on the results of other teams especially the results of teams before we play them. If QPR get a point against Leeds that will be massive for us and make it so we need to win 2 out of 3 games to be guaranteed promotion. |
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Reply | Yeah but you can't even be English these days
at 22:06 24 Apr 2024
Sausages are a very compelling example.
English food is better than American food or French food, probably equal to German food, but then Japanese, Thai, Italian and Mexican are so much better especially Japanese food. |
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Reply | We absolutely battered Hull at Portman Road this season
at 22:01 24 Apr 2024
We should follow KM's advice and enjoy matches and look forward to them because we know that all things being equal we will win all three matches. The element of possibly of dropping points is what makes it exciting! |
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Reply | 1-0 Hull
at 21:57 24 Apr 2024
I don't know if it can be called rested when the match was the most important one left in their season. They probably physically needed a break, but they are now out of the playoff race. It's too much to deal with a cup run and a promotion push. Coventry have got themselves together now, so you'd expect them to be up there again next season from the start.
I think we want to be playing teams that need to win, but I have faith that we'll manage either way. We have nothing else to spend our energy on apart from these three matches and all we need to concentrate on is the first match. Let's have some positive vibes. |
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Reply | Yeah but you can't even be English these days
at 16:41 24 Apr 2024
Food is a weak point for us English as the traditional stuff is not that good except for roasts and toad in the hole. Anyway, French food is really bad, but that never stopped them romanticizing French food.
The English language and sports are our best exports. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 11:25 24 Apr 2024
Which part are you going to disagree with?
The only time recently that I have been positive for the political future of our country was when Boris won a landslide on the basis of promising to pay back his debt to the red wall. It was a sliding doors moment. Boris had the opportunity to reach across the aisle and consider the interests and beliefs of the majority of people and focus on what is common between most of us. My error was forgetting that it was Boris that had that opportunity and not me.
It was a huge tactical error. Boris missed an open goal, all he had to do was consider the interests of the working class and he could have destroyed the Labour Party forever. He could have given Scotland independence to skew the country to the right and set a template for governance for decades to come. Instead now it looks like children will get the vote and we will never have a chance to be a serious country again. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 11:14 24 Apr 2024
Commoditizing housing is probably one of the most shortsighted policies of recent times. People who are well off will see a second or third home as an investment opportunity and they already have their home, so won't feel the squeeze.
We need to have a model that even people with the most modest incomes can aspire to. If you work hard and are not reckless with your money you should be able to own your own home, not struggle to make ends meet with two incomes and pay a huge chunk of your money to pay for your children to be subjected to substandard childcare. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 11:06 24 Apr 2024
I agree with you, but you set the wrong tone for rising above party politics when you say "T*ry scumbags".
My personal belief is that the government should enact policies that reflect the majority will of the people regardless of whether I agree or not, or course we should not infringe on human rights, but people like Kier Starmer are forever expanding the concept of human rights to involve better treatment than working people can afford to have and we are all expected to pay for it.
There are a lot of good people who vote for the Tories. I'm convinced that the majority of people actually vote against a party rather than for a party. I hate the whole party system and it doesn't work in a diverse country. If it's a country like Japan were you have the conservatives and the slightly-less-conservatives and a more collectivist culture then it can work. |
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Reply | We're all going to have to make some selfless sacrifices to get this country
at 10:51 24 Apr 2024
You are very shortsighted and biased if you can't see the lasting damage that Tony Blair and his Labour government did to our country.
I'll give you just the headline examples:
1) Allowed unlimited EU immigration from the ex soviet bloc countries when not even Germany did that.
2) He had a classist target of 50% of people going to university which signaled that working class jobs are not as valued as middleclass job, and it made people of adult age remain children for years longer, people who don't settle down also tend to be more selfish. There are less babies being born so that damages the whole economic model and means that we have a demographic time bomb. Now we have a whole generation of young adults who are highly educated and are taught to be activists despite never really living a day in the real world.
3) He led us into a war that was against our best interests, led to hundreds of deaths of our soldiers, probably thousands of civilians killed directly or indirectly due to our involvement, damaged our world standing, and made us less safe at home.
The Tory governments ever since have been following his policies and even going further along the same trajectory.
Starmer isn't fit to lead us, he can't even define a woman.
I'm not coming out in support of the Tories, but I know a lot of good people who are more left wing and good people who are more left wing. It is important to be caring, but at the same time we have to be successful to provide the wealth for welfare. |
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Reply | Would you rather watch a russell martin team
at 10:35 24 Apr 2024
I think you are missing one key point, it isn't the style that Russell Martin's team play in, it is a Russel Martin team, i.e. the team that he is managing, so you have to see him on the touchline and avoid all interviews that he does and you know that your team has lost all the respect that comes with most other managers. |
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