Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ross
  • 13,457 comments
  • 770,940 views

How will you vote in the 2024 UK General Election?

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 14 48.3%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 8 27.6%
  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
DK
I am so glad I'm not living in Britain right now: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-33444557

I am just absolutely disgusted, but then again this is what you get with Tories.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure whether to cheer or cry at that last quote in the article. Damn straight I don't like the idea of funding students... But at the same time, none of my university attending friends have ended up earning more than me *yet.

To be honest I'd rather they shift that spending to basic education, so when we're legally required to pay someone £9 an hour they can at least read there own name.**
** true story
 
I'm someone who is totally reliant on grants to get myself through college. Quite frankly, the idea that someone would even consider cheering at the idea of the poorest students getting horribly screwed out of the chance to go to uni just makes me want to put a fist through a wall.
 
I'm still a little curious why so many people are even going to university...
 
One thing that is concerning me now is this new NSA style law they are trying to push through... invading privacy is a breach of human rights, is it not?
 
DK
I am so glad I'm not living in Britain right now: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-33444557

I am just absolutely disgusted, but then again this is what you get with Tories.
Click to expand...
Tbh I quite like the proposal as we would get more money. My main complaint as a student is that I don't get enough money to live with.

Although I guess it will still be based on your parents salary and thus I wouldn't get any more.

It doesn't affect me though. I graduate next year.

Boosting the tuition fee isn't a good move though so I hope they don't. People are already being put off by the cost.
 
haitch40
My main complaint as a student is that I don't get enough money to live with.
Click to expand...

Life's a bummer like that sometimes... although, I don't see why going to University should exempt people for having to pay there own way.

ECGadget
One thing that is concerning me now is this new NSA style law they are trying to push through... invading privacy is a breach of human rights, is it not?
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but bad guys have started plotting bad things in private too..
 
MatskiMonk
I don't see why going to University should exempt people for having to pay there own way.
Click to expand...
Erm because it is a loan and has to be paid back? Well except for the bit being scrapped.


That is like me saying no you can't have a loan for that new car despite the fact the bank will want the money back. Pay your own way.


Besides. Try getting a full time job and study. You will fail uni I guarantee.
 
MatskiMonk
Life's a bummer like that sometimes... although, I don't see why going to University should exempt people for having to pay there own way.



Perhaps, but bad guys have started plotting bad things in private too..
Click to expand...

That may be so, but has the day really come that we take away the rights of people "for the greater good". If that day has arrived then society as a whole has failed in my opinion and my faith in governments has almost certainly been lost. We are entering an era where there is no trust or respect and this does not help at all.

When an innocent persons freedom is trodden upon, for any reason, we are all damaged.
 
Last edited:
Oh come on it happens all the time.


And I bet you would be one of the first to complain if someone could have been stopped from killing people or spying and weren't due to privacy laws.
 
MatskiMonk
Perhaps, but bad guys have started plotting bad things in private too..
Click to expand...
haitch40
h come on it happens all the time.

And I bet you would be one of the first to complain if someone could have been stopped from killing people or spying and weren't due to privacy laws.
Click to expand...
We also have a courts system that allows someone to be investigated if there is reasonable suspicion.

It's not only obscene but unnecessary for everyone to have their privacy violated in order to catch "bad guys".
 
haitch40
Oh come on it happens all the time.


And I bet you would be one of the first to complain if someone could have been stopped from killing people or spying and weren't due to privacy laws.
Click to expand...

Actually I would not be, no. Spying the way they want to do so is a crime, and to prevent a crime through crime is no prevention at all. It is just changing the nature of the crime. There are ways to go about spying on people, and a blanket spying is not that way

What comes to mind right now (though not entirely accurate) is George Orwell's 1984
 
ECGadget
Actually I would not be, no. Spying the way they want to do so is a crime, and to prevent a crime through crime is no prevention at all. It is just changing the nature of the crime. There are ways to go about spying on people, and a blanket spying is not that way.
Click to expand...
More than being a crime (because anything can be a crime if the law says it is), it's an actual violation of everyone's rights with the justification of preventing potential violation of everyone's rights.

Which is, as you say, moronic. May as well lock us all up (a violation of rights), then no-one can blow us up.
ECGadget
What comes to mind right now (though not entirely accurate) is George Orwell's 1984
Click to expand...
Not entirely untruthful either. We're already locking people up for what's determined as a illegal communication - making jokes about paedophilia, for instance. Chuck in blanket surveillance and you're about one step away from being locked up for sedition. And about three steps away from thought crime.

I'm just waiting for the "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" line, which usually comes out around now and is often used by people who don't understand that everyone has something to hide, especially if a state hell bent on monitoring your every word and locking you up for speaking out of turn changes the law so you now have something to hide...
 
Famine
I'm still a little curious why so many people are even going to university...
Click to expand...
I think this needs addressing too. Some boring background info incoming, sorry.

I completed A-Levels in Mathematics & Further Mathematics in 2000, & one in Physics in 1999.

The 2 maths qualifications were given after completing 12 modules in total (I did 6 pure, 4 mechanics & 2 statistics), with one examination for each. I scored 100% in 7 of those 12 modules. The way the percentages were scored were not in a way that you needed to score every mark correctly to be marked 100%.
The only next step suggested by everyone around me was to pursue a degree in mathematics, science or engineering (at no point in my life had anybody said anything to me about what engineering actually was).

From my record to that point, it is obvious that that would have been a suitable path. I do, even now, sometimes wish I had done a maths degree.

The reason I didn't is that I saw degrees as being a route to a job/career that requires a one. I didn't have any kind of plan for my career so didn't see the point of doing a degree at that point. I do have a career, it is enjoyable but unrelated to my earlier studies. I don't need my A-Levels for it either.

Almost everybody I went to college with went on to university & some of them have gone on to careers that fit their studies. Many others have not.

I seem to remember hearing Prime Minister Tony Blair saying at the time that he wanted x% of young people to go to university & thinking the number was insanely high, it may even have been 100%.
I remember thinking "what about all the jobs that don't require a degree?!"

Android keyboard & GTP don't mix well. Very frustrating, otherwise I'd have made this better.

Edit: While the keyboard is being a bit less temperamental. That post would have turned into less preamble & more of the actual point but for the difficulties I was having with the keyboard & my train of thought failing severely as a result.

If a discussion on the matter does occur at some point here, I'd love to read it.

Why are so many people going to university?

Perhaps it already has been discussed somewhere?
 
Last edited:
Famine
Which is, as you say, moronic. May as well lock us all up (a violation of rights), then no-one can blow us up.
Not entirely untruthful either. We're already locking people up for what's determined as a illegal communication - making jokes about paedophilia, for instance. Chuck in blanket surveillance and you're about one step away from being locked up for sedition. And about three steps away from thought crime.
Click to expand...

I'm just waiting until the Tories commission the "Two Minutes' Hate", which will consist of a slideshow of stereotypical chavs.
 
haitch40
Erm because it is a loan and has to be paid back? Well except for the bit being scrapped.


That is like me saying no you can't have a loan for that new car despite the fact the bank will want the money back. Pay your own way.


Besides. Try getting a full time job and study. You will fail uni I guarantee.
Click to expand...

Its not that good of an analogy, since you start repaying the loan within a month of getting the money, irrespective of how much you earn and typically they don't lend you the money in the first place if they are not sure you can pay it back... If student loans worked like that I'm sure they'd be even less popular!
 
MatskiMonk
Its not that good of an analogy, since you start repaying the loan within a month of getting the money, irrespective of how much you earn and typically they don't lend you the money in the first place if they are not sure you can pay it back... If student loans worked like that I'm sure they'd be even less popular!
Click to expand...
So your solution is?

Force the poor to work unskilled jobs and thus make them poor for life?
 
Red Len rips up union rule book to allow illegal strikes: Militant Unite boss removes clause in its guidelines to say that members must remain within the law

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...clause-guidelines-say-members-remain-law.html

Perfectly shows that Red Len has no interest in his members, just the ability to cause as much suffering as possible to the general public and a non-Labour government as possible. I hope the strikers' employers throw the book at the if they partake in these illegal strikes.
 
Black Country flag ‘offensive and insensitive' says leading racism campaigner

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/...d-insensitive-says-leading-racism-campaigner/

2000px-Black_Country_Flag.svg.png


Lolwut?
 
Is anyone a bit annoyed there's no real credible opposition to the Tories now. Corbyn now looks to be the frontrunner for leadership of the Labour party....
 

Latest Posts

Back