Top-Up Fee increases: Who pays?
Imagine that energy prices once again start to soar in the UK, £1000′s added to the average yearly bill each year with the reason given that the raising of the cost wouldn’t greatly dissuade people from consuming energy. Would this be acceptable? It’s safe to say, I think, that there would be a huge outcry about the abuse of an oligarchies power. This is also how we should act to Vice-Chancellor claims that tuition fees should rise to £4k at least, and £20k at most, when the review of the “cap” comes up shortly.
Let us take Higher Education not to be a luxury commodity, in a world where so many more students are taking the higher education root (though less than the 50% intended by our government) and most from families that can generally afford the current charges comfortably (see the lack of proportionate increase of “poor” students in to the higher education system). It is now a necessity to go through university to show your skills, knowledge and employability for an ever decreasing number of appropriate jobs and average graduate salary. continue reading… »
A Bit of Comic Relief from the TPA
I have to say that’s it nice to see that the Taxpayers’ Alliance are doing their bit for Comic Relief…
…at least that’s what I assume they’re up to here as, otherwise, this is, by a long distance, the most piss-poor attempt at a smear that I’ve seen in ages.
A new report out today from the TPA reveals that large quantities of British aid goes to an even more sinister and damaging destination—Islamist hate education in the Palestinian territories. While the poverty of people in Palestine is well documented, the sad truth is that the £100m a year Britain gives to support the Palestinian Authority’s budget often ends up simply freeing up cash to be spent on propaganda dished out through the official media and the education system.
What is the Compass strategy?
Neal Lawson and John Harris have a very bad article in the New Statesman called ‘No Turning Back’. The political strategy behind it appears to be that Labour should team up with the Liberal Democrats and leftie lobby groups (and draw comfort and inspiration from such diverse sources as the “Red Tories” and the Countryside Alliance) in order to change society in profound and yet not very comprehensible ways.
As Paul says, this approach is about constructing “the 21st century sanctuary that is the centre-left think tank world and the accompanying blogosphere, a place where the chattering socialist classes can all feel safe and comfortable while the storm of dangereous, savage, rightwing policy implementation rages outside.” I also agree with Hopi’s point that at the moment our priority “needs to be what we’re doing to help people who need a helping hand, not how we’re going to punish those who deserve a slap.”
continue reading… »
Top Stories and Blog Review – 17th March
Nationwide
Brown: I should have done more on crisis
Labour party struggles for money and muscle
Txt vote plan for independent MPs
Health chief presses on anti-alcohol campaign
International
Jubilation as Pakistan reinstates chief justice
Sent back by Britain. Executed in Darfur
White House plans to block bonuses at AIG
Seattle paper shifts entirely to the web
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / Sarah Ismail
Ala Abbas Headscarves, Human Rights and Idiots.
Bleeding Heart Show Grassroots Feminists worldwide need to get back to work.
F Word Do we need equal pay audits? Not in a recession, says the EHRC.
A belated Happy Birthday to Nosemonkey’s blog.
George Gabriel/Open Democracy Gender advance in Venezuela.
Same Difference Does anyone fancy reviewing Zig Zag Love? Drop me a line if you’re interested.
The Third Estate The Lib Dems are being illiberal, while (more surprisingly) Labour are right.
Why is the left always on the back foot?
I don’t know if the British left is doomed, but they most certainly look terrified. Whether it’s the economy, the welfare state or the military, large swathes of the self-appointed ‘liberal left’ in the UK are plagued by the Syndrome of the Back Foot.
Last week’s major overreaction over the Luton events at a parade of troops returning from Iraq highlighted the Left’s depressingly defensive approach.
Few now can deny the political discourse is increasingly set by Fleet Street. The tabloids hiss and diss and shout at every corner, rolling out story after story against ‘political correctness’, the foreigners, social workers, ‘welfare scroungers’, the Muslim or any of the usual targets.
But instead of challenging the right’s myths and suffocating narrative, instead of regaining the initiative, the cornered liberal left appear permanently on the back foot, lest they cause an all-out conflict with the right wing media or get branded as ‘loony’, ‘traitors’ or similar.
continue reading… »
Newspapers: thinking the unthinkable
Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry’s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, because he loved Barry’s work so much he wanted everybody to be able to read it.
One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” I think about that conversation a lot these days.
The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several. One was to partner with companies like America Online, a fast-growing subscription service that was less chaotic than the open internet. Another plan was to educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright law. New payment models such as micropayments were proposed. Alternatively, they could pursue the profit margins enjoyed by radio and TV, if they became purely ad-supported. Still another plan was to convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue copyright infringers directly, making an example of them.
…the full essay here by Clay Shirky
Watch: Japanese robot unveiled at catwalk
Japanese scientists have unveiled a female humanoid walking robot at Tsukuba City, north east of Tokyo.
The robot, named HRP-4C, has 30 motors in its body that allow it to walk and move its arms as well as eight motors on its face to create expressions like anger and surprise.
She will also make a special appearance in a Tokyo fashion show and will go on sale for around $200,000 (£142,000).
Video
Hitchens: drunk raped women ‘deserve less sympathy’
From his Daily Mail column today, erm, last year:
Women who get drunk are more likely to be raped than women who do not get drunk. No, this does not excuse rape. Men who take advantage of women by raping them, drunk or sober, should be severely punished for this wicked, treacherous action, however stupid the victim may have been.
But it does mean that a rape victim who was drunk deserves less sympathy. Simple, isn’t it? You can hate rape and want it punished, while still recognising that a woman who, say, goes back to a man’s home after several Bacardi Breezers was being a bit dim.
Top Stories and Blog Review Monday 16th March
Nationwide
Economic downturn costs £40,000 for every adult.
Pensioners hire Cherie to sue RBS.
Economy is too fragile to worry about equality says EHRC.
Mothers work harder than fathers
International
Pakistan reinstates judge to divert crisis.
Two Israeli policemen shot dead.
Americans discover that mental aging starts in 20s.
Australian politician denies nude pictures are of her.
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Jennie Rigg
Think you’ve got what it takes to be a netcaster? We’re recruiting. Email us a link to your blog and a convincing reason to pick you to
and we’ll consider you.
Andrew Ducker reminds us all just how long that “youth of today” meme has been going.
Clay Shirky has a fantastic article about how the internet has broken newspapers, and why they ought to face up to it.
Martin Hickman of the Indy blogs about how you (yes YOU) could claim back hundreds of pounds on mis-sold insurance.
Matt Wardman documents the harrassment of photographers by the police.
Political Betting has a guide to polling methodologies of the different poll companies.
XKCD foretells the future of green energy.
And if you crave more linkage then hop along to Amused Cynicism for this week’s Carnival on Modern Liberty, assuming you’ve not seen it yet, or browse through previous Netcasts
LC briefing: Lie detectors – where your money is going
For this LC briefing, using Freedom of Information requests, I can tell you exactly how much taxpayers’ money has been spent on the trial to date and exactly where this technology is being used to vet benefits claimants.
If James Purnell’s department did decide to roll out this system nationally, one company could, within the next five years, build an effective monopoly over the processing of welfare benefit claims worth tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of pounds a year.
So here’s the breakdown, and a little surprise I uncovered last week…
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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