Where do the disabled fit into the Tories Britain, hmm?

I think it’s more about their co-ordinated attack on benefit claimants which is a web they are currently trying to spin.
For example, they want to ‘make work pay’ i.e. being in work should make more money than being on benefits. If being on benefits makes someone more money, there are issues around minimum wage and market rates for labour to be address. They advocate cutting benefits. No move forward in 100+ years of attacking the poor.

It would be nice if they had decided to tackle some of the serious and complex issues at work, rather than just attacking the poor for being lazy

[1] One of IDS’s two benefits, the “Universal Life Credit” would be paid at varying rates to reflect disability. His proposals aren’t quite as simplifying as he would have us believe!

However, some of the problems the report identifies – in particular the complexity of the current régime which neither the civil servants implementing it nor claimants themselves can fully understand – are real enough.

Apart from the issue of labour market structure which Don identifies, there is also the behaviour of the dog in the night – I have very much skimmed the report in order to be able to answer Jack’s question so I may well have missed it – why does IDS think his scheme better than a citizen’s income?

Nor do I see how you get round the issue that, whatever the benefits régime, there will always be people who will – as the report itself notes – only be £2/hour or so better off in work. Hard to incentivise them. Might even be better to increase their benefit by that much in return for their volunteering which deals with the psychological downside of being on benefits, and addresses the issue of downward pressure on wages that Don noticed.

3

I’ve skimmed it as well and I think IDS has taken a step toward, without realising it, a citizen income. Simplification will have losers, every policy does, but the current system is so complex it amazes me it is conciously designed.

‘reduce penalties for socially constructive behaviour such as marriage or cohabitation’
Woulld this be the ‘old chestnut’ of single-mothers costing the tax-payer and/or the threat to social stability caused by the out-of-control behaviour of the children from single parent families?
Expecting the tories to address child poverty is tantamount to believing that wolves are the best surrogate parents for lambs.

5

Engage brain. If you have a couple on benefits, living together, they get less money than if they lived separately. That’s one of the reasons that report has a 3 billion price tag.

Yes, when I read about this I thought it sounded (particularly with the “universal” name tags) like a move towards a basic income or the related-but-also-good idea of a negative income tax.

The trouble is that the Tories just can’t seem to face the idea of making something that they call “universal” *actually* universal. If they are ‘for’ simplification, why not simply abolish all means-testing entirely?

(ofc for some disabled people there still needs to be some way for them to get more than just the bare minimum to survive.)

4
‘but the current system is so complex it amazes me that it is consciously designed’
The original welfare system was an ideological document based on gender, work and nation which never represented the society it was meant to serve, the complexity of the current system is the consequence of piece-meal changes made over time, in an attempt to reflect existing society.
6
The Thatcher welfare reforms in 1997. reinforcing the liberal view that unemployment should be a disincentive, left all children, worse- off than those in a 19th century workhouse.
The term ‘socially constructive behaviour’ should ring warning bells with liberals and social democrats alike when voiced by tories

Re 8
I meant to write ‘all childrent whose parent/s were unemployed and receiving benefits’

With an initial cost to the exchequer of £3.6 billion, The Economist sees little prospect of the IDS proposals being adopted in their present form, given the current priority for finding billions of public spending cuts:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14460111

Don said “The total cost is £3.6 billion…”

It’s the UPFRONT cost which is why comparisons to upping recurring benefits by £3.6bn are ridiculous.

Don and others don’t seem to be able to understand the dynamic economic and social effects of incentivising work.

Generally speaking, it’s good to see that nobody from the Left appears to be able to give an argument in favour of the current system. That should be a good platform for the radical changes that are needed.

As for the Economist, it’s still trying to get its head around the fact that it supported the government which got us in this mess.

PragueTory @ 11

“Generally speaking, it’s good to see that nobody from the Left appears to be able to give an argument in favour of the current system. That should be a good platform for the radical changes that are needed.”

The problem with the benefit system is not the benefits system itself, but the economic model that is trying to work in.

The Welfare State was originally designed to take care of people who were in between jobs or who medical condition meant they were physically to ill to work. It was designed when full employment was both desired and perhaps achievable. We now live in an economy were full employment is simply not required.

We have spent the last thirty years driving several million people out of work, displacing those in work and marginalizing those on the lowest jobs to mere drone who can be shuffled in and out of employment at literally a phone calls notice.

The benefit figure are not actually a failure of the Welfare State, they are testament to the success of the free mark in producing an ‘efficient’ labour force.

This is why IDS and the Tories singularly fail. They won the argument in the eighties. They wanted a disposable workforce, and they got it. Huge numbers of people have been disposed off. Guess what? They suddenly decide that although they don’t want millions of people to be employed, the Tories still want them to have jobs! They are attempting to tackle this from the wrong end. Instead of asking why these people don’t want to work, why not ask, why employers have no interest in employing them? There is a huge surplus of labour in this Country, sort that out and unemployment will sort itself out and the benefits system will run like a Swiss watch.

[12] Yeah, what we need is a super-swine flu to carry off all those surplus folk… or a global revolution or something.

Mike @ 13

Not a surplus of people, a surplus of labour. Not the same thing.

3. Mike Killingworth. Good point. The problem is that the UK has a large unskilled and uneducated workforce who even if highly motivated would have low employability. The question which needs to be adressed is what to do about the unskilled, uneducated classes who prefer to love on welfare than work and what percentage of the UK population do they constitute ?

Until we increase the skills and education of the unskilled and uneducated classes, even those who want to work, they will only earn just above what they can obtain on welfare.

[14] My mistake.

[15] I don’t think one incentive will work for all. But of course this is the worst time to do it, when we have unemployment at a higher rate, if truth be known, than at any time in the 20th century.

Mike Killingworth @ 16

“I don’t think one incentive will work for all.”

It is not incentives you need, it is JOBS. Once there are enough jobs to go round the free market will provide all the ‘incentives’ you need.

#11: “As for the Economist, it’s still trying to get its head around the fact that it supported the government which got us in this mess.”

Try Sam Brittan on: How the budget hole developed
http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text341_p.html

Charlie @ 15

“Good point. The problem is that the UK has a large unskilled and uneducated workforce who even if highly motivated would have low employability.”

Surely to Christ you can see the rather obviously gaping flaw in that logic? We are always going to have an ‘underclass’ of ‘unskilled’ labour, no matter we draw the line, a good percentage of the population are always going to occupy the left hand side of the bell curve. Even if the entire population were to gain first class honours degree or whatever, we are going to have to have ‘halfwits’ among us. You can slide the median point to wherever you want, but no matter you place it, half the population are going to below it.

For capitalism to exist we are going to have winners, but for every winner in our society we are going to have losers too. Not only that, if we are going to have big winners, then we need big losers too.

19 . The percentage of people who are at best semi- illiterate, semi- innumerate and lack the ability to obtain even semi- skilled work( 3 yrs training) , let alone become craftsmen( 5 yr apprenticeship) probably accounts for 20-25% of the population in the UK. Germany, Austria The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries probably only have 5-15% of the population who are at best semi- illiterate and semi- innumerate .

@20 [citation needed instead of just making shit up]

Charlie @ 20

Let us assume that your figures are broadly correct. I have no idea where those come from BTW, but lets let that slide for a second.

However, IF that is true, then is that not an indication that our society is suffering under the culture of greed, marginalisation that we have?

Scandinavia has far more generous welfare states than we have and yet they do not appear to have the same problems we have. I never get the sense that they have huge welfare dependant on the admittedly rare occasions I have visited. I accept that I only ever get a glimpse of the Country and culture, but unless I miss something, I don’t see the same disparity of wealth the same divisions or the anger. I have no doubt that places like Malmo have problems, but not on the same scale we do.

Perhaps if you have a more inclusive, more equal society, the population become more content?

[22] Charlie’s figures are out of his own head. Though why a guy who thinks that we have too many graduates wants more literacy I’ve no idea.

#15: “The problem is that the UK has a large unskilled and uneducated workforce who even if highly motivated would have low employability.”

What’s new?

“We have noted a substantial body of original research . . . which found that stagnant or declining literacy underlay the ‘revolution’ of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. . . Britain in 1850 was the wealthiest country in the world but only in the second rank as regards literacy levels. [Nick] Crafts has shown that in 1870 when Britain was world economic leader, its school enrolment ratio was only 0.168 compared with the European norm of 0.514 and ‘Britain persistently had a relatively low rate of accumulation of human capital’.”
Sanderson: Education, economic change and society in 1780-1870 (Cambridge UP, 1995) p.61

As for nowadays:

“Up to 12 million working UK adults have the literacy skills expected of a primary school child, the [HoC] Public Accounts Committee says. . . The report says there are up 12 million people holding down jobs with literacy skills and up to 16 million with numeracy skills at the level expected of children leaving primary school.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642396.stm

“A £2bn scheme to improve basic skills among adults has been called a ‘depressing failure’ by education inspectors.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4506410.stm

“An estimated 5.2 million adults have worse literacy than that expected of 11 year olds, while 14.9 million have numeracy skills below this level.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4095153.stm

23. Mike . The problem with the UK is the large percentage who have very low levels of literacy and numeracy which makes it difficult for them to obtain semi skilled let alone skilled work. The pay of the unskilled and semi-skilled is very low which means the difference between the wealthiest and poorest is large. The collapse in the need unskilled employment due to advances in technology and low skill manufacturing moving overseas ( textiles for examples) makes it very difficult for semi-literate and numerate people to obtain employment in high value manufacturing .

Increasing the skills of the poor who are semi literate and semi-numerate such that they can obtain skilled worked and earn more money will improve the quality of their life.

As Britain descends the international science and maths leagues tables for school schildren, it will make it even more difficult to compete in the field of high value manufacturing. Germany can support a large high value manufacturing base because it has enough people from craftsmen, technicians, scientists and engineers to do so . The UK has enough skilled people to support a small high value manufacturing base( Rolls Royce Aero Engines , Shell, BP , grand prix teams) but not enough to increase the manufacturing base. We have shortage of skilled craftsmen, technicians, scientists and engineers. As Will Hutton has pointed , the only capital of the 21st century will be intellectual capital which will thrive in ideaopolises- areas of advanced science and technology.
If we can educate and train more technical people we can increase our manufacturing base. H McRe of the Indy has pointed out that our top universities are one of our few assets and these can used to support advanced manufacturing – e.g Stanford, Berkely and Caltech provide the support for Sillicon Valley. None of this can happen if we do increase the technical education and skills of this country. Shakespear, Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Orwell , Kipling , Churchill and Keith Waterhouse all manged to write extremely well without a degree. Engineering was taught as a degree subject in this country until 1840. In fact there are engineers in their late 50s and older who do not hold degrees. They left school at 16 , became apprenticed and study for the Council of Engineering Part 2 exams at night school so they could become chartered. RJ Mitchell designer of the Spitfire, was apprenticed at 16 to a locomotive firm where he received basic engineering and attended night school to study, mechanics, drawing and higher mathematics. In fact Obama has pointed out that his American grandmother managed to become a vice-president of abank with only a high school education ,in a speech in which he raised questions about the possible decline of state education.

Is any comment necessary?

“LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s world ranking as one of the highest producers of university graduates has tumbled as other countries invest more heavily in education, an international study reported on Tuesday.

“Despite labelling the British higher education sector ‘very strong’, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said it was no longer at the world class level it once enjoyed.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1764485620070918

“In 2000, only three other countries in the developed world saw more school-leavers go on to gain a university degree.

“But by 2006, the UK plummeted to 12th in an international league table.

“The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said university admissions had increased over recent years but failed to keep pace of progress elsewhere in the world.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2709998/OECD-education-report-UK-slipping-in-graduate-league-table.html

“There has been a rise in the drop-out rate at UK universities, figures show.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8083373.stm

“Britain has one of the worst teenage drop-out rates of any developed country, with more than one in ten of those aged 15 to 19 not in school, work or training.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6825679.ece

26. Bob B . It is not the numbers which are so important but the quality. Are we still winning the Nobel Pizes; being awarded patents ; how many labs are leading the world in research.What Britain still has, is innovation . The Chinese and Indians produce quanitity we can still prosper by producing quality ,the Sir Alec Jeffreys ( DNA finger printing ) but we need the skilled workforce to undertake the development and the production. The Japanese are stilled amazed at the quality of our innovation but too often the technologies and productrs we develop end up being made elsewhere, an example could be the computer industry . Initially started by Turing , Manchester University and Ferranti but made profitable in the USA.

charlie be careful about the figures from Pisa.
The UK goes up and down those tables.
Last ones had the UK second to Finland in science.
Finland has a wonderful record on education, on top of every educational table, based on personalisation of learning and independent research.
Perhaps the model we should be looking at

#27: Charlie2

Many cheers – I mostly agree.

The issues we have in education – and in science, technology and innovation – are not new. That was the point of my post #24 about our deficient schooling provision in the late 19th century in Britain compared with other European countries.

My conjecture is that we became complacent. Because of Britain’s pioneering industrial revolution around 1800, without state planning or intervention, – and the Empire on which the sun never set – we generally assumed just a little schooling and grit would always see us through on the backs of the Nobel prizes of the best and brightest – and it won’t. The game has changed fundamentally.

An unusually outspoken Japanese company exec said to me long ago: They don’t award Nobel prizes for manufacturing. Dyson may design innovative vacuum cleaners in Britain but the cleaners get made abroad where wage rates are lower at prevailing exchange rates – and the workers, as you point out, are increasingly well educated.

Try this insight of George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), chp.7:

“The time was when I used to lament over quite imaginary pictures of lads of fourteen dragged protesting from their lessons and set to work at dismal jobs. It seemed to me dreadful that the doom of a ‘job’ should descend upon anyone at fourteen. Of course I know now that there is not one working-class boy in a thousand who does not pine for the day when he will leave school. He wants to be doing real work, not wasting his time on ridiculous rubbish like history and geography. To the working class, the notion of staying at school till you are nearly grown-up seems merely contemptible and unmanly.”
http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/6.html

In many localities in Britain, not too much has changed since Orwell wrote that – cultural poverty can be as potent in its downstream consequences as material poverty:

“Government figures show only 15% of white working class boys in England got five good GCSEs including maths and English last year. . . Poorer pupils from Indian and Chinese backgrounds fared much better – with 36% and 52% making that grade respectively.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7220683.stm

In Britain, “academic”, “intellectual” and “theoretical” are often used as pejorative adjectives. But then Benjamin Disraeli wrote: “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”

28 Ryan Rae. There is hardly an employer involved with high value/ advanced engineering or science who does not have a problem recruiting adequately educated staff be it apprentice level to doctorate /chartered with 10 yrs experience.

29. Bob b . I agree with your comments . My belief is that Britains decline started in 1870
1. Agricultural income declines, aristocracy enter the “City ” and new money is increasingly despised. Income from manufacturers has meant industrialists are often wealthier than landowners.
2. Bismarck’s ” Blood and Iron ” policy means German science and industry is supported by the State to increase the military capability – proof is the Prussian victory over the French. Germany starts heavy chemical industry, UK lags behind . At the beginning of WW1 , UK has to import dye for uniforms from Germany via the Netherlands!
3. British capital is invested in the USA post civil war, Canada,Agentina , Brazil, and in Empire rather than in British industry. The USA starts electrical industry( due to Edison) UK lags behind.
4. Mass education only starts in the UK in 1870 whereas in much of Europe it was established under the Napoleanic Code.
5. The large number of public schools set up post 1830 concentrate on the Classics in order to educate imperial administrators; a few are trained in science but only theoretical studies are suitable for a gentleman; not technology related to trade.
6. Little investment in industry occurs post WW1; resulting in German factories often producing more in 1944-5 than in the UK.
7. Apart from Imperial, Man U and Royal College of Technology , Glasgow ( Strathclyde) Bitain did not produce enough technology universities which were academically and practically excellent.
8. Post 1945 , apprenticeships did not include enougth maths , physics, chemistry and technical drawing. All apprentices should be educated to the old O level standards, the modern day equivalent would be the IGSCE in M, P , C and TD. The material covered in the old YTS which took 2 years in the Uk was covered in 6 months in Germany. Orwell was correct; allow boys to leave school at 14 but undertake study at night school such as the route undertaken by RJ Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire.
9. Scrap 75% of money spent on the arts/culture education post 16 and put it into technical, science and engineering training and the 20-30% of the population who are at best semi literate and semi-numerate . By 16 someone should have a sufficient grasp of English such that if they have the ability, they can become a Shakespears, Dickens, Churchill, Bronte or Kipling. Those undertaking post 16 education would be taught the englsh required to be able to understand and write contracts.The massive expansion in post 16 arts education since the 1960s does not appear to have produced value for money. When professors complain there are people who are on a masters programme who cannot write a decent essay we have a problem.

The aim is for the UK to become the leading producer of high value innovative technology, manufacturing , design, marketing and cutting edge science. A large highly educated skilled and well paid populace with an absence of poorly educated unskilled class dependendent upon welfare, mean that social and economic inequality of the UK is the lowest in the developed world.

Charlie2,

Apart from your item 9, I agree your summary although I should dearly like to see comments from other contributors here.

Why do I depart on item 9?

It’s not so much a matter of spending money. School pupils mostly have the choice of going through arts or science/technology routes at school/college and often prefer arts subjects or media, arguably because these are felt to be less demanding. Until very recently, the percentage of A-level candidates opting for science subjects and maths was in decline. Some universities have had to close science departments because of declining student demand for undergrad places. Student study preferences can hardly be compelled to conform with some state master plan for economic expansion.

Also, arts subjects are not as useless as you suppose:

“The Creative Industries are a significant contributor to the UK economy – accounting for
7.9% of GDP, and growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. . . ”
http://www.culture.gov.uk/PDF/ci_fact_file.pdf

For another survey of the creative industries, try this:
http://www.ukinvest.gov.uk/story/4017730/en-GB.pdf

It may seem utterly frivolous, but I’ve been reading that graduates from a computer games development degree at the University of Derby are snapped up by games producers.

In the early 1980s, there was a piece in The Economist which surveyed what happened to post-grad philosophy PhDs in American universities where the annual output greatly exceeded the numbers of academic posts becoming vacant. The answer was that they were disproportionaely absorbed by the then rapidly expanding computer industry where analytical skills and the discipline of formal logic were much appreciated. Years ago, I had an engaging email correspondence with a philosopher from Berkeley who left academia and, as best I could tell, went into national intelligence work in east Asia. He was certainly very knowledgeable about Japan where he was based for many years and he ran a fertiliser business in China as well.

We also need to face the fact that financial institutions in the City have recruited and will continue to recruit some of the brightest mathematicians and theoretical physicists to work on hedge fund modelling. Btw have a look at this pecking order of graduate salaries by subject from pre-financial crisis times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/good_university_guide/article2253011.ece

By the test of the market, I wonder why economists were so well paid relative to most other subjects?

Bob B I would suggest that many art subjects , especially english, history, sociology,geography, cultural studies, media studies etc, taught at ex-polys are not of much use to anyone. The games degree at derby is doing what polys used to do – vocational subjects . Regent Street Poly was considered to produce more practical and useful architects than the AA, probably beacuse many of the students were draftsmen already in work.Leaving an ex poly with a degree in sociology and a debt of £10-15,000 is hardly likely to give someone a bright future unless they obtain a higher degree from a top university. Goldsmith’s is very influential in the media and creative industries but it is not an ex-poly. A friend who studied fashion at a poly said it was the biggest mistake of her life : she said she should have gone St Martin’s Art School or another in London. When it comes to art, fashion, architecture, design and related subjects they are dominated by the London schools.

Many employers divide universities into categories and also consider subjects. The reality is that as 40-50% of people will be obtaining degrees in the future the benefit will be highly dependent on institution and subject. Sykes said a £1 spent at Imperial delivers more to the UK than a £1 spent at Thames Valley University and he is correct.
Obtaining decent A levels in academically rigorous subjects and entering a firm of solicitors, accountants, civil engineers, banks, consulting engineers, retailing ,etc, etc at 18 and then studying at night school, may soon be far more worthwhile than going to an ex-poly, reading a subject which is not respected by employers, graduating at the age of 22 and with a £15K debt. The income of the average arts graduates over a lifetime above that of someone without a degree is declining. Itis far more beneficial and financially advantageous to read science or engineering . The danger is that science, engineering , law, medicine and modern languages are increasingly becoming dominated in the the Russell Group universities, and especially the top 5-10 institutions, by those from public and grammar schools because comprehensives are not encouraging these subjects. At Winchester College 75% of A Level students take Maths: as the headmaster says this subject is now as important as Latin was in the 19 century and earlier.
Indian and China produe 100,000s of engineers; Imperial, Oxbridge, Manchester , UCL, Kings, etc science and engineering depts are dominated by public and grammar schools and the left wonder social and economic inequality is increasing? It used to be the case that bright working class pupils dominated science and engineering depts and the public school boys the classic depts. Now middle class grammar and public school pupils dominate the classics, modern languages, law , medicine, science, engineering and economic departments . Unless comprehensives greatly improve, social and economic inequality will greatly increase. How many comprehensives teach Further Maths- fairly standard for Imperial and Cambridge physical sciences and engineering nowadays. Look at the subjects of those people who run the large companies
Brown – BP – Physics, Moody -Shell – Geology. Unilever has a high flyer stream which grooms people for the top and they largely come from a few top universities.

The left seem to forget, if a parent is a successful professional involved in recruiting graduates, they will advise their children to take suitable subjects for their chosen career. I cannot imagine a senior manager in Shell with a double first and doctorate from Imperial suggesting that A levels in media studies, social studies and english are the best subjects for their child who wishes to read law at top university but it was the sort of useless career advice I received at the comprehensive I attended. I was also told it did no matter which higher education institute I attended, only the grade of my degree was important. That is correct, a physics degree from Cambridge or Imperial is just as attractive to an employer as a physics degree from Thames Valley University!

[32] I am unclear. Charlie2, do you think it’s all right for people to take Arts degrees from Russell Group universities but that they should have a protected monopoly which no other academic institution should be allowed to challenge, or that no one – other than the rich, over whom you have no control – should go to university to study arts subjects?

The analogy with the Services would be – scrap direct officer entry and fill the officer class from the ranks of the NCOs.

Clarification sought: Which of the conventional range of social sciences count as arts subjects, if any, and where does law fit in?

Btw we already have a situation in which some Russell Group universities have ceased to offer teaching and undergrad degrees in the full range of science subjects because relevant departments have been phased out in response to the decline in demand for student places. As I recall, some language and philosophy departments have also been closed during the last decade or so.

In those circumstances, it is not stark staringly obvious why newer universities should attempt to cover the range of arts subjects anymore than venerable science and technology institutions like Imperial College or the MIT in America.

I share the view that we lost out when the old Polytechnics morphed into universities and stopped their valuable function in providings opportunities for part-part degrees in the sciences and technology subjects.

Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Mansfield FRS, failed his 11+ exam and left his secondary school at 15 to become an apprentice bookbinder. He took A-levels at nightschool to gain a place to read physics at Queen Mary College London from which he graduated in 1959.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mansfield

I suspect that nightschool option is no longer available in many localities nowadays when we face this terrifying prospect:

“Britain has one of the worst teenage drop-out rates of any developed country, with more than one in ten of those aged 15 to 19 not in school, work or training.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6825679.ece

33. Mike Killingworth. Many of the best officers have served in the ranks, Rommel and de le Billiere for example. A former Guards /special forces officer once said to me The reason why so many soldiers do not respect officers is that so many officers are bad soldiers”. A former member of the SAS said the reason why Rommel was such a good general was that he served in the ranks. Some NCOs think that all officers should a year or two in the ranks, perhaps in the TA
before being commissioned . After all senior police officers have to start as a constable.

Many of the best engineers and applied scientists completed apprenticeships before obtaining the first degree or chartership.g J Lovelock. To become an analytical chemist, the best training is considered to work as technician in lab, undertake part time training for aHNC/degree and then work towards Membership of the Royal society of Chemistry . Rather than come straight from uiversity with a degree and no lab experience.

Applied science / enginering requires a knowledge of theory and practical limitations, combined with a facility to work with people from a wide range of backgrounds. Designing a product which is needlessly difficult to manufacture/build and/or maintain is poor engineering . The success of the Spitfire and the Rolls Royce engines ( mostly Merlins) and the T-34 tanks were examples of brilliant designs were rugged , easy to maintain and to improve and were considerably better than their rivals. Once a I met senior managers of RMC who said they were thinking of returning to the old system of requiring engineers to complete an apprenticeship before starting a degree, this way they would be better at working with the unskilled and skilled staff and appreciating the practical problems. Designing a concrete batching plant which breaks down frequently, is difficult and expensive to maintain, is poor engineering, especially when one has ignored the advice of a foreman.

How many arts degrees at polys actually benefit the student? If one does not have the A level grades to enter a Russell Group university to read English , History or Sociology etc, etc, is going to an ex-poly a good career move? Look at which universities from which the leading companies recruit their graduates.

Turning polys into universities benefitted the heads of departments who now became professors, directors who became VCs and the academics no doubt increased their status and pay. Historically local newspapers were a route where where those leaving at 14 or 16 who had a good grasp of English could become a reporter: Dickens, Kipling,K Waterhouse and Frank Johnson took this route of advancement.

An ex Reuters journalist said to me there are plenty of graduates who want to write but they have no experience worth writing about. I short, many of the arts degrees at ex-polys benefit the lecturer and academics through employment; the land lords through rental income; the takeaway , clubs and pub owners through increased custom but provide the graduate with a £15K debt from an institution which puts them at a great disadvantage when competing with a Russell Group graduate. The headmaster at Ampleforth College was once asked about the career prospects of the scholars and those in the Remove ( bottom set). “The scholars normally end up working for those who were in the remove set”. Character is often more important than brains – Sugar, Green, Branson etc, etc. Someone who left school at 16 with a good grasp of English and History; started work for the local newspaper as a reporter, probably by the age of 22-23 is likley to be senior to someone who joins having just completed their master’s in journalism. In addition, they will have experience and the possibility to have savings rather than debt.

There is no reason why someone who left school at 16 cannot appreciate and study english, history , music or any other cultural activity
but they need to think seriously about entering the job market as arts graduate , at the age of 21-23 with a £15k debt, when 30-40% of their fellows will have degrees, some from far better institutions.