Labour: keeping the working class where it is!

First of all a very Merry Christ-mas to you all!

There is so much to write about at the moment I don't know where to begin.

Maybe I'll split it into two?

First stop, Gordon Brown has decided to cut funding to Universities. This is highly amusing and yet altogether quite annoying. It is amusing because it shows just what a load of idiots run Labour. Even if your a labour supporter I'll explain why. If you support Labour you probably do so because you are a 'working man' or consider yourself 'working class'. Amusingly though Labours ruining... er I mean running of the Universities has done everything it can to screw the working man. It has made class mobility more difficult.

Lets consider a simple example to show this. You are 'Dave Smith' your mother is a hairdresser and your father works in a factory, there you go, that is working class (if a bit stereotypical, but that doesn't matter). I've worked in a factory and I know the wages are between about 6k (part time) and 14k per year generally. So lets say Dave's father earns 12k (full time). Dave's mother earns 6k because she doesn't have the time to do anymore (this is well below the quoted average on mysalary.co.uk.) So together they earn 18k. I could say they earn more but that would just make this even easier.

You Dave, are a genius, I mean you are amazing. You are so good that given the chance you would cure cancer, stop the destruction of the rain forest and cause crops to grow in the Sahara ending world hunger. But first you need to get to University.

Under the Tories you would have got a grant gone on to University got a good degree from a good University and then probably got a job and saved the world.

Under Labour, you don't get a grant you get tuition fees, big ones. Much more that a low income family could afford to pay. Even if you could afford it (or didn't mind risking everything on your debt) when you finished Uni (probably a lower Uni since the higher ones can often be more expensive) thanks to labour everyone has a degree, and so you're less distinguished and less likely to get a job. Presumably when everyone has good CVs you have to revert to good old nepotism to cut the pack. Which doesn't favour old 'Davey boy' now does it?

Essentially what Labour has done is tried to get 50% of the population in University, not think about whether it will actually help them, the economy or whether they are actually up to it.

You're not meant to say it (I'm told) but how do you know that 50% of the population is up to going to University? If they are surely they will manage on their own and if they are not surely they will just end up doing pointless degrees that are too easy, have no application, devalue degrees generally and worst of all waste 3 years and several thousand pounds when they could have been doing something useful?

And don't think I'm down on people who aren't 'academics'. As far as I'm concerned having a degree doesn't make you a better person. It is no mark of superiority over someone who just an academic type. After all thanks to this wonderful policy the UK is having to import all their plumbers because we don't have any of our own. No we don't Gordon, because all the people who would make excellent plumbers are doing a film studies degree!

But now the government has decided to cut the Universities budget. Which is great, I believe the phrase needed here regards a rug being swept from beneath ones feet?

Meanwhile the Universities are told not to let this effect their teaching. Presumably they should also try pulling rabbits out of hats and if that works working on a source of perpetual energy! Everyone knows that academics aren't that well paid in Universities anyway. They are there for a labour of love not because they want to hit 80k per year as soon as possible. Where is the space for cuts?

Still at least in all this we can be happy that the working man has benefited from it all... oh now wait, I've already covered that.

Maybe Labours next slogan should be "Labour; keeping our foot on the working class"

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A couple of facts about Universities

- Fees are set to rise... again
- Household income required to be gov' funded through University <£16,00
- Minimum wage of a house with two full time adult parents £22,000
(so the only people realistically who will get funded have unemployed parents)
- Minimum wage before you have to pay back your loans £15,000
(this is at any point in your life, so if you're 55 and you start earning £16,000
for the first time in your life you will have your loans and a life time of interest
to pay off).