Well, news that the government might be investing in a ‘Happiness Index’ of the UK cheered me up no end this week.
And there I was thinking David Cameron had no sense of humour – beat that for comic timing. What an even bigger waste of time than teaching Ann Widdecombe to dance.
Surely the PM could just have taken a peek outside Tory HQ the other day to get a feel for how ecstatically giddy with joy the nation is feeling these days. Judging by the missiles being thrown through their windows, something tells me those protesting students aren’t feeling the warm glow of inner contentment the coalition might have been hoping for.
Apparently, the Index reflects Cameron’s belief that there’s “more to life than money”. Spoken with the true sincerity of someone who has enough loot stashed away to line the baby’s nappies in it.
Yes, Dave, there is more to life than money – debt, repossession, homelessness. All guaranteed to get you top marks on that happiness questionnaire if you want to start sending them out now. Never mind buried in the sand, the Prime Minister’s burrowed his head all the way down to Australia.
At least it gave me something to laugh at while I painted the placard I plan to wave should those student demos make their way up to Manchester, as the National Union of Students has suggested. Far from throwing my hands up in disgust that today’s youth dare speak their mind, I am planning to join them on the front line.
No, I am not planning to set fire to the Tory manifesto or chuck bins through windows. Like the vast majority of protestors who ventured to the capital to make their feelings heard, I’m planning to follow in the great British tradition of peaceful protest.
Thing is, for Cameron, last week’s violent minority – who, quite rightly, have been widely criticised – must have been a PR blessing in disguise. By focusing the nation’s attention on the 50 or so trouble-makers he could divert us away from the 49,950 other protestors with a peaceful point to make. It gave him the chance to demonise students as the villains in this tuition fees story – depicting a spoilt middle-class rabble descending on the capital.
This cleverly focussed our attention away from the real issue – that higher education is becoming a two-tier luxury few of us will be able to afford. These were not militant hordes but young people from all walks of life with the brains to know that, while money can’t buy you happiness, it’s what you damn well need to get an education these days, thanks to the government’s latest proposals.
With fees hiking up from £3,950 a year to £9,000 you don’t need a degree in economics to work out that it’s back to the days of toffs taking over the halls of residence at the country’s top universities. Make no mistake, it will all come down to whose daddy can afford the best places.
And to those who spout the deluded drivel that teens from working class backgrounds will still be able to afford the ‘luxury’ of studying, it’s you who need to go back to school.
The fact is, we could all learn a thing or two from this new generation of campaigning students.
With public sector cuts on the way, they surely won’t be the last to take to the streets in protest this winter – they are just the first. Cameron wants a “Big Society” – we should give him one. One that stands together to protest, in peace, against fundamental changes to our way of life.
Far from watching in disgust as students make their feelings heard, we should be standing shoulder to shoulder when they make their way to Manchester.
It’s not just their bank balances they are trying to protect – but the right for all of our children to have a fair education. Let them be demonised, and the bigger issue buried, and it’s a lesson we’ll all be learning for years to come.
Treat a new car like a new man
IT takes more than a car going up in flames to keep me off the road – move over fellow motorists, I’m back behind the wheel.
And – health and safety fans – still wearing my heels.
But if the spontaneous combustion of my old wheels was dramatic, the search for some new ones has been traumatic.
A note to all the used car salesmen out there: wearing a skirt is not a sign of a full lobotomy.
A particular shout out to the smooth salesmen who tried to – illegally – flog me an insurance write-off car.
That little gem only popped up on the RAC check online when I got home. After I’d paid my deposit.
I could think of a few places I’d have liked to put my stiletto heels at that moment.
Luckily, I found out the awful truth before driving away in an accident waiting to happen. However, ladies, it taught me a valuable lesson.
Treat a new car like a new man – check him out online and if you don’t like what you find, walk away sharpish.
Robbie with the X Factor? Take That should have voted him off
GARY, Gary, Gary, with your chutchy cheeks and earnest eyebrows – what have you done?
If only you could have stayed in a huff a few more years, we might never have been subjected to the gruesome gurning that was Robbie Williams’ return to Take That on The X Factor. Was I the only one wishing Cowell could have voted him off instead of Aiden?
As a reformed foursome, Take That had that rugged dad appeal thing nailed. All tousled hair, three-day stubble and songs about Patience that set a generation of 30-somethings’ biological alarm clocks off with a bang.
Now, with Williams back on board for the first time in 15 years, they’re already looking less Man Band and more One Man Band.
If this is a taster of the tour, thank god I’ve not got tickets. Or I would be wishing Robbie’s obsession with all things UFO would pay off, and they could beam him up out of the stadium.
Barlow, let this be a lesson to you. Some hatchets are not worth burying.
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Enjoy the fun of the protest Helen - hope it doesn't clash with a nail or hair appointment. Plastic socialist.
dear ms tither
sorry to burst your loony left idealogy, but when making sweeping comments about university fees, remember to print that these were introduced under nu labour!!
would the same party who introduced tuition fees abolish them - no, they have admitted that they would have put the fees up as well.
"And to those who spout the deluded drivel that teens from working class backgrounds will still be able to afford the ‘luxury’ of studying, it’s you who need to go back to school"
The poor kids get it free anyways so it won't matter to them, its the middle class that will lose out, perhaps you could do with a few more years schooling yourself.
I have to agree with you for the first time ever. Robbie Williams is a plank who has reaped rewards far beyond his abilities. He is an anoying Karaoke singer at best who was lucky enough to have a big PR machine ram his image and suposedly coolness down silly pubescent teenage girs.
If he was on fire I wouldn't you know what on him because of what he has helped to do to the British music scene.
Helen, can I assume that you read the posted comments (like my old foe Diane Cooke did).
So my challenge to you is to rather than just state your one sided view, why not come up with some viable alternative. This is the dilemma the Lib Dem’s faced when joining the coalition government. Its easy constantly moaning or make mass appeasement statements, but when faced with coming up with the real decisions, suddenly the appeasement rhetoric is not so easy.
So at a time that the government are freezing (or even cut) education spending can you tell me how you would raise the falling standard of UK universities against other world university institutions (yes another legacy of 13 years of Labour government). Specifically US universities are pulling away from the UK universities in Medical, Science and Engineering, how would you redress this??
The funniest banner was
"Bring back Gordon Brown"
Wait a minute, wasn't he the man who introduced tuition fees in the first place, oh those nasty Tories......
What is the point of a peaceful protest? You must be brain dead if you think your voice is being heard. They achieve absolutely nothing.
Enjoy your peaceful protest. It's a day out, but don't pat yourself on the back thinking you're making any kind of difference.
I don't blame the violent minority one bit. These students are not the daft ones. The peaceful majority are.
Helen love, you are living in cloud cuckoo land. Who on-earth at the M.E.N, gave you the privilege to spout your clear anti-tory drivvle here.
Stamp you feet/break your nails clawing as much as you want. Your contribution will not change what is about to come.
I am fully behind the current government's planned cuts! You should be protesting outside Blair/Brown's front door because of their absolutely reckless 13 years of wasteful/elaborate socialist style spending!
Helen Blather.....
So the shelf stacker at Asda on £5.80 per hr or ~£195 pw net....He / She sees their Tax/NI contribution (~£55 pw) to go towards a student to become a lawyer who then has the potential to go from £25k to £175k pa...
Please explain in all fairness !
'Surely the PM could just have taken a peek outside Tory HQ the other day to get a feel for how ecstatically giddy with joy the nation is feeling these days.'
Helen, 50,000 students aren't 'the nation', they are 50,000 students. Clearly it is not sustainable to have 40% of our children going to university and being paid for by the state. Maybe the other 59,950,000 of us understand this. It is time this country invested in educating young people in subjects and skills that are of value to the country. Let's pay to educate our future dentists, engineers, doctors and scientists and let the circus skills/American studies/Media studies etc students pay for themselves. See Helen, an alternative idea rather than fake indignation - can I have a job writing for the MEN?
I was quite amused by your insistance that if the protests come to Manchester, you might pop out and have a jolly lark with them. Not worth travelling to London for though eh? Keep the red flag flying Sister.
No one will have to pay the fees up front,then after graduation only those earning over £21k will have to start paying the fees back and then at the rate of about 50p per week.
Do you actually read the news you comment on?
Hell hath no fury like the most privileged in society when their tax-payer -funded subsidies are threatened. There is absolutely no logic or justification for public funding of the 50% of the population privileged enough to go to university -- these are the country's future top earners. Why should the worst off pay for them, any more than the tax-payer should fund child benfit for the children of Premier League footballers? The welfare state was designed to prevent people falling into destitution -- not as a nmeans of social engineering or enabling any unemployed person to become better off than he would be in work. Remember: no one has a right to the money you have earned, least of all those who willl become the country's most affluent.
helen! just a little bit of advice! change out of your heels! your insurance could be void if you had an accident.
and on the car subject, selling you and insurance write off is not actually illegal. unless it was written completely off never to reyurn to the road again. but some how i doubt it!
Agreed.
What benefit is it to anybody to increase fees? What benefit is it to you? The quality of tuition will most likely stay absolutely the same, any extra money gained by University institutions will almost certainly be lost in a bureaucratic dump.
The negative impact this will have on people is massive. We know they're not asking for the money up front, as some have commented, but they're still asking for it...
Potentially £27 000 in tuition "alone" for a degree, which won't promise a job and which HAS to be paid back, is enough thought to put most people off going to University. It is too gross a figure, a vile determent to those who are poorer, those who should have every right to a fairly priced education like their wealthy next door neighbors.
And I hope we are assuming we want a younger generation to go university, to learn, to become doctors, businessmen, dentists, artists...
Judging by some of these comments, these angry backward comments, there's a generation saying NO.
They're saying "pay more because it doesn't benefit anyone...?? pay more because it harms British values of equality and fairness..?? pay more, it doesn't make any sense...?
We pay more to benefit the pockets of Government and other Private Sectors. Cuts are being made, that money isn't going towards us, our public services.
The only other reason anyone should support this rise; is that your a misanthropic angry carrot.
I recall in the 70's and 80's when people went for degrees in things like marine biology, and then got a job as a salesman. Total waste of public money then, and only benefited one person, not the society that paid for them. At least the present system will make more students think carefully about their subject, and focus their minds on working harder.
We need an educated country. We need scientists, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, accountants, writers ... we need these people and these people need a university education. The enormous fees mean that those people will now only come from privileged backgrounds who can afford it. It means that intelligent people from poor backgrounds will never get the opportunity to break that cycle of poverty. As a tax payer I am more than happy to fund education for all. I'm not so happy funding MPs expenses, the bombing of Iraq and a Royal wedding for a rich family.
I'm disturbed that people who live in my city - with its magnificent political history of defiance and fights against injustice - can lack compassion, intelligence, forward-thinking and any empathy. All many people o here seem to care about is their own tedious aspirations and pretentions ... there's more to life than the latest fashion in fitted kitchens.