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Kenneth Baker speaking in the Guardian 1999 "I loved Keith dearly. Keith was a lovely person, but he was seduced by very clever civil servants in the department. I had a much more practical approach. I could see the advantage of a voucher system, but Heath and a lot of the Conservative party were against them...Well, yes, it's not a formal voucher system, but it's very tantamount! In effect, it was a voucher system. I just didn't call it that. It was a subtler approach"

>I can not ever remember a moment in politics where a parliamentary majority petered due to the actions of 16-year-old girls.

St Trinian's FTW!

A thought in passing: this is a proposal that negatively affects individuals who have no vote (children), to the benefit of the adult electorate (ie current tax-payers & tax-avoiders). Should we be surprised at their reaction?

IN SINCERE PUZZLEMENT

Have we lost sight of the inherent altruism of youth? It was once a byword. Has unisex Britain convinced itself that the female of the species is no longer more decent and (if I dare use the word) fair, than the male?

The Westminster Ethos is anathema to anyone with a shred of integrity.
DEMOCRACY - British style - embodies both 'MOCK and CRASS'. The young know they are mocked, and are still aware that our politicians are crass.
They will atrophy in time, Mammon will see to that, but for now: HURRAH!

I find it interesting that not one of the people who will vote on this issue had to pay ANY tuition fees when they went to university! all the arguments they put forward as justification could equally be applied retrospectively to their generation of graduates.

It is also ironic that cameron, clegg, osborne et al, went to schools who charge over £20000 a year before they took up their free university education!

INVOKE THE CLEGG PROTOCOL! (#5)

A great idea Dorset Lad. Can we get Archer, Blair et al in the net?

Nick'll fix it for us after all!

There are plenty of things that stink about the tuition fees vote. Other people have pointed out the irony of ex public school boys who received free university education applying debt servitude to the young. And if we're all in this together, how come old people's benefits (winter fuel allowance, etc) are untouched but a disproportionate burden is placed on the young? Then we have the spectacle of free university education for Scottish students and non-English EU students at Scottish universities, while their English fellow subjects get £9,000 in fees and a graduate tax.

Good, hopefully university fees will be the catalyst to get young people used to making their voices heard on a whole range of issues that will affect them. Politics is a two way process, on the one hand lobbying by vested interests, on the other pressure by 'the public'. It has become increasingly clear that the public 'voice' has become muted over the last 20 years and politicians are only influenced by one side of the argument. People need to stand up and make sure their side of the argument is not just ignored out of hand. No-one in power wants to provide decent living standards, affordable housing, secure retirements, not when there is a profit to be made. Those making the profit are the only ones the political class has to bother listening too. Things will never get any better unless the politicians start representing the voters over the lobbyists, and that won't happen until people learn how to make their voices heard.
As an example take 'affordable' housing. The idea as it was sold to us was that it would enable even the lowest paid people to get on the property ladder and have a real stake in their own futures. Sounds great. The reality is it was just a ruse to create a 'market' in housing so the banks could make a massive profit, people have been side-lined, turned into 'winners and losers'. Successive governments have sat back and allowed this situation to develop and now no-one can afford to live anywhere.
Should people just say 'Hey I don't mind spending my whole life living in one room of a rented house, me and my partner sleeping in the bed, the kids on mattresses on the floor' or should they stand up and demand the affordable housing they were promised all those years ago? I think the penny is dropping, politicians don't put the public first by default, they will always sell you out to the highest bidder, you are just a commodity, a sponge to be squeezed dry, you don't matter to them.

1)half a million students go into the uni system

2)50% of them are girls

3) they are "creditworthy" for say £30K of debt

4) the girls at least will most likely have children, and interupt their working life.

5) Maybe half £1,500,0000,000 of debt is NEVER going to perform

6) This is financial nonsense, we have all the non performing debt a state ever needs

supersnaps, not sure about some of your presumptions there, BUT the whole policy of building up future debt has been shown to be unsustainable at both a state and individual level, yet this government (like the last) seems determined to persist.
As you say, At some point all this debt has to be paid off, as ireland has shown, we cant rely on absurdly high house prices to deceive the public into thinking house equity in this country makes us rich, no one can roll up debt forever.

DEBT RAISED TO PAR WITH AIR FOOD AND WATER - THE END OF AN AGE?

When I was growing up, debt was feared and despised. People actually died in consequence. It was harsh, but now I see what they intuitively held a bay.

We have the crass spectacle of government arguing the FINER POINTS OF IT, having accepted debt as being as natural as 'formula milk'. (Mother is long gone.)

How biblically damning.

you could taste the rage in Westminster today, the nations youth showing what these old men really are....good on 'em...voting doesn't cut it anymore....

"A thought in passing: this is a proposal that negatively affects individuals who have no vote (children), to the benefit of the adult electorate (ie current tax-payers & tax-avoiders). Should we be surprised at their reaction?"

So a bit like not adjusting retirement age in line with life-expectancy, and then bolting on defined benefit pensions.

"how come old people's benefits (winter fuel allowance, etc) are untouched but a disproportionate burden is placed on the young? "

Because the government know that the older generation are utterly selfish and will always vote in their own interest.

"Successive governments have sat back and allowed this situation to develop and now no-one can afford to live anywhere."

Prior generations have successively voted for policies that pool wealth in housing because they are dumb +and+ greedy. The average age of the first-time buyer goes up and up. Pull the ladder up boomers!

13

but mob rule does? the somalia model is not that attractive. its not even rational.

AT LEAST THEY SEEMED TO HAVE STOPPED SAYING: "YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWER IN THE BALLOT BOX" (#15)

Manifestly untrue this time round.

I want an ABSTAIN square on my voting slip - my dismissive MP told me I could spoil my paper.

Perhaps we should have a COALITION square?