October 2011 Archives

So let me get this right - the Government tells universities that they can charge a maximum of £9,000 a year for courses.

This, it was implied, was not for every course at every university but would obviously only apply to the best oversubscribed, popular courses at the best universities.

The results? It's £9,000 a pop everywhere for everything from physics in the lofty spires of Oxbridge to plastering at the University of Central Nowhere housed in a former MFI depot in an industrial estate in some town you have never heard of.

Now university applications are down by the highest level in history. Sure that could have nothing to do with the prospect of ending up £50,000 in debt at the end of a three year course.

That goes up to near enough £70,000 if the would-be graduate has to spend a year on a foundation course to get up to academic speed before he or she can even start the formal degree course.

So you leave with debts for years to come, no chance of a mortgage or large loan and no guarantee of a job with often no prospect of a better job that if you had never gone to university in the first place.

I suspect the biggest group shunning the chance of a university education are from the middle classes - the people who seem to pay and get screwed for everything by every Government that gets to the top of the grubby, greasy pole.

They don't get grants or handouts and they are not wealthy enough to pay without noticing, nor, as does happen, can they put the fees through the company accounts.

Half the degrees handed out are worthless while half the people in universities would be better off elsewhere in apprenticeships or training courses which would lead to real jobs.

Instead Labour's loony scheme that everyone and his dog should go to university, further education for all, end of elitism and all the usual sounbite cobblers, looks like it is going to end up with academia full of the wealthy with a few token poor people to warm the cockles of a politicians' spin doctor.

Nice one lads

Is it just me or does anyone else real uneasy at the way mob rule and lynching parties have become acceptable in international diplomacy?

Saddam Hussein was a best mate of the West until Gulf War 1. His treatment and trial were hardly stunning examples of upholding human rights and his execution was a circus. It only needed a few old biddies knitting and smoking pipes on the front row to be complete but in the light of later events this was a pinnacle of jurisprudence.

I suspect the chances of Osama Bin Laden needing his Miranda rights read to him were nil to non-existent. It was never intended to be a dawn raid to arrest him to appear before the local magistrates the next morning. He was a dead man as soon as the operation started.

Next up, or down as it happens, is Col Gaddafi, who remember until the people rebelled was still one of Tony Blair's best mates in the Middle East. His fate and that of his son appear to have been summary execution. After been paraded through the streets Gaddafi's body is now on display like a Victorian freak show in a handy meat store for groups to be allowed in to take pictures with their mobile phones

Now I fly no banner for Bin Laden or Gaddafi but if in the case of one you want to be seen as the world's policeman and claim to be the defender of freedom and in the other you are claiming to be a viable, responsible Government then somewhere along the line the rule of law, a code of decency and the upholding or rights comes into play - otherwise you are no better than those you are overthrowing and dancing in the streets in East London.

As for the British Press - it is another tasteless Gotcha! moment. Mob rule and the summary execution of a tyrant and his son by those who supposedly seek to govern is hardly a cause for celebration.

Where does it stop? Who else is going to be executed without trial? Justice should be blind with everyone, even the most evil, treated equally.

Sod's Law - tonight London Midland were on time.

Just as a matter of interest has anyone ever caught London Midland's 18.28 cross city service from Four Oaks to Birmingham New Street when it has actually been on time?

The current standard excuse from the tell 'em something Tannoy handbook is a delay caused by a slow running proceeding train.

We have also had delay caused by "an accident to a level crossing" although I am at a loss to think of where such a crossing might be on that line, a delay caused by "weather conditions" - it was drizzling - and next week we have a special autumn leaves timetable coming into force which should produce a whole raft of new explanations as to why the 18.28 is late.

Last night, incidentally, the 18.28 eventually came at 18.37 and, lo and behold, according to the illuminated sign, the 18.37 was still on time!

Is it just me or does the whole future of mankind, at least as far as the West Midlands is concerned, really depend upon businessmen being able to get to London by train 20 minutes earlier?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of progress, but there is so much cobblers spouted about this here high speed rail line it makes your eyes water.

For a start £32 billion, once the Government gets involved, means loads of consultants, delivery authorities and all the other pensionable hangers on, and all at a cost that will be at least 50 per cent up on whatever figure they first think of. The chances are it will also be built by foreign companies who will be given tax breaks and Government grants.

Now remember our rail companies are privatised, extremely profitable and answerable only to shareholders so the last thing they want is passengers to mess up the books so the peasants, that's me and you, will be priced out of all those HS2 away days.

Much better to get one passenger paying £200 a pop rather then ten at £20. It means less wear and tear, less coaches, less fuel, less staff and more profit and probably, the way the rail companies seem to have the Government by the short and curlies, much more subsidy.

If it is that important that our captains of industry get to London 20 minutes earlier then perhaps we could issue them all with instructions on how to reset their alarm clocks so they can catch an earlier train. It would save us all an awful lot of money.

So MPs screw the taxpayer out of millions with expense claims that would not have lasted as long as it took the ink on the claim forms to dry in the real world and of public inquiries we hear not a jot.

A newspaper group which has been courted so much by politicians they all appear to have badly sunburned noses goes in for phone hacking on an industrial scale and the police make such a botch of the investigation it is tantamount to gross negligence.

David Cameron's first reaction, apart from claiming Andy Coulson is such a good chap he is probably related to Mother Teresa, is to order a public inquiry which is in danger of becoming a witch hunt into journalism.

Phone hacking is illegal. It is a crime. The police did not do their job. They have been forced into finally doing so by . . . other journalists. End of story.

The only people who benefit from any form of media regulation are politicians, the rich and the famous, who, strangely, are the only ones who it seems want to see the Press muzzled. Do you honestly think the MPs expenses scandal would have come to light in a regulated Press?

The whole Leveson Inquiry, stacked out with the great and good who have no idea how newspapers or journalism works, looks like an act of petty revenge - and an attempt by the Prime Minister to deflect attention from his rather too cosy relationship with Murdoch and his lieutenants.

There are thousands of journalists around the country, in what is a poorly paid profession, who do an honest job holding councils, corporations, hospitals and those in positions of power and influence to account. Regulation in journalism is state censorship and people should remember that - while they still can.

It's a disgrace but no real surprise to find hospitals don't give a monkey's about the elderly. The elderly are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to anything to do with the state.

We have some of the worst state pension payments in the civilised world and the last Government even managed to turn what was one of the best private pension regimes around into a basket case struggling to survive.

We compel people who have worked and paid taxes and national insurance all their lives to sell their homes, often the inheritance they thought they had built up for their children, to pay for care when they are incapable of looking after themselves. The decision is made at point in their lives when they have little choice and often have no idea what is happening.

The Government will no doubt jump up and down, they are good at that, and I am sure there will be lessons to be learned, there always are, but little will change and the best this lot have come up with is some loony idea of a £20,000 one off payment or something like that when you retire to cover any care bills.

No money back if you die in bed at your home the next day mind. It just shows how out of touch with real people politicians are - people in their world probably always retire with £20,000 in loose change.

The state just does not care. The old and infirm might have paid their way in the past but are now a cost to be cut wherever possible.

One day politicians might wake up to realise that OAPs still have a vote.

Maybe I missed it but I can't remember spotting Kenny Dalglish moaning about ref's being unfair to Liverpool this week. Strange that.

Just watched the red card for Jack Rodwell in the biannual Merseyside bunfight. It is brilliant. If Martin Atkinson referees until he is 90 he will never get another decision as wrong as that one.

Was he sending a text? Polishing his whistle? Winding his watch or something when it happened? He surely can't have seen it.

As for Luis Suarez . . . he was just magnificent. Robert de Niro, Olivier, Gielgud - any actor you care to mention - could not have made any more of that challenge even if they had been afforded 20 takes and a whole team to create the special effects. It has Oscar winner written all over it.

With just the merest whisper of a touch - and that is being kind - he was up in the air, leg broken, life hanging by a thread, career shattered - a man facing life in a wheelchair crushed by the cruelest turn of fate.

Still it is amazing what a limp to the touchline can do - with the healing effects of a red card for an opponent of course - and there he was, up off his sickbed in seconds.

I can remember a few centre halves of yesteryear who would have appreciated that sort of behaviour in an opponent, appreciated it probably in the very next tackle. With luck the Uruguayan international might have been out of casualty by Christmas - and the referee would not have seen a thing.

Just watched the red card for Jack Rodwell in the biannual Merseyside bunfight. It is brilliant. If Martin Atkinson referees until he is 90 he will never get another decision as wrong as that one.

Was he sending a text? Polishing his whistle? Winding his watch or something when it happened? He surely can't have seen it.

As for Luis Suarez . . . he was just magnificent. Robert de Niro, Olivier, Gielgud - any actor you care to mention - could not have made any more of that challenge even if they had been afforded 20 takes and a whole team to create the special effects. It has Oscar winner written all over it.

With just the merest whisper of a touch - and that is being kind - he was up in the air, leg broken, life hanging by a thread, career shattered - a man facing life in a wheelchair crushed by the cruelest turn of fate.

Still it is amazing what a limp to the touchline can do - with the healing effects of a red card for an opponent of course - and there he was, up off his sickbed in seconds.

I can remember a few centre halves of yesteryear who would have appreciated that sort of behaviour in an opponent, appreciated it probably in the very next tackle. With luck the Uruguayan international might have been out of casualty by Christmas - and the referee would not have seen a thing.