UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Kaufman was an interesting (and to be blunt often contradictory) figure. One of the last links to the first Wilson government. But look forward to obits full of a whole range of euphemisms.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

and claimed tons for velvet curtains or something.

He made a whole bunch of bizarre expenses claims, including for an antique rug, expensive grapefruit bowls and (rofl) an eight thousand quid TV (the latter claim was not approved). He blamed OCD.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Remember also that it is not easy to actually call a snap election now; messy parliamentary manoeuvring is required.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

UKIP has done its job now... it has gotten us out of the EU.

I think that's to confuse UKIP with Conservative backbenchers tbh...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Good luck holding Clacton on a libertarian platform lmao.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A miserable compromise that makes no sense on its own logic - i.e. he has been found guilty on all counts and yet is not being treated as almost any other member would be - and which pleases absolutely no one. Apparently the aim of the game is to kick the can down the road enough times until he finally dies of alcohol poisoning.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Emergency NEC meeting called to assess the situation.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And the "Corbyn true believers" are actually less supportive of and loyal to Labour than the Labour base at large.

Haha, yes, that's the funniest part about the whole situation. Really cranks the weirdness factor up...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

hahahahahahahaha

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Note for people who aren't British: the tuition fees aren't really fees exactly and the 'debt' that results isn't technically debt.* Essentially it is a deferred tax that goes by another name - which incidentally is why charging commercial rates of interest is totally unjustifiable - and you only start paying back once you earn over a certain amount of taxable income. To a significant extent it is a Potemkin system; it is widely anticipated that a very high proportion of the 'debt' due from students will never be collected. Essentially it is surreal and Kafkaesque in a low key way rather than eye-poppingly horrific. I actually don't approve of people - whether journalist or NUS hacks - trying to pretend it is the latter because doing so doesn't actually help...

_{*Rather nastily this fact isn't pointed out to students themselves.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Additional strange (and not very pleasant actually) detail: the 'Student Loans Company' (the state corporation that oversees the entire tottering edifice) is based in Glasgow. I.e. the people who send out nasty letters (which are usually phrased in a misleading style implying that i.e. it is real debt that you SCUM have not paid back WHY NOT) to graduates have mostly not had to pay into the system themselves/neither have their children.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And as someone who knows people who work at the SLC there is no joy nor revelling in irony on their part. And Scottish students still take out loams that they pay back through SLC. And I'm still paying back after 10 years as is my friend who works there

Oh for sure (I'm guessing that isn't a particularly pleasant place to work at either), but it really does add to the sense of surreal unpleasantness; like there's a joke somewhere and you're probably the punchline.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As an interesting aside, the expected level of default on student loans in the UK is such that, as things stand, it was only just worth raising the fees from £3k. Of course, you wander if the government isnt being ever so slightly optimistic with its estimates in order to hide the fact that the new fee systdm will be a net loss.

Basically they went All In with the new system because David Cameron always thought that David Willetts was a frightfully clever chap who knew what he was doing. Alas.

Actually already it isn't working out as Willetts intended; his intention was to create a competitive market in university admissions (with different universities offering widely different ranges of fees) and he really did seem to believe that it would happen, forgetting that for a university to charge less than £9k would be an admission of inferiority and that if there's one thing universities will never do...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To bore most people to death, I've heard (although it sounded like Hearsay) that your student loan can be used in relation to getting a mortgage, and that banks can hold it against you when deciding.

They can now be included in mortgage affordability calculations (the justification being that it counts as a committed expenditure; it was one of a bundle of changes pushed through recently to tighten up lending) but it does not have any affect on your credit rating. Mind you, for most people under 35 or so the idea of 'getting a mortgage' is turning in to quite the fantasy...