Tomorrow, our MPs will have the opportunity to vote in an Opposition Day debate on government plans for a badger cull. It is almost unheard of for the government to lose an opposition day motion, the last one being on settlement rights for veteran Gurkhas in 2009 – the first time since 1978. I have it on good authority that our parliamentary party has made up its mind that badgers are to be culled in the UK.
I would like to make a few things clear before I get into the meat of this post. Firstly, I’m not an ‘animal lover’ …
The Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists (ALDES) organises a fringe event at each conference. Our fringe event this Spring is entitled ‘The UK Space Industry: An Unsung Success Story’ – a topic very close to my heart, as an engineer designing space missions out of an office in Hertfordshire. Yes, ladies and gents, the UK ‘does space’. And what a lot of people don’t realise is, we do it very, very well.
The UK space industry has bucked the national trend and has seen impressive growth during the recession. Areas such as satellite broadcast, communications, equipment and support services …
There is a real danger that many prospective students will be put off from going to university due to the confusion, half-truths and lies, often left unchallenged, relating to the new system of university funding and graduate contributions.
A bright light which breaks through the fog can be found over at MoneySavingExpert.com, where Martin Lewis pares things back to the bare facts. His Student Loans Guide 2012 makes the following key points:
Existing students stay on the old system of loans
Students don’t pay anything up front
Graduates will pay back £540 per year less than they do under the current system – graduates will have more money in their pocket each month
Graduates who earn less than £21,000 don’t pay back anything
Graduates will owe more and be in debt longer but this debt will not affect credit ratings
People shouldn’t think of the new system as a loan but as a graduate tax
The rules may be different for students in Scotland and Wales
Most people will never pay back all of this debt as the debt is wiped out after 30 years
A graduate tax: the very thing that the NUS has been calling for. It is a crying shame that the NUS has decided to be political over the new changes rather than do the right thing by the people it professes to represent.
I would be extremely disappointed if there is a single person put off going to university due to the spin put on the changes by the NUS. Let’s hope that as many prospective students as possible find their way to MoneySavingExpert.com where they can actually get some honest expert advice on what to expect when they take up their courses in 2012.
Editor’s note: You can also watch a video of Martin Lewis explaining student funding from 2012 on YouTube:
Nigel Jones In North Staffordshire we have a proposed boundary between North and South which makes no community sense. It retains a dividing line in Newcastle-under-Lyme wh...
Andy Daer I expect a more believable theory would suggest that modern Israeli Jews are trying to expunge the memory of apparently docile European Jews being annihilated b...
Mick Taylor I think there is a real problem with NEETs. When I was young, and indeed when my children were, we were prepared to take any job that paid money whilst continui...
David Le Grice I missed out that I'm referring to her statement in parliament about the postponement of the 2025 county elections....
David Le Grice I'm not sure that the reappointment of Angela Rayner is necessarily cause for hope. It became clear during her statement and answers to MPs questions that she h...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The hidden history of Euston, a lost canal and Cumberland Market
Liverpool Labour's lack of ambition over the Commonwealth and Europe
First Clacton by-election opinion poll released
The funding fog surrounding Nigel Farage and Reform UK
Nigel Jones 
Andy Daer 
Mick Taylor 
David Le Grice 