Glen O'Hara

Upcoming : New Labour, New Britain? How the Blair governments reshaped the country | York St John University View our Events at YSJ

Are you in York tomorrow night? Or could you be? Come along to @yorkstjohn.bsky.social at 6.30pm, where I'll be talking about and discussing my new book on the Blair governments... It'll be great! More details below. 👇
www.yorksj.ac.uk/events/upcom...

Colin Murphy: British Labour’s descent to by-election humiliation started with Tony Blair’s landslide As Keir Starmer’s Labour hits a humiliating new low, coming third in a by-election for what had previously been a safe seat, there is a clear point of origin for the decline of Labour — Tony Blair.

More great coverage of my new book on the Blair years, this time in the Irish Independent! Lots of coverage in Ireland, and I'll be doing more coverage there this week. Reflective, thoughtful. www.independent.ie/opinion/anal...

This will be a fantastic discussion 👏👏👏

Never in doubt mate, never in doubt. 😱💀

Come on Arsenal!

Cos that leads (as at Dundee) to financial disaster cos govt will never stump up and the unit of resource is much lower. The Scottish unis are even more at risk of crisis than the Eng ones. Also, as in Scotland as a whole a v unprogressive numbers cap that stops many Scots going to uni.

I am sick, so sick of trying to introduce reason, detail, order and actual analysis into talk about Higher Ed - now dominated by total BS, lurid fiction and, let's face it, lies. This is my view right now, I'm off to enjoy it, do what you want.

We were teaching in-person during semi-lockdowns with five students with coats on in a windy classroom in winter with all the windows open in every direction while almost everything else was at home! I drove in on empty post-apocalyptic roads with policemen gesturing at me like 'what are you up to?'

Yes they did, ours got all the readings scanned in and their seminar sizes cut into threes so they got a far better student/ staff ratio! Yes it was on Zoom, but we were *made* *by law* to do that.

But you don't pay for your degree, you pay for the uni to be funded. It's a fundamental difference. Otherwise English would cost £7k and Chemistry £15k. I agree with you that it shouldn't be talked about as a product, and that's what I'm saying, I'm agreeing with you!

Tories vow cuts to student loan interest repayments Kemi Badenoch says graduates feel 'stitched up' as she promises to cut Plan 2 loan interest charges.

It doesn't help that the Labour and press reaction (to the extent they understand loans at all) counter with 'but unis could close'. Yes, maybe, but that's not the main flaw! The flaws are much more fundamental. Arrrggghhh. 💀😱 (2/2) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Laura Trott cannot be allowed to wreck the student loans system by pulling planks out like Jenga. These plans wouldn't save any money to help grads! Because you'd be cutting numbers on Plan 5, not Plan 2, and Plan 5 doesn't 'lose money' like she thinks. Tories have complely + utterly lost it. (1/2)

It's a total nightmare isn't it, I am sorry and I wouldn't have designed it like this. But this is also why in some many ways it's not a fee: because it's *designed* to never be paid off and therefore act like a tax. I'm sorry tho, the gross sum must look demoralising.

But I agree with you? 🤷‍♂️

Sure, but you cannot cut Plan 5 numbers to pay for that, they break even so there's no money there to save. Indeed if you cut numbers there I think you'd lose money and raise the interest rate.

This seeks unnecessary, I've long been a huge critic of the student loans system, why have you turned up to swear at ppl like this?

You can do anything you like if you pay for it. But they believe cutting New Plan numbers will pay for better terms on Plan 2. Since there's v little or no subsidy on Plan 5 from govt, there *is no money there* to pay for this.

Tory policy on student loans DOA and gone already in my mind. Yet the coverage still talking like it's a goer. What on earth is going on in this country?

Because you can't save money by cutting student numbers on the new plan, it attracts v low, zero or negative govt subsidy. It's DOA as a policy.

It's not a product. It's education. And £3k fees on easy terms as a top-up to state funding is vv different to a £10k replacement of all state funding on harsh terms. Also, Blair kept a numbers planning system in place, he didn't let the whole thing fall apart in a winner-takes-all disaster.

Tories vow cuts to student loan interest repayments Kemi Badenoch says graduates feel 'stitched up' as she promises to cut Plan 2 loan interest charges.

The fact this ridiculous 'policy', which *cannot* ever take effect, has not been laughed out of court already... well, it just shows the fecklessness and ignorance of our policymaking communities and of the coverage. I'd be embarrassed to even draw this on a Post-It.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The point is (1) that the govt can show credits - student debt - matching debits (up-front uni funding) on its balance sheet. Also (2) the point or not point of uni is 0% to do with how much you earn later.

The new plan loans, that is, over 40yrs.

The loans break even now, so on any accounting basis restricting their number doesn't save any govt any money.

Thank God I'm old. ☹️

A contract is with the uni, but they do not pay to it.

Thank God I'm old then.

Unis do *not* charge the student, a govt quango does then DfE releases the tranches of money in lump sums. These are *not* traditional 'fees', they are a funding stream completely managed by the WM govt in Whitehall. Otherwise why do they have int rate tax bands in them and why can't u pay up front?

But that's barmy, that would raise the interest rate on the loans by restricting new entrants and reducing cross-subsidy!

Plan 2 is 30 years tho, that's a long long time and you'll v likely pass the Plan 2 threshold v easily early on, esp in that generation (ppl maybe about 30yo now).