Students And Ukip. Unknown Factors.

[scooping]

Tories bound to benefit from former UKIP votes but already this morning it appears students might be turning out in force to vote Labour to get debt-free education. Interesting juxtaposition.

[Guilbert53]

Well of course if you are in opposition you can promise all sorts of things to people without caring how you are going to pay for it.

This has been Corbyn's main approach.

No tuition fees, more for the NHS, more police, more houses, etc etc

He does seem to care that the country is one and a half trillion ponds in debt (and will probably be even more in debt if he gets in power for 5 years).

Hopefully there are enough people to see through his "give away" promises to keep him out of power.

[youngmafbog]

Nothing like a freebie to get a student out of bed!

You do wonder though, free education it may be in the immediate future but paid for by much higher taxes during their life. Do some students ever think past the end of their nose?

[naomi24]

Those students might, just might, get their free education, but when Jeremy alienates businesses, at the end of their courses they’ll be fighting for jobs.

[youngmafbog]

Yes, I remember the mid to late 70's after Wilson and Callaghan had finished. Even if you managed to find a job you were often pushed into a 'closed shop' union.

[AB Editor]

Difficult to predict.

If students are out in the MORNING then we can expect a much higher turnout for the youth vote!

You're right that the Tories will benefit from UKIP's redundancy.

But I think that you will find a fair few trying Labour out. After all, they're the ones promising to nationalise things, and it is those policies that Ukippers cite the most often when you get past the "grey suits of Brussels" arguments (re-nationalisation of railways for example, protection of industries etc).

And that sounds like a Corbyn vote?

As you say, many unknown factors.

[youngmafbog]

UKIP votes will go both ways, most likely back to the party they came from in most cases I would have thought.

[Old_Geezer]

Well there has been a large risqué advertising series on TV trying to get the inexperience to notice and use their vote; so that might account for any larger than normally expected turn out by them.

[Gromit]

Well done Cameron/Clegg.

The Student Loan Scheme has been a huge success...

// Student loan debt rose £12.6bn, or 17 per cent, to £86.2bn in the past year //

// About 70 per cent of students who left university last year are expected never to finish repaying their loans, according to modelling carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Instead they will have to make repayments for 30 years before then having the unpaid loan written off. //

https://www.ft.com/content/55f4a6f6-3eab-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a

[jim360]

"Do some students ever think past the end of their nose?"

Well, for what little it's worth, I never supported a party because of tuition fee promises. I'm saddled with a mountain of debt but I'd like to think that I have something to show for it at the end, and so far haven't had to pay a penny of it back anyway.

One thing worth pointing out is that tuition fees have gone hand-in-hand with increased student attendance at universities. If you think that's a good thing then it seems that tuition fees have worked; if you'd rather fewer people went to university then perhaps it's actually better that we lose tuition fees and fund university some other way -- as long as it's not a privilege of the wealthy, of course.

[naomi24]

Gromit, //Well done Cameron/Clegg. //

//Jeremy Corbyn has apologised on behalf of the Labour party for its introduction of tuition fees in 1998.//

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-apologises-to-young-people-for-labours-introduction-of-tuition-fees-10391434.html

[Zacs-Master]

One major factor in the increase in university attendance is the fact that to gain meaningful employment, just about every company /business asks for degree qualifications. Even Nurses, which is quite ridiculous.

[Old_Geezer]

I have what I think is a good idea for funding. Why not give grants to the most intellectual percentage, and tell the rest that they aren't in the top group, should not look upon university as a right to enjoy a few years, and should not be removed from the unemployed count after all ? That way everyone gains. The country educates to greater than the standard secondary level only those who can use the education, the others get to look for paid employment years earlier they they otherwise would thus giving them a few extra years to found a decent career path and save for the things needed in life, and there should be spaces freed up to charge foreign students thus beginning in income and giving them the skills their country needs. Win/win/win/win

[vetuste_ennemi]

// get debt-free education//

I struggle with the "education" bit. Cui bono?

Why should tax-payers pay for somebobd with an IQ of 102 to do, well anything?

pay for idiors

[Old_Geezer]

The issue there is that when a qualification is commonplace it becomes a necessity not an extra. If one didn't try to bring everyone up to whatever degree level is nowadays then employers would not ask for it. And in addition is job descriptions didn't change but stuck to the basic skills that were always needed then tending to folk would not need degrees.

[Khandro]

OG, How do you propose the evaluation of their intellects?

[mikey4444]

Scooping...I wouldn't be so sure about all the UKIP votes returning to the Tories. In my own constituency of Gower, an awful lot came from Labour in 2015.

I wouldn't have thought that it was possible, that people who had voted for Labour all their lives, would then transfer their vote to a right-wing Party like UKIP.

We live in strange times !

[vetuste_ennemi]

Today's "Education" is deferred adulthood. - at a massive expense to today's tax-payer,

And these brats have got a vote.

[naomi24]

mikey, //I wouldn't have thought that it was possible, that people who had voted for Labour all their lives, would then transfer their vote to a right-wing Party like UKIP. //

Why not? They wanted 'out' of Europe - something that Labour wasn't planning to offer them.

[scooping]

Mikey4444: Didn't say all UKIP votes would go to the Tories but I bet a majority do.

[Kromovaracun]

Plenty of ex-Labour voters went to UKIP as people felt the party had abandoned its base in favour of metropolitan liberals.

Not completely fair imho, but it's also got more than a grain of truth.

Most of those people, it seems to me, will have swung to the Conservatives but it won't be them that swings the election - UKIP support was always substantial as a sheer number but was thinly spread across the country, which is a death sentence in the UK's dumb voting system.

Historically speaking, the two most powerful influences on UK elections are the Murdoch-owned press which are rabidly pro-Tory and the grey vote which will probably stick with the Tories albeit with less enthusiasm than before. If Labour does manage to really significantly increase turnout, it would mean a fundamental change in the voting pattern which has dominated my lifetime. Not impossible by any means, but unlikely.