Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2 3

News

Lib Dem policy debate thread

57 replies

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 20:59

So we've had best/worst tory/Labour threads, and I thought I'd fill the obvious gap for 2 reasons: firstly i'm seriously thinking of voting Lib Dem, and secondly because it occurred to me that the reason so many people scored well for the lib dems on this thread is because their policies are not debated as much as those of the other parties.

So anyway:

local income tax - good idea. in fact it was my idea.

50% tax band over 100k - good idea

free personal care for elderly - good idea, but I'm really not sure we should spend 1.7 billion on it. personal care is already free to those who have no money.

abolishing university fees - ditto. perhaps they should cut them though.

abolishing the DTI - really not sure on this. The dti does all kinds of dodgy stuff which should be abolished but not sure the whole dept should go.

what do you think? sophable, where are you?

OP posts:

Report

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 21:02

I am actually in FAVOUR of university fees ... Have you MET any graduates lately? EVERYONE is going to university!

(I know I sound like a Tory but I have just had a young relative over who has just got a 2:1 and yet is the most stupid person I've ever met... Dearie me she can barely even string a sentence together in between sips of her Barcardi Breezers.)

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 21:10

It's true that lots of people have degrees now, but that's a good thing isn't it? Mediochre middle class students have been going to university for centuries - now it's everyone else's turn in a lot of ways. The vast majority of graduates still get a graduate level job eventually.

I object to fees because those on mid-low incomes may be put off. But at the same time free university subsidises the well off. Hence a reduction in fees might be good. Or a graduate tax - I'd be all in favour of that. then those who make a lot of money out of their course (lawyers, business students) will pay more than those who don't (teachers etc).

OP posts:

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 21:10

(See SP, they all BANG ON about how they're voting for the LibDems, but they are only doing it because they can't REALLY decide between the two MAIN parties and because they feel a bit sorry for Charles Kennedy...)

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 21:12

sophable will be here soon, I know she will.

OP posts:

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 21:13

She's just seeing to Donald at the moment ...

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 21:13

... drums fingers ...

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 21:13

I've got to go and feed the hedgehogs in my garden, I will be back shortly.

JanH · 02/05/2005 21:18

Although I am more of a LD than anything else, I would be happier if they were talking about putting more money into vocational ed rather than higher. And I think that elderly people who have the means should pay for their own personal care rather than us paying for it and their kids inheriting their entire estate. And I have no idea what the DTI actually does now the unions have been so emasculated.

Actually I will vote for the first party which realises how much we are being screwed by rich divorced couples with kids over 16 and changes the rules!

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 21:25

JanH - I agree. Have no idea what you're going on about with the rich divorced couples though (are we talking fee waiver loopholes?)

Mind you, I really like the lib dem "no ID cards and spend the money on other stuff instead" policy, and also the one about putting the new baby bond thing into smaller infant class sizes.

OP posts:

JanH · 02/05/2005 21:42

Rich divorced couples explanation for you, SP: when parents are divorced (or even just legally separated I think) and the child lives with the mother, only the mother's actual income is considered for EMA (the allowance for over-16s in further ed) or for tuition/student loan, even if the father is loaded and the mother is remarried to somebody equally loaded.

EMA is up to £30 a week, with a hefty lump sum bonus, for staying in education. We are skint but DH earns too much for DS1 to get it; we know some wealthy families whose kids do get it. Makes me spit.

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 21:45

right. I knew that about university fees - used to be the same for grants. It's not right.

OP posts:

JanH · 02/05/2005 21:46

EMA .

We know a local family where both the ex-husband and the stepfather are millionaires but the 16-yr-old gets £30 a week EMA. It's not meant for them but they have accountants and they are legally entitled so they take it.

JoolsToo · 02/05/2005 21:47

mp - your first post

Now if 'I'd' said that!

JoolsToo · 02/05/2005 21:48

votes for prisoners? - I don't think so!

ladymuck · 02/05/2005 21:50

Not convinced that the 50% tax on income will raise nearly as much as they think it will, but that has been debated before here.

Abolishing the DTI - they can cut some of the DTI activities, but some will have to remain (eg managing the licenses for the North Sea oil fields). All it means is that you make other departments bigger.

Personally I also disagree with their policy to make parental smacking illegal. And I have concerns about their policy on compulsary sex education for KS2.

JanH · 02/05/2005 21:51

KS2 already get sex ed!

JanH · 02/05/2005 21:51

Or do they want to withdraw it?

ladymuck · 02/05/2005 21:58

Apparently only in National Curriculum from KS3. Also there is currently a parental right to withdraw a child from the lssons. Libdems will start compulsary sex ed from 7 and parents will have no right to withdraw their child.

SenoraPostrophe · 02/05/2005 21:59

janh - I think they do but it's not compulsory. squeamish teachers/schools can opt out (as my school did - a long time ago i know but I don't think it's changed).

OP posts:

OldieMum · 02/05/2005 22:00

I am going to vote Lib Dem, because of their stance on the War, their opposition to the Government's attacks on civil liberties and their readiness to be honest about the need for tax increases to pay for better social programmes. But I disagree with their policy on tuition fees (I am a university lecturer). It's dishonest of them to argue that paying out of taxation for students to go to university is an egalitarian policy. Most of the increase in student numbers is accounted for by an increase in the proportion of middle-class students going to uni. The proportion of working-class people going to uni is still very small. Graduates earn substantially more than non-graduates, on the whole, and I don't see why people on low incomes should pay for them get this benefit.

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 22:06

I agree with JanH re. the elderly getting free care and then kids inheriting their estate.

It would make more sense to say that the elderly get free care but then massively increase inheritance tax.

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 22:07

If I have learnt anything from sex education, it's that using withdrawal is always unwise.

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

JanH · 02/05/2005 22:10

The "sex" ed my kids have had in KS2 has been mostly "reproduction ed" - DS2 is in Y7 now but I just asked him about the sex ed he had in Y6, he said what he found useful was mostly about puberty and he was glad he had it. And none of the kids was withdrawn. I don't know if all schools use the same media/text for sex ed though.

morningpaper · 02/05/2005 22:13

(OT: I told my 2 year-old daughter this morning that I saw two hedgehogs in the garden which might mean that there would be some baby hedgehogs soon, and she said "Daddy! Mummy saw naked hedgehogs in the garden!!!"

hmmmm!)

JanH · 02/05/2005 22:15

Presumably they hung their prickles in the hedge, mp. Bless!

Flip

1 2 3

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.