Miriam Cates under investigation

Interesting you raise China.
A country where boys are valued more highly than girls so the birthrate is somewhat uneven.

Not sure I understand. I was responding to jgw's suggestion that MPs should not remain within a party if they did not agree with each and every policy.

Cates will have her views, as will her colleagues. They will arrive at a party policy. You then have an opposition who will similarly share a variety of views, albeit to the left but aim to have a coherent and united policy go offer as an alternative.

I am glad that Cates is raising women's issues. A lot of men, from both sides of the house, don't get why they are important. I amsure that I would disagree with her on other issues.

The treatment of huge numbers of young people, that will impact them and society for decades, is not a minor difference of policy.

Rumour has it, the Tories are looking to help young people onto the housing ladder, a noble aim, yet it is their policies that have wrecked the housing and rental markets, not least because of the amount of debt the young & successful now have to pay back, that and Truss of course.

😂

Fear not, I am assured that it is perfectly possible for members of a political party to attend events where they do not support the views of others attending the event.
I guess this also applies to But Jeremy Corbyn when he attends an event also attended by members of a terrorist organisation?

And you believe that intelligent ambitious people go into politics because they want to toe a party line in its entirety. That people do not want to use the diversity of their experience to lobby, within and sometimes without of their party for issues that are important to them.

Beginning to sound a lot like China.

So it's your belief that every member of every party supports every single policy that their party has ever supported. Fine. Go ahead and believe that. Just don't expect intelligent people to waste their time trying to explain to you why this is utter nonsense.

Higher education faces a massive funding challenge as I am sure you well know.
The fees that universities can charge to home students has not risen since 2017, and then only a small amount from their 2012 level.
The government through its actions has hugely increased the costs that universities face, so universities are left with little choice but to find alternative sources of income, to subsidise UK students. Be that overseas fees income - although there is little evidence of an increase in their numbers at present, more short courses with high charges - happening, and revenue from non-teaching activities such as accomodation.

It is strange that someone such as Cates who is apparently so concerned about student debt hasn't spoken more on the subject.

It is therefore odd that she is prepared to support a government that put in place the system that ensures that students end up with massive debts.

She didn't say that women shouldn't go to university. She seemed to suggest that the a university education, and the associated massive debts, might not be in the best interests of many young people, both male and female. This is a position shared by many on the left as well as the right

Yet the reason students are in so much debt is down to her and her own parties policies.

From the very same New statesman Journal, no mention of tiny classes being the issue... funny that!
https://www.newstatesman.com/thestaggers/2022/08/international-students-problem-higher-education-underfunded

But if UK degrees are so worthless, why do so many foreign students want a UK degree?

Doubtless some are but when my DD missed out on a 1st by 1 pt, she was given very little option to challenge it & rightly so, that was just 3 years ago.

I don't often hear people describe their two degrees as "pointless". That is really sad after you put so much effort into it. 😞

She didn't say that women shouldn't go to university. She seemed to suggest that the a university education, and the associated massive debts, might not be in the best interests of many young people, both male and female. This is a position shared by many on the left as well as the right.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/08/the-great-university-con-how-the-british-degree-lost-its-value

There are lots of aspects to pushing back against the Gender Borg, not all involved are coming at it from radical feminism. I think that’s a good thing, personally, otherwise we’d all just be preaching to the choir.

As a working class person i don’t think non-vocational degrees are much use to men OR women.

Sadly, an arts degree without a pre existing professional address book or family money to support your internship is largely pointless when it comes to financial success (enjoyable for self improvement but you can always do that in your twilight years, no need to have 45 grand worth of debt by 21).

I say this as someone with two pointless arts degrees, albeit from a time when fees were minimal. I graduated in the early 2000s and haven’t even started paying my student loan off yet 🙈

I was led to believe the reason she said that women shouldn't go to university is because of the amount of debt they would get into, and not because she like those she was talking to believe that they know where a woman's place is. But perhaps she isn't actually all that interested in it after all.

I was always under the impression that Cates’ focus was children and child safeguarding (she’s a former secondary school teacher) rather than feminism?

Maybe you just got her mixed up with someone else?

https://www.miriamcates.org.uk/miriam-cates-mp

Perhaps it is not such a core value of Cates to support women as I had been led to believe.

Wild opinion!

In Labour we have constant debates and argument re: policy positions at Branch, Constituency, Regional and National level.

If members left over every policy disagreement they’d be none left at all!

Very few MPs of any party have left to sit as independents, at least not in my living memory. Bit more common in the Lords, but switching party obvs doesn’t affect their seats.

That's hilarious
Criticise a Conservative, must mean blind loyalty to Labour

All uni courses are set to get smaller, if Cates gets her way with assistance from Cleverly to ensure women know thier place.

Yes. It seems to be the case of some posters. They then don’t seem to be able to read posts.

There are plenty of courses that are small in the UK. My teen is looking at numerous and not even counting the Oxbridge courses. Some undergrad courses are necessarily small, some could be taught with a flexible approach of some units combined before specialising. And some are unnecessarily small and could be offerred with a more flexible delivery this increasing the intake size.

There are plenty of options to configure courses to be more efficient but it seems that this is a controversial opinion. I think you have nailed it though needmoresleep in a much more forthright manner. Thanks.

Trust me I am seeing much good in Cleverly today.

I have many friends, although oddly none of them are called googe.

Google is your friend.

But pointless. It appears that you are not able to see any good in any Tory politician. But equally unable to see problems with the Labour party approach, especially on the issue of women's rights.

Blind loyalty might be required in Labour and Duffield might need to be punished as a heretic, but it does not generate huge optimism about a future Labour Government.

Which did Sunak study?
Clearly he is a puppet and his government a circus...

Thanks. Actually I did find a few, they looked quite interesting. I liked the look of Theatre Practice (puppetry) and Contemporary Circus and Physical Performance.

There were 6 of us on my undergraduate course and 7 universities where the course was offered. I won't say what the course was for obvious reasons.