May 2011 Election

[vikingTON]

As opposed to everyone else's values informing their opinions? My posts were no more "value" based than yours.

Your values are based in posturing rather than application, and are therefore invalid for discussion at the adults' table.

I didn't realise that historical allegiance bound present and future allegiance.

For the record I voted Conservative at the EP elections in 2009 and Lib Dem at the GE last year. This year I probably won't be voting (or else spoil my ballot), but if I do I will be voting Lib Dem.

Further I didn't realise that voting for a party meant that you endorse all of their policy stances. Are you suggesting to me that every person who votes SNP support Independence? I thought independence supporters were quite keen not to plead this argument because it infers majority support for the Union.

My own view on the Union (as with all statehood) is that it is oppressive and unnecessary.

Why would you vote for the Conservative and Unionist Party if you had no time for the Union?

Private property rights exist by nature.

Oh that fun old make-believe tale! Define 'nature' and then show how these rights are applicable.

They are secured either by the owners themselves (or their agents) through force or through a mutually agreed enforcement mechanism (the most familiar model of which we see as the state). The state has appropriated the University's right to use force to remove people from their premises. That in itself is wrong. That does not preclude the University from seeking to enforce their basic private property right.

Or indeed the state, which you happily cheerleaded (from beneath your bed we must stress). So your claim to be a principled anarchist is null and void.

Not at all. If that were the case I'd want to ban their protest. I don't. They can run about shouting "no ifs no buts no education cuts" as much as they like, but they must not break into a building belonging to someone else, vandalise it and occupy it when they have no right to do so granted by the owners.

Why must they not? Why should they be playing by your rules in your so-called anarchist system?

The reality is they'll do what the f**k they want while you cry like a bitch on here about it.

[renton]

The ancient Scottish Universities certainly used to be a lot higher up the league tables (there were at least 3 in the top 10 about a decade ago IIRC). They've slipped in recent years.

Can you find the league table for that time period?

[Ad Lib]

xbl, do I have permission to respond to this nonsense? (edit: not Renton's post)

[vikingTON]

Dear Swampy, Ad Lib, and VikingTon. Sod off and posture somewhere else.

Once Stampy takes his drivel off to the high chair, sure.

[xbl]

To bring this topic round to something a bit more relevant, whether deliberately or not the SNP have played a masterstroke by having the prescription charges scrapped today. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to so far today has mentioned it, its been all over the news, with emphasis on the SNP governments role in it, its even got on the main page of the BBC! And coming on the same day as England's charges go up by 20p, masterstroke.

Tavish Scott has actually come out and said that even though he opposes them, he wouldn't roll them back and reimpose charges now that the act is done.

Once Stampy takes his drivel off to the high chair, sure.

He's already said he'd leave the discussion. So you can quit yer anti posture posturing as well!

[Ad Lib]

Can you find the league table for that time period?

Just done a quick Google and I think I've got it wrong. There's a table for 2000 which shows no Scottish Unis in the top 10. Was quite surprised. That said 3 Scottish Unis were in the top 20. FYI

[Law Stud]

Mmm.

How many universities in a country of 5.5 million people should there be in the top 15 universities in the world? Should we be disappointed that Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen aren't there too?

Or rather, should we celebrate the fact that British universities are either second best or best in the world, depending on how you measure it?

Sorry, no I was referring to top 15 in the UK.

[Ad Lib]

To bring this topic round to something a bit more relevant, whether deliberately or not the SNP have played a masterstroke by having the prescription charges scrapped today. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to so far today has mentioned it, its been all over the news, with emphasis on the SNP governments role in it, its even got on the main page of the BBC! And coming on the same day as England's charges go up by 20p, masterstroke.

Tavish Scott has actually come out and said that even though he opposes them, he wouldn't roll them back and reimpose charges now that the act is done.

It might give them a bit of a boost in the polls. I don't agree with the policy though, and I speak as someone who has 3 family members on regular prescriptions who stand to benefit from the change.

[xbl]

Sorry, no I was referring to top 15 in the UK.

The Times voted Stirling Uni to be their University of the Year last year. Just saying like.

[Law Stud]

To bring this topic round to something a bit more relevant, whether deliberately or not the SNP have played a masterstroke by having the prescription charges scrapped today. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to so far today has mentioned it, its been all over the news, with emphasis on the SNP governments role in it, its even got on the main page of the BBC! And coming on the same day as England's charges go up by 20p, masterstroke.

Tavish Scott has actually come out and said that even though he opposes them, he wouldn't roll them back and reimpose charges now that the act is done.

He's already said he'd leave the discussion. So you can quit yer anti posture posturing as well!

They'll reverse it soon enough. It won't take much. It'll simply be the realisation that GPs cant cope with the growing number of people wanting them to write a free prescription for Calpol, Paracetamol and Alka-Seltzer.

[Law Stud]

The Times voted Stirling Uni to be their University of the Year last year. Just saying like.

Yet the Guardian ranks it as 27th.

Oh and while I'm at it, just to illustrate the point.

Edinburgh fell 8 places. Glasgow fell 6 places.

Dundee fell 3 places.

Herriott Watt fell 10 places.

and Napier fell 12 places.

Again, this is all pre the English Universities introducing a £9,000 per year charge rate that is going to really move them well ahead as funded and equipped universities in coming years.

[xbl]

They'll reverse it soon enough. It won't take much. It'll simply be the realisation that GPs cant cope with the growing number of people wanting them to write a free prescription for Calpol, Paracetamol and Alka-Seltzer.

You mean like in Wales, and NI, where free prescriptions seem to have been running well enough? Is there something unique about Scotland which means it shouldn't have free prescriptions?

Yet the Guardian ranks it as 27th.

Didn't realise you were a fan of the Guardian...

[renton]

Yet the Guardian ranks it as 27th.

Oh and while I'm at it, just to illustrate the point.

Edinburgh fell 8 places. Glasgow fell 6 places.

Dundee fell 3 places.

Herriott Watt fell 10 places.

and Napier fell 12 places.

Again, this is all pre the English Universities introducing a £9,000 per year charge rate that is going to really move them well ahead as funded and equipped universities in coming years.

What does the guardian use as it's metrics for analysing university performance?

As for those £9000 fees, it's not like the English Unis will be using them to re-invest in new facilities. the majority of the money will be used to plug the 80% cuts in uni funding from the public purse. They'll be happy enough to simply match the status quo rather than searing off into the sunset with tonnes of money.

[Law Stud]

You mean like in Wales, and NI, where free prescriptions seem to have been running well enough? Is there something unique about Scotland which means it shouldn't have free prescriptions?

Didn't realise you were a fan of the Guardian...

In Wales it costs £30m per annum, and who exactly does it help? Kids and Pensioners got free prescriptions under the old system anyway. As did the pregnant, the unemployed and those on state benefits. So the main beneficiaries are the likes of me, who can easily and comfortably afford to pay for my medicine. It's a ridiculous waste of a lot of money per annum, pissed away on the middle and upper classes and all with the effect on increasing demand on the GP who it's already difficult enough to get an appointment to see.

There's nothing unique about Scotland, it's government is just as stupid as the rest of them...

[Law Stud]

What does the guardian use as it's metrics for analysing university performance?

As for those £9000 fees, it's not like the English Unis will be using them to re-invest in new facilities. the majority of the money will be used to plug the 80% cuts in uni funding from the public purse. They'll be happy enough to simply match the status quo rather than searing off into the sunset with tonnes of money.

% of students satisfied

% satisfied with teaching

% satisfied with feedback

student to staff ratio

spend per student (FTE)

average entry tariff

value added score

and job after 6 months.

[Law Stud]

Didn't realise you were a fan of the Guardian...

Coincidently the Times and the Guardian have the same league tables.

[vikingTON]

Coincidently the Times and the Guardian have the same league tables.

Care to explain then why The Times awards Stirling University of the Year? While you're trying to sweep it under the carpet and all.

[Reynard]

They'll reverse it soon enough. It won't take much. It'll simply be the realisation that GPs cant cope with the growing number of people wanting them to write a free prescription for Calpol, Paracetamol and Alka-Seltzer.

There's a minor ailments scheme with a lot of the chemists where if you register with them you get stuff like Calpol for free. I don't think it is widely advertised though but it's there. We used to go through shitloads of the stuff for the kids and it was good to get it for nothing.

[xbl]

Even the Grauniad has picked up on the prescriptions:

Scotland's free prescriptions could be a separatist moment

What with so much else going on today, you may have missed a potentially significant moment in the history of the kingdom....

...

The Scottish executive – whoops, I mean government – has produced all sorts of interesting paperwork to suggest that free scrips contribute to health and wellbeing because they encourage people to go to the doc and get their medicine – better than becoming seriously ill. I acknowledge that the Celts have got several important health policies right. The Welsh did not invest in big private finance initiative hospital schemes, opting instead to rely on nearby English ones for the trickier stuff and to combine it with moaning about waiting times and unfairness.

The Scots seem to have a better system for rationing and/or approving medicines more quickly than England's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), which Andrew Lansley is currently messing up. And so on. But the awkward fact is that England's unloved NHS targets and its more mixed-market regime does seem to be delivering better results, in both waiting times and outcomes, though I would be delighted to be told otherwise by Scots.

Do you think he's bitter?

That's not my point here. My point is: do free Scots scrips generate more pressure for separatism and, if so, will the pressure come from north or south of the border? I don't claim to have the answer, and never underestimate the wily Salmond. But the English are in a grumpy mood. Reading Glover's piece about growing separatism in Spain's richest region, the ancient cross-border kingdom of Catalonia, I am troubled by the prospect that Spain might eventually break up.

By extension, I am troubled by the fear that England and Scotland might part company via a similar process because the English are fed up with subsidising Scotland's none-too-healthy NHS (it gets more cash per head) and the Scots reply: "It's our oil." Or was. It's not that we would all be doomed if it happened. It's more the worry that small-state romanticism is fine, but larger-state unity is probably better – in the UK of Spain and in the British UK, too. It's OK to disagree, as many do. But I can't help recalling that a major impetus for the union of 1707 was the big Scottish banking crash after the failure of the Darien scheme, a colonial venture which went wrong in Panama.

And even Salmond has had to shelve his independence referendum in the wake of the Irish, Icelandic and, dare I add, RBS and HBOS financial disasters. Ireland is bleeding again today. Little Portugal, where I was this week, nice country that it is, suffers too. Belgium? Don't ask. But we all live in interesting times.

[vikingTON]

But I can't help recalling that a major impetus for the union of 1707 was the big Scottish banking crash after the failure of the Darien scheme, a colonial venture which went wrong in Panama.

Unbelievable level of horseshit.

Is there, btw, a reason for 'fearing seperatism' other than doe-eyed sentimentality?