Jeremy Corbyn Vol. 2

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Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
edh said:
I still fail to see what promise he made apart from to seriously address the issue of student debt once in office. Not a manifesto commitment unlike that given on student fees.

"I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden. I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

or even this excerpt which suggests the focus will be on the tranche who paid 9k pa fees

"And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after."
Here's how NME spun it in the actual interview:

NME said:
Now, speaking to NME for this week’s cover interview, Corbyn has said that he will work to reduce existing student debt if they win the upcoming general election.
I agree with you to some point, it's hardly Jeremy's fault that the people he was looking to score votes from then ran with the idea that "Jezza's gonna get rid of all the debts!" but then that's what happens when your target audience gets their 'news' from social media and don't look beyond headlines such as "Jeremy Corbyn has heavily implied that he would write off historic student debt, even if you’ve already graduated"


CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

197 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
ash73 said:
Not careful enough, he had to correct himself half way through the sentence hehe

He actually said, "I'm looking at ways we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of removing, sorry reducing, that debt burden".

A cynic might think the correction was deliberate, he didn't say by how much and the interviewer was too thick to ask. You can spin it however you like, Labour gave young people the clear impression their debt would be addressed, they bought their votes, and now after the election they admit they had no idea how much the debt was. If that is true they are not fit for government; the figures were readily available and I said at the time it would cost £100 billion, the same as the entire Apollo space programme in today's money. If Corbyn is now denying he promised to deal with student debt he is a lying weasel, and the idea of him, Watson and Abbott running the country is laughable.

You seem to be suggesting he can say whatever he likes in interviews, if it's not in the manifesto it doesn't count. I would say he is at best incompetent and I think he deliberately misled younger voters by not correcting reports in the press that said Labour had promised to remove student debt.

The manifestos of the major parties should be costed independently by an financial auditor to clarify exactly how much it will cost.
All rather reminiscent of Cameron's "Cast Iron Guarantee" if you ask me hehe
Actually, he can say whatever he wants in his manifesto and that doesn't count either. One G.Brown's barrister successfully argued that "Manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation" in 2008. ( R (Wheeler) v Office of the Prime Minister)

djc206

12,240 posts

124 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
sidicks said:
edh said:
I still fail to see what promise he made apart from to seriously address the issue of student debt once in office. Not a manifesto commitment unlike that given on student fees.

"I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden. I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

or even this excerpt which suggests the focus will be on the tranche who paid 9k pa fees

"And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after."
Isn't the debt lready cancelled after 30 years or something? Was he really suggesting to cancel the debt after 50 years instead?
I would imagine his suggestion was to reduce the repayment rate thereby lengthening the term of the loan and reducing its impact on lifestyle and finances although it would appear he worded it very poorly. I'm fairly sure my loan was paid back at 10% of everything over ~£18k, I think my girlfriends is now 9% of everything over ~£20k which is a fairly high %. She currently pays 40% tax, 2% NI, 6% pension and 9% student loan totalling 57% on about half of her earnings. It does mean of course that she's going to see her loan paid off fairly quickly but her student loan deduction each month would rent a one bedroom flat which is mad really. I paid my loan off at 27, I was glad to see the back of it but it seems a little unnecessary to recover the money so quickly.

I can see Jeremy pushing to partially refund fees for the £9k group. I'm not sure the majority of taxpayers will be overly enamoured with that mind.

djc206

12,240 posts

124 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
edh said:
Yes it is, and that particular idea doesn't seem at all sensible does it? i.e. we don't know how to fix this yet, or "I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

AFAIK ~50% of student debts are forecast to be unrecoverable, so there is a massive future cost to be borne anyway.
If 50% of the loans are going to be written off why are we pursuing a policy of £9k fees. If fees were cut back to £3k the recovery rate would be much much higher. There really is no point in charging someone something knowing they're never going to pay the tab. Bizarre

AstonZagato

12,649 posts

209 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
djc206 said:
edh said:
Yes it is, and that particular idea doesn't seem at all sensible does it? i.e. we don't know how to fix this yet, or "I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

AFAIK ~50% of student debts are forecast to be unrecoverable, so there is a massive future cost to be borne anyway.
If 50% of the loans are going to be written off why are we pursuing a policy of £9k fees. If fees were cut back to £3k the recovery rate would be much much higher. There really is no point in charging someone something knowing they're never going to pay the tab. Bizarre
I suspect the answer is how it looks on the government balance sheet and income statement (not that such things exist). A student owing £9,000 is an "asset". The government spending on higher education appears £6000 a head lower than if it were capping fees at £3000. Put it at £3000, then spending goes up, deficit goes up, debt goes up. Writing off the £4500 in 30 years time is another person's problem.

Johnnytheboy

24,498 posts

185 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
djc206 said:
edh said:
Yes it is, and that particular idea doesn't seem at all sensible does it? i.e. we don't know how to fix this yet, or "I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

AFAIK ~50% of student debts are forecast to be unrecoverable, so there is a massive future cost to be borne anyway.
If 50% of the loans are going to be written off why are we pursuing a policy of £9k fees. If fees were cut back to £3k the recovery rate would be much much higher. There really is no point in charging someone something knowing they're never going to pay the tab. Bizarre
This may be stating the bleedin' obvious, but someone's going to have to pay them in the end.

It strikes me that financially successful graduates seem like a good group to start looking at first.

iphonedyou

9,234 posts

156 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
AstonZagato said:
I suspect the answer is how it looks on the government balance sheet and income statement (not that such things exist). A student owing £9,000 is an "asset". The government spending on higher education appears £6000 a head lower than if it were capping fees at £3000. Put it at £3000, then spending goes up, deficit goes up, debt goes up. Writing off the £4500 in 30 years time is another person's problem.
Surely the £9,000 owed is effectively a liability, until such times as the former student earns above threshold. At which point it becomes work in progress, so to speak.

AstonZagato

12,649 posts

209 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
CrutyRammers said:
ash73 said:
Not careful enough, he had to correct himself half way through the sentence hehe

He actually said, "I'm looking at ways we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of removing, sorry reducing, that debt burden".

A cynic might think the correction was deliberate, he didn't say by how much and the interviewer was too thick to ask. You can spin it however you like, Labour gave young people the clear impression their debt would be addressed, they bought their votes, and now after the election they admit they had no idea how much the debt was. If that is true they are not fit for government; the figures were readily available and I said at the time it would cost £100 billion, the same as the entire Apollo space programme in today's money. If Corbyn is now denying he promised to deal with student debt he is a lying weasel, and the idea of him, Watson and Abbott running the country is laughable.

You seem to be suggesting he can say whatever he likes in interviews, if it's not in the manifesto it doesn't count. I would say he is at best incompetent and I think he deliberately misled younger voters by not correcting reports in the press that said Labour had promised to remove student debt.

The manifestos of the major parties should be costed independently by an financial auditor to clarify exactly how much it will cost.
All rather reminiscent of Cameron's "Cast Iron Guarantee" if you ask me hehe
Actually, he can say whatever he wants in his manifesto and that doesn't count either. One G.Brown's barrister successfully argued that "Manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation" in 2008. ( R (Wheeler) v Office of the Prime Minister)
Politician proved to be prepared to lie and cheat to win high office. Quelle surprise.

Corbyn, May, etc are no better than each other, or any other politician for telling the truth. They are all clueless and unable to deliver what they promise. However, in the final analysis, Corbyn would crater the economy (all socialists and Labour governments eventually do - but his brand of socialism looks particularly toxic).

Therefore, May is the least worst option. But it is a depressing choice.

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
I suppose the correction he issued later on stating that he "wasn't going to actually remove the student debt as has been reported by various media outlets, but just look at the situation so don't base your vote on that misinterpreted issue" must have been lost in the run up to the election.

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
Surprised it's all quiet on the lefty front. In the run up to the elections, Facebook newsfeeds and other sites were so noisy saying how amazing Corbin was.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/21/...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/elec...

Edited by Hoofy on Monday 24th July 12:25

technodup

7,576 posts

129 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
edh said:
Corbyn - I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage – I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly; we had two weeks to prepare all of this
That's funny, because I could swear that since May came to power Labour had been anticipating a snap election and had supposedly been preparing their policies since day 1.

So either he's a lying st (about only having two weeks) or he's a lying st (for claiming to be preparing for an early election). Or, he's so utterly clueless he's not got a clue what the fk's going on and it's all a bit of a blur to him.

Top PM material right there.

maffski

1,866 posts

158 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
djc206 said:
edh said:
Yes it is, and that particular idea doesn't seem at all sensible does it? i.e. we don't know how to fix this yet, or "I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

AFAIK ~50% of student debts are forecast to be unrecoverable, so there is a massive future cost to be borne anyway.
If 50% of the loans are going to be written off why are we pursuing a policy of £9k fees. If fees were cut back to £3k the recovery rate would be much much higher. There really is no point in charging someone something knowing they're never going to pay the tab. Bizarre
It makes it into a tax - if you do well in life you pay more for your higher education.

98elise

26,366 posts

160 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
sidicks said:
edh said:
I still fail to see what promise he made apart from to seriously address the issue of student debt once in office. Not a manifesto commitment unlike that given on student fees.

"I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden. I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage"

or even this excerpt which suggests the focus will be on the tranche who paid 9k pa fees

"And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after."
Isn't the debt lready cancelled after 30 years or something? Was he really suggesting to cancel the debt after 50 years instead?
Stupid isn't it. Paying back is based on salary not what you owe. If you increase the time to pay pack then the cost to the individual increases.

The loans are not really loans in reality. It's an earnings related tax, for a fixed period.

bazza white

3,550 posts

127 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
If the 40% tax band was raised to cover fees what %would be needed. Would people object to 0.5 to cover higher education.

randlemarcus

13,507 posts

230 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
bazza white said:
If the 40% tax band was raised to cover fees what %would be needed. Would people object to 0.5 to cover higher education.
I suspect those who haven't had a University education might. And I suspect that .5% won't touch the sides.

Just bang a 5% Graduate Tax for all Graduates, feck em.

djc206

12,240 posts

124 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
maffski said:
It makes it into a tax - if you do well in life you pay more for your higher education.
But that's not true now it's structured such that it punishes the moderately successful. The interest rates on loans taken out since 2012 have risen so if you earn £41k or more you pay RPI +3%. If you earned say £45k you'd be paying a tad over £2k each year in repayments but accruing ~£1800 in interest on a £40k loan. You'd be paying for 30 years without ever really touching the actual loan amount but having made £60k in repayments. If you earned £100k you'd be paying back £7.2k and of that over £5.3k in the first year would be going towards the loan, your total interest bill would be a fraction of that of the lower earner.

djc206

12,240 posts

124 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
ash73 said:
bazza white said:
If the 40% tax band was raised to cover fees what %would be needed. Would people object to 0.5 to cover higher education.
1p rise on 40% tax bracket would raise £1.2B, 1p rise on all income tax would raise £5.5B. Student debt costs £13B per year.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/gb/gb2015/ch10_gb20...
http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBri...
No they don't cost £13bn a year. £13bn is loaned.

Slaav

4,240 posts

209 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
djc206 said:
No they don't cost £13bn a year. £13bn is loaned.
smile

djc206

12,240 posts

124 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
ash73 said:
So if Labour wants students to leave university with no debt it would cost the treasury £13B per year.

With the current system some of it gets paid back, but the outstanding debt is £100B now and forecast to be £330B by 2050 so it's increasing £7B per year.
Leaving with no debt just is pie in the sky. That doesn't just mean zero fees it also means grants of over £4K/yr per student, not going to happen.

eliot

11,363 posts

253 months

Monday 24th July 2017
quotequote all
So let's assume university fees are abolished by whatever party.
why is it that only university education is subsidised to this extent?
We are going to end up with degree qualified pot washers again.
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