The start of an incredible joke or the subject of Banksy’s 2009 Devolved Parliament? By John Gallaher

 

Either way we’re losing patience, across party lines, of the chimpanzees in suits who are running this government. The art of debate was once considered an intellectual battleground where ideas clashed and policies were scrutinised. Think back to the days in the United States of Kennedy and Nixon, where the exchange of ideas took precedence over personal attacks. Fast forward to the present, and the political arena has transformed into a stage for a soap opera and drama show, with candidates vying to deliver the wittiest insult, whilst we outside suffer and bare the strain of their performances.

Whilst I was at university I took out a student loan to help get myself through financially. During my three years at university my student loan had amassed over £3,000 worth of interest as I’m busy working away to get my degree to then join a work force to contribute to the economy. I now pay my student loan off through my wage, but the truth is I don’t. My interest payments are more than what I’m paying off. Sound like an issue? Well it is. Thankfully we have a Prime Minister who shows that he is forward thinking and understands the situation. Sadly, his policies don’t reflect that and if this were an episode of South Park they may have a slightly stronger word for it. We can’t use that term in modern society so the equivalent comparison I’d draw to is putting a plaster over a cut artery, brushing your hands together and saying, “another good job well done.” I won’t sit here writing this article and act like I’m a seasoned economist, but requiring graduates to start repayments with lower earnings and to pay off debts for 40 years, instead of 30 don’t strike me as an efficient way of dealing with it compared to forcing banks to have an exceptional low, if not zero percentage, interest on student loans.

Surely that’ll just create a burden that the banks will have to take on? You would be correct. Well government expects that just over a quarter (27%) of full-time undergraduates starting in 2022/23 will repay their loans in full. However, with a new system being introduced in 2023 that extends the repayment period, three-fifths of undergraduates (61%) are predicted to pay. My brain tells me that cutting the interest rate to zero would guarantee that more people will not only start to pay off their debt, but also they won’t be hit with massive rising interest rates on their pilling debt.

Lets not hem and haw here. Universities aren’t a place of study. They’re a commercial asset to some foreign pension fund or to the friends of politicians. Like most things in this country it’ll never get fixed, and it won’t be the people who get “mickey mouse” degrees as our Prime Minister says. Instead it’ll be those that go and study medicine, finance, accountancy law and a few other degrees, which in truth, are the only courses that need to be taught at universities, as they’ll leave earning enough to cover everyone else. The problem does stem further, companies requiring graduates at entry level jobs to have had a few years’ experience and a degree in something that anyone could do. We’re tricked under falsehoods that a degree will always give you better experience than work, but I’ll ask you this, would you prefer to have a 22 year old plumbing graduate who has been sat in a lecture hall learning about piping and has never been on site, or a 22 year old apprentice who has 4 years of experience on site fixing pipes. This of course only works for vocational professions; I’d prefer a doctor or lawyer who’s studied the body instead of someone who’s come off the streets and making mistakes going along.

The bottom line of what I’m trying to get at is there are 650 monkeys in suits in parliament, none of them are able to use the common sense of another monkey currently sitting in his joggers and hoodie on a sofa in South West London. Maybe this government shouldn’t be run by, or have MPs, who are career politicians, those that have gone to university to study it or people who say they are in a very multicultural constituency and represent the people but live in a million pound neighbourhood. I’m looking at you, Mr Corbyn. If we want change in this country let’s give the power to the plumber who’s worked a 9 to 5 for 30 years who really knows the struggles of the working class and how to fix it. Riding your bike back and forth between work doesn’t disguise the fact that you return to an ivory tower each day

 

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