To go to university in London costs £15,000 and to a provincial university £13,000.
Yet one in four parents said they will only be able to contribute less then £100 a month towards their childrens' student years. A study carried out by Norwich Union found that parents feared helping their children financially during their university years would impact on their own lifestyles considerably.
Well, it would, wouldn't it? Children consume. And being children cannot produce wealth until they are adults. Whoever else should they turn to in their dependent years but to their families? Indeed families usually pull together to provide all sorts of things that are needed at different stages in life and different stages in earning capacity.
The problem is that so much tax is being mulcted that meeting obligations of primary importance to family members is moving steadily beyond the reach of millions. When Cheryl Cox, of Norwich Union, said: "Another generation of UK teens will enter higher education this autumn and, while parents may well be filled with pride, this looks set to be overshadowed by fear and panic over how they are going to shoulder the financial burden.", there are many other causes of 'fear and panic over shouldering the financial burden' it applies to as well. How are obligations to elderly parents and grandparents to be met? Or the needs associated with setting up a new household, including buying a house at all, or changing to more appropriate housing. Or medical requirements unmet by the NHS. Or even keeping warm and reasonably fed?
There must be a drastic cut in tax burdens and government-levied charges of all kinds. It's not just that we do not like, believe or trust the New Labour regime and its policies at home and abroad; we cannot afford them.
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Would reducing the State increase or reduce social inequality?
By 'state' I assume you mean governance,S?
No-one could deny that one person's freedom of choice can be another person's social inequality. Getting that balance is not necessarily the purpose of governance. Social inequality has been addressed most effectively by private philanthropy and municipal intervention.
It is not difficult to visualise a secure rule of law and embedded liberties defended by constitutional safeguards and a clear delineation of territory defended by civil and in extremis military means. That would be the state.
Governance is the implementation of choices by the people within that frame. What do we want? What means are we happy to see employed to get it? How do we express our opinions? How do we ensure they are acted upon? How do we balance differing views, as well as the effects of differing circumstances and hierarchies of importance.
First we separate the state itself from governance, usually by requiring extraordinarily high thresholds to be cleared to alter state formations.
Then we vote, in advanced democracies, usually on manifestos, sometimes by referendums (lucky Swiss), sometimes on Party reputation and general gist.
Under New Labour the governance has become disproportionately large in comparison with both the wishes of the people, and the size of the area governed. It is disproportionately consuming created wealth for its own advantage and sustenance, and it is failing to refrain from, indeed is quite uncontrollable in its determination to interfere with the borders between state and governance.
It is repugnant too in its moral basis and smug self regard and self righteousness - usually found hand in hand with ideologies of the left and authoritarianism, though New Labour manages to be left and right authoritarian - that's triangulation for you.
A study by Tony Atkinson shows that under New Labour the Gini coefficient has risen sharply. Though that is not necessarily the result of giant governance the suspicion lurks.
Sir, the dog ate the rest of my homework, Sir.
Next time use a stapler. And number your sheets.
It's just that when government/governance was smaller and the State didn't really do handouts, many people were terribly poor. Or am I confusing the development of the political system, with the history of the Industrial Revolution?
Perhaps we're not becoming post-industrial but pre-industrial, and the politics is changing back too.
'Perhaps we're not becoming post-industrial but pre-industrial, and the politics is changing back too.'
I could have sworn I wrote about a feudal-like structure emerging under New Labour's nurture. You are right, though politics is not changing back (because history never goes backwards) but it is assuming family resemblance to pre- Enlightenment, even earlier perhaps, systems.
All sort of markets are failing. Water is not supplied at the agreed price, or any other price, in central London occasionally. I know of no way of assuring an uninterrupted supply of good quality water at any price. It would have to be a priority supply model accessed. ie a feudal like system. Ditto energy, just wait till the cold of winter arrives.
There are other more esoteric consumptions we supposedly have contracted to receive - broadband is a useful model - that are supplied in a format that should send shudders down the spines of egalitarians, should those models be recognised in their application to basic services.
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