The white paper: what you need to know and why you should be angry

In 2010, there was public outcry over the tripling of tuition fees by the Con-Dem government. 6 years later, we're under a completely Conservative government and the higher education White Paper has been published - if you thought £9000 a year was bad, it's about to get a whole lot worse.

Photograph: Stephanie Kalber/Demotix/Corbis

The White Paper allows 'inflationary increases in tuition fees for institutions that meet basic standards in 2017-18', and this is 'ahead of the introduction of differentiated caps in 2019-20'. This means that by 2018, some Universities will be able to charge more per year than others and by 2020, Universities that score highly in terms of teaching quality will be able to raise their fees to whatever they like. The discourse used makes it seem on the surface like the Universities that offer the best education will be rewarded, but really it's a neoliberal restructuring of the higher education system to benefit the elite and exclude those from poorer backgrounds. On top of the fact that maintenance grants have been scrapped, it isn't hard to see that this is is a purely ideological tactic. The way it's heading, someone from a poorer background would have to take out an extortionate loan to go to one of these 'better Universities' and when they come out the other side, they'll have a bomb of a loan to repay. Whilst they may come out with a degree from a prestigious University and be more likely to get a job, it is still unfair when you remember that those from richer backgrounds will be able to get the same degree from the same prestigious University, and be able to get Mummy and Daddy to pay it back and that's only if they take out the loan initially which people from richer backgrounds don't always have to do because they've got the dolla in the first place. 

This all plays into the Conservative's ideological warfare, it is the principle at hand that the Conservatives are only fighting for the privileged few. Just a few months ago, George Osbourne announced his budget which directly targeted the disabled. A few years back, Iain Duncan Smith introduced the Bedroom tax which directly targeted the poor. The Conservatives are slowly culling off the groups that don't affect them, it's reinforcing hierarchy, it's reinforcing inequality, it's neoliberalism at its worst and it is wholly unacceptable.

Iain Duncan Smith doesn't deserve a pat on the back

On the 18th March, Iain Duncan Smith resigned from his post as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Conservative Party resulting in cries of joy from lefties like myself, but whilst I can relish this moment, I have some opinions. I have seen all over my Twitter timeline and Facebook feed  that Iain Duncan Smith is a good person because he 'stuck to his principles' and resigned his post as he believed that George Osbourne's budget which victimised the disabled was, in his words, 'a compromise too far'. I gots some problems with this, so I'm going to dissect what his little letter said and explain why it is BS.

He opened with:

"I am incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the Government has delivered over the last five years."

Really, Iain? You're going to say you're 'incredibly proud' of introducing Universal Credit which forces all low paid employees into desperate competition for casual work? You're 'incredibly proud' of the Bedroom Tax which charges the poor if they're given social housing with 'more rooms than they require', despite the fact that there is also a lack of social housing so tenants really don't have much choice in where they live so it's essentially arbitrarily charging the poor, you're proud of that, are you?

"Those reforms have helped to generate record rates of employment and in particular a substantial reduction in workless households."

Hm, are these jobs on zero hour contracts? Y'know those contracts whereby the employer has no obligation to offer work to the employees so the employee can't be certain they'll earn enough money to get through the week? Oh yeah, great job (pun not intended).

"I truly believe that we have made changes that will greatly improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged people in this country and increase their opportunities to thrive."

Is this some sort of sick joke? Just last week, Iain Duncan Smith was in full support of reducing the Employment and Support Allowance meaning that claimants would receive £30 less a week. Claimants include hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people, such as sufferers of cancer, Parkinson's disease and mental illness - I mean, I could be wrong, these people are pretty disadvantaged and it seems like you're taking away what little opportunity they have to thrive, Iain, but that could just be me. 

"Together, we've made enormous strides towards building a system of social security that gets the balance right between state-help and self-help."

The Tories don't promote state-help, the concept of self-help is fundamental to Conservative ideology - so basically, every man for himself. This is why continually the Tories allow big businesses and bankers to avoid paying their taxes. This is why Iain Duncan Smith, like other Tory MPs, gets away with claiming expenses to buy a £39 breakfast, talk about scroungers, eh? The Tories literally take money from the poor to give other rich people like themselves tax cuts - the reverse Robin Hood effect.

"I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest."

Austerity is distinctly political and has been shown not to do much good economically (for a contemporary example, Greece was forced to adhere to strict austerity measures and this resulted in a deeper recession, mass unemployment, the widening of budget deficits, and a rise in debt levels). Austerity is purely ideological warfare used to target the poor and the vulnerable, it's used to restructure the state in a way that benefits the privileged leaving the poor fighting for scraps. However, I don't believe Iain Duncan Smith is against austerity like he seems to be suggesting. Let's not forget that he voted against raising welfare benefits, he voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods to those who can't work because of illness or disability, he voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits, he voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who've been unemployed for a long time, he voted against a banker's bonus tax, he voted against the mansion tax, he voted for reducing corporation tax, he voted for raising tuition fees, and he voted for academy schools - Iain Duncan Smith is not anti-austerity.

"You should be very proud of what this government has done on deficit reduction, corporate competitiveness, education reforms and devolution of power."

Okay right, George Osbourne inherited a debt of £1 trillion. By May 2015, the debt was £1.5 trillion. I'm going to really dumb this down for any conservatives reading, but £1.5 trillion is a bigger number than £1 trillion, have you got that? I know I'll end up just complaining about Capitalism with this claim of improved corporate competitiveness, but I'm just going to say is corporate competitiveness a good thing? Or is it just this capitalist mantra that greed and selfishness should be promoted? The education reforms like academisation of schools has done nothing but divide teachers' unions, pit schools against each other, and generally lower standards of education. For example, academy schools are given more money depending on how many pupils they have which results in overcrowded classrooms and a generally much poorer educational experience. Speaking as someone who went to a High School that became an academy, I did notice the teachers were generally a lot less happier, so much so that nearly the entire science department at my school left! Lastly, devolution of power is not a good thing, this is a neoliberal tactic to bow out of accountability. By devolving powers, the government can easily deny responsibility when they're faced with a backlash - basically, it's their get out of jail free card. So, no Iain, I'm not proud of what this government has done regarding the areas you've mentioned (I'm not proud of anything they've done to be frank, I'm not sure if you can tell) and I don't think you, or anyone else, should be proud either.

Last hope for the lefties

This is probably one of the first posts I've ever done on UK politics, I've spoken about topics of social justice before and I've mentioned my hatred for the government and how sad I was with the General Election results but this is the first whole post I am dedicating entirely to UK politics, and this post goes out to the lefties - so if you're a Tory, you might want to bugger off right about now, although if you're a Tory I don't see why you're following my blog in the first place . . .

As you will probably know, the Labour Leadership election is coming and votes need to be in by September 10th. Anyone can join the Labour Party in order to be eligible for this election, and if you're a true leftie, you really should consider it because Jeremy Corbyn could be Labour's last chance to win an election ever again. People are tired of Tory lite/austerity lite, hence why the Tories have essentially won the past two elections. If the results in Scotland from the last election show us anything, it's that people want an alternative to austerity and that's exactly what Jeremy Corbyn is offering as Labour leader.

So what is Jez offering*?

1. On the economy, he wants an end to austerity, higher taxes for the rich, and protection for people on welfare. An end to austerity means protection to the public services that ordinary people, at some point or another, will depend on. The existence of austerity perpetuates this war on the poor that maintains and strengthens the patriarchy, so considering Jez is the only realistic alternative to austerity we have in this political system, that alone was enough to convince me he was the way forward.

2. On foreign policy, Jez wants to secure peace in the middle east by talking instead of invading - an approach that should regain those who became disillusioned with Labour under Blair. He's also spoken out many times on the oppression of Palestinian people and Israel's violation of international war.

3. On the EU, Jez wants to stay in but have a reform as the EU is precious especially regarding trade amongst other benefits like protection of workers, more jobs being generated, freedom for citizens to work, travel or study in any other European country, low prices of goods, a louder voice for the UK, and it aids in the development of economically deprived countries. He also outrightly disagrees with TTIP, which if it went ahead could result in the privatisation of the NHS, lower the standards of regulations on food and environmental safety (which could be pretty dodgy to say the least), give a hell of a lot more power to bankers, as well as resulting in a lot of unemployment, and it would introduce Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) which essentially means unelected transnational corporations could dictate the policies of democratically elected governments - so if I were you, I would definitely want someone opposing TTIP to be representing the Labour Party.

4. On education, he wants a national education service, and state-funded academies and free schools would be returned to local authority control as these systems divide the unions. He also wants to scrap tuition fees and he plans to do this by increasing national insurance for those who earn over £50,000 and a higher corporation tax - I don't know about you, but free or at least cheaper university sounds pretty good to me (especially since the Tories are getting rid of maintenance grants)

5. On housing, Jez wants rent controls in places such as Central London to help families on benefits pay their rent because obviously it's a lot more expensive there.

6. On defence, unlike the government, less money would be spent and Trident would be scrapped, which is a controversial issue in itself but I personally think this is a good move as it's an unnecessary, expensive deterrent - building and operating a new generation of nuclear weapons will cost the UK £97 billion, and the weapons are far too powerful for their own good. In fact, every submarine in Britain's Trident fleet carries up to 48 nuclear warheads, each of which is eight times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima**.

7. On travel, Jez wants to renationalise the railways which has a multitude of benefits. It would mean rail fares would go down, standards for rail workers would improve, customer service would improve, trains would be more likely to be on time, and the trains would be more clean and comfortable. Furthermore, railways are a natural monopoly which is bad because this means they can set any price that they choose and if it's not nationalised then its main priority is going to be profit, so this means higher prices than necessary. Secondly, a monopoly means that the business has no obligation to provide good service so they can provide inferior service and charge a high price for it because there aren't really any major competitors. There are more reasons than this why monopolies are bad, but these reasons alone are enough to show that it's vital for this natural monopoly to be nationalised. Plus, the benefit of having a state-owned railway means that any surplus, any profit, can be reinvested back into other public services, so even if you don't use the railways that often, it's still beneficial to you to have nationalised rails because other public services can be funded from any profit.

8. On energy, again Jez says he wants to renationalise energy. The reasons for this are basically the same reasons aforementioned on why monopoly is pretty bad, but essentially it's good to have nationalised commodities because any profit can be reinvested into other public services which at the end of the day benefits everyone.

If you want to sign up to the Labour Party in order to be eligible to vote in the Leadership election, you have to sign up by the 12th August at 12pm - so basically, y'all gotta hurry the heck up if you want to vote in this because time is running out. You can sign up as a member, like me and my brother did, and for us, it only cost £1 a year because we fit into the aged 14-19 bracket, or, like my parents, you can sign up as a supporter which costs as little as a £3 one off payment. There are other options for membership but you'd have to have a click around and see which one you feel would suit you most (this doesn't take long at all!) If you're a true leftie and want to see a socialist gain power of a major party, in my opinion this is the best thing you could do so sign up as quickly as you can - #JezWeCan.

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*The basic information for Corbyn's policies was found on the BBC website 
** Source

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