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Do Labour not get supply and demand?

A 23% surge in university applications has been announced by UCAS at a time when places are being scythed to make up for Labour’s record budget deficit.

This has mostly been attributed to work-shy school-leavers having applied to stay in education for no better reason than to avoid having to get a job at this difficult time. My, what an intransigent problem.

Resident Labour hack Wes Streeting has bleated (but not yet tweeted) that the solution is government subsidising university places even more. Huh? How is that consistent with halving the budget deficit, Wesley?

Universities want more money. The government can’t afford to borrow more and the taxpayer can’t afford to spend more. Too many students see university as a free ride to see out the recession. The solution really is obvious.

Let universities increase tuition fees, as they’ve been demanding for ages. This will let them protect places, and deter the free-loaders that are just applying to avoid getting a low-paying job.

Introducing top-up fees facilitated UCL and Imperial moving into the top five universities in the world. Letting universities set their own fees to match demand would let others match their meteoric rise.

Supply and demand.

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Peter Griffin: Leader of the BNP

This is brilliant. One third of Britons (out of 1498 polled) think that Peter Griffin is the leader of the British National Party. No doubt this will come as a shock to family guy fans the world over, though there was always a something despicably racist about everyone’s favourite fat cartoon character. (Ed: Homer Simpson?!)

“It isn’t for us to judge whether or not this is right or wrong, but put forward the facts: one of which being that a third of people think that Peter Griffin is the leader of the BNP.”

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Did THIS moment define WW2?

Gold.

Hat-tip to Ms. Whitehead

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New Labour; out of touch since 1997

Trougher in Chief and Welsh Officer Minister Wayne David has been outed as wrongfully claiming over the average salary of his constituents.  Owen Meredith has the story here, and interestingly enough, Mr David’s over claims also amount to nearly £1 for every vote of his 13,743 majority.

Good luck defending that one Mr. David.

Good spot Mr. Meredith.

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Christian right just wants tolerance? Pull the other one

ConservativeHome religious contributor Melanchthon posted last night a so-called ‘Plea for Tolerance’, claiming that Christians were persecuted and looked down upon in political life.

We understand that the rest of you will never really accept our twisted, unnatural beliefs and practices – that would be too much to ask. We seek only toleration. Now, up until recently, many of you have been prepared to tolerate us in your own way. You may have quailed at really granting us full freedom to hit our children or deny abortions or contraception to our youths, but by and large, provided we kept our beliefs and practices personal, in the privacy of our homes, churches, and consciences, up to a point you were content to leave us alone.

The problem with the religious right is that they are not content to keep themselves to their own homes, churches, and consciences. They, by definition, try to fuse religion with politics.

Conservatives ought to be fine with parents telling their kids not to have abortions. But demanding legislation for other people’ kids is not fine. I’ll leave aside the ‘Christians just want full freedom to hit their children’ argument.

Particularly, they lose the right to call themselves private or persecuted when they demand legislation by virtue of this being a ‘Christian country’ or ‘Judeo-Christian morality’. They are public and proud of it, and by institutionalising their beliefs, they discriminate against other people.

And that would be fine if we believed that the state is the right venue for that, but we don’t. Indeed, the ‘religious right’, as believers in the state imposing their values on the rest of society, are not really right wing at all. They are left wing and centralising statists. As such, they deserve to be left behind.

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Stickin’ it to ‘One-Term Barry’

Taking the time out this morning in my favourite Starbucks to enjoy a triple Caramel Machiatto (with an extra shot after last night), I came across these fabulous collection of pictures, which graced by e-mail inbox courtesy of the ubersound @ChristianJMay

It seems Barry’s budget plans have rubbed the American people up the wrong way.  How’s that whole ‘Hopey Changey’ thing going now, Mr. President?

CLICK HERE FOR THE SLIDESHOW (EMBED IS BROKEN)

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Quote of the Day: Chairman Edition

“Gordon Brown avoided a leadership election, bottled a general election and now wants to fiddle the electoral system,”

Eric Pickles

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It’s time to put the Beeb to bed

Have a read of this piece, currently trending on the BBC ‘Most Popular Stories’ section.

Now tell me they’re not guilty of playing politics, being socialist sympathisers and a mouthpiece for the expansion of the state? No, you can’t say it, can you?

Incredible, how the state funded BBC, which is supposed to be politically and ideologically neutral posts drivel such as stating as a fact that socialised healthcare would be better for America. Or how about the line where they say Bush talked nonsense and Al Gore was God? The whole piece is a bloody joke.

Lastly, they cite Thomas Frank, author of “The Wrecking Ball: How Conservatives Rule” as a source of information to trust as to whether or not the healthcare bill is a good idea.

They seem to be unable to understand that attempts to force ridiculous things upon the American people is precisely why America became America in the first place. Now the left is calling people unable to afford full healthcare, “turkeys voting for Christmas” because they don’t believe government should intervene every which way. That’s some profound respect for democracy there guys. No, really. Marx called; says he wants his lunacy back.

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Our State of the Union prayers answered

Yesterday, we urged Barack Obama to follow our, and Cato’s, lead in his State of the Union address. Regulation and reckless spending got us into the recession – only capitalism can get us out.

Obama, of course, did not do as we suggested. But fear not. Not only did Virginia’s (new) Governor Bob McDonnell deliver the Republicans’ official reply, but you get a second helping from (old) Congressman Ron Paul. Enjoy.

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Poland to get a very Bullingdon president?

The likely next President of Poland was a member of the Bullingdon Club at the same time as Cameron and Boris. When at Oxford, BoJo even hazed Radosław Sikorski by wrecking his room in true Bullingdon style!

Now that the Civic Platform’s leader Donald Tusk has ruled himself out, Sikorski is the front runner for the party’s nomination. The classical liberal Civic Platform (Ed: sound!) is the largest party in Parliament, followed by the Conservatives’ allies Law and Justice.

Tusk just lost out to the Law and Justice candidate Lech Kaczyński in the presidential election in 2005. But DC’s friend Sikorski was a Law and Justice MP until 2007, making him likely to steal away any floating voters and would surely win any run-off.

Either way, Cameron will have a firm ally in Poland. The old boys network travels far.

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