After Thatcher had decimated pubic services, they were in dire need of massive investment, just look at improvements to schools and the NHS. There's a danger that all of that will now be undone in the name of shrinking public services and handing them over to the private sector.

Please don't forget that the Conservatives thought the financial sector was over regulated and Boy George considered the Irish Tiger to be a model that the UK should have followed.

Yes, the schools and NHS improved,

But at what cost? it was unsustainable - almost all of the capital investment made by labour throughout their last term in office was done through the form of PFI - basically getting companies to invest the money now, at a promise of around 30% interest on their investments - purely to keep them off the books.

Labour were reckless in government, and now refuse to accept blame

Cant stand Minns so great to see him become jobless but cant understand the people of Hull (mainly the council workers) rejoicing in the streets because weve now got Labour back who put us in this massive mess to start with with the Lib Dems just trying to sort the whole thing out.

if anything the cuts will be worse, the Labour idiots will slash services needlessley to try and reflect badly on the coalition.

this is a case of be careful what you wish for

also, expect the investment in the wind turbines to slowly ebb away now there are anti-business socialists ru(i)n(n)ing the City.

How much do you think a good education and keeping people alive ought to cost?

Not the future of our country

Because every single person in the Labour party is anti business.

Maybe investment in wind turbines will ebb away because they're a horribly inefficient source of energy.

Good job it didn't then. Another revisionist who wants to ignore the role of the banks.

BTW - education [iis[/i the future of our country, and the coalition is ruining it right now. It won't even save them any money.

I completely agree, but the solution is not to pay for it on a credit card

Neither is the solution to price all but the rich out of it, or condemn pupils and teachers to decrepit facilities. No Government in the past two decades has got it right but this bunch of chancers are in the process of doing massive damage to our long-term future through dogmatic short-sightedness.

The majority of students will pay less under the new system - it was just shockingly communicated to people

Must have been! How does £9000 a year tuition fees at a number of univeristies (when it was expected that onl Oxbridge would charge that much) work out to be less?

Incorrect. By the time you add on interest (not charged before) and the inability to pay the loan off early the average student will be much worse off over the duration of his career. An 'average' student could easily end up paying >£80k for his/her degree. And this is all money that the Government has to pay up front, so it won't even save the taxpayer any cash for years. The entire policy was based on the incredibly stupid idea that the majority of Universities would [ivoluntarily[/i charge less than they could do.

Still, that's what happens when you put an idiot in charge of education and another in charge of the economy.

the limit at which you pay back has been increased by 6k (from the limit set by labour) so that you do not pay anything back unless you earn over 21k, then it is only 9% of anything over that.

So if you earn 22k on the new system you pay back £90 per year, on the old system you pay back £540, the total amount is almost inconsequential as very few people will actually pay back that amount

You sound like my ex-wife: she'd come home from shopping, telling me how much she had saved, rather than how much she'd spent