My little lad went off to university last week, the week before I had my hours at work almost halved, this means that after paying the mortgage, the bills, food shopping and beer money for the son (after all what is uni without beer) we have nowt left. Y'know for fun and shit.

Now, we have a large mortgage and a moderate income, and we're convinced that it's right for our children to have a great education, but the next decade is still going to be tough for us financially. So what I wonder is, if you are from a lower income family without a history of further education and a justified fear of debt, are you going to consider university at all? And let's just say, for the sake of argument, that the university fees go through the roof because they need the money and it won't come from anywhere other than the students - you end up looking at the prospect of nearly 30 grands worth of debt with a decreased prospect of a job at the end. What would you do then?

The CBI (it stands for the confederation of British Industries apparently - but it seems to me that 'C' could equally well stand for 'c*nts") has proposed that the money needed to prop up the universities should all come from students by hiking the fees to astronomic heights. They're not too keen on the student loan system either.

I have an alternative plan. It goes like this. Proper progressive taxation - more revenue for the government, who then spend it on universities, just like public money gets spent on schools and colleges through (local) taxation. This way the rich folk who use further education more get to pay a fair whack and those who don't use as much (i.e the poor) don't have to pile up the personal debt.

You could also introduce a graduate tax - earn more pay more. But why fiddle with these taxation bits and bobs when thoroughgoing progressive taxation would hit the target without complications?(And there's the added bonus of losing more idiots like Phil Collins who object to paying out any of their hard-earned to the country that made their success possible)

While the (fucking) CBI are having a whinge about students, tax revenue is being lost to the government by tax benefits for private schools. Charitable status my arse. I notice that the (fucking) CBI didn't complain about that did they? I assume that they don't want their private school fees to go up?

It's about time Labour realised that playing the lame game of out-torying the tories is pointless - they're fucked at the next election anyway. So why not actually push forward some nice radical Labour policies - even if its only for the fun of watching the tories having to dismantle them.

Here's a few:
Get rid of bloody Trident and cut defense spending...
Bring home our troops abroad, cut the armed forces and retrain the soldiers. After all wars are merely groups of working men killing each other over arguments devised by the ruling classes.
Progressive and agressive taxation to promote redistribution of wealth.
Nationalise - transport and utilities obviously - but what about the banks - we kind of own them already?
Ban private schools (or at the very least get rid of their charitable status).