Dean Sas’s Weblog

Student loans cost increase

// May 20th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // General, p.u.c & p.u-uk.org

The Student Loans Company have just announced that they are to increase the real cost of post 1998 student loans.

Student loans are supposed to be linked to the lower of the retail prices index (RPI, a measure of inflation) and the Bank of England base interest rate +1%. The idea being that inflation does not erode the cost of the loan and so you pay back in real terms exactly what you borrowed. Thus the only cost to the government for the loan facility which encourages thousands of young people into higher education, is that of administration and of opportunity cost, and over the life term of the loan there is effectively no cost to students.

Unexpectedly, since this system came into place we’ve had a bit of a recession and now the RPI is at -0.4%. The government has decided to lower the student loan interest rate to 0%, which is 0.4% higher than the cost of living, meaning that students are now paying more for their loan than they have borrowed. This isn’t lots of money, about £40-£50 per year but government forecasts expect RPI to hit -3% by the end of the year, which is more like £300-£400 extra per year. This breaks the understanding that I think many of us had when taking out the loans.

If you feel strongly about this then please sign the petition or better yet, write to your MP. You can use my letter to Paul Holmes as an idea of what to write but please do not copy it word for word – MPs get that many copy and pasted identical letters that they don’t tend to pay them much attention.

Dear Paul Holmes,

I’m writing to you about the recent decision to lower the interest rate
of post 1998 student loans to 0% between 1st September 2009 and 31st
August 2010.

As you may know, student loans are linked to the lower of the Retail
Price Index (RPI) and Bank of England base rate plus one percent. The
aim of this arrangement was to keep student loans in-line with the cost
of living so that students will payback the same as they loaned in real
terms.

With recent figures showing that RPI is -0.4% and the government
setting student loans at 0% interest, students are now paying back more
than they loaned in real terms. It is only a small amount but the
forecast in the last Budget was for RPI to fall to -3%, which would
then cost students and graduates hundreds of pounds each year.

Given your record of voting against top-up fees I hope that you will do
what you can to oppose this.

Yours sincerely,
Dean Sas

Internets 1 Parliament 0

// January 21st, 2009 // 3 Comments » // General, p.u.c & p.u-uk.org

MP’s plans to make their expenses exempt from FOI requests have collapsed. It’s a humiliating U turn for the Labour party, who were planning to enforce a three line whip. The Conservatives seem to have received slightly better publicity by changing their minds about it sooner and insisting they were against the idea from the beginning. The turn around came after a largely internet-driven campaign against the plan began, and finished within a couple of days.

The MySociety blog has some interesting statistics on public participation of this campaign

MPs to conceal expenses

// January 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // p.u.c & p.u-uk.org

Parliament have just spent upwards of £500,000 preparing to release data on expenses claimed by MPs. The government (and the conservatives) have now decided that this data should not be available to the public, making MPs and Lords the only public officials in the country that don’t have to make this information available to the public upon request.

First the House of Commons and then the House of Lords will vote on this on Thursday, if passed it will become law nearly immediately.

Tom Steinburg of My Society (the people behind theyworkforyou.com and writetothem.com amongst others) has published this request for action

1. Please write to your MP about this www.WriteToThem.com – ask them to lobby against this concealment, and tell them that TheyWorkForYou will be permanently and prominently noting those MPs who took the opportunity to fight against this regressive move. The millions of constituents who will check this site before the next election will doutbtless be interested.

2. Join this facebook group and invite all your least political friends (plus your most political too). Send them personal mails, phone or text them. Encourage them to write to their politicians too.

3. Write to your local paper to tell them you’re angry, and ask them to ask their readers to do the above. mySociety’s never-finished site http://news.mysociety.org might be able to help you here.

Movie Mash-up

// December 15th, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

It’s feels weird to have a serious conversation with your Member of Parliament when their emails contain the following footer:

Play Movie Mash-up and win BIG prizes!

My M.P.uses hotmail.

Moral Decency

// May 23rd, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Labours latest fundraising event was an auction, one of the items being a signed copy of the Hutton report into David Kelly’s death. I think it represents labours attitude towards the Hutton report and David Kelly; glee and self-satisfaction for their own self interest rather than respect and compassion for Dr Kelly. I can’t understand how a high ranking, presumably intelligent barrister could begin to think that this was a good idea.

Stewart Jackson has tabled an Early Day Motion over it. Over twice as many MPs have this week signed a motion to congratulate Hereford United on promotion rather than this.

That this House notes that senior members of the Labour Party including hon. Members and Government Ministers attended a party fundraising event last week at the Arts Club in Mayfair; further notes that a copy of the official report by Lord Hutton into the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly, signed by Ms Cherie Booth QC, was auctioned for party funds raising £400; believes this conduct to be in appalling bad taste, arrogant and crassly insensitive in seeking to make money, albeit indirectly, through hawking, as a novelty item, an official Government report into the death of a public servant; regrets the distress caused to the family and friends of the late Dr Kelly.

— Stewart Jackson MP

I bet these people sleep like babies too.

(via Iain Dale)

Mark Thomas & Rob Newman at The Lowry

// December 11th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Last week I went to see Mark Thomas and Rob Newman at The Lowry.

Mark Thomas is a comedian who gets his laughs by pointing out the stupid things others – frequently government, do. As well as being funny it’s also quite motivational.

The main things he talked about on the night were war, and arms dealing (he owns a German company called Guns ‘r’ Us). He got lots of laughter telling stories about his time at an arms fair. Despite being on the police watch list for the event and telling the organisers he’s writing a book about arms dealing, they gave him a pass and then commented how sneaky he was when he turned up…

He also told stories of the Hindujas, and how he’d got someone, secretly filmed, to admit their arms dealing connections, however when he came to Newsnight to run the story they said they’d have to ask the Hindujas for comments. The Hindujas comment came in the form of six lawyers. Newsnight did not run the story. Mark Thomas is now going to tell the story in the theatre across from the Hindujas estate, with a red carpet going from their front door, to the front door of the cinema.

The show was sort of like the bits of The Mark Thomas Product, where he tells you about the thing he’s done – only with no footage and things, but covering the multiple topics he’s interested in, such as the ECGD, human rights. It seemed like a brief whirlwind of the things Thomas has got up too.

After the interval Rob Newman came on to perform his half of the show, now, besides knowing he and David Baddiel sold out Wembly Arena once upon a time, I knew exactly nothing about him. He came onto the stage, dressed in clothes that looked about 100 years old, wearing a bowler hat and doing a John Cleese style, funny walk. I didn’t know what to expect.

His routine mainly concerned the war, oil and random-ish odd songs with the occasional push of non-hierarchical autonomous groups. The routine was kind of light with humour, instead he tried to educate the audience on his theories.

Newman seems to me, to have a brain just full of facts, figures and thoughts. I’d imagine he’s a very interesting person to know.

The theories were quite controversial, and I’m unsure as to how serious he was about some of them, the main ones that come to mind is that “The first world war was all about oil in Iraq” and the prediction of a melt down in society over the next fifty years.

The melt down in society will apparently come through the lack of energy – oil production is apparently past it’s peak and the other sources won’t be able to provide enough power quick enough to satisfy demand. One thing worth noting is that oil not only provides power for transport, but also for fertilisers and other things. Here’s more information on “Peak Oil“. It’s quite an engrossing read.

But besides being a bit doom and gloom, he finished off his act on a lighter note, with some jokes and with songs singing accompanied by playing of the ukelele, including an impressive version of Rock Around the Clock in Arabic.

The show was finished with Thomas on the harmonica and Newman on the ukelele doing a seemingly improvised musical battle, where they took the chance to take the mick out of each other in song. Newman could obviously sing better, and was funnier, with Mark Thomas frequently stopping to laugh at him and what he looked like.

There’s still four tour dates left – in Warwick and Canterbury, but they’re very soon. If you get a chance to see these two then I’d definetly take it up. Not only will you have a great laugh, but you’ll also have chance to learn something.

Also thank you to the lady who gave me 10p for parking.

Quick Reply

// November 23rd, 2005 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

Wow, Natascha Engel – my M.P. has responded to my letter already – this time the response time was only four days, which isn’t bad at all.

She basically said that the argument is now academic and that there were other reasons for her support of the law as well to paraphrase: “the nature of globalised terrorist networks takes more time as more countries are involved.”

She also asked for permission to pass the information onto the Home Office, which I gave her whilst warning that someone there presumably already knew.