Students
William Hague’s beery legacy
Po-faced Labour MP Grahame Morris has been crying into his bitter this morning at young Tories up at York University who hold an annual ‘Hagueathon’ in honour of the fourteen… Continue reading
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Will 2013 bring an end to unpaid internships?
It’s a bit early for predictions for 2013. But my feeling is that it could be the year of the unpaid intern, or rather, the year of the paid intern… Continue reading
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St Andrew’s students beat ‘milking’ with ‘champagning’
The Daily Mail got very excited last month over ‘a new student craze’ called milking, where students post videos of themselves ‘pouring milk over their heads in public places’: The… Continue reading
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More left the UK for work in the last year than came here for it
Net migration to the UK from April 2011 to March 2012 was 183,000, down by a quarter on 242,000 the year before. That’s the headline figure from today’s Office for… Continue reading
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Willetts attempts to limit the damage of Coalition immigration policy
There was a flutter of excitement among the Higher Education community this morning, when the education editor of the Times tweeted that David Willetts, the Universities Minister, was about to… Continue reading
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A U-turn on international students would be welcome
If you have been confused over the last couple of days by the mixed messages emerging from Downing Street about the government’s policy on international students, you are not alone:… Continue reading
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Another voice: How ministers are gaming the net migration target
International students are currently the largest single category of immigrants who count in the net migration figures, which cover all those intending to stay more than a year. In the… Continue reading
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Immigration to fall in 2012 — but still not on track to hit the Tory target
Immigration will remain at the heart of political debate in 2012. Economic downturns tend to heighten concerns about migrants competing for jobs and depressing wages, and spending cuts tend to… Continue reading
62 CommentsNew immigration figures
The Conservative wing of this government is on a quest to reduce net migration to, in the words of David Cameron, the “tens of thousands from the hundreds of thousands”. Liberal… Continue reading
27 CommentsAn American view of tuition fees
When I visited the US recently, I got talking to some American teenagers about university. They (like me) had just left school and were trying to decide where to go… Continue reading
14 CommentsIn Praise of Alastair Sim
There is, I confess, little pressing need to post this clip from The Happiest Days of Your Life beyond the fact that a) it is always good to see Alastair… Continue reading
2 CommentsAcross Europe, students are protesting against the end of their entitlements
A month ago I found myself in the space of one week in two different countries, yet in the midsts of what felt like the same phenomenon: the political awakening… Continue reading
16 CommentsThe government takes the fight to students
The government’s response to the protest over tuition fee hikes has stiffened. Nick Clegg has written to Aaron Porter and David Cameron has penned an op-ed piece in the Standard… Continue reading
52 CommentsClegg fights back in tuition fees row
Nick Clegg has written a gloriously condescending letter to Aaron Porter, who hopes to recall Liberal Democrat MPs who vote in favour of tuition fees rises. Clegg emphasises that he… Continue reading
26 CommentsAre they the children of the revolution?
The student protests are an important short-term development, which will undoubtedly worry the coalition. But are they also, as the Met Commissioner noted, a harbinger of something else: namely, a… Continue reading
34 CommentsThe Lib Dems are in quiet turmoil over tuition fees
A cruel north wind heralds the Lib Dem’s discontent. In public, the party has withstood criticism of its apparent u-turn on student finance, helped in part by the more puerile… Continue reading
19 CommentsFive things the student unions didn’t protest against in the last 13 years…
1) That Labour cut the number of schools each year. 2) That pupils were shepherded into ever-larger schools. 3) That, although the budget trebled, class sizes hardly moved. 4) That… Continue reading
43 CommentsThe Lib Dems are spared by idiotic students
The violence at today’s student protest is, politically, a boon to the coalition. The story now is not the Lib Dems breaking their word but the storming of Millbank. The… Continue reading
77 CommentsCheating on the students
Writhe, squirm, cringe and cower. The Commons wanted to inflict ritual punishments on Nick Clegg today for his broken pledges on student fees. The plan nearly succeeded. With Cameron in… Continue reading
19 CommentsThe politics of the student protests
The student protests really are throwing up some extraordinary images. Who’d have thought that they’d end up smashing their way in to the lobby of Tory HQ, setting fire to… Continue reading
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