Tag Archives: university

Braverman ‘going to ground’ as record migration figures revealed

Suella Braverman: don’t you think she looks worried?

Migration from foreign countries to the UK has soared, with new figures showing 1.2 million people coming to live in the country during the last year.

Net migration – the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants (either UK citizens or non-citizens) stands at 606,000, according to the statistics released today (May 25, 2023).

It’s a 24 per cent increase on the previous high of 488,000. Embarrassingly for Brexiters Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the rise was fuelled by people from outside the EU entering the UK to study, work or escape conflict or oppression.

At the time of writing, Braverman has not commented on the figures – instead, she ran like a rabbit from an urgent question in the House of Commons, leading Shadow Home Secretary to accuse her of going to ground. “What is the point of her?” she asked

Some might say that this was better than the comedy response from Rishi Sunak who, while agreeing the numbers were too high, actually said, “I’m bringing them down.”

Clearly he isn’t!

His government has announced a few new measures, like making it harder for international students to come to the UK by banning them from bringing “dependents”.

This seems to have confused some MPs, who mentioned students’ parents and grandparents in Commons debate. In fact, it means students will be banned from bringing their partners (spouse, husband, wife, civil partner, relationship partner) and children.

Amazingly, this has been welcomed by the Labour Party:

The result will be that foreign students will be discouraged from coming to the UK.

Readers of This Site will be aware that Yr Obdt Servt (that’s me) has been re-watching the old BBC sitcom Yes, Minister lately, and one episode refers to attempts to stop foreign students attending UK universities.

In it, the university authorities squealed like pigs in the mating season, because foreign students paid eight times as much as UK citizens and a ban would create financial difficulties for them.

Is the situation the same today?

If so, what advantage do Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman hope to create for the UK by closing our universities?

Source: ‘What’s the point of her?’: Braverman accused of ‘going to ground’ as record migration figures revealed


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University bosses are planning to price less wealthy students out of education

University cash claims: are foreign students really pushing lower-paying UK candidates out of education – or are they subsidising the places?

Tuition fees should never have been introduced, of course – and this just proves it.

The bosses of four universities – Sunderland, Cardiff, Sheffield Hallam and Gloucester – have said the government needs to increase the cost of tuition for UK students, or they will overlook domestic students in favour of foreigners.

They say the frozen rate of £9,250 for UK students is not enough, meaning they have to take on an increasing number of applicants from countries such as China and India, who pay average annual fees of £24,000.

It is certainly true that a fifth of places at Russell Group universities were awarded to overseas students, an increase of seven per cent compared to last year. Meanwhile, the number of British undergraduates declined by 13 per cent.

But are universities really suffering from anything other than greed?

The University and College Union (UCU) is currently balloting for industrial action on the basis that academic institutions finished the 2020/21 financial year with £3.4 billion more than they started it with – but rather than spend some of the money improving pay and conditions for staff, they are putting £4.6 billion into “vanity” construction projects.

If they have money for that, then they can’t be struggling too hard – can they?

And the government has claimed that the university bosses’ argument is false.

According to the Telegraph, a spokesperson said: “It is a myth that offering a place to an international student takes a place away from a student in the UK. They actually support the creation of more places for domestic students.”

And the government said it is providing £750 million in extra funding for universities over the next three years.

So it seems to This Writer that uni bosses are just getting greedy. Am I right?

Source: Tuition fees for British students must be increased, university bosses warn

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DWP blocks study of links between benefit sanctions and death. What are the Tories trying to hide?

‘Bring out your dead’: this satirical image shows public opinion of the limits of DWP concern for people the Tory government department deprives of the money they need to live.

A groundbreaking study of possible links between benefit sanctions and claimant ill-health – including mental illness and suicide – has ground to a halt because Tory ministers are not co-operating.

After making a big show of supporting the Glasgow University research back in 2019, DWP ministers immediately insisted that new security protocols would be required before they released the necessary data.

It took two years for the new protocols to be completed – and when they reached completion last year, the DWP demanded that researchers should apply for the data all over again.

Prof Nick Bailey, who is heading the Glasgow sanctions project, said that had the data been shared as originally agreed with the DWP in 2018, his research would have been in the public domain by early 2020. It is now five years since the research process for the project was supposed to have started and it has yet to get under way.

“The consequence for both policymakers and benefit claimants is we continue to operate an important policy, sanctions, which has potentially substantial consequences for those affected by it but with very little evidence of the impact of the policy, and almost none on the wider impacts,” said Bailey.

A recent Glasgow University paper analysing international studies of sanctions reported “significant associations with increased material hardship and health problems” as well as evidence sanctions “were associated with increased child maltreatment and poorer child wellbeing”.

The DWP has said it is now “actively considering” the data request that was originally made back in 2018 – nearly four years ago.

But what are we – the public – to make of this?

Does the Department for Work and Pensions have something to hide – such as complicity in the deaths of thousands of benefit claimants?

This Writer – and This Site – forced the government to reveal that thousands of people had died of unexplained causes within two weeks of being denied their benefits, all the way back in 2015.

Nothing was done to research the deaths – or to find out what had happened to people who had been denied benefits after the two-week period the DWP monitored.

And that was nearly seven years ago.

It seems to me that the DWP is deliberately concealing information on behalf of its masters in the Conservative government; the demand for extraordinary security procedures is just an excuse.

And it seems to me that there can be only one reason for hiding the information – that there is a link between benefit sanctions and claimant deaths, and DWP bosses have known about it for many years.

I challenge the DWP – and the Conservative government – to prove me wrong.

Source: DWP blocks data for study of whether benefit sanctions linked to suicide | Benefits | The Guardian

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#Labour councillors crossed a #picket line they should have been joining. Here’s the shameful reason [VIDEO]

The Labour Party is supposed to represent workers and working-class people, especially if they are struggling for decent pay, in-work benefits and pensions, as part of its reason for existing – wouldn’t you agree?

Members of the University and College Union have been striking in a dispute that is partly over the management and financing of the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), which provides pensions to the UK’s older universities as well as research institutes and academic thinktanks, and partly over low pay and issues including insecure fixed-term contracts used to employ an increasing number of teaching staff.

So why did Labour councillors in Sheffield not only cross a picket line but, in one case, apparently assault a picketer?

It seems a meeting of Labour-led Sheffield City Council had been scheduled to take place in a university building – during the strike, which seems extremely insensitive of a Labour-run organisation.

These councillors were attending a pre-meeting, and it seems they crossed the picket line to do so, attracting cries of “Scab!” from some of the picketers. That’s how the incident came to take place.

Sheffield UCU subsequently released a statement:

For those who can’t read images, it says:

Today, the majority of Labour councillors entered a University of Sheffield building for a pre-meeting, and in doing so, walked past striking members of Sheffield UCU. Along with UCU members from 57 other HE institutions across the UK, today is our first day of strike action in our dispute over rampant precarity, unhealthy workloads, equal pay, and substantial cuts to our pay and pensions. These are issues that we trust would be of particular importance to the Labour party.

“We do not condone the use of university buildings during strike action, and when we learned of this meeting, had worked with the Sheffield Students Union to find an alternative location in the Students Union next door, which is treated as neutral ground during industrial action.

“We are extremely disappointed that any member of the Labour party would choose to cross past striking union members, despite being given an opportunity to support our action by simply relocating their pre-meeting to a nearby building. We understand that at this pre-meeting, the Labour members took a vote and were determined to not attend the later, full council meeting. This decision does not negate their previous choice to do so, but we are pleased they made the correct choice in the end.

“We appreciate the solidarity of those Labour, Green, and Lib Dem council members who chose to not enter the building.”

Yes indeed. Apparently the alternative, Student Union, building was turned down by councillors because they thought it was too small for social distancing.

That doesn’t excuse the Labour Party from having scheduled a meeting to take place at the university during strike action, though.

What were they thinking?

And isn’t this typical of Labour Party policy at the moment – that the challenges faced by workers and working-class people are increasingly overlooked by career politicians who are more concerned with keeping their positions as members of the Establishment?

If that’s the political position occupied by Keir Starmer’s Labour, then it is worse than useless to the people for whom that party was originally formed.

Labour Exploitation Party. They climb to the heights by walking all over us.

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Johnson’s biggest lie yet? Covid-19 deaths are MASSIVELY more than he has said

We know why he lies, too: his fake narrative makes it easier to gather support – especially from Blue Labour types like Keir Starmer who has backed him all the way, in every way that matters.

Deaths in the UK from Covid-19 were not 150,000 at the start of May, as reported by the government, but nearly 210,000.

That’s according to a new study by the University of Washington, reported by the British Medical Journal.

In the UK, the researchers estimated, the true covid death toll up to May 2021 was not 150 519 as officially reported, but 209 661.

Global deaths from covid-19 are not 3.27 million, as official figures suggest, but 6.93 million up to 3 May.

The virus is claiming about 33 000 lives a day around the world, more than twice reported figures.

Don’t try to tell me Boris Johnson doesn’t know.

What’s really shocking is that he and his despicable, corrupt Tory government that has used the Covid crisis as a chance to funnel billions of pounds to its party members and friends, are now riding high in the opinion polls.

… Because Labour members were fooled into electing a pale-blue cuckoo who backed his buddy Boris to the hilt.

The good news is that projected future deaths are very low – around 750 by September – due to high vaccine take-up.

It is the only good news to be had from this ever-expanding fiasco.

Source: Covid-19: Study claims real global deaths are twice official figures | The BMJ

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Why have UK university students had to waste £1 BILLION on digs they couldn’t use?

Rent strike: students are permanently penniless. When you see how much this year’s alumni have had to pay – for NOTHING – you’ll understand why they’re raging.

Those Tories really are selective about who they help with the costs of Covid-19, aren’t they?

I remember being a student. Most of the time, I hardly had two pennies to rub together. The rented accommodation available to us was – mostly – diabolical. And expensive.

One place was damp. It gave me bronchitis.

But at least I got to live in it!

Since the Covid crisis started, according to a survey, the

average student has so far paid £1,621 in rent for unrefunded empty rooms.

In total, according to advice website Save the Student,

university students have wasted nearly £1bn on empty rooms in flat shares and halls of residence that they have been unable to use because of coronavirus restrictions this academic year.

The website estimates rents are so high that they take up three-quarters of their maintenance loans at an average of £146 per week, so it’s no wonder that

Students’ anger with high rents… boiled over on UK campuses this term as students launched the largest rent strike in 40 years.

There has been a patchy response from universities, private halls of residence and landlords, with some refusing discounts while others have offered full rebates.

I have a lot of sympathy for the universities, and for the landlords – as well as for the students themselves.

It is unfair for the accommodation providers to foot the bill for thousands of empty rooms when the situation was thrust on them by the government – albeit admittedly in response to a nationwide pandemic.

It just happens to be even more unfair for them to demand that students pay the bill, rather than the government. This is loaned money, remember – they have to pay it back, plus interest, over a period of decades to come.

Businesses – especially the bigger ones – have received huge subsidies, and employees have had 80 per cent of their wages paid by a government “furlough” scheme. Why weren’t students added to that, at the very least?

The Guardian story tells us the government has provided students with £70 million in hardship funding, which seems to fall quite a long way short of what they’ve had to shell out.

Considering the billions given to Tory cronies and their – let’s be honest – fake firms for nonexistent or inadequate Covid-related services, this is an insult to the next generation of the UK’s movers and shakers.

Let’s hope they remember it.

Source: UK university students wasted £1bn in a year on empty accommodation | Student housing | The Guardian

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The British media support the Tory government – when they should be holding it to account

[Image: Before It’s News.]

What a travesty – but then, you will be well aware that the UK’s news media have been backing the Conservatives for many years.

There has been at least one other academic study in the last few years, showing that the media – and especially the BBC – predominantly support the Conservative Party in their news coverage.

Now, Loughborough University has analysed newspaper coverage of political parties during the first week of last year’s general election campaign.

It found that the Labour Party was overwhelmingly targeted with negative coverage, while the Tories were showered with praise.

What is your average, non-political person-on-the-street supposed to think?

Look at the state of this:

The study also showed that the most positive coverage of the Tories came from the highest circulation newspapers, with journalists at The Sun and the Daily Mail relied upon to write deferential, pro-government stories.

“The unweighted results show that only the Conservative Party received more positive than negative coverage across all newspapers,” the academics said in a summary of their research.

“In contrast, Labour had a substantial deficit of positive to negative news reports in the first formal week of the campaign.”

To give you an idea of the scale of the imbalance: the study weighted each news item on whether it contained a negative or positive implication for each party, scoring either -1 or +1 respectively, while balanced news items produced a 0.

The result:+4 for the Conservatives, and -91 for Labour.

At a time when the law demands impartial coverage.

The UK badly needs independent news coverage – or at least a restoration of the balance.

Fortunately, there are moves in that direction – such as the new Facebook page This is NOT the Corporate News.

But then, This Writer would say that – This Site is a contributor to that page. Look it up!

Source: British newspapers heap positive coverage on Tories while trashing Labour, study finds | The Independent

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Austerity policies are ‘social murder’, say experts who’ll be ignored by the Tories

New research by Lancaster University has shown that austerity policies, beloved by the Conservative government, amount to “social murder”.

But don’t get your hopes up that this might lead to a huge policy change. This isn’t the first such report to come from a British university, and the Tories are likely to treat it with the contempt they have given the last.

The new report by Dr Chris Grover, head of the university’s sociology department, defines austerity as a form of structural violence – built into society in the form of unequal power and unequal life chances – that deepens inequalities and injustices and creates desperate poverty.

As a result, the report states, working class people face harm to their physical and mental well-being and in some instances are “socially murdered”.

Dr Grover gives examples of where social security austerity has led to a range of harms:

·        an additional six suicides for every 10,000 work capability assessments done;

·        increasing number of people Britain dying of malnutrition

·        increasing numbers of homeless people dying on the streets or in hostels

He refers to the process as ‘violent proletarianisation’ – claiming that violent austerity is aimed at forcing people to do paid work, rather than being reliant upon benefits. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation by employers who have no reason not to pay the lowest wage possible.

Dr Grover is using the research to call on the government for fundamental change that removes the economic need for people to work for such low wages.

“The violence takes two forms,” said Dr Grover. “First it involves further economic hardship of already income-poor people.

“It causes social inequalities and injustices in the short term and in the longer term.

“Second, the poverty that violent proletarianisation creates is both known and avoidable.”

You can read his research here.

But don’t expect the Conservative government to pay the slightest bit of attention to it.

Remember when the universities of Oxford and Liverpool produced a report showing the work capability assessment used to decide whether people deserve Employment Support Allowance had caused a massive increase in mental illness among claimants? The Tories just shrugged it off.

I wrote at the time: “The research by Oxford University and Liverpool University shows that more than two-thirds of claimants who took the fake ‘medical’ test between 2010 and 2013 – 7,020 out of every 10,000 – received prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs afterwards.

“There were 2,700 cases of mental ill-health and – most damning of all, six suicides per 10,000 assessments. If these were all separate cases, that would leave just 274 people who, after the assessment, were only suffering with the illnesses they took into it.”

The mention of six suicides per 10,000 assessments corresponds with Dr Grover’s work, suggesting that the evidence base is at least partially the same.

That will not help prove the case to the Tories. They’ll only say suicides have many causes and should not be associated with a single element of a person’s life, blah blah blah. Oh, and that this evidence shows correlation, not causation – that is to say, there is no direct causal evidence linking the Conservative government’s benefit policy with mental illness and suicide, blah blah blah.

In fact, there is direct causal evidence – I’d say suicide notes by some of the deceased, directly blaming the government, are direct evidence. And there’s no evidence showing an increase in mental ill-health, malnutrition, deaths of the homeless and suicides of benefit claimants before the Tories forced austerity on those people.

But of course the government has other ideas. And we all know what Tories think of experts – remember what Michael Gove had to say about them?

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Straight-talking university conquers critics of refugee scheme with this great response

The University of Reading is This Writer’s alma mater so I am proud to report this particular story.

The university announced a plan to offer up to 14 sponsored places to refugees living in the Reading area, on June 19 – developed in partnership with Reading Refugee Support Group and the university’s own students’ union.

Unbelievably, this laudable scheme has attracted enmity – from small-minded little-Englanders, one can only conclude.

Its response is what make me a happy alumnus today:

“Tough. Jog on.” Right on!

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After the violence, the propaganda – but it’s Rees-Mogg’s people who are guilty [STRONG LANGUAGE]

Some MPs – particularly those on the left of the political spectrum – are going to end up with proverbial egg on their faces after the scuffle involving Jacob Rees-Mogg at the University of the West of England.

It seems some were quick to condemn masked protesters who heckled Mr Rees-Mogg from the back of the hall in a confrontation that escalated until one man apparently tried to punch a supporter of the Conservative MP for North East Somerset.

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/959529976616947712

In fact, footage shows that a white-shirted supporter of Mr Rees-Mogg had slapped a student – and this is what prompted the protester to aim a punch.

The woman who was hit, Andreea Dumitrache, has tweeted about what happened:

It is now clear that the violence was initiated by a supporter of Mr Rees-Mogg – not by the protesters, who have been described as being of the far left. Do we have any proof of that?

Here’s some more analysis:

https://twitter.com/june_randeria/status/959747923876700160

But this is only one side of the story, of course. Would you like to see what supporters of Mr Rees-Mogg have to say?

Brace yourself:

https://twitter.com/aintnotnever/status/959771046219010048

https://twitter.com/VicNocal/status/959540147388731393

https://twitter.com/Leapy6/status/959777703988690944

Here’s a comment sent in response to This Site’s previous article about the incident, from a person who was too cowardly to provide his own name but instead went by the imaginative pseudonym ‘z’:

look up the definition of a common assault spakka.

whiny left tries to deflect from yet another example of its own violent, hateful extremism.

According to the Urban Dictionary, a “spakka” (there are many different spellings, presumably indicating the illiteracy of those who use the word) is a derogatory term for people with mental and/or physical disabilities.

So this Rees-Mogg supporter is someone who discriminates against the disabled in the most insulting way possible. And they support physical attacks against other people. Despicable.

By the way, everyone who trains as a news reporter has to learn the definitions of certain crimes, including common assault. Assault happens when a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to believe they will be the victim of unlawful force. Actual harmful or offensive physical contact – like a punch – is legally defined as battery. White shirt man appears to commit both in the video evidence we’ve seen, although a jury may be asked to make the final decision.

So, not only is ‘z’ the kind of creature who tries to put other people down with derogatory language, they also pretend to know more than they do – again, to put others down. On top of all that, they then accuse others of “violent, hateful extremism”.

To that person, I say: If you want to see a violent, hateful extremist, just look in a mirror.

Eddie Briggs, below, makes an appropriate observation in a much milder way than I would have:

https://twitter.com/eddiesurfs/status/959777606265724928

Final verdicts? Mixed. Try this:

But then there’s this:

Good point. The protesters had to be labelled as supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. Were they? And if they were, is he really to blame for their actions, which were simply to protest verbally until rent-a-thug turned up.

But let’s stay on the subject of Mr Corbyn, because this last bombshell is perhaps more pertinent than any of the others. It’s from Aleesha, who tweeted (and I’m going to have to quote her because for some reasons the tweet isn’t reproducing here):

“Honestly, there’s more outrage over the fact that Jacob Rees-Mogg was *not* hit than there was outrage over the fact that this week, it became apparent that a terrorist literally planned to assassinate Jeremy Corbyn.”


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