Letter to the Times

Here's a letter I'm just about to the post. I may be drunk, but I can still compose a mean letter without the help of the paperclip:

Dear Sir,

From personal experience and as a student at one of the countries many “polytechnic” universities, I can confidently assure your readers that there are many young people at this country’s lower-table universities who ought not to be there.

I can, however, also assure your readers that many students at the countries “top” universities are just as ignorant and alien to the real world as those at seemingly lesser establishments.

Therefore I beg employers to not look at the university an employment candidate went to, more look at whether the candidate in question is a complete and utter dickhead or not. Base your decision on that factor and you may not be successful statistically, but at least you’ll have taught the arrogant tosser a lesson.

Yours faithfully,

Jack Worrall

Railway Engineering Student

Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield.

"Indirect Proximity Carbon Offsetting"

The estimated cost of raising a child until a certain age vary's wildly, with the news naturally giving airtime to the most shocking figures.

It's obvious (to a cynic like me) that the story is simply a filler in between more important (and more true) stories coming along. I base this assumption on the fact that the news can use it numerous times over a decade.

Here is an article from 2002. Here is an article from 2006. Here's an article from the other day.

What strikes me is that none of this information they give is very useful. It's not like you can see whether any trends are forming from a sample of reports over, say, 10 years because every report has different variables.

Some of them are based in London, some for the entirety of the UK. Some reports are based on paying for private education, some on state. Some are based on two full-time working parents, some are based on a single working parent.

What good is that?

Newspapers aren't the most reliable source for figures at the best of times, but the findings of these reports could make the difference between whether a couple decides to have a baby or not.

Which is why, from the perspective of someone who has a primary school grasp of maths and can therefore see a world population catastrophe on the horizon, these reports are vital to the cause!

Next time you meet anyone who is likely to get pregnant accidentally (you know who I mean), or is stupid enough to think that by reproducing they will raise an asset to society, you should use these articles and their "findings" to discourage them.

Call it "indirect proximity carbon offsetting".

If you talk to them a year later and they haven't reproduced "because of the cost" then you can fly away on holiday guilt free for at least another year! It's a win-win-win.

1. The environment is happy there isn't another person pumping carbon dioxide into the air for approximately 72 years.
2. The mother is happy she can still go out and get wrecked mid-week.
3. And most importantly, you're happy because you've got an exotic holiday to look forward to.

Democracy Recorded

There's been a lot of talk recently about the UK's democracy being behind the US's SUPER-DEMOCRACY.

This is, according to some, the result of the UK media being slow to see the benefits, both for democracy and for commercial broadcasters advertising revenues, of live televised debates. These prime-time televised debates, they argue, would give modern UK politics the kind of exposure it has been lacking with the "couldn't care less" X-Factor watching audiences of which hardly any are voting.

It is, certainly, a tragedy that people aren't taking an active part in politics anymore, but hardly surprising. Even the most dedicated follower of UK politics must get tired of the endless sleaze and spin seen by all sides of the house of commons, now imagine trying to sell that to someone who had no interest anyway.

In my opinion these people have no interest because they've been having it so good under a government which is happy to have a full-time unemployed demographic on benefits (it's not wrong, it's just one way of doing things).

Voting for the Conservatives would likely give that demographic something to get involved about as their quality of life would go down, either forcing them back to work (and becoming a taxpayer) or compelling them to fight for the kind of benefits they've been receiving under Labour (by, heaven forbid, voting).

Which poses a couple of pretty serious questions... With it's generous (and widely regarded as excessive) benefits scheme seen over the last 13 years, has Labour intentionally or unintentionally bought insurance against a Conservative victory? And how much will the Conservatives benefit long term by opening up to the Saturday-night prime-time, assuming that traditional class-party relationships are still relevant?

Has this country's right leaning press done enough to convince the non-voting layman to vote Conservative and how long will that last?

Doug Stanhope

Doug Stanhope isn't the kind of comedian you could see hosting a mainstream awards ceremony anytime soon.

If I was to compare his comedy to anyone I would struggle, with Bill Hicks being my best attempt, but comparing his personality, or the reasons for his (pleasingly modest so as not to be mainstream) success, to Russell Brand would be easy. The only difference is, as a person, Russell Brand is a hot toddy to Doug Stanhope's pint of vodka.

Russell Brand shocked a lot of the hedge-pruning middle England Daily Mail readers when he first came to Joe Public's attention, and rightly so (that was probably what he set out to do anyway). He lays his personality out, warts and all, for everyone to see and then prods it with a stick for other's amusement. It makes people laugh and he's been successful doing something that others haven't had the balls to do. But the difference between Brand and Stanhope is simple. Russell Brand is likeable, a bit cheeky at times, but he's good looking and erudite. He has to fend women off with a hot poker. He even hosted the VMAs.

When Stanhope talks about anything, he puts himself on the table in front of you and says "that's it". You can easily imagine him with moths in his wallet and holes in his socks, but he accepts it. He gets up in front of an audience and says, "I'm a drunk bastard, but there's more important things going on in the world, so enough about me, let's talk about them and get this over with". If Russell Brand were to lose his comedy, he'd have his good looks and way with words to build his life on afterwards. If Doug Stanhope stopped being funny, he'd have nothing.

Which is why he's my new favorite person in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExAw4hIhRIU&feature=related

LABOUR TO TAX DEATH!

The Conservatives have unsurprisingly rounded upon Labour's National Care Service plans.

Yes, this "death tax" will tax you, for dieing. You might as well not look into it anymore, because there is nothing more to say on the matter.

For those who were sensible enough to not take that last sentence literally, here is the run-down on the National Care Service.

The alleged plan is to charge everyone £20,000 to cover the cost of their care once they retire.

There are three different types of people who will use the National Care Service. Let us assume that we are talking about people who the National Care Service plans to cater for i.e. those with the "greatest needs".

- People who can afford to pay the £20,000 when they retire, and so will do.

- Those who can't afford to pay £20,000 when they retire, but hold that or more in assets. These people will have that £20,000 recovered from their estates when they die (the "death tax").

- Those who can't afford to pay £20,000 when they retire, and don't have the assets to leave £20,000 after death. They will be covered by the state.

The Conservatives have made it clear that a National Care Service would be too costly, and that even this "death tax" wouldn't raise enough money to keep it going, instead predicting that Labour will cut other parts of the NHS to help fund it.

Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, has said the Conservatives want to allow people to "leave as much of their lifetime’s savings as possible to the next generation" and has suggested a voluntary one-off premium of £8,000 to fund care. Under his plan "no-one would be forced to sell their home to pay for care".

I don't suppose he'll be willing to make any guarantees on that statement.

The idea for the service will provide to middle-income pensioners what a mortgage provides to non home owners, or finance provides when you're buying a car; the ability to benefit from something now, for payment later. The only difference is that with the NCS, middle-income pensioners won't have payments to make when they are alive and living off a relatively small pension, instead the payment is deferred until their weekly living costs are exactly nil, i.e. when they die!

I think the Conservatives will have to be careful with how aggressively they criticize the plans for the NCS as it's dangerously close to being a good one which could garner strong public support. They certainly won't look good if they were seen to criticize a something that worked!

The opposition's sound-bite is also pretty good, though. It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out...