Politicians are now openly lying

[JaredJames]

I know it's only a very short snippet but it is proving that politicians are now openly lying just to get into office:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/10/all_promises_may_be_off.html

So now we have it, from Vince Cable in the Commons this afternoon - election pledges may no longer apply - not just on tuition fees, but everything.

The Business Secretary told MPs:

"In the current financial climate - which is appalling - all commitments, all pledges, have to be re-examined from first principles."

They're claiming that they didn't know the true state of the economy. What a load of BS. I knew the state of it, every other voter knew the state of it, but these guys didn't? Load of crap.

They're know openly lying to voters to get into parliament. The most recent turn was a politician who insisted on backing free university tuition throughout the UK:

http://nigelashton.org.uk/news/000083/lib_dems_will_scrap_tuition_fees.html [Broken]

and has now done a complete u-turn and said tuition fee caps should be removed, allowing universities to charge up to £12000 per year.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/e...bears-brunt-of-tuition-fee-anger-2104207.html

I know politicians aren't the most honest of people and are renowned the world over for lying, but this is taking the biscuit. It's one thing to promise and not deliver, but it's another when you promise and then do the complete opposite.

I think it's dreadful they're allowing this to happen, it's going to create a seriously unbalanced system where only the rich get to go to university (without putting themselves into ridiculous debt). It's bad enough I'm leaving with £25,000 of debt, let alone leaving with near £40,000.

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/education/university_boss_warns_of_his_fears_of_elitist_system_1_2027844

An 'elitist' system is correct. Alright for the rich, *cough* politicians *cough*.

 

[BobG]

It's hard to lie about future events - or at least prove they were lying. The person has to know there is no chance whatsoever that their ideas will work.

The possibilities:
1) They never intended to follow through on their promises whether they were possible or not. They were lying.
2) They never intended to follow through on their promises themselves. They knew their promises were currently impossible, but making the promises would create an environment where someone else would have to fulfill them. They were inspirational.
3) They intentionally avoid learning anything about how the world actually functions, since that would limit the things they could promise. They were intentionally ignorant.
4) They actually believe the normal rules of the world don't apply to them and that they can make promises come true simply by force of will. The fact that once in a great while someone makes impossible promises come true means that they, personally, will obviously succeed where others have failed. They were crusaders.

 

[JaredJames]

It's hard to lie about future events

I think I've missed something here.

It's very easy to lie so far as making promises "if we get into office we'll fight to eradicate student tuition fees" and then getting into office and not even attempting to stick to them.

The state of the economy hasn't deteriated that much (if at all) between now and when they made the election promises. The difference is that the coalition is basically meaning the other party is dictating what happens to them and they're apparantely just rolling over and accepting it.

When I voted for them one of the big selling points was their stance on tuition fees, now they've gone completely against that and instead of there being no tuition fees I'm now facing four fold increases. £3000 to £12000 is a huge leap in most people books.

It's one thing to say "sorry, we can't erradicate tuition fees", but to say "we're letting uni's charge what they like" is taking voters for a ride and as far as I'm concerned they've lied to get my vote.

 

[Gokul43201]

When I voted for them one of the big selling points was their stance on tuition fees, now they've gone completely against that and instead of there being no tuition fees I'm now facing four fold increases. £3000 to £12000 is a huge leap in most people books.

This is a bit of a tangential point. It obviously costs something to educate you at university. If I understand your position correctly, you believe you should not pay anything for this education. Then who should, and why?

 

[Office_Shredder]

This is a bit of a tangential point. It obviously costs something to educate you at university. If I understand your position correctly, you believe you should not pay anything for this education. Then who should, and why?

The taxpayers obviously. In the UK universities have the option of accepting public funding, in which case the government also gets to control how much the university can charge for tuition to the student. A natural consequence is that universities had to take the deal in order to attract students, but this is backfiring because the government doesn't give enough money to cover the cost of the students anymore. For example a couple years ago Oxford announced it was losing 5,000 pounds for every undergraduate it educated

 

[JaredJames]

This is a bit of a tangential point. It obviously costs something to educate you at university. If I understand your position correctly, you believe you should not pay anything for this education. Then who should, and why?

No, not at all. Personally I'm happy with things as they are now. Get a student loan for circa £3000 to cover costs per year, pay it back once working.

However, they dangled this "free uni" carrot and a lot of people bought it. Now they've gone from free uni to four times the cost uni. This is why I'm annoyed.

My vote would have gone for my usual party, but the Lib Dems gave a series of good promises and so far haven't upheld any of them. Seeing this regarding tuition fees makes me feel like they robbed my vote. In any other circumstances it would be seen as fraud (just like the mps expenses issue).

 

[Char. Limit]

Has a politician ever kept all of his promises?

 

[JaredJames]

Well for me it comes down to someone advertising you get something free (let's say a car) providing you vote for them, then once they're in office they turn around and say "ah, well, you can have the car but it's actually four times its current price".

We wouldn't stand for this anywhere else, everyone is complaining about it, especially those who voted (they go through with this and they'll never be voted in again) and yet they just don't listen.

 

[Al68]

Well for me it comes down to someone advertising you get something free (let's say a car) providing you vote for them...

That's already too corrupt to consider for any political office, so it wouldn't matter much what they did next.

 

[JaredJames]

That's already too corrupt to consider for any political office, so it wouldn't matter much what they did next.

That's the whole concept of political policies. "If you vote us in we will strive to do X, Y and Z."

They tell you what they will do for you if you get them into power.

They told us what they would do and are doing a complete u-turn and doing the complete opposite.

I understand that it isn't always possible to complete all of your policies, but they're well beyond that. They're doing the opposite of what they promised. That's fraud by mis-representation in any other circle, but no, not with politics.

I agree, the car example is corrupt, but I was trying to demonstrate what they've done.

We can't operate on a basis of them making a set of election promises and then have them come out with something completely different once we get them in.

The biggest problem here is that they've formed a coalition and they aren't even trying to fight for what they want. Just rolling over for the other party.

I've spoken to a lot of students who said they were going to vote Labour but changed their mind and went for Lib Dems because of this particular policy. The newspapers put a lot of time into advertising this (and their other) policies.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Has a politician ever kept all of his promises?

It is fair to say that William Henry Harrison never broke a promise as President.

 

[Char. Limit]

It is fair to say that William Henry Harrison never broke a promise as President.

True. But did he keep his promises (whatever they were)?

 

[BobG]

The taxpayers obviously. In the UK universities have the option of accepting public funding, in which case the government also gets to control how much the university can charge for tuition to the student. A natural consequence is that universities had to take the deal in order to attract students, but this is backfiring because the government doesn't give enough money to cover the cost of the students anymore. For example a couple years ago Oxford announced it was losing 5,000 pounds for every undergraduate it educated

So they did attempt to keep their promises, but their attempts were feeble and inept.

Or, they not only attempted to keep their promises, but actually kept them until the schools saw an opportunity to shake down the government for more money.

I've seen the latter happen in the US in the school system of a small town near a military base. People living on a military base don't pay property taxes or state income taxes, so the military pays the school system for each student that atends schools in the school system. If the population on the military base rises, forcing the school system to build new schools, the cost of building the new schools is insurmountable for a small town. As a result, the military pays a special impact fee so the school can expand its capacity to educate both the local residents and the military residents. The special impact fee is only temporary, since only so many new schools have to be built and it only costs so much money to build those schools.

The problem is that the military is sometimes a little lax in stopping the special impact fees. At the base I was stationed at, the schools had been completed years ago, but the special impact fees continued. The school system used the extra money to build the school system into one of the best in the country.

Eventually, cuts in defense spending forced the military to start looking for ways to cut spending. Stopping fees that should have been stopped years ago is an obvious cut. Except now the school is addicted to the extra money coming in. They don't want their students to only get the average education that could be supported by taxing residents and by the military paying the same amount per student that residents paid (via taxes).

When the military notified the town that the special impact fees were going to stop, the school system responded by saying military residents would have to pay tuition to attend their schools - in spite of the fact that the military was already paying for each student from military families. Essentially, if the military wouldn't subsidize the education of city residents, then military families would have to subsidize the education of city residents. The school's blackmail threat worked and the military kept paying the special impact fees.

I don't know much about the UK's education system, but I think rising costs in the US are questionable. Why do college costs increase so much faster than inflation? (College costs vs inflation)

Is there some special reason the college's costs would increase faster than other costs, or are the costs rising simply because government tuition assistance increases the demand for a college education?

 

[JaredJames]

So they did attempt to keep their promises, but their attempts were feeble and inept.

Not so, the system described was in place from previous governments. Their promise was to eradicate tuition fees. They didn't even attempt it. 4 months into them being in government and they've just said "we're removing the cap to allow universities to charge up to £12000 per student per year".

I do agree with you, I don't see how the university costs can go up so much each year. What is different between the teaching of one year to another which causes these issues? It's just a way to get more money.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well for me it comes down to someone advertising you get something free (let's say a car) providing you vote for them, then once they're in office they turn around and say "ah, well, you can have the car but it's actually four times its current price".

We wouldn't stand for this anywhere else, everyone is complaining about it, especially those who voted (they go through with this and they'll never be voted in again) and yet they just don't listen.

Sorry, I must have missed something, but why is this not business-as-usual?

 

[BobG]

It is fair to say that William Henry Harrison never broke a promise as President.

True. But did he keep his promises (whatever they were)?

He must have made a lot. He set a record for the longest inaugaration speech ever - a record that still stands today. It could have been even longer. Fortunately, Daniel Webster edited the speech, deleting large chunks from Harrison's inaugaral address - otherwise, Harrison might have spent his entire Presidency giving his inaugaration speech.