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I will admit bias here, as I'm doing a (second) degree with the Open University, but for adults who have part time requirements, they may well be the best solution.
The economies of scale involved benefit as well - the OU are currently looking at reducing the number of courses they offer in some areas (such as maths and science) as they don't have the funds or resources to keep promoting them. Although a large, nationwide university, their decision to break down into regions for assigning tutors and means there's still a relatively local touch for students.
It wouldn't suit students who would do better in a lecture hall setting, and it doesn't have the advantages of a campus community, but the mature student with other responsibilities may not have enough time to benefit from those features anyway.
Part-time support
By Anna Fazackerley, Head of the Education Unit at Policy Exchange Parents with children awaiting their A-level results on Thursday are right to be feeling distinctly unwell. Last year, if they didn’t achieve the required grades the worst most parents faced was a few exasperating hours on the ph...
What about Brandon Lewis who has the nomination for Great Yarmouth?
Where are the original A-Listers now? The 18 who have been selected for Conservative seats
In the second of our series detailing what happened to the original 100 members of the party's so-called priority list of candidates, here are the 18 of them - 9 men, 9 women - who have been selected for seats which are notionally Conservative (yesterday we detailed the 27 who are no longer seek...
Graeme,
Thank you for articulating what I felt when listening to Esther this morning.
Her invocation of the Sarah Payne case was particularly assine and irrelevant to the point at hand.
Speak to someone who cares
One of the few unqualified Good Things achieved, in the hideous but thankfully short-lived period when I served as Chairman of North Cunninghame Young Conservatives - about 500 of your Earth years ago - was a sponsored walk to raise money for the fledgling Childline charity. Walking from Fairlie...
Interestingly, a quick search using google of Amnesty Ireland's web site shows no use of the word "abortion" on their site.
Justin Hinchcliffe: Amnesty's breathtaking contempt for the views of its core members
Justin Hinchcliffe, a supporter of Right to Life, Chairman of Tottenham Conservatives, and the author of Hunter and Shooter, is critical of Amnesty's recent positioning on abortion. Amnesty International’s policy change on abortion displays a breathtaking contempt for the views of its core memb...
To be honest, how much credibility would you give someone who comes up with the devestating political anaylsis of
"You know that basically Labour is the working class and the Conservatives are kind of upper class, and then everything else is... I have no idea," she explained.
And she added: "I only vote Labour because me mam does."
Friday 15th December 2006
4pm ToryDiary update: As stupid as UKIP 12.30pm ToryDiary update: Cameron says voluntary sector can help defeat postcode lottery 11am update on Seats and candidates: Adam Rickitt linked to Chester +++ Frank Johnson has died (Iain Dale) BLOGS CONSERVATIVEHOME'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YEAR TWO OF ...
"direct rule ministers go native when they arrive at Stormont Castle. They seem to think that we have been born sectarian. They cite the popularity of the local parties. But, then again, there has been nothing else on offer."
I appreciate that the first past the post system doesn't really help, but both the Alliance party and the Conservative Party have organised in NI and failed to make any significant breakthrough.
One of the ironies of the peace process has been that both communities have moved to their extremes - the UUP lost support to the DUP and the SDLP lost support to Sinn Fein.
There has also been some discussion about the possibility of some of the Irish parties running candidates in Northern Ireland - Fianna Fail have certainly discussed it. I do wonder what the impact of both the British and Irish political parties running in NI might be.
Jeffrey Peel: Conservatism and Humanism in Northern Ireland
With (another) Assembly election likely in Northern Ireland in March 2007, Jeffrey Peel, Spokesman for the NI Area of the Conservatives, considers a more secular basis for Northern Ireland politics. Northern Ireland is an odd place. Yes it’s normalising. Yes we have an array of glistening ne...
I admit I was only half awake this morning when I heard it - but I could have sworn I heard the Today program describe relative poverty - twice - as earning less than 60% of the median (not mean) income.
That definition makes it relatively hard to reduce "relative" poverty.
Still it's better than the person who once complained that half of the 16 year olds doing GCSEs had got below average results.
Greg Clark MP: Poverty is too important an issue to leave to the Labour Party
Greg Clark MP was recently appointed Shadow Minister for Charities, Voluntary Bodies and Social Enterprise in the Department for Communities and Local Government team. His article below emerges from his chairmanship of the economy and welfare working group of the Social Justice Policy Group. ...
The difference between nuns who wear the veil and the Muslim women that Jack Straw was referring to is that nuns do not cover their face. When a nun refers to taking the veil, she is covering her hair, but not her face.
Which is what Jack Straw was talking about. The objection was not to dressing modestly, or even to the hijab or the "Convent veil", but to the fact that veil covers a woman's face and makes (in Jack Straw's opinion) communication harder.
Imtiaz Ameen: Straw is wrong on the Muslim veil
Imtiaz Ameen is a Councillor for the Dewsbury South Ward. He was the Conservative parliamentary candidate in Blackburn at the last election and is now on the priority list. It’s just as well Condoleeza Rice didn’t wear a veil otherwise Jack Straw would have had a serious problem discussing imp...
"when I said taxes should strip the rich I didn't mean MPs!"
Captions please...
It seems unfair to have some fun at MPs raising money for a good cause but... *** PS Iain Dale has a good Ming caption competition on his site.
Rob D said:
Of course we didn't care when Unionists had Stormont and voted at Westminster as well.
Because the Ulster Unionists rarely, if ever, helped the government pass controversial legislation that didn't affect Northern Ireland. And in the end, Stormont was abolished by Westminster.
Daniel Hannan's memo to Gordon Brown: There is one way the English might accept a Scottish Prime Minister
Daniel Hannan is an MEP and one of the founders of Direct Democracy. I have found it: the philosopher's stone of politics, the elixir of life. There really is an answer to the West Lothian Question. Twenty nine years have passed since Tam Dalyell, the stony Old Etonian who then sat for West Lo...
There is a very special ring of hell that is designed to be like the arrivals experience that is Heathrow Terminal 3. If you think the EU nationals have it hard, I spent half an hour waiting for my wife to get through the other queue.
And the luggage still hadn't got on the belt.
Donal Blaney: Never give a bureaucrat a chance to say no
Every week the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the Young Britons' Foundation, Donal Blaney, explains one of Morton Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process. Morton Blackwell is the Founder and President of the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia. For much of its existence, the Co...
I'm not in favour of merging councils - that's effectively a form of centralisation and makes them less responsive to specific local needs.
New poll suggests Britain is ready to vote for tax relief
New evidence for the potency of tax and crime as political issues comes from a major new ICM poll for The Taxpayers' Alliance. Conservative Home is publishing it now to coincide with the first editions of The Sunday Times hitting London's streets (in which the poll findings are due to appear)...
Malcolm you write: ".More importantly my first point was 'a high salary does not guarantee quality' surely you accept this?"
Yes of course, I do, you have to look at John Prescott for proof of that. My point that if you reduce the salary you may well reduce the overall quality doesn't stand in opposition to that though.
I would also argue that we need to be more ruthless both as voters and as party members to root out the duds and replace them with talent (I don't wish to give an opinion on whether or not Malcolm Rifkind fits into that category, but he is apparently under threat of deselection as his constituency party are not happy with him).
Thomas Bridge: Are MPs paid enough?
Thomas Bridge was born in England but raised in Ireland. He currently works in IT in the City of London, and lives in Brentwood with his wife and three month old son. Imagine that you're working for a large UK based organisation and that you’re the regional manager for somewhere outside Londo...
Malcolm, you write "There are far more people who wish to be MPs than positions available. As Conservatives we should be pressing for their salaries to be cut to reflect this."
There is a flaw in this argument, because you can replace the word MPs with the phrase "Premiership Footballer" and the first statement would still be true, but it wouldn't lead to the second sentence.
The issue is not whether or not we have enough people wishing to be MPs, but whether or not we have enough talented people wishing to be MPs.
Thomas Bridge: Are MPs paid enough?
Thomas Bridge was born in England but raised in Ireland. He currently works in IT in the City of London, and lives in Brentwood with his wife and three month old son. Imagine that you're working for a large UK based organisation and that you’re the regional manager for somewhere outside Londo...
Michael McGowan, it's not entirely correct to say that "Those like the late Father Denis Faul who stood up to the IRA were vilified and intimidated with little support from their superiors."
Pope John Paul II begged the IRA to stop their actions on his visit to Drogheda in 1979, and the appointment of Cahal Daly as Archbishop of Armagh made it very clear what the view in Rome was (Daly had attracted a lot of attention while Bishop of Down and Connor for his condemnation of the IRA).
I grew up in a very republican town in the Republic (several people arrested on Eksund were from my town, including the skipper) and attended a Catholic school. I was never in any doubt that the actions of the IRA were in opposition to the Catholic leadership.
To pull this back to the topic of Islamic terrorism, one of the issues in Islam is that there is no hierarchy equivalent to that of Anglicanism or Catholicism so there is no defined leader to make the sort of condemnations we need to hear. But the fact remains that if 19% of British Muslims felt the 7/7 attacks were justified, that means 81% of them don't. So lets not demonise all Muslims over the actions of a dangerous minority.
10/8
A few immediate thoughts on what is unfolding at Britain's airports... We must thank the police and intelligence services for apparently foiling a terrible attack. Scotland Yard are talking of 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale'. This may restore public confidence in the police after the...
Simon Heffer reminds me of General Melchett in Blackadder with his constant argument that the Tories should keep using the strategy that failed them in both the 2001 and 2005 elections.
"And that is what is so brilliant about it - doing exactly what we've done nineteen times before..."
The Cameroons would need to invent Simon Heffer if he didn't exist
In a letter to this morning's Telegraph Oliver Letwin MP defends the record of the Conservatives under David Cameron's leadership. He highlights the fact that the "Conservatives won the recent local elections handsomely and have established a consistent lead in the polls for the first time in ...
The analogy with UK PLC can only go so far - and I was trying to focus on the status of individual MPs, whose job security does dependent on their constituents, rather than the CEO. If the voters don't like their representative, they have options to vote elsewhere, but as we know, voters tend to decide on the colour of the candidates rosette rather than the individual candidate's merits.
As you say "Exactly. It's democracy, not the business world. You win or you lose. No compo. No second prize. No appeals tribunal. No £800k because the whips bullied you." I totally agree with that. But thats also the reason I suggest that salaries for those elected are not particularly high.
Thomas Bridge: Are MPs paid enough?
Thomas Bridge was born in England but raised in Ireland. He currently works in IT in the City of London, and lives in Brentwood with his wife and three month old son. Imagine that you're working for a large UK based organisation and that you’re the regional manager for somewhere outside Londo...
The problem with setting the rewards for MPs to be "no pension and a salary exactly that of the national average. Thats the only way to start getting extraordinary people back into politics, and get rid of the career minded non-entities that currently predominate" is that you'd effectively price out most 40 somethings from Parliament. Only those that are independently wealthy, or have no family commitments would then put themselves forward for parliament.
Thomas Bridge: Are MPs paid enough?
Thomas Bridge was born in England but raised in Ireland. He currently works in IT in the City of London, and lives in Brentwood with his wife and three month old son. Imagine that you're working for a large UK based organisation and that you’re the regional manager for somewhere outside Londo...
Tom Tom writes of the DUP "It is still the largest party in Northern Ireland".
This may be true, but doesn't really prove that much - if the SDLP continue haemorraging support within the Nationalist community, Sinn Fein may well end up with the largest number of votes of any party at the next general election.
Prescott 'the buffoon' helps Tories to 10% lead
A new BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday (the first since before May's local elections) puts the Conservatives at 41%. In contrast to other recent polls (ICM and MORI) which suggested a narrowing of the Tory lead this survey shows the Tory lead up to 10%. The LibDems are at just 15% - the lowes...
Surely Alan Duncan's point was that having an MP from a Scottish seat created constitutional issues, rather than merely being Scottish. He has a very good point, and it's something that needs to be debated and now, before the Labour coronation of Gordon Brown takes place.
Cameron faces backlash over Scottish policy
Today's Daily Mail has strongly criticised David Cameron's reported plans for Scottish MPs to be barred from voting on legislation that only affects England (or Wales). "Yet again, David Cameron highlights a huge problem caused by the Labour bull's rampage through the china shop of the constit...
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