ThunderDragon Blog

More than 5,000 people have joined a Facebook group opposed to HSBC’s scrapping on it’s free overdraft on graduate accounts, and have caused the bank to retreat:

That a bank the size of HSBC has been forced to retreat on this policy shows the power that the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook can wield. It wasn’t long ago that Cadbury brought back the Wispa chocolate bar after on-line campaigns.

What their action of ending the free overdraft facility has done is dealt them a huge blow. The purpose of student accounts is to encourage a graduate to continue to bank with them after they have closed that account. What HSBC have done will cause big problems for them, especially with students, both now and in the future. If they are willing to change the conditions on an account in such a way and at such short notice, what will they do in the future? If I was a fresher going to University this September, I know that I certainly wouldn’t get a HSBC student account, and I have every intention of avoiding using HSBC myself.

Whoever at HSBC thought up this idea is an idiot. It has caused a PR disaster for them. I would be surprised if many freshers signed up with them, and if many of their existing student customers did not go elsewhere. the other banks must be laughing, with the problems HSBC have caused for itself.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

Why should non-Christians be allowed to join a Christian society - where all of its activities are presumably based around the religion?

The NUS have a slight point - there should be “equal opportunities”, and these exist within this society, since meetings are open to all. Why should non-Christians be able to join this sort of Christian society? The next step along this absurd line is to say that Labour Party members should be allowed to join a Conservative Party society, vice-versa, and etc.

I can’t see why people who weren’t members of a particular religion or party would want to join a student society dedicated to it anyway, so where is the problem to be solved? Have there been complaints from non-Christians that they weren’t allowed to join this society? I very much doubt that there has been. There are more than enough societies that most people want to join at a Fresher’s Fair. So why the absurd demand?

Religious and political societies in the real world and on campuses operate this sort of “discriminatory” procedures. They always have, and I’m sure they always will. Quite why the Student’s Guild at Exeter decided to threaten the loss of it’s status is beyond me. Sheer stupidity.

Source: The Telegraph

The “iPod generation” [an acronym for young people who are insecure, pressured, overtaxed and debt-ridden, but also quite a good description in a more physical way] has been throroughly screwed over by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and the Labour Party during the last decade. I wrote on this back in September, and the same facts have been reached through another investigation:

“The average graduate will face an effective tax rate of 47.2% in 2012 as a result of these factors, it says, including student loans and pension contributions… While rising house prices [now eight times the average earnings of 22-29 year olds] have exposed sharp inequalities between the generations, the report says that over the long term pensions will highlight the divide.” (The Times)

My generation has thus been screwed over completely by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - who certainly can’t escape any blame for the extra taxes! - during the last decade. We have been completely and utterly screwed over.

When we are facing an effective tax rate of nearly 50% in five years time, it is quite obvious that something has to be done. When this occurs, the entire country will suffer. The iPod generation will have to pay the costs of the welfare state, especially pensions, without getting any of the benefits.

We have all been failed by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and the Labour Party.

Source: The Times

Facebook is a social-networking site, on which there are millions of people. Most of these are students or “young people” but the numbers of the oldies is growing…

“Leading “social network” sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which once left adults baffled, are reporting a huge influx of members who are longer in the tooth.
Facebook, which began life as a site for students to talk to each other and exchange news and photographs, threw its doors open nine months ago to the rest of the world. Last week, the site reported that more than half of its members are now non-students, with membership growing fastest among the over-25s.” (The Telegraph)

That so many Facebook members are no longer students isn’t that much of a surprise - as a large number leave university every year. And neither is the fact that membership is growing fastest among the over-25s, as most of those under 25 who will join already are members.

But there is an inter-generational battle going on, especially between members of the same family, with one person saying: “My college-age daughter indicated she would rather torch her computer than give me access to her page.” I am again not particularly surprised about it, though I can’t really see the point of not making parents with a Facebook profile a “friend”. You can, after all, give “limited profiles” which restrict the information on your page that can be viewed by that person. One young Facebook user says: “Everyone in the whole world thinks it’s super creepy when adults have Facebooks.” Except they don’t. It’s only creepy if they try to be “down with the kids” while they do it.

Facebook has evolved into a very useful tool beyond it’s original purpose, I’m sure. I keep up with my brothers more through Facebook than any other means - partially at least because we all still nominally live at “home” [even though I am currently the three of us only one not there]. I would be happy for my parents to join Facebook - I just don’t know what possible use they could have of it, since none of their friends are likely to have profiles. I would probably give them only limited access, however. There are some things that it is best for parents not to know or see.

Facebook is a modern phenomena. There are groups for everything - even one for Readers of Iain Dale’s Diary now [and I'm a member of the group]. It has evolved way beyond it’s original premise, and has taken on a life of it’s own. It is certainly no longer just for the kids.

Source: The Telegraph

Student debt, for the first time, has topped £3 billion. Yes, three billion pounds of debt owed by students, a rise of more than £620 million owed by undergraduate in England. This student debt of £3 billion is three times that owed by students in 1997.

Whilst Student Loans may be the cheapest loan anyone is likely ever to get [as interest is only at the rate of inflation] it is not nice to know that there is such a huge amount of debt hanging around your debt. I have more than £9,000 of student loans debt and several thousand pounds of other debt accrued through my time as a student [finally ending in September]. And first-years now will end their time at university with at least £18,000 of student loans debt - so from that perspective, I’m lucky - although my younger brother isn’t. I can, however, understand that to some extent students loans are necessary to fund the massive increase in the number of students - despite the fact that I think it is not a good thing.

What really annoys me is that Scottish students are set to have no fees at all - and most annoyingly, funded by English taxes:

“BRITISH taxpayers are to meet the £2 billion cost of reintroducing free university education in Scotland – but students from England and Wales will still have to pay the full fees.
Under plans to be announced by the Scottish executive on Wednesday, Scottish students who now pay £2,000 on graduation will be charged nothing from 2009. From 2011 at the latest they will also see loans wiped out and maintenance grants reintroduced.” (The Times)

It is outrageous that Scottish students get free education whilst English and Welsh students are paying through the nose, especially when the money to make it possible for this to happen is coming from England and Wales. It really is hypocritical that the Scottish Nationalist Party will fund their policy on free university education through funding that they would not have were they an independent state. If they want to prove that they can act and live as an economically viable independent state, then they should only use Scottish-raised taxes to fund the elements of Scottish policy on which the Scottish Parliament currently controls.

If the SNP were to provide free university education from their own taxes, I could have no opposition to it - and I would in fact applaud their prioritising. But when they plan to provide free university education off English taxes when English student debt has breached £3 billion, I can have nothing but contempt for their hypocrisy and for this government for allowing it to happen.

That a British Prime Minister can have his constituency where his own educational policies are not applied, and where indeed the opposite is happening, I don’t understand either.

Sources: The Telegraph, The Times

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Well, my Students Union seems to prefer tackling speed limits. They want to lower the speed limit on one part of a dual carriageway from 70 to 50mph because two people have been killed crossing the road there in the last ten months, and some beforehand as well. They also want a foot bridge to be built over the road. Yet there is an underpass, lit and with CCTV, just a hundred yards or so away - and a zebra crossing just a bit further up the road. Pretty much all of the students killed there were either drunk, high on drugs, or both. As far as I am concerned, they have only themselves to blame.

The SU has set up a petition, most recently signed by both the local MPs - Lib Dem Bob Russell (Colchester) and Conservative Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) [both pictured above] - to call for the changes they wish made. The MPs are just doing what MPs do best - self-publicity.

It is ridiculous. The road is perfectly safe. I myself have crossed it hundreds of times, and so long as you are sober there is no problem, since you can see hundreds of metres in both directions as it is a nice straight road.

There is also a far far larger problem which they and previous SU administrations have ignored - drugs on campus. Bouncers at the entrance to the nightclubs are not allowed to search people, and even those caught taking or even dealing drugs inside a venue are not properly dealt with, and soon allowed back into SU premises. They haven’t even dismissed a bartender who was caught with drugs.

They ignore the drugs and violence (as well as under-aged drinking by kids from the local estates) on campus in favour of making ridiculous publicity stunts on road safety and speed limits. If they put even half the effort they have into this stupid campaign over lowering one speed limit into tackling drugs, the problem would be far far lower than it is. This is just part of the reason why I hate student politics.

My essays are finally done, over, complete - and handed in!

I have been working on these essays pretty much constantly for over two months now, all of whom were due directly one after another. During that time I have read a good twenty books and articles and written nearly 15,000 words.

But now I have finally finished the last one! All completed, footnoted and bibliography added!

So now I have a chance to relax a little! And then get working on my dissertation (due in September)…

At least I don’t have any exams, a fact which I will now rub in the faces of all my friends who do. Mwahahaha!