Songs by Kylie Minogue, Scouting for Girls, Foals and Tinie Tempah also in running for awards next month British indie outfit Everything Everything and rapper Plan B lead the nominations for the Ivor Novello awards, it has been announced. Manchester-based band Everything Everything, who have yet to have a top 40 single, are shortlisted for best album for Man Alive, and for best song musically and lyrically for MY KZ, UR BF. Plan B is also up for best album for The Defamation of Strickland Banks, while his track She Said will vie with All the Lovers by Kylie Minogue and This Ain’t A Love Song by Scouting for Girls for the most performed song. Everything Everything formed in 2007 and were longlisted for the BBC’s Sound of 2010 prize. The four-piece released Man Alive through Geffen in August last year, and the album peaked at 17 in the charts. Plan B, aka Ben Drew, first achieved fame as a hoodie-clad rapper with the debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words before reinventing himself as a besuited soul singer for Strickland Banks. In the best song category Everything Everything will be up against Spanish Sahara by Foals and Becoming a Jackal by Villagers. Foals, from Oxford, and Irish band Villagers were nominated for last year’s Mercury prize, which was won by the xx, whose track Islands is shortlisted for best contemporary song. Katy B and Tinie Tempah are the other artists gunning for best contemporary song, while Bombay Bicycle Club will do battle against Everything Everything and Plan B for best album. The awards were established in honour of the composer and songwriter Ivor Novello in 1955, and seek to recognise the best British artists in both fields. The composers of the music for the fifth series of Agatha Christie’s Marple on ITV, Channel 4′s Any Human Heart, and Going Postal, Sky’s adaptation of the novel from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, are competing for the best television soundtrack. The 56th Ivor Novello awards ceremony will take place on Thursday 19 May at Grosvenor House. Last years’ awards were dominated by Lily Allen, who won best song musically and lyrically, most performed song for The Fear, and the overall title of best songwriter. Ivor Novello awards Awards and prizes Everything Everything Plan B Kylie Minogue Scouting for Girls Foals Tinie Tempah Villagers Katy B Bombay Bicycle Club Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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Memo from Fergus Cochrane-Dyet refers to President Bingu wa Mutharika as ‘ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism’ In days gone by, British ambassadors would wait until they were leaving before firing off a valedictory despatch that revealed what they really thought about their foreign hosts. Not Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, the high commissioner to Malawi, whose use of undiplomatic language while still in the post may now hasten his exit. Cochrane-Dyet was quoted in a leaked cable to London describing Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika as “ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”. As if to prove the point, Malawi’s foreign ministry in Lilongwe summoned him on Monday and ordered him to leave the country this week. There was a sharp response from Britain, where the Foreign Office insisted that declaring its man “persona non grata” would be unacceptable. Any such action would have “consequences”, it warned. In the leaked memo to the foreign secretary, William Hague, Cochrane-Dyet said that in Malawi the “governance situation continues to deteriorate in terms of media freedom, freedom of speech and minority rights”. According to the Nation newspaper, which published the correspondence, he said rights activists had reported a campaign of intimidation through threatening anonymous phone calls. “They seem genuinely afraid,” Cochrane-Dyet wrote. “The office of one high-profile activist has allegedly been raided and his house broken into. There are unsubstantiated rumours that the ruling party is forming a youth wing modeled on the Young Pioneers used as a tool of repression during the country’s three-decade dictatorship.” Britain, Malawi’s main bilateral donor, cut aid by £3m last year after the purchase of a presidential jet at a cost of more than £8m. British officials said they were concerned about the purchase in the impoverished nation that relies on donor support for up to 40% of its development budget and the salaries of its 169,000 civil servants. Mutharika defended the new jet, saying it was cheaper to run it than hire an aircraft each time he wanted to travel abroad. The British diplomat was quoted as saying that “for donors, the local political relationship has definitely got worse [although working relations with most key ministries remain good]. “Some ambassadors have been summoned by the foreign minister for a dressing down, others [including me] have been summoned by the president’s brother [Peter] for gentler delivery of the same message: stop supporting civil society to destabilise the government.” Cochrane-Dyet said donors had responded robustly. “We deny the accusation, our development goals require more stability not less, far more of our assistance goes through government than through NGOs.” Cochrane-Dyet said that given “our huge investment in Malawi development, the UK interest is for these tensions to be defused. “Our leverage is limited and must be used carefully with this combative president. We want the government to reverse its two-year slide on governance issues, mend fences with faith groups and civil society and adopt a more open approach to dissenting views.” On the other hand, he wrote that “we want civil society to be less confrontational”. He warned there was “no reason for optimism as the political temperature is likely to rise further ahead of elections in 2014 when Mutharika steps down”, but added that “the effect of a serious cut in overseas aid for the fragile Malawian economy and for development would be serious … the 75% of Malawians who live on less than $1 per day would suffer most.” In London, the acting permanent under secretary, Sir Geoffrey Adams, summoned Malawi’s charge d’affaires to the Foreign Office on Tuesday to convey the foreign secretary’s strong concern at suggestions that Cochrane-Dyet could be expelled. “Sir Geoffrey made clear to the charge d’affaires that such an action would be unacceptable,” the Foreign Office said. “Mr Cochrane-Dyet is an able and effective high commissioner, who retains the full confidence of the British government. “Sir Geoffrey added that if the government of Malawi pursued such action there were likely to be consequences affecting the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship. He urged the Malawian authorities, through the charge d’affaires, not to proceed down such a road.” Malawi has recently drawn criticism from donor countries, including Britain, over “certain negative trends” including a new law that allows publications to be banned if deemed contrary to the public interest. Mutharika, who ends his two terms as president in 2014 and is likely to hand over power to his brother Peter, often accuses local independent newspapers of negative reporting about Malawi. In 2009, he threatened to shut down newspapers he accused of lying when the weekly Malawi News, owned by the family of the late dictator Kamuzu Banda, reported that up to a million people would need food aid. Mutharika, who has made the country self-sufficient in food through the $180m subsidy fertiliser programme given to more than a million peasant farmers, demands that he be given kudos because half Malawi’s 12 million citizens previously faced starvation. Malawi Foreign policy William Hague Godfrey Mapondera David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Memo from Fergus Cochrane-Dyet refers to President Bingu wa Mutharika as ‘ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism’ In days gone by, British ambassadors would wait until they were leaving before firing off a valedictory despatch that revealed what they really thought about their foreign hosts. Not Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, the high commissioner to Malawi, whose use of undiplomatic language while still in the post may now hasten his exit. Cochrane-Dyet was quoted in a leaked cable to London describing Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika as “ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”. As if to prove the point, Malawi’s foreign ministry in Lilongwe summoned him on Monday and ordered him to leave the country this week. There was a sharp response from Britain, where the Foreign Office insisted that declaring its man “persona non grata” would be unacceptable. Any such action would have “consequences”, it warned. In the leaked memo to the foreign secretary, William Hague, Cochrane-Dyet said that in Malawi the “governance situation continues to deteriorate in terms of media freedom, freedom of speech and minority rights”. According to the Nation newspaper, which published the correspondence, he said rights activists had reported a campaign of intimidation through threatening anonymous phone calls. “They seem genuinely afraid,” Cochrane-Dyet wrote. “The office of one high-profile activist has allegedly been raided and his house broken into. There are unsubstantiated rumours that the ruling party is forming a youth wing modeled on the Young Pioneers used as a tool of repression during the country’s three-decade dictatorship.” Britain, Malawi’s main bilateral donor, cut aid by £3m last year after the purchase of a presidential jet at a cost of more than £8m. British officials said they were concerned about the purchase in the impoverished nation that relies on donor support for up to 40% of its development budget and the salaries of its 169,000 civil servants. Mutharika defended the new jet, saying it was cheaper to run it than hire an aircraft each time he wanted to travel abroad. The British diplomat was quoted as saying that “for donors, the local political relationship has definitely got worse [although working relations with most key ministries remain good]. “Some ambassadors have been summoned by the foreign minister for a dressing down, others [including me] have been summoned by the president’s brother [Peter] for gentler delivery of the same message: stop supporting civil society to destabilise the government.” Cochrane-Dyet said donors had responded robustly. “We deny the accusation, our development goals require more stability not less, far more of our assistance goes through government than through NGOs.” Cochrane-Dyet said that given “our huge investment in Malawi development, the UK interest is for these tensions to be defused. “Our leverage is limited and must be used carefully with this combative president. We want the government to reverse its two-year slide on governance issues, mend fences with faith groups and civil society and adopt a more open approach to dissenting views.” On the other hand, he wrote that “we want civil society to be less confrontational”. He warned there was “no reason for optimism as the political temperature is likely to rise further ahead of elections in 2014 when Mutharika steps down”, but added that “the effect of a serious cut in overseas aid for the fragile Malawian economy and for development would be serious … the 75% of Malawians who live on less than $1 per day would suffer most.” In London, the acting permanent under secretary, Sir Geoffrey Adams, summoned Malawi’s charge d’affaires to the Foreign Office on Tuesday to convey the foreign secretary’s strong concern at suggestions that Cochrane-Dyet could be expelled. “Sir Geoffrey made clear to the charge d’affaires that such an action would be unacceptable,” the Foreign Office said. “Mr Cochrane-Dyet is an able and effective high commissioner, who retains the full confidence of the British government. “Sir Geoffrey added that if the government of Malawi pursued such action there were likely to be consequences affecting the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship. He urged the Malawian authorities, through the charge d’affaires, not to proceed down such a road.” Malawi has recently drawn criticism from donor countries, including Britain, over “certain negative trends” including a new law that allows publications to be banned if deemed contrary to the public interest. Mutharika, who ends his two terms as president in 2014 and is likely to hand over power to his brother Peter, often accuses local independent newspapers of negative reporting about Malawi. In 2009, he threatened to shut down newspapers he accused of lying when the weekly Malawi News, owned by the family of the late dictator Kamuzu Banda, reported that up to a million people would need food aid. Mutharika, who has made the country self-sufficient in food through the $180m subsidy fertiliser programme given to more than a million peasant farmers, demands that he be given kudos because half Malawi’s 12 million citizens previously faced starvation. Malawi Foreign policy William Hague Godfrey Mapondera David Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Memo from Fergus Cochrane-Dyet refers to President Bingu wa Mutharika as ‘ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism’ In days gone by, British ambassadors would wait until they were leaving before firing off a valedictory despatch that revealed what they really thought about their foreign hosts. Not Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, the high commissioner to Malawi, whose use of undiplomatic language while still in the post may now hasten his exit. Cochrane-Dyet was quoted in a leaked cable to London describing Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika as “ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”. As if to prove the point, Malawi’s foreign ministry in Lilongwe summoned him on Monday and ordered him to leave the country this week. There was a sharp response from Britain, where the Foreign Office insisted that declaring its man “persona non grata” would be unacceptable. Any such action would have “consequences”, it warned. In the leaked memo to the foreign secretary, William Hague, Cochrane-Dyet said that in Malawi the “governance situation continues to deteriorate in terms of media freedom, freedom of speech and minority rights”. According to the Nation newspaper, which published the correspondence, he said rights activists had reported a campaign of intimidation through threatening anonymous phone calls. “They seem genuinely afraid,” Cochrane-Dyet wrote. “The office of one high-profile activist has allegedly been raided and his house broken into. There are unsubstantiated rumours that the ruling party is forming a youth wing modeled on the Young Pioneers used as a tool of repression during the country’s three-decade dictatorship.” Britain, Malawi’s main bilateral donor, cut aid by £3m last year after the purchase of a presidential jet at a cost of more than £8m. British officials said they were concerned about the purchase in the impoverished nation that relies on donor support for up to 40% of its development budget and the salaries of its 169,000 civil servants. Mutharika defended the new jet, saying it was cheaper to run it than hire an aircraft each time he wanted to travel abroad. The British diplomat was quoted as saying that “for donors, the local political relationship has definitely got worse [although working relations with most key ministries remain good]. “Some ambassadors have been summoned by the foreign minister for a dressing down, others [including me] have been summoned by the president’s brother [Peter] for gentler delivery of the same message: stop supporting civil society to destabilise the government.” Cochrane-Dyet said donors had responded robustly. “We deny the accusation, our development goals require more stability not less, far more of our assistance goes through government than through NGOs.” Cochrane-Dyet said that given “our huge investment in Malawi development, the UK interest is for these tensions to be defused. “Our leverage is limited and must be used carefully with this combative president. We want the government to reverse its two-year slide on governance issues, mend fences with faith groups and civil society and adopt a more open approach to dissenting views.” On the other hand, he wrote that “we want civil society to be less confrontational”. He warned there was “no reason for optimism as the political temperature is likely to rise further ahead of elections in 2014 when Mutharika steps down”, but added that “the effect of a serious cut in overseas aid for the fragile Malawian economy and for development would be serious … the 75% of Malawians who live on less than $1 per day would suffer most.” In London, the acting permanent under secretary, Sir Geoffrey Adams, summoned Malawi’s charge d’affaires to the Foreign Office on Tuesday to convey the foreign secretary’s strong concern at suggestions that Cochrane-Dyet could be expelled. “Sir Geoffrey made clear to the charge d’affaires that such an action would be unacceptable,” the Foreign Office said. “Mr Cochrane-Dyet is an able and effective high commissioner, who retains the full confidence of the British government. “Sir Geoffrey added that if the government of Malawi pursued such action there were likely to be consequences affecting the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship. He urged the Malawian authorities, through the charge d’affaires, not to proceed down such a road.” Malawi has recently drawn criticism from donor countries, including Britain, over “certain negative trends” including a new law that allows publications to be banned if deemed contrary to the public interest. Mutharika, who ends his two terms as president in 2014 and is likely to hand over power to his brother Peter, often accuses local independent newspapers of negative reporting about Malawi. In 2009, he threatened to shut down newspapers he accused of lying when the weekly Malawi News, owned by the family of the late dictator Kamuzu Banda, reported that up to a million people would need food aid. Mutharika, who has made the country self-sufficient in food through the $180m subsidy fertiliser programme given to more than a million peasant farmers, demands that he be given kudos because half Malawi’s 12 million citizens previously faced starvation. Malawi Foreign policy William Hague Godfrey Mapondera David Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Memo from Fergus Cochrane-Dyet refers to President Bingu wa Mutharika as ‘ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism’ In days gone by, British ambassadors would wait until they were leaving before firing off a valedictory despatch that revealed what they really thought about their foreign hosts. Not Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, the high commissioner to Malawi, whose use of undiplomatic language while still in the post may now hasten his exit. Cochrane-Dyet was quoted in a leaked cable to London describing Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika as “ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism”. As if to prove the point, Malawi’s foreign ministry in Lilongwe summoned him on Monday and ordered him to leave the country this week. There was a sharp response from Britain, where the Foreign Office insisted that declaring its man “persona non grata” would be unacceptable. Any such action would have “consequences”, it warned. In the leaked memo to the foreign secretary, William Hague, Cochrane-Dyet said that in Malawi the “governance situation continues to deteriorate in terms of media freedom, freedom of speech and minority rights”. According to the Nation newspaper, which published the correspondence, he said rights activists had reported a campaign of intimidation through threatening anonymous phone calls. “They seem genuinely afraid,” Cochrane-Dyet wrote. “The office of one high-profile activist has allegedly been raided and his house broken into. There are unsubstantiated rumours that the ruling party is forming a youth wing modeled on the Young Pioneers used as a tool of repression during the country’s three-decade dictatorship.” Britain, Malawi’s main bilateral donor, cut aid by £3m last year after the purchase of a presidential jet at a cost of more than £8m. British officials said they were concerned about the purchase in the impoverished nation that relies on donor support for up to 40% of its development budget and the salaries of its 169,000 civil servants. Mutharika defended the new jet, saying it was cheaper to run it than hire an aircraft each time he wanted to travel abroad. The British diplomat was quoted as saying that “for donors, the local political relationship has definitely got worse [although working relations with most key ministries remain good]. “Some ambassadors have been summoned by the foreign minister for a dressing down, others [including me] have been summoned by the president’s brother [Peter] for gentler delivery of the same message: stop supporting civil society to destabilise the government.” Cochrane-Dyet said donors had responded robustly. “We deny the accusation, our development goals require more stability not less, far more of our assistance goes through government than through NGOs.” Cochrane-Dyet said that given “our huge investment in Malawi development, the UK interest is for these tensions to be defused. “Our leverage is limited and must be used carefully with this combative president. We want the government to reverse its two-year slide on governance issues, mend fences with faith groups and civil society and adopt a more open approach to dissenting views.” On the other hand, he wrote that “we want civil society to be less confrontational”. He warned there was “no reason for optimism as the political temperature is likely to rise further ahead of elections in 2014 when Mutharika steps down”, but added that “the effect of a serious cut in overseas aid for the fragile Malawian economy and for development would be serious … the 75% of Malawians who live on less than $1 per day would suffer most.” In London, the acting permanent under secretary, Sir Geoffrey Adams, summoned Malawi’s charge d’affaires to the Foreign Office on Tuesday to convey the foreign secretary’s strong concern at suggestions that Cochrane-Dyet could be expelled. “Sir Geoffrey made clear to the charge d’affaires that such an action would be unacceptable,” the Foreign Office said. “Mr Cochrane-Dyet is an able and effective high commissioner, who retains the full confidence of the British government. “Sir Geoffrey added that if the government of Malawi pursued such action there were likely to be consequences affecting the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship. He urged the Malawian authorities, through the charge d’affaires, not to proceed down such a road.” Malawi has recently drawn criticism from donor countries, including Britain, over “certain negative trends” including a new law that allows publications to be banned if deemed contrary to the public interest. Mutharika, who ends his two terms as president in 2014 and is likely to hand over power to his brother Peter, often accuses local independent newspapers of negative reporting about Malawi. In 2009, he threatened to shut down newspapers he accused of lying when the weekly Malawi News, owned by the family of the late dictator Kamuzu Banda, reported that up to a million people would need food aid. Mutharika, who has made the country self-sufficient in food through the $180m subsidy fertiliser programme given to more than a million peasant farmers, demands that he be given kudos because half Malawi’s 12 million citizens previously faced starvation. Malawi Foreign policy William Hague Godfrey Mapondera David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Credit: TNR Paul Ryan and George Bush Well, well, well. Paul Ryan is a typical Republican hypocrite. Who could have predicted that? Remembering When Paul Ryan Worried the Debt Was Too Small There are senior Bush policymakers who privately admit that Hunter and his allies in Congress have a point. But these officials claim they cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. Nor can they adjust unrealistic methods that bloat the revenue loss from Bush’s cuts. Thus, Washington’s high-tax establishment is able to use underestimated surplus projections and overestimated tax losses to claim the country cannot afford the president’s program. “It’s too small,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the most junior member of the Ways and Means Committee but a leading House supply-sider, told me . “It’s not big enough to fit all the policy we want.” Ryan has refashioned his image from “supply-sider” to “serious budget hawk,” but there’s not much evidence his worldview has changed. He still favors enormous tax cuts for the rich far beyond those passed into law by George W. Bush, only this time he promises to pay for them via closing unspecified deductions. Of course, Ryan now takes an extremely dire view of thing government’s long-term fiscal position, as opposed to the wildly optimistic view he took under Bush. I’m sure events have played a role here. But there’s also a clear partisan tint. Republicans dismissed any concerns about the debt under Bush, which allowed their side to freely push fiscal policy in their direction and boost their own popularity by avoiding difficult trade-offs. As soon as Obama took office, they reversed themselves and successfully made fiscal conservatism a powerful constraining force on Obama’s agenda.
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Credit: TNR Paul Ryan and George Bush Well, well, well. Paul Ryan is a typical Republican hypocrite. Who could have predicted that? Remembering When Paul Ryan Worried the Debt Was Too Small There are senior Bush policymakers who privately admit that Hunter and his allies in Congress have a point. But these officials claim they cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. Nor can they adjust unrealistic methods that bloat the revenue loss from Bush’s cuts. Thus, Washington’s high-tax establishment is able to use underestimated surplus projections and overestimated tax losses to claim the country cannot afford the president’s program. “It’s too small,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the most junior member of the Ways and Means Committee but a leading House supply-sider, told me . “It’s not big enough to fit all the policy we want.” Ryan has refashioned his image from “supply-sider” to “serious budget hawk,” but there’s not much evidence his worldview has changed. He still favors enormous tax cuts for the rich far beyond those passed into law by George W. Bush, only this time he promises to pay for them via closing unspecified deductions. Of course, Ryan now takes an extremely dire view of thing government’s long-term fiscal position, as opposed to the wildly optimistic view he took under Bush. I’m sure events have played a role here. But there’s also a clear partisan tint. Republicans dismissed any concerns about the debt under Bush, which allowed their side to freely push fiscal policy in their direction and boost their own popularity by avoiding difficult trade-offs. As soon as Obama took office, they reversed themselves and successfully made fiscal conservatism a powerful constraining force on Obama’s agenda.
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Labour leader says ‘unravelling’ fees policy could see places cut to make up funding shortfall At least 10% of university places for undergraduates will have to be cut to fund the coalition’s “unravelling” tuition fee reforms, the leader of the Labour party has warned. Ed Miliband said ministers would be forced to axe 36,000 full-time places each year. MPs voted in December to raise tuition fees from £3,350 a year to £6,000 in 2012, and up to £9,000 in “exceptional cases”. Willetts initially predicted that the average fee would be £7,500. He later revised that to £7,500-8,000. However, almost three-quarters of universities that have announced their tuition fee plans have opted to charge the maximum £9,000 for at least some of their degree courses from 2012. The average fee of those that have made their plans public currently stands at £8,679.20. This leaves the Treasury with a multi-million-pound blackhole. The initial cost of students’ fees is borne by the government, which pays the fee for each student in the form of a loan. The government then recovers its money once a student has graduated and is earning more than £21,000. Labour said one way for the government to claw back the higher upfront cost would be to cut student numbers. The party said House of Commons library figures showed that if average fees were £8,500 in 2014-15, the government would be short of £450m. To keep public spending constant, funds equivalent to 36,000 undergraduate full-time places would have to be lost, Labour said. Miliband told a press conference on Tuesday that the government’s tuition fee policy was “now unravelling”. “It will cost students more. It will now cost the taxpayer more. And it may cost thousands of young people their place at university,” he said. Figures from the House of Commons library published last month showed that if the average fee was £8,600, the government will have to spend £960m more in the next four years. If it is only slightly higher, at £7,900, it is £340m extra. But if the average is £8,900, the government will have to pay out an extra £1.23bn. Miliband made his comments prior to a visit to Leicester – following in the footsteps of Nick Clegg who, before the general election, made the “solemn promise” to oppose any increase in tuition fees during a visit to the city’s De Montfort University. He accused the government of a “second betrayal” and said David Cameron had broken a promise that £9,000 fees would be an exception. “Nick Clegg promised not to raise tuition fees, and now David Cameron looks set to break his [promise] by saying that £9,000 fees would be the exception,” Miliband said. “What’s more, this incompetence blows a hole in the claimed savings in the tuition fees policy.” Miliband said ministers claimed last year that cutting university budgets would save the taxpayer £2.9bn, despite it being apparent that the cost of subsidising higher fees would reduce savings by the end of the parliament to £1.3bn. With most fees now set to be between £8,000 and £9,000, the government would have to pay out even more in loans, he added. He said that if fees came in at the average currently being seen, the cost of loans could cost up to half a billion pounds more annually, reducing savings to well under £1bn. Miliband said some experts believed the system could cost more, not less, in the long run because of fears many loans may not be paid back. “Whatever the exact number, there will be a shortfall in the government’s figures,” he said. “The shortfall in the funding is a double jeopardy for young people. He said the policy was one of several measures “kicking away the ladder of opportunity for young people”. And he reiterated his interest in a graduate tax, an idea being explored by Labour as part of its policy review. Meanwhile, thousands of deprived teenagers are likely to shun university next year because they are misinformed about the government’s tuition fee reforms, a charity has warned. The Helena Kennedy Foundation, which offers bursaries and mentors to encourage the poorest teenagers to go from college to university, said many young people wrongly believed they would have to pay £9,000 fees out of their own pockets when they started their degrees. It warned that teenagers were also unaware that they could qualify for substantial bursaries and scholarships. Ministers must immediately launch a publicity campaign to address the public’s misunderstandings over tuition fees, the charity urged. Wes Streeting, chief executive of the charity, said it was “frankly extraordinary that the government has failed to launch an effective publicity campaign to ensure that potential applicants and their families are aware of the facts behind the new system, particularly that tuition fees will not be payable until after graduation”. “The chaos and confusion surrounding the implementation of the new system risk deterring students, especially those from non-traditional backgrounds.” English universities hoping to charge more than £6,000 a year have until the end of Tuesday to submit their plans to the government’s access watchdog, the Office for Fair Access (Offa) . At midday on Wednesday, the watchdog will publish how many universities have submitted their plans to charge more than £6,000. It will announce which universities’ plans it has approved by 11 July. Bristol University set out its plans on Tuesday to charge fees of between £3,500 and £9,000 a year from autumn 2012. It was one of one two universities in the Russell Group of large, research-intensive universities to not have made their proposals public. The London School of Economics and Political Science has not yet announced its fees. Ed Miliband Labour Education policy Tuition fees Higher education Students Hélène Mulholland Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Howard Kurtz wonders why holding Sen. Jon Kyl accountable for his ‘not meant to be factual’ statement falls to late-night comics
April 18, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Howard Kurtz asked his panel on Reliable Sources this weekend whether most of the media gave Jon Kyl a pass for his statement that abortion is “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does” and his later walk back that it “was not intended to be a factual statement” and then him throwing his press person under the bus for the statement after Stephen Colbert decided to turn Kyl into a national punchline . After pointing out that there were some on MSNBC who covered the issue, Kurtz asked: “Why is holding a senator accountable left to the late-night comics?” Yes, why is that exactly? KURTZ: Lynn Sweet, other than a few liberal pundits at MSNBC that beat up on Kyl, it hasn’t gotten that much attention in the press. Why is holding a senator accountable left to the late-night comics? If a Democrat in Congress had so egregiously misstated facts about anything the right cares about or feigns caring about, it would be headline news for weeks. Drudge’s flashing lights would have sent Limbaugh and Fox News into an immediate tizzy. Then that politician would be tarred with it for their entire career in politics by the right-wing media and it would become conventional wisdom in the Beltway media after that. But not for Kyl. He’ll still be called on for TV and treated like a royal member from the House of Lords. Lie? What lie? On the flip side, Howard should know that Colbert and Stewart do a better job of holding our politicians accountable than his network does on pretty much a nightly basis when they’re on the air. Why is that exactly? And it appears that the folks over at some of the other highly trafficked blog sites are all up in arms over this segment because CNN didn’t bleep Mark McKinnon saying the word bulls**t, as if that’s the most important part of it to highlight. I think somehow the viewers at CNN managed to get through it without having to be awoken from their fainting couches after watching this, if they even noticed McKinnon’s use of the BS-word at all. Full transcript via CNN with the bleeped expletive added back in there below the fold. KURTZ: Jon Kyl went on the floor of the Senate and said, “If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” Well, the actual figure, three percent. Kyl’s office putting out a statement saying, well, that was not intended to be a factual statement. That set the stage for Stephen Colbert. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHEN COLBERT: I decided to celebrate Jon Kyl’s groundbreaking excuse-planation last night by tweeting ’round-the-clock non-facts about him such as, for the past 10 years, Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit. (APPLAUSE) COLBERT: And Jon Kyl calls all Asians “Neil” no matter what their name is. (END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: Lynn Sweet, other than a few liberal pundits at MSNBC that beat up on Kyl, it hasn’t gotten that much attention in the press. Why is holding a senator accountable left to the late-night comics? SWEET: I agree with you. I would think that the other point that has kind of escaped, and just looking around to see who’s been writing about it, do you know that he actually excised that “90 percent” from the congressional record? And that is — I think maybe there’s just a lot of news and not enough people to write about everything. But when you take something out of the congressional record that he actually said, and it’s on video, you get into kind of a serious question where you do push a story out, and I think maybe people just sometimes have to catch up in this world where there is a torrent of news. But when you make something — what’s that word, excuse- planation? That was a great phrase. I think the mainstream press is a little behind on this KURTZ: Let me let Mark McKinnon jump in as well. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that Jon Kyl is not exactly a household name. If Michele Bachmann had said this, I bet you everyone would have cove covered it. MCKINNON: I think that’s true, but it’s a testament to what’s happening now in our politics, that politicians, or somebody who’s been around as long as Jon Kyl, could think he could go out and say something that’s not intended to be a factual statement and get away with it. And if you turn that around and think about what he was saying, is that it’s not intended to be a factual statement, then it was intended to be a misleading statement. I mean, he’s acknowledging that it was completely bulls**t. KURTZ: No other explanation. Craig Crawford, days later, Kyl finally admitted he misspoke and — you’ll love this — blamed it on his press person. CRAWFORD: Yes. And I think that press person needs to go back to press school, coming up with a statement like it wasn’t intended to be factual. Why not just say you misspoke or something and let it go away? KURTZ: Why not say you misspoke? If only politicians and others could learn that lesson, they could save themselves a week of ridicule. Craig Crawford, Mark McKinnon in Austin, Lynn Sweet in Chicago, thanks for joining us. It is pretty humorous though that CNN decided to just edit what McKinnon said in their transcript and had McKinnon saying “I mean, he’s acknowledging that it was completely bull” instead. If they thought that was going to make their slip with not bleeping it go away, apparently they’re sadly mistaken.
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Click here to view this media Civility is dead. It was diagnosed as terminal on January 20, 2009, and by July 14, 2009 — the day the House of Representatives reported out the first version of the Affordable Care Act — it was dead, cold, and buried fifty feet under in a concrete box lined with lead to counter the radioactivity of the atmosphere above. The killers weren’t liberals or progressives, though it’s true that they laughed and ridiculed pretty strongly on the Tea Party’s birthday on April 15, 2009. The killers were the talkers like Rush and Beck and their many clones on the AM radio dial who had no problem saying the most outrageous things. The more outrageous they were, the better it was for the hate talkers. Which is why it makes me laugh in a cynical, annoyed sort of way when I see the right wing go all whiny about how mean President Obama is to them . To which I say, more meanness please. Bipartisanship is dead. Civility is dead. Meanness is what’s called for. Paul Krugman : Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution. This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies. So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters. Exactly. I’m not calling for us to start photoshopping Allen West into overtly racist pictures here, but enough with the pretense of civil discourse. When Andrew Breitbart tells liberals to STFU in public with 5,000 of them just on the other side of a barrier, civility just isn’t a worthwhile goal. Conservatives’ vision for this country is dark, dystopian, and deeply pessimistic. It’s also hypocritical and serves only the goals of their Fortune 500 masters. It does not have to be this way. The president’s microphone wasn’t “accidentally” left on last week . That’s what people do when they want to say it without it being “official”. That message was intentional and conservatives can’t deny the truth of what he said , no matter how hard they try. Unless we let them. David Brooks can wish on every shooting star in the sky, but there isn’t going to be a beer summit and congenial lunch with Paul Ryan and the president anytime soon. Those days are past. The Party of Loons and Pessimists wants to put Mom in the hands of insurance companies, corporate providers and ration her health care while cutting her Social Security benefits to shreds. This does not call for civility. It calls for open, loud, hostile calls for attention.
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