Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

John McDonnell, Labour Party: I have been a member of the Labour Party and involved in politics for over 45 years.  I have spent these years as a campaigner in my local community and nationally for what I consider to be basic rights- the right to a decent roof over your head in a safe, secure, clean, green environment, a good quality truly creative education, a job and income you can live on, trade union rights at work and an NHS fully funded in public hands so that we receive the treatment we need when s ick.  Throughout the New Labour years, Jeremy and I stayed in the Labour Party and fought for socialism. That meant in 2015 we were there when our chance came. We suffered a defeat in December. But not because of our policies. Public ownership, ending tuition fees and reversing NHS privatisation are all hugely popular. They're all still Labour Party Policy, as is the Green New Deal, and we need to organise to keep it that way. Party members can be forgiven for feeling demoralis

Britain Be careful with what you advocate.  Even for half-baked solutions, the market fundamentalists would ditch you out

"Throughout the book — whether on privatisation, “modernisation” of public services, university tuition fees, de-industrialisation and financialisation, Scottish independence, the British Labour Party or “enduring British values” — Brown’s efforts to portray himself as an opponent of neoliberalism are as unconvincing as his attempt to exonerate himself over Iraq. He’s too clumsy not to reveal his true colours. Benjamin Netanyahu is “an old friend and colleague”. British business magnate and billionaire Alan Sugar is “brilliant and inspirational”. The Malvinas/Falklands conflict was a “triumph” worth celebrating. And in the closing pages he approvingly quotes not Thomas Paine or Mary Wollstonecraft, but Edmund Burke, the conservative critic of the French Revolution whose writings spurred Paine and Wollstonecraft to produce their greatest works in reply." Review of Gordon Brown's autobiography

Ineffective "Mass marches in the UK"

England Why universities are a con

England Investing in education is investing in future generations. It is passivity, compliance, acquiescence, and more that make the English students and their parents accept the tuition fees. It is the mentality, and the ideology, of business.  It is about packaging and selling debt, hedge funds, etc. It is about creating a teacher-customer relationship. It is the most aggressive neoliberal capitalist economy in Europe. It is the myth of "we cannot afford scrapping tuitions fees" and "it is too costly for the state". It is the objective of reproducing compliant workforce that will think less and be at the service of the same ideological dogma. A Danish at an elite London university has told me how discussions in class are controlled and how they are much more open in Denmark, and how there is much less hierarchy. A better comparison would be a Germany, a country with a bigger population and woth no tuition fees. English and Danish tuition fees compa

England It is easy to forget that in 2005 Theresa May was a shadow minister going into a general election with a Conservative manifesto promising to scrap all tuition fees, the BBC reminds us. "People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises." — L.

US higher education The Fruits of Commodification

England's capitalism's crime against higher education

England The main argument of those opposing the scrapping of tuition fees in England is where to find the money to fund free higher education. Looking at a list of European countries where there are no tuition fees or a little charge, one can see that these countries have gone bankrupt and their education system has collapsed because they provide "free" higher education. " Once you factor in the people who will not end up paying back their loans, in the long-term the policy is expected cost the government £8bn a year." (Source: the BBC Fact Check) That is less than a tenth of the billions lost beause of tax evasion. The real reason of keeping the tuition fees in England of £9,250+ is that consecutive goverments have adopted the most aggressive "neo-liberal" social-economic system in Europe, where the fundamentalist "free-market" ideology reigns supreme.  The structure of the socio-political system has made many oppose free education

Compare tuition fees around the world Sorbonne at $280

England's corporate education: tuition fees