JP's Corner of The Blogosphere

I found a link to a Guardian article about the recent student protests.  It’s an evocative piece, conjuring up images of a heartfelt revolution in a desperate nation.  Whatever the tragic circumstances which have forced children to fend for themselves on freezing streets, it would appear that ‘Eton’ and ‘Tory Scum’ are to blame for the problems. Personally, I was rather taken with one of the comments below the article: You're campaigning in effect to continue the unfair system as it is and the "anti cuts" agenda, if it were successful, condemns future generations to huge fiscal burdens. It's selfish, often ill judged and driven by the ideologically clueless left. This whole mess has been created by one of the most damaging social experiments we have ever witnessed in this country - top down, target driven, forget the quality just look at the numbers nonsense. It has meant an industry of averageness has been developed along with a bunch of deluded students who th...

CrossCountry Trains’ Twitter feed recently claimed that a  “recent survey commissioned by CrossCountry shows First Class is more productive for business travellers ( http://bit.ly/1stclassxc ).”  The link seems to be broken (the CrossCountry website is terrible) so I don’t know how the survey was conducted, but I’m not surprised that First Class is more productive than their Standard Class.  Anything would be, frankly. I took the above photo of Standard Class on my way home on Saturday.  I could have photographed any number of the empty seats, and the picture would have been similar.  The fact that there were free seats will come as a shock to some, but don’t get too excited because it was quite late at night.  It’s the amount of litter I want to highlight (just be thankful I spared you the pool of vomit outside one of the – closed – toilets). Worryingly, I understand that this is not an unusual experience.  The rumour in the rail industry is that ...

So, Nick Clegg has asked students to “examine the fees proposals before taking to the streets,” suggesting that they “listen and look” before “marching and shouting.” ( BBC News ). I have to admit that I’ve not properly examined the proposals in detail, but then I haven’t been marching and shouting, either – and Mr Clegg’s comments seem fair to me. Meanwhile the National Union of Students have objected, urging Mr Clegg to “show a little humility." Having seen this , however, one might be forgiven for wondering if the NUS actually know what showing humility means.