Political Point Scoring... The Worst Kind.

It must be said that many are stuck in the 80s, whilst it can be claimed that the Tories are using 80s ideology many on the hard left are stuck in a romanticised-fictional world where the miners strikes achieved their goal...

As a left winger it is often frustrating to watch the left wing tear itself apart (as it frequently does), whilst the vast majority of us want to win the debates to stop the cuts in a peaceful and democratic manner there are many determined to repeat the tactics from the 80s... for reasons that are not altogether clear. I am not Ed Miliband's biggest fan, however I can't bring myself to criticise him for telling the unions that strike action might not be the answer.

Direct and Physical action is only effective with a large majority of the population DECISIVELY on YOUR side, not a Labour lead in the polls ;-). If we look at the 80s miners strike and the 2010 student protests there are many parallels, significantly both failed in their goals and the government achieved what they wanted to do with the miners/students coming out worse in public perception. Both wasted time with rallies that only engaged people who were already involved and allowed protests to become pitched battles between protester and police.

Many people will criticise me for saying that the failure of the student protests was not because of the NUS, despite the many failings of the National Union of Students, instead the various movements led by Marc Bergfeld e.g. Education Activists Network caused major divides amongst the movement by launching scathing attacks not against David Cameron and Nick Clegg but on Aaron Porter, the President of the NUS. The sit ins at various universities alienated many students, caused conflicts between students and lecturers and pushed public opinion away. The attack on the Conservative Headquarters was another naive example where a small group of people felt that the "revolution had come". Whilst these actions are admirable, they are ineffective and play right into the government's hands.

There are far more effective, and far more appropriate methods, of swaying public opinion and changing government plans than sitting in a room telling each other about how the leader of your union has "betrayed you". How many people thought to actually engage the public, you know the old fashioned way; grabbing a phone book, a map and a notepad and actually door knocking, making phone calls, creating petitions, talking to people on the street. If you want to get high-tech, we could have produced databases, twitter campaigns, on-line viral campaigns... I can tell you that no-one really went for it. Which is a shame, we were quite close to embarrassing the deputy prime minister by getting enough people to sign a petition saying he needed to face a by-election (forcing him to break another promise), we could have swayed public opinion decisively in our favour as the government would not have been prepared for such a campaign.

You know... maybe we could do this now, our generation; go out and canvass the populace telling them how  the youth of Britain is being shafted, that tuition fees will be too high, that our generation will never afford to own a home, that nearly 1 million (more than 20% of) 16-24 year old's are unemployed. Maybe that's what we could do on the Day of Action that's scheduled for 30th November. You know... get some public support!

Or we could wait for the revolution to come whilst we march down a street shouting slogans at each other.

Just a thought.

Where are the Liberal Democrats?

Right now? Birmingham. Their popularity is the same as it was in 1996, they're in government and have achieved... what? It is unlikely that Nick Clegg will be able to fulfil his promise of double the number of seats the Liberal Democrats have by 2015, unlike Paddy Ashdown's achievement of doubling the number of Lib Dem seats in 1997, Nick Clegg will not be able to achieve the same feat with a drop of 1% in polls, let alone the halving of support. Not just because of broken promises, the poor state of the economy and general unpopularity but because his party is now in Government and must defend it's record.

Nick Clegg is still criticising government decisions as evil, extremist and horrible... but he must know that he is largely responsible for those measures. The Conservatives will never have been able to push through most of what they have gotten through without the Lib Dem coalition, a minority Conservative government would have been far weaker and have been forced to make deals with the other parties.

There is no doubt that the Liberal Democrats are going to have to do a great deal of work in order to reclaim the trust of their former supporters. I, an individual who considers himself a leftist, already found Nick Clegg hard to trust after his attempts to change certain Lib Dem policies e.g. tuition fees. When Nick Clegg mentions he promises X, Y or Z just gives the impression that it isn't going to happen. I very much doubt that the Liberal democrats will be able to stop the conservatives dropping the 50p tax rate, there are enough Lib Dem MPs who agree with dropping the 50p tax rate for the Conservatives to get it pushed through with, or without the LDs help.

The problem the Liberal Democrats face is the fear of the polls, they fear triggering an election as they know that they're going to suffer; so the Conservatives are able to take advantage of this. If the Liberal Democrats leave the government it will not be as (if at all) damaging for the Conservatives as the damage the Liberal Democrats will suffer. But would it? The Liberals have, thus far, failed to use any of the small windows of opportunity have been given to them.

I disagree with The Observers political editorial today which seems to be claiming that the Liberal Democrat position isn't that bad after all, they've survived several by-elections and in Farron's seat people like their local MP... it is a little unfortunate that the Observer's political editor feels that he should use opinions of random people in Liberal Democrat safe seats to portray his point. He hasn't looked at any polls, which have the Liberal democrats and their leader in the same position they were in February... it's only ICM that has the Liberal democrats in the teens, YouGov have had them in single figures for much of the last year.

I suspect that were there a general election in three months time that the Liberal Democrats would probably return a 17-18% in the polls... but this would put them back in the position they held in 1992 setting them back by 20 years. Nick Clegg is not a strong card for the party and it is hard for him to look like the "honest" route.

Interestingly in today's article in the Observer today was this quote;

"I think Nick Clegg sold out and with the Tories in power people are suffering," says Johnson. "My dad is on disability benefits for multiple sclerosis, but what he can claim now is a lot less and it makes it very difficult."But I understand it is a difficult time and Tim Farron is excellent, he listens to people. I don't really know who I would vote for in a general election. I suppose if Farron was there, I would probably vote for him."

I would not say that this quote is encouraging for the Liberal Democrats, the fact is the man like the MP not the Liberal Democrats as a whole and seems to have accepted the Tory line that the cuts are necessary.

Unfortunately The Observers editorial today is typical of much of the press... presenting one viewpoint and not even attempting to balance out the argument.

Admittedly the Liberal Democrats are not in the same position they were in last winter, this is not too heartening for them but is a start. They can fix their position, but it will not be easy; particularly because they are a small party fighting against two behemoths with much more experience. They also have the problem that they didn't begin the coalition haggling process from the correct position, the conservatives went for the most right position and have gotten much of it because the Liberal democrats started from a position to the right of their own too early talking about how compromise is important.

There is only one thing that I am certain of, which is that I am disappointed by every major group on the left. The unions are hell-bent on repeating the 80s with strike action etc. despite knowing full well that strike action is unpopular and was completely unsuccessful in the 80s, the Liberal Democrats are hugely in denial and Labour is fighting a battle within itself. We're all fighting each other. It is important that we all fall under one banner, I have allied myself with Labour because it is the most united... despite it's major divisions.

All too often we fall into bitter arguments with name calling, generalisations and genuine prejudice. There are many things I disagree with that the last Labour government did, but I'm still Labour because I am part of the left-wing and understand that the reason that Labour has moved towards the right is because left-wingers keep leaving the party meaning that there are fewer of us to make the arguments. There is also the very good point that the Liberal Democrats have also moved towards the right and the Greens are more like a splinter group.

It is time that those of us on the left realise that the Conservatives are winning because we argue and divide ourselves. When the SDP left Labour and joined the Liberals it meant that the Conservatives would remain in power for 18 years last time around, the Liberal Democrats must not allow the Conservatives to do the same again.

There's a reason why polls say women don't like you Mr. Cameron and it isn't school holidays.

"I’m not sexist but..." is how I imagine David Cameron started many debates in his youth, the way he and his party perform speeches, form policy and generally behave makes me wonder whether they experienced the last half a century. There are multiple reasons why women do not support the government as much as men (according to reason polls by YouGov, ICM and Ipsos Mori)*.

The way David Cameron addresses women from all sides of the house is simply astounding, constantly brushing them aside as if they are a joke. Take for example:

Or

Whilst I think Nadine Dorries' question was somewhat foolish there is no reason as to why David Cameron should be allowed to get away with simply dismissing her as a joke. This kind of behavior is deeply patronising and made worse by the fact that it seems to be targeted at women. This is as damaging as newspapers like the Telegraph publishing articles about cleavage in the house of commons ironically posted on the same day as the "calm down dear" quip.

It can be noted that David Cameron talks down to members of the house on a regular basis, rarely ever answering a question if it doesn't suit him and sticking to pre-prepared statements; including pre-prepared statements criticising Ed Miliband for using pre-prepared statements (oh how mature our house of commons is!). But it does appear that David Cameron's method of dealing with difficult questions or comments by female MPs is one of disdain.

Sexism in government is not a new thing, indeed our one female prime minister spent most of her time making herself more masculine; using a deeper voice to such a stage that when Spitting Image came round to representing her she was voiced by a man; Steve Nallon.

Our Government: Spotted the white middle class men yet?

Admittedly our government have identified in this leaked document some genuine reasons for why it's unpopular noting that the government has a very white middle class face with Lady Warsi apparently being pushed on as many PR stunts as possible as their token "Female-Asian", they've also identified that women have been hit particularly hard by the recession and the cuts; all perfectly adequate explanations. So let us assess the actual response drawn out in the letter...

- Decreasing the length of Summer Holidays.

- Introducing an all women business meeting in No 10
- Putting pressure on all parties to ensure women are standing in the city mayors/police commissioners, new positions specifically being set up by the current government.

These positions do not treat women equally to men, and are immensely patronising. These ideas do nothing to challenge the reasons why women dislike the government. Decreasing the length of summer holidays is pandering to traditional values, and has little consideration towards the effect on children and the relationship with their parents nor does it consider the economic effects and costs. All women business meetings will have little effect and, much like all women conferences in academia; will only further segregate women from the political processes and is, once again, targeted at the rich. The efforts to ensure women are standing for roles as police commissioners and mayors are simply an action to promote the conservatives own agenda and also to unload women onto less important positions.

Actions such as these will not improve the governments image for women, will not promote feminism, will not benefit women in any way. So David? going to try again?

Holding the Country to Ransom

This man took twelve times the cost of the London Riots out of the economy and didn't pay a penny of tax .

George Osbourne, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, the Financial Times and the country’s top 1% of earners are all telling us that the 50p tax rate for the country’s top earners should be removed else those same top earners will leave the country and move to Switzerland or Monaco. Tax Havens.

The top earners in this country are effectively holding the country to ransom despite the fact that these people have become the bane of our global economy. There is a near-global debt crisis which has severely damaged a very large number of economies and is threatening to push us back into recession, the stock markets have been incredibly shaky and many countries have been experiencing little growth.

Our government claims that the 50p tax rate is putting a strain on our economy and isn’t getting us all that much money so we might as well get rid of it.

But lets look at the rich poor divide, you may have noticed that with high levels of unemployment, weak growth, large cuts to public services and a rise in VAT that we are all a little bit less off... Well unless you’re in the top earners bracket, take the UK’s top 1000 earners who increased their wealth by 18% in the 2010-2011 financial year.

The problem is that we have suffered a 1929 style recession and are now in a depression, except that the world has not learned from the mistakes made back then. In the UK we are making heavy cuts in every sector, reducing consumer confidence, increasing unemployment and fuelling stagnation. In the US Obama has been attempting Keynesian economics, but has been largely thwarted by the Tea Party in doing so; with large scale projects failing to come to fruition despite billions of dollars being thrown at them meaning that the large construction and infrastructure projects are not happening.

The problem is that many countries have the same problem regarding tax havens, to the extent that this is an international scandal. Countries with 0% Income Tax have put such a strain on western economies that it’s become almost a crime against humanity. Take Monaco, for example, the “country” relies almost entirely on France for it’s existence to the extent that it’s railway it run completely by the French State-run railway operator SNCF, the country has a population smaller than Oldham and is only beaten to the title “smallest country in the world” by the Vatican. This country is instrumental in allowing Phillip Green to avoid paying taxes in the United Kingdom; in 2005 Phillip Green gave himself a £1.2 bn pay cheque when he declared a dividend payout in his company the Arcadia Group, this was technically paid to his wife who is officially a resident in Monaco meaning that he avoided £285 m of tax in a single payout.

This tiny country with a population of 80,000 costs the UK economy billions every year, more than we spend on wars!

So, a single British man in charge of a British Company who has earned all of his money in Britain, has been given grants by the British Government, been given security by the British Police Force, been educated by the British state education system, used roads and airports paid for by the British tax payer and has a vote in Britain avoided £285 m of tax, enough to build more than 10 brand new secondary schools, in one day whilst removing £1.2 bn from the British economy.

Let’s put that £285 m into perspective; the London riots will cost the tax payer around £100 m with several hundred if not thousands of people being punished severely for those actions with jail sentences left, right and centre. So a man who has deliberately avoided paying nearly three times that figure gets off free, and even gets to have personal chats with our Prime Minister and occasionally (okay only once so far!) gets brought in on certain jobs making our government “more efficient”. And he's one of the people telling us that the 50p tax rate is too high!

Naturally Phillip Green is only one man and punishing him would not solve this problem, if we are to solve the £120bn/year tax avoidance problem in this country we must look at the tax havens and find a way of solving this problem. It may well be necessary that the U.N. should be involved in the matter, or maybe the G8 needs to find a way to ensure that tax havens are not given an easy break any more.

However, more realistically, we need to look into our home affairs. If we remove the 50p tax rate now at a time when VAT is at 20% then this country will have given in to the elite it will have given them an even greater opportunity to suck more of this country’s wealth and to give them more power over us. This is crucial, if we allow the top 1% of earners to have more control over our money we are giving them more power, giving them more opportunities to demand X, Y and Z else they’ll “leave the country” else before long we’ll be saying good bye to far more than just our money.

In 2008 the Conservatives called the VAT tax break a bombshell, claiming the Labour government was going to increase it to 18.5% at a later time. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats increased this to 20%.

WTF?!?!?! 10 Years on.

I was sat in a classroom, aged 13 and a little bit unimpressed by the actions of my classmates in my year 9 English class, this was the moment that I will always remember, because it was at this time that the world changed. It is a cliché to point out that there are moments in history where you'll always remember where you were, but this was certainly one of them; it was a tragic and horrible moment that would resonate and define the next decade. I am, of course, talking about the September 11th attacks on the World Trade centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

It is not always clear what the exact effects of major events are, and this was no exception, the direct consequence could arguably be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but it was also the change of attitudes and the introduction of a new villain in western culture. The “terrorist”, this other became an undeserved stereotype; anyone of middle-eastern descent or links to Islam have become viewed with suspicion. The right wing American media likes to talk about President Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein) as if it has anything to do with anything suggesting that the man had links to terrorism, which he clearly doesn't.

This racism has become a major part of our society, anything linked to Islam is viewed as potentially “extremist”; and ironically many examples of “extremism” that are given are just as much the case in American Christianity. If you're not a Christian in many American states then you are always treated with suspicion, ostracised and occasionally you might well be the target of assassins.

Dr George Tiller murdered in a church in 2009 for running an abortion clinic.

Senator Gabrielle Gifford's was the intended target of an assassination attempt earlier this year...for being a Democrat.

Ironically the labelling of Muslim's as being “terrorists” has created a self-fulfilling prophecy on a large scale with many individuals across the United Kingdom, the United States and other western cultures feeling that they need to join the 'jihad' because they have become accustomed to the media telling them that is what they expect them to be doing. This is mostly the reason behind things like the London bombings. The constant ostracising of the Muslim community in the media has acted as a very strong stimulus and fuel for those most extreme individuals who feel that killing off non - Islamists will get them into paradise.

Recently the government introduced a new set of measures that allow lecturers to report individuals of the Islamic faith to be monitored if they “look down” and that individual will likely be monitored for a while. This isn't fiction or a small scale thing, it's happening right now. The fact is that we have sacrificed too many civil liberties for the sake of a bit of security and this is completely wrong. The reforms that have been put in place over the last ten years have been pretty awful, however we are now starting to see a new phase of laws and reforms to the justice system that will be worse still.

The recent riots in London resulted in a major public backlash against the rioters with a very large number of individuals calling for harsher and harsher punishments for the rioters. The courts visibly enacted very harsh punishments on individuals for very little, the example of a mother who has been jailed for two years because she received a looted t-shirt was particularly prevalent. What terrified me the most was the polling on the number of people who wanted the use of water cannon, CO2 canisters and the army to be brought in, there were even calls for live ammunition to be used. If what the polling has suggested is right then I feel very sad that the British public are so willing to allow such a dramatic removal of civil liberties. David Cameron has even been mentioning that he wants to be able to block social networks during future riots, a tactic being used by the despots in the Middle East and North Africa as they desperately cling to power.

Of course , both of these events are very different with a contrasting set of complex problems associated with them. But what they both have in common is the reaction of the public and by governments, both had reactions that revolved around punishing the group of people responsible and not trying to address the problems that resulted in the act. If you can justifiably take away or lessen the reason to protest then you are going much further down the path to solve the problem in the long term than if you seek to punish those responsible. If we are to learn anything from the last ten years it is that retribution will not solve the problem, we are still fighting a war in Afghanistan because the Taliban and Osama bin Laden were given a greater justification and reason to fight. If greater diplomatic pressure were put on resolving the situation in Israel and Palestine then we may not have seen much of the bloodshed from the last ten years.

If we apply this to the recent events in London and several of Britain's major cities then we should be paying attention to the fact that we have produced ghetto-like communities, have made our benefits system into one that fails to actually give people the support they need to get a job and instead spends most of it's time trying to find ways of removing benefits from those receiving it, we are withdrawing much of the youth service which is so important in ensuring many young individuals have the support they need outside of school hours. We need to look at the reason why so many families in this country are struggling to move up in society and why they are becoming demotivated.

Punishing these families and making it even more difficult for them to get jobs by giving them a criminal record is only going to make it easier for them to justify similarly violent actions in the future and will not act as a deterrent.

“Condoning Violence”

Since the recent riots began in London and other large cities in the UK over the weekend we have seen a barrage of opinions of the matter, over how the riots should be stopped, what the police powers should be, what has caused them, who the individuals looting are and much more. However it has been incredibly difficult to actually confront the real issues in this matter in an adult manner, whenever anyone tries to take into account the socio-economic reasons why individuals are rioting they have been accused by Conservatives, the Daily Mail, the BBC, etc. etc. of condoning violence, being ‘loony lefties’ or being soft in a fallacy of an argument.


Take this man here:

Whilst the man is not the most eloquent and I seriously question the idea that the riots are an 'insurrection' like the revolts happening across the middle-east but the reporter seems to be obsessed with telling the man off for 'condoning violence'. The man had been making a valid point that the youth of Britain feel disenfranchised and such feelings can fuel events like this. It is pointless to simply say that these people are 'just vandals' or are 'yobs', completely isolating the fact that the actions were horrible actions away from the other equal fact that riots such as these only occur during periods economic strife.

It is a valid point to say that the individuals were hardly thinking about complicated socio-economic reasons but it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that when one individual sees another smashing a window and stealing a television that the thought processes might twig that there are people who can easily afford those things and those people don't appear to be doing anything for them so they can't see anything wrong with stealing that television. It's not even necessarily greed that drives these actions, resentment is as big a fuel as any in producing this kind of activity.

It is worth noting that not one press or news article, no-one in government, no-one in opposition and very few bloggers have identified the idea of actually talking to psychologists and sociologists about this kind of behavior and identifying why people are doing these actions that way. Furthermore all the talk I have seen has been little better than a troll fight on a forum as very little evidence is being brought to bear 99% of the discussion has been speculative.

As I have pointed out already, I do not condone violence of any sort, I do not believe it is necessary to express your views through violence particularly the sort we have seen over the last week. But I can understand why people feel the need to do what they have done in recent days. These are two completely different and completely compatible views to have, yet I bet someone who reads this forum will disagree and tell me that I'm being a 'loony leftie' or the like.

Clearly no one can condone someone setting fire to postman pat!

The latter viewpoint, however, is the important one when identifying what needs to be done next. Lets compare this to a natural disaster, say a flood, a sensible person will not just say "it's all the horrible water's fault" they would take the next thoughts in saying; why has this flooded? what can I do to prevent it? Notably there are multiple options for reducing flooding, you can make massive flood defences; which are effective in the short term, you can do major reworks of the rivers to straighten them so that water can flow more quickly through them and you can plant extra trees and plants to help trap the water. The same thought applies to riots, yes the actions of the individuals is horrendous but in order to prevent acts like this in the future we need to not only have adequate security from the police but we also need to take into account the needs of a community and to ensure that that community is not suffering needlessly.

Reactions to the Violence in London

People calling for martial law should remember that, unlike american riots, in this country the publicdoesn't have widespread access to guns.

The riots that are currently going on throughout the country are bringing forward a wide range of opinions with the press recalling events in the 1980s, no-one has thought to actually sit down and actually think the events through. The only real variation between the mainstream newspapers is, as usual, between the left and right. The right have called for water cannons, martial law, strong fines for those arrested in the protests etc. with the daily mail calling it a mob and, in some cases, “yobs and chavs” whilst the left have largesy sat reminiscing about the 80s.

An important point to be made is that the press have had their part to play in all of this, by going overboard on reporting the incident the press have successfully inflamed the situation with a singular protest of 5,000 becoming a “national” breakdown. I get particularly angry with newspapers like the Daily Mail in situations like this as they love to inflame it and then come down like a hammer screaming things like [paraphrasing of course] ‘chavs are violent’ although I suppose this is quite a nice change from their usual tone of “bring back the weekly bin rounds” although they’ll probably figure out a way of linking the two together before long.

However, what every newspaper seems to be missing is an opinion about how to effectively prevent this sort of thing happening in the future, many of course have talked about draconian police measures bearing down upon the populace like a police state. But this neither solves the problem nor does it bode well for freedom of speech. No, what has failed to be accomplished, is the analysis of what happened in the run up and why a, relatively, small protest has grown to rioting in several major cities.

It seems logical that areas that need to be looked at are, indeed, police tactics and what has led to people dropping social norms and deciding that they need to burn down buildings. Thankfully we have not reached the level of riots in the 1980s nor the horrific event that was the riot in Los Angeles in 1992 , oddly the latter has many parallels; when Rodney King was beaten up by police officers and after the police officers were acquitted it sparked a fury of outrage that was backed up by guns. The problem is that in cases where the police have been the ones doing the wrongdoing it acts as a strong stimulant to not respect them, particularly in the minds of those who are strongly effected by the economy. Indeed, it may well be that the news that the stock markets are in free fall may have fueled part of this as people are scared for their futures.

It seems to me that the government, police and the press have all failed in their duty to this country and whilst those causing the violence are certainly not blameless the actions of the government in the last year that have increased youth unemployment and the rich/poor divide in London, the poor tactics that the police have been implementing and the press hype have helped to add fuel to the fire.

The war on the 16-24s.

The government cuts have hit a wide range of sectors heavily, but no age group has been hit as hard as the 16-24 year old’s. 1 in 5 16-24 year olds are unemployed in Britain today, with the 50-60 age group suffering the least (indeed they’re the one’s who’ve suffered the least throughout the recession).

The problem is the way the cuts have been made; in order to avoid the headlines both government and private sector employers have opted for the “cutting admissions” route i.e. to avoid redundancy headlines they’ve gotten rid of intake. Furthermore they have all attacked the “back-room” staff, people who are not engaged in front-line services. Of course, in both cases, this is going to hit people at the bottom of the employment ladder the hardest.

Furthermore, if you take the eradication of the Future Jobs Fund you’re looking at a very damaging situation for the youth of Britain.

Naturally this is just one line, if you then look at things like the tripling of tuition fees in England and the fact that those between the ages of 16-24 do not believe that they will ever be able to afford to own a home then you are looking at a very grim situation indeed.

What is most frustrating is the attitude of many in the 40s-60s age bracket; which is very much a “tough luck” one, whilst they were given degrees for the price of nothing alongside free grants (regardless of the parental income), had full expectancy to be able to afford a home by their early 30s and had half the unemployment troubles of the 80s.

Many employers have worked out that “jobs” for young people are now a commodity, where they are actually charging young people to come to work for them. The situation is outrageous, with more than 80 graduates applying for every graduate job it is frightening to see just how much disdain our government has for our generation.

Osbourne’s answer was to give 18-21 year olds the opportunity to work for 8 months voluntarily... and there’s a limited number of places.

I wish I could say differently for the continent, but alas the situation is just as grim there; in spain as high as 44% of 16-24 year olds are unemployed; however it is worth noting that the proportional difference between national unemployment and the age categories. Whilst the difference between the two in Spain is about 2 times more 16-24 year olds are unemployed when proportionally compared with the rest of the country, in the UK it’s more than three times.

The thing is, the government’s tactics at handling youth unemployment is focused around the issue of training future generations in apprenticeships. But nothing in regard to job creation. Throughout my teenage years I was told repeatedly to get a degree, by my parents, teachers and any one who could get me to listen. A degree meant that I would get a “good job”. I was also told that my degree area was a good one, the school’s career adviser said that Archaeology was a good option, same with my parents and teachers. By the time I leave university I found that the situation was very different to that and, indeed, many employers have told me that my degree is the reason why they DIDN’T employ me. And what do telegraphy and daily mail readers say; they tell me that it’s silly to expect to get a good job at the end of my degree.

The problem I’m now facing is that not only am I struggling to find a good job, but ANY job is hard to get! There’s the cache 22 that you need to do a good job on your cv and covering letter/their application form whilst at the same time getting it in before their pile of applications forms too high.

It may sound like a selfish thing to say, or at least quite demanding. But the young people need jobs, not to be told that they trained in the wrong thing. And I’d love to see the government give a strong and useful response to that. But I’m not holding my breath.

NUS Conference and the problems facing the Student Movement

Many people complain about the democratic “processes” in the NUS, but having now been a delegate at conference it is perfectly understandable to see why it is the way it is. In particular Mark Bergfeld represented the reasons why the Hard Left struggles.

The problems with Conference lie in the problem that there is very little time for effective debate on most motions/elections/anything really, it is impossible to get through them all otherwise and (indeed) there are many things that don’t even get discussed. Therefore it would be preferable for more time to be allocated to debate (although this is very, very expensive).

So why is it that the Hard-Left struggles? Put simply this year in particular many individuals felt that it was necessary to shout about how horrible the government is at every possible opportunity. The issue with this is that the individual wasted a third to a half of their speech making a point that has been made on countless occasions already, sometimes we don’t actually have any points made about the topic in question. So, of course, this is very irritating for many delegates who eventually vote against the individual in question because their points are not as strong as their opponent who has managed to stay on topic.

The right also have complaints, the most common being the idea of universal representation; they do not feel that the NUS represents their views effectively. The issue that they are complaining about (of course) is representative democracy; a bit odd considering the traditional right-wing view of reforming our parliamentary system is very much in line with keeping representative democracy.

So should the NUS adopt One Member One Vote? As a union of 7 million members it is arguable that areas of the NUS should, perhaps, be put into a one member one vote system. The vast majority of members don’t have a voice and should be given one, but would this achieve what is intended? It would certainly make it very difficult for Presidential Candidates in particular to run effective election campaigns without strong backing. Motions certainly wouldn’t operate under a one member one vote system simply due to the sheer volume of motions that are proposed. Whilst it would no doubt increase involvement and improve direct democracy we are not yet at a stage where we can actively open up the NUS to One Member One Vote.

Presidential Election

The election of Liam Burn was, in my opinion, a strong choice. With a divided student movement it is healthy that we have a president who appeals to both sides of the NUS, Liam also points to the fact that we have to find a way of making the left comfortable with lobbying and the centre-left with direct action.

It is very important that we all recognise that the biggest weakness that the student movement has is that we so easily polarise on issues, particularly tactics, thus even on topics which we agree on we find ourselves weakened because we are arguing amongst ourselves. Instead of blaming each other we should ask ourselves what we could have done, and yes this includes you. Had the NEC not criticised the Millbank occupation so vehemently and those on the Left not criticised Aaron Porter in such an extreme way then we would have been able to pay attention to looking for the common ground, not the differences. People should not assume that an occupation is a "waste of space" but at the same time those involved in the occupations shouldn't be too upset about a reaction to the violence (not the occupation itself) at Millbank Tower.

Put it this way, would it have been so hard for more of us to join the occupation? But also would it have been so hard for those in the occupation done some work on the right to recall campaign? It would not have been a difficult task to set up a phone bank, to make the occupations a base of operation to operate a petition campaign around the constituencies.

We need to keep the campaign against the tuition fees rise going, and we need to stop finding the things that divide us but instead look for the things that unite us; without doing so will be a disaster.

Archaeology; The Canary that was Shot halfway down the Mine.

An Artists Impression of the Stonehenge Visitors Centre that will never be.

Archaeology is known for being a canary trade, during times of economic downturns and reduced construction; archaeology tends to lose out. The only commercial work in the trade is based upon development and rescue archaeology. So the recent recession wasn’t all too healthy for the trade, the workforce dropped dramatically perhaps even by 30% during the period in the UK and has yet to even start feeling the effects of the (until the last quarter) improving economic outlook.

The effects of the recession on Archaeology have yet to be fully studied but I advise anyone to take a look at work done by Kenneth Atchison who has written several informative articles on the subject.

Archaeology, as a subject, was born in the United Kingdom and you would expect a responsible government to give it some slack when it comes to the cuts. Of course, this really isn’t the case; considered a “soft target” archaeology has face severe cuts in museums (including the Stonehenge Visitors Centre which was due to finally be made into something more than a couple of converter shipping crates), government funded research projects and the loss of development contracts as the government pulled funding from things like BSF (Building Schools for the Future). In the bonfire of the quangos English Heritage is being cut by 32%, so ⅓ of government grants to archaeology will be withdrawn. Research funding will remain static for the next four years, a significant cut when you take inflation into account and funding provided to universities for archaeology is getting cut by 100%, yes that’s right 100%.
The cut will mean that departments will be forced to charge, at minimum £7,000 per year to stand still.

So what are the implications?
With Museums set to close there is now no more room to store archaeological artifacts, producing a significant cataloguing problem. Many counties will be losing their “Archaeology Officer” so will receive no advice regarding planning permission thus making likely archaeological remains at threat.

The loss of trained and experienced individuals from the trade will be a further devastating loss as yet more jobs are being dropped.

The damage being inflicted by the cuts to Archaeology is likely to unrecoverable and, quite frankly, are going to put the trade back by something like 50 years. This is clearly another example of how this government simply have not taken into account the severe damage they are going to cause by adopting such a fast cuts programs. By damaging archaeology in this way they are going to put hundreds, if not thousands, of people out of work in this field alone, thus reducing consumer spending and damaging growth.

Archaeology may have suffered during the recession but it had just survived, now the government have decided to put a disproportionate cut on a trade because it's an "easy target".

Conclusion? The government is effectively shooting the canary that survived the mine.

The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

So the deficit reduction plan is now well on the way, the list of savings is endless; so many different controversial cuts are happening that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. One of those cuts that have almost gone under the radar is the sell-off of much of the forestland in the UK.

This is a pure example of the thought processes in the government and how flawed they are; there is absolutely nothing more important than tackling the deficit they say, we must save as much money as possible they say but the thing about the sell-off of the forests is that much of that land isn’t really the government’s to give away.

Britain’s forests are almost entirely owned by the people of the country, else they’re owned by the crown; making this land freely available to the public for the enjoyment of everyone in this country.

The Forest of Dean is one of the forests selected to be released from public ownership.

The thing is that the government see the forests as an asset that can be sold off, their ideology says that the forests might be better managed by the private sector; this misses the point. Just because the government feel that the Forestry Commission doesn’t do a perfect job, it doesn’t mean that they’re allowed to simply take away 50% of our countries forests from their care.

But as I have already stated, Britain’s forests are NOT an asset that can be lightly sold; if the government wants to sell them they should put it to the people, this decision is as serious as a change in the voting system and should be put to a referendum. But this will never happen, as per usual the government have become detached from their duties to this country; the obsession with the deficit is producing a horrifying dystopia revolving around money and economics. If we do not stop actions such as these we will lose those few things that make this country great; from the compassion of being able to receive free health care to the ability to roam much of the most beautiful landscapes freely.

It is clear now that this government only “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” (Oscar Wilde)

Scrapping the EMA is a defeat for a compassionate Britain.

Another set of prejudices pandered to.

When the EMA was scrapped it was accompanied by a significant amount of language that I personally find horrifying. The volume of people whining that the people who received it didn’t need it, and that all the people on it were just buying games for their xbox, it was clearly a “waste of tax payer’s money”, they should get a part-time job and that most students would still go to college anyway. Accompanied by the now cliché “Labour spent all the money” lines.

When I read these kinds of comments it strongly reminds me of the Victorian “Deserving vs Undeserving poor” ideas, these morals resulted in the workhouses. People felt that someone should really really need to have the handout if they were to receive it, so they expected the disadvantaged to beg and plead and do the worst jobs in society to get even a loaf of bread. Of course, I am by no means comparing the scrapping of the EMA to a workhouse but the language being used is the same.

Most complaints about EMA are to do with the means-testing, and many do have a point here, there are real examples where students who have received EMA are far from even realising that they’re receiving that much at all. The household income method doesn’t really work when you get examples of rich families buying their son/daughter a flat somewhere so that they’re entitled to EMA because they’re not living with their parents. There are many other examples which, whilst not as extreme, are nevertheless still irritating.

But does this justify scrapping the scheme altogether? Absolutely not; EMA was a very young scheme and no doubt had problems, tweaking it to provide a more logical framework would have sufficed. (This being said means-testing has not been outright proven to actually save the tax payer any money, the money that goes into means-testing itself often outweighs what is saved by it.)

The thing is that the introduction of EMA had visible, and very positive, effects; college numbers increased, school retention rates increased and there are countless examples of students being given an extra set of choices to be able to go to the college that they wanted to go to not simply the local one. Even the Conservatives are aware of this, which is why they are so eager to point out their “replacement scheme” even if it is wholly inadequate.

I’m not going to go into arguments about the national economy, or indeed the deficit, in this piece as that is another story. But there is no reason that anyone has given me that can justify the complete abolishment of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, they are the same reasons people give for abolishing Jobseekers Allowance and the NHS, and I fear that if the government continue to follow this line of reasoning that the entire fabric of a compassionate society will be demolished.

Labour Hold Oldham East & Saddleworth

On Wednesday night Simon Hughes was trying to explain the Liberal position; just as the Lib Dems have decided to change their tactics from being friendly with the tories to being slightly more harsh.

The Oldham East & Saddleworth By-Election has simply shown that the Conservative-Liberal Alliance is simply that; the Liberals are having to lean on the Conservatives to survive, I doubt that without Conservative tactical voting that the Liberals would have even held 2nd place in this seat. If you pay attention Of course this is speculative, and that the scenario meant that it was in the Conservatives interest for the Liberals to hold the seat. But the Liberals are going to have to work extra hard in order to ensure that they are not annihilated in this May's election; relying on Conservative Tactical voting will not help them one bit.

To put this result into perspective, the latest Polling Average (an average of all polls over 25 days) according to UK Polling Report is Con 38 (+2), Lab 42 (+14), LD 9 (-15). It is interesting to see that the shift in support away from the LDs has literally been replaced by the Conservatives (taking into account the +2).

By the looks of things here, the Conservatives were more than Soft-Peddling in Oldham; for such a large shift of support away from the Conservatives they must have been actively campaigning to get people to vote for the Liberals Tactically.

Then again, of course, I may be completely wrong; after all it is pretty much impossible to tell why every voter voted the way they did :-).

So will the Liberal change in tactics be enough to save their position? Well we'll have to see.