The political portal of the University of Manchester
by Jon Ridge
This afternoon the Lisbon Treaty was finally ratified when the last EU member state to approve the treaty, the Czech Republic, signed up.
President Vaclav Klaus signed the treaty after a complaint from Czech senators that the Treaty violated the Czech constitution was thrown out by the Czech Constitutional Court.
Lech Sikorski
The BNP have been accused of committing the worst forms of quasi-intellectualism, narrow-minded racism, tactical yoking and shameful incidents of conduct – race exclusive membership – to have pervaded Britain’s shores in recent times. There appears to be a consensus amongst political commentators that the BNP is deliberatively malicious towards ethnic minorities, in their attempts to ‘cleanse’ Britain of multi-culturalist attitudes under the banners of “real British identity” and “sustainable demographics.” Whilst there is an agreement about the controversial nature of the BNP, there is a disagreement about how best to confront it’s recent popularity.
The recent decision to allow the BNP on Question Time has brought fury to those who claim that we shouldn’t give the BNP a national platform. Personally, I believe that maximum exposure of the BNP would assist in the process of dragging their muck politics out of the gutter and being held to account by the court of public opinion. Bonnie Greer, Jack Straw, Chris Huhne and as of yet unknown representative of the Conservative party have the opportunity to deftly discredit the BNP brand and should seize it as a responsibility to do so. The arguments that the BNP propose must be proved to the people, like any political party in a democratic system, to be demonstratively wrong, illogical and unworkable. An appearance of Question Time will help to speed up the de-masking process.
Should the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time be allowed to happen? Is this a failing of current party politics? The Politics Society welcomes and encourages all views. Tell us what you think.
October 6th 2009
By: Graham Wilderoder
This morning a question and answer session was hosted by Oliver Letwin, (Chairman of the Policy Review and of the Conservative Research Department) and Francis Maude (Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) in Manchester Town Hall. In this session, light was shed on the Conservative Party’s future manifesto plans for the forthcoming General Election.
Here is a quick overview of some answers given to audience members:
Law and Order:
The issues of tackling binge drinking in this country and ‘breaking the drugs culture’ were seen as being important in reducing the causes of crime. They intend to tackle alcohol related issues by giving local authorities more power in the remit of licensing and also by being tougher on supermarket practices. Whilst breaking the drugs culture would involve the rehabilitation of former drug-addicted prisoners, in order to reduce the 70% of them re-offending and going back to prison within two years. This would be done through paying voluntary sector and social organisations to assist with rehabilitation, reducing the long-term social and economic costs to society. In another answer, criticism was also levelled at the “bureaucratic micromanagement,” and the top-down career structure (from the Home Secretary downwards), in the police force. Instead, a move to a more community-orientated police force was proposed, partly through the creation of a serious crime map website, which would allow residents to see the crime statistics in their neighbourhood. Finally, another future aim is to have a police force making decisions as close to the frontline as possible.
Education:
The Conservatives do not want to dramatically alter the exam system. Instead one policy proposed would be to introduce ‘technical schools.’ They would like these to give students vocational diplomas and key GCSEs. Allowing them to compete with other schools and increasing standards across the board as a result.
Whilst in universities, they want to increase the places available during the recession, to raise the number of skilled workers for afterwards. This would be achieved by creating an incentive for some students to pay their loans back early, putting more money back into the system. On the issue of student debt, the present loan system looks like it will remain in place if they were to come into power. As for contact hours, it would be student feedback of universities that could pressure change.
Long Term Goals:
In ten years from now, if they were hypothetically still in power, they hope to have solved the “deficit crisis,” by balancing the books, and the “job crisis,” by not wasting the job opportunities of a generation. Fundamental reforms of public services was mentioned, with the aim of it being more transparent and decentralised. Deregulation of businesses among other points was also raised. They emphasised the long term nature of their goals, and the time required to address some of their above ambitions could take longer than the five years.
Mention was also given in another answer, to starting the planning of a high-speed railway after a possible victory, regardless of the economic crisis. They hope this will have cultural and economic benefits for the UK.
Foreign Policy
With aid they wish to increase transparency in the ‘chain,’ work closely with donor states and civil societies, with weight being put on how the money is spent. In Afghanistan, they hope to ‘re-orientate’ policy, with a more ‘overall development approach’ and creating a stronger, peaceful society. They also emphasised that they were not ‘neo-conservative,’ and reject the idea of imposing social structures on Afghan society.
Opinion Piece, views expressed are those of the author and not of the Politics Society, et cetera et cetera.
by Lindon Layton Best
David Cameron is an idiot. A simpering, say anything, dough faced, preposterous waddling idiot with a feeble insincere voice and an irritating tendency to squat at the top of opinion polls, and our crowned Prime minister Elect. Urgh. My stomach’s upset at the thought of it.
The above are just unreasoning snap judgements, based upon his media profile of the past few years – but then again, as almost anyone must concede, he was engineered by the Conservative party leader to be just that; a media profile upon which people make snap judgements. So that’s fair enough. On that basis, for the moment, let’s stick with snap judgements shall we?
There is nothing to him; he’s like a hollow chocolate Easter egg with no bag of sweets inside. Cameron will say almost anything if he thinks it might get him elected. If a shock poll announced that 51% of the British Populace had converted to bestiality, I would not be surprised to see Cameron on the news, riding around London on an open-top bus with the complete ensemble of animal farm, engaged in a weird erotic tryst of ecstasy and nature defying indecency.
He is nothing.
He is no one.
It’s notoriously tricky to find out much about his past. Believe me, I’ve tried. Beyond his time spent at privileged private prep schools, then at the required Oxbridge education that is mandatory of all Conservative Leadership candidates before waddling around and stewing in the juices of the Conservative Party wilderness years whilst managing to raise himself to position of the architect an election manifesto that would have had Margaret Thatcher suggest toning down on the ‘Tough on Crime, Tough on the Criminals, Tough on the Country, Tough on Johnny Foreigner and Slash the Tax’ the man is a ghost. It’s like he took care to remove the majority of evidence of his past life, slicing off his finger tips in order to leave no prints that could link him to the past. Have you ever seen the tips of his fingers? Have you? Of course not, think about it.
The apparently self penned autobiography on Cameron’s website begins, ‘I was born in October 1966’ and then leaps straight forward to 20001, missing out the decades he spent as a guffawing, top-hatted toff in between. The infamous picture of Dave posing alongside his inbred aristocratic chums from the Bullingdon Club in an expensive, hand tailored navy blue tail suite is one of the few clues we have as to who David Cameron is. It also looks surprisingly like the sort of Photo that Poirot or Miss Marple might study after a grisly murder has been committed; one where a group of friends might have accidently killed a prostitute during a drunken, stormy night, and collaborated on the cover-up. Now, I’m not saying the Bullingdon boys kill prostitutes, I’m just saying judging by the photo, and making that all important ‘Snap Judgement’, I wouldn’t be surprised. And that’s his fault, not mine. He’s gone out of his way not to mention his blue-blooded carousing, because he knows it would make the average citizen puke themselves into a coma, and one side effect of this is that he seems shifty and suspicious.
Every time I look at Cameron, I’m reminded of video game characters: not the lovably spiky ones like Sonic or Mario, but the bland, generic, dead eyed avatars you can create for use in a tennis game. You start with a bald clone, then add features drawn from a limited pallet; eye colour, one of three noses, an optional goatee beard and so on – and invariably end up with an eerily characterless zombie straight out of the board game guess who. Simulated choice as opposed to genuine variety. It’s easy to build a Cameron look alike, just simulate the smuggest looking estate agent you can think of, or some interchangeable braying twit in a four by four driving through the streets of inner city Manchester, RARing himself into oblivion. Easy.
Naturally, I’m biased. I’ve instinctively hated the Tories since birth. If there was an election tomorrow, and the only two choices were the Nazis or the Tories, I’d vote Tory with an extremely heavy heart. In descending order of vehemence, my objections to the Tory species stem from a) everything they do, b) everything they say, c) everything they stand for, d) how they look, e) their stupid names and f) the noises I imagine they make in bed. I once overheard two posh people - almost certainly Tories - having sex in a hotel room. It was grim. The woman kept saying, “Fuck me, Gerald,” in a cut-glass, received pronunciation accent, which was funny, but Gerald himself soon wiped the grin off my face with his grunting, which wasn’t really grunting at all, but instead consisted of the words “oh” and “ah” crisply orated aloud, like Sir Laurence Olivier reading dialogue off a card at an early rehearsal. I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the climax, but I imagine the words “gosh”, “crumbs”, and “crikey” probably put in an appearance.
And here is why that’s relevant: Cameron almost certainly says “crikey” at the vital moment. Go on, picture it. Right now, in your mind’s eye. You know it’s true. If nothing else in this puerile one-sided hatchet job has convinced you, that’s reason enough not to elect him, right there.
As to his actual political record, where does one begin? Probably with where it started, a job interview that included a reference from unnamed sources within Windsor Castle itself. From there, he acted as speech writer and public relations executive for the Grey Man of politics himself, Mr John Major, the biggest minor in conservative politics. John Major went on to become a mammoth of Conservative politics, shaggy, unwanted and outdated, losing in the biggest land slide to date in 1997, after barely scraping through the 1992 election. Surely, having backed such a stallion, Cameron could only go onto greater things?
Well, he didn’t want to. Deciding that he didn’t have enough experiance of the toil of the common man, Dave decided the way forward was to become a hard hitting journalist. Who worked as a special advisor to the Conservative party. After this, his life largely revolved around revolving around politics. A mediochre voting record which stands with the most right wing of political movers and shakers leaves us with one feeling. That there’s no way in hell Clegg, the most polite man in politics, could stand to share the front page of broadsheet with him. Ignore what the flapping potatoehead mouth tells you, Cameron isn’t nice. He’s as right wing as you can get without joining the BNP. His pretenses otherwise should unnerve at the best of times.
In summary, then: he is nothing, because he tries to be everything.
Order, Order
Jon Ridge
On Sunday the 21st of June, Michael Martin left his position as Speaker of the House of Commons, and resigned as an MP.
On Monday the 22nd, MPs attended the House to hear a series of speeches by the 10 candidates for the position of Speaker, followed by a Secret Vote.
Using a system known as Exhaustive Secret Ballot, which removes the candidate with the lowest number of votes, or those with less than 5%, from each round until one candidate is left with at least 50% of the vote.
Continue reading ‘John Bercow elected Speaker of the Commons’
Velida Pudic
With the European elections on the 4th of June many of us are trying to decide who to vote for. So what better way to decide than a hustings with (nearly) all the parties that are running! Well, er, actually no. The event didn’t enlighten us as to the EU’s future, what its underlying goal is or even help distinguish the parties running. But it certainly provided a few laughs and some memorable quotes…
Continue reading ‘European Elections (North West) - Who do I vote for?’
Velida Pudic
There is a disgruntled atmosphere amongst Manchester University Law Students. In an
undergraduate law lecture on Friday the 20th of March, an academic member of staff hinted
that the law school was proposing to cut lectures from 30 to 20 per module. Exactly a
week later the entire law undergraduate received an email from the head of the Law
school, Frank Stephen, that these proposals had been voted on by the Board of Law. To put
it lightly, students were not pleased. How had this decision come about? Were students
consulted? What could we do?
As there has been much confusion, protest and general inaccuracy concerning this issue
this article aims to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of what these decisions
mean and how students have reacted.
Continue reading ‘Law students protest at contact hours cuts.’
Velida Pudic
Student apathy struck again today with the General Meeting failing to meet quorum with just 127 students in attendance.
The first item on the agenda was ‘The Fight For Democracy: No Need To Shout!’ which hoped to change constitution so that students who are too busy to attend General Meetings can vote online. For this to be debated a quorum of 1000 was needed. Naturally there was little hope of meeting quorum. Hence the first item on the Ordinary General Meeting was ‘The Fight For Democracy: Always Have a Back Up Plan!’ which proposed an online poll to be put to students on whether they wanted to pass the motion ‘Fight for Democracy: No Need to Shout!’
The other four items on agenda were ‘Increasing opportunities for accountability, transparency and participation in the union’, ‘Reclaim the Uni’, ‘RBS Funding Climate Chaos’ and finally, ‘NO2ID.’
All interesting topics, all enthusiastically campaigned about. Yet a poor turn out once more.
The speaker invited attendees to participate in an informal debate about tackling student apathy. Ironically, the hall emptied.
