Politics Watch

For those of you who are interested in a wrap-up of this year’s political events, the BBC has a 20 minute review of the political year available for streaming via their website. I’m not sure if this is available to people outside the UK, but it’s worth a watch if you want a gentle overview of how things have gone for our politicians in 2009. I’ll be posting my own review of the political year in the next few days, though alas it won’t be televised.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past couple of days, or try to avoid the political section of the media, you will probably have heard about Labour’s disaster in Glasgow East, where they lost the seat in a by-election to the Scottish National Party. Whilst the SNP only won by a small margin (365 votes), they still managed to overturn a huge Labour majority, in scenes reminiscent of the last general election, where Manchester Withington (my constituency) fell to the Liberal Democrats. Interestingly, a similar percentage swing in Brown’s own constituency would lead to him losing his own seat.

After three by-election defeats (Henley, Crewe and Glasgow East) and the London Mayoral elections disaster, the key question on the lips of most people is: “Does this spell the end of Gordon Brown as leader?” At the time of writing, no leadership challenge has been issued, so presumably the result wasn’t quite bad enough to warrant an immediate backstabbing, but it does leave Brown in a precarious position. If one believes the papers, senior ministers are being urged to get rid of Brown, giving him two months to “shape up or go“.

However, fortunately for Brown, he has the rest of the summer in which to boost his support within the Party, as many MPs will be returning to their constituencies or going on holiday during the recess, so the focus on his leadership skills will be diminished for a month or so. He also has the advantage of there being no obvious successors in the way he was clearly meant to follow Blair—though various names have been touted in the press. Furthermore, replacing the leader so soon before a general election is a risky strategy, and Labour may well prefer to keep their existing man—“better the devil you know” and all that. On the other hand, they could simply accept that their time is up—most parties do not win more than three consecutive general elections—and that people are willing to give the Conservatives another chance to run the country.

My personal verdict is that Brown will survive until Labour Party Conference, which will be the tipping point. If a leadership challenge is going to be issued, that is where it will happen, with all the press and public attention focused on the conference. If nothing solid happens at conference (grumblings and mutterings aside), then Brown is safe until the next election—at which point the public will decide whether his party deserves to hold office. A defeat there will definitely spell the end of his term as Labour Leader.

Further reading

• Times Online
• BBC News (with video of results being announced)
• Guardian Unlimited

I came across this amazing site, w4mp, which provides you with a huge range of resources related to working for MPs, whether in a constituency office or in Westminster. Some of the information is only relevant or available to current members of staff, but there is plenty of advice and information available for anyone looking for a career which involves working for an MP.

Working for an MP is a useful way to make the connections required to get into politics, so if you’re thinking of a career along those lines—as I have in the past—then w4mp is well worth a look.

A few days ago, I mentioned plans to stop the government’s proposal to cut funding for second degrees and how ridiculous I thought this Labour initiative was. Unfortunately, the Conservative motion opposing the cuts was defeated by a margin of 53 votes, and as a result it looks as if the plans will go ahead, with the cuts starting to hit budgets in 2008-2009. A sad day for education, and yet another example of why we should give this Labour government the boot at the earliest possible opportunity.

Both the Guardian and BBC News are currently carrying stories about the Government’s plans to cut funds for UK students who are looking to study a second degree at the same or lower level as their existing qualifications. So for example, if I wanted to go back to university and do a BA in Ancient History (which is something I’d like to do at some point, though obviously not for the next few years), I’d have to pay the full cost rather than having my education subsidised by the tax payer.

This proposal is ridiculous for several reasons. First of all, it will seriously damage opportunities for people who want to take a different course in order to change careers, either because they want to or because circumstances require them to (e.g. someone who did a degree in physical education and then has an accident which prevents them from using the skills they obtained). It also creates a financial barrier to people looking to return to education, but then we know already that Labour isn’t shy of erecting such barriers—after all they introduced tuition and top-up fees. Finally, the proposal will disproportionately damage institutions such as the Open University, which expects to lose approximately £30m of its teaching budget as a result.

Thankfully, the Conservatives have got some sense for once and are putting forward a motion to try and stop this stupid proposal, and there will be a half-day debate in the Commons today about the issue. Hopefully common sense will prevail and the Government will be forced to rethink the proposal as a result (or abandon it altogether, which I would prefer).

The Guardian reports that Ladbrokes has cut the odds on Boris Johnson succeeding Ken Livingstone as mayor of London, as polls last night appeared to swing in favour of the bumbling blonde MP. Whilst the betting shops don’t always get it right, they’re certainly not stupid and won’t offer odds that they think don’t reflect a realistic assessment of the outcome. I’m not surprised that it’s turning out to be such a close race though, as both candidates have strengths which oppose their opponent’s weaknesses. Livingstone has the advantage of being the incumbent and well-known to the people of London, but this could backfire given that he’s bound to have upset a lot of people whilst he’s been in office. Johnson, on the other hand, is a new face, has lots of energy for campaigning, and, so far, doesn’t appear to have trodden on the toes of too many Londoners.

Personally, I really couldn’t care less who gets elected as Mayor of London, as I don’t live in the city and only visit it about once a month on average. However, given that London’s mayor actually has a significant budget and a say in matters such as public transport, it’s an important decision for Londoners to make. Also, given the radically different personalities of Livingstone and Johnson, I suspect this will be an interesting race to watch over the next few weeks.

Here’s something you don’t hear every day, a Liberal Democrat defecting to the Conservative party. Not only is this an unusual switch—what with the Lib Dems consisting largely of rejects from other parties—but it gives the Tories their first council seat in Manchester for over a decade. Admittedly it’s only one councillor rather than a wave of defections, but given the strategic nature of Manchester and the need for the Tories to make inroads in the inner cities if they want to regain their lost status as a meaningful political force, I can imagine Conservative Central Office making a big song and dance about this news story.

Further reading

• Lib Dem councillor defects to Tories in Manchester

According to BBC News, the latest Government advice to school teachers is that toy weapons ‘help boys to learn’, and therefore staff in schools should not discourage children from playing with toy guns, soldiers etc.—provided that ‘practioners [mainly teachers] help the boys to understand and respect the rights of other children and to take responsibility for the resources and environment.’ This all sounds pretty sensible, and it boils down to not restricting the opportunities for boys learn through play, whilst reminding them that some of the scenarios they encounter can have serious consequences in the real world. The teaching unions, however, are acting as if this is the thin end of the wedge, complaining that ‘the reason why teachers often intervene when kids have toy guns is that the boy is usually being very aggressive.’ Well I’m sorry to disappoint you Mr Sinnott (General Secretary of the NUT), but young boys sometimes are a bit aggressive, get into fights and occasionally upset other children—it’s all part of growing up. If they don’t learn that getting too aggressive is wrong when they’re young and when it doesn’t matter quite as much, when will they figure this out?

Let’s get another thing straight: playing with tanks and plastic soldiers does not turn your child into a gun-toting homicidal maniac. When I was younger, my favourite toys were my huge army of plastic soldiers (including tanks, barricades and hundreds of troops) and my favourite board games were Escape from Colditz (in which I always played the Germans) and Risk. Have I grown up into an aggressive and harmful person as a result? Of course not. I might occasionally display signs of being a control freak or a megalomaniac, and I still enjoy the board games which I was introduced to as a child, but I am in no way a danger to the general public or those around me.

As for the unions being up in arms about boys being aggressive, I can only assume that they’ve never seen girls at play. Whilst boys might push each other about, girls can be much more cruel to their classmates. Do we hear the NUT calling for dolls and wendy houses to be banned because of what girls get up to when they play amongst themselves? Actually, perhaps we’d better not give them any ideas…

For what is possibly the first time since coming into office, this Government is actually saying something sensible about education, and the unions immediately criticise it. I dread to think what would happen if these people ever actually started to run the country—we’d all be locked indoors and wrapped in cotton wool before you could say ‘nanny state’. Thank goodness the unions have less of a say in politics than they used to, we’d be up a certain creek without a paddle if they still had the power to influence government decisions.

Further reading

• Confident, capable and creative: supporting boys’ achievements

I’ve been somewhat remiss in keeping Politics Watch up to date recently, mainly due to having lots of other commitments, not least of all starting a PhD. However, I’m now back on top of things and will be posting to Politics Watch on a regular basis starting in January 2008. I’m also planning a revamp of the site to ensure that everything is powered by WordPress (as opposed to just this blog, as is the case at the moment), which should enable me to create and update other content much more easily. In the meantime, if you’ve got any ideas or suggestions for what you’d like to see on the site in 2008, please let me know.

Goodbye, Tony Blair, a hilarious satirical video by Manic on b3ta.com.