Category: Politics

Why I’m still Labour

Thirteen years in Government, Blair then Brown, the invasion of two countries (one of which continues to this day), a poor long-term economic policy, two prime ministers bathed in yes-men and an immigration policy that’s allowed 90% of new jobs in 2010 to go to foreign nationals. Yes, there’s certainly a poignant case for never letting Labour look at No. 10 again, let alone ever having the privilege to stroll in. The Labour Government didn’t preside over an era of political perfection, nor did they function like they meant to achieve it – but beyond the atrocities of the era, I find myself a Labour man, through and through more than I ever have.

Since the party’s inception in 1900, Labour have always been the most progressive force in our politics, from creating the National Health Service in a sick post-war Britain to the birth of the welfare state, they’ve provided the most groundbreaking legislation this country has ever had. At worst, Labour has been a principled gang of thieves, at best, a revolutionary mass for social betterment.

I vote Labour because I believe I have an obligation to provide for those who otherwise could not provide for themselves, I believe that the ‘Social Darwinism’ of ‘survival of the fittest’ is not only idiotic but inhumane. I believe a collective society should be compassionate, empathetic and aware of the erratic blows that life can deal, and as a taxpayer, be prepared to pay for those who are hit – knowing I could experience the very same.

I vote Labour because higher taxes don’t particularly bother me. I’m a low earner and a student, but yet I don’t mind paying a bit more knowing that on any whim I can enter my doctor’s and mutter any old random shit, because he’ll listen to me and help, free of charge. I don’t believe that reverting our National Health Service to ‘capitalist values’ of competition between areas will work, because in a competition there’s always a loser. Nobody deserves to be a loser when it comes to their health. Unlike the US, my health ‘insurance’ isn’t risk-assessed, privately owned or adherent to the laws of supply and demand. My well-being is directly supported by my fellow Brits, and I pay to support them in return. Nobody makes a profit or receives a tidy bonus off my desire to be rid of my ailments, and I know Labour is my best bet in keeping it this way.

It’s their priorities too; unlike a sizable section of the Conservative party, Labour doesn’t seem to capitalise as much on emotive subjects like crime and immigration – but  rather focus on social mobility and raising standards of living. Yes, I want crime reduced, a safer place to live and a pragmatic immigration policy – but the reality is that prison will never be enough of a deterrent for some people. Despite what some would argue, rehabilitation is key to being proactive in tackling crime; otherwise you continuously rehash angry, hardened criminals without even the effort to address why they don’t become contributing members of society. Labour more often than not mimic my ideas on these issues.

Call it insignificant, but Labour have the largest variety of socio-economic backgrounds in a major political party. Gordon Brown once called the Conservative Party policy something “dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton” – and he wasn’t too far from the truth. 53% of the coalition cabinet were privately educated, something like only 7% of the population have had the privilege to do so, it’s true, the former prime minister didn’t take too much creative license with this one. Pasty-gate and the allegations of cash-for-access on government policies only go to further my disdain for the Tories.

They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, the previous Government favoured ID Cards and an excess of security cameras that would make ‘1984’ look like a Sunday Lunch, but to support policy areas where I’ll receive the most benefit – I’m sure willing to make concessions.

 

 

 

 

Do you need a Twitter-sitter?

It appears that some users on social networking site Twitter really do need somebody to watch over them whilst they tweet away. Recent stories in the media have shown at best a lack of common sense from users and at worst a basic lack of human respect for individuals; it’s probably more a mix of both.

With the recent revelations that users on Twitter revealed the name of a rape victim and then proceeded to abuse her over the social network, it means that either people aren’t thinking before they write online, or Twitter and other social networks have become a platform for the most vile people across the world. The victim had already obtained a court order that prevented her from being named, but that didn’t seem to matter to Twitter users. According to reports, the victim’s name was retweeted and tweeted so many times that it was trending over the weekend, meaning it was one of the most talked about things on Twitter at that time. It’s pretty sickening to be honest. I have never once thought of naming somebody on a social network like that, especially somebody who is a victim of such a heinous crime.

Not content with naming the victim, users then went on to abuse her and degrade her further. In my recent article about cyberbullying, this is exactly the type of example I referred to. These users hide behind their keyboard; they write these vile things and then watch when the media hype around the social network increases tenfold. These bullies aren’t school children. A lot of them are grown adults. Grown adults, who you’d think would know better. Clearly not. It’s obvious that instead of employing babysitters for their own children, they need to employ Twitter-sitters so they don’t overstep the mark when taking to the site to tweet their thoughts. Most of these thoughts aren’t even needed anyway.

What needs to be done? Well, obviously this problem won’t be resolved overnight, no problem can be. It’s important that the correct safeguards are put in place, because prosecuting every user who retweets or tweets something that is offensive and illegal would be a logistical nightmare. Ordinary people need to understand that just because they are writing online, they still have to stick to the same laws as in everyday life. The same rules and laws apply, even though it may be through a social network. It is all about basic human understanding, and the vast majority of us respect and abide by the law so why do some of the same users think they don’t have to when they are tweeting?

It’s not clear why these people tweeted or retweeted what they did over the weekend, but it is clear that the authorities and the government are determined to make examples out of them, and that’s a good thing. Whilst legislation is being drawn up and discussed by the government, I think it is important to shine a light on such cases of illegality on social networks, and to make examples of those users who commit offences  so that other users can see real life consequences of what happens when something illegal is published on a social network.

The French do politics the ‘British way’, they’re just better at it.

Following the first round of Presidential Elections in France, the world has been bowled over by the once called ‘cowardly’ and ‘inefficent’ people that apparently live there. But stereotypers and column cartoonists might have to put their pencils on hold for what looks like a seismic shift in the way the Frenchies do things: they’re doing it British style.

By far the most extraordinary thing for most in this election is the rise of the third place far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, a curvaceous blonde bombshell who, considering her National Front’s previous fascist personality, has done well in crafting a modern identity for a political movement that epitomises the growing angst amongst the French electorate. Walking clear from a crossfire that’s already claimed the economic lives of Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland, the French emerge only to see their next door neighbour, Germany, a dustpan and brush in one hand, and a cheque in the other, clearing up a slaughter that at one time threatened to engulf the entire continent. Surprisingly enough, they don’t feel too strongly about following suit, on either side.

Marine Le Pen embodies this Euro-backlash, and a way of thinking that once championed French leadership on the continent is now waiting for the first bus out of town. It’s an alien concept to most Britons, who were never bowled away by the idea of a partnership with European Nations – but who ironically have relished its benefits the most enthusiastically, namely the holidays. “The European countries which did not enter the euro display higher performances than countries in the eurozone for ten years” she says, quoting Eurostat data, “The United Kingdom is not in the eurozone and does not have the least desire to be in it. UK does not tolerate this kind of taking away of its freedom.” Le Pen envisages a France where they can set their own interest rates, have their own currency, control immigration (as opposed to the free movement Schengen-Area) and limit its imports – it’s Nationalism, the kind that tells you it’s ‘for France’ followed by a murmured ‘…just only the white ones’.

Because the fact is, Le Pen’s national front is a lot like the BNP (coincidentally also once called The National Front). It screams national sovereignty as its pillar, despises immigration, supranational organisations, interventionism and is a tad nostalgic – not to mention the small problem of a membership that pans the width of a prison cell. Anyone from closet racists, islamophobics to outright fascists have set their sights on Le Pen as the future of France, and although the party’s mantra isn’t evil in its entirety, France risks political radicalism if incumbent centre-right Sarkozy can’t emulate similar policies to quell his people’s dissatisfaction. Sarkozy and socialist Hollande know the political prize is the votes of the far-right, something that could easily deal the deadly blow to their presidential rival. The question is, who’s willing to appease the most?

UK political extremism is pathetic in comparison. The BNP has more or less flatlined since it first took the national stage, commanding only 1.9% of the 2010 general election ballot, whereas Le Pen has managed a seismic 18.1% – just 9% below the President’s UPM Party. It’s not particularly a good thing by any measure when the far-right emerges so triumphantly as it has in France, but at least we showed them just how bigoted you really can be.

 

Cyberbullying: How Serious is it?

We’ve all read stories of cyberbullying. We’ve all watched news reports of it. We are all at risk of cyberbullying as well. Social media is increasingly becoming a tool for bullies in their quest for misery and to inflict emotional pain on their victims. According to a report by the Department of Education, published in November 2011, almost 35% of young people and children in the UK have been cyberbullied. The most common forms of abuse were text messages and emails. The staggering statistic is not the percentage of young people who have been cyberbullied, it’s that almost 30% of those young people didn’t tell anybody about the abuse. What is important to realise is that text messages and emails are private to young people. Parents don’t have access to these in most cases, and so surely it’s hard to monitor?

Social media is a new way whereby bullies are increasingly targeting their victims. Hiding behind their keyboard, bullies can inflict as much hurt and pain as they want, with seemingly little consequences. In fact, I watched a story yesterday where a family was grieving the loss of their loved one, a young boy who took his own life because of cyberbullying. It is tragic that cowards behind a keyboard can cause this. The family, grieving and hurt by their loss, set up an online memorial page on the social network Facebook. It was a place where friends and family could mourn the loss of their friend and relative, and remember him in the way they wanted, by leaving messages of love and by sharing their memories. This was not to be though. The same cyberbullies who had targeted the young boy took to his memorial page to further inflict pain on his already suffering family and friends. The father of the boy said it was even strangers who got involved who just wanted to spread hate. Why? It’s simple: people can log onto a website and get away with it. They can set up a page in a fake name, and use it to cause pain and suffering for people. Surely this has to stop. I know there are privacy options on social networking sites, and tools in place so that people can stop others getting into contact with them, but clearly this isn’t doing a great deal.

Another example I would use of cyberbullying is the use of user-generated websites, such as YouTube. Anybody in the world can produce a video and upload it to the site. The video is then viewable for everybody across the world to watch. Great? Yes, great if you want to get yourself noticed, and great if you have a real talent. What strikes me though is the fact that users are able to comment on these videos. We know that some people may give positive feedback, others may give negative feedback. The negative feedback is the one we should be aware of. Negative feedback is all well and good if you’re performing on The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, The Voice or any other talent show; but that feedback is supposed to be constructive from professional people. The users on YouTube, who decide to ‘critique’ a video of someone singing, on the whole, aren’t professionals from the industry. They are, for the most part, people who want to be abusive to other users. Yes, there is the option to remove the comment tool from videos; but where’s the fun in that? People won’t get the comments they long for, and the attention they crave. Maybe it is fair game, if you put yourself out there in such a manner, then you lose your right to only positive comments, much like people who enter talent shows on television.

But what we need to realise is that people should not be able to get away with bullying, just because it isn’t happening face to face. Bullying on all levels needs to be stopped, and sanctions put in place to combat it. I mentioned just one example of a young person who took their own life as the result of being a victim of cyberbullies, but I can guarantee that there are plenty of the same stories across the UK. It has to stop. Our next generation should not have to put up with it; if it happened at school, there would be sanctions and punishments to adhere to; why not the same online?

Regardless of what happens now, it needs to happen fast. The government needs to act quickly, in order to prevent more tragedies across the UK. In my opinion, what has happened is simple: bullies have more tools at their disposal, thus meaning they can spread hate across a number of formats. Young people are constantly bombarded with the idea of fame and fortune. They want to replicate what they see on television; sadly to say, television ain’t all that real, a lot of it is blown up for entertainment. I understand that people who upload videos of themselves are fair game for comments, be it positive or negative. But you just do a search on YouTube; how many people on there are clearly disabled or have severe learning difficulties? Loads. Why were they able to upload videos? Who is caring for them? It’s a question I can’t answer, but perhaps education needs to start at home so that cyberbullying can be minimised. Sanctions should be put in place at home first, and then the Internet needs to be dealt with. But, realistically, can we really ever prevent cyberbullying or are the bullies becoming too creative?

High Street Blues

The following post is like any good discussion or debate in that it brings up two points of view and in much the same way as a battery has two electrodes, the positive anode has its negative counterpart, the cathode.

I was journeying through the South East countryside recently on a rather long and ponderous bus ride that took me through places I’d never heard of, and it occurred to me just how miserable our small town and village high streets look for the most part. If they aren’t a few locals milling about short of being ghost-towns where dusty little bric-a-brac shops seem to be permanently closed and tiny Post Offices-cum-newsagents-cum-grocers are open for just a few hours every day either side of lunchtime, they are filled with half-empty charity shops, dreadful kebab parlours and sparsely-furnished coffee shops where the lattes and cappuccinos don’t really taste like coffee at all but rather scorched bland milky wetness. In fact, in many cases the only thing missing from these high streets is the occasional ball of sagebrush blowing across the road whipped up by some lonely breeze. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking charity shops, I’ve picked up one or two bargains from their bookshelves myself over the years but how many do we really need? In some high streets you’ll see three, four, perhaps even five charity shops doing battle, each one purporting to help improve the lives of the sick and aged of our society as well as those unfortunate animals who find themselves without a loving home. But once upon a time there would have been jumble sales in village halls for this kind of aid and the high streets would have been home to good old fashioned sweetshops or ironmongers, greengrocers and butchers.

Nowadays of course, everyone and his uncle drives five miles to their local superstore where every conceivable shopping need is catered for. You want bread, beer, Brussels sprouts? Go to the superstore where you can buy one and get one free. You want to buy a new TV or a cordless drill? Go to the superstore and save 10% on both. You want banking, insurance, a new pair of shoes? Go to the superstore, it’s all there and more often than not at a better price than can be found elsewhere. And isn’t it great that we can all go home with a bargain? Why, we’ve probably even bought things we didn’t really need but hey! they were on special offer so what the heck! I’ve actually saved money! And yet what a double edged sword it is.

It’s understandable that we all want a bargain, we all want to save pennies in these lean times but unfortunately the flip side is, the superstores get all the business and therefore all the power. And so, poor old Somersbottom’s Bakery in the high street has to close down because they can’t afford the rent anymore and dear old Mrs Wigglesbury behind the Post Office counter who’s been the smiley face and chatty friend to all for two generations has closed down because our great leaders in their slimy corridors of power have decided that we don’t need her anymore. Perhaps if we stopped using our cars for every single little trip – to get the paper or a pint of milk – perhaps if we hadn’t all rushed out to save a few quid at the nearby superstore, our rural community shops that had previously supplied us with our weekly needs might still be around. But maybe that’s what our government wants.

Okay, that was the negative. Now for the anode of my thoughts. Micro Pubs! I saw an article on the news recently regarding this fairly new concept which seems set to become a minor explosion around the country and it made me almost ‘whoop’ with joy. I find it heart-warmingly wonderful that certain enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to open up these tiny drinking establishments and bring a little life back into these derelict premises that litter our country high streets and hopefully it’ll spark the beginnings of a resurgence in rural community life. Not only does a Micro Pub recycle these business properties that have become casualties of our times but they also utilise the terrific home-grown products of our often struggling Micro Breweries that would otherwise probably struggle to survive. Great British Ale!

How many of us are put off by the frightful noise and garish flashing lights of our pubs today where you can hardly hear yourself speak over the din and the person serving you barely offers more in the way of chitchat than the price you must pay, where the beer is often overpriced, poorly kept and mostly fizzy and foreign? I’ve often heard it said that the only way a pub can make money these days is to serve food and while that’s all well and good and some of them serve very good homemade food indeed, many of them serve nothing more than microwaved muck that they market as “hearty fare”. And anyway, shouldn’t food be what restaurants serve? A pub should be a place to go for a nice pint or two, to chat with friends or strangers who may or may not become friends themselves, not a place filled with every kind of entertainment from bleeping video games to the incessant screening of sporting fixtures. If you want those things go to an arcade or a sports club. Once again, it’s the case of a single concern trying to accommodate all for the sake of profit over good neighbourly service and while it might be construed as convenient, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, it bypasses that crucial connection of trust, kindness and loyalty between purveyor and consumer that we all secretly wish was still present in our retailing experiences.

I for one sincerely hope that the emergence of the Micro Pub will herald the coming of the Micro Greengrocer and the Micro Fishmongers and Ironmongers and the return of many other shops of yesteryear so that all our high streets thrive once again and we don’t have to jump in our cars and drive five bumper-to-bumper miles polluting the air with our overpriced petrol just to buy a new pair of socks. Or maybe that’s what our government wants.

 

 

Why Britain is Not a Democracy

Democracy is viewed by many people as a positive political system. Many also believe that Britain upholds our democracy. But what exactly is democracy? And is Britain really up to the high standards that democracy demands?

Democracy is most commonly seen as a government in which the people have the supreme power. This is usually applied through their elected agents, otherwise known as MPs, under a free electoral system. But this definition is vague and questionable, despite being highly praised with positive connotations. Indeed, it has been speculated that democracy is not bound to any one definition. This was pointed out by George Orwell, who was quoted as saying, “The defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.”

It can even be argued that ‘democracy’ is just used in place of ‘free’ when describing a country’s status; countries which aren’t free are ‘undemocratic’, although ‘undemocratic’ is vague in itself as something which is undemocratic could simply be another political system. The question of whether these ‘undemocratic’ countries have a fair political system never comes into play. After all, how could it possibly be fair when it’s not democratic?

This stems from the idea that democracy is having a vote, not whether your vote makes a difference. In other words, an elected dictatorship. Walter Winchell agreed with this, saying, “too many people expect wonders from democracy, when the most wonderful thing of all is just having it”. If holding elections were what constituted a working democracy, then Britain would be just that. But this can be compared to China’s political system in which there are eight parties (other than the CPC) that you can vote for but, essentially, they all stand for the same points.

But if democracy is more about the freedom of the people and whether their vote matters at all in the long-run, then it can be argued that the UK is falling below the democratic standards with almost four in ten voters choosing to abstain as they feel they don’t have a say.

Democracies, in theory at least, should have parties which represent groups of people who stand for different ideas. At the moment, there exists only the three main parties; the Labour party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. If you were to vote for any of the smaller, more obscure parties, it’s highly likely that nothing will come of your vote.

We will forget for a moment what each of the leaders of these three parties say what they stand for and instead look at what they have actually stood for. The Liberal Democrats, during the 2010 elections, promised that they would scrap University fees across Britain. In fact, that was one of their biggest points on their manifesto. But they didn’t do that. They did the opposite and agreed with the Conservative policy of raising tuition fees. Another example would be the Conservative cuts to public spending. This is an expected Conservative move (they have done so on numerous occasions during past recessions, including the Wall Street Crash) but Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor, stated, “We cannot make any commitments now that the next labour government will reverse rises or spending cuts.” Ed Miliband, leader for the Labour Party, agreed, saying the Labour government would continue to make cuts. Elections which lack any competing agenda are pointless.

Leading on from this is one of the biggest moves from the coalition government when they first came into power in 2010. They set up the Your Freedom website in the hopes that people would vote on controversial topics and hear what they wanted directly, rather than through their elected agents. But this proved to be useless as the public decided they wanted a review of the smoking ban and were ignored entirely. The Coalition stated they “had no plans” to review it.

If there is no real difference between the ideologies of the main political parties, no difference as to what party you vote for, can Britain really call itself a democracy?