Let down but not left behind

Originally posted across at everyone's favourite Liberal Youth blog, now under new editorship :)

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Liberal Democrat education policy is good. We are giving 15 hours of free pre-school education to disadvantaged toddlers, stopping children falling behind in basic reading skills and we are committed to ending child poverty by 2020. The jewel in the crown so to speak is the Pupil Premium: money given directly to schools for each pupil on free school meals to spend as they see fit. In the next academic year my old junior school will be given over £79,000 and my senior school will get almost £150,000. All of this is fantastic news and hopefully will going some way towards tackling social mobility and stopping children falling behind.

One thing we don’t seem to be looking at is the children who need a different kind of help, the ones who don’t fall behind because they’re what my school deemed ‘gifted and talented’. The sixth form college in my town looked at the academic performance of children at junior school and picked the best ones – including me - to put on their ‘gifted and talented list’; we were enrolled in a summer school for a fortnight between junior and comprehensive school, taken on trips to Oxford and Cambridge and generally encouraged to think about applying to elite universities.

Unfortunately this level of encouragement wasn’t carried across to the schools. I was, for want of a better word, ignored at school because the focus was on getting students to leave with the magic 5 A*-C grade GCSEs. This meant that the focus was on pupils around the C-D border, because I could get top marks without much effort I wasn’t given as much attention. I can’t blame the teachers, I can only imagine the pressure they were under to get students up to C grade and they were probably relieved to have students like me who they didn’t have to worry about, but it did mean that I didn’t achieve my full potential. I left school with 4 A*s, 5 As and 3 Bs and I left college with AAA* grades but I go to a university that could in no way be described as ‘elite’ and my marks at university are good but nothing remarkable because I was never pushed. My teachers were happy to leave me to blag it because at GCSE that still got me good grades but I’m rapidly discovering that – unsurprisingly – that doesn’t work at university. A lot of this is my fault; I don’t try as hard as I should and I certainly don’t manage my time well – last minute essays are a speciality – but I do feel that the lack of drive I have now has something to do with the fact that I was never tested by previous education.

The Liberal Democrats are doing a fantastic job of encouraging those from disadvantaged backgrounds and showing young people that there are more options open to them than just university by creating more apprenticeships than ever before but we’re still missing a trick. There are some young people whose talent is being allowed to waste because they don’t find the education system enough of a challenge. Helping disadvantaged and underachieving pupils make the most of their education is a noble aim but it should not come at the expense of those who are more able. Labour allowed this situation to develop; the Liberal Democrats cannot allow it to continue.

ER4EM

Just submitted my nomination for East Midlands Regional Chair for the Liberal Youth elections. There are several things I'd want to do in the job and it's these things that motivated me to run.

1. My local party isn't fantastic, Leicester has had a lot of problems with internal factions over the last decade and has gone from successful to having only one councillor (even he is a defector from the Conservatives), so I went looking for my regional chair for some advice when setting up a branch at University only to discover that The East Midlands hasn't had a chair for almost six months, the last one defected to the Green Party. I really hope to be able to stand up as someone people can come to if they have issues or need help and support with something

2. I myself wasn't a member of Liberal Youth before I turned 18, simply because I didn't know you could be. I was out campaigning for my local Lib Dem PPC for months before officially becoming a member because at no point did anyone tell me Liberal Youth existed. I think it's vital that we reach out to our younger members and especially make sure that local parties encourage young people to join and participate.

3. A related point is that we need to make sure we represent all young people, not just students. We're not Labour Students, we're Liberal Youth, and we need to make sure our focus isn't just on those in further and higher education. We need to reach out and include graduates, young workers, interns and the youth unemployed.

The manifesto doesn't allow me to go into the detail I'd like and there are almost certainly other issues that I am passionate about but if you have any questions feel free to tweet me @RebelRevell or comment on here and feel free to like my Facebook page which will be updated periodically :)

Interviewing Tim Farron

Spring Conference seems like such a long time ago now all those weeks ago I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to interview Party President Tim Farron. Here is my report of the interview which was originally posted at the Libertine, there you can also find the other three bloggers' interviews :)

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When I saw that Liberal Youth wanted bloggers to interview Tim Farron I was more than a little bit up for it, I got an ‘opportunity’ to interview David Miliband through my university magazine and he turned up quite late so in the end I didn’t get to ask a question at all. I love following Tim on Twitter and it’s fantastic that he takes the time to respond to people on an individual basis so I was definitely interested. ‘Blogger’ isn’t maybe the word for me though, my blog is a site a shout at once a month when some issue has gotten me angry then I forget about it for another three weeks. Luckily I was asked if I’d do it anyway so I couldn’t really say no!

Four folks all asking questions when you only have half an hour – Tim’s a busy guy at the best of times, never mind at Spring Conference with the country’s media watching – doesn’t give you a lot of time to ask your questions but I got to asked two; one that had political significance and related to an article Tim had written in previous day in the Guardian and one that was more about Tim as a person.

Tim’s article said that the Liberal Democrats need to stop apologising so following on from that I asked on where Lib Dems should be looking forward or back, I can safety say that Tim’s answer was the fully expected ‘bit of both’. "This is an opportunity to do things, and to change things in a very positive sense…I look at our flag ship policy [raising the income tax threshold] that I’m pretty sure going to get delivered and quicker…My great fear in all of this is that even that news gets swamped."

I think Tim taps into the feeling that a lot of people in the party have is that whilst we are in government doing brilliant things for people it gets overshadowed by some of the not so popular things that the government does or things that are beyond government control, Liberal Democrats seem to get the blame but not the credit.

We have to be mindful that Labour have a narrative to try and pitch us as being weak and keeling over in front of the Tories which isn’t true. And this is something I’ve encountered on several occasions, people are quick to criticise us for being the Tories’ whipping boys but when you explain to them our policies in government, both what we’ve done so far and our plans for the future, they are quite often receptive to them.

My second question to Tim asked what his proudest achievement as Party President had been so far. I expected him to name a policy he supported but was quite surprised that his first choices were the new HQ and the appointment of a new Chief Executive. These are, in his own words, “geeky” choices but they are clearly things he is proud of and he went on to say the bit of the job he enjoys most is “just getting out there, and knocking on doors and lifting spirits”. He told a story of going out campaigning with councillors and MSPs who lost their jobs in 2011 but who are still hard at work campaigning for the Liberal Democrats and it was obvious how proud he is of the grassroots campaigners who made the party what it is and who, by and large, are very supportive of him.

One of the great things about Tim as a Party President is that he is so approachable and willing to take time out of his undoubtedly busy schedule to talk to four Liberal Youth bloggers around a cramped table under the stairs at the back of a conference centre. We can only hope he remains as approachable and eager to reach out to all wings of the party in the future.

Democracy Fail

I'm writing this blog in anger. It's something I say I'm going to do a lot and I often write drafts of posts when I'm first mad but run out of stream quite quickly and come back to them a few days later to rewrite them more calmly. However about an hour ago I happened to check Facebook in my lecture and saw that the current President of the University of Leicester Politics Society had posted a message saying that the nominations were now closed for positions on next years committee. Reading past the lists of nominees I found this comment:

"Since none of the positions have been contested, I am delighted to announce that the above nominees are the Politics Society Committee 2012/13!"

Now I'm not sure I, were I the President, would feel comfortable in announcing my 'delight' at having to tell people that a society with just shy of 250 members, couldn't find more than seven people willing to run for the committee. Especially if that committee were a politics one that claimed to be "a group for all who are studying politics at UoL and for those who are generally interested in politics." People might want to point out that you can't make people run (indeed as I type, the current treasurer has commented on my Facebook status saying "If people don't bother to get involved that's what happens" which has further fuelled my anger) but you can do a better job of explaining to people what the committee does and why it is so important, you can certainly extend the nominations period. I'm sure someone will eventually point out to be that I didn't run and if I'm so bothered about it then why didn't I but I'm currently in the process of setting up a Liberal Youth society and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to sit on that committee whilst also sitting on the non-partisan Politics Society one, but maybe that's just me. 

What annoys me most is that the members of the Politics Society, who supposedly have an interest in Politics and therefore I assume the majority of them would agree that democracy and free and fair elections are important, are being denied a right to vote. Whilst people would question the point of voting when no positions are contested and no doubt turn out would be low, there should still be an opportunity to reopen nominations. At least then the committee would have a modicum of legitimacy, small as it would be. I mean FIFA elected Sepp Blatter when he had no opposition and pretty much the entire footballing world accepts that he is corrupt!

Having spent the weekend at the Lib Dem Conference in Gateshead I understand some peoples confusion at the concept of letting the grass roots membership have a vote. In today's Telegraph Graeme Archer suggests that Liberal Democrats cannot be trusted to govern because of our insistence on it, I mean how dare we give out grass roots a vote?! Why aren't we like the other two parties who take the views of the elites within the party and enforce it on the rest with an iron will? He also suggests the voting reps are 'unelected activists' when they aren't, they're chosen by their local parties and that they act on 'whims'. They do no such thing. I may disagree with the way the NHS vote went yesterday but I know that members have been debating the future of this bill for over a year and no-one will have arrived at the decision not to back it lightly. (Although any suggestion that they did act on a whim, however jokingly tweeted, will be followed by a barrage of abuse, just ask @aaemmerson).

Unfortunately my university (and I suspect many others around the country) have a problem with elections and democracy. Whilst our recent executive elections had a turnout of over 3,700 (the highest ever) we have a student body of roughly 21,000 students. That's a turnout of roughly 17%, local council elections manage more than that. I am on our Student Union's Union Parliament which elected members to represent the University's four Colleges proportionally. As a member of the largest College (Social Sciences) I am in theory one of thirty students representing that section of the student body but I'm not, I am one of 15. This is because there is an overwhelming apathy amongst students towards these elections, I imagine because very few people actual know what Union Parliament does. It's the job of the SU executive to increase awareness and turnout but given that our newly elected Campaigns and Involvements Sabb (the position under which this directly falls) responded to my anger when vented on Twitter by saying "haven't people had enough of elections anyway" (though he later confirmed to me that this was meant as a joke) I don't hold out much hope for the future of democracy at the University of Leicester.

Ladies First...?

I wasn't originally going to write a post about the Chris Huhne resignation for a few reasons, one being that it triggers in me an excess of anger towards an ex-wife who is clearly only interesting on inflicting pain on a man who left her (however justified that pain may be), another being yet more anger at certain newspapers' reporting of the incident which always seems to make reference to Huhne's new partners' sexuality as if it were a contributing factor to their infidelity. As it happens Carina Trimingham has decided to sue the publisher responsible and I fully congratulate her in doing so (the spelling mistake in that article's headline isn't The Independent's greatest moment!). The third reason is that the press and social media chatter, both before and after Kier Starmer's announcement that charges were to be brought, seemed to focus on what would happen if he was guilty whilst ignoring the fact that Huhne is innocent until proven guilty. I didn't think that the gender of his replacement would be the thing that made me change my mind about writing a post.


Well it isn't so much the fact that Ed Davey is male but the fact that this seems to anger some people. I must admit I have very little knowledge of Ed's work but as far as I can tell he has done a great job in his previous role and I can only hope he does the same in his new one but the criticisms of Nick Clegg for his "failure" to promote a woman to the Cabinet, such as those from Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill, are ridiculous. Worryingly some of the most vocal criticisms come from party supporters, liberalism is equal opportunity for all regardless of arbitrary distinction therefore jobs should be awarded on merit. If a deficit develops it is due to a lack of education and opportunity for that group or discrimination against it and these things need to be tackled at the root, not glossed over when it's too late. That is not to say that Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone, the women most mooted for the job, are not fantastic MPs and fantastic ministers because of course they are, Lynne is pretty much single-handedly pushing for gay marriage as I can't imagine Theresa May is a fan (but the less said about her opinions on Page 3 the better), but I don't believe they should be promoted just because they're women.


I have never believed in positive discrimination: it's an oxymoron for a start, putting the word 'positive' in front of a negative concept does not automatically make it a good thing, and also because in the 60 years of affirmative action in America there has been no fundamental change in ethnic minority representation at the highest levels (the reasons Barack Obama doesn't count are too numerous to list here). Anyway, surely all discrimination is positive? If one group is being discriminated against, surely that means there is discrimination in favour of another? I'm a white woman who grew up in a middle class family but whose parents are now divorced: I don't want to live in a country which values my gender above my ability but counts my skin colour against me. Are my childhood holidays in Africa counted against me because they clearly indicate a financially-stable family even though I get bursaries from my university because my dad left and took with him a large chunk of the family income? I'm a politics student who doesn't want to become an MP but if I did, I would want to fight to be selected by the party and elected by the people on the basis of my ability and my beliefs not existence of two X chromosomes and a comprehensive school education. The use of all-women shortlists by Labour implies that women are unable to be selected on merit and have to be given a helping hand and this implication spreads to all women, even those who weren't selected in this way.


There is no denying that there is a problem of representation for women, BME people, non-heterosexual people etc in places such as the House of Commons but artificially boosting their representation does not help tackle the fundamental social circumstances which create this deficit. Incidentally I'm not entirely sure that the House of Commons needs to be a direct microcosm of society, without sounding flippant I don't feel that my MP being male makes him unable to represent me (his position as a Labour Whip on the other hand does). Interestingly, men are under-represented in teaching at lower levels, by lower I mean nursery and junior schools, but no-one is advocating giving male applicants these jobs over women simply because they're men, the effort focuses on making young men more aware that teaching is an option available to them and encouraging them to train and apply. Why doesn't this same thinking apply to under-represented groups in politics or business? Why is positive discrimination called for?


The Liberal Democrat leadership programme is well intended, of our 57 MPs only four are openly gay, only 7 are women and probably most shamingly none are BME, but it is fundamentally pointless. We should be tackling the problem at the root, pushing for change to an education system which nudges boys into 'hard sciences' but girls towards English and away from engineering, in order to ensure change which not only creates a more equal society for the next generation but for all the generations that follow, not aiming to provide change which is purely cosmetic.


Change is needed but condemning and repressing straight, white men is not the way to do it. 

Total Recall?

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords finally stepped down today, triggering a special election to decide who will serve out the rest of her term. Since she was shot along with nineteen others, six of whom were killed, on January 8th 2011 she has only made one public appearance at a memorial service marking a year since the attack. Now I'm in no way saying I'm not sympathetic to this woman, I can only imagine the hell her and her family have been through over the last year, but I do truly believe she should have resigned a long time ago. As an elected official, her job is to represent her constituents and unfortunately she has been unable to do that, this basically means her constituents have been without adequate representation for over a year. While I'm sure no-one wanted to push her from her job and there was no law mandating she should step down I do think it would have been best for her constituents, and probably for her, if she had stepped down sooner. Given that her reasoning for the resignation was that she has more work to do on her recovery I don't see any justification for leaving it a year before doing so.

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I understand the annoyance of having an absent elected official for over a year. Whilst Mrs Giffords had every reason for being unable to perform her duties over the last year, my ex-MP had no such excuse. During the 2009 expenses scandal it was discovered that Elliott Morley MP (Labour - Scunthorpe) had continued to claim his mortgage payments back from the taxpayer even though the mortgage had already been paid off, eventually he was found guilty of false accounting and being sentenced to 16 months in prison but not before claiming over £30,000 of taxpayers money. Instead of doing the decent thing and stepping down immediately he hung on for 12 months, stepping down at the 2010 election and thus retaining his full parliamentary pension, but kept away from the constituency as much as possible. For over a year our entire constituency had no effective representation because our MP was afraid, rightly so, of the reaction if he appeared in public. 

This is why I strongly support the Liberal Democrat policy of giving constituents the ability to recall their MPs. I wouldn't have advocated this route with Giffords, it would have been better if someone had persuaded her to step down off her own back, but with my MP I really wish our constituency could have forced a new election and I'm certain it would have fallen into the Lib Dem definition of who this would apply to.

"We would introduce a recall system so that constituents could force a by-election for any MP found guilty of serious wrongdoing."

The recall idea was debated in parliament this week with issues over the wording of the bill and possible unintended consequences being raised, Zac Goldsmith MP even argued that "the worst MP in the world" could escape the recall process. Its no great surprise that this bill is contentious and that debates are being had over the wording but it is an idea I truly believe in because I can't stand the idea that my MP was able to sit at home for a whole year, fighting off criminal charges, and leave us effectively unrepresented.

I mean recall elections in the United States led to Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming Governor of California. What could possibly go wrong?

The One Left Behind: My Thoughts On Defection

A few days ago Luke Bozier defected from Labour to the Conservative Party. He got a lot of stick about it on Twitter that he almost certainly didn't deserve, he has his own reasons for defecting and I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision, but this blog post isn't really about him. It is however what prompted it. 


I had first hand experience of defection a lot sooner than most political folk; I started campaigning for Neil, my local Lib Dem PPC and the only Lib Dem on our local council, in October 2009 but within a month of the 2010 election he was the newest Conservative Party councilor. We did okay in the general election, increasing our share of the vote from 2005 but still coming in third which wasn't a surprise given we were competing in a northern steel town with Labour incumbents since 1979 and a large number of villages on the constituency fringes meaning the Conservatives are the only viable challengers. That, added to the rather small number of local activists, meant we were never going to win but I was pleased with what we managed to achieve.


5 weeks after the election I received an email saying Neil had decided to leave the Liberal Democrat party. No mention of defection. I thought perhaps he couldn't approve of the Coalition government and assumed he would continue as an independent councillor. Not only did that prove to be wrong, he didn't even bother to tell us himself that he was defecting across to the Tories, I read it two days later in the newspaper. My original feeling was anger, that he didn't tell me himself, that we ran a whole campaign against the Tories then suddenly he's one of them, but as time went on I got less angry and just don't understand. 


I know a lot of politicians go from being members of one political party at university to representing an entirely different one in the House of Commons, anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a massive fan of Chris Bryant who was a member of the Conservative Party at university, and I understand that the political views you hold as a teenager are almost certainly not the political views you have as an adult but I cannot understand someone who suddenly defects later in life and seeks to justify it as something other than a move for their career. 


One thing I hated was the treatment Neil got after he defected, I didn't agree with what he did but he didn't deserve the abuse he got. I went to the first council meeting after the move and got chatting to the LibDem PPC for the neighbouring constituency (who also lost) outside when he asked me if I was joining the protest. I didn't know there was a protest going on so decided to sit on the opposite side of the chamber to avoid being involved in what turned out to be a lot of shouting and the unfurling of a 'Judas' banner. Somehow the PPC who couldn't be bothered to turn up to his own election night vote count, choosing instead to go on a pre-booked holiday without telling anyone and leaving us to deal with press questions, thought he was in a position to claim the moral high ground.


I've blogged before on the divisions within the Liberal Democrats and I can see from the people I follow on Twitter that they aren't 100% happy with the direction of the party in coalition; they either worry about the possible loss of our social democratic commitments or they aren't happy with the strength of our commitment to economic liberalism. These debates are had regularly, almost daily in fact, but always with both sides making valid points and refraining (at least in public) from petty name calling. All in all both sides agree to disagree but stay in the party, working from within to rebuild the party in an image they want through keeping up dialogue and the formation of groups such as the Social Liberal Forum.


Leaving a party because it no longer resembles the one you joined, as was Luke Bozier's excuse, is lazy: stick around and fight for what you believe in because no-one else is going to do it for you.


You picked that party for a reason so stick with it. It might not be quick and it sure as hell won't be easy but I for one will respect you a hell of a lot more for it.

Being a Liberal in a Labour Society

This is a blog post I've been meaning to write since October. I am a member of the University of Leicester's Labour Society much to the annoyance of the neighbouring De Montfort University's Labour Society who see my presence at some jointly held events as somehow breaking the rules. While I don't mention my LibDem membership at events, most of the UoL society do know and don't seem to mind too much but I've decided to run through just why I joined because I get asked about it a lot and writing it down seemed a reasonable way of making it make sense!

At Fresher's Fair I joined both the Labour and Conservative societies (unfortunately there isn't a Liberal Youth) in the hope that it would lead to me making more politically involved friends and get me to some good events. As it turned out I never actually went to any Conservative society events but that was no big loss, I wanted to get involved in local politics in Leicester and in Leicester politics is either Labour or bust - when 52/54 councillors, all 3 MPs and the elected mayor all belong to the same party you really don't have much of a choice!

Two guys I lived next door to last year (and who I'm subsequently living with next year) are Labour members so I went along to the first meeting with them. The meeting was very interesting and I could see this society would give me the debate and political contact I had been looking for but during the course of the hour three or four different people offered me a Labour party membership form. I was willing to join the society but am in no way inclined to leave the Liberal Democrats so I managed to avoid filling one in and left the meeting with no intention of going back. On the way out I got chatting to the Campaigns Sabb officier who persuaded me to registered as a candidate for our Union Parliament along with the guys I attended the meeting with. When we went to the meeting about those elections the next day the chair of the Labour Society was there and came over to discuss the possibility of running together under a Labour banner. I told him that I hadn't actually joined the society along with my reason why but he assured me it was fine and I was welcome to run supporting them anyway which I did and we got elected.

Unfortunately (and this seems to be a weakness of Liberal Democrats everywhere in the last 18 months) I didn't make my membership-but-not-quite of Labour clear to the Union Parliament who now all assume I'm one of them. I also never properly explained this to the DMU society - mainly because I didn't realise I had to - and I've been asked to not to make my LibDemness known the people at events. As if someone actually believed I would walk into a room with David Miliband no less (the event in question happened to be a Q&A with him) bedecked in yellow rosettes and reading aloud from the Liberal Democrat manifesto. I joined the society to make a bit of a difference locally and to meet new people; I know I'm not a full member so I don't go canvassing or fund raising, I didn't put myself forward to go to the National Labour Youth Conference (indeed I doubt the society would ask me to) and I don't see why a little bit of cross party working has caused such a fuss!



That said if anyone can help me set up a Liberal Youth at the University of Leicester or who knows anyone who can, drop me a line here or on Twitter @rebelrevell :D

I'm back (again)

Okay okay I fail at the whole 'update more than once in a blue moon' thing but I'm having another go. Mainly because I'm fed up and like having a moan.

I'm a lib dem. I'm a member of a economic liberal group on facebook but I'm also a kind-of member of the Social Liberal Forum. It's been implied that I can't be both but I don't see why not! Why are the ideas social and economic liberalism so contradictory? I believe in the free market and less regulation for business but also that the poorest in society should be given a helping hand by being taken out of tax and schools given extra money to help for its most disadvantaged students? I always thought the Liberal Democrats were the only party without ridiculously tribal elements but it turns out this is complete crap. I'd really fed up of an economic liberal friend bitching about the Social Liberal Forum as if being vaguely left wing was some kind of hippy movement to be discarded as having no worth. And the SLF seem to think the economic liberals are Tories in disguise, sent to infiltrate the party and turn us all over to the other side.

The people I follow on Twitter seem to be torn between identifying as Tory Liberals or Labour Liberals and keep trying to debate where we should align ourselves in the run up to 2015. I don't see why we have to do either, we're our own party with our own sets of values and ideas and I know we're not going to win a majority at the next election - god knows we'll be lucky to keep the seats we have - but we shouldn't align ourselves with anyone. I think we're a party well placed to work with elements of either of the other two parties and Nick was right in what he said in the run up to the last election: in the event of a hung parliament we should talk to both parties but ultimately the electoral math decides.

We're not the Conservatives. We stand up for all members of the public regardless of wealth, class, gender etc which is more than can be said for them. We aren't torn apart by internal divisions (much as it seems as above) over Europe or religion and we should not be ashamed to stand up and say when we disagree with our Coalition partners.

We're not the Labour Party. Their internal divisions are the worse of any party and will never be a cohesive group. Some of the things they accomplished in their 13 years in office were admirable, it was pointed out on Twitter than their record on gay rights was fantastic, but they are a new party with a new leader and harping on about past victories whilst languishing on the Opposition Benches without a single idea and a 'blank page' approach to their policies. 

We're the fucking Liberal Democrats and I'm fed up of people trying to tell me otherwise!

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One policy that's got my attention and that's the Tories favourite policy of tax breaks for married people. I'm fantastically proud of Nick's response to it because it shows how out of date some Conservatives are. I can't think of any justification for giving money to married couples that makes any sense! If 77% of people think a single parent can form a family and 59% think a same-sex couple can be a family then why do the Conservatives cling to this rose-tinted vision of an ideal past that never existed where father went out to work and mother stayed at home to raise the children? It's utter crap and I'm glad the Coalition Agreement does not bind our MPs into supporting this ridiculous policy.

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One last thing, Aidan Burley's firing. This stag party is made to sound like a Max Mosely-style Nazi orgy (by the Daily Mail, obviously) but from the video footage I've seen it appears to be some men sat around a table with one of them wearing a military hat. If Mr Burley has been to a Nazi-themed stag do I can only conclude he was drunk (not exactly a fireable offence, especially given it was a stag do) or that his friends are idiots and I very much doubt this is something unique to him!

Before this I didn't know who this man was and my opinion now is that the man is harmless, if a little prone to mistakes under the influence of alcohol and the company of his friends. In my opinion this isn't a firing offence and if Cameron would have had any balls he'd have said that.

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With any luck I'll remember to post again some time before Easter!!

It's too early for a title :(

I've missed two whole days of blog writing! Oh no!
I've been busy, you (the non-existent reader) will get over it :p Wednesday was a panicky day, I've ended up running for Union Parliament under a Labour Students banner. I know the other guys running too, they're mates from my course and they know I'm a Lib Dem so it's not so bad. Their leaflets say 'running as Labour Students' and mine say 'running with....' so morally I can justify that better to myself. Plus they can give me shit loads of help and we're more likely to get elected running together. But it's still stressful basically!

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On top of that I had my first Russian lesson which was fun but also a bit overwhelming. People seemed to pick up the alphabet so quickly and could read words while I was still hunting for the second letter! I'm going to have a listen to some Russian CDs this weekend and hope that triggers memories lol, I can remember no, goodbye and hi atm. Not great but better than nothing.

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Yesterday I had the first globalisation lecture with the most bias lecturer I've ever met. I thought they were suppose to give two aides at least but this guy was wry clear that he thought globalisation was powerful counties (US, Russia, China) not playing by the rules of free trade whilst encouraging everyone else to do so and therefore reinforcing their hegemony. But whatever, i can have an opinion too lol.

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Went into town and got a new phone, iPhone 4 baby :) My number moves over today so I'm just having a play today, iOS 5 seems to have taken all the music off my iPod though for some strange reason and my mate has all his music but no pictures. Bit random and quite annoying (especially for him, he went to see Katy Perry the night before so those pics are gone!).

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Second shift at work was good, apart from one or two mistakes. I haven't quite worked out what goes in which glass yet and a woman asked for orange and lemonade and I gave her orange squash not fresh lol. I've never worked in a bar and for some reason that's what I thought she meant! Given it was Madama Butterfly last night I probably should have though she didn't want squash! One guy wanted a brandy and that took me five minutes to find, I don't know what bottles are brandy lol. I'll know for next time though! I also need to learn types of wine but there's only six so I should be okay. Being on Leicester Male Voice Choir Saturday night!!

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I probably did other things but I'm late for a lecture and I need to dry my hair so I'll let you know some other time!