A Marriage of Convenience

Yesterday two quite normal things happened. Barack Obama gave a television interview and the Queen made a speech. Except they weren't that normal; Obama gave a hastily arranged interview to ABC News where he finally - after years of frankly just pissing about - endorsed same sex marriage and Her Majesty read her speech whilst sitting on a golden throne wearing an ermine and velvet cape and a massive crown (it might be normal for her but let's be honest it's not normal for most people!).

Obama has long claimed to oppose same sex marriage, favouring instead civil unions, but since 2010 he has often claimed his position was 'evolving'. I'm afraid 'evolving' was never good enough for me, it's one of the main reasons I've always disliked him. Its no secret that I'm a massive fan of Hillary Clinton but she herself opposes SSM and favours civil unions but unlike Obama she has always said this. 


In 1996 Illinois state Senate candidate Barack Obama was very much in favour of SSM and in response to a question from a newspaper stated "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." 


How times change. 


So to everyone who exploded with joy upon hearing the now President say "At a certain point, I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married" just remember a few things

• He already supported this
• He 'changed his mind' between running for the state Senate and the national Senate
• It's taken him four years of 'evolving' to get to this point
• It's an election year. This position clearly sets him apart from Mitt Romney

One of those getting far too fawning over the President finally arriving at the end of his evolutionary journey was Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill, who tweeted his joy whilst also expressing his disappointment that SSM wasn't included in the Queen's Speech. 

Except it was never going to be. 

The government consultation is still running so obviously a bill couldn't have been included when the results of the consultation are not yet known. You'd think the Chief Executive of Europe's largest gay rights charity would know that.

The omission that wasn't an omission has led to many criticising David Cameron for 'backing down' on his commitment to SSM but I'd argue that Cameron deserves more praise for backing SSM than Obama. Obama comes from the party that outlawed segregation, allowed homosexuals to serve openly in the army and wants to extend affordable healthcare to all. Cameron comes from the party who championed Section 28. The fact that DC is able and willing to stand up for the right to marry, regardless of sexuality should be applauded. Obama should be ashamed.

Sorry to disagree with you tweeps but yesterday you were applauding the wrong man.

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. 

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.

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!

.........

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.

.........

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.

.........

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

Busy Busy (not)

Managed to do a shit load of nothing today: I got out of bed, watched an entire Dara O'Brien gig on YouTube and cooked a sausage pie. I actually can't wait until I get back into lectures tomorrow so I have something more than 'watched tv' to say on this bloody blog! Double 'Governance and Politics in the UK' tomorrow, two hours apart in the lecture theatre next door which is utterly ridiculous but the makers of my timetable seem to be hell-bent on ruining my week so I suppose I shall have to deal with it :/

.........

Now the first week of Freshers is over I've started getting emails about the societies I signed up to about their first meetings. This does mean that on Tuesday I have a meeting at 5pm in Attenborough One about working for the uni radio station, 6pm in Attenborough Two for the Labour Party Society and 7pm in Attenborough One for Leicester Model UN. I may as well just sit in the corridor outside the Attenborough lecture theatres and get them to leave the doors open and speak loudly! I'm not going to the Politics bar crawl though, a mate from my course has suggested an alernative bar crawl at our own pace and 'round some better bars since the organised ones are fast as hell and downing two drinks quickly and moving on to the next club isn't her idea of fun, or mine!

.........

Lib Dems on Twitter have been floating the idea of Paddy Ashdown as new Defence Secretary given that Liam Fox appears to have got himself into a shit load of trouble. This would be absolutely fantastic as Paddy is brilliant and he is probably one of the best foreign policy minds the Coalition has, certainly better than William Hague! But he's a former leader on the junior coalition partner, a member of the Lords with a vast experience in politics and a man almost universally adored by all Liberal Democrats so I feel David Cameron is highly unlikely to want to be head of the Cabinet that contains a man so unlikely to tow the line.

.........

Another political story, Chris Huhne has apologised to Theresa May for briefing against her. Lets be honest if a conference address by an opposition party member turns out to be utter bullshit and a dramatic misrepresentation of the facts, attracting attention across the media spectrum, and then it turns out that this story was lifted directly from a far right party speech who wouldn't casually point it out to a newspaper! May has shown her incompetence through 'Catgate' and Huhne is not a member of her party and has not reason to back her over this idiotic mistake. Any reshuffle should leave him well alone!

Lazing on a sunny afternoon, in the... winter time??

So politics first, for a change. I'm currently in the middle of a 'debate' (I'm right, he's wrong, 'debate' is just me being polite) with a guy on Twitter over Michael Gove's plans to teach languages to children as young as five. My fellow politics student - whose favourite topic happens to be education policy -  believes that while languages are important, 5 is too young to be learning them. A person is most receptive to learning between the ages of 3 and 5 years and the New York Times has reported that anyone who starts speaking a language after the age of 10 will never be as proficient as those who begin learning before that age so why shouldn't foreign languages taught from primary school?

I actually wish I had been taught languages from an early age, I didn't start French until I was at school and I didn't enjoy it because it was taught from a textbook.Although I hope to learn Russian through university this year I feel I would have been better equipped for it if I had started learning earlier. Plus I was always envious of other schools in my area who got to choose other languages at secondary level beyond the standard French and German. As Chris Bryant said French is a 'useless' modern language.

Just had another tweet containing the phrase 'or Latin as Gove would have it!', this now leads me to believe that a small part of his dislike for the policy is class-based and there is a perception someone that the Tories want everyone to learn Latin (I realise some - Boris Johnson for example) do.

.........

On a personal note, my mother came to visit bearing cake that her friend had gotten up especially to bake for us this morning. Needless to say chocolate cake with whipped cream and raspberries was very well received by all my housemates :)

Spent the day with my mother shopping and drinking a ridiculous amount of liquids because the weather this year has decided to fuck us over. Just as all the shops and getting out jumpers and coats the weather goes 'fuck that shit' and turns the temperature up by about 20 degrees. Well bugger that weather, I like jumpers! Give me back my normal British winter of snow and ice!

Please...

A low, dishonest decade

I'm in one of those moods where I'm noticing every little annoying or stupid thing the people around me do. Like a housemate panicking that she didn't know what the numbers on the oven dial meant; increasing numbers on a dial on a device designed to generate heat, What The Fuck do you think it does! Even if you're never used a gas oven before it can't be that difficult!

.........

A side effect of this mood is that I become very sarcastic, moody, argumentative and confrontational. Probably a bad day to pick a fight with the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party then. I saw an article this morning about the Labour Conference having an event where men were not allowed to attend - with the exception of Ed Miliband - and issues such as maternity leave and childcare were to be discussed. I tweeted the link to the article, tagging Ms Harman and saying she had a lot to answer for. As a women, I find of lot of her proposals for gender equality derogatory; forcing the Labour Party to have a woman as either leader and all-women short lists are two examples of plans for equality that Ms Harman supports but that I feel merely reinforce the belief that women are not capable of becoming successful without help. Harriet Harman unexpectedly responded to this tweet saying women's only conferences will not be needed 'when women & men [are] on equal terms in [the] Labour party.' Now this isn't something I can agree with:

1. Discussing issues such as these at a women's only event surely reinforces the gender stereotypes that men are unable or unwilling to participate in child-rearing which is hardly conducive to gender equality and,
2. Gender equality (and a harmonious party) are hardly likely to come from making party policy whilst excluding the opinions and ideas of 50% of the population

While I did my best to convey these messages through Twitter's 140 character limit and Harriet Harman did reply for a couple more tweets I feel I probably did little to change her mind. It did however make my day slightly more cheerful; it's not every day you get to chat with the Deputy Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition!

.........

While that would have been a marvellous ending to a blog it's 9/11 and I feel some comment is required. Mass outpourings of grief has always made me feel uncomfortable; grief is such a personal thing that I feel the big crowds at Ground Zero and the constant documentaries and press stories border on morbid fascination. That is not to say that the friends and families of the victims shouldn't be able to visit Ground Zero and mourn but the endless press coverage, conspiracy documentaries and wall to wall news coverage of the memorial service just indulges some peoples unhealthy obsessions and cheapens the true feelings of people who actually suffered.

I've already been told off for expressing this opinion once so I hope it's not too offensive to anyone, I just find public outpourings of grief distasteful.

Hopefully more politics/ less my moods tomorrow :D