A lost generation

In a decade New York Magazine has called one for “counter-intuitive thought”, a Yougov poll published yesterday seems to refute perceived wisdom about the younger generation.

The survey of 3,994 16-25-year-olds found - in contrast to the view that young people aren’t “bovvered” - that 64 per cent intended to vote in the next election or when they were eligible, considerably higher than the national turnout in 2005.

Rather than voting on age or personality, 73 per cent planned to vote after considering a political party’s position. International problems were identified as the most important issue by 35 per cent of respondents, while a quarter chose local issues and 22 per cent cited national problems.

Another area investigated was the teaching of politics and current affairs at high school. When asked, 43 per cent of respondents said that teaching of politics and current affairs in their school was inadequate.

The Head of English at a North West secondary school commented: “The overcrowded curriculum and the politician’s current drive for academic success inevitably leaves little room for classroom debate, however important this is for the social functions of future generations.”

Despite huge increases in spending on education, it appears emphasis is placed on the wrong things. Would the reduction of bureaucracy promised if the Conservatives win the next election give teachers back the discretion needed to teach for life, not just for tests?

With BBC3 the most popular publicly-funded channel among young people, should more resources be concentrated on programmes that educate rather than on shows like the purile Dance Like Michael Jackson? Veteran BBC journalist John Humphreys supports the axing of BBC3 because it is not performing the broadcaster’s core functions.

In a bid to make politics and parliament accessible to the young, the Hansard Society lead by John Bercow has launched an outreach programme to schools. Can politicians inspire support in an institution that has lost so much credibility, or is electoral reform, a fairer system, the only way to engage disenchanted and new voters?

Half of those questioned thought more should be taught about personal finance, while 36 per cent wanted more education on the economy. After the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, we should be glad those who will be supporting the “time bomb” of an ageing population want to avert future catastrophes.

The UK is just seven per cent short of New Labour’s target of 50 per cent of young people attending university, but with unemployment of 16-25-year-olds at nearly 1million, the messages are increasingly confusing.

Although this is a year where professions from social work to sports have been embroiled in scandal, the young still need guidance to help them to become responsible, hardworking citizens.

There is certainly the desire for it, but will someone put their head above the parapet – policy makers, broadcasters or teachers – before today’s young people become the “lost generation” of a decade the United States are calling the “Oughties”- we oughta have seen this coming?

Words are the only things that last forever- visiting the Iraq Inquiry

First published in Pluto Student Newspaper.

The Iraq Inquiry started last week and after serious deliberation over the previous months Gordon Brown said it will be held in public. So we undertook our public duty to attend the hearing on Monday.

Unlike the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the Iraq Inquiry “is not a court of law. The members of the Committee are not judges, and nobody is on trial.”

Members of the audience were sceptical about this remit.

If evidence is deemed to be a threat to national security, the cloak can be cast back over

proceedings. It will be interesting to see what happens when Blair makes his appearance early next year.

There were no lawyers present, which meant Sir David Manning, former foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister, spoke at length.

His evidence highlighted the New Labour dependence on unelected advisers. While Condaleeza Rice, then US Secretary of State’s name frequently came up, the UK foreign secretary did not.

Robin Cook had been the Foreign Secretary until he was moved in the 2001 general election.

And the new appointment, Jack Straw was, by Manning’s account, nowhere to be found.

He emphasised that when Bush and Blair met, they did not just talk about Iraq. Which again makes you wonder why the PM was taking such a front seat in someone else’s portfolio.

Largely reading from a document he’d brought in with him, it was almost like he was trying to bury the important things. Or bore everybody so they didn’t come back for the second half.

The man leading the Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot was Staff Counsellor to the Security and Intelligence Agencies from 1999 to 2004 and the National Criminal Intelligence Service from 2002 to 2006. Both are government intelligence agencies.

Michael Crick, Political Editor of BBC’s Newsnight commented on the appointment of war historian Sir Lawrence Freedman to the inquiry in his blog on the 15th June: “Critics of the war might argue Sir Lawrence was himself one of the causes of the war!

“The professor once told me how, back in 1999, he was contacted by Downing Street seeking his thoughts for a speech on humanitarian intervention which the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair was about to make in Chicago.

“When was military action justified for, liberal, humanitarian reasons?

“Sir Lawrence says he was astonished when he heard and read Mr Blair's famous Chicago speech- perhaps the most important of Blair's premiership - that it was based largely on the memo he had sent to Number 10.

“And the rest was history.”

He went on to question the appointment of another historian, Sir Martin Gilbert: “In 2004, he went so far as to compare US President George W Bush and Mr Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill.

It was also Sir Winston Churchill’s birthday on Monday 30th of November so we took a trip to the cabinet war rooms hidden beneath the ground near 10 Downing Street.

Churchill is known as a great wartime leader, but less is known is the writing he did throughout his life.

Having been to the Inquiry, and thinking what could and should come out of it I pondered

Churchill: “Words are the only thing that last forever.”

In a world of deeply woven webs, with many powerful and self-interested parties, one can’t help but think that often words mean nothing at all.

This is England

First published in Pluto Student Newspaper.

After a student was photographed urinating on a war memorial in Sheffield a few weeks ago, you could have expected us all take something from it and buck our ideas up. We aren’t animals, we’re academics.

But apparently the message didn’t get out to two UCLan students who went out on Halloween dressed as Madalaine McCann, and Adolf Hitler. Not respectively.

But who’d have expected any more as, the weekend after, on Remembrance weekend no less, we are met with the headline, as picked up by the Huffington Post in the United States “Miss England loses crown after bar brawl”.

Yes, the lovely Rachel Cristie, niece of Olympic athlete Linford, is the alleged instigator in a bust-up with Miss Manchester, Sara Beverly, over the Sky One Gladiator Tornado. The fairest maiden in all of England scrapping in a pub. Classy.

And not for the boys to be outdone, on Sunday it emerged that ‘Grandpa England’ (my words- I’m running with a theme here), the father of England Captain John Terry was filmed by News of the World journalists dealing cocaine. Ted Terry, who has been given a house, mortgage free, by his talented son resorts to crime to fund his jobless ‘luxury’ lifestyle. Great.

It is 2009. The ‘word’ on everyone’s lips, tweets and Facebook statuses is ‘Jedward’. Two largely talentless twins making fools of themselves on national television. These are our role models.

Yes my friends, apparently this is England.

In a world with few boundaries where everyone can see everything I often fall back on the idea: “what would my parents think?”

If that fails, maybe your parents are of a different school of thought, then ask, what would Facebook think? People who weren’t there when you came up with your hilarious idea, people who might be affected by what you are going to make a mockery of, what would your future employers think?

It might be sad, but it’s certainly true: we live in a digital world where potentially everyone can see everything. Huffington Post readers from across the Atlantic believe that someone who ‘we’ have ‘crowned’ Miss England decks people of a weekend. For all many Americans know, she could be married to Prince Charles.

Our own university is launching a P.R drive to raise its profile in a world where appearances are everything. Maybe we too should increasingly be thinking in the same way.

University is only a learning gap preparing us hopefully for bigger and better things. We will all have to sell ourselves in an ever-increasing crowd at the end of it. Who wants to end up Joe Bloggs 2:2 in English Literature, North Tower of the World Trade Centre- Halloween 2001, currently till trainer in a local convenience store?

Fortunately for Ms Christie, although she has given up her highly esteemed post after careful consideration, she now has her career as a potential Olympic heptathlete to concentrate on.

For some people there may not be repercussions, but for many people, there are. Think- what would your parents think?

Image commissioned exclusively for Pluto- By Imogen Wood.

Gordon who indeed...

First published at http://www.pluto-online.com/?p=2481

So, Gordon Brown came up North for a painfully stage-managed forum with a choice group of people, where questions were vetted and there was no room for debate.

And what did we take away from it?

Almost nothing.

A token gesture, from, to quote the questionable Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, “the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government”.

When pressed on the issue of ‘frontloading’ by Parviz Shasva, owner of Rooms Nightclub, the PM suggested, “we could ask for an agreement among the retail trade and talk to Tesco and so on but then a number of shops may keep outside of that.”

“Could?”, “Ask?”.

Forgive me, Gordon, I’m a bit confused here. Aren’t you the most powerful person in the country? The leader of the country? And then clearly the best placed person to tell companies to change their practices if it is in the best interests of the people who you represent?

From Margaret Thatcher to date, power has become increasingly centralized in the hands of one person, the prime minister. And yet, his answers are feeble. He sounds powerless.

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised. The Guardian reported last week (22nd October) that Lord Myners, the City Minister “insisted… that the government could not use its stakes in the bailed out banks, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group… to stop bonus payouts.”

£1.3trillion of taxpayers money has been pumped in to banks to keep the sector a float, and yet, it appears that our elected representatives cannot stop a practice that has rightly infuriated the public.

Lord Myners urged the banking sector to address the bonus issue itself in a bid to not “bash the bankers”. Ask them nicely not to give themselves lots of money?

One can’t help but compare this with MP’s ability, or not, to self-regulate. Richard Garside, a local estate agent asked of Jacqui Smith’s regretful plea in the House of Commons following her home ‘flipping’ that gained her more than £100,000, “can any employee caught stealing from his employer expect that an apology will suffice?” For the average employee, the answer is no.

So, do you get a bonus if you look after people as a nurse, and reach all the targets? Do you get a little extra if you get all the kids you teach through all the ludicrous testing forced upon you by central government as a teacher? No, you don’t. You are just doing your job.

So why then, when these people are just doing their job, and even when they aren’t, are they allowed to take home thousands of pounds in their already unfairly large pay packets?
Are some people above recrimination?

Lord Myners is addressing high street banks that have taken government money. Not even the investement banks that got us into this trouble in the first place.

The Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has come out with some headline catching rhetoric, but with little believable policy. He actually plans to cut cash bonuses while still giving rewards in shares. One can only look on in disbelief.

Maybe Mr Brown would have felt better with an easy question at the forum, like “what is your favourite biscuit”, a question posed to him at an audience with mumsnet. An easy question, that took him two days to answer.

Incidentally, it’s a choc-chip.

Wikilegislature

First published in Pluto Student Newspaper.

The Conservative Conference has come up with some corkers this year.

From Chris Grayling labeling Labour’s appointment of General Dannatt a gimmick, only to find it was his own party doing the hiring; to Cameron’s multi-millionaire wife wearing ‘cheap’ shoes from Zara (she obviously hasn’t been to Primark), balancing out her vast designer wardrobe.

But aside from the gaffes, some policy proposed at the conference that could have huge consequences for democracy has largely slipped under the radar.

On Monday, William Hague announced a transformation to the way laws could be made if the Conservatives form the next government; voters will be given the power to alter bills that are going through Parliament. ‘Yeah, right’, ‘how?’ and ‘why’ you might ask.

But the idea was first championed by the President-of-New-Technology himself, Barack Obama, with a site called mixedink.com. So we shouldn’t shelve it right away just because it’s the Tories.

The website is supposed to allow voters to comment on and rewrite the broad principles of a bill, and individual clauses. Contributors would also rank comments so the most popular suggestions appear at the top.

The Internet is the most democratic platform we the people have ever had at our fingertips. And Wikipedia is the largest user-generated, collaboration the world has ever seen. It has over 3 million articles in the English version alone but has only been going since 2001.

I can almost envision a ‘Wikilegislature’.

But, despite the all-seeing-eyes of Wikipedia, its trusty cleaners and its charitable status, even it is open to ‘vandalism’; ‘silly vandalism’ and ‘sneaky vandalism’ to name but just two types of sabotage they see every day.

So even though the Internet opens up the discussion to those who want to contribute, so too does it open it up to anti-social people, who for reason or no reason want to slow everybody down.

In a country where the government has a crisis of legitimacy, where more people do not vote than vote for the winning party, this could give people a more tangible link with their legislature. Or, like the political process itself, people could still not participate.

Why wade through all the legalese and boring by-laws when you could be watching a weird American kid called Tay Londay sing a weird song called ‘Chocolate Rain’ in a weird voice?

Forty-two million of you already have.

Or the idea could just as easily end up in the spin-bin.

Speaking of spin, who’d have though the Conservatives could get Bono, “live from a satellite orbiting his own ego” (Russell Brand), beamed into their conference to introduce the main act?

Well, probably the Labour Party, who the Guardian alleges also had Bono featured in a video as part of their Brighton conference a week earlier.

We trust all the proceeds are going to charity.