Posts Tagged "Great Britain"

Experiment: Private school and Political Views

Between longer and more abstract blog posts, this evening I decided to conduct a little experiment. I decided to look at the Political Views of the people I went to High School with.

My secondary school was independent. It was hardly Eton, but it still qualifies as private. My method was to go through my Facebook friends list and pick out all of the people I knew from the school in order to look at their Political Views. See the graph:

You’ll notice a few things about the sample, the first being that it’s quite small. The reason for this is that I had 38 profiles that had not listed anything in the field. The assumption can thus be made that an overwhelming majority are either totally apathetic (highly likely) or embarrassed of their real political views (also likely). I thus had to remove them from the graph to level it out.

The graph also shows an “Aren’t I funny!” column, this is for the profiles that had something inane listed as an attempt at a joke. It’s safe to say these are similar to the Not Listed column.

The one person listed under “Labour Party” is me.

Of the people listed under “Liberal” (Not Liberal Democrat), two of the three were teachers.

So, unsurprisingly the graph shows that most of my classmates were Tories. Does private school make your right wing, or is it just that right-wing people tend to go to private school?

As with anything vaguely scientific, it’s probably some of both.

Disclaimer: Obviously this doesn’t prove anything or have any scientific basis.

Lib Dems in blatant hypocrisy shocker!

Three months after David Cameron held a public meeting in Bath, Nick Clegg, better known as leader of the Shadow Conservative Party, has managed to find time in his busy, busy, schedule to do likewise.

When Cameron came to visit, the Lib Dems criticised the Tories over the amount of information participants were asked to give, claiming that the meeting would be rigged or filled with Tory apparatchiks. They smarmily added that their meetings are open and honest.

Now, even by their own criteria, the Lib Dems have failed. They are now under fire for asking that residents sign up online and receive an e-ticket.

“Nobody wants to come to my party.”

It could be suggested that the Lib Dems are getting scared. With a majority of 4,638 and a certain sentimental element to it, Bath could be in danger of falling to the Tories, despite being Lib Dem since 1992 when Tory Party Chairman Chris Patten helped win the General Election despite losing his seat.

In principle, I see nothing wrong with the fact that people are asked to register because it helps organisers get a good idea of the numbers. On top of that, they can prioritise local residents.

If only there was some easy and simple way of proving identity, without the awkwardness of a passport or the need to know how to drive. Some sort of card, for your identity, like all other nations have. That’d be a radical idea, though just the sort of thing the Lib Dems oppose.

When Cameron came, he was warned that residents would ask questions regarding the Bath Transportation Package, which directly contradicts Conservative policy on Green Belts. He avoided and refused to answer the question for fear of embarrassing his Tory Council.

This time, with Clegg, I have no doubt that seagulls will be top of the agenda.

The Next Step: Moving on from Question Time

I said the Internets would be ablaze with analysis and accusations over Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. It didn’t take Nostradamus to know that prediction would come true.

Hopefully this post will be the last I need to say on the matter, as I’ll just add this little contribution to the debate: A while ago I was asked to compare the BNP and my experience dealing with the Front National.

Yesterday I was discussing the program with my friend Xavier Garcia, Spokesperson for the Parti Socialiste in the Alpes-Maritimes, who is also a university lecturer on politics in Nice. He wrote his doctoral thesis in Sheffield on the Labour Party of the 1980s.

The conclusion we came to was resolutely against No Platform (Who would have thought?) Here’s a summary of our conversation:

The rise of the BNP was impossible in the 80s and 90s because of the political landscape in Britain. Now, the Labour Party has become a middle class intellectual party and lost/losing its working class credentials (exactly like the PS), meanwhile, the Tory Party, which used to occupy the Right, has moved into the centre.

Most people think it is mainly old people who vote far right, in fact it’s very significantly young people from the working class (for reasons and fear that are discussed to death, like jobs and immigration) and so this space combined with far-rightists are why the BNP is “rising”.

On No Platform, the French parties boycotted the Front for years, and it grew and grew until it established a foothold, feeding and thriving from the notoriety and being “underground” from the mainstream parties.

Then No Platform ended, and the Front enjoyed a little boost (the same boost the BNP might experience after QT) but the FN has been in terminal decline ever since, further accelerated by Sarkozy poaching FN votes. Cameron’s Tories seem centrist, but only time will tell, they could erode the Far-Right electorate. If Labour gets its act together, the BNP will have nowhere left to go provided they are not given the No Platform lifeline of the protest-vote.

It’s incredibly short sighted to claim “told you so” from a 1% increase in the polls immediately after such a media spectacle. Which leads us to…

Tom Miller (a parliamentary candidate) has been asking me to respond to an article in the Guardian: “Ministers warn of poll boost for BNP after Question Time” who seems to have missed this quote from Darth Mandelson:

“In the short term, he [Griffin] may have done himself a favour. But in the long term he has done himself no good at all.”

Not to mention missing this (much better) piece from the UK Polling Report, YouGov verdict on BNP’s Question Time which highlights:

The topline voting intentions, with changes from the poll last weekend, are CON 40%(-1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 19%(+2), BNP 3%(+1). So while the BNP support is up, it is nothing significant. 2-3% has been pretty much the norm for their support over the last couple of months, and the most recent YouGov/Telegraph poll at the end of September also had them at 3%.

Then just as a side note:

What has changed was attitudes to the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin onto Question Time. At the weekend 63% thought it was right, 23% wrong. Now the balance of opinion has shifted further in favour of the BBC’s decision, 74% thinking it was right, and only 11% wrong.

I can’t believe anybody would think that the first appearance of the BNP on the Question Time would be a make-or-break situation and then we could all go home. This was the first battle in the war against the Far-Right, and we can choose to fight it, or regress to No Platform.

PS. I am in Britain this week, hoping to spend it with my girlfriend. Sorry Tom for not replying to your incredibly urgent Tweet until you mentioned it three times!

Statement on Nick Griffin on Question Time

The episode of Question Time which featured the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, has just aired.

Once again, Twitter came into full force. According to @tweetminster there were up to 53.5K tweets with 12.49 tweets per second at close of #bbcqt.

Analysis of the debate will no doubt dominate the headlines and the blogosphere tomorrow and for several days to come.

However, I believe this is a maiden victory for the Coalition Against No Platform but the work is far from done.  Those STILL in favour of No Platform rightly ask “What about next time? What about the time after that?” because now the boycott is broken, we can avoid the mistake France made with the Front National, and hopefully start to deal with the BNP in a practical and not hysterical way.

Despite this, UAF protesters continued their typical activities, with a fleet of police officers required to prevent a riot. A caption on BBC News suggested that 3 police officers had been injured as protesters had attempted to storm the BBC. 6 people were arrested. I have said time and time again that I believe this method to be wholly counter-productive.

Question Time showed that Griffin’s views are as safe as sandcastles, and his backtracking and squirming was evident.

I am proud to have been able to contribute to the debate. I can only hope we can stop arguing with each other when we should be arguing with the BNP.

Hadleigh ROBERTS

Proposal #25: Remove private schools’ charitable status

Education has always been a key issue for Labour because it is the foundation of social mobility, yet there still exists a huge division between state and private schools, one of the ways to break through this dividing line is to remove the compulsory charitable status from private schools.

Though education, particularly when dealing with state/private issues, is an area that easily trips up the Tories, who were in favour of grammar schools and selection, then were against it, and are now for one or another or both and neither, we should not use it in this way.

Education is something we must not be tribal about; so often Labour attaches a stigma to those from private school as having an easy ride and of being “natural Tories” but fail to appreciate that these schools provide bursaries and scholarships to non-privileged children, and ignore that parents who send their children to the private sector are not always “the snooty Eton types” but average middle class people who choose to spend all their savings to give their child a boost.

This perceived boost shows that Labour must seek to close the gap between state and private education, but it must not seek to go about it by throwing obstacles in the way of independent schools and pulling them down when it is state schools that must be improved. The gap should be closed, but not at the expense that the net quality of education decreases.

The gap is not just about results, league tables and university places; there is also a barrier because the state and private sector have operated far too separately for far too long, our attitude should be cooperative instead of contemptuous.

We should think about removing the charitable status from private schools with spiteful motives, our logic should be that the current system is in need of reform. Although charitable status gives private schools tax breaks, the amount of VAT they have to pay means they give away around 20% of their profit. If the charitable status was removed, and schools were still able to continue to give the free places that they already give, then they would not lose so much money that could be reinvested.

The charitable status has now become a burden to private schools and many would give it up if they could, but currently it is illegal. Private schools are obliged to have charitable status, and therefore are obliged to pay high VAT.

In practice, it means that the more places a school gives away (as an example of a charitable activity), the more tax it pays. Thus schools which do the bare minimum and provide very little public benefit profit, while those which give out more places lose out.

This is fundamentally counterproductive to both the schools and to us. By removing charitable status we give substantial freedom to the private schools, though to profit from this we also need to change the law so that the more charitable the school is, the more it benefits for itself as well. This will encourage smaller private schools to be more altruistic and improve its links within the community.

We should remove the compulsory charitable status for private schools and instead replace it with a fairer mechanism to reward and provide incentives to charitable education.

A commission from LabourList as part of the 25 Proposals project.

Nobody ever really wants to pick Nick for the team

Mark Reckons has commented on David Cameron’s proposal of a Tory / Liberal Democrat alliance. (Here’s the link to that)

In his piece, Mark shrewdly challenges Cameron to “prove it!” (Something the media tend to forget) and suggest that if the Tories are serious about an alliance, they should back Proportional Representation, no, sorry; he says “a proportional voting system”.

The problem is that Mark has ignored the fundamental problem with Lib/Lab/Con relations.

Nobody ever says they want the Lib Dems on their team and really means it.

Nobody wants to come to my Party

The Lib Dems were going to enter a Lib-Lab pact in 1997, (until I think my MP Don Foster made some remarks on the Today show and brought the whole thing crashing down?) and the Lib Dems demanded some sort of PR. The response was “I’m sure we’ll get round to something.”

Now, the Lib Dems are offered a Lib-Con pact… they want some sort of PR! It might just be their only aspect of continuity.

This is the problem with a 3 party system; it naturally screws up the balance of power. Labour and Conservatives can always find one bit of common ground, the Lib Dems should not be in the position of Kingmaker where the government is formed by whoever they support. Coalitions are naturally unsustainable that way. Perhaps if the Greens were more powerful we would see the cycle of Lab-Green coalitions against Tory-Lib ones, though I suppose that’s down to PR.

Cameron’s message at the moment is hardly friendly, if the Libs want to become a Gvt/Opp party, making our party system match with that of Canada, then their best way to achieve it is not “Ally with the Tories so we can become their enemy in the future.”

Nick Clegg has been sensible enough to reject Cameron’s poisoned apple. His best strategy is to continue being Lib Dem and try to collect the rag-tag bunch of “other” voters, instead of trying to fight the big boys in the sixth form.