The General Election - my verdict

I haven’t written in a while. Term time will do that. The fine balance of working and studying.

Term is nearly over for the summer and the General Election has taken place and the results were horrifying. The Conservatives won a Majority. No poll had predicted, even the Tories did not predict it. As I sat watching the exit polls coming in my heart sank through the floor. My hope faded, only temporarily as it will be found and returned to its owner soon, and my anger began. As if the country had not enough the electorate wanted five more years of pain and suffering. BDSM party goers, the lot of them.

There are people blaming the SNP. I don’t blame the SNP. I have a soft spot for Nicola Sturgeon. I don’t want independence. I am an idealist who feels that unification is best as opposed to splitting into different parts. Ultimately though who are we to tell the Scottish, the Welsh or the Northern Irish how they should vote or feel about Westminster? My only issue with Scottish independence is the idea that if Scotland are fine then that is the main thing. The North of England are just as hard hit by the cuts and feel what Scotland feel. We should come together not split apart. This is after all only my humble opinion as I have never lived anywhere outside of England.

Ed Miliband was not to fault either. He was a strong man, maybe not a natural leader but certainly had courage of his convictions and the right ideas. Unfortunately he was trying to bring the Labour party to back whence it came in an ideological sense which didn’t seem to go down well. There are now calls for the Labour party to submit further to the centre than where it lies now.

So what led to the Tories coming to power and defying all odds?

Despite Ed Miliband not being at fault, the Labour party did not seek to dispel the idea that they were not to blame for the financial crash. This has been accepted by many as a financial crisis and yet the Labour party still get wacked round the head every time it comes up in conversation. Before the recession, caused by the fall of Lehman Brothers in America which sent shock waves through the globalised economy, our deficit and spending were about as high as you’d expect. When recession hit this caused businesses to liquidate therefore making people redundant and therefore causing people to lose their homes. This caused overspending, not the government itself. I am not a fan of New Labour but this is something they needed to fight back on.

Scottish Independence, whether you agreed or not, Labour and the Conservatives provided a united front who did nothing to help in Labour’s image in Scotland. The people of Scotland wanted change one way or another and Labour did nothing to present they could pursue this change in their ‘No’ campaign. 

The argument always came back to Ed Miliband and his image. The right wing press love the fact he couldn’t eat a bacon sandwich and tended to trip over a lot. Since when has this ever been important in politics? It is ridiculous that this is how we judge our politicians in the mainstream media. Ed Miliband genuinely wanted to do something different but the sandwich let him down or rather the media did. There were attempts to humanise this accident which lets face it has happened to the best of us, but unfortunately image was a problem. It shouldn’t be but it was made an issue.

In addition to this the Tories spoke the right language. People are scared and the landscape at the moment is fear. Recessions have been an occurrence every decade or so but this past one was the worst and it made people uncertain about their future. They guaranteed more of the same and it comes back to this idea of if me and mine are fine then screw everyone else. This is the issue we face now, we see this is in our dealing homelessness, the environment and climate change, immigration and welfare. As a child we are told to leave something as we found it. By this virtue we will not leave the Earth as we found it. If we are not careful we will see the end of the NHS, schools run by the local councils for local children, Human Rights Bill and an environment where we’ve plundered all of its resources with our children cleaning up the mess. 

That Sppech: Natalie Bennett and the LBC

Yesterday Natalie Bennett of the Green Party gave a speech on LBC (Leading Britain’s Conversation). This is a radio station which has cut through UKIP’s arguments as well as Nick Clegg’s. The LBC has never really held back and so it shouldn’t.

I watched Natalie Bennett on the Sunday Politics show several weeks ago and I was not impressed by her responses. Even as a Green supporter I didn’t find her responses polished or concise. Answers like I give my boss at work when I am trying to avoid a telling off. They were almost a run around. Natalie Bennett doesn’t seem to have the personality or the eloquence that is seen in most party leaders.

Nigel Farage is seen as an anti-politics leader who provides fresh and honest answers to questions he is asked. He is perhaps more polished than Natalie Bennett but still he harbours points and sometimes trips over his own tongue. He also chairs a party which is full of scandal and double standards. Yet people still support him in their droves. 

Ultimately right wing Nigel Farage has not yet said a word in which I agree whereas Natalie Bennett has. She is not polished and I am not wholly confident in her as a leader of the Green Party however maybe she is the yin to Nigel Farage’s yang. She provides the approach to politics which is not refined and pre-written but the spur of the moment and honest. The Green Party has only been catapulted into the limelight in the last six months and it is a learning process for the party. 

I believe the Green Party will not secure more than a few seats in May but maybe this is the start of a journey where in the foreseeable future we will see this left wing party start to really make waves. If UKIP can with their messages of hate then surely the Green Party can with their messages of equality and virtue.

A change in direction for me...?

This is an honest post. It is honesty because I am going to admit that I am leaving the Labour Party today after being a member for a few years. I am leaving to join the Green Party. I am joining the “other” alternative party. 

Why?

I do not dislike Labour. I was quite young (around eleven) when we went to war with Iraq. Throughout my teenage years it was seemingly quite normal for us to have presence in the Middle East. I formed no opinion about Tony Blair’s involvement in this. My mother and Stepfather were not particularly political and I lived in a Liberal Democrat stronghold. Cornwall was not really a place where politics was spoken about, either that or I wasn’t listening which is entirely possibly.

Despite this I have always swayed towards typically left wing ideologies. Whilst part of me admires Margaret Thatcher’s strength of character and I respect her as a leader I despise the steps she took. Yes, we were in the midst of a Winter of Discontentment, interest rates were rampant and public services were losing far too much money. England in the early 70s had a centralised system based on the Keynesian model which served us through the post-war period helping to rebuild a broken Britain. Keynesian economics centred largely around strong public sector investment, a commitment to full employment and an economy which allowed supply and demand to flourish. The National Health Service was created. The benefits system was implemented. These were desperate times but they ensured that we grew as a country.

Margaret Thatcher ensured these values were swept into the history books. She sought mass privatisation, brought the unions to their knees, reined in public spending and won in the Falklands War. In doing all of this she certainly secured her place in the history books. As a politics student I cannot name every Prime Minister there has ever been but I can name Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister who helped created the National Health Service and I can name Margaret Thatcher, the woman who brought entire towns into poverty because their work source dried up.

The issue I have with Labour is not with Labour itself. It is with New Labour, the Labour Thatcher helped form with Tony Blair. They took the party towards the righter end of the scale. They did not regulate the banks after Thatcher deregulated them. They did nothing to try and keep the housing market in check. They introduced a minimum wage, introduced Sure Start and gave Scotland and Wales greater powers to govern themselves. These were achievements but as ideological as I may be, I think they stepped away from the true Left and in doing so they did not leave anywhere for the Lefties to go but with them kicking, screaming and begging for mercy.

Ideological and morally I am behind the Green Party. They are often laughed off as hippie tree huggers who have no great policies other than to save the planet. But hey, the planet is our home. It is worth saving and no other party seems bothered that we are running ever closer to the point where oil will be depleted and climate change will be changing the way we live our lives. Potentially for the worst.

Austerity does not work Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg and Mr Osbourne. I know you have teams of economists and sociologists writing your policies. I understand that little ol’ me in Sheffield with a head full of nice ideas will be viewed as no more than a keyboard warrior. Despite this, you’re wrong. 

The issue with your policies is that a lot of the population, certainly the Northern counties, are looking for someone else to vote for. Your policies benefit no one but you and your friends. If free-market capitalism is your bread and butter then why you don’t put out contracts for investment in actual renewable energy? An alternative to oil? An affordable electric car? 

We could invest in people with real money and not zero hour contracts or unpaid internships. But actually deliver real jobs with real training if required. We should kick start manufacturing in our poorest cities. We should stop Right to Buy to keep and preserve council housing because affordable housing is needed. 

When I was a teenager I was involved in a community outreach programme which was an absolute life saver. Those “chavs” we label so ruthlessly could be told they are a valued member of society. When I thought the world had forgotten me there were a group of youth workers in Cornwall who showed me that I mattered. I will never be able to thank those three women enough for what they did for me.

So instead of investing in austerity and universal credit, why don’t we invest in the population eh peeps? This is why folks, I am putting my support behind the Green Party. I can believe in them.