Birmingham University Labour Students

The general-election campaign is getting underway now.  Birmingham Young Labour are beginning a massive push forward to win back our city and keep Birmingham constituencies red.  BULS must surely follow suit.  Every weekend and many evenings there are campaigning sessions taking place in various parts of the city.  If you want to get Sir Albert Bore’s emails about when and where these take place then drop me your email; tom_guise@hotmail.com

Here’s my early pitch for the election campaign theme song, lets hope head-office read this blog and take my advice.  Although if you believe the guys over on the radish then we at BULS are in constant contact with head office.

The EPP, the EU Party group for centre-right parties remains the largest group in the EU Parliament.  So you might immediately think it would be quite a good group to be a part of.  Not so for one little scamp, young David Cameron believes he’s better than the most influential group of MEPs in Europe.  He’s decided (a long time ago no less) to set-up his own little group.

Now, it’s important to keep this in context.  During the Tory 2005 leadership election, the front-runner was David Davis, a bit of a EU-sceptic.  Liam Fox was also doing well.  There was an EU-sceptic consensus if you like amongst all candidates (except Ken Clarke).  So Cameron was faced with the difficulty of looking like an inexperienced candidate in a field of people who shared similar core beliefs, not the most likely of winners.  There was no serious difference, thus Cameron had to reach out to the Euro-sceptic wing of his party in a new way.  He did this by pledging (I know he made a pledge!!) to leave the mainstream group and form a new euro-sceptic one.  Conservatives heap praise on the man for his brave and decisive decision but do not be fooled, it was an opportunistic and cynical ploy for Cameron to cease power of his party, and it shows the basis of any policy pledges he has made since, and will make in the future.  He is an opportunistic and pragmatic politician who will do anything to grab power.

I’ll let you judge for yourselves on the party’s he wishes to join with, it has within it the Czech Civic Democratic Party and the Polish Law and Justice Party.  Put them through Wikipedia and come up with your own view of how appropriate it is for them to be closely associated with one of our mainstream political parties.  Chris Patten acknowledges the move as a bad idea that will reduce Britain’s long-term influence in the EU, and an MEP in the South-East, Caroline Jackson stood down over the issue.

The move was a success, in terms that it won Cameron the leadership with much help from some ridiculously biased press coverage towards him.  Yet it must be held has his biggest mistake by all involved in the Tory party, and now he faces the battle of actually seeing if he can build the group.  You could be in for the treat of seeing his biggest U-turn yet, but one thing is for sure, we must continually monitor what this group gets up to and put the spotlight on it as much as possible.

DO YOU?

Norman Tebbit once gave me a really cross look and I genuinely shivered, I felt like death himself was preparing to give the finger.  Anywho, old Tebbit has given me a couple of laughs in this interview that sums up all that is wrong with the media of today.  Leave the man alone…stop trying to force politicians into saying things they don’t want to.

The Home Secretary came to visit BULS last week.  Having such a high-profile guest was a complete coup for organisers Dora and Louise, you’re new chair and womens officer.  Well done to them.  I had intended to allow them to write up their thoughts of the event, they wished to wait till the end of exams.  Yet, the Tories have decided to get rather immature indeed and their attitude is shocking.

Dora had the intention of making this event public and at time of writing emails to departments to advertise recieved a call from the Home Secretary’s Private Office informing her not to make the event public.  Dora called me and I agreed with her that the only course of action was to make it open just to BULS members.  In fact, since that decision was made several requests for attendance were recieved and granted, so we had a couple of tories, a socialist worker and a few others attending who were not members.  Unfortunately, news of this could only be made by word of mouth.  We also made it clear that people could join on the evening, this opportunity was taken up by about 2-4 people, essentially we charged for entry as it was a clever way to limit numbers.

The Home Secretary has the exact same security level as the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.  Making the event public was simply not an option and would, in my understanding, had led to the entire Guild building being shut down, searched and probably closed for the duration.  I think on balance, allowing a select few in to the room was best.

I, Dora, Louise and the rest of the committee new and old accept the upset this may have caused.  It is a shame we were not allowed to make the event public, yet security of people in the room, in the building and the Home Secretary herself is a prime concern for all involved.  We’re grateful that the University and the Guild accomodated this special event and I am immensely proud of Dora and Louise and their professionalism and organisation.  Rather than a point of debate, of which there were numerous in the meeting, notably on trident, this was a matter of security.

On a side note, David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education visited the Guild last month in an event that was invitation only.  This event was organised by the Guild and has recieved no attention by the double-standard Tories who are criticising BULS.  If the Tories are ever in power and invite top security-level ministers to the Guild, I would hope that members of BULS would have the maturity and common sense not to snipe and cause petty argument on matters of security.

I’m not going to accompany this with the usual “oh it taints all parties” or “sack the worse offenders” or “look what that Tory millionaire claimed for!”  I personally don’t care.  I know a fair bit about the allowances system and I can completely understand where the likes of Jack Straw and Douglas Hogg are coming from.  Hogg, for example, put in a full list of his home expenses but didn’t actually claim for specific things, he merely wanted to be completely open about what was being done on his home.

Here’s two people I think have it right;

Lord Foulkes who attacked the media onslaught against our democracy and Stephen Fry who spoke with complete common sense.

The media and by in large the public need to get over it.  The politicians need to stop tip-toeing around the issue, all 3 leaders are guilty of trying to make themselves emerge in the best possible light.  Get yourselves sat down together and come up with a workable solution.  Here’s two ideas for sake of argument;

1) The House of Commons buys a stock of 600 (I forget how many London MPs there are) or so properties in London which are maintained by the Commons authorities.  Centrally administered = completely above board.  If not doing this then at the very least ban MPs from making a profit on second homes and if this is unworkable then atleast have the taxpayer re-imbursed for the cost of the mortgage.

2) Employ a much larger staff in the Fees Office to actually look in detail at all the claims.  At the moment there are about 6 people working in there.  More staff means more time can be spent scrutinizing individual claims.

MPs need to realise that the real issue is the additional costs allowance, looking at staff admin in the House of Commons is a waste of time, the problem outside the village is the ACA.  Get realistic people!

Thought I would draw your attention to Prescott’s campaign against a bill put forward by the Tory MP Christopher Chope and signed by 10 other Tory MPs, which would allow employers to pay their employees under the minimum wage if the employee agrees.

http://wageconcern.com/

Feel free to sign the petition against the bill on the website.

oh and for balance

The Labour Party launched, a few weeks ago, a new interactive tool allowing any member the chance to contact voters from their own living room.

I didn’t look at it until now but it’s simply amazing.  All you do is go onto the members area of the website, log in, click on the link, choose a target seat in your region, and phone away.  With cheap deals on landline calls it could actually be cheaper than doing it in a grotty office somewhere!  I will certainly be using it as I have free landline calls anytime.

Click on the make a call button, dial the number on your phone, and the voter ID script comes up in front of you with easy click buttons so the data is inputted instantly on the local party’s database!!  Check it out!

Wes Streeting, friend of BULS, has entered the blogosphere!! We at BULS are very excited to read more of his political offerings and are very encouraged to see this post demonstrating why the media have it so wrong on Hazel Blears’ article in this mornings Observer.

Wes is also President of the NUS, (but this is his personal blog) and will be attending a debate this Wednesday in the Guild about the current state of Higher Education.  He’ll be going head to head with our new vice-chancellor Mr. Eastwood.  The event is free and unless I’m completely wrong it starts at 6pm in the Guild Council Chambers.

Wes has been added to our links.

After more than six years, on Thursday Gordon Brown announced the end of six years of combat operations in Iraq.  This ended the official British withdrawal, begun last month when the UK’s commander in the south, Major General Andy Salmon, handed over to the US.  At it’s height the UK had 46,000 troops in the country, most of the remaining 4,000 preparing to leave yesterday.  A memorial attended by the Defence Secretary John Hutton was held for the 179 British service personnel who had died during the conflict, a ceremony then took place in which the US flag was raised at the British base outside Basra.

Speaking at a joint news conference with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Gordon Brown said Iraq is a “success story” owing much to the efforts of British troops, citing the advances made in Iraq.  Tom Beckett also recently wrote an article in the Guardian about the last six years in Iraq.  However the Stop The War Coalition said that the British presence had been pointless and the war a disaster.  Meanwhile David Cameron called for an immediate full inquiry into the Iraq War.

Violence in Iraq has dropped to it’s lowest levels since the beginning of the war, however, recently there have been a series of high-profile attacks that have killed hundreds of people, causing concerns to be raised as to whether Iraqi security forces are ready to take control.  Barack Obama (responded) that the recent attacks are a concern, but that pressure must be kept on the country to make the political progress necessary to improve security.  Obama has stated that he intends to end American combat operations in Iraq by August 31st 2010, leaving a force of 50,000 to train and advice the Iraqi security forces, which, under a US-Iraqi security pact, will leave by 2011.

Colleagues may have heard about a leaked manual from the BNP.  This is the same manual in which the BNP say to their members they shouldn’t have shaved heads and wear suits to look presentable.

I think the article speaks for itself.  There’s also an interview with Nick Griffen to listen to.

We have at present a plethora of programmes and news items dedicated to the recession, what caused it, how bad it is and who’s to blame.  That’s fine, I can’t complain about that.

But how about a few equally well publicised programmes about how to deal with the recession.  Where to find jobs, interview tips, money saving strategies etc etc.

This came to my mind when I watched last weeks Panorama on Woolworths.

Appearence means nothing.  Susan Boyle made the audience and judges of Britain’s Got Talent look stupid after they were incredibly rude to her.  Anywho, watch it if you haven’t already.

25.7 million views at time of writing.

Q. What did Jesus say to his twelve apostles as he was nailed to the cross?

A. Don’t you bastards touch my Easter eggs, I’ll be back on Monday!

A happy bank holiday weekend to all our readers, with comradely love from BULS. x

The digital switchover may have started, but not all of the UK is covered by freeview yet. In fact, not all the UK even gets channel 5; much of the South East, still only gets four channels, but still has to pay a full TV licence. Rubbish.

Documentary on Channel 4 a couple of weeks ago exposes the truth behind Boris Johnson’s Mayoralty of London. Watch, listen and be embarrassed for what he has done to London.

Time for an official poll!

What we always knew…

create your own at http://torylogo.com/

I can’t believe that most of you don’t listen to it anyway but if not, you should tune into the News Quiz.

While it hasn’t quite caught on in the UK as much, the world of Academic Blogging is a treasure trove of information or as Berkeley economist Brad DeLong noted, it acts as an almost Invisible College, which anybody (who has access to the internet) can attend. Be it from Paul Krugmans infamous Conscience of a Liberal to Project Syndicates monthly updates from Joseph Stiglitz to Joschka Fischer.

As far as I’m aware the only daily academic blogger at the University of Birmingham appears to be American Scott Lucas from the American and Canadian Studies Department with Enduring America. However, I’d like to think he wasn’t the only one, does anybody know any other University of Birmingham academic bloggers?

buls.org is undergoing some technical issues, we will only be available at buls.wordpress.com until these are resolved!

Today sees the launch of “A Night Less Ordinary”, the free theatre scheme for those young people (under 26) across the country. “A Night Less Ordinary” was announced at Party conference back in September, by Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport. Hundreds of theatres nationwide have joined the scheme and approximately 618,000 tickets will be available. Burnham said

“Labour has always believed in making the best in life available to everyone. We all know how a visit to the theatre can be a life-changing experience, and it’s incredibly exciting to imagine our theatres full to bursting point with young people.”

Eddie Izzard and Kevin Spacey have come out in support of the scheme (Insert) Video eddie izzard and kevin spacey ->  Eddie Izzard said

“I think free theatre tickets for young people is a great idea, especially as things are getting tough financially right now. I am very pleased that the Labour Party has launched this scheme for under 26 year olds. We have a great British theatrical tradition and I hope people take advantage of this offer.”

For more information on the scheme please visit: www.anightlessordinary.org.uk

Hollie Jones, BULS member and Guild Vice President Welfare