I’d like to vote Labour, but I have to choose between them and the Socialist Labour Party. But then what if I’m feeling a bit democratic; should I pick the Liberal Democrts, Pro Democracy: Libertas.eu, or No2EU: Yes to Democracy? Then again I’m quite a fan of the Green movement; but then I have a choice of The Green Party or The Peace Party- Non-Violence, Justics, Environment. What if I’m feeling a bit nationalist? I have to navigate my way through the British National Party, the English Democrats, United Kingdom First and the United Kingdom Independant Party. It’s all very confusing!

Were I allowed a second preference, the child in me would like to pick the elusive and secretive Roman Party. Ave!

I’m not clued up on the ins and outs of the scandal or the resignation, but on reading about Michael Martin one interesting detail stuck out. Women MPs, particuarly those elected in 1997, apparently tend to hold him in great regard for the help and advice he gave them on arriving at Parliament for the first time. As someone not quite from the establishment himself it was suggested he empathised with them and understood what it was like to be a relative outsider. I found this really interesting…

Now out of the real world and back to my bubble, five exams down, two to go.

As their front page points out, the vast majority of the top team are male. Women aren’t getting promoted and the candidates not yet selected from the infamous A-List are disproportionately female.

Why? Well we know the party has different ideas to Labour of women’s promotion; they don’t do all-women shortlists (which I am personally against actually but at least they’re getting the women in) and they don’t do women’s officers (something I am completely for). Women make up 51% of the population, 39.5% of their members, 16% of their front bench team and 8.7% of their MPS. Only 21% of their PPCs are female and so it’s not going to change any time soon either.

Why aren’t women getting ahead? Dave himself went to an all-boys school and hung out with the all-boy Bullingdon club rather a lot, maybe he thinks the lack of women is normal. Maybe he just doesn’t notice their absence. Maybe he’s just not that bothered… or is it unfair to blame him, is there an underlying problem deeply rooted in the party that needs to be sorted out?

• Slammed the government for making cuts, then
• Slammed the government for spending too much
• Slammed the government for taxing the “everyman” too much, through booze and fuel duty, then
• Slammed the government for tax cuts to the “everyman” through VAT reduction, and
• Slammed the government for taxing very rich people to relieve the burden on the “everyman”

… Can someone please explain to me his point with the above? If you average it all out it seemed to be a rather say-nothing speech.

So, everyone holds their breath… then in a few hours time the Tories can lambast him for getting us into debt, the Liberals can say they’d have done everything so much better without justifying how, and the Greens can moan about us not having enough spare cash to cut carbon emissions by 300%, and students can weep about how unfair it was that the Government decided to try to sort out the economy and the unemployed millions rather than cancel their student debt.

I can’t take the excitement, so I’m escaping to outer space to find out how galaxies get made. See you in my next revision break!

Congratulations also to Steph Peacock, who was returned unapposed as for a second term as the youth rep on the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee. Keep up the good work

Or is my judgement over the fact that he threw a shoe at someone clouded by the fact that he threw it at Dubya?

Just another Labour day.

“The glitz of G20 is over – now we must focus on Britain.‏”

G20 “glitz“? If he thinks trying to solve global issues by sitting down and hashing out agreements with world leaders is a pointless load of “glitz” and we should be concentrating instead on ourselves… well it reminds me of this really.

Tory commentators love to pull us up on our grammar on this here blog, in fact after Thatcher I’ll wager its their second favourite thing to comment on. How aghast they must have been to note that their own Tory council leaders here in Brum are ditching that beloved bastion of the educated!

I know you guys aren’t that well acquainted with the Guild but if you want to start up a uni branch of the APS you only need twenty members, I can help with the forms if you like: just get in touch.

Speaking of education, I was most interested in the new Tory ad that informs us the UK is now 24th in the world at maths, (not sure what kind or level of maths as it didn’t specify), behind both Canada and Korea. Last time I checked Korea was in fact two separate political entities, North and South Korea; where pray does the UK come in the world geography championships? I personally am wondering why I ought to be surprised that both these places have reasonable education systems, but would like to congratulate them both all the same.

So as my housemate pointed out the other night, where on Earth is the grit? Why haven’t our roads been gritted and why is there nothing to grit our pavements with? Who exactly is in charge of all this? I guess that’s a council issue…

So is this a travesty in the same way it was when Thatcher sold off British coal, iron and steel, gas, electricity, water, railways, trucking, airlines, telecoms, County Hall in London? Someone either has a bit of a short memory or is just a bleeding hypocrite.

So this guy has been talking to me a bit and asks me if I want a drink. I find him a bit creepy so I tell him he can buy me one if he likes, but he’d better know I’m not going to sleep with him. He laughs, buys me a drink and starts putting his arm around me and getting a bit too friendly. So I introduce him to my (male) friend and leg it to the toilets to get away from him. I leave the toilets a bit later hoping I can slip off to some other area of the club and avoid him, but he has apparently brought my friend a drink and is waiting for me at the bar right outside the toilet door. He says, come with me, and pulls me into the men’s. Before he can get to a cubicle a security guard has us both pinned up against the sinks and is calling into his tannoy for back up.

I plead with the security guard to let me go, telling him how I don’t know the man, he dragged me in and I don’t want to be in here with him. More guards turns up, they let me go and I go back to my friend, a bit shaken. Within two minutes the man is back behind me apologising and asking for my number, and he keeps bugging me for my number until we leave.

Why the hell was a man who tried to drag a drunk girl into a toilet cubicle against her will not thrown out of the bloody club? What on Earth did he say to the (male) security guards in those two minutes when I wasn’t there? And what the hell would have happened to me if the security guard wasn’t there?

The whole incident left me beyond angry. He’s not the first guy to try this on with me or any other girl and he won’t be the last; there is a certain breed of male who won’t take no for an answer, who thinks “no” is an invitation to feel a girl up and who just won’t go away no matter what happens, who think its OK to have that kind of guy in your club and not to throw him out. And this sort of male needs to learn.

One of the themes of the book is that there is a fine line between greed and madness, and this is the line that the family members tread. Their attitude to life is very much “every man for himself”, one I feel sums up the underlying principle of Conservatives rather nicely. While it is no doubt a political book it is also enjoyed for its deeply clever and funny method of story telling; someone on the back cover described it as part social commentary, part detective story. Well worth a read.

Vote blue, oppose all pro-green measures? Hmmm not so catchy is it?

We elected this government for five years, its their job to govern and perogative to call an election. Get over it little boy, stop getting excited and wait your turn.

Con 312, Lab 274, Lib 23, Con 14 short of majority

Contrast this to a month ago when the Tories were on a 44 maj and in August when it was 172…

The tide is turning back

Well, well, well.

The book is a collection of short stories, inspired by his travels around Europe and the Americas and set across these continents. Most are told as conversations, where the characters reveal their past and present situations to the author. It’s not made clear whether they are fictional or not, but given Reed’s career as a journalist it seems likely they are at least inspired by real people. The underlying theme is of course a cry for revolution; the people we meet in this book are downtrodden, unhappy with the state of affairs and serve to show why the state of things must change. The eponymous woman is an interesting case; her story is a call for a different sort of revolution; one of feminism. Two contrasting stories feature men off to fight in the First World War trenches, one of them upbeat and full of enthusiasm, one depressed and seeing it as an acceptable way to die.

If the book is trying to convert people to the revolutionary cause, it falls rather short. But as a period piece, and as an insight into how the young Reed saw the world, its really very interesting, and tells the sort of stories (if presumably exaggerated and elaborated) that we wouldn’t normally come across from that period.

The Brand/Ross row was centered around the grandfather for hearing things he peobably didn’t want to hear, not the granddaughter whose privacy was invaded. The Clarkson row has failed to mention the stack of lads mags and pornos offered to James May as a prize for doing something daring with a lorry during the same episode, and instead focussed on the offence caused to (mostly male) truck drivers suggesting they murder prostitutes.

Interesting…

George Bush came to power when I was thirteen, and became instantly a big part of my political awareness, embodying to the younger me everything that was wrong with the world at the time. His policies on third world aid, contraception, gay rights, abortion, capital punishment, taxation, foreign affairs, education, healthcare, everything, the injustice of him holding office at all, left me cold; I long ago had to take down my poster of his misquotes, for I couldn’t bear to laugh at someone who had caused such misery to so many. The anger me and my friends felt on the day he visited the UK, and we marched through London, years ago now, still burns up again in me every time he appears on television or in the press. Now, at the grand old age of twenty-one I can see things a lot less simplistically than I used to, and realise that the films of Michael Moore are not gospel; but a large part of that childhood passion is still there. The thought that tonight his successor will be chosen, and there’s an excellent chance he’ll be against everything Bush stood for, is something still incredibly exciting to me, and I’m not even American.

My only worry now is the Obama cannot possibly live up to the hype. But for tonight I am hopefully going to be celebrating with my friends and tommorrow morning be falling asleep happy that the Republican Bush years will no longer be a living nightmare but about to be confined to a dusty chapter of history.

At the time of our protest, only five Tory MPs had signed up to EDM 1375, calling for better regulation of the lapdancing industry. I can report that following an enquiry by the Conservatives and a large amount of pressure from womens groups, a further one Tory MPs have signed up! Astonishingly, none of the Cons MPs are female.

Shame. Did the free night at the Rocket Club win them over?

I’m no fan of all women short lists but this isn’t encouraging…

Also interesting to note that the SNP and UKIP are standing. Each firmly believing in independance, they don’t seem to agree where the boundaries should be drawn…

On Saturday some of our Selly Oak based members went door knocking with Steve McCabe.

On Wednesday we had a meeting, seeing Mo Shaid become treasurer and Ben Semens become Freshers’ Officer

On Thursday many of us attended Guild Council and passed policy on Higher Education funding and Sexual Health

On Friday I handed over some treasury stuff to Mo

On Saturday a few of us are stewarding Regional Conference

Busy busy!

This will bring hope to millions of people who suffer from or have loved ones suffering from terrible diseases. It will end discrimination against lesbian couples trying for children, and will save precious lives through the permission of saviour siblings. And at no physical or emotional cost to humans or animals.

Deeply dissappointed to see the abortion part of the bill dropped, although probably not nearly as much as countless Northern Irish women who will still have to face huge difficulties trying to obtain a safe and legal abortion. The government has promised a review of abortion law in the next two years, I hope for the sake of these women they stick to that.

And Nadine Dorries proves as clueless as ever, prophecising that “humanzees” will now be created as a result of the hybrid embryo section. She fails to grasp that these will be as much a humanzee as a tree with a person sitting on a tree branch with a bit of leaf in their hair is a hybrid treeman, and that these embyos will be destroyed after about a week. Bless.

I am an atheist, but my reflex reaction was that this was a bit harsh, and would probably result in some fundamentalist vandalism. Then again, other mainstream religions advertise their beliefs quite openly; railway stations reguarly have posters with Bible quotes; the Quakers have paid for adverts inviting me and other Guardian readers to join for the last few weeks; and television stations, such as The God Channel, are dedicated to religions. Religions are allowed to open schools. Scientologists and other religious sects hassle me every time I walk down New Street. Many (but not all) religions have a message that non-believers will be punished, or come to no good; compared to being threatened with an eternity of brimstone and sulphur, is being told to “get over” something really that bad?

Despite my atheism, I don’t think it’s right to go around telling other people they are wrong about their beliefs, provided these beliefs cause no one any harm. But since a number of religions routinely tell us atheists we are wrong and will be punished for it, should we fight fire with fire? I can see these posters kicking up a storm in a way that other religious posters would not, and they will no doubt be thought provoking for commutors; but if religious messages are to be acceptable in the public realm then the reality is that atheist ones must be too, even if people find them offensive.

Below is a wonderful picture of Paul in action in the Guild Council chambers, where many BULS members can still reguarly be found, debating and snoozing through Guild Councils. Paul will receive a BULS salute the next time we are in the pub. If any other former members are reading, please get in touch, we would love to hear from you!

Paul Crofts and co in action, 1973

I think of this every time I walk alone after dark. To the despair of my friends and mother, and despite my nerves, when sober enough I’ve always refused to let fear put me off walking home alone. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always lived in relatively “safe” areas; but then whatever the statistics are, anyone can get mugged, anywhere.

There are measures I take to give myself a sense of security. Perhaps least effectively, I sometimes emasculate my silhouette if I’m planning a trip; a shapeless hoodie and trousers with pockets say “woman” far less than a skirt, tailored jacket and bag.

This can backfire. Tonight two separate women passed me just after midnight this morning with terrified glances, and I started to know what the man in the Amnesty magazine felt like. As I turned into my road, a man was behind me and I glanced over my shoulder. I saw he was wearing a suit and instantly felt at ease- and then kicked myself for being so prejudiced. I glanced round again without really thinking about it, and he crossed the road and sped off. Any other time of day, or if he had been a woman, it would have been ok; but because it was dark, and he was a man, he must have known it would have put me on edge. I almost wanted to shout after him, I’m sorry; I felt bad for making him feel distrusted because of his gender.

It’s one thing for me to worry about being out alone in the dark in England; in various other places in the world, the circumstances of me being there (on my way back from a pub, where I had been with gay people, unchaperoned, head uncovered, to a house I share with two men who are neither relations nor husbands) would be a catalog of crimes. It was this train of thought that convinced me to make the ten minute walk to the pub on my own at half ten, because I knew I was just lucky enough to have the choice.

But I know that by going out at night, alone, I am running a risk, be it small or large, and its one that a lot of women would not chose to take. Imagine a world without violence against women? Its one where the first thought a woman has when she sees a man at night no longer has to be fear. Its one where women are confident enough to enjoy their lives to the full, and not jump at shadows in the dark.

McCain’s response was, “No ma’am, he is a decent family man who I happen to disagree with.”

It sounds an awful lot like Mr McCain is implying that the states of being Arabic and a “decent family man” are mutually exclusive?

What struck me was… the costumes! Everyone was in suits- everyone! I don’t think I saw a single pair of jeans walk through the entrance hall that afternoon. As it got colder and later a fair few delegates appeared rather drunk- especially the young woman who told us loudly that she’d “rarther be a lapdancer than work in a coffee shorp!” before running away when we asked her why. One man didn’t see the need for any regulation whatsoever and seemed unconvinced that sex trafficking was any sort of problem.

But on the whole the response was ok, although there was none of the buzz of factions and pressure groups you get at anything vaguely left wing… and I wonder how many delegates made use of their Rocket Club vouchers?

I don’t believe that for one minute. How can they justify denying young women access to life saving vaccinations? That doesn’t sound very Christian to me.

Critics have suggested that if she were serious about child poverty she’d have given her money to another charity; but it comes back to the debate as to who should look after needy causes, the state or the charitable sector? Rowling has clearly chosen the state, and has recognised that keeping Labour in power will secure not just one million pounds to fight child poverty; it will mean a lot, lot more.

The first, no regular user of WordPress can have failed to notice; having been little mentioned in the press, the Alaska Women Reject Palin Rally is hearteningly reported on the Mudflats blog, and details the protest which saw over a thousand Alaskan women picket Sarah Palin’s post convention homecoming. How bitterly disappointing it is that the woman with the best chance of making the White House perhaps ever has such retrograde views on both human rights and scientific fact; and how intensely frustrating that the world doesn’t seem to mind.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Harriet Harman holds the equivalent job to that which Palin is vying for, but the contrast could not be greater. A champion of womens rights, with her head firmly screwed on, Harman is Palin’s political opposite. Harman is no stranger to being slagged off in the British press for her feminist policies, and the blog I came across yesterday sadly reflects how a lot of British men feel about her. It is written by an angry conspiracy theorist, but the views expressed on it are far form isolated; they are just a slightly less eloquent regurgitation of the views routinely expressed about her by the right wing press.

Palin is feted by a stunned British media; even the Guardian, opposed to her politically, saw her as a curiosity and gave her far more coverage than she deserved. The amount of over exposure is illustrated by a quick Googlefight; Sarah Palin gets nearly twice as many hits as her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden. The contrast between the coverage she and Harman receive is exemplified in The Sun article comparing her to “that boot-faced robot of political correctness Harriet Harperson”.

Why is our homegrown womens champion routinely belittled while this Alaskan medievalist is so celebrated? I worry it is a question of glitz and glamour as much as it is one of politics. Harman is neither dour nor unattractive, but inhabits the drab world of UK politics, and is unlikely to send women rushing to the shops to buy her glasses or have them copying her hairstyle. Harman is upfront and unashamed of her feminism, while Palin hides behind her super-woman exterior a set of downright dangerous policies that could set back the fight for womens equality in America by decades. That the UK is so transfixed by this woman and so unappreciative of Harman means either the press is inheritently shallow, sexist or both. While I would like to think it is the former, I fear that sexism has rather a lot more to do with it than we would like to admit.

For example, there are the costs incurred just getting to and from work; and any other expenses, like uniform or food. In my mind I take these costs off my hours worked; I know I must work x amount of time before I start to break even. Just at a glance:

Return train fare to work: 15 mins work
Taxi fare on Sudays, when public transport not availale: 90 mins
Trousers to work in (Tesco Value): 2hrs ten mins
Boots meal deal (If I forget lunch): 35 mins

Then the other stuff of survival and leisure:
Newspaper: ten mins
Pint: 20-30 mins
Cinema ticket: 45 mins
Takeaway meal: 90 mins
DVD: 2 hours
Train ticket to see family: eight hours
Typical text book: nine hours
Weeks rent: ten hours

And just for interst:
Admissions ticket to my place of work: four hours

It’s a funny way to look at things, dividing them up into hours given for what is gained. The weirder thing is, wheras everyone gets the same amount back for the money they pay, everyone gets something completley different back for the time they put in. One of my hours is not equal to someone elses hours in the time economy, but to each of us an hour of our own lives is equally precious. This is the injustice of low paid work.

Imagine then my surprise when it emerged I was earning less than my colleagues. Not just than the permanent staff; other temps with far less experience were getting paid more than me. It’s an all too familiar story, and even now, decades after it was outlawed, firms get regularly taken to court for paying their female, disabled or LGBT staff less than others doing the same job. But mine was not one of these cases; on the contrary, my employer’s right to pay me less for identical work was enshrined in UK law, and it’s all because of my age.

Living independently and renting a house, paying bills and studying for a degree, I incur all the same life costs as I will in seven months time, when I turn twenty-two. I enjoy all the same rights and responsibilities as I will next March, and I could, were I so inclined, be married or have children to support. This doesn’t just apply to people of my age; it could be anyone over the age of sixteen.

So why is my employer allowed to get away with paying me less? At present there are three different minimum wage brackets, and the temps I work with, all with the same job, span them all. My supervisor, three years my junior and with more job responsibilities than me, is paid less. A girl who has since left, with no previous work experience but one year of life more on me, earned nearly a pound an hour more than me; another, saving for University and trying to fund her way through college aged 17, over a pound an hour less. All of us working there were students at some level or another, trying to make ends meet; thus dismissing the argument that a lower wage encourages people to stay in education longer. If anything, it makes it harder.

Age discrimination is a hot topic at the moment, but most of the media focus on the top end, with the elderly being retired or sidelined early. When will we look to the young people, who work long hours in often dull unrewarding jobs, often to fun education or to support a family, yet are paid less?

Equal pay must be given for equal work. Many Labour Party members will hail the minimum wage as the party’s proudest achievement, but while I am without the £162.84 I missed out on this summer, I cannot celebrate it. The developent rate is nothing short of an age tax, levvied on some of the poorest, lowest earners in our society. Let’s do the Labour thing and scrap it.

As I have said all along, I don’t care who leads us just as long as I can be proud of the policies we promote and enact. Since there is an excellent chance we won’t get a forth term, it would be exciting to see some of the progressive policies that came out of the national consultation put into practice while we know we can, rather than gathering dust in a forgotten manifesto. Sorting out the minimum wage would be a nice start…

Needing to get to work early yesterday morning, I was unable to take the train as normal, as it was a Sunday; I was unable to take the bus, as it was a Sunday. Not fancy walking for an hour prior to the nine hour shift on my feet when I got there, I got a taxi to work- costing me an hour and a half’s wages. Finishing at 6, the shops were shut, and I was unable to do the shopping I needed until today, as it was a Sunday.

Back when I was at sixth-form college I did 9-5 days Monday to Friday, then worked 8-5 Saturdays. On my one day off, a Sunday, I was very limited in my leisure options because everywhere was bloody closed. The idea of the nation taking it easy for one day a week is all very nice, but if that’s you’re only day off then you are barred from living it normally. If you have to work that day, you can’t get to work as you normally would, and it negates the idea of a “day of rest” anyway- emergency services and essential services don’t have a designated down day every week, why should the rest of us be subjected to it? In any well managed workfoce the staff will be given sufficient days off to rest themselves, make that law instead of forcing it to be a Sunday. Not even the religious argument holds up any more, as less than 50% of the country call themselves Christian.

When will we end this bloody annoying hangover from yesteryear and start to have a fully functioning country?

SATs were meant to be a test of schools, but have become a test of pupils too. Headlines report how students are without results, anxiously waiting; this is completely wrong, the point of SATs was to see how well the school had taught (whether it achieves this or not being dubious), not to be a level of achievement for each child to aspire to. Yes, they are useful for setting pupils, but schools can do that easily through their own tests with far less stress.

Please, please can we scrap the SATs?

Sadly, only seven of the twenty-six candidates were female. Of these, five were aligned to parties (although these tended to be small and included the Miss Great Britain Party) and two were independent. Contrast this with the nineteen men who stood; fourteen were independent and five had parties, although again given the size of these parties they are probably best counted as independent.

What got me most about the results, however, was that of the seven women standing, six occupied the top positions 2-7 after David Davis. Whether this was due to their being women or that they represented some of the more significant of the small parties is also up for debate- I suspect the latter, but still find it interesting, and somewhat heartening.

Browsing the Guardian in the evening, it offers me tips on how to survive having a little less money in my pocket. Having been a student the last few years I suspect there is little they can teach me, and I appear to be right. “Food might still be ok to eat past its sell-by date”, it tells me. Other stating-the-bloody-obvious statements include the idea that I should buy in bulk to save. That’s all very nice, but I can’t afford a car, and don’t fancy carrying a three kilo bag of pasta home from the shops with the rest of my shopping.

This blog is really just a rant on all things loosely credit crunch related, so I’ll finish on to another Guardian publication that narked me off. A few weeks ago, they did a series of cut-out-and-keep guides to surviving the “crunch”- one was on raising children. They gave an astronomical figure for the cost of raising a child, followed by a break-down of what this included. It pointed out you could save money by switching to a state school. Was this really the Guardian I was reading? The grand total also included contributions to the child’s tuition fees at University, which is ridiculous as offspring are meant to pay them off themselves, and a full set of driving lessons with a first car thrown in for good measure. What the hell?! Easy way to survive the crunch- make your kids get a bloody part-time job to pay for lessons and cars themselves if they really want them, like most normal kids. Stop spoiling them.

End of rant. I’m off to the cinema to see Mama Mia. Wish me luck. :s

I am interested by Jill Saward, a rape victim and campaigner who has done marvellous work in the past and is against David Davis on the issue of a DNA database (it would undoubtedly drive up rape convictions), and David Bishop, from the Church of the Militant Elvis Party. The socialist in me admires his stance on todays capitalist society (It made Elvis a “fat media joke”). Not so keep on his plan to put cameras in Nick Clegg’s bedroom, though, or to imprison Cherie Blair, so I think he’ll have to come off the short list.

So, who are you backing?

More importantly though, why won’t Coke, or Coca Cola, which one actually did contain Cocaine and is named after it, be included in this ban? And what about my year three class teacher, Mrs Cocaine?

Photos of the group will be provided as soon as I am reunited with my laptop and camera back in Brum! Until then you’ll have to make do with Amy Winehouse looking a bit drunk.