Shameless Plug: Total Politics Blog Poll 2009

You have just over 37 hours to vote for your favourite political blogs in the Total Politics Blog Poll 2009.



Here are the rules;

The rules are simple.

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count.
2. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
3. Only vote once.
4. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents are eligible or based on UK politics are eligible.
5. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
6. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2009. Any votes received after that date will not count.

So why not put this blog in your list?

JR

Esther Rantzen. What Were You Thinking?

It's official. Esther Rantzen has gone stir fry crazy. She's decided to stand as a parliamentary candidate in Luton South at the general election on an anti-sleaze ticket!

Martin Bell successfully unseated the incumbent MP, Neil Hamilton, in Tatton in 1997, but in that case Hamilton was re-standing, and there was an orchestrated effort by Alistair Campbell to get Bell elected (with both the Labour and Lib Dem candidates withdrawing in favour of Bell).

The situation here is totally different as the disgraced Labour MP, Margaret Moran, is not re-standing as a candidate. Esther had previously said she would only put herself forward if Moran was going to contest the seat.

Rantzen now looks to be waging war against the political parties in general. She isn't helping politics rebuilding, but undermining the foundations for her own gain. She has to remember that the vast majority of MPs were not implicated in the expenses affair, and there's no reason to believe that any of the candidates in Luton South would attempt to defraud the taxpayer.

This is fast turning into a huge ego trip for Esther; not the kind of person we want as a MP.

JR

Norwich North - Winners and Losers

Chloe Smith is the new Member of Parliament for Norwich North after being elected today in the by-election held on Thursday. But who are the real winners and losers?

Winners

Conservatives: Apart from the obvious, this was a good result for the Tories. Their proportion of the vote went up 6%, where the Lib Dems and Labour lost ground on their 2005 position. The Conservatives now have parliament's youngest MP at 27.

UK Independence Party: Probably their best result in a Westminster election so far, but still nowhere near winning a seat. Less than 800 votes away from pushing the Lib Dems into fourth.

Green Party: Controversial this, as they are currently the largest opposition party in Broadland Council and probably should have done better; however this is by far their best Westminster by-election result.

Losers

Labour: Labour's vote didn't just collapse, it imploded. They lost nearly 27% of the total vote since 2005, and didn't even poll half the votes of the winning candidate. Whilst this wasn't the the best of conditions to fight a by-election in, the numbers don't lie and Labour are in real trouble. Labour supporters can at least take comfort in the party keeping hold of second place.

Liberal Democrats: The Lib Dems traditionally do well in by-elections, but not this time. Their proportion of the vote fell by 2%, failed to leapfrog Labour in to second, and only just managed to hold off UKIP and cling onto third place. A major rethink is needed at LDHQ.

Peter Baggs: Only picked up 23 votes. Has he not got any friends? He also stopped the Libertarian Party in their quest to come last by a full 13 votes. Was it worth the deposit?

JR

What is the point of Liberal Youth?

Hattip to Tory Bear for this very amusing, yet painful to watch, video.



... yeah, that hasn't really answered my question!

JR

Not So Cunning!

I was in Norwich North this Sunday campaigning for Chloe Smith to be the constituency's next Member of Parliament, when I came across this leaflet put out by Labour ...


If you've been looking around the political blogs over the last few days then you've probably seen it already, but I thought I'd make it known that I was the activist that found the leaflet and brought it in to the campaign centre, where it was duly photographed (as you can see). Apparently it's the only copy that the Tories have of it!

Clearly Labour have resorted to desperation tactics. One Labour member said to me today that the Conservatives should put this flyer through every door in the constituency; well it looks like Labour have already done that for them!

JR

EXCLUSIVE: NUS Lovin'

Over the last few weeks I've been networking with fellow welfare officers and other sabbaticals from students' unions around the North West, and indeed the country. It is amazing what you find out in these networking sessions sometimes! I'm not going to reveal my source for this information as I don't want to get them into trouble, and I'm also not sure who it was who first brought it up.

I thought long and hard about releasing this information into the public domain, but since neither of these people are in my faction (if I indeed have a faction) in NUS and also it's just some good fun, I thought, "who gives a smeg!"

I was informed that

and

are seeing each other and have been for some time. †

Cue either abuse or good humour coming in my direction. Here's hoping it's the latter.

JR

Disclaimer: Whilst I have made every effort to ascertain the correct details for this story, I make no guarantee as to their accuracy and nobody else should take them as gospel (unless they know differently of course).

† Temporarily Redacted. Whilst a few issues are worked out!

Now For Aid

More effective aid. The best video from CCHQ to date.



This brings a few interesting points on where aid from the British government ends up. For example, we give aid to China; a country that has just spent an overwhelming amount of money on the Olympics. China is perfectly rich enough for us not to be sending aid.

JR

UPDATE: Apparently aid to China will stop under a Conservative government, according to Tim Montgomerie from ConservativeHome.

Student Stereotypes

I spotted a story in the Telegraph about the change in what university means to young people since their parents were there (or not as the case my be).

The author talks about the end of the golden age a decade ago (1998 to be exact), when fees were brought into the equation; before then students were seen to be tax dodging, middle class, layabouts. Of course students are still seen as tax dodging, middle class, layabouts, but does anyone know why?

There are more students from working class and disadvantaged backgrounds then ever before as some universities are falling over themselves to increase widening participation; however the stereotype still remains. The problem is the self styled top universities of the Russell Group are less worried about attracting students from non-traditional backgrounds, whilst many new universities are genuinely trying to attract these students.

It is said that university, or moving away from home in general, is a right of passage for young people. For many they won't have cooked a proper meal without parental supervision, or thought about setting a budget; but even though students have had precious little support since the introduction of fees, there are people who don't understand the changing face of students.

In the comments to that Telegraph article, I found this;

At most universities students do not live in the cities year round, but for terms. At the end of terms you see numerous middle-class parents picking up their kids to take them home for the breaks. This is not really independence is it.

Now I went home at Christmas and Easter, but I got myself home and if I wanted to stay in my student digs then I did so. That's pretty independent if you ask me. More and more students are staying in their student accommodation outside of term time, find summer jobs or take more hours at the job they do during term time anyway.

A further comment said this;

They often only learn how to get drunk, skive and chat up the opposite sex and never learn to cope as adults, get up on time, do homework, that sort of thing. Many of them are so badly prepared that they cannot study or write essays. Many have to have remedial education just to cope.

The person who left this comment goes on to support the staying at home student. I would be interested to know how this would help them cope as adults, or even get up on time (assuming both parents are working).

Do these people even remember what it was like to be young, or do they resent that students look to be having a better time than they did. What is clear is they haven't moved on from that old stereotypical student. If they went to any of the new universities, then they'd be shocked over the amount of working class students there were.

Students are now more prepared for the real world than ever before. After all, mummy and daddy can no longer afford for them not to be!

JR

Week One

I've been a sabbatical officer for one week now, and it's been a very exciting week!

Last Wednesday we went down to the Cheshire campuses to have some photos taken and meet the staff down there. Thursday and Friday we were in the Manchester building with introductions to the staff and departments that we can resource.

The highlight of the week was the sabbatical residential, held in a lovely cottage in the Lake District. We were told to meet at the Pencil Museum in Keswick at 12:45pm on Saturday, wearing the rubber gloves that were provided. We had to complete various tasks to gain points; and what do points make? These tasks included the whole team running a pub, and a scene from a comic book where Alex (VP Student Activities Manchester) was about to be run over by a train driven by Joe (VP SA Cheshire)!

Sunday saw us attempting to solve a Lego puzzle without talking to each other. We'd each been given a part of the task and each part had to be adhered to. We got there in the end.

Our next problem was transporting an egg along the nearby stream by building a vessel out of tin foil, straws, a part of toilet roll holder, cupcake holders and string. We were split into two teams and would race against each other to get our boat to the finishing line. My team built a pasty shaped boat with the egg packaged inside, whereas the other team built a raft with the egg perched on top. Chaos ensued!

On Monday we left the cottage and onto a Go Ape adventure trail, through trees and so on. All completed the course in good time, although some had scrapes and bruises from landing very amusingly at the end of the zip lines, onto the bark shreds provided. Back at home on Monday night, I slept like a rock!

On Tuesday we headed to Preston to attend the NUS regional reception. This was a good opportunity to make contacts and colleagues from other unions in the North West and to get up to speed with NUS's Funding Our Future campaign. Obviously, no NUS event would be complete without a stop at the pub before we left.

So work has started in earnest, and I'm lovin' it!

JR

0% Rise?

Gordon in today's PMQs ...



Is this some new definition of rise? Next he'll be telling us of negative percentage rises!

JR