The achievement of UKIP this weekend really is hard to overstate. As the media have been quick to trumpet, this is the first election in over a hundred years not to have been 'won' by either Labour or the Conservatives.
But this disguises a lot. In the two general elections of 1910, the Conservatives (just) outpolled the Liberal party, as it then was, but the Liberals held the edge on seats. So actually, the last election to have been clearly won by someone other than Labour or Conservative was in 1906, when the Liberals took 397 seats and 48.9% of the vote.
But the Liberals are sort of still with us, in the form of the much battered and bruised Liberal Democrats. So in actual fact, the last time a national election was won by anyone other than the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberals was... never. Since the advent of party politics in the late 17th century, with Whigs and Tories forming into loose blocs in Parliament, a broadly left wing group has faced a broadly right wing group. Even if the names have changed, or even the ideas espoused have changed, that has been a relative constant.
And there's more. Those victories by the Liberals were achieved in the days before true universal suffrage. No women could vote, and far from the entire adult male population could vote either. So, in fact, by taking 4.35 million votes, UKIP have the highest number of votes for a party which isn't one of the big three, ever.
Whether some of these will dissipate at a general election remains to be seen. Personally, I think it will. My money is still on an outcome. But everything is in flux, and British politics has indeed seen a bit of an earthquake.
Wednesday 28 May 2014
Tuesday 27 May 2014
The Wit and Wisdom of... Clement Attlee
The result of the meeting? Oh, we're carrying on. That's all.
Clement Attlee, leaving Downing Street after the first Cabinet following the 1950 general election, which saw Labour's majority plummet from 146 to five, 24/02/1950
Thursday 22 May 2014
The Wit and Wisdom of... LBJ
But only... all... who have been denied the right to vote, can really walk through those doors, and can use that right, and can transform the vote into an instrument of justice and fulfilment.
If you do this, then you will find, as others have found before you, that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States of America, signing the Voter Rights Act into law, 1966
Saturday 17 May 2014
What If... Thatcher Took the Hint?
As the votes were counted, it was clear that Margaret Thatcher's optimism had been well founded. In a contest between the most successful leader of the Conservative party in living memory and an elderly backbencher, the result was never in any real doubt. Mrs Thatcher had trounced Sir Anthony Meyer, winning the backing of 314 Tory MPs to Sir Anthony's 33. In the dying days of the 1980s, the Conservative leader looked safe until at least the next general election. However, over the Christmas parliamentary recess, Thatcher consulted with her close advisers. If abstentions and spoilt papers were taken into account, 60 MPs had failed to back their leader. After over a decade in office, dissent was growing on the backbenches. The economy was starting to show signs of faltering, and the Community Charge was provoking an enormous clash in the country. Reluctantly, Thatcher came to the realisation that she would not win a fourth general election in 1991 or 1992.
But few of Thatcher's cabinet ministers can have been expecting her announcement at the first meeting of 1990. She told them she had decided that, after ten and a half years in office, it was time to stand down, thus giving her successor time to establish themself before a general election. The country was stunned. To many, the candidate to replace Mrs Thatcher was obvious. Since his dramatic walkout resignation from her cabinet in 1986, Michael Heseltine had been waiting in the shadows for his moment to strike. Extremely popular with voters, and with a public image to match that of Thatcher herself, there seemed no way that the premiership was not Tarzan's for the taking. When it emerged in the first ballot of the Tory leadership election that his only challengers were to be the patrician, remote, One-Nation Tory Douglas Hurd and the right wing backbencher Nicholas Budgen, it looked as though Heseltine was home and dry.
But there was another high profile ex-cabinet minister lurking in the wings. Norman Tebbit, former Financial Times journalist, former RAF and commercial pilot, and the MP for Chingford since 1970, had been a Thatcherite cheerleader from the word go. Instinctively anti-socialist, it was Tebbit who had helped put the ideology of Thatcherism into words which resonated with the public, most famously with his 'get on your bike' ethic (although he never actually said those exact words). After steering the Conservative party to victory in the 1987 election, many had expected Tebbit to be appointed to one of the great offices of government. But Tebbit carried a deep scar from his time in government. He had been badly injured in the Brighton bombing of 1984, and his wife had been left paralysed. He retired from the government to devote his time to caring for her. But, as he told Woodrow Wyatt in 1988, if Thatcher was to go and he didn't like the look of her replacement, he would be forced to intervene. And, for all their cooperation in abolishing London's education authority, Tebbit and Heseltine did not see eye to eye. So Tebbit threw his hat into the ring, declaring he wanted to see Thatcher's achievements taken to new heights. Budgen, knowing the game was up, withdrew. Thatcher was delighted, and made little secret of who she would prefer to see succeed her.
When the results were counted, Tebbit had the backing of 215 MPs, versus 126 for Heseltine, 30 for Hurd and 3 abstentions. Under the complex rules for electing a new Tory leader, Tebbit had won comfortably, avoiding a second ballot. His first act was to build a new cabinet. Mrs Thatcher had only changed the big players of Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary a few months before, so Tebbit offered John Major, Douglas Hurd and David Waddington the chance remain in their jobs, which they all accepted. Michael Heseltine found himself recalled to the government, going back to the Ministry of Defence.
One of Tebbit's first moves in government was to announce a review of the hated Community Charge, widely known as the Poll Tax, under the direction of his new Environment Secretary Ken Clarke, a known Tory moderate. Clarke was set what became known as the 'Tebbit test'; any replacement for the old rates had to be acceptable to all Tebbit's Essex constituents, from council tenants to rich millionaires. Although bills did arrive in households in March, the knowledge that the tax was likely to be scrapped helped to take the wind out of the sails from the anti-Poll Tax groups. A demonstration planned for the end of March in London fizzled out, and with the issue negated the Conservatives began to gain on Labour in the polls. But with the economy beginning to dip into recession, Tebbit would clearly have a struggle on his hands.
Then the IRA struck again. Eyebrows had been raised by Tebbit's choice of Ian Gow, a Thatcher loyalist and strident Unionist, as his Northern Irish Secretary. But no one was expecting what followed. In July 1990 Gow was killed when a car bomb detonated outside his constituency home in Sussex. The IRA claimed responsibility, pointing to Gow's closeness to Thatcher and Tebbit, and his support for Unionism. Tebbit then shocked the political world by deciding to become his own Northern Irish Secretary, and ordering a security crackdown in the Province. The result was an enormous upsurge in violence, as a heavier army presence led to increased paramilitary attacks. The loyalist paramilitary groups also stepped up their activities, and it began to look as if the Prime Minister was leading Northern Ireland back into the appalling violence of the 1970s.
Whether all of this would have changed without the death of one of the most prominent paramilitaries will never be known. Driving to a political meeting in Belfast in September 1990, a car containing the prominent Sinn Fein politicians and alleged IRA commanders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness was attacked by gunmen. McGuinness was killed in the shootout, while all the other occupants were badly injured, with Adams having to have his leg amputated. Whilst it has never been proved that the SAS were responsible for the attack, it was widely believed at the time; no loyalist group came forward to claim responsibility for the attack, and Tebbit took advantage of the incident to make the Downing Street Declaration, in which he promised that the UK government would never bow to the men of violence. Adding off the record that Adams losing his leg gave him a taste of his own medicine was very much an insight into Tebbit's mindset. Relations between London and Dublin cooled dramatically, as Tebbit returned to the idea that Northern Ireland was a security problem for the United Kingdom, not a constitutional one to be solved jointly with the Irish. In turn, the IRA stepped up its bombing campaign on the mainland, with the London Docklands, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Liverpool all seeing bombs during this tense period. But after these attacks, the IRA and Sinn Fein retreated underground, realising they could not survive an all out war with the British army. Instead, they began to plan for a road to a peaceful end to the Troubles.
But Northern Ireland had always defied the norms of British politics, and bizarrely Tebbit's popularity seemed boosted by his strong policies there. Coupled with British success in the Gulf War against Iraq, Tebbit went into the 1991 election with high hopes, campaigning on a distinctively Thatcherite manifesto of resistance to the EC, lower immigration, lower taxes and a smaller state. The result was victory, a majority of 89 seats. For Labour, Neil Kinnock was devastated. The change of Prime Minister 18 months before had apparently been enough to sink his chances of becoming Prime Minister. He resigned, to be replaced by John Smith, although there were many who thought if Labour could not win in the midst of a recession, after 12 years of Conservative rule with an openly right wing leader at their head, they might never be able to win at all.
With this overwhelming mandate behind him, in the autumn of 1991 Tebbit headed off to the EC summit at Maastricht for the negotiation on the new European treaty. Never a friend of Brussels, Tebbit tore into the idea of 'ever closer union' and a European single currency. For good measure, he announced that Britain would leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism if a single currency was agreed upon. After much wrangling, Tebbit agreed to the creation of a European Union, but extracted an opt-out for Britain from much of its provisions. This opt-out from the ERM would prove critical, as it saved the pound from collapse when the system broke down in September 1992. However, not all Conservative MPs were pleased with Tebbit's performance. Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and Chris Patten all resigned from the government; however, these pro-Maastricht rebels in the Conservative party were not enough to threaten Tebbit's substantial majority.
Although the recession of 1990-93 was deep and painful, the economy soon bounced back, with Chancellor John Major taking much of the credit. Inflation dropped to record low levels, and unemployment began to fall as well. and Tebbit's administration was also particularly active in the field of social security reform, removing entitlements from many higher earners, but also increasing sanctions for abuse of the system. Tighter immigration controls proved popular, as did schemes to encourage ethnic minorities to integrate into British society. In education, plans to introduce tuition fees for university education provoked a storm of protests amongst students. However, vice-chancellors were delighted, and many worried parents were pacified by the generous scheme of grants, bursaries and loans which was introduced. Many on the left attacked Tebbit and his government as being too harsh, too insular, but these criticisms just seemed to bounce off the Prime Minister. Indeed, as he pointed out, he was not so ardently Thatcherite that he would dream of extreme privatisation; the Post Office and British Rail remained in public hands, although the last of the coal mines did go. Overseas, Britain became increasingly disconnected with the rest of the EU, but did support the UN intervention in the former Yugoslavia. It was enough to guarantee Tebbit victory at the 1995 general election, albeit with a reduced majority of 47.
But this was to be the last hurrah of the Tebbit government. It had been clear for a while that there was an increasing disjuncture between the Conservative party and modern British culture. After their defeat in 1995, Labour chose Tony Blair as their new leader; after all, they'd only kept Margaret Beckett after John Smith died because they were afraid Tebbit would use any vacancy to call an election. Blair proved very popular with the public, and Labour rapidly pulled ahead of the Conservatives in the polls. It seemed that economic competence was no longer enough; voters wanted a government which cared too. Disastrous local election results in 1996 saw the Conservatives almost pushed into third place, and they lost hundreds upon hundreds of council seats, a trend which was set to intensify.
But the Prime Minister was already set to resign. After his 65th birthday in March 1996, Tebbit had hinted he would not be leader at the next election, and then surprised everyone by announcing he would stand down in time for the Tory conference in October. In the contest to replace him Michael Portillo, darling of the Thatcherites and ultimate heir-presumptive to their cause since the late-80s, emerged victorious, the youngest Prime Minister since the 19th century. Tebbit was initially enthusiastic about his replacement, declaring to the conference "if you thought I was right-wing, wait till you see this guy." But Portillo surprised everyone by emerging as a social liberal; his 'Portillo Moment,' whereby he promised to use extra tax revenues to care for those at the bottom of society, was originally seen as a game changer. However, Portillo had reckoned without the civil war this move would cause to erupt in the Conservative party, with his predecessor, now Lord Tebbit, leading the attack. Portillo's move came to be seen as an attempt to steal the rug from under Tony Blair. All the tensions of a party which had been in power for nearly twenty years exploded into the open, and Labour pulled further and further ahead in the polls. That Portillo had a former leader of his party sniping at him from the Lords did nothing to help his position. Portillo held off the election for as long as he could. But his government had ceased to function, meaning he had little concrete achievements to point to other than muddling through. The nadir of his premiership came with the frankly naff Millennium Celebrations in December 1999; after a year, no one could still work out what the Millennium Dome had been for. And so in May 2000, 21 years of Conservative rule were brought to an end with the landslide victory by Tony Blair and the Labour party. Portillo barely held on to his Enfield seat. The next day, the IRA declared a ceasefire and called for negotiations to open with the new British government. Truly, the Tebbit era had ended.
P.S. Tebbit Cabinet, 1990
Prime Minister- Norman Tebbit
Chancellor of the Exchequer- John Major
Foreign Secretary- Douglas Hurd
Home Secretary- David Waddington
Defence Secretary- Michael Heseltine
Education Secretary- Ken Baker
Health Secretary- Chris Patten
Trade and Industry Secretary- Nicholas Ridley
Social Security Secretary- Cecil Parkinson
Environment Secretary- Ken Clarke
Employment Secretary- Peter Lilley
Transport Secretary- Tom King
Energy Secretary- Norman Fowler
Scottish Secretary- Malcolm Rifkind
Welsh Secretary- Edwina Curry
Northern Irish Secretary- Ian Gow
Chief Secretary to the Treasury- Norman Lamont
Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister- John Gummer
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster- John Biffen
Leader, House of Commons- Sir Geoffrey Howe
Leader, House of Lords- Lord Belstead
P.P.S. Prime Ministers, 1990-2014
1979-1990- Margaret Thatcher (Con)
1990-1996- Norman Tebbit (Con)
1996-2000- Michael Portillo (Con)
2000-2009- Tony Blair (Lab)
2009-2013- Gordon Brown (Lab)
2013-2014- William Hague (Con)
But few of Thatcher's cabinet ministers can have been expecting her announcement at the first meeting of 1990. She told them she had decided that, after ten and a half years in office, it was time to stand down, thus giving her successor time to establish themself before a general election. The country was stunned. To many, the candidate to replace Mrs Thatcher was obvious. Since his dramatic walkout resignation from her cabinet in 1986, Michael Heseltine had been waiting in the shadows for his moment to strike. Extremely popular with voters, and with a public image to match that of Thatcher herself, there seemed no way that the premiership was not Tarzan's for the taking. When it emerged in the first ballot of the Tory leadership election that his only challengers were to be the patrician, remote, One-Nation Tory Douglas Hurd and the right wing backbencher Nicholas Budgen, it looked as though Heseltine was home and dry.
But there was another high profile ex-cabinet minister lurking in the wings. Norman Tebbit, former Financial Times journalist, former RAF and commercial pilot, and the MP for Chingford since 1970, had been a Thatcherite cheerleader from the word go. Instinctively anti-socialist, it was Tebbit who had helped put the ideology of Thatcherism into words which resonated with the public, most famously with his 'get on your bike' ethic (although he never actually said those exact words). After steering the Conservative party to victory in the 1987 election, many had expected Tebbit to be appointed to one of the great offices of government. But Tebbit carried a deep scar from his time in government. He had been badly injured in the Brighton bombing of 1984, and his wife had been left paralysed. He retired from the government to devote his time to caring for her. But, as he told Woodrow Wyatt in 1988, if Thatcher was to go and he didn't like the look of her replacement, he would be forced to intervene. And, for all their cooperation in abolishing London's education authority, Tebbit and Heseltine did not see eye to eye. So Tebbit threw his hat into the ring, declaring he wanted to see Thatcher's achievements taken to new heights. Budgen, knowing the game was up, withdrew. Thatcher was delighted, and made little secret of who she would prefer to see succeed her.
When the results were counted, Tebbit had the backing of 215 MPs, versus 126 for Heseltine, 30 for Hurd and 3 abstentions. Under the complex rules for electing a new Tory leader, Tebbit had won comfortably, avoiding a second ballot. His first act was to build a new cabinet. Mrs Thatcher had only changed the big players of Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary a few months before, so Tebbit offered John Major, Douglas Hurd and David Waddington the chance remain in their jobs, which they all accepted. Michael Heseltine found himself recalled to the government, going back to the Ministry of Defence.
One of Tebbit's first moves in government was to announce a review of the hated Community Charge, widely known as the Poll Tax, under the direction of his new Environment Secretary Ken Clarke, a known Tory moderate. Clarke was set what became known as the 'Tebbit test'; any replacement for the old rates had to be acceptable to all Tebbit's Essex constituents, from council tenants to rich millionaires. Although bills did arrive in households in March, the knowledge that the tax was likely to be scrapped helped to take the wind out of the sails from the anti-Poll Tax groups. A demonstration planned for the end of March in London fizzled out, and with the issue negated the Conservatives began to gain on Labour in the polls. But with the economy beginning to dip into recession, Tebbit would clearly have a struggle on his hands.
Then the IRA struck again. Eyebrows had been raised by Tebbit's choice of Ian Gow, a Thatcher loyalist and strident Unionist, as his Northern Irish Secretary. But no one was expecting what followed. In July 1990 Gow was killed when a car bomb detonated outside his constituency home in Sussex. The IRA claimed responsibility, pointing to Gow's closeness to Thatcher and Tebbit, and his support for Unionism. Tebbit then shocked the political world by deciding to become his own Northern Irish Secretary, and ordering a security crackdown in the Province. The result was an enormous upsurge in violence, as a heavier army presence led to increased paramilitary attacks. The loyalist paramilitary groups also stepped up their activities, and it began to look as if the Prime Minister was leading Northern Ireland back into the appalling violence of the 1970s.
Whether all of this would have changed without the death of one of the most prominent paramilitaries will never be known. Driving to a political meeting in Belfast in September 1990, a car containing the prominent Sinn Fein politicians and alleged IRA commanders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness was attacked by gunmen. McGuinness was killed in the shootout, while all the other occupants were badly injured, with Adams having to have his leg amputated. Whilst it has never been proved that the SAS were responsible for the attack, it was widely believed at the time; no loyalist group came forward to claim responsibility for the attack, and Tebbit took advantage of the incident to make the Downing Street Declaration, in which he promised that the UK government would never bow to the men of violence. Adding off the record that Adams losing his leg gave him a taste of his own medicine was very much an insight into Tebbit's mindset. Relations between London and Dublin cooled dramatically, as Tebbit returned to the idea that Northern Ireland was a security problem for the United Kingdom, not a constitutional one to be solved jointly with the Irish. In turn, the IRA stepped up its bombing campaign on the mainland, with the London Docklands, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Liverpool all seeing bombs during this tense period. But after these attacks, the IRA and Sinn Fein retreated underground, realising they could not survive an all out war with the British army. Instead, they began to plan for a road to a peaceful end to the Troubles.
But Northern Ireland had always defied the norms of British politics, and bizarrely Tebbit's popularity seemed boosted by his strong policies there. Coupled with British success in the Gulf War against Iraq, Tebbit went into the 1991 election with high hopes, campaigning on a distinctively Thatcherite manifesto of resistance to the EC, lower immigration, lower taxes and a smaller state. The result was victory, a majority of 89 seats. For Labour, Neil Kinnock was devastated. The change of Prime Minister 18 months before had apparently been enough to sink his chances of becoming Prime Minister. He resigned, to be replaced by John Smith, although there were many who thought if Labour could not win in the midst of a recession, after 12 years of Conservative rule with an openly right wing leader at their head, they might never be able to win at all.
With this overwhelming mandate behind him, in the autumn of 1991 Tebbit headed off to the EC summit at Maastricht for the negotiation on the new European treaty. Never a friend of Brussels, Tebbit tore into the idea of 'ever closer union' and a European single currency. For good measure, he announced that Britain would leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism if a single currency was agreed upon. After much wrangling, Tebbit agreed to the creation of a European Union, but extracted an opt-out for Britain from much of its provisions. This opt-out from the ERM would prove critical, as it saved the pound from collapse when the system broke down in September 1992. However, not all Conservative MPs were pleased with Tebbit's performance. Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and Chris Patten all resigned from the government; however, these pro-Maastricht rebels in the Conservative party were not enough to threaten Tebbit's substantial majority.
Although the recession of 1990-93 was deep and painful, the economy soon bounced back, with Chancellor John Major taking much of the credit. Inflation dropped to record low levels, and unemployment began to fall as well. and Tebbit's administration was also particularly active in the field of social security reform, removing entitlements from many higher earners, but also increasing sanctions for abuse of the system. Tighter immigration controls proved popular, as did schemes to encourage ethnic minorities to integrate into British society. In education, plans to introduce tuition fees for university education provoked a storm of protests amongst students. However, vice-chancellors were delighted, and many worried parents were pacified by the generous scheme of grants, bursaries and loans which was introduced. Many on the left attacked Tebbit and his government as being too harsh, too insular, but these criticisms just seemed to bounce off the Prime Minister. Indeed, as he pointed out, he was not so ardently Thatcherite that he would dream of extreme privatisation; the Post Office and British Rail remained in public hands, although the last of the coal mines did go. Overseas, Britain became increasingly disconnected with the rest of the EU, but did support the UN intervention in the former Yugoslavia. It was enough to guarantee Tebbit victory at the 1995 general election, albeit with a reduced majority of 47.
But this was to be the last hurrah of the Tebbit government. It had been clear for a while that there was an increasing disjuncture between the Conservative party and modern British culture. After their defeat in 1995, Labour chose Tony Blair as their new leader; after all, they'd only kept Margaret Beckett after John Smith died because they were afraid Tebbit would use any vacancy to call an election. Blair proved very popular with the public, and Labour rapidly pulled ahead of the Conservatives in the polls. It seemed that economic competence was no longer enough; voters wanted a government which cared too. Disastrous local election results in 1996 saw the Conservatives almost pushed into third place, and they lost hundreds upon hundreds of council seats, a trend which was set to intensify.
But the Prime Minister was already set to resign. After his 65th birthday in March 1996, Tebbit had hinted he would not be leader at the next election, and then surprised everyone by announcing he would stand down in time for the Tory conference in October. In the contest to replace him Michael Portillo, darling of the Thatcherites and ultimate heir-presumptive to their cause since the late-80s, emerged victorious, the youngest Prime Minister since the 19th century. Tebbit was initially enthusiastic about his replacement, declaring to the conference "if you thought I was right-wing, wait till you see this guy." But Portillo surprised everyone by emerging as a social liberal; his 'Portillo Moment,' whereby he promised to use extra tax revenues to care for those at the bottom of society, was originally seen as a game changer. However, Portillo had reckoned without the civil war this move would cause to erupt in the Conservative party, with his predecessor, now Lord Tebbit, leading the attack. Portillo's move came to be seen as an attempt to steal the rug from under Tony Blair. All the tensions of a party which had been in power for nearly twenty years exploded into the open, and Labour pulled further and further ahead in the polls. That Portillo had a former leader of his party sniping at him from the Lords did nothing to help his position. Portillo held off the election for as long as he could. But his government had ceased to function, meaning he had little concrete achievements to point to other than muddling through. The nadir of his premiership came with the frankly naff Millennium Celebrations in December 1999; after a year, no one could still work out what the Millennium Dome had been for. And so in May 2000, 21 years of Conservative rule were brought to an end with the landslide victory by Tony Blair and the Labour party. Portillo barely held on to his Enfield seat. The next day, the IRA declared a ceasefire and called for negotiations to open with the new British government. Truly, the Tebbit era had ended.
P.S. Tebbit Cabinet, 1990
Prime Minister- Norman Tebbit
Chancellor of the Exchequer- John Major
Foreign Secretary- Douglas Hurd
Home Secretary- David Waddington
Defence Secretary- Michael Heseltine
Education Secretary- Ken Baker
Health Secretary- Chris Patten
Trade and Industry Secretary- Nicholas Ridley
Social Security Secretary- Cecil Parkinson
Environment Secretary- Ken Clarke
Employment Secretary- Peter Lilley
Transport Secretary- Tom King
Energy Secretary- Norman Fowler
Scottish Secretary- Malcolm Rifkind
Welsh Secretary- Edwina Curry
Northern Irish Secretary- Ian Gow
Chief Secretary to the Treasury- Norman Lamont
Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister- John Gummer
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster- John Biffen
Leader, House of Commons- Sir Geoffrey Howe
Leader, House of Lords- Lord Belstead
P.P.S. Prime Ministers, 1990-2014
1979-1990- Margaret Thatcher (Con)
1990-1996- Norman Tebbit (Con)
1996-2000- Michael Portillo (Con)
2000-2009- Tony Blair (Lab)
2009-2013- Gordon Brown (Lab)
2013-2014- William Hague (Con)
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Cold Calling, University of York Style
So last night I fell victim to a very peculiar version of cold calling. I was phoned up by my old university, which was looking to "find out what you're doing and where you're at." Apparently the university employ cash-strapped first years to call up graduates and keep tabs on them; supposedly in an attempt to not look like they stop caring the moment you are handed your degree certificate, but (I strongly suspect) also to try and guilt trip you into departing with some money to enable future generations of students to also have a good time.
Mercifully, I can talk for Britain, and having nowt better to do decided to see who would blink first. This resulted in a 45 minute conversation, with some real blinders:
"So I see you did an MA in Medieval History with us; out of interest, what encouraged you to do that at York?"
Hmm, well apart from the internationally recognised Centre for Medieval Studies (which he'd not heard of) being there, a fairly large part of my decision was that I'd already been a student there for three years. A fact he wasn't aware of. A great start, York. At least give the man some basic facts...
"You were in Halifax College, yes? At least you weren't as far away as Hes East..."
Sorry to break it to you, but when I started there in 2008, Hes East consisted of some diggers waiting for the archaeology department to stop excitedly pointing at a hole in the ground. Halifax was renowned for being 'miles away.' But, hey, nice try...
"Yes, I'm still in Halifax you see; I'm in my first year."
Oh. Dear. The poor guy on the end of the phone is barely older than the students I currently work with. When I was an MA student, one of the biggest realisations was how detached you became from the undergraduate life of the university. Three years may not seem like much, but the level of work and general maturity (within reason...) was in fact like a chasm. Now, two years out of university altogether, it began to seem more like an interstellar void...
"You were a university librarian? Wow, that's cool... They've always seemed really strange people to me!"
Also file under 'Howto Lose Friends and Alienate People.'
"So, are you interested to hear how the last round of elections went?"
No, not really. I realised YUSU politics was ridiculous whilst I was at university, and it hasn't got better in my mind since.
"I'm just wondering, why did you become a librarian when you finished your MA? I mean, it's about as far from doing medieval history as I can imagine... but then again, I can imagine 2012 wasn't a good year to graduate, was it?"
No, actually, Mr 1st year. I don't think you can imagine. I don't think you can imagine what it was like one little bit, to go straight from MA life to graduate unemployment (although I did lifeguard, so more properly it was severe underemployment). What it was like to be rejected from job after job. To be made to feel that four years of higher education had actually made things worse, not better. To discover that employers didn't care. And with the only consolation being everyone else you knew was in the same boat. And that, although things are fine now, I will never, ever forget the experience...
I look forward to their next call with great interest!
Mercifully, I can talk for Britain, and having nowt better to do decided to see who would blink first. This resulted in a 45 minute conversation, with some real blinders:
"So I see you did an MA in Medieval History with us; out of interest, what encouraged you to do that at York?"
Hmm, well apart from the internationally recognised Centre for Medieval Studies (which he'd not heard of) being there, a fairly large part of my decision was that I'd already been a student there for three years. A fact he wasn't aware of. A great start, York. At least give the man some basic facts...
"You were in Halifax College, yes? At least you weren't as far away as Hes East..."
Sorry to break it to you, but when I started there in 2008, Hes East consisted of some diggers waiting for the archaeology department to stop excitedly pointing at a hole in the ground. Halifax was renowned for being 'miles away.' But, hey, nice try...
"Yes, I'm still in Halifax you see; I'm in my first year."
Oh. Dear. The poor guy on the end of the phone is barely older than the students I currently work with. When I was an MA student, one of the biggest realisations was how detached you became from the undergraduate life of the university. Three years may not seem like much, but the level of work and general maturity (within reason...) was in fact like a chasm. Now, two years out of university altogether, it began to seem more like an interstellar void...
"You were a university librarian? Wow, that's cool... They've always seemed really strange people to me!"
Also file under 'Howto Lose Friends and Alienate People.'
"So, are you interested to hear how the last round of elections went?"
No, not really. I realised YUSU politics was ridiculous whilst I was at university, and it hasn't got better in my mind since.
"I'm just wondering, why did you become a librarian when you finished your MA? I mean, it's about as far from doing medieval history as I can imagine... but then again, I can imagine 2012 wasn't a good year to graduate, was it?"
No, actually, Mr 1st year. I don't think you can imagine. I don't think you can imagine what it was like one little bit, to go straight from MA life to graduate unemployment (although I did lifeguard, so more properly it was severe underemployment). What it was like to be rejected from job after job. To be made to feel that four years of higher education had actually made things worse, not better. To discover that employers didn't care. And with the only consolation being everyone else you knew was in the same boat. And that, although things are fine now, I will never, ever forget the experience...
I look forward to their next call with great interest!
Sunday 11 May 2014
The Wit and Wisdom of... John Smith
The opportunity to serve our country—that is all we ask.
Closing remarks of John Smith, leader of the Labour Party, to a fundraising dinner, 11/05/1994. The next morning he was struck dead by a double heart attack, prompting an enormous outpouring of grief from across the political spectrum. His death paved the way for the premiership of Tony Blair. Smith is arguably amongst the finest Prime Ministers this country never had.
Friday 2 May 2014
The Return of the Passenger
Dear Passenger,
We'd like to remind you that this weekend, between Saturday 3rd and Monday 5th May, the line into and out of London Euston will be closed.
This is the first of a series of closures necessary to deliver Network Rail's £81m project that will see the replacement of 12 miles of track, signalling equipment and overhead power lines in the Watford area. This essential work is part of a £120m wider scheme to improve reliability on the route between Milton Keynes and London Euston.
Now, normally, this email from London Midland would have me seething with rage. They're closing the West Coast Mainline, one of the busiest, if not the busiest, stretches of railway in the UK. Which is also my local line. In to and out of London. At great expense. Which will be paid for from raised fares. For improvements which should have been done years ago.
And yet I was delighted. Why? Because I was a passenger. Not a customer. That must be a first in the post-British Rail world. Hopefully a sign of the future?
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