The "lucky" unlucky Politics students have even more to write about

Back in 2022 I compared the mundanity of studying Politics in the 90s with the chaos of the last few years. My mum brought that up when we were chatting last night. As things seem to have gone even crazier since that blog post, I thought it might be time for a follow up. 

In the last two years we have had three Prime Ministers. One of them now holds the record for shortest Prime Ministerial term, which yet somehow also aligned with the death of the UK's longest reigning monarch. Then there was a coronation - the first in a lifetime for anyone under 70. 

We had changes in leadership in the devolved governments as well, and for a brief moment both First Ministers and the Prime Minister in mainland Britain were non-white. Vaughan Gething, who was Cymru's Prif Weinediog for about four months, made history by being the first black leader of any European country. 

The fact that none of them lasted very long in charge and two have already been replaced by white men (the other post is currently vacant) feels a bit regressive. Vaughan's tenure ended this week after bitter rows about screenshots of ministerial group conversations during the pandemic being leaked to the press, and ongoing questions about campaign donations. Along the way he became the first First Minister to lose a Senedd vote of no confidence. 

The most recent change in UK Prime Minister came about due to a General Election, which I've already blogged about. It was an unusual election, with Labour achieving a huge majority but other, more interesting stories on the fringes, like independent candidates winning in areas with large Muslim communities, the Green Party winning 4 seats, and success also for Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. 

And that's just politics in the UK. For my A-level we spent a year studying American politics. So I understand the system quite well. But back in the early 90s, current events were, frankly, boring. Bill Clinton had yet to get accused of anything untoward with an intern and American politics was far less polarised.

Contrast with current events now. Last weekend former President Donald Trump was wounded by a shooter at one of his campaign rallies. A couple of days later he was named the Republican nominee for the Presidential election later this year. He's also named a running mate who apparently thinks Britain has been taken over by Islamists. It's a bizarre claim considering the Muslim protest vote against Labour.

And now it seems the incumbent President, Joe Biden, might decide not to run for a second term. It's really not clear who would have the profile to step in at this late stage and take Trump on.

There is an old curse 'May you live in interesting times'. I'm beginning to think the times are too interesting. And I feel really sorry for anyone doing a Politics A-level at the moment. 

Anyone sitting their exams this summer would have enough material to write about just from events that happened while they were studying! I have no idea if they could keep up with everything. 

The lucky unlucky generation of politics students

Reflecting on a chaotic week in British politics. I keep thinking how exciting things must be for anyone doing an A-Level in Politics at the moment or starting one soon. I can't help comparing this to when I did my politics A-level from 1992 to 1994.

In the preceding decade there had been one change of Prime Minister - when John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The big "current" story was analysing the gap between the polls - which predicted Labour would win the 1992 General Election - and the reality, when John Major won a slight majority to extend Tory government for another five years. In the USA, Bill Clinton won the Presidential Election against the incumbent President, which was slightly unexpected because incumbents usually win. We did one year on UK politics and the second year on US politics, so Clinton's win was well-timed to be current. 

And that was just about it. The various seminars I went to in the course of my A-Level had very little else to discuss except for those misleading polls. I heard lots of theories about it, including from Tony Benn and Alastair Campbell before he became the infamous master of spin for Tony Blair. The most obvious reason for it was that people were ashamed to admit they voted Tory so lied to pollsters. 

Compare and contrast that to the situation now. A decade ago we were in the middle of the first official coalition government of my lifetime. There was a referendum on independence in Scotland. Then there was a General Election where the Tories won an unexpected majority as the Liberal Democrats reaped the reward for their alliance with the Tories and were immolated at the ballot box. That was 2015 - seven years ago - and everything has gone all kinds of crazy since. 

The only picture of this man you will see on this blog

Anyone studying "recent events" since then would struggle to keep up. There was the Brexit referendum (I voted to Remain). David Cameron quit as Prime Minister and was replaced by Theresa May. She gambled on getting a larger majority to push Brexit through against her own rebel MPs, and then lost the governmental majority in a general election in 2017. 

Although Theresa gamely struggled on, she was effectively sacked by her party in 2019, replaced by Boris Johnson. He then called another election - in 2019 - and won a massive majority by promising to "Get Brexit Done". That got fast-tracked and the UK had a 'hard Brexit' in January 2020 ending the 47 year membership of the EEC / EU. And then we've had all the ongoing shenanigans, corruption and lies culminating in a resignation that wasn't really a resignation.

And that's just the UK. The USA political scene hasn't been quite as dramatic, although the election of Donald Trump, thanks in a large way to the weaponisation of evangelical Christians in a 'Culture War', and particularly the end of his reign with an attempted insurrection on the steps of the Capitol, could keep an A-level student in essay topics for days. (Incidentally, the Tories have attempted to co-opt religion over here - it's just not such a massive demographic to tap in to.)

I really don't know where people would start studying all that. Even so, part of me is kind of jealous when I think of how boring politics was in the early 90s.

However, my envy for the current generation of A-Level students is tempered by knowing they are going to have to live with the consequences of all this nonsense. Particularly Brexit, which is already having dire economic consequences. But also the way the country now seems to have a choice of frothing right-wingers intent on pandering to racists and bigots to be its next leader. Who knows what fresh hell will be unleashed from the people eyeing up the job of Prime Minister.

Today's students are going to have to live with these consequences for longer than I will. They might have more to write about in their A-Level work, but at what cost?