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?

Election communication review 2015

I can’t believe it’s three years since the last review I did, back when we had a by-election in 2012. I’m getting quite an archive of reviews.

This year some parties are standing who haven’t been in touch yet. According to one website the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the Class War Party and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition are standing. But no election communication, no ratings on this blog.

The rules for scoring this time round are: 

Candidates score points for:

~ number of pieces of bumf through the door

~ number of definite promises they make

~ number of ways they offer you to get in touch, not including generic websites

~ number of different candidate photos, with bonus points if they are with the party leader

~ a point for bilingual Welsh/English leaflets

Candidates are dinged points for

~ the number of other people they blame for the mess we're in,

~ number of negative comments about other parties

~ photos of politicians belonging to other parties

~ meaningless ‘slogan’ promises e.g. ‘I’m going to fight for Welsh jobs’

As before, I'm going to list them alphabetically by candidates’ surname. That means we start with our current MP, Stephen Doughty. I’ve also included who they think will win.

Candidate: Stephen Doughty

Party: Labour

Bumf: 3 = 3 points

Definite promises: 12

Contact: 4

Photos: 9 (including one in an orange jumpsuit and hard hat). No pictures of him with Ed Miliband.

Bilingual: 2 (both leaflets are at least partly bilingual)

Blame: 0

Negative comments: -9 (mainly the Tories, one reference each to the Lib Dems and UKIP)

Photos of other politicians: 0

Sloganeering: -10

Comment: Nice use of endorsements on one leaflet and also a list of things he’s done as MP. He’s apparently responded to over 5,000 letters in his three years as an MP.

Who will win? Stephen would like you to re-elect him as part of a Labour Government.

TOTAL: 30 – 19 = a score of +11

Candidate: Ben Foday

Party: Plaid Cymru / Party of Wales

Bumf: 2

Definite promises: 6

Contact: 0 – all generic contact details

Photos: 6 (one used twice on the same leaflet). There’s a picture of Leanne Wood in each leaflet, but evidently Ben hasn’t met her or didn’t have his camera with him when he did.

Bilingual: 2 – (both fully bilingual with Welsh first)

Blame: 0

Negative comments: 0 (although they do say that ‘Westminster isn’t working’ and ‘Don’t let the others take your vote for granted’ so they neatly side-step getting dinged)

Other politicians: 0

Sloganeering: -5

Comment: Ben needs a better designer as several of the photos in his leaflet have been stretched out of proportion. One leaflet included a good bit talking about what Plaid have done in Parliament in the last few years.

Who will win? Plaid reckon it’s going to be a hung parliament so vote for them to ensure Wales has a stronger voice. Interesting strategy.

TOTAL: 18 – 5 = a score of +13

Candidate: John Rees-Evans

Party: UKIP

Bumf: 5 (but 2 don’t mention the candidate at all)

Definite promises: 49 (mainly based on a detailed ‘Policies for People in Wales’ leaflet – not counting any that just say UKIP supports... or UKIP opposes...)

Contact: 3 (including a QR code)

Photos: 3, possibly 4, it’s hard to be sure. Being generous, so will give him 4 points.

Bilingual: None

Blame: 2 (“the Tories and Labour have failed us”)

Negative comments: 11

Other politicians: 2 unflattering pictures of Ed Miliband, including the famous bacon sandwich pic

Sloganeering: 40 (Again, a lot of these came out of the Policies for Wales leaflet.)

Comments: UKIP are at least up front about what they want to do, but there are times when they are a bit disingenuous, e.g. talking about developing shale gas without using the word fracking. There is also a laughable disconnect between their leaflet’s promises to prevent the privatisation of the NHS and what their leaders are on record as saying. But no one gets dinged for that, so, they are off the hook.

Who will win? “UKIP are trailing Labour only very narrowly in Cardiff South & Penarth and the final result may be extremely close.” So, predicting Labour to win then...

TOTAL: 61 – 55 = a total of + 6

Candidate: Emma Warman

Party: Conservative Party

Bumf: 1

Definite promises: 2

Contact: 4 (including a Facebook profile)

Photos: 5 + 1 bonus point for a picture of her with David Cameron

Bilingual: 1

Blame: 0

Negative comments: 2

Other politicians: A bumper crop of 5

Sloganeering: 5

Comment: Emma needs to smile more in her pictures. She looks downright miserable in the photo of her handing over a big cheque to charity. (Insert your own joke here.)

Who will win? Vote Tory or get a “Coalition of Chaos” says Emma. Serious warning because the last coalition has been chaotic, I guess.

TOTAL: 16 – 12 = a total of + 4

The verdict. It looks like the Liberal Desperates have finally got tired in this constituency and given up. There’s been nothing from them. Plaid Cymru seem to have a nice candidate. UKIP are regressive, most of their definite promises are about repealing stuff or leaving various different parts of the EU. The Tories have parachuted in someone, although she did get to go down Cardiff Bay with a camera to take some photos. Shame she didn’t smile in them a bit more. Our current MP is proud of his record and his local links to the area. It’s a shame there haven’t been any minority parties pushing stuff through the door. That’s always good for this kind of blog post. 

The other thing I wish I'd done is ding people for using obvious stock photography. Ah, well, maybe in 2020.

Previous editions:

2012 by-election

2010 general election

2009 European Parliament elections

Welsh Assembly 2007 elections (plus update 1 and how I learned to my cost to make sure my wife knew to keep any bumf as well)

What would a UKIP Britain look like?

UKIP are making the news. Putting aside all the more outlandish elements – like the major donor who thinks it should be illegal for women to wear trousers, or the councillor who thinks there’s a causal link between gay marriages and flooding, or the guy who thinks we should euthanize babies with Down’s Syndrome (these are all real things – Google them) – there is a chance of electoral success in 2015.

Certainly, what UKIP has done is drive an increasingly hostile political narrative around immigration. The way immigration is reported and the way immigrants are written about in the press is almost entirely negative. It’s as if wanting to live somewhere else is criminally immoral and anyone wanting to move overseas is a black-hearted monster. Which I guess is bad news for the one and half million British-born people sunning it up in Spain.

I have a stake in the immigration debate because my Grandmother was an immigrant. She met and married my Granddad while he was on active service during the war – getting married in 1945 before the war ended. She gave birth to my Mum just after coming to this country, in January 1946.

It was a difficult time to be an immigrant. Being Scandinavian, Grandma had an accent that sounded a bit German to many people. Many men had been killed in the war, so there was an imbalance in society meaning many women were unlikely to meet and marry someone. So there was resentment of a foreigner marrying a man, when men generally were in short supply. (My Grandma was told this.)

My Mum has told me that when she was little the other mums in her village wouldn’t let their children play with her. For no other reason than her mum (my Gran) was foreign.

These days we would call that racist. And rightly so, because it was.

But that racism is what I think of when I hear Nigel Farage braying on about immigrants. The narratives we listen to shape our thought patterns. If we really believe the wicked foreigners are after our jobs and our women and our comfortable lifestyles; if we think they are criminals and thieves, then that will shape how we respond to them.

Racism is subtle. We can easily find ourselves agreeing with comments like the one Nigel Farage made about not wanting to live next door to a family of Romanians. And the next thing is you’re not allowing your kids to play with their kids for no other reason than because you are racist.

And that’s what I think a UKIP Britain would look like. It’s sad so many people seem to think that would be a better place to live. I hoped people were better than that.