Thursday, 24 May 2012

Clegg patronises every working class kid.

Nick Clegg’s argument that top Universities should lower their entry grades for state school kids is one of the most obscene things I’ve ever heard, even from the Liberal Democrats.


Snobbish grandstanding about poor kids being second class dumbos who need to be patronised into Oxbridge is about as insulting and out of touch as it gets.
Yet it is useful in getting to the heart of the matter of why state education in the UK is now so very poor. Clegg and his colleagues have clearly given up on actually giving working class kids an education on parity with their wealthier counterparts and so positive discrimination must, he wrongly assumes, come into play to balance things out.
It is highly offensive for the Coalition to continue to pursue positive discrimination for kids based on their background or skin colour. At the end of the day, they should be focusing on giving every kid the chance to flourish on a level playing field. Instead sadly our politicians seem focused on lowering standards because they don’t have the answers as to how schooling for poor kids can be vastly improved as is required.
In addition we need less talk about lowering standards and much more focus on trying to give all of our kids disciplined, rigorous, top class education. The type of education the generation before mine got, in grammar schools and vocationally-focused schools.



The answer of course is that firstly, we don’t necessarily need working class kids flooding into Universities, we need them getting taught the right skills to get to the top. Oxbridge isn’t for everyone; we need to stop acting as if the vocational route is the road to failure. It is not.
If we do that, maybe we can one day start raising standards for our poor youngsters instead of seeking to constantly lower their expectations and aspirations.


Monday, 21 May 2012

Will Ed Miliband really have the stomach for an EU referendum?

I'm pretty dubious about the talk of a potential In/Out referendum apparently being considered by the Labour Party's top brass. Sure, it would split the Conservatives massively and give David Cameron a huge headache. But ultimately, would someone as wedded to the EU project as Miliband really risk the British public voting to leave?

Recent polls have confirmed the trend that the 'In' side is down by about 20% to the 'Outers', hardly favourable. Whilst the issue is an important one that should be put to the people, I have always thought that the politician most likely to call an In/Out referendum would be one wanting us to leave, as that would seem to be the likely income.

Then again, if the benefits of EU membership are 'self-evident' as the Labour line has gone for years, maybe they truly do believe that come a referendum the British public will suddenly want to be part of the EU no matter what the cost in terms of our democracy or prosperity? That seems just about deluded enough to seem plausible to me.

Friday, 11 May 2012

The Farage speeches are a global phenomenon.

It always strikes me that when I speak to even the mostly vaguely Eurosceptic Conservative or for that matter Labour supporter, there is near enough always a glaring admiration for Nigel Farage.

Perhaps I am biased, after all he is the guy who inspired me to get off my backside and get involved in politics. But I can honestly say he is the only politician I’m aware of who scores regular viral hits with his speeches. The latest one, during which he warned of revolution in Europe due to the economic prison of the Euro, has garnered close to 100,000 views in less than 48 hours, with very little mainstream press coverage. Who else garners this reaction regularly?

Of course many boring, pedantic lefties dismiss Farage’s verbal smackdowns as beneath them. Yet whether these anti-EU tirades are crammed full of academic citations or not doesn’t matter; they encompass a sort of pent up feeling that many rightly feel is unrepresented in the UK.

After all, it is now well established by a number of different polls that we are a majority anti-EU nation as far as the public goes, or very, very close to it. This case for leaving the EU outright is rarely heard on TV, radio or in Parliament though. Despite the EU costing the taxpayer billions, despite its constant interference in our internal affairs and its destruction of our democracy, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband line up to defend it at every turn. Just as Brown did. And Blair. And Major.

The instincts of the British public know that this EU project is so very wrong that when Farage’s two or three minute speeches tear into this established wisdom with such passion and conviction, it riles and captures the imagination. I cannot be alone in thinking this; the YouTube numbers speak for themselves. So too, I should add, do the comments that appear up underneath these videos.

Far from being cheered on by a bunch of xenophobic English right-wingers as The Guardian would have you believe, ordinary citizens from Poland, Greece, Germany and right across Europe stop by to thank Nigel Farage for speaking up for them as despairing Europeans, as they speak of wishing that they had their very own Nigel Farage to cheer on, to vote for.

The Farage speeches are a phenomenon in this digital age of politics that truly breakthrough in a way that a pre-scripted back-and-forth PMQ’s never has and never will. Perhaps if other politicians spoke with more proper unscripted conviction rather than pre-filtered buzzwords, the public would be a bit more interested.

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

The EU is breeding extremism.

Those who apologise and argue for the European Union's existence and expansion have long used the argument that it has helped make Europe more peaceful.

But as it mugs taxpayers for all they have and essentially forces hostile takeovers of national democracies, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Greece, beaten and bloodied as it lays crippled in the Euro straight jacket, has seen a huge upsurge in support for the Golden Dawn Party. The Party previously had virtually no support - in 2012, with many Greeks angry, disgusted and bitter at its nation's treatment by the EU, Golden Dawn secured 7% and 21 seats in the Greek Parliament. Previously it sat at less than 0.25%.

This neo-Nazi extremism is the type of desperation many Greeks now feel. Despondent and furious, many have clearly voted for the most extreme option open to them. A Party whose logo resembles a swastika, has a uniform and goes around fighting socialists in open street battles while out campaigning. They also want to put mines on the border.

If the EU doesn't stop running roughshod over ordinary people, if national politicians don't start listening to the people, I fear that such extremism will only become more prevalent across Euorpe. This is getting serious now.

Saturday, 5 May 2012

The Tory Party doesn't own conservatives.

The Plymouth Conservatives reckon that UKIP 'are to blame' for their defeat.

They have no one but to blame but themselves. Clearly not enough of the electorate rated what their candidates or Party was offering in the area.

You could say the same for UKIP, if it wasn't for the fact that the Party saw a huge vote boost. Standing in every Plymouth Ward, UKIP averaged 20.6% in Plymouth. That's more than one in five Plymouth voters now backing UKIP.

It represents a tremendous shift in the workings of the Right in Britain. While the Left has seen the SDP breakaway from Labour in the past, as well as the formerly centre-left Liberal Democrats fragment Labour over the years, the Conservative Party hasn't seen a constant fragmentation of its own vote in terms of being outflanked on the right. UKIP has steadily grown from a very small base, whilst the Referendum Party came and went quickly.

The Conservative Party doesn't own conservatives. Conservatism no longer in Britain automatically equals Toryism. I mean just who embodies traditional conservative values on things like tax, spending, Europe and defence more; David Cameron or Nigel Farage? It is easy to see why so many right-wingers are finding UKIP the more authentic voice on the Right in Britain.

Indeed it is First Past The Post that truly acts as the biggest hindrance to UKIP, with conservatives sometimes failing to back UKIP because they don't believe they can win. When this isn't a factor, as with the European Elections, UKIP picks up millions of votes.

But it is starting to do the same in local, first past the post elections as well. The Party took 220,000 votes in England's local elections this year, more than double what it received in 2008.

Symbolic of UKIP's rise was the defeat of the Tory Leader of Tunbridge Wells Council, defeated and replaced by a Kipper. There may have been few such outright victories for UKIP this year - but with over 100 second places, huge swathes of UKIP Councillors could well be elected in 2014. The British Right may never be quite the same again - genuine conservatives now have a choice.

Friday, 4 May 2012

UKIP's opinion polls translate into votes.

There can be no doubt now: the opinion polls that have tracked UKIP's steady rise to between 8% - 11% are right.

Yes, the Party did not win hundreds of seats as some will inevitably spin. But look at the facts. The seats that UKIP did stand in saw the Party averaging around 14%. More votes have already been won than in 2008, with 300 results still to come in. The progress is there for all to see.

The strategy for UKIP has always been to build long term locally. The amount of second places achieved last night - for example in Gorleston, Great Yarmouth where from a standing start the Party was 25 votes away from taking an ultra safe Tory seat - is striking.

If the momentum continues, UKIP will take many more Council seats next year. Oh, and the year after that? The local elections coincide with the European Elections. What happens then is truly anyone's guess. All bets could be off.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

End the EU Airport Queue.

Though still relatively young, I retain the romantic notion that citizens of a country should be able to get in to their country with greater ease than those from outside of it.

Of course with Britain's luxurious EU membership, British nationality has been diluted to the extent that my romance has been mugged by political reality. I am an EU national and have the same ability to travel into the UK as a Pole, Spaniard or Frenchman. I must also queue with them to get into my country.

Brits complain about the long waiting times into the UK. But if we're queuing with the rest of the EU, of course it'll take hours. The EU's expansion now encompasses hundreds of millions of citizens, treat as a blue and gold-starred bloc.

It says a lot about the Conservatives' acceptance and implementation of the EU project that they do not object, let alone seek to reform, this ridiculous situation. Bringing in a UK queue into the country would show that we have our priorities right and that we are still a nation with a degree of independence and self-control. Alas, we are living in an EU-controlled Europe, a truly bastardised form of the nation state.