General Election Evaluation

So last week the Conservative party got a majority of 12 seats. In all honesty, this wasn't the result that the majority of us wanted based on votes. So in this post I will sum up where it all went wrong.

People thought until 10pm that there was a huge chance that Ed Miliband would be walking into 10 Downing Street eventually as the Prime Minister from the 2015 General Election, offering a living wage, preventing tax evasion, keeping the UK in Europe, keeping employee's rights. Instead we saw Ed Miliband unfortunately resign from Labour and David Cameron enter 10 Downing Street, essentially promising us what the S*n newspaper (don't buy this paper...ever JFT96) have decided should happen, in other words, we are run once more by an Australian who has decided it's in his best interest to randomly become American. Rupert Murdoch.

The Sun Newspaper Announces Cameron has used their manifesto.

Now this is one of the areas I fear the election was lost. If you read the Mail you will dellusionally disagree with me, but the right wing papers played a fear game. A game of "do you want this guy, who looks dodgy in a freeze frame running (improving) this country we live in? He may join the Scots, wouldn't you hate it if the Scottish had a say? 

Let's be honest here, the idea of the Scots having a say isn't exactly invalid. They are a country in the Union but our papers did decide the only way to run an election campaign with the Tories winning was to in fact make us hate another nation in our Union at a time when the nations are already divided after the referendum on Scottish Independence. Surely if the Conservative party was that brilliant:

1. They wouldn't have needed scaring the public to vote for them to win
2. The Scottish Nationalist Party wouldn't have opposed them as strongly as they did (ie "we will block any Tory Government on the back of a hung parliament) 

Anyway we have elected to be controlled by Rupert Murdoch, so for the good of me and my career prospects I should probably congratulate him. So here is a picture of the winner from last Thursday.

The most powerful man in (well not in) Britain Rupert Murdoch

I shall also now send my condolences to all foxes seeming the Government want to bring back the most cruel activity of them all. I can only apologise for the way our country voted (well 24% of those eligible to be precise).

A fox, unaware that soon it will be hunted down and ripped into pieces.

And in all seriousness. What did Ed Miliband do wrong?

Well I am of the opinion some of the people coming out to attack Miliband from inside Labour are totally out of their minds. And let me explain why! When we look at countries like India we look and imagine their poorest range of people living rather than the few millionaires, when we looked at Brazil in the World Cup a lot came up about the poor people living in Shanty Towns. Just because the UK is apparently richer and more developed, shouldn't we judge ourselves on the same basis as we judge them? Shouldn't we judge ourselves on the issue of the poorest? Shouldn't we judge ourselves on how our disabled, our young, our single parents, our homeless, our carers, our low wage workers are treated? The majority of Labours policies actually helped these people at the expense of those that could afford to pay a little more tax or in the form of non doms a lot more tax. 

Maybe going against the non doms was a bad move in terms of elections for Miliband because the owners of the right wing media get let off on tax in non dom schemes and similar ways and therefore were bound to go against the guy. But really shouldn't they look at the poorest people in the country with empathy and want to pay their part? 

Yes, he wasn't the same sort of speaker as Obama, but he was a man who genuinely wanted to make lives better for people, a man who was determined to change. Maybe not enough, but in many aspects in the right direction. A man who wanted to give us a full democracy in regards to the House of Lords, a man that wanted to see the NHS public, rather than private. 

Miliband didn't fail. We failed. 

And I have a feeling we may also miss those Lib Dems. Well other than Vince/Danny.

Now let's rebuild, regroup and fight for a fairer Britain. 

I will post in the future regarding the poor appointment of members of the cabinet and the proposed loss to our Human Rights.

Tomorrow We Have A Chance to Change This Country...To Save This Country...Let's Not F*ck This Up! (Also, should we condone the media bullying parade?)

May 7th 2015. The UK General Election. Some are calling it the closest ever, many the most important in a generation. But are they giving the real reasons as to why? What can change? Did the last Government actually succeed?

I know that with sending this on my Facebook/Twitter a lot of people reading will be or have been students, so let's start and see what the Government did there as an example of the current failings.

• Went and increased the average debt of a student leaving University (the original student loan idea was by the Tony Blair New Labour Government). The average debt someone leaving University has is well over the £40,000 mark. I can admit here, I'm lucky being in the last year before these changes, however I am not naive. These people are our future, but we've burdened them with ridiculous debt.

• The Last Governments System:The idea of paying towards this higher education is not something I will claim to be an evil idea. Up till a point there was evidence that graduates would get paid more in their lifetime than people who didn't attend university. Obviously these things have changed. Still paying for higher education probably is right. But £9,000? For a year of uni? That's way over the odds. Numerous reasons apply, especially the fact that other than a lecture per module per week and a few tutorials and meetings, how well you do in your degree really isn't up to the lecturer but your work ethic.
• There are alternatives and this is what needs to be stressed. Labour offer us a tuition fee decrease to £6,000 a year. Is this still too much? Yes. Perhaps the elitist establishments of Oxbridge, St Andrews and a few others could warrant £5,000 a year. But a tuition fee debt shouldn't really put anybody into more than £10,000 of debt. Although I believe that really, tuition fees shouldn't be charged like this, they shouldn't put one in debt. The Green Party are the other party that offer change by wiping tuition fees. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party have officially not ruled out rising fees OVER the £10,000 barrier.
• What Should Happen: Simple Really. Graduate Tax. Scrap tuition fees completely. The graduate tax would gain similar money back in comparison to the tuition fee system. The difference is the Government would not have to write off a debt in a few decades time for anyone. It also would send graduates into their working life with a lot less debt. These people are the future. Some people may say "But mature students may not work a lot more to pay these taxes", well true, but is this a problem? The art of learning and the ambition to learn whatever age you are should be encouraged. It's good to have multiple ages learning together at University as it sets people up for the real world. It's not like 19 year olds will all work with people within 2 years of their age group when they leave uni. 
• Reality: The Graduate tax probably won't be enforced by any party standing in the election. However here you need to consider, which Prime Minister would listen to normal people should they come to this idea? I really doubt that David Cameron or Nick Clegg would. Miliband on Russell Brand's Trews implied that people should be active in political ideas all year round, not just at the election, an indication he may listen to some ideas. Although it would be unlikely that the Labour party would push this through, we could make steps towards it if we get Miliband in. Especially if the Green Party can also hold a voice in the next Government. Possibly even the dreaded SNP when it comes to the tuition fee idea considering the Scottish people do not pay fees,

Conclusion

It would be criminal to elect a Government who haven't ruled out increasing fees for the future generations. People shouldn't leave University with debt, they should leave with hopes and prospects and a career within sight. Giving them more debt in the last Government was a massive failure of trust, giving even more would be criminal. It has already left young people feeling alienated. Let's not completely lose them!

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The Job Market is another thing that's up for debate tomorrow when you vote. Now we hear all about the amount of jobs that are apparently there for us in comparison to when the Gordon Brown's Labour Government departed 10 Downing Street. However I would believe we need to look at the bigger picture when it comes to this statement. So here we go.

Job Quality

Obviously I am a graduate, as explained on most of my social networking accounts. I have been looking for full time work. I briefly held a pretty demeaning zero hour contract at Wetherspoons (personal advice, don't work for them, especially Lloyds Great Western in Cardiff. Management are a joke...but that's another story). But I can tell you from that experience, everybody should have the option to say that they don't want a zero hour contract. 700,000 people have their main job as a zero hours contract. Employers such as Wetherspoons, Sports Direct and more use these contracts. And you cannot say to these employers that you wish to have the security of a job with a certain amount of hours. This is wrong and these companies need to change. We need to force this change as a community. Sure some people may want zero hour contracts, but if you want the security of knowing you have 16 hours a week at least, you should have it. It should be your right to have it. 

The other reality is that despite the claims of more jobs...39 jobs out of 40 created since the recession are part time jobs. These clearly have negative effects on people. They also lead to the question of what people who were in jobs with services such as the police in 2010 who had their jobs cut by the Government (34,000 of them!) are now doing. Are they earning similar wage packets? Gaining similar job satisfaction? Having their range of skills efficiently used?

The reality is, many are probably lucky if they're hitting half of what they were. 

Then there's the other big dilemma here. The Conservatives want a country where you are rewarded for working. So if we have all these jobs, I'd like David Cameron, William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith or Eric Pickles to answer these questions:

Why is there a record number of working families below the poverty level due to low wages? 

Why are food banks seeing the numbers of people significantly rise (almost to the million mark)?

Why in a country with a target of no children in poverty, why have we seen child poverty rise?

If we have these more jobs and if these jobs are a reason to claim success, these questions should not have to be asked. End of.

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My other issue is the issue of elitism, which also comes to the issues of equality. 

We are in a nation that lives in a history of elitism. We saw women throw themselves under horses for the vote, we were one of the countries that led slavery. We still have a lot of people in this country with views on other people that are prejudice whether it be because of their nationality, skin colour, age, religion, gender or sexuality.

One thing we have seen a rise in the last 5 years though was the elitism in class. This elitism includes such things as the celebration of the boat race, the gaps between Eton and a normal state school. One that I noticed in a twitter argument with someone I can only describe as a biggot however was the idea of The Russell Group. The brilliant thing with this group is Russell is perceived as a working class name (bit of elitism coming there). We need to see elitist establishments realise they are no more special than any of the others. Eton should realise that they are no more important than a state school like my own Bideford College or a private school like Kingsley. Personally I'd scrap all private schools as it benefits to have all sorts of people in a school, well nearly all sorts but I guess I may come to that. But also private schools create an unhealthy divide. The best teachers should work with normal people. America failed with the American Dream but the American Dream should really be the British Aim. I'd also have Cambridge and Oxford realise they are no more important than Exeter University who in turn are no more important than Plymouth University. Allow underrated Universitys to become the countries top if they're run better. The reality is the days of Cambridge and Oxford producing all our MP's for instance should be over. It's elitist and isn't in the interest of anyone reading this. Just because you've gone to a different University it doesn't make you any less able. 

Things like the boat race should be made so that all the Universitys have a chance to qualify. As someone who has rowed, I know it's not too hard for them t set up a time trial for instance with the top 2 going into a race. A proper boat race should take into account EVERY higher education establishment, not the two who have their heads up their own ass, thinking that their only rival is the other. We've moved on from the Tudor's. 

Which brings me on to the other issue of elitism. As someone called James I was VERY worried by the outcome of the gender of the royal brat baby seeming it was expected a boy would take my beloved name. Luckily for me, it was a girl. But should we really be looking up to an elitist family we have no say on changing. No say on reforming. Should we really be happy about a baby we will never meet? Or should our politics actually be elected more so than it is today. Believe it or not I am in favour of the queen remaining queen, however I believe we should consider what to happen when she dies. Is it fair on George or Charlotte to live a life that is totally elitist. It's not. It's not fair on them or us. In a time where we cut benefits for people who can't get work we let these babies and their families live on cloud nine. In a world where they know little about a normal person. We need radical change. However, the monarch can wait...because my main issue, yes, you may have guessed it...is the House Of Lords.

The House Of Lords prevent us from having what would be regarded as a full democracy. We need to take a step into the end of elitism by making this house FULLY elected. From there, maybe our nation will take some steps forwards to become great once more. You'd also like to hope it could be a sign to the EU that we would also like an elected group of EU Commissioners. 

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Should We Realise And Condone The Media Bullying Parade.

If it wasn't the day before the election this would be another post. But in the last 24 hours I have become the most liked post on a Daily Mail article, possibly with more than 10,000 likes pointing out one of the reasons they fear the Labour Government is to do with the whole idea that their owner will have to pay taxes. But are some of the media bullying Ed Miliband. 

For instance here is the Sun's headline today:

Now I'm guessing we all knew bullies in school. But whilst some went to prison for thuggery and others ended up changing and improving as people...it appears some ended up at the Sun Newspaper and other tabloids. 

Should we be allowing OUR papers to tell us who to vote for because they aren't shown incentives that will benefit by the party? Should we elect a man on his ability to eat a bacon sandwich? Or should we elect a man because he cares about the country, about normal people and wants to do his bit in changing the country to make it a better place?

If the Tories win tomorrow, it's because too many Sun readers (they're not the brightest, bless them) and Mail readers (to be honest, they're not the brightest either) have been scaremongered into voting for the Conservative party. Well here is the fact:

IF the Tories win, the Scottish Nationalists will swing further towards another cry for independence with a Government they don't trust and have a hatred towards. The Tories would then also stand a far bigger chance of winning elections WITHOUT Scotland and therefore slyly benefit to an extent once the Union is broken...

So tomorrow when you vote...and you should vote...if you live in Brighton, keep Greens in. But if you live anywhere else in England, Scotland or Wales, vote Labour, vote for the first baby step towards a better Britain, a brighter future. 

Then on May 8th all the way through the parliament, don't stay silent on your opinion, let it be known. It matters. Tomorrow is the start of changing the country.

Just don't f*ck it up! 

Forgetting My Degree....Or Not

So today I got told whilst on a "Work Placement" (with the highly incompetent HMRC) that today I would be looking for jobs. Something I could do and do do at home at my desk in my room. This was told to me (and two others) with no further warning. It almost seemed insulting at the beginning like I had no knowledge of applying for jobs but I guess it is better than taping bloody grids onto white boards, something I never thought I'd be doing almost a year after giving in my dissertation at University. Mind you I guess Andrea Dossena didn't think he'd be shoplifting at Harrod's when he lobbed Casillas in 2009.)

Furthermore from this I was told that for applications I should consider removing my degree from my Curriculum Vitae (albeit I couldn't exactly show my CV considering with no warning and no access to cloud computing I couldn't exactly magic it along). 

This isn't what you want to hear, especially when someone else being "advised" is told they need to say what they did with their last 12 months on theirs. Why wipe out three years of mine that saw me get my highest qualification then?! I was pretty furious on this. 

I'll admit when I went into do my degree, I was hopeful there would be jobs going, obviously that hasn't happened. Apparently the London Riots (oh and Birmingham and Manchester) showed that we could have less police for instance (don't ask me how the Government came to this conclusion). And if the Conservative Party win the election it appears this will still be the same given that in the televised "debate" between the two possible prime ministers this happened:

“I know that you put your lives on the line very day to keep us safe and I have huge respect for what the police do for us.

David Cameron

Mr Cameron added: “Police budgets came down by some 20 per cent but at the same time, police have done such a good job, crime has come down by almost 20 per cent.”

When asked for his response Mr Malik answered “no comment” to sniggers from the audience.

Reported by the Coventry Telegraph (see article here)

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So does this mean that whilst this sort of service isn't going to be generally recuiting from outside, or training in many ways that I should forget the three years I spent at University and forget my degree on my CV. I must admit I find this utterly insulting. The people who have studied degrees have generally worked hard for degrees. Yes we had some fun along the way,

And then we see Conservative voters like the pretty useless Apprentice contestant, who it seems ironically spends more time on a beach than working said a stereotype on students on BBC Free Speech : Ask A Tory ‘I would rather employ someone with life experience, than someone who fannied about getting drunk at uni.’.


Surely students deserve more respect and more help and support from services to find jobs in the sector they worked in. Even if it starts with work experience, rather than making young people particularly work in places they have no interest of working in in the future, who don't have a plan on what you will be doing the next day and so on. 

Surely this should be beneficial? Surely the next Government needs to change this. I'm pretty sure they'll get more out of me in a positive ambitious mood than a disillusioned mood. and I'm sure this would be the same with many more,

Remember you have until April 20th to register to vote, click here to find the registration page. Let's change this country for the better!

General Election Letter To Local Tory Candidate

As you know the General Election is only a month away now and as I believe the current system is flawed for many, I thought I would send emails to all local candidates to see the response. The first party I have emailed was the Conservative party.

I will copy the letter into a post and I shall update it when/if I receive a reply. If it helps one more person vote then I regard it as a success. If the outcome of the election see's no real notable positive change then I believe it is down to us as one to stand up and let our opinions be known one way or another. Anyway here we go:

Email sent: April 7th 15.36

Dear The Conservative Candidate for West Cardiff,

I am a constituent to the area you propose to be a member of parliament for. It will be my first election as a voter with myself being finally over the age barrier (which I personally believe should be lowered to 16 giving the fact I had many friends in my 6 form last election who were into the general election). I lived in Torridge that time and although I wanted the Conservatives to win I didn’t want the Tory candidate to win due to his pretty appalling attendance rate in Parliament due to his second job (Geoffrey Cox) and therefore for that seat was preferable to the Liberal Democrats, especially with their tuition fee pledge being much liked by my age group. Their tuition pledge which rather than holding onto when you formed coalition with them, was scrapped for one of the most pointless referendums in mankinds history. A pledge which after being broken, had salt put into the wounds with the fees going up to £9000. This put a lot of my better friends into an average of £44k of debt. Is this fair for our future generation? Do the future decide to be punished for the presents faults with the economy? We feel used, your party told us there were no plans, the Lib Dems told us they would scrap them. We end up with £9000 tuition feels for sometimes 10 hours of lectures and tutorials a week If we were going to pay a bigger loan perhaps paying a bigger maintenance loan would have annoyed us left with many people having to scrap money off their parents or out of their savings to even cover their rent in Plymouth or have more than £10 to live on a week. How does this make you feel like the party of the normal people? The people trying to make a way in life? Doesn’t it just feel like a punishment for having ambition? And how are we not going to feel the pinch when we wipe the majority of it off?  However I am finding it difficult to find reasons to vote conservative in this general election.

I have since been to University, in Plymouth where I studied Criminology and Law. Aims included looking into such careers as the police, or doing a Graduate Diploma of Law and begin my training to become a lawyer. However since leaving university I preferred the idea of the first more. However cuts to public spending makes it very difficult to find any way of applying to be a PCSO or a Police Officer never mind get in. Plus the Police and Crime Commissioner is one of the most pointless posts in the world, with it just leaving to public disillusion with how the police are run. This is proven by the low turnout in the election for them and to an extent it politicalises the police which is something that should never happen. We’ve all heard about some of the misdemeanours of South Yorkshire police with the mining strikes with some alleged Government involvement.

Beyond my aim for this career, it is also difficult to get a job. I want full time work, but when I search it isn’t readily available to an entrance level, with mainly part time and zero hours available. I had a zero hours contract at Wetherspoons, however turning up at 10 and finishing at 1 was a waste of time for me with it taking an hour to walk too both ways. So it really only lasted a few weeks when the Autumn rugby was on.

So I have found myself on JSA. And whilst I look for a job that's fine. Better that than nothing, despite the total control they try to get to your life, almost making you feel like a criminal, a scrounger when you go in. Is that fair? I’m active in looking for work! I prefer to apply for a few hours every other day however I am told then it looks like I haven’t applied certain  days but I’ve applied for 20 jobs a week in average the last 6 months? Am I a criminal for that? Is this Big Brother society in the DWP fair? What would you do about this?

Add insult to injury I was put onto a Movement to Work course. Now okay, work experience can be important. I’d much prefer it to be in the sector I have done a degree to go into of course (but those good old spending cuts have ruined my ambition of that for now, seen a decrease in reported crime but a rise in unreported crime with the police lacking the resources and public backing nowadays), but my real problem with this is, when I see your stats about how many people are in work, I count as someone who does work. I don’t get paid for it! Okay I get my Kob Seekers but then if you call that a wage, that’s £2 an hour. If that counts as employed by the Government, they might as well include any form of slave labour! There isn't a real option of a job at the end of the four weeks, but I count as employed which makes me wonder what are the figures of employment when you take away the people that aren’t actually employed? Does your party know? Or do you just have these fake statistics, as that’s what they are the way they currently are formed. So when I see this Tory job miracle I’m left thinking its b*ll*cks.

And finally, if your policies are so damn good, why when I go on facebook, or see a tory campaign poster, or when I see your chancellor (who despite people like myself having the issues I have listed above, wont rule out a tax cut for the wealthy) and leader make an appearance on the news do I just get the perception that your campaign isn’t based on policies, it’s based on slating the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband? The personal swipes are just bullying and I’ve seen nothing in your leader to say he’s a better leader than Miliband or indeed Clegg. Why do I open a newspapers website, a newspaper that’s openly Tory, and rather than see “look at this amazing policy” do I see “vote us because Miliband is incompetent” or “they might go into coalition with the SNP”. It’s not like your party haven't had a coalition, plus the SNP, Plaid and the Greens would only want a vote by vote alliance. And it’s not like your party’s coalition stuck to all their policies. And can you rule out a coalition with UKIP who want to split us up with Europe who poorer parts of the nation such as Wales and Cornwall need?

After all of this, can you explain to me, why your party deserve my vote?

Thanks,

James.

Why are schools suddenly becoming extremist?

Three years ago now, I left Bideford College with some promising qualifications. I admit many of us had been annoyed at the Governments syllabus for subjects, English and Maths stand out for me with their old fashioned books and trigonometry, part of Maths I don't think I will ever see the point of. I believe some people got more annoyed by the rules the headteacher had power sending out, but really the one that stands out was probably no headphone or earphone policy that was implemented, unsuccessfully at the time* in my GCSE years.

Now however I turn on BBC News to find out Islamic extremists are infiltrating our schools. And I can reveal the reason why, a thing that I have always been against in the "evolution" of schools and that is in fact academies.

Academies are negative for schooling., even if the old state schools needed a kick in the teeth, this was not the right way to do it, allowing investment into schools and a different style of curriculum that is decided by those funding it is wrong. Schools should all have the same rules for what they learn in subjects such as science and religious education to stop this, but the way academies are given a free roam means they can abuse their power. This doesn't just apply for the religion of Islam either, the religion of Christianity can do this just as bad with creationism in both religions beliefs as they share parts of the Old Testament. In fact, the religions are not all that different with their views. Maybe forms of Christianity have moved on, in fact they have, the same can go for Islam, but you can still find people from both religions who follow their religious books word by word and therefore will believe that creationism is how the world started, that men are above women and that not believing in these words will send you straight to hell when you die, regardless of what you do with your life.

It is these people that can come in and challenge the minds of our young people in this country, that can try to make them believe this, whether is be creationism or even more concerning from what I have read, that the man can have sex with his wife whenever she wants, regardless of what she says (something that was wiped out of British law only in 1992, in the case R v R at the House of Lords). Without academies and with 100% properly qualified teachers working inside of schools, sticking on the whole to a syllabus for the subject, this can be combated. The only things that have failed these last few years are the Government and Michael Gove who have failed to see this.

Despite just having finished it, education is one of the points I care most about when it comes to next years General Election, as I believe we are at a huge risk of seeing the standards of our children's education enter a decline, not because of how extremists are coming in, but how general people are able to come in and make the syllabus favour them. We need to see state regulation, even if it did need some evolving back in my day maybe to help people of different talents, but that was one of the reasons for schools specialising in a specific subjecy, something which in a City like Birmingham was brilliant as a child in the catchment area for two schools could have seen his or her choice of school picked by the specialised subject if they were stronger at one. The other reason that concerns me is the funding disparities between academies and schools as I mentioned when discussing the Route 39 Academy in North Devon.

If I am to go to a hustings in the build up for the next election, which I shall make the best efforts to attend (maybe a few in different seats I care about) then education, the NHS and Legal Aid are things I shall be wanting to ask about, with the first two taking the priority.