Democracy is a confusing thing.

The unexpected arrival of a postal vote for the South East Region Euro Elections raised the difficult question of where to cast my ballot. But even more confusing is the array of parties.

I’d like to vote Labour, but I have to choose between them and the Socialist Labour Party. But then what if I’m feeling a bit democratic; should I pick the Liberal Democrts, Pro Democracy: Libertas.eu, or No2EU: Yes to Democracy? Then again I’m quite a fan of the Green movement; but then I have a choice of The Green Party or The Peace Party- Non-Violence, Justics, Environment. What if I’m feeling a bit nationalist? I have to navigate my way through the British National Party, the English Democrats, United Kingdom First and the United Kingdom Independant Party. It’s all very confusing!

Were I allowed a second preference, the child in me would like to pick the elusive and secretive Roman Party. Ave!

Prediction

While Facebook informed me that yet another of my old classmates has a baby, I thought about teen pregnancy and the recession. More and more young people will be leaving school to go to no jobs, where’s the incentive not to start their family early? A number of girls I was at school with aspired to this anyway; I remember one telling the careers adviser that her plan for after school was to have babies. With falling job prospects I predict teen pregnancy is going to rise… Some people will ride out the recession by getting an education, some will do it by getting kids. Hmmm…

Just a little thing

I’ve been hiding in a revision bubble for the last month or so, and as such have missed most of the expenses row. Emerged briefly to gasp for air and buy a newspaper to celebrate a relative lull in the exam timetable, only to find it still dominating the front pages.

I’m not clued up on the ins and outs of the scandal or the resignation, but on reading about Michael Martin one interesting detail stuck out. Women MPs, particuarly those elected in 1997, apparently tend to hold him in great regard for the help and advice he gave them on arriving at Parliament for the first time. As someone not quite from the establishment himself it was suggested he empathised with them and understood what it was like to be a relative outsider. I found this really interesting…

Now out of the real world and back to my bubble, five exams down, two to go.

Where have all the women gone?

When Cameron came to power in the Conservative party he promised a 30% female cabinet should he become PM. As anyone who has seen today’s Times can see, this seems rather unlikely.

As their front page points out, the vast majority of the top team are male. Women aren’t getting promoted and the candidates not yet selected from the infamous A-List are disproportionately female.

Why? Well we know the party has different ideas to Labour of women’s promotion; they don’t do all-women shortlists (which I am personally against actually but at least they’re getting the women in) and they don’t do women’s officers (something I am completely for). Women make up 51% of the population, 39.5% of their members, 16% of their front bench team and 8.7% of their MPS. Only 21% of their PPCs are female and so it’s not going to change any time soon either.

Why aren’t women getting ahead? Dave himself went to an all-boys school and hung out with the all-boy Bullingdon club rather a lot, maybe he thinks the lack of women is normal. Maybe he just doesn’t notice their absence. Maybe he’s just not that bothered… or is it unfair to blame him, is there an underlying problem deeply rooted in the party that needs to be sorted out?

Dave buys a new pair of flip flops

So I missed the budget, but ate my lunch to the dulcet tones of Dave Cameron slamming Gordon Brown. Now I know I’m not the brightest of bunnies but I did get a bit confused when he

• Slammed the government for making cuts, then
• Slammed the government for spending too much
• Slammed the government for taxing the “everyman” too much, through booze and fuel duty, then
• Slammed the government for tax cuts to the “everyman” through VAT reduction, and
• Slammed the government for taxing very rich people to relieve the burden on the “everyman”

… Can someone please explain to me his point with the above? If you average it all out it seemed to be a rather say-nothing speech.

Budget Build Up

My housemate and I have come to the conclusion that Alaistair Darling has the worst job in the world right now. Although as she commented, at least he has one.

So, everyone holds their breath… then in a few hours time the Tories can lambast him for getting us into debt, the Liberals can say they’d have done everything so much better without justifying how, and the Greens can moan about us not having enough spare cash to cut carbon emissions by 300%, and students can weep about how unfair it was that the Government decided to try to sort out the economy and the unemployed millions rather than cancel their student debt.

I can’t take the excitement, so I’m escaping to outer space to find out how galaxies get made. See you in my next revision break!

Sam Tarry becomes chair of Young Labour

While Young Labour members from across the country gather in Gillingham I am hunched up in a Birmingham terrace trying to learn how nuclear reactors work…. But news has just come through that Sam Tarry has become the new chair of Young Labour. This is a very exciting time for the Young Labour movement and BULS would like to wish him all the best!

Congratulations also to Steph Peacock, who was returned unapposed as for a second term as the youth rep on the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee. Keep up the good work 🙂

Anyone give a toss?

Is it wrong that I’m so happy for the guy who threw a shoe at Bush last year? He just had his sentance cut by two thirds, hurrah!

Or is my judgement over the fact that he threw a shoe at someone clouded by the fact that he threw it at Dubya?

Another Labour Day

• New fertility rights for lesbians
• More flexible working for parents
• Public sector pay saved

Just another Labour day.

New library design unveiled

Honestly, why? It looks like any other modern building, bland. The current one is loved by architects and the new one is just a nice modern structure that barely stands out. Improve the old one. I like it.

Glitz?

I was not impressed to see that David Cameron has sent out the following message to his supporters:

“The glitz of G20 is over – now we must focus on Britain.‏”

G20 “glitz“? If he thinks trying to solve global issues by sitting down and hashing out agreements with world leaders is a pointless load of “glitz” and we should be concentrating instead on ourselves… well it reminds me of this really.

It’s a shame that it’s had to lose its apostrophe…

How wonderfully amused I was to learn today of the existence of the Apostrophe Protection Society!

Tory commentators love to pull us up on our grammar on this here blog, in fact after Thatcher I’ll wager its their second favourite thing to comment on. How aghast they must have been to note that their own Tory council leaders here in Brum are ditching that beloved bastion of the educated!

I know you guys aren’t that well acquainted with the Guild but if you want to start up a uni branch of the APS you only need twenty members, I can help with the forms if you like: just get in touch.

Speaking of education, I was most interested in the new Tory ad that informs us the UK is now 24th in the world at maths, (not sure what kind or level of maths as it didn’t specify), behind both Canada and Korea. Last time I checked Korea was in fact two separate political entities, North and South Korea; where pray does the UK come in the world geography championships? I personally am wondering why I ought to be surprised that both these places have reasonable education systems, but would like to congratulate them both all the same.

The dark side of snow

The snow on my street has turned into sheet ice. Thick, solid ice. Half the neighbourhood is covered it. Half the neighbourhood is also on an incline, making walking frankly terrifying. I have taken to wearing wellies in the vain hope it will make walking easier. So far I have narrowly avoided falling flat on my arse/face, but I know some of my friends have not been so fortunate. If I’m slipping and sliding all over the place it must be hell for those slightly less physically able.

So as my housemate pointed out the other night, where on Earth is the grit? Why haven’t our roads been gritted and why is there nothing to grit our pavements with? Who exactly is in charge of all this? I guess that’s a council issue…

Jumping on the wrong bus

LocalToryMPwatch returns today with a spotlight on Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson. In this weeks local he describes the selling off of the currently council run Eastbourne Buses as “selling off the family silver” and slams their “secret plan to flog off the town hall”.

So is this a travesty in the same way it was when Thatcher sold off British coal, iron and steel, gas, electricity, water, railways, trucking, airlines, telecoms, County Hall in London? Someone either has a bit of a short memory or is just a bleeding hypocrite.

Cameron: A Tribute

It has been reported that at a private gig attended by Sarah Brown, singer Alesha Dixon dedicated her performance of this song to David Cameron. Enjoy!

Tales from the dancefloor

So this weekend I went up to spend a night in London with an old friend at his mates birthday party. We had a great time; we went to some overpriced club, wore smart clothes, and drank overpriced drinks that we couldn’t really afford. But for all that, I felt like I was in some grotty club back home; the same music, the same dance moves, the same atmosphere. The same men.

So this guy has been talking to me a bit and asks me if I want a drink. I find him a bit creepy so I tell him he can buy me one if he likes, but he’d better know I’m not going to sleep with him. He laughs, buys me a drink and starts putting his arm around me and getting a bit too friendly. So I introduce him to my (male) friend and leg it to the toilets to get away from him. I leave the toilets a bit later hoping I can slip off to some other area of the club and avoid him, but he has apparently brought my friend a drink and is waiting for me at the bar right outside the toilet door. He says, come with me, and pulls me into the men’s. Before he can get to a cubicle a security guard has us both pinned up against the sinks and is calling into his tannoy for back up.

I plead with the security guard to let me go, telling him how I don’t know the man, he dragged me in and I don’t want to be in here with him. More guards turns up, they let me go and I go back to my friend, a bit shaken. Within two minutes the man is back behind me apologising and asking for my number, and he keeps bugging me for my number until we leave.

Why the hell was a man who tried to drag a drunk girl into a toilet cubicle against her will not thrown out of the bloody club? What on Earth did he say to the (male) security guards in those two minutes when I wasn’t there? And what the hell would have happened to me if the security guard wasn’t there?

The whole incident left me beyond angry. He’s not the first guy to try this on with me or any other girl and he won’t be the last; there is a certain breed of male who won’t take no for an answer, who thinks “no” is an invitation to feel a girl up and who just won’t go away no matter what happens, who think its OK to have that kind of guy in your club and not to throw him out. And this sort of male needs to learn.

Christmas reading

I’ve just finished re-reading Jonathan Coe’s What A Carve Up!, a book I first fell in love with at thirteen (although much of its political overtones were presumable lost on me first time round). Wonderfully intelligent, funny and tragic, it tells the tale of a luckless author commissioned to write a biography of the Winshaw family, a set of modern day aristocrats and socialites who between them epitomise everything that is wrong with Thatcher’s Britain, in which the book is set. The writer’s stark lifestyle contrasts with their of opulence, greed and privilege, and at every turn he bears the brunt (either directly or indirectly) of their actions.

One of the themes of the book is that there is a fine line between greed and madness, and this is the line that the family members tread. Their attitude to life is very much “every man for himself”, one I feel sums up the underlying principle of Conservatives rather nicely. While it is no doubt a political book it is also enjoyed for its deeply clever and funny method of story telling; someone on the back cover described it as part social commentary, part detective story. Well worth a read.

Greenwash washing off

I am now back in the deep and desolate South, which means a return to one of my childhood pass-times: Local Tory MP Watch. This month my dad got a letter from said Local Tory MP, setting out ways in which our Labour government and local Lib Dem council have failed us. Amongst the travesties were prominently featured on this letter were Labour’s plans to increase tax on fuel inefficient cars, and the failure of the Lib Dems to scrap a parking scheme designed to switch people onto public transport.

Vote blue, oppose all pro-green measures? Hmmm not so catchy is it?

Wait your turn

Bored of hearing Cameron calling for an election, again, because the government did something he disagreed with.

We elected this government for five years, its their job to govern and perogative to call an election. Get over it little boy, stop getting excited and wait your turn.

The tide is turning…

The latest from Election Predictions just tumbled into my inbox…

Con 312, Lab 274, Lib 23, Con 14 short of majority

Contrast this to a month ago when the Tories were on a 44 maj and in August when it was 172…

The tide is turning back

Seeing the light

Bush’s greatest regret is, apparently, going to war on incorrect evidence.

Well, well, well.

Daughter of the Revolution

This summer I got a fair bit of reading done. Rooting around in the second hand bookshop at the end of my road, I found a charming little book in an old mustard yellow cover, and emblazoned with the elaborate imagery of the wonderfully titled Vanguard Press. Liking its title, I brought it and gave it a go. It turned out the author was John Reed, founding member of the American Communists, and author of Ten Days that Shook the World; the book was a first edition of Daughter of the Revolution, and Other Stories.

The book is a collection of short stories, inspired by his travels around Europe and the Americas and set across these continents. Most are told as conversations, where the characters reveal their past and present situations to the author. It’s not made clear whether they are fictional or not, but given Reed’s career as a journalist it seems likely they are at least inspired by real people. The underlying theme is of course a cry for revolution; the people we meet in this book are downtrodden, unhappy with the state of affairs and serve to show why the state of things must change. The eponymous woman is an interesting case; her story is a call for a different sort of revolution; one of feminism. Two contrasting stories feature men off to fight in the First World War trenches, one of them upbeat and full of enthusiasm, one depressed and seeing it as an acceptable way to die.

If the book is trying to convert people to the revolutionary cause, it falls rather short. But as a period piece, and as an insight into how the young Reed saw the world, its really very interesting, and tells the sort of stories (if presumably exaggerated and elaborated) that we wouldn’t normally come across from that period.

And now Clarkson too

So Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble at the BBC as well, for making jokes about murdering prostitutes. Second round of controversey, both involving men making inappropriate remarks about women. I’m not convinced that the outcry is a glowing display of national feminism though.

The Brand/Ross row was centered around the grandfather for hearing things he peobably didn’t want to hear, not the granddaughter whose privacy was invaded. The Clarkson row has failed to mention the stack of lads mags and pornos offered to James May as a prize for doing something daring with a lorry during the same episode, and instead focussed on the offence caused to (mostly male) truck drivers suggesting they murder prostitutes.

Interesting…

Not long to go…

Lots of BULS will be watching the results come in in Joes, our Guild of Students bar, until the small hours of the morning. Every time I catch the news, I get more excited.

George Bush came to power when I was thirteen, and became instantly a big part of my political awareness, embodying to the younger me everything that was wrong with the world at the time. His policies on third world aid, contraception, gay rights, abortion, capital punishment, taxation, foreign affairs, education, healthcare, everything, the injustice of him holding office at all, left me cold; I long ago had to take down my poster of his misquotes, for I couldn’t bear to laugh at someone who had caused such misery to so many. The anger me and my friends felt on the day he visited the UK, and we marched through London, years ago now, still burns up again in me every time he appears on television or in the press. Now, at the grand old age of twenty-one I can see things a lot less simplistically than I used to, and realise that the films of Michael Moore are not gospel; but a large part of that childhood passion is still there. The thought that tonight his successor will be chosen, and there’s an excellent chance he’ll be against everything Bush stood for, is something still incredibly exciting to me, and I’m not even American.

My only worry now is the Obama cannot possibly live up to the hype. But for tonight I am hopefully going to be celebrating with my friends and tommorrow morning be falling asleep happy that the Republican Bush years will no longer be a living nightmare but about to be confined to a dusty chapter of history.

While the world looks west…

Utterly harrowing to read of a thirteen year old girl being stoned to death in Somalia for being raped by three men. I wish I could say I was astonished but years of Amnesty membership has taught me that shocking human rights abuses are far more common than we’d like to think.

Fancy a Lapdance?

A bit more info here about the situation with lap dance licencing, which I was protesting about a few weeks ago outside Toryfest.

At the time of our protest, only five Tory MPs had signed up to EDM 1375, calling for better regulation of the lapdancing industry. I can report that following an enquiry by the Conservatives and a large amount of pressure from womens groups, a further one Tory MPs have signed up! Astonishingly, none of the Cons MPs are female.

Shame. Did the free night at the Rocket Club win them over?

By-election candidate watch returns!

It’s another by-election, and time to look at the candidates. As reported by BULS previously, the number of females making it onto the ballot paper in British by-elections is still rather low. So I took a look at Glenrothes this week, and found that women make up 25% of the candidates.

I’m no fan of all women short lists but this isn’t encouraging…

Also interesting to note that the SNP and UKIP are standing. Each firmly believing in independance, they don’t seem to agree where the boundaries should be drawn…

80% of teachers are against the return of corpral punishment

So why does the BBC seem obsessed with the idea that 20% of them do, to the extent that it was the top story on The One Show tonight and pride of place on the BBC website? Normally I love you, but today it’s bad BBC. You’ve got it the wrong bloody way round.

BULS week

Its been an eventful week for BULS.

On Saturday some of our Selly Oak based members went door knocking with Steve McCabe.

On Wednesday we had a meeting, seeing Mo Shaid become treasurer and Ben Semens become Freshers’ Officer

On Thursday many of us attended Guild Council and passed policy on Higher Education funding and Sexual Health

On Friday I handed over some treasury stuff to Mo

On Saturday a few of us are stewarding Regional Conference

Busy busy!

Embryology Bill sails through Commons

The Human Embryology Bill has passed through the Commons. Hurrah!

This will bring hope to millions of people who suffer from or have loved ones suffering from terrible diseases. It will end discrimination against lesbian couples trying for children, and will save precious lives through the permission of saviour siblings. And at no physical or emotional cost to humans or animals.

Deeply dissappointed to see the abortion part of the bill dropped, although probably not nearly as much as countless Northern Irish women who will still have to face huge difficulties trying to obtain a safe and legal abortion. The government has promised a review of abortion law in the next two years, I hope for the sake of these women they stick to that.

And Nadine Dorries proves as clueless as ever, prophecising that “humanzees” will now be created as a result of the hybrid embryo section. She fails to grasp that these will be as much a humanzee as a tree with a person sitting on a tree branch with a bit of leaf in their hair is a hybrid treeman, and that these embyos will be destroyed after about a week. Bless.

God, anyone?

The British Humanist association was reported today to be sponsoring posters on buses in London. These are to read: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” and adorn the insides and outsides of buses across the capital.

I am an atheist, but my reflex reaction was that this was a bit harsh, and would probably result in some fundamentalist vandalism. Then again, other mainstream religions advertise their beliefs quite openly; railway stations reguarly have posters with Bible quotes; the Quakers have paid for adverts inviting me and other Guardian readers to join for the last few weeks; and television stations, such as The God Channel, are dedicated to religions. Religions are allowed to open schools. Scientologists and other religious sects hassle me every time I walk down New Street. Many (but not all) religions have a message that non-believers will be punished, or come to no good; compared to being threatened with an eternity of brimstone and sulphur, is being told to “get over” something really that bad?

Despite my atheism, I don’t think it’s right to go around telling other people they are wrong about their beliefs, provided these beliefs cause no one any harm. But since a number of religions routinely tell us atheists we are wrong and will be punished for it, should we fight fire with fire? I can see these posters kicking up a storm in a way that other religious posters would not, and they will no doubt be thought provoking for commutors; but if religious messages are to be acceptable in the public realm then the reality is that atheist ones must be too, even if people find them offensive.

BULS: Looking back

Over the summer, through this blog BULS was contacted by Paul Crofts, the chair from 1971-1974. He went on to work in the NUS with Trevor Phillips, during Charles Clarkes tenure. He is now a councillor in Wellingborough and Northamptonshire, and was succeded as chair by Kath Hartley, now a Birmingham councillor.

Below is a wonderful picture of Paul in action in the Guild Council chambers, where many BULS members can still reguarly be found, debating and snoozing through Guild Councils. Paul will receive a BULS salute the next time we are in the pub. If any other former members are reading, please get in touch, we would love to hear from you!

Paul Crofts and co in action, 1973

As I walk home at night

A few years ago, Amnesty International invited members to send in their answers to the question, “what does a world without violence against women mean to you?” One reply really stuck with me, and it came not from a woman, but a man. To him, it meant the woman he walked behind in the street at night not being afraid of him.

I think of this every time I walk alone after dark. To the despair of my friends and mother, and despite my nerves, when sober enough I’ve always refused to let fear put me off walking home alone. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always lived in relatively “safe” areas; but then whatever the statistics are, anyone can get mugged, anywhere.

There are measures I take to give myself a sense of security. Perhaps least effectively, I sometimes emasculate my silhouette if I’m planning a trip; a shapeless hoodie and trousers with pockets say “woman” far less than a skirt, tailored jacket and bag.

This can backfire. Tonight two separate women passed me just after midnight this morning with terrified glances, and I started to know what the man in the Amnesty magazine felt like. As I turned into my road, a man was behind me and I glanced over my shoulder. I saw he was wearing a suit and instantly felt at ease- and then kicked myself for being so prejudiced. I glanced round again without really thinking about it, and he crossed the road and sped off. Any other time of day, or if he had been a woman, it would have been ok; but because it was dark, and he was a man, he must have known it would have put me on edge. I almost wanted to shout after him, I’m sorry; I felt bad for making him feel distrusted because of his gender.

It’s one thing for me to worry about being out alone in the dark in England; in various other places in the world, the circumstances of me being there (on my way back from a pub, where I had been with gay people, unchaperoned, head uncovered, to a house I share with two men who are neither relations nor husbands) would be a catalog of crimes. It was this train of thought that convinced me to make the ten minute walk to the pub on my own at half ten, because I knew I was just lucky enough to have the choice.

But I know that by going out at night, alone, I am running a risk, be it small or large, and its one that a lot of women would not chose to take. Imagine a world without violence against women? Its one where the first thought a woman has when she sees a man at night no longer has to be fear. Its one where women are confident enough to enjoy their lives to the full, and not jump at shadows in the dark.

What is McCain implying?

In a Republican Rally this week an audience member was given the microphone, and told John McCain that she couldn’t support Barack Obama as “he was an arab”.

McCain’s response was, “No ma’am, he is a decent family man who I happen to disagree with.”

It sounds an awful lot like Mr McCain is implying that the states of being Arabic and a “decent family man” are mutually exclusive?

Outside the ICC

This afternoon I joined a group of feminists from Birmingham and London to flyer the Tory conference in Birmingham. We were raising awareness of EDM 1375, which calls for a loophole in licensing law to be closed so that lap dance clubs are no longer classed in the same catagory as coffee shops. One of our main bugbears was that while the Conservatives have publically condemned the loophole, only five of them have actually bothered to sign up to it.

What struck me was… the costumes! Everyone was in suits- everyone! I don’t think I saw a single pair of jeans walk through the entrance hall that afternoon. As it got colder and later a fair few delegates appeared rather drunk- especially the young woman who told us loudly that she’d “rarther be a lapdancer than work in a coffee shorp!” before running away when we asked her why. One man didn’t see the need for any regulation whatsoever and seemed unconvinced that sex trafficking was any sort of problem.

But on the whole the response was ok, although there was none of the buzz of factions and pressure groups you get at anything vaguely left wing… and I wonder how many delegates made use of their Rocket Club vouchers?

School bans jab

A Catholic school has banned the cervical cancer vaccine from being given on its premises. It cites possible side effects as its reason.

I don’t believe that for one minute. How can they justify denying young women access to life saving vaccinations? That doesn’t sound very Christian to me.

Rowling donates to party

Good old JK Rowling 🙂 I’ve been a fan of hers almost as long as I have been the Labour party, having been given the Philosophers Stone for Christmas in 1997. It’s a welcome reminder to the public that the Tories still pose a threat, and that they really don’t have the interest of real, vulnerable people at heart. As a self made millionaire she could so easily be a poster girl for the bizzare Conservative “You can get it if you really want” campaign; but she has her head screwed on, and isn’t about to forget where she came from and how difficult it was to get where she was. She has hinted before that her Potter stories were an allergoy for the Thatcher years, and I’m delighted that the policy she most hates of the Tories is their clueless policy on married tax breaks.

Critics have suggested that if she were serious about child poverty she’d have given her money to another charity; but it comes back to the debate as to who should look after needy causes, the state or the charitable sector? Rowling has clearly chosen the state, and has recognised that keeping Labour in power will secure not just one million pounds to fight child poverty; it will mean a lot, lot more.

Two women, different story

Two blogs have caught my eye this week, both featuring controversial women.

The first, no regular user of WordPress can have failed to notice; having been little mentioned in the press, the Alaska Women Reject Palin Rally is hearteningly reported on the Mudflats blog, and details the protest which saw over a thousand Alaskan women picket Sarah Palin’s post convention homecoming. How bitterly disappointing it is that the woman with the best chance of making the White House perhaps ever has such retrograde views on both human rights and scientific fact; and how intensely frustrating that the world doesn’t seem to mind.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Harriet Harman holds the equivalent job to that which Palin is vying for, but the contrast could not be greater. A champion of womens rights, with her head firmly screwed on, Harman is Palin’s political opposite. Harman is no stranger to being slagged off in the British press for her feminist policies, and the blog I came across yesterday sadly reflects how a lot of British men feel about her. It is written by an angry conspiracy theorist, but the views expressed on it are far form isolated; they are just a slightly less eloquent regurgitation of the views routinely expressed about her by the right wing press.

Palin is feted by a stunned British media; even the Guardian, opposed to her politically, saw her as a curiosity and gave her far more coverage than she deserved. The amount of over exposure is illustrated by a quick Googlefight; Sarah Palin gets nearly twice as many hits as her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden. The contrast between the coverage she and Harman receive is exemplified in The Sun article comparing her to “that boot-faced robot of political correctness Harriet Harperson”.

Why is our homegrown womens champion routinely belittled while this Alaskan medievalist is so celebrated? I worry it is a question of glitz and glamour as much as it is one of politics. Harman is neither dour nor unattractive, but inhabits the drab world of UK politics, and is unlikely to send women rushing to the shops to buy her glasses or have them copying her hairstyle. Harman is upfront and unashamed of her feminism, while Palin hides behind her super-woman exterior a set of downright dangerous policies that could set back the fight for womens equality in America by decades. That the UK is so transfixed by this woman and so unappreciative of Harman means either the press is inheritently shallow, sexist or both. While I would like to think it is the former, I fear that sexism has rather a lot more to do with it than we would like to admit.

Time economy

Whenever I am working, I fall into the habit of thinking of all prices in terms of time worked, rather than pounds sterling. On my low rate minimum wage of £4.60, life starts to break down into hours.

For example, there are the costs incurred just getting to and from work; and any other expenses, like uniform or food. In my mind I take these costs off my hours worked; I know I must work x amount of time before I start to break even. Just at a glance:

Return train fare to work: 15 mins work
Taxi fare on Sudays, when public transport not availale: 90 mins
Trousers to work in (Tesco Value): 2hrs ten mins
Boots meal deal (If I forget lunch): 35 mins

Then the other stuff of survival and leisure:
Newspaper: ten mins
Pint: 20-30 mins
Cinema ticket: 45 mins
Takeaway meal: 90 mins
DVD: 2 hours
Train ticket to see family: eight hours
Typical text book: nine hours
Weeks rent: ten hours

And just for interst:
Admissions ticket to my place of work: four hours

It’s a funny way to look at things, dividing them up into hours given for what is gained. The weirder thing is, wheras everyone gets the same amount back for the money they pay, everyone gets something completley different back for the time they put in. One of my hours is not equal to someone elses hours in the time economy, but to each of us an hour of our own lives is equally precious. This is the injustice of low paid work.

Equal pay: A personal experience

This summer has been an experience for me; one invaluable and insightful, yet at the same time one that has left me with a deep sense of injustice and a frustration. Three years deep into my degree and drowning in my overdraft, I quit the temp agencies and found a summer job. The work was low-grade and required few qualifications, but I entered it boasting three years’ experience in a near identical position, plus an additional two years working as a temp in similar roles.

Imagine then my surprise when it emerged I was earning less than my colleagues. Not just than the permanent staff; other temps with far less experience were getting paid more than me. It’s an all too familiar story, and even now, decades after it was outlawed, firms get regularly taken to court for paying their female, disabled or LGBT staff less than others doing the same job. But mine was not one of these cases; on the contrary, my employer’s right to pay me less for identical work was enshrined in UK law, and it’s all because of my age.

Living independently and renting a house, paying bills and studying for a degree, I incur all the same life costs as I will in seven months time, when I turn twenty-two. I enjoy all the same rights and responsibilities as I will next March, and I could, were I so inclined, be married or have children to support. This doesn’t just apply to people of my age; it could be anyone over the age of sixteen.

So why is my employer allowed to get away with paying me less? At present there are three different minimum wage brackets, and the temps I work with, all with the same job, span them all. My supervisor, three years my junior and with more job responsibilities than me, is paid less. A girl who has since left, with no previous work experience but one year of life more on me, earned nearly a pound an hour more than me; another, saving for University and trying to fund her way through college aged 17, over a pound an hour less. All of us working there were students at some level or another, trying to make ends meet; thus dismissing the argument that a lower wage encourages people to stay in education longer. If anything, it makes it harder.

Age discrimination is a hot topic at the moment, but most of the media focus on the top end, with the elderly being retired or sidelined early. When will we look to the young people, who work long hours in often dull unrewarding jobs, often to fun education or to support a family, yet are paid less?

Equal pay must be given for equal work. Many Labour Party members will hail the minimum wage as the party’s proudest achievement, but while I am without the £162.84 I missed out on this summer, I cannot celebrate it. The developent rate is nothing short of an age tax, levvied on some of the poorest, lowest earners in our society. Let’s do the Labour thing and scrap it.

Off to Reading

Six BULS volunteers, plus a couple of comrades from Sheffield, will be heading to Reading festival to raise club funds. Wish us luck, join us in prayer for sunshine…

Forget the challenge, lets move Forward

A poll in the Guardian today puts David Miliband and Gordon Brown an equal 21 points behind David Cameron in the popularity polls. Hopefully this should help put to bed speculation about a new leader: The evidence suggests there is no point in a Milibland challenge.

As I have said all along, I don’t care who leads us just as long as I can be proud of the policies we promote and enact. Since there is an excellent chance we won’t get a forth term, it would be exciting to see some of the progressive policies that came out of the national consultation put into practice while we know we can, rather than gathering dust in a forgotten manifesto. Sorting out the minimum wage would be a nice start…

Glasto Piccies

Better late than never! I thought I’d share some Glastonbury pics here, now that I finally have internet in my house. BULS volunteers worked at the festival pulling pints to raise money for the club’s campaigns, courteousy of the lovely Worker’s Beer Company. Anyone fancying some festival fun next year, make sure to join the club in Fresher’s week and watch this space…

 

Pimm’s o’clock!

BULS hard at work pulling pints

I don’t like Sundays.

As an atheist living in a predominantly non-Christian country wich happens to have a Christian heritage, I get incensed with the country shutting down on Sundays.

Needing to get to work early yesterday morning, I was unable to take the train as normal, as it was a Sunday; I was unable to take the bus, as it was a Sunday. Not fancy walking for an hour prior to the nine hour shift on my feet when I got there, I got a taxi to work- costing me an hour and a half’s wages. Finishing at 6, the shops were shut, and I was unable to do the shopping I needed until today, as it was a Sunday.

Back when I was at sixth-form college I did 9-5 days Monday to Friday, then worked 8-5 Saturdays. On my one day off, a Sunday, I was very limited in my leisure options because everywhere was bloody closed. The idea of the nation taking it easy for one day a week is all very nice, but if that’s you’re only day off then you are barred from living it normally. If you have to work that day, you can’t get to work as you normally would, and it negates the idea of a “day of rest” anyway- emergency services and essential services don’t have a designated down day every week, why should the rest of us be subjected to it? In any well managed workfoce the staff will be given sufficient days off to rest themselves, make that law instead of forcing it to be a Sunday. Not even the religious argument holds up any more, as less than 50% of the country call themselves Christian.

When will we end this bloody annoying hangover from yesteryear and start to have a fully functioning country?

Scrap the SATS

We’ve all heard of this year’s SATs marking fiasco. We’re constantly told that students are over tested. We all know that schools put overemphasis on training students for the SATs rather than giving them a rounded education. And a lot of us hate league tables.

SATs were meant to be a test of schools, but have become a test of pupils too. Headlines report how students are without results, anxiously waiting; this is completely wrong, the point of SATs was to see how well the school had taught (whether it achieves this or not being dubious), not to be a level of achievement for each child to aspire to. Yes, they are useful for setting pupils, but schools can do that easily through their own tests with far less stress.

Please, please can we scrap the SATs?

Women in H+H

The Haltemprice and Howden by-election ballot paper makes interesting reading. In the absence of two big  mainstream parties, a huge number of independent candidates stood; I wondered how women would fare outside of the normal election environment.

Sadly, only seven of the twenty-six candidates were female. Of these, five were aligned to parties (although these tended to be small and included the Miss Great Britain Party) and two were independent. Contrast this with the nineteen men who stood; fourteen were independent and five had parties, although again given the size of these parties they are probably best counted as independent.

What got me most about the results, however, was that of the seven women standing, six occupied the top positions 2-7 after David Davis. Whether this was due to their being women or that they represented some of the more significant of the small parties is also up for debate- I suspect the latter, but still find it interesting, and somewhat heartening.

Credit crunches

Walking around the centre of my hometown yesterday, my friend points out to me two adjacent estate agents which have closed in the last few weeks. It’s all change in the Arndale Centre, too- gone not only is the independent bakery I used to work for, but also the art shop and the card shop. The independent record shop is under threat, and the independent bookshop is on its second “closing down” sale having twice survived the chop. New branches of Starbucks and HMV gleam in other units. Is this economy related?

Browsing the Guardian in the evening, it offers me tips on how to survive having a little less money in my pocket. Having been a student the last few years I suspect there is little they can teach me, and I appear to be right. “Food might still be ok to eat past its sell-by date”, it tells me. Other stating-the-bloody-obvious statements include the idea that I should buy in bulk to save. That’s all very nice, but I can’t afford a car, and don’t fancy carrying a three kilo bag of pasta home from the shops with the rest of my shopping.

This blog is really just a rant on all things loosely credit crunch related, so I’ll finish on to another Guardian publication that narked me off. A few weeks ago, they did a series of cut-out-and-keep guides to surviving the “crunch”- one was on raising children. They gave an astronomical figure for the cost of raising a child, followed by a break-down of what this included. It pointed out you could save money by switching to a state school. Was this really the Guardian I was reading? The grand total also included contributions to the child’s tuition fees at University, which is ridiculous as offspring are meant to pay them off themselves, and a full set of driving lessons with a first car thrown in for good measure. What the hell?! Easy way to survive the crunch- make your kids get a bloody part-time job to pay for lessons and cars themselves if they really want them, like most normal kids. Stop spoiling them.

End of rant. I’m off to the cinema to see Mama Mia. Wish me luck. :s

Who are you backing?

Yes, it’s that long awaited for by-election today in Haltemprice and Howden, and the nation is on the edge of its seat to see who will become their new MP. Will David Davis hold onto the post? Or will it go to one of the other 26 candidates vying for the role? In the absence of any main stream parties, I have gone looking for another candidate to back.

I am interested by Jill Saward, a rape victim and campaigner who has done marvellous work in the past and is against David Davis on the issue of a DNA database (it would undoubtedly drive up rape convictions), and David Bishop, from the Church of the Militant Elvis Party. The socialist in me admires his stance on todays capitalist society (It made Elvis a “fat media joke”). Not so keep on his plan to put cameras in Nick Clegg’s bedroom, though, or to imprison Cherie Blair, so I think he’ll have to come off the short list.

So, who are you backing?

Cocaine

Local news has reported to me this lunch time that 16 MPs have signed an EDM calling for a new energy drink, named (but containing no) Cocaine, to be banned. The idea is that it may glamorise cocaine use with youngsters, something I am dubious about.

More importantly though, why won’t Coke, or Coca Cola, which one actually did contain Cocaine and is named after it, be included in this ban? And what about my year three class teacher, Mrs Cocaine?

BULS survives another year at Glasto

Nine intrepid BULS volunteers braved mud, rain, sun, portaloos and Jay-Z, for a second year running at Worthy Farm in Somerset to raise funds. Conditions were blissful compared to last year’s mudbath, and much jolity was had by all. Jay-Z was fricking awesome, his “Fuck Bush” rap raised a cheer amongst BULS volunteers and his glowing endorsement of Barack Obama would have brought a tear to Tom Guise’s eye. It’s a good job Gary Hughes was watching Massive Attack on the Other Stage at the time though…

Photos of the group will be provided as soon as I am reunited with my laptop and camera back in Brum! Until then you’ll have to make do with Amy Winehouse looking a bit drunk.

End of term…

It’s all been a bit quiet on the blog lately, so I thought I’d fill in with some of what BULS has been up to.

Last week saw the end of term, and informal end of term drinks were enjoyed by many in Joes, our Guild’s bar. All this week members have been putting out leaflets in Selly Oak (a big thank-you to all those who helped) and also Tyburn Ward in Erdington. Campaigning opportunities abound over the summer, with by-elections coming up in Redditch and other places…

This Wednesday a team from BULS will be heading off to Glastonbury to pull pints and raise club funds. Forecast is dry for Wednesday and Thursday, wet for Friday but here’s hoping. Nothing can be as bad as the mudbath we wallowed in last year. We’ll be back on Monday morning so watch out for reports and photos… later in the summer we will also be hitting Reading.
The committee are busy planning an exciting program of events for the coming term. Otherwise, stay tuned for more blogs and anything random we might be up to over the summer!

Five years on

In 2003, me and two angry friends went to London to protest at George Bush’s state visit to the UK. With 100,000 others we marched through the capital- the atmosphere was sensational, and the queue of protesters took almost two hours to leave Malet Street. Bush had been in power two years and we didn’t want him wellcomed on our soil. We hadn’t been able to get to the anti war protests, so watching the giant effigy of him being toppled, just like the one of Saddam Hussein had been months earlier, was magical.

Contrast this with last week, as Bush made his farewell stop-off at number ten. The crowd was diminished to two thousand. I wasn’t there, but the anger still was. Why so few, after he’d had another five years to accumulate crimes? I suppose before it was a protest not just against what he had done, but what he might still go on to do. This time round, he was on the way out- there is little left for him to taint, his work is almost done. A protest against what has already happened, long after the event and without hope of changing it, is a lot less passionate than one about what might be. Guantanamo is still full. Iraq is still a mess. Aid agencies still suffer from the funds he cut them; Americans still go without health care and gay and lesbian couples still face a president who doesn’t want them to have equal rights.

But his presidency has dragged on and on. The shock of the new is gone, the contrast between him and his predecessor fading into memory. And hence, gone is the passion of those people who waved placards and shouted, took days off work, school and college to take to the streets. He is old news, and it’s too late to change anything. People are looking forward now, to his successor. He is old news.

Still, I would have liked to be in the crowd…

Labour’s Compass for the future

It’s easy to get a bit disheartened as a Labour Party member in these times of low poll ratings and disappointing policy. But a good dose of Compass Conference yesterday cheered me up and restored my confidence in the party’s future.

I’ve been a member of Compass for about six months but this was the first event I attended. The conference format was refreshing; opening and closing speeches were followed by q&a sessions, and in between these were seminars and a Question Time style debate. We weren’t being talked at, and there was no adversarial atmosphere or polarised debate- it was all very open and easy to take part in. The discussion was intelligent and constructive.

The two seminars I chose, from a list of about thirty, were on the topics of schooling and electoral reform. The overarching theme of the conference was equality, and the schooling session, led by Melissa Benn, contained almost exclusively advocates of a wholly comprehensive system. The electoral reform session was interesting- its a cause I believe very much in, but finding a system that suits Britain and convincing any government to go with it is going to be a challenge.

Rousing speeches were given by Polly Toynbee, Jon Cruddas and Ed Miliband, amongst others. Harriet Harman gave a disappointing delivery on all women shortlists, but otherwise there was barely a view given that day that I could disagree with. It was heartening to hear everyone bursting with ideas for future policy and direction- my only worry is that it will all fall on deaf ears further up the party hirachy. If Labour could be bold enough now to take some of the ideas from that day- there were enough Government ministers there listening- and run with them in the next Queen’s speech, I reckon our fortunes could take a turn… and what excuse is there for not doing so? We have so little left to lose and potentially not much time left to make a real difference!

BUCF go solo

Our less liberal counterparts, Birmingham University Conservative Future, announced today that they plan to leave the Guild of Students. Since they have decied to disable comments on this issue, I have decided to write a blog on it here. I hope they won’t be too offended.

Their decision to leave saddens me, although it does not surprise me. Conservatism does not lend itself naturally to unionism, but the decision to disaffiliate seems to me unfortunate as it is based on what I believe to be a severe misconception of the nature of the Guild.

The first reason given is

Last week the previous chairman Theo Lomas informed me that BUCF had been given a stark ultimatum: play a more active role in farcical Guild politics or be de-recognised.

Every student group at the Guild is required to send one representative to each meeting of Guild Council. This is a body of elected students which meets eight times a year to debate and create Guild policy and to scrutinise the work of the executive committee. The complaint to BUCF would have been made on account of their failure to send either a representative or apologies to a significant number of meetings. While there is a debate to be had over whether societies should be required to do this, if BUCF had a problem they could have very easily proposed a motion to change it. Or they could have taken the BULS route- we have simply sent apologies to the last few meetings.

The next assertion made in the post is

It is my opinion and the opinion of much of the student body that the Guild is far too cliquey and is filled with power hungry and self righteous individuals who claim mandates of a pitiful portion of the University electorate.

This debate has been had many times on both blogs, and I doubt this will be the last. My question: if BUCF is as involved in Guild politics as they previously asserted, how on earth would they have been around enough to discover this? There is a perception amoungst many of a clique, and this is a real shame. The reality is that a lot of us who attend Guild Council get along. We have similar interests, we are all there for the same reason and naturally, we are friendly people who chat to the people next to us in meetings and in Joe’s afterwards. We tend to get along. Whatever people may perceive, the existance of a closed circle is a lie. People come, people go, people get involved, that’s it. It’s a really sad misconception and it always makes me sad that people are put off by it; and that some are too stubborn to come along and see what it’s really like.

I’m not going to go over any of the same old tired arguments again. But today I went along to Guild Council training. I’ve been on it two years now, but I thought I’d pop my head in to see what they were getting up to. There were loads of first time Guild Councillors there. The ones I spoke to were all enthusiastic, all wanted to learn how to get things done, and all had things they wanted to change. Many complained about the Guild in many ways, be it lack of communication from the Guild and their Guild Councillors, a lack of information on how the Guild operates or a specific issue, like fairtrade food or better facilities for students. They learnt how to write and propose motions, how to communicate with their constituents and how to engage in debate at a Guild Council meeting. They learnt how to scrutinise the Executive committee on what they’d been up to and how to change things. It was really positive and I left early, feeling really enthusiastic about the new intake of Councillors.

It’s a shame BUCF have decided not to be part of this new wave and to jump ship. I have always believed you have to be in something to change it. BUCF will acheive very little by disaffiliating, expecially not the change they long to see- nor will they be able to redress their prejudices from the outside. They will also lose their Fresher’s Fair stall, grant money, the right to use rooms and Guild facilities, and any right to vote to change the things they so despise. So long, guys. And good luck.

Sunshine Selly Oak

BULS members worked up a tan today in Selly Oak, door knocking with Steve McCabe MP, Cllr Mike Leddy and may others from the constituency. A beautiful and productive day.

Worth a Read

This week, having the luxury of time to read now that my exams are over, I finished One of Us by Melissa Benn. Focussing on two interlinked families and two rising stars of New Labour, it charts their fortunes from 1971 to just after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A fantastic book and well worth a read.

Iraq was a hugely divisive issue and it’s interesting to see it being used as a significant part of so many new novels set at the time.

Binge drinking, part two

So having given my thoughts below on why I binge drink, we then have the issue of why those under eighteen do it.

It can be accidental- when you pour a measure yourself you don’t know how much is in it. But in a pub situation, you always know you have 25 or 50 ml of spirit in a drink with a mixer.

Drinking outside of a pub there’s not always someone to tell you when to stop- but in a pub the bar staff must by law refuse you if they think you’ve had too much.

As I said before, a lot of people binge drink because it’s fun- so to stop us doing it we need a safer alternative. Young people can be anti-social and dangerous if drinking on the street- so put them in a controlled environment. Like a pub.

For some young people its glamarous to emulate adults and drink. So make it less glamorous by making it legal. (On the flipside, for some adults it’s a show of manliness and adulthood to keep up with your mates, to have that extra pint, to “show you can handle your drink”. Let people into pubs younger, and it suddenly looks a lot less macho.)

The problem is not that young people drink, its how much they drink and the manner in which they do it. So sort that out- let them into the pub.

Confessions of a Binge Drinker

The government and media are obsessed with the fact that people binge drink, but what annoys me is the lack of thought into why people binge drink.

First let’s clarify: the BBC quotes the government that binge drinking is more than eight units in a session, six for a woman. Since this equates to three pints for me, I therefore binge drink on a regular basis. Last night, for example.

Last night I was in a nice pub with some course mates, celebrating the end of their exams (mine having concluded a week previously). Over the space of four hours I had three pints of nice-tasting ales and bitters. I did not feel drunk, did nothing teribly outragous and had a pleasent evening. Contrast this with another end-of-year celebration earlier in the week where I consumed half a bottle of wine over a meal, two flirtinis at home, and a large number of acid vodka-lemonades at Snobs (a sweaty, cheap and wonderful nightclub, for those not from Birimingham). I got home safely, had a good laugh and slept off my hangover the next morning.

Both these are incidences of binge-drinking. One more rowdy than the other, but neither caused any inconvenience to me or those around me. Sure it’s not great for my body, but that’s my choice: having been made well aware of the risks by numerous government adverts, I considered them and chose to ignore them, deeming this OK so long as the only person getting harmed is myself. What is wrong with me choosing to spend my evenings like this? Why did I in the fist place?

Sometimes I binge drink without meaning to, like in the pub example. But sometimes, like in the club example, I do it intentionally, because its just fun. Don’t shoot me- it’s true. Everyone gets a bit tipsy, a bit more relaxed, your mates who don’t normally dance start dancing, someone does something stupid and you all have a good laugh about it, you’re friendly with everyone, everyone’s in a good mood. It’s unwinding and relaxing after a dull day at work or a stressful stint of exams. Provided you don’t overdo it, the worst you’ll suffer in return for this fun in the short term is a hangover. It’s a fair trade and one most of us are willing to make.

So how is the government going to deter me from engaging in drinking of this form? Well if there was a less dangerous drug I could legally take that would be as sociable and fun, I’d switch to that instead, but there isn’t a legal one I’m aware of yet. Higher prices might deter me from going out to a club more often, but then I’d have to find something to do instead- and that would still probably cost money- bowling is both dull and bizzarrely expensive, the cinema isn’t exactly sociable, and just staying in with your mates isn’t always an option (particuarly for those who live with their parents). The health risks, as I said, are well publicised and I am well aware of them. So what’s going to deter me from getting a bit drunk with my mates to celebrate someting, or just to relax and have a laugh? I’m honestly not sure, actually. And as for the new wave of measures to combat binge drinking commented on by BULS earlier this weekend, I can’t see how they’re going to tackle the reasons other people binge drink either.

Oi!

No Nadine. Put the laptop down and step away from my name. 

Yes, yes, I know it’s not the same but I just don’t like the idea of having anything more than two x chromosome in common with her.

Take your time

Carlton CLub, an exclusive private members club for Tories, has just voted to allow women to join.

As late as 2008?