The myth that young people and students are inherently left wing needs to be broken

For anyone who has seen my Facebook timeline this is inherently obvious, young people aren't inherently left wing, and the portrayals by the media that the young are just a bunch of radicals is just wrong and idiotic. Commentators like Owen Jones often point to the young person's struggle to be heard and their distaste for tuition fees amongst other things. I'm here to say on a vast level; young people quite often simply don't care. I was at an interview yesterday for a job abroad I mentioned to the other people about what effect a Brexit might have on the job, of the five people I was talking to none of them cared; none of them were going to vote in the referendum and most of them didn't even know there was one in the first place. If that's not indicative of the fact that politicians are out of touch with young people then I don't know what is. There has been for sometime now an over emphasis on the views of students in youth issues, this ignores the fact that over 50% of the populace doesn't go to university and quite often have no plans to go to university. This group of people are quite often likely not to vote or even care about issues, for them life is about getting a job and getting on with their life; either not wanting to or not being able to afford to (tuition fees don't factor into this, what really matters is the maintenance loans).

Even in the student populace most don't care about politics, the vocal minority that has sit ins and goes on marches influence policy more often than the average student, who is most likely to be sitting in their room watching Netflix or streaming TV on their computer after doing their work. Politicians don't speak to these people, and as a result they aren't spoken to as it's presumed that all students are red flag waving Marxists or tweed wearing Tories. If politicians want to make a difference in getting the young to vote and actually be engaged, then we need to speak to the actual average students.It's unbelievable how many times at university I spoke about the election and people simply said, I'm not going to vote politicians are simply liars and there is no point in voting because it will just be enforcing this truth, no matter if it were Labour or the Tories or even the Lib Dems.

The Growth of Conservative clubs across campuses around the country should point to another truth, young people are quite often Conservative. The working class young Tory is a real thing in the south, people believe that the state should be small; all the people see about the government is that they take a large chunk out of their pay cheque and most people want to pay less taxes. Some say that people become more conservative as they get older because they end up paying tax; one of the reasons that older people may vote more is that people see that they are always going to have to pay taxes and want to see their taxes being spent more efficiently, this is especially true in Britain as we have the NHS and as we inevitably get older we end up spending more time in hospital.

The general election polling from Ipsos MORI shows that 43% of young people vote labour on a turnout of 48% (polling data here) over half of young people didn't vote and 27% voted Tory and 8% UKIP. This shows a lack of engagement with young people, and if any thing that the engaged ones are voting Labour because at this sort of age left wing people during a Tory government are more likely to vote against the so called establishment. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm all for everyone voting Labour but at the end of the day we need to encourage young people to actually get out and vote. Support for Brexit amongst young people is is over 25 points greater but the problem is that people may not vote, and if people don't vote then the vocal minority of people that support Brexit will win the referendum. UKIP won the European elections with most seats because people didn't vote in their masses, the same can be said for the Republicans in America in 2014 where there was a historically low turnout in the mid-term elections.

In conclusion, young people needed to treated as the same as the rest of the populace as the engaged will already vote and there isn't this magic group of young people who will be suddenly vote Labour that just need to be coerced into the polling booth.

Intimidation of Labour's moderates and progressives needs to stop now

I'll start this off with a disclaimer; I'm by no means Jeremy Corbyn's biggest fan or a supporter in any shape or form of Momentum. In fact I used to be a member of Progress, and still vaguely align myself to progressive wing of the party, I even voted for Liz Kendall in the leadership election. I had many mixed emotions when the leadership election occurred; I even went to a bout of depression (signs that I care far too much about the Labour Party) but JC won. This does not excuse members of Momentum and the #JezWeCan camp from belittling my strand of politics.

I fought blood sweat and tears for Labour Government in 2015, I spent most nights canvassing the streets of Reading where I was at university, throughout my degree; in fact so much so that it was probably one of the contributing factors in me leaving university. I campaigned tooth and nail in the Rochester and Strood by-election; only to be told by the national press that we did nothing and we were put off as effectively having no ground campaign at all. I spent a hell of a lot of money travelling to and from Reading and my home in Gillingham (the neighbouring seat) during that by-election; but now because people like myself disagree with Mr Corbyn we are now simply labelled as "Red Tories" and a part of the party that needs to be purged. We made mistakes in government yes, any government does; the left's beloved Harold Wilson had his Lavender List yet in party lore he is still known as Good Ole' Harold. Yet Tony Blair goes to war with Iraq and suddenly he is labelled by large sections of the party as a Tory and a war criminal.

I've spoken with many of the elders in my CLP about what life was like in the 80s when there was the huge division along militant lines; meetings had punch ups and open discourse about policy ideas was discouraged for fear that the Hard Left might take over and cause a huge row. If we go down the way we are going, then this is going to happen again; and what it will lead to is constant Tory Governments and Councils, any hope we have will be gone and there will be another split and I don't think the party can go through another split.

This leads me onto the main reason for this blog post, in that intimidation has to stop. We've already seen the constant trolling of MPs who voted for air strikes in Syria, but now Unite Reps are allegedly intimidating delegates to the Young Labour Conference into voting certain ways. This needs to stop now! The key element of a free and open democratic party is the members of our Broad Church that we call the Labour Party are allowed to express their own opinions without fear of being trolled and shouted down in meetings.

The Youth Conference needs reformation, if we want to stop the debacles over the selection of the NEC member through a conference we need to have the member elected through a young members ballot that is actually properly advertised; we already had online voting for the delegate system; yet young members couldn't directly vote for their representative on the NEC, all of party elections have OMOV so why can't young members have it? The problem is that young members aren't treated with seriousness in the Labour Party, we have our Youth Officers in CLPs and some Young Labour groups; but we don't get selected as councillors and we have our own little side show away from conference. If we want a proper youth movement, the youth conference needs to be at conference, the Women's conference is and so is the BAME conference.

If we want the future of our party to be actively engaged we need to select young members for council seats on the basis of their hard graft. There is a lot of demonisation of young people and students within branch meetings; regularly you'll hear "Students did this, Students are coming over here and taking our housing; rent is more expensive because of students. Some hooded youths were committing anti-social behaviour etc.." replace the word student or youth in this sort of statements made by various people at branch meetings and change in with immigrant; and how are we different to the Tories or UKIP? We need to adopt a serious approach to young members. Time and time again you here stories of young members being scared off in EC meetings and in branch meetings because of intimidation by older members of the CLP. If we want to have a proper youth movement we need to be treated with respect and not as the "New People", I'm often asked by members who rarely turn up to meetings oh so when did you join then? Thinking that I'm a new member, I reply with "nearly 6 years ago" I've been active member for nearly 6 years now, but I'm still treated by some semi-active members as this new kid on the block. This needs to change, after all young members are the people who travel the length and breadth of the country during by-elections; the ones doing the awful delivery rounds in places no one wants to do them (trust me when I say this, there is nothing worse than having to deliver house that are 50 steps up and 50 steps down and you've got 500 to deliver and half the route is like this).

In short; young members are people too, just remember we are the future of the party; the MPs, the Councillors, and the Prime Ministers for the Labour Party of the future.

Why we need to support Medway's bus drivers in their fight for a safer and better timetable.

Medway's bus drivers are currently on strike today and they will be on strike on Monday, and the following Monday afterwards. The strike is not about money at all; they are content with their pay. Most of the bus drivers did not want to go on strike; but the timetable brought in by Arriva in June has made the safety of their drivers and passengers far, far worse. Some bus routes have a one minute recovery time each way, so if a bus is late due to traffic; the driver's recovery time (which is quite often the time they use to do mundane, but necessary things such as going to the toilet and standing up after sitting down and driving for hours upon end) is cut into; most drivers will tell you this if fine if a recovery time of five minutes or more is in place because a few minutes here and there off their toilet time is fine, but when drivers are being forced to break the working hours law due to traffic conditions and the location of the depot in Gillingham; then this is not acceptable.

I spoke with their union rep Tony Teed earlier today about why they were going on strike and the reasons for it. Firstly I asked him why the drivers were going on strike, his reply was " This strike is 100% about the safety of our passengers and our drivers; the new timetable cut recovery times and has impacted the ability for our drivers to provide a high quality service due to the lack of recovery time." Something I think we can all agree on; if a bus driver crashes because of tiredness they risk the lives of many passengers on the bus this is not acceptable.

I then asked Tony if the strike was over money, a feeling that has been brought about by some local residents, "This strike is NOT about money, we aren't asking Arriva for a penny; all we want is a timetable that works for drivers and passengers a like." he told me; we then had a long protacted conversation on the merits of the old timetable compared to the new one. I was then told that no new buses were brought about with the new timetable and the only thing that happened was driver recovery time was slashed.

So to conclude to the residents of Medway and afar; show some solidarity with drivers they work hard so we can all get to work/shopping/friends and many other things that happen when we use the buses, a different timetable will make the buses go on time like they used to and drivers will be happy; which is something we all want from one of the most undervalued jobs and services in the country. Thanks to Tony for speaking with me for 15 minutes in the freezing cold I was lucky enough that I got to go home; the drivers were all in high spirits and I was offered many a biscuit/cake and teas and coffees whilst I was there; I respectfully declined as I pointed out that I wasn't the one who was standing out in the freezing cold all day!

A Regional Manifesto for a regionalist Labour Party

It's been over two weeks since we lost the election. UKIP are eating into our votes all over England, Plaid are doing a good job in some South Wales valleys seats and the SNP all but destroyed the Labour Party in Scotland. Let's face it, the Labour Party is in chaos; Andy Burnham was right to say that this is not ground zero for the Labour Party electorally, things can be much, much worse. We need to look at what fundamentally went wrong.

Labour's opposition to an English Parliament is in my view justified, we need regional assemblies so areas that are look over from Westminster can be changed. In the years under Blair and Brown, New Labour did wonderful things in the North West, Manchester has been transformed from what it used to be, Liverpool has had lots of money thrown at it, and it's worked, these places now have the infrastructure recquired for a so called "Northern Powerhouse" or as I like to call it, Mega-City 1 (kudos to the nerds that get that reference). The areas that we forgot about have rejected Labour for arguably the last ten years. We did nothing in Scotland, running the country with a sense of arrogance, that said that even a donkey could win an election for the Labour Party in Scotland. We have let the north east rot, where were the investments outside of Newcastle and Sunderland? We let the north Kent marginals just grow with no infrastructure for things like roads, schools and hospitals and then wonder why these areas have some of the worst healthcare in the country.

If Labour is to win these ares back from the hands of UKIP and the Tories, we NEED to bring about some actual change. A northeastern assembly could do wonders for places like Durham and Northumbria, it would bring investment into towns like Darlington and Bishop Auckland. A West Midlands assembly could stop the absorption of the surrounding areas into "Greater Birmingham" and actually create jobs for people that need them. Enhanced power for Wales and Scotland can show the people of these proud nations that a United Kingdom is the best for everyone. If we don't stop the tide of nationalism with a wall of regionalism, the Labour Party will be gone as we know it.

Generation Youtube needs a way to be incentivised to vote

In May 2020 Those who are now 13 and older will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, this generation of voters will have grown up in age where they can't even remember dial up. The younger section of this generation will have grown up in a time where they will scarcely remember what life was like before the advent of things like iPlayer were around. This will be the first generation where political parties really need to take a look at what they are going to do to make this tech savvy generation more politically aware. 

One thing which needs to be done, is the enaction of legislation concerning the use of political attack ads on the internet. The Tory party has been very big on ploughing a lot of money into political attack ads on things like Youtube. With specialised advertising it is no more easy than ever to develop an ad designed for people whom the Tories think are most likely to join them. Labour's online presence in comparison to the Tories was absolutely pathetic. Whilst the party did not have the money to invest in these sort of things, they could have at least TRIED to make a difference. Ads from various celebrities were shared across Facebook, and if the situation was anything like it was for my timeline, they were generally met we laughter and trolling (by people you are very close to as well, Politics is a funny thing isn't it!) 

Having just stumbled across the Progress Youtube channel, purely by accident might I add. I have seen that it has 25 subscriber, this is absolutely pathetic. Whilst I know Richard Angell, the director of Progress is a very social media savvy person, it appears that Progress has put little to no attention into its Youtube presence. If 1,000,000+ can watch Zoe Sugg make videos about make up and a hand bag, then why can't at least ten thousand of us watch Progress videos! We have 250,000 members in the Labour Party for heavens sake. This is also one the areas where newer parties like UKIP and the Greens have gained a footing, UKIP have been very clever and surprisingly tech savvy for a political party which is characterised as being full of old people.

Young people want to be engaged, but they needed to be engaged in way that suits them, just remember that as the electorate grows older, more and more people that use social media come into the electorate. I think Dan Jarvis said it perfectly at the Progress annual conference at the weekend that we tend to focus on twitter when the majority of the he population does not use it, we need to be focusing on Facebook and Youtube, the majority of britain has a Facebook account and the majority of Britons watch some form of youtube content at least once a week. One of the good things Ican say about the campaign was that at least Ed bothered to go and see Russell Brand who has youtube account with over a million subscribers, but why didn't Ed Balls go and see FunforLouis, why wasn't Yvette Cooper on Zoella, why wasn't Douglas Alexander on LittleRadge's channel appealing to the Scottish electorate. These are all BIG youtube channels with at least 250,000 subs  and audience younger than anything a direct mail could reach to.

Why Britain needs to look at digitising our education.

Subbable and Patreon merged this Monday, click here for more info. In this merger it has aligned two providers of funding for Youtube and other forms of new media stars. One of the functions of Subbable was to fund Crash Course and SciShow two educational YouTube channels. Crash Course has various courses from Biology to Government and Politics, it functions as a supplement to US schools programmes, it is also used by teacher across the world as a way to informalise what can be exceptionally difficult topics (the latest topic on Government and Politics was on how a bill passes in Congress) and is a great education tool for teachers and students alike.

Other YouTube channels closer to home in the education field are the channels Numberphile, Sixty Symbols and Periodic Videos; run by the video journalist Brady Haran. These projects are funded by a mixture of Patreon subscriptions, grants from various institutions and advertising on the videos. These videos also provide and insight into the topics which have alienated many for years but have brought a new fun take on topics.

What any government (yes ANY!) needs to look at on May 7th is to see how education can be used in video form as way to promote education for children who are otherwise not incentivised to take up these subjects. Funding for YouTube channels like Numberphile and Crash Course can begiven by the government or even the BBC as it has been proven that shows like this, which are very educational and very well done, DOES provide a greater incentive for children, teens and adults to learn more and can be done at a fraction of the cost that major TV channels have for a budget. Crash Course runs 4 different courses with grants, ads and $25,000 a month in funding from Subbable/Patreon that employs more than 15 people to animate, write the scripts, present the shows and all the other things associated with media content.

If the DfE gave out say £1,000,000 in repayable grants to educational YouTube channels the benefits would more than outweigh the costs. OU courses online already have thousands of views online, but these channels have hundreds of thousands of viewers and over a million subscribers. I'm not saying this money should directly go to Hank Green et al, the government can set up a new sub-committee on the matter or push the BBC towards this sort of funding with more grants for educational programmes.

All that needs to be done, is SOMETHING; in general government has failed to incentivise young people in voting and education naturally only works at a certain pace for maybe 25% of the room. Digital video content could be one way to unlock the potential of those children who do not want to learn at a pace which suits a teacher. All of this can be done at a very small cost in the grand scheme of things, £1 million is roughly the salary costs of one school considering there are 1000s of schools in the UK this should not be a problem for the government.

All Women shortlists and why we need more of them in politics not less....

The issue of an all women shortlist is an issue of great contention for many in politics, Labour has had since the 90s and we have seen 36% of MPs in the Labour Party being women, compared to the days of the 70s and 80s when Parliament was seen as an old boys club, women in parliament has changed the make up of Parliament for the better, it has lowered the age of MPs it has led to changes in the hours of Parliament meaning it is a lot easier to have a family and be an MP than it was before, it means that MPs within commuting distance no longer have to live in London for most of the time due to better hours of work for MPs, and it means parliament is finally become more representative to the people of Britain.

Half the populace are women it is only fair that as close to that percentage of women are MPs, the argument given by some of the populace is that women have children and take maternity leave and thus are more likely to be lower down the career ladder and less to run for MP due to lack of "career development", I say boo hoo to the argument put out, if women don't have enough career development why are 30 year old people standing to be MPs? Surely this is an ageist policy older people are more likely to have a greater CV and career history, being an MP shouldn't just be about what job you had previously whether a Special Advisor or a bin man, both of which are perfectly valid career paths.

Most people enter Parliament in there late 30s-40s by this time the majority of the populace have finished having children and will not need to take the cursed maternity leave which so many opponents of an AWS will inevitably call will occur when a female MP had a child. All women shortlists are there to correct millennia of wrong against women, the inevitable sexism within all fields of life mean that action has to be taken to enable women to do well in life, an AWS leads to a greater amount of women in parliament and gives a different perspective on policy than that of men, as humans we are all different and divided by gender and other sorts. 

An AWS can also lead to a really great candidate that may have not otherwise won due to other factors, a good example of this would be Victoria Groulef in Reading West and I'm sure there are many more up and down the country for the Labour Party, an AWS leads to a more representative CLP and party in general it does not bar women from standing in non AWS seats and there are selections that women have won without an AWS but this can be seen as the success of All women shortlists in the long term, they are not here for the long term, it is set out to right the wrongs of the past against women and should be encouraged further and be adopted by all political parties.