Mazida Khatun
LSESU Politics Society Vice-Chair
With the SU elections a not-so-distant memory, we have upon us yet another week of campaigning for your votes. This time you will not be begged or harassed for them, but we will be asking you to make sure that you are registered to vote. If, like me, this is the first time you will be voting in a UK general election, then be sure that you are eligible to vote, are registered and know what the issues are that will decide who gets that all important mark of approval from you. As there would be uproar across the country if the local elections were not held on the same day, this opens up the franchise to many of you who may not have realised that you have a role in determining the outcome in terms of governance for the next few years.
Just as it is important to contribute, it is also important to reflect on the state of politics in the UK and ask yourself some pertinent questions. For instance, why is overall voter turnout for the elections so low? Have people lost faith in the institution of democracy, or the parliamentary system of this country? How far does the press affect your decisions and your image of individual political candidates? We are constantly told that our politicians are untrustworthy and our system faulty, but is there a British politician worthy of admiration?
My challenge to you is to find one champion of British politics who you can admire. Then pinpoint the areas that you want to see major changes in – be they constitutional reform, tuition fees, the environment, the economy or public services. We have to be aware of the things that concern us and the channels through which they can be influenced. After all, if we don’t provide a check Westminster, who will?
For most of us, the little crosses that we mark on our ballot papers and the few drops of ink we use to do this are our only contributions to democracy (unless you are Swiss, in which case you will use a few pens’ worth of ink). We speak of safe seats and swing-o-meters that barely move in this country come election time, but this year there are few safe bets. With the possibility of a hung parliament, our votes will count more than ever before. So when we get that long awaited election day, get out to those polling stations and make your mark – because it matters.
Danny Beales,
LSESU Labour Society Chair
Fox-hunting, inheritance tax cuts for millionaires, cutting EMA and Sure-Start. Are these your priorities? No, they are not ours either. In such difficult economic times we believe it says a great deal about the Conservative Party that these are some of their only firm commitments. This party has not changed, and Thatcher’s children are seeking the same failed policies of the eighties. Certainly the national debt needs to be addressed, on this all parties agree, however they are the only party which seem to have an unattractive relish for it. The axe under the Tories will not fall equally across the board, but will be focused on our public services, which have taken over a decade to rejuvenate from the sorry state of 1997.
Certainly we know as well as anyone that the Labour party has not succeeded in everything it has pursued. There have been many things which can be looked at with regret, either as bad decisions or missed opportunities. However if you look around Britain today, you cannot help but see that great improvements have been made, which were and often still are opposed by the Conservatives. People no longer earn as little as one pound-fifty an hour since the National Minimum wage and tax-credits enable families to return to work. Record numbers now study at university, there are over a hundred new hospitals, a record number of doctors, nurses, police and teachers and we have a health-service which we can and should be genuinely proud of.
David Cameron says we live in a ‘broken-Britain’, but this is not the Britain we see. Overall Britons are drinking less alcohol, drug usage has fallen, rates of smoking are now among the lowest in Europe and the number of teenage pregnancies has also declined. Crime has been cut by over thirty percent, our young people are doing better in education than ever and women have more rights in the work-place, as do gay and lesbian couples.
The promise of Conservative change is an oxymoron, entailing nothing but a return to old failed policies such as the marriage tax-breaks, which would help only 11 per cent of the poorest families while giving tax-breaks to well-off couples. The only thing seemingly broken pat of Britain is the Conservative party, which opposes European integration, the Equality Bill, Proportional Representation and House of Lords Reform, and says nothing relevant to a modern, dynamic and more equal Britain.
There is of course still a lot to do and we want to see a Britain which is fairer, safer, greener and happier. Everyone’s vote is crucial come May 6th, so that we can stop a return to the Britain of the 1980s. Many of us will not remember this period of continued high unemployment and ever-increasing crime, of under-investment in our public-services, of booming class sizes, dilapidated hospitals and waiting lists of years not weeks. Labour believes in collective social responsibility. No one can or should be left behind as Britain moves forward, and this is what the Labour party will be fighting for on the 6th of May.
Alex Blance
LSESU Conservative Party Chair
When I confess my terrible secret to my fellow students, the reaction is usually the same: a raised eyebrow, a snort of derision, and a tirade of abuse. Yes, it’s not easy being a campus Conservative; students are notoriously left wing. But it seems that behind closed doors, a growing number of young people are discovering the love that dare not speak its name. The Conservatives are the biggest political society in the LSE, a situation that is reflected around the country, where Conservative Future has many more members than Young Labour. At first glance this may seem surprising: the Conservatives have made no attempt to win the student vote by promising to scrap top-up fees, and remain in favour of continued engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For me, this failure to pander to the student vote is the very essence of Conservative philosophy. While Labour governs according to the principle of ‘divide and rule’, splitting the electorate up into minority groups who can be bought with targeted giveaways, the Conservatives believe that we are ‘one nation’, with a shared purpose and common interests. It is little wonder that the Conservatives had the first female and the first Jewish prime ministers; it would be no surprise if we were the first to have a black or Asian prime minister in due course. That is because Conservatives have always believed that people are not defined by their class or race, but by their individual personalities and abilities.
So, what sort of a society does the Conservative Party believe in? As it turns out, it is one that many students would like to live in. A Britain where you don’t have to carry an ID card to prove your identity and you can’t be locked up for 48 days without a trial; a country where wind turbines and solar power help tackle energy insecurity and climate change; a society where we trust people to make the decisions that affect their own families, schools and communities, rather than running around trying to follow the latest Five Year Plan from Number 10. The Conservatives believe that Britain is a fundamentally good place, filled with pretty good people. If we free them from the shackles of state interference, economic growth and social improvement will follow. And that is good for all of us, whether or not we are students.
Luckily, we are too young to remember the Britain of the late 1970s, a country that was slowly going down the pan. While many on the left saw nothing but decline in the future, Mrs Thatcher strongly believed that Britain could still be a serious world player. The economic revolution she ushered in saw us rediscover our prosperity and our place in the world. After another decade of Labour mismanagement, Britain faces new problems: crippling levels of debts and the growing visibility of a ‘broken society’. Luckily, once again there is an opposition party ready to step in and make the difficult decisions needed to get the country back on its feet. Now the PM just needs to stop dithering and call the election!
Edwin Loo
LSESU Liberal Democract Society
This has been a decade of disappointment and disaffection. We have seen a Labour government come in under the pretension of progressive politics, and end its reign under a cloud of sleaze, lies and betrayal. Labour has spent the past 10 years chipping away at freedom, hiking up the cost of education and widening the gap between the richest and poorest in society. The Conservatives ten years before destroyed much of the social fabric of the country and brought us the economic bubble that burst with spectacular consequences in 2007. And they promise to do the exact same thing if they win in May 2010. Disaffection would be a natural response, simply because politics has failed this generation. However, this election you do have a choice – the ‘third party’.
As easy as it is to bash the two main parties, this is not only about the letdown of two decades of Labour and Tory misrule but also about practical alternatives. The Liberal Democrats are a party committed to fairness. Despite twenty years of solid growth, child poverty is endemic and future generations are sinking into debt to pay for education while the richest get richer. We are the only party that has pledged to scrap tuition fees, rebalance the tax system to end the trials of poorer families and to put the environment at the forefront of its efforts. Liberal Democrat councils throughout the capital and country, including Camden and Islington, have pledged to cut carbon emissions as part of the 10:10 campaign. While the Tories play with climate change denial, and Labour refuse to push for decisive action in fear of angering the tabloids, our councils are insulating homes, spearheading better recycling and working for a sustainable economy.
This is perhaps our last chance to deal with the structural problems plaguing our politics. Liberal Democrats in Parliament will put forward radical solutions: a fair electoral system, greater power for local communities and young people. We will force through the necessary changes to bring about a green transformation in the British Economy, and put our country on a fairer and firmer footing. We started off with an unprecedented recession in 1979 under the Conservatives. We ended it in 2010 with yet another one under Labour. It does not need to be like this. You can abstain, waste a vote on a party that will never win like the Greens, or vote for a party like the Liberal Democrats, which has the interests of students and young people at the core of its philosophy.
Your vote in May 2010 will not be a wasted one. The Liberal Democrats are on the verge of a breakthrough in London. We are only fractionally behind tired, incompetent and spineless Labour MPs in Islington and Camden, with the Greens and Conservatives out of the race. In this election, and more so in London, the choice is between the tired, broken politics of the two hegemonic parties, and the dynamism offered by the Liberal Democrats. This is a once in a generation chance to make a change for the better.
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