Category Archives: Politics

All things political

Student movement or stagnant movement? My problems with the NUS Black Student’s campaign

Politics aside, I was really looking forward to getting involved in the black student’s campaign this year.  However, after attending the campaign’s annual summer conference, I have some serious reservations.

My suspicions began when I looked at the conference’s final motions and amendments document. I thought the steering committee were supposed to be impartial, but any motions submitted that criticised the structure of the campaign had been scrapped altogether or had been warped beyond recognition. I can only imagine this happened at compositing- a meeting at NUS HQ that motion proposers had to attend to put forward the case for keeping their proposals. The problem was, not everyone could go, thanks to money or travel issues.

One motion in particular that stood out was entitled ‘winter conference is too cold’. The motion resolved to do away with the campaigns annual winter conference and replace it with regional activist training days. In the final motions and amendments this had been merged into a motion named ‘winter conference is amazing’. Training days were only mentioned in the final resolution, cleverly phrased so that no delegate could take parts and attempt to scrap winter conference at all.

Clearly, there are political elements to the black students campaign’s steering committee. Members of the committee were clearly politically affiliated to candidates running in the election. I later discovered that Pav Ahktar, chair of steering, was black student’s officer from 2004 to 2006, and had graduated a very long time ago.

Pav’s political affiliations were confirmed in the election for next year’s steering committee, in which he recommded that delegates should also vote for Bellavia Riberio-Addy, who incidentally, is also a former black students officer . Personally, I object to two former black students’ officers running to be elected on to the steering committee as I don’t believe they can be impartial after being involved in the campaign for such a long time .

I believe the student movement is transient by nature, and for that reason, should always be kept regenerated, fresh and new. I didn’t see that in this campaign. I saw students and graduates who had been involved for 5 to 10 years moving from post to post. I think this suspicious, and indicative of a select few who  obviously do not want to let go.  It is a phenomenon that strangling progress and putting off new delegates.

My dissatisfaction came to a head when I decided to run for women’s representative on the black student’s committe. Standing orders (the same standing orders I had read on NUS Connect and in my delegate pack) dictated that there were two open places available. This is why I ran.

When we entered the room we had to wait 45 minutes because one candidate (who has been on the black student’s committee for 7 years) insisted that one place should be reserved for further education candidates only.

Upon consulting steering, the room was informed that a place should be reserved for further education, that this had been forgotten on the standing orders, and that we had the opportunity to take it to a vote.

Now, I agree with this proposal in principle, but in the context of the women’s caucus I thought it was an absolute farce. The candidate who ran for further education women’s place was Rebecca Sawbridge, who has comfortably sat on various positions on black student’s committee for seven years. Conveniently she was the only further education candidate in this election. In this election, I saw a committee member (who had already enjoyed too much time sitting at the table) reserving herself a place on the committee for another year. I was outraged.

With the same people maxing their term limits and moving from post to post to post, year after year after year, I believe that the black student’s campaign is stagnant. This is a case of the same people, with the same ideas, same politics, and ultimately, the same cliques. First time delegates who are keen to get involved are shafted by old timers using their political persuasion to fix things and create certain wins for themselves. When we are welcoming delegates to their eight year on committee, something is seriously wrong. In all honestly, I think some campaign and steering committee members think they are the black student’s campaign, as if it could not survive without them.  The democracy is warped, and the movement is going nowhere.

I also object to the way the motions are set out in the black students campaign. Delegates must vote on four main motions with a series of amendments after each one- forcing delegates to accept the a main motion whether they like its content or not.

I think committee members should accept criticism gracefully. The campaign needs progress and reform.  When new delegates are unsatisfied,  it’s not helpful to brand us ‘right wing’ just because you don’t like constructive criticism. I do believe the black students campaign is in the stranglehold of a select few individuals who are hanging on to the campaign like a comfort blanket. Ultimately, this results black activists who are being shunned, and black students who are being failed.

Nadine Dorries’ dangerous message

I’ve written for The Guardian’s comment is free about Nadine Dorries and her victim blaming on yesterday’s Vanessa Show.

Tucked away on daytime TV on Monday afternoon, Nadine Dorries was justifying her proposals for elements of abstinence-based sex education for girls. The Vanessa Show saw the Conservative MP go head to head with Julie Bentley, chief executive of the sexual health charity FPA. The women, along with presenter Vanessa Feltz and retired rugby player Lawrence Dallaglio, discussed the bill that was unveiled to the House of Commons two weeks ago.

When it was first introduced, Dorries insisted her aim was to empower teenage girls to say “no” to sex. There is really nothing empowering about teaching young women that their sexuality is not their own. Abstinence-based sex education teaches girls that sex isn’t something that they participate in – instead, it’s something they give in to. Towards the end of the debate, Dorries said:

“A lot of girls, when sex abuse takes place, don’t realise until later that that was a wrong thing to do … Society is so over-sexualised that I don’t think people realise that if we did empower this message into girls, imbued this message in schools, we’d probably have less sex abuse.”

Read the rest here!

In defence of slutwalks

“Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.”

These were the words uttered by a Toronto police representative in January, talking a group of students at a campus safety information session. He’s not the first. In 2009, androgynous pop singer La Roux said: ‘There’s far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top … I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or have relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.”

I can’t be the only twenty one year old woman who is no stranger to these warped opinions. The stance is deeply rooted in the notion that a woman’s body is some kind of public property that must be owned (not by the woman herself, mind) and protected by those who seek to steal or defile it. It’s an almost ingrained attitude that finds itself wheedling into every crevice of our culture- for example, many women who experience street harassment find telling the pursuer that she has a boyfriend is an effective deterrent- ‘thanks for the attention, but I’m already owned by somebody else’.

Arguments that attempt to justify victim blaming often (if not always) equate women’s bodies to property, money, or food. All of these things are less than human. Women are none of those things. Victim blaming absolves those who sexually harass, assault, and rape of all responsibility, shifting the focus to the person they did it to. Additionally, it paints men as uncontrollable sex beasts who are lead entirely by their insatiable penises, devoid of morals, logic, and empathy. In short, victim blaming undermines us all.

False debate about women’s clothing is definitive of rape culture. It excuses abusers for the crimes they commit. Maybe we should stop asking women if our clothes make us more susceptible to sexual assault, and stop letting abusers off the hook.

Women’s bodies are dragged out into the public sphere over and over again. Right wing extremists attempt to legislate subjective sexual morality amongst the echelons of power, from Nadine Dorries in the UK to republicans in the United States. Whilst these people make decisions about how we should conduct our bodies, we are being dissected.

Nobody ever claimed that the slutwalk movement celebrates promiscuity in women. But even if it did- so what? For hundreds of years, woman’s virtue has been inexplicably linked with chastity. We are constantly being defined by what we don’t do. The virgin/whore dichotomy is nothing new. We live in a time when Tory MPs are sitting in parliament pushing regressive abstinence agendas that teach young women that sex isn’t something you participate in, it’s something that you give up. The hand wringing hysteria over assertive female sexuality sexual autonomy is both extremely archaic and very much alive.

All of this is why I welcome the slutwalk movement with open arms.

The movement’s website states: ‘With sexual assault already a significantly under-reported crime, survivors have now been given even less of a reason to go to the Police, for fear that they could be blamed. Being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim.’

Basic feminism 101. So why the backlash? It seems the name of the movement has caused confusion- some more methodical than others. I used to respect the anti-pornography campaigner Gail Dines, but her problem with feminist activists organising without her permission is unnerving. I admit, I must have missed the memo that confirmed she was crowned Queen of Feminism, because her approach to the debate appears to be very much her way, or the highway. Gail, along with professor of sexual violence Wendy J Murphy, have voiced strong opposition to the idea of slutwalks, asserting that women should not be fighting for the right to be called sluts. Whilst I sympathise with their  reservations about the word, but I just can’t agree with the way they have let their concerns hijack the very real issue of victim blaming. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the misinterpretation of the cause and the consequent Guardian article condemning the march has single handedly begun the avalanche of misinformed debate that is obscuring the original cause of the march. As for Gail’s continued worry that concentrating on slutwalks will deplete precious feminist resources- I’m confused. I didn’t realise every feminist activist ran out of feminist energy at the end of every month. Should we be calling Dines for a top up?

Yes, the word slut is a contentious and derogatory term, with its conception mired in slut shaming and victim blaming. However, I can’t help wonder if Gail Dines and Wendy Murphy are wilfully missing the point. Surely the name of the march is a direct response to the policeman’s comment. Why are they choosing to ignore this? With a mainstream culture that rarely challenges victim blaming, I’m not sure if we should be trying to pick apart a genuinely well-meaning movement in its infancy.

The subsequent backlash over reclaiming the word slut doesn’t just shove the original cause to the margins, it is also incredibly indicative of a repetitive cultural hysteria over women’s sexual autonomy. What does promiscuity mean anyway? In this context it seems to be that age old outrage about women enjoying and even pursuing (!) sex- otherwise known as slut shaming. I doubt these links are a coincidence.

I’ve no inclination to reclaim the word slut, but I do believe that we should start shouting about how the word is consistently used to shame and blame women. That’s why I’ll be going on the march, and you should too.

America’s uterus police

I wrote a guest post for Education for Choice, which I shall also cross post here.

It must be very difficult to be a poor woman in the US right now. Rich, white, powerful men have spent the past few weeks in Congress making life changing decisions that will ultimately determine whether women will be granted control over their own bodies.

Unfortunately, it looks like Congress is winning.

If you follow American politics, you may have noticed that there has been an unprecedented rise of right wing patriarchal traditionalism in recent months- a movement that is callously concentrated on keeping women in their subordinate place.

First came the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. In this bill, speaker of the house John Boehner asserted that funding for abortions should only be provided to women who have been ‘forcibly raped’. With this phrasing, Boehner aspired to realign the definition of rape so that it fitted neatly with his own ideology. ‘Forcibly raped’ quite unsubtly suggests that women who don’t emerge from rape or sexual assault covered in bruises are somehow lying or disingenuous when they ask for help. It excludes victims of incest who are over 18. ‘Forcibly raped’ immediately eliminates those women who have been raped whilst drugged, raped whilst intoxicated, or manipulated and groomed.

Then, Congress voted to strip Planned Parenthood, America’s largest sexual and reproductive health provider of funding – effectively barring access to hundreds upon thousands of poor women across America who can’t afford healthcare.

Currently, South Dakota is considering a law that would make abortion providers guilty of a crime punishable by death.

And now, Republican Rep. Bobby Franklin is campaigning to classify abortion as murder, and wants to put policy in place that would require hospitals to report all spontaneous miscarriages so that women can be investigated for abortion. He’s joined Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker in an all-out assault on abortion rights.

For too long now, the misconception that pro-choice means anti life has warped public debate about women’s reproductive rights. This mistaken logic leads to anti-choicers branding sexual health and abortion clinics as murder houses, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The same people campaigning to ban abortion are often those campaigning to restrict sex education, with the misguided belief that abstinence is the only way to curb teen pregnancy.  To assert that young women shouldn’t have sex if they don’t want to get pregnant is absurd. Take a look around at our hyper sexualised culture and you’ll notice one stark factor – the idea of pregnancy has been completely divorced from the concept of sex.

Educating young women about sex and relationships, as well as granting them access to contraception and the morning after pill are all key factors that are likely to reduce the rates of abortion.  Pro-choice means granting women the dignity to make their own decisions without governments interfering with and attempting to control their reproductive organs. Motherhood is glorious, but women aren’t baby machines. Much of the abortion debate has been fuelled by ideology; with those in government putting their own beliefs before the health and well-being of women in their own country. A recent US study found that 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.

It’s a funny paradox that the American republican right occupy themselves with. In the midst of all this passion to rescue potential life, they’ve forgotten actual life – the women having to make these difficult and devastating decisions. The women who own these bodies. In the middle of a recession, America’s republican men and women are more interested in policing women’s bodies instead of focusing on wider social, cultural and economic causes of a catastrophic financial crisis. It seems, in times of austerity, it’s easier to bully and belittle those with no power rather than address real issues. These false bastions of the family are currently channelling all their energy into making the world a harsher place for American women.

On things we are not allowed to say…

It’s always good fun to see white men pass big fat swathes of unfounded judgement on the black community- in particular, black women. I usually steer clear of conservative or right wing blogs as they tend to leave a nasty after-taste, but I was intrigued when Tim Montgomerie, editor of leading political blog Conservative Home, tweeted a link to a post from Graeme Archer. A ‘brilliant piece’, he tweeted, ‘on what we are and are not allowed to say’. I respect Montgomerie’s commentary, so I clicked, assuming a piece on state censorship, or freedom of information. What I got was a thinly veiled attack on the black community, our make-up, and a hand wringing lament on fatherless homes.

Last week, 20 year old aspiring hip hop dancer Claudia Seye Aderotimi tragically passed away after travelling abroad to receive silicone injections in her buttocks.

Archer’s post, entitled ‘Don’t Look Now’, ended with the gem ‘Why mustn’t you say these things? Oh come on, do I have to spell it out? You haven’t mentioned ethnicity once. But you will be called a racist.’

His knee-jerk desire to blame this tragic case entirely on the black community is really quite worrying.

Graeme Archer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He blames Hip Hop when he should really be blaming the patriarchy. Hip Hop is predominately misogynistic because its control is in the hands of men, who regard women as little more than oiled up, jiggly, rotund decoration for their pleasure.

The unique thing about the patriarchy is that allows men from all cultures to band together and sneer at the women who go to great lengths to fit their arbitrary definitions of what’s acceptable, and what’s not. Archer is right when he describe the misogynistic nature of Hip Hop as ‘a machine which is used by its owners to enrich themselves, to set out their desired norms regarding female behaviour and appearance’. I blogged about that a few weeks ago. But he loses all equality points with his discriminatory stance on black women’s bodies and the black community as a whole.  His offhand comments about black women’s ‘over-inflated backsides’ reveal an ugly misogyny that he tries hard to disguise at the beginning of his piece. I’m a black woman, and I have news for him- some of us don’t undergo surgery to gain our big backsides- we are naturally shaped that way. It’s just that this body shape is now held up as the aspirational ideal- kind of like playboy bunnies and big breasts. And, as we have enough hassle from the extreme objectification of our bodies in these videos orchestrated by black men, we could do without the wrinkled nose disgust about black women’s body shapes from white men like him.

Personally, I miss the days when Hip Hop was like this, rather than the commercialised rubbish beamed out on MTV Base. The body fascist patriarchy manifests itself in all sorts of subcultures. Each hold different specifics but the crux of the message is the same- women, you have to be this body shape to be perfect.

Shame on you, Conservative Home. If you wanted astute analysis on this tragic case, plenty of black, female writers would have been happy to contribute. Maybe even a young, black, female writer- the unfortunate target audience of Hip Hop’s ugly machine. Perhaps then the post would have focused on the very real problem of body Hip Hop’s body facism, rather than descending into an arm flailing, wailing lament about ‘kids these days’ from an out of touch old fogey.

Archer’s comments on Hip Hop’s ugly, inhuman machine are entirely misappropriated. Its patriarchy’s machine we should be worrying about. Conveniently, he fails to mention any cases outside of Hip Hop culture that detail women undergoing cosmetic procedures with fatal results. This is a symptom of impossibly achievable ideals that are sold to women as aspirational. It’s horribly tragic, and the ideal doesn’t just exist in the black community. Maybe cosmetic surgery related deaths outside of hip hop culture probably doesn’t fit into Archer’s ‘self-destructive black community’ narrative that he’s so eager to promote. Instead, he makes disjointed connections about teenagers on the top decks of buses and fatherless homes. Graeme- I grew up in a black, fatherless home with plenty of boundaries- and those boundaries made me the person I am today. You can take your undiscerning, unfounded generalisations, and piss off.

Leave Aaron Porter alone!

People are saying that the student movement is dead. And I wish I could disagree fully, but this stupid factionalist infighting is getting us nowhere. To be clear- I don’t intend of making any sweeping generalisations about who belongs to what political party in this post. I’m not into lazy labelling. All of us in the student movement are fiercely opposed to cuts and higher fees, but the Porter hunt is getting in the way of that.

Today’s action in Glasgow just looks like intimidation and bullying tactics. The consequent laughter and jeering on twitter and facebook was embarrassingly vindictive. People comparing Porter to Hosni Mubarak is mind-bogglingly ridiculous. On the 29th, I was in Manchester when Porter was chased, and as the reports came in my heart sank because I knew those of us who were there but weren’t involved in it would be held to account by people who tar all students with the same brush.  NUS’ national conference is coming up in the next couple of months, which means those of us who are actually students can get elected to conference, represent our SUs and vote for the next NUS president. This ‘authentic’ student specification may seem an arbitrary binary, but, whatever you think of him, Porter was elected amongst the student population, not by the supporters of students. March, occupy and protest with us if you like, but the democratic process should really be left to students and students only.

I digress. One of the student movement’s brightest assets is also one of its biggest downfalls. We’re young; we’re determined, enthusiastic, and vibrant. But with youth often comes accusations of naivety, idealism, and- dare I say it- a lack of self-awareness. I don’t think this is true. I’ve been at organising meetings where students debate intensely about press coverage which is great. But the student movement isn’t centralised, there’s pockets of us planning all over the country, and whilst some care about how we appear from the outside, it looks like others don’t.

Reflection is important. Press coverage matters because public support is one of the key factors in orchestrating a successful campaign. Right now we all look like idiots squabbling amongst ourselves.

The student movement isn’t dead- and I have a feeling that various branches of the anti-cuts movement will gather together for one big fight back against the coalition’s cuts. But this Porter hunt is hindering us.

The Joy of Teen Sex?

I’ve written another piece for The Guardian’s Comment is Free, this time on Channel 4′s Joy of Teen Sex.

‘Society has always been reluctant to address teenage sex and its consequences, and the ongoing battle in parliament for compulsory sex and relationship education (SRE) in schools reflects this – Chris Bryant’s compulsory SRE bill is going through its second reading in the House of Commons. In any case, young people’s sex lives need to be debated further…’

Read the rest here!

What did it mean to be a Lib Dem in 2010?

2010 was a fraught year for members of the Liberal Democrat party. On the eve of  last December’s tuition fee vote, I spoke to UCLan graduate and Lib Dem Preston City councillor John Potter about his politics, activism, the trials and tribulations of the past year, and what this means for the party.

How long have you been a member of the Liberal Democrat Party? 

I started as an activist when I was seventeen, and I joined up in 2005.

So you’ve always voted Lib Dem?

Yep, my whole life!

Did you have a ‘click’ moment when you decided you identified with the party?

Well, I’ve always been liberal, so have my mum and dad. They never told us, but they read The Independent, and watched Channel 4 news- a bit of a giveaway! The thing that really got me active was the war in Iraq. I’d finished uni [John graduated from UCLan in 2004] and I wanted something to do- I wanted to get active in the community, and Iraq seemed the perfect reason to get involved, because I was so angry about it.

You’re one of the youngest councillors on Preston Council. My research tells me you’ve stood for election twice now-

-Four times actually! Fourth time lucky, it was.

Four times? Wow, my bad! Did you find standing for election daunting, being so young?

I didn’t stand for election at first. I had a go at helping out, coordinating, handing out leaflets and stuff like that. Not really, no. You have a few nerves about whether people will take you seriously because you’re young. But once you get out there and get on the street, you find people are happy just to have someone different, a bit of fresh blood. People like the fact that you’re young and you’re energetic and you care about something.

Now that you represent Cadley, what sort of stuff do you get up to as a councillor?

The most surprising thing I found was that you very rarely need to go into town hall. There are various committees you can go on to, but the most important thing is being there for your voters- your constituents. I’m usually doing some sort of case work every night. Last night I was in a meeting about leisure centres. I’m actually very busy and that’s not including getting out case work letters, or leaflets, or things like that, that can make you a good councillor.

What’s been your highest achievement since you were elected?

To tell you the truth, it’s been a quiet period. I’ve sorted out a new gritting route which runs past sheltered accommodation. I’ve got a pavement resurfaced. The big stuff is happening in the next few months. That’s when we get our settlement from the government on how much money we’re not getting now, and how much we’ll have to cut. From now up until the budget in February, it really is crunch time. There will be very serious decisions that will have to be made, that is where I will earn my stripes as a councillor.

Would you say there have been any low points since your election?

Not really, no. Local politics is quite strange; it’s not as cut and thrust as national politics. You get your head down, and you do your work. I apply myself and make sure I get out there. If someone’s got a problem I make sure I go round to their door as quickly as I can. I’ll have a chat to them in person, get hold of whatever the issue is, and get it resolved. I’ll let them know about it as much as possible. You should never be really quiet, as a councillor, because if you are, you’re probably not doing as much as you should.

It’s been an interesting year for the Liberal Democrats.  One of the pivotal moments for the Lib Dems was those historical televised debates. How do you think the Lib Dems came off in them?

I think they were absolutely vital. Having been quite an active campaigner, everyone knew that it was a big chance for the Lib Dems. The problem that the Lib Dems have always suffered is that nobody knew what we stood for. Obviously, we know what we stand for, but we need to get that message across the nation, to areas that didn’t know. It gave us a primetime seat in front of millions of voters who had never even looked at the Lib Dems before. Nick Clegg did very well on them, and there was ‘Cleggmania’ that subsequently came from it. He offered something different to Labour and the Tories. Locally, we prove that in Cadley all the time. On a national level, that was the first time for us, and it was very exciting. I remember watching the first one, and we had a debate party- there was twelve of us, enjoying a beer and watching it. For the second one, I was working down south, and I was driving up listening to it on the radio. I thought ‘Nick Clegg’s done well here’ – as soon as the review started coming in saying he’d done well on the second one as well it was incredibly exciting for me as a campaigner and as a Lib Dem.

You’ve touched upon the fact that it was around this time public opinion really began to change regarding the Lib Dems. What was the feeling amongst yourself and other Liberal Democrat Party members?

Well, obviously, we were ecstatic. Seeing the Liberal Democrats 32% in the polls, ahead of the Tories and Labour was incredible. In my heart of hearts, I went to talk to one of the North West campaigners and I said that with every bounce there has to be a come down. It was when there was an initial feeling of ‘oh right! They’re the Lib Dems’ started to take off, I recognised that it was a honeymoon period and wouldn’t last forever. It was an incredibly exciting time, but it didn’t quite hold out to polling day. That was a shame. There was a general opinion that the Lib Dens my go down to about 40, that we would be squeezed by the Tory resurgence in the south west. But for us to only loose five seats, and actually holding off Tories in some seats was quite a success for us. We would have loved to have had 100 MPs, but we got a million more votes.  A million more votes, but five less seats. It shows the crookedness of our electoral system if anything!

And so the coalition government was formed. Were you watching the live coverage?

I was glued to it! Twitter, Facebook, radio, TV, it was really exciting. I’ve just bought David Laws’ book about his inside account and I’m looking forward to reading that.

What were your thoughts on the Lib Dems teaming up with the Conservatives?

All political parties have various wings, and the Lib Dems are no different. We have the social liberals, on the left of the party. Most people would say that we have more in common with Labour than with the Conservatives. The amount of our manifesto that is in that coalition document was incredibly encouraging for Lib Dems. Some members who had fought the Tories their whole lives and who can’t think of anything worse will never like it, and still don’t like it. People get tribal with their politics, and they were never going to like it. I think the party did very well in letting us know as members what was going on. We’re the only party I know that spent their money putting on a special conference after the coalition document had been released where members from across the country could go and have their say, and were asked ‘are you happy with this?’ No other party would do that, but the Lib Dems take pride in the fact that whether it’s a lowly councillor or party activist like me, right up to Nick Clegg, we all had a say. I think it was 95% of us that were in favour of it.  I believe in coalition politics. Compromise isn’t a bad word. There are 22 coalitions in Europe. The last peace time coalition was in the 1920s. We have to get used to it. Some people are very uneasy about coalition, but if we get the voting system we’ve always wanted, PR [proportional representation], that more or less ensures coalition for life. It makes it virtually impossible for one party to get a majority. It’s nothing new. We were in coalition with Labour for eight years in Scotland. Labour are currently in coalition with the Welsh nationals in Wales.  Even more astonishingly, Labour are in coalition with the Conservatives in Cumbria county council. This is nothing new for people in local government and devolved government. But I can understand why people are wondering why we can’t do everything we said we could do.

Let’s fast forward a few fateful months. The tuition fees debate started gaining momentum during the summer, and is still going. During the election at UCLan, the Student Left Network held a debate where a representative from the three main parties came in talk to us, and we were told that free tuition was one of the Liberal Democrats’ core policies.  When the debate started to rear its head, what were your opinions on it, and what are they now?

Nothing’s changed, technically. Free tuition fees are still a bench mark of Lib Dem policy. We’re not able to deliver it in this government. We wouldn’t be able to deliver it if it was us and Labour in government, because neither Labour nor the Conservatives want free tuition fees. We’ve only got 57 MPs. If we had 320 MPs, there would be no tuition fees in six year time. The Lib Dems have a federal policy committee, and that’s still our policy. Some Lib Dems don’t believe that, but the party does, as a whole. The membership all get to vote when we go to conference. We have these debates, and it’s still a major Lib Dem policy. Coalition is give and take. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Labour, Tory, or a rainbow coalition- no one was going to give us the tuition fees.

It was reported yesterday that 17 Lib Dem ministers in parliament will be voting for a rise in tuition fees. What sort of knock on effect to you feel that that will have on the party?

I think most people understand that there’s a ministerial responsibility when you’re in government. There’s a collective responsibility to represent the government. This is why someone like Tim Farron, who’s just become our party president, says Nick Clegg has to represent the government as well as the Lib Dems, so that issue is going to be squeezed. Having someone like Tim Farron as a non-ministerial president of the Lib Dems has been vitally important. He’s been the voice of the Lib Dems outside of the government. I graduated in 2004, and it shouldn’t detract from the fact that this policy is a vast improvement from what I went through. I remember starting every term, going into university with a cheque worth £1000. That’s not happening now, and no upfront fees are a massive improvement. Not to mention the 40% of part time students that will pay no upfront fees. The cost of paying fees is now dramatically lower as well. It’s down to £7 a month for someone on £21,000 a year. I wouldn’t be paying anything [if the new policy was in place when I went to UCLan].

Finally, what are your thoughts on the caricature of Nick Clegg in the press, especially amongst the student population? He’s gone from Mr Reasonable to Mr Nasty in a matter of six months.

I think it’s exactly what you said- a caricature. He’s the face of the Lib Dems as part of the coalition. It wouldn’t matter if it was Nick Clegg or Bob Russell, the very left wing backbencher. It wouldn’t matter who it was, they’d get tarred with that same brush. He’s almost like a scapegoat for every policy that’s more conservative than ours. Nick Clegg has become the face of that. Rightly or wrongly, you do lose a bit of your identity in coalition. I actually think he’s doing a pretty good job. There is a collective responsibility when you’re in government, and it’s for people like me, and local MPs to make sure we look for the Lib Dem view as well. It’s too easy being in opposition, and that’s what Labour is doing now. What would they do instead? As Ed Miliband said, they have a blank page. If Labour start giving us alternatives, then things might get interesting. But at the moment, they’re not. At the moment there’s the coalition way, and no other way, because there’s no opposition in Britain.

Originally written for Pluto Online .

What’s after graduation? Panic!

I’ve written for The Guardian’s comment is free on the rising levels of youth unemployment.

‘I’ll let you in on a little secret – I’m terrified of graduating. The growing youth unemployment rates have loomed in the back of my mind for a while now and I’ve sat snugly in the student bubble for almost three years. Very soon, I’ll have to take those tentative steps out into the real world.

It’s not the early mornings or the daily grind I’m worried about. Instead, I wonder if I’ll get the opportunity to face those in the first place. After my graduation, I had planned to apply for a master’s degree, but postgraduate funding, which was already thin on the ground, has just received another blow with the coalition hinting at slashing funding for postgraduate courses….’

Read the rest here!

Guest post: I am an octopus

My friend Belinda Mellor originally wrote this piece as part of her rhetoric module at university. It has been written to be read out loud, as a speech- and I thought it was too good not to share. True food for thought. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

Thesis: that the vilification of single mothers is unjustified.

Allow me to tell you a little about myself.  I am an octopus. A mature single octopus; I work hard and my eight arms ensure that multi-tasking works for me.  Let me explain.  The female Giant Pacific Octopus blows clean water over its new laid eggs in order that they may survive, for the last time before it dies.  Although perhaps not quite as self sacrificing as the Giant Pacific Octopus, as a mature student and a single mother of three, I work hard.

Yet some people, even some of those in power view single parents negatively.  That is what I would like to tell you about.  I want to talk to you about my support for single parents and in particular for the nine out of ten who are single mothers.

My own experience of being a single parent began at the age of 26.  My partner and I separated after five years together, and a particularly sad time in my life was spent in the company of my three small children.  Solitary evenings sewing pump bags by candlelight were compensated for by sunny days in the park, punctuated with laughter and choral pleas for ice-cream.

But not every day is sunny.  An isolated existence together with an atmosphere of negativity can surreptitiously envelope a single mother’s identity and destroy her sense of citizenship.

The vilification of single mothers is a mistake; an act which says more about the critic than the criticised.  Single mothers are a group upon whom it is easy to lay the blame for the ills of society.  Overloaded with responsibilities, without support and frequently without means they are often unable to speak out in defence.  This public and medieval witch hunt is narrow-minded, misleading and misogynistic.   Any government which finds itself drawn to this argument should stop, look at the statistics and then take time to talk to some of the most maligned in society.  When that government speaks to those people and reports back to a nation, then perhaps, they will receive 1.5 million more votes.

From my own perspective as a single mother of three in the 1990’s I felt personally on the receiving end of John Major’s rallying cry to the masses which repeatedly implicated people in my situation as single- handedly responsible for the dire state of the nation.  An idea which had very little of course to do with his predecessor’s political encouragement of the young, upwardly mobile professional for whom money was everything and dog eat dog was ideology anthropomorphically reified.

John Major in his wisdom presented his ‘Back to Basics’ campaign in 1993, which was meant to lead Britain backwards to a time more pure, more safe, and more secure in what he called ‘Family Values’.  The idea rooted firmly in 1950’s Britain was more about the safety and surety of nostalgia.   Things certainly look better when we think back but often that is simply the human desire to privilege romance over reality.  More honestly we can look back to a time when the health benefits of smoking were proposed, when the social benefits of hanging were realised, when homosexuality was an imprisonable offence and when marital rape was not a crime but a right.

John Major was however, outed by the catalogue of sleaze thrown up by his party and later lambasted for his own affair retrospectively admitted.  ‘Back to Basics’ was discredited and became a topic of salacious media amusement but not before the antithesis of family and democracy was revealed as the ‘single mother’.

In 1996 my three small children and I survived happily on government benefits.   One of the accusations laid at the feet of single mothers on handouts is: why aren’t they working?   Let me illustrate my own experience in reply.  My weekly allowance entitled and enabled me to work for fifteen hours a week as a cleaner; a manageable position when sole responsibility for school and nursery timetabling was a work of art in itself.  After having had depression as a teenager and without any discernable skills I was on benefits in order to survive financially and to secure a stable home life for my children in their early years.

Once my youngest child started school I was able to take the college courses necessary to work towards my current degree study.  Poverty had ensured I was never in debt but I was also desperate to jump free of the revolving hamster wheel of my existence; seemingly going nowhere, every day.

Yet young women are accused of bringing about this situation on purpose simply to acquire a home.   Can it really be that simple?  Left with no educational achievements, little self esteem and zero opportunities, the place society says is rightly hers might become achievable for a disengaged young girl by simply becoming pregnant.  And if so, if, by becoming pregnant a young girl could feel like there is something she can do as opposed to her living an ineffectual existence, might she not begin her own life.  And in doing so, might she not be understood?

Society or government may wish it were not so and in such cases should create a space for education and opportunity in order that young girls might find a future for themselves which engendered more control and opportunity.

Politicians in large homes, vaulted to positions of power and autonomy by a ruling hierarchy established centuries ago, might do well to realise that life choices are often not just between good and bad but also between the better of two evils. David Cameron’s move to tax-break marriage to the tune of £150 a year might be seen as a shallow mirror in which to view his own lack of insight to shifts in society, not necessarily ruinous.

Most single parents, mothers and fathers find themselves in this position through the effects of divorce.  The Office for National Statistics states that the majority of the adult population are married but that almost half of those will divorce within ten years.  The children born within those marriages could explain the statistic which states that the proportion of children living in one parent families has more than tripled in Great Britain in the last 30 years.

Since 1971 to 2005 the amount of people living alone has more than doubled; it is a fact of a changing society that children will be brought up in single parent households and although children may fare better in multi adult families, this simply does not mean that single parents should be criticised for living in a situation requested by society.  Instead they should be supported and admired for their place in a society which has demanded and continues to demand freedom for all.

Changes taking place during the 20th century have meant greater independence for women who can now decide to live alone with or without children.  Women have always been targets for public opprobrium and continue to attract negative press; take for example women who choose to wait until they are older to have children, who are often portrayed as self serving career women.   The facts speak more clearly; the average age for giving birth shows a steady rise; in 2009 it was 29.   Similarly under attack are women who have children much later in life; fertility in the 35 – 40+ age group also continues to increase and although financially and emotionally secure their decision often attracts public angst and derision.

In a society where 15,700 civil partnerships occurred within a year of its 2005 inception and in a society where a male pop star and his husband can have a child by a surrogate mother with a donor egg, it is perhaps time that the sticky subject of disregard for single mothers is dropped like a melting ice cream on a hot summers day.

Just like the Giant Pacific Octopus I would sacrifice everything for my own three children.  They have grown into mature, caring young people studying in further education and for whom time spent together is treasured.

Having my children, on my own, has been a revelation for me; I was that girl whose life began when she had her children.  They have taught me so much and I continue to learn about myself from them.  So, if you hear narratives which state that being a single parent is marginal, not worthwhile, I hope you will think again and support those who bring up children alone.

Belinda Mellor