Liar, Liar, Phil's Been Fired

Just when you thought the General Election was fought fairly and squarely (if you ever thought that, that is)... it wasn't.

Behold what I read on BBC News, people!

"Two High Court judges have ordered a rerun of this year's General Election campaign in the Greater Manchester constituency of shadow immigration minister Phil Woolas.

Mr Woolas won the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat by 103 votes over Liberal Democrat rival Elwyn Watkins.

But he has been found guilty of knowingly making false statements about Mr Watkins in campaign literature, and faces a three year ban from the Commons."

Feel free to read more here, by the way. Have to say that's pretty crazy though: the scandalous thing is that Woolas seems to telling whacking great fibs is, um, well within the rules. Well, when you worked under Tony Blair, I suppose that would be instinctive, but still. If you read this article from the Daily Mail (oh the horrendous irony), his manipulation of the "white vote" is nothing short of horrendous. As Elwyn Watkins put it himself, "Politics has to be better than this. Making up lies about your opponent has no part in politics."

We'll have to see what happens on Monday: but it looks like Woolas is about to pay rather dearly. Still, never mind Ed: it's not like he's your Shadow Immigration Minister, is it?

Ah. Bother.

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All Hail Ed Milibad

Reading Nick Robinson's latest "newslog", it would appear he's had his worst week yet. If that's the case, then heaven knows what's happening to Ed Miliband. If you watched Prime Minister's Questions, you'll know what I mean.

It's not that I despise Labour, but they don't half pick some bad leaders, do they? When you consider they've only had one who's never lost an election (Tony Blair), and five who never won an election (Hugh Gaitskell, James Callaghan, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown), it really doesn't look good for the current man in charge. I would like to think his brother could be doing a better job, because the more I watch "Red Ed" (or at this rate, Thick 'Ed), the more I'm convinced he's not up to it. Gordon Brown at least had the ability to be dogged and determined, but if Ed wants to actually make Cameron look silly, he's going to have to do better than make jokes about photographers. As for lambasting Cameron about tuition fees: um, who came up with the idea of tuition fees, Ed?

Oh yes, that would be Labour. Rather like pushing a stone down a hill and then complaining when it appears to speed up. Or did you assume that it would always be Labour calling the shots here? It might have been better to draw attention to the fact that raising tuition fees might lead to MPs in constituencies with a high student population being sacked: Nick Clegg, for example, could be under threat in Sheffield Hallam, thanks to the "Right of Recall" Act.

Or better yet, if you're going to have a crack at Cameron for hiring too many staff, how about the fact he needs no less than six security guards on hand when he goes to a restaurant in Oxfordshire? (This happened the Friday before last when I was in Woodstock: never have I seen so many Land Rovers following one solitary man: a little OTT, perhaps?) Ah yes, I know why: because it was Labour who introduced the idea of having ridiculous amounts of security, like giving sub-machine guns to police officers at railway stations.

Policies, man. You need to have some. Get it sorted. And to think I voted Labour last time...

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Tuition Fees: More About Oxford

Welp, turns out I was slightly mistaken about the wealth of Oxford University. Our special correspondent Sarah Barrett (aka Saz) has the inside scoop...

"Oxford certainly could NOT survive without its students, as it barely is with them, and is currently in massive debt, especially colleges which don't have massive traditions of 'old boy' networks to keep them... alive on private donations. Hence why certain representatives are fairly keen to see tuition fees rise, and why we love International students so much especially at postgraduate level (they pay higher fees). However not all the dons want higher fees, in spite of the fact currently on average Oxford falls short of about £8000 per undergraduate.

What is the real problem is the government's ridiculous idea to more or less cut funding from all of the Arts, and only provide for what they deem 'valuable' ie the sciences (and i suspect only really physics and chemistry), engineering, medicine and 'some' modern languages."

Oh those poor Internationals. "We don't hate foreigners if we can exploit them", you might say. And how on earth is Oxford falling short of £8000 per undergraduate? It's a bit cheeky of Universities to tell you how to "manage your debt" when they can't do it themselves. If I'm correct, that's a debt of... (multiplies 8,000 by 300) about £2.4m per college. YOWSERS.

Incidentally, this article from 2004 on how neck-deep in debt Oxford is does explain a lot, and also explains how colleges are actually run as financial organisations. Who knew, eh?

Whilst we're on the topic of Oxford and politics: if Bigotgate didn't humiliate Gordon Brown enough for you, the Laura Spence Affair almost certainly will. Ye daft cloon, Broon...

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Your... tuition fees... THEY'RE OVER 9000!!!

In which Goku is Lord Browne, Vegeta is head of the NUS, and Nappa is a fresher. Obviously.



Ah, nerdy times.

I am slightly bending the truth, mind: it's up to 9000, not over. Still, makes for grim reading if you're a student, I imagine... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11677862

So, the idea is: more loans to pay off the fees, but then you only have to start paying them back once you're earning £21,000 a year, which is an improvement on £15,000 a year. But annoyingly, better off students will be able to avoid the loan. Which makes universities less exclusive... how?

Then again, Universities were not exactly designed with inclusiveness in mind. They were designed for the elite, and therefore for the wealthy. Even super-smart people like Dr Samuel Johnson weren't allowed to stay on brains alone: the good doctor had to drop out because his family were to poor to pay the fees. Indeed, with the most powerful social networking site around belonging to a college dropout (Mark Zuckerberg), maybe the way forward is to not complete your course. Still, seems unlikely.

The extremely frustrating thing is that places like Cambridge and Oxford seem rather keen on the idea of squeezing every last penny out of their students. This is probably because both places could actually survive rather nicely without students: they would simply become research facilities. One would like to think the top two universities in the land would take better care of their students, instead of just assuming that's up to the Student Unions, or if/when the Government tells them to.

In any case, judging from the fact that Mr Vince Cable had to call off a visit to Oxford last week because of protests, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of higher tuition fees. Especially as it seems to have cross-party support.

Widespread student discontent, anyone?



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Internships Ahoy!

Hello readers!


And yes, it has been far too long on my part: but then, when you're working full-time at a youth hostel in a town with very little internet (thanks Stow on the Wold), it's to be expected. Or maybe I'm just falling behind with the updates. Either way.


So, what's happening in politics? Well, for one thing, the House of Commons have given me a whole bunch of forms to sign. Woo. Still, I've got through them all, have sent them off, and can now rest easy; safe in the knowledge that I have NOT been involved in espionage. Apparently they need to know stuff like that.

So, just to refresh your memories: the MP I'm working for is Andrew George. He's a Lib Dem, his constituency is St Ives (which also includes Penzance, Hayle and Helston), and he's been an MP since 1997. Impressive, no? You can find his website here: it's updated frequently and is relatively easy to navigate, which sadly is not always the case when it comes to MP's websites. I'll hopefully be starting my internship sometime next week: more news shortly, I hope!

In other news, Gordon Brown decided to make a speech in the House of Commons yesterday. Seven months ago this would not have been surprising: but suffice to say he's been very quiet since last May. He was pressing the government to build aircraft carriers in his constituency: and um, yeah. That was about it. It will be quite interesting to see how long Brown sticks around for as an MP: but my guess is he'll quit in 2015. We shall see!

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