Interning: The Story So Far!

So then: what have I been up to these past three weeks? The short answer: working for Andrew George MP (St Ives and the Isles of Scilly) in his Westminster office, which is next to Big Ben.

Andrew George MP: representing Cornwall for over 13 years!

The long answer? Well, I could tell you, but I'd probably have to kill you. Or at least, make sure you never talked to a journalist. But I can confirm a number of things that the general public are probably aware of anyway...

1. MPs are, as a rule, EXTREMELY busy. This obviously depends on their role: if they're a new MP you will probably see them quite a lot; if it's Cameron or Clegg you're trying to spot, fat chance. You get used to seeing familiar faces after a while though: Alistair Darling and David Miliband have been spotted by yours truly from time to time.

2. An MP's diary is INSANE.

3. Cornish people write the nicest letters: one of them sent a typewritten letter. How awesome is that, eh? :-D

4. Movember (where men grow moustaches to draw attention to prostate cancer) has been well supported by many MPs: Mike Crockart, Roger Williams and Tom Brake to name a few!

5. You can work in Westminster for about six months and STILL not know where a room is.

6. I have lost count of how many letters we receive.

7. Bob Russell (MP for Colchester) has made a special chocolate bar for Lib Dems, and I have proof!



8. There are 650 MPs in total.

9. I have met... about 20, give or take. Mostly Lib Dems, like Charles Kennedy and Simon Hughes: but also Neil Carmichael (Conservative MP for Stroud), Nic Dakin (Labour MP for Scunthorpe), and Barry Gardiner (Labour MP for Brent North).

10. I am loving every minute of it, eeeeeeee :-D

That's all for now folks, but there may be more shortly!

The Evening Stanners

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.

The Evening Stanners

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...

The Evening Stanners

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...

The Evening Stanners

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?



The Evening Stanners

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!

The Evening Stanners

Dead Miliband

"We're part of a new generation" - that makes their brother quit frontbench politics. Hmm. It has not quite been the result people expected: but whilst the outsider winning a leadership contest can be a good thing, it has a tendency to end badly sometimes.

See Iain Duncan Smith, for example. No-one expected him to be Tory leader in 2003, going up against Messrs Portillo and Clarke. As it was, he somehow found himself being the lesser of three evils, and at the top of the pile. However, at that range it's easy to get shot at: and with IDS, the target was painted in neon. The Tories shifted massively to the right, and became so toxic that they became a political joke.

Will Labour become the same thing in the years to come? It's hard to say. The problem is that we don't even know who's going to be in the Shadow Cabinet. Because, for some reason, the Labour MPs are electing their own cabinet.

Quite frankly, this makes no sense. Surely the leader picks his own team? Why does he need 257 people helping him to make the decision? It's surely going to lead to more infighting, and Labour has lost a lot of good and able politicians thanks to that. The most bizarre twist is that, amidst all this, Neil Kinnock has risen again in prominence, mainly due to singing Ed Miliband's praises.

Kinnock? Seriously? This is a man who could not beat John Major in the 1992 general election: which compared to 1997, does not exactly seem difficult. Yes, he was Labour leader for nine years: but he never looked like beating Thatcher. Made her look uncomfortable at times, granted. And a damned sight better at leading Labour than Michael Foot, naturally. But whilst it makes sense to have Kinnock advising you on how to reform the party, it does not make sense to give the impression that he is influencing national policy: because ultimately, Kinnock did not have the ability to convince people that his policies were better than anything the Conservative governments had in mind.

Ultimately, a shift to the left does a lot to gather attention: but battles are won on the centre ground. One piece of possible good news, though: Ed Miliband wrote the manifesto for the party that came second at the general election. The person who did that in 2005?

David Cameron, PM.

Miliband's either destined for No. 10, or destined to end up like his biggest fan Kinnock. At least he's doing better than his brother, eh?

The Evening Stanners