nupoliticsMARCH 2012

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Comment and opinion from the next political generation on a period in politics defined by chaos, cuts and coalition

Politics on Fire

EDITORIAL TEAM

Contributors: Daniel Boomsma, Sam Boyd, Sam Durham, Dr Ros

Hague, Lizzie Hepworth, David Hodari, Ben Howlett, Susan Nash, Mark Spencer MP, Jason Stein.

Pictures: Mike Atherton, Alex

Bailey, Aydan Greatrick, Weldon Kennedy Alan Morton-Smith, Alex Richardson, Gage Skidmore, Robert Smith.

Funded by the Three Faiths Forum Undergraduate ParliaMentors programme, the School of Politics

and International Relations at the University of Nottingham and Arrow Cars.

The views expressed in this magazine are those of the author and not necessarily those of NuPolitics Magazine or any

associated parties.

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Editorial: The new politicsThanks to new technology, we now live in times where political comment is no longer restricted to a small number of distinguished broadsheet columnists. Not only do the likes of websites, blogs, Twitter, forums and even Facebook open up politics to a wider audience, but they more specifically make politics more accessible to a younger audience.

We are often told that the young are becoming increasingly disengaged with the political process and its institutions. Indeed this may be true to some extent. But such a trend has most surely been counteracted by the way in which social media provides even the most

humble student of politics an opportunity to infiltrate the on-going debate.

Those who are unafraid to make themselves heard are the inspiration behind this magazine. To pick a few highlights, on p.6 Daniel Boomsma examines ‘Blue Labour’ and the ‘Big Society’, two ideas which aim to shake-up both sides of the political spectrum. On p.22 the leaders of the main two parties’ youth-wing’s debate the success of the Coalition so far, whilst on p.28 David Hodari provides us with a fascinating insight into how Israel might be affected by the Arab Spring; a phenomenon which more than anything proves to us the

everlasting impact which new technology can have on global politics.

The ‘new politics’ therefore is not the reforming agenda which the aspiring politician will endlessly promise - that is now very much the politics of the status quo - but is instead the way in which we now challenge, discuss and interact with our politics.

In this regard, from the influence of a YouTube video showing an Arab Spring protest spread around the globe, to the small blog read by a handful of people, social media now provides us with an entirely new dimension.

Robert SmithEditor

@RobertSmithUK

Ryan HolmesManaging Editor

Joseph RichmondManaging Editor

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A look inside NuPolitics MagazineEDITORIAL3 | The new politics

FOREWORD5 | Mark Spencer MP

COMMENT7 | No Big Society without strong governmentDaniel Boomsma

9 | Reflections on Blue LabourDaniel Boomsma

11 | The Olympic LegacyJason Stein

14 | The End of Growth?Sam Boyd

20 | The fight to face ObamaSam Durham

22 | Building a better futureBen Howlett

24 | Enough of saving face - We need actionSusan Nash

28 | Spring Fever BluesDavid Hodari

FEATURES17 | The Big Picture26 | Tweeting about my generation

REVIEW31 | The verdict on the Iron LadyLizzie Hepworth

AFTERWORD33 | So, you want to be the next Prime Minister?Dr Ros Hague

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One of the nicest things about life in Westminster is being able to share it, and it's been my pleasure to host dozens of constituents over the past two years. Particularly exciting is the number of young people who come down to Westminster with a taste for politics and it's something I'm keen to promote.

They start young, as I saw before Christmas when 60 children and their teachers from the Dukeries College came down for a tour of Parliament (and we even managed to arrange a very rare peek down Downing Street).

I had worried that the pupils wouldn't be interested (when you're a bit of a political geek, it's very easy to forget that not everyone gets so excited by Parliament) and that it would be a boring, meaningless day for them. My fears appear to have been unfounded. The noise and excited chatter that rolled down Downing Street was deafening as this group of bright and engaged young people excitedly debated the

odds of the Prime Minister answering the door if they knocked.

It's a passion which doesn't fade as young people go on to their A levels and University. Indeed, my own political path started with youth politics with the Young Farmers and I've been pleased to pass the baton on with a collection of fantastic students on work experience placements and an interfaith ‘ParliaMentors’ scheme I've taken part in.

We talk a lot about 'disaffected youth' and how young people are not engaging with the society around them and while I recognise that there is a problem nationally, I have to say that has not been my experience in Sherwood.

Whether the youngest activists - I was recently grilled by Mrs Dilnot's class at Lambley Primary School who pulled no punches - or the six formers at the National School who were no less impressive, or the students starting out at the local universities, talking to the spectrum of young people has reinforced my belief that we must engage our younger

citizens in politics and the society we live in.

Whatever the colour of the Government, Parliament is the people's tool for change and they must never loosen their grip on it, whatever their age. The Youth Parliament does fantastic work but on a smaller scale; we must actively teach our children to ask questions of their Councillors, their MPs, their Prime Minister, and that in being a contributing citizen, they are part of something far greater than the sum of its parts.

Mark Spencer is the Member of Parliament for Sherwood. Follow on Twitter @MarkSpencerMP

Foreword: Mark Spencer MP

MARK SPENCER MP

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BLUE LABOURBIG SOCIETYDaniel Boomsma on the big ideas which are attempting to revolutionise both sides of the political spectrum.

AND THE

No Big Society without a strong government

When using ‘Big Society’ rhetoric, David Cameron must realise that it’s a government’s job to prepare society for more responsibility.

''It is a guiding philosophy, a society where the leading force for progress is social responsibility, not state control". This is the very essence of the idea of the Big Society. Empowering communities should lead to a society where people can run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects. But since Prime Minister David Cameron launched his 'Big Idea' in July 2010, it has been subject of debate. Those who oppose the Prime Minister's plans often state that it's just a cover for substantial cuts in public services.

The most fundamental critique however, should be based on a long term vision of Britain's future: mending a broken society. In order to do so, the Tories must realise that the Big Society is not the 'mending-tool', it's the other way around: it's a

government's job to prepare society for more responsibility. This approach would increase the chances of success of a project that more people than just the Tories are willing to endorse.

Britain has a tradition when it comes to radical thinking on state and society. In an elaborate essay, The Economist analysed this ''outsized role promoting radical thought'' by falling back on the 19th century philosophy of John Stuart Mill and other New Liberals (also known as social liberalism). The night-watchman state was a generally accepted concept in Britain until the 19th century's 'wave' of (philosophical) modernisation and reform. Mill and others couldn't accept the fact that, with ''liberty flourishing'', still many people lived in poverty and misery. It was this thought that lead to the idea of aiming at an active state instead of a night-watchman state. This would eventually lead to compulsory education, laws on labour and other social legislation and an increase of tax-funded public services.

Anti-state sentiments - The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek (who, on his

turn, influenced great economic theorists such as Milton Friedman and John Hicks) of course as one of the most famous libertarian works - rose again after the destruction of the Second World war, though classical liberal philosopher Herbert Spencer already rejected the 19th century ideas on reform and modernisation in his book The Man versus the State, written in 1884. These sentiments are still very much alive today.

The developments I mentioned above resulted in what we call the idea of the post-bureaucratic state, originally formulated by former Labour leader, and pragmatist, Tony Blair. It's testimony to this way of thinking that the state itself is bureaucratic by definition. Therefore state services should be outsourced to third parties (in the private sector). You can also, in a way, call this a characterisation of Thatcherism.

So when we look at Britain's history, the idea of a big society isn't really new and it's certainly not an original 'Tory conception'.

It is relatively new however in the sense that it calls on

DANIEL BOOMSMA

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localism rather than the same old right-wing creed of 'more market less state'. That's why most political parties do not necessarily reject the idea of a Big Society. In fact, they are even willing to endorse it.

Blue Labour for example is a movement within the Labour party that endorses the idea. Rethinking the creation of the welfare state in 1945 is Blue Labour's central theme; It's not just about redistributing the wealth but also about giving power back to local communities. 'Intellectual godfather' of this response to the Big Society, Lord Maurice Glasman, made some strikingly true comments on the post war welfare state: "1945 was a wonderful achievement of solidarity. But the sting in the tail of 1945 was that it broke all the mutual solidarity - the ways we took care of each other - and handed them over to the state." It's this historical perspective that makes the Big Society interesting and worth the effort for more people than just Conservatives or hardcore rightists.

However, you have to meet some very important criteria if you want the Big Society to work. Local communities can do a lot by themselves, I'm

absolutely sure about that. But in order to enable communities, and society as a whole, to 'regain ground' you need resources and the helping hand of a government. Reshaping the order of communities as we know it isn't just a matter of pulling out some stops.

In order to create a real 'post-welfare state' Britain - the idea of a big society obviously aims at reinforcing communities but will certainly influence Britain's society as a whole, causing a policy that's no longer focused on the state/market dichotomy - Cameron has to do something quite contradictory to conservative policy: start at the left and slowly move to the centre. A

so called top-down traditional leftish strategy.

Mending a broken society by cutting away vital elements of the state isn't going to work. The New Economic Foundation (NEF) correctly pointed out that "if the state is pruned [too] drastically...the effect will be a more troubled and diminished society, not a bigger one". That's why Cameron should start working the other way around. He said it himself: "We should not be naive enough to think that simply if government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more. The truth is [that] we need a government that helps to build a big society.''

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Reflections on Blue Labour

Blue Labour was born in April 2009. Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour's intellectual godfather, must have had his 'eureka-moment' in a dusty library, 'surrounded' by old ideas already written down, analysed and debated in the past. Blue Labour, as described by Glasman, is ''a deeply conservative socialism which places family, faith and work at the heart of a new politics of reciprocity, mutuality and solidarity.'' Just like the Big Society, Blue Labour has been the subject of debate. The idea raised a lot of questions: Do we still have a need for big stories? Do we want a blueprint that fits society? Is Blue Labour an acceptable alternative story to adopt for Labour? And what are the similarities with Philip Blond's Red Tory?

Obviously the answer is yes. People welcome big stories and theorists tend to answer that call. The list of 'Big Idea's' in Britain has been 'updated' thoroughly with Cameron's Big Society and Philip Blond's Red Tory. Now we can add Blue Labour to

that list. Ed Miliband endorsed the idea (''it's our families, friends and the places in which we live that give us our own sense of belonging'') so the expectations are high.

Glasman's idea for a Blue Labour isn't original; it's quite the contrary actually. Blue Labour first of all tries to recover a Labour strand buried somewhere in the early 20th-century. Glasman's idea is based on the idea that Labour's fundaments have been obscured since the establishment of the welfare state since 1945. Glasman's analysis comes straight from Blond’s Red Tory idea (‘Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It’). Blond stated that ''our ills'' derive from the 1945 settlement which ''effectually nationalised society.'' The welfare state carried on all the roles that community and family used to do. Blond labels this ''self sufficient individualism''.

Glasman used Blond's conclusions and applied them to his own party. It's left individualism that obscured Labour's traditions and made disappear society as a ''functioning moral entity''.

Glasman blames Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee, social democrats that shaped postwar Britain, for producing a bureaucratic state, which culminated in the ''managerialism'' of New Labour. Blond blames the left as a whole for creating a top-down, technocratic and centralized state. Blairites drew the same conclusion from a different analysis, arguing for post-bureaucratic state.

Blue Labour is deeply opposed to globalised capitalism because it threatens their constituency. The starting point, Glasman says, is marked by the end of New Labour economics. In an article in The New Statesman (‘Dave must take the Red Tory turn’, 2 October 2011) Blond proclaimed that his idea tends to fill the 'ideological poverty' that has occurred after the eighties and nineties. It's worth citing the whole phrase: ''When economics and social paradigms shift, the politics that prevails is the one that most quickly adapts to new circumstances in the light of its core beliefs. Labour determined the shape of post-1945 politics. Margaret Thatcher dominated after

DANIEL BOOMSMA

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1979. But nobody has yet come forward to shape the politics of the post-financial crisis era.''

Glasman tries to outplay the Conservatives with his idea but it seems Red Tory and Blue Labour are two of a kind. Glasman and Blond depart though when it comes to Christianity. Blond, a former theology lecturer at the University of Cumbria, argues that Christian values are essential to society (Oliver Kamm, writer and journalist for the Times, expressed his fear that the Red Tory hawks back to ''Christian paternalism''), Glasman does not mention them at all. Blue Labour is based on the traditional working class values. In that sense the big difference between Blue Labour and Red Tory is, paradoxically, socialism. Both have a different interpretation of the term 'socialism'. It does not mean the 'social movement' or the socialist, former Marxist, settlement. Socialism means mutual solidarity, community and the values of family. They both reject the state focused theory of traditional socialism.

If we depart from the thesis that the welfare state was Britain's, and indeed Europe's, ''last great attempt to organize society from the

common good'' ('Labour is already to Blue', Guardian, April 2011), Blue Labour is quite a toxic because we don't know what Glasman's alternative is. What can we derive from his idea apart from the abstract theory on community and the revitalization of Labour's postwar values? Does he want to abolish the welfare state? Obviously, that will empower markets. Does he want to stand up against markets? Obviously, you need a central authority in order to 'tame the beast'. State and market will remain big powers either way and you can't leave community to the mercy of both. Glasman should decide whether he wants to shape his idea trough the state or not.

Blue Labour is essentially the opposite of liberalism. Liberals could compromise with small c-conservatism but conservative socialism is a bridge to far. The rejection of individualism - Blond called liberalism (and the left) the first individualist ideology - is unacceptable for any decent liberal. Glasman's idea is based on a notion of communitarianism which is by itself not necessarily incompatible with liberalism. But liberals believe that the communitarian vision is premised upon sameness

whereas the Glasman does not see the value of the individual in relation to society.

I doubt if Blue Labour can be an alternative for the Labour party. It's strongly reactionary concerning globalisation and internationalisation. At the same time it's deeply nostalgic. What I want to argue is that Blue Labour has two main problems. First of all it's extremely political (Cameron's Big Society is quite the contrary!). It opposes right-wing liberals, social-liberals as well as the center left way of thinking and leaves no room for a compromise. Secondly, it builds on, as brilliantly expressed by Billy Brogg in The Guardian, an ''idealized insular vision of the past''. If Glasman wants to capture Labour politics, he needs to take off the old coat.

Daniel Boomsma is a Law student at the University of Amsterdam, and is editor of DEMO, the magazine for the Dutch Young Democrats. Follow on Twitter @danielboomsma

When the then Prime Minister Tony Blair joined Sebastian Coe in Singapore to charm the men with the votes for the Olympics, they came armed with a ‘legacy’ plan. The legacy promised great things,

spectacular things, things that would change the face of Great Britain forever. But seven years later, what state is the ‘legacy’ actually in?

Some people are beginning to question whether the 2012 Games are worth the vast amount of public money being spent. Let us not forget that the bid was lodged, and

won, at a time when the economic outlook was rosier than it is today.

Britain was in the midsts of its great spend. And what better way to spend than to flash the cash & bring the Olympics to London. It sounded perfect. So Blair, Coe et al pitched up in Singapore for the 117th IOC session with the following

LEGACY?Jason Stein on whether the Olympics will provide the legacy they promised.

JASON STEIN

© London 2012

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list of legacy points that the London Games would achieve:

• Make the UK a world-leading sporting nation

• Transform the heart of East London

• Inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural, and physical activity

• Make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living

• Demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive, and welcoming place to live in, visit, and for business

A very tidy list of aims indeed.

There is a compelling case to be made that not a single one of these legacy points has been achieved. East London, for example, is certainly not seeing enough of the promised wealth. And not enough of the Olympic money is filtering down to the grass roots.

What is clear however is an unpleasant & ongoing legal war over the ownership of the Olympic Stadium once the Games have been & gone. While the two football clubs argue over what constitutes state aid, post-Olympic projects are suffering from a lack of it.

The most disturbing part of the ongoing high court battle for the Olympic stadium is that while Tottenham Hotspur are claiming West Ham United's arrangements to take over the stadium constitute illegal "state aid", nobody is challenging the principle overall: the handing of a £500m stadium, built with public money, to a rich, privately owned football club.

While the clubs tussle over that comparatively small slice of the deal, Simon Boyes, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University specialising in sport and EU law, says it is arguable that the grant of the stadium to either club could itself constitute state aid: "The transfer of state-owned property below commercial rates," he says, "satisfies the European Union's definition of state aid. It might reasonably be regarded as conferring an unfair competitive advantage on the beneficiary football club”.

The future of the public's promised Olympic legacy, of, as Coe put it: "The single biggest opportunity in our lifetime to transform sport and participation in sport in the UK forever," now looks vulnerable. After the International Olympic Committee opted for London, Coe himself became chair of

LOCOG, the body organising the games themselves, with little responsibility for the participation legacy. That role fell to Sport England, already the lottery grant‑giving body, but operating with less money because £56m was diverted to bolster the budget for the Olympics themselves. That figure, £9.3bn, to build the stadium, eight other new venues, the Olympic park and run the Games – protected, as is UK Sport's funding for elite athletes training to win medals – utterly dwarfs Sport England's budget to invest in all sports nationally: £249m last year, £232m in 2011‑12, £271m the following year.

The government's £1.6bn cuts to local authorities are expected to savage sport and leisure, still not services councils legally must provide. Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, who is credited with fighting for sport's share of lottery money, closed the previous government's free swimming funding weeks after taking office, saying it was "a luxury we can no longer afford".

Michael Gove, the education minister, axed £164m funding for school sport partnerships, which promoted sport in schools; after an outcry then a partial U-turn, Gove’s

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Department for Education now provides less than a fifth of that, £33m, for a school sport programme, supplemented by £20m from the Department of Health.

A spokesman for Robertson's culture, media and sport department said: "We are absolutely committed to using the Olympic Games as a catalyst to get more people playing sport. It is not an easy task but we are not shirking from that ambition."

Simon Henig, leader of Durham County Council and sport spokesman on Labour's Local Government Group, said the following "It is all very well spending £9.3bn on the Olympics including building a £500m stadium which will go to a top football club," Henig said, "but it is very difficult to increase participation in sport when there are swingeing cuts to sport and leisure provision, often in the poorest areas, where they are needed most."

However, the greatest source of ire for many people lies with point three. “Inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural, and physical activity.”

This above point is possibly the most important of all. Laying a foundation for

decades to come is a vital part of any Olympic bid & inspiring a generation is crucial. Yet farcically, Cadbury’s find themselves as one of the principle sponsors of the London Games. How do you go about motivating a generation of young people to partake in sport? Load them with Dairy Milk of course.

“Demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive, and welcoming place to live in, visit.” This is an aim that simply should not have been created. Any major sporting tournament offers the chance to showcase a country in a positive light. But that light is a bubble, it is a one off period of time that is not reflective of the everyday workings of a nation. Last summers riots did enough to counteract any false, corporate image that the two weeks next summer may convey. To make point number five as an aim was naive. How can the Olympics, as powerful as they are, demonstrate that Britain is a ‘creative, inclusive & welcoming place to visit?

Yes the Games will be a superb two weeks of entertainment & sport. The opportunity to see Usain Bolt & Michael Phelps on these shores, in addition to our own sporting greats such as Sir Chris Hoy, Jessica Ennis &

Ben Ainslie, is one that will not be forgotten in a hurry. The income generated from the games should help, in part, to pay back some of the extortionate outlay & in reality it will be hard to judge a legacy until ten years down the line.

Jason Stein is an aspiring sports writer, currently studying Sociology at the University of Nottingham. View his website at morethanaball.wordpress.com. Follow on Twitter @JasonAStein

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Growth in our gross domestic product is a half-baked measurement of success. Yet our politics remains transfixed by it.

Amidst the ever-gloomier backdrop of an ensuing debt crisis in the eurozone, the highest unemployment levels in seventeen years, average wages likely to be no higher in 2015 than they were in 2001, and living standards falling at a rate unseen since the 1930s, politicians of all stripes unite in their unyielding desire for one thing.

The mystical elixir is referred to daily, with a fretful yearning. It is assumed as a panacea, uniquely capable of disentangling all our economic and social woes. If only we could achieve it, then unemployment would be all but eliminated, living standards set back upon their rightful upwards path, poverty alleviated, inequalities smashed and social mobility unlocked.

That thing in question, of course, is growth. Sustained growth in our gross domestic

product (GDP), to be exact. And since the collapse of the global financial system in 2008, we’ve had very little of it – only 0.5 per cent in the twelve months to November 2011. 0.7 per cent is all that’s predicted by the OBR for 2012, and that’s their best-case scenario.

Politicians and commentators haggle and sneer over why we are not growing. The right blames extraneous global factors, the left blames austerity. The right continues to espouse “expansionary fiscal contraction” alongside further quantitative easing and the weakening of workers’ rights. The left cries out for a halting of austerity and a fiscally stimulating ‘plan B’.

The debate dominates political discourse. Yet, the crucial assumption on which it is based receives close to no examination. Namely, that growth is a desirable end in itself.

For growth, we are told, improves living standards. This may be so, especially when our population is expanding. But the reality is far more complicated. Since the late seventies, when the

policies of free-market neoliberalism were adopted, unprecedented growth was celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. But who really benefited?

Overwhelmingly, it was the very richest. In the US, productivity increased by 119 per cent between 1947 and 1979, and by 80 percent between 1979 and 2009. In that first period, incomes across society rose largely in line with growth: the bottom fifth saw a 122 percent income rise, the middle fifth 113 per cent, and the top fifth 99 percent. After 1979, however, gains were almost entirely gobbled up by the top. The richest 1 per cent increased their incomes by a whopping 270 per cent, whilst median wages stagnated entirely in real terms. The bottom fifth even saw their incomes decrease by 4 percent.

In the UK, a similar – if less pronounced – picture. Since 1979, GDP almost doubled in real terms. Yet only the richest tenth saw their incomes grow accordingly - twice as fast as the middle and four times as fast as the poorest tenth. In 2008, inequality reached its highest ever level since

The end of growth?

SAM BOYD

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comparable records began in 1961, having increased faster since the 1970s than any other rich nation.

In a 2010 survey of twelve major developed economies, the OECD found that the UK ranked last in terms of social mobility.

Recent trends are more worrying still: research by the Resolution Foundation indicates that despite GDP growth of 11 per cent between 2003 and 2008, median incomes, as in

the US in the decades before, flat-lined completely. For men, they fell by 0.2 per cent. Jobs, too, remain portrayed as a solution to various social ills, particularly poverty. Yet, thanks to punishingly low wages, 60 per cent of adults in poverty live in working households, as do 57 per cent of our four million children in poverty.

Of course, in both the US and UK, thirty years of growth resulted in advancements that have improved all our lives, especially in technology. But it

also brought stagnating living standards for many, soaring inequality and heavily entrenched social immobility.

Surveys show we're less happy than we were fifty years ago - a trend replicated across the Western world. Whilst growth and jobs may well be necessary, these patterns show they are certainly not sufficient for across-the-board improvements in our collective well-being.

What’s more, in our ever-lasting quest for growth, few stop to question the very practicality of the notion: namely, can we grow forever? The International Energy Agency suggests that world oil supplies, the lifeblood of our capitalist economies, will meet global demand only until about 2030. Over the next two decades, then, either we must cease our drive for everlasting growth, or instead fuel it in a sustainable way. Which will it be? Neither option is seriously considered.

A more equitable capitalism demands the exploration of more substantive – and less monetised – measurements of success: well-being, happiness and access to opportunities. Ways must be found to achieve these social goals by means of a sustainable economy balanced away the City and the consumption of fossil fuels, and towards new innovations and technologies. Growth may well retain a key role in this new economy, but as an end in itself it is wrong-headed.

David Cameron, in 2010, said: "It is high time we admitted that, taken on its own, GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country's progress”. At his behest, the

Office for National Statistics is establishing some key indicators of well-being. Ed Miliband, too, has noted, “a focus on growth is important, but not enough”. The New Economics Foundation think tank, meanwhile, has created a National Accounts of Well-being, mapping 22 different countries. These are some welcome steps. But, on the whole, politicians and the media remain consumed by percentile changes in the value of goods and services we produce.

In 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of John, gave a speech in which he said that gross national product "measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile". "It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armoured cars for police who fight riots in our streets"; but it "does not allow for the health of our children ... the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials."

Such words have never held more relevance. If the last thirty years of economic expansion - culminating in the largest global financial crash since 1929 - should teach us anything, it is that moving beyond our fetishisation of

growth would mark a vital first step towards a new, fairer and sustainable breed of capitalism.

As Kennedy's words reflect, it is something that should have happened a long time ago.

Sam Boyd graduated from the University of Manchester last year with a degree in History and Politics. He blogs at samboyd.co.uk. Follow on Twitter @samboyd1

Mike Atherton

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The Big PictureThe following pages showcase the winning entries of our political photography competition.

Below: A woman stands poised and determined at the Occupy London protests in November 2011. By Aydan Greatrick.

Above: Two policemen take a short break from duty. By Alexander Richardson.

When it all kicked off in Iowa at the start of 2012, we had an idea of who might be the favourite but nobody could have expected the incredible run of victories that current frontrunner Mitt Romney has had and also wouldn’t have been expecting the various different upsets that were made by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich along the way. Ron Paul remains in the race but is a relative outsider when compared with the likes of the other three candidates.

When America came tantalisingly close to default and were on the brink of a Greek style economic crisis, Michelle Bachmann rose up and influenced people as the leader of the Tea Party but soon stepped down after a disappointing showing in the opening Iowa caucus. So far, Mitt Romney has been the strongest with Gingrich and Santorum closely behind. Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have all ended their campaigns and Ron Paul remains but is failing to effectively impress voters and

hasn’t really been able to challenge Romney, Gingrich and Santorum. Opinion polls prior to Iowa had suggested that Romney had been the favourite all along but Santorum had been generally fairly low in the polls with Gingrich only improving towards the end of December.

The CandidatesMitt Romney is leading the way in the 2012 Nomination Campaign but has been criticised in the media about his career and has been quoted in the US press saying he enjoys firing people. His time at Bain Capital, an investment opportunities group, prompted The Economist to print a cover article entitled ‘America’s Next CEO?’. However, Romney believes his business career will assist him in stabilising the US economy and that this will warrant him a vote from the US people.

But Romney has also had a respectable political career. He ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and didn’t quite make the cut but has clearly made considerable progress four years on. Romney formerly served as the governor of Massachusetts and was also head of the Salt Lake City

Winter Olympics in 2002, a role that should get voters on his side. Rick Santorum has been considered an “extremist” among some US journalists. At the age of 53, Santorum previously worked as a Pennsylvania senator and after performing well in Iowa hasn’t had much of an impact on the since. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1990 having previously studied Law and was elected to the Senate in 1994. He made a name for himself in the Senate when he became a strong opponent to abortion and gay rights. However, he lost his re-election bid by seventeen points in 2006.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, is targeting one of the greatest comebacks in the history of American politics. He resigned in 1998 after leading the Republican Party into control of the House for the first time in decades only for the party to suffer badly in the mid-term elections four years later. Gingrich, 68, avoided fading out of the political spotlight by writing books and producing films. The former Georgia congressman also

The fight to face Obama

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made speeches and television appeals, criticising the Democrats.

Finally, Ron Paul is the only other candidate remaining. The 76-year-old Texas congressman has a large, devoted following among liberally-minded Republicans and has an out with the old and in with the new philosophy, planning a return to the gold standard and an abolition of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Service. He ran for presidency back in 1988 and did so again in 2008. In the more recent campaign, his supporters became iconic for their enthusiasm and more amusing acts of disruption at rival candidates’ rallies and press conferences. Despite starting weakly in the 2012 campaign he remains in contention but with the strength and financial backing of Romney and co, Paul faces a tough task.

Who’s stepped down?Herman Cain was the first to end his campaign and did so

in the early parts of December but he was somewhat of an outcast – previous work included being the executive of a pizza restaurant chain and radio chat show presenter but described his lack of political experience as a virtue. Michele Bachmann stepped down after finishing in sixth place in the opening Iowa caucus with a speech that quite frankly, went on forever.

Rick Perry suspended his campaign during the South Carolina primary after failing to impress in both Iowa and New Hampshire but backed Newt Gingrich in his final speech. Jon Huntsman is the most recent candidate to step down and did so after a poor showing in South Carolina after, like Perry, making little impact during their campaigns.

Results so farMitt Romney won in the opening Iowa caucuses on January 3rd (later attributed to Santorum) and also won in New Hampshire later in the

month. Gingrich took his first victory in the race in South Carolina but Romney won yet again in Florida at the end of January.

Romney won in the Nevada caucuses at the start of February but a low turnout meant that although Romney had a winning margin of about 10,000 votes over Newt Gingrich, he only managed to get 16,486 overall. Santorum kept his campaign on track winning the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and the Missouri primary on the same day on 7th February. Now we wait to see who will be victorious in the forthcoming Washington caucuses and Arizona and Michigan primaries, then ‘Super Tuesday’ on March 6th, where 12 states will stage their votes for the Republican candidacy including Massachusetts, where Romney was formerly governor, and Texas, where Ron Paul is the current congressman.

Sam Durham is an aspiring Rugby journalist who is editor of scrumfive.net. He is also interested in British and American politics. Follow on Twitter @samdurham

The leader of Conservative Future on why the policies of the Coalition are building a better future for Britain.

The Coalition Government has started with a solid and progressive response to the mess left by Labour. We inherited a broken society and a broken economy headed up by broken politics. This Government has done more for our economy in the last 18 months than Labour did in their entire 13 years in power. Where Labour believed you can spend your way out of a crisis, this Government is working hard to reduce our debts and ensure we help those who need help the most.    Over the last decade Britain has turned into a society that expects the state to intervene and provide for all – creating a something for nothing culture. The desire to aspire has been demolished by state handouts to those that do not need or require them. I want to see the poorest members of society and those that absolutely need our support

protected by the state. It is wrong that Labour created a system where it was easier to be on state benefits than it was to go out to work.

Someone like my mother who is disabled and cannot work could get so much more support than she receives at the moment simply because Labour wastefully threw money around without thinking of the consequences. We must restore confidence in Britain as an entrepreneurial nation by restoring social and economic responsibility. This Government is providing the framework by which we can achieve that goal.   First, this Government is rebuilding the economy to support young people. Recent polls have shown there is little to separate the Conservatives and Labour; despite the fact that this government is having to take tough decisions. There are a number of factors associated with this including the EU veto which resonated well with the public, the sheer lack of credibility in Ed Miliband, and most importantly the fact that Labour left Britain with the economy in a total mess and as ever, it is the Coalition that has had to pick up the pieces.

There have been some very tough but fair decisions that have been made, in particular on Tuition Fees.   However these measures have created some very positive results for the UK. The most important of which is the fact that Britain has so far kept its AAA credit rating whereas countries like the USA has had its credit rating downgraded to AA+ despite pumping billions of dollars into the economy. These tough decisions have prevented the UK falling into the same hole as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

The Government’s programme to reduce the deficit will ensure long-term prosperity for the UK economy which will allow greater investment for young people in the education and higher education systems, in terms of apprenticeship creation and most importantly ensuring more private sector jobs are created.  It would have been much easier not to deal with the problem, but a delay would just pass this generation’s debt onto our children, stall economic recovery and cost even more.

This Government has done some of the most progressive

Building a better future

BEN HOWLETT

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things for young people that have been seen in a generation. They have substantially increased the number of apprenticeships and began to reverse the negative status of vocational education compared with higher education. In October we found out that 442,700 people started an apprenticeship in the 2010/211 academic year, a 58% increase on 2009/2010.

This Government is working hard to give young people the skills to drive economic growth. The Government has also recognised that the best way to support the poorest in society is to take a targeted approach to bursaries and support schemes. For example with the EMA introduced under Labour,

young people who did not need the grant received it at the expense of those poorest students who really did need that additional support. Young people I’ve recently met agree that was unfair, so this Government has decided to refocus the need on targeted support by the local schools to those that really need help.

This Government is also investing more money into getting young people back into work. The Youth Contract announced by the Chancellor at the Autumn Statement will help those who are having difficulty finding work get that step up onto the employment ladder. This is a very positive move to ensure that Labour’s record of an upward trend in youth unemployment is reversed.

This Government has made some tough decisions, but they are fair decisions. They are progressive and will help solve some long term problems such as Labour’s record of a broken society and a broken economy. I look forward to what the future holds for young people in Britain due to this Government’s hard work.

Ben Howlett is the National Chairman of ConservativeFuture, the youth-wing of the Conservative Party. He currently works as a senior healthcare consultant with the NHS. Follow on Twitter @benhowlettcf

© The Conservative Party

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The leader of Young Labour on why the Coalition are failing when it comes finding employment for young people.

We’ve all heard the stats about the devastating levels of youth unemployment; we’ve all probably borne witness to the personal impact joblessness can have - friends or family members crushed and down-beaten by rejection after rejection. Thanks to stagnating growth and continuing sluggish forecasts helping young people back into work isn’t getting any easier. If deficit was the buzz word in 2011, then growth is certainly the message on everyone’s lips in 2012.

In 2009 Cameron said jobs would be his number one priority, but as Ed Miliband has repeatedly warned, this Coalition has been presiding over a failed work programme; “the reality is since he [Prime Minister David Cameron] scrapped the Future Jobs Fund long term youth unemployment has

risen by 77%”, and it’s showing little sign of improving. Unlike the Future Jobs Fund, the Work Programme isn’t delivered by specialist charities or social enterprises focused and experienced in placing young people into particular sectors. It replaced an effective scheme, Flexible New Deal, introduced under Labour.

However the new scheme is under-funded, generalist and relies on referrals from Job Centre Plus. It appears that those referrals aren’t occurring with the frequency that was expected, and some young people find the service too irrelevant to be productive to helping support them in finding work. Disheartening stories of talented, ambitious, hard working and committed young people being directed into unpaid work experience roles in shops, where they work long hours (making it difficult for them to search for permanent jobs), just to continue to receive their benefit support. As newspapers and blogs have reported, Ministers are aware of the charities and providers concerns, but it appears the action has not yet been taken, and young people are still not receiving the vital provision they deserve.

The Coalition, famous for its U-turns, is still to awaken to the error so many others have highlighted, of scrapping the productive and cost effective Future Jobs Fund. The long anticipated ‘youth jobs fund’ announced by Nick Clegg just before Christmas is a step in right direction but it doesn’t address some of the root causes of the Work Programme failure.

Furthermore in true Coalition fashion it is those that did not cause the crisis that still bear the greatest cost. Labour suggested a banker’s bonus tax to support the young and unemployed, the Coalition instead opted to fund it through squeezing working family tax credits, hitting those already struggling to stay in employment.

We know that getting young people back to work quickly helps reduce the likelihood of long term unemployment. We know that long term unemployment can cost families and wider society considerably more if left un-tackled - yet we have a Government focused on self preservation and saving face rather than recognising the need to change course. High levels of unemployment will not help reduce the deficit,

Enough of saving face - We need action

SUSAN NASH

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but only add to the problem, demonstrated by the Coalition’s need to borrow an extra £158 billion than originally planned.

What we need are honest answers and quick and committed action. We need transparency about the effectiveness and level of usage and referral in the Work Programme. We need that now and not in October 2012, seventeen months after the scheme has been in operation. We need honesty about the provisions that are on offer to young people and the numbers involved - because whilst there has been a lot of talk of boosting apprenticeships, the number of places have been in

decline, and many of the existing places are on-the-job training schemes for over 25’s which employers are utilising apprenticeship money to fund.

But fundamentally we need action - action like Labour’s 5 point plan which includes a banker’s bonus tax which would pay for 100,000 jobs for young people, and a temporary VAT cut to put money back into people’s pockets, and give confidence to business to lift recruitment freezes and take more young people on. These are the questions and actions Young Labour will be demanding to ensure our generation are not left behind.

These are the questions and actions we hope you and many other thousands of young people across the country will continue to put pressure on your politicians to deliver.

Susan Nash is the National Chair of Young Labour, the youth-wing of the Labour Party. Follow on Twitter @susan_nash

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JAKE RICHARDSWorks in PR, writes for a

range of blogs including the Huffingdon Post.@JakeBenRichards

Tweeting about my generation

MATTHEW BARRETTBecame Deputy Editor

of ConservativeHome at 18 after blogging as WorkingClassTory.

@MBarrettCH

SARA IBRAHIMChair of the Young

Fabians, writes for Left Foot Forward. @sara_e_ibrahim

SUSAN NASHNational Chair of Young

Labour, the youth-wing of the Labour Party.@susan_nash

TOM SCHOLES-FOGGTop 10 Labour Blogger

and co-editor of ‘What next for Labour?’@tscholesfogg

CHARLIE EDWARDSFormer Editor of

Political Promise and now contributor to Dale&Co.

@edwardscharlie

ROBERT SMITHEditor of Politics

Student and NuPolitics Magazine. Contributor to Dale&Co.

@RobertSmithUK

MARTIN SHAPLANDPolitical researcher,

previously Chair of Liberal Youth. Regular blogger for Total

Politics Magazine.@MShapland

BEN HOWLETTNational Chairman for

ConservativeFuture, writes for ConservativeHome.

@benhowlettcf

CHARLOTTE HENRYIn political communication

and blogging. 2012 Liberal Democrat GLA candidate.@charlotteahenry

OWEN JONESAuthor of ‘Chavs: The

Demonization of the Working Class’. Influential writer on the Left.

@OwenJones84

DANIEL BOOMSMAEditor of DEMO

Magazine, for Dutch Young Democrats. Contributor to the

Huffingdon Post. @danielboomsma

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LAURENCE DURNANEditor of Political

Scrapbook, also writes for Total Politics and the Huffingdon Post.

@PSbookEditor

JACK MATTHEWSFounder of

TheyWorkForStudents.co.uk which aims to create a more open,

accountable NUS. @jackjmatthews

THOMAS BRYNEStood as the alternative

‘conservative’ candidate in the 2011 NUS election. Writes for

the Huffingdon Post. @BryneToff

STEPHEN CANNINGBoasts 100,000 Twitter

followers. Local councillor and editor of newly formed gossiptory blog.

@StephenCanning

RORY WEAL16 year old hailed as the

‘hero’ of the 2011 Labour Party conference amid controversy surrounding

his background.@RoryWeal

ANTON HOWESDirector of the UK

Liberty League. Libertarian, writer for the Adam Smith Institute.

@antonhowes

LIAM BURNSPresident of the

National Union of Students. Stood as an independent but is a

Labour Party member.@NUS_Liam

MICHAEL HEAVEROpinionated UKIP

activist. Previously appeared on Question Time. Writes for

Dale&Co.@Michael_Heaver

PAMELA NASHLabour MP for Airdrie

and Shotts. Youngest member of the House of Commons.

@pamela_nash

AARON PORTERPresident of the NUS

during the high-profile tuition fees debate. Now a freelance journalist.

@AaronPorter

ELLIE GELLARDSpoke at Labour

Manifesto Launch in 2010. Previously blogged as Stilettoed Socialist

and now prolific tweeter.@BevaniteEllie

HARRY COLEFormerly blogged as

ToryBear, now News Editor of the UKs most popular political blog,

Guido Fawkes. @MrHarryCole

nupolitics 27

When discussing political relations in the Middle East, nothing is ever simple. As the winter after the spring before comes to an end, Egypt deals with stagnation in the aftermath of Tahrir Square, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria shows no signs of leaving office as easily as his Egyptian counterpart, continuing the bloody repression of his own populace. If the Middle East can be compared to a piece of music, then the atonal riff of the Arab Spring has provided a welcome interlude from the unchanged, and unchanging beat of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. What, though, does the continuing fallout of the Arab Spring mean for Syria’s and Egypt’s mutual neighbour? How will Israel view the recent Egyptian elections, and Assad’s not quite imminent departure? While the advent of popular democracy has undoubtable advantages, the western media has perhaps been too quick to spin the Arab uprisings of the past year as entirely positive. From the perspective of the Israelis as well as that of the long

term intraregional political stability, the future is, as ever, gloomy.

Two WordsAnyone can understand why the Arab Spring is called as such. In simple terms, it occurred across the Arab world, and it gathered momentum during the spring of 2011. However, to assume that the implications of the term ‘Arab Spring’ begin and end with its location in time and space, is to miss a crucial point. In the West, the origin of the title in question, the season of spring is a time of unbridled optimism; the weather warms and new life shakes off the repressive, icy winter. When metaphorically applied to another situation, the connotations of hope follow. Although I am sure that the press were aware of this at the time, to portray Arab nations’ newfound ‘self-democratisation’ as spring having sprung, is to play a very dangerous game indeed. To suggest that we have a Springtime for Hitler in our midsts is to go far too far, but the Arab Spring is certainly no My Fair Lady. The Anglo-American Press have often been criticised of ‘Disneyfication’, trivialising important world events and transforming nuanced, distant

tensions into battles between absolute good and absolute evil. The West could come to regret this reductionism in future years, particularly where Egypt, one of the larger and more modern Middle Eastern countries is concerned.

ChangesFollowing the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak a little over a year ago, Egyptian elections have been held, with the Freedom and Justice Party attaining the largest number of votes. Their international affiliation is with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is here where regional and international relations take another complex turn. As far as the principles on which the West covertly and overtly armed the various Arab struggles, the successful staging of elections can only be a positive move. However, it is at the very least disconcerting for Israel. Decades of short sighted international interventionism, spanning the Cold War and the years since, have resulted in politics and religion in the region becoming inextricably linked. After all, US or Soviet forces acting in their own interests could close down political parties, but not mosques.

Spring Fever Blues

DAVID HODARI

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It is this process which leaves us with the Muslim Brotherhood.

While, officially speaking, the Brotherhood eschews violence (instead preferring democratic methods), their desire to impose the Qur'an as the sole reference point for government and social law will hardly be met with open arms by Israel - whose attitude towards its own security is neurotic to say the least. In the old Mubarak regime, Israel had peaceful relations since the Sadat-Begin treaty of 1979, and a moderator prone to sporadic attempts at brokering a peace settlement with the Palestinians. If nothing else,

Mubarak provided a volatile region some semblance of stability - an old, albeit corrupt head on psychotic shoulders. The Muslim Brotherhood on the other hand, can count the militant Hamas (who pledge to destroy not just Israel, but worldwide Jewry to boot) among their descendants, and repeatedly criticised Sadat’s, and then Mubarak’s peaceful relations with Israel. One must not forget that Sadat himself was assassinated due to his dovishness. The army, for now at least, is still in charge of Egypt. Despite this, border controls in the Sinai region have slackened with an increase in incidents such as

the one in August last year, when gunmen crossed over into the port town of Eilat and killed eight Israelis.

(Beat) On RepeatThe political opportunity that this perceived need for higher security presents, has not been lost on Israeli politicians. With the the 2013 elections imminent, the array of parties which fall to the right of the Israeli political spectrum (almost all of the significant ones) will inevitably use this regional capriciousness, combined with the steady flow of settlement driven maximalist rhetoric, to increase their already heavy reliance on scare-mongering tactics.

© Israel MFA

nupolitics 29

Yair Lapid, a former journalist making his first foray into centre-right politics, Binyamin Netanyahu, who recently won the Likud primaries, and the ultra-right wing Lieberman, will all employ such tactics in an attempt to garner votes in an already fragmented Israeli parliament prone to right-wing coalitions. It would be unsurprising if Netanyahu won a second successive term. It would be even less surprising if he refused to include Shelly Yachimovich, the new Labour party leader in any sort of coalition. A self-proclaimed social democrat, Yachimovich has been scapegoated in recent weeks, lambasted as an ‘ultra-left socialist’. Aside from the genuine attempts of Labour Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David and Taba at the turn of the century, right wing attitudes seem to have been almost constantly in vogue in Israel since the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The events on the other side of the Golan mountains seem to be doing little to tip the balance of power.

TroubleTo say that Israel and Syria have had poor relations in recent years would be inaccurate. They have had no relations at all. Assad once referred to Hizbollah, a

Lebanese terror organisation with attitudes towards Israel similar to those of Hamas’, as “holding the banner of victory”. However, Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s views on the Jewish state are where their likenesses end and their sectarian differences begin. Both Sunni Syria and Shi’ite Hamas receive funding from Shi’ite Iran (the Middle East is mostly Sunni with the other exceptions of Iraq and Bahrayn). Hamas stem from the same Muslim Brotherhood which was not only smashed by Assad’s father, but also the same Brotherhood which seem to be leading the rebellions against the current Ba’athist government. Despite Syria’s friendship with a country whose seeming desire to vaporise Tel Aviv is nothing if not well documented, Assad appears to have been reluctant to go any further than aggressive rhetoric. He has kept a leash on the terrorist organisation of Hizbollah, and seems to understand - just as Mubarak did - the doublethink nuances of the region. From Jerusalem’s point of view it will be unnerving that the single-party-state Ba’athists have fallen distinctly out of favour in the eyes of the Syrian public. Just as has happened in Egypt, if the Brotherhood manage to puncture the tyres of the

Assad killing machine, and gain power through democratic elections, Netanyahu may well nostalgically daydream of the days of Assad. On the other hand, the enemy that Israel does not yet know may prove to be friendlier neighbours than the enemy they already know. What is certain, however, is that whomever succeeds Assad will not have experience of the web of contradictions which make up Middle East relations.

Democracy will hopefully prove to be a soothing influence on the Middle East, or it could add to the already discordant cacophony. Either way, change in the region has rarely been welcomed, especially when it has been as rapid as the Arab Spring.

David Hodari is a History student at the University of Nottingham. His interests lie in the politics and history of the Middle East, Environmental History, and being cynical. Follow on Twitter @davidhodari

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As the lights came on in the cinema, I let out a sigh, having spent most of the last hour and a half watching The Iron Lady through tear-filled eyes.

Just like the Iron Lady herself, this film has divided opinion, most notably from the ‘real Iron Ladies of Chesterfield’ who held protests outside a cinema condemning the biopic; despite none of them having actually seen the film. Being someone who has, it is fair to say that politics was fairly insignificant, and that this was more a film about a woman so obsessed with politics that she paid the ultimate price for power. Many members of that audience were crying, but perhaps for the old lady who looked a little like Thatcher, rather than for Thatcher herself.

The film opens with Margaret having breakfast with her husband Denis, only for us to find out that she is actually alone, and was talking to his ghost. Throughout the film, she has conversations with Denis, whilst refusing to clear

The verdict on The Iron Lady

LIZZIE HEPWORTH

© Pathe Productions Ltd.

out his wardrobe, and hiding her hallucinations from her carers and family.

Cinema goers have no experience of what it means to be the Prime Minister, and cannot understand the life of a politician, never mind such a contentious and inflammatory Prime Minister. They might, however, be able to understand the fear of growing old, of losing a partner and of being alone. This film attempts to show the human side to Thatcher, not to discuss or criticise her politics.

Many people still remember the Thatcher years, and will either hate or love her for eternity. But this generation will eventually have gone, along with the Iron Lady herself. The film however, will still exist, and may very well become the common perception of Thatcher, her life, and her career. The key image is of a lonely old lady, who achieved so much, but is now more or less housebound despite her once resolute and determined character.

This is the ultimate price of power, and The Iron Lady shows Thatcher sacrificing throughout her life, whether it was constantly trying to make her parents proud, battling against the Opposition or her

own cabinet, and ultimately straining her relationship with her husband and children. But she does not pay this price for herself, but rather for women everywhere. The Iron Lady shows Thatcher as representing middle-class women everywhere, and is a success story of feminism and social mobility.

Whilst many will take issue with this portrayal of Thatcher as not only a victim, but as a hero, I’m sure Thatcher herself would also disagree, having never seen herself as a victim or as a feminist icon. But the fact remains, a writer’s job is to write, to create, and to re-imagine, not to give a factual description. This is a film, written by writers, many of whom have genuine reasons to resent Thatcher, having either been brought up in mining areas, or with families affected by her policies, and so the sympathetic spin is not due to sympathy for her politics.

Instead, this is a film about growing old, being alone and dealing with grief. This is the story of the decline of a powerful woman, her struggle to deal with no longer having the power she once had, and realising that despite giving the country everything she had, she is now not only powerless to change

anything, but she is almost forgotten. In the film, she tells the ghost of Denis that “If you take the tough decisions now, they will thank you for generations”. Whilst sage advice for Cameron and Clegg, who face the tough decisions of our generation, perhaps this line sums up the message of this film, and is the start of the rehabilitation of Thatcher. Or perhaps it’s just a blockbuster film tugging at the heart strings.

An incredible life, impressive achievements, and great success, reduced to a lonely old lady in front of the audience. Thatcher herself commented that life is always better with the Tories, but what about life after the Tories, when they have forgotten you, buried your achievements and pushed you aside?

Lizzie Hepworth is final year Politics student at the University of Nottingham. She works for Randall’s Parliamentary Service, where she writes Select Committee reports. Next year she will begin studying a PGCE in Primary Teaching at the University of Cambridge. Follow on Twitter @LizzieHepworth

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This is a common response many a student will have heard when telling people they are reading politics. Although there is certainly nothing wrong with aiming to be a future leader, it is not perhaps what every politics student plans. So, how does studying politics help in terms of career and employability?

A degree in politics enables students to enter a range of professions. First of all there are the more obvious careers related to politics such as working in Parliament, working in the European Parliament, working for the UN or working with think tanks. Students also enter the civil service (entry is possible on the fast track scheme or by entering at the mainstream level), work in local government or work for a political party. Some students also go on to work for charities or non-governmental organizations. However, the beauty of a degree in politics is that whilst it enables people to enter a politics-related career, students can also cast the net wider in terms of employability using their

degree in politics to get into professions such as law, marketing, broadcasting, journalism, teaching, banking, accountancy, finance and management.

When you are thinking about your career it is important to remember the types of skills which you have got or are getting out of your degree. For example, a degree in politics from where I teach at Nottingham provides you with

an awareness of key political issues, an understanding of political institutions (what they are and how they function) and familiarity with the ideas that underpin national and global systems, skills relevant in any work sector, politics-related, business or the so-called ‘third sector’ (charities).

Politics impacts on every career that you can imagine; the decisions made by those in power influence how

Oh, so you want to be the next Prime Minister?

DR ROS HAGUE

nupolitics 33

businesses structure themselves, political and indeed cultural thinking affects the direction taken by those in charge of all areas of employment and a degree in politics allows you to demonstrate that you understand the politics behind the everyday practices of all employment sectors.

You will also have developed key employability skills. These are too numerous to cover in one article but of primary importance are communication skills. Communication involves skills such as being able to analyze and disseminate information in a clear and concise manner – something students learn to do in coursework, dissertations and presentations. Communication skills also comprise the verbal and written skills you use to do this – writing clearly or using PowerPoint slides in presentations to capture your audience’s attention.

Another key set of skills are those of leadership which include being able to make decisions under pressure, providing help and support for the welfare of those you lead, having the confidence to take the lead on decision-making based on evidence and the ability to handle all the

pressure and responsibility that comes with this, valuing and respecting the perspective of other people, coordinating activities, motivating yourself and others and the self-awareness necessary to acknowledge your own personal and professional needs. Team working skills are also highly valued by employers, these include respect for others, collaboration, the ability to listen to others, being able to share ideas and discuss issues with others, valuing other people’s contributions being good at listening, learning and sharing, an awareness of social/collective responsibility and working with others to meet high pressure deadlines. Students develop both leadership and team working skills in group work in seminars, in working together on presentations and by carrying out role play tasks in seminars.

As well as developing employability skills within our modules, we in the School of Politics and International Relations at Nottingham also provide a number of extra, optional, opportunities for students to focus on and to develop their employability skills. We have specialist careers talks tailored to students in each year, members of our alumni

frequently come back to talk to students about their careers, explaining what it’s like to work in their profession and how they climbed onto the career ladder. These talks are particularly useful as they allow students to hear about careers experiences first hand. We also run a civil service work observation scheme which gives students the opportunity to experience working in one of three branches of the civil service. In addition to this we support schemes run by those outside the University which enable students to gain extra-curricular experience - schemes such as the Three Faiths Forum’s ParliaMentors programme!

All in all, a degree in politics provides students not only with a fascinating and wide-ranging topic to study but also with key skills necessary to pursue a career after graduating.

Dr Ros Hague is a Teaching Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham.

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