Campbell and Mandy in Oxford next week!

For Oxonian readers, next week is a big week for Labour speakers. OULC is hosting speaker events with Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell. Please do come along, you don't have to be a member of the Labour Party or OULC. This is a chance to meet two of the most influential people in British politics of recent times.

Alastair Campbell

Monday 12th October

6pm, Oriel

Peter Mandelson

Friday 16th October

5pm, St Catz

OxStu Trident article

This is a short comment piece that I wrote for this week's OxStu:

Let’s put things in perspective: Trident gives Britain an overall nuclear capacity more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima by a factor of 1,280. Russia, the USA, China and France are able to wreak even more destruction. Such an arrangement cannot be allowed to continue.

Before looking at Britain specifically, it is important to stress why the case for multilateral nuclear disarmament is stronger than ever. There has been a dramatic change in geopolitics since the end of the Cold War. It wasn’t Iran that caused 9/11; it wasn’t North Korea that blew up Tube trains on 7/7. These attacks were orchestrated by individuals acting not for any state, but for a global network with a complex organisational structure and an intoxicating militant ideology. As was the case in 2005, a nuclear deterrent is not effective against alienated members of your own society; if such groups did acquire and use nuclear weapons, where would we target ours in retaliation?

The ‘Axis of Evil’ line may have disappeared with the man that coined it, but the fundamentals of this argument are still used to justify a continued nuclear deterrent; it’s responsible Western powers versus untrustworthy rogue states. Just remember, these Western powers only pass off as responsible because the world’s only superpower is able to dictate that this is the case. I do not need to remind you of countries needlessly invaded, people tortured and legitimate regimes undermined by these countries that are supposedly ‘responsible’ enough to have nuclear weapons. The ‘Axis of Evil’ is a black and white argument in a world of greys.

Do not let Brown’s recent announcement fool you; there may be one less submarine, but the number of nuclear warheads will remain the same. That it is economic reasoning that lies behind this announcement makes it even more farcical. Who cares about the reasoning, they’ll still be gone I hear you cry. The reasoning behind the decision is crucial; economic arguments consider only financial cost, when it is human cost that should be considered. A decision that is enforced with ideals of peace and unity would represent a clear desire to break with the past. The decision to renew Trident would also be a clear violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Britain has always been a signatory. Ultimately, those in Whitehall need to accept that Britain’s nuclear capability does nothing to prop up what is already a largely illusory amount of global power and influence.

Clapped out conservatism at its best

They voted for a young, energetic leader; they underwent a massive rebranding with their fancy squiggly tree logo; they claimed to have undergone a shift in political ideology to the centre-right of British politics. The Tories would like to have you believe they underwent a New Labour-esque change. For better or for worse, the Labour Party certainly did change, this of course reflected in the painstaking ideological reflection which led to the revision of Clause IV. Cameron's speech today was the clearest sign yet that no such major change has occurred in his own party.

Cameron used his pre-election conference speech as an attempt to ignite one of the most traditional conservative arguments: big government is bad, we need to strip it down to size. Such a speech seems to me more relevant to a C19 Tory grandee than a hard working, low-income voter in C21. We of course heard about how bad an inflated bureaucracy is, he used various examples all of the sort that Torygraphs love to complain about. It is important to note that the story of the police officers' 'illegal' child care arrangement was such a big story precisely because it isn't happening right, left and centre, this is the same elsewhere. Laws are fallible because the people that craft them are, get over it.

Beyond this, Cameron of course forgot to mention how vital 'big government' is in so many areas of society. It was a farcical claim in the first place, but it is now clearer than ever that the Tories are not the party of the NHS. The NHS relies on big government to work, the only way to change that would be savage privatisation. What an amazing coincidence. It was 'big government' that saved this country from plunging into depression. Where would we be if the government hadn't saved the banks? Where would be if governments hadn't acted decisively to prop up the global economy? Where would thousands of newly unemployed people be without the social safety net to fall back on provided by the Welfare State?

I'm glad Cameron has chosen this as a chief political battleground in the run-up to the general election. Out of all the major failings of Labour's twelve years in office to choose from (and there are definitely plenty), he instead attacked an aspect of left-wing political ideology that has proved its worth more than ever.

What a year!

Well, my first year at Oxford has come to an end, and far too quickly at that!

As I go back to the rural depths of Somerset, maybe I should temporarily change the blog name? 'Sheep, cider and rural ramblings'??!

To all those fellow Oxonians reading this, have an amazing vacation, see you again in October! xxxx

Political correctness does matter

If you watched last week's Question Time from Newquay you may have noticed that they only just about managed to discuss an issue that wasn't expenses related. Yes, we went from talking about how all MPs are all evil and money-grabbing to how everyone in the BBC is the same; however, it was nice to see how David Dimbleby had to climb down from his high perch when the spotlight turned on BBC pay for talent, he couldn't quite bring himself to inform everyone what he is paid.

Between all of this expenses bile was a discussion about the ramifications of Sarkozy's recent comments about the burkha. Despite the strong secular background in France, his suggestion that a ban should be looked into sparked controversy. A comment from a member in the audience suggesting that this issue was not important enough to be discussed by politicians was absolutely absurd. The debate surrounding the burkha is highly important in reflecting society's wider approach to multiculturalism and the balance between individual freedom and state intervention.

The burkha is worn by a minority of women, and arose out of a conflict of interpretation of the Qur'an, which calls for men and women to behave modestly in public. The fact that I disagree with the burkha has little importance. The problem is that the debate focussed on whether women are able to choose to wear the burkha or not. The obvious answer is that some do and some don't, and this is very hard to accurately work out. The problem is that people assumed (as they so often do) that state intervention in this issue would work. I don't believe it would; as mentioned by various people, it is a symbol of repression, getting rid of the symbol doesn't get rid of the entrenched behaviour and ideology. Although it sounds rather vague and wishy-washy, we should not stop in striving towards an open society in which people are able to choose what they can do.

However, I want to focus not on this main debate, but something related to this important issue of 'openness': the importance of accurate understanding. I sat watching Question Time with my head in my hands hearing comments like 'these Muslims' and 'they all do this...' etc. A complete failure to recognise the fact that women wearing the burkha are part of a very small, narrow conservative strand of Islam, not at all reflective of mainstream Muslim belief and ideology. I was shouting at the puerile Kelvin Mackenzie, who talked about how nasty Islam is towards women. Firstly, as mentioned, this simply isn't the case, all Abrahamic faiths have had to overcome sexist and misogynist attitudes. Secondly, I couldn't believe I was hearing about sexism and suchlike from the ex-editor of The Sun, you objectified women every day on the third page of your disgusting publication! This is why a certain degree of political correctness is necessary, because racialist and casual racist language inflicts such a huge amount of damage. It is a willingness to understand from the non-Muslim population that will bring about the change required. If women that are possibly being repressed see that their fellow citizens understand the situation they are in, rather than seeing them speak like they wouldn't touch them with a barge pole (as came across on Question Time), then a culture of change is far more likely to emerge.

This is a very important and necessary debate, but it should be conducted on a platform of far greater maturity than I saw last week.

UPDATE - 11.52, 30/06/2009 - Scott, I can see the argument you're making, but I think there's actually a difference between the two. I think the damaging racist or racialist language is actually quite artificial. I think this is simply an outgrowth of ignorance; this can be tackled by increasing understanding. In contrast, changing attitudes towards the burkha involves tackling entrenched beliefs and ideologies that both men and women may have been brought up with since they were born.

Comedy claims from the Commons

Amid the dour life of revising, today's official publication of MPs' expenses has been rather entertaining, here's my top five:

1. John Bercow (Con) - £1197.51 for a sanitary towel blockage.
2. Ben Bradshaw (Lab) - claimed for a gay lifestyle magazine.
3. Oliver Letwin (Con) - £1765 for his monthly phone bill, this was apparently because he was "dictating constituency expenditure from abroad."
4. Alan Johnson (Lab) - over £8,000 on a magic letter machine, PoliticsHome notes, 'the automatic envelope-stuffer is capable of filling and sealing up to 2,200 envelopes an hour.'
5. Alistair Darling - £2339 for a "magnolia cavalier cavalace velvet wool carpet with cloud and cumulus underlay."

For more highlights from the Commons, see here, particularly Yvette Cooper's claim (I've already talked about trains today, so she just missed the cut).

'High speed' rail madness

I feel a Charlie Brooker-esque rant coming on...


If you've been reading or watching the news today, you will have almost certainly noticed the plethora of journalists yapping away with giddy excitement about the first journey of Southeastern's new 'high speed' rail link between Ebbsfleet and London. Am I the only one not to accept how amazingly amazing this is? I really love travelling by train, this despite having to survive in both Oxford and Somerset with a train operator that has been threatened with having its franchise removed and faced a widely publicised fare strike over its less-than-perfect service: First Great Western.

Lets just summarise what this service entails: a service between London and somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere, with trains that travel at a mere 140mph (only 15mph faster than the current fastest train in the country), which just happened to be on the same line that was built for the Eurostar channel tunnel high speed link. And to think of the irony that Southeastern are plugging this as the British 'bullet train' just because they are built by a Japanese manufacturer - I will just direct you here to emphasise how great the differences are between the two services. So we have trains that are not high speed, that hardly go anywhere and are only there because it happens to be where Eurostar wanted to go. One of the very great oddities of the British public is its huge amount of nostalgia for its railways, which lies alongside its consistent ignorance of damaging government transport policy, from Beeching to privatisation and aggressive road building to incessant fare hikes.

The excitement surrounding this new service reinforces British railways' continued ability to provide huge dollops of pride and nostalgia for the public. So here's an idea that will kill so many birds with one stone. Drop Trident, use the money saved to invest in major new (actual) high speed train lines to Scotland, the north west and the south west. What do we gain?

• A world lead on nuclear disarmament.
• A clear commitment to tackling climate change.
• A major improvement in public transport.
• A huge source of employment.
• A source of pride and nostalgia.

Oh but wait a minute, that would be slightly contentious wouldn't it...

UPDATE - 19/06, 10:51 - In response to comments, I definitely think this new high speed line is really good. It just seems such a tiny step taken so slowly when placed in an international context. I just hope progress can pick up - just think, direct services from Manchester - Paris, amazing!