My views on the issue of tuition fees are well established. I wrote earlier this year on this blog that I believed the only way for tuition fees to go was up and following the publication of the Browne Review I wrote this article supporting it's proposals. But I would like to say a few words about the mass of student opposition that has arisen to the proposals in recent weeks.
First of all I think it is reasonable to say that there is a great deal of ignorance amongst those protesting against the fee rise. There is an awful lot of misunderstanding and misinformation regarding the changes. I question how many protesters have actually bothered to read the proposals and could give you a good, factual account of what they contain. Too many people are labouring under the impression that they are going to have to pay fees upfront, that everyone will pay £9,000 and that the poor will be worse off under these proposals - none of which is true.
The LibDems have taken an awful lot of flack over this decision and have borne the brunt of the protester's anger. I have to admit that I have warmed to the LibDems in recent months; they've done the right thing in swinging their full weight behind the coalition. It is entirely fair for the students who the LibDems wooed in to voting for them to now feel aggrieved but for the Labour President of the NUS, Aaron Porter, to take to the airwaves and criticise the LibDems for breaking their promise is an act of rank hypocrisy. I would suggest that amongst Mr Porter (I am assuming he voted for his own party) and the rest of his friends there are a hell of a lot of people protesting who did not vote for the LibDems at the General Election and voted for Labour or the Tories. The fact is that Labour introduced top-up fees in 2004, Labour commissioned the Browne Review and if Labour had won the election they would almost certainly now be introducing its proposals. So all the protesters who voted Conservative or Labour are getting what they voted for and they should stop this vilification of Nick Clegg.
The student protesters are not campaigning on behalf of the poor, they aren't campaigning in favour of the elderly or the infirm they are protesting to protect their own self-interest. They believe a cleaning lady should pay for their degree - I do not. I believe that the average 23.5% increase in earnings a graduate receives compared to a non-graduate is a privilege they should pay for not the tax payer.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Saturday, 13 November 2010
The fight for freedom in Burma goes on
I break from my blogging hiatus to blog on an issue for which I have always had a deep passion; the plight of the people of Burma.
The world can rejoice today at the news that Aung San Suu Kyi has finally been released by the military junta in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected as Burma's rightful Prime Minister in 1990 and remains Burma's legitimately elected leader. During her 15 years of house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi became a symbol across the world, not only of the struggle in Burma, but for the cause of democracy in oppressed nations world-wide. Her release today rights a great injustice against a remarkably courageous woman who richly deserves her Nobel Peace Prize which she is yet to receive in person.
However Aung San Suu Kyi is just one of thousands of political prisoners being held by the Burmese regime. General Shwe's government, which has ruled Burma since a coup in 1962, is responsible for the extensive use of child soldiers, the practice of forced labour, the use of torture and the mass murder of thousands of its own citizens. Elections held last week, which were boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, were a complete fraud with only candidates approved by the military junta allowed to run. The fight for freedom in Burma is far from over.
I would therefore urge anyone who reads this blog to visit the website of the Burma Campaign UK and join the campaign for human rights and freedom in Burma.
The world can rejoice today at the news that Aung San Suu Kyi has finally been released by the military junta in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected as Burma's rightful Prime Minister in 1990 and remains Burma's legitimately elected leader. During her 15 years of house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi became a symbol across the world, not only of the struggle in Burma, but for the cause of democracy in oppressed nations world-wide. Her release today rights a great injustice against a remarkably courageous woman who richly deserves her Nobel Peace Prize which she is yet to receive in person.
However Aung San Suu Kyi is just one of thousands of political prisoners being held by the Burmese regime. General Shwe's government, which has ruled Burma since a coup in 1962, is responsible for the extensive use of child soldiers, the practice of forced labour, the use of torture and the mass murder of thousands of its own citizens. Elections held last week, which were boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, were a complete fraud with only candidates approved by the military junta allowed to run. The fight for freedom in Burma is far from over.
I would therefore urge anyone who reads this blog to visit the website of the Burma Campaign UK and join the campaign for human rights and freedom in Burma.
Monday, 5 July 2010
No Mr Speaker, we don't detest it
John Bercow, the pain that is the Speaker of the House of Commons has pronounced that Harriet Harman and future Leaders of the Opposition will have the number of questions they are allowed to ask at Prime Minister's Questions cut. Apparently we, the public, 'detest' the 'cut and thrust' of PMQs. Do we really? I for one don't want to turn my TV on a Wednesday at 12 o'clock and see our MPs sitting quietly, politely asking questions and Ministers giving bland, civil service responses. I want the Prime Minister, of whatever political party, to be subject to aggressive interrogation on the floor of the House. A little theatre and a little barracking here and there wouldn't go a miss too.
This is the latest of Mr Bercow's 'reforms' to the House which have included some positive steps....well a couple at most. Otherwise Mr Bercow has been a disaster as Speaker. Elected in a move designed to do nothing but annoy the Conservative Party, Mr Bercow has no respect for the traditions and history of Parliament - shown by the fact that one of his first acts as Speaker was to drop the Speaker's ceremonial dress. Since then we've seen him use his official apartment to provide free accommodation for his nanny, his wife exploit her position as the Speaker's wife to mount a political career supporting the Labour Party and a series of over-zealous, politically-correct moves designed to make the Commons more in to line with the 21st Century.
I would say only this to Mr Bercow and his attempts at reform. It is not for him to reform the House, it is for the House to reform itself. As Speaker Lenthall said 'I have not eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House shall direct me, whose servant I am.'
This is the latest of Mr Bercow's 'reforms' to the House which have included some positive steps....well a couple at most. Otherwise Mr Bercow has been a disaster as Speaker. Elected in a move designed to do nothing but annoy the Conservative Party, Mr Bercow has no respect for the traditions and history of Parliament - shown by the fact that one of his first acts as Speaker was to drop the Speaker's ceremonial dress. Since then we've seen him use his official apartment to provide free accommodation for his nanny, his wife exploit her position as the Speaker's wife to mount a political career supporting the Labour Party and a series of over-zealous, politically-correct moves designed to make the Commons more in to line with the 21st Century.
I would say only this to Mr Bercow and his attempts at reform. It is not for him to reform the House, it is for the House to reform itself. As Speaker Lenthall said 'I have not eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House shall direct me, whose servant I am.'
Saturday, 3 July 2010
The false dichotomy of penal reform
We have, this week, been offered a choice by the media and some politicians between the 'Prison Works' attitude of former Home Secretary, Michael Howard and Ken Clarke's so called 'lenient' approach to criminal justice (Mr Clarke this week outlined a radical overhaul of the way we run our prisons). In being offered this choice, we have been made to assume that the two are mutually exclusive, polar opposites and that we have to either lock all criminals up until they rot in jail or let lots of axe murderers out on to the streets. This is a false dichotomy - both Clarke and Howard are right.
Michael Howard is correct that prison works in that it keeps dangerous offenders of our streets and deprives the most serious offenders of their liberty as punishment for crimes they have committed. Nobody is suggesting that murderers should not go to jail or that those who are a genuine threat to others should not remain behind bars. We will, under Ken Clarke's reform proposals, continue to send to jail those who deserve to go there.
But when you consider that 40% of prisoners re-offend when they are released from prison, can one really say that prison works in dealing with the problem of crime in our society? No it doesn't.
That is where Ken Clarke's radical changes to the criminal justice system comes in. At the moment prisons, as Douglas Hurd once said, are simply an expensive way of making bad people worse. There are few programmes operating in our prisons that try to educate prisoners, equip them with skills, treat their drug habits and even do basic things like teach prisoners to read and write and where they do exist, the prisoners that need them are invariably on short-term prison sentences so the programmes are ineffective. Would it not be more worthwhile, and a better use of public funds for that matter, to deal with these minor offenders in the community and then concentrate on long-term habitual offenders in our jails?
Ken Clarke's reforms will do exactly that. Recognising that short-term prison sentences aren't a way of reforming and rehabilitating offenders, he promises to engage the private and voluntary sector in helping minor offenders outside of prison in order to stop them from offending again. If we teach criminals to read and write (literacy rates are shockingly low in prisons) and make sure they've got the right training and skills to get a job then we'll break the cycle of crime that has been plaguing our society for far too long.
Ken Clarke's policy is not some way of 'going soft' on criminals. It is the first real policy a government has come forward with to be 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' by addressing the question of why so many people go on to re-offend. This policy not only makes financial sense in these strained economic times, but it makes moral sense as well. We need more radical thinkers like Ken Clarke - society would be much better off as a consequence.
Michael Howard is correct that prison works in that it keeps dangerous offenders of our streets and deprives the most serious offenders of their liberty as punishment for crimes they have committed. Nobody is suggesting that murderers should not go to jail or that those who are a genuine threat to others should not remain behind bars. We will, under Ken Clarke's reform proposals, continue to send to jail those who deserve to go there.
But when you consider that 40% of prisoners re-offend when they are released from prison, can one really say that prison works in dealing with the problem of crime in our society? No it doesn't.
That is where Ken Clarke's radical changes to the criminal justice system comes in. At the moment prisons, as Douglas Hurd once said, are simply an expensive way of making bad people worse. There are few programmes operating in our prisons that try to educate prisoners, equip them with skills, treat their drug habits and even do basic things like teach prisoners to read and write and where they do exist, the prisoners that need them are invariably on short-term prison sentences so the programmes are ineffective. Would it not be more worthwhile, and a better use of public funds for that matter, to deal with these minor offenders in the community and then concentrate on long-term habitual offenders in our jails?
Ken Clarke's reforms will do exactly that. Recognising that short-term prison sentences aren't a way of reforming and rehabilitating offenders, he promises to engage the private and voluntary sector in helping minor offenders outside of prison in order to stop them from offending again. If we teach criminals to read and write (literacy rates are shockingly low in prisons) and make sure they've got the right training and skills to get a job then we'll break the cycle of crime that has been plaguing our society for far too long.
Ken Clarke's policy is not some way of 'going soft' on criminals. It is the first real policy a government has come forward with to be 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' by addressing the question of why so many people go on to re-offend. This policy not only makes financial sense in these strained economic times, but it makes moral sense as well. We need more radical thinkers like Ken Clarke - society would be much better off as a consequence.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Give Tony Hayward a break
Another bad day for BP and its Chief Executive, Tony Hayward, today as pictures of him on a yachting trip are plastered across the newspapers. The story has provoked another barrage of criticism as Americans accuse him of being insensitive and 'insulting'.
However Mr Hayward has not had an easy few weeks and such savage criticism does seem a little excessive considering what Mr Hayward has done. I don't see why people have such a problem. What do people expect Mr Hayward to do on his day off? Sit in a dark, empty room doing nothing? Or not have a day off at all?
I don't buy in to this argument that somehow the criticism of BP is motivated by an anti-British sentiment on the part of the Obama administration and the US political establishment. The reality is if an American company had been drilling in the North Sea and the same sort of environmental catastrophe had occurred, we'd expect an equally tough and abrasive line from our own politicians. Instead Mr Obama and other American politicians of both parties are using this incident to score political points, not to extend some sort of grudge against the British.
Nevertheless Mr Hayward is becoming a victim in this. He does have questions to answer and is accountable for the evident blunder his company has made. But saying his Mr Hayward has 'no right to free time at all' (as one American put it) is disproportional and unnecessary. It is time we gave Mr Hayward a break.
However Mr Hayward has not had an easy few weeks and such savage criticism does seem a little excessive considering what Mr Hayward has done. I don't see why people have such a problem. What do people expect Mr Hayward to do on his day off? Sit in a dark, empty room doing nothing? Or not have a day off at all?
I don't buy in to this argument that somehow the criticism of BP is motivated by an anti-British sentiment on the part of the Obama administration and the US political establishment. The reality is if an American company had been drilling in the North Sea and the same sort of environmental catastrophe had occurred, we'd expect an equally tough and abrasive line from our own politicians. Instead Mr Obama and other American politicians of both parties are using this incident to score political points, not to extend some sort of grudge against the British.
Nevertheless Mr Hayward is becoming a victim in this. He does have questions to answer and is accountable for the evident blunder his company has made. But saying his Mr Hayward has 'no right to free time at all' (as one American put it) is disproportional and unnecessary. It is time we gave Mr Hayward a break.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Why you should all vote Conservative on May 6th
The election is nearly over and I've completely failed at keeping up a regular blog - I did try and I hope what people did read was somewhat illuminating.
But at the time of writing, 24 hours from now and the whole thing will be over, the fate of the nation decided.
Tomorrow's election is the most important in my life time and probably the closest fought in my parent's lifetime's too. None of us have any clear idea what the result tomorrow will be; a freak in the election system could easily produce another Labour government, a hung parliament seems likely but a Conservative majority is not impossible. The race really is open and with many voters deciding who they vote for when they step in to the polling booth, this is my last chance to try to convince you to Vote Conservative tomorrow.
Britain is broken - literally and metaphorically. The government is currently spending £170 billion more than it receives in taxes and we're running a national debt which is pushing £1 trillion. British society is broken with violent crime on the rise and family breakdown at record levels. And our political system is broken, rotten and in need of reform. All this after thirteen years of a Labour government.
A vote for Labour tomorrow means five more years of decay and five more years of economic ruin. Labour's only solution to the problems we are facing is to give the state more power to interfere in our lives whilst taxing jobs and penalising hard-working families. The Liberal Democrats are a vacuous excuse of a political party whose policies don't stand up to scrutiny. Mr Clegg's talk of a 'new politics' is empty rhetoric - a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for five more years of Gordon Brown.
But there is an alternative. From May 7th we can have a government that will start cutting the deficit now by cutting government waste whilst protecting front line public services. The Conservatives will cut £6.5 billion in government waste this year. Labour have identified £15 billion of waste which they want to go on wasting for another year; if the government is wasting our money they should stop wasting it now, not wait for another twelve months.
From May 7th we can have a government that isn't in denial about the crumbling society we see around us. The Conservatives want to support families by rewarding marriage in the tax system and would restore pride in our communities by empowering citizens to make decisions about their local areas.
From May 7th we can have a government that would cut the cost of political by reducing the number of MPs by 10% and slashing ministerial pay 5% and freezing for the rest of the parliament whilst at the same time giving us the chance to recall MPs who are failing their constituents.
From May 7th we can have a Conservative government that will bring an end to 13 years of Labour miss-rule.
I can't vote in this election so this is my plea to those that can. It's my generation that has witnessed the gap between the rich and poor grow under a Labour government, my generation that is seeing over 20% youth unemployment and my generation that has been burdened with Gordon Brown's gigantic debt. So I plead with you, for the sake of the young people of Britain, do not put us through the pain of another five years of Labour government. Please, Vote Conservative.
But at the time of writing, 24 hours from now and the whole thing will be over, the fate of the nation decided.
Tomorrow's election is the most important in my life time and probably the closest fought in my parent's lifetime's too. None of us have any clear idea what the result tomorrow will be; a freak in the election system could easily produce another Labour government, a hung parliament seems likely but a Conservative majority is not impossible. The race really is open and with many voters deciding who they vote for when they step in to the polling booth, this is my last chance to try to convince you to Vote Conservative tomorrow.
Britain is broken - literally and metaphorically. The government is currently spending £170 billion more than it receives in taxes and we're running a national debt which is pushing £1 trillion. British society is broken with violent crime on the rise and family breakdown at record levels. And our political system is broken, rotten and in need of reform. All this after thirteen years of a Labour government.
A vote for Labour tomorrow means five more years of decay and five more years of economic ruin. Labour's only solution to the problems we are facing is to give the state more power to interfere in our lives whilst taxing jobs and penalising hard-working families. The Liberal Democrats are a vacuous excuse of a political party whose policies don't stand up to scrutiny. Mr Clegg's talk of a 'new politics' is empty rhetoric - a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for five more years of Gordon Brown.
But there is an alternative. From May 7th we can have a government that will start cutting the deficit now by cutting government waste whilst protecting front line public services. The Conservatives will cut £6.5 billion in government waste this year. Labour have identified £15 billion of waste which they want to go on wasting for another year; if the government is wasting our money they should stop wasting it now, not wait for another twelve months.
From May 7th we can have a government that isn't in denial about the crumbling society we see around us. The Conservatives want to support families by rewarding marriage in the tax system and would restore pride in our communities by empowering citizens to make decisions about their local areas.
From May 7th we can have a government that would cut the cost of political by reducing the number of MPs by 10% and slashing ministerial pay 5% and freezing for the rest of the parliament whilst at the same time giving us the chance to recall MPs who are failing their constituents.
From May 7th we can have a Conservative government that will bring an end to 13 years of Labour miss-rule.
I can't vote in this election so this is my plea to those that can. It's my generation that has witnessed the gap between the rich and poor grow under a Labour government, my generation that is seeing over 20% youth unemployment and my generation that has been burdened with Gordon Brown's gigantic debt. So I plead with you, for the sake of the young people of Britain, do not put us through the pain of another five years of Labour government. Please, Vote Conservative.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Honouring our Armed Forces
Last night's debate, which was a vast improvement on the one of seven days ago, focused on foreign affairs and defence, exposing once more the fact that Labour cannot be trusted to run our Armed Forces. The merits of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are for a separate blog, but when any government sends our troops to war, they have a moral duty to ensure they are suitably equipped, well-paid and properly cared for if they get injured. Labour has failed on all three accounts.
A lack of helicopters, boots that melt in the desert heat, cutting the TA training budget - Labour is guilt of all these things. So I was pleased yesterday that the Conservatives launched their Armed Forces Manifesto - setting out what they would do to help our Armed Forces.
It's full of pretty good stuff. Protecting the defence budget in 2010/11 whilst the Strategic Defence Review is underway, giving our service personnel the equipment they need - not the useless rubbish they've been given under Labour, doubling the money troops get for serving overseas, bursaries for the children of service personnel killed in conflict, extra support for veterans when they leave the forces and a military covenant that enshrines our duties towards our forces.
You'll find it hard to find braver people than the men and women of our Armed Forces and it's time we gave them the respect they deserve. Labour and the Liberal Democrats must now meet the Conservative's commitments to our men and women in uniform.
A lack of helicopters, boots that melt in the desert heat, cutting the TA training budget - Labour is guilt of all these things. So I was pleased yesterday that the Conservatives launched their Armed Forces Manifesto - setting out what they would do to help our Armed Forces.
It's full of pretty good stuff. Protecting the defence budget in 2010/11 whilst the Strategic Defence Review is underway, giving our service personnel the equipment they need - not the useless rubbish they've been given under Labour, doubling the money troops get for serving overseas, bursaries for the children of service personnel killed in conflict, extra support for veterans when they leave the forces and a military covenant that enshrines our duties towards our forces.
You'll find it hard to find braver people than the men and women of our Armed Forces and it's time we gave them the respect they deserve. Labour and the Liberal Democrats must now meet the Conservative's commitments to our men and women in uniform.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
The TV Debates Blog Round 1: Is this all they have to offer?
The media hype has been going on for days. Across the country people were sat in front of their TVs waiting for it to begin. This will change our politics we were told. This was going to decide the election. Oh, then they showed the leaders debate and everybody fell asleep.
We learnt very little from this debate. Gordon Brown spent most of his time trying to cuddle up to LibDem voters and gave the clearest signal yet that Labour will push for a Lib-Lab pact after the election. David Cameron did what he is a good at - he performed well and confidently but we didn't expect him to do anything else did we? And then most people learnt what Nick Clegg actually looked like. Oh and for those that did know who the leader of the Liberal Democrats is, Nick Clegg (who will never be Prime Minister of this country) reminded us he was the MP for Sheffield, then he did it again, and again oh and just in case you didn't catch it, he did it again.
There were the obvious dividing lines between the parties. Gordon Brown thinks that if the state doesn't do just about everything the world is going to collapse. The Tories showed us that it is possible to live in a world without the nanny state. Whilst Nick Clegg kept reminding us that we'd had Tory and Labour governments for the last 65 years but left us no clearer what the Liberal Democrats believed in other than some abstract concept of 'fairness'. Then they all told us how they'd been to meet Mrs Jones, who lives in Burnley, worked for 50 years in the NHS, has had her house burnt down by yobs, served in the Royal Navy, likes eating babies and every other detail about Mrs Jones' life in order to back up each answer. Enough with the anecdotes please!
They might as well have done the debate in a room without any other human beings in it at all as the audience were so pointless. They weren't allowed to clap, they weren't allowed to laugh and the could only breath at specific intervals designated by the production team. Although I did notice that on at least one occasion one lady broke rule 45.7b and could clearly be seen....smiling. The shame. The limited role of the audience in the debates took out all life from the debates and left them sterile, stage-managed, pre-rehearsed pieces of political theatre. I want to see Margaret Beckett-esque booing (for those that don't know what I'm referring to she was once booed constantly by a Question Time audience), I want to see people turning on one of the leaders and I don't want all my questions asked by members of the medical-related professions.
It would be wrong to comment on such an auspicious occasion without commenting on how the participants looked. First of all, the fiasco of Alistair Stewart's tie ranks alongside Peter Sissions' famous 'Burgundy tie' moment after the death of the Queen Mother as a sheer catastrophe in TV tie moments. Cameron dressed well and again performed with style. Clegg, well apart from the momentary shot of his bum we got from some handy ITV camera work, he kept staring in to the lens getting closer and closer; I felt like he was going to stick his head out of the television at one point. Then there was Gordon, when is someone going to tell him not to smile - it really is quite off-putting.
I had my doubts about whether these debates were at all appropriate for our parliamentary system and they did just personalise politics even more making this whole debate about Clegg-Cameron-Brown and their personalities. Those who shared my doubts should feel vindicated; we were right.
We were told this was going to be a massive boost to our tired and broken democracy, if this is all the political class to offer then I have little faith that interest in our political system can be restored.
We learnt very little from this debate. Gordon Brown spent most of his time trying to cuddle up to LibDem voters and gave the clearest signal yet that Labour will push for a Lib-Lab pact after the election. David Cameron did what he is a good at - he performed well and confidently but we didn't expect him to do anything else did we? And then most people learnt what Nick Clegg actually looked like. Oh and for those that did know who the leader of the Liberal Democrats is, Nick Clegg (who will never be Prime Minister of this country) reminded us he was the MP for Sheffield, then he did it again, and again oh and just in case you didn't catch it, he did it again.
There were the obvious dividing lines between the parties. Gordon Brown thinks that if the state doesn't do just about everything the world is going to collapse. The Tories showed us that it is possible to live in a world without the nanny state. Whilst Nick Clegg kept reminding us that we'd had Tory and Labour governments for the last 65 years but left us no clearer what the Liberal Democrats believed in other than some abstract concept of 'fairness'. Then they all told us how they'd been to meet Mrs Jones, who lives in Burnley, worked for 50 years in the NHS, has had her house burnt down by yobs, served in the Royal Navy, likes eating babies and every other detail about Mrs Jones' life in order to back up each answer. Enough with the anecdotes please!
They might as well have done the debate in a room without any other human beings in it at all as the audience were so pointless. They weren't allowed to clap, they weren't allowed to laugh and the could only breath at specific intervals designated by the production team. Although I did notice that on at least one occasion one lady broke rule 45.7b and could clearly be seen....smiling. The shame. The limited role of the audience in the debates took out all life from the debates and left them sterile, stage-managed, pre-rehearsed pieces of political theatre. I want to see Margaret Beckett-esque booing (for those that don't know what I'm referring to she was once booed constantly by a Question Time audience), I want to see people turning on one of the leaders and I don't want all my questions asked by members of the medical-related professions.
It would be wrong to comment on such an auspicious occasion without commenting on how the participants looked. First of all, the fiasco of Alistair Stewart's tie ranks alongside Peter Sissions' famous 'Burgundy tie' moment after the death of the Queen Mother as a sheer catastrophe in TV tie moments. Cameron dressed well and again performed with style. Clegg, well apart from the momentary shot of his bum we got from some handy ITV camera work, he kept staring in to the lens getting closer and closer; I felt like he was going to stick his head out of the television at one point. Then there was Gordon, when is someone going to tell him not to smile - it really is quite off-putting.
I had my doubts about whether these debates were at all appropriate for our parliamentary system and they did just personalise politics even more making this whole debate about Clegg-Cameron-Brown and their personalities. Those who shared my doubts should feel vindicated; we were right.
We were told this was going to be a massive boost to our tired and broken democracy, if this is all the political class to offer then I have little faith that interest in our political system can be restored.
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