Wednesday 5 October 2011

Progressive Neo- what?

On an early morning of last week I was up before any of my fellow housemates in order to attend a ‘Coffee House Debate’ organised by The Guardian as one of the fringe events of the Labour Conference in Liverpool. The debate was to centre around what the Labour Party or indeed any potential Government can do to better the conditions of the British Youth today. As a student and having never seen or heard any political figure in person, aside from a Mr. Blair paying a visit to my hometown of Croydon when I was the tender age of six, I was looking forward to hearing the views and ideas of the panel. It included Lisa Nandy MP, who had worked as the Children’s Commissioner for England before becoming MP for Wigan and who had recently been named one of the New Statesman’s twenty ‘rising stars’ of British Politics under forty, as well as Westminster veteran and previous Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley Green. Both spoke well, chastising governments past and present for not doing enough for the British Youth whilst willing future governments to do more as well as highlighting to their audience the duty they had.

It was thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the morning and at the end of it two things were unmistakeably clear to me; the first was that, while the Youth of Britain today might have an energetic curiosity for the politics of their country, the vast majority of them are unable to express this interest due to failures in education, funding of local communities, and the social construct that they are brought up in. The second point was that this problem has become intrinsic in our society and is unlikely to go away in the near future.

Standing in the upstairs floor of the Starbucks I counted two other people who looked my age or younger, one of whom was the extremely impressive pannelist, Richard Cullen, the UK Youth Voice representative. One man when asking a question to the panel referred to the room, pointing to the glass wall that looks out onto the main shopping street in Liverpool, as a ‘bubble’, asking why members of government and the Children’s Society weren’t outside doing something about the poor state of the Youth today.  However incorporated into this ‘bubble’ was not just the few who were in that room but the entire institution of British Politics.

Despite many of the youth today taking a keen interest in the workings of their country, very few are able to ‘work’ their country. Even if you do join a Party and do get involved in your local constituency, it is hard enough to have an effect there, let alone working your way up to the House of Commons and having national influence.

Lisa Nandy, who grew up in Lancashire before attending Newcastle University, struck upon one of the most damaging facts in British Politics, when describing her life as an MP living in London. She portrayed Westminster as an intellectually exclusive club where men and women debated the pros and cons of the ‘progressive neoliberal consensus’, and other such labyrinthine terms, completely absorbed in this esoteric bubble and forgetting the concerns of their constituents at home. 



This represents what politics has become in Britain. Over the course of the 20th century a seat in parliament has just become another stop on the stately coach of the upper middle class who have already got off at Eton and Oxbridge. This may seem cynical, however consider those ‘rising stars’ of British Politics such as Lisa Nandy and Chuka Umanna. Even though they have made into parliament can they uphold the values which impressed the members of their constituency which got them elected in the first place? Or will they succumb to the jargonistic talk of those weaned on old Oxbridge conservatism, and become ineffectual, simply happy to be part of the country’s supposed intelligentsia.

With this kind of political framework what chance then, does this give the Youth of local communities who want to make a difference? Some, such as Richard Cullen, will get their voice heard, however, for the majority of the British Youth, that interest they had in wanting to change their country will fade, if it is was ever there in the first place and the Oxbridge elite will continue to run the show in their Westminster bubble.

The question was asked at the beginning of the morning; can Labour deliver for the next generation? The disparity between the attitudes and ideas of UK Youth compared with those in Westminster is so far removed that it is, and always has been, impossible to get a fully representative government. Therefore the answer is ‘No’, Labour, nor any other government, will be able to deliver what the UK Youth wants, and this will not change until that Westminster bubble is burst and it is the Youth of Britain who are given the insight and tools to make a difference.