My tale of me - Chris Jenkinson

Dear BBC,

I have read the response you have given to previous complaints about the lack of Liberal Democrats on Question Time, in which you state they will be on “are on most – but not all – ‘Question Time’ panels”. In the last month - the past three shows -  the Liberal Democrats have been present once. That there is, yet again, no Liberal Democrat member on the panel for the show scheduled this Thursday means your claim that they are on most panels is clearly false. I would like a response to this complaint explaining exactly why you see only one Liberal Democrat in four shows as being “representative” of the party’s broad support, and what you will be doing in future to address this imbalance.

Yours faithfully

Chris Jenkinson

As suggested by Liberal Democrat Voice.

I’m running for a national position within Liberal Youth - Vice-Chair (Membership Development). The job description is pretty self-explanatory, being responsible for supporting branches, organising training and helping branches both grow in terms of numbers but also as people.

My full manifesto is available to read. Please show your support by joining my Facebook group or become a supporter on Facebook. I’m also on Twitter, and can be contacted via email at memdev@chrisjenkinson.org.

If you’ve got any comments about my manifesto or campaign please let me know!

The recent proposal from the government that all schools should have their own dedicated police officer is unfortunately necessary - and while it will have the benefit of improving the relationship between young people and the police, it is fundamentally an admission of failure by the government to tackle both anti-social behaviour and carrying weapons in schools but more fundamentally to change the ethos of schools and local communities into one which is united rather than divided. This is a long-term project, but it’s one which the government appears to be making few moves on.

Harriet Harperson’s proposals to prevent frivolous lawsuits from people passed over for jobs because they (wrongly) perceive there is some form of gender or race discrimination are sensible. A firm should be able to, for example, pick a woman from an set of equally qualified people to counter an uneven gender ratio. Positive discrimination is picking a lesser-qualified candidate over a more-qualified candidate. While positive discrimination is still discrimination and is thus illiberal (it restricts equality of opportunity), Harperson’s proposals do not discriminate on gender or ethnicity.

Of course, if the burden is on the company to prove the two candidates are equally qualified and differ only in gender, then we are back at square one.

Before 1997 universities were funded through government taxation, largely because the universities claimed (rightly or wrongly) that they provided a useful public benefit and were spending taxpayers’ money wisely. Successive governments trusted them, and let them get on with the business of providing higher education. The general consensus has been that universities were underfunded, particularly under Conservative governments, still did a decent job, but could always use more money to better educate students and conduct more research.

However, things have massively changed since then. With the introduction of tuition fees and increased focus on comparative league tables, students and public fund scrutiny groups have looked more closely at the “value for money” aspect of higher education - i.e. whether universities are actually delivering what they promise, and whether they are doing so without pouring money down the drain.

One of the consequences of paying for something is that it is viewed more of as a product. Students have started comparing the quality of their education with others, and the results have been surprising to many higher up the university academic ladder, including vice-chancellors. That has prompted reviews of the way teaching has been delivered, including the radical teaching and learning undergraduate review currently being prepared for implementation at the University of Manchester, which has received national press coverage. This is clearly a good thing, and openness about successes and failures should always be encouraged.

However, a less beneficial consequence of tuition fees, and one I will graciously assume was unintended, is that it gives a government less supportive of the public sector the political advantage that it can point to poor quality teaching and argue that public money is wasted on such institutions. When over half the population do not attend university - even with the current government’s drive to increase student numbers - cuts in higher education funding to appease a populace which increasingly perceives itself as overtaxed seem inevitable, especially if the Tories form the next government as is looking likely.

This analysis, if valid, is worrying indeed. Even if tuition fees are abolished and higher education becomes taxpayer funded, the pressure upon universities to ensure their teaching is of good quality is not going to decrease - it is too late to shut the stable door. Ensuring universities are educating students well would seem to be a good thing if it were not the case that the way quality assurance is done for such large numbers of individuals using it is through bureaucratic tick-box exercises, where minimum standards eventually become the actual standard.

It is clear that ensuring the continuation of well-funded higher education instutitions is going to be a difficult battle, especially among the hearts and minds of those who did not and do not attend university. We need strong arguments in favour, particularly that everyone benefits from a more educated populace, not just those who have been educated more. I’m sure I will return to this over the coming academic year.

Another review of the Liberal Democrats’ policy on higher education funding has come up and it’s vital that we maintain our commitment to higher education being accessible to all regardless of background. With an increasingly debt-averse society, it’s clear that the only way to do that is with access to education funded through general taxation.

There’s a group on Facebook created to show the support amongst grassroots Lib Dems for this policy. Please join it and add your comments.

Apparently, to quote Dave Sewell on his blog Complex System of Pipes:

I think the message to take home is this: in Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield, where we could effectively canvass and reach out to people, Left List did very well. In London, no-one had heard of the new name, and still looked for Respect; where they saw the Respect name, that candidate did very well.

Interesting analysis. I couldn’t even find any candidates standing under the name “Left List” in Birmingham, let alone any candidates doing well. In Sheffield, the Left List stood one candidate (elections in 28 wards), who came second with 25% of the vote (the Liberal Democrats didn’t stand in the ward because of Labour dirty tricks, and probably would have taken many of the votes going towards the Left List and other parties).

In Manchester, the Left List stood two candidates, in Rusholme and Gorton South (elections in 32 wards). In Rusholme, they finished a poor third with 13% of the vote, just 30 votes ahead of the Tories. In Gorton South they also came a distant third, with 10% of the vote. If “very well” is a decrease of 5% that might explain Student Respect’s hilarious analysis of their routing in the students’ union elections.

The Left List are going nowhere in Manchester. Defeated in elections in both Man Met and Man Uni students’ unions, defeated in their attempt to ban military groups from campus, defeated in the local elections, and fortunately defeated in their attempt to force a restrictive free education policy which would only lead to defeat for all of us when the government’s review comes around. It’s hard to see how it could get any worse for the Left List.

I thought I’d put up a photo of the house of the election agent in Withington (south Manchester) for the Labour candidate (I live in the same house). Liberal Democrats winning here!

Backing a plan to bring in supplementary vote (having a first and second preference in an election) is hardly radical, as Jack Straw and the government seem to think. Supplementary vote suffers from many of the problems moving away from first-past-the-post should intend to avoid - many ballots will not be counted (in FPTP, any votes not for the top two parties are largely irrelevant; in SV, votes not for the three most popular are largely irrelevant). A huge number of votes are effectively wasted.

What would be radical is a move towards a fully proportional electoral system - one which elects candidates based on their popularity compared to other candidates (the Condorcet winner). A winner under a Condorcet election would clearly have a mandate being the most popular amongst voters - and there would be more of an incentive to vote honestly as all votes count.

The public transport company Stagecoach, including one of its brandnames Magic Bus, dominate the student-heavy Oxford Road bus route in Manchester. Unfortunately Stagecoach isn’t a nice friendly company providing low-cost, environmentally-friendly public transport that students might assume, as it is owned by a man named Brian Souter. Brian Souter is well-known for donating between £500,000 and £1,000,000 to run a corrupt polling exercise in his (failed) attempt to stop the repeal of Section 28, a homophobic piece of legislation which, among other things, set back over 10 years attempts to tackle homophobic bullying in schools.

In addition, Stagecoach’s employees appear to have a culture of homophobia, with a gay couple being thrown off a bus in Aberdeen and a gay employee in Manchester recently made complaints about anti-gay comments going unchallenged by senior staff. Queer Up North have called for a boycott of the company until the company’s behaviour changes.

Not only does Stagecoach have a shameful attitude towards LGBT people, but Brian Souter paid himself over £1m in bonuses last year despite the massive rises in fare prices (usually blamed on “rising oil prices”). The company is a disgrace and people should avoid it as much as possible.

For students on the Oxford Road corridor, Finglands is 10p cheaper per single. It is also possible to get a free ride between the Royal Infirmary and North Campus (a short walk from the city centre). Please avoid Stagecoach, and join the group on Facebook calling for a boycott.