I’m Chris Jenkinson, the Academic Affairs Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.
I’m a member of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party in British politics. This category is for posts related to political events occurring in the United Kingdom which are outside the student union bubble.
Posted in National politics on May 17th, 2007
Brown’s the next Prime Minister then. Congratulations I suppose. What’s the point of Tony Blair hanging on for another 6 weeks then? Say what you like about there not being a general election when Thatcher was booted out, but at least the Tories had a contested leadership election back in 1990, albeit one by MPs [...]
Posted in National politics on May 13th, 2007
Thankfully John Reid’s going soon. He recently gave a keynote speech in Venice attempting to convince his equivalent colleagues across Europe to change individual human rights law into some kind of system where only the State has the right to exist, to protect itself against oppression, to a fair trial (or even a trial). Is [...]
Posted in National politics on May 6th, 2007
Despite some rather optimistic press releases from the Bristol Lib Dems recently about our chances of taking control of the city, we lost two seats including the executive member for social services, and already the other Lib Dem councillors have forced out the council leader, Barbara Janke. Now we’re down to 31 seats out of [...]
Posted in National politics on May 4th, 2007
This year’s been a much better year for the Lib Dems in Manchester than 2006, with us holding all the seats where our councillors were up for re-election, and gaining one seat in Chorlton - congratulations Paul Ankers! Lev unfortunately did not get elected in Northenden despite being a wonderful person (with the best campaign [...]
Posted in Education, National politics, Religion / secularism on Apr 14th, 2007
Just thought a certain comment our Dear Leader made about education just about sums up how disastrously wrong New Labour’s focus is on this matter. So much for education, education, education. Schools are not meant to be “popular with parents”, they have a duty to the children. But on the other hand, children can’t vote, [...]
Posted in National politics on Apr 5th, 2007
The new Animal Welfare Act is coming into force in England as of Friday. Basically, owners of animals are now legally required to ensure their basic welfare. It’s amazing to think that up until now there was no obligation in law to care for one’s pets, but congratulations to the government for doing the right [...]
Posted in National politics on Oct 22nd, 2006
Jack Straw’s ideas about House of Lords reform (leaked document) are a good first step towards changing the chamber away from a council of elders into something actually reflecting the electorate at large. In short, the plan is to:
Reduce the number of members by a third.
Half 50% appointed and 50% elected.
Pay elected members a salary [...]
Posted in National politics on Oct 8th, 2006
Nigel Farage, the newly-elected leader of UKIP, has made the laughable claim that they speak for the true “silent majority”. Perhaps Mr Farage has a short memory. He came a distant third in the relatively recent by-election held in Bromley & Chislehurst back in June, achieving just slightly over 8% of the vote, despite having [...]
Posted in National politics on Sep 29th, 2006
Francis Maude, chairman of the Tory party, has admitted they have practically no policies other than destroying their 170 year-old ideology for the sake of looking nice on TV. In one of the most bizarre and unfortunate comparisons of all time he compared their four-page document of “aims” and “values” to firstly (and ironically), the [...]
Posted in Education, National politics on Sep 27th, 2006
Alan Johnson’s recent announcement to axe maths GCSE coursework and have all other coursework done under strict supervision is a major step backwards. The concept that years and years of study can be compressed into a one-hour exam is not only unfair towards students but it leads to schools teaching how to pass an exam, [...]
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