Extinction Rebellion - Climate Action

With the Cardinal on this, there is perceptible change in how young people are becoming more politically aware/active.

I have wondered how it has taken this long, all the advantages I had only 30 years ago have been removed, free university education supported by grants and a welfare state that paid dole/housing benefit over the summer holidays and once in work easy access to the property ladder.

Last week I went to my first political meeting chaired by Tony Benn’s daughter Melissa with Momentum’s National Co-ordinator Laura Parker on the panel. The room was surprisingly full of young people and this was on the day Laura was announced as a prospective candidate for Ealing North and her whole team were under 25 and visibly excited on supporting her nomination, their passion for change and socialist policies was something I haven’t seen since in a long time if ever.

This was further backed up today, the only Politician who turned up was Jeremy Corbyn and the adoration of the young crowd was palpable.

These are people who have never known a socialist Government and therefore do not have the negative associations, they have only known a neoliberal ruling class which has basically ridden rough shod over their aspirations and making them pay for the excesses of their elders me included.

The last General Election was a surprise and the next one could be as well, Momentum are excellent at mobilising young voters and the policies JC is developing are tapping into their clamour for change and as in the last election they are extremely organised in targeting and organising young voters in key constituencies.


I have the historical associations but from my only limited experience in the current political landscape do not write off JC’s Labour, he is highly appreciated outside the mainstream press, there was an old lady I was talking to from his constituency last week who spoke so highly of him that was almost in tears as I voiced my disappointment in his leadership and in talking to Laura’s Team who were mainly University students they were proud of the Labour Society in their Universities and when asked about the other Parties on campus they said there weren’t any.

Maybe it will be too soon for the next General Election but if we went full term I would not be surprised if Labour won a majority and a botched Brexit will definitely make it happen as the frustrations of the young is definitely starting to mobilise.

I am not sure why this change is not manifesting itself in the polls, in the last election the impact of young voters supporting Labour was severely underestimated and believe it is the case now.

If Corbyn doesn’t win the next election he’ll have to go. No party is going to accept losing two elections in a row and let their leader continue. Elections are won from the centre of politics, and Labour needs to understand that. There is no majority in Britain in favour of a radical left socialist government.

Young voters may be more involved and interested in politics than before but they only account for a small percentage of the population. Boris (whilst I hate him) is good at campaigning and will offer lots of populist policies to appeal to young voters much more than Theresa May did, so I can’t foresee Labour gaining anything anytime soon. They’ve sat on the fence for the past 3 years, and will continue to do so under Corbyn.

If you’re talking about changing how we vote at elections, there was a AV referendum which was voted down. We don’t need to bring that back anytime soon unless public opinion shifts massively, which hasn’t as far as I’m aware.

‘Saner elements of Conservatism’ - are you saying the opposite side are insane?

AV is not a proportional system, it’s not surprising it was binned. The idea that a government can be formed on fewer than 50% of votes is just wrong. It is also why this unholy mix of referendum and election has got us into this mess. If an election can be won with a plurality of votes, yet a referendum needs a majority, there are two elements of democracy that can never be made to work together.

Ther are elements of both wings of politics whose sanity is suspect. 

Well they’ve been formed that way for many years in one of the most stable and democratic countries in the world. They’ve also worked fine together in the past. Just because things didn’t go a certain way, people have thrown their toys out of the pram. To call anyone insane for holding political views is rather wrong.

The past is not necessarily a good fit with the present and, even less so, with the future. I’ve been a supporter of PR since the seventies, so I’m hardly reacting to current events.

Political insanity is not be the same animal as the full blown condition, though Trump seems to be trying his best to conflate the two (his attempts to blackmail the Ukraine, for one, certainly seem to have somewhat overstepped the mark).

Slightly out of touch, does this still require a Friday afternoon off school?

Give them all detention on Monday.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if the Alistair Beaton’s play ‘Fracked! Or don’t use the F-word’ finally transferred from Chichester to the Wyndham Theatre, preferably with James Bolan.

And next door in the Garrick you had Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London.

One interesting thing that is happening now in relation to public pressure is that political parties are picking and choosing their policies rather than presenting one solid stance which people are 'born' into. So the political parties of tradition in U.K. are fragmenting with people moving from one to another and parties actually splitting fundamentally. Interesting but scary because when we vote, when we 'tell' the politicians what we think, it is difficult to choose one party ....unless that party has one idea such as the Brexit Party. Hence a referendum, one issue to vote on. But not actually a good way to govern. In the U.K. we are moving towards a proportional representation system, quite rapidly with deals to be done and alliances shifting. Again, scary for U.K., we are not used to it. And it allows for extremists having influence as you can see in Israel for example where the ultra Orthodox often dictate terms. And it allows for blurring of principles as politicians compromise and bargain, as for example with the tuition fee question which caught out the Lib Dems in the coalition government.

Personally I fear for the future but I also have faith in the next generation though I think they will suffer.

For as long as there has been good evidence of climate change, the issue has been whether change is natural in nature - as was the case with, for example, 5 ice ages, or is influenced by human behaviour. And on that point, evidential-based science has developed.