A Space To Post

I am very fortunate to have worked for two excellent politicians, Pat Glass and Jude Kirton-Darling. I worked as Pat’s Senior Case Officer and Press Officer between 2010 and 2017 and for Jude as Policy and Engagements Officer from October 2019 to February 2020.

Jude sat as Member of the European Parliament for the North East, representing Labour between 2014 and 2020. Jude is a friendly and kind person who wears her heart on her sleeve and is the very best of politicians. Her leaving office is a loss to politics and in whatever role she chooses to undertake moving forward she will be a success. I told her that she would be in high demand and I hope she realised I genuinely feel this way and was not simply buttering up my boss.

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Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, The leading candidate to become the next Leader of The Labour Party

As new MPs settle into Westminster life, the battle for the Labour Party leadership will dominate the headlines during the first quarter of 2020.

The runners and riders are beginning to emerge, with the broad party arguing and debating both the causes of defeat and the way forward from here.

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Proportional Representation (PR) is the electoral system in which parties gain seats in direct proportion to the number of votes they receive. Perhaps beleaguered by the endless political discourse and the voracity of anti-political sentiment that dominates conversations, the media and our newspapers, I am looking for a new way forward, a way that promotes people voting FOR something or someone, rather than against something or someone else.

We currently use the voting system known as ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP), to elect our representatives at all levels of government in our country besides Police, Crime and Victims Commissioner (PCVC) and MEP elections. These elections uses what is known as the ‘Single Transferable Vote’ (STV) system, but more of that later. This article will assess why I feel PR is the way forward.

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Politicians are always challenged about their integrity. In the live TV debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, one of whom will be our next Prime Minister, whether they can be trusted by the country was a key question.

Worryingly for both men, their comments were punctuated by the audience laughing as they answered. Yes, part of it was that we had a split audience and yes, some of the roaring laughter was audibly fake. I recall one man roaring with laughter so loudly that Jeremy Corbyn almost stopped to address this individual directly. Thankfully he thought better of it.

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When a sportsman hits the age of 30 journalists begin to ask about their plans for retirement. Tennis star Roger Federer has had interviews peppered with similar questions for nearly 10 years now.

Multiple Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton is now 34 years old. Hamilton has had an amazingly successful career in terms of track success and in amassing wealth, where it is estimated he is worth £500 million. Hamilton recently made a comment that “I’ve led a complex life” and this just didn’t sit right with me, not because I don’t believe him, but because he did not qualify his statement acknowledging his success.

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Is anyone else completely sick and tired of Brexit? I know I am. Even the word itself didn’t exist until 2016 and perhaps the biggest mistake was the failure of the person who coined the phrase not to protect it.

Ever since Edward Heath first began to pitch the idea of the UK entering the common market in the 1950’s the issue has been divisive. It has torn the Conservative Party to ribbons for well over 40 years. It tormented Sir John Major’s time as Prime Minister in the 1990’s as Euro rebels took full advantage of the tiny majority to openly campaign against Europe and, after being kicked out of the party they were then let back in without condition. Major never recovered from this debacle their internal party wars contributed to the 1997 Labour landslide as the country looked elsewhere for answers. Fast forward to 2016 and yet again the EU has shredded the Tories apart, this time managing to drag Labour down with it.

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