News
Westminster Day 2005
8th February, Royal Festival Hall, London
I wonder how many of you will read this. It’s about politics and I know that usually my personal reaction to this is “someone please wake me up when it’s over”. So I attended this event thinking that this was going to be really boring (and thinking how stupid I was, and I mean dehydrated rock stupid for saying yes to going in the first place, and then for getting up at 5:30 in the morning). I expected lots of stuffy grey shirts talking at all of us, the audience, (average age between 13 and 19), while we sat there with our wills to live desperately searching for an exit. Actually I couldn’t have been more wrong.
These “Westminster Days” have been running since 1985, and it’s where what they call young people (13-19 years of age), get the opportunity to have their “voice” heard. Apparently, and I quote from their website:
“Young people feel disenfranchised and distanced and need to feel that the politicians are listening to what they are saying.”
Their website goes onto say that it is worrying that more people can name five characters from Eastenders than can name five Cabinet Ministers. I wonder how true this is….if you can name five Cabinet Ministers then let me know. Just out of curiosity, how many of you know who your local MP is?
The speakers were Anne Campbell MP (Labour MP for Cambridge), Simon Hughes MP (President of the Liberal Democrats) and David Cameron MP (Conservative Head of Policy Co-ordination). Each one of them delivered their party political line (thankfully all of these were very short), and then to my surprise there was a question and answer session. Even more shocking was that these questions weren’t scripted and weren’t prepared for! Because I had driven down separately from the other “delegates” from Leicestershire and arrived a little later I was sat on my own wondering where the others were, but then I found out that they were on the right hand side of the hall (as you look at the stage), relatively near the front. I found this out because a question was launched (like a rocket!) about why there was such a difference in the amount of money given to Local Education Authorities, and that Leicestershire was the most poorly funded and what they were going to do about it. This question was directed at Simon Hughes, who honestly admitted that he didn’t know what the figures were and that he would look into it. To the person who asked it (and you know who you are!), very good question.
More bizarrely was a question on why money wasn’t being given to 18 year olds in the form of trust funds, and that the finance was going to be given to 5 year olds instead, and that they would waste it on Play-do etc. I buried my head in my hands and thought “there goes the audience credibility thank god it wasn’t one of our group!” Actually I could see what the point of the question was, but in my personal opinion I think it just got a little hazy in the translation! I didn’t think the MP at who the question was directed at would even bother to waste his time in answering it, but no, he actually did take time out and responded to it.
Other issues that were discussed were why we should or shouldn’t have ID cards. (allegedly, a certain political party think it should be mandatory for us to have ID cards and yet we wouldn’t have to actually carry them on us…?), environmental policies, the abolition of student fees, the concerns over house prices and a load of other things. So why should you want to know all about this? Well politics do affect you, maybe more then you think. Politics decides how much money goes to your Youth Clubs, your school, your leisure centre. They decide whether or not you have grants to help pay for your University education or whether you have to take out student loans and end up in debt after you finish your degree. So how do you get involved? Well perhaps the best way is through CYCLe, which is the County Youth Council for Leicestershire, and you will find quite a few of their members on the forum and on this website.
