Dangerously Liberal

Admit it, you’re a creature of prejudice. Every single one of you. No matter how hard you try to maintain an image of pure saintliness or that you are above such inherently human behaviour; you’re prejudiced. Perhaps you can’t admit it, perhaps you can, but yesterday I realised that  I am. It’s not often that I watch the reality TV programs that infest BBC Three, I tend to leave those to my sister. Last night though, I made an exception to watch “The World’s Strictest Parents”, a program in which two troublesome teens that make David Cameron’s propaganda of a ‘broken Britain’ seem almost plausible go to Utah to stay with a Mormon family.

I saw the word Mormon and was hooked.

When I was younger, if I saw the impeccably well-groomed, infallibly well-dressed, unbelievably well mannered members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wandering around in town I used to emit (involuntarily) a high-pitched scream of “MORMONS!” before scuttling off around the corner before I could be converted.

How pathetic. But then, in my days of militant anti-theism this was my reaction to terrifying forms of religion I didn’t fully understand. What was the point in trying to understand these things when I knew I didn’t like them? Of course since then I’ve mellowed in my beliefs and become much more understanding as my anger with religion has subsided into a mere discomfort at the idea of there being a higher power than science. Richard Dawkins, I am not.

But until today my prejudice against Mormons lived inside me, underlying, but nonetheless existent. After watching this program though I’ve come to realise that I can’t and shouldn’t judge all Mormons based on the stereotype I’ve built in my head. I may not like all of their beliefs, hell I may like none of them, but the way their family life seemed to be oriented in the program seemed to be conducive to a healthy upbringing for their children. The Mormon family really cared for the two British kids sent over to them and cared for their own children as well. I feel if more people did that, regardless of religion, the world would be a far better place.

That’s one prejudice down, let’s try tackling the rest sometime.

On Friday, history was made in Westminster.

That alone can’t be said to be that remarkable. History is made all the time in Westminster. Forever we hear about increases, decreases, record highs, record lows and fabulous achievements. What made Friday different is that history was made in none of these ways as for the first time an outside organisation was allowed to grace the hallowed green benches of the House of Commons in the name of democracy. History’s creation on Friday was further entrenched by the fact that the 300 or so people who took their seats weren’t all white, middle-class, old men. Instead, they were so diverse they put the rainbow to shame. Only one thing united them: they were all young people who were members of the UK Youth Parliament and its sister organisations across the country. For possibly the first time ever, plurality reigned in the House of Commons chamber.

The battle to allow the anklebiters to sit in the House of Commons was by no means easy, and was hard fought by supportive MPs on all sides of the House in the face of opposition from a predictable group of bankbench Tory MPs. If Gordon Brown thought he had enough trouble with his very own ‘awkward squad’ I fear the UK Youth Parliament had even more trouble with theirs.

Raised voices flew across the chamber of the House earlier this year when MPs emerged for all of two minutes to have their say in the debate on whether members of the UK Youth Parliament should be allowed to break centuries of tradition. Well, perhaps not so raised, in fact, barely anyone seemed to show up. That’s democracy folks. I understand the reasons why some MPs were opposed to the Youth Parliament sitting in the Commons chamber but they should learn to modernise and stop relying on the floodgate argument as a fallback in debating modernisation because they can’t think of anything else to say to oppose something. Now that the UK Youth Parliament has sat in the chamber, who else will be allowed in? Heaven forbid they let the lurid benches be tarnished by the cloth of a mere mortal. May we some day in the future see a woman in a burqa in the Commons?

I’m not exactly the UK Youth Parliament’s biggest fan, but the level of maturity shown by the organisation’s democratically elected members in the Commons chamber more than surprasses the maturity of the not-so-democratically elected MPs who normally sit there. Let’s open up democracy and throw more people in the Commons chamber to debate, it’s only used for 3/4 of the year anyway. Just as long as it’s not the TaxPayers’ Alliance. That would be irritating.

One final note, congratulations to all the people I know who spoke on Friday, from what I’ve seen there’ve been some cracking speeches made, even by Oliver Rowlinson, and no Oliver, Britain is not broken. I look forward to seeing the rest of the BBC coverage, in particular the passionate, rousing (so I hear) speech made by James Evans of Wokingham. That’s my boy.

LSE’s a funny place, I thought that people would spend their whole time studying. Especially during the daytime when they happen to be in the library.

Not so for one law student who decided that the most productive way that they could spend their time was by decapitating photos of me and affixing my head to the body of a polo player.

I imagine that this is the closest I’ll ever get to playing polo. Somehow, I don’t think a guy like me will be welcome on the playing field. Besides, I imagine that the players will be quite annoyed that I replaced their heads. One thing is certain though, my reputation as a leftwinger could well be ruined by this eager paparazzo.

So it’s happened. The BNP made it onto Question Time in the form of Nick Griffin. Congratulations! I wasn’t sure that Griffin could survive the armada of protestors who gathered outside Television Centre yesterday with the intention of stopping Griffin from being allowed to broadcast his abhorrent views to 8m of the British public.

David Dimbleby and cardboard Nick Griffin

Did he do that? Yes. What’s the reaction? Tough to say.

In the bubble of student life I can’t say I’ve spoken to any ‘normal’ people since last night’s performance. Going to a specialist social science institution means practically everyone I know here is interested in politics in one way or another, regardless whether they find themselves to be party political animals. Suffice to say that everyone here seems to think that Nick Griffin made an absolute cock of himself on Question Time last night and sank the good ship HMS BNP into the depths of obscurity.

I was absolutely stunned by the sheer level of opposition to Nick Griffin on the Question Time panel last night, even from the supposedly impartial David Dimbleby! When the panel was first announced I will admit I wasn’t too impressed. Where were the real political heavy weights? Where were the people who could have made the BNP seem infantile and ridiculous? Stephen Fry would have done the job, I thought, only to be proved wrong last night when each and everyone one of the panellists systematically destroyed the ‘respectable’ veneer of the BNP and exposed its true face: that of “monstrosities” and “gorgons”. The audience seemed to enjoy Griffin’s collapse into ridicule, as did I and my friends who watched it. But what of the public? I hope they did too. Though I have no means of knowing. Time will tell whether giving Griffin a platform was productive or destructive. For the moment, it seems like we won.

I’ll leave you with a video from cassetteboy of Griffin; the man who last night couldn’t say whether he believed in the holocaust or not, the man who called grown men kissing “creepy”, the man who lacks the strength of character to admit what he’s said and done, the man who finds excuses for the KKK, the man who claims Churchill for his own,  the man who claims to have taken the British National Party away from racism, the man who really would love to ’send them all back’…

Thanks to @CllrTim for the link to the video! Barnsley’s very own Superman.

Dear Hadleigh Roberts has set the Coalition Against No Platform up. Affectionately called CANP the coalition seeks to unite bloggers who feel that No Platform is the wrong policy.

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