Sixth Form Mercury Wilson’s School’s newest student-run publication
Volume 3, Issue 1, September 2013
Where next for Labour? By Benjamin Flook The Labour Party is in complete disarray. Facing internal strife over the strength of its shadow cabinet, a poor showing in the May 2013 County Council elections and, most notably, turmoil over its relationship with the trade unions, Ed Miliband’s position is becoming increasingly unstable. Indeed so low is Labour’s lead in opinion polls for a party in opposition that a general election victory seems extremely unlikely. Labour has had a long, historical bond with the trade union movement. In 1906, it was the trade unions who founded the Labour Party to ensure parliamentary candidates received financial support to represent the needs of the working classes. The link with the trade unions, however, has become so controlling over the Labour Party that they now control its direction. Indeed, Ed Miliband’s election as leader was indebted to the union block vote, the Falkirk Parliamentary selection was allegedly interfered with by the un
ions and, significantly, the Unite union provides £3.25 million to the party every year. But this amicable historical bond has evolved into a hostile and undemocratic hold over the soul of the Labour Party. Already, Labour has lost over £1.2 million in annual funding from the Unison and GMB unions in the past week alone, as the row over the unions escalates. But despite the furore, Ed Miliband has continued to allow the union block vote and has refused to alter Labour’s relationship with the unions. In doing so, Miliband has buckled under pressure: the trade unions still have a disproportionate influence over Labour.
Consequently, Ed Miliband faces a serious image problem. The Union debacle taints him as a weak party leader, unable to tame the power of the unions. Indeed, according to an Ipsos Mori survey, more than one in six voters do not like Ed Miliband and two fifths of Labour supporters say they do not know what he stands for. Ed Miliband’s satisfaction rating is at just 28 per cent, comparable to the levels of the disastrous leadership of Gordon Brown. The Labour Party must completely revolutionise their relationship with the unions to even have a chance of competing in the 2015 general election. A divided party facing internal disputes will not compete against the Conservative Party, whose record in government includes cutting the deficit by a third; creating 1.25 million new jobs in the private sector; freezing council tax for three years in a row; and cutting net immigration by a third.
Inside: Tim Sharpe responds
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Sixth Form Mercury, September 2013
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Hi all,
Contents Article
A new year, new students and of course, new editors. It will be tough to fill the boots of last year’s excellent duo, Nikhil Vyas and Kane Walpole, but we hope that, with your help, the task will not be so difficult. In this issue, we have politicians, top hats and Gareth Bale! Enjoy! Jack and Nick
Page
Where next for Labour?
1
A message from the editors
2
Is Labour really in trouble?
2
Top Hat review
3
Football, athletics and self Improvement
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Is Labour really in trouble? By Tim Sharpe
Is it better to be funded by multimillionaires or by ordinary working class people? It seems like a question often ignored in the wake of the ‘Falkirk voting interference scandal’. Despite both the policy and an internal Labour party enquiry clearing Unite of all wrongdoing, the accusations rumble on. But even if true, is the accusation that Labour are controlled by the unions necessarily a bad thing? The role of a trade union is to represent the otherwise unrepresented in their chosen field. Though their influence has declined since the heights of the 1960s and 70s, unions such as those representing railway drivers and postmen protect the wages and working conditions of their members, as well as campaigning against unpopular privatisation drives.
Labour's shift to the right is welldocumented. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the party abandoned clause 4 of the party's constitution, which had previously committed them to common ownership. Even Margaret Thatcher, a champion of the neo-conservative right, said that New Labour was her ‘greatest achievement’. Now let's imagine the party didn't have to rely on trade union funding. Imagine they could cut their link with the unions entirely. Imagine who they would represent then.
Even if true, is the accusation that Labour are controlled by the unions necessarily a bad thing? In fact, we needn't look too far for a plausible model. The modern Conservative party is funded by the privileged few and their policies reflect it. More than two thirds of the £1.04m pounds donated in the second quarter of 2013 came from the City of London - from the bankers and hedge fund bosses whose taxes David Cameron cut. Since
2010, several individuals have made million-pound donations, with Michael Farmer (the founder of the hedge fund RK Capital Management) alone donating £2.1m. This is in comparison to the figure of £8m donated to the Labour party by the union Unite, who represent over 1.4 million people. What do the Conservative donors get for their money? Those who give over £50,000 get privileged access to the ‘Leader's Group’, where they meet for dinner and drinks with senior Conservatives, including the Prime Minister, Philip Hammond and Theresa May. Such access is, needless to say, not possible without money. If the assertion that the unions control Labour's policies through donations is true, it follows that the same is true about Conservative policy, especially when a mechanism such this is so readily provided. The only difference is the scale of representation. So which is better - to have policy dictated by the privileged few or the representatives of the hardworking many? The latter is surely more reasonable.
Sixth Form Mercury, September 2013
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Putting on my Top Hat Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. For those of you with an interest in musical films - more often than not in black and white with lots of singing and dancing in them - these names will certainly stir some memories in your minds.
that we were expecting. Right from the word go the audience is bombarded with arrays of brilliant costumes and sets; with the familiar music and with extraordinary dancing.
Even for those who haven’t had the opportunity to be introduced to the delightful dancing duo, I’m sure you have heard the names, even in passing from your parents or maybe grandparents. Back in the 1930s they released a film called Top Hat which was an absolute runaway success. Being an extremely big fan of the film and Fred and Ginger themselves, when I heard that it was being adapted to the stage, it could be said that I was apprehensive at the very least. However, as the amazing reviews flooded in, my expectations grew to an insurmountable size and my desire to see the show myself began to overflow until, finally, I went to see it. The grandeur of the Aldwych Theatre did nothing but complement the grandeur of the performance
Apart from this visual and aural treat, we are also served with classic comedy and acting that really emulates the actual film. What made it even better was that it was all happening live and just a few rows in front of us. Playing the roles of the main characters were Gavin Lee as Jerry Travers and the lovely Ameri-
By Satchit Srikanth can actress Kristin Beth Williams as Dale Tremont - lovely in the show and lovely in real life, I might add, as I had the privilege of meeting both the principal actor and actress backstage after the show. Lost for words though I was, I managed to repeat how “amazing” they were a number of times; dumbstruck was how the performance had left me. The show itself is the story of a tap -dancer from the USA who is brought across by a producer to star in his new show in London. One thing leads to another and the dancer meets a beautiful lady with whom he falls in love. A case of mistaken identity leads their love on a very rocky road and before we end up in Italy at the end of the show, we see a lot of drama unfurl before our eyes. But I shan’t reveal the ending of the story because this musical is too good to miss! Saying that, there are rumours that it does have a limited time in the West End now, so unless you feel like waiting another year or so for the tour to be begin, I suggest a trip down to the Aldwych Theatre would definitely be a trip to London well spent.
Sixth Form Mercury, September 2013
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Sideline scoop By Harry Curtis
Football, athletics and self-improvement
The lone player curling free kick after free kick over a wall of mannequins into an empty net after training is an all too common trope of footballers’ memoirs. “He’s a real professional,” colleagues and broadcasters will later say of the likes of Chelsea’s Frank Lampard. Speaking recently about how he made the transition from a 12-hour day as a plasterer to two hours’ training a day as a pro footballer, ex-Palace and Arsenal striker Ian Wright said he spent his newfound leisure “just practising”. “I could have ten balls here, ten balls there and ten balls over there; right foot, left foot…”, he went on.
Compare this to footballers: ‘being a footballer’ is a far more multifarious thing than ‘being a sprinter’ is. Without diminishing the hours of training a sprinter does, the discipline of sprinting is quintessentially about speed, whereas the discipline of footballing is about speed, brawn, shooting, passing and much else besides in varying amounts, depending on what type of footballer you’re talking about. Whether this is really why self-improvement is more noticeable in athletics, I don’t know: it’s just one idea.
performance due to the primary source of income being prize money rather than a wage, footballers’ salaries become more and more alienated from performance. Money in athletics serves as an incentive, as a catalyst for selfimprovement. Sadly not so in football.
Do I object to the huge amounts of money in football today? No. Football is an entertainment industry as well as a sporting pursuit. I’m sure Hollywood isn’t hounded for its overflowing bank vaults and I’m sure a big-budget blockbuster is enormously more enticing than the local Another popular argument is that there’s am-dram club’s latest production. If Real simply too much money in football now- Madrid president Florentino Perez is adays. That isn’t to say that there’s no willing to spend a word record fee on This continual pursuit of sporting excel- money in athletics – Usain Bolt is perGareth Bale in the hope that Carlo Ancelence, to be as good as you can be, is haps the most globally recognised lotti’s team becomes a smash hit, good what is desperately lacking in profession- sporting celebrity of our time – but luck to him. The difference is that Hollyal football today. there’s fewer of those celebrities in ath- wood, like athletics, retains a sense of letics than in football. Even incredible money being the reward of good work, This summer saw the IAAF World Cham- athletes like Tirunesh Dibaba, who has hence the appeal of making a box-office pionships staged in Moscow and it is in won 15 gold medals on the track at smash. the sport of athletics that I think we still Olympic, world and continental level, see the flame of self-improvement burn- have struggled to attain celebrity status Perhaps if footballers’ salaries were to become more dependent on their pering brightest. beyond their sport. formances, we’d see more box-office displays in the Premier League every Athletes typically compete in no more But is it really celebrity that’s killing the than two or three events and these desire to be as good one can be in foot- weekend. events rarely span any more than two ball or is it something more? disciplines. This narrowness of discipline means that the honing of one’s skill is I believe it’s the latter. Whilst monetary that much straightforward. reward in athletics relies so heavily on
