Young progressives Articles

As this year’s A-level and GCSE results come out, the effects of the
recession on young Britons comes into acute focus. The struggle for
university places is but one aspect of the difficulties that young
people are facing in the current economic climate.

To win a general election in the UK you must win support of the
centre-ground or median voters. These mythical median voters have many
names, “Mondeo man”, “eight people sipping wine in Kettering” and I
have heard recently of “Holby City woman”. These people are those who
are doing average in society but aspire for more. They neatly fit into
the middle of the upside down bucket shaped curve which represents the
graph of voters against income (if you ignore the extremely wealthy who
skew your mean average income data and if you assume all well-being is
based on income).

The result in Norwich North is yet further confirmation that Labour’s
Mr 10% campaigns and the investment vs cuts message is going down like
a lead balloon. It finally appears that Lord Mandelson and others are
trying to manoeuvre a new message, so what should it be?

Rocked by the expenses scandal, villified by the public and the media,
about to lose their lucrative second jobs – should we be feeling sorry
for our MPs? With 50 Labour MPs already holding up the white flag of
surrender, and many more to follow, it seems not even MPs are willing
to stand as MPs any more.