Violent Crime, Anti-Social Behaviour and the Community
The fatal stabbing of Robert Knox last week was the latest in a series of murders that have shocked the public. The President of the High Court’s Queen’s Bench Division has described knife crime as being ‘at epidemic proportions’. Low-level crime has in many cases been grouped together under the umbrella category of “anti-social behaviour”, and a growth in gang and weapon culture in Britain has been observed. There is a feeling in the media and the public that such crime is an ever more pressing challenge that requires a bold solution.
One can accept in part the statistics that are quoted with regards to crime rates. Claims that Britain is facing a rise in violent crime but that overall crime rates are falling are not mutually exclusive. Upon examination of the British Crime Survey and Home Office statistics the greatest declines have been vehicle thefts and domestic burglary. Such crimes are usually ones of opportunity. Improvements in crime prevention technology have been partially responsible for these reductions. However, to use such statistics regarding an overall fall in crime are to overlook significant increases in violent and drug-related crimes, far more pertinent to the discussion at hand. The British Crime Survey also suffers from the problem of not surveying under-16s until recently. That many victims and perpetrators today fall into this category distorts the figures, making accurate use of previous results difficult. To say crime rates are falling in response to questions over violent crime is to miss the point.
Even if one is to assume that violent crime rates have remained stable, the fundamental issue remains unaddressed. The rate of such crimes, regardless of stability, remains unacceptable. The underlying attitudes that cause them pose a serious challenge for law-enforcement and society in general. Although it would be unrealistic to suggest , for example, that possession and use of weapons can be eliminated, the underlying attitude that considers it is socially acceptable and a legitimate form of self-defence can be limited. Violent and gang-related crime are a growing problem and solutions covering the various causes and effects have to be examined for the short, medium and long term.
The short-term solution is the more rigorous enforcement of existing laws. Legislation already exists to tackle the worst problems. Effective enforcement, along with a greater police presence in the worst-affected areas, with the employment of a more robust approach can reduce the relative ease and impunity with which such criminals can operate. Such restriction can also provide short-term relief, as well as the space necessary for medium to long-term solutions to be effective. This approach, though high-profile and likely to deliver short-term results, cannot however be an effective long-term strategy. It is too expensive and too repressive to be a panacaea. A long-term high police presence would cost the taxpayer more money, divert police resources from other vital tasks, and risk projecting a negative image of the force that may hamper its ability to build and maintain effective long-term community relations. Although it could be argued that the pendulum of policing has swung too far in the direction of political correctness and sensitivity, a return to the days of “sus” and indiscriminate overzealous stop-and-search would be just as bad. Furthermore, strong enforcement and high-visibility policing does not address the underlying causes. They have to be used in conjunction with medium and long-term approaches.
In the medium term stronger sentencing is vital. Geoff Hoon explained the reasoning effectively on Question Time with regards to knife crime: by carrying a knife in public, the likelihood of someone being injured or killed increases. One is therefore responsible for the potentially fatal consequences of such a decision. Tough sentencing is thus required to punish the perpetrator for putting other members of the public at risk. Strong sentencing has the political effect of demonstrating a resolve to take such crime seriously, bolstering enforcement and prevention efforts on other fronts. It also acts as an effective deterrent against carrying a weapon. The cost of possessing a knife can be made to outweigh the dubious benefits of defensive capability it is supposed to confer. People are then less likely to want to possess a knife for self-defence, and will opt to be unarmed instead. Potential murders are reduced to brawls. As the previous sentence highlights, this is a medium-term solution. It can reduce instances of possession of knife weapons, and put a dent in the attitudes that legitimise such possession, but it requires additional support to provide a full response. Without addressing the causes, such a solution risks simply reducing the violence of crime, rather than the level of crime.
The long-term response has to be the rebuilding and strengthening of communities. Many of the problems surrounding armed and gang crime come from issues of attitudes and social deprivation. People seek to overcome low self-esteem by arming themselves and gaining a sense of empowerment. A lack of identity leads to people seeking affirmation in gangs, and the lack of ability to productively channel one’s energies leads to mindless violence bordering on the feral. Youth clubs have shut down, community property has been handed over to developers, and institutions of civil society have weakened. The desire for such communities however remains strong. The proliferation of social networking sites and online communities demonstrates the need for social interaction based around common interests and identities. Almost simultaneously however the institutions of territorial community have withered in place of an increasingly atomised society that overemphasises individualism. A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation demonstrated the extent of popular sentiment on this issue, arguing that the decline in community and rise of individualism were considered the new social evils. The loss of community spirit and institutions has weakened the fabric of society that is vital in preventing and restricting crime and anti-social behaviour.
By rebuilding and strengthening the local community one can provide alternate sources of activity for those who might otherwise join gangs. By keeping people occupied, the basic ability to cause trouble is limited. The provision of opportunities to develop skills and socialise in non-hostile environments also serves to build character and self-esteem, reducing the need for the weapon as a status symbol, as well as the desire to find affirmation in a gang. Through the provision of social activity, people become tied to their communities and their neighbours. Anti-social behaviour will be reduced if people feel they are part of that society. By rebuilding local communities, the territorial instinct and desire for identity that many young men have can be fulfilled in a productive manner, and channelled towards integration into wider society. A strong community also builds the cultural will necessary for the enforcement of the law. It allows the police to become integrated and have the popular support they need to operate effectively, and develops the social attitudes that empower people to stand against gangs and criminality, knowing that they are not merely crusading individuals, but speak with the backing of the community they belong to.
The underlying cause of rising violent crime and anti-social behaviour is not through a fundamental lack of discipline, education or law, but from the decline in the traditional institutions and spirit of community in modern Britain. Effective policing and strong sentencing can only address the symptoms of crime; the causes must be addressed by the strengthening of the local institutions of community and society.
Sphere: Related ContentA Vindication of Modern Conservatism
The truly remarkable aspect of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election was the level of support for the Conservative Party from quarters traditionally thought of as safe havens for Labour. Every activist has a story of someone voting Tory for the first time in their life. Notwithstanding the viciousness of some campaigners, the attitude from voters was largely respectful. Loyal Labour supporters were willing to listen to the Conservatives, even if they were not going to vote for them.
The Conservative philosophy had a new resonance. Faced with a divisive Labour campaign, the Tory message was brought into sharp contrast. Jealousy was pitted against aspiration, class warfare against One Nation Conservatism, and prosperity against a taxation fiasco. Edward Timpson, typified this progressive Conservative idea. Coming from a self-made family with a strong philanthropic tradition, he forged a career concerned with the disadvantaged. Attacks on his background only served to highlight this.
The election demonstrated a new receptiveness to the modern Conservative philosophy. Even if not everyone was convinced, people were still willing to listen to what the Conservatives had to say in a manner that has not occurred in almost a generation. The victories in London and Crewe and Nantwich are evidence of a public that is willing to give the Party the benefit of the doubt and provide an opportunity for its philosophy to be put into action. Modern Conservatism has begun to capture the popular imagination, and the progressive vision articulated is now being taken seriously by people of all political persuasions and none.
There is however a danger of complacency. Some commentators are already predicting a possible Conservative landslide victory at the next general election. Nobody should be under the illusion that Crewe and Nantwich represents an irreversible ideological swing towards the Conservatives. Many Tory votes were cast either against Gordon Brown or as a means od testing the waters without the risk inherent in a general election. The Party has to use the opportunity it has been granted to prove that modern Conservatism is more than rhetoric. It has to work har to meet voters’ expectations. It has to make good on its One Nation message of being the party of all, not just a particular class or interest. Above all, it has to demonstrate that it is worthy of the task of forming the next government, and turn those tentative Tory votes into positive Conservative support.
Crewe and Nantwich was a significant victory for the Conservative Party and is evidence of the change in the political mood that Peter Riddell wrote about. The Party now has to meet the hopes and aspirations people have placed in it if is to form the next government.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Days 3-4
VICTORY!
Conservatives win Crewe in Landslide: 59% turnout; 20,539 votes; 7,860 majority (greater than Gwyneth Dunwoody’s); 49% of vote; 17.6% swing.
Apologies for not putting a post out last night, but I didn’t get back to my hotel until 5 this morning.
I decided against doing the “dawn raid” of leafleting at 4.30 yesterday morning. By the time I’d finished writing up the previous day’s efforts and uploading photos it was already half past ten. Knowing that it would be a long day, prudence took priority, and I opted to get a good night’s sleep instead.
Despite having a rather leisurely sleep, the first campaign office I went to on polling day was working at an even more leisurely pace. I had to wait an hour before it opened, before finding out that there was little to be tasked with. Nonetheless I did manage to grab a bit of internet access to find that ConservativeHome used my photo (with attribution) of Nick Clegg looking less than optimistic. I was promptly re-assigned to the Victoria Street office in Crewe, where I’d been working most of the week. A few of us were quickly assigned with “knock-ups”: going round to known Conservative supporters and giving them a letter in person. We did this several times throughout the day. Overall a positive response until later in the day, when Bluechip started to get very quickly out of synch with who’d already voted. After five households in a row going “we’ve voted Tory, go away”, we came up with a clever idea to go straight to the tellers to get the polling numbers and strike off those who’d already voted. Moving to the more non-confrontational line of “we’d like to confirm that you voted” was also much more successful. Despite the number of letters we had to deliver, we got through them surprisingly quickly.
Although I had observed in the past few days a dearth of Labour activists, this changed on polling day. Labour was supposed to have brought in a train of activists, and there were a few out and about. I spotted four in total, but their hearts weren’t in it. A lot of their activists stayed at home, fed up with the tactics their party had used. I also met a couple of LibDem campaigners, one of whom I had tea with who turned out to have formerly lived in my area. A slightly surreal conversation about change and continuity over the last fifty years followed. Nice chap though.
Between rounds of knock-ups I worked as a teller for about four hours. Tellers are party workers who stand outside polling stations taking down poll card numbers. These are then used to cross those that have voted off our database to ensure that they do not get any more leaflets, calls or canvassers. Unfortunately not everyone realises what the tellers are for, and several of us got berated by voters who thought we were there to find out how they voted. Once they saw the telling slips and our briefings for themselves, they promptly gave up and left. I worked three different polling stations. The first was out in the sun with only a few voters coming in; a good opportunity to rest. The second was a tiny polling station for a few voters, and I got to enjoy a complimentary pack of wine gums from the party. The final one was at a bowling green, which was much more busy. I managed also to get a drink and some food from the bar, and on a break from telling talk to the people who had already cast their vote. The level of working class Conservative support is amazing.
The fact that the only tellers were from the Conservative Party gave the first hint that we might be winning. The LibDems had given up and gone home, and Labour were so short-staffed that they simply didn’t have the manpower to spare to have tellers. A good sign came at about 2pm. A local Conservative councillor came to where I was telling and gave some great news: hardcore Labour voters were staying at home and activists were unable to get them out to vote. We already knew that the postal vote had favoured us, and that we had been very successful at getting our own vote out. The Labour hardcore had decided not to vote because they were fed up of the tactics their party were using: they didn’t want to betray their party, but at the same time they hadn’t been given a single good reason to vote by their party. When you insult the intelligence of the electorate, they throw it back in your face.
After the last round of knock-ups at 9pm, we returned to the Victoria Street office. We put in the last pieces of telling data then closed up. I got my hands on a party T-shirt that makes me look like a tree surgeon, and we moved on to Nantwich. There was a party mood in the air at the Nantwich Conservative Working Men’s club: the question wasn’t whether or not we’d won, but by how much. Labour were predicting a Conservative majority of around 7000, which meant that they expected us to win by about 3000. Cheers whenever Eric Pickles or Edward Timpson appeared on the TV, and the good news kept on coming in: turnout at 60%, and the level of majority kept climbing.
Jolly nice chap he is too
At 2am we were told the result was ready to be declared and headed down to the town hall, placard and baloons in hand. We then had a long wait for the result to be called, followed by a number of interviews with the media before Timpson finally came out. Fortunately the waiting was interspersed with the party’s other favourite candidates: both The Flying Brick (Monster Raving Loony) and Miss Great Britain came out to have a chat, and got a good round of cheers. I’d kept missing The Flying Brick when out campaigning, much to my disappointment, but finally got to meet him this morning. He even recited a poem he had composed.
Someone managed to get their hands on a radio as we heard the result live. It was better than we’d expected. A gigantic swing, a great turnout, a huge number of votes, and a majority greater than Gwyneth Dunwoody’s was. All that was needed then was for our new MP to come out. This took a bit longer than expected thanks to the previously-mentioned interviews with the media. The message coming out from the Conservative team was “we’ve waited 20 years, what was another hour”? A few activists quipped that they were under 20. The campaign team came out first to big cheers and thunderous applause: Eric Pickles MP and Donald Potter, the local association chair, got a great reception. When Timpson came out there was jubilation: the noise was almost deafening. We then had a little victory parade back to the constituency association, where champagne was laid on.
The atmosphere inside the association was electrifying. Many activists had been up over 24 hours, and the champagne laid on ensured high spirits. A few of us found flyers saying “meet your candidate Edward Timpson PPS”, and promptly edited them to reflect the new reality. Bloggers swapped details, and I managed to put in a shameless plug for this blog (and if you’re reading this as a result, thank you). All the long hours and campaigning had been worth it. The hours of walking around, map in hand, trying to track down that last address and get a few more votes had been vindicated, and we were ecstatic. The campaign had the good national effect of being an extremely good bit of campaigning experience for activists all over the country, and a lot of us will be going back to our local associations to report on what went well and what could have been improved. This will give us a good footing for the next election. It was also healthy: several activists reported losing weight from all the walking around, and my legs now feel like they are made of steel. In 3 days I easily covered at least 30 miles on foot.
The last of us peeled off from the association at about 5am, shattered but thrilled. Now to translate this into a national result.
Bring on Henley.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Expressions Tell the Real Story
On a break from campaigning in Nantwich earlier today I spotted the LibDems trawling for votes. This snapshot says it all: while the placards may proclaim that the LibDems are “winning here”, the expressions of both leader Nick Clegg and candidate Elizabeth Shenton tell a rather different story.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Day 2
This morning I jumped out of bed and into the shower like a bolt of lightning. In that groggy immediate post-sleep state I believed that I had slept through my alarm call and was now running late for the day’s campaigning. I threw my hayfever pills down my throat and turned the TV on to BBC News.
It was 4:30 am.
The problem here is that I tend to suffer from bad hayfever towards the end of spring and the begninning of summer. The symptoms start about one hour after I wake up, subside a further hour after I’ve taken my pills, and then return with a vengeance nine hours later. Having now firmly woken up and taken my pills far too early in the day, I was condemned to spending the rest of the night sleeping badly and suffering the onset of more symptoms earlier in the afternoon than I had hoped. Fortunately it meant that I was up and out of the hotel in time to be the first Conservative activist to be in the Crewe Office. As a result I was rewarded with the vital task of making the tea. The Conservatives are the party of custom, tradition and great British institutions. There is no greater British institution than drinking of tea, and no greater custom or tradition either. As a result drinking Tea has a central place in the Conservative philosophy: the party can’t function without it. Far from being a menial task, being invited to brew tea for senior staff in the Conservative Party is a great honour, a vital task, and a sign of great trust. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
Following a cup of tea to wake up, I was sent on my way leafleting around 200 houses. This was a largely logistical challenge, trying to make sure that the leaflets were delivered in the target area with as little double-backing as possible. As the leaflets are all individually addressed, one has to spend a significant amount of time planning your route, and sorting the leaflets into the right order to minimise rummaging. Nonetheless it still took nigh on three hours to deliver all the leaflets. The area I covered had a roughly even number of Tory and Labour posters, but leaning slightly towards the Conservatives (although this might be my own bias). One thing is certain though: Cats are Tories, Dogs are not. Cats can’t seem to get enough of me and other Tory canvassers, and at one point I ended up getting shadowed by a tabby when delivering leaflets on her street. The dogs however were universally hostile, even in Tory houses. Nonetheless the attitude of most people there was friendly: I even had “Vote Timpson” shouted at me from a car driving by. The only voter I encountered today who was hostile was a disaffected chap who was angry that none of the parties were promising to bring back caning in schools.
After a rather long morning in Crewe I then went over to the sector office in Nantwich. This place has a much more visible Conservative presence. The area is much more developed and affluent, and (on the face of things) overwhelmingly Tory. I don’t think I saw more than two Labour posters in the entire area, and there wasn’t a single Labour activist to be seen. By comparison, the Conservatives are out in force. The Nantwich office was brimming with activists and volunteers from all over the country, all pitching in to help where they could. Being more central today I got to witness the level of activity, and it’s even greater than I thought it was yesterday. The high profile of our campaign is evident in that there were two media vans outside our offices today, and there is going to be a swarm of journos, hacks, onlookers and so forth tomorrow. Locals were coming in to get rosettes and baloons, to ask questions and to inform us as to what the other parties are up to. Kids came in to trade the paraphenalia the other parties gave them for our blue rosettes and baloons. Of particular pride have been the number of requests for posters to be displayed. There was a target of 500 properties displaying Conservative posters throughout the campaign. The level of support however has been so great that we now have posters displayed on three times that number of properties. People have been approaching our canvassers asking us to provide giant posters to be displayed on their premises. A particular coup was when a businessman offered to display a gigantic poster on property facing a main road. This occurred within a few hours.
The voters are still more receptive than I ever could have imagined. Notwithstanding the “bring back caning” fellow, there has been an overwhelming level of receptiveness. When delivering a pile of flyers to a retirement home I expected to be thrown out and unwelcome as any other mass mailer. To my surprise I was welcomed in by the staff, who were extremely keen on “making sure Brown gets the message”. The owner did all the delivery for me, and said that she would ensure that every resident knew that we would be able to drive them to the polling station tomorrow. People are keen to hear what the Tories have to say, and nobody is buying in to the nasty little campaign Labour is running.
Although there is some coverage of the depths of Labour’s current electoral strategy, it does not demonstrate how far they have sunk. They are running an entirely negative and vicious campaign revolving entirely around class. The latest pamphlets portray Timpson in a massive top hat and bow tie, and describe him as having a “silver spoon in his mouth”. They’ve moved away from making claims that the Wales-inhabiting Dunwoody-Kneafsey is “one of us”, and the general mood is that the rubbish they are spouting has backfired tremendously. The sort of dog-whistle politics may appeal to hardcore Labour activists, but they are absolutely useless to the undecided voter who wants to know what their policies are. The emphasis of Timpson’s background has actually helped him: people recognise the link to the philanthropic family he belongs to, and claims that he has “spent his whole life being waited on”, despite the having 80 adopted siblings from underprivileged backgrounds, smacks of petty jealousy. Crewe and Nantwich are turning on a party that penalises the successful: they want to better their lot, and are switching to a Conservative message of support for such efforts.
The Times also picked up on the class issue today. Their People section has published what has been circulating round the internet: that Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey is listed in Burke’s Peerage, describing her as part of the “landed gentry”, making her the real toff in the election. Daniel Finkelstein also decries the class war strategy as electoral stupidity that ’signals the end of new Labour’. Of particular interest was the following:
Since the days of the industrial revolution there has always been something of an alliance between the working class and the aristocracy… When the fighting broke out in the streets of Leeds over the amelioration of factory conditions, radicals and workers’ leaders such as Richard Oastler saw themselves as allies of Tories such as the Earl of Shaftesbury. To be portrayed as a top-hatted toff actually represents an improvement in the Tory image
There is a long tradition of aristocratic and Conservative support for the working classes. Benjamin Disraeli, a founder of the One Nation Conservative tradition, in his days as a young radical was part of the “Young England Quartet”; a group of thinkers possessed of a romantic notion of the working classes and aristocracy united to confront the industrial revolution. Their ideas may have been little more than hopeless romanticism and unrefined radicalism, but some of the ideas their group represented formed the nucleus of the One Nation tradition. Now that the Conservatives have rediscovered this side to their identity and politics, people are starting to take the message seriously again. The message that privilege comes with duties has actually benefited from Labour’s emphasis on Timpson’s privileged background.
The other parties were barely visible. UKIP trundled round in their jeep and ranted to a few people, and the English Democrats made an attempt in Crewe to win support, but largely failed when the media showed little interest in them. They moved, muttering into their loudhailers. When the Liberal Democrats, complete with posters, placards, baloons and a significant section of their front bench arrived to walk through Nantwich, their reception was poorly received. They talked to a few bemused locals who insisted that they would not vote for a third party in such a close race, before moving swiftly on after getting heckled by a group of schoolchildren who couldn’t make their mind up whether or not they supported the Tories or Labour.
The campaign has been so efficient and well-managed that we’ve been able to finish all our tasks by around five or six, several hours before expected. Crewe and Nantwich Conservatives have always been very good at their campaigning. Now that this is no longer a safe seat they have been able to press this advantage. For example: normally the first days of a Tory campaign consist of sorting all the maps and routes. The party branch here had that already prepared before the election was announced. Nobody is kept idle and tasking has been extremely effective. We’ve been receptive to local demands, and able to adjust our strategy accordingly: those who don’t want any more attention are swiftly removed from the mailing lists, and comments and concerns by residents are relayed back to campaign headquarters.
That’s about as much as I can write for today. I’m sorry if it’s rambling but I’ve had a long and tiring day. Tomorrow I actually do have to wake up at 4, as we prepare for the “morning raid”: a last-ditch effort at sending round the last bits of electoral literature. After that I’ll be working as a teller at a local polling station.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich Diary: Day 1
I like elections. They’re a fantastic time to get out and meet people, and participate in what is often an exciting bit of politics. They are the fundamental affirmation of democracy: not only are the moment when we get to hear what politicians think about issues, and hold them to account for them, but they are also the best moment for politicians to interact with the public en masse. When out campaigning, canvassers, candidates and politicians don’t just promote themselves, their policy or their candidate, but they also use the time to get vital feedback from constituents about local issues affecting them. An election can be used by people to bring issues to the attention of politicians that they might otherwise overlook.
By-elections are a particularly special breed. They become not only a microcosm of society, and the place for speculative snapshots of general polling trends, but also a microscope of local politics. With the large resources and people that pour in to contest a significant by-election, the issues that affect constituents can be brought to the attention of the most senior of politicians in a way that could not happen in a general election. Suddenly local issues take on national significance. Crewe and Nantwich is at present a bizarre place to be. Notwithstanding the absence of several MPs over the HEFA Bill today, a major chunk of the Westminster village has descended on this area to take part in campaigning. High-flyers from all the parties (with the notable exception of Gordon Brown) have been participating, and the condensation of so many of the political class in this place is bizarre.
What is really bizarre about this election however is the level of Conservative support one encounters. On my way from the hotel to the campaigns office, I spoke to a Taxi driver who proudly declared that he was voting Conservative for the first time in his life. He is not the only one: throughout canvassing today the story that was most persistent was the person who had voted Labour all their life now determined to vote Conservative in these elections. The level of disaffection with Labour and goodwill towards the Tories has to be seen to be believed. Not all of these were protest votes either: they were more than willing to talk to us, to share their concerns, and were willing to stay in touch. Indeed, after today’s campaigning I started feeling a little (but only a little) sorry for Labour activists: many constituents were all too keen to tell us what they felt about Labour, and one can only imagine how much more forceful they would be when talking to campaigners actually from the Labour Party. There is a serious sense of disillusionment with Labour here, and that has gone beyond protest votes right through to the point where people are actually receptive to Conservative ideas.
The Phony Class War Labour is fighting has fortunately backfired. Locals in Crewe are sick of the antics of a few jumped-up activists who think that portraying the candidate as “Timpson-Nice-but-Dim” in lieu of actually talking about anything of importance is what people hit by economic downturn want. The top hats have been ditched, and locals have been berating the “Tarporley Toffs” for having such patronising views about the electorate. One person (not a registered Tory) came in to the campaign office to ask if the “blokes in the top hats” were still about, and offered to give them a piece of his mind. We thanked him for the offer but politely declined. Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. Playing the class issue is not working for Labour at a more serious level either. The working class voters we encountered said Labour had betrayed them. Playing up Labour as the party of the working class only serves to contrast their campaign mantras with the actions the party has taken in government, further reducing their appeal. Indeed, the only keen Labour voter we encountered wore a suit and drove an expensive car. Dunwoody-Kneafsey would do well not to alienate all classes of society. The negative campaigning and endless attack literature is turning ordinary voters off.
I can also report a personal success. Out canvassing today I managed to convince an undecided to vote Conservative. He said he was going to do so because we were the only people from any of the parties to actually take the time to go and talk to people, rather than hiding behind negative leaflets and and silly hats. Moments like that are fantastic: after hours of canvassing and trudging around places where the majority of people aren’t in, to talk to someone and have them tell you that they are definitely going to vote Conservative as a result of talking to you reminds you that the effort is worth it in the end.
I’ve had a very tiring first day and it’s an early start tomorrow. More later.
I am in Crewe and Nantwich until Friday.
Sphere: Related ContentCrewe and Nantwich: Who’s the Real Toff?
Every intelligent person on the left knows that Labour’s shooting itself in the foot in Crewe. They’ve turned a safe seat into a real contest. Criticism is even coming from the Guardian and Labourhome.
As someone else put it in The Times:
The Labour candidate is in Burke’s Peerage, her grandma was a Lady-in-waiting & she inherited the candidacy from her mum.
The Tory is from a family of cobblers & key cutters who fostered 80 deprived kids, inspiring him to take up family law.
And Labour say “Don’t vote for the posh toff”
Labour, after all, are hitting the poor with a stupid tax rise, and have decided that rather than fight on issues they’d prefer to prance around Crewe in top hats and tails. Rather more concerning to a class warrior though would be that they are actually wearing those clothes quite convincingly. Well, the chap on the right is. Someone needs to tell the fellow on the left of this photo that he needs to do his top button up though. Maybe Quentin Davies, that Clubland stalwart and multimillionaire ex-Tory turned Labour Class Warrior advised them?
I say old bean, let's go and patronise the workers
The contest is between a granddaughter of a Peer and a Labour Party General-secretary who is now riding on the coat-tails of her late mother’s political career, against the son of businesspeople known for their excellent treatment of employees and philanthropic activities, who pursued a career in family law to help the underprivileged. He is a classic example of a One Nation Conservative, and has been by far the more progressive candidate, especially against Labour’s patronising and vicious little dog-whistle campaign about immigration. Timpson is the true progressive in this election.
So I agree with Labour: don’t vote for the toff. What Labour fail to realise is that Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey and her Labour chums are the real toffs in this election.
UPDATE: It turns out that the chap on the left (Alex Norris) actually went to public school. My comments about his top button are scaring me now, as the school he went to (Manchester Grammar) used to be headed by a Dr. Martin Stephen. Dr. Stephen is now High Master of St. Paul’s School, where he caused controversy by cracking down on pupils who failed to do up their top button. Mr. Norris Esq. has no excuse for his sartorial misdemeanours now.
Sphere: Related ContentIn the Name of Academic Freedom
Reading The Week today I came across a surreal article that reported a Professor Priya Venkatesan is suing students of Dartmouth College for what amounts to robustly questioning her opinions. The natural response to such an article was a healthy dose of skepticism combined with disbelief. I ventured on to find out a bit more about the case to see whether or not this was misrepresentative scandal-mongering, or a situation so daft you couldn’t make it up. An interview with the professor herself bears out the accusations. Her complaint stems back to an incident in which a student challenged a theory of eco-feminism that she was presenting, and was applauded by classmates (predominantly female) for the effort. After this ‘disturbing’ exercise of independent thought and research, the Professor felt the need to take a week off to ‘recover’, and is now taking legal action as a means of restitution. The history of frivolous litigation has hit a new low when a professor sues her students for disagreeing with her. Professor Venkatesen not only deserves to lose the case, but ought to be banned from holding any form of teaching position whatsoever for her shocking attitude towards academic freedom, debate and inquisitiveness.
I say “teaching” rather than “academia” as I am not fully qualified to question the intellectual capabilities of Professor Venkatesen. I have no desire to dismiss her PhD or other academic pursuits, and I have little specialist knowledge of the areas and disciplines she covers to be able to mount a full of criticism of her theories. Academic skill and teaching ability are not linked: I have been taught by Professors who are fantastic teachers as well as gifted academics, but I have also sat in lectures by distinguished professors whose utter inability to teach resulted in lectures on fascinating subject matter becoming as interesting as watching paint dry, as engaging as a concrete wall, and as rewarding as going to the dentist. The question at stake is not her intellectual capacity: she is probably an intelligent and successful academic (even if she cannot construct a sentence properly). The issue is whether or not she is fit to teach undergraduates, and, based on her own words and the experience of others, one can only conclude that she is not.
The first, and most obvious, reason is that she is a poor lecturer. She has been reported to have gone completely off-syllabus on several occasions. She is alleged to have used an introductory first-year (US) course to lecture students about her own academic interests and theories rather than teaching students the course they were supposed to receive. Furthermore, she has a significant number of complaints made against her by students that she responded to by means of intimidation. In the words of her former students:
Aside from the fact that I learnt nothing of value in this class besides the repeated use of the word “postmodernism” in all contexts (whether appropriate or not) and the fact that Professor Venkatesan is the most confusing/nonsensical lecturer ever, the main problem with this class is the personal attacks launched in class. Almost every member of the class was personally attacked in some form in the class by either intimidation or ignoring your questions/comments/concerns. If you decide to take this class, prepare to NOT be allowed to express your own opinions in class because you have “yet to obtain your Ph.D/masters/bachelors degree”. We were forced to write an in-class essay on “respect” (and how we lacked it) because we expressed our views on controversial topics and some did not agree with the views of “established scholars” who have their degrees.
Additionally, your essays will (at most) receive 2 lines worth of feedback, along with a miserable letter grade.
All in all, there are much better ways to understand science, technology, and society than to suffer through ten weeks of emotional battering.
What this further indicates is an attitude utterly unacceptable for a teacher in a learning environment. She possesses a narrow-minded and condescending view of her students and detractors that innoculates her against all criticism and stifles debate. She dismisses her students as narrow-minded bigots with some ineffable “agenda”. She claims that she didn’t like their ‘arguing with me about every point that I was making’, dismissing them on the grounds that ‘frankly, they don’t even have a BA’. Any student of logic will know that this is an ad hominem fallacy that has no place in sensible debate. She claims that such questioning ‘totally undermined the whole academic system… because it never became about the students meeting my expectations’. Such is her hubris that she banned questions in class and dismissed numerous complaints about her incompetence as just ‘oil and water’ tension. Her paranoia is such that she makes allegations of racism despite stating ‘no-one made a comment about my ethnicity’. She claims that a student asking how “Gattaca” was spelt was a swipe at her non-tenured status, hatched in connivance with her boss, and accuses her detractors of immaturity and mental illness. She makes numerous accusations that are little more than assertions backed up with flimsy, questionable or no evidence. At no point does she demonstrate any form of engagement with criticisms raised.
To claim that the role of a student is ‘to meet his or her [Professor's] expectations’ is to encourage such sickening sycophancy as to discourage the curiosity and disagreement that is the spirit of academia. Rather than accusing students who counter her claims with researched opinions of ‘fascism [and] demagoguery’, she should be applauding their initiative to research, their intellectual curiosity to challenge assumptions, and their courage to stand up and criticise the ideas of others. Critical reflection and engagement with ideas presented is considered one of the key goals of any student at the college I go to, and one of our professors congratulated students for “challenging received wisdom”, encouraging them to continue to do so. The unpolished first engagements with complex ideas by a freshman student should be encouraged, not dismissed because the proponent doesn’t have their degree yet. To be so condescending about one’s students suggests that Professor Venkatesan does not really understand that teaching is about nurturing those initial sparks of criticism and initiative, not snuffing them out because you don’t happen to agree with them or they aren’t expressed in the most advanced manner.
All this would be bad enough on its own, but what worsens matters, and leads to the conclusion that she should be banned from teaching, is her attempt to pursue a lawsuit against her former students. To resort to such crass intimidation of first-year students, extending to writing a polemical book in which she threatens to ‘name names’, demonstrates further contempt for her students and an unwillingness to use the very reason that underlies the academic tradition to persuade her critics to accept her point of view. This cynical use of the very laws supposed to protect one’s freedoms represents an attack on free expression, inquisitiveness and discussion. It is made all the more galling in that it is being pursued by an academic claiming that she wants to uphold such freedoms. The case is an insult to the law; a legally illiterate example of crying wolf and wild exaggeration in such a way that demeans the genuine cases of discrimination that occur in academic institutions. Though she claims she is ‘not the kind of person who likes to make a fuss about petty or trivial things’, this gross overreaction and display of sore losership is a disgraceful form of arrogant bullying. That it is being done by a professor against first-year students only worsens matters.
Such litigious bullying and condescencion in place of rational academic debate and the free exchange of ideas is behaviour entirely unfit for any academic, let alone a teaching one. One can only hope that Professor Venkatesan’s case is rapidly thrown out of court and she either sees the error of her ways and changes, or never teaches again.
Sphere: Related ContentThank You
I want to personally thank every left-wing activist who helped Boris into office this morning.
First, I’d like to thank the tireless smear campaigners in Compass and elsewhere for their continued misrepresentations of BoJo. You set expectations so low among some that all Boris had to do was turn up somewhere and smile and immediately his impression among voters would improve. You made him out to be so stupid that when he actually said something intelligent, the contrast was such that it made him appear doubly clever. The contrast between expectation and reality was so great that it probably generated more votes than it lost. Thank you for the inadvertent boost to his image that you gave him.
Thanks for lying so hard. It backfired marvellously when exposed.
Big thanks to every activist who tried to make this a negative campaign. It allowed us to dominate the positive agenda, resulting in the Tories being the only party with a clear and achievable set of policies and the demonstration that Labour is a spent force. We came up with so many policies that both Ken and Brian felt obliged to steal some of them. I would like to congratulate every negative campaigner who got out the Tory vote and turned people off Labour with misrepresentations. They galvanised all those who discovered the extent of the deceit involved, and ensured they endured the elements to get out and vote. Well done.
Thank you for making Boris out to be a clown. Your refusal to take him seriously meant that we had an easier time promoting our agenda. Promoting him as a bumbling charming fool one minute neutralised your claims to his being a demonic Machiavellian schemer the next.
And really big thanks to all those with the eminently mature “fuck Boris” facebook photos. When viewed in the facebook mini-format they were virtually indistinguishable from the “back Boris” photos. This helped us appear to have even more support on facebook.
Finally, thank you to all who promised to leave London if he won, as well as all the other apocalyptic rhetoric. Crying “racist” soon turned to crying wolf (especially when there’s now a real racist in the London Assembly). By decrying Boris as Satan incarnate you made sure that many voters didn’t take you seriously. Thank you for doing the job for us.
So thank you anti-Boris activists everywhere. We couldn’t have done it without your help.
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