The Broken Britain Series

From a blank start to full fledged essays, the creation process is long.

I have started work on what I have called ‘The Broken Britain Series’. I aim to release every few weeks an essay on a topic concerning itself with the current political, social, or economic state of Britain. This is partly to give myself something to do over the coming months, and partly to help me explore an issue I find deeply interesting: the widespread ignorance of the British public to the problems facing the country and the society that lives within its borders.

The URL of the blog (also hosted on wordpress) that I will use to host that essays will be http://thebrokenbritainseries.wordpress.com/

You will also be able to find them uploaded onto Academia.edu. If any of you use this website, feel free to follow me on it and I may well return the favour. The link is: http://winchester.academia.edu/MichaelDobson

At the moment only a short introduction is provided (and not available on Academia.edu) but you can expect the main essays to run at around 2,500 to 3,500 words. Maybe more if there is a lot to say on the topic but I am hoping setting a word limit for each will prevent be from rambling and keep the essays concise and informative.

I hope to provide the facts on the issue, perhaps followed by recommendations. Everything will be supported by sources and/or annotations if is my opinion.

I am quite excited about this project, and look forward to writing the essays in the next few months.

MD

Final Marks and Reflections

Yesterday, almost two months after my final exam, I received my grades for the entire degree. When all was said I done, I have concluded my university experience with the grade of an Upper Second Class. For those that don’t know, the only higher grade is a First Class (and in some instances, a Stared First Class). I am incredibly pleased with this result and it is what I was expecting as pretty much all my individual assessment marks were a 2:1. Graduation has been set for the 8th November, so quite a way away.

In the mean time, this final grade means I can add it to my CV and start looking for jobs with the knowledge I have a solid educational base and a sort of specialisation. Hopefully I will have better luck in finding that job from here on out!

With this grade in hand, it is time to look back upon my university experience and gauge whether it was a positive one and a worthwhile one. I would have to say it was, if not simply for the reason that I do not know what else I would have done. I’m sure I would have found a job eventually but if it would have been something I would have enjoyed or simply a job to get by is another matter entirely. The fact is that my time at university was well spent as far as I am concerned. It has been an interesting experience and I have learnt a lot more than just what I covered in my lectures.

Whilst reflecting, it dawned upon me that my recent post regarding the House of Lords reform may have been poorly conceived. I offer reflections on that post here.

I will undoubtedly have more thoughts of my time at university and those shall be conveyed to you through the medium of this blog. Until that time, I hope everyone is doing well and if you have also recently received your final grades for university or otherwise that you are pleased with them.

MD

On The Purposed House of Lords Reform – My Opinion

Firstly, let me say that posts about politics will not feature heavily on this blog and that this post is largely so I can get peoples opinion on the style of writing and content. I’m thinking about going into political commentary and one way to pursue that is to submit articles to blogs, at least until I get the hang of it. Whilst this piece is not the best I’ve written by a long margin, it represents the size of posts that will likely be produced for any political blog. Thoughts and opinions are welcomed!

——

So I’ve seen a lot of talk lately about reforming the House of Lords (the upper chamber of the British Parliament). HC Bill 52 is the new piece of legislation that the Liberal Democrats are pushing which will reform the upper house into some more akin to the House of Commons. Except it will be completely different. My current understanding of this legislation is that it will create a house whereby its members are not directly elected. Instead, votes will be cast for the parties and then the percentage of votes they get will represent the number of seats that party gets in the new house. The parties would then select members to sit in the new house. The current peers might not be elected, but at least they are not under the thumb of the parties. Party politics is already too entrenched within the House of Commons which in itself can be seen as an undemocratic concept.

Regardless of my understanding of what the new law will entail, there are a couple of key points that still persist no matter the kind of elected chamber is created. Many of these points are widely misunderstood by the general public and this is played on by the supports of this new bill as well as other anti-Lords groups. The first of which, and probably the most important, is that unelected peers is not a bad thing. The idea that all the people currently sitting in the House of Lords are either ‘snobs’ or there because of their fathers is, for the most part, false. Many people in the house are experts in a particular field which is something you don’t find often in the House of Commons. Furthermore, the fact that they don’t have to worry about re-election means that they can do what is best for the country in the long term and not just what the people want at that particular point (because guess what general public – what you want isn’t always best for you or the country!). Let’s not forget that we live in a constitutional monarchy with democratic elements anyway and not a full on democracy (and no – the USA is not a full blown democracy either). And guess what? It works. The number of times that the House of Lords have prevented stupid laws from going through greatly outnumbers the times it stopped good laws (of which I can think of no examples – let me know if you have any).

My second point on why we should keep it as it is would be that with such great voter apathy as there is, what chance is there the public genuinely wants to have to vote for even more things? Now, I’m a believer that if you don’t vote then you should probably keep quiet when it comes to politics. If you didn’t vote, and then complain about the way things are, it’s hypocritical. If you think things should change then it is your role to vote for that change. Amazingly, 65.1% of those eligible to vote did so in the 2010 general elections. However, according to figures presented by the group ‘Fix Parliament’, 95% of the public want House of Lords reform. I can’t find any source for this figure (which seems a bit far-fetched) and even if it is correct, that means that 29.9% to 34.9% of the population that did not vote think that the Upper House should be reformed. Granted, ‘reform’ does not mean the full blown change the way that the new bill suggests but I can imagine most people would expect some kind of elected aspect of the reformed house. So basically people that don’t vote want more things to vote for. Yeah, ok. One could make the assumption, an assumption that would not be completely unreasonable, that with more to vote for, less people would vote.

There are many other points in favour of keeping the House of Lords as it is, and many against it as well which I have not gone in to. When it comes down to it though, is this really worth spending the time on this notion now when the country, continent, and world seem to be falling apart at the seams? No, I didn’t think so.

MD