All posts tagged Politics

The Gender Revolutionaries

by John Peart on December 7, 2011 in Liberation, Politics, The Beaver with No comments

Some areas of our society are persecuted every day because of how they choose to live their lives. Racial, gender and sexual discrimination are rife within our society even today. Several countries around the world still outlaw homosexuality, punishing those who are “found out” with the death penalty. Fascist organisations like the British National Party and English Defence League are growing in number and strength, peddling messages of hate and denying those who don’t conform to their nazi-esque vision the right to even exist. The battle for equality and freedom from oppression is far from over.

But sometimes, it takes one person, or a group of people to challenge the way that people think. The Gay Liberation Front was one of those groups. As a radical and revolutionary force, the GLF challenged social norms and through the prejudices of the 1970s out in the open, taking the first steps of a journey that is still being taken today.

The GLF found its roots in late 1960s America in the wake of a riot that would come to symbolise the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer liberation. The Stonewall riots saw the first true resistance to institutional oppression of LGBTQ people; a routine police presence in a well known gay bar escalated into violent protest against state oppression of civil liberties. Democratic principles teach us that all people are created equal under the law but in 1970s America liberty and freedom of expression applied to some more equally than others and Stonewall soon became synonymous with gay liberation.

On both sides of the Atlantic, movements were stirring, riding the wave of enthusiasm that another society was possible. A society free of oppression.

The first meeting of the UK arm of the Gay Liberation Front was held in a dusty basement  classroom of the London School of Economics in 1970. Only a dozen people turned up to the inaugural meeting, but little did they know that this would be the start of one of the most high profile, radical, revolutionary, and ultimately short lived organisations is gay rights history. At the height of the movement, the organisation was regularly hosting hundreds of attendees in the LSE’s New Theatre and coordinating action on a massive scale.

The GLF was more than just a pressure group. It was a movement. And it was more than just a gay rights organisation. The GLF allied itself with the women’s and black movements, and any movement that was struggling to fight against societal norms to gain equality. The organisation saw itself as more than a one trick pony and more than just a reformist group.

At the core of GLF’s vision was a genderless society. It was gender that oppressed gay people and only through the destruction of those gender structures. Reformation was not the goal of the GLF, their goal was revolution. The structures of society were set up so that men were masculine; they sought attractive women and dominated them and women were their subordinates. In such a society, anyone who challenged these norms were outcast. The GLF’s mission was to free society from this oppression.

This oppression had to stop and the worldwide GLF movement would stop at nothing to ensure they achieved their mission. In 1971 the organisation published a manifesto.

“We do not intend to ask for anything. We intend to stand firm and assert our basic rights. If this involves violence, it will not be we who initiate this, but those who attempt to stand in our way to freedom.”

The message was clear. Expect the unexpected, expect to be challenged and don’t expect the voices of oppressed minorities to go away. The GLF would try anything to shock society into a new world order and spark the structural revolution they so desperately craved. Idealistic, passionate and determined, these revolutionaries would not be deterred by anything.

Perhaps the most well known and inspiring action that the GLF took was an action at the Festival of Light; an event that was organised and backed by Christian groups. The church had long looked down on homosexuality – and still does to this day – and that made it a prime target for the GLF. To highlight the absurdity of the churches opinion, and the rigidity of the gender structures it reinforced, the GLF organised for dozens of protestors to dress in drag, infiltrate the crowd and pair of in same sex kisses throughout the crowd. The movement grabbed headlines and media coverage around the world with it’s innovative methods and strong political methods to such an extent that the effects are still felt today.

But for all it’s campaigning success, the movement came to an untimely end. Factions were numerous within the GLF, and they all disagreed about which direction the movement should travel. Both the US and UK arms of the GLF disbanded only a few years after their inception, the UK arm splintering into organisations that still exist today. Organisations like Stonewall and OutRage! only exist today because of organisations like the Gay Liberation Front. Their tactics may be more reformist, but these organisations continue to push the envelope in 21st century.

The GLF is probably one of the most revolutionary movements of our time. But it’s effect on society was not as profound as we might expect. Where the civil rights movement gained legal equality for black citizens, and the suffragettes – also based at LSE – secured the right to vote for women, the gay rights movement has had little impact on the day to day lives of LGBT people across the world. Whilst no longer an illegal act, the major barriers to society today for gay people are not structural but psychological. There is still a stigma to being homosexual in our society; there still exists a problem with people’s perceptions about the gay community; bullying is still rampant in schools and discrimination is still rife across all levels of our society.

The GLF catapulted the 1970s into questioning it’s approach to the question of gender and it’s very existence meant that today, people like me have a voice in society, but the job is far from finished.

The Blood Ban

by John Peart on October 1, 2011 in Liberation, Politics, The Beaver with No comments
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For many years “men who sleep with men” (MSM) have been unable to donate blood because of discriminatory rules predicated on the idea that gay men are more likely to carry HIV/AIDS, and that there was therefore too high a risk of transmission to take blood from this group of people for use in the National Blood Service (NBS).

That all changed this month as it was announced that the lifetime ban would be lifted and replaced with a twelve month ban; MSM would be able to donate blood providing they had no sexual contact with a man in the last year.

Organisations like the National Union of Students (NUS) LGBT Campaign and Stonewall have been campaigning on this issue for years, arguing that LGBT men should be treated no differently than straight men when it comes to giving blood; so when the decision was announced, it was heralded as a victory by many. But that victory is a hollow one; hollow because whilst it is now technically possible for gay and bi-sexual men to give blood, for most of us it won’t make any difference.

The NBS has admitted time and time again that the demand for blood is rapidly outstripping the supply they receive, and yet still the NBS is turning away LGBT men that are willing to donate and perfectly healthy. As an organisation, it has decided to continue to draw circles around sexuality and not around safety; as an organisation it has decided to keep reinforcing age old prejudices and to uphold myths about the LGBT community that are totally unfounded.

The facts are simple: forty-five per cent of HIV/AIDS transmission is through gay couples whilst fifty-five per cent is through straight couples. Gay and bi-sexual men are not any more of a high risk group for transmitting HIV/AIDS than straight men and taking blood from a sexually active LGBT male is no more risky than anyone else – there should be no ban at all! It’s simply not true that HIV/AIDS is a gay disease, but by continually creating barriers to donation for LGBT men, the NBS upholds a lie and broadcasts it to the world. This rule change might be a step in the right direction, but it’s just as discriminatory for the vast majority of gay men.

To give credit where credit is due, the NBS have attempted to acknowledge the truth about HIV/AIDS infection – it heavily influenced the new rules – but now Hepatitis B is being used as the excuse to stop LGBT men donating. Hepatitis B is one-hundred times more infectious than HIV/AIDS and one in three gay or bi-sexual men in London will contract it by the time they are thirty-five. Unlike HIV/AIDS though, is completely treatable and preventable with a free course of injections from your GP. As an excuse to still have a blanket ban, it’s pretty weak; if Hepatitis B is such a problem for gay and bisexual men – which clearly it is – why was this not the reason for the life-time ban in the first place? I’ll tell you why; it’s because the ban isn’t about science or safety, it’s about prejudice, and to claim otherwise is sheer naivety. This is institutional homophobia that we’ve accepted, put up with, and continue to see at every turn and enough is enough.

It doesn’t matter what disease they try and use to stop us from donating blood, the underlying tone is clear and it must be continually confronted until gay and bisexual men enjoy the same freedom to donate blood to save lives as anyone else. With the exception of obvious mechanics, there is nothing different about the way MSM conduct their sex lives compared to straight men. They can be just as careful – practicing safe-sex – as straight men. They can be just as promiscuous, or not, as straight men. They can hold monogamous relationships just like straight men. The LGBT community is not a disease ridden pack of whores any more than the straight community.

And it comes back to this idea of drawing circles. A gay man practicing safe sex can be excluded from donating blood whilst a straight man can sleep with half of the country without a second thought for safety, and yet the latter can still give blood because they slept with women and not men.

It’s about time the NBS get a grip and move beyond drawing circles around “gay” and “straight” and instead draw circles around “safe” and “not safe”. This is progress, but it’s not the progress we need. The fight for equality for LGBT people must continue.

Electoral Systems

by John Peart on April 8, 2011 in Essay, Politics, University with No comments
electoral-systems

This piece assesses the strengths and weaknesses of proportional and majoritarian electoral systems, and was written as part of my degree. This work was a formative assignment for the ‘Introduction to Political Science’ module, GV101.

Are majoritarian or proportional electoral systems better?

Electoral systems – the set of rules that regulate competition between parties and/or candidates during elections, that decide how vote shares map to seats in parliament and indeed, how the electorate express their preferences – have traditionally fallen into two categories; majoritarian – which include Single Member Plurality (or ‘First-Past-The-Post’), the Two-Round System and Alternative Vote – or proportional – like open or closed-list PR and the Single Transferable Vote[1]. This essay will assess the consequences of each type of system, with relation to the formation of parliaments arising from each, leading to a conclusion that neither is more beneficial and in fact a third way is possible and preferable.

The debate in this field is diverse, with many scholars sitting on either side of the proverbial fence on the matter. The debate is heated and often exaggerative in nature; Lewis comments that “the surest way to kill the idea of democracy in a plural society is to adopt [...] first-past-the-post…” (1965, p. 71)[2], whilst Rokkan claims that it is “simply impossible” to make statements about the benefits of proportional electoral systems compared with majoritarian electoral systems (1970, p. 166)[3]. None-the-less, countries continue to adopt different types of electoral system in the hope of achieving the best political outcomes – but what are these outcomes, and are they a benefit to the citizens within those countries? Traditional argument tends to follow that choosing an electoral system is about an ‘opportunity cost’ or ‘trade-off’; you have to choose between parliamentary representation or government accountability, between cohesive parties or individually accountable politicians, between majority or proportional electoral systems[4]. The suggestion here is that there is a linear trade-off between these two factors and they are mutually exclusive. Of course the crux of the issue with electoral systems is not the system itself, but the types of parliament and government that form because of the electoral system. Proportional electoral systems tend to produce minority or coalition governments, which will produce a very different set of political outcomes than majoritarian systems, which tend to create single-party governments[5].

There are many perceived benefits to a proportional electoral system; representation gains are among the biggest of these. Because seats are allocated in direct proportion to the share of the vote, parliaments tend to be a microcosm of society, representing a broad range of interests, ethnic backgrounds, economic backgrounds, and so on. The principle outcome is that parliament maps, as closely as possible, the preferences of the median voter and the government that forms, usually a coalition of two or more parties, will do the same[6]; the policy outcomes therefore, are most beneficial to the greatest number of people. This breadth is not witnessed in majoritarian plurality systems; Duverger’s Law showed that majoritarian systems were far more likely to create two-party systems than proportional systems which generated multi-party races (Duverger, 1959)[7]. Having a two-party system does not necessarily mean that the preferences of the median voter are unaccounted for however, as in majoritarian systems, parties will shift towards the median voter in order to gain a larger vote share, and can be sufficiently broad to capture all of the political spectrum. The majoritarian electoral system and two-horse race can mean that representation is disproportionate in parliament, and in many cases the government can have a large overall majority even though they receive less than 50% of the vote. We see this in the UK, where with only 43.2% of the vote in 1997, the Labour party secured a landslide majority with over 63% of the seats in Parliament. Clearly under majoritarian systems, the preferences of voters are not expressed well enough.

On top of these representation benefits associated with proportional systems, there is a by-product in countries that suffer from long-running ethnic or religious conflict, like Northern Ireland, where a proportional electoral system – in this case STV – forces a power-sharing agreement in Stormont; parties have to overcome traditional religious divides and work together. With the exception of some dissident terrorist attacks, the peace accord in Northern Ireland is strong, arguably because of the choice of proportional electoral system that means citizens on both sides of the religious divide have representation within the Assembly.

There are consequences of proportional systems that might be less desirable however. Coalitions, by definition, require compromise, negotiation and debate to survive. If parliaments are formed of many small parties, rather than two large parties like in a majoritarian system, you can end up with a stalemate in government formation. Countries can go for months without a government – like in Belgium, where 200 days after their most recent election, a coalition agreement still could not be reached – but more than this, when coalitions form, they can be made of such divergent ideologies that they are incapable of agreeing on anything, with one partner vetoing the coalitions actions if the policy option is not within their ‘winset’ (Tsebelis, 2002)[8]. Policy inaction, particularly when exogenous shocks occur, is a very dangerous thing; perhaps making majoritarian systems a better option.

The principle gain from majoritarian systems is government accountability because they tend to lead to single-party government. In a proportional system, coalitions formed of several parties have very little clarity of responsibility; governments are generally formed after elections and the policy outcomes are generally very different from those in the coalition partners’ manifestos.  When these policies are implemented and effects are felt, it is very difficult to know which parties to blame and which parties to reward and so, come the next election, poorly performing parties from the coalition will likely remain in power. In effect, proportional electoral systems can serve to entrench bad government permanently. Of course, the extent to which this occurs will depend on how parties approach the coalition process. If parties are following an office-seeking theory[9], where policy will be very flexible so long as parties get in to power then the clarity of responsibility will be low; you could argue that this is exactly the situation in the UK with the current coalition government – albeit that this was formed by a majoritarian electoral system. When 80% of the electorate were against an increase in higher education tuition fees, why did the coalition, which should more accurately represent the median voter, vote to increase fees, and who, of the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives, are voters to blame at the ballot box? At least, some would argue, under a majoritarian electoral system, you are more likely to get single party government and you are therefore, as a voter, more easily able to identify who is responsible for the policies coming from parliament. Furthermore, if the government is doing a bad job, a small shift in votes will equate to a radical shift in seat allocations in Parliament – though in countries like the UK, this means elections are fought in a minority of ‘swing seats’ and the rest of the country is not engaged fully in the electoral process, which is clearly a negative consequence. Another consequence of single party government and large seat swings is that you are even less likely to have policy that maps to the median voter; you are likely to have a skew, either to the left or right, and so again the trade off arises – do we prefer policy that maps our interest more closely – and so do we prefer proportional systems – or governments that we can attribute reward and punishment to – and so prefer majoritarian systems? Many political scientists would argue the former is preferable, notably Lijphart who argued that proportional systems were “virtually synonymous with electoral justice” (1984, p. 140)[10].

But there is a third way. Several political scientists have suggested that rather than a direct trade off between these factors that the relationship is actually able to be maximised in a way not dissimilar from that shown in  figure 1. This can be achieved by creating small multi-member constituencies (Shugart & Wattenberg, 2003)[11]. The system works because, principally, it decreases the incentive to ‘tacitically’ vote (Cox, 1997)[12], it reduces the number of people able to co-ordinate around individual candidates and allow for a broad range of elected representatives whilst still maintaining a line of accountability. Both accountability and representation are desirable in parliaments and neither a pure majoritarian system, nor a pure proportional system can provide both. A small multi-member mixed electoral system however can reduce the unrepresentativeness of parliaments by 75% and reduces the ideological distance between the median voter and the government more so, whilst it only increases the average number of parties in government by one-half and adds one large viable party to parliament, and though coalition is more likely, it only includes two or three parties at most, not the same sort of fractious and broad coalitions that we see in Belgium and Iraq. (Carey & Hix, 2010)[13]. Clearly a system that can give us the “best of both worlds” is the best option.

In conclusion, it is clear that in reality neither electoral system – majoritarian or proportional – will be better than the other, because neither give us the desired political outcomes we desire; they perpetuate the idea of a trade off. We should in fact seek a middle ground; a well designed electoral system should be able to combine the best of both worlds – high accountability and fair representation (Carey & Hix, 2010)[14]. A mixed multi-member system with low district magnitude provides this, and I would suggest to you that the middle option is the best.

[1] Clark, W. R. et al. (2009). “Principles of Comparative Politics”. Didcot: Marston Book Services Ltd. pp. 463-532.
[2] Lewis, W. A. (1965). “Politics in West Africa”. London: Allen and Unwin. pp. 71-72.
[3] Rokkan, S. (1970). “Citizens, Elections, Parties”. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. p. 166.
[4] Lijphart, A. (1984). “Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries”. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
[5] Carey, J. M. & Hix, S. (2010). “The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems”. p. 4.
[6] Downs, A. (1957). “An Economic Theory of Democracy”. New York: Harper & Row.
[7] Duverger, M. Brogan, D. W. (ed.). (1959), “Political Parties: Their Organisation and Activity in the Modern State”. London: Methuen & Co. LTD.
[8] Tsebelis, G. (2002). “Veto Players: How Political Instituions Work”. New York: Princeton.
[9] Riker, W. H. (1962). “The Theory of Political Coalitions”. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[10] Lijphart, A. (1984). “Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries”. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 140.
[11] Shugart, M. S. & Wattenberg, M. P. (2003), “Mixed Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds?” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[12] Cox, G. (1997). “Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[13] Carey, J. M. & Hix, S. (2010). “The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems”.
[14] ibid, 2010. pp.

 

The UGM

by John Peart on January 20, 2011 in LSESU, Politics, Student Movement, The Student Movement, University with No comments
ugm

Controversy struck today at the LSE SU’s Union General Meeting (UGM) as students put forward an amendment to the constitutional bye-laws. The motion, which can be found on the Students’ Union’s website, proposes that the UGM change it’s current voting format back to a “voting in person” system, which was removed under a constitutional reform package last year in favour of online voting.

YOU CAN VOTE ON THE UGM MOTION AT WWW.LSESU.COM/VOTE UNTIL 5PM ON FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY 2011

Now I’ll say this first off, until I walked in the room and started listening to the debate, I had no idea how I was going to vote. I had an instinctive feeling that this would be a bad thing to do, but couldn’t come up with any one valid reason to oppose the motion off the top of my head. As such, I was going to let it fly on by and see how it turned out (I would have probably electronically abstained to try and achieve quorum, but of course, there’s no option for that on the voting system!). Instead, a rather different thing happened. Daniel Kroop, the Postgraduate Officer for the LSE SU, opposed the motion and, for me at least, hit the nail on the head, and gave me the answers I was looking for. I decided to get off the fence and second his opposition.

There have been problems with the new voting system since it was first introduced. It isn’t very user-friendly as a piece of technology, on most occasions motions don’t achieve quorum – i.e. not enough people vote for it to be valid, and if you haven’t been to the UGM, the only thing you can see online to know how to vote is the motion itself. At the same time, UGM attendance has been decreasing on average, with the biggest UGMs only being ones where keynote speakers like the Director or the President of NUS is in attendance, so people can have a crack at authority bashing (For the hacks out there, thats normal person speak for accountability). Legitimate concerns therefore have been raised about the future of the UGM and the legitimacy of that sacred institution that LSE SU prides itself on. We’re the only students’ union in the whole of the UK that holds a weekly general meeting, don’t you know?!

And this of course leads to the question of causality. What caused a highly politicised campus, that has been engaging in SU campaigns in their thousands, to desert one of the ways it can control the direction of its students’ union? Clearly the proposers believe this is due to the change in voting system, and of course the logical solution to that is to change it back. Or is it?

I ask the question whether the UGM is poorly attended because people can’t vote at it, or because they don’t care about the motions being put forward; whether it’s because they can’t vote there, or because it’s an inaccessible monolith, filled with the same old hacks week in, week out; whether it’s because they can’t vote there, or because they find other ways to engage with and shape the students’ union; whether it’s because they can’t vote there, or because they simply don’t know it exists?

Now I don’t have the answer to those questions, and neither will the proposers of this motion. What I can tell you, is that as a member of NUS’ National Executive, I go to students’ unions, and I go to general meetings all across the country on a pretty regular basis, and all of them are struggling with the same question: why don’t people turn up to make their voice heard?

Most of them come to the conclusion its because students’ unions are too inward facing, don’t reach out to their members enough, and need to try harder to involve those hard to reach groups. And here comes the main reasons I decided to oppose the motion. It isn’t a broken voting system we need to deal with, its a broken culture at the LSE.

If you want people to vote for your motions, it will and it should take more than a 2 minute speech and 1 minute rebuttal in a room of 150 people. A students’ union can and should be about transforming students’ lives, but its their job to engage them in the way they want to be engaged. And I’m sorry, but a one hour meeting every Thursday is not an accessible way to engage the majority of students at our university. 4% of our students are part-time students, likely with working responsibilities outside university, you can’t expect them to have a voice with an “at UGM” vote. Some students at our university have parental and caring responsibilities, you can’t give them a voice with an “at UGM” vote. Some students aren’t fortunate enough to not need to work to supplement their studies… I could go on, but you get the idea. Online voting might not be perfect, but at least it gives everyone the opportunity to voice their opinion.

Not only that, the new constitution is all about widening the reach of the SU beyond the four walls of the Old Theatre. Assemblies might not be well attended, but they are there, and do we blame low attendance on the voting system, or because we’re getting something wrong as a student body making sure people turn up to them? And its precisely these structures that are meant to support students to have a voice.

In the long run, we need to stop considering whether we want to protect our traditions and start thinking about the people this actually matters to, and that’s the students that currently don’t have a look in; not because they choose not to turn up to UGM, but because they don’t know anything about the democratic processes of the SU or we’re having the wrong conversation with them. It’s easy to blame our failings on structures when in fact the problem lies much deeper and is embedded in the very fabric of our institution. People don’t engage with the students’ union’s democracy because they don’t know about it or its not accessible, not because they of the voting system.

In sum, and to use a timely analogy right now, it’s useless swapping the taps on the bath when your entire plumbing system isn’t working – you won’t get any more water.

I have written on the challenges of student engagement previously, after delivering keynote speeches to the DCQE at University of Portsmouth and QSN’s Student Engagement Symposium. You can read the articles here:

Reflecting on the tuition fees vote

by John Peart on December 15, 2010 in Education, Politics, Student Movement, The Student Movement, Tuition Fees with No comments
fees

Some members of the student movement will likely feeling a sense of deja vu right around now. Not 10 years ago, students were campaigning against the initial introduction of tuition fees. Another generation will be remembering the same circumstance in 2004, when fees were tripled under the then Labour government. They lost that battle then and no doubt told themselves that they hadn’t lost the war.

It’s just under a week since the Coalition government voted to again triple fees, and whilst I vaguely remember what was happening in 2004, as an 13 year old outsider sat in a school classroom at a poor performing school that was within a cat’s whisker from special measures, I didn’t expect to be in the same position as my predecessors just 6 years later.

My first taste of NUS was in 2008. A fresh-faced bewildered officer from a FE union in Somerset, I sat on conference floor watching Gemma Tumelty and Wes Streeting asking delegates to support a change in direction over the Union’s fees policy. It was clear then that the coming battle over fees would be radically different this time round. And indeed it was, not only was NUS being taken far more seriously in political circles – both Labour and Conservative alike (Lord Mandelson even commented to a then NEC member that NUS would “be far harder to ignore now”) – but we also faced an unprecedented change in the proposals we’d expected to be put forward.

The situation we face right now is extraordinary. No one seriously expected fees of £9,000 even six months ago, most commentators were expecting fees around £6,000. No one expected swathing cuts to all subjects except those that were STEM related. No one expected a that the Lib Dems, in government, would u-turn on one of their most popular policies. No one expected that Labour, after introducing fees and then tripling them – albeit in times of increased investment in the sector – would turn out to be the ones opposing this as a step too far. But this is the situation we are in.

There will be a lot of people out there right now looking for answers; looking to blame someone; looking for a scapegoat; wondering if we did enough. People with ifs and buts and whys and wherefores. And that’s to be expected. As someone that has seen this play out from the near beginning, as a conference delegate to a member of NUS’ NEC, I’m doing exactly the same thing. The conclusion I keep coming to however, is that we did all we could.

The policy was sound. The campaign was strong. The pledge was the best idea we have ever had. The national demonstration was amazing. The lobby was one of the best I’ve been involved with. The media coverage was excellent. The involvement and dedication of officers in students’ unions and members of the NEC – including the majority of the body that are unpaid volunteers – was out of this world. Everything was in the right place, everything should have worked. We did absolutely everything we could have done and then some.

In the end it was the Liberal Democrat party that cost us this vote and that’s a situation no one expected even 6 months ago. The government majority was exactly the same size as the number of Lib Dem ministers that voted in favour of the tuition fees increases. And I’m not casting these comments to be party political about it – I voted for a Lib Dem in the last election based on his promise to vote against (which he then broke) – but the facts speak for themselves.

NUS has a lot to be proud of right now; though it may not feel like it. NUS has inspired a movement bigger than the sum of its parts over the past several months. Those that attempt to detract from what this organisation has achieved are, I believe, blinded by their emotions over this issue right now and that’s why we see the reaction we have from the membership. This was a battle we didn’t deserve to lose and that makes it all the more painful to reconcile. But this is not over.

The government have only voted through a fees increase; the skeleton of the new framework, if you like. Now is the time we recollect, coordinate, unite and start over. We do not abandon our principles, we do not attack our leadership, we do not look for failings where there are none. We need to work together now to ensure that these proposals are either reversed – pressuring the opposition to use its powers to bring forward new legislation based on the Blueprint, swinging the debate back in our favour – and if that fails we need to ensure that the new package genuinely is better for students than the current one. If the government wants to profess this new repayment package is fairer than the old one and that the market can benefit students, we need to force them to prove it.

Now is the time the student movement shows what it can really do; make students lives better. We know we can do that, now we need to show everyone else we remember how.

Demos and NUS

by John Peart on December 7, 2010 in Demonstrations, Education, Politics, Student Movement, The Student Movement, Tuition Fees with No comments
demo1

There has been some controversy about what NUS’ stance is over demonstrations taking place on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Most of this is based on a poorly reported article in The Guardian today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/06/student-protests-nus-vote

This controversy is founded because the NEC haven’t made the decision we have been reported to.

NUS has continued to state its support for demonstrations and direct action that is peaceful and lawful. We do not however pretend to be the only route through which students can be activists. NUS believes that a variety of tactics will be required to defeat the government’s proposed cuts and fees rises. We are prioritising a set of activities within Parliament on Thursday because there are already demonstrations occuring, organised by EAN and NCAFC.

That does not mean NUS are opposed to the actions being taken without it on Thursday, and indeed whilst NEC members will be inside Parliament, they will also be on the ground supporting the protests outside.

The motion that was sent to NEC asked NUS to call for – i.e. organise – a second national demonstration on Thursday. To organise something is totally different to supporting the action. By not calling for a second demonstration, we are not saying we don’t support Thursday’s demonstrations. We do.

Aaron Porter, National President, has written to the Guardian to clarify the position, here: http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/news/article/nus/1135/

The Dearing Compact is Dead

by John Peart on October 26, 2010 in Education, Politics, Student Movement, The Beaver, Tuition Fees with No comments
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Back in 1997, when tuition fees were first on the agenda of the then Labour government, Lord Dearing’s report on higher education funding argued that those who benefit from higher education could reasonably be expected to pay a fraction of the cost of that course. The since cherished ‘Dearing Compact’ saw higher education as a funding coalition of sorts, between the state, the student and the employer, with each expected to pony up their fair share in line with the benefits derived from the system.

Only 13 years later, the Browne Review, released earlier this month, fired a warning shot at this compact. The entire report was based on an assumption that there would be severe cuts in the higher education budget in the near future, totalling 80 percent of the teaching grant awarded to universities annually by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and a targeting of funding towards subjects deemed to be more economically viable.

Lo and behold, in a chick-and-egg style scenario, George Osbourne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, stood at the dispatch box in the House of Commons on Wednesday announcing the very same figures, with 7 percent cuts to the budget for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills every year for the next 4 years and real terms costs to science funding. In order words, the Coalition has declared the end of public funding of higher education and a destruction of the Dearing Compact.

An so we see, born from the ashes of the last fortnight’s disaster zone, the creation of the “Browne Compact”. No longer is there a mutual balance between the student, the state and the employer, instead the Government sees fit to agree that the sole contributor to higher education should be the graduate and edge towards a true market in education.

Whatever way you try and look at this, it is a total disaster for students, and for higher education as a whole.

The sector was braced for cuts, but not on this scale. The inevitable outcome of the demolition of the higher education budget is that fees, at the most cash strapped institutions at least, will have to rise to at least double their current levels in order to sustain the same level of student experience. Of course, realistically, this will not happen in the way envisioned. The market in fees will not be based on sustaining quality and competition of course outcomes, but instead prices will be weighted based on league tables and prestige.

The reality of this new Browne Compact is that elite universities will charge the highest fees because of their league table positions, and other less prestigious, but arguably better universities, will be forced to charge lower fees in order to remain competitive in the market. Of course this is wrong in two respects. Firstly because league tables are heavily skewed towards research output – no fair way to set a fee level when the research has very little impact on your teaching – and secondly, it creates a widening gap between elite institutions that don’t need money – both because of their reliance on private funding and large cash reserves. That does not benefit students in terms of their debt burden and it doesn’t benefit students who could be herded like cattle into their lectures, have even less access to good resources than they do now and ultimately receive a terrible student experience.

Of course the principles that form this new model are deeply flawed in themselves.

Lord Browne and the Government believe higher fees will mean quality is driven upwards in universities because students will have freedom to move funding around the system. In fact the opposite can be illustrated even at LSE. Fees for virtually every course have increased at rates equal to or above inflation for the last 6 years, and yet student satisfaction rates have fallen. And this is from an institution that already charges some of the highest fees in the world for postgraduate and international students. It proves that the market is inefficient at correcting these problems and justifying cuts and fees increases on the basis of improved choice and competition is flawed.

Student debt already stands at an average of £24,000 on graduation. Under these proposals, debt would virtually double to around £40,000 and would not carry any additional benefit. Rather it would merely prop up universities that are having the funding cut from the other end. Students should not be expected to pay more for less.

The true argument for higher fees however, is to support deficit reduction. In fact that was the reason that the truly progressive option of a graduate contribution, like that put forward but the National Union of Students in its Blueprint from Higher Education, was dismissed as unworkable. The argument is that the substitution of funding from government to student will the Government can reduce the deficit meaning a better further for that same generation of undergraduates. Of course what they conveniently forget is that increased fees mean they have to loan out more money via student Finance England. The overall impact is that the Government is back to square one for the duration of the Parliament because they will have to spend the money upfront anyway.

And that poses the real question. Where should the debt burden fall? Given that student satisfaction across the sector has stagnated for the last 6 years despite increased funding and the trebling of fees and that graduate employment prospects are the worst they have been in a generation, is it fair to burden students with at least double the amount of debt that we will graduate with when the only real justification, when you wipe away the smokescreen, is deficit reduction?

You can’t expect students to pay more for the same, or worse, more for less. That’s not how the market works, and it would have Lord Dearing spinning in his grave.

Fees or taxes?

by John Peart on October 24, 2010 in Education, Politics, Student Movement, The Beaver, Tuition Fees with No comments
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It is impossible to escape the growing argument over higher education funding and tuition fees in the media over the past six months. With each corner of the HE sector fighting over funding and a fragile coalition agreement preventing the Liberal Democrats from sticking to their long term commitment of scrapping fees, its clear that this explosive issue will be upsetting some.

The independent review into tuition fees and student finance, headed by former chief executive of BP, Lord Browne, is expected to present its report this month, after nearly a year of research. Depending on who you listen to, you may believe that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. With only one student on a panel made up predominantly of business leaders and university chiefs, it is easy to suspect that the review is a stitch up and will result in a recommendation that fees should increase. Indeed, the review has suffered several leaks which suggest this; the latest indicating that Browne favours a total lifting of the fees cap.

The political landscape surrounding this issue has changed significantly over the past year. Twelve months ago, increases in fees seemed inevitable; now a range of different options have been put forward from across sectors and has created a new debate about universities’ funding. The question is no longer “how high should fees go?” but instead, “how should students pay for their education?”
As it stands there are three serious options on the table.

The most simple is as following: the government may opt to ignore Browne’s purported recommendations and maintain the status quo, opting to avoid political backlash and upset to the coalition. This presents the biggest problem for the sector in many ways because the coalition, like the previous administration, is expected to make swathing cuts to universities in the near future. Some universities will be able to cope with this comfortably – as has been made clear by the LSE Students’ Union, the Russell Group and 1994 Group universities such as the LSE could still produce 4 per cent surpluses for up to ten years in this scenario – but most universities will have to stretch their resources to the limits. The class sizes in many of these institutions would likely increase, staff cutbacks would be on forefront of discussion and the position of the UK as a world class hub for education would be at risk. Whilst for the LSE, freezing fees is the best option, for the sector as a whole it is likely to do more harm than good.

Another option is to opt for what Browne is likely to suggest; an increase in fees by at least a factor of two, or perhaps even lifting the cap on UK fees entirely, bringing them in line with international student fees and creating a true market within higher education. This is the option preferred by Universities UK, the umbrella organisation for British higher education institutions, because fees have generated £1.3bn of additional investment in the sector, and many institutions are calling for an expansion of the system to allow for more during and after the forthcoming cycle of Government cutbacks. But this is probably the worst option for the end user of universities; students.

Not only does this increase the debt burden on students, up from an already staggering £24,000, but it also creates further strain on the Treasury, as currently, for every £1 that the Student Loans Company lends to pay fees and maintenance loans, it receives 67p back. This is wholly inefficient in itself, but when you consider that the Treasury also subsidises the interest on the loans as well, the system looks even more unsustainable at a time when the coalition is looking to make cuts.

It is also naïve for the sector to think that the Government won’t take advantage of this situation through its austerity measures. When fees were first introduced, it was on the provision that it would be additional income to the sector, not a supplement. In a new fees regime, no such promise would have to be kept and there is nothing to stop the coalition from making deeper than planned cuts if they feel universities can merely prop themselves up with fee income.

Poorer institutions will be affected the most as they find themselves charging lower fees than their cash-rich, prestigious rivals, to sustain student numbers and government funding. Again jobs will be on the line and the student experience will suffer; and the market would widen this cash gap over time making things worse.

As well as that, experience has shown that when fees increase for UK ‘home’ students, fees disproportionately increase for international students. In fact even with fees at their current levels, international fees have grown by an alarming rate year on year even though the National Student Survey has shown that they have contributed relatively little to improving the quality of experience for students studying here.

One of the main arguments in support of fees is that you can use higher fee income to target students from less well off backgrounds, who are generally also more debt-averse, with larger bursaries. That argument no longer stands on its own two feet however, as the Office for Fair Access, reported in September that bursaries are totally ineffective at doing just that.

The third option would be to radically change the system by introducing a graduate tax. The strength of the argument for such a system depends on the source of your figures, but it has certainly ignited discussion amongst the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party as a viable alternative.

The National Union of Students, who first put forward the idea, have gained widespread support for the system which sees an end to fees and an introduction of a small levy for a fixed period on earnings with a maximum and minimum payment threshold. NUS claim that under such a system, a majority of students would pay less than they would with fees and that there would be far less reliance on the Treasury because the system would sustain itself.

This system has been attacked on many fronts, not least because it doesn’t solve the problems surrounding international student fees either, that it may lead to a brain drain as people move abroad to avoid the tax and that it is too costly initially for the Government to support as it would require them to pump billions of pounds in to the system in the first few years – something which contrasts with the coalition’s budget plans.

Coalition ministers have already reminded us that “it is the job of reviews to make recommendations and the job of Government to make decisions”, but just how easy this decision will be and how much more students will be expected to pay remains to be seen until the vote in Parliament.

The Graduate Tax

by John Peart on July 16, 2010 in Education, Politics, Student Movement, The Student Movement, Tuition Fees with No comments
Easy Money

Yesterday, in his first public speech on higher education, Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, showed the clearest sign yet that a simple rise in the top rate of tuition fees was not as much of a dead-cert as some thought. In fact it was a policy first put forward by the National Union of Students, proposing an income linked ‘graduate tax’, that was put front and centre in the keynote.

Dr Cable is now on record showing support for a graduate contribution scheme that replaces the current fees system and is believed not to be the only one in the coalition government with that view. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have also apparently been keen to make sure that the Browne Review – set up last year to examine the current tuition fees system and how it needs to change – looks seriously at introducing a graduate tax.

There has been much debate over the past 24 hours as to whether this is a good or bad thing.

I’m going to address some of those concerns here.

The main criticisms I’ve heard of the graduate tax system is as follows:

  1. That it would cost money upfront that the government doesn’t have.
  2. That there are other, better options on the table.
  3. That a tax is just a rebranding of debt.
  4. That someone could end up paying back far more than they would under a fees system.
  5. That the system is more unstable than fees because of potential brain drain.
  6. That the system is too complex to understand.

I’ll tackle each of these arguments, some combined, because they deserve proper deconstruction.

A graduate tax would require money upfront to setup, and the government is trying to cut spending, not increase it.

True. A graduate tax is expensive in the first few years after it is set up. It has to be. The principal is that after 4 years the money is self-replenishing though. The burden on the tax payer disappears entirely. Under a fees system, the money would be spend anyway in loans for tuition fees, and more so, if fees increased (which without a feasible alternative, they would, and likely double), then the burden on the tax payer would actually increase, not decrease as it would here.

Further to this, the current loans system is totally inefficient. Only 67p in ever £1 the Student Loans Company pays out it receives back. This is partly because people don’t see the levels of earnings potential to pay their loans back in full. If fees increase, that ratio is likely to worsen, and so making an inefficient system worse. At least with a graduate tax, only maintenance loans are repaid, improving the above ratio as less is paid out through the SLC.

There are better options on the table. We can fund this through general taxation. We can live with higher fees. What about business and their contribution.

I’ve shown, even with my beer-mat economics, as have many others, that you could fund all education through general taxation. But there is a twofold problem here. First, it takes up a heck of a chunk of your life-time’s tax, way over two-thirds, on an average salary. And second, it’s not fair or viable for someone that never had the chance to study at university to pay for someone else’s education.

Yes, we can argue that they benefit indirectly, and that there is a multiplier effect of higher education in the economy, but really, when it comes down to it, they don’t see a great deal more income in their pockets. They benefit in a hugely different and disproportionately small way.

And as I’ve already said, higher fees won’t work. Might solve your problem now, Steve Smith of Universities UK, but it won’t serve you well in 12 months time when the government turns around and says, “well, if you’re getting all this fee income, why do you need us?” and cuts your budgets deeper.

As for business, I’m no expert, but when you can’t get employers to invest in basic skills for their employees through FE schemes like Train to Gain, do you honestly think you’ve got a hope in hell of getting them to pay for this? If your answer is higher corporation tax, then think again, because the figures suggest that if we increase business taxes, in a country that is already expensive to operate in, business will go else where and you will end up with higher taxes and lower revenues in an ever opposing spiral of tax and collection.

A tax is a rebranding of the current system – you pay it back after you earn £15K anyway, and it isn’t an upfront fee, it’s offset by loans. And I might end up paying back more than I would now.

As I’ve just mentioned the loan system is totally inefficient, and the higher fees go, the more strain it carries on the tax payer’s purse. To call the tax a rebrand is simplistic at best, narrow minded at worst. The system is far more detailed and far more progressive than fees. The amount you pay back is linked directly to your earnings – so those on low incomes because their degrees carry a low graduate premium (or because they enter public services which have traditionally lower pay than similar roles from the private sector) will pay back less.

And in these circumstances that is totally right that someone generating a social good – a teacher or a nurse for instance – should be allowed a more favourable rate of repayment compared to a city banker or top lawyer.

In terms of how much you pay overall – the average person in the system would pay back no more than they would if fees increased to £5,000 per annum. That’s £2,000 less (per year) than people are currently proposing fees should raise to.

The system is unstable. What if people go abroad and we can’t collect the money? Or what if the jobs market collapses again?

What if pigs start flying?! I mean seriously, the brain drain isn’t that much of a problem under a different system than it is now, and as for a job market collapse, it’s self sustaining. You pay money for 20 years. It would take one hell of a crash to make this system even a tiny bit unstable. And if it is, the government can and would step in short-term to prop it up again. Even with that caveat, it’s still more sustainable than continuous increases in fees and continuous increases in government loans to students and increasing levels of spiralling debt.

I’m yet to see another viable alternative on the table in terms of the graduate contribution. And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll back this to the hilt.

Find out more about the graduate tax NUS is proposing at www.nus.org.uk, follow @nusuk on Twitter or add NUS on Facebook.

A letter to Jeremy Browne MP

by John Peart on May 12, 2010 in Education, Politics, Student Movement, Tuition Fees with No comments
letter

Dear Mr Browne,

RE: Conservative/Lib Dem coalition and Higher Education tuition fees

Late last year, I met with you in Parliament along with a small group of students that attended Richard Huish College and lived in the Taunton Deane constituency to ask you to support a pledge by the National Union of Students on Higher Education tuition fees, as part of its Vote For Students lobby of Parliament. I hope you’ll recall the meeting as being positive and indeed you agreed to support NUS’ pledge at the meeting. That pledge read:

“I pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next Parliament and to pressure the Government to introduce a fair alternative.”

It was with great pride that I, as well as many other current and prospective students in Higher Education that live in your constituency, voted to keep you as my MP in Taunton Deane. A large part of my decision, as with others, was based on the commitment you, and over 400 other Liberal Democrat candidates made around the country to support students when a vote on tuition fees eventually reaches the Houses of Parliament following Lord Browne’s review.

Today however, I read in the papers and see on the news that your party has reneged on that promise thanks to your new coalition with the Conservative party. Instead of voting for students in the upcoming debate, I am led to believe that the Lib Dems would now abstain from the vote to protect the coalition.

I’ll be quite frank, I am totally appalled by this decision.

For years the Lib Dems have held the commanding support of the student vote thanks to their opposition to tuition fees in the 2001 and 2004 fees debates, and now it appears your party has turned your back on that vital support. I’m sure I don’t need to make you aware of the facts that students make up over 7,000,000 of the voting public with an ages ranging from their teens to their late 90s, that more students than ever before have registered to vote this year, that within your constituency over 20,000 students study in Further and Higher Education, and that it is off the back of student votes that MPs like yourself have kept hold of your seats by the narrowest of margins.

I hope that the media reports and statements coming from the new Government are ill-founded and that the Lib Dems will not let students down in this way when it comes to a vote. Because lets be clear about two things; an abstention is as good as a vote in favour when it comes to fees and that if Tony Blair’s Government thought they had it tough with the biggest back-bench rebellion in his premiership over this issue, the new Conservative and Liberal coalition which holds a slender and fragile majority won’t stand a chance.

I ask that you, as my representative in Parliament, and a representative of the 20,000 students in Taunton reaffirm your support for students, reaffirm your commitment to vote against a rise in tuition fees and the implementation of a fairer system – be that the system in your own manifesto or one like the National Union of Students is proposing – and you encourage other Liberal Democrat MPs to do the same.

Many Lib Dems are in their seats following this election because of expectant and supportive student votes.

Please don’t let us down.

Yours sincerely,

John Peart

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