mattblackall's diary

This happened at the beginning of may, so it has taken me a while to write about it.

 Just before the local elections, Gordon Brown suffered his biggest Labour revolt- around 30 Labour MP's voted against the government and for the introduction of a feed in tariff.

 The feed in tariff was designed to give incentives for small businesses such as mills to create their own electricty and sell it back to the national grid.

Obviously, this would not had solved all our energy needs, and ultimately at the level proposed would had only prodcued around 5% of the energy we need.

However, it is the added implications for this that the Labour Whip encouraged MP's to vote against it. 

 If the government were to start increasing incentives for small businesses, and then maybe households, to start producing their own electricty and selling it back to the grid, then there would be less need for these massive national energy companies (who conintue to make profits year on year despite our energy bill going up) which obviously goes against everything New Labour stands for.

 Furthermore, this would had been a signifcant step in our battle against Climate Change. As stated, it would not had solved our problems, but at the same time it does help and creates the foundations for this measure to expand so that each house has an incentive and help to produce its own electricty that it could sell back to the grid.

 But no, the bill was defeated. 

 It was defeated because of 'following the Party line', and Gordon Brown-nosers.

So three issues i see here:

1. We all know, but it reafirms, New Labour is in the pocket of (inter)national companies.

2. New Labour's committment to helping slow down the rate of climate change is defunct.

3. Party lines, and political opportunists are hampering worthwhile (and perhaps radical) political change. 

What i love about national news is how important issues such as Tibet/Dafur etc only last for a few days, maybe a week if you're lucky.

However, look what i found, here's a link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7359190.stm

It's like Russofication, but in China, so Chinofication or something like that.

To be honest it is racist, or culturalist, or perhaps both.

If China can do that without united international uproar, then could i forcably re-educate people to actually care without being questioned? If so, i would had made everybody at Portsmouth University come to the recent Activist Academy :-) Oh wait, no, i would have been accused of taking away people's freedoms and destroying of thier human rights. Well i would had still let them out for half hour outside just so they could run about, stretch their legs- at least then they think they would be free, and apparently make people question how bad me forcing them to come to the Activists Academy really is... 

Let's have a little look at the Olympic Charter shall we (http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_122.pdf). According to the students scholarly archive, Wikipedia, the Olympic Charter "is a set of rules and guidelines for the organization of the Olympic Games and for governing the Olympic Movement" and "throughout the history of the Olympics, the Olympic Charter has often decided the outcome of Olympic controversy." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Charter)

Okay, wicked, super, splendid, so the Charter can either explain why China (largest abusers of human rights- well arguably after US- and Tibeten Buddist repressors) have the Olympics or in my opinion justify why we should boycott the Olympics.

Lets just look at 3 of the 6 Fundatmental Principles of Olympism outlined in the Charter:

 "Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

"Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement"

"Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC"

 OOPS i guess the IOC just forgot about the Charter when it decided in 2001 to award the games to Beijing.

Well actually, no, the IOC acknowledgies these flaws in China's human rights record and justifies the awarding of the Olympic games to China as a way to bring international pressure onto China to improve its human rights... well something along those lines anyway.

Hmm, i don't personally see an improvment in China's HR record, just look at their response to peaceful protests in Tibet the other month, or maybe even look at their influence in Dafur where they use the equation Oil=Money=Power>Human Life. 

Really until the IOC grow some balls, the Olympics should be renamed the Lympits to suit its governing body. Apologises to all the Lympits who are offended to be ranked alongside these people, no offence meant to you.

The best idea i have seen with boycotting the Olmpics is the one suggested by Johann Hari in The Independant (Monday 7th April 2008) where he suggested that athletes should ask Beijing to do three things. One; release the 10 biggest human rights activists in China. Two; invite the Dalai Lama to talk with Beijing. Third; allow a peacekeeping force into Dafur. Hari suggests that if these critea are fullfilled then the athletes should agree to take part, but if not, they should boycott the games.

 This would involve a large coalition of athletes to come together and discuss these issues. However, it would not be the first time that athletes have boycotted the Games, for example 62 nations boycotted the games in Moscow 1980.

The above idea gives the athletes the control. It allows them to show to the world that they are ready to make a stand, but to not boycott the games comlpetely, as it is totally unfair to ask people who have been working hard for years to partake in the Olympics not to.

This blog post is a bit random from me i know, especially considering my last post. I just want to say with regard to the subject of my previous post is that popularity is not the right word, a wise person once said that popularity is the whole point of democracy. It's not about how many friends you have as to whether you win or not. It's about how effective your campaign is, how loud you can be, how well you can get into the heads of the students. These are normally the most simple campaigns, most recognisable campaigns. It's not popularity to the extent of how many friends you have or how many people you know, and perhaps i confused these two point...

This is my first blog entry this year. Looking back actually, it is nearly a year since i last wrote something. 

So in about 1hour i'll be on my way to the Union for the Election results with high hopes that perhaps students do have sense and the right people get voted in (ohh of course the people i campaigned for are the right people in my opinion i hear you say... i would not have campaigned for them if i thought they were not the best person for the job, one of the reasons i perhaps did not go for a certain position this year...)

It seems more like a Sporto v Societies Election this year.

One of the most ignorant comments i heard this year was after my friend questioned one of the sportos as to why we should vote for her friend when the person we're campaigning for has more experience and she replied: "it's only cos we're athletic and you're not"

What?

That does not come into it at all.

To be honest, i do not care about the sporto way of life- i do not mind the drinking culture (i drink a lot too) i do not mind the loudness, i do not mind the money spent on them (partly) to travel around playing other teams. I actually support sports clubs in this way, i actually love sport in general and would promote it everywhere and encourage as many people as possible to take a sport up.

What i do hate though is the sporto mentality in elections. The comment i quoted above is a perfect example of this.

Going further though, i am more concerned with the whole vote for your friends and get all sportos to vote idea, no matter if they are the right person for the job or not. The phrase i used last year among friends was 'student representation not popularity'. I fear it'll be the same this year.

In some circumstances i can understand why a sporto would vote for a sporto, as there is politics concerning some candidates sometimes as to the direction it would take sports next year. However this is rare.

How would sportos react if a society person ran for Sports Officer? I actually think this is the same for when a sporto runs for SADO- perhaps there should be a gentlemans agreement or something...

It would be possible by the way to get a society person elected as Sports Officer as anti-sporto feeling is generally higher than pro-sporto feeling, and with the right campaign it would work...

I'm rambling now.

It's obvious that if certain people get into the positions they are going for then it would have a serious detrimental effect upon the effectivness of the Union.

I can only hope that tonight might restore my confidence in students and student democracy. Otherwise i'll probably be on here a bit later moaning again and planning how next year i can perhaps show certain people how much of a job they have got and how little experience they have for that role... mean of me i know, but people have to learn. 

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Next year my idea for elections would be for campaigning to be done on monday/tuesday/wednesday, then thursday and friday voting starts (using online voting as well), and during this time you are not allowed to campaign. This will then cause a focus on the policies and experience of candidates- this would surely make sure the Union would improve each year.

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