Purple Reign – UKIP’s Stranglehold on UK Press

Is anyone else sick of hearing about UKIP? It seems that you can’t open a paper or watch the news without catching a glimpse of Farage’s lizard-like features, and it’s getting old, quickly. This so-called “earthquake” they’ve caused seems to have been blown wildly out of proportion – one elected MP and a close-call further north doesn’t make them frontrunners in next year’s general election, so why all the attention? I honestly can’t remember the last time I was spared having to listen to their drivel on the news, because it looks like there’s nothing the press enjoys more than a one-on-one with old Nige, regardless of his downright dodgy politics. No news story is complete these days without a statement from him or one of his sycophantic followers, which seems bizarre when you remember that he’s not even an MP (yet).

Where, I wonder, is the coverage of the Green Party? They broke 20,000 members for the first time last week, so are hardly insignificant, and had an elected representative (Caroline Lucas, former party leader) long before Douglas Carswell managed to grease his way to the top of the polls and paint the green benches purple, yet they’ve had next to no popular coverage. Maybe this is because they’re seen as such a ‘radical’ left-wing option, but honestly, Nigel Farage wants to ban HIV+ immigrants from entering the UK, so I hardly think it’s a problem with radicalism the media and this country has.

I won’t deny that UKIP has made a dent in UK politics – it’s a point I made in my article the other week – and that therefore it’s almost impossible not to mention them, but I do wonder if they’re really deserving of all the attention they’ve received in recent times – and if this media circus, more than anything else, is the cause of their swelling ranks. Perhaps if equal attention was giving to other third-parties, we’d be talking about a green earthquake, rather than a purple one. Perhaps not, but in any case, seeing Farage’s smug face in the paper every day while he spouts anti-immigration and anti-Europe policies is driving me mad.

I’m sure that Ed Miliband and David Cameron are both quaking in their polished leather shoes as the purple tide surges, but I’ve got to have faith that everyone else in the country is getting as bored of Farage as I am, or else I’ll lose it entirely. The general election is on its way in May next year, and while I hope that the country will have come to its senses and dumped UKIP by then,  the party’s omnipresent face is giving me doubts.

– Lana Wrigley, A2 Politics

OMG Ed Mili!

Ed Mili has finally grown a pair! I must admit, he made a bold move. After listening to him on Tuesday when he said that the Labour Party would support intervention in Syria if it “was legal”, I thought “right…we’re in.” But no! Mili shocks us all by proposing an amendment to the government’s resolution.

The debate started in the Commons yesterday at 2.30 pm and ended very late into the evening when my BBC app alerted me that the Commons had voted; no! The government motion was defeated 285 to 272, a majority of 13 votes!

Mr Miliband has certainly up-graded himself within the Labour Party. As a member of the Party I received an email explaining the amendment put forward and I honestly got really excited for British politics. Historians last night were debating whether the last time a PM was defeated on a matter of peace and war was 1782 or 1855- either way it was a very long time ago! Not only was it an embarrassing defeat, but the fact that Cameron didn’t get full support from his own party and the fact that he recalled Parliament further adds to his embarrassment. Poor guy. If only the Commons had voted logically years ago, arguably tens, if not thousands of Arabs would still be alive today.

North Korea: Things Can Only Get Worse

Adam receiving his Politics Prize from the Principal, Chris Nicholls.

 A Political Observation on the world’s pariah state

It is April 2013 in a Pyonyang suburb. Or more accurately, April 102: the year itself denotes the number of years since the birth of the Great Leader, the late Kim Il-Sung. Except instead of carrying out the normal duties of the God-like ‘Eternal President’ he is portrayed as by the state-controlled media, he in fact lies in state at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in central Pyonyang. A factory worker sat in one of the few parks in the city, a rare green space dominated by a gargantuan image of the dead leader, sits uncomfortably on a park bench. He earns, on average, about $2 per month, which is spent almost entirely on heating and powering his ramshackle house on the outskirts of Pyonyang, as well as providing running water for his wife and two young sons. He begins to roll some marijuana in a discarded sheet of newspaper and begins smoking it.