Review: Leaders Debate 2015

The second televised debate for the 2015 UK General Election was broadcast last night, and the verdicts have flooded in, whether on Twitter throughout the debate, or in paper and digital front pages of newspapers. This debate was a long time in the negotiating, with David Cameron most notably stalling over committing to the format. But get here we did, and the UK public were 'treated' to two hours of seven party leaders: the three main Westminster parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats), two regional parties (Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party [SNP]) and two issue centred parties (the Green Party and UKIP).

First thing first, as a political debate that would allow each party to discuss their points of view in detail, did it work? I don't think it did. Each candidate got a minute or two to talk about the perspective that they represent, but after that it was a bit of a free-for-all, with candidates attempting to talk over each other like at PMQs on a Wednesday (admittedly, there was less booing, but that was about the only difference). The presenter leading the debate, Julie Etchingham, was sometimes ignored as she attempted to curtail some candidates speeches, and at times the conversation resembled something that might take place on a Jeremy Kyle show (this was especially the case when Nigel Farage was speaking). The number of parties represented meant that candidates never really got a chance to fully respond to allegations put against them, as to do so would mean that some others would not have the chance to speak at all. So as an intellectual exercise for the viewer, it felt a bit redundant at times.

But if we take the two hour show not as the main course of political debate, but as an aperitif, then perhaps it can be considered a success after all. What the debate lacked in depth, it made up for in breadth. To have parties like Plaid Cymru or the SNP, who only stand in a proportion of UK seats, be on national television and be able to speak plainly about what they stand for without being filtered through the prism of the Westminster-centric media can only be useful for the democratic process. The same goes for the Greens and, to a lesser extent, UKIP. Allowing these minor parties (and minor they must still be considered, when the number of seats in Parliament that they can or are likely to win are taken into consideration) air time on prime-time television can only be good thing for the democratic process, especially given the political climate in the UK. For, after not having a coalition government for approximately seventy years prior to 2010, the chances are high that in 2015, for the second successive electoral period, the UK will be not be governed by a single party with an overall majority. It is the 'minor' parties (and the Lib Dems obviously have to be counted in this description as the chances of them ever gaining enough seats to have a majority for a single-party government has to be considered somwhere along the scale of miniscule to zero) who will help form the next government, and surely the public should know precisely what each party would bring to the table when considering casting their vote.

The other big win from the evening has to be less politically based and more gender based, and relates to the performance of the three women leaders in the debate. Coming in to the debate, for those viewers who were not affiliated to any of the three parties that these women lead - the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP - it's reasonable to say that they had a relatively minor profile in Westminster politics (although to some extent that isn't fair on Nicola Sturgeon, whose role in the SNP was fairly high-profile before she became party leader, and, thanks to the Scottish referendum some seven months ago, is someone that some people with a vague amount of political knowledge might have been able to name). But whilst their mere presence in the debate alone will have seen their profiles rise, their performances in the debates, according to Twitter anyway, outranked the male leaders'. Certainly whilst their male counterparts seemed to snipe at each other and attempt petty point scoring wherever possible rather than discuss what was at stake, the female leaders were articulate and certainly attempted to be more deliberative. They were impressive in a somewhat understated manner, and in doing so, subverted that tired old gender stereotype of the hysterical woman. Of course, you can make the argument that the fact that the parties that they lead are nowhere near power, and not likely to be for many years to come, if ever, so this allows them the time and space to deviate from the political gamesmanship that consumed their male counterparts last night. Perhaps this is the case, and the nearer these women come to power, the less above the fray they will remain. But last night certainly showed that women can be political animals just as men can, and unlike Margaret Thatcher, they can do it in a different way to men.

So, in the end, was it worth it? Yes and no. The newspapers this morning declared no clear cut winner from the debate, as opposed to in 2010 when Nick Clegg's performance electrified the electorate and ultimately catapulted the Lib Dems to coalition partners in government. Any winning that was done was done in a much less obvious way and by those who will probably ultimately only gain non-tangible results from it. But even if this was just surface-level politics - politics for a reality TV age if you will - the fact that it opened up new avenues for political expression to an electorate that frequently declare their disillusionment with the political establishment surely has to count as a success. Doesn't it?

Scotland Decides

September 18th 2014 is a seminal day in the history of British politics. All day the people of Scotland have been voting on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or to go it alone as an independent nation. As I type this, the TV spools on as a number of talking heads debate the implications of each outcome, whilst in halls all over Scotland people are set for a long night of counting the ballot papers that will determine the outcome. The last couple of weeks have stressed how finely poised the outcome is: various polls have, at one point or another, put each camp marginally ahead of the other.

It's being reported now that the 'No' campaign might just have done enough to take it (though, of course, without any results in at the moment, and the fact that no exit polls have actually been commissioned, this is all speculation), which, if it proves to be the case, I personally am glad about. I can't confess to having thoroughly researched all the issues, but from what I have read, I think that the case for a successful independent Scotland is, at best, in the words of the Scottish legal system, Not Proven. From where I've been sitting, the 'Yes' campaign seems to have assumed that a lot of things will go the way they want them to in any post 'Yes' vote negotiations, but failed to provide enough solid evidence to back their case up. Moreover, in a world that is full of borders, both geographical and metaphorical, it'd be somewhat disheartening to think of one being willingly erected so close to home. Of course, at this point in time the result could still be 'Yes', in which case we are in a brave new world, and it could very well be a bumpy next eighteen months or so for those of us who reside in the British Isles.....

On the joy of a good bookshop

Sometimes novel reading seems like a dying art. I know I find myself reading fiction much less than I used to do. Partly because at times there are not enough hours in the day to get what I'm being paid to do done let alone sit down and read for pleasure, and partly because when I do have free time there are so many more things available to read nowadays. I remember when I was growing up, I would read the side of the cereal packet just to have something to read at breakfast (books were forbidden at the table) and because, newspaper and books aside, that was the only way I could read. Nowadays, thanks to my laptop and phone, words are everywhere I could possibly want them, and more. So, whilst I'm probably spending more and more of my time reading - something which is pretty much ideal for me - I'm spending much less of my time reading novels, which isn't.

This scenario isn't exactly new - people with much more cultural weight behind them than me have discussed this - and what I'm really more concerned about discussing in this blog post is the knock-on effect of this. Reading novels less means visiting bookshops less, and for someone whose idea of heaven used to be spending an hour or two wandering around a bookstore seeing what new worlds I could discover between the covers of a new book, this is a fairly significant lifestyle change. This lifestyle change began, I think, around about the time that I returned to university to do my Masters. As a graduate student in English Literature, the most obvious place to source your texts is a bookshop. Yet, when the texts that you are studying are not in the canon, you tend to have to get a bit more creative to find some of the texts that you are looking for, and that usually requires resorting to the internet and people looking to pass on 20-30 year old copies of Virago editions that they no longer want and the like. Success in sourcing difficult-to-find material, and the lure of cheaper-than-on-the-high-street editions of that material that is easily accessible (please don't judge: I was poor, and didn't about the tax-dodging) led to mission-creep, and before I knew it, the amount of time passing between me entering the doors of a bookshop was getting longer and longer.

Over the last couple of years I've sought to rectify that, and although it means the novels I buy are a bit more expensive than if I'd continued with my internet shopping ways, I now buy them from a person rather than a computer screen. This mostly consists of shopping in the local Waterstones of wherever I happen to be, although if I happen to be in the vicinity of a book fair I'm quite happy to pop in and see if they have anything of interest (sadly the answer is almost always no). Whilst Waterstones is usually perfectly adequate at worst, and decent enough at best (even if they have removed the apostrophe), it's not usually the place for discovering a book that you would otherwise never have happened on. Whilst their bookseller recommendations are useful, there's never really the sense that I could strike up a conversation with one of those booksellers and be led to discover a book that I've never heard of before but that is probably perfect for me or someone I know. The answer to this lies most obviously in the independent sector. But with even chain bookshops struggling - Waterstones only survives thanks to the decision of a Russian billionaire to rescue it from administration in 2011, and just last week, a friend posted on Facebook that Blackwell's in Charing Cross was about to close its doors - it's often quite hard to find an independent bookstore at all, let alone one that you happen to like. As might be obvious given that this post exists in the first place, just recently I was lucky enough to do that.

In Bath for a weekend away with the other half, we were fortunate enough to stumble upon Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. As Bath is a wonderfully compact city centre, with shops and restaurants all located upon the main thoroughfares, there's very little to tempt you into the little roads off down the side, and this is especially true of the side of the city that is away from the river-front. Yet on our way in to the centre from the car park, we saw this bookshop advertised and decided to pop in (one of the best things about His Nibs? He loves bookshops too - every time we go in one, even if it's just because I want to have a browse - he ends up leaving with at least a couple of books. He now has more than enough unread books to last him a couple of years worth of reading even if doesn't buy any more for the foreseeable!). The last independent bookshop I was in - just a couple of months ago - had left me a bit cold. It had a few potentially interesting-looking books in, but as neither I nor my friend were looking for anything in particular, we soon drifted out again. Mr B's was different. Whilst browsing the displays, looking at what there was on offer, I was soon asked very pleasantly if there was anything I was looking for in particular. After saying that I was just browsing, I was then left in peace to check out what they had to offer. The answer to that was, a lot. Spread over three floors (although a gammy knee prevented me from exploring upstairs and finding out what exactly was in the bibliotherapy room), the shop had all sorts of nooks and crannies in which books dwelt. Whilst some of them were organised around categories that you'll usually find in a bookstore, such as classics or young adults, others had more current cultural relevance. The selection of books throughout the store was quite wide one - as well as the standard books, there always seemed to be popping up books that you suspect wouldn't quite make it onto the shelves at a chain store. The number of each book stocked appeared pretty low, but as this is to no doubt encourage the variety held this is no bad thing. Having spotted a number of books we wanted to buy, at that point we left, reasoning that wandering around with at least one bag full of books all day was probably not the most sensible thing to do. We returned at the close of the day to pick up the books that we had our eye on, and as it was at the quietest point of the day we entered into conversation with the staff on duty. It was at this point that our visit there really took off. The staff member we were talking to was not only friendly, but knowledgable about what we might like and recommended several more as potentially suiting our tastes. 

Having thoroughly enjoyed both pottering around the bookshop and talking books with the staff, we finally left, laden with even more books than we had originally planned to buy. It also sparked in me a determination to make sure that not only do I go to Mr B's every time I come to Bath but that I make more of an effort to visit my local independent bookstore. For as well as helping to financially support someone most probably swimming against the business tide - retail independents in all walks of life are struggling to compete against the chains, whether they be national or international - I just might reap the ultimate reader's reward: that of discovering worlds I never knew existed and that I cannot now live without. And, ultimately, that is what I want from a bookshop.

Feminism is not a dirty word.

*To mark International Women's Day I thought I'd post this. I composed it over a period of time several months ago, and have been waiting for a good time to post. Today seems as good a day as any!*

Being a (female) feminist in the early twenty-first century isn't easy. No sooner do you put your head above the parapet to declare your allegiance to the cause than you make yourself a target for all the misogynistic trolls lurking anonymously in the electronic ether, fingers poised at the keyboards ready to make your life a misery by posting hate about you and threatening to rape and kill you. That this is actually happening, as opposed to something made up by misandrists with an agenda to push, has been highlighted over the last year by the online abuse suffered by feminist Caroline Criado-Perez after she successfully campaigned to ensure that the accomplishments of women continued to be represented on British currency, as well as violent threats made to British MP Stella Creasy, the academic Mary Beard and other high profile British liberal women. (To be honest with you, reading about just some of the abuse that they encountered - and, despite the intervention of the police and the invention of a 'report tweet' Twitter button, continued to encounter, to the extent that Criado-Perez felt the need to close her Twitter account - made me a bit nervous about writing this post and publishing it, let alone publicising its existence to the wider world.)

Hopefully, people like that are in a (very vocal) minority. But if it's unlikely that the people that you declare your feminism to aren't overtly hostile to you, then chances are high that they will be dismissive and/or derisive of your way of thinking. Close female relatives of mine roll their eyes at me should I try to begin to make any point about sexism or issues relating to gender, whilst I believe one of them to have once described my postgraduate research as being on 'feminism and other such rubbish' (a precis that was as factually incorrect as it was mildly insulting). Given that the feminism of the last 150 years has, amongst other things, given them a civil existence separate from their male relatives, allowed them to have meaningful employment and enabled them to bear children out of matrimony sans (most of the) social stigma, you'd think they'd be more open to the idea wouldn't you? But then again, if women such as Mary Berry, who would have experienced the limited opportunities of life as a young woman in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and the changes that second wave feminism would have wrought in it at first hand, can still claim that feminism is "a dirty word", why should my younger relatives who have never experienced the worst of it first hand be any different?

Just as frustrating as my relatives are the friends who tell me that they "are not feminists" because they "believe in equality" between men and women. These friends would not, as far as my acquaintance with them leads me to believe, describe themselves as being particularly politically right-wing. But in so implying that feminism and equality are mutually exclusive, they are articulating one of the right's favourite tenets about feminism: that the movement is all about valuing women over men.

That right-wing beliefs about feminism appear to have been unquestionably adopted by those who would eschew other right-wing dogmas shows how important it is for feminists to speak up on this point, to continually remind people that despite the progress of the last 150 years (for white, Western women anyway), women still don't have a civil existence that is the equal of men's. As feminists, the responsibility lies with us to continue to tell truth to power, to speak up whenever we find women being disadvantaged, belittled or limited in any respect. It's never been easy to do that, and in today's world, where, with a few strokes of the keyboard, vitriol can be swiftly poured into the eyes and minds of those that dare to voice their opinion, it becomes, in some sense, an even braver step to do so. But do so we must. Because we owe it to the women who have gone before us and fought for the freedoms that we do have now, and we owe it to the women who will come after us and will reap the benefits of the freedoms that we gain for them in the future.