AS intro to Politics: political parties activity

Can you do better than Rory?

With party conference season in full swing I thought of a good teaching and learning exercise on political parties after watching Rory Weal’s speech in Liverpool yesterday. It is essentially a combination of student tasks that I would do on party ideologies at AS anyway, with what candidates in mock elections would be doing in school. But this year we have a standard to beat. Personally I thought Rory delivered a great speech and clearly does not merit most of the flak that he has received from the kind of obviously unhinged people who post comments on YouTube.

If you have yet to see the speech, here is the BBC clip.

There are a number of modifications that students and teachers could make on this, but it is fairly straightforward.

Students have to prepare a three minute speech for one person to deliver, either outlining the policies of a particular party or attacking the policies of another party. So a tweak could be that this week Labour’s policies could be covered, and next week the Tories.

As part of the preparation each member of the “team” of speechwriters could be allocated a specific policy area: the economy, public services, crime (laura norder!), foreign affairs (the EU could be here, or form a separate part), the environment, and perhaps the constitution/political reform. They would gather details from the press (cuttings of papers discarded from the school library?), or the internet, and outline their findings (ie draft speech content) in 100 words. This can be juggled around into pair activities if there are a large number of students etc.

And if students have time, and are creatively minded, maybe they could turn their material into a party political broadcast?!

This could even form the basis of a project to be revisited later in the year.

As guidance on content I have included below a study note on Labour v Tory differences, pre-conference 2011.

The following points generally highlighting differences in policy management and delivery suggest there is little overlap between the two parties.

• The Conservative in opposition were frequent critics of how the Labour government had allowed private and public sector to grow, and saw it as a major contributory factor behind the 2008 banking crisis. The parties also clashed on how best to respond to the mortgage meltdown. When then Chancellor Alistair Darling announced plans to take the bank into public ownership, his opposite number, George Osborne, said it was the “worst option”. Since the election there have also been disagreements about how tackle the deficit, with Labour arguing that cuts should be delayed and take place over a longer time period, since the severity of the cuts would harm the recovery and low-income earners, ie there should be a Plan B since Plan isn’t working.

• Divides between the government and Labour have become evident since the election on public services. In health care, Andrew Lansley’s plans to devolve power to GPs have been described as a “dangerous experiment”, since it involves one of the biggest reorganisations of the NHS in its history at a time when the public spending is being tightened. In education, Labour have been highly critical of the idea of “free schools”. While they fit with the Labour mantra of choice in public services, shadow ministers have accused the government of prioritising a project that will affect a tiny number of pupils at the expense of improving schools for the majority. Labour also opposed the ending of the EMA payments to 16-18 years olds, proposals to allow universities to raise tuition fees to £9,000 (a decision which, according to John Denham, has been driven by an ideological imperative to shift the cost to students and away from the taxpayer, rather than a need to cut the deficit), and cuts to school sports funding. Gove’s education white paper has also met with opposition, with Andy Burnham arguing that it will result in a two tier education system, cementing a divide between educational and vocational qualifications.

• Labour have been less than enthusiastic to the Con-Lib government’s plans for welfare reforms. The changes to child benefit have been described by Ed Miliband as “unworkable”. The 10% cut in housing benefit is, according to Douglas Alexander, “unfair”. And while Labour agree with the principle of IDS’s welfare reforms, they have attacked the Conservative government’s plans to tackle unemployment on the grounds that they will have a negative impact on the poor when changes to tax credits and the elimination of the child trust fund are taken into account.

• Differences have also emerged on how best to tackle crime and manage the criminal justice system. Teresa May’s announcement to scrap ASBOs was criticised, as have been plans to cut the number of front line policemen - especially since the recent English riots.

• The Labour government’s Big Brother state has also been scaled back. ID cards have been kicked into the long grass, as have a number of databases, such as Contactpoint. DNA storage and CCTV camera use will be more tightly regulated, and the Conservatives have committed themselves to a review of a host of other measures that were a feature of the 1997-2010 Labour governments including: local authority surveillance powers, control orders, pre-charge detention, and the Human Rights Act.

• The clearest blue water emerges when we consider the relative positions of the two main parties on the European Union. The Conservative Party is almost homogeneously Eurosceptic. They have consistently taken a much colder stance with regards to entry to the single currency than Labour, and ruled it out entirely in their 2010 manifesto. They have also proposed negotiating opt-outs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Working Time Directive, and under the European Union bill, plan to hold a referendum before any further “significant” powers are transferred to Brussels.