Thursday, March 28Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Tag: general election

Voting: Restrictions Apply
Opinion

Voting: Restrictions Apply

The introduction of a scheme to force all voters to show a form of ID at polling elections during the May local elections is unneccesary and exclusionary. This scheme was introduced earlier this year and is being trailled in Watford, Bromley, Gosport and Woking before planning to make the scheme country-wide. While forcing voters to have ID seems like a good idea in principle, it doesn’t work when applied to real people who will be significantly adversely affected by it. Voting ID restrictions are meant to maintain the integrity of the ballot box, as many politicians all over the world have said, and at first glance it does do exactly that. After all, who doesn’t have a form of ID? In this ever-changing modern world, it is expected that every person has a passport, a driving license or at...
Cuts to GE Youth Campaign
News

Cuts to GE Youth Campaign

Outgoing Deputy Editor Louise Jones discusses funding cuts to the youth campaigns usually provided to engage young people to vote. Funding previously provided by the Cabinet Office for youth vote campaigns has been slashed and will not be available in this election due to the immediacy of its nature. Youth vote campaigners are warning of a ‘democratic deficit’ in the general election, as it emerged that the Cabinet Office will not provide funding to the groups focused on increasing turnout among young and marginalised people. This includes groups such as LGBTQ+ and BAME. The electoral commission has launched a campaign to increase voter registration before the deadline on 22 May, according to a Guardian article: "funding provided by the Cabinet Office in past general elections wil...
News

Anti-Tory Article by RHUL Lecturer Causes Controversy

Rebecca Roache, lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, caused controversy the day after the General Election. In her post, “If you’re a Conservative, I’m not your friend”, on the University of Oxford’s Practical Ethics blog, she writes that she unfriended those on Facebook who had liked the pages of the Conservatives or of David Cameron.   She writes that “life is too short, I thought, to hang out with people who hold abhorrent political views, even if it’s just online” comparing Conservatives views with racism, sexism, and homophobia.   In spite of this, contextually, the General Election was an emotionally charged evening. Roache recognises this, and states that although she values political debate, at the moment she is “tired of reasoned debate about politics—at...
It’s time we started treating women in politics as women in politics
Opinion

It’s time we started treating women in politics as women in politics

The number of women intending to vote is at a low point. At the last election, only 64 percent of women voted, and though the turnout is low in both genders, with only 67 percent of men voting, the drop is more significant in female voters. I wish this could have come as a surprise to me, but having watched the ITV leadership debate and followed it on Twitter, having seen the attempts of parties to engage women which became some sort of surreal farce where gender stereotypes reached their limit, and having read the main points of each party, it's pretty easy to see why. We have an election year where for the first time ever there is a roughly equal gender divide in leadership, with the old boys club leading the three main parties and UKIP, and women in control of Green, Plaid Cymru and ...
News

Young Voters the Key to Downing Street

In the 2015 UK general election, young people engagement and participation could make a striking difference on electoral turnout. More precisely, as research by Britain’s cross-party think tank Demos shows, “Up to three million young voters are up for grabs in the next elections. The political party that can tap into this pool may just win the keys to Downing Street.” In fact, even though young people are commonly believed to be disinterested, indifferent and apathetic towards politics, the survey shows that a significant majority (77%) of them intend to vote on 7 May 2015. However, according to the research, about 44% of 18 to 25 year-olds are still unsure about which party to vote for. It is therefore political parties’ responsibility and aim to gain young voters’ attention through ongo...
Opinion

Make Sure You’re Registered

In February of this year, only a third of students were registered to vote. Prospects were bleak for the 2015 General Election, especially as the student population in some areas is big enough to swing the vote and get people into power who will not break promises and who will acknowledge the demands of students. However, since February there's been a massive increase in students registered to vote. New data from the NUS shows that now almost three quarters of students are registered, with 72% of those surveyed likely or highly likely to vote in the next election. Though some students may be doubtful of whether or not their vote will make a difference, the NUS believes that many seats could change parties as a result of students going out to vote. This is direct proof that we should not...
News

NUS create ‘New Deal’ ahead of 2015 General Election

The National Union of Students (NUS) have released their manifesto, ‘New Deal for the Next Generation’, ahead of the General Election next year. The content of the manifesto is split largely into three themes focusing upon education, work and community. Following the 2010 General Election which saw a transformation in the way UK tuition fees work, the 600 student unions which comprise the NUS are bent on ensuring their demands are met. The manifesto clearly underlines its aims to create equal opportunities for education. Welcomed by many is the first point under the education section which states ‘We want government to phase out tuition fees and restore public funding to universities’. Other featured policies in the manifesto include a commitment to producing fair funding for postgradua...