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From 10pm tonight TheYoungConservative will be taking part in a 3 hour live blogging session of the European Election results as they come in. It’ll be open to the audience to add their say, too.
Here’s the page on ConservativeFuture.com where the blogging will be hosted, live.
It should be an interesting night. In the sound corner I’m joined by Tory Bear, whilst representing ‘the rest’ members of the other political parties youth movements have been invited.
The storm surrounding Kingston University Student Union’s Territorial Army ban, which bars the TA from campus, is growing. Yesterday’s edition of the Kingston Guardian featured quotes from local councillor Robert-John Tasker, and TheYoungConservative. In their editorial Councillor Tasker, branding the ban an “utter insult”, said,
“This clearly is a contemptible decision by the Students’ Union and one which needs to be reversed as quickly as possible. The main problem is the ignorance surrounding the TA and the wider army. Many of our servicemen are sent to different corners of the globe to protect innocent people, and the role the British Army has played throughout history should be a cause for celebration.“
This comes only a few days after the Lib Dem leader of Kingston Derek Osbourne council was challenged by Tasker to condemn the ban – and failed to do so. It may be of note that Councillor Osbourne previously dismissed the idea of a homecoming parade to honour troops returning from Iraq.
Meanwhile TheYoungConservative, quoted from the ‘Lift the Ban at Kingston University‘ Facebook group where we sought to highlight how the ban is an attack on students’ freedom, said:
“It really isn’t even about your feelings towards the military or current conflicts, but a question of whether students, who pay for their campus opportunities and whom are adults have the right to decide which organisations they listen to and become involved with”.
This military ban has always been illiberal, and the mounting pressure to overturn it will soon result in another toppling of discriminatory, authoritarian Union politics, as happened at UCL, in favour of student choice and freedom.
If your campus is threatened by a ban, or if you’re fighting to overturn one, let us know so that we can publicise your cause.
Make sure, also, that you’re in touch with the Young Britons’ Foundation who can furnish you with FREE advice, resources and support in your fight. YBF has produced a FREE pack to get your campaign started – just ask for one.
TheYoungConservative features in several articles as part of the Easter edition of YBF’s newsletter. In particular, we wrote the review of their Parliamentary Freedom Rally. Also in the current edition are:
- YBF in The Times
- News of the US Summer Conference Programme
- New appointments at YBF
- Activist interviews
- and much more
This is the second YBF newsletter to be made available online. It’s a great way to keep up to date with all the YBF news, and surely the must-read publication for anyone on the young centre-right.
As promised, today TYC did it’s bit for the Libertarian Party UK’s ‘Shirt off your back‘ campaign, and posted Gordon a suitable garment plus covering letter, the text of which is reproduced below. We also sent it recorded delivery so that we can confirm Broon has received our pressie…
“Dear Prime Minister,
Thank you for mortgaging my future.
On behalf of this nation’s youth, thank you for squandering a golden economy through 12 years of wilful fiscal ineptitude.
You tried to spin the Budget as sharing the pain with the highest earners. In fact, we all know that you merely expanded the pain to virtually every worker in this country.
I’m 24 years of age. Based on the numbers, by the time we repair the violence you have done the British economy (2032) I shall be 47 – effectively double my current age. I will spend the better part of half my working life paying for your recklessness.
This is truly generational debt you have lumbered Britain with – and for what? What will your legacy – and New Labour’s epitaph – be? I think I could write it…
One recalls Rousseau: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” Chains you wrought, Prime Minster – every Briton is now born owing in excess of £20,000. Thank you, Prime Minister, for making debt into a birthright.
In the years to come stringent savings will have to be made – not just by governments, but by every Briton.
And so I enclose the shirt off my back. For once this is a Briton giving you something, instead of having it taken. Does it feel novel?
Labour, New and old, will be remembered by my generation with enduring bitterness.”
Have you sent your shirt to Gordon yet? Send us a picture when you do: edward@theyoungconservative.co.uk
(Feel free to use any or all of our letter)
You can now keep track of TheYoungConservative via Facebook and Twitter.
Become a fan of TYC on Facebook, and start Following us on Twitter today.
I’m pleased and proud to announce that I’ll now be writing for the blog of Students for Liberty, the American student pro-freedom organisation whose conference we extensively documented last month on TYC.
In what we hope to run as a weekly column I’ll be offering their international audience a British perspective on the fight for freedom. Kicking things off is the inaugural post, in which I call for a global First Amendment, highlighting the past month’s pan-Atlantic assaults on free speech:
“There must be one rule for all, and that rule should be unqualified, unfettered free speech“
Congratulations to Michael Rock, one year on from his successful campaign which saw him elected Conservative Future National Chairman, along with the incumbent National Management Executive.
The year has seen much progress within Conservative Future, from the hotly debated reforms, to the creation of Regional Chairmen, and the regionalisation of campaigning, instead of the old, impractical practice of bussing activists at the crack of dawn up and down the country to flood one ’special’ seat.
Conservative Future has also fought several successful by-elections such as Crewe and Nantwich, Henley and Haltemprice and Howden.
But here at TYC we still maintain that the most important long-term initiative from the current executive has been the Student Life Tours, organised by Student Life chairman Patrick Sullivan.
These tours saw centre-right, pro-freedom organisations such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Freedom Association, NO2ID, plus MEPs, bloggers and more visiting campuses up and down the country. We believe that conservatism is a broad church, and its strength lies in its constituent organisations who unite around a single doctrine: freedom. Exposing students to fresh thinking on liberty can only serve to further our ultimate cause.
Patrick, we hope there’s a second round of tours in the works!
TYC took part in several of the stops on the 2008 tour and you can read our coverage here.
Last summer, Tarasyn and I were amongst some two-dozen young conservatives who travelled to the US for the Young Britons’ Foundation’s Summer Conference Programme. It’s a unique opportunity which will put the British movement into context.
The American movement is colossal, organised and immensely powerful. We can’t recommend training within it yourself highly enough. Every activist should. As a consequence of our trip, Students for Freedom was launched by Oliver Cooper, and we launched The Young Conservative. Here’s what you could be taking part in:
The Foundation for Economic Education Freedom University – based just outside New York, this is the foremost academic conference for libertarians who want to learn why the free market system remains the best guarantor of liberty.
The Leadership Institute International Leadership Seminar - the LI trains conservatives who want to win. Based just across the Potomac from Washington DC, this week-long seminar encompasses an intense media training workshop as well as developing activists’ campaigning skills. Time is also set aside for sightseeing.
The Young America’s Foundation National Conservative Student Conference – based at George Washington University, YAF’s annual CSC is a highlight for conservatives from across America. It is your chance to hear from the leading conservative thinkers, writers and political leaders in an informal setting – as well as bonding with our trans-Atlantic cousins.
YBF also leads a delegation to Santa Barbara, California, where activists get the chance to see the Young America’s Foundation Reagan Ranch Center (known as “the schoolhouse for Reaganism”), President Reagan’s Ranch (which was rescued for the nation by YAF) and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
To register your interest in being on the 2009 tour, and for more details, visit YBF now.
When The Kinks sang that “Revolution used to be cool/But now it’s out of fashion” they were probably reflecting on the Thatcher/Regean destruction of socialism in the 80s. But when they sang “Have you heard the word?/The revolution’s over/Now the anger’s disappeared” they could never have realised that it would be the Labour Party in it’s Blairite raiment, (for a decade, anyway), which would end so much of the Red dream.
We agree with their sentiment, “Set your sights a little higher/You’re going to join the young conservatives” but we feel they definitely got one thing wrong: “the schools and universities” are most certainly still bastions of socialism, and are yet to start “turning out a brand new breed of young conservatives.” We live in hope, though…
(Hat tip: ToryTeenager)
TYC has a feature in the latest edition of the Freedom Association magazine, Freedom Today. In it we discuss the advancement of young conservatism, the genesis of this blog, our aims and hopes for it, and why we think that the Conservative Future Student Life Tours are by far the most useful think to have come out of the current CF National Executive’s administration to date.
You can read the whole issue online over at the TFA’s site. Membership of the TFA starts at just £10 for students, and includes a subscription to Freedom Today, so why not make the TFA the conservative movement group you join this year and get involved with the broad church?
