NUCA at YBF6 – Activist Training Conference

“You’re from Nottingham as well?” was a question posed regularly last weekend as young conservatives, surprised at the large number of NUCA delegates, descended on the 6th annual Young Britons’ Foundation Activist Training Conference, held from the 23rd – 25th October in the beautiful surroundings of Wellington College, Berkshire.

During the three-day conference we heard from 6 MPs, 1 MEP and many other leading figures from within pressure groups, lobbying, the blogosphere and the media. Practical talks were also given on how to campaign effectively, handling negative information, legal advice and dealing with the media.
Last year’s YBF5 saw practical training in the form of a TV Techniques Training Workshop; this year we had a Political War Game, a chance for us to put the campaign skills we learnt into practice in creating posters, leaflets and inventing pressure groups in order to win the battle over the fate of a fictional piece of land.


Of the speakers a particular personal favourite was Dan Hannan MEP, who gave a passionate and thought provoking speech about the European Union and our country’s relationship with it. Being ever the gentleman, he also very kindly posed for photos with us afterwards, but in truth he must have been bloody sick of us all asking!


The evening’s dinners on the Friday and Saturday night were also speaker packed affairs. On Friday night we had the Eric Forth Memorial dinner, where the winner of the Activist of the Year award was announced and speeches were given by Conor Burns (Conservative Way Forward), the Rt Hon Lord Forsyth (former Scottish Secretary), and Jonathan Isaby (ConservativeHome.com), and on the Saturday we had the Margaret Thatcher Banquet with speeches from Harry Cole (Tory Bear), Iain Dale (blogger) and Matthew Richardson (YBF Executive Director). The dinners were a great chance for us to share thoughts and views (and campaign strategies of course!) with our fellow conservative students, as well as being able to meet a wide range of people, and mingle with some of the guest speakers.


It was particularly interesting to meet our fellow conservatives, particularly as this year YBF had invited members of the Young Americans Foundation. It was motivating to meet not only people with different views to us, but also from a different country, background and upbringing. Despite usually having fundamentally the same opinions as each other, we did manage to start a few debates on issues where there was clear disagreement!
So, not only was YBF6 an amazing experience in allowing us to listen to and meet a vast array of speakers, but also in meeting likeminded people. It was both fantastically edifying and a great social experience and I think that everyone who attended would testify that it was a weekend very well spent!


Thanks must be given to YBF and especially to Donal Blaney and Steven Dent, who organised the event, and special thanks must also be given to Mark Clarke who organised and judged the Political War Game. YBF6 was such a valuable experience, and I’m sure that all involved would also agree that the freebies in particular made the trip all the more worthwhile! I for one carry my TaxPayers’ Alliance “I Love Low Taxes” bag with the utmost pride, and my walls are now adorned with YBF posters and propaganda!
Hopefully YBF7 will prove to be (as appears impossible), even better than YBF6, and once again everyone will be subjected to hearing “Are you from Nottingham as well?” as we invade YBF7 with an even bigger attendance!

Lizzie Hepworth - NUCA 1st year Rep

The Army

For generations untold, the defender of our realm and our way of life. The Royal Navy declined in power and influence, yet remained our Senior service while the British Armed Forces grew from strength to strength. The split in the Civil War, where Cromwell - the traitor - committed regicide and slew a Sovereign, to the destruction of the tyrant Bonaparte's land forces during the Napoleonic wars under the Iron Duke to the massive casualties taken in the Crimean War. The Army has given our people cause to sleep safely at night during those darker days. Then the prospect of peace, which had so hopefully been built upon, was so dashed by the Germans with Bismark and Wilhelm II requiring the British again to thrash those nun-raping Huns up and down the continent during the Great War and finally during the Second World War. Such massive sacrifices which have not been seen since by our generation, serve only to illustrate the point that our Armed Forces are, in modern times, the true defenders of our country and stalwart guardians of our way of life. Indeed our modus vivendi could never have survived without the sacrifices and commitment that our servicemen have so often proffered to us without asking, a situation that so many of us would like to be seen in many different walks of life - asking not what can be done for us but instead what we might do for our country.

Indeed the Army is not one whole unit, indeed it is an organisation composed of various different elements. Some Cavalry (generally based on the principles of fighting in armoured vehicles), most Infantry (the chaps with the muscle and firepower to take and hold ground from the enemy) they are supported by every other element of the modern Army to help them with their goal of winning the fire fight. This could include Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Army Air Corps or the services of the Signals Corps and Intelligence Corps. However, there is a more important distinction between the Army, that of Regular Army and the TA (Territorial Army). Nowadays, as opposed to bygone times, both forces fight side-by-side to defeat their mutual enemy, which is a matter for pride in all fields of the Armed Forces.

However, the British people are faced with a change. A political change, which threatens the century of improvement which the TA has gone through since Haldane introduced the idea of a TA into legislation in 1907 and instigated them as a part of the Army in 1908. This political change has been brought about due to a chronic mismanagement of our country's finances. A government which has so poorly handled our money that they have had to hack away at those people who go out with the service of their country in mind in the morning. We must take a step back and smell the coffee.

We have sat idly by whilst the Labour government borrow through boom and then borrow in bust, we have sat idly by whilst they sell our Gold Bullion reserves for a quarter of what they would have been worth now and we have sat idly by whilst we have a Prime Minister who has no mandate for rule as he has not taken himself to our electorate as a leader of his party. Will we sit idly by whilst he continues to bankrupt us as a country to the extent that every newborn child has over £20,000 of debt on their consciences? Will we sit idly by whilst we borrow from other countries at a rate of £330,000 a minute? And might this step of his to shut down the TA for half a year not raise a flicker of anger? In short will we let this shit fly any longer?

In short I am referring to Labour's latest gimmick to save money they have squandered. They have very little to offer us apart from cuts; indeed they say we must continue to support private and public services in the recession by offering support for unemployed people. It would be ludicrous to disagree with the notion of helping the jobless get jobs, but let us ask how we have come to such a stage of financial crisis; it is because Gordon Brown is such a bad man to run our country, his own staff frequently leave citing personal clashes as reasons, instead they are decent people but this tyrannical man is so awful that if he instead had left ten years ago we would probably not be in such a sorry state of affairs. When will people wake up and smell the coffee? When will people say enough is enough and insist this man leave office? What more will it take for us to remove this tyrannical cretin from anywhere apart from a padded cell?

As ironic as this may sound, I must go to the worst sort of criminal and borrow his words, as regicide is the worst possible crime to imagine then this ought to ring true "In the name God, go!"

Christopher Loftus
NUCA General Secretary

PR vs FPTP

PR is a bad form of election, look at why we have enjoyed FPTP for so long. I am not so naive to say that FPTP is the best form of election, but it is the best form available to us currently; Scotland has a Minority Government in the form of the SNP which is hardly desirable as they wish to decapitate our Union. The European Elections approved two BNP members, who would have been black-balled under FPTP so, under all that I can see I would say it does a pretty poor job - you might even say it allows racism! The only benefit of PR is that more people have more of a say in government, this leads to more discussion and less action - which makes for a weaker and less decisive executive - imagine if Chamberlain had to seek a vote to defend the realm against the Nazis, or if Thatcher had to ask permission to defend our territory from the Argies?

There is a balance between representation and decision, some would argue that weirdos such as the greens and the Left don't get enough support but that is because we live in Britain. A country where there is always a clear mandate, unless you're an unelected PM like our beloved leader Gordon Brown, is a strong country one which is capable of clear decisive action in whatever field. PR works for university societies and other quasi-representative bodies but not nationwide executives.

It is a fact that PR would lead to minority government and hung-parliaments to the point that no decisions would be made to the detriment of the host country, I feel sure that any level-headed person would see the dilemma between getting more people involved and being able to make a clear decision quickly without the need for endless deal-making and weaseling.

I am in favour of the FPTP system, entirely.

Christopher Loftus - NUCA General Secretary

Go Gordon! Just go...

I have just been listening to the speech by our Prime Minister at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. I must say that I am shocked and angry at that man. He continues to drivel on about "Tory cuts" and "tax cuts for the few not the many", I cannot stand it any longer. The Conservative Party stands for individual choice above all else, less state control and greater happiness at a basic level of the family. A sensible balance between rights and responsibility, I see no sense with Gordon Brown.

Firstly, he is an unelected Prime minister. He has not taken himself and his party to the electorate and sought office - this tyrannical abuse of our most intrinsic principle is shocking. The President of Iran has just rigged an election - at least there has been an election there! Secondly, he asks why the Conservative Party are promising cuts across the board in the public sectors of NHS, Policing and the Civil Service - I shall tell you why, because that baboon has presided over our economy, as Chancellor, since 1997. In that dozen year span Britain has borrowed more money than every previous administration put together - inflation adjusted. To put that in perspective, we, as a country, are borrowing £330,000 a minute. We are saddled with such a gargantuan debt, that because of this total arse, each new born child is saddled with a personal responsiblity of £20,000. If he were the CEO of a corporation he would have been fired 11.9 years ago!

Suffice it to say, that yes, the Conservatives are having to promise cuts - but if he wants to know why there is no money in the coffers to fund the sort of change that everyone wants, then he should look at his record. What could we have done differently? We would not have borrowed during a boom, we would have put money away for a rainy day, but because of him we have borrowed more money than Churchill did whilst fighting off the Nazis, than Thatcher whilst retaking the Falklands, than the Duke of Wellington used whilst fending off Bonaparte. I cannot stand it when I see that man stand in front of a television camera and drop his jaw every two seconds explaining that he is the right man - he is guilty of bankrupting our country and leaving us so badly off that we are the worst prepared country in the G20 for weathering this financial storm. We do want change, Gordon, and most certainly not from you - you have done enough damage already - In the name of God man, GO!

Christopher Loftus - NUCA General Secretary

Philip Hammond MP at the Nottingham Bluecoat School

NUCA were privileged to arrange and enjoy the visit of Philip Hammond MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, for an open question and answer session at Nottingham Bluecoat School on Thursday 17th September, a few days before university term starts. Mr Hammond spoke to an audience of around a hundred GCSE and Sixth-form pupils at the school, as well as several NUCA members who were in attendance, on topics ranging from the economy to university education to the invasion of Iraq. He spoke convincingly and with clarity on these issues, but what stood out the most was a commendable honesty about the state of the nation’s finances: Over the past twelve years, the national debt has increased to almost 100% of GDP, and, according to Hammond, this is closer to 200% when the balance sheets of the recently nationalised banks are included in the calculations. Under Gordon Brown, the nation is borrowing £300,000 per minute, and even the Labour Party have begun to use the C-word to talk about future public spending: Cuts.

Hammond was frank about the need for the next government to restrain public spending and seek savings wherever possible. He pointed out that about half of public spending was not on things like education, defence or health, but consisted of “transfer” activities: namely, giving money to people in tax credits, pensions and benefit payments. Many of these transfer activities introduced under New Labour have had precious little effect on the problems they are designed to address; for example, benefit payments intended to reduce child poverty do not appear to be working and child poverty has actually increased. It seems likely that we can expect much of the needed savings to come from better management of public money in this area under a Conservative government.

It wasn’t all grim economic news, however. Hammond rightly presented the Conservative party as the party of genuine opportunity, decentralisation and limited government. Appropriately enough, his constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge contains the site of the signing of the Magna Carta, the start of a great British tradition of opposing tyranny and excessive government interference; a tradition which has fallen somewhat out of vogue in the corridors of power under New Labour, but which we can hope to see revived under a Conservative administration. If the first Cameron term in office is going to be dominated by an agenda of fiscal responsibility and education reform, then the second will be about decentralisation. Hammond sees this as a tremendous possibility for the long-term as it could break the cycle of the last thirty years of British politics. Currently parties in opposition build up support locally, win power at the national level, lose local government support gradually, and then lose general elections. Local elections are used to register protests against the party in power in Westminster since local authorities have no power to speak of anyway, and decentralising local and regional issues to local and regional authorities will reinvigorate politics at these levels and radically change electoral dynamics at a national level.

(L-R:Philip Whitehead, Christopher Loftus, Hamish Stewart, Philip Hammond MP, Derek Hobbs (Assistant Headteacher), and Nick Allsopp)

Our thanks go to both Philip Hammond MP for speaking at the school and to Derek Hobbs (Bluecoat Assistant Headteacher) for being willing to organise and host the event.

Following the Q&A session, NUCA President Nick Allsopp interviewed Philip Hammond (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITZRa__daE) and also saved the taxpayer a £10 taxi fare by giving him a lift to his next engagement in the city centre. As Tesco would have it, every little helps.

Philip Whitehead - NUCA Member

Welcome to the NUCA Blog

Welcome to the Official Blog of the Nottingham University Conservative Association. In addition to our established website (http://www.nottinghamcf.co.uk/) and our newly launched YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/nottinghamcf) we are launching this blog as a means of expanding our association's reach both on and off campus, to promote what we do and to allow our members the opportunity to publish articles, to review our events and make any other written contributions relevant to NUCA.

If you are a member of NUCA or would like to get involved with the society this year, this blog is just one of the great opportunites what we can offer to our members. With the next academic year being the general election year this is an especially exciting time for NUCA and I really look forward to NUCA fully playing its part in delivering the next Conservative government.

Nick Allsopp - NUCA President