Alan Belmore leads the Ginger Revolution on Vice TV
The Uni-Q Young Leaders Debate, released today, shows the Liberal Youth Chair Alan Belmore battling with his Labour and Conservative counterparts on issues from the economy to immigration. But a new video by Vice TV shows where he's really in his element.
At just 19 years of age, Alan is the youngest parliamentary candidate in England and could become the youngest ever Member of Parliament if he wins the contest in Hemsworth tomorrow. A creditable performance on Uni-Q, which saw him lose the audience vote by the narrowest of margins to the NUS President Wes Streeting, has done his reputation as a formidable young politician no harm at all.
But we didn't know the real Alan Belmore until we saw this fantastic mini-documentary by Vice TV. And we're glad to have got a little bit closer to the man who would be our youngest MP. In the film, Alan reveals he's a closet fan of S Club 7, that his signature look is "suit with jeans", and that he secretly quite likes Twilight: New Moon. He's very frank about anti-ginger discrimination too, where he says "there's still a debate to be had".
The film is part of a series of films about the election Vice TV has produced. There is also a film following Labour council candidate, 23 year old Mo Iqbal, and a film featuring young Conservative supporters and their drinking habits. We suggest you check them out.
Vice TV can be found at VBS.tv and you can follow Vice on Twitter @ViceUK. And check out Alan's campaign site too, he's also on Twitter @asbelmore.
Winning twelve seats in the European Parliament at the 2009 elections, coming second only to the Conservatives in England, was a breakthrough for the party. Naturally, after that boost, UKIP wants to be taken seriously as an electoral force, and a viable alternative to the status quo on all political issues, not just through the anti-European Union stance for which the party is best known.
This aspiration is reasonable enough. Many parties have started out as pressure groups, standing in elections to make a point, to bring a particular issue into the political spotlight. The Green movement in Europe, the Northern League in Italy and the Bloc Québécois in Canada have all successfully morphed from single issue campaign groups into parties with a comprehensive manifesto and a desire not just to influence government, but to be part of it. UKIP has clearly decided these are the examples it must follow.
The problem is that once UKIP has made that choice and resolved to become a party campaigning on all issues, it has to see it through, and start taking itself seriously on that basis. The paperwork is there; the party’s manifesto contains pledges on seventeen different policy areas, from the NHS to pensions to transport. And whatever you think of the policies themselves (you can read a summary of the manifesto here - http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies/1567-ukip-manifesto), most of the bases are covered.
But politicians and activists within UKIP just aren’t communicating this new identity effectively. In this election season, the party is coming across as a ranting, raving, aggressively anti-European group, still obsessed with a single issue. We’ve already seen Nigel Farage’s bizarre tirade against the European Council President, Herman van Rompuy, in February. However outraged he is that an unelected politician is so influential in Europe, Farage’s outburst seemed unprofessional, hysterical, and against the politeness which UKIP identifies as “part of Britishness” in its own publications (http://www.ukip.org/media/pdf/Britishness.pdf).
Now Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who replaced Farage as leader of UKIP in December, has given on the BBC’s Campaign Show. Lord Pearson was completely unwilling to discuss much of his own party’s manifesto, such as their policy on crime, because he wanted to focus only on Europe, which is UKIP’s safer ground. When he was pressed on the manifesto, Lord Pearson implied that he hadn’t developed most of the policies himself, and though he did claim to have read the manifesto in full, his unwillingness to defend it made for a less than convincing party leader.
UKIP must stop playing games with the electorate. It is the party’s right to choose whether to be a protest group or an alternative government. But if they pretend to be something they’re not, UKIP politicians can expect voters to leave them out in the cold.
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