THE ALLEYNIAN 708 | OUT OF THE ORDINARY
THE ALLEYNIAN 708 | OUT OF THE ORDINARY
M icrophone in hand, red rosette pinned to my lapel, I stepped up to the bench. Spike, my ‘Spad’, was standing next to me, and together we shouted, at the top of our voices, ‘VOTE LABOUR!’ Welcome to the Dulwich College mock election. A week before the country went to the polls in the first December election since 1923, we at Dulwich held our own version, complete with hustings, debates and attack ads. When first asked by my Politics teacher to consider being a candidate, I don’t mind admitting that I was more than a little apprehensive. After all, a South London private school didn’t exactly strike me as a potential hotbed of socialist fervour. However, propelled by a mixture of light peer pressure and sense of ideological duty, I decided to get involved; after all, how bad could it be? I would find out in the following days, as the official campaigning period began. Each of the five ‘major’ parties – Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Brexit party – was represented by a candidate, who, together with a special advisor (Spad), was tasked with presenting the promises of their respective parties to the school as a whole. The Conservatives, much to my disappointment, had a head start. Arriving at school for the first day of the campaign, I was greeted by a series of posters plastered everywhere from the Laboratory to the North Cloisters, each pointedly attacking Labour. We were accused of – amongst other things – wanting to bulldoze the school, harbouring communist sympathies, and being friends with the IRA. Certainly not a normal start to the school day! Having witnessed the lengths our rivals were willing to go in order to emerge victorious, the Labour campaign quickly switched into gear. Study periods became electioneering periods, and we soon had our own batch of sensationalist – but nonetheless accurate – posters to match those of the Tories. My personal favourite juxtaposed Zeb Micic, the Conservative candidate, with Margaret Thatcher; unfortunately, being an avid Thatcherite himself, Zeb greeted the comparison more enthusiastically than we had hoped. The Lib Dems took a different approach, leaning less towards attack ads and more towards emphasising their own platform – with the commitment to legalising marijuana central to their campaign. Cynical? Perhaps. Effective? Most definitely. The Greens, too, took a unique approach in their electioneering strategy. The two central planks in their policy platform were, firstly, a pledge to knock down JAGS and use the site to farm
solar energy and, secondly, a promise to plant one quadrillion trees over the course of their five-year term. For some, that might seem a little implausible – because it is. But remember, this is politics, so the combination of shameless pandering and outlandish promises worked perfectly. In comparison, the Brexit party adopted a more traditional approach – traditional in the sense that they embraced the politics of the 18th century. Their candidate was Alex Cahill, a tweed-wearing, Union Jack-waving nationalist who truly embraced the spirit of Nigel Farage (OA) with his anti-EU rhetoric. While they lagged behind in the ongoing ‘war for the airwaves’ that constituted the putting up of posters, Alex’s ability to whip the residents of the Lower School playground into a fervour of pro-Brexit chanting during break-time hustings meant his party was able to build a strong base of enthusiastic supporters. The culmination of all this campaigning was the ‘Great Debate’, held at lunchtime in the Great Hall, with a packed audience of over 500 Dulwich students. Over the course of 45 minutes, we fought it out amongst ourselves, clashing over everything from detailed policy (How are you going to pay for one quadrillion trees?) to the use of jingoism (Just how patriotic can the Brexit party be?). Ending on an upbeat note, we were each asked to recommend a gift for our opponents, and while I won’t be dipping into a Thatcher biography anytime soon, I hope that my gift of a microwave to Zeb – for his ‘oven-ready’ deal – has been put to good use. After much anticipation, the morning of voting finally arrived, and while I took a degree of pride in placing an X next to my name on the ballot paper, it appears that not many others agreed with me. Labour finished last overall, with four seats, one behind the Tories and a long way off the Lib Dems, who nearly won outright with 32 out of 68 seats. The analysts at Labour HQ are still preparing the autopsy on our failure, but I suspect the cause can be narrowed down to a single factor: we were just pretty rubbish campaigners. However, if there is one silver lining to be taken from our crushing defeat, it is an interaction I had with a real voter during the campaign. Following one of our rowdy hustings with the Brexit party, a postman delivering mail to the school came up to us, shook our hands, and told us he would be voting for Labour when it mattered on 12 December. We may not have convinced the school, but we did convince a real voter, and if there is any comfort to be taken from these increasingly bleak political times, it is that there are always people ready to be persuaded, if only you take the time to talk to them.
I HOPE THAT MY GIFT OF A MICROWAVE TO ZEB – FOR HIS ‘OVEN-READY’ DEAL – HAS BEEN PUT TO GOOD USE
OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
The Labour party candidate in December’s mock election, Luke Jensen-Jones (Year 12) recalls life on the campaign trail
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