Author Archives: Alan Belmore

Opinion: it’s about more than A-levels

By Alan Belmore | Thu 19th August 2010 - 9:24 am

I write as a former chair of Liberal Youth, currently studying at York University who was educated at an independent school. Yet with A-Level results out today, I am backing calls for universities to consider students from state schools who have achieved lower grades than their counterparts from private institutions.

‘This is discrimination’ the wealthy middle classes cry. ‘They both sat the same exams’, it is pointed out to me. Yet this faux fairness is exaggerated, a continued belief that seems to run through education that wishes children and young adults to develop in a different system to that which us …

Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments

Opinion: The real issue in the Liberal Youth elections

By Alan Belmore | Mon 31st May 2010 - 12:40 pm

There have been many debates in these Liberal Youth elections, many of them, dare I say it, ill-informed. The situation Liberal Youth is in is an interesting one. The vast, vast, vast majority of our members never chose to join the organisation. Due to the very nature of the system where you are automatically a member if you are under the age of 26 or a student people don’t choose to be a member of Liberal Youth, they just are. There are around …