Young Voters' Forum

Our Westminster candidate Claudia Beamish will be holding a series of events for young voters throughout the constituency. The first event will be held in Dumfries on Thursday 14th March from 7-30 to 9pm. Elaine Murray MSP will be there too and Sarah Boyack MSP, Shadow Minister for the Environment  will be speaking. The venue will be confirmed soon. In the meantime, if you want to be kept informed email Claudia on claudia@derribeam.freeserve.co.uk

Young Labour members of Dumfriesshire Clydesdale and Tweeddale Constituency Labour Party are seeking the views of young voters throughout the constituency.

We want to hear  your views on any topic you think is poitically important.

We are starting things off with a monthly view from a young member. Here is the first one.

What is progress and how do we measure it?

According to my friend Wikipedia, GDP is defined as “the total cost of all completed goods and services produced within the country in a stipulated period of time, usually a 365 day year.” You can think of it as everything that is consumed plus everything that is invested plus everything the government spends plus the net of everything coming into the country by trade. It looks at the aggregate, the sum of everything. But are we not more than the sum of our parts?

If you put a few people in a room, what defines the dynamics of the gathering? How do you decide what films you want to watch or what you wanted to eat? Say everyone brought along an ingredient and the plan was to make dinner, could you predict what dish would be made and who would enjoy it purely by adding together the price of each of the things brought to the table? Would that number be a good indication of the atmosphere in the room as the group set about demolishing the meal? If you divided that number by the number of people in the room, would the new number be a good indication of the satisfaction of each individual sitting around the table?

Any Labour Party to which I ever subscribed was surely interested not only in the aggregate but by people at the margins of society. GDP growth as a measure of progress focuses too much on aggregates and averages. While GDP growth is invaluable uses as a measurement of growth, it cannot continue to be relied upon in isolation from other measures. It misses the regional and sectoral intricacies, necessary for effective implementation of Labour policy. It encourages a steroidic mega quick fix mentality when in this sustainability aware age, what is needed in the courage of the increment.

Freya Maud from Pettinain, Biggar

What do you think? Use the open forum to tell us or email Claudia.