Friday 18 January 2008

NME Events

With the National Conservative Future elections due to get underway very soon, NKCF is getting into the election spirit!

Friday 25th January 2008 – 8:00pm
Michael Rock – NME chairman candidate – will be attending our usual Future Friday meeting. There will be a Q & A session after our meeting to allow people to ask questions about his ideas, policies and beliefs as he attempts to win over the NKCF cohort. - Conservative Future members at other branches are welcome!
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9551789523

Don’t forget to book your place by signing up on Facebook.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to visit us here in Newcastle-under-Lyme, please get in touch with our Deputy Chairman (Political), Matthew Jones – political@newcastlecf.co.uk.

Friday 4 January 2008

The Dinner Party

It was probably the best programme I’d seen over the Christmas period, and yet it was made and first broadcast over ten years ago. What am I talking about? The Dinner Party.

Over the past few weeks (and indeed the next few weeks coming up), Channel 4 are slowly releasing their archives of comedy, documentaries and drama to the world for free. All through a nifty little program called 4oD. One of these programmes is called The Dinner Party, a programme made as part of the ‘Cutting Edge’ series by a film-maker called Paul Watson. It’s 1997, on a cold night in East Anglia. The cast? A group of Conservative voters, contemplating the prospect of the end of an 18-year-old Conservative government. Set in the comfortable surroundings of a well-furnished candlelit dining room, the group touch upon the topics of the day.

What amused me whilst watching this programme was not the nature of the comments made by a few of the guests. Not the fact that you couldn’t actually broadcast some of the things said any more. Nor the fact that a couple of the guests were rather entertainingly rude. It was the fact that the issues being discussed were rather the same as the issues we’re talking about right now.

Immigration. Education. Sleaze. Things don’t really change, do they? Should we be placing limits on how many people are coming into the country? Can we really trust a new government to make real and significant improvements in education? What part do private schools play in today’s society? What is the effect of sleaze on a government and is it right for them to get away with things?

The guests are outspoken, the wine is flowing and the discussion is relevant. Watch it, you will not be disappointed.

Click here to download 4oD – www.channel4.com/4od.