Originally posted @ 6:58 pm, Wed 29th Apr 2009
So last night, a great night was had as Eddie Izzard and Alastair Campbell entertained over 500 people, mostly students, at Nottingham University.
And from the make-up of the front 2 rows, mostly politics students - only 1 of whom had read Bernard Crick's "In Defence of Politics".
Two exceptions in the front rows were Physics students - oh yes! - both from Spain.
Alastair's most powerful point concerned the findings of a focus group, whereby members of the public most highly rated Barack Obama, but most decidedly disliked politicians, seemingly not appreciating what Barack Obama does for a living. And the same group valued the NHS but were not so keen on Gordon Brown, again not getting that Gordon Brown had marshalled the vast increase in resources (treble 1997's spend this year), that so contributes to the value of the service.
Encouragement from Eddie and Alastair to those of us involved in politics, and encouragement to the audience to get involved.
Eddie cited entrepreneurship as one of his passions, and not just because the word originates from France. I think Britain still has to improve. Nott'm University does important research on sustainability and engineering on things like wind turbines. And yet often the findings of their work is developed into businesses and jobs elsewhere in Europe.
Further reading -
Eddie Izzard then went on to do a late-night event -
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