I shouldn't be amused, but...

For those of you who were unawares, the Labour Party and 10 Downing Street now have their own channels on YouTube. The latter recently posted the following video, of Tony Blair congratulating the new French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, on his election victory. In French.



Now, perhaps understandably, the commenting facility was disabled here. However, some enterprising users have re-uploaded the video, and comments there surprise me. Perfect French? Even I could do better than that! (This would hopefully bode well for my final marks, then.) For a man who has supposedly spoken French for several years, I personally found his accent to be somewhat sloppy, but perhaps I'm too strict on these things.

In any case, the video got me thinking about the role of foreign languages in the world today. As with most normal citizens, foreign premiers seem to speak our language better than our leaders do theirs. Indeed, Blair is the only British politician I have even heard attempt to speak a foreign language in recent times. Jacques Chirac, on the other hand, speaks English beautifully (and probably better than I do!), despite his notable opposition to the growth of the language's power throughout the business world.

Obviously, language learning is not everyone's strength. However, I do feel it is only polite that we should at least attempt to learn the languages of others. The fact that 'everyone already speaks English' is no excuse in my book. There is no reason to be afraid of getting it wrong, as many people will just appreciate the fact that you've made an effort, and I feel that the odd word here and there is better than nothing.

When David Willetts MP, the Shadow Education Secretary, visited Newcastle University, the issue I raised with him was that of the decline of language learning in UK schools, namely the fall in number of degree level entrants, and the fact that it is no longer compulsory to learn a language past the age of 14. He agreed that it was necessary that in a modern society, Britain needs to catch up with languages standards of our neighbours, but rightly pointed out that with the lack of qualified young people as language teachers, the fewer people there will be to teach our youngsters, and thus a vicious circle starts.

I hope we will be able to reverse this problem in future, and despite my earlier teasing, I do think Mr Blair did the right thing (and you will probably be able to guess how much this pains me to say!) in making the video in French as well as English.

For those of you who are interested, here is the English equivalent of the video.



As for Monsieur Sarkozy becoming Monsieur le Président? I shall reserve judgement on that, I think...

Elections all around

In an interesting set of results from the local elections, it seems as though the Labour party have taken a hit everywhere, although they do remain the largest party in the Welsh Assembly. I must admit that although I expected the SNP to do well in the Scottish elections, I was surprised to see them become the largest party, even if only by one. It does look as though they may struggle to find a party willing to form a coalition with them, though, and I look forward to finding out more about this as the situation develops. I welcome anyone's opinion on this matter as admittedly, I do not know that much about Scottish politics.

Elsewhere, my home council of Allerdale remained in No Overall Control. What bemuses me somewhat is how, given that I reside in what is a very Conservative area (my parliamentary constituency is the seat of Penrith and the Border) in General Election terms, the council has been switching between NOC and Labour for what seems like forever. It strikes me as being slightly odd, but never mind.

My personal gripe with the local elections was that I never got my voting papers! I applied for a postal vote, as I have done for all but one election since I turned 18, as I knew I would be in Newcastle on polling day. I registered in time but they did not arrive, which I found frustrating. Apparently this was the case with many people across the country as well.

Across the water in France, today is the day they elect the Fifth Republic's sixth president. Having spent my year abroad in France during what was a rather volatile time politically, with protests about the treatment of youths by police in the Parisian suburbs and mass protests about the youth employment contract, I have been following recent events with fascination.

Personally, I see a problem with both candidates. Monsieur Sarkozy appears to be the likely winner, but I think his manner is perhaps too forceful, and his handling of the riots in Autumn 2005 didn't come across well to me. What I also found surprising, given his electoral popularity, is that while I resided in Nancy, I couldn't find a single person who actually liked him. Madame Royal, on the other hand, seems perfectly nice, but as a Socialist I wouldn't vote for her anyway (and even French Socialists believe her policies to be wishy-washy). I will admit it would be interesting to see France with a woman president, though. There is a growing number of people who believe France's masculine political arena would do well to have a woman's touch.

One good piece of news, though - at least the odious Jean Marie Le Pen didn't get to the second round this time.