'There's hidden talent in Weston which people don't see'
She said the summer school had allowed her to meet people with similar interests."I want to see more things like this, not just in Weston but everywhere, because politics is not talked about enough. "So many young people won't know that they enjoy politics because they don't know what it is," she added.
Mr Aldridge said he would have benefited from the programme when he was younger."One of the frustrations I always had as a young person growing up here is that change was always happening over there and not here, the opportunities were over there and not here," he said."And that's not true anymore. It's about giving them the tools and they can just run with them," he added.Mr Aldridge said he hoped to address concerns about limited opportunities for young people in the area with the summer school.Zara, a student who also took part, said the class had helped her feel more confident.
'Keeps people going'
She said it was important to see an event taking place in Weston-super-Mare, rather than a bigger place like Bristol, as it engaged more local people."All the people who have spoken here have made it clear you can do what you want to do," she said.Andrew Scott, an entrepreneur from the town who was one of the mentors, said he hoped the talks could inspire student going through difficulties. "When you're facing hardship, sometimes you can't see a way out. "When you hear from somebody else who's been through hardships and they have gone on to do great things, I think it keeps people going," he said.
Student Ben said he had found the experience "very insightful" and it had encouraged him to think about politics as a career."I want to improve people's lives for the better and impact my local community as I want to improve the local area."Stuff like this helps engage young people and helps them know what they want to do in the future," he added.Headline speakers at the event included Casey Calista from Meta, Freddie Cook from Snap, Niels Stevens from Adobe and MP Leigh Ingham, among others.The summer school is set to return next year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
We'll need gas for decades to come, says Centrica's boss
Britain will rely on gas for decades to come, Centrica's boss said yesterday after it backed a £1.5billion deal to buy Europe's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, and US infrastructure investor Energy Capital Partners have agreed to acquire the facility at Grain, on the Kent banks of the Thames Estuary, from National Grid, subject to regulatory approval. They said the site 'will be able to provide up to 33 per cent of UK gas demand and so is a critical piece of our energy security infrastructure'. And Centrica chief executive Chris O'Shea told the BBC: 'I do think that gas will be a key part of the energy transition for decades to come.' It comes as Labour's aim to shift away from oil and gas runs into trouble, with a drive to use more wind power in particular facing increasing challenges. Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has banned the issuing of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea. Critics argue that gas will be vital to fulfil demand – in a less polluting way than oil and coal – at a time when the capacity of renewable sources and infrastructure is still being built up. The Grain site imports and stores gas, and supplies European energy markets with customers including Centrica, Shell and Qatar Energy. O'Shea said: 'We'll have more wind and we'll have more solar but there are points where we don't have enough sun, we don't have enough wind. 'You need to have something that when you don't have your renewables you need to be able to turn on your electricity generation and gas is the best way that we've got that now.' The acquisition comes soon after Centrica announced it was investing £1.3billion for a 15 per cent stake in the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk. LNG, which is chilled to minus-162C (minus-259F) and transported on specialist ships, has become increasingly important to Europe since imports from Russia were cut off following the invasion of Ukraine. The fuel met 15 per cent of the UK's gas demand last year. That is expected to soar to about 60 per cent by 2050. Centrica's equity investment totals about £200million as it will also take on £1.1billion of debt. The shift to renewable energy is being hit by US President Donald Trump who has promised to ban new wind farms and recently branded turbines 'a con job'. Shares in Danish wind giant Orsted nosedived this week after it tapped up investors for £7billion to plug a financial hole, blaming its struggles on Trump's policies. Separately, UK figures showed how wind farm operators were paid £117million this year to stop producing energy that could have powered every home in Scotland for six months.
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Farage urges Starmer to appoint Reform peers to House of Lords
Nigel Farage has called for the right to nominate Reform UK supporters to the House of Lords, claiming this would address a 'democratic disparity'. In a letter to Keir Starmer, the Reform leader said it was unfair that other smaller parties, including the Greens, had peers in the upper chamber but his party did not, despite attracting more votes in the general election last year. In what Farage described as a 'modest request', he said it was time that Reform was represented in the House of Lords. He wrote: 'Reform UK wishes to appoint life peers to the upper house at the earliest possible opportunity.' Political appointments to the Lords are made at the discretion of the prime minister, who is under no constitutional obligation to elevate opposition figures to the Lords. But under political convention, No 10 invites opposition leaders to nominate candidates for peerages. Downing Street has yet to respond to Farage's demand. His letter, first reported in the Times, said: 'My party received over 4.1m votes at the general election in July 2024. We have since won a large number of seats in local government, led in the national opinion polls for many months and won the only byelection of this parliament.' Farage's demand has renewed calls to replace the House of Lords with an elected second chamber – something Starmer promised when he was elected Labour leader in 2020. Farage wrote: 'While Reform UK believes in a reformed House of Lords, the time has come to address the democratic disparity that exists in the upper house.' His letter added: 'The Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru, and UUP have 13 peers between them but Reform UK has none. Furthermore, the Liberal Democrats now have 76 peers but received 600,000 fewer votes than Reform UK in July last year. 'None of this holds water any longer, given the seismic shifts that have taken place in British politics.' Natalie Bennett, a former Green party leader who was made a life peer in 2019, tweeted: 'Sir Keir could respond by going for a fully elected upper house, as @TheGreenParty long calling for.' Labour's manifesto promised 'immediate reforms' of the Lords in advance of a longer-term ambition to replace the Lords with an alternative second chamber. So far, the government has only legislated to abolish hereditary peers. Starmer has backed away from a Labour commission led by Gordon Brown to replace the Lords with an elected assembly of the nations and regions.
Daily Mail
16 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Rachel Reeves is living under a rock if she thinks the country is growing, says MAGGIE PAGANO
As Mark Twain said: 'There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.' That came to mind after the wildly contrasting interpretations of the GDP figures for the second quarter to June which showed output rising by a paltry 0.3 per cent. Somehow or other this statistic allowed the Chancellor to wear her Alice in Wonderland spectacles, welcoming the figures as positive, showing the fastest growth in the first half of this year among the G7 countries. That, as Twain might also have said, is baloney. Or, as the Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride put it, Rachel Reeves is living under a rock if she thinks the country is growing, accusing her of 'economic vandalism'. But Reeves was able to get away with spinning the 0.3 per cent number because it was marginally better than forecasts which had been lower due to fears over the impact of President Trump's trade wars. Yet the reality is that the second quarter showed a sharp slowdown from the first, when GDP growth was 0.7 per cent. That's a drop by any other name. What Reeves didn't say, however, was that the second quarter was actually bloated by increased Government spending which disguised a sharp fall in capital investment and trade in the private sector. And if you listen to business chiefs, the shake-out across industry sectors because of April's higher National Insurance and other taxes has only just got going. There is more pain to come. As this week's jobs market numbers showed, firms are shedding labour fast ,with vacancies falling by 44,000 in the three months to June, taking the number down to below pre-lockdown levels. The GDP figure for the month of June alone saw a rise of 0.4 per cent. But that was mainly because of a tiny jump in construction and services. It's doubtful that this rise in construction can be maintained as housebuilding fell sharply last month while concrete sales were at their lowest since 1963. Hardly a great sign for healthy economic growth. More worrying still is that the Office for National Statistics figures also reveal that output per hour worked in the three months to June was 0.8 per cent lower than a year earlier. This is the steepest annual decline since the third quarter of last year, showing once again how weak productivity remains one of the UK's most structural and chronic problems. If Reeves raises taxes again in the Budget to fill her £50billion black hole, you can be sure that consumption, investment and productivity have further to fall while inflation continues to rise. And that leads to the worst of all worlds: stagflation. Isle of Gas CentricA chief executive Chris O'Shea and his counterpart at US investment firm Energy Capital Partners have come up with a smart deal which should help keep the lights and heating on for decades. The two energy companies are buying the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Isle of Grain from National Grid, with plans to expand facilities. Centrica already plays a critical role in our energy mix, supplying up to a quarter of all households with gas. Buying the Isle of Grain site (the name comes from the old English greon for gravel) is a significant move because LNG is expected to play a much greater role in the country's energy supplies. Already Europe's biggest regasification facility, it's being expanded to meet up to a third of all UK gas demand. Although most of our gas comes from Norway via pipelines, this terminal brings LNG from suppliers such as Qatar and Algeria. As O'Shea says, developing the Isle of Grain will bring greater energy security, as gas is going to be needed for decades. If only Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary who wants to close down and ban new North Sea oil and gas licences, understood such basic facts. Stop the kite-flying Aviva boss Amanda Blanc is right to warn that threats over more inheritance tax changes are causing a flurry of calls to the insurer and sleepless nights among customers. The same happened a year ago when the Chancellor threatened a pension tax raid. The Treasury has always loved kite-flying. But it's a childish way of fleshing out reactions and it's not good for business.
