On Monday 5 December Myton’s Sixth Form politics students attended the Annual Conference at the Central Hall, Westminster. As usual they were entertained and informed about all things political.

A series of nine speakers, all current MPs, spent 20 minutes explaining their views about current issues, then spent another 20 minutes answering questions from the 2,000 students in the Hall. Highlights included:

• Hilary Benn (son of the left wing ‘firebrand’ Tony Benn) speaking with passion about the Bedroom Tax and its impact on some of his constituents in Leeds Central
• Speaker John Bercow explaining his role and function in chairing the debates in the House of Commons, where discipline has to be maintained with ‘Order, Order’
• UKIP’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, whose thesis was that ‘democracy is rigged’, especially by the ‘parasitical’ political parties in Westminster
• Chuka Ummuna, Labour leader hopeful and rising star
• the rather eccentric Jacob Rees Mogg (pictured), affectionately known as ‘The Member For The Eighteenth Century’, who got the largest cheer for his witty and insightful comments about the modern Conservative Party and BREXIT

All this took place 100 yards away from the Supreme Court building where eleven Law Lords were in the process of hearing the Government’s Appeal regarding the triggering of Article 50; the intrusive sound of megaphone demonstrations (‘For’ and ‘Against’) continually reminding students that ‘politics is for real’!