Rebecca Clee meets Gordon Brown
By Rebecca / Spinebreakers Crew
It’s not every day you use the phrase: ‘No, Mum, don’t make me any food, I’m having breakfast at Downing Street’ (which turned out to be an odd affair consisting of breakfast canapés like mini-hotdogs). However, one of the agencies involved in Spinebreakers, Livity, recently teamed up with social networking site Bebo for Bebo’s Big Think, a campaign to get young people talking about Britain’s future, politics and current affairs. Subsequently, I became one of the 15 young ambassadors who took part in the highlight of the whole campaign – a Q&A session at Number 10 with The Prime Minister himself.
I had long suspected that the media gives Gordon Brown too hard a time, and now I am sure of it. He responded eloquently and informatively to all the questions the 15 Big Think ambassadors posed, and I was swayed from my opinion on several issues, like paying for university education and even the argument in favour of Heathrow’s third runway, which I had been strongly opposed to. The Prime Minister seemed genuinely keen to encourage more young people to engage in politics and was happy to talk to us about anything, and help us to understand more about Britain and the rationale behind various government policies.
By the end of the session we’d had several job offers and predictions that we would be his successors, and I think that we’d also given Gordon Brown some new ideas! We also conveyed our passion on certain subjects, not least the issue of lowering the voting age to 16.
We were so lucky to be involved in such an extraordinary day, and I feel that the rest of the world should be seeing the well-informed, funny (who knew?) and friendly Prime Minister that we met. I feel much more optimistic about the future of Britain under Gordon Brown now, and much more aware. I know that I made some good friends among the other ambassadors; looking around that cabinet table I saw the leaders of tomorrow and I was proud to be sitting there with them.
To find out more about Bebo’s Big Think or to see a film from our time at Number 10, log onto the website here.