What is a Gimmick?

Or perhaps, what is a gimmick supposed to achieve? Surely a gimmick is something that is designed to please or amuse people? The dictionary says a gimmick is "an innovative stratagem or scheme employed especially to promote a project: an advertising gimmick." Of course, there's a negative connotation here too, that there's an element of bluff or deception involved in order to achieve the promotion. Essentially, though, a gimmick is something that pleases the masses. It satisfies. It satiates. It's one of those things that you see on face value and think "oh, that's a good idea". In politics one must be wary of gimmicks. They are often a cynical attempt to win voters over by presenting populist ideas that perhaps could provide a better service to the nation if thought out in more depth or elucidated upon. If you're still unsure about what a political gimmick is, I've no doubt the 2010 Conservative Party Manifesto will be a catalogue. Nevertheless, one may also learn a significant amount from political gimmicks. Primarily, if they work, you can gauge the public mood on an issue. It is for this reason that it will be interesting to see the response and reaction to the Tory plans for an exam paper archive, announced today.

The archive proposal is obviously a response to popular concerns that exams and schooling these days are getting far too easy and being dumbed down to a worrying extent. It will be a clear way of looking at and judging how the standard of examinations has changed, if at all, over the years by simply being able to do a comparison between the two.

Now, I have been out of the state education system for only 3 years but back when I was in it, doing my GCSEs and A Levels, it was usually fairly easy to get the past papers from the past few years on the exam board website. But this doesn't go back particularly far and can't be used as a comparison with previous generations. Then again, we didn't really need decades of past papers, we just needed to know what was likely to come up in our exam.

So what purpose will this serve? Will it actually improve the education system or will it just give two men and his dog down the pub more ammo to fire at the education system?

Neither, if you ask me. I don't think it would do wonders to increase the standard of school exams. Not right away, at least. But i think it will give people a feeling of being in touch with their children's education and with the state of their country generally. Or maybe that's a bit extreme, but it'll be a step in the right direction! The government response to this sheds some light on why the country is crying out for something like this:

Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo said: "Parents want to know that standards are being maintained over time, which is why Ed Balls decided to establish Ofqual the new independent regulator of exam standards.

"Gimmicks like this from the Tories are all well and good, but what really counts is backing Ofqual to do their job."

Independent regulators certainly have their uses but their abundance is a sign the levels of centralism and micromanagement that we have seen from the past 12 years of Labour government. It's indicative of why the British people feel out of touch with the way things are going in this country. Now, it takes a lot for me to back a Tory proposal. It takes a lot for me to back a political gimmick. But giving something back to the people in terms of involvement and power is what Lib Dems should stand for. Government established regulators which are distant and remote do little to restore public confidence in the system, even if they do a good job. Giving people the respect and trust to look at the facts and make their own decisions will.

So yes, this may be a gimmick. But if it works, it might just be the public's way of telling us that they're fed up of Labour's distant Quangos and attempts to tell us that everything's going swimmingly. Cos they say so.