Rob Leitch: There is trouble ahead for the Union

Robert Leitch is 21 years old and in the third year of a distance-learning politics degree from the LSE, and has been working in Parliament for a Conservative MP. He is also a party activist in Orpington.

As political commentators pore over each and every inch of the freshly drawn up map of parliamentary constituencies, key areas of analysis will be highlighted and discussed in remarkable depth and detail. One fairly obvious yet fundamentally worrying trend, is the absolute failure of our Party to make any breakthrough in Scotland.

Having seen Conservatism drain from each corner of Scotland in 1997, it is disappointing to say the least that our focused and indeed rather expensive campaigns in certain Scottish target seats bore no fruit at a time of supposed Conservative revival. However, there is an ongoing, deeper concern posed by our latest failed attempts to win back trust in Scotland – the future fate of our historic Union.

The subject of Scottish independence is one that divides many in our Party. There are, of course, strong traditional unionists who will fight tooth and nail for the continuation of the United Kingdom. Yet, in truth, an increasing number seem to be quite frankly fed up with either the democratic inequality provoked by the West Lothian Question or the subsidy provided to individual Scottish citizens by the English taxpayer (thought to be in the region of around £4.5 billion per year at present).  Add to this number those Conservatives who believe strongly in the principle of national self-determination and it is perhaps possible to suggest that support for the Union is waning even within our unionist Party.

The Scottish Nationalists, led by the ever slippery Alex Salmond, would have watched Thursday’s results with an element of disappointment. No, not because they failed to add to their rather measly six parliamentary seats, but rather because David Cameron failed to win an outright majority in Westminster. It has long been Alex Salmond’s desire to see a Conservative government in London with little or no mandate from the Scottish people. The fact that we merely managed to cling onto our one solitary seat in Scotland will, however, have been of great comfort to the SNP.

Robert Leitch: We must not become cynical, sceptical or tired of the compassionate conservatism blueprint

Robert Leitch is 21 years old and in the third year of a distance-learning politics degree from the LSE, and has been working in Parliament for a Conservative MP. He is also a party activist in Orpington.

I recently happened to stumble across the latest figures relating to cocaine use in Britain in a newspaper. Specifically, these figures charted the rise in the number of under-18 year olds who are being treated for addiction to the drug.

The statistics make for grim reading and provide yet another snapshot of how broken Britain truly is. According to the National Treatment Agency (NTA), the number of young people being treated for cocaine addiction has doubled over the past four years with 745 children seeking treatment in 2009 alone. Furthermore, the NTA believes that the figures relating to children have yet to peak – this sad and worrying trend is consequently predicted to continue for some time to come.

Disturbing examples such as this pose significant questions and should prompt us to think about the bigger picture - the future of our creaking society and how we must now attempt to address social deprivation and breakdown in the UK.

Some may claim that the above is somewhat overly-dramatic, but I think that it is difficult to argue against the existence and impact of Britain's social problems. Whether it be rising levels of alcohol abuse, the frequency of family breakdown, growing drug dependency, frightening youth crime or our destructive welfare cycle, one does not have to look far to identify some of the causes of Britain’s fractured society.

Yet, acknowledging that such problems exist should reaffirm our commitment to the political approach of compassionate conservatism. After all, compassionate conservatism recognises that politicians alone cannot bring about fundamental change in our society. Rather, it accepts as a starting point that we can only facilitate such change through the implementation of local, responsible, flexible and individual-focused policies. Individuals' behaviour and attitudes will not change because any government tells them to, but rather by responding to the environment and encouragement that surrounds them.

Robert Leitch: Politicans cannot cure clinical depression - but they must tackle its underlying causes

Robert Leitch is 21 years old and in the third year of a distance-learning politics degree from the LSE, whilst also working in Parliament for a Conservative MP. He is also a party activist in Orpington.

According to national health statistics held by the House of Commons Library there has been a staggering rise in the amount of medication prescribed to treat clinical depression in the United Kingdom over the past few decades. Needless to say Western society has been increasingly analysed, monitored and recorded in recent years with our patterns of behaviour making fascinating reading for a full range of psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists. Depending on your choice of expert we could be considered to be living in a consumer society, an advanced technological age or even a post-modernist culture. Such over-analysis is seldom all encompassing or exclusive of bias, but the figures charting the rise of depression are worthy of further attention and perhaps, more worrying, even reflective of deeper flaws in our society.

These statistics show that between 1985 and 2007 the number of prescriptions issued for anti-depressant drugs rose from 6,000 to 34,000 per annum, a sixfold increase within a generation. Whilst it is true that the total number of all prescriptions issued has risen since the mid-1980s the rise has not been linear. Year on year the percentage increase in anti-depressants has vastly outstripped the percentage increase of general prescriptions. For example, in 2000 whilst the total number of general prescriptions rose by 3.32%, the total number of anti-depressants increased by 13.17%. Of course, statistics cannot be relied on exclusively but they do at least provide the stimuli for further investigation.

Any such investigation must not, however, belittle the illness. Depression is a hidden and silent ailment and one for which there is no single cause or cure. Its symptoms and consequences differ from one person to another with no timescale for recovery or indeed assurance of it. It can be hormone driven or reactive and as one of the ‘invisible illnesses’ its hold on people can be both frustrating and draining. A lack of understanding and appreciation from the outside world has created a terrible stigma which in turn also adds to the potentially catastrophic impact of depression on the quality of a person’s life.

But why has depression emerged on such a scale in the late 20th and early 21st centuries? After all we are now living longer than before, with healthier diets, more education and, in the developed world at least, an unprecedented provision of welfare conditions surrounding us. Indeed, the rise of depression seems like a rather contradictory process. It suggests that we are unhappier, more disenfranchised, less fulfilled and ultimately less able to cope with life in modern day Britain.