How not to spend your university years...

I found this Globe story from the weekend rather amusing. Apparently, a big part of the reason the future of the PQ has “never been so uncertain” is that “the party’s youth wing is in revolt,” with five of its nine executive members resigning in a huff over the tactics of Bernard Landry’s supporters.

Now, I’m more than happy to learn of trouble in the merry separatist ranks. And I think Landry is an embarrassment, so I wouldn’t blame Péquistes – young or otherwise – for getting tired of his act. But was also once involved in youth politics, in a past life I’d sometimes rather forget, so I also know better than to take this sort of thing too seriously.

For many of its more active participants, youth politics is all about this sort of melodrama. There’s a certain type that gets into this stuff because they want to be at the centre of the action, but then find it frustrating that nobody outside the party – nor, for the most part, inside it – is paying all that much attention. One of the few ways to get their names in print and to seem like big-time players is to stage some sort of dramatic resignation, or at least to make plenty of noise about youth revolting, the party being split in two, and so on. In this case, they appear to have achieved all of the above.

Maybe I have these guys wrong, and this particular dispute is entirely for real without any hint of self-promotion. But forgive me if I’m a bit cynical – I guess that’s what happens when you spend too much time hanging around Young Liberals/Tories/New Democrats yourself.