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Day: 31 October 2013

State regulation of the press is a necessary evil

Written by Jennifer Sterne on . Posted in Opinion.

I am all for free speech, freedom of expression and the free press and I am entirely against government censorship. However, the media regulated as it is today takes away our power to act, believe, or express ourselves freely, imposing restraints that damage our long tradition of liberty.  The inability to find an independent voice in what the tabloids print as news is mainly due to the control of the press by a powerful elite, and this has meant that the public is fed stories which represent a very narrow range of ideologies.

After the recent banning of The Sun from the Union shop, student debate has been fierce over the belief that this is a case of University censorship and a breach of freedom of expression. The decision to ban the newspaper was due to the ‘No More Page 3’ campaign. The campaign, running since the summer of 2012, started when Lucy Holmes found she could no longer stand that the dominant image of women in The Sun was half-naked and there for the gratification of men’s sexual desires, when women such as Jessica Ennis had just won gold medals for Britain. The Sun openly takes away the rights of women to be presented as equal human beings, whose success could be viewed in the same light as men’s.  As already stated, I’m wholly for the preservation of free speech within our society. However, I struggle with Page 3’s continued existence being pinned as an upholding of the right to free speech. To its very core, the everyday presence of women as sexual objects takes the liberties of women for granted.

It has been over a year since the campaign began and it has been practically ignored. The banning of The Sun was not the initial intention of the campaign, but the silence from The Sun and continual presentation of women as little more than sex objects rather than filling the pages with powerful, intelligent, equally presented women has left the campaign with no other option. There were no other means to challenge the tabloids, despite the feeling it was in breach of women’s liberty, therefore the move to ban The Sun from the union was the only option to make a significant group of voices heard.

This draws us onto the topical debate of whether press regulation should change and be challenged in the wake of the hacking scandal and the subsequent Leveson inquiry. Many within the press maintain that in order to uphold free speech in our democratic society they should be left to regulate themselves. However, the government has rejected this, and is proposing to create their Royal Charter. Their proposals are that an independent body with no statutory influence should oversee the self-regulation of the press, ensuring that complaints are dealt with properly and effectively, thus creating a free but accountable press.

In the last few weeks the Daily Mail has clearly emphasised why an arbitrator over press regulation is necessary, by highlighting the sheer irresponsibility and callousness of the tabloids at their worst. The Mail’s attacks on Ralph Miliband alleging that he was ‘The Man who hated Britain’ gave renewed vigor to the arguments of those pushing for press regulation and highlighted an urgent need for action. Ed Miliband’s response, printed in the Mail alongside yet more justification of their smear campaign, reveals quite succinctly his stance on press regulation “Britain has always benefited from a free press. Those freedoms should be treasured. They are vital for our democracy. Journalists need to hold politicians like me to account. But what appeared in the Daily Mail on Saturday was of a different order all together”.
The desire is not to restrict the powers of journalists but a call for responsible journalism, where journalists can be held accountable for personal attacks such as this. Interestingly Paul Dacre, editor of the Mail, is the current chairman of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee. This is a man who, among other things, believes it acceptable to smear a dead man for his entries in a childhood diary written 72 years ago. This is a perfect indicator of this flawed system. Lord Alan Sugar’s statement in the House of Lords last Tuesday, summarises my stance;  “we need to stand up to these bullies” and “it is about time parliament showed some unity and flexed its muscles to deal with these nasty people once as for all”.

The debate against regulating what is acceptable within newspapers will be a long one, but it is time that the harassment and misrepresentation that unfortunately has become a norm of tabloid newspapers is regulated. After the disclosures of the Leveson inquiry, we can no longer trust newspapers themselves to always do this alone. The liberty of the press will be upheld by allowing the public to have the freedom of expression in order to challenge it. Free speech will be safeguarded by an independent regulator by ensuring that what is expressed isn’t restricted and dictated by the powerful few.

The British Army; not yet redundant

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Opinion.

The Imperial War Museum is commemorating the Centenary of World War One, a war transformed by the efforts of the British Armed Forces. Historically speaking, the legacy of the British Armed Forces is rather controversial, but being there I was filled with sorrow, respect, even pride.
However, coming home it sparked a blazing debate with my housemate about whether or not Britain still needs a ‘redundant, imperialist’ army at all. The Conservatives caused uproar in Manchester last month just for plans to axe the second battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, but why not cut defence all together? Even a fraction of the defence budget could transform the lives of British people throughout the country, and that’s before nuclear disarmament.
Britain is spending around fourty billion pounds this year on defence; the fourth highest in the world behind the USA, China and Russia, and the budget is due to increase. The national debt is spiraling out of control, and the recent announcement that we may be out of Afghanistan by June 2014 begs the question: where is the money going, and is it worth it? Historically wars occured an average of every thirty years, now we haven’t had a major war for nearly seventy years and the suggestions of pooling our militia into a NATO or UN based military to patrol our ‘civilised’ world sounds like a pretty smart move.
But that is the point; it’s only been seventy years since the last world war. And it hasn’t  been seventy years because the superpowers have evolved past squabbling or because everyone has forged alliances and peace treaties willy-nilly, but because of nuclear deterrents. The price of war between the superpowers has become too high. For now. But, eventually someone may well use one of those Weapons of Mass Destruction on us or someone else, and we will either be able to stand them down with the threat of obliteration, or be paralysed and vulnerable because we’d put our faith on goodwill. Historically, goodwill has rarely prevented human destruction.
That’s the bigger picture. The daily role of the militia is still under question. There is set to be just 5200 British troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year, out of around 130,000 personnel in total.
Lately the militia have popped up here and there- quashing the London riots and lending Gibraltar a hand. So they haven’t been making many headlines of late, but a glance at their websites revealed that the Navy just made a £58 million drugs bust in the Caribbean, the Army have teamed up with the NHS for their ‘Stop Smoking’ campaign, and the RAF have installed a Typhoon Simulator at the Science Museum… It doesn’t sound like 40 billion pounds worth of work.
However, the consequences of cutting all defence need to be considered. There are 102,000 fulltime regulars and 19,000 territorial reserves in employment whose livelihoods and life’s work would be overturned, leading to an unemployment surge. For many young people it provides structured way into a diverse and meritocratic career; the Manchester and Salford Univeristy Officer Training Corps recruits 100 new officer cadets during Fresher’s Fair every year.
Cutting the army would lead to huge strain on the police force, border control and affect our international relations in terms of alliances, NATO and the UN. Much of Britain’s international influence stems from, or is related to its sizable armed forces, and losing them would affect our global standing.
Finally, much of our technology and medical advancements (which pumps money back into the economy), is developed by the military in places like the Advanced Technology Centre. Cutting the defence budget would mean shutting all of those research facilities down, and sending those discoveries and any profit they may generate to countries like China and America.
Arguably however, these are not meant to be the functions of the military. It is not there to provide jobs and keep our phones up to date. The British Armed Forces are meant to protect and defend Britain and nothing more. And looking at the published list of threats to British security from 2010, we are looking safer than we have ever been, with the top threats being listed as attacks on British ‘cyberspace’, terrorism, natural disasters, nuclear attack on us or an ally and crime. Conventional military attack, the military’s most traditional function, is low on the list and remote as a possibility in general.
However, remote as these threats seem today, we cannot afford to simply ignore them.Scaremongering aside should any of them occur Britain needs an insurance policy to keep itself safe. True, most of these threats could be reassigned to the political budget (terrorism), the Secret Intelligence Service (cyberspace) or the crime budget (crime), and perhaps they should. The defence budget certainly needs some reevaluation and a severe trim. But to cut it completely would be madness. Forget any imperialistic pride or traditional values, or that cutting off a military that Britain has gained so much power and respect for would be foolish. If a country hasn’t got defence it has nothing, because no matter how hard you work on everything else it can be taken from you in an instant. So the military may seem redundant right now, but if push comes to shove they’ll be swiftly reinstated as the heart, soul and pride of the nation.

2000 homeless in Manchester, it’s time to take a stand

Written by Lauren Wills on . Posted in Opinion.

Last week I read that “If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world.” Statistics show that in 2012, over 2000 people in the Manchester region were sleeping on the streets, living in shelters or on the cusp of being evicted – a 9% rise compared on the 1896 recorded the previous year. The exhaustive figures are undoubtedly higher than this.

Our perceptions of homeless people often revolve around the fact that that person has become homeless because of some fault of their own. The stigmatisation of homelessness has led to a societal opinion that those living on the streets should be marginalized, as their situation is a consequence of their own actions. In blaming the victim, we are blinded to the wider issue of the economic and social forces behind the operation. Several articles have highlighted these forces, which include unemployment, limited affordable housing, and breakdowns in family networks. It has been argued that social stigma “occurs in situations where there is unequal social, economic and political power and there is an opportunity to label, stereotype, separate (us versus them), lose status and discriminate”.

There is clear evidence to suggest that the problem of homelessness is due to the effects of capitalism. In 2004 the BBC broadcasted the report “Hidden Homeless Speak Out”. A number of situations were recorded focusing on homeless  individuals such as Graham McEvoy, 57, a man who “had gone from a 2 bedroom maisonette in Ruislip to sleeping in a cardboard box in the market of London’s West End”. Graham admitted that “If you’d have told me two-and-a-half years ago I was going to be homeless I’d have laughed my socks off and told you you were mad”. The crippling effects of debt drove Graham into homelessness, showing that the issue is not always about fault, but about the economic climate.
So, are we part of the problem? Is our societies’ attitude towards homelessness actually making the problem worse?  Jo Phlean performed an experiment, in which he presented hypothetical situations to the subjects to directly compare attitudes toward a homeless and a domiciled poor man. His findings included that the “strength of the stigma attached to the “homelessness” label equals that for mental hospitalization”. These findings are made more horrific when we consider that for most homeless people the issue isn’t actually personal attitudes, fault, selfishness or laziness but that their problems are actually somewhat due to decisions of the government.

The reality of homelessness in 2013 means that the recession is key to our understanding of homelessness, as 7.7% of the UK’s working-age population are currently both unemployed and in search of work. Despite an overwhelming number of people believing that homeless people are drug addicts and alcoholics, most cases of homelessness are instigated by high unemployment rates and other social problems, which then prompt further social problems for their victims. ‘Student Action’ are a society at the University of Manchester working to help the community and arrange a variety of weekly and yearly projects which include feeding the homeless. To find out more about getting involved, visit the Student Union website and search for ‘student action’.

Wait for the drop…

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Opinion.

Since its establishment in 2006 The Warehouse Project’s reputation has been in steady decline. The use of hard drugs such as ecstasy and MDMA have tainted the party atmosphere, with the event and drug use going hand in hand in most peoples minds. The Project has a capacity for five thousand entrants with tickets costing around £20 each.
The approximate £100,000 gross profit helps WHP to employ their own private security team that consists of security guards, sniffer dogs and they even go to the lengths of having medical personal on stand by in case of any emergencies. Despite these efforts, attendees have reported there is still a heavy drug presence on site and things took a tragic turn at this years opening event, when a 30 year old man died after taking tainted ecstasy. Another 15 people were admitted to the Manchester Royal Infirmary that weekend, all linked to the same dose of ecstasy.

Although the involvement of drugs in previous incidents at The Warehouse Project has been undetermined, the incidents in September were most definitely caused by drugs being consumed before or during the event. One of the timeless problems of using any drugs is the uncertainty of exactly what the substance is made up of. All kinds of things, from rat poison to household baking flour, have been found in samples of drugs. In the case of the ecstasy taken at WHP, it is thought that instead of containing MDMA, the drug was made up from PMA (para-methoyxamphetamine). The chemical has shown to give off similar physiological effects to MDMA but is far stronger and more toxic. While one of the side effects is a dramatic increase in body temperature, PMA also takes longer for any noticeable effects to take hold.

In response to recent events, Sacha Lord, one of the owners of the WHP called for the government to have an on-site testing facility to try and reduce the use of potentially deadly substances. Any drugs confiscated will be tested and any warnings resulting from this sent out on WHP’s social media networks. Although in theory this is a great scheme that deals with many of the issues at hand, it throws up questions about both practicality and ethics.

There is a clear argument for suggesting that the testing of drugs seized legitimises their use to a certain extent. For example, if there are no warnings sent out to the attendee’s on a particular night then the use will continue and could expand due to an atmosphere of false security. Similarly, by externally addressing the safety of drug users at the event, the organisers seem to condone their use to a degree.

Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that the warnings will be acknowledged by users, given the variety of drugs in circulation. If a warning about a batch of MDMA went out at a particular event, how would one know if it was linked to the substance that they had in their possession? Alongside the risk of an ‘ignorance is bliss’ culture developing at the Project, this extra warning system may only have a very little impact. There is also a challenge in judging the effectiveness of the system, as there has only been one death directly linked to WHP and drug use.

For anyone to argue that drug use is not a problem at WHP would be naïve on their part. For there to be only one tragic incident in the Project’s seven-year history seems to be nothing but a stroke of luck. The owners would claim other wise and would say that the security operation is highly efficient. If this is the case, why are so many people able to enter the venue under the influence of drugs or even purchase illegal substances when inside the event as some reports have suggested? Of course, it would be unfair to put the entirety of the blame on the organisers, but a certain degree of responsibility must lie on their shoulders.

Naturally, it is impossible for the security services at the WHP to be aware and in control of every single case of drug use at each event and it is safe to say that a strong effort is made to protect the people who attend. However, is enough being done to limit drug use in the first place? And will the new system be of any use? Time will tell with the on-site testing coming into place from the 12th October.

Nagging the NEETs might not be such a bad idea…

Written by Shanda Moorghen on . Posted in Opinion.

Last week, the Conservative Party’s annual conference opened a huge debate for the young people of Great Britain. The Conservative leader David Cameron has suggested the removal of benefits for the under 25s. We have all wondered about David Cameron’s attempts to divert attention away from the real problem right now, the cost of living for English families still suffering from the recession. However, are we calling his bluff or is he actually onto something with this proposal? Mr Cameron plans on creating what he himself calls “a land of opportunity” for the generations to come and he might just be spot on with this one.
The National Insurance Act 1911 was implemented nearly a century ago to provide social welfare benefits to the sick, to the disabled and to the unemployed. In 2013, unemployment has reached 7.7% under Mr Cameron’s leadership. One of the ways Cameron has attempted to get the country’s economy back on track is reassessing the role of the welfare state. The first group he has taken aside for consideration is the ‘Neets’, who are people between the age of 16-25 who are not in education, employment or training. Those people are living off unemployment benefits and the Conservatives want to put an end to that.

The current state of affairs allows a youngster to leave school, move out, find a flat and start claiming their “rightful” life on benefits. More than being the fault of the youngsters or their parents or their environment, Mr Cameron believes it is a failing of the State to give them a choice between a life of employment and a life off benefits. The welfare state has led a to a lazy generation that would rather stay at home during an economic boom and collect benefits.  “Think about it: with your children, would you dream of just leaving them to their own devices, not getting a job, not training, nothing? No – you’d nag and push and guide and do anything to get them on their way… and so must we” belted out Mr Cameron during his party’s conference in Manchester last week. When we consider this dilemma simply on the basis of choice, Mr Cameron is probably right in wanting to lead them towards employment in the short-run or even the long-run rather than just living off the dole.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that the proposal to remove state benefits for the under 25s does not stem simply from a vague idea to improve the way of living of the young British. This is after all a tory government, for all intents and purposes, and thus the reduction of taxes always remains a priority. Despite the slightly better current economic state, the obliteration of state benefits for the ‘Neets’ would be more than welcome and would considerably ease the burden off the average income earner’s tax contribution and subsequently improve standard of living.  Even more than that, the Conservatives have a vision of a brighter England with a higher graduate influx and higher employment rate. It has also been assumed that many of those youngsters living off  the dole are willing to go to school, to have an apprenticeship or to go to work. For them, the transition will be seamless and the increased prospect of having employment will come as a relief.  “We can achieve great things if we can get people to work. Languishing on benefits from 16 is no way to realise your full potential. It is a national scandal. There are some people for whom you need not so much a ‘nudge’ as a ‘dunt’ towards the workplace” retorted Michael Gove, education secretary, when asked about the proposal.
Moreover, some of the basic criticism that has been thrown onto the Conservative proposal can easily be dealt with. The case of young single parents with housing benefits comes to mind. Senior Tories have moved to quash reports that the benefits for those parents will be taken away. Moreover, the idea that the Government is piling on the pressure on the less fortunate during a time of economic recovery is based only on a vague idea of a concept.

This transition towards no benefits for the youngsters will not be a brutal one. It will take time. Time for many youngsters to get off the couch and do something with any skill that they are blessed with, be it manual labour or academics. The country is at a crossroad of ideology between the Conservative party and Labour party. Nonetheless, from the time Tony Blair’s Labour party took over power to 2009 when Labour finally gave up power, they made a promise to reduce the ‘Neets’ by reinvesting the money they obtained from privatisation. However, over the years, the ‘Neets’ have continued to grow in number even during the years of economic boom. Is it not time to give in to this Conservative approach? It might just be.

My Political Hero: Gabrielle Giffords

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Opinion.

With public confidence in politics at new lows, it is not often that politicians are presented in a good light. Gabrielle Giffords is the survivor of an attempted assassination. Giffords began her political career in 2000 in the Arizona House of Representatives, later moving to the state senate. She eventually won a seat in the US House of Representatives. She sat in congress from 2007-2012 winning three elections in the process and creating a large political following, especially in Arizona. Rep. Giffords showed unyielding support for universal health care and economic equality for the lower and middles classes in the United States. She always made an effort to involve the citizens of Arizona in her policies, regularly reaching out to the people of her state.

Giffords’ Congressional career came to a dramatic halt on the 8th January 2011. Twenty-two year old Jared Lee Loughner targeted Giffords in an apparently unmotivated shooting as she was leading a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting in a supermarket car park. The incident saw 13 people injured and six killed – including a nine year old girl. Despite being shot directly in the head, Giffords survived and was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Emergency surgery was performed to stop her brain from swelling. Over the next few weeks, Giffords started to make a strong recovery and was able to start basic physical therapy just two weeks after the attack. She was transferred to a rehabilitation institute where she spent the next few months recovering and her speech and motor functions.

In April 2011, after months of gruelling rehabilitation, Giffords was deemed strong enough to travel to Florida to witness her husband take the role of commander on the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavour. Upon her return to House of Congress in August Giffords received a standing ovation. However, the following January she resigned from her seat in an effort to focus on her recovery, making an emotional promise to return to public service. Gabrielle Giffords strength, resilience and courage have earned her wide spread accolades from politicians across the international community. The incident reignited the debate on gun control, once again polarising opinions.

The shooting of Rep. Gifford was not an isolated attack; in the same year approximately 11,000 Americans died as a result of gun crime. The 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary became another heart-breaking tragedy in the long list. Two years after the attempt on her life in 2013, Giffords teamed up with her husband to start her work on gun control and responsible ownership, launching the website Americans for Responsible Solutions. Both husband and wife appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to give a rousing speech on the topic. Working tirelessly, Giffords then made a special appearance in the legislative advert Let’s Get This Done that ran on TV stations across the US in February 2013, a direct response to the events at Sandy Hook. To this day, Giffords is still recovering from the attack and is dedicated to tackling the this day, Giffords is still recovering from the attack and is dedicated to tackling the issue of gun control in America with the support of her husband.

‘Mental patient’ stigmas and Psycho-ward killers

Written by Lauren Wills on . Posted in Opinion.

Some may have thought the recent headline ‘1200 Killed by Mental Patients’ was your average twisted output from The Sun. However, combined with the news of Asda and Tesco selling and then withdrawing their ‘mental patient’ and ‘psycho ward’ Halloween costumes, the wider issue of the stigma surrounding individuals with mental health problems has arisen.
Whilst it is encouraging that Asda and Tesco have realised they have caused offence and subsequently withdrawn their offensive costumes, has the controversial episode brought to light a deeper issue, rooted in our ideologies about mental illness? During a recent BBC interview, Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind asked the obvious question concerning how the costumes actually got into stores in the first place, describing them as ‘crude and extraordinary’.
Indeed, these costumes could fuel individuals’ already worrying perceptions of the realities of mental illness. The costumes themselves were clearly designed with a misperception in mind. Statistically, 1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year. Whilst Asda and Tesco have been portraying a particularly negative, violent image of mental health patients through the sale of their Halloween costumes, statistics prove that conditions such as mixed anxiety and depression are actually awfully common amongst individuals in the United Kingdom. It is reassuring that both Asda and Tesco, alongside withdrawing these particular halloween costumes, are making donations to Mind, a mental health charity dedicated to giving advice to and supporting those with mental illness, ensuring they do not have to face their problem alone.
However, for The Sun to seemingly fuel the stigma in its headline so soon after the costume incident seems callous. Sue Baker, Director of Time to Change commented “It’s incredibly disappointing to see a leading newspaper splash with such a sensational and damaging headline”. Despite the content of the article being more balanced than its title, the headline infuriated mental health campaigners. The article emphasises the power of the media to twist the facts – however small they may be – to give a particular impression or viewpoint to the reader, particularly as many will see the headline but not buy or read the newspaper. Paul Burstow MP added a valid, key point to the discussion – “the truth is people with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of crime, NOT perpetrators of crime”.
It is obvious that the stigma around mental health patients has been prominent at least since the 1990s when headlines such as ‘mad psycho killers’ abounded. It is within the media’s power to take certain facts and manipulate readers into believing something contrary to the truth, hence the contrast of these headlines with what we find when we actually look at official mental health statistics. According to the Mental Health Foundation, people with mental health problems say that the “social stigma attached to mental ill health and the discrimination they experience can make their difficulties worse and make it harder to recover”. Indeed, in light of this evidence, perhaps we should be devoting more time to the prevention of mental illness, giving victims of the illness the help they need, rather than creating a stigma around them.
Students are one of the demographics in the population where mental health issues flourish. Indeed, the cultural adjustments required of international students only exacerbate the stressful conditions already experienced by the wider student population. It is vital that there is no fear of stigma amongst students when this stress turns into a deeper issue, requiring intervention from an outside source so that they seek this before any problems get worse. Ultimately, an unaddressed mental health problem can unnecessarily ruin lives.
Anyone can be subject to mental health issues and Manchester offers various different methods of help to people who believe they may need it. The university provides a confidential counseling service on the fifth floor of Crawford House for all students. The Union also has a Mental Health campaign, which is a student-led group that aims to promote good mental health and wellbeing throughout campus and beyond. The group is fairly new and aims to hold a series of events throughout the term, including film nights.

If you’d like to find out more, visit manchesterstudentsunion.com/studentvoice/mentalhealth.
The University of Manchester’s counselling service is open 5 days a week and appointments can be booked by calling 0161 275 2864.

Save Our NHS: Where were the media for Manchester’s biggest protest?

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Opinion.

Last month 50,000 people marched on the Conservative conference in the largest demonstration Manchester has seen in decades. Not since the Thatcher era have so many people taken to the city’s streets in a show of collective anger and frustration at the Conservative Party’s program of cuts and privatisations.
Jeremy Hunt’s plan to auction certain services provided by the NHS to private conglomerates goes against the ethos of the NHS itself. Many people fear that handing large swathes of the NHS to profit-chasing businesses will have detrimental effects on the care provided.
Allegations of corruption aside, what this process boils down to is the fragmentation of an institution that many believe represents the pinnacle of British society. That is why on a balmy September afternoon in Manchester, nearly every group in Britain was represented in  their opposition to the plans for the NHS.
From Liverpool Road, via the Tory conference in Manchester Central and down Oxford Road, whistles blew and flags waved in what Manchester police called the largest and most peaceful protest they have ever encountered. The march concluded with the 50,000 demonstrators congregated in Whitworth Park to hear talks from the likes of Owen Jones, Len McClusky and even Coronation Street’s Julie Hesmondalgh.
What was surprising was the scant coverage the rally received in both the national papers and on news channels. The demonstration itself featured on no front pages and coverage from the BBC was described by Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Burnham MP as ‘cursory’. Reports of the conference’s announcements in the Guardian, such as George Osborne’s 7-year plan of austerity, barely mentioned the immense protest taking place among the main arteries of Manchester which surround the conference.
It is crucial to remember that despite the momentum behind the Conservative’s program of ‘efficiency saving’ it is possible for communities to unite to defend the services they cherish. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s apparent crusade on the crowning jewel of Britain’s social policy suffered an awkward defeat at the hands of the people of Southeast London earlier this year. An alliance of locals formed to oppose the prospect of their local A&E being shut down. Lewisham Hospital’s A&E, a financially and medically successful service, was to be closed, leaving three boroughs and 750,000 people with only one accident and emergency unit.
Ardent protesting from local communities and a high level of news coverage led to the case being taken to the high court where the cuts were found unlawful. This is an encouraging example of the influence people-power has in regulating the Conservative’s campaign of rampant austerity measures. The protests in Lewisham and Manchester are communicating that the NHS is off limits to the powers that be, with tangible results. If David Cameron wanted a Big Society, he is certainly getting it now.
To win the war against the policies that betray the very foundations of our welfare state, we need the media to bring this degradation of services to the public eye. Not covering stories such as Manchester’s big protest  undermines both the cause and the people who care about it.

Live: Yuck

Written by Duncan Hatfield on . Posted in Music.

2nd October

Soup Kitchen

5/10

Yuck have an often regaled backstory – they’re the guys from twee pop outfit Cajun Dance Party who actually turned out to be Pavement loving 90s nostalgics. Except that’s no longer the case. Lead singer Daniel Blumberg left earlier this year and rather than disband like many others before them, fellow former CDP member Max Bloom was promoted from bassist to front man. Herein lies tonight’s problem – Blumberg was chosen over Bloom to front both CDP and Yuck with good reason: he’s both more charismatic and a better singer. It’s no coincidence that the best songs of the night, such as ‘Georgia’ and ‘Get Away’ (complete with some impressive crowd-surfing for such a small venue), are those where Bloom seems to be making a concerted effort to mimic his old band mate.

For fan favourite ‘The Wall’ bassist Mariko Doi has a go at filling the Blumberg-shaped hole. Though she has a pleasing voice, her delivery of the lines leaves something to be desired – the trademark elongation of each last word is missing. This leaves the only remaining positive from the song as the almost too good to be true line “you can see me if you’re tall” repeated over and over in a venue where even your 6’4 reviewer struggles to catch a glimpse of the band over the crowd.

Just three songs from new album Glow and Behold make it into the admittedly short set but none stand up to comparison with songs from their debut. Bloom seems lost without Blumberg’s past vocals to mimic while the songs themselves just aren’t as strong. The dearth of new material almost seems like a tacit admission of Glow’s inferiority.

All that said, when Yuck get back to what they do best, as is the case on ‘Operation’  (it helps that this is the only song Bloom originally sang on), they can be a formidable band. The Dinosaur Jr. inspired closer provides a thoroughly enjoyable finish to a somewhat lacking overall set.

Top 5 Songs… with samples.

Written by Lowell Clarke on . Posted in Music.

1. Kanye West – ‘Power’

He started his career producing beats for Jay-Z and it’s still his strongest point. Who’d ever think to put classics ‘21st Schizoid Man’ and ‘Afromerica’ together?

2. Washed Out – ‘Feel It All Around’

Ernest Greene singing over slowed down 80s songs helped kick start the chillwave genre and made some of the chillest songs imaginable in the process.

3. Puff Daddy – ‘Come With Me’

The butchering of Led Zep’s ‘Kashmir’ might make your Dad cry, but there’s no denying the epic size and intensity of this beat.

4. Four Tet – ‘Kool FM’

From the newly-released Beautiful Rewind, this is a stop-start jungle beat affair. A tribute to pirate radio, complete with compressed MC “HEY HEY HEY” samples.

5. DJ Shadow – ‘Midnight In A Perfect World’

For any of you who still doubt that sampling is an art form, look no further. This track is sublimely beautiful. Just give it a listen.