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Day: 5 December 2016

Blairites should not be so self-assured

Written by Sam Glover on . Posted in Opinion.

How is it that the Blairites and their American equivalents can lose so repeatedly but remain able to convince people that they know anything at all about winning? David lost to Ed, Kendall to Corbyn, Remain to Leave, and now Clinton to Trump; and yet, for whatever reason, there is still a ludicrous consensus that these people are who we ought to be looking to for electoral success. And when someone like Corbyn comes along, gets hundreds of thousands of people excited about politics, and makes the hard-left versus the Blairites look like Man City versus the University of Manchester’s Men’s team, the response of the centrists is to put their fingers in their ears, and scream and shout about all that Corbyn is doing wrong.

That’s not to say that Corbyn doesn’t have faults — he does. And he’s probably going to lose the next General Election. But this fact just makes the Blairites’ claims to electability even more ridiculous. If they can’t beat the man who called Hamas a group for “peace” and “social justice”, why would they be able to beat Lynton Crosby’s PR Machine at CCHQ? If Corbyn’s team are analogous to Man City, then there isn’t a team on earth that can be compared to the ruthless efficiency of the Conservative Party.

When you ask a Blairite about the legacy of the Third Way politicians they revere, they’ll have a well-memorised list of some of New Labour’s achievements. They’ll rightly tell you that Blair’s governments introduced the minimum wage and tax credits, brought employment to their highest rates ever, and hired tens of thousands more doctors and nurses. But what do they leave out? They leave out that these were the people whose incompetence brought you Brexit. These were the people who ignored the concerns of the working class and paved the way for the rise of UKIP. These were the people who started an immoral and devastating war in Iraq. These were the people who tarnished Labour’s reputation on matters of the economy.

So, when Tony Blair says he’s going to make a return to UK politics, I’m not sure why he’s surprised that people aren’t very enthusiastic about the prospect. Who are the constituency he thinks he will appeal to? The left hate him. The right hate him. The poor hate him. The rich hate him. Maybe he’ll be able to snag a few liberals who think Tim Farron is a bit of a drip. If Corbyn’s selectorate isn’t enough to win an election, Blair’s disaffected liberals and social democratic policy nerds certainly aren’t either. Even if the impossible happened and Blair did unseat Jeremy Corbyn, he wouldn’t win an election, because the most successful Labour politician of all time is now very mediocre at playing politics.

In a great Channel Four news segment during the first Labour leadership election, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and Labour MP Jess Phillips spent the day together talking about politics between themselves and with Rees-Mogg’s constituents. Phillips said that as much as Corbyn harks back to the 1970s, the Blairites have the same yearning for 1997. And it’s neither. As John Oliver would say, “come on, it’s (current year)!”

If Tony Blair’s miserable cohort want to have a shot at taking over the party after a Corbyn abdication—which could well be twenty years from now—they need to understand the three groups of people that Labour need to persuade to vote for them. Firstly, we need to win the people who voted Leave and are unhappy with the pace of change in this country. The liberal dismissal of barmy Brexiteers is doing the cause no favours, and makes us liable to lose votes to UKIP, especially with its new leader who is well-placed to pick up disaffected working-class ex-Labour voters. Secondly, we need to win the moderates who liked New Labour to begin with, but converted to either Cameron or Clegg and are probably planning on voting Tory at the next election. Thirdly, we need to retain the people who likely voted Green in the last election and have joined after Corbyn’s victory: people who mostly like the European Union and think that we ought to be taking our fair share of refugees.

If this seems like a Herculean task, and that’s because it is. To simultaneously appeal to social liberals, social conservatives, economic leftists, and soft-neoliberals will be difficult. It might even be impossible. But if the Blairites want to win, this is the fusion they must focus on.

Deck the halls with budget holly

Written by Shannon Winterbone on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Christmas is finally just around the corner and, even if you’re a typical Scrooge, you can’t escape the general festivities of Manchester. Santa is on top of our Town Hall and the Christmas markets have begun so just before the countdown to exams begins  — sorry for mentioning it — here are some ideas for ways in which you can spruce up your halls or house for less money than you might expect.

The tree: Over the past few weeks, Sainsbury’s has been getting more and more into the Christmas spirit, with mince pies having been stocked in the first week of November. However, it wasn’t until just recently that they brought in the abundance of little trees that mark the beginning of Fallowfield’s Christmas season. Christmas trees are going for a budget price of £10 and along with that you can get a 24 pack of baubles for £4. If you’re feeling extra creative, dust the tree lightly in icing sugar or desiccated coconut to make it look like it came straight out of Narnia.

The decorations: Of course baubles aren’t enough, we need more! First things first, get down to Home Bargains and get a 6m string of fairy lights for £3.99, perfect length for the tree. For your room or for hanging around the TV in the living room, try Primark’s ‘Snowflake’ fairy lights for £2.50. These can also be strung around the headboard on your bed or wrapped around curtain poles for a festive glow. Poundland is where you want to head for tinsel, because it’s just £1 of course, but also for the fact that they do Disney’s Frozen tinsel, and it’s pink!

Extra festive cheer: When it gets to Christmas every brand seems to release a scent with the word ‘spiced’ in the name which makes it’s so easy to find a cheap way to get your home smelling great. You can pick up 25 ‘Spiced Cinnamon’ tea lights from Primark for £1 or if you want something a little stronger, Febreze have released their ‘Spiced Apple’ spray which you can find for £3 in Sainsbury’s or Tesco.

Hopefully some of these things have given you a little inspiration for how to decorate your home at university for the Christmas season! For extra decorations and ideas, try your luck in Home Sense, which is entirely devoted to Christmas at the moment, or the home section of TK Maxx where you’re guaranteed to find a bargain hidden gem for a budget friendly price.

Retail staff, no need to be frosty!

Written by Lauren Valentine on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Tap ‘working retail Christmas’ into any search engine and you’ll be hit by an avalanche of pessimism, from ‘the struggles of working in retail over Christmas’, to extreme statements such as ‘retail ruins Christmas’. Having worked in retail for three and a half years, I feel I’d be in a good position to write a novel on the bleak aspects of the job. I’m also guilty of being a glass-half-empty kind of person, even extending to the glass of Bucks Fizz on Christmas Day. I’ve counted each hour between clocking out on Christmas Eve and clocking in on Boxing Day, before realising that it wasn’t actually the job that was putting a damper on Christmas — it was my mind-set.

It seems that a preconceived disapproval is developing between retail workers and customers, to the point that workers now expect every customer to be rude, and customers anticipate unsatisfactory service. This is damaging to both staff and shoppers, and it’s time to snap out of the negative cycle in order to make the festive period a more pleasant experience for everybody concerned. Let’s focus on some of the positive aspects that can be drawn from working in retail over Christmas…

Working in retail means that we generally get the first peek of incoming Christmas products and a head start on festive fashion. I don’t know about anybody else, but there’s something about rearranging the gift sets and laying out fluffy pyjamas that makes me feel like I’m part of a Christmas film. As much as we all claim to hate the loop of Christmas music that repeats itself indefinitely, it is nice to be able, if not encouraged, to feel festive whilst at work. There aren’t many jobs where you can plan your New Year’s Eve outfit whilst fulfilling your role, whether you’re taking inspiration in the fitting rooms or tidying up the shop floor.

Speaking of planning outfits, you’ll definitely need a good one for that staff Christmas party. Due to the number of staff employed by large companies, we are guaranteed a great night out for the staff Christmas do, something that can’t always be promised in other jobs. Most companies also offer great staff discount on their clothing and products, allowing us to justify that new pair of shoes.

The Boxing Day sales may mean an early start and a day of arguing about the fact that you do not decide the price tags, but they do provide us with some stories to tell. Anybody would be lying by claiming there’s nothing amusing about watching customers argue over that bargain of a coat that you know has been lurking in the warehouse since summer 2011.

There’s also a chance to improve your CV by taking on retail work over Christmas. It takes resilience, confidence, organisation, and excellent interpersonal skills to work in such a fast-paced environment at their most crucial time of the year, which allows you to gain those often-mentioned transferrable skills. This experience will be invaluable for future applications and interviews.

I can fully appreciate how tiring it is to work in retail over Christmas, but the long shifts and difficult situations can be made a little easier by carrying a positive outlook. Also, when the snow starts to melt and the sales come to an end, you can breathe a sigh of relief and await an excellent pay slip to reflect all of your hard work and extra hours. Suddenly, it all seems worthwhile.

Alan Sugar: You’re Fired

Written by Cameron Broome on . Posted in Opinion.

Over the years, watching the BBC’s The Apprentice on a Wednesday (then Thursday) evening at 9pm became like a ritual for a lot of the nation: the arguments, tantrums and fallings out. Alan Sugar’s ‘banter’ in the boardroom, talking about the latest episode the following day with friends at school, family, or work colleagues.

However, the show has run out of steam. Not only is it laughable to suggest the tasks are somehow representative of real-life business situations but the show is also no longer that entertaining. This year’s crop of candidates are (respectfully) a fairly average bunch. There are no big characters: no one to strongly love or hate. And none of them have particularly shone out business-wise either. Hence, now is the perfect time for the BBC to axe The Apprentice.

One serious limitation to the show’s formatting is the way success is defined. More or less every week, the team that ‘wins’ is the one that makes the most profit over a day or so. However, one team may have achieved a much higher customer satisfaction. Thus, they may have been more likely to make a higher profit over the medium to long term from repeat sales and good reputation. Luck may have also played a role in a team’s victory. Customers may have just so happened to be in a good mood on that particular day and thus been more willing to part with their cash. Alternatively, factors such as weather and traffic may have indirectly affected sales.

Of course, assessing the impact of these external factors is difficult given that economies are complex with their webs of internal and external feedback loops. But that doesn’t mean to say that the potential impact of these factors should be overlooked. Over the long-term, the extent of the impact of luck and external factors would diminish, allowing you to better assess whether or not a product or service is a top-seller. Yet these factors can hugely affect sales figures over a day or two. The Apprentice defines success merely in terms of short-term profit, regardless of the sustainability of the business model.

In addition, there is more to life than money and profit. Absolutely, we need money to maintain a standard of living: buying food, shelter, clothing etc. But beyond a certain point, the extent to which money ‘buys’ us happiness arguably diminishes. Money is needed to pay for nice meals out, buy Christmas presents and fund summer holidays. But in these cases, it is not the money itself that makes people happy. Money gives individuals the opportunity to foster happiness, but the happiness itself derives from the social element attached to these activities.

For example, the joy of eating at a restaurant is is generated by being with friends or family, or from the pleasure received from good food. Equally, in terms of Christmas gifts, happiness derives from buying a family member or friend something you know they’ll love; knowing you’ve done something to make someone else happy in turn makes you happy. In terms of holidays, happiness again derives not from money itself but from building memories with family and friends. Money acts a facilitator in the generation of happiness, but this should not be confused with causality.

Furthermore, the idea that the tasks are somehow representative of real life business situations is laughable. Randomly walking into a bakery in East London and asking for a 10% discount on a large order of rainbow doughnuts does not demonstrate ‘negotiation skills’. Nor does selling a few packet of sweets at a beach somehow demonstrate great sales skills. I mean, seriously, what must people think when they see camera crew, people running around frantically in suits (often engaged in a heated telephone arguments) and Karren Brady standing nearby with a notepad shaking her head? They must know The Apprentice is being filmed. So yes, of course they’re going to buy a packet of sweets for £3 for a chance to be on the telly!

The Apprentice is emblematic of neoliberal capitalism. In dog-eat-dog style, candidates fight for a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar. The message every week is the same: profit, profit, profit. But if we’ve learnt anything from Trump’s surprise victory in the US and Brexit at home, its that the ‘Washington Consensus’ policies of which The Apprentice implicitly endorses are broken: casino capitalism is dying. And not only does the show promote a broken ideology, it is becoming boring too. So it’s time the BBC called Lord Sugar into the boardroom, looked him straight in the eye, pointed and said: Thanks for everything Alan but, regretfully, you’re fired.

Everyday Feminism: Take control of yourselves

Written by Elrica Degirmen on . Posted in Opinion.

I am sick of the faux-feminist nonsense that permeates so many of our media outlets. For example, the Women section of The Guardian is infested by some of the very worst misandry, and arguably misogyny, I have seen. I hate the way that many feminist writers there persistently seek to make excuses for women. One person I must single out is Jessica Valenti. She seeks to justify every feeling that a woman goes through through the lens of female empowerment, but is in reality merely perpetuating a victim culture. She keeps on blaming men for all of her problems, without acknowledge her sense of personal responsibility.

She is the type of person that student social justice warriors look up to. It alienates women like me from the rest of the student body, with a sense of wonderment at how can there be such a lack of common sense at some of our finest educational establishments. Evidently, qualifications are no indicator of intelligence. It is a shame that feminists are upheld as a beacon of truth — they should be an example of what not to be. I intend to be the opposite of everything that Valenti stands for. I must thank her for the providing me with the motivation to live out my life as someone who does not break down as frequently as Southern Rail, but but rather just gets a grip on things.

Let us never forget that the time when Valenti published an article about how sexist it is for men to cat-call her and that they should discourage that behaviour, yet she published another article mentioning how unattractive she feels when men do not cat-call her. Talk about being Schrödinger’s Feminist: we do not know whether you are going to say X or Y until you open your mouth. There is one certainty though, irrespective of what a feminist says, we know that she is chatting complete balderdash.

I have said this before and I will say it again: people like her need to take off their period-tinted glasses and realise that life is unfair, honey. Honestly, if you are complaining about how bad the Western world is because of patriarchy, then I will be the first to say it: the patriarchy has done an excellent job of providing a foundation upon which the women of today can exercise their freedom.

But, no, wherever you look there is always something for Guardianistas to complain about. Most of them are like Freud: every little thing is a symbol of female oppression but they are just as batshit crazy. As well as Jessica Valenti and the like, there is also Everyday Feminism, the online bible for all trigglypuffs everywhere. But do not get me wrong, by no stretch of the imagination is it a moral code to live by.

Everyday Feminism, in its attempts to destroy the gender binary, is one of the most sexist websites that exists. A quick browse and you are also instantly bombarded with articles about “toxic whiteness” and white guilt. Heaven forbid if you are a man, for this site is reminiscent of a nagging wife blaming absolutely everything on men.

I am not one to blame my issues and problems on everyone else, let alone to suggest that specific groups are responsible for what is going on with my life. But it seems that websites such as Everyday Feminism are hell-bent on lecturing to the whole world about identity politics. What is shocking is that it is not a minority of people who believe in this. The fact that it is not merely a small corner of the internet, but rather, it is becoming fashionable within major national newspapers scares me.

Thank heavens Trump won, because had Clinton won, we would have had four more years of feminist propaganda being shoved into our faces. Demeaning men does not work as a tactic. People need to take control of themselves and stop blaming everyone else for their own issues.