Tips for getting around Manchester from The Mancunion

The embarrassment of Britain’s failing railways

Ben Green talks about his political hero, Jacques Delors

It is now possible to take a course in iPhone photography; Ben Green tells us about it. As reported in the Mancunion last week, the London College of Kensington (a university apparently) is now offering a course in iPhone photography.  Ah, an afternoon spent showing technically-challenged people how to use their phones, no doubt sponsored […]

There seems to be a growing trend amongst humanities lecturers to teach their tutorials through the medium of student-led presentations. It’s not exactly surprising, seeing as there is a particular benefit to these lecturers which no other teaching method can offer: they don’t actually have to do anything. The premise of a tutorial taken in […]

There’s been a great deal of fuss lately over the government’s latest work experience programme backed, most notably, by Tesco. In fact, so loud has opposition to the scheme become that a number of organisations currently involved have threatened to back out on the basis that it is harming their business; some, like Sainsbury’s, have […]

I’m going to give you £100,000. Now here’s the choice: I can either put £60,000 in your bank account and give the rest to the government, or I can put £85,000 in a business account and give you access to it. Which one are you really going to choose? Most of us would like to […]

Comment & Debate Editor Ben Green takes a look at the real reason behind obscene bonuses, and has a modest proposal for making everything better In this quasi-free market society of which we are all proud citizens, the economy runs on a simple proposition: the exchange of labour for currency. Companies employ people to make […]

The Union’s ‘monster referendum’ is here and they’re casing for your votes on a great variety of matters. Many of the planned measures would undoubtedly improve the Union – the clause to allow online voting for policy motions would certainly increase the likelihood that any such motion could actually pass. Unfortunately, buried in the mass […]

Comment & Debate Editor Ben Green explains why the term ‘U-turn’ needs to be banished forever.   It is virtually guaranteed that if you pick up any newspaper on any given day of the week, it will somewhere contain an article accusing local or national government of a ‘U-turn’. In the figurative sense it is […]

As has been prominently reported by every single news outlet in the country, Sir Fred Goodwin is now simply Mr Fred. He was stripped of his knighthood for his role in the collapse of RBS and the £45 million he has cost the taxpayer through his epic mishandling of the bank. Whilst this move has […]

Recently I have begun, or rather, attempted to begin, research for my dissertation (I won’t bore you with the title) only to discover that it is a task worthy of Sisyphus. But surely, you say, it can’t be that bad – it’s just a lot of reading and note taking. And you would be correct, […]

Privatisation works by opening up services to a free market, which drives down prices and leads to innovation and improvements in customer service. These improvements over a nationalised system are born out of competition between different providers. The telecoms industry is an excellent example of where privatisation has worked to effect improvements; numerous providers offer […]

On 23 September Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and head of the Palestinian Authority, officially submitted a bid to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for Palestine to be recognised as a state and granted full membership of the United Nations. This bid has precisely a zero per cent chance of succeeding. […]