The Independent (Work Experience): Live on £53 per week? Try a student loan, Iain Duncan Smith...

This article was originally published by The Independent on 5th April 2013. It is available online here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/finances/live-on-53-per-week-try-that-on-a-student-loan-iain-8561459.html

In a couple of weeks, we students will be able to stop the thrifty spending and strict budgeting.

At last, the next instalment of our student loans has lined our pockets and topped up our bank accounts with endless fresh amounts of virtual money. As soon as the ominous ‘OD’ disappears from your cashpoint display, a world of leisure opportunities awaits: the doors of Jack Wills and Hollister are all the more appealing, the offers on Jagerbombs at Vodka Revolution instantly appear to be incredibly good value, and funds for a drunken sports tour, brimming with banter, are at last secured.

Budgeting is something that students easily endure without fear, their next loan a glimmering promise of free money: £1,581 per week on average.

Excuse me, I mean to say per term.

A pittance

My termly allowance, which has to last me four months, roughly equates to the amount Iain Duncan Smith pockets in a week on his ministerial salary, meaning that my budget is just shy of £100 a week, or around £14 a day, which is difficult enough at double what Duncan Smith boasts he can manage on.

When the money first floods in most excitable youngsters can be seen running off to pay that overdue library fine, stocking up on teabags that aren’t a budget brand and generally gallivanting around the town centre half-daring to dream of affording those second-hand clothes hidden at the very back of the charity store. Or hell, actually having that haircut.

Soon enough, however, the flush oasis becomes a dried-up puddle, leaving university goers moored in the middle of a desert. Perilous mountains of books need be bought on that dwindling budget, food has to be factored into the equation, and funds even need to stretch to clothes.

I’d say that I am reasonably tight with money whilst food shopping, yet I’ll spend an average of £30 a week replenishing the food cupboard, and taking stock of what I can eat and when to get by.

Then there are bills to cover. Internet, gas, electric, water, TV. The economy of a large student house means these come to just £10 for seven days usage, but it is still a significant 20 per cent of what Duncan Smith believes is a plausible sum to live on.

Then, put on a taxi to town and back along with two drinks, and your £53 budget is blown. That hardly supports the leisure time for which students are renowned.

Subsistence living

As a student, it's harder and harder to stay afloat. You’re alive, but you’re not living. In the turmoil of the economic climate, the thrifty student is learning a valuable life skill; perfecting their ability to shop wisely and live within their means, perhaps the most useful life-skill.

Bids to appear upwardly mobile alongside university, such as being involved in sports clubs to boost your profile, purchasing suits for interviews, and having just a mid-range phone, mean that the burden is impressive to behold. These items are no longer luxuries, but necessities.

Students are navigating a minefield of potential outlays in order to better themselves. I have just undertaken two weeks of work experience to the detriment of my bank account. Travel to and around the capital close to the £150-mark alone. We're learning that a degree is not enough of testament to our dedication. You have to speculate to accumulate, and students shell out far in excess of the ‘liveable’ £53 a week to make themselves stand out.

And of course, there's the rent. I pay £68 a week in rent (which is an extremely reasonable sum), blowing the welfare minister’s entire budget instantly. My personal weekly allowance rests at £30 after rent, just enough for food and not a lot else.

Perhaps Duncan Smith’s declaration was all an ill-judged April Fool’s Day joke. But, then again, if I could file my alcohol consumption under expenses, I suppose I could live on £53 a week too.

The Independent (Work Experience): Student Media and Leveson

This article was originally published by The Independent on Friday 22nd March 2013. Available here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/how-will-leveson-impact-student-journalism-8545630.html

At a City University debate this month, Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor warned: "If there are any student journalists here: it’s your freedom and once it goes you won’t get it back." This advice strikes close to home for many students, as Leveson replicates an issue long-standing at university.

I joined The Yorker at university because the idea of the independent paper appealed to me over union-approved media. Our independence has stood firm since we launched; unlike the other major student papers on campus, we don't sign the YUSU charter and are not moderated. If campus papers adhere to union policies, then they are often subject to restrictions that leave many students without sufficient space for investigative journalism. Instead, papers become a mouthpiece of the authority figures as the university officials steer the direction of print.

You only need to look at recent censorship of student publications to see that Leveson is likely to compromise the young journalist position further. At Sheffield, The Forge Press was banned from distribution in halls after they broke a story concerning the exploitation of a pay loophole by the university. Elsewhere, in Leeds, the NUS attempted to prevent the publishing of an interview with infamous BNP leader, Nick Griffin. 

The most prolific example was probably in the case of Edinburgh University, whose student union served an interim interdict on the The Student paper after a story that could have potentially harmed their reputation was slated for front page. Instead, the students decided to leave the front page with the single word ‘Censored’, but it's still wrong that an article of such gravity should be restricted from student access, especially if rumours will circulate due to the injunction order. The truth and student journalist integrity would be better.

On Question Time last year, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins warned the audience that: “Every single measure introduced by parliament to restrict your freedom always goes further, it never goes backwards.”

It seems that some student papers could essentially be double-restricted by the proposals, government adding to union restrictions. There is a sense of trepidation: just where should regulation end and student independence start?

At the very climax of years of hard work fine-tuning the ability to report a ground-breaking story, students’ first medium of expression is set to be stifled. How should upcoming reporters explore their journalistic potential if they cannot follow their leads and initiatives?

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, participated in a candid interview about Leveson on the BBC this week: “People are saying there’s a certain amount if independence in there? Is there?” he questioned. “Independence or not independence? It tends to be a quality that’s either one or the other.”

This has been the issue for students for decades. The best stories came from publishing news the unions didn’t want in print, so undoubtedly the trouble is learning to compromise union policies with student rights. If Leveson meddles in a manner that the unions have advocated thus far, independence is really something under threat, and students may never know true journalistic freedom.

The Independent (Work Experience): Does Twitter Need Moderation?

This article was originally published by The Independent on 22 March 2013. Available online here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/too-rude-for-its-own-good-twitter-needs-moderation-8545918.html

As Britain waited for his 2013 budget, a tentative George Osborne joined Twitter, the social micro-blogging site. The Chancellor must have been prepared for some degree of abuse on his interactions page. But the torrents of invective that flooded the site in the hours following Osborne’s new profile raise a serious issue about expressions of contempt.

Yesterday Twitter turned seven. Since 2006, the outlet has challenged its users to post succinctly and effectively in 140 characters or less, a bastion of free speech for the modern mentality. The communicative approach represents an intuitive paradigm shift: we are a nation on the pulse. Short updates from prevalent social figures drove the popularity of twitter as an en vogue medium of expression.

Yet we are increasingly carried away by the kind of short, snappy and sometimes rash outbursts that - when they catch on - foster the creative qualities that can make Twitter's top trending topics so brilliant. On Wednesday, for example, if you were to click on the trends of either “budget” or “George Osborne” a stream of abuse and harassment would have popped up on your screen.

Paraphrasing George Osborne’s first ever tweet, one user posted “Today I’ll present a budget that shows what a complete and utter useless cunt I am”. Another bemused tweeter argued “shouldn’t you be fixing the economy instead of fucking about on twitter?” Some took it upon themselves to cram as many insults as is possible into 140 characters: “you’re a first class bellend, you overpaid, overeducated fox hunting twat.”

Of course Osborne is not the first person to feel the wrath of Twitter users. In fact, the phenomenon is becoming more mainstream. Olympians felt the force of trolls last summer, with Rebecca Adlington receiving tweets comparing her to a whale, and Tom Daley being subject to inconsiderate tweets about his deceased father.

Abuse

Action should be considered, especially when we examine the number of high profile people deactivating accounts: from TV presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Helen Skelton to footballer Micah Richards and beyond, the impacts of twitter misuse are concerning. Perhaps these celebrities could provide part of the solution: with billions of followers, the likes of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and One Direction could quite easily preach a better means of interacting on the Twitter platforms. Many of their followers are guilty of some abuse, whether it is sending threats to fellow fans, or mocking the artist’s contemporaries if their preferred singer doesn’t receive an award.

With the attacks happening at all levels – popular culture, political, racial, religious – is it time that Twitter invest in a scheme of censorship? When monitoring a site whose most defining feature is user interaction and integration, there's no easy answer. Twitter’s success is built off its ability to generate momentum on any topic at all.

While it might be impractical to impose a blanket ban on certain words or phrases, it is quite possible that Twitter could prevent certain terms becoming trendable, limiting the hashtag. The hashtag is a staple part in galvanizing a twitter movement and some of the more obscene trends get to the top in this way. #ReasonsToBeatUpYourWife and #fuckyouwashington are but two examples; another, #OnceYouGetMarriedYouCant, stems from our tendency to overshare (‘family friendly’ suggestions included: “sit on the toilet and clip your toenails wit the bathroom door open” and “keep those naked photos of your ex”).

Proactive approaches from Twitter developers may be the only means to tackle the problem of harassment. Despite the high-profile cases of breaking super-injunctions and jail sentences being served for mocking the adversities of our celebrities, users remain relatively unversed on the issue of acceptable Twitter actions. Crown Prosecution has issued a 14-page guide to social media prosecution and related laws, but there is still a tendency to believe that the blogosphere does not impact the physical world. Violent threats and campaigns of harassment are easily challenged in court.

Taking action

In fact, French anti-racism firms may have got the ball rolling by holding Twitter itself to account. The French Jewish Student Union and the J’accuse organisation have demanded a fine of $50million to be paid for Twitter not having handed over details of users whose abusive comments broke French law. The tag, #UnBonJuif (A Good Jew), instigated a string of abusive anti-Semitic posts on the micro-blogging site last year. Stéphane Lilti, the anti-racism groups’ lawyer, told FRANCE 24 “The 38 million euros cited, which is [the equivalent of] 50 million US dollars, is designed to make them [Twitter] wake up to the fact that protecting the authors of racist tweets is not acceptable.” Without doubt, Twitter wields a great responsibility for sharing and directing thoughts and should be penalised if they don’t monitor and act responsibly.

Safeguarding however comes with a risk. Increased filters of trending material could cause a delay in news transmission, and augmented censorship runs the risk of Twitter losing its dynamism. It would undoubtedly ensure a drop in popularity, and then there would be nothing to censor anyway.

At seven, Twitter seems to have been struck by a similar issue to Facebook. Just as other social network sites became bloated with memes and trolls, so the ingenuity that attracted new people and new modes of expression online risks being usurped by a proliferation of direct and personal attacks. This is not a new problem, but after the headlines about inappropriate and illegal posts on Twitter in 2012, it’s a wonder that users still felt justified to abuse the Chancellor so virulently, no matter how he has impacted their lives. 

The Independent (Work Experience): Growing Up With Iraq.

This article was written for The Independent and published on their website 20th March 2013:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/growing-up-with-iraq-8542599.html

AT the close of the Iraq War, Tony Blair visited troops on active service and declared that the supposed triumph in the Middle East was a momentous part of our generation’s history. “When people look back on this time, and look back on this conflict, I honestly believe that they will see this as one of the finer moments of our century” he said with confidence. Riding high on the wave of a euphoric sense of victory, the Prime Minister believed that he had proved doubters of the Iraq War wrong: his deliberately obstinate stance in the face of record protesters in the months preceding the war had apparently paid off. But not all victories should be measured by the physical change.

A decade after the conflict began, we are still living with its legacy, and feel the force of threat even more every day. A younger generation are now becoming part of the electorate; a generation for whom the Iraq War was their first engagement with pressing and current world issues. For those in their late teens and early 20s, this is their first memory of war.

Far from the prescribed school curriculum of World War II and the great British and Allied victories of the twentieth century, here was a confusing and confounding picture of modern warfare. Two of my clearest childhood memories revolve around the ‘war on terror’: the attacks of 9/11, and the opening bombardment on Baghdad some ten years ago. The former event I did not fully appreciate at the time, but remember my mother frantically trying to find a channel with children’s shows to distract our attention whilst she watched upstairs. The later seemed a rite of passage: I watched the images aged just ten, with my parents alongside.

Barrage

The picture was bewildering. How were we the good guys if we were launching such a massive barrage of destruction on this weaker nation? As a child in primary school, it was too much to comprehend.

Intervening years of destruction, violence and chaos followed, and I found myself questioning Blair’s resounding sentiment of success. Did we feel any safer in this modern world? Alongside dwindling support for the Iraq War grew increasing resentment and discontent. I came to the belief that this had been an exercise in vanity and massaging the egos of world superpowers.

As a country, we have never felt less safe as a result of British action abroad. A recent YouGov poll, carried out to coincide with the ten year anniversary of the Iraq invasion, reveals that a majority (56 per cent) of the public share this believe that the war has increased the risk of a terrorist attack on the UK, while less than a tenth of participants (7 per cent) believed it had decreased the risk of attack. It is a similar story in the US, where almost half (48 per cent) of people believe the conflict has not contributed to the long term security of the country.

In his ‘Discouraging Citizenship?’ paper, Stephen Cushion identified that “the 10–14 year old age group were the most anti-war (62 per cent opposing it), followed by the 19–22 group (47 per cent).” back in 2003. The massive 62 per cent against war are now feeling the impact of an oblivious government in which they had no say.

Apathy

When an estimated two million people marched on Westminster in 2003, placards of the mass anti-war demonstration read “Not in My Name”. The current distrust of young adults is easy to explain. This war we knew little about was waged in our name, and now we are the generation that have to deal with the consequences in a supposedly more threatening world.

Disengagement with politics does not stem from youth apathy as many assume, it sprouts from this cultural moment of war, a major milestone in public consciousness and disillusionment with the political monopoly. As the first people to grow up absorbing information from the TV, internet websites and social media, our fears and feelings, our misconceptions and misunderstandings of war are reinforced through every medium. For all the supposed benefits, we still feel less and less safe.

In his inauguration speech for his second term of office at the White House, Barack Obama announced that “a decade of war is now ending.” Withdrawing troops is not the end of the war however. While Western democracies may believe they have won a battle, the war on terror continues for those who are forced to live in the aftermath. Even if you are too young to remember the demonstrations in London, or the initial invasion, the cynicism is likely to have seeped in from reports of terrorist threats, 7/7 and elder siblings. Far from the glory of Tony Blair’s victory speech, this war will perhaps now be remembered as the finest example of the century’s incompetence and its legacy now overshadows the young.