Annahart's Blog

Student’s Stand Up by Sitting Down

annahart — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:35:00 +0000

2009 has seen the largest wave of Student activism for a generation. Occupations by students have occurred at 25 universities across the country , including; Oxford, Kings College London, Manchester, with even Queen Mary, University of London getting involved. Student Activism has seemed dead for the past few decades but look not very long ago, and the student spirit was alive and able to achieve great change, for example when “busloads descended on the capital in the late 1980s in a wave of anti-apartheid rage.” Why though, in a time when a univeristy education is increasingly available to all, regardless of social, economic or political position do students feel they have a right to complain?

The majority of students today have grown up with a predominantly Labour government, headed by Tony Blair, and more recently Gordon Brown. We have seen the Government wage extremely unpopular wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and now we see the same Government doing nothing to prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza. It seems Gaza has been the last straw for many students and has led them to organise rallys, marches and sit-ins.

On the home front, meanwhile, students are subjected to having to pay more and more for a university education through the introduction of top-up fees, which may soon have their cap removed, allowing universities to charge whatever they like. To add insult to injury, the degrees for which we pay so much money for are no longer even worth much, which thousands of graduates are currently finding out the hard way as they desperately search for jobs. Many young people, graduating with good degrees from prestigious universities are finding that there are no jobs available, and that to get anywhere they must first either pay another few thousand pounds for a Masters Degree or work for free for several months in an internship.

With a mountain of debt piling up, no prospect of any job at the end of their degree, and our educational institutions remaining silent on issues such as the conflict in Gaza, it is any wonder that students feel the need to express their anger and frustration through occupations in their universities.

Binge Drinking

annahart — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:57:05 +0000

Effects of binge drinking

The government has announced new plans to increase to the cost of cheap alcohol. It plans to charge for alcohol dependent on how many units it contains. This, it surmises will prevent people drinking too much.

In my opinion this is ridiculous, and is just another example of the nanny state in action. Sir Liam Donaldson has put the proposal forward, and in his plan, no alcohol could be sold for less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol. This means that most bottles of wine will not be able to be sold for less than £4.50. The Portman Group, set up by drinks manufacturers to promote sensible drinking, also said it opposed the plan.

This new proposal, will in essence, punish all those who enjoy alcohol responsibly as well as those who binge drink to excessive amounts. And while, I agree that something needs to be done about the level of alcohol abuse in Britain, I do not think that this is the answer. People who wish to binge drink, will always find a way and although this may deter them at first, in the long term it will not stop them.

Education is the key to solving the problem, especially with teenagers who are tempted to drink excessive amounts of alcohol.The Government needs to spend the money that they receive in taxes from alcohol in a positive way to encourage teenagers not to binge drink and about the side affects of this. Increasing the cost of alcohol will just further line the pockets of Government and will not achieve any proper long term results.

24Hour News

annahart — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:07:05 +0000

BBC News 24

It can be argued that the development of the 24 hour news culture has led to a loss in the quality of news coverage over the years.

The need for round the clock reporting, especially on dedicated news channels means that news is often repeated to fill time slots. It also means that news is often broadcasted as it is coming into the studio, so the viewer of these channels has to continually watch to get the full story, whereas a regular time-slot news show, such as the 10 o’ clock news, has chance, most of the time, to develop a story and write it up properly before it is broadcasted. This allows for high quality reporting.

The internet can also be blamed for this need to know information instantly. People have become used to getting information quickly at the touch of a button, and are not alway necessrily concerned with the complete accuracy of what they are reading. The development in poplularity of Wikipedia, although not necessarily news related, indicates this, as it is often inaccurate, yet people still believe what is written without questioning its reliability.