Palatinate 842

Palatinate The UK and Ireland’s Best Student Publication, 2021

Thursday 14th October 2021 | No. 842

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Increase in drink spiking incidents Lilith Foster-Collins and Martha McHardy News Editor and Deputy Editor Content Warning: This article contains discussion of drink spiking and sexual assault.

Incidents of drink spiking have allegedly increased across Durham city as a whole during freshersweek, according to a post by

University College JCR. There have been at least five cases affecting students from University College, and five from Hild Bede College, as well as numerous from across the wider student body. Incidents are reported to have taken place at multiple locations in Durham.

In a post on the Facebook group Urban Angels Durham, a group aimed at promoting the

safety of women and non-binary people in Durham, one student alleged they had been spiked during Castle’s Freshtival event. The student was taken to A&E, and urged fellow students to “take care and look out for one another”.

Another student claimed they were spiked on the Tuesday night of freshers’ week. The student was taken to hospital, where they stayed overnight.

Students have expressed dismay and concern around reports of increasing incidents.

A post to Castle Freshers from the JCR said “it is now evident, with the events of Freshtival that we have to address the hugely concerning evidence that a member of our community is potentially perpetrating this crime. I would like to tell you now, if this is you, there is

no place for you in our community”.

Jonah Graham, Welfare and Liberation Officer for the SU, said: “The numbers of spiking cases are abhorrent.”

Spiking is legally considered a form of assault, and is a crime under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act, with charging resulting in up to ten years imprisonment.

Continued on page 4

70% disproved Patrick Stephens Investigations Editor 33% of Durham alumni are married to or have a partner who also went to Durham, according to a Freedom of Information request by Palatinate. This contradicts a frequent claim that 70% of Durham students will marry a fellow student.

Of those with a spouse or partner, 84% are with fellow alumni. This compares to 76% at Exeter University and 83% at Leeds University.

These figures challenge a frequently-cited article in The Independent from 2013, which estimated that 72% of Durham students would marry a fellow student, compared to a national average of below 20%.

The University holds data for 27,773 alumni on whether they have a spouse or partner, of which 10,920 do. Of these, 9148 are known to have a spouse or partner who is a fellow Durham alumnus or alumna, with 8747 for spouse and 401 for partner.

Data about the marital status of alumni is provided during ‘transactions’ with the university, including contact details updates, event registration, and making a donation. Alumni whose partner or spouse also went to Durham are likelier involved with the University in this way.

Continued on page 6

Durham nightlife surges as freshers catch up on two years of not going out (Adeline Zhao)

Popular grocer under threat

Lilith Foster-Collins and Theo Burman News Editors Robinsons Greengrocers on North Road faces an uncertain future as Durham’s bus station renovations disrupt business.

The bus station is currently closed whilst renovations take place, but works have dragged on, leading to significant issues for lo-

cal businesses. Temporary bus stops outside Robinsons Greengrocers are having a major effect on business; owner Sandi Robinson estimated that the shop had faced a 60% drop in customers as a result of the issues.

In a letter to Durham County Council, signed by Robinson and several other business owners, including Cooplands Bakery and the Golden Pearl, it was claimed

that the current allocation of bus stops on North Road was “dangerous and unhealthy”, with the letter calling on the Council to “alleviate the public health dangers” posed by the crowds.

Owners have faced crowding, diesel fume pollution, and issues with litter, right outside the independent businesses.

Continued on page 3

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

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Editorial

Inside 841

(Rosie Bromiley)

News pages 1-6 Satire page 8 Comment pages 9-11 Profile pages 12-13 Scitech pages 14-16 Politics pages 17-19 Puzzles page 20 Palatidates page 21 Sport pages 22-24

indigo

(Adeline Zhao)

Through the back door

W

hispers from journalists suggest that the Government is planning to lower the threshold of graduate scheme repayments from over £27,000 to £23,000, extending the period in which to pay it back from 30 to 40 years.

When the Government is about to announce an unpopular decision, they set a now wellrehearsed routine into motion.

First, national papers and bluetick-tweeters are briefed by senior cabinet sources. This causes a stir online. Those prone to upset get riled up, but the disorder then settles down.

We don’t hear directly from the Government. Yet. Then in comes the fall guy. A cabinet minister, probably Grant Shapps, will turn up on one of the flagship political programmes and explain that what may or may not have been briefed to newspapers is in fact a spurious fiction. Trust in journalists is undermined.

In the heat of paralysing confusion, the announcement — that is, about the change said cabinet minister claimed would never happen — will be made discreetly, maybe at 3pm on a Tuesday. There will be a brief moment of uproar, but it will be short. Perhaps Shapps will reappear on TV and try to explain himself, how in fact he was always communicating honestly with viewers, that there is an underlying consistency to the Government’s approach.

The tactic of disorientating people is a dishonest one, but it serves a useful purpose: those who may have protested a change have already expended

their energy. Their fatigue and heightening sense of powerlessness makes them resigned to the change when it is eventually announced.

Consider briefly the alternative. The Government uses a flagship political programme to announce a proposed change. It is the number one news item on all the bulletins. The Opposition pore over the changes, make a robust argument for or against and the resulting legislation takes account of this. Those who may be most adversely affected can, should they wish, mobilise to protest.

This, you might think, is no way to run a pragmatic government.

Nothing would get done! Yet it is — albeit in its idealised form — the parliamentary system we all tacitly consent to when we vote.

So far the proposed changes to university loans threshold repayments has followed this routine. You don’t have to think especially hard to imagine why the Government hope they can introduce the the change quietly.

Students are more inclined to pick up a placard than most, and protests would — whether they were effective or not — contribute to an atmosphere of chaos. Although it is unlikely that the Government would be especially worried about losing their small student vote, fiddling with tax brackets is akin to playing with fire for politicians.

When the repayment scheme was introduced by The Coalition, it was seen by many as the one redeeming feature of the £6,000 hike in tuition fee costs. Student loan debts would not behave like other debts, which would

severely affect people’s ability to, say, get a mortgage. Instead, in all but name, they would function like a graduate tax.

It was also accepted that tuition fees were justifiable as graduates are expected to earn more.

Despite the large debt, university was still a wise economic decision in the long-term. The deal was simple: if graduates did not outearn non-graduates, they would not be made to pay.

To lower the threshold would dramatically undermine trust.

Although it is not written in natural law that education should be free, it is a robust principle, broadly accepted by all until the cut-off point of 18. Seeing education post-18 in economic terms, despite tuition fees being almost 20 years old, still does not sit easily.

The proposal also lacks honour.

Students begrudgingly rack up large debts on certain terms when they take out loans. To change the terms of an agreement after both parties have shaken would be patently unacceptable in any other context.

It may be said that that the proposed changes will encourage more students to take up apprenticeships, T-Levels or vocational paths. Most would agree the Government is right to prioritise this, as it is imperative that students whose gifts lie outside a university education are given options. Yet it’s nonsensical to attack institutions of quality, which contribute to broader social enrichment.

A better strategy is obvious: encourage non-university paths by celebrating their merits, rather than creating disincentives to a

Editorial page 2 Visual Arts page 3 Food & Drink pages 4-5 Book page 7 Style pages 8-9 Film & TV page 10 Creative Writing page 11 Features page 12 Music page 13 Travel pages 14-15 Interview page 16 university education.

Others would support the changes by suggesting that most university students are middle class and can afford to pay. Well, to be curt, many are, but many aren’t. Broad brushes offer a limited scope.

Further still, some would argue that at the end of the pandemic, the burden must be shared. This, too, is correct. Yet it is hard to escape the sense that, as we have read in the Pandora Papers , the Government’s energy might be better spent tackling tax evasion than targeting students. The whole point of a redistributive tax system is that those who pay more feel the burden less. Yet graduates would feel the changing threshold profoundly.

The quality of a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable. While circumstances mean that some students will never need to worry about money, on the whole graduates are vulnerable as they emerge from their university years. The Government has an opportunity to support them. Instead they sneak punishing legislation through the back door.

Toby Donegan-Cross Editor-in-Chief

Palatinate is published by Durham Students’ Union on a fortnightly basis during term and is editorially independent. All contributors and editors are full-time students at Durham University. Send letters to: Editor, Palatinate, Durham Students’ Union, Dunelm House, New Elvet, Durham, DH1 3AN. Alternatively, send an e-mail to editor@palatinate.org.uk

Palatinate Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Toby Donegan-Cross & Max Kendix editor@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Editors Martha McHardy & Harrison Newsham News Editors Theo Burman, Lilith Foster-Collins & Poppy Askham news@palatinate.org.uk News Reporters Keziah Smith, Orlando Bell, Cristina Coellen & Elizabeth McBride Investigations Editors Patrick Stephens & Kathryn Ellison Satire Editors Ben Lycett & Hannah Williams satire@palatinate.org.uk Comment Editors Ellie Fitzgerald-Tesh & Anna Noble comment@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Comment Editors George Pickthorn & Miriam Shelley Profile Editors Paul Ray & Ethan Sanitt profile@palatinate.org.uk Science & Technology Editors Elise Garcon, Cameron McAllister & Caitlin Painter scitech@palatinate.org.uk Politics Editors Maddy Burt & Rj Batkhuu politics@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Politics Editors Joe Rossiter & Laetitia Eichinger Puzzles Editors Thomas Simpson, Hugo Bush & Katie Smith puzzles@palatinate.org.uk Sport Editors George Simms, Abi Curran & Jonny Tiplady sport@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Sport Editors Harvey Stevens & Mary Atkinson Indigo Editors Cerys Edwards & Honor Douglas indigo@palatinate.org.uk Deputy Indigo Editor Adeline Zhao Features Editors Isobel Tighe & Miriam Mitchell features@palatinate.org.uk Creative Writing Editors Millie Stott & Ella Al-Khalil Coyle creative.writing@palatinate.org.uk Stage Editors Ben Smart & Jodie Sale stage@palatinate.org.uk Visual Arts Editors Nicole Wu & Christian Bland visual.arts@palatinate.org.uk Books Editors Imogen Marchant & Samuel Lopes books@palatinate.org.uk Style Editors Grace Jessop & Anna Johns fashion@palatinate.org.uk Food & Drink Editors Nia Kile, Josie Lockwood & Emerson Shams food@palatinate.org.uk Travel Editors Gracie Linthwaite & Holly Downes travel@palatinate.org.uk Film & TV Editors Charlotte Grimwade & Grace Marshall film@palatinate.org.uk Music Editors Katya Davisson & Annabelle Bulag music@palatinate.org.uk Interview Editors Stephanie Ormond & Abigail Brierley indigo.interview@palatinate.org.uk Photography Editors Lainey Lin, Thomas Tomlinson & Rob Laine photography@palatinate.org.uk Illustration Editors Verity Laycock, Rosie Bromiley, Victoria Cheng & Anna Kuptsova illustration@palatinate.org.uk Social Media Officers Felicity Hartley, Georgia Heath & Hannah Davies Business Director JJ Littlemore businessdirector@palatinate.org.uk Heads of Advertising Alex Cowan, Thaddeus Dominic, Ben Stoneley & Kyra Onyebuchi advertising@palatinate.org.uk Heads of Alumni Relations Elena Liciu & Ben Stoneley alumni@palatinate.org.uk Finance Officer Sophie Garnett finance@palatinate.org.uk

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PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

News

“The most distressing matter of all is the growing feeling that we don’t matter at all” Continued from front Robinsons explained how customers, many of them pensioners, have been put off by the crowds, especially given the ongoing pandemic.

The letter went on to argue that Robinson’s and Cooplands were “the worst example” of businesses

being affected by the crowds, as “for nearly two hours in the afternoon the large congregation of school children block the entrances and effectively close the shops.” Sandi Robinson, owner of Robinsons Greegrocers, noted that Robinsons’ business model was built around the Bus Station as an access point to people living outside Durham.

Not only is Robinsons facing issues from crowding outside the shop, customers from outside Durham are struggling to make the journey to the greengrocers, as buses face major delays.

A lack of drivers and lack of buses has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Robinsons receives significant custom from students but

(Robinsons)

students tend to default to Tesco. don’t matter at all. With two newly The challenge is making elected Councils, we sincerely students aware of local shops, hope for better communication Sandi says. She has tried and response to our various methods concerns.”

The of promoting A meeting was challenge is the business to held with the students in the Council, but local making students past, and the shop businesses have yet currently offers to revieve any plans aware of local a 10% discount regarding North to students. Sandi Road. shops encouraged students Dave Wafer, Durham to “seek out local business, County Council’s head of which offer significant rewards to transport and contract services, students”. told Palatinate: “We are aware EcoDU told Palatinate: “by of concerns raised by businesses shopping at Robinson’s you are regarding the temporary bus directly helping the local stops on North Road, and we Durham economy as are looking at measures well as supporting that can be put in “Seek many local place to encourage British farms.” more shoppers to out local “Shopping visit.” buisnesses, which there also “We are reduces plastic k e e p i n g offer significant waste as businesses upmost of their to-date with rewards to produce comes progress of the students” in its natural form, works, including without plastic letter drops and packaging.” updates to our web page, “100 years ago, every and surveys are ongoing to town would have had a small review stand allocations.” independent greengrocer like “We will also be undertaking Robinson’s.” remedial works where possible “However, our food is now on North Road to make the area supplied to us predominantly more accessible and appealing by large corporations who have for shoppers, including additional killed many small businesses in cleaning, signage to inform the UK.” visitors that businesses are open, Businesses on North Road said and adding markings to footpaths in the letter sent to the council: asking people to keep door areas “The most distressing matter of clear while using the temporary all is the growing feeling that we bus stops.”

Durham’s Covid sniffer dogs begin real-world use Theo Burman News Editor Durham University’s research into dogs with the ability to detect positive cases of Covid-19

is now being tested in real-world environments.

The program, conducted in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and the charity Medical Detection Dogs,

began in May earlier this year, with trials that used over 3500 odour samples donated by members of the public and NHS staff. Of these samples, the dogs were able to detect 91% of positive cases.

Reggie, Maple and Storm, will be put to work in “real-life workplaces” as part of the next stage of research.

The majority of the dogs on the program are labradors or golden retrievers, breeds which have the most developed sense of smell.

The next stage of research was prompted after the trial revealed that “dogs are one of the most reliable biosensors for detecting the odour of human disease,”

according to the Chief Scientific Officer at Medical Detection Dogs. “Our robust study shows the huge potential for dogs to help in the fight against Covid-19.”

The dogs can even detect Covid-19 in people who are asymptomatic, regardless of whether it is a high or low viral load.

The canines, plus a confirmatory PCR test for those detected, are estimated to discover more than twice as many cases and prevent transmission.

Mathematical models suggest that two bio-detection dogs could successfully screen 300 plane passengers in around 30 minutes. The research has applications beyond Covid-19, as the dogs could be used in future outbreaks for other diseases,

The dogs were able to detect 91% of cases

(Medical Detection Dogs)

and could be built into countries’ pandemic planning strategies.

Professor Steve Lindsay, from the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, said: “Dogs could be a great way to screen a large number of people quickly and preventing Covid-19 from being re-introduced into the UK. Trained dogs could potentially act as a fast screening tool for travellers with those identified as infective confirmed with a lab test. This could make testing faster and save money.”

Earlier this year a Palatinate investigation revealed that the sniffer dogs reported a higher detection rate than the LFTs promoted by the University, which correctly identify on average 72% of symptomatic cases of the virus, and only 58% of asymptomatic cases. The sniffer dogs, on the other hand, report 94% accuracy.

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Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

News

“There is no scenario in which a victim is to blame”

not be for women to avoid violence because society should prevent gendered violence.

“The SU is dedicated to St. Mary’s College sent an email this work through supporting to students in which the Assistant Womxn’s association and It’s President urged students to be Not Okay Durham, creating a vigilant, and noted strategies culture commission to provide that could be used to avoid tangible goals for cultural spiking, including not accepting change, providing our own active drinks from strangers and never bystander training focused on leaving a drink unattended. sexual and gendered violence, The email also said: “Without and pushing the University wishing to downplay the to include relevant examples significance of drink spiking within its respect training.” in any way, we’re sure you are Jimmy Allen’s were asked what aware that people can become they were doing to prevent unwell on nights out for a incidents occurring: number of different “We have increased reasons; we are also “It should the amount of door aware that there not be for patrol staff inside have been cases women to avoid the venue to try recently where an violence because and deter, also incident which was alongside this we society should initially assumed to be a spiking was prevent gendered now give a couple members of bar later confirmed not violence” staff body cams to to have been due to wear behind the bar. spiking.”

“Our bar staff and door Palatinate has spoken staff are being additionally to a number of clubs across vigilant towards this and we ask Durham about the rising cases. our customers to do the same.”

Jimmy Allen’s, one of the most Jonah Graham offered advice popular, said: “We do take drugs to students, but expressed that seriously.” “the following advice is merely “We are aware of an increase a self-defence mechanism and in spiking in the Durham area. under no circumstances tries to Our bar staff and door staff lay the burden on the victim. are being additionally vigilant “Students can do several towards this and we ask our things to avoid being spiked. customers to do the same.

All students should watch their “We have not had a confirmed drink when being served and spiking in Jimmy Allen’s but we never leave it unattended – keep are aware of incidents through it in sight or in hand. Students the city of Durham.” should not accept drinks from Various organisations offered people they do not know. If guidance and support to a student is in a college, they students. Urban Angels Durham should ask for a spikey. told Palatinate that they are “If a student suspects they equipped and ready to support have been spiked, they should any victims who approach them. seek help immediately. A They are also sharing graphics student can work out they have and information to make people been spiked by monitoring aware of ways to prevent themselves for symptoms spiking, what to do if - spiking can cause spiking occurs, and visual problems, how to seek support a loss of balance, or legal action as confusion, nausea, a victim, with an vomiting, and even emphasis on the unconsciousness. fact that spiking Most date rape incidents are never drugs are tasteless the victim’s fault. and new forms Urban Angels has of spiking, such as also started a dialogue ketamine or additional with venues in Durham stronger alcohol, are being over their need to be vigilant used. If a drink tastes odd or a after recent cases. student is disproportionately Durham SU Welfare and drunk after only a few drinks Liberation Officer Jonah Graham they should seek assistance. emphasised that “There is no “Seek help from a member of scenario in which a survivor of staff or a trusted friend especially such assault is to blame. The SU if the student feels in immediate recognises the stigma around danger. Date rape drugs gender based violence. normally take 15-30 minutes “I understand that students to take effect, so students need will be frustrated that the to act quickly. They should ask conversation is framed around the person helping them to how women and other students take them out of the immediate can avoid being spiked. No one situation and to the nearest should spike a drink - it should

Continued from front

72% of drink spiking victims in England are women The majority of spiking drugs take effect within 15-30 minutes 2,650 reports of drink spiking were reported in England and Wales between 2015 and 2019 Common warning signs include feeling significantly more drunk than you should be, and slurred speech

accident and emergency room.

Medics should be told there has been a suspected spiking.

“Once treated the student should consider reporting the incident. There is no pressure to report incidents, especially if spiking has led to sexual violence, however, the police can conduct an enquiry by accessing possible CCTV footage, and a hospital can perform blood tests.

If the student was just spiked they can report it to their college.

“If the spiking led to other forms of assault the student can go to the North East SARC Support Service who support students emotionally and with STI testing and treatment, and blood tests up to seven days after the incident.

“If a student has been the victim of sexual violence they can email the student conduct office - on student.cases.ac.uk for specialised advice.”

An email from St. Mary’s College encouraged students to contact student support if they have been subjected to suspected drink spiking or other unwanted behaviour, including sexual violence, explaing that student support can offer support and explain reporting options.

Durham Constabulary were contacted for comment.

Trouble down South

South College JCR President, Charlotte Payne, has resigned from the position.

The JCR is also facing calls to provide greater transparency for college finances and the funding allocated for Freshers’ Week.

Durham shortlisted for City of Culture

Durham has advanced to the next stages of the selection process for the UK City of Culture 2025. The application was launched with the support of the University.

8,000 LFTs taken

As students return to in-person teaching, stats published by the University indicate the campus testing centres carried out over 8,000 Lateral Flow Tests over the last weekend.

Durham Book Festival returns

Durham Book Festival is in town from 9th October until the 17th, featuring a wide variety of talks and events.

More information can be found at durhambookfestival.com

Vaccine success

84% of all eligible people in County Durham have taken the COVID-19 vaccine.

£1m scholarship for North East students

The University has received a £1m donation towards a major scholarships programme to help students from lowincome backgrounds in North East England to study at the University.

“We are aware of an increase in spiking in the Durham area”

Revue revived

The Durham Revue received rave revues from a full house for their first performance in Durham in 19 months.

Freshers’ Fair back in style

(Claude Ando)

Over 8,000 students attended this year’s Freshers’ Fair, with SU societies reporting their highest registrations in years.

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

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News

Staff voice concerns about “massively unsustainable” workloads as University offers extra Christmas leave Poppy Askham News Editor Durham University’s Executive Committee has announced that staff will be granted two further days of leave at Christmas, prompting criticism from staff members concerned about the impact on their workloads.

The extra leave was offered to staff in recognition of their “extraordinary efforts” during the pandemic according to an email sent by acting ViceChancellor, Professor Antony Long.

Only staff on higher grades of employment will be entitled to the two extra days, staff on lower grades and term-time only contracts will instead receive a £400 shopping voucher at the beginning of December.

Joanne Race, Director of Human Resources told Palatinate that the offer had received “largely positive” feedback and that the University wants “as many staff as possible to be able to collectively enjoy a longer break” as a token of appreciation for their “hard work and commitment”.

The move has, however, gained criticism from several staff members, who claim that the

decision does not acknowledge and consider workloads across pre-existing issues surrounding the University.” workloads.

She also noted that the One Durham University is in regular University staff communication with Another member said: “It’s managers and Union professor great to see all the representatives. extra unpaid hours Staff were described the we’ve put in being previously offered decision as acknowledged extra days of leave “meaningless” for during and recognised 2020 and academics by being given the 2021. chance to put in more In response to extra unpaid hours”. last year’s extra days Another professor of leave, one anonymous described the decision as member of staff said that their “meaningless” for academics. workload was “becoming Durham’s branch of the massively unsustainable” and Universities and Colleges Union that the issue had worsened (UCU) acknowledged that the since the start of the pandemic. extra leave would be welcomed “There just isn’t enough time by many staff, but echoed these in the year to do everything or criticisms. enough staff to do it.

“If the level of work remains “A few extra days of holiday the same, and deadlines are not is nice but doesn’t fix the also extended by two days, many systematic issues”, they wrote staff will feel under pressure in a self-selecting survey carried to either work through these out by Palatinate last summer. extra holidays or to put in an Durham’s branch of the equivalent amount of unpaid UCU told Palatinate that overtime elsewhere, and workload issues have increased therefore gain no benefit from significantly during the this gesture.” pandemic, but that the issue is Responding to recent staff part of a longer-term trend. criticism, Race commented: “we “Massive expansions in are aware that colleagues are student numbers over the last working extremely hard and decade have not been matched by managers continue to monitor similar increases in the number

of academic or professional services staff - in fact, the employer held two massive costcutting reorganisations prior to the pandemic in which alreadystrained professional services departments were reduced further.”

In order to resolve these issues, Durham UCU wants the University to “ensure that all departments and workplaces are staffed adequately to do the work required without needing the vast quantities of unpaid and

often unrecorded overtime that currently keeps the university going.”

The UCU is currently protesting rising workloads in the higher education sector alongside issues surrounding pay, casualisation and equality in its “Four Fights” campaign.

UCU members are due to vote this month on potential strike action regarding these issues, as well as an ongoing dispute over proposed changes to pensions.

(Durham UCU)

Plaques commemorating famous Durham women installed across region to celebrate local history Elizabeth McBride News Reporter Four blue plaques celebrating women, who were born in or are significant to County Durham, have begun to be unveiled.

The scheme, which recognises people of historical importance to County Durham, had previously

not featured any women on their plaques.

Those recognised by the new installations include: the Aycliffe Angels, who carried out dangerous munitions work during World War Two; Kate Maxey, a highly decorated nurse from the First World War; Bella Lawson, a pioneer of child welfare clinics in the early 20th century; and

(Durham Miner’s Gala)

Janet Taylor, who set up her own nautical academy and patented a mariner’s calculator in 1834.

One of the groups who campaigned for women’s representation on the blue plaques was the Women’s Banner Group (WBG), a local organisation that “aims to support and celebrate all women in their roles within trade unions, politics and communities, with particular emphasis on recognition for historically important women of the Durham Coalfield who history has forgotten”.

In March 2019, the WBG organised an event with local residents and schools centred around nominating women, who were born in or hold historical significance for County Durham, for a blue plaque.

Those who fitted the Durham County Council blue plaque criteria then took part in a hustings event; the winners were then submitted to the council for consideration.

Wolsingham Women’s Institute was also involved in the process,

these blue plaques in honour submitting the nomination for of some truly amazing groups Janet Taylor. and individuals whose actions Kate Maxey and Janet Taylor’s have made a difference plaques have already been not only in their own revealed - Taylor’s at communities but, in the Masonic Hall “It is our residents some cases, across in Wolsingham, and communities the world. and Maxey’s in that have played “In County Clyde Terrace, the greatest part in Durham, we have a Spennymoor. shaping the County rich heritage, with A blue plaque buildings, honouring the Durham we know” historic ancient sites, worldAycliffe Angels will be class museums and unveiled on the 23rd of beautiful landscapes.

October in Newton Aycliffe “However, it is our residents at ROF 59 - the site of a former and communities that have played Second World War munitions the greatest part in shaping factory. the County Durham we know A plaque celebrating Bella today, and it is their stories and Lawson, and her husband Jack experiences that inspire us.

Lawson will be revealed on “We want to channel their the 23rd October in Woodside, resilience, resolution, and Beamish. innovative spirit in everything we The installation of the new do, especially in County Durham’s plaques is also linked to County bid to be UK City of Culture 2025.

Durham’s bid to be UK City of “Our communities are at the Culture 2025. heart of the bid and we want Durham councillor Elizabeth to maximise the benefits and Scott, the Cabinet member for opportunities this title would economy and partnerships, bring.” said: “We are delighted to unveil

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Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

News

33% of alumni have a partner who went to Durham Continued from front In this case the true pecentages would likely be lower.

Figures show that in the 2020/21 academic year, when distance-learners are excluded, the Social Sciences and Health Faculty had by far the highest number of current studentswho were married, with 25 undergraduates and 215 postgraduates.

This reflects the fact it has the highest number of mature students, 839, who are more likely to be married. Both Arts and Humanities and Science have 341 mature students, with 135 and 90 married students in each.

The Business School is the only faculty which has a significant number of distance-learning students.

Of these 225 studying parttime Managing and Marketing, 219 are ‘mature’ students, and 135 are married.

Figures for current students are rounded to the nearest five.

(Manjaree Gamage-Brooker)

Durham University invests £2.1 million in Amazon Patrick Stephens Investigations Editor Data obtained via Freedom of Information request by Durham group ECO DU shows that the University bought over £280,000 worth of items from Amazon. co.uk in the 2019/20 academic year.

Meanwhile, as of 30th April 2021, the University had over £2.1m worth of investments in total in Amazon.com, split between three of its investment portfolios.

Amazon has come under criticism in recent years for its environmental record, anti-competitive behaviour, and treatment of workers.

The University’s Ethical Investment Policy states that it “has committed to sustainable investment by positively supporting investments in sustainable companies and through establishing restrictions on some types of investments.”

Of the £280,000, almost £80,000 was spent on consumables, which refer to goods that are used up in consumption such as food or ink cartridges. Just under £48,000 was spent on books, with almost £9,000 spent on prizes.

The University’s investment

portfolios hold equities in Amazon.com Inc, which are shares of the company. The total book cost, the amount they were bought for, is just under £1.5m, which means if the University were to sell them, it would make a profit of over £600,000 due to Amazon’s recent increase in value, in part due to its increase in sales during the pandemic.

Amazon has been the subject of a wide range of allegations in recent years.

An article in The Washington Post in 2020 alleged that the company had threatened to fire workers who spoke out about the company’s environment record.

The company has also been accused of poor treatment of workers in its warehouses, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and by the European Commission for violating European competition law.

Amazon acts as both the owner of the marketplace, thereby receiving the data from it, and a retail seller within it, which gives them significant advantages over

their competitor’s on the site.

Defenders of the company point out that it has committed to be net zero by 2040.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has committed to investing $10 billion in the “Bezos Earth Fund” to help address the climate crisis.

The University’s Ethical Investment Policy states that it is “committed to ensuring that it makes investment decisions responsibly and with integrity.

“The University is an educational charity. A proportion of its assets are invested in order to generate a financial return to support the University’s objective which is to advance education, learning and research for the public benefit.

“The University has committed to sustainable investment by positively supporting investments in sustainable companies and through establishing restrictions on some types of investments.

The University is committed to not investing in “companies that generate revenue from the manufacturing or production of tobacco, armaments or fossil fuel extractive companies.”

Durham has £w2.1m of investments in Amazon

(James Tillotson)

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PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

From Aix en Provence with love A new series documenting the adventures of Durham students abroad Patrick Stephens “I have to say, man, your food’s kinda bad” is his first comment on learning that I’m from the UK, swiftly followed by a detailed conspiracy theory about Diana’s death in Paris. Me and a Belgian friend had only been at the outdoor gym for a few minutes when the French group turned up and started a somewhat bizarre hour-long conversation in a mixture of English and French. As with every conversation I’ve had here after people realise I’m English, their main interest was in the royal family.

I stumbled across a British cuisine aisle I have to agree with my new French friend (about our cuisine, not the MI5 hitjob). On a trip to the local hypermarché — think Gilesgate Tesco after six months of weights, protein shakes and illegal steroids — I stumbled across a British cuisine aisle. It consisted of only three things: Heinz beans (seems fair), crackers (not sure about that), and, wait for it, Canadian maple syrup. The only food I miss while abroad is

Greggs, each branch of which has only slightly fewer vegan options than all the restaurants in this city of 100,000 people.

Funnily enough, I’ve properly spoken to more Americans here than French people, most of whom, in my lectures for second years at least, already have a group of friends. The Americans, in contrast, all want to learn my accent, although they’re still recovering from the discovery that not everyone speaks like either the Queen or Bert from Mary Poppins. Three minutes into Derry Girls, one asked me to turn

the subtitles on — introducing her to my favourite Glaswegian comedians was much the same story.

Oh and speaking French?

Regardless of their level, most locals reply to me in English which is pretty frustrating. Colloquial French sometimes feels like a separate language: at the end of a two hour lecture on International Law in French which I can follow quite easily, someone next to me says something: I understand not a jot. Maybe some more Call My Agent is needed to work on my slang.

Ask Aunty Violet Q

HATFIELD

Dear Violet, I am in the worst of places. Today I dropped one of my two champagne glasses and absolutely shattered it on my floor. I care not for the cut on my hand, only how will I host when I only have half a set?

A Dear poor reader, I really hope you are feeling well after enduring such a (cham)painful fiasco. My recommendation is to take a visit to A&E (Aristocratic and Elite); they will certainly have emergency supplies for any dinner party related issues.

I suppose if the situation has become particularly dire, the nearest John Lewis is situated in Eldon Square, Newcastle. But honestly, what’s wrong with your flatmate’s least favourite football boot or a consenting adult’s belly button?

Q

ST MARY’S

Dear Violet, I’ve been in somewhat of a situationship with one of my friends since first year.

They clearly don’t want to progress things but I still really like them. How can I get over it?

A Dear loveless soul, I’m sure I am repeating advice that your friends have given you already, but my suggestion is: wear a chastity belt. If you cannot prevent yourself from yearning over this person, then I’m sure the physical reminder of metal weighing down your body will be an intense shock to the system and hopefully manage to overload these silly feelings.

If you really feel so strongly, you could pass the key to this friend or a housemate so they can control your urges. As I always like to say: the medievals had the best solutions for anything.

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

8

Satire Satire Editors: Benjamin Lycett & Hannah Williams For more satire, visit www.palatinate.org.uk/category/satire

HM Government: meet the exec

PRESIDENT

Name: Boris Craziest fresher moment: bribing members with a bottle of red wine to vote for me If your life had an anthem, what would it be? It must be Madness’ Bullingdon boys

WELFARE HEAD Name: Priti Patel Craziest fresher moment: being in bed by 10pm every night

SOCIALS HEAD Name: Govey Boy Craziest fresher moment: cutting up shapes on the Klute dancefloor Advice to your fresher self: pay for the club entry

TREASURER Name: Rishi Silly fresher mistake: being a total coke addict… I mean Coca-Cola

Palatinate Satire

Facebook shut down triggered as Mark Zuckerberg mistakenly liked ex’s post from 2013 Putin up until he just blows everything up - including his A Palatinate Satire investigation ex’s Samsung Galaxy S20. In found that the Facebook cutthe end, he decided to simply out, which occurred for around shut the site’s entire global 12 hours last week, was actually network before she could see carried out at the request of Mark the notification.

Zuckerberg himself.

Once the original post had We understand that the site’s been destroyed in a controlled founder was undertaking explosion, Facebook’s one of his periodic deep servers came back dives into his ex’s online. Zuckerberg profile, when he “Zuckerberg mistakenly liked a considered wiping told us he had no real regrets about status of hers which was originally all trace of his own shutting the site down, apart from posted eight existence from the it meaning he years previously. internet” couldn’t use it to Zuckerberg then secure a second-hand proceeded to spend ticket for ‘Kanye Night’ at the next five minutes Players. staring with horror at the post, which read ‘Like for a rate x’, If you or anybody you know has before retracting the like. accidentally liked an ex’s picture However, finding this damage from a house party in 2015 on limitation measure insufficient, Instagram, please contact Mr the social media CEO panickedly Zuckerberg on markzuccs18@ brainstormed ideas, such as gmail and he’ll crash the site or wiping all trace of his existence something. from the internet or winding

You don’t want to miss Satire’s clickbait adverts!

LOOKALIKE NEEDED

HELP WANTED

Mary, 18, looking for someone to go to my Harry Potter seminar on Tuesday. Requirements are green eyes & brown hair.

Lewis, 20, looking for a personal bodyguard to fend off unnecessary shoving at Players.

DM me at findalookalike.com

COX COMP

SOCIAL MEDIA Name: Dom Cummings Craziest fresher moment: ditching my lecture for a trip to Barnard Castle Biggest fresher mistake: letting Govey boy into Klute for free

CHAIR

Name: J R Moggy If you could be any college potato, what would it be and why?: It has to be a hash brown, rarely seen but worth the wait

Think you have the best cox on campus? Send us a short description of why riding without them is not pleasurable, as well as a picture of them at their most excited. Winner will be titled Biggest Cox on Campus (BCOC).

Contact: BCOC.Comp@WeLoveCox.edu

Email me at: wearenotinafestival@durham. ac.uk

CALLING ALL INVENTORS! Looking for someone to invent a time machine, so I can go back in time and actually do all of my summer reading. Or if this isn’t possible, invent me a believable excuse.

Contact: marty.mcfly@durham.ac.uk

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PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

Comment

Toils and Labour: is Labour losing the youth?

Harvey Joyce

As the world of British politics has been engrossed by the pandemic, the interests and grievances of younger people have been cast aside by the majority of politicians.

During the Corbyn era, younger voters experienced a rare rejuvenation. During the 2019 election, Labour beat the Tories among voters aged 18 to 24 by an unprecedented 43%.

Corbyn stood out from the slew of Etonian Oxbridge politicians that enwreathe British politics: his rhetoric spoke to many people who previously felt unheard.

With the promises of cheaper education, better work contracts and improved social care, many rallied with Corbyn to forge this supposedly new path for Britain.

It turns out this ‘youthquake’ fizzled, and our politics has reverted to the status quo again. Under Boris Johnson, the Conservatives continue to prioritise older voters and treat young people with contempt.

From the exam chaos in schools to their ignorance of the climate crisis, the Tories’ message to

younger Britons has remained unchanged: you don’t matter.

While Johnson keeps creating these partitions, Starmer seems satisfied to remain sitting on the fences, not standing up for the unheard voices in the pandemic. The Labour party are now following a mild centrist approach, concentrating on winning back older voters while offering its younger supporters barely anything.

Some people may argue that Labour is right in following this centrist approach.

Statistically and h i s t o r i c a l l y, we always see the same thing: young people don’t (Jeremy Corbyn via Flickr)

vote. Despite young Labour supporters overpowering young Conservatives, the turnout of 18 to 24 voters is only 47% compared to 74% for 65+ voters.

There is also the idea that people only vote Labour when they are younger, however, that assumption is mistaken.

At every general election from the late 1970s to even 2010, more under-45 voters chose Conservative over Labour. The changing youth mindset, which has also occurred in other European countries and America, is a new feature of modern Western politics.

One reason for the spread of this mentality, despite its lack of electoral success, is the everyday experiences all students face – in particular, zerohours contracts, diminishing job prospects, stagnant wages, exploitative landlordism, and (Ehimetalor Akhere via Unsplash)

general inequality.

When Starmer stood for leadership, many felt he would be able to strengthen and synthesise the radical Corbyn supporters, as well as attracting older voters, with his perceived competence and formality. Yet it seems he has failed on both ends. Labour Headquarters has been accused of bullying the Young Labour Committee for their support of Corbyn, as well as silencing other influential youth figures in the party. On the other end, Labour has still failed to gain popularity with older voters, the renewed focus on patriotism and the British flag is only a

flaccid attempt to win over support.

The problem with Labour’s approach is that inclusivity can become directionless and bland.

In belligerent times, as both Johnson and Corbyn came to understand, gaining attention and mobilising voters often involves creating divisions and naming your enemies. Starmer’s inertia has led to Johnson still having a better approval rating despite controversy after controversy.

It is clear that the Labour Party need to increase their support for students and young voters rather than side-lining them. If Labour doesn’t win back young people soon, voters will start to have alternatives. The Green party are more successful in the polls than they have been for years.

Even the Conservatives could conceivably appeal to the younger demographic again. In addition, protest groups such as Extinction Rebellion have compelling causes and unorthodox tactics that attract young people and media attention, leaving Labour as the inferior option.

Young voters have decades to decide what their political path will be. But in the fast-paced world of politics, Starmer has far less time.

New Durham and tradition: repurposed for good?

John Cartin Durham is grounded in traditions, as the third-oldest university in the country (despite what KCL and UCL may claim). Durham has been collegiate from its very foundation. Other traditions, such as gowned formals, matriculation ceremonies and inter-collegiate rivalries have been handed down from one year to the next.

Many of these traditions now face their most intense scrutiny for decades. This is no bad thing: if university students were not critically engaging with and thinking about the environment they live in, that would imply a deficiency in the teaching of said university. Nastier traditions – equal in centrality to more positive ones – are being pushed back against.

Consider Durham from one viewpoint: these traditions are richly steeped in heritage and are an element of a shared community stretching back generations; and

yet, from another viewpoint: a University physically estranged from the backgrounds of a vast majority of its students, with a collegiate tradition steeped in the sense of a class-based society.

How should we consider these viewpoints, at a time where tensions over education and metrics of achievement are raged over; at a time when even the Student’s Union is examining the culture of Durham via a specially established commission?

It cannot be denied that university is a social and not just an academic institution, even going beyond a collegiate or traditional assessment.

Half of school leavers now go onto further education and not for purely career-based or educational purposes. You often hear university students talk about ‘the experience’ in almost mythical terms — you have it or you don’t.

Something about leaving home and the world you know to join a group of complete strangers appeals to us, and that something has to do with this perceived

inclusion. Tradition is a part of that, and Durham is no different.

But we must be aware that this sense of being a part of something is a tool, not an independent force, and we should always be wary of who wields it.

Take some of the less pleasant things done in the name of tradition. Even this past week, the cruel and dominating hazing process for rugby initiates has been criticised and denounced.

If you search the Palatinate archives (and even occasionally our notoriety reaches national newspapers), you’re likely to find almost an incident like this a year. The fact that this conduct is renounced by captains and presidents does little to assuage the fact that it is present, somewhere, in the implicit assumption that these are things that Durham clubs do.

In a more general but no less unpleasant sense, Durham has a reputation for racist and sexist conduct that permeates people’s understanding of us as a collective and as individuals. According to the ethnicity data released by the

University for the academic year 2020/21, 339 undergraduate students in 2021 were Black/ mixed-race, of 15,993 students, or about 2.1% of the student undergrad population.

As a Durham student, it’s unpleasant to acknowledge this — and that is at least partially because many of us feel that unspoken connection to the underlying bond to this University. In the same way I look back on my senior school, I imagine I’ll consider my time at Durham as formative and well spent — but in order to feel that sense of pride, we have to be willing to work to make the University a better place than we found it.

Students should have the wisdom to call out unacceptable behaviour Tradition is a tool, and it’s not only those who misuse it that can have influence over it. Josephine Butler, a college founded in the name and principles of a feminist

who fought against laws enacted in oppression by those who attended places like Durham, conducts the same gowned formals as Hatfield or Hild Bede.

Palatinate has examined the conduct of the University for over 70 years, serving not just students but the local community. Where modern denunciations of abuses of tradition and of distortions of culture go wrong is in refusing to stake their own claim. Students should have the wisdom to call out unacceptable behaviour and the courage to make sure that their and everyone else’s university experience isn’t diminished by it, that Durham can both be a place where students from diverse backgrounds come together and celebrate traditions handed down to them.

Stand for the college principal’s speech, scream for your college at the Durham Regatta, argue with Stevenson over a mound. This university, and all the rich history, debate and drama it entails, is yours — and everyone else’s — if you are willing to stand up and reclaim it.

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Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

Comment

Are European placements becoming unattractive?

Anna Noble

Comment Editor

Over the past 18 months, Covid-19 has succeeded in grounding international travel to an almost standstill. For many year abroad students this meant a ‘virtual’ exchange experience or placements being cancelled all together. Even the lucky few that managed to travel to their placements often found their experiences marred by the alienness of the pandemic.

Yet, for those studying in Europe there was and remains another dimension of uncertainty, anxiety and often chaos upon the year abroad experience – Brexit. The duality amounting to somewhat of a double- edged sword. I can speak from my own experiences, having spent much the last year undertaking a year abroad in the Netherlands, when I say that the combination of Covid-19 and Brexit was like navigating a never-ending obstacle course. In fact, a fitting allegory would be to compare the bureaucracy related to both Covid-19 and Brexit with navigating the ‘sucker punch’ wall featured in Total Wipeout.

Nevertheless, I was one of the lucky ones - I actually got a year abroad experience. Many placements were cancelled before they were due to begin.

Others who initially made it to their placements were then prevented from getting back due to the emergence of the Delta variant in the UK and the consequences of the UK’s official withdrawal from the EU on 31st

of December. Others were denied entry to the countries of their placements at borders. Notably a Durham student was detained at the Spanish border for three days, having attempted to enter the country for their placement.

They required assistance from the British Embassy in order to be repatriated.

The emergence of vaccines has remedied some of the most pertinent obstacles to international travel, with only seven countries remaining on the UK’s red list and UK travellers no longer banned from countries in the EU, the US and Canada.

Certain restrictions remain, entry to countries such as Russia and China for placements is almost impossible due to their requirements for specific vaccinations not approved in the UK. However, with the impact of Covid-19 on year abroad placements being significantly less than last year and Brexitrelated obstacles remaining a significant concern, is there a risk that year abroad students will shun European placements?

Many students have found that a backlog in visa applications for countries such as Spain have resulted in significant delays threatening their potential to make their placements on time.

The situation relating to Spain was so bad, the UK Foreign Office contacted their Spanish counterparts to attempt to set up a fast-track system – a request that has so far been rejected

by Spanish authorities. Many students have also faced costly bills for visas, with The Guardian

reporting that some students have been forced to pay more than £700 in attempts to gain visas. Universities appear at a loss of how to help students navigate the complexity now associated with undertaking an exchange placement in Europe. High costs, delays and uncertainty now appear inevitable. In light of this, it is easy to see why students may be deterred from applying to study in Europe.

With the relationship between the UK and EU as precarious as it is currently and the visa situation still new and uncertain despite recent eases in travel restrictions related to the pandemic, it is now arguably easier to complete a year

abroad in a different continent. A report from The Guardian found that many students have switched continents in order to avoid the post-Brexit bureaucratic challenges. After all, universities are well placed to advise upon visas for countries outside of the EU, as this is established practice with longstanding agreements, furthermore these embassies are less likely to be overloaded.

In addition to this, the Turning Scheme, which is set to replace Erasmus+ at the end of the 2021/2022 academic year (the end of the UK’s current agreement), eliminates the incentive that Erasmus+ offered students to study within the

European countries which were a part of the scheme. The Turning Scheme, instead offers students financial assistance (up to £380 a month - £490 for those from disadvantaged backgrounds) for placements globally, not just within the EU. Thus, there is a real risk that Europe will become an increasingly unattractive option for students hoping to undertake a year abroad, and can we blame them? Encouraging students to travel and study outside of Europe should be encouraged, yet, having myself loved the experience of studying in Europe, I look to the current situation with sadness.

(Rosie Bromiley)

No Time to Discriminate: a call to ditch disfigured Bond Saffron Dale The 25th Bond film, ‘No Time to Die’, premieres in cinemas, grossing more than any other Bond film in history. The film, nevertheless, faces backlash. Instead of the racism and misogyny frequently found in Bond, the film is now in trouble for its failure to represent disability and facial disfigurement.

Again, another Bond villain, this time Rami Malek’s character Safin, displays facial scarring.

Safin joins the long list of Bond villains who are disfigured, some of which include Emilio Largo in ‘Thunderball’ and Alec Trevelyan in ‘Golden Eye’. As a result, the charity ‘Changing Faces’, which supports those with visible differences, has called on Bond producers to discontinue the outdated disfigurement-villainy trope.

So, why is it so damaging to those with visible differences and society?

For those with visible differences, the idea that disfigurement is tied to moral deficit is something they are likely to have grown up with. In films like ‘The Lion King’, the villain, Scar, has a noticeable facial disfigurement, not to mention his character is literally named after the deformity.

Therefore, from an early age those with visible differences feel misrepresented as the ‘baddie’ across the arts. Research carried out by Savanta ComRes found that only one in five of those with visible differences have seen a character who looks like them cast as a hero in film.

As a self-professed film junkie, I can’t even think of a hero with facial disfigurement.

This is detrimental, not only for the self-esteem of those which disability affects, but to the general public who are fed negative representations

of those with disfigurements.

Despite that in reality, the disfigurement-villainy trope is constantly disproved, the trope doesn’t help to normalise disfigurement. Instead, the trope distances viewers from the lived reality of disfigurement, depicting it as something that affects one’s moral character for the worse.

Having said that, the new ‘No Time to Die’ has improved in matters of race and misogyny.

For instance, Lashana Lynch plays the first black female 007 spy in the franchise and the typical misogyny that we often see in Bond films only makes rare occurrences.

These occurrences mostly consist of the lack of personality displayed by the female love interest, Madeleine Swann. Yet, the film is extremely backward regarding its attitude towards disfigurement and disability.

Producer, Michael G. Wilson, comments that the use of facial disfigurement in Bond villains is “very much a Fleming de-

vice… that physical deformity and personal deformity goes hand in hand… a motivating factor in their life, and what makes them the way they are.” Yet, why don’t Bond producers ever view physical deformity as a personal strength rather than a personal weakness.

Instead of recycling the oldfashioned idea that facial disfigurement affects one’s moral character, why can’t it instead shape a character’s story arc in a positive way? Ironically, James Bond in the Ian Fleming novels is described as having a long, thin vertical scar on his cheek.

Yet, if scars are a good storytelling device, why doesn’t the film Bond have one?

As opposed to depicting the mental strength and virtuous character that often defines those with visible differences, Bond producers time and time again decide to use disfigurement as an indicator of moral deficit. More than this, at least if there’s going to be a disfigured

‘baddie’, an actor with an actual disfigurement could play them.

A disfigured actor is better equipped to display the torment and suffering that results from disfigurement and the discrimination that inevitably comes with it. There are so many problems with Bond’s use of the harmful trope, not limited to the fact that the Bond franchise can be classed as a British institution. The franchise plays a huge role in both the shaping and representing of British culture through cinematic means.

Therefore, its decision to make yet another villain disfigured makes a huge statement to the British public regarding the way we perceive and characterise disfigurement.

It is no longer enough for Bond producers and directors to argue that disfigurement acts as a good storyline for villains.

Alternatively, action needs to be taken to positively represent disfigurement by a film franchise that is so widely influential in shaping public perception.

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

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Comment

What must our generation demand at COP26?

George Pickthorn

Deputy Comment Editor In less than a month’s time, the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow will have drawn to a close. Pressure to act on climate change is mounting with climate protests spanning across the country, everywhere from the M25 to Durham’s own Market Square.

There is some optimism about the ability of the world leaders to make the meeting a success.

However, there remains an overbearing sense of trepidation at the mammoth task to achieve the necessary changes to international and domestic policy required to combat the climate crisis. How can our generation judge the success of COP26 and what can Durham students do to take part in this effort?

Firstly, it is no secret that the world’s nations are not on track to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees - the point at which the worst effects of global warming will occur. Wealthy countries are still heavily invested in carbonintensive industry and developing nations have no other option but to follow a similar route to lift their populations out of poverty and grow their economies. The cost of fossil fuels needs to better reflect the damage it inflicts on the climate. A further lowering of fossil fuel subsidies and greater

consistency in the pricing of carbon are essential.

Secondly, COP26 must address measures to mitigate climate disasters such as intensive flooding or wildfires in places of vulnerability. These extreme events have become commonplace and alongside working to prevent them by achieving net-zero, world leaders must work to adapt populations and infrastructure to make them more resilient. Financing efforts to minimise effects on the natural world is also key.

Every year action is deferred, the more substantial and critical the action becomes Thirdly, another essential point to assess success and failure will be by examining actions over climate finance. Up to this point, wealthy countries have failed to offer reasonable financial support to less developed ones.

The goal has been to make one hundred billion dollars available each year, but this has not been achieved. COP26 must address opportunities for less developed nations to attain greater financial support.

Additionally, greater clarity for financial systems in general should be achieved regarding climate risk in general. The leaders at COP26 must examine ways in which private and

public finance can help support innovation technological development to achieve a netzero economy.

Negative actions for the climate such as burning fossil fuels do not take place because people or industries want to increase global warming. They do so because the incentives to burn oil or gas are greater than those not to. Therefore, COP26 needs robust political and economic solutions to install financial incentives which benefit the climate. Industrial development produced by capitalism certainly created our current predicament but seeking some totally new idealistic system is not realistic.

Students have a key role in demanding that government policy accelerates a sustainable and fair transition.

The final point of evaluation should be to what extent meaningful co-operation can be achieved. For nations to be partisan on this issue is not valid but tribal. The United Kingdom is no longer the world’s greatest emitter but was the first to use fossil fuels at such an industrious scale. There is a great responsibility for Mr Johnson and other Western leaders to show leadership on this issue. The recent gas crisis has shown that renewable energy sources need more consideration and support needs to become more resilient.

Young people from the UK to Australia have demonstrated

a commonality in concern for the climate. Durham students can be a further part of that conversation, helping to develop concepts and technologies that will aid transition.

The final point of evaluation should be to what extent meaningful co-operation can be achieved In recent months, many people affiliated with Extinction Rebellion across County Durham have conducted protests in the build-up to COP26. Such actions are important but are often controversial. Durham students concerned about the summit and climate change in

general can make a difference by voicing their concerns by contacting their parliamentary representative and by taking part in any local or community efforts. Joining societies involved with sustainable energy, fashion or environmental law is another fantastic way to join the effort for sustainability.

The Covid-19 pandemic overshadowed much needed conversations on climate change, yet it made us painfully aware of our fragile world. Every year action is deferred, the more substantial and critical the action will become. The burden will be on our generation and on those to come; we should press our leaders to seek meaningful change and denounce them if they fail.

(Caitlin Kinney)

A return to normality: worth the risk?

Elle Fitzgerald

Comment Editor

First term is finally upon us.

For my fellow second years, however, this year has brought the reintroduction of something we could previously only dream of: in-person teaching.

Having spent a year only knowing my course mates as black squares on a screen, permanently on mute, only occasionally hearing a stray voice in the empty silence to tell a lecturer we could, in fact, hear them, being surrounded by a plethora of other students is a complete novelty.

The only other novelty the return to in-person teaching has brought us- a cacophony of coughing engulfing the lecture hall as you attempt to hear your professor explain the guidelines set to protect us from the threat of another Covid-19 outbreak.

Durham University is one of very few universities in the U.K. to have made the decision

to return to entirely in-person teaching for many of its courses.

Other top universities, such as Cambridge and Edinburgh, have made the choice to keep lectures virtual, whilst returning to inperson seminars and small group teaching.

Whilst the return of in-person learning has promised students at Durham an opportunity to finally experience a large part of ‘proper’ university life, it has undoubtedly brought its own challenges and risks.

Ultimately, there was never going to be a perfect exit strategy from the era of covid learning As a disabled student dealing with chronic illness, online teaching gave me and so many others an equal chance in a learning environment removed from the risks of catching coronavirus. Covid-19 can be detrimental to anyone who gets it, but for those of us with

predisposed conditions, the mixing of thousands of students across the city presents a real and tangible danger.

Regardless of the threat of catching coronavirus, adapting to independent university living is difficult for any student, chronic illness, or not. Going into freshers’ week last year having been bedridden with chronic fatigue syndrome and glandular fever just six months prior was a challenge in itself, never mind simultaneously navigating a global pandemic.

The university experience in general lends itself to generating extreme pressure on young people to experience the ‘best times of their lives’ in a period which, for the majority, is shorter than the break between summer Olympics. Couple that with an unpredictable and erratic disease and you have a viral Catch-22.

Students with these conditions often find themselves choosing between saying ‘yes’ to everything and exacerbating their illness or declining and running the risk of feeling isolated from their peers.

Despite the disadvantages of

(Amana Moore) online learning, at least it gave many a much-needed excuse to set healthy boundaries and learn to take care of themselves in a university setting.

Beyond the challenges posed to those with chronic illness, the measures in place to protect

students also create hinderances for students with auditory impairment. Placing a lecturer behind a Perspex screen wearing their mask inhibits any chance of lip-reading, something which many students rely on. Although these measures are indeed working effectively to prevent the threat of another outbreak and are doubtless essential for teaching to resume, should it be at the detriment of our peers?

Ultimately, there was never going to be a perfect exit strategy from the era of covid-learning.

In-person access to lecturers is a large part of the university experience students sign up for when making the leap to higher education, and yet, perhaps, the past year has proved valuable lessons in the importance of a compromise between the two.

The continuation of hybridlearning by departments places the onus on students to make the right choice for them — be that jumping off the deep end into a ‘normal’ teaching year, or a combination of that and online learning.

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Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

Profile

Jess Phillips: “It’s shit being an opposition MP”

Profile speaks to MP Jess Phillips about Boris Johnson’s leadership, trust in politics, and Sarah Everard Ethan Sanitt Profile Editor “Labour Party gets a bit miserable, doesn’t it”, Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley says, only half-jokingly.

She tells me this so offhandedly that she may as well be talking about the weather.

Instead, though, Phillips is explaining why Boris Johnson is our current Prime Minister.

After she suggests that Johnson’s recklessness played a part – it “looks like leadership to some people” - Phillips makes her point characteristically bluntly: Boris Johnson is “cheerful”. Labour isn’t.

Phillips is, of course, in a good position to be able to evaluate the Labour Party.

Since first winning her seat in 2015, the Birmingham Yardley MP has

chaired the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, launched a leadership bid, and now serves as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.

Before her Parliamentary career began, though, Phillips worked for Women’s Aid. In this role, she organised refuges for victims of domestic abuse. So how would Phillips improve the country’s safeguarding system?

“Oh God”, Phillips sighs, unsure of where to begin. “I can suggest millions of small policies that would make a change but there needs to be a fundamental shift in the prioritisation of violence against women and girls”.

“Even if I could tinker with better support services, [and impose] a statutory duty on every local authority to have to provide violence against women and girls community bases and s u p p o r t services”, (Parliamentary portrait)

what really matters is that the Government hasn’t prioritised tackling violence against women and girls. “They don’t care about it.”

Phillips then brings up a recent report which concluded that violence against women and girls should be a prioritisation for police forces on the same level as terrorism. “And it just simply isn’t,” she continues, impassioned, “because terrorism is much more politically expedient … Women are just never a priority.”

“Talk to the public like they’re adults” I ask whether the death of Sarah Everard has shifted the spotlight, and maybe changed how violence against women and girls is treated. “No. No, they say it has … but violence against women and girls isn’t even considered to be a serious crime. It’s not categorised by the government as a serious crime.”

“Even since Sarah Everard died, even since we passed the Domestic Abuse Act, there is no unified strategy for dealing with domestic abuse perpetrators … the death of Sarah Everard changed huge amounts in the public consciousness, but it’s changed absolutely nothing that the government has done.”

”Women are just never a priority” “Very few people actually give a toss which electoral system we use,” writes Jess Phillips in Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics: My Life as an MP, ‘they just want their bins collected on time.’ Lack of trust in politicians, Phillips explains, is a key reason why so many voters are disengaged. So what steps can MPs take to change this?

How should politicians try and rebuild trust?

“It’s things like being honest.

Don’t say everything is levelling up, or world-beating.” Phillips sighs, exasperated. “You don’t need to puff up your chest and show your guns. Say, ‘we’re going to try this and it might not work’ … talk to the public like they’re adults.”

“Don’t just say... ‘I’m sorry there’s never food in the supermarkets, I’m sorry that the gas prices are soaring, I’m sorry that you can’t have a blood test anymore because there are no blood vials, but it’s worldbeating!’ Give an honest answer to why this is happening: we’ve hit some bumps in the road and we weren’t expecting them.”

“Just stop with the bullshit.

There’s so much bullshit that gets said… It works unfortunately … but in the long run they totally erode the debate.”

Phillips paints a bleak picture of politics today, in which voters are completely disillusioned with the country’s political system.

“Boris Johnson has successfully baked in that he’s a liar” Then, she turns to how the Prime Minister fits into this.

“Boris Johnson has successfully baked in that he’s a liar. Us calling him a liar doesn’t hurt him. Everyone knows he’s a liar, and they still vote for him. Boris Johnson’s gift is that he takes risks and he is reckless, and … for every ten he takes, five pay off.”

Phillips pauses. “He’s not the one who’s hurt by the ones that don’t pay off. He’s not the one waiting for a blood test.”

Boris Johnson’s promise to level up the country is one that Phillips considers especially hollow: “Levelling up, my arse. I’ll tell you what they’ve levelled up: rape … they’ve levelled up child abuse, and anti-social behaviour.”

Neither does Phillips believe that the government have taken back control since Brexit. “I don’t vote on anything now that I didn’t vote on when we were members of the European Union. I don’t know why I was turning up if they were making all of our laws in Brussels.”

Despite her (many) criticisms of British politics, Phillips is careful to point out that the overwhelming majority of MPs are passionate about the issues that they are debating and have gone into politics with honourable motives. So what about Boris Johnson? Is the Prime Minister part of this group of MPs who genuinely care?

Phillips answers immediately: “Absolutely not”.

“I’ve served under two Prime Ministers who didn’t [care], and one who did”.

“Theresa May wanted to make

the world a better place, without question … I didn’t agree with a lot of what she did, but she wanted to leave it better than she found it.”

“David Cameron achieved every ambition that he ever had for our country the day he walked into 10 Downing Street, and Boris Johnson, he achieved it when David Cameron failed”.

Phillips suggests that Boris Johnson’s leadership reflects this; beyond the short slogans, she says, his actual political priorities are unclear.

“If you could walk up to anyone in the street and ask a member of the public ‘What does he care about?’, I don’t think they’d be able to give you an answer.

Because I don’t know. I don’t know what he thinks about anything. I genuinely don’t know what he thinks about women’s rights … I know he wants to win, and that’s all”.

Is that why Boris Johnson got involved in politics? To win?

Phillips agrees with this suggestion wholeheartedly.

“Winning, risk, game, soldiers, Eton, a rivalry, yes, that’s why he got into it.”

At the end of our call, I ask whether Jess Phillips aspires to be Prime Minister. After all, Phillips has previously said that when she was growing up, she wanted the job. Is this still her aim?

“It would be crass of me to say no. I didn’t come into politics to be well-liked and write books and be … a good backbench opposition MP. I came here to have power.

I wanted power. And I wanted power to do things I want to do with the things that I care about”.

“Do I think I will ever be the Prime Minister? Absolutely not”, Phillips laughs. “But I would like to hold government office at some point to actually be able to have the agency to do something.

It’s shit being an opposition MP”.

When Jess Phillips launched her leadership bid, the first poll of Labour members placed her third, behind only the main front-runners: Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey. As a past, serious contender for the Labour leadership, why is Phillips so sure that she will never be Prime Minister?

“A: the Labour Party never elects a woman. B: I just don’t think I’d want to stand to be the leader of the Labour Party ever again… I don’t think I’m ready for that and I don’t think it will ever be ready for me”.

13

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

Profile

Shon Faye: “No one has been thinking about the future of trans healthcare”

Profile speaks to journalist and author Shon Faye about her new book, media scapegoating of trans people, and the real challenges faced by the British trans community Paul Ray Profile Editor The British establishment has become rather obsessed with trans people. In 2020, one national broadsheet newspaper and its sister Sunday paper between them ran over 300 articles (almost one per day) about transgender people. Debates and arguments around trans identity have become staples of talk shows like Good Morning Britain and political programmes such as Question Time. The journalist and author Shon Faye, a transgender woman, is sick of going onto TV sets to debate the legitimacy of her identity.

“The trouble with TV and radio in particular is if you actually think about how long these debates are given – because I’ve done them – it never lasts. It’s over in a flash. You get maximum nine minutes, I’d say, probably even less. And lots of these ideas are more complex than that, and more nuanced, and more unfamiliar to the public.

“It’s much easier to reassert prejudices that have been built up in the media, that people are familiar with over the decades, in nine minutes than it is to challenge them, and to introduce a whole new way of thinking. So I don’t think that format suits trans people, or people advocating for them. It creates a spectacle out of it. But one that very rarely improves understanding from a trans positive perspective.”

Faye recently published her debut book, The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice.

Across seven chapters, Faye methodically and calmly sets about introducing these nuanced and perhaps unfamiliar arguments in favour of trans liberation. It certainly strikes a different tone from those frenzied and vitriolic ‘debates’ you see clipped on social media.

The book is packed with hard data and statistics that dispel many of the myths around transgender identity, such as the pernicious image of trans people as pampered middle-class elites (in fact, trans people are much more likely to have lower incomes and to experience poverty than the wider population). I found these facts and statistics useful for future reference when discussing this topic, but I already considered myself a trans

ally. I asked Faye whether these facts and methodical arguments were aimed at people like me, or whether they’re actually intended to convert those with a more hostile attitude.

“That was one of the challenges in writing it, to think about who the reader is, and that’s quite difficult. The two main groups would be people like you, maybe, who were broadly supportive anyway, but to arm them with further information and to make them feel more confident in advancing these arguments, in whatever scenario – the dinner party, whatever.

“The other is… there are some people who you’re just never going to convince, so I’m not trying to convince them. Especially the most extreme ones, they’re probably too far gone.

But there are so many people in the middle who either are silent on it, or don’t know what to think [...] and in some ways they’re the most important group, because they’re probably the largest in Britain in terms of potential readership, and they’re the people you can convince, and they’re actually the people who you need to convince.”

“Trans men cannot access lower surgery on the NHS right now” It often seems that the trans ‘debate’ as an emotive media spectacle is a peculiarly British phenomenon. I ask Faye why the topic of transgender people dominates newspaper headlines and TV schedules in a way that it doesn’t, for example, in the US. “I think here there’s been a cultivation, for a long time, of keeping it alive as a ‘debate’. We have a very small media class in this country that’s mostly drawn from the same sort of backgrounds, the editors and the commissioners and stuff like that, and I think that that very small group of people have agreed amongst themselves, perhaps unconsciously, to keep this as a live issue over the past decade, to keep it as a debate.

And all that happens is that’s self-

perpetuating. You wouldn’t have a debate on Newsnight now, for example, about whether or not gay marriage is real marriage.

Like, you just wouldn’t. But there probably was a time where you would have. And so there is a

(Paul Samuel White) choice to keep this thing as a live issue.”

Faye also makes the point that in the UK, opinions about the trans community cut across the political divide in a way that they don’t in the more neatly tribal US. “In the US, because of polarisation people associate transphobia with Trump and the Christian right, and anti LGBTQ+ right-wing movements and antiabortionists and things like that, whereas here it’s got a much more respectable face, including under the guise of certain strands of feminism. So here it’s not seen as automatically a right-wing position to be anti-trans, even though I’d argue that it is.”

The Transgender Issue is essentially Faye’s attempt to sidestep the ‘debate’ in its current media form. Rather than engaging in the perennial arguments about Olympic athletes and gender neutral toilets, Faye uses the book to detail the real, most pressing issues facing ordinary trans people in Britain today: workplace discrimination, the bloated and Kafkaesque trans healthcare system, poverty, and homelessness. I ask Faye why I found out about those issues in her book, rather than in the constant media attention devoted

to the trans community.

“The reason, I would say, is because we don’t have trans people in any significant positions of power. Despite this ‘trans lobby’ myth, we don’t have trans MPs or trans MSPs or trans members of the Senedd or trans members of Stormont. And we don’t have trans judges, or senior journalists. There’s just a complete dearth of trans people in public life.”

From consuming British media coverage of trans issues, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s easy for trans people to get on hormones and change their sex at will. But, as Faye tells me, this image couldn’t be further from the reality of life as a trans person using the NHS, especially for trans children and teenagers seeking appropriate healthcare.

“GIDS, the Gender Identity Development Service, is not fit for purpose and hasn’t been for a while. And it has a monopoly on access to care for young people on the NHS in the UK. And unfortunately, for trans children and young people to get the healthcare they need, the waiting lists there are also crazy.

“What we have now is a two tier system, where if you’re middle class and your parents are supportive, they will likely pay for you to go private. But of course if you don’t have supportive parents, or you do but they’re not wealthy or clued up enough or whatever, then there’s institutional barriers to them accessing private care, and there isn’t anything in place.

What we would need for a really equal standard of care is ending the monopoly that GIDS has on access to care, and finding a more flexible model of care for young people in community-led services.”

“It’s not seen as automatically a right-wing position to be anti-trans” Faye makes the point that the need for healthcare reform for trans people goes way beyond simply pumping more money into the NHS, although that wouldn’t

go amiss. In the UK, there are only six NHS surgeons capable of performing vaginoplasties (bottom surgery for trans women), two of whom are set to retire in the next few years. I ask Faye if there are any measures being put in place to address this threadbare situation.

“Yeah, and that’s only for male to female genital reassignment.

For phalloplasty, which is trans men’s lower surgery, there is actually no access to phalloplasty at the moment in the NHS, because the team that was doing it has been decommissioned, and they haven’t been recommissioned yet on an NHS contract. So actually trans men can’t access lower surgery on the NHS in Britain right now.

“So there is no… there is no plan for that, because it’s deprioritised, and no one has been thinking about the future of trans healthcare. You have to hope that there will just be enough people who qualify as surgeons who decide that that’s their area of interest, but that’s a big if. It speaks to the broader crisis in trans healthcare— basically it’s the whole approach.

It drastically needs reform, but there’s this bottleneck, because of the gender identity clinic system, and the still old-fashioned form of psychiatric control over who can transition. So unfortunately we’re just going to see those lists continuing to grow and grow, and unfortunately that system will come to its knees in the end, but it’s whether or not there’s going to be anything to replace it. And that’s rather bleak.”

Is the political will there to reform the dysfunctional gender identity clinic system? Or is the situation really as bleak as Faye makes it sound?

“The devolved government in Wales is a bit less hostile than the UK government. They’ve got a more reformed, modern system in the last couple of years, and that’s largely because of a lot of work and time invested by trans campaigners at local level, and it’s really slow and incremental and quite unglamorous work.

“So that is the sort of work that potentially has benefit to trans people. And I do think there’s will at local level and grassroots level for that, and within some parts of the NHS some clinicians are very willing, but I don’t think there’s enough political will for it to be rolled out in the timely way it needs to be.”

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

14

Science & Technology

Should we resurrect the woolly mammoth?

Eve Kirman The gene editing power of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) has been in use as an effective bacterial immune technique since the beginning of life on Earth.

However, it wasn’t until 2012 that Jennifer Doudna and her team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley harnessed the unique DNA modifying properties of the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Able to fundamentally ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ specific genes, CRISPR has unearthed limitless possibilities in the field of genetic manipulation.

Already, scientists have been working to bring back the North American passenger pigeon, with the first generation anticipated to hatch next year. Through the use of CRISPR, researchers have manipulated the genes of the bird’s closest living relative, creating hybrids. These hybrids are then bred over generations until an offspring that is genetically identical to the once

elephant’s skin cells. Through the comparison of the original woolly mammoth’s genome, isolated from animals found in the permafrost, Colossal is able to distinguish which parts of the genome are specific to the mammoth: for example those that encode thick hair and a greater composition of fat. From here, the mammoth’s genome can be implanted into embryos which

why are researchers so persistent to bring them back?

Professor of genetics at Harvard and co-founder of Colossal, George Church, told The Guardian that the company’s ambition is to “make a cold-resistant elephant [that] is going to look and behave like a mammoth.” It is this behaviour that Church talks of which is driving the company’s motivation. Scientists predict that

CRISPR has unearthed limitless possibilites in the field of genetic manipulation Not only does CRISPR hold promise in curing diseases such as muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and even cancer, it also opens a world of creativity in terms of genetically modified organisms. Already, CRISPR has been used in breeding coffee plants that produce decaffeinated coffee beans and creating the world’s first strain of spicy tomatoes. From faster racehorses, to salmon with greater levels of omega-3: the current and possible uses of CRISPR technology are genuinely mind blowing. Yet, the most astonishing function of CRISPR so far has got to be in the field of de-extinction.

A term that sounds like it’s been taken straight from a scene in ‘Jurassic Park’, de-extinction is exactly what it sounds: the revival of extinct species.

Our contributor group came together to suggest the best science themed podcasts, TV shows, books, and documentaries for you to enjoy. Try one of these recommendations over this week, and you may just learn something new!

Have a piece of science media you love? Email scitech@ palatinate.org,uk with a short review, and we'll feature it here.

The mammoth genome is implanted into embryos which are grown in an artificial womb Dr Victoria Herridge, from the Natural History Museum, argues that “the justifications given – the idea that you could geoengineer the Arctic environment using a herd of mammoths – isn’t plausible,” and further claims the 22-month mammoth gestation period and 30-year maturation mean that the scale of the experiment is “enormous.”

Not all researchers believe this is the most constructive use of time in terms of Arctic restoration Despite differing views on resurrecting the woolly mammoth, it seems we can all agree that the ability to bring a species back from extinction is ground-breaking, with exciting possibilities for the future of our planet.

Get in touch!

(Anna Kuptsova) extinct species is born.

It’s this technique that Harvard bioscience company, Colossal, proposes to use in order to bring back the woolly mammoth. The organisation, which has already raised £11m in the hopes to achieve this goal, intend to genetically manipulate an Asian

are either grown in an artificial womb or carried in an Asian elephant surrogate.

If each of these stages is successful, researchers believe that there will be baby mammoths in as early as six years.

Considering woolly mammoths died out around 10,000 years ago,

establishing mammoth herds in the Arctic tundra will restore the damaged habitat: for example by pushing down trees to reestablish areas of once-spoiled grassland.

However, not all researchers believe that this method is the most constructive use of time in

SciTech recommends!

Elise Garcon Science & Technology Editor

terms of Arctic restoration.

In your ears...

"Ologies with Alie Ward" is a rigorous and informative yet kooky podcast with episodes on topics ranging from palaeontology and phonology, all the way to fulminology (lightning) and cryoseismology (glacier-related seismic events).

10/10 - would listen to Alie and her "ologist" guests speak all day, every day!

-Michelle Leung

“Sidenote by AsapSCIENCE” An energetic weekly podcast covering a range of topics from the climate crisis to UFOs! It uses a combination of studies, anecdotes, and interviews to deliver engaging explanations, often interweaved with personal stories. Overall a brilliant podcast featuring plenty of LGBTQIA+ representation which is wonderful to see in STEM. - Katherine Deck

On the screen...

"My Octopus Teacher" is a Netflix documentary by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.

It documents Craig Foster's almost "friendship" with a female common octopus in the South African Kelp forest. It's an incredible insight into the intellegence of these creatures, as well as how they survive. Fair warning: it may make you cry.

-Elise Garcon

Scan the QR code below to read all our articles or join our contributor groups

On the page...

"Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre is a really enjoyable read. It's very accessible and informative for anyone with an interest in the politics of healthcare: the book has a dry sense of humour throughout.

Altogether, it's definitely one of my top books and I'm looking forward to reading his other book, "Bad Science"!

- Chloe Ellison

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

15

SciTech

NASA finally diversifies its moon walkers (Thomas Tomlinson)

Caitlin Painter Science & Technology Editor “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.

These words were spoken by Neil Armstrong when he became the first person to walk on the moon. After eleven more steps for men, not a single woman has been able to do the same.

Now, however, NASA’s Artemis missions will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon by the ambitious goal of 2024. The future landings will be for more than just scientific discovery; these astronauts will be huge role models for the ‘Artemis Generation’.

Almost 90% of NASA astronauts have been men, so it’s about time NASA rectifies decades of inequality. Putting the need for increased diversity in science so openly in the public eye is a vital step towards reducing the gender and ethnicity disparities in STEM.

Almost 90% of NASA astronauts have been men A study commissioned by CWJobs has shown that having role models is much more important for women, with 60% of women working in STEM saying they were inspired by a role model, compared to 46% of men. Professor Sue Black of

Durham University presented these results, adding that “without [role models] I have no idea where I would be now”.

Aside from creating role models, these missions will help future generations’ space explorations, and improve the understanding of our own planet and the wider universe.

Lunar rovers have been operating for more than fifty years, but having astronauts on

the moon means we’ll be able to examine significantly more, and possibly discover things we weren’t anticipating.

Scientists are hoping to find rocks that have settled on the moon after being blasted from the Earth during asteroid strikes.

Rocks this old can’t be found on Earth, but the lack of atmosphere on the moon has allowed them to be preserved, meaning they hold a unique insight into the origins

of life on Earth.

[Rocks on the moon] hold a unique insight into the origins of life on Earth NASA plan to establish the Artemis Base Camp at the lunar south pole, which will support longer expeditions on the surface.

It will also aid trips to Mars, as far less fuel is needed to escape

the moon’s gravity compared to Earth’s, meaning take-offs to other planets can be cheaper, and rockets can be larger to accommodate more equipment.

Once set up, the base will also allow us to more easily build structures on the moon. Radio telescopes will be installed on the dark side of the moon, where there is no interference from Earth, resulting in better images, drastically increasing what we know about the wider universe.

Back on Earth, there is a huge need to move exclusively to sustainable sources of energy.

Surprisingly, the moon may be able to help with this. With less atmosphere and more exposure to sunlight, photovoltaic cells on the moon could generate more energy than those on Earth. The moon also has an abundance of Helium-3, which is extremely rare on Earth. This can be used to generate nuclear energy via fusion, which wastes less energy than regular nuclear power, and has no radiation waste.

Increasing public awareness of the need to continue exploring space is essential. The Museum of the Moon, a touring artwork currently in Durham Cathedral, is one way of doing this. Featuring a moon seven metres in diameter that’s detailed with NASA imagery, it hangs between the cathedral’s columns, acting as an extraordinary piece of art and a beacon for space science.

Can space law save the night sky from satellite swarms?

Cameron McAllister Science & Technology Editor In Durham we are blessed with a beautiful night sky. The North Pennines has some of the country’s darkest skies (and is celebrating with a stargazing festival from 22nd – 31st October). Not too far north is the Northumberland Dark Sky Park, the largest dark sky park in the UK. The inherent awe of a clear night sky connects humans now with all those that have come before; some of the world’s oldest cave paintings depict constellations.

Yet, the night sky is under threat from mega constellations.

‘Mega constellation’ is the grandiose term for large fleets of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, often numbering in the thousands. Satellites orbiting at lower altitudes need to move extremely quickly to maintain their orbit. This means to achieve global coverage with LEO satellites a constellation of many satellites is required. In the case of mega constellations, this can mean fleets of thousands.

In the last two years the

number of satellites in LEO has increased by more than 50%, to 5,000. SpaceX alone is due to add an additional 11,000 to complete its Starlink project and has plans to add another 30,000 satellites. The goal of many of these projects (including Starlink and the UK’s OneWeb mega constellation) is to provide global broadband internet coverage to sell via various different business models.

The number of satellites in LEO has increased by more than 50% Satellites in the night sky will reflect sunlight back to Earth, much like the moon, causing bright rapid streaks over the sky. While Starlink has tried to mitigate the reflectivity of their satellites, 80% will remain visible. Not only will this destroy the precious beauty of the night sky which has inspired humans for millennia, it is also an existential danger to ground-based astronomy.

The satellites will both directly disrupt observations and more generally increase the total sky

brightness, making observations more difficult.

Some even argue that the large amounts of dead satellites reentering Earth’s atmosphere from these mega constellations has the potential to alter the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, possibly even disrupting the ozone layer.

In this sense, mega constellations constitute a large uncontrolled experiment in geoengineering.

What can be done to limit the spread of these mega constellations?

Space is considered res communis, a legal concept derived from Roman law that translates from Latin as ‘common things’. This means that space is considered to belong to everyone — the common heritage of humanity — rather than being claimable to any person or country. Though this doesn’t render space lawless. Instead, it is governed by international law.

Via international law countries are, for example, able to prosecute their citizens even if the crime was committed out of the country.

Even if the crime was committed in space. This principle came to the fore in 2019 when NASA astronaut Anne McClain was

accused of committing the first ever crime in space, allegedly accessing her wife’s bank account improperly while onboard the international space station (ISS).

They were later cleared of any wrongdoing.

But what laws protect the low Earth orbit? The main basis of international space law is the antiquated 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Conceived at the height of the Cold War, the Outer Space Treaty mainly focuses on limiting military activities in space. At the time of the treaty there had only been around 40 successful satellite launches, most of which had already returned to Earth. The treaty is definitely not suited to a world with thousands of satellites cramming for space in one part of Earth’s orbit.

To preserve the night sky, the low Earth orbit, and apply the precautionary principle to the possible effects of mega constellations on the atmosphere, we urgently need international

governments to agree to a new multilateral treaty that recognises how technological development has changed the outer space threat horizon.

The UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) has been working since 1959 to encourage international collaboration in the peaceful use of space. Now, more than ever, international governments must be emboldened to come together via COPUOS, to put aside geopolitical rivalries, and to negotiate a new treaty to save the night sky.

(WikiImages)

16

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

SciTech

Thorium key to China’s quest to electrify the world Sam Thompson At last year’s UN General Assembly, President Xi Jinping announced to the world via video link that China plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

This was a bold statement from the planet’s largest contributor to increasing CO2 levels, and was welcomed across the international community.

Speculations abound about whether this is a plausible and serious target, but first impressions would suggest that the government’s leading role in the economy may be able to accelerate the decarbonisation of the country quicker than a lot of western decentralised states. One way this can be accomplished is through greater investment in green science endeavours.

Can pre-existing uranium reactors be converted to thorium in a sustainable way, if at all?

This opens routes to lower emissions whilst also establishing China as the primary player in green technologies, and will help close the gap to the United States as both superpowers grapple for global dominance.

Within this context, the reasons for China’s latest scientific enterprise are obvious.

In July, government scientists announced that they were investing heavily in new nuclear technologies: thorium-based molten-salt nuclear power plants, with the first experimental tests on a prototype reactor beginning in September. Strictly speaking, these are not a new concept.

The MoltenSalt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at the Oak Ridge National L a b o ra t o r y, located in the eponymous city in Tennessee, ran on

thorium fuel rather than uranium for four years in the 1960s. More recently, private companies have revived this space-age relic.

However, this announcement is the first serious backing from a major government.

Thorium is an element two protons smaller than uranium and both are members of the actinides, a group in the periodic table. Interest in thorium has been maintained by a small vocal minority within the scientific community with advocates promising a multitude of benefits over uranium.

The Chinese scientists claim that their thorium reactor will produce a thousand times less waste Despite its reputation of sustainability, nuclear energy is not renewable. Uranium is a limited resource found in the ground and will eventually run out. Thorium does not eliminate this problem but is three times more abundant in the Earth’s crust. This can increase the transition window between fossil fuel-based energy and fully renewable technologies allowing further refinement of solar cells and wind generators. The ore, monazite, contains only a single useful isotope of thorium, Th232, whereas uranium ores contain only around 0.7% of the fissile isotope U-235. Monazite is also easier to mine in open pits, where

there is a reduced threat of radiation poisoning from the high radon gas levels found in underground uranium mines.

Thorium is melted into a liquid fluoride salt matrix which eliminates the need for water as a heat transfer agent, increasing the efficiency due to higher temperatures and allowing usage in dry desert countries. This molten salt solidifies quickly on contact with air, effectively selfsealing any leaks and drastically reducing the risk of explosive meltdowns relative to uranium water-based reactors. One of the largest concerns related to nuclear power is the radioactive by-products that are produced in the reactors. The Chinese scientists claim that their thorium reactor will produce a thousand times less waste which will return to safe levels a thousand times quicker than conventional nuclear waste.

Nuclear waste produced by thorium reactors is much harder to develop into nuclear weapons All of this raises the question: why was uranium chosen over thorium in the first place when it is clearly inferior? Thorium is cleaner, safer, and more abundant. It has one major ‘downside’, however, in that the nuclear waste produced by thorium reactors is much harder to develop into nuclear weapons.

In the middle of 20th century, around the time that MSRE at Oak Ridge was shut down, the US and Russia were embroiled in the Cold War, which sounded the death knell of thorium.

As both countries hastened to bolster their nuclear arsenals, uranium research intensified, and massive strides were made in reactor technologies setting the world down the bad path of nuclear energy. In the succeeding decades, any country looking to build

(ANIRUDH, Unsplash)

nuclear powerplants would have no choice but to choose uranium due to the massive investment required for thorium research to catch up with uranium. China’s is the first government that appears willing to delve back into this area.

Questions remain on the logistics of transitioning to thorium.

Can pre-existing uranium reactors be converted to thorium in a sustainable way, if at all? How infeasible is it to make weapons from thorium byproducts? Will the scale up from prototype reactors to commercial reactors be financially viable and will they be developed in time to help China reach their carbon neutrality target by 2060?

B u t t h i s

announcement is a good first step. There is no one fix for limiting man-made climate change; it requires a concerted multi-pronged approach guided by scientifically informed governments.

Hopefully, China’s actions can inspire all governments that they can and should do more. Market-based economies like our own are efficient at what they’re designed to do but they contain little incentives for collective action that has no financial benefits like combating climate change.

The announcement of AUKUS this month may be seen as the opening act of the arms race with China as the West prepares for a new Cold War. The announcement of AUKUS this month may be seen as the opening act of the arms race with China as the West prepares for a new Cold War. This was heavily contrasted with China’s thorium announcement in the same month, a technology that has little military usage and may let the US allow nuclear power in semi-developed countries like Iran without the fear of nefarious side projects (as these would be rendered near impossible).

With China willing to share their findings not only will they be able to power themselves more cleanly but, like thorium’s Norse god namesake, help electrify the rest of the world.

(jplenio, Pixabay)

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

17

Politics

Student

Government continues to pile pressure on young

Rj Batkhuu

Politics Editor Ministers are said to be considering lowering the rate of repayment on student loans.

The current threshold, where repayment starts at £27,295, may potentially be reduced to £23,000, with the debt cancelled after forty years instead of thirty.

In a move that could save the Treasury £2 billion annually, Chancellor Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering changing tuition fee policy in the autumn review.

This policy may have unintended long-term consequences. The government’s decision to lower the rate of repayment comes at a time

when the cost of living is already rising significantly. Young people shoulder more than their fair share of the national burden. For example, look at the decision to increase National Insurance tax to fund social care, the policy of staying at home for a year to shield the old, and most recently the rising cost of gas and food.

The Treasury could save £2 billion annually from the move The social contract in the UK is well-established and trusted – work hard, pay into the system and the state protects you when you are vulnerable. Recent political events have weakened that trust.

Many feel that Boris Johnson’s government is playing with fire by provoking a generation of people who already do their fair share. Discussing Britain’s social contract in relation to education policy may seem alarmist, but political consensus must always be watched. Unilaterally reducing the repayment age chips away at that trust. When that trust is corroded too far, the social contract suffers.

This is not helped by the fact that the government signed a contract with students about their tuition fee repayments.

Changing the terms of this contract appears to be a violation of the goodwill and trust that students had when signing with their loan companies.

Additionally, for Mr Johnson’s

Conservative party, there may well be electoral consequences - if not immediately, then eventually. University graduates already lean towards Labour, and Sir Keir Starmer’s brand of ‘post-populism’ and consensusbuilding will definitely appeal to this demographic.

What matters is that when this group ages, they should theoretically start voting Conservative and voting more regularly at elections. Mr Johnson may inadvertently be robbing his party of its future supporters.

a greater risk of a significant chasm between pupils at state and independent schools.

Additionally, last year, whilst 44.8% of pupils overall received top grades, the figure was 39% for state comprehensives and almost 70% for independent schools.

Although independent school pupils got a higher percentage of top grades on average prior to the pandemic, the gap has been significantly widened.

it is a problem that requires significant funding to rectify.

The government have arguably failed to provide this funding.

In June, £1.4 billion were dedicated to schools as ‘catchup funding’. This equates to just £50 per pupil – significantly less than the £15 billion that was allegedly recommended to the government by its education tsar, who then resigned. It seems an especially pitiful amount when compared to the US, which committed £1,600 per pupil, and the Netherlands, which put forward £2,500 per pupil.

Furthermore, will giving pupils the topics ahead of exams address the increased anxiety and stress that pupils sitting A levels this year will potentially have? The last formal, inperson exams they will have taken were their Year 6 SATs, over seven years ago.

In such

For the Tories, there could be electoral consequences It appears this government has little, if any, concern for

intergenerational inequality. The last minute U-turn on including over-65s in the National Insurance hike was a small peaceoffering, but arguably nowhere near enough to compensate for what has happened recently.

Young people often do not bother voting. Political leaders react to incentives like everyone else and if they can give to their supporters by taking from a group who will not impose an electoral penalty, they will.

The response to not just changing tuition fee policy but increasing general intergenerational inequality should surely be more vocal.

Only by threatening a political cost can Mr Johnson’s hand be moved. Young people should not be swayed from doing just that.

Education and the pandemic: the hidden cost Anna Noble It is perhaps not an exaggeration to suggest that next year’s A level students appear doomed.

In-person exams are back. Two years of chaos have resulted in mass deferrals, meaning fewer university places. Finally, there is increasing pressure on ministers to prevent a repeat of the skyhigh percentages of students gaining top grades by promising stricter marking.

There is a risk that educational disruption may blight students once destined for top universities It should be considered that those sitting exams this year are arguably part of the year group most affected by the educational disruption of the pandemic. They, like the years above them, have suffered through 18 months of educational disruption, but, unlike their older peers, they will be forced to sit exams they may well be unprepared for.

To mitigate the impact on these students, they will be informed of the topics they will be examined on three months ahead of exam season. Praised by some, such as the Association of Schools and Colleges (ASCL), as “reasonable”, these proposed mitigations have also faced significant criticism. Education union leaders have argued that such measures will result in students partaking in a so-called “topic lottery”.

The NEU teaching union also argued that the proposals will unfairly advantage certain pupils over others, and many education unions, including

the ASCL, maintained that the proposals had come “far too late”. There is also ongoing debate over whether informing students of topics ahead of exams will actually be sufficient to mitigate 18 months of significant educational disruption.

There are also concerns about educational inequality.

Throughout the pandemic, more than one million pupils did not have sufficient access to technology to regularly attend online school. Inevitably, there will also have been significant variations in the quality of online lessons, how often they were offered, and how frequently pupils attended them.

Furthermore, state schools already do not have as many resources for exam preparation as private schools. In a year when this will be extra vital, there is

(Jack Hynes via Flickr)

The risk of a chasm betweeen state and independent schools is high Yet, it must be recognised that this is surely not a problem that can be fixed overnight:

circumstances, even if schools could hold unlimited mock exams, could they ever fully prepare pupils for A levels? It must be recognised that GCSEs are vital preparation to getting used to the alien environment of national exams, sat in school halls with unfamiliar invigilators.

Whilst many would agree that it is unlikely that the proposed mitigations will compensate for 18 months of disrupted education, the government and education authorities are in an impossible situation. They cannot afford to cancel exams for a third year running, yet no measures are going to achieve both the aims of mitigating disruption and reducing the percentage of top grades back to pre-pandemic levels.

The last formal, in-person exams these students took was their Year 6 SATS, over seven years ago The reality is that there appears to be no quick fix for the disruption Covid-19 has had on education. It will likely require years of catch-up plans and billions of pounds. Such measures will seemingly come far too late for those pupils who lived through the pandemic during some of the most pivotal times of their education.

There is a risk that educational disruption, and the potential resulting inequality, may blight students who may once have been destined for top universities — or university in general.

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Send your thoughts to politics@palatinate.org.uk

18

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

Politics

Domestic

More democracy please: Labour’s internal reforms (Anna Kuptsova)

Chloe Tillyard In a drastic U-turn, Sir Keir Starmer has abandoned plans to change the way in which future leaders of the Labour Party are elected. He revealed plans to scrap the one member, one vote system ahead of last week’s annual party conference, but was forced to drop these changes following backlash from the party’s left-wing during a ‘car crash’ meeting with union chiefs.

Starmer wanted to revert to an electoral college for leadership elections, which would allow MPs to dominate by splitting the vote for leadership into thirds and dividing it up between the MPs, the constituency Labour parties and unions.

This move would have inevitably left many Labour Party members feeling isolated and unappreciated. It would have greatly diminished their influence in future leadership elections, with each MP having a vote equivalent to a thousand members.

The electoral college system was originally abolished in 2014

by Ed Miliband. This was seen as a triumph for the hundreds of thousands of workers all over Britain that sustain the party and make up the wider labour movement. It is absurd that the current leader would want to revoke their power within the party leadership elections, given that egalitarianism has consistently been at the heart of the party’s manifesto.

Starmer seriously overestimated the support he had Starmer’s aim was to widen the appeal of the Labour Party and reach sceptical voters outside of the conference, but the weekend was dominated by internal disagreements. His allies within the party are now trying to ‘save face’ and restore authority. His so-called ‘attack on democracy’ has not materialised this time, but he is still trying to diminish the power and influence of the left within the Labour Party.

It is evident that Keir Starmer is fearful of a grassroots, Corbyniteled revolt against his leadership of the Labour Party. He planned to win support for this change at the meeting on Friday, before taking the proposal to the National Executive Committee that evening for approval. However, Starmer severely overestimated the support he had and will now have to make do with the watered-down reforms approved by the NEC. This diluted package

includes scrapping registered supporters (where people can pay a one-off fee and then vote in the leadership election), which betters the position of committed Labour Party members because it prevents one-time voters skewing the results.

They have also agreed to introduce a rule where people will have to have been a party

member for six months before they can vote for a leader. These are still significant changes and ones that will overall benefit party members.

Ordinarily, Sir Keir has a majority on the party’s NEC if he can retain support from moderate-led trade unions but, on this occasion, he has misjudged their stance on the matter. There

is little support for a return to the electoral college within Labour ranks outside the Blairite right-wing, which is indicative of Starmer being somewhat out of touch with his own party.

Callum Bell, vice chair of left-wing caucus Momentum, summarised the situation very well: “This marks a new low in Starmer’s leadership. Clearly,

all his pledges of unity and left-wing policy made during the leadership campaign were barefaced lies.”

Suffice to say that this was not a good move for him and that his attempt to make it impossible for another radical left-wing candidate, like Jeremy Corbyn, to win the leadership has failed.

Sturgeon flirts with Scottish drug reform Max Malone It might seem that the SNP’s response to being a year-on-year drug deaths record holder is to take a lighter approach on users.

Instead, the response is nothing more than a callous publicity move to show up Westminster.

The Scottish prosecution service has granted police the power to give those found in possession of class A drugs a caution, as they can for other lower classes of substance. While some might get over-excited and take this as a step towards a Portuguese-style treatment-based drug policy, the Scottish Government have stressed that decriminalisation is not the goal of the change.

The policy is a transparent attempt at damage control by the SNP. It will not make a significant impact on the use or trade of drugs in the country and may even diminish the consequences for their use. For the past eight years,

Scotland has led Europe in overdose deaths, setting a new record each year. The recent death of Gerald Brown after waiting 40 hours for an ambulance, and continued difficulties with their Covid-19 app are on the minds of the Scottish public. By taking this small step, Holyrood hopes to distract their constituents from its recent record of public health failures.

Independence is the tartan elephant in the room - for Sturgeon it may backfire On a national scale this policy may appear unprecedented, but the truth is more complicated. As stated earlier, cautions rather than sentences are only really applied to class C substances. However, this is not as big a change in realtity as it appears to be. In major cities, it is often the case that when police catch someone with a possession quantity, they will confiscate

rather than prosecute, unless it is connected with another offence. In reality, this is only a formalisation of common practice on the ground.

The policy is a transparent attempt at damage control by the SNP It is doubtful that we will see a replication of this measure in England. The Government has bigger fish to fry and wasting political capital on policy which would damage their ‘tough on crime’ image would be nonsensical. The only real support for something like this in Westminster would come from the LiberalDemocrats and the Greens, who don’t have the influence to action it. Labour would seem weak and indecisive supporting this, given that a return to the Blair era slogan of ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ was a centrepiece of last month’s party conference.

Westminster lacks any motivation to replicate Hollyrood’s experiment.

In any discussion of Scottish politics, independence is the tartan elephant in the room. For Sturgeon and her government this may be another way of showing how different liberal, progressive Scotland is from stodgy, conservative Westminster. But it may well backfire on her. Lenient treatment of drug offences being potentially backed to conserve limited police funding may not play well given the millions Scotland spends on tin-pot embassies to play at diplomacy.

Given that overdose deaths will likely keep rising, this policy presents significant political risk.

The crux of this issue is that it is much like the rest of SNP policy in the last few years. It’s a dull policy which makes a seemingly innovative sound-bite, but lacks any great substance and serves as a subtle dig at Westminster.

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

19

International

Politics

A new Afghanistan? Mali conflict draws in big players Matthew Egger France announced in July that it would halve the number of troops deployed in Mali by early 2022. The French military arrived in 2013 to combat extremism as part of Operations Serval and Barkhane, in coordination with NATO members and African states within the greater Sahel region.

The threats stem primarily from offshoots of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and alQaeda.

Mali’s political environment has been tumultuous in recent years, with coups occurring in August 2020 and in May this year, undermining Mali’s counterterrorism (CT) efforts.

Malians are divided over the French withdrawal, with some fearing greater insecurity as troops leave and others believing that it is time their former colonizers leave. Also worrying for France and Western governments is the prospect of the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, deploying to Mali to fight extremism. The group is known for its heavy-handed CT tactics and it has committed atrocities throughout Africa.

Mali’s unstable political environment has threatened the country and its partners’ CT efforts. A 2012 coup particularly exacerbated insecurity, as extremists used a power vacuum to seize control of northern cities and implement a strict interpretation of Sharia law there.

France launched Operations Serval and Barkhane to dislodge the extremists from these cities.

In response, many extremists fled to the desert to regroup and began staging attacks from there.

The two more recent coups have similarly jeopardized France and Mali’s shared goal of fighting extremism.

While France’s mission in the Sahel succeeded in killing senior leaders of both the ISGS and offshoots of al-Qaeda, extremism has nonetheless been on the rise since 2013. Since the start of Operation Barkhane, extremist groups have continued to launch attacks against civilian and military targets. In October 2017, for instance, the ISGS attacked a convoy of Nigerian and American soldiers in Niger, killing four from both militaries. Another ISGS attack on a military base in Niger killed 71 Nigerian soldiers in December 2019. A study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project revealed that, between May 2019 and May 2020, the ISGS orchestrated 18 attacks, killing over 400 soldiers in the Sahel. The group also frequently targets civilians; an analysis by the Royal African Society found that the ISGS killed 4,723 civilians between 2012 and 2019.

Many Malians have tired of France’s presence in their country In this context, France has drawn criticism for decreasing its footprint in Mali. However, President Macron has insisted that France is not abandoning its partners in Mali and will continue to fight extremism in the Sahel.

France will redirect its resources and focus towards spearheading an international CT coalition called Task Force Takuba, which began in 2020 and operates from several bases in Mali and one in Chad.

As France reduces its footprint in Mali, the Russian Wagner Group is poised to sign a $10 million-a-month deal with the Malian junta that will deploy 1,000 mercenaries to Mali on a CT mission. Wagner is notorious for committing atrocities in the areas it operates, which include Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and numerous other African countries. A UN report found that the group killed civilians, looted, recruited child soldiers, and sexually assaulted women while operating in the Central African Republic, and many fear Wagner will commit similar crimes in Mali. The US Department of Defense urged Mali against signing the deal with Wagner, arguing that the deployment of the group will exacerbate insecurity. Both the EU and the US have levied sanctions against Wagner in response to its heavy-handed tactics.

However, many Malians have tired of France’s presence in their country and believe that it is time for their former coloniser to leave. These Malians believe that the Wagner Group will produce better results than France and its Western partners’ CT mission. In an interview with Voice of America, the current Prime Minister of the transition government said that Mali must find new partners as security deteriorates, and as France and its Western partners withdraw.

According to Mali-based political analyst Baba Dakono, the prospect of using mercenaries in the country does not bode well for the country’s security. The deployment of Wagner, he said, will further erode security and be counterproductive for Mali’s CT strategy.

The continued rise of extremist

groups has stoked fears that Al-Qaeda and IS will establish a haven in the country and further destabilize the greater Sahel. Mali’s volatile political arena will likely continue to undermine CT missions and make its Western allies hesitant to support its efforts. While Mali is due to hold elections in February of next year, the military’s recent seizure of power threatens the viability of a democratic transition that could lead to reestablished ties between the West and Mali. A Malian deal with Wagner would likely preclude future security partnerships between Western nations and Mali, and Wagner’s heavy-handed approach to CT could further destabilize the country.

(Minusma, Flickr)

Crisis at the frontier: Joe Biden’s immigration failure Alex Jennings Content Warning: Mentions of suicide and rape.

Summer usually serves as a lull in America’s ongoing immigration crisis. The merciless heat, consistently exceeding 40°C, makes journeying thousands of miles an unendurable task. Yet, in a sign of their desperation to reach the United States, thousands of Haitians recently camped in Del Rio, Texas, have done just that.

Fleeing a country with extreme political, economic, and humanitarian problems, almost all of these migrants left their homeland several years ago.

They generally settled in South America for a while before a lack of work, and rumours that

they were welcome in President Biden’s America, urged them to make the long journey north.

Those who eventually made it to the US border gave harrowing accounts of passing the dead bodies of other Haitian migrants in the mountainous jungles, of being robbed by violent gangs, and of women being raped. The searing summer temperature, it seems, was negligible by comparison.

NotsinceReagan’spresidency has an Immigration Reform Act been passed The Haitians form yet another part of the growing humanitarian crisis facing Biden. Since he took office in January, Customs and Border Protection says it has encountered more than 1.2

million people entering the US illegally from the south. The chaos at the US-Mexico border surely risks becoming the defining crisis of Biden’s presidency.

Ever since Biden took office, criticism of his actions at the border has come from across the political spectrum. On the campaign trail, he vowed to “take urgent action” to undo the immigration policies of Donald Trump. In many respects Biden has done so – but he has also left in place a Trump-era Covid-19 emergency policy, Title 42, which allows US authorities to immediately deport all undocumented migrants at the border, bypassing the usual laws and protections.

It is this approach which has been the focus of most recent criticism surrounding this group of Haitians. At least 1,400 of

those taken into custody were immediately flown back to Haiti.

An extremely dangerous and anarchic country, many of those deported had not been there for years. Some were reportedly shackled on the plane with their shoelaces removed by US officials as an anti-suicide measure.

Such deportations triggered the resignation of the US Haiti envoy, Daniel Foote, while Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Biden that the US “cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws”. Republicans, on the other hand, were angered when it emerged that more than 12,000 of the Del Rio migrants had been admitted into the US. Yet for all the focus on Biden, it is the enduring failure of Congress to come together on a

broad immigration law that is ultimately responsible for the ongoing crisis. Not since 1986, during Reagan’s presidency, has an Immigration Reform Act been passed in the United States.

Biden has sought to rectify this, proposing a major immigration bill that would offer a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the country while also providing permanent protection for young migrants, known as ‘Dreamers’.

However, the policy is already floundering in the face of vigorous opposition from Republicans and even some moderate Democrats. Like so many other pressing issues in such a politically polarised country, the immigration crisis will no doubt remain an unsolved problem left to deteriorate.

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

20

Puzzles Maths Maze 8

square it

halve it

For online versions, answers and more puzzles, head to

www.palatinate.org.uk/category/puzzles @palatinatepuzzles

Try and complete this maths maze as quickly as possible

+3

1/7

+3

cube it

White to move - checkmate in two

1/5

9 2 3 5 4 2

4 cube it

3 9

2/3

4

5

1

9 4

+8

1/1

5 6 8

8 8 6

Sudoku 842 Anagram

Decipher this prehistoric animal - use all of the letters

Sentence Sleuth

3

3

x1

2 5 9

add the its dig

3

Chess Puzzle

udo ble it

4 1

Puzzle Editors Katie Smith, Hugo Bush and Thomas Simpson

+3

9

1

Find 5 names of sports hidden between the words of this story about someone getting more than a filling at the dentist's.

Really craving some mouthwash, Frank decided to break into the dentist's surgery. Though he was not overly privy to the tooth-related arts, he eventually managed to guess "1430" as the door code.

He was in. Now to find the mouthwash, that wondrous liquid drug. By the time he found the stuff, he was so thirsty that he drank a whole bottle in one go. That's when things went bad. Mint on the brain, Frank went into a frenzy. He was a bull in a china shop, a hippo loose in a greenhouse. When a dentist found him the next morning, ol' Frank was passed out in a nest of dental floss and spiderman stickers. He wouldn't remember the events of last night until that afternoon over a glass of orange juice. That certainly left a bad taste in his mouth.

+2

square it

1/45

An arrow word works the same as a normal crossword, except that the clues are written in the boxes. Each answer appears in a straight line next to each clue, in the direction indicated by the nearby arrow.

lowly moth ammo Sports day partner of 'egg'

square root

↓

Weightlifting buddy

→

Tool for accessing tinned goods

↓

↓

Japanese artist, Yoko ____ Dog command

↓

At what time?

?

-3

Arrow Word ↓

Party animal

→

Font with flourishes Model's stance

French "to be"

→

↓

TV's Mr Swanson

→

↓

Opposite of "exit"

→

" ___ list", summary of chores

Scarce or undercooked

↓

↓

Lamb's mother Used in colour printing

↓

→

"Hello” in Portugal

→

Unrefined mineral

→

→ Cinema's Willy Wonka

Match official (abbrev.)

→

21

PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

PalatiDates: “I think she’s a lot like me”

Abi from John Snow and Thomas from Hatfield, Physics and Engineering students – meet for a blind date at Vennels

Thomas on Abi

Abi on Thomas

What were your first impressions of your date?

He was very prepared for the weather in a bright yellow coat! Friendly and easy going.

How would they describe you?

Chatty and smiley — probably nervous!

How would you describe them?

Sweet and interesting to talk to.

Which Durham college would you place them in and why?

Maybe Chad’s — somewhere with a smaller community and a relaxed atmosphere.

If they were a Durham night out, which would they be?

An evening at the pub, definitely! Thomas mentioned Ye Old Elm Tree.

What were you hoping for? Did they deliver on your expectations?

I was hoping to meet someone I could get along with, get to know well and to just see where it goes after a few dates.

Thomas and I had lots of similar interests and the conversation flowed well, which was really good.

Would you like to see them again?

I’d say so. It would be good to see if we connected romantically a bit more if we spent further time together.

Marks out of 10?

7

(Verity Laycock)

What were your first impressions of your date?

She had a nice sense of fashion, and she was good at kicking the conversation off!

How would they would describe you?

Someone who tries too many societies for their own good and probably shouldn’t be studying their degree.

How would you describe them?

Very passionate about her degree and very involved in her societies, the sort to put her all into everything she does. I think she’s a lot like me in that we both prefer the slower side of life — nature walks, chilling alone to music.

Would you introduce them to your friends?

Yes, I think she’s pretty much what my friends imagine my type is.

If they were a Durham night out, which would they be?

A few drinks at The Old Elm Tree, a wholesome sweet experience to contrast the normal uni rat race.

What were you hoping for? Did they deliver on your expectations?

I actually went on an awkward date with another girl called Abi a few weeks ago, so I was just relieved that it wasn’t her and that I didn’t have to go through that again!

Would you like to see them again?

Yes, I think we discussed it during the date itself.

Marks out of 10?

7

PalatiPets

Katya on Jaggers & Scout

Think you have the cutest pet? Email editor@palatinate.org.uk with three pictures and 100 words explaining why for a chance to be featured in print

Rosie on Daisy

Martha on Percy

My lovely dog Daisy (affectionately known as Dasmi or Dasmongo) passed on the 15th September, aged 10. Though her regard for other dogs wasn’t very high, her love for humans was unmatched.

She never failed to greet a stranger with a muddy paw print to their knee.

Daisy was there for me through the most important stages of my development: starting secondary school, GCSEs, A Levels and going to university. During all the highs and lows those experiences involved, she would always be lovingly present by my ankles when I came back home.

This is Percy (short for Persephone). She is three years old.

Percy sometimes forgets she’s a cat, and is afraid of venturing past our driveway. She loves Dreamies and evening cuddles, and she is very affectionate.

From the Archives

Probably the most spoilt cat in the country She is always there to cheer me up when I need her and is probably the most spoilt cat in the country. Although she definitely loves my brother more than me, she is my best friend, and brings so much joy to my life.

Noor on Angel This is Angel. I named her that when I was nine because, well, she is an angel. She is the best little girl because she enjoys long

naps, cuddling and chewing plastic. Her most iconic moment was getting so invested in chewing on a plastic bag, that she stepped on the bag and got completely wrapped up and caught in it.

Meet Jaggers and Scout. And no, not Mick Jagger. More like Jaggers from Great Expectations and Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird.

Much like the Dickensian lawyer, Jaggers has an “exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large [paw].” However, contrary to her namesake, she hates being clean, and refuses a shower regardless of how mucky she is.

Born a little explorer Scout, on the other hand, couldn’t be more aptly named.

Born a little explorer, she is often mixing with the cows from nearby farms. She has very little regard for manners and hasn’t got the faintest idea how to handle her size (she’s now bigger than Jags). They’re also rubbish at FaceTime, which isn’t ideal as they’re definitely the part of home I miss most.

The mysterious disappearance of cheques from Hatfield College JCR Palatinate 314, 12th October,1978

22

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

Sport Sport

What next for global superstar Emma Raducanu?

Nick Searle-Donoso Next week, Emma Radacanu will step onto a tennis court for the first time since her life changed forever when she won the US Open. Now, Radacanu is a global superstar. In recent weeks, she has attended the premiere for No Time To Die at the Royal Albert Hall, as well as the prestigious Met Gala in New York, and she has even played a game of tennis with the Duchess of Cambridge.

She has been interviewed on every TV channel and every radio station. Her face has been on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine. At the beginning of this year, Radacanu had 9,618 followers on Instagram. Now, she has over two million.

With overnight fame, however, there should always be caution.

Just watch any Hollywood film. I am not saying that the fame and the money will get to her head (that old cliché), but the celebrity status cannot but increase the pressure on her young shoulders.

She is only eighteen, after all.

The media attention has already been extraordinary. Every aspect of her life has been scrutinized.

If you were her grandmother

or just someone who randomly saw her shopping at Tesco, you would probably have been interviewed about her by now.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. Her future career and life will be under the microscope.

Everything that she says will be heard. Everything that she does will be seen. Every mistake that she makes (including losing tennis matches, and she will lose tennis matches) will be criticized by the media and on social media.

Sadly, as a young woman from a diverse background (a fact that should be – and thus far has been – celebrated), she is also likely to experience harsher criticism.

It is also worth remembering that she is a tennis player, and a very inexperienced one at that.

Despite winning a Grand Slam, she has never even won a match on the main WTA tour. Despite winning a Grand Slam, she has never played a professional match on a clay court. Despite winning a Grand Slam, she has never even played a three-set match at tour level. There are also the cautionary tales of tennis players who have had great success in their youth but who have never been able to reach the same heights again. Radacanu

might never win a Grand Slam title again. It is possible. Look at Jelena Ostapenko, who won Roland Garros in 2017 as a twenty-year-old, but who has not been anywhere near winning another major title since. There is also the chance that she will suffer from injuries. Look at Juan Martin del Potro, whose career, after winning the US Open in 2009 also as a twenty-year-old, has been derailed by a series of horrendous injuries.

Radacanu will make her much anticipated return to the tennis court in an OAP resort town in the middle of a Californian desert. Or, in other words, Indian Wells, a Masters 1000 level event and one of the most important tournaments on the tennis calendar. Her schedule for the rest of the year is jampacked. After Indian Wells, she is scheduled to participate in the Kremlin Cup in Moscow and the spookily named Transylvania Open in Cluj Napoca, Romania.

Perhaps Radacanu is attempting a last-minute bid to qualify for the WTA Finals in Guadalajara, Mexico. Radacanu currently sits in fifteenth position in the race. But, with qualification available to eight players and

the participation of several top players already in doubt, Radacanu certainly has a good chance to qualify.

Hopefully, Radacanu’s career will continue its upward

trajectory and my naysaying will be entirely unjustified. After all, Radacanu has the potential to be a multiple Grand Slam champion and an inspiration to an entire generation.

(si.robi via Flickr)

Initations continue to damage university sporting culture Luke Power ‘Initiation’. The word is smeared with mystery. Look back far enough in its history and you’ll a Latin noun, ‘initiātiō’, which means ‘participation in secret rites’. I wonder if the scribe who first penned the term centuries ago considered being urinated on as part of the definition.

Yes, urinated on: that was allegedly the uncomfortable fate of a fresher recently, the latest victim in a high-profile headline about a university sporting initiation. It happened within the hygienic quarters of Durham’s very own rugby club, with one member describing the act as “violently condescending”.

Condescending indeed, but this

case is quite mild compared to ones from years gone by. Naked rugby with a live chicken as the ball in Edinburgh city centre. Six University of Gloucestershire students having sex on a bus in front of minors. A Surrey student shot in the head with a staple gun.

Take your pick.

Or how about the litany of students who have died in recent years from alcohol poisoning because of reckless initiations?

For sure, nobody intends things to get so out of hand, but there is always a subtext festering behind these accidents.

They’re indicative of a culture contaminated with rowdiness, one which prioritises indulging in its own mindless traditions instead of achieving the welfare of its members. It’s a culture

Maiden Castle (Durham University)

that has taken a minority of student clubs into its grip over a long period of time. It’s a culture which claims to be adults having a good time when, deep down, it’s often young people putting on a brave face.

Far from making newcomers feel welcome, brutal initiations push people away from sport.

In 2017, the Rugby Football Union announced its suspicions that initiations were partly to blame for 10,000 school leavers throwing in the towel with the sport. A Palatinate report in 2018 found that one fresher nearly left Durham University altogether before term had even begun because of abusive pre-season behaviour.

Dealing with the situation is easier said than done because these events are organised without the knowledge of staff.

Team Durham banned initiations in 2007 and has a set of punishments to react to extreme misbehaviour, but the staff are powerless to physically prevent bullying on a wild night out – short of infiltrating every social gathering with fake moustaches and standing on guard.

For all the policies university officials put in place, it’s on us students to bring about a culture change. We need to learn from and guide each other.

Most student groups have great

socials together, where revellers still drink lots of alcohol but are considerate enough to not forcefully shave somebody’s head. It’s time the rest followed suit.

“They’re indicative of a culture contaminated with rowdiness, one which prioritises indulging in its own mindless traditions” The pro-initiation crowd will invariably argue that these things aren’t as bad as they seem, that they take place with the consent of their participants, but what sort of consent is it? Consent under pressure of social and sporting exclusion? Consent when you’re drunk and the whole team is forcing you into something?

Even if everybody does freely consent, we need to think about the sort of people initiations can make us become, and how that damages the wider community.

In my first year, freshers were summoned to the college bar by older members of one sports team to give ‘thoroughly prepared’ presentations on their favourite pornography. Dozens of first-years turned up clutching carefully selected printouts of explicit scenes, hoping the College Master didn’t walk past while they queued up.

Maybe I’m too strait-laced.

You might say it’s harmless banter. But is it? I think it’s a dangerous situation when a sports team validates an industry with a history of sex trafficking, encourages its members to objectify people, and normalises a panel of older students sitting down for hours and interrogating 18-year-olds as they stammer through their sexual fantasies.

It’s upsetting to think about the attitudes that sort of culture can instil, and perhaps explains why harassment is so widespread in Durham.

I turned up that day and meekly told the panel that I thought they were wrong. It was one of the most awkward, stomachchurning moments of my life.

Not that it was worth the anxiety.

A few days later, an initiation at the same club had merrymakers drinking each other’s vomit. It’s part of the reason why I’ve always been too terrified to attend a social with the team.

Until ethical considerations and welfare structures are brought into the organisation of these initiations, they’ll continue as they are: spaces where people unleash a callous alter ego, and move away from the point of sport in the first place: becoming happier and healthier versions of ourselves.

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PALATINATE | Thursday 14th October 2021

Sport

Mike McGrath:“There are great stories all around us” Sport talks college football, transfer rumours and journalism’s future with the Durham Alumnus and Telegraph reporter

Harvey Stevens

Deputy Sport Editor Mike McGrath is living his dream.

Since leaving Durham in 2001 he has established himself as one of the country’s most prominent and up-and-coming football journalists. He is currently writing for The Daily Telegraph, covering everything from injuries and managerial changes to governance and transfers.

Palatinate sat down with him to discuss his career to date, his time at Durham and his thoughts on his industry moving forward.

“I think back very fondly of Durham all the time. It was just a great three years for myself and all of my friends, who I stay in touch with. I think with collegiate life you have a bigger friend base because college life dominates so much so you get to know lots more people compared to university in bigger cities.”

McGrath studied sociology at St. Aidan’s. He was a prominent member of college life and remembers his footballing outings for both Aidan’s and Durham as highlights of his university career. Despite his sporting triumphs in the college league, he knew that his career in sports was more likely to be on the reporting side.

“I realised quickly that if you’re playing for St Aidan’s then you’re probably not going to make it as a professional,” he joked. “I played for the Durham University 3rds when they had a sickness bug and needed a few players. But I wasn’t going to be a professional and I knew that from an early age, so I wanted to be a writer.

“I realised quickly that if you’re playing for St. Aidan’s then you’re probably not going to make it as a professional” “With journalism, I must admit I didn’t maximise my time at Durham as much as I should have but I was concentrating on my degree a lot. I did a couple of pieces for Palatinate but not as much as I should have considering that it really has been an ambition of mine to be a football writer since I was young.”

After leaving Durham, McGrath embarked on the agency route.

First working for the Press Association and then Wardles Agency, he spent years cutting his teeth before writing for The Sun, and then subsequently The Daily Telegraph.

Since joining The Telegraph he has reported on pretty much everything football related. His

Durham alumnus and Daily Telegraph football reporter Mike McGrath (Mike McGrath)

‘transfer notebook’ has been a particular success since he’s been at the paper. In an age where transfers have become such an integral part of the modern game, McGrath is all too happy to tap into the excitement which surrounds the transfer window.

“I find transfers to be the most interesting part of football, because if I get in a cab and the cabbie asks me what I do, the first thing he’ll ask is ‘who are we signing?’ And everybody asks it. ‘Are United really going to sign Ronaldo?’ For example.

“Whilst the original ambition as a kid was just to watch and cover football, the transfer market is the most interesting sideshow to football but it is also the toughest to crack. It is so tough, there is so much false information. I think to get good information, like we do at The Telegraph regularly, shows real journalistic quality.”

There are so many different skills and qualities which are needed to make it as a football journalist. When it comes to transfers, though, McGrath is very honest when he puts it down to sources. With so many different players and actors in a transfer deal, getting the right information from the right people is the key to a successful story.

He makes the link between this part of his job and Durham. The people skills which he uses on a day-to-day basis is something which he acknowledges was honed and refined at university.

“Our job from when we start is to have the best sources. They might be from the buying clubs

side, people working around the deal, they could be working for the player, it could be relatives, it could be anybody.

“To bring it back to Durham, that is one of the best things that the University can teach you: how to talk to people and to engage with them and listen to them. To have that skill which is implicitly taught whilst you are a university student is really valuable. In the workplace for me it has been 110% about contacts; without them, you have nothing.”

“The transfer market is the most interesting sideshow to football but it is also the toughest to crack” Football journalism in the United Kingdom has long been synonymous with the England national team. Especially around the time of major tournaments, the noise created by the national tabloids has always been a determinant of the mood in the country.

Whilst the media have indeed come under fire in the past of their treatment of the England team during World Cups and European Championships, it is still something which McGrath has relished during his role.

“Covering England has always been seen as the pinnacle of football journalism. To follow England around the world and cover their games and to try and get as close as possible to the manager and the players has always been seen as the pinnacle.

“I haven’t really taken a step back to think about what an incredible three years it has been.

I was so tired I probably didn’t appreciate how big a moment it was to go to the semi-finals of the World Cup in Moscow in 2018.”

This summer, the country was engulfed by the success of the England team. McGrath was one of the reporters who was at Wembley covering England’s first major tournament final since 1966. Although the game did not go England’s way, being there was enough for him.

“A few minutes in when Luke Shaw scored everyone thinks they are going to be champions, but it didn’t work out that way.

For those few moments I thought it was going to be a historical moment.

“It is incredible to be part of that coverage, and you kind of feel invested in them and you want them to do well. A lot of people sometimes think that the media can be negative, but that’s wrong. I, for one, really wanted them to win it and to be one of the journalists lucky enough to cover it.”

It is no secret that newspaper sales are not at the level which they used to be. The decline of hard papers has given the whole industry a need for reform. To some extent it is a problem which is still being fought. Many outlets, such as The Telegraph, have chosen to pursue the subscription model. McGrath is a strong advocate of this and believes that it provides hope for journalism.

“The internet has been

something that journalism has wrestled with, probably since after I left Durham. Our model at The Telegraph is to get subscribers to pay for our journalism which we believe is worth paying for. I think there is a market for people to pay a reasonable price for very good journalism.”

He is therefore incredibly upbeat about the future of journalism. When talking about his advice for budding journalists at Durham, whether in sport or not, the roots of the industry are at the heart. Both finding and building relationships with as many contacts as possible, and most importantly finding stories.

“My advice for people who want to pursue it is to take everybody’s mobile phone number whenever you meet them and keep talking to as many people as possible, which is the foundation of getting any story. There are great stories all around us at every corner.

From very high stakes to the notice board outside the local shop; there are stories all around.

Be perceptive of them, learn them and pursue them.”

Write for Sport Pitch to us at sport@palatinate.org.uk or join the Palatinate Sport Contributors Facebook group.

For more Sport content: Twitter @PalatinateSport Instagram @palatinatesport

24

Sport

Thursday 14th October 2021 | PALATINATE

“There are great stories all around us”

Harvey Stevens speaks to Telegraph reporter Mike McGrath

“Indicative of a culture contaminated with rowdiness” Luke Power discusses Durham’s sporting initiation culture

“eSports are only getting bigger”:

Meet Team Durham’s newest addition Sport talks to Durham eSports and Gaming (DUEG) about Team Durham, mental health and eSports’ future.

George Simms Sports Editor

After talking to Lordie Bevan, the President of Durham University eSports and Gaming (DUEG), I was left in no doubt that Team Durham’s newest society deserved their place there.

The British University eSports Championship (BUEC), organised

by National Student eSports (NSE), is gaming’s answer to BUCS, and DUEG are going from strength to strength in the rankings.

Their Winter 2020 and Spring 2021 competitions have seen Durham rank 8th and 10th respectively, securing their place as a top 10 eSports university.

DUEG mainly compete in NSE (National Student eSports) and NUEL (National University eSports League). As Bevan tells me, Durham are now looking to “push for top five, but the competition is very, very heated”. However, “we have a fantastic culture here and a lot of our players are really top level”.

DUEG is one of many clubs riding the crest of the eSports tsunami currently gathering speed and marauding towards the sporting world. Projected to have more than 500 million viewers by 2023, which would take it above the likes of Basketball, Golf and American Football in terms of viewership, eSports looks set to become a mainstream competition within the next decade.

“eSportsshouldberespected in the same manner” As Lordie mentions, when you consider the time and dedication which top eSports players put into their craft, it’s only fair that “eSports and sports should be respected in the same manner”.

This raises the question of how eSports should be classified.

What makes a sport, a sport?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a sport as “An activity involving physical exertion and skill, especially one regulated by set rules or customs in which an individual or team competes against another or others”. By that definition, eSports fall down

on the physical exertion point.

However, is this a fair judgement of a sport? Ronnie O’Sullivan and Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor would probably disagree, and both of their sports have their own section on BBC Sport. Archery and shooting are Olympic staples, but arguably rely as much on technical and mechanical skill, and as little on physical exertion, as eSports.

Perhaps a more important question should be whether eSports want to be classified as a sport? When we discussed the structure of DUEG, Lordie outlined the variety of different games they cover. From MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) like League of Legends or DOTA 2, to first person shooters like Rainbow Six Siege, CS:GO,

2023. The International 2019 the ninth edition of the annual, DOTA 2 World Championship, had a combined prize pot of over $34million. These numbers are only going to get higher as viewership increases, which is massively aided by the success of platforms like Twitch. Twitch averages nearly 3million viewers at any given time, a number which seems to have doubled every two years since 2012.

As Lordie told me, eSports are “entering the mainstream”.

The most common criticism levelled against eSports, and gaming in general, stems from its effect on mental health.

directly attributes his running to improving his gaming. He told me, “When I was doing the training, I was super-focussed, I put 110% in.

Then, in my gaming, I was superfocussed, I put 110% in. It helped me keep a lot of mental focus”.

Bevan raises a fundamental point to prospective and professional eSports players alike. Research shows that mental health is not only as important as physical health, but the two have a wholly symbiotic relationship.

Whilst eSports can be very mentally taxing, they don’t directly help improve physical health. As a result, it’s incredibly important to take time away from gaming

games are meant to be enjoyed” and discussed how joining a Dungeons & Dragons society at Hild Bede helped him make friends and come out of his shell at Durham. Whilst video games and eSports may seem lonely from the outside, they’re often heavily team-based and can be a great way to meet new people.

You can’t argue with Lordie’s claim that “eSports are only going to get bigger”. He encourages everyone, regardless of skill level, commitment, or experience, to join DUEG. “The culture is amazing, the people are lovely, I’m trying to push it towards becoming a more social society”, he told me. Who knows, you might find yourself playing college eSports before your time at Durham is up. eSports are not just here to stay. They look set to take over.

Table-topping Durham Women face United cup tie George Simms Sports Editor

(DUEG)

Overwatch and Valorant,

even including Nintendo classics like Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Mario Kart, there’s a huge variety of very different games which fall under the umbrella of eSports.

As they’re continuing to grow in popularity, DUEG’s place in Team Durham seems to make sense.

But, consider this – how far are we from an eTeam Durham? A whole department just for competitive gaming, with its own dedicated coaches and arenas. A full-time League of Legends coaching staff.

Valorant and DOTA 2 treated with the same individual respect as football and rugby. When you look at the money and time which is currently being pumped into professional eSports, it’s really not too hard to believe.

The eSports industry is expected to generate global revenues of over $1.5billion by

China recently banned gaming for under-18s for all but three hours of the week, after a state media outlet called it ‘spiritual opium’. Unsurprisingly, Lordie called this approach “rather hard-line”, although he conceded that “gaming addiction has been a problem for a lot of people and it’s not going to go away any time soon”.

Discussing his teenage years, Bevan conceded that he was probably “very addicted” himself, but he caveats this by saying he “enjoyed every minute of it”. A successful runner in his youth, he credits this with keeping his gaming hours, and mental health, in check. More importantly, he

to work on your physical health.

Lordie’s running taught him this first-hand. He emphasised that “exercise is incredibly important. Now we’re part of Team Durham, I was hoping to get gym memberships for the guys who do eSports, because it’s important”.

However, Lordie also talked about the great social and psychological benefits that can come from eSports and gaming. As he admits, “people often play video games because they struggle with the social side of things” but called it a “good excuse to come together and play your favourite games”.

He highlighted that “video

Durham Women Football Club kick-off their FA WSL Cup campaign on Thursday 14th October, as Manchester United visit Maiden Castle. Lee Sanders’ side are top of the WSL 2 after a fifth win from six games against local rivals Sunderland on Sunday afternoon.

This was their fourth consecutive 2-0 win, helping keep the Wildcats’ two point lead at the top of the league.

Manchester United are currently fifth in the Women’s Super League (WSL), but have only won one of their last three games, including a catastrophic 6-1 loss to Chelsea two weeks ago.

Marc Skinner’s United side boast an array of international talent, but Durham will be inspired by their last clash with the Red Devils. Their 3-1 win over United in December 2018 was one for the history books. Tickets are still available for £5 for students!