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Politics

Imposter syndrome: should more be done at Durham?

Joshua Guillen

Social isolation, better expressed as imposter syndrome, is a phenomenon predicated on the idea that people, through no fault of their own, are subjected to unjust asymmetries that impact negatively on their ability to socialise, work or accrue opportunities. This is predominantly something experienced in the world of work: a reported 38% of the workforce suffer from sentiments linked to imposter syndrome, with data suggestive of a further fall in ob confidence as a result of the pandemic.

What is clear, however, is that insecurity of this kind is not exclusively reserved to employment prospects; the last 18 months have served to underline how social and economic inequalities are pervasive across all reaches of society. This diffidence is broadly applicable to British higher education: recent trends point to a growing socioeconomic chasm in offer rates from Russell Group universities — even in cases where projected grades are indistinguishable between students of different backgrounds.

These inequalities should necessarily be considered as core enabling factors in the fomentation of social-based anxieties on campus, especially as they relate to Durham University. The unbalanced nature of admissions, whereby a sustained increase in admissions from the nation’s wealthiest areas has outdone those from the poorest areas, engenders a broader dissonance in the University’s long-term strategy. The resultant consequences are explicit: heightened disconnect from within the student community will likely lead to more incidents of abuse and explicit classism, despite the current push to create a more diverse student body at the University.

What is clear, however, is that imposter syndrome is as much a social problem as it is a structural one. In essence, if a university like Durham is ill-equipped to provide holistic, responsive support to marginalised individuals, there is no feasible path for a more diverse, representative student demography to be procured. Testimonies from Durham students from the north of England accentuate the entrenched institutional inertia of the University in dealing with prejudiced and “toxic” attitudes; students of colour have previously reported a culture of racism; and the sociology department recently issued an open letter to the University over the treatment of working-class students.

This underscores an indelible criticism often echoed in the national press: Durham University has helped in the normalisation of a set of behavioural patterns that have served to erode the virtues of meritocratic attainment felt by those of less fortunate beginnings. The University has since reaffirmed its ambition to create a more equitable student experience, but concerns remain about the efficacy of its proposed path.

Here, it is important to stress that steps have been taken to broaden accessibility to Durham, with the introduction of the Brian Cooper scholarship fund one such innovation designed to extend opportunity to the immediate region of County Durham. Yet, despite it being illustrative of a shift in strategic direction, the latest figures of student inta e demonstrate how its impact has been superficial Durham, li e the majority of Russell Group universities, continues to perform poorly for student diversity — even when performance and attainment are measured.

This broader national imbalance may supersede the capabilities of one single institution to resolve on its own, but the reported cases of discrimination at Durham University demand that a more accountable framework is adopted to tackle the unjust prejudices on campus. The work of student groups and societies remain key catalysts for studentled change, but sustainable cultural reform is increasingly seen as a matter for the University itself.

The challenge is two-pronged for Durham first, a more representative admission process that better reflects merit through widening the net to different communities; second, a less convoluted system of student support should be instituted to promote wellbeing for those who feel marginalised. This could, if greeted with the necessary urgency, help to minimise the daunting and perturbed sentiments of imposter syndrome.

Student Are schools to blame for Britain’s Covid-19 numbers?

Eli Rasmussen

It’s a classic whodunnit. The crime? 30,000+ Covid-19 cases a week.

Covid-19 numbers remain steadily high across the United Kingdom despite strong vaccination rates. As many implicate schools for acting as breeding grounds for disease, it is worth examining the truth of these assessments, the health policies already in place and the consequences that would follow if schools were to do more.

While the country led the charge for the world vaccination rollout in 2020, a different story entirely will be told of 2021; as the most in need of protection across Europe and the world have largely been accounted for, other nations have smoothly progressed onto vaccinations of children (those at little risk) while the UK has dragged its feet. While only a month or two behind many of its European counterparts, the recommendation for 12- to -year-olds to receive the fi er vaccine was announced in midSeptember, missing a pivotal deadline at which hundreds of thousands of children would return to in-person teaching. In France, meanwhile, 66% of children aged 12 and up had received one dose of the vaccine and 52% had received both by mid-September. Denmark and Spain share similar stories.

Britain’s comparably high Covid-19 cases are not because of low immunisation rates alone, however. In fact, in terms of general population, they remain ahead of other major European countries such as Germany, wit erland, Austria and Poland. In schools, despite a slow start, they are making quick progress on account of health teams visiting and administering jabs.

It is with regard to other regulations such as face coverings and health passes where discrepancies in consistency across these countries can really be spotted. Since the UK’s memorable ‘Freedom Day’, masks have not been compulsory in English and Welsh schools and all business has reopened without checks for Covid-19 immunity. The effects of these mandates (or lack thereof) are evident in student absence. In the month of October, students isolating at home due to Covid-19-related reasons lingered at about 2.5% (204,000 students), according to Department of Education data. It is reasonable to wonder, then: should more be done to limit disruption?

As we reach the cold of winter and move primarily into indoor socialising, ventilation has become a primary obstacle in disease prevention and one that the Government would like to get ahead of. In England, Scotland and Wales, hundreds of thousands of carbon dioxide monitors have been distributed to schools to uncover areas of CO2 buildup and potentially increased infection. Vaccinations are not mandatory in schools

(Spencerbdavis via Wikimedia commons) but are highly advised and if against the will of a child’s parents, can be overridden by the child if deemed knowledgeable about what they are doing. In some US and Canadian school districts, vaccinations (barring any medical exemptions) have been announced as obligatory to attend classes. Unappealing to some, this sort of drastic action might be exactly what is necessary to prevent the same lower standard of online-offline education dealt with the past two years, particularly of frustration to exam-taking students.

Then again, it could be the case that schools are offered an unfair portion of the blame in unchanging pandemic numbers. The UK’s early jump in the vaccination effort may in fact be costing the country now and a possible indication of what is to come for others, the worry long set in for scientists of the waning effectiveness of inoculations and the possible need for boosters. A study from Public Health England found, regarding the Delta variant of Covid-19, a drop of 20 percentage points “in vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation and death more than 20 weeks post-vaccination” in comparison to two weeks postvaccination.

Regardless, schools must not become complacent. While cases have dropped a little in recent days, many, the Labour Party in the spotlight, have demanded a “Covid Plan B” for the winter, including mandatory vaccine passports and face coverings in public places. Of course, if this plan is waiting for the rekindling of a pandemic while a fire still burns brightly, it might be wise to stray on the side of caution and act now.

Politics

Domestic Statue wars: dealing with controversial monuments

Stella Wood

The statues of two politicians involved with the transatlantic slave trade are set to remain on public display in the City of London. This new development overturns the previous January vote to remove both statues, a decision which Policy Chair, Catherine McGuinness, considered “an important milestone” towards “a more inclusive and diverse City”. As of 7th October, the statues of John Cass and William Beckford will remain on display in the Square Mile, contextualised with informational plaques detailing the depicted men’s involvement with slavery.

Beckford, twice Lord Mayor of London, was a notorious slave owner with investments in plantations across Africa and the Caribbean. Cass was a philanthropist, who accumulated his wealth through involvement in the Royal African Company. A report conducted by a City anti-racism taskforce had previously acknowledged that displaying these statues created an atmosphere of “non-inclusiveness”, which contradicted the municipal authority’s aims to make the Square Mile a place “where people of all ethnicities and backgrounds feel safe and welcome”.

Nonetheless, this approach has now been abandoned, following continual pressure from Government ministers to ‘retain and explain’ controversial historical monuments, as opposed to removing them. Former Housing and Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, was particularly influential in lobbying the City of London Corporation to develop an alternative strategy that would legally safeguard controversial monuments. These protections for ‘contested heritage’ sites ensure statues can only be removed in exceptional circumstances.

According to this line of reasoning, Cass and Beckford’s monuments serve as tools of “powerful reinterpretation” which can be used to denounce the City of London’s involvement with the slave trade. This angle is supported by Douglas Barrow, chairman of the City of London Corporation Statues Working Group, who claims statues like these “enable us to acknowledge and address the legacy of our past with openness and honesty”, placing history in its “proper context”. Both Jenrick and Barrow support “preserving our culture and heritage for future generations” by instead placing informational plaques next to these public displays.

Beneath Jenrick’s policy lies a disturbing undercurrent. It burdens public monuments with the responsibility of ensuring that “we don’t repeat the errors of previous generations”. However, this seemingly ignores the more prominent roles of schools, universities, and museums in ensuring we remember and learn from our past. Removal does not mean erasure, especially when statues are ‘removed’ to places designed to preserve our historical record. As expressed by philosopher Helen Frowe. “it is an illusion to think that statues provide valuable opportunities to educate ourselves.”

This illusion is exemplified through the dramatic overhaul of Edward Colston’s statue in June 2020. The removal of Colston’s statue by Black Lives Matter activists opened up international discourse about Bristol’s problematic past. As noted by the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, Colston’s empty plinth is a “powerful symbol of a city at a crossroads”. Here, the statue’s absence alone can provide explanation, undermining the case for retention.

To assume that public statues prevent the ‘repetition of errors’ is also to misunderstand the role of a statue. The current policy may view all monuments as neutral historical records, but many statues are commissioned specifically to honour citi ens supposedly worthy of admiration and respect. The statues of Cass and Beckford, commissioned in 1751 and 1767, were created to glorify their economic and moral ‘achievements’ in advancing colonialism and the slave trade, promoting ideologies that are no longer acceptable in modern society. One must ask what is gained from displaying statues depicting racist figures publicly, rather than in museums designed to convey history’s messy complexity.

At their most extreme, controversial statues can facilitate racism, as seen at the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017. As Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans warns, statues can emphasise problematic perspectives by placing them “literally on a pedestal”. Retaining the Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee worsened the cultural divide by enabling and legitimising white supremacist views, leading to the tragic Charlottesville incident that saw 35 injured and three dead.

And so, what is the most effective way to address controversial monuments in the midst of ongoing culture wars? Political theorist, Johannes chul , proposes that the decision to remove or contextualise a statue depends on which method will stimulate respect between citi ens. This suggests that statues should continue to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by local governments and the community, countering Jenrick’s one-si e-fits-all approach to publicly preserve all ‘contested heritage’. Ultimately, the satisfaction of today s citi ens surely must be prioritised over the welfare of historical figures. (KSAG Photography via Flickr)

“The era of big government is here to stay”

Daniel Aichen

Rishi Sunak recently unveiled his much-anticipated budget, providing us with a clearer picture of how the Conservative Party wants to operate the economy as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Sunak declared this budget as one fit for an “age of optimism” to turbocharge the economy, “unlock productivity” and to “deliver growth more evenly across the UK”.

So, what did this look like in practical terms? The Government has committed to a spending increase of £150 billion over the next three years, including £6 billion to tackle NHS backlogs, £7 billion for transport projects and £2 billion to help schools in England catch up after Covid-19’s devastating impact on children’s learning. In fact, the Government has committed to a real term rise in spending for every government department. To pay for this, Mr Sunak is raising taxes to their highest level since the 1950s, up by £40 billion this year, meaning increases in areas such as corporation tax and National Insurance contributions.

Some have labelled this as a shift in philosophy for the Conservative Party, from what once was a small-state, low-tax neoliberal party to a party of big government, more closely aligned with the Keynesian economics of tax and spend. However, opposition to both the budget and this supposed ideological re-alignment can be found within the Tory ran and file. ost notably, former minister Chris Grayling stated that Conservative back benchers will be holding “the Chancellor s feet to the fire” to deliver because they “cannot plan a future, as Conservatives, as a big-state, high-tax party”. Mr Sunak’s budget has exacerbated tensions with those who still view the Conservative Party through a Thatcherite lens, especially as it appears to be undoing the last decade of austerity measures that stripped back the state through huge cuts to public services.

Austerity measures were generally seen as necessary to balance the books following the financial crash of and subse uent economic downturn of 2009, but even as soon as 2013, a majority of people in the UK believed that the Government’s austerity measures were hurting the British economy. By 2018, polling conducted by Number Cruncher Politics showed a continuation of this trend. 66% of those surveyed stated that cuts to public spending had gone too far. Rather interestingly, 53% of Tory voters surveyed were also of the belief that these cuts had gone too far. Boris Johnson and Mr Sunak have recognised changing public sentiment and concluded that, based on political calculation, this is the correct approach for the Conservative party.

We are living through an unprecedented crisis, one that has seen the Conservative Party rack up a bill of £350 billion, pushing borrowing to its highest level in peacetime. This follows an impressive Conservative electoral victory in 2019, which saw them gain seats in Labour heartlands. The Conservatives have recognised a dramatically shifting political landscape across the UK since the Brexit referendum. With a raft of new Tory backbenchers representing previous red seats, the Conservative Party is having to find a balance between a desire for greater investment to help with the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda, and a suspicion of tax and spend economics that is ingrained within many backbenchers. However, there is good evidence to suggest that the Conservative Party is up for the challenge.

There is an argument to make that the Conservative Party is one of pragmatism rather than rigid ideology, enabling them to be highly adaptable when necessary. During the post-war consensus years, up until 1979, the Tories and the Labour Party agreed over policies such as strong state welfare provision for all and the nationalisation of industry and public utilities. It was Mrs Thatcher that reshaped the Conservative Party to become the small-state, low-tax party most tend to think of it as today.

The Conservative Party is a pragmatic, adaptable party, with a long history of shifting its policy positions, whether that be on the EU, as we saw with the Brexit referendum, or on the privatisation of industry. Throughout its history, the party has evolved with changing political winds, enabling it to win over voters and keep winning general elections.

Mr Sunak’s budget is another example of the Conservatives shifting direction to give them the best chance to remain in power. ith rising inflation and supply chain issues impacting the livelihoods of many in this country, it remains to be seen whether this budget is enough to counteract that. It seems likely, however, that the era of big government is here to stay as the Tories begin preparing for the next election.

PALATINATE | Thursday 11th November 2021

International

Politics Is this the end of the ‘American Century’?

Rj Batkhuu and Maddy Burt

Politics Editors

“Gradually, then suddenly.” Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises reveals to us something about how the world can suddenly collapse beneath us. Looking back, the signs may have been there all along. For the American republic, vaunted as the greatest power in human history, the sudden chaotic collapse of its military operation in Afghanistan signalled to many a much larger collapse of its global power and dominance. Is the ‘American Century’ coming to an end? What is the meaning of this term — does it deserve a significant place in our political lexicon or is it just meaningless tautology?

The term ‘American Century’ was first coined by publishing tycoon Henry Luce in 1941. He argued emphatically that the twentieth century could be the ‘American Century’ if only the United States government would drop its isolationist approach and intervene in World War Two, in the process spreading democracy and other ideals. The D-Day landings in June 1944 marked a commitment from America to international intervention, and the US’s economic superiority was cemented in the immediate post-war when the country represented close to half of the world economy.

If economic superiority is judged to be a fair measurement of global dominance, the ‘American Century’ started at the dawn of the twentieth century. However, the US did not possess great influence and power globally until it invested heavily in its military and was prepared to intervene abroad. As China is projected by 2026 to have 89% of America’s current-dollar GDP, this does not equal a definite shift in global relations.

More recently, the failure of America to win the military conflict in Afghanistan has been pointed out as the end of America’s hegemonic leadership of the world order. However, American withdrawal from Afghanistan is not the beginning of the end for the United States. Many commentators have irresistibly compared Afghanistan to the fall of Saigon. In Vietnam, America was globally embarrassed but not cast aside, and continued to call the shots on foreign affairs, often to a similar end.

One way to highlight the continual importance of the US is the realisation that for every single important geo-political event of the last century, the critical question was and remains — what do the Americans think? Combine economic and military positions with soft power, including cultural and political hegemony, and it is immediately clear that the collapse in Afghanistan far from guarantees an end to America’s position as the world’s hegemon. The ideological dominance of the ‘Washington Consensus’ and

Hollywood’s global culture preeminence illustrate this. This brings us one threat facing American hegemony: internal political discord. Some argue the storming of the United States Capitol by insurrectionists on January 6th at the behest of former President Trump signalled the decline of the American republic. Although shocking and calamitous, January 6th represented a ramshackle group of lost souls whipped into a delusional fever by an equally unhinged president with a total lack of grip on the ship of state. These people had no national backing, organisation or consistency — the American state swiftly acted and restored order, the election certified and r Trump was removed from office.

America’s greatest threat to global hegemony undoubtedly comes from China, which has flourished economically from exports, a market economy and private enterprise. The hegemon and the pretender si ing each other up and cautiously testing one another: this will be the dominant overtone of the international order in the 21st century. Questions must be asked. What does China’s hold on global politics look like? What does China possess now that the does not ow do they sei e the new century, if at all possible? Examining China as a political actor produces interesting similarities and striking differences with America. Take Afghanistan as a case study, the US’s attitude to involvement was not particularly inconspicuous. It dominated the country for over two decades. Now American

America’s withdrawal is complete, the greatest threat to global hegemony Chinese have filled the vacuum in a different manner, their influence less obvious and undoubtedly comes more muted. Chinese ministers from China did not immediately refuse to acknowledge the new state, and money flows between borders and their embassy in Kabul remains open. The mericans in their final moments in Afghanistan were deeply concerned with image because for them the liberal democratic model needs constant ustification. Chinese influence is less concerned or centred around ‘image-consciousness’. It is not fair that open societies face more scrutiny than closed ones, but this is the fate of democratic societies — they must constantly justify their governance structures. As such potential Chinese hegemony and American hegemony are different things because as political actors they are different.

China’s rise will be concerned with forging their own path and ideological development. As such, we can expect the Chinese to decouple themselves from the American-led international order and instead attempt to create a Chinese-led order. This is already evident from their founding and leadership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multilateral development bank that creates liquidity for developing nations in Asia. More impactful, however, the colossal ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ will see Beijing wrap its arms around much of the developing world. Already, billions have flown from China to the developing world and the influence that i inping now exerts cannot be understated.

This is therefore a different form of hegemonic exercise. China could dominate in an international system they have created, while leaving the Americans to run the ancien régime. It is therefore an exaggeration to suggest the Americans will be superseded by China in their own backyard.

More likely, the Americans will remain dominant within the post-WW2 global institutional order (take: the United

Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). Concurrently, we can expect a parallel Chinese institutional order to emerge where the AIIB is merely the beginning. This will diminish the importance and influence of the merican-led Bretton Woods global governance system.

Minxin Pei, in The Economist’s series ‘The Future of American Power’, argues that China’s rise is ultimately constrained by internal factors including a restrictive domestic political regime that stifles growth, wasteful state-run enterprises and the fact that China has a much faster ageing population than the US. The trend towards autocratic, personality-based rule under i Jinping leaves the Chinese system unaware of their blind-spots and therefore susceptible to challenges. Healthy democracies with competitive elections do not face this problem.

“The liberal democratic model needs constant ustification

In the next hundred years, we could see a new Chineseled order, or multipolar world with a diminished America, but this century remains very much an American one — for now. The question for political commentators is just how long they can cling on for.

(Verity Laycock)