849

Beaver

Issue 849 | 23.2.16

the

Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union

Controversial Welfare Lecture Shelved Amid National Press Coverage Greg Sproston News Editor

IN WHAT FEELS LIKE an increasingly common occurrence, LSE has hit the headlines relating to concer ns over freedom of speech at universities. The school have indefinitely postponed a lecture, initially due to take place on 9th of February, by Dr. Adam Perkins, a lecturer in neurobiology of personality at KCL. The lecture, in which Dr. Perkins was set to argue that the welfare state ‘erodes motivation’ via a process of ‘welfare induced personality mis-development’, was thought to be the target of disruption by what Times Higher Education referred to as ‘left-wing activists’. Black Triangle, a disability rights pressure group, posted a link on twitter with the statement ‘Jesus wept: if ever there was an event to picket and protest, this is it.’, whilst later stating that as a group they “respects Dr Perkins’ academic freedom and freedom of speech 100 per cent” Defenders of group argue that is their right to protest any message and that a protest in and of itself should not be seen is analogous with an attempt at censorship or shutting down the event.

Writing in the ‘Mail’ on

Sunday, Dr. Adam Perkins has defended his position, stating that welfare system does not alleviate Beveridge’s ‘giant evils’, but rather had the potential to exacerbate them. Despite him making no mention of the composition of potential protestors at his event, Mail on Sunday have published his piece under the erroneous and incorrect headline ‘Ugly Truth About Benefits CENSORED by LSE Students’. Black Triangle are an independent pressure group with no link to the LSE or LSESU. In Nazi concentration camps, individuals deemed ‘arbeitsscheu’ or workshy were made to wear an inverted black triangle on their clothing, a practice which meant that the black triangle became a de facto symbol for mental or physical disability, homelessness or addiction.

Today’s pressure group of the same name is a direct reference of this practice and was set up primarily to counter what they deem as the ‘vicious attack’ of disabled people by the gover nment; specifically through work capability assessments and other measures in which people’s eligibility for benefits is assessed by their presumed ability to work. As recently as January this year, Black

Triangle and other pressure groups were outraged and galvanised after Dawn Amos was sent a letter infor ming her that she was fit to work on the very same day she died from a debilitating lung condition.

Critics of Black Triangle specifically, or those who protest lectures and academic events in general, point to the importance of an open exchange of ideas; a second year philosophy and economics student who repeatedly requested that his comments be made anonymously offered a withering criticism; ‘these guys are idiots, they’re so eager to get offended that they don’t even listen. This guy is saying we need a more compassionate welfare system that doesn’t trap people in poverty but he can’t even deliver his message.

Unbelievable!’

Others, however, have defended the position of activists who planned to disrupt the event.

‘He might offer a nuanced view.’ said a first year gover nment student, ‘but a lot of people won’t get the nuance. Some people will just see an academic up on a stage bashing minorities and, all of a sudden, it gives horrid views a sense of legitimacy.

That’s not right’.

Continued on page 3

Interviews: HE Anote Tong, President of Kiribati Taryana Odayar Executive Editor THIS WEEK, THE BEAVER is proud to introduce a brand new section, “Interviews”, which will aim to publish in-depth and insightful conversations with high-profile public figures.

To kick things off, this week we have the privilege of

publishing interviews with both the President of Kiribati, HE Anote Tong, as well as the for mer Prime Minister of Italy, Enrico Letta.

I had the opportunity to interview the President of Kiribati during the COP21 talks when he visited the LSE to deliver a lecture on Kiribati’s status of being on the front line of climate

change.

HE Anote Tong, who is also an alumnus of the LSE, has been President of Kiribati since 2003, and is due to step down at the end of 2015 upon completion of his ter m, as per the Kiribati Constitution.

In my conversation with him, I was able to gain a glimpse into the mindset of a President who has to

deal with the unimaginable prospect of relocating his citizens due to the fact that the islands of Kiribati are predicted to go underwater by 2050. Indeed, Climate Change has for med the most salient and significant issue of his Presidency, and the way in which he handles it will no doubt be his lasting legacy.

News Comment Get a 2:1 And Move on With Your Life Red Lips Campaign; Can We Not? Page 4 Page 8

Continued on page 16

Room 2.02, Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, LSE Students’ Union London WC2A 2AE Executive Editor Taryana Odayar

editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Managing Editor Alex Dugan

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Established in 1949 Issue No. 849 - Tuesday 23 February 2016 - issuu.com/readbeaveronline Telephone: 0207 955 6705 Email: editor@thebeaveronline.co.uk Website: www.beaveronline.co.uk Twitter: @beaveronline

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News Editors Greg Sproston Joseph Briers

Taryana Odayar on the free speech debate that is taking the LSE by storm

Comment Editor Mali Williams

From the Executive Editor

news@thebeaveronline.co.uk

comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

PartB Editors Kemi Akinboyewa Vikki Hui Flo Edwards

partb@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The City Editor Alex Gray

city@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Features Editor Alex Hurst Daniel Shears Stefanos Argyros

features@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Nab Editor

nab@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Sport Editor Alex Dugan India Steele

sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Online Editor Ellie Peake

online@thebeaveronline.co.uk

Collective Chair Perdita Blinkhorn

collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk

The Collective:

A Doherty, A, Dugan, A Fyfe, A Hurst, A Laird, A Leung, A Lulache, A Moro, A Qazilbash, A Ryzhonkova, A Santhanham, A Tanwa, A Thomson, B Phillips, B Sreejith, C Cogne, C Holden, C Loughran, C Morgan, C Hu, D Hung, D Lai, D Shears, D Sippel, D Tighe, E Arnold, E Wilkie, E Smith, G Cafiero, G Ferris, G Harrison, G Kist, G Linford-Grayson, G Manners-Armstrong, G Saudelli, H Brentnall, H Prabu, H Toms, I Plunkett, J Briers, J Clark, J Cusack, J Evans, J Foster, J Grabiner, J Heeks, J Momodu, J Ruther, J Wilken-Smith, J Wurr, K Budd, K Owusu, K Parida, K Quinn, K Yeung Goh, L Kang, L Kendall, L Erich, L Mai, L Montebello, L Schofield, L van der Linden, M Banerjee-Palmer, M Crockett, M Gallo, M Jaganmohan, M Johnson, M Neergheen, M Pasha, M Pennill, M Strauss, N Antoniou, N Bhaladhare, N Buckley-Irvine, N Stringer, O Hill, O Gleeson, P Amoroso, P Blinkhorn, P Gederi, P Grabosch, R Browne, R J Charnock, R Connelly-Webster, R Huq, R Kouros, R Serunjogi, R Siddique, R Uddin, R Way, S Ali, S Argyros, S Chandrashekhar, S CrabbeField, S Kunovska, S Povey, S Rahman, S Sebatindira, S Shehadi, S Taneja, T Mushtaq, T Odayar, T Poole, V Hui, Z Chan, Z Mahmod To join the Collective you need to have written for 3 or more editions of The Beaver. Think you’ve done that but don’t see your name on the list? Email collective@thebeaveronline.co.uk to let us know!

Any opinions expressed herein are those of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the LSE Students’ Union or Beaver Editorial Staff.

The Beaver is issued under a Creative Commons license.

Attribution necessary.

IN TRUE LSE FASHION, THIS past week the university and its students have been caught up in a media whirlwind over the free speech debate on campus, which seems to have branched off innumerably, much in the same way that distributaries branch off the main river channel. Having made quite the splash in several national headlines, the tempest that began fairly innocently with a certain article in the Comment section of our newspaper a couple of weeks ago, has resulted in an unceasing flow of articles being sent in, each one bravely aspiring to take on a different facet of the free speech debate.

Looking at some of the national headlines these past two weeks gives one a good idea

of the sort of issues coursing through the campus community.

With Dr Perkins’ anti-benefits discussion being postponed due to online threats from Black Triangle campaigners, as well as LSE SU India Society choosing to withdraw their invitation to one of their proposed speakers for their upcoming forum given concerns from the LSE SU LGBT+ Alliance, the British media have had plenty of headlines which include the three-letter acronym “LSE.” A Guardian headline read, “Disability activists say LSE wrong to shelve welfare lecture”, headlines in The Telegraph included, “LSE talk on welfare postponed over fears of disruption”, the Mail Online ran a particularly lengthy one, “The ugly truth about benefits

CENSORED by LSE students after top academic tried to tell them welfare can make claimants work-shy, aggressive and anti-social” and even The Times Education had something to say about it, with “Left-wing activists forc(ing) LSE to cancel anti-benefits talk.”

In George Orwell’s The Freedom of the Press; his proposed preface to Animal Far m, he states that, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”, and this is certainly a view that has been argued for and against by many voices on campus. But what does the coming week portend? With the current state of affairs, one gets the sense that this is only the end of the beginning.

Alex Dugan on what it’s actually like stepping into the role

From the Managing Editor SEEING AS THIS IS GOING to be one of the shortest Managing Editor tenures in the history of The Beaver, I thought I’d take this opportunity to give a brief overview of what A (Sun)Day In The Life of the Managing Editor is.

It first starts with reading the news of the day, going through where LSE has appeared in the nationals and whether the news was rather sad, well I just have to laugh. This week in particular saw an article appear in (everyone’s favourite online publication) The Mail Online, which accused LSE Students students of censoring an academic on welfare. For reference this is about the postponement of Dr Adam Perkins’ talk on welfare.

It’s not like he blew his mind out in a car, just that in his article there is at no point a reference to LSE Students. A pretty clear case of clickbait bullshit from The Mail Online.

The rest of the day is spent building different sections, ironing out the design and adding in articles here and there to fill the space. When I say the rest of the

day, I really do mean the rest of the day. Typically, Managing Editor is in from around 2pm (sometimes even earlier), right the way through to closing time of Saw Swee Hock, leaving just enough time to find your coat and grab your hat, make the bus in seconds flat. This is all to do it again on a Monday morning, fixing up the paper right until deadline of 12pm.

My favourite part about being Managing Editor isn’t the new email address, it isn’t the increased responsibility, it’s the desk. Firstly, not having to fight for a working space at any time of the week is a bonus, but the best part is the view.

If you’ve ever been into the Media Centre (& RAG Office, sorry Wurr, it’s just doesn’t feel right to have it on the door), you’ll know that the windows by where The Beaver desks are look out onto campus. The Managing Editor Desk directly faces these windows, so you get to see the demolishing of the East Building as well as the very strange lifts that the massive crane gives to various people in high vis jackets and hard hats.

A l s o , it’s the other side of the room from the windows that just open and close as they please. “Self Regulating Building” they told us, more like an excuse to freeze out the Media Centre.

The other main job for the Managing Editor is oversee distribution. Actually carrying the news of today, oh boy it’s a struggle. Before you lift one of those stacks up, you don’t realise how heavy they are. The worst places to do are Clement House and 32 Lif, they’re just so far away.

Thankfully it’s a team job, there’s no way I can lift those fifteen stacks, however great of an arm workout it would be.

Either way, the holes in the paper are rather small, we have to count them all, and that’s the way the Managing Editor goes.

Beaver Elections (the only meaningful elections of the term) are coming up in a few weeks, so if you’ve got any questions about possibly running for the role, feel free to email managing@ thebeaveronline.co.uk

TWEETS OF THE WEEK Harry Maxwell @HarryMaxwell If someone feels too intimidated to work with someone then they should be allowed to leave. End of. #FreeKesha Craig Calhoun @craigjcalhoun Security is important, but longstanding and pervasive abuse of surveillance by US law enforcement makes trust hard.

LSE Students’ Union @lsesu This year the election candidates undergo their toughest challenge yet... #LSEQT LSE Athletics Union @lse_au Only 4 more days until FIGHT NIGHT 2016.

GET EXCITED. Jon Allsop @Jon_Allsop Also a disgrace that ‘antifascist’ galloway is cuddling up to Farage. Would almost certainly have no-platformed him in a former life.

George Harrison @George_Haz Obviously nobody tell Ruper this, but I’d be perfectly happy writing shit puns for free Liam Hill @liamjhill Ah... The ontological proof of Britain’s greatness. ‘It’s called *Great* Britain.’ Twat. #bbcqt LSE Careers @LSECareers Undergraduates - confused about your career? Yahoo Answers can’t help, but we can!

Alex Dugan @alex_dugan Why is a @GatwickExpress train being used as a normal commuter train? And it’s late.

Shock.

LSE Hockey Club @LSEHockey And...

We’re off Amsterdam!! @easyJet @AHBCAmsterdam

to

Controversy over Free Speech Takes Centre Stage ...continued from front page

THE ISSUE IS JUST THE latest flashpoint in a wider debate over free speech at universities and amongst students.

The LSESU Speakeasy Society - which itself is at the centre of a storm which might see it disbanded subject to a UGM vote - set up

by LSE students to oppose what they say is excessive censorship.

Whilst this made the national press, it was soon superseded by the news that NUS LGBT Officer Fran Cowling refused to share a stage with prominent gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell on the basis of his presumed ‘transphobic’ views.

Whilst this constituted an individual choice on the part of Fran Cowling, more bizarre still is the decision of the NUS as an institution to ‘noplatform’ Nick Lowles, chief executive of charity HOPE not Hate, as a result of what they deem to be his ‘islamophobic’ views. Closer to campus, a KCL Israeli society at which LSE students were present was interrupted by protesters in January. Witnesses spoke of fire alarms being sent off and the police were eventually called due to safety concerns.

The debate over the trade of between free speech seems to consist solely of firmly entrenched opinions and appeals to moral reason. One

side argues in favour of the open and frank dissemination of difficult, unpalatable ideas as the only way society can advance whilst the other advocates for safe-spacing and the protection of marginalised and persecuted groups as a moral imperative. The row shows little sign of abating and the latest development will add further fire to this week’s already contentious UGM motion to ban the Speakeasy Free Speech Society. Whilst the school have not confirmed the rescheduled date of the event, they have issued a brief statement: ‘The speaker and hosting department agreed to postpone the lecture for logistical reasons. The speaker

and organisers were aware of some negative social media activity and the postponement is to ensure the safe and smooth running of the event, once it is rescheduled.’

News | 3

Section Editor: Greg Sproston Joseph Briers Greg Sproston Deputy Editors: Alina Ryzhonkova Bhadra Sreejith

News Analysis: Is the UGM Decline Terminal?

Greg Sproston News Editor

two motions tabled at this week’s UGM are not enough to reverse a long term decline in attendance and participation, concerns over the

validity and relevance of the UGM as a tool for student engagement will once again take centre stage

Utopia Comes to LSE; But only for a Week Elston Gunn Undergraduate Student BOLD SIGNS DECLARING ‘Utopia’ around the NAB are not guerilla satirism about the stateof affairs LSE. Rather, ‘Utopia’ is the theme of LSE’s 8th literary festival, taking place from Monday 22nd February through to Saturday 27th of February.

Maintaining the tradition of a single word theme - last year’s ‘Foundations’ festival was a reference to the School’s 120th anniversary - the festival’s organisors have this year taken inspiration from the 500th anniversay of the publication of Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’.

As would be expected at a

University which tasks itself with knowing the causes of things, many of the events will seek to conceptualise idealism and utopia from a number of standpoints including communism, ethnic identity, 21st century feminism and egalitarianism.

In addition, the importance of fiction in society is to be strongly promoted. Events will consider the global impact of Shakespeare, and where writing dystopian ficton goes wrong, whilst best selling author Robert Harris will a deliver a lecture on the political novel.

As ever, the festival will include creative writing workshops along with events specifically designed for children.

Interesingly, the university’s

impact on society will be considered at the event ‘One School: Two Visions’, which acknowledges that some of the most influential figures associated with the school have had radically different ideas of what would

constitute a good society.

A full programme for the Literary Festival can be found on the public events section of the LSE website.

News

REPORTING ON POOR attendance at UGMS, and the subsequent underwhelming student engagement, has been something of a feature in the news section this academic year.

Different parties have laid the blame at different doors for dwindling interest; the change of venue from the Peacock Theatre to a cafe during the lunchtime rush does not help, and neither does the school’s refusal to eliminate timetabling clashes with the UGM slot. The SU, however, has also come under criticism for poor communication with many students simply unaware that anything is happening This week should be different.

Thursday’s UGM will consist of two motions. First, Environment and Ethics Officer Elena Bignami will be proposing a more comprehensive divestment motion (full details on page 6). The LSE Divest campaign has not just been a success in terms of student engagement, it has led to

quantifiable, demonstrative success as LSE management in 2015 made commitments to partial divestment; making it one of many campaigns in which direct student pressure has led to change.

Secondly, there is the long awaited motion over whether the Speakeasy society - which champions free speech on university campuses - should be banned. The debate has energized the student body to a noticeable extent and I’ve rarely encountered anyone who doesn’t have an opinion; better yet, I’ve not spoken to anyone who is unaware of the situation. The issue has been covered by the mainstream media and, at times, has served as the go-to example for the wider debate encompassing academia and ‘the left’ over the trade off between censorship and the open exchange of ideas.

The student body at LSE is engaged and engaging; individual societies are testament to that, as are turnout figures for lent term elections which are consistently higher than in most other unions. However, if the

4

| Tuesday 23 February, 2016

‘Get a 2:1 and Move on With Your Life’ - Student Culture, Attitudes and Expectations at LSE Alina Ryzhonkova Deputy News Editor LSE HAS BEEN STRUGGLING when it comes to student satisfaction and the results of a consultation conducted by the LSESU Education Officer Jon Foster last term do little to alleviate the existing concerns. The results of the report, which were released before reading week, revealed a general dissatisfaction with the LSE experience. Two quotes from the survey results in particular appear to sum up the general attitude towards an

LSE education: “get a 2:1 and move on with your life” and “all students get out of LSE is the name”. LSE may be a worldrenowned institution known for its cutting edge research, but when it comes to teaching and basic provision for students, it seems to be lagging far behind most other institutions.

The results of the consultation came out as Craig Calhoun unveiled the LSE Strategy 2020 along with an £11 million investment in student experience and education over the coming years. With student dissatisfaction reaching

shocking lows, the university is finally taking note and taking steps to improve the situation.

A panel organized by the SU, which comprised students, elected student officers, and LSE staff, just before reading week discussed the current situation and the steps needed to improve student satisfaction.

The discussion touched on seemingly obvious topics that have come up time and time again in student criticisms of the LSE – support for students, clarity of communication, consistency across departments, and a lack of alternative

perspectives in the material taught. None of the criticisms seemed to come as a surprise to Paul Kelly, the Pro-Director of teaching. The awareness of LSE staff of the issues important to students seemed a promising first step towards eliminating those issues, however, the exasperation of Dr. Suki Ali and fellow staff members on the panel at the lack of more general action by the LSE despite their campaigns for change put a damper on things.

The one thing that seemed to unite all panel members, regardless of their points

of view and the groups they represent, was exasperation at the lack of concrete and clear action by the school. Some changes certainly take time to implement, but a lot of the issues currently facing students have been on the administration’s radar for far too long for that excuse to still be valid. The panel discussion, much like the consultation findings, revealed nothing groundbreaking, simply reinforcing the all-prevalent feeling of exasperation and leaving students to go back to getting that 2:1 before moving on with their life.

Labour Society Focuses on Intersectionality With Inaugural Political Engagement Week Adam Crowther Lab Soc LGBT+ Officer THE FIRST OF ITS KIND Political Engagement week, hosted by the Labour and Cooperative Society, was a resounding success.

Held across week four, it saw a number of events across the week focussing on engaging with left politics and liberation groups, ranging from panel discussions, to creative performances, right across to intimate discussions with high-profile politicians.

Kicking the week off ‘What Being a Woman in the Labour Party Means to Me’ was held in Westminster Hall of Parliament.

Focussing on how the Labour Party treats women and how politics is affected by one’s gender, the event, chaired by Ciara Hogan, our very own Womens’ Officer, featured Labour Soc’s former chair turned Southwark council-

lor Samantha Jury Dada, the outspoken MP for Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips, and Kate Green MP, the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. The event explored a number of topics, such as the impact of Twitter, sexism within PMQs, and the community spirit of female politicians. All in all, the event, whilst highlighting the issues experienced by the women on the panel, was one of hope, one that it is getting better for women.

Tuesday evening saw a second highly successful night exploring the relationship between gender and politics, this time in a creative manner. ‘What’s LEFT of Politics?’, hosted in conjunction with Women Leaders of Tomorrow and Intersectional Feminist Society, was a spoken word night showcasing some home grown LSE talent deconstructing the white supremacist, (cis)sexist (hetero) patriarchy. Not only did a number

of outstanding LSE women take to the stage, but they were joined by award winning spoken word poet and blogger Siana Bangura.

Every speaker brought his or her own flair, uniqueness and talent to the stage. The Denning Learning Café of SSH, full to the brim, was silent - the audience were captured.

The third event was a personal one; ‘In Discussion with Lucy Powell’ saw the Shadow Minister for Education come into LSE to discuss her politics, her career, and her opinions. The room, a small classroom in Lincoln’s Field’s building, allowed the audience to get to know Lucy better, and engage with her on a number of topics. Having worked with multitudes of famous politicians, ranging from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to being Ed Miliband’s deputy Chief of Staff, and finally being in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet Lucy had an interesting take

on everything from the EU, to academisation, to the May General Election defeat. Following the event the audience socialised, resulting in general merriment.

Finally, Friday saw a return to a panel discussion; entitled ‘LGBT+ Activism and Politics – 2016: What’s Next?’ it focussed on looking at how the LGBT+ civil rights movement can move forward in the future. Chaired by two time NUS Vice-President Pete Mercer, the event featured an exploration of the lives of the panellists.

Linda Bellos, a legendary feminist, lesbian and black rights activist, discussed how problematic playing minority top-trumps can be, whilst LSE’s own Professor Nick Long analysed how the LGBT+ movement needs to become more reflexive and take into consideration academic discourses. Tom Copley, a member of the London Assembly dissected the results of the London housing crisis on the

capital’s gay scene, whilst Cllr Rishi Madlani talked about how both the political sphere and the corporate world can be improved through LGBT+ initiatives that place LGBT+ people at the forefront of their respective fields.

Not only was each and every event well received and rewarding to watch and participate in, but Political Engagement week as whole worked to show how the Labour Party, and less specifically the Left, is relevant and revolutionary.

It showed how being a woman, or a LGBT+ person, or a student, or indeed a politician, may be difficult, but it is also rewarding. I think, maybe most importantly, it showed the audiences, myself included, how inspiring politics can be, inspiring us to continue pursuing social good, and not to allow the occasional defeats break us down.

Sold Out LSESU Consultancy Conference Earns the Plaudits Bhadra Sreejith Deputy News Editor FRIDAY’s POPULAR STUDENT nightclub was the site of something considerably more professional when the LSESU Consultancy Conference was held at The Venue on Wednesday, 17th February. The conference was held from 10 am-4 pm with an hour break for lunch and networking.

It was comprised of four panels: strategy, management, consulting, and technology.

EY, Deloitte, PwC, Oliver Wyman, Simon Kucher, Bain, BCG, McKinsey, Cisco, Accenture, Oxera and Vivid Consulting were represented at the conference, with more representatives from firms present during the networking lunch. The audience, which consisted of a significant number of non-LSE students, appeared to be the most interested in the management and strategy panels, due to the prestige of the firms that were represented during the panels and the insightful discussions that were generated. There was also a case study presentation by EY. The companies present seemed keen to market themselves to potential applicants, with Cisco’s recruitment team coming out in

full force during the technology presentation, causing the conference to be delayed by fifteen minutes, and causing attendees to play with their phones in boredom while they waited for lunch. The strategy panellists attempted to recruit future consultants by playfully mentioning that their companies provided them with free iPhones, but how successful that was remains to be seen.

The questions asked of the panellists by the moderator, Syakila Jamel, were insightful and relevant. The management consultants were asked how they manage different stakeholders’ conflicting interests—all three of them stressed the importance of communication and staying ahead of the market. Consultants from all the panels also mentioned that due to the international nature of the field, political tensions did not have much of an effect on the demand for consulting services— this was in response to a question on the potential “Brexit”.

Other issues discussed were the effect of the slowdown in the emerging economies on decisions clients may make, technological innovation, and dealing tactfully with less-than-competent clients.

One member of the audience asked the strategy panel whether

“consultants consult consultants”, which produced an appreciative laugh from everyone, and the unanimous answer that they didn’t.

Alvin Wang, President of the Consultancy Society, commented “I felt that the consultancy conference was a huge success.

This was based not only on the excellent panel of consultants present on the day or the variety of activities, but also on the tremendous feedback received by both panellists and attendees. This resulted in a sold out conference: we were originally planning on releasing 180 tickets but sold 30 extra. Quite a few individuals even messaged the committee asking if more tickets were available. This only gives us an incentive to host an even bigger conference next year!”

“The committee had a vision and motivation to really achieve something big and give back to the huge membership base we have this year. This event benefited members who can attend the conference and consultants who could give a talk at a top world-class university, and equipped the society committee with essential organisational and communication skills which cannot be developed in a

classroom. Personally, the feeling of seeing satisfied attendees and the receiving of warm feedback is also what made us feel proud to host the conference – giving back to the community is essential.”

One novel feature of the conference is that it was essentially free for all students—a deposit of £10 was required to confirm attendance, but upon registration, the deposit was refunded.

Alvin continued, “We believe that each attendee walked away having learned something new about consultancy. We tailored the conference so that no matter what background or expertise an attendee possessed, we felt that they were bound to have gained some level of insight from the conference. In terms of the organising committee, the insights gained were phenomenal.

We learned that consultancy is growing as an elite attractive career, and the interest in consultancy has grown vastly within the LSE. The demand and interest in the conference was a key indicator.”

The LSESU Consultancy Conference is the flagship studentled Consultancy Conference in London. It remains to be seen if it can be as successful in coming years.

News | 5

London Uni Roundup

After six long months of radio silence, the City University London Students’ Union has come out admitting that they dropped the ball in recruiting for student media positions. The university has had no official student media this year, despite putting out a call for applications in October. According to the CULSU Sabbatical officers, a lack of applications was not the issue; they simply failed to act on them. This announcement was made at a Union General Meeting, which had only been advertised on the day via Facebook and failed to attract a high turnout. The Sabbatical officers promised the mistake would be rectified in the future.

The close of UCLU election nominations has shown that the union has been unable to reverse declining participation in student politics; despite a controversial campaign ran by the UCLU which portray sabbatical positions as attractive graduate jobs, rather than a way to serve the student population. Low voter turnout is also expected, as numbers have been dwindling year on year and the addition of the politically disengaged Institute of Education is set to lower the percentage of voters in this year’s elections.

German Soc Expected to Deliver Successful Annual Symposium Maximilian Czernin Undergraduate Student

THE LSESU GERMAN society have released the schedule of events for the yearly German Symposium; one of the most well respected events on the LSE calendar.

Taking place from 29 February to 4th of March, events will include speakers such as Credit Suisse Chairman Urs Rohner, former Bank of England Governor Lord Mervyn King and Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz.

Although the Symposium is advertised under the strapline ‘Poor Old Germany - Too Big for Europe, Too Small For the World?’, many events will take on a distinctly supranational feel. Among the questions being considered are welfare states in the European context, capitalism in the 21st century and the impact of innovation and technology on society and key economic sectors.

The fourteen events will be divided evenly between English and German;

potential attendees are advised to double check which language an event will be conducted in before attending. All will be free to attend and tickets, as well as a full schedule of events, can be obtained from the LSE website.

The flagship lecture of the Symposium will include outspoken German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who will be answering the question ‘managing Europe - what is Germany’s responsibility?’

Although part of the University of London, Royal Holloway’s location in Egham places it in the safest university town in the country; however, a recent slew of crime threatens that position.

A series of attacks took place in the lead up to Christmas, including muggings, an attempted sexual assault, and arson attacks on two charity shops in Egham.

The police are appealing for information and still searching for some of the perpetrators of these attacks. The incidents come as a shock to the ‘safest university town’ as students are encouraged to be more vigilant and take extra precautions.

6

|Tuesday 23 February, 2016

Red Lines are Not for Crossing: LSE Divest Launches Fresh Campaign ‘#DivestTheRest’ Elena Bignami Environment and Ethics Officer YOU MAY HAVE BEEN WALKING around LSE last week to find the Saw Swee Hock plaza enclosed by an unbroken web of gleaming red ribbon, loud music, and a big crowd.

Students chanting “LSE fossil free” and “death to fossils”, unravelling 200 metres of red lines in support of the largest student coalition to combat climate change. You can’t help but wonder: “didn’t LSE divest from fossil fuels already?” Well.

You’re partly right. But this isn’t the whole story.

Let’s begin with the red maze. Friday the 12th February celebrated global divestment

day and marked the end of Go Green Week, the UK’s largest week of student climate action.

Fossil Free movements from all over the country joined forces in support of environmental social justice using a common symbol: Red Lines.

The Red Lines campaign was launched in Paris at the international climate conference in December 2015. Leaders at COP21 signed an unanimous agreement on CC mitigation and adaptation policy to keep temperatures below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C. Red Lines are symbolic of the dangerous boundary that society cannot cross if we are serious about averting dangerous CC and staying below 2C.

Under the Red Lines umbrella comes the Fossil Free divestment movement, a global campaign that lobbies institutions and universities to withdraw money and divest endowment funds from the fossil fuel extractive industry.

On Fossil Free Friday students supporting LSE Divest rallied outside Saw Swee Hock to voice their concerns around the School’s remaining ties to oil and gas companies. Last term, on the 26th November 2015, LSE released a Socially Responsible Investment Report, pledging partial divestment from thermal coal and tar sands.

As much as this represents a positive step in the right direction, academic reports confirm that ⅓ of oil reserves

and ½ of gas reserves also need to remain unburnt before 2050 to offset anthropogenic CC and reverse carbon-dioxide emissions to prevent further warming. Thomas Piketty, Lord Stern, and LSE’s own Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment have all recognized the science behind the CC discourse and warned us about the material risks that fossil fuel extraction represents to our society. Nevertheless, LSE still holds shares in oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. LSE Divest strongly believes that the School has a responsibility to commit to full divestment; this is why we have officially launched our divestment campaign

for Lent Term 2016: LSE #DivestTheRest. This Thursday 25th February, LSE Divest will debate a UGM motion at the Student’s Union from 12-1pm.

We will be discussing whether ‘LSESU should lobby LSE to commit to full divestment from all fossil fuel companies, including the oil and gas industry’. We hope to see many of you there for a healthy debate and are confident that reasoning and sensible arguments will convince you to vote in support of the motion to push LSE to divestment from all fossil fuels.

The fossil free fight is not over. LSE Divest is always open to questions and opinions about the campaign. Get in touch at lsedivest@gmail.com or find us on facebook or twitter.

Insight to the Charity Sector Day Angharad Hopkinson Animal Rights Society AS PART OF LSE”S STUDENT Volunteering Week, LSE Insight to the Charity Sector Day on the 23rd of February is sure to be a great opportunity for people interested in a career within the charity sector to have their questions answered.

People go into the charity sector to help others, give back, do something positive and meaningful, or simply because they enjoy it, but whatever your reasons, it will be a great chance to meet industry experts and get their perspective on their jobs, the sector, and how this is changing in the 21st Century. The

11 charities represented on the day will include UNICEF, St Mungo’s Broadway, The Scouts Association and many others.

The day will comprise of five main sections, the first being a discussion at 11am on the 6th Floor of the SU about voluntourism and who really benefits from it.

Voluntourism is a very contentious issue and is a very common form of volunteering for young people in the UK. The discussion will be preceded by a screening of ‘The Voluntourist’, a film that explores the impacts of volunteering trips abroad and finding out whether they do more harm than good.

Run by the Animal Rights Society,

the day will also feature over 20 other societies in our Cause Fair from 12-2pm in the Venue, such as Amnesty International, Red Cross, LGBT+ Alliance, Divest, Intersectional Feminist Society and Islamic Society among others.

Attending will be a good chance for you to network and hear more about how LSESU societies are supporting charities and volunteering around London and the world.

Our youth engagement panel from 2-3pm in PAR.2.03 will allow you to meet some industry experts, and find out the benefits of getting involved with the charity sector. As well as learning what kind of roles

are available for young people, and what some of the biggest organisations in the UK are doing to attract people to take part.

The campaigning and lobbying workshop (3-4pm in CLM.3.04), held by a representative from Youth Stop AIDS, will focus on the vital skills required to run an effective campaign and increase the likelihood of bringing about real change.

Finally, the fundraising in the 21st Century discussion (45pm in OLD.3.28) will shed light on how a recession, political shifts and increasing stress on the international community have combined with an overhaul of

regulations to make the fundraising landscape unrecognisable compared to what it was just a few years ago. It will also explain how fundraisers are overcoming these obstacles to maximize their impacts.

The event is highly recommended to anyone who is interested in a career within the charity sector; though the information and workshops for attendees are likely to provide insight and transferrable skills applicable in a variety of contexts.

For more information, follow LSESU Animal Rights Society on Facebook

Women Leaders of Tomorrow Prepare for Painting the Town Red Alexandra Tyan Women Leaders of Tomorrow THIS WEEK LSESU WOMEN Leaders are, for the second year in a row, bringing a little colour to our frostbitten campus. The Red Lips Project, a week-long venture to remind all women at LSE of their power and achievements, is launching on Monday at 6pm, with much-loved goodie bags, traditional WLT cupcakes and inspirational speakers to set us off. This year we invited Adria Wu, who quit her successful career as a management consultant to open her own café in London, and Carrie Osman, who pioneered two of her own businesses before turning 30.

The project came about last

year, when a photo came up on my newsfeed, of a girl wearing bright red lipstick and looking fabulous.

“What makes me powerful is the realization that I make my own happiness” was its caption, and that was the essence of the original Red Lips Project, founded by Aditi Kulkarni in the States. I shared it with the WLT committee and it became our big exciting obsession for the following weeks to come.

We’d spent hours deciding on the right shape and shade of lips for the logo, the font, chocolate flavours for goodie bags, and it all paid off.

It was a brilliant week: I don’t think LSE had ever seen quite as many beautiful pouts and smiles. More importantly, we celebrated strong, ambitious, courageous, happy and inspiring women, who were our

classmates, flatmates, teammates and friends. The red lipstick served as a reminder, a symbol, a unifier, a visual display of the power and potential that women have.

This year, we are making the collective “us” the focus of the week.

It is an opportunity for us to spend a week embracing and celebrating our achievements, progress and potential. We will also be making a tangible difference together: all the proceeds from our fundraising events will go to Beat, the UK’s leading charity, supporting those who suffer from eating disorders.

The range of events and opportunities we have organized is impressive and involves everyone (girls, boys, members or not, wearing red, pink, or no lipstick!). Expect a smoothie bike and a photo booth on

the First Floor of Saw Swee Hock throughout Tuesday, a Mindfulness workshop, followed by a Cupcake decorating session with the Baking society and LSEAU Fight Night to shake off that icing on Wednesday.

To wrap up the week in style, we’ll be hosting our Red Lips Sway Bar closing party on Friday. Tickets sell at £5 with 4 drinks included. Search ‘LSESU Red Lips Project’ on Facebook to stay aware of updates.

We know that reading week is over, the wind is cold, and we all need copious amounts of coffee to keep us warm and strong… But we have it covered for you: smoothies, sugar, cocktails, lots of selfies and luminous smiles. So, let’s paint the town red!

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News In Brief Obituary: Professor Maurice Fraser Maurice Fraser, former Head of the European Institute, passed away on 12th February 2016. Mr Fraser was the longterm Director of the LSE’s public lecture series on Europe.

He had been an undergraduate in Government and returned after 1995 to teach in what was then the new European Institute. He became Head of the European Institute in 2013, but was obliged to step down in December 2015 owing to ill-health. He had served as special advisor to three successive British foreign secretaries during 1989-1995. Maurice’s family invite donations to the Brain Tumour Charity, in lieu of flowers.

New Tenant Checks Affect Housing Plans

LSE Dabbles in Social Egg Freezing Alina Ryzhonkova Deputy News Editor LSE GRADUATES ARE AMONG the best paid in the country, but the lucrative paychecks often come at a cost – long work hours, high-pressure and fast-moving environments, and, unfortunately, little room to take time off for family.

Social egg freezing is targeted at exactly these kinds of professionals.

Unlike medical egg freezing, which happens for medical reasons, social egg freezing is an attempt to defy nature and pause the biological clock until children are more convenient from a lifestyle and work perspective.

A survey conducted by UKbased creative consultancy The Liminal Space and ICM showed changing attitudes in the UK among younger generations toward social egg freezing. As more people see it in a positive light and as a convenient way to improve career progression, the directors of The Liminal Space say that social egg freezing could “become as revolutionary to women’s life choices as the Pill”. The change in perceptions of social egg freezing

appears to be happening in something of a vacuum as debate on the matter is minimal and the information available to women about the details, side effects and results of egg freezing is still limited.

In order to spark debate and start a conversation about social egg freezing, the fictional beauty brand called Timeless, created by The Liminal Space, will pop up in London later this month. The project was created with input and research from the LSE, as well as with the support of organizations such as the Wellcome Trust and the Higher Education Innovation Fund. The pop up store will be located in Old Street and will encourage women to engage in conversation about issues of fertility and how social egg freezing could reflect on work, life and society.

Stocking products such as the “Eau so Pressured” perfume line and age defying serums that inform about fertility decline, the shop aims to make the topic of social egg freezing and fertility provocative and engaging.

Attitudes may be shifting, but social egg freezing remains a controversial topic and the pop up store has been criticized

for asking the wrong questions and promoting a debate on the wrong topic. According to critics, attention should not be focused on the different aspects of social egg freezing, but rather on the societal attitudes that make social egg freezing a necessity for women who want to have a career and a family. Companies such as Apple and Facebook, instead of including egg freezing in the benefits package they offer female employees, should instead be creating working parentfriendly environments.

Educating women on the process of egg freezing and sparking

a debate on the necessity of the procedure need not be mutually exclusive. Even as it is increasingly portrayed as an insurance policy of sorts, egg freezing remains a gamble and Timeless will be crucial in getting across some of the medical implications and uncertainty of egg freezing. At the same time, with weeks until opening, the pop up shop has already sparked debates on not just the mechanics of egg freezing, but the wider role of social egg freezing in society, so the project may still kill two birds with one stone.

Landlords are now required to check whether potential tenants have the right to rent in the UK. This legislation was introduced on the 1st of February and affects all students.

A passport, a Biometric Residence Permit or a driving license accompanied by a birth certificate must be shown to the landlord. Students who sublet their rooms out must also ask to see these documents. Only the originals will be accepted and landlords who do not carry out these checks face a £3000 fine.

Report About LSE Education Released A report called ‘Get a 2:1 and move on with your life’, after a direct quote from a student on the culture they felt LSE provided, has been released by the LSESU that comments on student experience at the LSE. More than half of the 400 respondents to the survey said that their expectations of the LSE had not been met.

The respondents of the survey highlighted the competitive culture of the LSE, the poor quality of teaching, and the lack of contact hours as negatives. Jon Rhys-Foster has stated that it will be taken into account when drafting the Education Covenant and implementing the Education Strategy over the next five years.

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Tuesday 23 February, 2016

Red Lips Campaign: Can We Not? Hannah Tyndall Undergraduate Student

Section Editor: Mali Williams Deputy Editors: Dina Nagapetiants Hakan Ustabas Nina Webb

THE RED LIPS CAMPAIGN ironically attempts to assure us intrinsic empowerment is gained by changing your external appearance. Being powerful is presented as buying into societal standards and constructs, which, incidentally, routinely reduce people’s agency. I feel this campaign ultimately damages the female empowerment it seeks to achieve and I won’t be participating.

LSESU Red Lips Campaign has returned to the campus for another year. But before you run to MAC for the perfect shade of scarlet, pause and consider the implications of their message. This project wants to show women that we are powerful, and I have no problem with that. But crucially, it also wants to show women how we can project that power through a superficial and fleeting change to our image, which conforms to society’s standards of beauty. And that is problematic. I’m more than happy on the week of the 22 February for women at LSE to smother their face in overpriced cosmetics, that is their choice, but can they stop telling everyone this makes them powerful.

The Red Lips Campaign views power as a concept that is solely a product of our image. The theme of image runs deep throughout

the campaign: from the professional photographer employed, to the key-note ‘female BOSS’ address, who is the head of a makeup company (which does nothing to challenge gender norms or expand the number of opportunities for women), the selfie props and the party where the only instruction is to wear ‘glad rags’. None of these are political beyond Instagram.

“The Red Lips Campaign views power as a concept that is solely a product of our image.”

The problem here is that improving our appearance is not power, or at least not power in the way it is taught to men. Men do not consider appearance to be an obstacle to success and, as an arbitrarily assigned characteristic, rightly so. The fundamental conceit that women’s power is a function of our image is both untrue and patriarchal.

The Red Lips Campaign thinks this power is denied to women simply because of a lack of support networks and self-belief; shortcomings that the campaign aims to accommodate. But the patriarchy is more complicated than that. The prob-

lem is that beautiful women can be powerful in popular culture, they can dominate the media and even control the desires and wills of men.

This power almost uniquely comes from female sexuality. A power that is given and taken by men. A power that is a product of male definitions of beauty, with which red lips are associated. By wearing red lipstick you say my power is the same as male constructed power. If our empowerment is not independent of the structures of the patriarchy, is it empowerment at all?

Hell, what even is empowerment? It is a subset of power. It changes the distribution of power within a society without challenging the qualities that power is attributed to. Surely a more successful campaign would challenge the ‘beauty myth’ rather than reinforce it. One of the biggest problems today is that women feel the need to look a certain way to feel valued.

This is seen with the explosion of eating disorders (something the Red Lips Campaign is raising funds to help combat); billion dollar industries relying entirely on feeling better with external fixes. Female standards of beauty are frankly not accessible, because of the medical procedures, expertise and computer software which shape the images we see around us. Ageing means, even at best, it is a fleeting concept.

The second thing claimed is that red lips unifies women. Firstly, this is patently untrue, I have never

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How the Red Lips Campaign reinforces the patriarchal ‘beauty myth’

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owned red lipstick and feel alienated by the SU I thought was actually feminist. But more fundamentally it is cheap to define the bonds which unite women to be fashion choices, make-up and selfies. This is almost a more insulting version of women’s bonds being defined by the men in their lives (a phenomenon challenged by the Bechtel test).

If we want to unite the women who wish to be powerful, we could surely use some common values, ethics or drives. At very least, we shouldn’t use lipstick.

Sometimes feminism has to be made more palatable, accessible and ultimately less challenging to the values that people initially hold.

This is why celebrity feminists such as Taylor Swift are so valuable. But there is a line, where the values of the patriarchy are being uniformly reinforced and endorsed. As a consequence of this campaign, women will associate their power and intrinsic value with their looks. And that is ultimately the opposite of what a university feminist campaign should ever do.

This is one time the Feminist Society actually should be angry…

The Lies Told at an LSE Debate

Why an LSE debate on surveillance was more like a Fox News segment Frank Morley Undergraduate Student THE DEBATE WAS MEANT to go by the book. Two distinguished experts, Anthony Glees, an academic from the University of Buckingham, and Harmit Kambo, Director of Campaigns at Privacy International, would slug it out for two hours in what promised to be a lively and impassioned discussion. Except, that evening, the very foundations of debate, the very thing LSE stands for, was foolishly compromised.

The evening started normally enough. Harmit gave an excellent critique on the state of mass surveillance in the UK, bringing in his expertise to highlight the moral and legal precariousness of programmes of government surveillance, such as the monitoring and storage of 1.8 million British webcam files, with thousands of those of people undressed in their bedrooms.

Anthony’s rebuttal was neither sincere nor accurate. He blamed Google and Amazon for taking and storing our data, but not the governments who steal that data

off them. He talked about justice, but whose definition of justice doesn’t include a judiciary, instead a government acting in secret and above the law? He mentioned that we should simply trust the intelligence services without any oversight, even though the very principles of our democracy are based on accountability and transparency. And finally, he said that the surveillance was merely to catch terrorists and criminals. But when millions of people are monitored, isn’t he then implying that governments view their own populations, the people who elect them, as criminals or terrorists?

He stated that security is an absolute for governments to pro-

“Whose definition of justice doesn’t include a judiciary, instead of a government acting in secret and above the law?”

vide, while privacy isn’t, citing the example that the police don’t let domestic abuse happen, while forgetting to mention that neither would the police put a CCTV camera in every home to stop it. While monitoring someone’s webcam over the internet is fine apparently, as long as the millions of people who are being spied on don’t know about it.

This brings me onto the main point. We wouldn’t actually know about this mass surveillance without the whistleblower, and in my humble opinion hero, Edward Snowdon. They wouldn’t be having this debate, I wouldn’t be writing this article and no one would be any wiser without his bravery.

To give up his job and his life to light a candle for the public to know, a light shining into the darkest recesses of government power.

This man, during an academic debate at a supposed prestigious institution, was shouted down as a traitor, by no less than a student of the academic who was trying to destroy him. Even if she wasn’t his student and there wasn’t a clear conflict of interests here, even if there wasn’t the reasonable suspicion that she was encouraged by

“We wouldn’t actually know about this mass surveillance without the whistleblower, Edward Snowdon.” her teacher to come along and express those views. Her shouting, and using inflammatory words like ‘traitor’, was more fitting for a segment in Fox News than an LSE debate.

If Anthony Glees thinks the kind of BS he tried to pull that evening is going to sit with students at LSE, he has another thing coming. I am not advocating that he be banned from speaking on campus, as students should be given the opportunity to see through his facile tactics. But I do think the LSE Students’ Union should begin an investigation immediately into why it seems that a debate at this university was fixed from the start.

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The Experiences of a Student Mum

If LSE is to improve student experience, it must look at the needs of all groups of students Harriet Sheridan Postgraduate Student I’M 24, I’M A FULL TIME postgraduate student and I’m also a full time mum. Yes, I’ve done both out of choice, and no, I’m not crazy. Since starting in September I have been interested to learn that LSE does not rank highly in student experience relative to other universities of a similar reputation.

‘Student experience’ is encapsulated not only in the quality of education and variety of opportunities available, but also by how well welfare, support, and relationships with staff fulfil personal requirements among other factors. Im-

“Waiting for over a week to find out whether I had been selected onto modules meant the start of term was a time of stress and uncertainty.”

proving the student experience is continually being reiterated across campus, most notably as part of the LSE 2020 strategy, alongside the implementation of the recommendations from the LSE equity, diversity and inclusions task force.

Due to LSE’s highly diverse student body, improving the experience of individuals from a variety of different backgrounds, all with their own unique situation simultaneously is no small feat. I would like to share my own experience.

My son was just 5 months old when I started and still heavily reliant on being frequently breastfed. Settling in was a logistical nightmare. Although I arranged a nursery place for him in advance, I couldn’t advise on which days, or how many, I would need as no preliminary timetables were made available. My husband has also changed his working days so he can look after him one day a week and this also had to be arranged at the last minute. A major factor in choosing my modules was to create a timetable which meant I could attend university as little as possible in order to afford childcare. Yet I, like many, had to compete for capped modules and the accompanying seminar groups on days when I was already planning to be

on campus. Even then, waiting for over a week to find out whether I had been selected onto my chosen modules meant the start of term was a time of stress and uncertainty; not a great start. Fortunately, my sister had just quit her job and had two weeks spare before going travelling so she lent a much needed hand; if it wasn’t for her and my husband, I probably would have failed at the first hurdle.

So far I’ve really enjoyed my degree and time at LSE. I turn up just like any other student after a sleepless night. Yes, it’s tough studying intermittently between chasing a crawling baby and finding porridge in my ear, but this is what I signed up for and I wouldn’t have it any other way. However there have been several situations so far that have made balancing everything that much harder, all of which I feel could have been avoided, and if so would have improved my experience to date. Unfortunately, I haven’t got the luxury to spend time on campus or to attend to anything other than the essential. Yet, I’ve faced reluctance from lecturers to answer questions via email or over the phone, even during office hours, and been asked to go and see them instead. I’ve been called troublesome for leaving

“It seems that LSE hasn’t quite considered that, for some, their degree might not be the most important thing.” early because I’ve had to pick up my son, and most recently I’ve had a formative essay sprung on me 4 weeks into term that wasn’t in the course outline. Unfortunately the list goes on.

With so much emphasis on flexibility in the working world I would have thought some of this may have trickled down into university life, but not so much. Yes, the LSE is considered one of the top universities in the UK, but are students really expected to bend over backwards to make it work alongside all their other commitments? When also paying high fees, this expectation is bordering on arrogance. It seems LSE hasn’t quite considered that, for some, their degree might not be the most

important thing, and that’s ok - it doesn’t mean we aren’t as committed as the rest. In fact, choosing to do a degree alongside other commitments in the first place shows a level of commitment above and beyond what is expected of most students.

Of course LSE does provide support for student parents. The new mother’s room is a godsend, as well as cheap acupuncture in the treatment room, to soothe my aching back from carrying a 20lb baby, all his accompanying paraphernalia, and a tonne of textbooks thrown in for good measure.

Having dependents is also a factor taken into consideration when applying for the financial support scheme. But support is multi-faceted; it isn’t just financial and there are emotional implications of being a student mum. If I didn’t have the help of my family, I don’t think I’d still be here. This makes me feel extremely lucky and I am eternally grateful to them all for their support, but it does make me think of those who perhaps don’t have as many people to rely on, and question whether LSE is doing enough to make sure these students have a ‘good’ experience according to their individual needs. Food for thought.

Is Apple the New Guardian of Privacy?

Is it ever justified to breach individual privacy in the name of national security?

Paula Grabosch Undergraduate Student THIS WEEK APPLE CEO Tim Cook surprised the world with an open letter to his customers and the general public. In it, he accuses the FBI and the U.S government of ‘compromising the security of our personal information’ and thereby putting ‘our personal safety at risk’.

The reason behind this letter is the current FBI investigation into the San Bernadino terrorist attack last December, which cost 14 innocent people their lives. Currently, the authorities are in possession of an iPhone potentially holding information about the attack and its possible connections to wider terrorist networks. However, they are unable to unlock the phone and due to Apple’s security software, all the information on the iPhone is erased after ten false attempts at unlocking it. To access the information, the FBI is demanding that Apple develop a ‘new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features’.

As Cook explains, it is not the case that Apple is unwilling to help the investigation. The CEO emphasises that Apple has provided all relevant data in its possession to aid the case, as well as having made Apple engineers available for fur-

ther help. The reason for defying the demand to bypass the security system of the phone, is that once this kind of technology is created it can ‘be used over and over again, on any number of devices’. Cook likens the demand for this to the government ‘asking Apple to hack our own users’.

Whilst it seems paradoxical to pressurize Apple to develop a technology that works against the security software the company has worked hard to increasingly strengthen over the years, in matters of terrorism one should surely make an exception. If accessing the phone could enable the FBI to uncover possible connections between the attackers of San Bernadino and the Islamic State or a similar terrorist organisation, is the sacrifice not worth it?

The message Cook emphasises in his letter is that once this kind of technology is developed, there is no going back. And what would that mean? Even though the government is claiming the use of this technology would be limited strictly to this investigation, there is no guarantee. So far, a judge has already ruled in favour of the government, obliging Apple to comply with the government’s orders. The FBI has used the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify this expansion of its authority, as Cook writes. He asks

further: ‘If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data.

The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge’.

“These kinds of consequences seem to be intolerable...”

Even in light of an investigation into terrorism, these kinds of consequences seem intolerable. Enabling such an invasion of our privacy goes against our rights of protection and liberty by and from the state. The NSA scandal in 2013 has clearly shown that the US are capable of extensively breaching the security rights of individuals. From collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans, to bugging the EU-offices and intercepting calls on Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, it seems like the gov-

ernment should be careful when it comes to further questions of data security. Instead, another government agency is now openly legally forcing one of the world’s biggest technology companies to create a technology that can grant access to millions of phones. If this kind of demand holds in court, who knows what other demands the government will enforce, breaching its citizens’ privacy rights.

Nonetheless, in questions of data security a common thought is that if you have nothing to hide, you do not care if the government has access to your data or not. Until recently, I was of the same opinion.

Whilst I do not like the thought of others reading my private messages or listening to my calls, I know it will not drastically affect me. Two years ago I realised that maybe this mind-set is too naïve. I was in Munich visiting my brother. Whilst I was there, a murder occurred at the river near his apartment. A week later, my brother received a letter, summoning him to the police office for questioning. This was routine and based purely on the fact that his cell signal had been detected in the surrounding area at the time of the murder. It made me wonder about the government’s access to data and the potential disastrous consequences it could have. For my brother, a German national with-

out prior convictions, the matter was done with one call to the police office, explaining why he had been in the area. But what about someone with prior convictions? A foreigner less well integrated into society? Even if this person had absolutely nothing to do with the murder, his past and the data mapping him to the place could make him the lead suspect in a murder case.

If the government had even more access to data than it currently does (which is what it is demanding from Apple) it could use this information to build cases against innocent people, purely based on the content of this data.

Life is made up of thousands of coincidences as well as facts that, when taken out of context, can lead to false conclusions. Therefore, even if it is unintentional, by having full access to all kinds of personal data, the government would be in the position to accuse and build cases against innocent individuals. However, data access has proven to be extremely useful in preventing and solving many crimes. The question that remains then is where to draw the line. With his open letter and refusal to grant the government access to protected data, Cook has unleashed this longgoing debate in full force again. Is it justifiable to breach security in the name of security?

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| Tuesday 23 February , 2016

What Eurosceptics Forgot To Tell You

Eurosceptics need more than simplistic rhetoric backed up by pseudo-academic research Léo Wilkinson Postgraduate Student READING AND WRITING about the EU’s weaknesses is how I spend most days and nights at the LSE: I am a postgraduate student at the European Institute. Is it somewhat disheartening? Absolutely. Yet it is certainly better than reading misplaced criticism with misquoted evidence about the EU thrown together by fellow LSE students. In an attempt to bring some of us back to reality, I will respond to the points made by Ramone Bedi’s article ‘The EU: Time to Leave’ published in The Beaver on 26 January.

First of all, he misinterprets how the EU ‘defines’ itself. Copypasting how the internal market is described on the European Commission website is an admirable skill, yet it completely disregards the EU’s official motto: “united in diversity”. The Treaty on European Union (which was ratified by the House of Commons in March 2008), goes further: the ‘Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples’.

It may be idealistic, but that is why it is an aim.

‘The EU has failed thus far’, he says. If failure means over 50 years of peace, the largest single market in the world, cheaper and passport-free travel, stronger

consumer protection, cheaper telephone calls, the right to retire in a different EU country, improved air and water quality, internet freedom, the Erasmus programme, ending discrimination on the basis of nationality across 28 countries… Then I worry what success is.

Mr Bedi believes that UKIP’s media portrayal is partly why some of us are Europhiles. This could not be further from the truth: we believe EU membership is good for the UK because it enables us to directly influence the UK’s largest single export and import market, enhances our diplomatic influence in today’s world and provides a whole range of other benefits for UK citizens.

Regarding UKIP itself, their policies would bring anything but fairness for foreigners and Britons alike. UKIP would ‘allow British business to choose to employ British citizens first’. This means that anyone coming to the UK can be discriminated against on the basis of the passport they hold – even if they have been paying taxes, working hard and contributing to the UK economy for years. It would force all EU students to pay higher tuition fees while potentially being discriminated by employers to have a part-time job on the basis on their nationality. Furthermore, UKIP MEPs’ voting records on gender equality are unsettling, and

their speeches on women’s rights will send shudders down anyone’s spine. UKIP’s conception of ‘fairness’ is sickening.

On immigration, Mr. Bedi provides no sources whatsoever for the numbers he quotes. His statement that net migration is ‘expected to rise year on year so the problems Britain currently have due to mass immigration will just exacerbate in the future’ is backed up by no evidence. As well as this baseless assertion, he also conveniently forgets to mention UCL research which has found that EU migrants are 43% less likely to claim benefits and that they actually pay more in taxes than they take out in state benefits. That contribution is valued at £2bn a year. LSE research has also concluded that ‘there is still no evidence of an overall negative impact of immigration on jobs and wages’ and that ‘any negative impacts on wages of less skilled groups are small’.

My favourite fallacy is also mentioned: the UK can continue to influence EU legislation without being an EU member state, and also cherry-pick which rules we keep. He portrays EU-Norway relations as ideal; the country has no voting powers and has to implement the vast majority of EU laws because it is in the European Economic Area. If the UK joined the EEA, many EU policy areas would continue to apply includ-

ing financial services, social and employment laws, energy and environmental policies, and this is where the bulk of regulatory costs stem from. Ironically, these findings are not from Europhiles, but from Business for Britain’s own report, quoting an Open Europe study from March 2015.

Mr Bedi also believes that outside the EU, the UK would be ‘in the same position as the US, China, India and Japan’. I am not going to bore you with comparisons of GDP, military might, population or geographical size. Ask any international trade specialist at the WTO or diplomat at the UN, and they will say that international negotiations today are shaped by groups of countries. Yes, the UK and other EU states are not directly represented at the WTO. The EU represents them and therefore speaks with a strong voice on their behalf. The EU coordinates the EU member states’ position before each negotiation, and then represents them as the world’s largest single market. This does not weaken the UK: it gives it more influence overall because international trade negotiations take place in geographical blocks. If you really think that the UK on its own can be as influential as the US, China or India in international trade negotiations, think again (and maybe spend more time in the library).

Then there is the question of

the cost of EU membership. Yet again, Bedi does the classic Eurosceptic trick of quoting doubtful figures from fellow anti-EU sources (Business for Britain and the Bruges Group) because he cannot find independent evidence to back up his assertions. Proportionally to the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI), it is the country which contributes the least to the EU budget compared to any other EU member state; this is thanks to the UK’s special rebate. The UK is one of the four largest EU economies and yet since 1985 has contributed less than Germany, France or Italy. But do not take my word for it: these are the findings of research done by Professor Iain Begg from the LSE. His office hours are every Wednesday, if Mr Bedi is interested.

I conclude with an appeal to my fellow students: do not fall for the simplistic rhetoric backed up by pseudo-academic research some try to get away with. Go through any Business for Britain report and you will be astonished at the lack of academic rigour or evidence to support their argumentation. Are Eurosceptic groups the only ones guilty of this? Definitively not.

But the burden of proof falls on those who are advocating to end our country’s membership of the world’s most peaceful, prosperous and powerful group of democratic countries in the world.

The Impact of Brexit for LSE Students A response to LSE’s Eurosceptic students and their arguments for a Brexit Giuditta Morandi and Dominik Huller Postgraduate Students WE WERE GLAD TO SEE that the successful passing of the motion ‘Should the LSESU support the continued membership of the UK in the EU?’ was mentioned in a previous edition of The Beaver. However, on the following pages, two articles making the case for Brexit were published. As strong proponents of freedom of speech and anything that comes along with it, it’s the timing that seemed outlandish to us. It conveys the impression that the motion awakened some students to speak out against the decision of the student body. We want to seize this opportunity and respond to the articles’ presumptions, arguments and conclusions.

The article by Matt Walton, himself one of the all-male admins of the unofficial ‘London University Brexit Society’, starts with a self-contradictory statement about democracy. While condemning the majoritarian system in the UK, he proceeds to deliver a blow to the European

Union. He refers to the unawareness of UK citizens with regard to policy-making in Brussels and Strasbourg, and hereby proves the point by showing that he himself is one of them. EU Commissioners are appointed by democratically legitimate governments, hence indirectly elected by the population. The EU Parliament enjoys more and more influence in the legislation-making process; even initiative right in certain fields. The EU’s shape might not resemble the political system of the UK, but this doesn’t mean that it is undemocratic.

He continues by blaming the EU’s red tape. We have to grant him his example of bin collection, regulated so irrationally, with which he gives evidence. There is not a single student in our circle of friends who isn’t upset that bin collection takes place fortnightly instead of every week. That is the kind of thing that keeps LSE students awake at night.

Nevertheless, Matt and his peers are underestimating the impacts of a Brexit for the British, especially LSE students. Let’s assume the UK ends its membership of the EU. The Erasmus

programme is a service for provided by the EU, meaning that non-EU states that want offer their students the opportunity to study abroad have to pay. But wait Brexit-friends, you said you don’t want to see any money being transferred to Brussels, so decide!

We hope nobody in the European Institute has read your article, which contends that the research at the LSE is biased, as it receives EU research funding. This argument may apply to tobacco, oil, and weapon companies, but if even state-funded research is seen as inherently non-objective, we can shut down all universities, and get back to Stone Age. The EI’s research might be sometimes hard to swallow for the proBrexit camp, but this is the fault of the latter, as they wouldn’t be ‘Brexiteers’ if logical arguments appealed to them. Being part of the EU means that UK universities can more easily attract talented students and professors who underpin teaching and research excellency and hence benefit the UK economy.

Research projects require a critical mass, access to a pool of resources, data and infrastructure,

which are beyond a single state’s capabilities. Why break up a network that proves to be a win-win situation for everybody involved?

And a Brexit will affect all students regardless of their nationality. After the loss of access to EU funds, the LSE will be obliged to raise student fees in order to continue its research activity adequately.

It could be that the UK government can compensate for all the ceasing funds and services of the EU, but can anybody credibly prove that this will happen?

Assuming the UK government is able to do so, the transformation time between EU and UK programmes will be a cumbersome period. Every restructuring requires resources and incurs costs, which can have long-lasting impacts for any university. Hence instead of ‘going global’, the UK would lose its global reputation and only after a stressful transformation period would it start to catch up with those countries which were working with the tide, instead of against it.

All scenarios after a Brexit include so much uncertainty that no one can viably judge their likelihood. Why change the status quo,

which proves so favourably for students, for something you can’t conceive and which might be inferior to the current situation?

The LSE has always been at the forefront of student activism and it is, not only justifiable, but necessary to take a clear stand against an issue that can prove so detrimental to the entire student body. We introduced that motion because in our opinion there is too much at stake to remain silent.

In the end it would be forthcoming from the pro-Brexit side to get some real arguments we can engage with instead of half-truths, which tend to be more half-falses.

And everyone should keep in mind that they are wolves in sheep clothing, selling their propositions as progressive although they are highly reactionary.

The Higher Education Policy Institute predicts that over 70% of UK students will support the continued membership of their country in the EU. It will be crucial for a success in the referendum that we young people can convince our parents, grandparents and peers that our future is brighter in a United Kingdom which remains in the European Union.

Comment | 11

Why the Free Speech Debate is Occurring The free speech furore could be a result of a lack of right-wing students at universities James Wilken-Smith Postgraduate Student THE FREE SPEECH DEBATE is the pressing issue of university politics. A lot of digital ink has been spilled spelling out the arguments for and against each side, and the debate has spilled out of universities into the mainstream media and popular consciousness.

However, less attention has been paid to another question: why is the debate happening at all?

The first place to look is the US. Student activism gained prominence in the last semester of 2014, mainly in the form of protests against university attitudes to cases of sexual assault and the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

The protests continued throughout 2015, evolving into a coordinated movement opposing institutional injustices against minorities in the university system. These protests have the potential to achieve significant change, as shown by the resignation of University of Missouri President, Tim Wolfe, after he failed to adequately address the demands of activists. These sorts of incidents are not likely to stop anytime soon. However, this wave of activism has attracted its share of critics. In February 2015, Laura Kipnis, a feminist scholar at Northwestern University, wrote an article called ‘Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe’, arguing that campus codes on sexual conduct

were motivated by fear and were detrimental to university life. In September, free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published an article called ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, arguing that the desire to eliminate harm or offense in the modern university is fuelling censorship and fostering a lack of tolerance amongst students. In any case, it seems that this new wave of student activism began in the US, and then spread to other university systems across the world.

The UK has not experienced the same level of student unrest as the US. Nevertheless, this new kind of student activism has emerged in universities across the country.

Here are some examples: in 2014, students from Cardiff University successfully managed to have an event by ‘comedian’ Dapper Laughs cancelled. In Oxford, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign has been at the forefront of student politics for over a year. In September 2015, Maryam Namazie, a secular activist, was prevented from giving a talk at Warwick University before the decision was overturned due to public outcry. Julie Bindel was prevented from speaking at Manchester University, and Germaine Greer, a leading voice of SecondWave feminism, was the subject of a high-profile no-platforming campaign at Cardiff University, which eventually failed. Both were the subject of criticism for their views about transgender women. Peter

Tatchell, lifelong LGBT-rights campaigners, was branded as “racist” and “transphobic” by the NUS LGBT+ Officer after signing a letter in support of Greer. The LSE is also no stranger to such cases, as it has attained a ‘Red Card’ rating in the Free Speech University Rankings for two consecutive years. The launch of Speakeasy, the new free speech society, has also led to significant controversy.

Events such as these did not seem to be as common nor as prominent even a couple of years ago, so why has this debate caught fire now?

The answer is to look past the student politics and focus on the more fundamental conflict. In order to understand the current debates on campus, it is not helpful to think about them in terms of whether J. S. Mill was wrong or right. Instead, the picture becomes clearer when the debate is seen as one of values, over what is morally acceptable in society. I use the term ‘morally acceptable’ to mean an idea that can be contemplated.

An idea that is not morally acceptable is one that is taboo, something considered so dreadfully wrong by society that breaking it is morally prohibited. An example would be the belief that Hitler was right to pursue his attempted extermination of the Jews. No-one in a Western university could believe this openly or have a ‘rational’ debate about it, the social opprobrium would be so overwhelming that it would be instantly shut down. Not

Islamophobia Persists

Guernsey’s refugee policy is a shocking step backwards Nina Webb Deputy Comment Editor THE ISLAND OF GUERNSEY recently made the decision not to accept any Syrian refugees as part of the UK’s Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme and it has come to light that ‘Islamophobia’ is the main reason for this.

The chief minister of Guernsey, Jonathan Le Tocq, has stated that ‘negativity’ related to Islamophobia would make it ‘difficult to guarantee the safety’ of the arrival of any Syrian refugees to the island. He stated that, although most people on the island have shown sympathy towards the plight of the refugees, there are dangers that a minority would not be welcoming to the refugees.

However, isn’t this the case anywhere? Racism and specifically Islamophobia exist throughout the world, and Mr Le Tocq’s decision to listen to the minority presents a worrying issue about the capitulation to Islamophobia amongst governing bodies as close as the Channel Islands.

Many have been shocked by Le Tocq’s decision. Aid worker Eddie Parks stated that the minister’s comments were ‘disgraceful’ and that the island had an ‘amazing reputation’ for ‘accepting other people coming from the outside’ going back to the mid 19th century; however, this is not the message le Tocq’s actions are displaying. He should be providing an example to his people about engaging in sympathy towards the plight of the refugees, not capitulating to the demands of a minority, rather than preaching acceptance. It is worrying that he would prefer to punish those who have been displaced from their homes with nowhere to go rather than enforce combative measures to prevent the spread of Islamophobia in Guernsey.

This is added to the fact that neighbouring island Jersey confirmed it would not take Syrian refugees in December due to ‘legal risks’. Despite Senator Ian Gorst saying publicly in September last year that he had hoped five or six families could be accommodated on the island, a

shocking retraction was made on the basis of fear that this could lead to further UK-based refugees arriving under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Whilst Gorst points out that the island ‘would simply not have the capacity to manage the impact on housing stock, on public services, or on the work market’ which would be felt with a large influx of refugees is all very well, being a small island, the decision to publicly announce they are not accepting ANY seems to be largely unnecessary and sending a dangerous message of lack of acceptance to the world: a message that has now been replicated in Guernsey.

Despite the fact Guernsey’s Overseas Aid Commission has donated around £90,000 to charities working to help people in the refugee crisis, and Jersey has donated close to £1m, this is not enough, and is not helping to reduce Islamophobic attitudes close to home, which should not really have a place in 21st century Europe.

“While the left has always been strongly associated with students, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the lack of ideological diversity within modern universities is unprecedented.” all cases, of course, are so clear cut.

But where any moral taboo, big or small, is violated our moral reasoning is often a post-hoc rationalisation of this underlying moral position. Extensive protests, noplatforming, sustained campaigns, and ‘us-versus-them’ reasoning are a result of moralisation by part of the student body. Some ideas, such as that transgender women are not really women, are now considered taboo. Hence, they do not deserve to be represented, let alone argued with.

Of course, the question remains: why has this taboo mentality appeared now? A hypothesis that is both intuitive and plausible is that it is the result of the lack of conservative or right-wing students in modern Britain or America. While

the left has always been strongly associated with students, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the lack of ideological diversity within modern universities is unprecedented. Debates take place, for the most part, between the radical left and the centre left. Without people in the university system who believe in conservative ideas, there is nobody to fight for them in discussions and debates around campus. Without any significant challenge to ideas about social liberalism or progressivism, there has been a development of new moral and social orthodoxies that cannot be challenged. In short, the increasing ideological homogeneity of university students has significantly shifted values, causing beliefs that might previously have been acceptable, if disagreeable, to become taboo.

This is, of course, only a hypothesis, and it could well be wrong. It doesn’t explain why student populations have become so liberal in recent years. But the psychology of taboo ought not to be dismissed as an explanation for why the debate seems so polarised, so loud, and so intractable. Nor is it overly hyperbolic to suggest that conservatism as a political and social ideology is almost dead amongst the modern student population. Some may welcome this development. Nevertheless, it has important social consequences, and the current state of campus politics may well be one.

UGM: Banning the Free Speech Society Maurice Banerjee-Palmer Undergraduate Student This Thursday I’m proposing a motion to ban the LSESU Free Speech Society/Speakeasy at the UGM. My Comment article three weeks ago outlined my reasons for doing so and was picked up by the national press and drew at least four responses in the following week’s Beaver. I’ll be able to respond to the Beaver articles more fully at UGM. For the moment I only have three brief points to make.

First, from the coverage of the story it appears that deliberate irony either is beyond the grasp of some journalists, or they just closed their eyes to it.

Second, when we debate the

issue on Thursday we will need the fairness and accuracy which has been missing all along: to base our arguments on evidence and to acknowledge both sides of the story. Third, it’s easy to support the idea of free speech but harder to say what it means – because it’s meaningless without describing what the appropriate limits are. My position is that free speech is not under threat at LSE: the limitations which the School and the Students’ Union place upon it are similar to those imposed by the government. Whether this is justified is another question and that is what I hope we will be finding answers to on Thursday.

Do you agree?

Tweet @BeaverOnline or email comment@thebeaveronline.co.uk

12| Tuesday February 23, 2016

The Exasperating, Brazen Children of Calais The unaccompanied children of Calais face an uncertain and precarious future Daniel Sippel Undergraduate Student

Section Editor: Alexander Hurst Daniel Shears Stefanos Argyros

Photo Credit: Aleksandra K.

“He also believes that he is about 12 years old, but he doesn’t know for sure. Only a few of the boys in the Calais Jungle know their actual age.” as head of the unoff icial Women’s and Children’s centre in the Calais refugee camp. The Centre’s Facebook page has this “unoff icial” in its title, a way to subtly point to the fact that despite the existence of 500 children, there is a conspicuous lack of “off icial” governmental assistance, or even a single UNHCR representative.

Liz, a former British f iref ighter who used to work with young arsonists in her free time, is left to be the camp’s Swiss army knife: For the 20 unaccompanied children between the ages of ten and thirteen, she is mom, carer, psychotherapist, sparring

violent f ights with her. She is a former f ire-f ighter – she knows how to defend herself. It is because she is scared about what might happen to him.

“It is a bit of a fucking nightmare,” is Liz’s felicitous way to describe both her feelings and the humanitarian crisis in Calais.

A slender woman in her f ifties, Liz knows her children.

Over time, she has learned some Pashto, but the boys also understand her English by now. And if they don’t, they still can clearly distinguish the different tonalities of her voice.

The indignant reproof when Rambo has erased all contacts on her antiquated, grey phone.

The fervid plea, mixed with anger and frustration, when she appeals to the French Government to manage the crisis in a humane way. The incredible tenderness that her raspy voice miraculously evokes when she consoles the delicate yet hardened souls to make them forget what they have experienced.

During their journey to Europe, the boys were often drugged, beaten and put into tiny spaces by traff ickers.

Nevertheless, Liz says, they were still hopeful when they arrived in Calais. They were close, very close to their goal.

Just thirty miles from the white cliffs of Dover. Months of kneedeep mud, temperatures around freezing point, panic and riots over food distribution, and unfruitful attempts to cross the Channel, have taken their toll.

Liz’s children are changed. All she and her team can offer them is resilience, because they are “fucked, lonely, and frightened.”

Like all frightened children, each of the boys want to talk to his mom — his real mom in Afghanistan, if she is still alive.

Liz organises phone top-ups for them—one mom trying to get

them in touch with another-because it hurts her to watch them falling apart slowly.

The French authorities are impatient. Rather than waiting for the camp or the boys to fall

“During their journey to Europe, the boys were often drugged, beaten and put into tiny spaces by traffickers.

Nevertheless, Liz says, they were still hopeful when they arrived in Calais.

They were close, very close to their apart, the riot police will evict a part of the Jungle this week.

Countless f lashing blue lights on the horizon — police vans that surround the camp day and night — augur through the smoke of wood stoves that the state is ready to restore its monopoly on power. For the boys, the lights are the sword of Damocles. The lights mean that they will be registered and f ingerprints will be taken, along with their chances of crossing the Chanel.

The state will put them in containers, far away from the Children’s centre with f ilm nights, counselling, kickboxing classes, and Liz, she believes.

She doesn’t know, the authorities have never spoken to her. In any case, her children must soon run to fulf il their parents’ dreams.

That’s why Rambo needs new shoes--his current pair has holes. Liz obliges, and f inds him a new pair. They are small, like Rambo’s feet. Size two.

Photo credit: Stewart Buterfield

Features

Deputy Editors: Sebastian Shehadi

A BOUT 30 MILES AWAY from Dover, Rambo asks Liz for new shoes. He needs them to jump on a lorry, which is supposed to take him to his paradise. Last week, a friend of Rambo’s died when he tried to do the same thing.

Rambo, wearing white forearm protectors, will not die, because he is the king of the universe.

At least, that’s what Rambo believes. He also believes that he is about 12 years old, but he doesn’t know for sure. Only a few of the boys in the Calais Jungle know their actual age.

“I’m horribly committed now”, says Liz, who volunteers

partner. As much as she loves her children, she is fed up, exasperated with them. She swears from time to time when she speaks about them, calling them idiotic, brazen, and stupid.

And she’s right.

Rambo is one of these stupid, unaccompanied children. He is from Afghanistan, like almost all his friends who were sent away by their families. Son and heir, he was dispatched to reach the Promised Land, Britain. For his family, who live in rural, Taliban-controlled Logar Province, Britain is the safe haven. It is the place where NATO does not kill civilians by accident, a region the Taliban surely does not invade. It is a country that has historically been a land of migrants, an island that offers a good welfare system, even for little Rambo, who has come from so far away.

“Reach the UK at any price. Do not engage with anyone until you are there,” is the lesson his family drilled into him. Unlike some of his friends in the camp who have family members in Britain, if he ever gets to the Promise Land he will be completely alone. There is no legal way to fulf il his Mission Impossible. But Rambo is determined to heed his families wish. Determined to be a good son.

They call him Rambo here because he takes the greatest risks, Liz tells me. For his last attempt, he left Liz’s van--where he lives--at 1:oo in the morning and walked seven hours to the nearby camp in Dunkirk, in order to have easier access to UK-bound lorries. Then he tried to jump on them. That is why he needs good shoes, and why Liz can’t stand her children. She is utterly worried about them, like a mother, and describes Rambo as “scary”.

Not because she is scared of him channelling his trauma through

Features | 13

The Death of Justice Scalia and Political Uncertainty How will Justice Scalia’s death impact the USA’s volatile political landscape?

Kacper Zajac Postgraduate student ON THE 13TH OF FEBRUARY 2015 died Antonin Scalia, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He was described as one of the most prominent Justices of the Court.

His death might have very serious consequences for the future of United States politics.

Justice Scalia was one of the judges who had conservative leanings. He was generally against the right of the Guantanamo Bay detainees to submit habeas corpus petitions to federal courts (Rasul v Bush 2004; Hamdi v Rumsfeld 2004; Hamdan v Rumsfeld 2006).

He also questioned the constitutionality of the right to abortion (Planned Parenthood v Casey 1992; Stenberg v Carhart 2000; Gonzales v Carhart 2007). Scalia was also against any policy that would prefer one racial characteristic over another or introduce fixed racial quotas (Richmond v J.A. Croson Co. 1989; Adarand Constructors, Inc. v Peña 1994; Grutter v Bollinger 2003). Justice Scalia was known to be generally against gay rights (Lawrence v Texas 2003). In fact in 2009, openly gay Congressman Barney Frank described him as a “homophobe”. Scalia believed that the death penalty was constitutional even for minors (Thompson v Oklahoma 1988; Atkins v Virginia 2002; Roper v Simmons 2005). He also supported the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms (District of Columbia

v Heller 2008).

Scalia held firm views on the rights of defendants. He believed that defendants must have the opportunity to confront lab technicians in drug cases (Melendez-Diaz v Massachusetts 2009). Scalia also held thermal imaging of a home to be an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment (Kyllo v United States 2001). In that case, the Court struck down a conviction for marijuana manufacture based on a search warrant issued after such scans were conducted, which showed that the garage was considerably hotter than the rest of the house because of indoor growing lights.

The death of Justice Scalia came at a very crucial time in American political life. The US Supreme Court consists of 8 Justices and the Chief Justice, 9 judges in total. The Court reaches decision with a simple majority so only 5 votes is enough for any judgment to be given.

As of 13 February 2016 the Court consisted of five justices appointed by Republican Presidents (conservative) and four appointed by Democratic Presidents (liberal). It is generally accepted that Chief Justice Roberts as well as Justices Thomas, Sculia, Kennedy and Alito comprised the conservative wing whereas Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan comprised the liberal wing of the Court. Following the death of Justice Scalia the Supreme Court is now evenly split between the conservatives and liberals with one new Justice to be appointed.

Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate” (US Constitution, Article 2). However, President Obama only has several months in office left and 2016 is an election year. Consequently, all Republican presidential candidates have called on President Obama to refrain from appointing the new Justice and allow the newly-elected President to put forward the nomination. However, with the polls indicating that the Republicans may win the upcoming elections, President Obama declared he would appoint the new Justice himself ‘in due time’.

“Only once in the past 100 years has the President of the United States attempted to nominate a Supreme Court Justice this close to an election.”

Only once in the last 100 years has the President of the United States attempted to nominate a Supreme Court justice this close to an election. President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat) nominated Homer Thornberry, a

liberal congressman, to become a new Justice following the resignation of the Chief Justice Warren in 1968 right before the election.

The nomination met opposition in the Senate, where senators filibustered the appointment. Richard Nixon won the election, and subsequently appointed Warren E. Burger to replace Chief Justice Warren.

Nevertheless, President Obama will most likely attempt to make the nomination as the whole character of the Supreme Court is at stake. With the Court split evenly right now (4-4), whoever appoints the new Justice decides what political philosophy the whole Court will generally lean towards — conservative or liberal. In that case, the Senate is bound to oppose the nomination.

Although the procedural rules do not allow for a negative vote when considering the nomination, with the Republican majority, the Senators might successfully filibuster the appointment.

It must be remembered that the US Supreme Court (as opposed to the UK Supreme Court) has the constitutional power to strike down legislation passed by Congress or Executive Orders issued by the President if deemed contrary to the Constitution. It is said that such decisions are often influenced by the worldview of the Justices. As a result, should President Obama be able to appoint a liberal Justice, the Supreme Court might obstruct the work of a future newly-elected Republican President. It seems that both sides are well aware of what is at stake.

The Pocket Philosopher Musings on the meaning and usefulness of inference Edmund Smith Undergraduate Student WHAT IS INFERENCE? Intuitively, some philosophers characterise inference as being a relation of consequence between some set of sentences, and a further sentence. Others talk of inference as if it were a certain practice – one where you come to adopt new or different beliefs through contemplation of one’s current beliefs. We tend to think of inferences as being good or bad inferences – that is, ones that tend to lead us towards the truth or ones that lead us further from the truth. Sometimes we say that inferences are only ones if they always give true conclusions given true premises, and we call this deduction.

But there is a curious set of people who deny the existence of inferences. More strictly, they deny that they could be obliged to adopt new beliefs on the basis of ones they already accept. This set of people are in other regards quite like us. They make mathematical proofs as well as (or better than) me. They like some science, and dislike studies that one might otherwise accuse of using poor methodology. This raises a worry in me. Philosophy students often dislike the heavy metaphysical apparatus that a lot of traditional philosophy is accompanied by. But in continually trying to be more naturalistic, some useful concepts occasionally get thrown out. Inference is such a concept. If this were a longer piece, I would make plea for inference on naturalistic grounds. But for now I will satisfy myself by urging you to consider the matter.

14

| Tuesday February 9, 2016

John McDonnell gives talk at the LSE The left-wing Shadow Chancellor briefs audience on Labour’s “New Economics” Daniel Shears Features Editor ON TUESDAY THE 16TH OF February, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor (and close ally of Corbyn) John McDonnell gave an insightful talk to LSE students and members of the public alike, outlining his vision for an alter native economic system that rejects the austerity politics of the Tories, as well as the tax and spend policies of New Labour and the traditional leftist approach of Old Labour. I was expecting a regurgitation of Corbynist sound-bites, and w h i l e t h e r e w e r e i n d e e d a few of these (“austerity is n o t a n e c o n o m i c n e c e s s i t y, i t ’s a p o l i t i c a l c h o i c e ” ) , I w a s p l e a s a n t l y s u r p r i s e d by his pragmatism and realism in approaching what he sees as a legitimate failure on the part of the current g ov e r n m e n t t o forge an economic system that works for many and not just the few.

O’Donnell started by questioning why we are using the failed neo-liberal policies of the past in our present economic plan. He brought to light the paradox that is the electoral success of the Conservative Party despite George Osbor ne’s record of economic incompetence, including his failure to eradicate the budget deficit by 2015, the loss of Britain’s AAA credit rating for the first time since the 1970s, the increase of public debt by 50% over 5 years and the stagnation of wages in real ter ms. O’Donnell concluded, rather accurately, that it was the simple, catchy and attractive economic mantras

Photo credit: upcomingstrends.com

such as “long ter m economic plan” or “low tax, high wage economy” which were drummed into the electorate, creating an effective and easily digestible yet erroneous narrative of Conservative economic competence. This is precisely what Labour failed to do, and it lost them the election.

O’Donnell’s recognition of the lack of public confidence in Labour’s fiscal record shows a certain maturity and acceptance that Miliband lacked.

John also showed impressive pragmatism, explaining the need to balance the books as well as borrowing for vital investments in the “big three”: skills, investment and, most importantly, technolog y.

He claims that people need to be ready to “listen to new ideas because the economy

“I was pleasantly surprised by his pragmatism and realism” needs them”; Labour must be the party which takes this task head on, in order to create an economy which is a bl e t o h a r n e s s t h e b e n e f i t s o f t h e c a p i t a l i s t e c o n o my, w h i l e e n s u r i n g t h ey a re f e l t t h ro u g h o u t a l l l eve l s o f s o c i e t y. I t s eems to me like fairly reasonable democratic market socialism, which is a far cry from the radical Marxist the Daily Mail like to paint O’Donnell as.

Passing mention was made to examining how assets

are owned and shared, how wealth is created and by who, and how the benefits of technolog y can be spread far and wide, and not lead to a “race to the bottom” in ter ms of lower wages, mass unemployment and ownership of new technologies being concentrated in the top 1%. He didn’t spend a huge amount of time explaining what he meant by asset ownership, but it reminded me of the analysis and i d e a s p r e s e n t e d by Wi l l Hutton in his book “How G o o d We C a n B e ” , w h e r e he examines how the ownership and management of companies has changed a s w e h av e m ov e d i n t o a n economy based around short ter mism and get-rich-quick schemes in the financial and business sectors. It will be interesting to see whether any of Hutton’s ideas about how business must change to promote long-ter m stakeholding and investment will materialise as Labour Party policy in the near future.

Of cour se, in predicable party-political fashion, a large segment of O’Donnell’s talk was spent disparaging and condemning the economic practices of the Conservative Party under David Cameron.

John expressed g rave concer n (again in very much the same fashion as Hutton) about the loosening of financial restrictions imposed since 2008, arguing that “piece by piece, light touch regulation is being restored”. Interestingly, he presented what I thought was a new explanation as to why the Tories are pursuing an austerity agenda, speculating

that they are intent on cutting down the size of the state, not for ideological reasons, but in morbid preparation for another financial sector meltdown. I’m not sure how much I ag ree with this, given that financial crashes and subsequently huge bailout packages don’t tend to make gover nments very popular, but it was an interesting idea. I also thought he was refreshingly unorthodox in

“We must move beyond tax and spend or command and control, and embark upon radical change” the way he linked the defence of having some sort of social safety net to the rapid move towards a technology-based economy. In contradistinction to the traditional leftist arguments about compassion for those less fortunate than us, or even the more economically sound arguments about lower earners needing disposable income based on their higher marginal propensity to consume, he proclaimed that, as we don’t know how technological advances will affect the labour market, it is essential to have something in place to catch those who fall.

Moreover, as I’ve previously mentioned, O’Donnell rejected policy practices from both Old and New Labour gover nments.

He rejects complete top down nationalisation on the g rounds that it is similar in principle to the concentration of power of large multinational corporations; at the same time, he asserted that mass public spending is not appropriate because of structural problems in our economy. In his words, we must “move beyond tax and spend or command and control” and embark upon radical cha n g e, fo s t e r i n g a new e c o n o my t h at m a x i m i ze s t h e o p p o r t u n i t i e s n e w t e ch n o l o g y c a n o f f e r, making banking and finance m o re decentralised and d e m o c r at i c ( s i m i l a r t o Ber nie Sanders’ promise in America to break up the big banks), all with the end goal of creating a system of “sustainable sharing of prosperity”.

I went in to the talk expecting to hear fairly familiar content, with O’Donnell spouting the benefits of higher taxes for the rich, printing money for investment and more intense regulation o f t h e b a n k s, a l o n g w i t h a s c at h i n g c r i t i c i s m o f a u s t e r i t y p o l i t i c s. I l e f t t h e t a l k i m p re s s e d by t h e i n t e l l i g e n t , coherent and frankly inspiring vision which the shadow chancellor presented, giving me hope that there could, at some point in my lifetime, be a new economy ba s e d o n new ideas, functioning t o p r ov i d e t h e c a p a c i t y for every individual to flourish regardless of backg round or s t a t us.

Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Features | 15

The beginnings of a new Cold War

Are America’s new defence plans justified, or will further intervention make matters worse?

IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT THE US Defence Secretary Ash Carter has called “Russian aggression”, the Pentagon will be proposing a drastic increase in the military budget in Europe for 2017.

Along with a proposed 50% increase on spending on the military campaign against IS (to $7.5 billion), the defence budget would include $3.4bn for its European Reassurance Initiative - up from $789m for the current budget year.

This European Reassurance initiative was launched in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. Its main aim was to reassure, through both bilateral and NATO action, the USA’s allies of their commitment to their security and territorial integrity as members of the NATO alliance (according to the White House website).

In recent years, the USA has been steadily withdrawing their forces stationed in Europe, with two important brigades being removed in

late 2013, leaving only around 67,000 U.S. troops remaining permanently based in Europe.

Although the Pentagon has already increased the pace of troop rotations in and out of Europe, providing training and other advice and assistance to the region, the proposed Pentagon budget would greatly boost the USA’s reduced military forces in the area. All details of how the increased funding in Europe will be distributed have yet to be given, however defence officials have given some information. It would add an additional brigade’s worth of troops to the U.S. footprint in Europe — between 3,000 and 5,000 rotational soldiers and a brigade-size fleet of heavy vehicles and weaponry would also be delivered to storage sites throughout the Continent.

Many have criticised the USA of its interventionist policy and that it should stop thinking of itself as the “world police”. On top of this, this is a clear move to fight Russian influence in the region, which has led to certain people to claim that this Federal budget is the start of a new Cold War. Is this the case? Or

are the USA’s policies justified?

Carter said in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington that “we haven’t had to worry about this for 25 years, and while I wish it were otherwise, now we do”. It is true that Russia’s “expansionism” is worrying, but the problem has been present before the Ukrainian War, the key example being the South Ossetian war

“It is true that Russia’s ‘expansionism’ is worrying, but the problem has been present before the Ukranian War” in 2008. Russia infringed on Georgian sovereignty and still currently has military forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Whilst it is true that the USA’s interventionist policies have caused backlashes in the past, most of these were because the USA interfered too

much, or exploited the country.

However, in this case, the USA is intervening- much more lightlyin more developed nations, and for the most part under the NATO organisation. Increasing troops in the area is more likely to serve as a deterrent to Russia and a reassurance to America’s NATO partners, who feel threatened by Russian actions.

So, should we be worried?

The overwhelming popularity that Putin has been receiving within Russia since the involvement in Crimea suggests that Russians would support further expansion, or conflicts with the West. Moreover, Russia did not immediately respond to the Pentagon plan to further bolster its force in Europe, but past announcements have been met with threats of countermeasures from Moscow.

Nonetheless, with the current state of the Russian economy, which is rapidly declining owing to decreased oil prices and economic sanctions, it seems unlikely that Russia would end e avo u r t o ex p a n d f u r t h e r. I n d e e d , this would not only strain t h e e c o n o my, bu t a l s o c o u l d

lead to further economic sanctions. Therefore, despite having a strong basis for the increased military expenditure, the USA s h o u l d p r i o r i ti s e more urgent issues, such as the mig ration crisis, to fo c u s th ei r res o u rc es o n .

Nevertheless, this proposed increase in funding fo r U S m i l i ta r y i n E u ro p e could be beneficial in acting as a d e t e r r e n t t o f u r t h e r Ru s s i a n “expansionism”.

H o w e v e r, o n o n e s i d e t h e USA is negotiating with Ru s s i a i n M u n i c h , o n t h e other it is increasing its military forces that have been clearly directed against Russia.

In some cases the USA (and the West as well) choose to turn a blind eye to Russian aggression or, in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, Russian disregard for international laws. In other cases, s uch as th i s i n c rea s e i n bu d g et ( i f it passes Cong ress), they adopt an assertive approach.

Although the Syrian War is a tricky and delicate situation, a decision needs to be made reg arding what approach is taken towards Russia.

Photo credit:Wikimedia Commons

Capucine Cogné Undergraduate student

Money trouble in Malaysia

Corruption and scandal might cost Razak and his country more than he realises Bhadra Sreejith Deputy News Editor

WHAT CAN BE DONE with Najib Razak? As the drama over 1MDB unfolds, Malaysia’s Prime Minister remains stubbornly in power.

The scandal, which first came to light in August 2015, is still unfurling, with the Malaysian attorney-general stating that the $681 million dollars transferred into the Prime Minister’s bank account was a “gift” from the Saudi Arabian government. While the Malaysian attorneygeneral may be perfectly happy with this explanation, which has officially cleared Najib’s name, it is no surprise that the rest of Malaysia is less than satisfied.

1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) is a strategic state fund set up in 2009, when Najib came to power, in order to attract foreign direct investment and drive longter m economic development.

In early 2015, the troubled fund started attracting media attention due to its missed payments of the $11 billion that it owed to stakeholders. The Wall Street Journal reported

that nearly $700 million had been taken from the fund and put into Najib’s personal bank accounts. The attorney general’s office convened a task force to investigate this, and announced in July 2015 that $681 million had been trnasfeerd from 1MDB to Najib’s account, substantiating the Wall Street Journal’s account.

Najib Razak responded by banning online access to the Wall Street Journal, strenuously denying all allegations of misconduct, firing the attorney general “for health reasons” and

“Razak has been cleared of all criminal charges by the attorneygeneral” installing a “friendlier” one in his place, and removing the deputy prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, from his post, after he had criticized his handling of the situation.

The task force found out, that same month, that the money

had not come from 1MDB, but from a wealthy Middle Eastern donor, later to be revealed as Saudi Arabia. Unsurprisingly, many Malaysians continue to believe that it was their money that Najib stole, and showed their dissatisfaction by taking to the streets in August 2015.

The Bersih 4 Rally was carried out on 30th August, the day before Malaysia’s Independence Day. A crowd of 250,000 people rallied in central Kuala Lumpur to protest against what is seen as the increasing authoritarianism of the Malaysian government and call for Najib Razak’s resignation.

The rally was attended by the 91-year old Dr Mahathir, who is a for mer Prime Minister who commands deep respect in the country due to the perception that he spearheaded its development. Dr Mahathir has called for Najib’s resignation on many occasions.

Najib Razak has been cleared of all criminal charges by the attorney-general, who claims that Najib has returned all but $61 million of the $681 million that was donated to him by the Saudi Arabian government.

An unnamed insider in the Saudi government told the

BBC that the money was to help UMNO, Najib’s party, to win the 2013 election, against PAS, an Islamic party that is said to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, this mysterious source goes against what two government

“Amongst all this, Najib appears to be fighting for political survivial” ministries have told the Wall Street Journal, which is that such a donation would be extremely unprecedented and that they have no knowledge of it. Be that as it may, the case is officially closed in Malaysia, although Switzerland is still investigating corruption involving the 1MDB. Malaysia’s currency has suffered a sharp depreciation in the last year, depreciating almost 25% against the dollar, partly due to a decrease in oil prices. The 1MDB scandal and political deadlock have led to a decrease in FDI.

Inflation has increased; the Goods and Services Tax, introduced in April 2015, has effectively increased the cost of living. Amongst all this, Najib appears to be fighting for political survival, and the latest casualty as he attempts to consolidate power is Mukhriz Mahathir, the Chief Minister of Kedah State and son of Najib’s fierce critic, Mahathir Mohamed. This would have further cemented his hold over UMNO, which is a Malay political party that is still strongly loyal to Najib. However, it has made him even more deeply unpopular amongst the Malaysian people, 20000 of whom gathered in a stadium to show support for Mukhriz.

Questions remain unanswered in the largest corruption scandal Malaysia has ever faced. Najib appears to have weathered the worst of the political stor m; Malaysia’s public is fatigued. It remains to see what else he does to consolidate power— whether, in fact, he will remain head of UMNO two years hence, when the General Election will be held.

Photo credit: Martin Pettitt, 2014, Flickr

16| Tuesday February 23, 2016

Kiribati’s President on the “unprecedented A conversation with HE Anote Tong, who discusses the future of his people,

Interviews

Taryana Odayar Executive Editor (Q) Your excellency, according to your estimates, the islands of Kiribati will become uninhabitable by 2050 due to the rising sea levels and salination. And you’ve said that when it comes to climate change and Kiribati, that “its not about politics, its not about the economics, its about survival.” So how do you, as the President of a country that is literally drowning, get the inter national community to sit up and take notice of this dire situation, and have you been satisfied with the response thus far?

We l l i t ’s, a s I s ay, a s e r i o u s i s s u e fo r u s, a n d n o t m a ny p e o p l e, n o t m a ny c o u n t r i e s u n d e r s t a n d t h i s. We n e e d them to come and visit.

I c o nv i n c e d the (UN) S e c re t a r y - G e n e r a l t o v i s i t i n 2 0 1 1 a n d m a ny m o re s h o u l d c o m e a n d v i s i t . I t ’s a s e r i o u s i s s u e a n d I ’ve b e e n d o i n g t h i s f o r t h e e n t i re p e r i o d o f my a d m i n i s t r at i o n .

S o w h at I ’ve b e e n d o i n g i s t r y i n g t o f o c u s at t e n t i o n o n the issue because although i t w a s s u ch a s e r i o u s i s s u e, ye t n o b o d y w a s f o c u s i n g o n i t . A n d i t m e a n t a g re at d e a l for the future of our people a n d o n l y re c e n t l y p e o p l e h ave s t a r t e d t a l k i n g a b o u t i t - bu t n o t ye t c o m m i t t e d t o d o i n g s o m e t h i n g c o n c re t e a b o u t i t – we ’re s t i l l p l ay i n g w i t h t h e wo rd s. I m e a n , t h at i s ove r ! B u t wh at we n e e d i s c o n c re t e a c t i o n t o d e a l w i t h t h e i s s u e s, o t h e r w i s e i t s a l l m e a n i n g l e s s.

W h at ’s happening in Pa r i s ? I t s n o t a n e g o t i at i o n a b o u t t h e e c o n o my ; wh at n e e d s t o b e d o n e, wh at i t m e a n s t o t h e e c o n o my o f a n o t h e r c o u n t r y. I t s a b o u t s u r v i v a l o f p e o p l e. N ow, I ’ m g e t t i n g t h at a rg u m e n t a l l t h e t i m e bu t t o m e t h e t e r m s a re s o s i m p l e. A n d t o p u t forward the argument that i t d o e s n’t m at t e r b e c a u s e i t s o n l y 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 p e o p l e – t h at ’s a d a n g e ro u s a rg u m e n t t o p u t fo r w a rd . N o b o dy mu s t b e l e f t b e h i n d . S o t h e re mu s t b e re s p o n s i b i l i t i e s, t h e re ’s g o t t o b e j u s t i c e i n a l l o f t h i s. ( Q ) E a rl i e r t h i s ye a r, t h e former Australian Prime Minister –

[Chuckles] (Q) - I think you already know what I’m going to ask! Tony Abbott was caught on tape laughing at a joke about how Kiribati would soon have water lapping at its doors. You and several other Pacific islanders condemned this as being morally irresponsible.

Do you think anything has changed with the UN conference in Paris?

I d o n’t t h i n k t h e re ’s re a l l y a f u l l re a l i z at i o n by a ny of the people in decisionm a k i n g p o s i t i o n s o n wh at i s re a l l y h a p p e n i n g o r

“The impact will be so accelerated that nothing can be done...We’re not negotiating with nature – nature does not negotiate.

If its beyond the point of no return, then its too bad.

Everything will collapse.”

what it means. Not only t o c o u n t r i e s l i k e m i n e, b u t t o t h e w o rl d a t l a r g e. I t s going to come down very h e av i l y o n e d a y t h a t i t s i r r e v e r s i b l e. T h e i m p a c t will be so accelerated that n o t h i n g c a n b e d o n e. A n d i f a n y t h i n g c a n b e d o n e, t h e r e ’d h av e b e e n s u c h a l o t of destruction to peoples’ lives in different parts of t h e w o rl d . S o w e ’v e g o t t o come to that realization very soon.

We ’ r e not negotiating with nature – n a t u r e d o e s n o t n e g o t i a t e.

I f i t s b eyo n d t h e p o i n t o f no retur n, then its too bad.

E v e r y t h i n g w i l l c o l l a p s e.

Interviews | 17

dangers” of Climate Change and His Drowning Islands plans for building floating islands, and the lack of support in the international community.

(Q) So is Kiribati past the point of no retur n? Do you think that even if the inter national community stepped up with funding and technological assistance, it is too late and we will see Kiribati going underwater within our lifetimes?

We w i l l b e u n d e r w at e r – t h e re i s n o q u e s t i o n a b o u t t h at . I n t h at re s p e c t , i t i s t o o l at e. T h e q u e s t i o n i s, c a n w e d o a ny t h i n g a b o u t i t ?

A n d I b e l i eve s o m e t h i n g c a n b e d o n e. P rov i d e d we h ave t h e re s o u rc e s – a n d t h e re i s n o d o u b t t h e t e ch n o l o g y i s av a i l a bl e – bu t wh at i s needed is the political will t o p rov i d e t h e re s o u rc e s t o e n s u re t h at n at i o n s l i k e o u r s d o n o t g o u n d e r w a t e r.

(Q) And in the eventuality that Kiribati goes underwater soon, would Kiribati still have sovereign rights as a nation? What are the legal implications? Would the government still be legitimate, and would citizens still hold their citizenship?

[Smiles w r y l y, pauses].

I think t h at ’s an u n ch a r t e re d i n t e r n at i o n a l l e g a l a rg u m e n t , i t s n o t h a p p e n e d b e fo re a n d i t s u n p re c e d e n t e d . T h e re i s n o g u i d a n c e o n i t , bu t i f we a re t o b e a p a r t o f d e f i n i n g t h at , o u r d e f i n i t i o n wo u l d b e ve r y s i m p l e. We h a d s ove re i g n t y a n d we w i l l c o n t i nu e t o h ave s ove re i g n t y ove r t h e w at e r s t h at w e h a d . I f i t i s g o i n g t o b e t h e c a s e t h a t t h o s e t h at disappear lose their rights t o t h e i r ex c l u s i ve e c o n o m i c z o n e s, t h e n i t w o u l d b e c o m e ve r y a t t r a c t i ve f o r c o u n t r i e s t o e n s u re t h at eve r y b o d y goes down.

N o, a s I s a i d , we a re c o m m i t t e d t o e n s u r i n g t h at a s a n at i o n w e w i l l c o n t i nu e t o ex i s t . T h e re a re c o u n t r i e s w h i ch a re u n d e r w at e r. T h e N e t h e rl a n d s i s u n d e r w at e r, bu t t h ey ’ve d o n e s o m e t h i n g t o e n s u re t h at t h ey c o n t i n u e t o s u r v i ve. B u t t h e e l ev at i o n o f t h e l a n d i s b e l o w. S o i s t h e i r s ove re i g n t y b e i n g questioned? I think the

a n s we r i s n o, b e c a u s e t h ey c o n t i nu e t o ex i s t eve n t h o u g h all it needs is cracking the w a l l u n d e r w at e r a n d t h ey d i s a p p e a r a s a n at i o n .

“I really want to believe that there is compassion in this world, that people have a conscience.

But I also have to acknowledge that this world is made of a large spectrum of people, and even what is happening in Paris does indicate that there are countries who really do not care.”

(Q) Given your experience and your knowledge of climate change politics, do you feel that there is an undercurrent of political tension and that there are actors who would benefit from, as you said, the economic zone being more open and such?

I re a l l y w a n t t o b e l i eve t h at t h e re i s c o m p a s s i o n i n t h i s wo rl d , t h at p e o p l e h ave a c o n s c i e n c e. B u t I a l s o h ave t o a c k n ow l e d g e t h at t h i s w o rl d i s m a d e o f a l a rg e s p e c t r u m o f p e o p l e, a n d eve n wh at i s h a p p e n i n g i n Pa r i s d o e s i n d i c at e t h at t h e re a re c o u n t r i e s w h o re a l l y d o n o t c a re. A s I s a i d , t h ey c o n t i n u e t o b r i n g f o r w a rd t h e i r a g e n d a .

D i s re g a rd i n g eve r y t h i n g e l s e, t h e f a c t t h at t h ey i m p l e m e n t t h e s t r at e g i e s w h i ch t h ey t h i n k a re n e e d e d t o d e a l w i t h t h e i s s u e s, t h ey d e s t roy o t h e r s i n t h e p ro c e s s by b e i n g i n c o n s e q u e n t i a l .

T h at i s n’t m o r a l a n d s h o u l d n eve r b e e n t e r t a i n e d at t h e

i n t e r n at i o n a l l eve l . I t h i n k t h at a s a n i n t e r n at i o n a l c o m mu n i t y we s h o u l d b e ve r y, ve r y c a r e f u l i n a l l o w i n g t h e s e k i n d s o f a rg u m e n t s t o c o m e f o r w a rd b e c a u s e i t p o s e s ve r y d a n g e ro u s p re c e d e n t s.

(Q) Speaking of dangerous precedents, some critics have called your plans for your country “crazy” – for example, the plans of building the man-made floating islands, and relocating and buying land in Fiji – what would you say to these critics? Do you think they understand the true g ravity of the situation?

I t h i n k t h ey ( t h e p l a n s ) m ay b e c r a z y bu t we h ave a c r a z y s i t u at i o n . I f t h ey can come up with better a l t e r n at i ve s, t h e n I re a l l y want to talk to those guys!

B u t i t s a n u n p re c e d e n t e d ch a l l e n g e. A n d t h e s o l u t i o n s a re n owh e re i n a ny b o o k , i t s a n e w ex p e r i e n c e. A l l I ’ m t r y i n g t o d o i s g i ve ch o i c e s t o my p e o p l e s o t h at t h ey c a n m a k e ch o i c e s. We ’re n o t s i t t i n g i n a n i d e a l s i t u at i o n .

“We’re going to have to use our common sense rather than emotion. I’ve avoided being emotional, because otherwise we’d put our people in a lot of trouble.”

W h at c a n I s ay i f t h e i r l a n d i s g o i n g u n d e r w at e r – c a n I a d v i s e t h e m t h at t h ey c o n t i n u e t o s t ay t h e re, t h at t h ey d o n o t l e ave t h e i r h o m e s ? I t e l l yo u , I h ave c o m e a c ro s s t h e a rg u m e n t w h e re p e o p l e s ay, “ w e w i l l s t ay o n o u r i s l a n d s n o m at t e r w h at . ” I f t h ey ’re g o i n g t o s t ay, t h e n yo u ’ve g o t t o d o something about adapting

a n d bu i l d i n g re s i l i e n c e. I f yo u c a n’t g e t i t , h o w c a n yo u s t ay o n ? C o m m o n s e n s e s u g g e s t s t h at yo u c a n n o t d o i t , s o t h e n ex t b e s t t h i n g i s t o bu i l d a f l o at i n g i s l a n d .

S o, t h ey ( t h e p l a n s ) a re c r a z y, bu t s o i s t h e s i t u at i o n w e a re t r y i n g t o d e a l w i t h .

A d vo c at i n g m i g r at i o n w i t h d i g n i t y i s t h e n ex t b e s t t h i n g. I f t h e re i s s o m e t h i n g b e t t e r, we wo u l d d o i t .

(Q) And I imagine the youth are quite vocal about this as well, having g rown up in Kiribati and knowing that they may have to relocate very soon.

How do the youth feel about this?

The yo u t h a re m o re a d a p t a bl e t o ch a n g e. I t h i n k i t ’s t h e o l d p e o p l e w h o will find it difficult. But I t h i n k w h at w e w a n t t o d o is actually let people make t h e ch o i c e. I ’ m n o t a b o u t t o t e l l p e o p l e, “ N o, w e ’re n o t g o i n g a ny wh e re, we s t ay. ” I d o n’t h ave t h e l e g a l r i g h t t o s t o p p e o p l e f ro m g o i n g.

B u t wh at I d o h ave i s t h e re s p o n s i b i l i t y t o h e l p t h o s e t h at w a n t t o g o b e p re p a re d t o g o, a n d s o t h at t h ey d o n o t g o a n d b e c o m e re f u g e e s a n d s e c o n d - c l a s s c i t i z e n s.

T h at i s o u r re s p o n s i b i l i t y.

(Q) If I may your Excellency, in the case that yourself and your family do have to relocate, do you know which country you would move to?

T h at w i l l b e a ch o i c e t h at my ch i l d re n a n d g r a n d ch i l d re n w i l l h ave t o m a k e fo r t h e m s e l ve s. B u t I w i l l n o t b e re l o c at i n g. I d o n’t t h i n k I w i l l g o.

(Q) So much like the captain of the Titanic, you will remain on the islands until they go underwater?

Ye s, b e c a u s e I d o n’t t h i n k i t w i l l re a ch t h at l eve l – by t h e t i m e i t s g o n e I d o n’t k n o w h o w f o r h o w mu ch l o n g e r I w i l l b e a ro u n d . I n 2 0 ye a r s ’ t i m e ? I a m s u re I w i l l b e a b l e t o s u r v i ve u n t i l t h e n .

Yo u k n o w, w e l ove o u r w a y

“I don’t have the legal right to stop people from going.

But what I do have is the responsibility to help those that want to go be prepared to go, and so that they do not go and become refugees and second-class citizens. That is our responsibility.” o f l i f e. A n d we w i l l s t ay w i t h i t a s mu ch a s p o s s i b l e.

B u t e s p e c i a l l y fo r t h e yo u n g p e o p l e, t h ey re a l l y h ave t o s t a r t l o o k i n g at t h e i r o p t i o n s ve r y c l o s e l y.

I t s n o t a lw ay s a n i c e subject to be talking a b o u t . We h ave t o b e b r u t a l l y re a l i s t i c , we c a n’t a f fo rd t o d e ny i t – a l l t h e f a c t s a re b e fo re u s. We ’re g o i n g t o h ave t o u s e o u r c o m m o n s e n s e r at h e r t h a n emotion.

I ’ve avo i d e d being emotional, because o t h e r w i s e we ’d p u t o u r p e o p l e i n a l o t o f t ro u bl e.

(Q) And the clock is t i c k i n g. .

I t s t i c k i n g ve r y f a s t ! Fa s t e r t h a n eve r y b o d y t h i n k s.

(Q) Thank you ver y much you r Exc e lle n c y.

Interested in interviewing a high-profile figure?

Email us at: editor@ thebeaveronline. co.uk

18 | Tuesday February 23, 2016

In Conversation with Former Italian PM Enrico Letta A discussion on the intellectual “bubble” in academia, the EU and “Super Mario” Draghi after he spoke at LSE, though unfortunately not over coffee.

There is a small, fair-trade coffeeshop on the ground floor of the main building of Science Po’s Paris School of International Affairs. A student created and student run initiative, it’s unassuming—a wooden shed colored with graffiti about the “Zapatist, rebel” coffee that it serves, and two or three standing tables in front. Last year as a PSIA student, I caught glimpses of Enrico Letta there, usually on mid-week mornings.

I mentioned it to an Italian friend that I knew from time spent living in Strasbourg—the Alsatian crossroads of Europe where Letta spent a good deal of his childhood—thinking he would get a kick out of the fact that his former Prime Minister was the new “diplomat in residence” at my school.

“We’re Italians,” he replied with a grin, “We can’t go very long without having a coffee.”

A year later, Letta has replaced the illustrious Ghassam Salamé as the Dean of PSIA— the latest step in his own equally illustrious career. One of the youngest Italian politicians ever to reach a cabinet level post, he served as Minister of European Affairs at the end of the 1990’s, before eventually being called on to create Italy’s first grand coalition government in 2013.

As a centrist who likes to build consensus, Letta is using his perch from one of Europe’s most prestigious public policy schools to call for a new approach in Europe. We sat down to chat

(Q) What’s been more of an adventure, running the Italian government, or a foot into academia with the Paris School of International Affairs?

It’s two completely different jobs, I’m very happy now working with the students and Sciences Po, and in a way, working with the future. Because discussing with students means discussing about the future. So I’m really very happy, I hope to continue with this big challenge, which is one because with students you have to change your approach, and also because we have a very international environment. When you teach European institutions to a Chinese or Vietnamese student, it is important to change your approach—nothing is to be taken for granted. It is very interesting” (Q)Given the amount of anti-establishment sentiment among voters and the rise of antiestablishment politicians, what can elite institutions like Sciences Po and LSE do to make sure that their students aren’t in a sort of bubble of thought, and also to engage with the broader population?

The key point is the fact that we have to train our students to take a more flexible approach.

Today, crises are the new normal, not a long period of stability interrupted by a crisis,

today normal is crisis. We are living in a sequence of crises.

“...the key problem is the fact that if the European Council is the core of the European Union they are European leaders for one day a month, the rest of the month they are national leaders responding to their national constituencies.”

That’s why I think the role of leading universities like Sciences Po and LSE is changing. It is very important not to abandon the idea of going and getting the best students wherever they are regardless of their ability to pay—we need to find the talent and the skills wherever they are. Competence is still, even more, important, but being competent isn’t about being full of information. We have Google for that, a campus doesn’t need to be Google. The campus is for training…lessons, simulations, activities like the ones in our schools. And we have to push this idea and avoid this cleavage between ‘people’ and ‘establishment’.

(Q)You also proposed a super finance minister to accompany “Super Mario” Draghi—unjustly or justly, the EU is perceived by lots of people to be less than democratic, or not democratic enough.

Is there a danger in putting in a new technocrat to manage eurozone finances without some sort of popularly elected position, like a president, to accompany it?

Exactly, we need to avoid this risk. We need to have a finance minister, a face literally accountable to the people, able to be in a democratic sequence, able to be accountable to the parliament and in my view the president of the budget committee of the national parliaments. We need to have— for the eurozone—someone able to make the euro successful for competitiveness and growth, and not just for implementing austerity, because you’re right, the reaction of the people would be negative and that would be a disaster.

(Q)We’ve also seen lots of headlines about the european union going after corporations, Facebook, Google, etc., for the amount of taxes they pay in Europe.

Would an EU wide corporate income tax coupled with rebating national contributions restore some legitimacy to the EU? It is necessary to have a European system with its own resources. This is why along with the idea for the super

minister for the euro area is to have a euro area budget.

Of course that budget would be for implementing positive initiatives on unemployment, on competitiveness, etc. This is why a fiscal system is necessary. This is very difficult to do at an EU28 level.

(Q) Recently Martin Schulz was here and criticized heads of government for making deals in Brussels that they turned around and slammed back home.

Do the [specific] people in power matter or is it all about structure and domestic politics at play?

He is right, the key problem is the fact that if the European Council is the core of the European Union—they are European leaders for one day a month, the rest of the month they are national leaders responding to their national constituencies. We don’t have national leaders with general accountability. It’s a key problem and we need to change it.

(Q) And just to end, is Donald Trump the arrival in the United States—is he our Silvio Berlusconi?

[Laughs.] I don’t know, that’s a good question. I hope not for the States of course…

The key issue of the people/ establishment cleavage is a key issue for Europe as well as for America, and this strange electoral campaign in the US is showing that the issue is at the top level today.

Photo Credit: wikipediacommons.org

Alexander Hurst Features Editor

NUS EXTRA: THE ESSENTIAL STUDENT DISCOUNT CARD Available to buy from the LSESU Shop and online: www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra

AND MUCH MORE

20 | Tuesday 23 February, 2016

FASHION

14

MAD ABOUT THE BOY:

THE FASHION SPACE GALLERY Jamie Lloyd RECENTLY, I went to University of the Arts London’s (UAL’s) fashion space gallery, knee-deep in well-dressed art students (a farcry from the business-casual world we seem to inhabit at the LSE…), to see the new exhibition centred on the fashion industry’s obsession with the young male, in particular the teenage boy. The work of designers such as Raf Simons and Gosha Rubchinskiy, as well as photographic work from Brett Lloyd amongst others, was used to present the idea of young masculinity as a varied and developmental concept. The way such designers use this idea, in relation to their own work, manipulating it into commentary on subjects ranging from sexuality to street culture, is indicative of the importance modern culture still places on the transformation of the young male and the construction of this ideal.

As you walk through the admittedly small exhibition space, one travels through the challenges and distortions that boys face, and is faced with the way fashion designers have cohered such events into the seminary of their work. Gosha explores street-culture, Raf Simons examines education through the lens of school-leavers shirts, whilst Patrick Robyn deal with ideas relating to the transition to manhood.

At first, the manner with which such seminal experiences in a boy’s life are presented and transmogrified into clothing might seem glib, even lurid. For much of the exhibition I was affronted by the ability of the fashion industry to appropriate new areas of youth experience, in a desperate search for new content.

Thankfully, the gallery give you nice, brightly coloured handouts so you don’t need to think about the ‘why’ or ‘justification’ of what you’re being presented with too much. I suppose the drive to explore different creative influences necessitates designers to look towards the youth, whether their own or the current iteration, as an endless source of new ideas and formulations. Nothing is sacred in this industry, and a tiresome dedication to the purity of youth (a corollary of which is an unwillingness to probe its darker implications), stands in the way of fashion’s suitability as an artistic medium.

The greater expansion of artistic discussion is the result of this drive to examine the totality of young male experience. The work presented throughout the exhibition, though challenging in some respects, helps to delve deeper into the notion of masculinity; unearthing a more fragile, but nonetheless more ‘examined’ concept. The need for modern society to resurrect a positive conception of masculinity, one not predicated on inbuilt misogyny, is an area I have great interest in – and the work of these designers, and in particular the photography of Brett Lloyd, provides a path towards the process of retooling the toxic edifice of masculinity, through the context of the ‘Boy’. Also… the clothes are cool.

‘Mad about the Boy’ runs at the Fashion Space Gallery from 8th January – 2nd April 2016

“The work presented throughout the exhibition helps to delver deeper into the notion of masculinity.”

part

B

editorial team PartB

Flo Edwards Kemi Akinboyewa Vikki Hui

fashion Jamie Lloyd Maria Maleeva music Rob Funnell Will Locke

film

food & lifestyle

literature

Sarah Ku Alexander Lye Camila Arias Tom Sayner Caroline Schurman-Grenier Buritica Sean Tan technology theatre visual arts Edward Tan

Noah D’Aeth

Hanna Lee Yo-en Chin

MUSIC

21

REVIEW: KANYE WEST

THE LIFE OF PABLO Thomas H. Sheriff FIRST, THERE WAS SO HELP ME GOD. Then there was SWISH. Then there was Waves.

Finally, almost two years after it was first promised; after several tracklist changes; after two artwork changes; after a Wiz Khalifa beef; after lecturing at Oxford; after announcing a 2020 presidential campaign; after countless Twitter rants; Kanye West has released The Life of Pablo, his latest album. It could be that he had the most confusing album release of all time (of all time!). The result of all this confusion? Pablo had – and still has – a monumental buzz surrounding it.

Hype is something that has surrounded all of West’s releases since Late Registration (his second) but none have been teased for as long as this. So how does it sit alongside the rest of his impressive discography?

The good news is that Kanye has given us yet another terrific album. But it’s also his most bizarre, mixed and flawed album so far. There are moments of pure brilliance, but there are also moments which are inexplicably awful. This is the work of a man torn between greatness and immaturity; a man who is a mad genius one moment and a simple idiot the next.

His arrogance tells him he is the “greatest artist of all time”, whilst

his inner doubt makes him shout it to the world in search of validation. These contradictions are what have made him the revered artist he is – there is a grim tragedy in his decadence. The Life of Pablo has all these contradictions, and the result is a compelling listen, even when it indulges in its worst aspects. West is an unpredictable man and his music is no different – now even more so than ever.

Listening to The Life of Pablo, it is impossible to guess what mood or sound will come next: a soulful Nina Simone sample at the end of ‘Famous’ collides head-on with the jarringly literal sound of ‘Feedback’; the catharsis of ‘Waves’ flips to the sombre ‘FML’. The experience is disorientating but thrilling, like being driven around town by a maniac. Without a seatbelt.

The car would fly straight off the road if it was driven by anyone but Kanye West; under his control the album becomes a ride through sinister beats and merciless lyrics, punctuated by thrusts into exultant prayer and dives into desperate sadness. The success of the ride – bumpy as it may be – depends on Kanye doing things he’s always done better than anyone.

One of these things is his ability with featured artists. Amongst the big names here are Rihanna, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Chance The

Rapper, Young Thug and Kendrick Lamar, all of whom sound fantastic. They are there because of the qualities they bring to the songs, not because of their names (Jay Z, take note); opening track ‘Ultralight Beam’ wouldn’t be complete without Chance The Rapper’s superb verse, and Kendrick Lamar (unsurprisingly) brings the perfect mix of cheek and seriousness to ‘No More Parties In L.A.’. Kanye even makes Chris Brown more than listenable (he sings the hook on ‘Waves’). He also knows how to use diverse samples to great effect: the aforementioned Nina Simone snippet serves as a powerful coda to ‘Famous’, and album closer ‘Fade’ takes a classic Chicago house record and makes it deep and dark.

Comic relief is even handled well, with the acapella ‘I Love Kanye’ poking hilarious fun at some of his detractors, and even himself (“I love Kanye like Kanye loves Kanye” he says with a chuckle).

This doesn’t stop him from reaching emotional depth, however. ‘FML’ takes an old Kanye theme – temptations of infidelity – and gives it new weight; he delivers the lines of the first verse exhaustedly, as if each one causes a little bit of energy to leave him. On ‘Real Friends’, he shows rare remorse at his alienation from those he should be close to, evoking the

sorrow of his 2008 album 808s and Heartbreak. But the best moments in The Life of Pablo are those that raise every hair on the back of your neck with their visceral power: the gospel choir of ‘Ultralight Beam’; the slamming beat drops of ‘Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1’ and ‘Pt. 2’; the deeply chilling ‘Wolves’ (particularly Frank Ocean’s haunting outro). These are moments that stand alongside his very best.

Despite these magnificent highs, The Life of Pablo has flaws that cannot be ignored. Firstly, there are individual lines that are just plain bad. The worst offender is “Now if I fuck this model / And she just bleached her asshole / And I get bleach on my T-shirt / I’mma feel like an asshole” – it’s a dumb, painfully unfunny dud. Also, ‘Facts’ is a small-minded affair (denouncing Nike in favour of Adidas does not make for interesting listening) and feels a little tacked on. This hints at a deeper problem with The Life of Pablo: it can sound scattershot and without structure, bordering on sounding unfinished. This could be linked to the tracklist and title changes that continued until just a day before it became available on Tidal – perhaps Kanye was foolish to set himself a deadline, and it resulted in the final product being rushed out too early?

I don’t think this is the case.

Some fans have reorganised the album in playlists to make it flow more easily from song to song; others have commented that earlier tracklists make far more sense than the one we ended up with (at one point, it was even structured into three ‘acts’). Kanye had an album that worked – a damn fine album at that – and decided to smash it up, reorder the pieces and throw some more bits in there for good measure. The result is an album that flies in all directions at once and so can appear to not get anywhere. It’s a maddening experience, but it’s also one that somehow makes perfect sense. Should we have expected anything else from Kanye West now?

With all the pre-release delays, alterations, conflicting rumours and conflicting interviews, should we ever have expected a finished product? West tweeted “Ima fix wolves” a day after the album came out – he’s still not finished with it. If the album ever gets a release outside of Tidal, it might have a new tracklist; a new title; new artwork; maybe even new songs. The Life of Pablo is like Kanye West himself: it never sticks with one idea for long, and is constantly moving onto being something else. Perhaps we’ll never get a ‘final version’ of it, but, however it comes, it’s as exciting as any other music out there.

Download Kanye West’s new album exclusively on the app ‘Tidal’

22 | Tuesday 23 February, 2016

FILM/TV

THOUGHTS 14

FROM TOLSTOY TO TROLLOPE:

OUR INSATIABLE APPETITE FOR TELEVISION ADAPTATIONS

Polly Hatfield TELEVISION VIEWERS WERE left with little time to mourn the conclusion of Downton Abbey last December. The final series had no sooner drawn to a close than the BBC stepped nobly forward to occupy the now seemingly obligatory ‘Sunday night period drama’ slot with its adaptation of War and Peace. The sixepisode serialisation of Tolstoy’s notoriously dense and complex novel was broadcast earlier this year and proved popular with audiences and critics alike (so much so, in fact, that the BBC are reported to be negotiating the sale of the programme rights to Russian broadcasters.) Those left wondering where to find their fix of corsetry, chisel-jawed males in breeches and ill-fêted love affairs need not despair, as filming began on a three-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne in late 2015. Our enthusiasm for television serialisations of classic novels seemingly knows no bounds, but such programmes are criticised by some who claim that they ultimately amount to little more than a destruction of liter-

ary heritage.

That Doctor Thorne is to be adapted by Julian Fellowes, the creative mind behind Downton Abbey, provides some idea of the tone and style of the finished product.

Fellowes’ depiction of the lives of the Crawley family spawned a predictably tasteless range of merchandise (of which Downtonendorsed Yorkshire puddings were among the less tacky…) and had its fair share of detractors, but was undeniably successful with British and, perhaps more unexpectedly, international audiences. If Fellowes is able to replicate this global success with his production of Doctor Thorne, he will arguably have succeeded in generating renewed international interest in the work of one of England’s most prolific novelists. Britain was ranked first in an assessment of so-called ‘soft power’ in 2015, highlighting the continuing importance of our cultural exports in countering a broader trend for increased national isolationism and insularity.

Viewed in this light, the work of Fellowes or Andrew Davies, who was responsible for adapting Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the BBC in 1995 and, more recently,

War and Peace, should perhaps be celebrated for bringing British arts to the attention of a wider audience and upholding our position at the forefront of international cultural developments.

Some have criticised television serialisations as superficial bastardisations of works of seminal cultural importance. It is certainly possible to ask whether Tolstoy’s four volume epic of over 1,200 pages could possibly be squeezed into six hour long episodes without losing many of the essential narrative and artistic elements that make it what it is. In adapting the classics for modern audiences, scriptwriters are liable to take liberties with the authors’ original ideas. The recent BBC version was, for example, criticised for drawing undue attention to the incestuous relationship between siblings Helene and Anatole Kuragin, to which Tolstoy only alludes in the novel. Others complained that the adaptation was overly ‘English’: an Austen-esque romantic drama that failed to convey much of the social critique that permeates Tolstoy’s work or the horrors of the 1812 French invasion of Russia. Few would ar-

gue that Downton is an accurate depiction of early 20th century Britain, yet in a programme written specifically for television this is not a problem. The same cannot be said of the works of Tolstoy and Trollope, which so powerfully and deliberately reflect the society within which they were created. It may be that television adaptations that seek to ‘update’ or ‘pare back’ these novels ultimately produce unsatisfactory and diluted versions of the very works they seek to revive.

For all the scorn and snobbery television serialisations invite, their popularity remains undiminished. War and Peace recently entered the UK fiction bestseller list for the first time on the back of the series’ popularity, and we can expect a similar rise in sales of Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles once it airs later this year. Whether many of those who enthusiastically purchased War and Peace will ultimately rise to the challenge of reading it remains to be seen, but the lurch in sales figures arguably reflects the capacity of modern television dramas to retain interest in the classics. The literary significance of such works re-

mains undiminished, as does the importance of many of the social or political messages their authors sought to convey. Their adaptation to modern media formats ensures that they remain relevant and accessible for viewers who still stand to learn a great deal from engaging with these works. It is worth remembering that Trollope’s works were originally serialised in magazines before being compiled into the novels we know today: just because we have come to view a novel as ‘classic’ does not imply that it is immune to change.

If viewers are newly motivated to translate the interest generated by a television recasting of a book into buying and reading it, then it can only be a good thing.

A line must of course be drawn somewhere (Lily James’ starring role in newly released Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is perhaps less encouraging for her overall career prospects than her turn in War and Peace), but current viewing trends suggest that our enthusiasm for the work of Davies, Fellowes et al. is, as yet, undiminished and might in fact be bringing welcome new attention to novels we might otherwise avoid.

FILM/TV

23

REVIEW

SICARIO Tom Sayner

- 4/5 STARS THE WAR ON DRUGS IS AN ISSUE RIPE FOR GREAT cinematic exploration and Sicario is one of its finest products. The direction from Denis Villeneuve is tight and assured while Emily Blunt gives one of the finest performances of her career. From the efficient camera work to the masterfully controlled set pieces the film fits its various components together very effectively.

The film follows Kate Mercer (Blunt) as an FBI agent who after the slaughter of fellow agents is recruited to a Department of Defence anti-narcotics unit. The head of this unit is the enigmatic Graver (Josh Brolin) assisted by the ruthless Alejandro (Benicio del Toro). The methods of these men are unconventional to say the least as they operate in a moral grey area where waterboarding is considered a necessary evil. Some of the films early action set pieces are some of the finest I have seen in a thriller. Villeneuve displays an instinctive ability to create tension and shows great restraint in his use of explosions and violence. He avoids sinking into the clichés that plague action thriller films. The film builds its plot with consistent pacing as we observe the unit’s hunt for the Mexican hitman Manuel Diaz. Gradually the legality and morality of American actions in their war on drugs is shown to be turning them into the thugs they are trying to defeat.

Roger Deakin is typically excellent as the film’s cinematographer. He brings the same bleak, focused visuals to Sicario that he did to ‘No country for old men’ and ‘Fargo’. This is matched by high level performances from the central cast with Benicio del Toro’s performance potentially in line for a BAFTA. On a more critical note commentators have pointed out the reduction in violence which has been occurring in much of Mexico. The citizens of Juarez, a Mexican border town which is portrayed as a lawless hell on earth, have protested at what they feel is an inaccurate view of their town. Indeed murders in the city have fallen from 3000 in 2010 to 300 in 2015. Sebastian Rotella, a noted journalist, criticised the supremacy of an American viewpoint in the film. Indeed the agents in the film break the law with impunity and there is a notable lack of oversight from any government agency. Despite some minor flaws in the realism of the film Sicario manages to portray the brutality and moral confusion that the War on Drugs reacted to and produced. The result is a tense and thrilling piece of cinema that also manages to combine emotion and genuine thematic depth.

14

24

| Tuesday 23 February, 2016

REVIEW

CHAMPAGNE LIFE THE SAATCHI GALLERY Yo-en Chin CHAMPAGNE LIFE IS AN ALL-FEMALE EXHIBITION at the Saatchi Gallery ending on the 9th of March, featuring fourteen female artists from all over the world. I was so eager to visit an exhibition that I thought would be empowering and inspirational but I left having slightly mixed feelings.

The exhibition title, taken from Julia Wachtel’s work (upside down Kardashian and West), is meant ironically. It is to contrast the ‘long, cold, lonely hours’ spent creating the artwork and the perceived glamour of such a world. However, I later discovered that Pommery, a champagne company is sponsoring the exhibition so there is something undeniably dodgy going on here.

Unfortunately there is a lack of theme other than the clearly stated gender one and it is questionable as to whether the ‘glass-ceiling’ is actually being tackled here, there are some pieces which I thought were interesting. Maha Malluh’s burnt pots and pans ‘Untitled (Food for Thought series) 2015’ that are traditionally used in Saudi Arabia lined the wall on a grand scale, a symbol of the ability of distributed objects to travel great distances to communicate with other objects from different countries, showcasing inequality in distribution.

Alice Anderson’s 181 Kilometres is literally made from 181km of copper thread spun into a ball and I marvelled at the tremendous effort and time that must have went into it. Virgule Ittah’s work was profound and her wax bodies that laid on the edge of the bed frames were uneven and lumpy, contrasting starkly to the smooth white walls of the room.

She aimed to convey the frailty of human flesh and there is a sense of sadness in them that made me stare for quite a while. Interestingly, her work revolved around research like the history of female hysteria. Jelena Bulajic’s Kljubica 2012 consisted of minutely accurate paintings that took my breathe away, some stretched from the floor to the ceiling and others were much smaller. The artist considered the possibility of a map contained within the face and each wrinkle, each indent and vein could be seen.

All in all, I would rate it a ‘meh’. Go if you can as it is free but if you do not, you are not missing out on too much.

ART

FOOD

25

RECIPE: SQUARES

CHOCOLATE & PEANUT BUTTER Caroline Schurman-Grenier

Chocolate and peanut butter, need I say more? Reese pieces, oh yes please. I’m a big fan of that combo, maybe it’s because I’m North American, but I just find that there is something so satisfying about the sweet chocolate and salty peanut butter. It’s a party in my mouth and I could not live without this combo. I’m not alone, I know, but I thought I’d share with you this culinary love of mine. Probably, since this is a recipe and you need some guidance. So I was at a coffee shop a few weeks ago, and saw these peanut butter squares that looked absolutely fantastic. I didn’t take one because I wasn’t hungry, so I decided to satisfy my craving and try a new recipe at home. My flatmates were quite pleased with my decision.

I looked online at ways to make chocolate peanut butter slices in a healthy way. I found a few I liked, made a few adjustments and voila! These may be one of my best recipes yet, just saying. I swear to you they are good for you! Yes, there is sugar but it’s natural sugar, which is way better than any store bought square you will be when you have this craving. Filled with healthy fats to keep you fuelled for the day, you will thank me later! They look difficult to make, but don’t be fooled by the long ingredient list! They’re pretty simple.

Ingredients: Crust 1/2 cup crushed pecans 1/4 coconut 1 cup almond meal 2 tbsp cacao powder 1/4 cup coconut oil 2 tbsp Maple Syrup Filling 1 cup natural peanut butter Top Layer 1/4 cup coconut oil 1/4 cup cacao powder 2 tbsp maple syrup Line a square pan with parchment paper.

For the crust, combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir.

Next, add the coconut oil and Maple syrup. Stir until all the dry ingredients form a wet paste. Evenly spread the crust in the square pan, and pop it into the freezer to let it set for about 15 minutes. Take it out, and spread the peanut butter on top evenly. I would use a spatula for this, because, well, using your hands would make it quite messy.

In a bowl, combine the top layer ingredients and stir until it looks like chocolate.

Spread into the pan evenly (evenly seems to be a recurring theme in this recipe), and put in the fridge for about 2 hours. The squares need to solidify, so that when you cut them, they don’t melt on the knife.

Granted, it would be delicious, but rather messy and you won’t be happy to clean all that.

When 2 hours have passed (longest 2 hours of your life), cut them into 16 squares.

Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee, and a good book (or a gossip magazine depending on your mood, no judging).

You’re welcome.

Be sure to check out my blog for more food ideas!

LSESU Grad Ball 2016 Monday 11th July The Brewery, EC1Y 4SD Tickets and tables available soon Like our Facebook page for updates: bit.ly/GradBall2016

The News This Week The London School of Economics and the University of Edinburgh answered the question that has been all our minds: YES! dogs do have a measurable IQ - they are just like humans.

NAB got an exclusive look at more research projects in the pipeline: Are cats really plotting to kill their owners?

Was Harold Wilson actually a KGB agent, for real?

In a cinema, which cup holder is yours?

How exactly did Kanye accrue $53m in debt?

What happened to Tony Soprano?

Election Fever LSESU Elections are fast approaching. Nominations for elected positions are still open. For the avoidance of any confusion and to ensure that we go into the election period fully-informed, NAB asked LSESU officers to describe their roles in less than 140 characters.

General Secretary @GenSec2014 . 1h Subverting the democratic process is so fun, you’ll want to stay for another year! #OneMoreYear

Community and Welfare @C&Wandotherstuff . 46m With fingers in so many sideline political pies, there’s hardly any time to address student welfare.

Education Officer @HitABrickWall . 17m Futile lobbying of the school on the only issue students seem to care about #timetables

Activities and Development @CmptrSaysNo . 11m 99% sorting out the room bookings fuck-up.

1% activities and development.

AU President @TopLad . 2m Oversees the ‘new and improved’ AU, including the initiations inductions of new members.

Anti-Racism Officer @WhitePrivilege . 43s Not sure if this role is totally necessary. Racism? I mean, we’re all from Africa, right?

LGBT+ Officer @TatchellTeach’Em . 2s Pros: A front seat view of the power struggle within the Alliance

BME Officer @BeyMEOfficer . 7s ‘Cause I slay. I might just be a politically black Bill Gates in the making. ‘Cause I slay.

International Students’ Officer @Who? . 33m Basically democratically represents the least politically engaged students at LSE.

Director of LSE @TheDictator . 33s Shredding documents, meetings in dark rooms etc. NB this is not a democratic appointment

Women’s Officer @ShitForShe . 9m Represents groupthink feminism within the SU - red lipstick is necessary, apparently.

Disabled Students’ Officer @IDSNOT . 23m Tries not to violate human rights by deeming students ‘fit to study’.

RAG President @RAGing . 7s Role includes being a 24/7 drama queen. That’s it.

Beaver Editor @SadAndBitter . 1s Lack of participation in elections means that any incompetent muppet can become an editor.

28| Tuesday 23 February, 2016

The Other ‘Other City’ A sideways look at the lessons that business can learn from football

The City

Section Editor: Alex Gray Deputy Editors: Henry Mitchell

Benjamin Thomas LSE Undergraduate IN 2008, THE TERMS CITY, Money, and Globalisation gained a new mode of combination in the United Kingdom in an arena separate from the City of London and Greater London in general, in said year, football club Manchester City F.C. was purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group. This new ownership invested heavily in their new property and turned a historically strong football club into a top team domestically and internationally, buying top players, competing in the Champions League and winning the Premier League and F.A. Cup. However enjoyable this may have been for supporters, the resurgence of Manchester City was widely slated by opposition fans who compared City with Chelsea as exemplifying a high spending ‘sugar daddy’ Premier League disconnected with traditional footballing values.

If we jump ahead to the current season, there is a new football club on the rise, Leicester City F.C. This club has had an improbable run for a team considered longshots going into the season and tipped for potential relegation. Now they are considered strong contenders for the title after a record breaking string of goals from Jamie Vardy, brilliant play from Riyad Mahrez, and strong performances from the rest of the squad notably Drinkwater, Schmeichel and Kante. The team is seen as emblematic of traditional football with a strong team play beating the massive super-clubs and a return to good local football. However, herein lies some contradiction. Leicester City is also owned by a wealthy foreign

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ownership group, Asian Football Investments, a consortium that spent plenty of money to improve the squad and improve the team’s results. But why has there not been the same backlash, and why is the team still considered so English? The answers to these questions are relevant to a broader consideration of big business and management.

The first area to emphasise is the profile of expenditure.

Clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea were renowned for top fee transfers and involved ownership. Manchester City announced their new ownership with a £32.5 million transfer and the following summer spent more than £100 million. This immediately introduced the ‘new money’ dynamic to the City squad. There was a clear disconnect from the history of the club under the auspices of a new era. Likewise, Chelsea under Abramovich spent wildly and gained the resulting repu-

“Manchester City announced their new ownership with a £32.5 million transfer” tation. Abramovich’s hands-on approach to the club, sacking a succession of managers over the years has reinforced his position as a new, wealthy owner. By contrast Leicester has restrained its spending with its stars coming in for under a million pounds apiece and top transfers of under £10 million.

Although this may be some-

what attributable to Financial Fair Play rules, the owners have not indicated any resistance to spending. There simply has been a focus on scouting and responsible purchases that haven’t grabbed headlines. The ownership is quite subdued and outside of the Thai sex tape incident last summer have been out of the public eye. This indicates the importance of publicity in ownership, companies get much better press by seemingly continuing tradition than aggressive action.

Another area of emphasis is the concept of local business. Leicester has cultivated a home-grown British reputation with close links to the local area and a British work ethic.

The club has built a reputation with local crisp company Walkers and retains ties with former club and national legend Gary Lineker. The squad’s star Jamie Vardy has a story of a rise from non-league football to Premier League stardom and manager Claudio Ranieri has given the squad pizza after good matches.

These all contribute the conception of a good local club, tied to its community and with hard-working players. The major scandal of a racist sex tape was dealt with by releasing offending players and managed to overshadow a racism allegation connected with Vardy. Alternatively Manchester City and Chelsea are associated with major cities and seem to lack the ties to their areas. Tottenham and West Ham have control of the idea of the common man’s major London club and Manchester City has been dominated by flash foreign stars. The narrative becomes a story of a team disconnected from the area rather than embedded in

the culture. The animosity towards Abu Dhabi and Russian oligarchs as opposed to Thai business people broaden the divide.

What this ultimately tells us is the importance of narrative and culture within the business world. Reputations are not just based on facts and success/fail-

“What this ultimately tells us is the importance of narrative adn culture within the business world” ure but also on coverage by the press and the image presented.

Public perception is not just a company’s actions or press releases, it’s how they are perceived by outsiders. ‘Hip young start-ups’ have made gains on established corporations by seeming appealing to potential employees and non-threatening to clients and observers.

Google has transitioned from a well-loved search engine promoting the slogan ‘Don’t be evil’ to being challenged with privacy complaints, competition challenges and a growing association with the establishment. Steve Jobs was poor on the interpersonal level, treated colleagues abhorrently, but the broader world was caught up in the beauty and excitement of his products. Control of narrative is key to successful engagement in the public sphere.

So far, Leicester City F.C. and AFI have created a positive narrative and reaped the benefits, Man City and for years Chelsea found success but have struggled for support.

The City |29

Understanding Protests To try and get under the skin of the various post-crash protest movements Aris Grivokostopoulos LSE Undergraduate Very expectedly, since the outbreak of the financial crisis, we have witnessed thousands of demonstrations or strikes from nearly all occupations and socioeconomic groups, as an act of despair or anger. The latest massive and disruptive protests and demonstrations in Greece (the epicentre of this phenomenon since the country’s financial collapse) fall into the latter category of motivations, namely the revengeful anger against a government that did not keep to its preelection promises. Without going into the specifics of each side’s arguments in this latest round

of anti-austerity demonstrations, what I can briefly say is that protagonists here are once again the victims of unsustainable European-wide policy-making: primary sector producers. It isn’t capitalism, nor industrialisation, nor globalisation that is responsible for this round of demonstrations, it is the initially discriminatory and now less discriminatory tax and benefits system that has been designed to “protect” this group of occupations. Because if you backtrack on positive discrimination and slowly abandon the unrealistic for 21st century Europe ideals behind the Common Agricultural Policy, then it is natural to expect such reaction from the agrarian sector.

Nevertheless, and regardless

of the scale and social disruptiveness of this lengthy demonstration, this anger-induced type of public protest, and others similar, is the least dangerous for a country’s political stability, and so should be the least worrisome for investors in that country. I will call this type the Greek-style protests because they are most seen in (Southern) Europe and are even more frequent in Greece. As mentioned prior, the second type of protests is induced by desperation, a feeling that is mistakenly classified as a step before anger kicks in. I will call this type the Russian-style protests because they were first seen in the Bolshevik Revolution to such a large extent. Nearly a hundred years later they were taken to the next level,

Flickr, Joanna

to a regional/cultural scale, with the Arab Spring. These are the most dangerous and so should be the most worrisome for investors, because desperation is deceptive when it comes to movements. At first sight, desperation-induced movements are innocent as their motives are pure. In the blink of an eye, desperations movements can scale up massively and have the potential of evolving into civil war (like Ukraine for instance), a phenomenon no investor is fond of.

The mentality of a protester is a key instrument in evaluating the effectiveness, and so the dangers, of a protest. Returning to the recent agrarian demonstration in Greece, when a farmer complained about the payroll size of members of parliament while invited to talk on a morning TV show where MPs were also present, the MP replied to him by asking whether he wants the parliament building to be torn down and democracy to be abolished.

What was the farmer’s answer to this simple question raised by the MP? “Obviously no”. No matter how angry the farmer and his fellows are with the government, the governing party and the establishment which runs the country, their lives are still dependent on them functioning as they already function, so they don’t wish to completely overthrow the existing order of things. Now, if you asked the desperate, but not necessarily so angry, protester during the early phases of the Euromaidan protests, his answer would have been very different.

That is why UKIP-style Euroscepticism is far more dangerous

than the London Riots or student demonstrations ever since. That is why Trump supporters should raise more brows than Occupy Wall Street supporters. That is why Marine Le Pen’s spontaneous insurgency ever since the crisis should concern the French more than all the union strikes combined during the same period. In countries like Greece or France, or even Germany, union strikes are as frequent as an English tabloid’s front cover on the British royalty and its recent doings. Maybe also as disruptive to political order as the latter.

To put into perspective for Greece and France, currently it is those that used to organise the strikes that are now in power.

Currently, their parties or coalition partners usually support these demonstrations of anger.

Thus, in other words, the government, especially if it is leftist or socialist, endorses moves against it. On the other hand, behind the Ukrainian protesters there was an international West-wide support and aid. Initially, the reason for demonstration in the Ukraine, a Ukraine-EU Trade Pact, was an important to third-parties as is an extension of working hours during a week in France. Yet the character of protesters was different, as we later observed.

Advice for speculators: international support and protester character should be viewed as a more valuable warning sign than the initial disruptiveness of the movement or the importance of the issue for which the movement was created for. Potential investors, beware of the art and deceptions of protests.

Kanye West and Arts Funding Analysing what the most important artist since Picasso has to say about funding innovation Alex Gray City Editor A SPATE OF RECENT tweets from Kanye West were met with widespread derision and, as with much of what Kanye does, claims that he is angry, crazy, deranged, or all of the above.

This thinly veiled racism aside, the tweets deserve some more sincere analysis, as arts and innovation funding is a real pertinent issue in the economy.

The way that we fund innovation in this economy seems backwards. Arts funding has been slashed in the post 2010 austerity funding climate, and this has meant that the only way that many arts projects can get funding, is via big business.

As you’d expect from the most insightful and culturally sig-

nificant figure of the past 200 years, Kanye has alluded to this too. He thanks Adidas for the help that they have given him, but has also railed against them in the past for their capping of the Yeezy Boost shoes, for example. I think this demonstrates a wider point, that when big corporates are the ones funding creativity, there are clear limitations and conflicts of interest when the profit motive comes into contact with the creative.

Yet, profit as the driver artistic innovation could be seen positively. The fact that, if the art is good, more people will want to consume it acts a positive incentive for businesses to be as creative and dynamic as possible. But is this really what art is about? Mass made easily consumable creativity is fine,

but it arguably does not have the same significance as the more difficult, but important works of art.

To link this back to the panacea of postmodern capital, Kanye, his highest selling albums are not his best. Graduation, with its numerous singles, and easy listenability is certain-

ly not a better album than My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one of the best albums of all time of any genre, period.

Graduation’s first week sales of 957,000 easily beating MBDTF’s 496,000. As with most things related to Kanye, this is easily applicable to the wider picture, where popularity does

not imply higher value and that therefore an art world driven by profit would be potentially deeply destructive.

Even if we meet the cuts on their own terms though, we can see that they are wrong. The cut in funding to the Arts in the UK will have severely damaging impacts to the long run UK government’s funding position.

The arts contributes a huge amount to the UK economy, and the creativity and innovation that is fostered as a result indirectly contributes to numerous different sectors like advertising. The chances of the UK producing the next Kanye West (if indeed such a concept is possible) are greatly reduced if the arts continue to be funded the way way they currently are.

30

|Tuesday February 23, 2016

Casual Football Kick Off Their Campaign Fraser Bell LSE Casual Football Group FANCY A GAME OF FOOTBALL? The LSE Casual Football group have been organising regular games for LSE students. Along with a group of other students, I set up the group to help footballers outside the AU, or simply those who want to play from time-to-time, find a casual game.

We’ve grown to over 300 members and now have a partnership with the LSESU Active Lifestyle programme.

We host weekly games at venues such as the Colombo Centre, near Bankside, and 3 Corners Learning Centre, close to Rosebery. As well as games for LSE students, we have also been in contact with students at SOAS and Birkbeck, with whom we now jointly host matches. The social experience has become a key part of the Casual Football group’s aim.

In contrast to the more competitive atmosphere found at AU sports, the focus is on fun and meeting new people. Furthermore, there is no specific commitment required to play, so no training sessions or obligations to show up on a given day.

Last weekend we hosted our largest event so far, a tournament in partnership with the General Course. A team from the General Course came up against residents from Butler’s Wharf, as well as undergraduates and

postgraduates who came along and made teams on the day. GC President Boryana Uzunova, who helped organise the tournament, commented that “It had been great to get together a group of people who had never met before” to play sports.

If you want to get involved in our upcoming games, including matches this coming weekend (Feb 27th and 28th) head to https://www.facebook. com/groups/LSEcasualfootball/ or search LSE Casual Football on Facebook. Look forward to seeing you at a game!

We are grateful for the support of the aforementioned Active Lifestyle programme and their team here at the SU. This programme, in part funded by Sport England, has covered the cost of pitch bookings to get more students playing.

According to the SU’s website “LSE Students’ Union is one of 60 organisations across the UK to be awarded funding from Sport England through the University Sport Activation Fund. The funding, which is for 3 years from 2014-17, will allow the Students’ Union to develop the LSESU Active LifeStylE programme.”

The programme has a huge range of sports on offer at locations across London — full details here: https://www.lsesu.com/activelse/

Football Men’s 4s vs King’s College 3s won 4-3 Netball Women’s 1s vs Queen Mary 2s won 53-30

Hockey Men’s 1s vs Surrey 1s won 7-1 Basketball Women’s 1s vs. St Mary’s 1s won 59-55

Rugby Women’s 1s vs Queen Mary 1s won 37-0 Volleyball Men’s 1s vs Buckingham won 3-1

Win, Lose or Draw, send your results to sports@thebeaveronline.co.uk

SUBO LISA In days gone by, the rivalry between the most entrenched enemies East of Suez sent shivers down the spines of all WC2H, come Wednesday evenings. Police presence would double in the region. Dogs would retreat to the kennels from whence they came.

Women, children, the elderly and sick were urged to remain indoors, on pain of embroilment in the warfare.

But presently, a new dawn approaches. Knuckle-dusters out for smiles; handshakes in for argy-bargy. The conflict, it seems, has ended. And by George are we delighted!

Such is the newfound amity between the two forces, that a serpentine leader risked getting into sCalding hot soup with his troops to explore how the other half live. With the Tuns largely avoided, it was left at the clemency of the yobbish mob that is the LSEFC. What began as well-intentioned yet physically-draining rough-andtumble escalated, or descended, depending on your maturity, with remarkable haste, with tomfoolery being deemed the lesser cousin of genuine affray. After a Regression to further disorder, footballers Colmed down and headed Zoowards, to join the rest of the rabble.

Strap in, kids, cos here’s where things get interesting. I’m just gonna list it all out.

The chance for a late-night weep Whitled away when a Jungle-cat in disguise as an LSE athlete was taken

down the Same route as many had walked before. Seeds Were planted when a Jammi captain eloped with a Netballing fresher, but reports emerged later that the blossoming of foliage was rendered impossible due to excess beer.

A man Faced with the prospect of long-term virginity said ‘fuck that’ and eVadhed his fate by running up the Aisle with a Netball player known to others in his Carstle. An Evening on one’s Todd was thought unnecessary when companionship was on offer, who woodn’t want someone to hold?

Even Carnage and Madness exploded at one point. The former, when a nearby commitment did not deter the exchange of saliva, as one footballer kissed an Yves St Laurent wearing beauty. The latter, when a slip occurred, a drunken mistake, the least Savvy moment we’ve seen in some time, and at one point or another it

looked as though the wronged party might Dermottologically alter the face of the culprit, by sMacking him really bloody Harrd.

UnFortunately for one man, it seemed though he would Wyn no favour on account of the character of his friends, but the annoyance of a man Evan worse drunk than sober did not scupper all chances, as a Women’s Rugby player Graycefully ignored the incessant selfies. A warm embrace went a step further than Hugging, as a pair of old friends looked with Clarity at the situation, and realised they were Smitten. A different pair of friends’ night ended much the Same, with both Boy and girl forgetting themselves, Enveloped by the Lisentiousness of youth.

Well, well, well. You have been a busy bunch haven’t you, sportsfolk? I just hope you’re taking the necessary precautions. Stay classy, children.

Sport | 31

Hyde Park Relay Success For Running Club

George Bettsworth LSE Running Club Captain

THE LSE’S RUNNING TEAM continued its successful run with a strong performance at the Hyde Park Relays. The relay, hosted by Imperial College London, consists of six legs, each 5K in length. The first team were exceptionally quick.

Five runners ran under 18 minutes; with Pierre-Louis Lostis, on first leg, completing the course in 17:14.

Pierre passed on to Joe Meegan, who is preparing for a marathon in Manchester in April. Joe ran the course in 17:57 and passed on to Rosebery President and one of the most improved athletes this season, Shane Rothling. He produced an impressive 17:42, making him our 3rd quickest runner. Ben Marshall followed Shane and, finishing with a smile on his face, his time was 17:52. Lauri Ojala, in a time of 18:58, and George Bettsworth, in a time of 17:15, completed the relay for the Men’s Team and this effort resulted in a 10th place finish, out of 92 teams. This meant the LSE team beat Reading University, Brunel University and the University of East Anglia, among others.

Unfortunately, London rivals,

King’s College, got away from us, finishing in 7th place. Ben Marshall was also frustrated to see that his former Uni, Bristol, narrowly beat us. The Mixed team also produced a fine performance. Rob Funnell brought the team home with the fastest leg; completing the course in 18:42. There were also strong performances for Ben Eastman, who had the endurance strength in his legs after his 93-minute half marathon in Marrakech. Ben led out the team in 19:12. Martha Wightman narrowly missed out on a sub 21-minute 5K, posting a time of 21:12, as she continues to improve. Michael Seal, Pearl Wee and Dominic Tighe completed the Mixed Team, and summed up a successful day for the club, running 19:54, 24:20 and 19:40 respectively.

The Team finished in 36th. This performance at the Hyde Park Relays, combined with the strength and perseverance shown by LSE at the BUCS Championships, shows how far we have come this year. LSE is now a force in athletics in London.

This success undoubtedly comes down to the hard work everyone puts in. Whether it’s knocking out 1K reps at Mile End, slipping around at Parliament Hill in the midst of a

long run or racing each other round St James Park, everyone trains hard and is dedicated to making the team a success, making me one proud captain.

Special mention: as Women in Sport Week has just passed, I would like to use this opportunity to publicise the recent achievements of two exceptional, and inspirational, female athletes at the LSE. Firstly, Emma Achurch, who can walk quicker than most people can run, has kicked off 2016 in fine fashion. She recently came back from Bratislava, where she recorded at time of 13:59 for 3K, which is the second quickest 3K walk for a female Under 20 in UK history.

In addition to Emma’s success, Typhaine Christiaen looks set to win the 2015/16 London Colleges League, building on her gold medal at the University of London Championships. She has come 2nd in all four races and this has given her 396 points in the league. If she wins, she will be the first ever female LSE athlete to win the competition and only the 2nd LSE athlete to win the competition, the other being Dennis Fricks in 2004. The final race is at Bushy Park on the 24th February where, hopefully, Typhaine will be crowned LCL Champion.

Cross Country Battle The Best In The Nation Lauri Ojala LSE Running Vice Captain THE LSE CROSS COUNTRY Team made a successful comeback in this year’s BUCS Cross-country Championships that was held in the demanding conditions of Plock Court, Gloucestershire on February 6th. Boasting three teams in total – one in the Men’s Long Race (A), another in the Men’s Short Race (B) and one in the Women’s Race – the LSE team took over the gloomy Gloucester late on Friday night to prepare for the battle awaiting the following noon. Although the fields of Plock Court lacked the challenge of hills, our runners were faced with a sea of mud due to the heavy rain

that morning. Showing admirable resilience, our athletes made a tremendous effort and scored well overall. This year’s BUCS marked the first time the LSE was being represented in the Men’s A race, and the team made an excellent début placing 50th, with PierreLouis Lostis (230th), George Bettsworth (233rd), Jeff Molgano (266th), Antonin Boissin (278th) and Lauri Ojala (304th). The team in the Men’s B race performed well too, achieving the 78th spot, with Ben Marshall (271st), Théo Letort (321st), Shane Röthling (337th), Nigel Poh (389th) and Théodore Laurent (414th). Moreover, The LSE’s running team owes special thanks to its women athletes who,

with their phenomenal performance of finishing 28th out of 60 teams, helped to put the LSE Running Team on the map. By comparison with last year, the team improved its ranking by 20 places! This achievement was backed up by the incredible individual performances of Typhaine Christiaen, Holly Bedeau and Martha Wightman who placed 39th, 217th and 219th, respectively. The experience of travelling together for these two days to participate in the BUCS Championships was not only a lot of fun, but also helped our team grow stronger, facing the hardships of the race with the thunderous cheer of our team members as well as being able to share the joys of a

Ultimate Disk Dominate Over King’s College Peter Lyon LSE Ultimate Disk Club ON WEDNESDAY 3 FEBRUARY, we, LSE Ultimate, played our first fixture of 2016 against King’s College London. In addition to this being our game of the year, it was also our first competitive match without our star handler, Marcus Awakuni, who sadly left LSE over the Christmas break.

Keen to assert ourselves early on, we made a fast start and claimed the first point with Amrish Patel sending out a half pitch huck to Edward Freeman who caught the disc in the endzone. We kept our intensity up and took the next 5 points with many key catches from Edward Freeman and strong handler play from Aidan Tank.

With half time approaching and LSE 6-0 up, KCL wisely took a time out, an idea which proved successful as they earned themselves a point. LSE responded immediately, going to on take half time 8-1 up.

In the second half our nerves had calmed, we played with more freedom, and took our time to enjoy the match that little bit more. Our captain, Sam Borg, smartly changed up our offensive strategy, from vertical to horizontal stack. While we were adjusting, King’s took the initiative and put two points on the board for themselves. After that, we found ourselves once again playing effective Ultimate, moving the disc around the pitch with good speed and creativity. This period of good play took us through to

victory with LSE winning 15-3.

Once the game was over there was still plenty of light in the sky, so we mixed up the teams and played a friendly game.

All in all it was a highly enjoyable and sporting match. We thank KCL for the hosting and for their sportsmanship throughout. Unfortunately for both teams, KCL were unable to field their full first team due to medics having Wednesday afternoon classes.

We recognise that the match would have been much different had KCL been able to field their strongest contingent. In the absence of those key players, we ought to have won convincingly and, happily, we did.

VISIT US AT BEAVERONLINE.CO.UK OR TWEET @BEAVERONLINE

LSE Cycling Chase On The Streets Maurice Banerjee Palmer LSE Cycling Club Captain

Sport

Section Editor: Alex Dugan India Steele Deputy Editor: Vacant

SATURDAY 13 FEBRUARY The day began with Peter from UCL and my LSE team mate, Alex McCutcheon, waiting outside my flat. The wind and rain were not heavy but it was a cold day. Without a hat, as we met the headwind along the back straight I had the worst brainfreeze since I discovered Slush Puppies.

From the start Peter was on the front and on the descent of the second lap made a two-man breakaway. The two of them stayed away and he took second, moving him out of 4th Category into 3rd. Staying away for practically the whole race on your own is the only thing harder than doing it as part of a pair.

As we were busy congratulating him for his heroism he said ‘I was really worried at one point early on – the group almost had us.’

‘Sorry about that’, I responded ‘that might have been my fault.’ On the third ascent of the Hoggenberg I had tried to bridge across but instead ended up taking the pack with me. On the fourth lap I was back on the front at the end of the back straight when someone in Handsling kit shouted ‘Through and off, through and off. Share turns on the front and we’ll chase the two leaders down’. I agreed, took a turn and within half a lap I blew up. In the cynical attempt to deny a friend glory, I dropped four fifths of the peloton, including Alex and myself. That’s Karma, I suppose.

Some other stragglers and I kept the bunch in sight for a lap or so, at which point and the same Handsling rider called across ‘If we work together then we can get back on. Through and off.’ Naturally, this also failed and I was lapped.

Saturday 20 February

With Peter having graduated from Cat 4 and Alex abroad it was just me and someone from Imperial representing the London universities this week.

There was a decent wind but it wasn’t cold. It started with a fairly high, but sustainable pace.

I sat right back for the first couple of laps, then moved to about five wheels back for the next five or so and then as the attacks came moved to the front, thinking of breakaway heroics.

But no, I’d learnt my lesson from last week. Don’t do anything stupid. Six laps in, coming back down after the hill I was third wheel. The last remaining attacker, a rider from Regent’s Park Rouleurs, had barely five meters advantage. He’d lost his breakaway friends and the wind was strong. There was no way he’d stay away so there was no point in me doing any chasing – I’d learnt my lesson from last week. True to my great wisdom and judgement he pushed on

and stayed away to win it.

Meanwhile in the bunch the pace rapidly dropped once everyone had given up on chasing the leader. It was so relaxed that at one point someone from Dulwich Paragon struck up conversation with me. By then the group had more than halved to about twenty. Then the mission was to preserve energy for a bunch sprint finish. But this was easier said than done when the peloton would charge out of the right-hander at the bottom of the descent into the headwind and yet come to a crawl around the hairpin that came next. Sprinting to stay in touch was a waste of effort, I would have been able to yo-yo off the back. But every lap I still sprinted – what if that was the time they hammered it around the hairpin?

But it never happened. On the final lap a burst of optimism and adrenaline sent me up the inside to second wheel at the

base of the Hoggenberg. But as someone sprinted past, my legs and optimism faded. As the lactate filled my muscles I simply didn’t have the determination to go through the pain barrier. I sat up and finished at the back of the pack. The upside is that with Deutsche Bank’s support as LSE CC’s Racing Sponsor I’m able to go and get things wrong week after week, without worrying about the cost of ‘gaining race experience’. And in any case, my psychology-based excuses are better than one I heard afterwards: ‘There was a pheasant at the bottom. That made me lose my concentration.’

LSE Cycling take on the same event this weekend. See the LSE Cycling Club Facebook page for more information