Renewing Trident Should Not Be A Decision Made By Parliamentarians... Or The Labour Party Either

With the upcoming referendum on Britain's EU membership and the success of Scotland's referendum on independence I would argue that Britain, in its entirety, has and will continue to show a willingness to engage in the big political questions. We have shown that, as a nation, we have the desire to directly participate in questions that have massive implications on the country in which we reside and its future.

That is why the renewal of Trident, the means by which Britain's political class can commit war crimes through nuclear weapons should they desire, is also an ideal candidate for a referendum and should be decide through directly democratic methods. It is not something which can be taken lightly, or indeed something we can allow only those who may or may not have vested interests in seeing it renewed to decide upon. 

Critics of the position I am taking on this could argue that by voting in the general election you have provided your support for the governing party, or supporters of the renewal of Trident on either side of the divide, to make that choice for you. They would argue that we live in a representative democracy and have chosen these people to represent our views. That if we do not like a policy they pass we can always vote them out of power next time around. Unfortunately this is a gross over-simplification at best. At worst it can be a justification of the Plutocracy in which we are currently subjected to.

Trident is an issue of national importance, however, with the exception of the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, no one during the election wanted to make the renewal of Trident a central issue. This included the media who wished to focus their attention on the two issues that formed their ideal narrative, the aforementioned EU membership and the economy. Deliberately making the arguments against the renewal of Trident, outside of the voters of the three main anti-nuclear parties, go largely unnoticed. Thus, many voters in the general election could have supported a pro-renewal party despite having little or no knowledge of the parties stance on nuclear weapons. 

It is of the utmost importance that issues of this magnitude, with serious implications on the countries finances and moral positioning, should be decided by the people. With clear and precise presentation of the facts laid bare before the nation to decide upon.

An article I was reading earlier on the Guardian website alluded to the importance of this issue as a peoples decision and the need to engage people directly in democratic decision processes making more frequently. The Guardian quoted Jeremy Corbyn as saying "my whole election programme was based on the need for ordinary people to be able to participate much more in politics so that leaders don't go away and write policy, that executive groups don't go off and decide what the policy is, that ordinary people do. There is brilliance in everybody who has got some ideas. That is the whole basis. That is why I think our party membership has got so much bigger, because people are enthused by the idea that they can participate."

Whilst this would be a positive move from the leader of the Labour Party, who realises that a matter of this importance requires more than the self-serving career politicians that infest parliament to decide upon, it does not meet the requirements of the nation. He is arguing for the party membership to decide upon the Labour Parties continued support for the renewal of Trident, which in his current position could be argued is the limit of his ability to have an effect what is to come. 

There remains the fact that he, the opposition parties, and anyone who believes in maintaining a suggestion of democracy room to breathe in Britain, before the life is completely choked from it by the Conservative Party, could do more. Collectively they must pressure the Government, along with the people, to put it to a national referendum in order to allow the people to decide, for themselves, whether they care more about the potential to end lives, expensively, for the gain of the few at the top than alleviating issues blighting those that the bottom. 

Regardless of how the upcoming vote in parliament goes and how many of them support its renewal.

Important Lesson From The Past: Moral Panics And The Mass Media

I don't know how many people see the constant narrative about the threat posed by young Islamic fundamentalists in the media in the same way as I do, hyperbole, but I do feel that people should be more educated on the techniques many of the less reputable news sources employ in order to sway public opinion in a direction that fits their ideology.

Rather than write something new on the subject, here is an early essay, one which I suspect was more about getting people up to speed than anything else, from my degree studies which highlights some important issues I have with much of the media and its current spotlight on 'radical Islam'. Most, if not all' of what is written below in the essay can easily be observed in the everyday narrative of politicians, the media, and the audience, with regards to this new threat from Islamists.

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The aim of this essay will be to outline and explain what a moral panic is and how it goes from the early incidents that get picked up by the media and its transformation into a national issue. The essay will focus on how the moral panics in the mass media help us make sense of the role that the media plays in the wider society, I will do this by making reference to studies conducted into moral panics and by analysing the effects they had on the society at the time.

A ‘moral panic’ is the creation of a deep concern around a group or practise in the media; this is usually something that has been blown out of proportion by the media after one or two incidents having happened. The term ‘moral panic’ is used to describe the reaction to a particular subculture or group in society by the media; these panics amplify the generally small scale problems that these groups cause. Jenkins as cited in Macionis and Plummer states that “although there is often massive concern over serial killers, they are in fact very rare indeed, and serial killings have remained at roughly the same low rate for 100 years.” (Jenkins cited in Macionis, Plummer: pp. 777) This amplification of the incidents leads to the creation of these groups as ‘folk devils’. These moral panics focus upon groups, or individuals, that are perceived to be against the traditional norms of the society, and serve to amplify the hysteria surrounding them further in the media narrative. The media play the most important role in creating the ‘moral panic’ in this way, by taking the initial small incidents, sensationalising the stories surrounding them, and creating these ‘folk devils’.

In the book ‘folk devils and moral panics’ Cohen observed that societies sometimes undergo periods of time where they are subjected to an increase in moral panics, these can often be brought upon by fears that something is beginning to become a threat to the traditional values of that society. He states that these moral panics are often “associated with the emergence of various forms of youth culture (originally almost exclusively working class, but often recently middle class or student based) whose behaviour is deviant or delinquent.” (Cohen: 9). This study was conducted in the 60’s and was concerned with the media portrayal of a series of events that occurred, over a small number of bank holiday weekends, in some seaside towns around England between two youth subcultures. The study looked at the way that the media was sensationalising the stories and reports of violence between the Mods and the Rockers, in it Cohen explains why the media choose to pick up and distort events in a way that creates a moral panic. Cohen claims that an important measurement to understand how a society (both the public and those in power positions) would react to deviant behaviour is the way in which the information is received about the deviancy taking place. He means by this that differing societies will react to a phenomena in different ways due to the way that each individual will receive that information, Cohen states that in our industrial society the information we receive has usually already been processed by a third party, such as the mass media in the form of newspaper reporters or journalists. This means that the news has been bent and shaped by those individuals or organisations to fit what they define as being ‘news’, this would often lead to the misreporting of the incidents and would shape the public’s opinion in a distorted manner. Erikson states “a considerable portion of what we call “news” is devoted to reports about deviant behaviour and its consequences” (Erikson cited in Cohen, 17). The emphasis on what is considered to be deviant forms of behaviour being reported in the news tells us that society uses the media to reinforce the norms that the society values as being important to the everyday live and the continued harmony of those within the society. In this sense you could see the media as being an agent of tertiary socialisation, and that the society as a whole uses it to be told what are acceptable forms of behaviour, and to show the society what the stereotypical devils look like, who they are, and what behaviour they get up to.

In this paragraph I am going to focus on why the media focuses on particular phenomenons and in the process create ‘moral panics’ and ‘folk devils’. The media often pick up on these stories of crime or delinquency because they are perceived to be newsworthy, this newsworthiness stems from many places, “there are built in factors, ranging from the individual newsman’s intuitive hunch about what constitutes a ‘good story’, through precepts such as ‘give the public what it wants’, to structured ideological biases, which predispose the media to make a certain event into news.” (Cohen: 45) This would suggest that the role the media plays in choosing the events that become moral panics, by reporting on them, is complex, in that a newspaper or news programme may over-hype a certain event as they believe that this dramatic story, is what the public wants to read or hear, or that the media outlet wants to fit a phenomenon or event into a category to reinforce the organisations own interests. In this way the media play a role in shaping attitudes of the public by escalating a fear within the wider society that these events are commonplace or that they will start to become a more frequent occurrence in the landscape of that society. In the article ‘Suffer Little Children: Child Abuse in Families’ it reports that, “Public recognition of sexual abuse in families scarcely existed until the events in Cleveland in the spring and summer of 1987” (La Fontaine 1990; Kitzinger 1996, cited in Critcher 2003 pp. 84). The article explains that the Daily Mail's initial headline for the story. when they first broke the news of child abuse. was ‘Hand Over Your Children, Council Orders Parents Of 200 Youngsters’. This story was picked up upon by other news outlets and as such the story almost immediately became a ‘moral panic’. This coverage of the events in Middlesbrough Franklin and Parton wrote that it was “extensive and without precedent” (Critcher: 86) as the length of the ‘moral panic’ over the child abuse lasted for a year. The reporting of these sexual abuse cases sided largely with those people who held traditional values within the society, these tended to be males, and a female Doctor at the hospital that these cases were being reported from, named Dr. Higgs, was presented to the public by the media as a ‘scapegoat’. This highlighting of Dr. Higgs, who was reported as a feminist, an Australian and therefore holding different values to British society, and for having a househusband, (Critcher 2003) as being the guilty person in this ‘moral panic’ gave the public a group which went against the norms of society. This meant that “the spectre of feminism becomes the folk devils” (Nava 1998:105 cited in Critcher 2003 pp. 87) ultimately fitting the Daily Mail's ideology. The media, therefore, seems to use these stories in this way to reinforce the values that the individual, society, or organisation holds, or is perceived to hold. It attempts to shape public opinion on these ‘moral panics’ in order to fit the consensus of what should be expected of individuals in relation to the values held within the media source.

This purpose of this paragraph will be to explain how the ‘moral panics’ reported in the media can shape social policy making. When a story is picked up upon by the media, and hyped to the extent that the public become fearful of similar incidences happening more frequently, often the media can launch a campaign to make the politicians or policy makers take action to prevent more cases of the offending phenomenon reoccurring. Although this is not always the case, as sometimes the media may simply report on the incidences and create the ‘moral panic’, which may instead spawn a dedicated organisation that would protest or put pressure on the policy makers to take action from the audience. The ‘Audience’, at which the reports of the phenomenon are aimed at in the ‘moral panic’, often respond to these cases in an equally disproportionate way in relation to the way that reports of these cases are significantly elevated in severity or frequency. In the case of the child abuse in Middlesbrough the most receptive audiences were “influential policy makers, ministers and civil servants within the DHSS” (Critcher: 93) this ‘moral panic’ over child abuse led to this ‘audience’ pressuring for change and culminating in the Children’s Act of 1989 (Hill 1990 cited in Critcher 2003 pp. 93). This was not the only ‘audience’ that was receptive to the ‘moral panic’ surrounding these child abuse allegations, the Social work profession began to actively seek out abuse in children, as the Critcher article explains, “The profession as a whole seemed highly susceptible to new definitions of dangers to children and remarkably unwilling to question the evidence on which they were based” (Critcher: 94). This suggests that the ‘moral panic’ had been sensationalised to such an extent that the ‘audiences’ at which the media was aiming were so fearful of the breakdown in morality in regards to these issues that they needed little or no evidence of the behaviour to believe that it was commonplace in society amongst these ‘folk devils’. In the study of the Mods and Rockers by Cohen the most receptive audience to the perceived threat in this ‘moral panic’ was the police. This can be seen by the way that local police forces paid for extra man hours from neighbouring forces and paid overtime to the police force in that area, Cohen states that “The simplest response of the police to their definition of the situation and the pressures placed on them, was to implement the ‘show of force’ principle and to increase the sheer number of officers on duty.” (Cohen: 92). This is evidenced by the fact that in Whitsun 1964, the amount the police paid in overtime was £2000, around four times the cost of damage due to vandalism from the original incident. The following bank holiday weekend Brighton police brought in the Metropolitan police as reinforcements at the cost of £3000 (Cohen: 92).

The media, in conclusion, use ‘moral panics’ to shape attitudes to events, by reinforcing or creating stereotypes of the groups or individuals in a society that are perceived to be of a big enough threat to the norms and values upheld within that society. The media do this by taking a phenomena that has occurred once or twice that it considers to be ‘newsworthy’ enough based on individual bias of the society, the organisation, or individual that deemed it to be ‘newsworthy’, and sensationalising the facts and events that surrounded the incident or incidents. In doing so they create a ‘folk devil’, whom the large proportion of the audience of the media source reporting the events consider to be an outsider and become fearful of what that group stands for. The media's relationship with society also helps shape policy making, and the way in which those in power react to events, by building up a big enough fear of these ‘folk devils’ in the media to the extent where groups or organisations take disproportionate measures to counteract these perceived threats to society or to individuals.

Macionis, J, J and Plummer, K. (2012) Sociology: A Global Introduction, 5th Edition, Harlow: Pearson.
Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils And Moral Panics The Creation Of The Mods And Rockers, Suffolk: Granada.
Critcher, C. (2003) Suffer Little Children: Child Abuse In Families, In Moral Panics And The Media, Ed. Critcher, C. Buckingham, Open University Press, pp. 81-98.

The Impact Of Stuctures On An Individual - Social Theory (First Year Essay)

This first year essay dealt with the impact of societal control structures on the ability of an individual to act freely. It earned, what I feel was, a rather generous A- grade.

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How do ideas of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ enable us to understand the degree of freedom people enjoy in our society?

The aim of this essay will be to explain how ‘structure’ within society inhibits a person’s ability to exercise their own free will or ‘agency’ before moving on to explain ‘agency’ and its role in the process individual’s decision making and actions. Firstly this essay will explain what is meant by ‘structures’ and what role they play in shaping the action of an individual and how this limits their choices. After this the essay will explain how people’s perceptions of what is acceptable can shape the choices he or she makes throughout their life and how they may be guided by societal values. The next paragraph will then put focus upon how an individual’s choices may be determined not only by themselves, but also by a privileged few whom hold power, and how the individual’s freedom is limited by the decisions of those with power and influence. Following on this the essay will explain how some sociologists believe ‘agency’ shapes the way society is structured though the actions of the people within it. The final paragraph will highlight how ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ can both be seen to play a role in shaping the actions and lives of individuals in society and how freedom is achieved within these parameters.

To understand how ‘structure’ impacts upon a person’s freedom and autonomy first you must understand what is meant by the term structure. The term structure, within the field of sociology, refers to outside influences or perceptions of a person or group of people that live within the sphere of any particular society, these can be institutions to which the person belongs, stereotypical views based on appearance or background that the person has come from, their respective place within the societal hierarchy or methods used to control the population.

Within society there are many key structures that influence the perception of the person and therefore inhibit their freedom to exercise their ‘agency’. Parsons referred to this as “a system of patterned expectations of individuals who occupy particular statuses in the social system” (Parsons cited in May, 1996; 50), by this Parsons is explaining that an individual’s freedom can be limited by widely held notions about how he or she should act in certain circumstances, influenced by the perception others have of this individual for example, the ethnicity or gender they belong to. These ‘structures’ in society can also be held by the individual and help shape their own actions within particular contexts, whereby beliefs can influence the decisions the person takes, or the direction they choose to take, during the course of their life. Durkheim referred to these ‘structures’ as social facts, when writing about society’s influence on the individual, Durkheim referred to these social facts as having “an objective reality beyond the life’s and perceptions of individuals. Cultural norms, values, religious beliefs - all endure as social facts.” (Macionis and Plummer; 125) When referring to these social facts within society Durkheim is explaining that the power that these ‘structures’ has over the individual is due largely to the way that society itself is structured, because these influences are beliefs or norms and values held by the majority of people in society, it makes it harder for the individual to choose whether or not to exercise their free will and do what they wish to do rather than what is expected of them. To do so is to risk being ostracised, vilified, or at the least seen as a deviant and an outsider.

Some structures that have an effect on a person’s ability to act independently and influence their behaviour may not be imposed upon the individual by society itself, but by a privileged few who hold some power and influence within it. These structures can serve to control the ability of a person to exercise their freedom in the choices that they can make, one such example can be laws that are made by those whom are considered qualified or have been chosen to make these decisions on behalf of the entire population. Laws within a society serve the purpose of a deterrent and guide the actions of an individual, in most cases to stick within the boundaries of that societies accept behaviours as stated in Thinking Sociologically “if we break the rules that are meant to guide people’s conduct, then we may be punished. The act of punishment is intended as a confirmation that we are responsible for our actions.” (Bauman and May 2001; 18) Although usually intended to provide a level of happiness and safety for everyone in society and are beneficial to the majority of the population these laws, however, are a form of structure and therefore impede an individual’s ability to act with complete freedom.

Another form of control that is imposed upon the majority of the population is through capitalism; Marx called this a ‘superstructure’. Within capitalism individuals are subject to the control of a privileged few who control the means of production, the political sphere, and the ideological power within society. Marxist theory states that the bourgeoisie control society, by holding the power to influence and control the proletariat financially and ideologically. This ‘superstructure’, Capitalism, serves their purpose and limits the freedom of the individual within the proletariat, this is explained in Capitalism and Modern Social Theory as “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” (Marx cited in Giddens 1994; 41) With this Marx was explaining how an individual’s place within the hierarchy of society has an effect on the way that the individual chooses to act. This can be either through choices available to them or through how they are expected to act in the capitalist society, always based upon their social class they were born into or are a member of.

Although the structures in place can inhibit a person’s ability to freely make decisions that would allow them to do, or achieve, what they wish, an individual’s ‘agency’ has a significant impact on the choices that they make every day. A person has free will; they have a mind capable of making decisions based upon their own circumstances and their own goals in life. To say ‘structure’ shapes every person’s choices in life would be to assume that every individual within a society is merely a programmable machine. It does not wholly take into consideration the differences in behaviour between people whom may have come from a similar economic background, ethnicity, or belong to a particular institution that expects its members to act in a certain manner. Individuals within these groups, although sharing many common sets of beliefs, may make choices radically different from the next person within the same group. Some sociologists would argue that societal structures do not exist as a unifying overpowering element in the lives of those within a society, but that instead society is made of individuals, and that their choices and actions shape the society around them. This view was discussed by Becker in which it states that “social reality is made up of actors’ point of views” (Sharrock and Button 1993; 138). An argument which claims that an individual’s actions are controlled only by his or her perceptions, and as such society is shaped by the actions of every individual, stating that individuals have complete control of their actions and their own ‘agency’.

Actions are unlikely to be shaped simply by only ‘agency’ or ‘structure’, but are most likely a combination of both being resolved in way that is most suitable for the individual making the choices. There is no denying that every person within society, capable of enacting their free will and choosing to make decisions for themselves based upon what would most likely bring them the greatest level of happiness, would do so, however, these choices would have been made on informed decisions or moral grounds by the ‘structures’ they encounter every day. Most people would choose to act within the set, acceptable, behaviours within their respective society. They would do so because of the structures in place. Structures they are taught, through socialisation, to adhere as the normative structure of their society, or indeed are bound to comply with due to restrictions on their behaviour by the laws in place. This process of guiding an individual’s actions by the societal structures does allow for the individual to still make some choice and exercise their freedom, there may be, for example, more than one option to choose from after the unacceptable options, according to the structure of society, have been eliminated from the decision making process. This is highlighted within ethnomethodology in which they see the action of an individual as being simply guided, but not limited, by social ‘structures’. Sharrock and Button explained this, they see “‘social structure’ as a casual force which might pre-empt agency” (Sharrock and Button 1993; 163). If social ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ do play a role in shaping an individual’s actions, firstly by the ‘structure’ pre-empting any decision making process, it shows that an individual does get, an albeit limited, say in the choices available to him or her. This although inhibiting the freedom of the person making the choice of action, does not mean that that person has no ability to act in a free manner, therefore allowing for some room for the individuals ‘agency’.

To conclude this essay I believe that the amount of freedom that an individual has is limited by the ‘structures’ in place within society, they play a key role in guiding people’s behaviour in to actions deemed acceptable  by the majority of societies individual’s, their culture, or the institutions they belong to. These ‘structures’ control the choices made to various levels of extremes from very little influence, although enough to still be present, for example whether a female makes a decision on working in a traditionally male-domination sector of work, to the choices made on behalf of an individual by those in a position of power that can affect their course of actions. However, I do not believe these to be the only influence over a person’s actions, I believe that every individual, even when the choices they make are guided by the structures in place, still has the ability to act freely to an extent, as such I cannot say that freedom is wholly inhibited by the ‘structures’ people encounter everyday within life. Whilst they are guided by these into what is deemed acceptable, people retain an ability to refuse and rebel against the structures of society.


References

Bauman, Z and May, T. (2001) Thinking Sociologically. 2nd Ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Giddens, A. (1994) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Macionis, J and Plummer, K. (2011) Sociology: A Global Introduction. 5th Ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall

May, T. (1996) Situating Social Theory. Buckingham: Open University Press

Sharrock, W and Button, G. The Social Actor: Social Action in Real Time. In: Button, G. ed. (1993) Ethnomothodology and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Perspective On The Paris Coverage

I wasn't going to blog about this subject. Frankly the prospect of what I have to say on such an emotive subject scared me somewhat. But with recent events, and the lack of equality in reporting, I do feel the need to... Even if it has the potential to smack me a few times around the choppers for doing so.

It has been ten days since the western world sat still, stunned, watching the news come in about the horrific attacks on Paris. The media awash with images and footage offering the audience a safe space in which to peek, voyeuristically, into a world barely seen on our privileged lands. Mouths gaping as if to signal to others of our shared repulsion at the acts of barbarity committed by the murdering thugs in the name of today's villain. ISIS, the foreign invader, had thrusted its savage ideology into modern Europe.

Sections of the population silently, and very secretly, revelled in the moment. Their incoherent and unsupported arguments about the Islamification of Europe was being validated. Their imaginations running wild with images of their great crusade, of a civil war they equally feared and welcomed, a chance to spread their own savage ideology further through the collective European consciousness. Their revulsion at what they have glimpsed via a media complicit in the spreading of this ideological hatred only matched by the warm feeling someone is overwhelmed by when the finally get to utter, through the ground gnashers characterising the hate filled and bile spewing, 'I told you so'.

I also, like anyone with a modicum of compassion within their hearts, was stunned by the scenes depicted in the media. I still am shocked and fearful that someone I know will have to endure the heart-wrenching loss suffered by the families and friends of those killed in Paris. But unlike those I have characterised above, I also have as much compassion for the victims of the other terrorist attacks that have occurred this month.

The ones forgotten by the media and by the masses.

Victims from countries such as Mali, Lebanon, Nigeria, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, Cameroon, and doubtless many other attacks committed by groups, states, or individuals as acts of terrorism, small scale or large in their devastation.

Let's not act like this attack in Paris is something unique, beyond it taking place in an imperialist, white, western nation. But that is the only reason people care so much. The only reason for the intense level of coverage in the media when compared to the barely recognised, aforementioned, murders. Even the downing of the Russian plane by a bomb on 31st of October, which coincidentally killed more people than died in Paris, barely achieved comparable levels of media interest. I would argue that this is perhaps because they are not quite 'white' enough for the media and us in the west for their lives to equal a Parisians.

I cannot recall post after post of articles based on these terrorist attacks on Facebook. Was there a whole episode Question Time devoted to the terrorist attacks in Beirut that I missed? I did not see anyone choose to press that button to change their profile pictures to have a Lebanese filter. I've yet to see a bunch of white masks declare war on Boko Haram for it's continued war of terror in Nigeria and the surrounding nations. Where were the news reporters tears Iraq?

So let us not pretend we as a society are repulsed by vile terrorists and their savage ideology. For most people they only care that it is now on their doorsteps once more. Yes it is disgusting and tragic, but its proximity to the things we care about has been the catalyst for this outrage and outpouring of emotion. That and good old fashioned British xenophobia.

Boycotting Bacon And The Hateful Eight

Surfing the web this week I stumbled across the latest in a continuous line of hypocritical reactions to truthful assertions made by individuals against the police. Fascists really do not like freedom of speech when it is directed against themselves.

On this occasion Quentin Tarantino, whilst attending a rally organised to highlight police brutality, said "I'm a human being with a conscience, and if you believe there's murder going on, you need to rise up and stand against it. I'm here to say I'm on the side of the murdered. When I see murders, I do not stand by... I have to call a murder a murder and I have to call the murderers the murderers."

This statement, when read alone and out of the context of the rally, could easily be a quote pulled from a handbook named Policing for Dummies. It might as well say "don't support bad people doing bad things." Unfortunately for the police it was not. It was part of Quentin Tarantino's speech at a rally called 'Rise Up October'. 

Unsurprisingly, given the sheer amount of instances of police brutality well documented by now in the media, and given that the protest was aimed at raising awareness of and opposing "police terror", particularly the disproportionate number of murders committed against black individuals by the police, they reacted poorly. 

In fact they acted like MRA's. In fact they even have #notallcops #bluelivesmatter campiangs like their dense counterparts, whom also completely miss the point being argued by their opponents. Just because not all cops are murderers it does not excuse the disproportionate number of incidents of hate crime committed by white officers on black citizens. How hard is that to understand? The Blue Scholars, definitely worth a listen, said it best with the lyrics "I hear them saying that this shit (meaning police brutality and murder) don't ever happen in Seattle, and if it does it's really just a couple bad apples, but if you're keeping count you will see the shit is not the apple, it's the tree, it's rotten underneath"

As with the MRA's outrage over the understandable, and thoroughly justified, #yesallwomen campaign to highlight violence against women committed by men whereby they chose a film to vainly attempt a boycott of,  Mad Max: Fury Road, so too have the Fuzz. A mixture of right-wing and racist morons have criticised Tarantino for highlighting the injustices committed against black citizens and subsequently calling for a boycott of his latest film, The Hateful Eight. 

Fox News' very own Klan member, Bill O'Reilly, said of the Tarantino speech that just last week a police officer was "shot dead by a long-time drug dealer that a judge refused to incinerate" a man who had "28 arrests on his sheet." An argument based upon the assumption that if people, or more accurately black people, were given the death penalty then tragedies against cops would not occur. Now I know like most well educated people that Bill O'Reilly, from what limited exposure to his rantings I get in the UK, is an idiot and a racist bigot. But it is still worth noting that his response to something as unobjectionable as campaigning against systemic abuse of power by some sections of the police is this vitriolic and distasteful. 

They say a picture paints a thousands words, and it so often does, but knowing what to look for in language reveals just as much. Some other commentators, such as Amanda Lozada, revealed their disgusting attitude towards the continued abuse of black people's freedoms in publications such as the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdock of course. This white woman (shock) reported the legitimate concerns and frustrations of the protesters as a "gripe", the dictionary definition of which is to complain about something in a persistant and irritating way, that the speech by Tarantino was characterised by "complaining", and the cop was a "hero". In an article otherwise devoid of emotive language these three little words paint a vivid picture of the journalists lack of concern for black lives. 

Sentiments such as the above two are echoed all throughout the mainstream media, as would be expected from companies that exist to push a conservative agenda and maintain the white hegemonic position on societal justice matters. Something actively encouraged and maintained through the language employed by what Antonio Gramsci (here is a brief explanation of the theories) would call traditional intellectuals within his description of how hegemony permeates societal interactions. Those working within the mainstream forms of media being one such group of traditional intellectuals. In brief terms they operate in accordance with the prevalent hegemonic position. They are the group in this context seeking to legitimise and maintain force as the sole preserve of the state to dispense at its will when citizens will not do as their betters please.

Support of the black citizens of America, and worldwide, who are suffering at the hands of the (predominantly) white hegemonic class, with movements such as Rise Up October, is support of the organic or specific, depending on your ideological viewpoint, intellectuals seeking to other throw the system that enables one persons life to be viewed, whether subconsciously or otherwise, as more valuable than another. At the very least they are trying to forcibly change the position of the oppressed which is no bad thing. It is a long road but one needing to be walked. One ending in the emancipation of all humanity. 

I'm going to break with my usual position (hopefully just this once) and encourage anyone reading this who was going to see the film and thought twice about due to the boycott being attempted to just see what you wanted to in the first place. I would like to think that my words have been enough to convince you that this boycott is ill thought, irrational, and above all else, a petty reaction to some stinging truths. Hopefully it might even convince a few of you finding my blog in this dark corner of the internet to hop on a bus once in a while and join a protest or two in support something important like the right to life.

Selfish Voter Tearful On Question Time As Selfishness Backfires

Unsurprisingly some sections of Britain are beginning to wake up to the Conservatives ideological war on the working class. A war where the Bourgeois, the aspiring Bourgeois, and their enablers within the structures of state power, are systematically attacking the foundations of a compassionate society. Correction, the bare minimum requirements for any society that even pretends to care about its most unfortunate and downtrodden members. Those unequivocally failed by capitalism, the working class. It is simply a class war.

The moment that has triggered myself to write about this, the moment that has made me realise that people may finally be understanding that the word Conservative could be shortened by sevens letters to Cunts, was a woman on Question Time being visibly upset by the cuts she voted in support of. Admittedly, she did not vote for the cuts to Working Tax Credits, but she did vote for cuts to spending on those in need. Six of one and all that.

The woman affected by the cuts, Michelle Dorrell, confronted the Conservative minister, Amber Rudd, with an emotional response to how the cuts would affect her. She said "I voted Conservatives originally because I thought you were going to be the better for me and my children, you're about the cut Tax Credits after promising you wouldn't. I work bloody hard for my money, to provide for my children, to give them everything they've got, and you're gonna take it away from me and them. I can hardly afford the rent I have to pay, I can hardly afford the bills I've gotta do, and you're gonna take more from me... Shame on you!"

Normally I would enjoy seeing a Conservative minister so flustered, with the exception of the explicitly racist right wing parties, there are few people I despise more in politics than every single Conservative voter and politician. On this occasion, however, I find myself more infuriated by the woman who said she is going to be affected by these changes to Tax Credits. It seems she knew what she was doing when voting for them. A quote from the Torygraph Telegraph reveals that she considers herself to be "politically minded and opinionated", suggesting a knowledge of Conservative ideology. That ideology primarily consisting of the opinion that as long as you are all right then it is okay for everyone else to suffer. That is, undoubtedly, what she knowingly voted for because it has been the essence of Conservative propaganda since time immemorial. It should not have been a surprise. They are called the nasty party for a reason.

The Conservatives did not keep their wish to continue their aggressive campaign of sustained class war secret from the British public. They continuously spouted their Bourgeois propaganda about 'making work pay' and 'getting Britain working' whilst labelling those unfortunate to be on benefits 'Shrikers' and ending the 'something-for-nothing culture' and ignoring the cause of unemployment, namely a lack of secure jobs! 

They were in their first five years relentlessly merciless in their attacks on the poor and underprivileged in Britain. Shockingly so when you consider that they were reigned in, very slightly, by the cuddly Nick 'sorry' Clegg.

Between 2010 and 2015 the Conservative/Conservative coalition oversaw cuts of unthinkable proportions, except by those with the compassion of a serial killer or human rights abuser *cough*, and they were not content with that level of spending cuts alone. 

They made no secret of the cuts they were planning to introduce. On every possible occasion during their election campaign they made a promise to the sociopaths in Britain that they would cut the benefit bill by £18 billion per year until 2018. The Labour party (not that they were much better) even warned the public that Working Tax Credits would be hit, despite David Cameron's assertion that he would not, under any circumstances, think of touching that benefit.

She even alluded to the fact that she could not care less about the effect the class warfare was having upon the rest of those hit by the extremist ideology she knowingly supported. In her short time under the microphone she embodied the key defining characteristic of any statement about economic policy by a Thatcherite. The perpetual deployment of narcissistic language to explain her motivations. Simply put, she did not care about the lives of others when marking X on the ballot, perhaps whilst repeating the neo-liberal mantra that "Greed is Good". She cared only for herself.

By buying into the Conservative rhetoric that she was more deserving of the means to an existence on this island, namely the ability to feed and shelter herself in comfort, than the poorer sections of society she has shot herself in the foot. Countless others are beginning to wake up with that realisation also. Unfortunately, that has come too late for many of the Tories victims and it has probably come too late for her. Unless Hell forecasts snow in the near future I shall not be holding my breath. 

A Reading of Being Human from a Psychoanalytical Perspective (First Year Essay)

Since Being Human is back on our TV screens in the UK I thought there probably wouldn't be a better time to share this essay I produced about the show in my first year at university, for a module titled Popular Culture. The essay is a reading of Being Human done from a psychoanalytical perspective.

It achieved a B+ mark (I think the lecturer was being a bit kind personally) and could be useful as a guide to anyone assigned the task of analysing a piece of Popular Culture (should you somehow stumble upon my blog). As always DO NOT plagiarise the work thinking you could get an easy pass for a first year module that "doesn't really matter because the grades don't go towards anything", you WILL be caught.

There will be plenty of grammatical errors. I were just learnding to spoke proper at the time. Also, I have just spent way too long writing a post for the morning, it's bloody late right now, I've given up, and it is probably time I hit the hay.

Enjoy... or don't if you prefer.

In this essay I will attempt to apply psychoanalysis to the television show Being Human, I will attempt to dissect the meanings behind the actions of the main characters within the show by giving examples of symbolism within the text. I will do this by treating the text as being that of the authors dream, and in doing so the analysis will be centred on the writer and director having chosen the symbolism unconsciously as a way of allowing their own hidden desires originating unconsciously from the id to be expressed in the text that they have produced. This is known as an ‘author-centred’ approach (Storey). I will analyse the meaning behind Mitchell’s thirst for blood and how this can be seen as being a sexual desire rather than a need to feed to sustain their own life, added to this analysis I will produce an argument for George’s subplot within the story as being one that reflects the Oedipus complex and how he must overcome the ‘father’ of Mitchell in order to gain his love.

To be able to produce a piece of psychoanalysis on Being Human I chose to read a variety of books and articles illustrating the key concepts and how psychoanalysis has been used to interpret texts of a similar nature. I used two books to gain a deeper knowledge of Freud’s concept on psychoanalysis; the first book I used was An Introduction to the History of Psychology. This book gave me a brief overview of Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex and allowed me to apply it to the text that I was going to analyse. The second book, Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film written Lauretis, offered me an understanding of Freudian analysis in film. Chapter one of this book offers an oversight of Freud’s concept of drives which, by making reference to popular films, allows the reader to engage in the process of applying a Freudian analysis to a cinematic text (Lauretis). By concentrating on the concept of drives the reader is given the opportunity to understand what Freud was theorising in a greater detail when he spoke about the relationship between the ego and the drives within humans. For further reading, more specifically examples of authors analysing texts I chose two articles from the Journal of Popular Culture.

The first essay I chose was Spiderman In Love: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation, this articles analysis of Spiderman reveals the film to be centred around the way that Peter Parker has to overcome his enemies, being presented as hyper masculine (Kaplan). In doing so the author believes that Peter Parker is working through the Oedipal complex. This is illustrated by Kaplan in the way that the villains throughout the film interact with Peter's life, “the screen is filled with male villains who live in close proximity, invade Parker's home, and claim blood ties” (Kaplan; 310). Kaplan also writes that the love story between Mary Jane and Spiderman is one that reflects the Oedipus complex, where Peter often finds himself looking into Mary Jane’s home due to their close proximity and sees her father acting violently towards her. Peter then assumes the role of the child in this home, wishing to take on the role of the father and gain the affection of Mary Jane, who could be likened to playing the role of the mother. Parker is said to assume the role of the passive innocent child being part of the relationship in the home between MJ and her father (Kaplan).

The article by Schopp, Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the Contemporary Vampire offers an explanation behind the sexual desires that vampires appear to derive from drinking blood. The article’s primary focus is upon the way that vampires can be viewed as homosexual, or at least sexually deviant, “For the fans, vampire entertainment provides an opportunity for sexual deviation” (Schopp; 233). The article points to the fact that often novels depict vampires as being homosexual in their desire to drink blood from males, it explains that in Dracula the first person to be seduced and penetrated by Dracula is a male, named Jonathon Harker. Schopp, by citing Stoker, offers this up to be a homosexual act by stating that in the novel when Dracula’s daughter’s attempt to feed from Harkers body Dracula scowls at them, exclaiming “How dare you touch him, any of you?... this man belongs to me” (Stoker cited in Schopp; 235). Homoeroticism is focused upon in this article, as Schopp explains, due to the way in which the “vampire has been so embraced by the Gay/Lesbian community” (Schopp; 235), but this does not rule out the possibility for the act of feeding, and therefore, gaining sexual gratification for the vampire being heterosexual. This is echoed in the article when talking about a number of recent novels based on vampires. The article states that vampires may not necessarily adhere to the human desire to ascribe themselves a rigid sexuality based around attraction to a particular sex and therefore can have a fluid definition of their own sexuality. Schopp writes that “these novels usually convey the notion that sexuality, expressed through any act other than feeding, exists solely in the human realm” (Schopp; 237-38).

Both these articles I read have helped me in analysing the cultural text of Being Human, they reflect that of two characters subplots played out across the first series. In the television show, Being Human, one of the main characters is a vampire named Mitchell, his character’s plot centres around his attempts to suppress his desire to feed on blood. Blood in this context, and more specifically the feeding on blood from a living person, can be seen as a sexual act because it is a fluid transmission from one person to another and that represents semen within the context of text. Within the storyline Mitchell is often seen getting the ‘aroused’ whilst having sex and biting the neck of his sexual partners, both human and vampire, perhaps signalling the ejaculation phase of the encounter. This can be linked to the pleasure an infant gets from the parent feeding the child. After the child has stopped relying on its mother for sustenance it derives pleasure from oral stimulation “no longer serving the purpose of survival and having only the aim for pleasure, it is a purely sexual satisfaction” (Lauretis; 28). This analysis of the act of biting as being purely sexual is given further backing by the acknowledgement in Being Human that vampires do not need to drink blood to be able to survive. Mitchell is often seen eating human food for sustenance and goes for long periods of time without ‘feeding’ on anyone. This is seen within the text as being a craving for blood, and can be likened to the id dominating the vampire with the need for sexual gratification. In most texts with vampires as either protagonists or antagonists, and likewise within Being Human, the process of biting a victims neck gains further credence to being a sexual act because as this is the way that vampires ‘recruit’ new members into their ‘family’. This act of drinking blood acts as a symbolic transmission of semen, when writing about the film ‘The Hunger’, Lauretis states that “As is well known in vampire mythology, feeding is also the means to reproduction, as those on whom the vampire feeds may themselves become vampires” (Lauretis; 27). Vampires also feature in the analysis I am now going to offer for George’s motivations in the text of Being Human.

In Being Human George is afflicted with what he describes as a curse, that of being a werewolf. Although the love between him and Mitchell is represented plutonically, a reading of their unconscious romance is very similar to that of an Oedipal complex. The role that Mitchell assumes within the narrative is similar to him being George’s mother. He helps him survive and cares for him in his first couple of years as a werewolf. When he first met Mitchell, whilst working as a waiter in a cafe in London, he was attacked by vampires due to their dislike of Lykens, Mitchell arrived and stopped the attack and despite being a vampire took a liking to George, essentially becoming his ‘mother figure’. This compassion I believe is the basis behind George’s unyielding affection for Mitchell, one which Mitchell shares but is often torn between his compassion and love for George and the bond with his vampire ‘family’ and his 'father'. Mitchell’s ‘father’ in this text is Herrick a vampire who recruited Mitchell in the First World War. George is an innocent man, both genuine and kind towards other people, he does not embrace his affliction unlike the other ‘Supernatural’s’. He is somewhat similar to the child in the Oedipal complex attempting to repress any thought of the inner beasts desires for fear of castration, he blinds himself to the curse, attempting to deny that it’s desires are a part of him. This fear Hergenhahn states is where a child develops castration anxiety, through a fear that the father will cut off his penis if he allows his desires, or aggression towards the father to be seen by him (Hergenhahn; 535). George knows how cruel and manipulative Herrick can be towards Mitchell, coercing him into doing things that Mitchell’s new found morality tells him is wrong, and sees Herrick as the bad ‘father’ and an obstacle to their relationship. As a result of his lack of morals and his willingness to harm others Herrick can be seen in the same way as the villains in the Spiderman analysis, as possessing hyper-masculinity, and as such viewed negatively, where “masculine force embodies an egotism that ignores all social ties, compassion and morality for the sake of its own brutal desires” (Kaplan; 294). Towards the end of the first season George learns of a plot by the vampires to infiltrate all powerful areas within society, and that Mitchell is taking part in this plot, and seeks to save Mitchell from it. My analysis of this leads me to believe that this is similar to when a child realises that the father has a relationship with the mother that he is excluded from and a result of this seeks to take action to change the situation (Weiniger cited in Kaplan; 301). George throughout represses the beasts desire to be like the cruel, murderous ‘father’ figure, but eventually in the final episode, when faced with the possibility of losing Mitchell to Herrick he overcomes this and kills the ‘father’ to gain Mitchell’s love. George therefore symbolically becomes the ‘father’ himself by identifying with Herrick’s willingness to kill, thus removing the barrier in his and Mitchell's relationship and fulfilling his Oedipal desires.

The purpose of this essay was to analyse the television series Being Human within a psychoanalytical framework by evaluating the meaning hidden within the text behind two characters story arcs over the course of the first season. In doing so I believe that Mitchell’s lust for blood, and that generally of the vampires within the text, is one of a sexual desire, manifesting itself in the id being allowed to satisfy itself in a violent manner. Perhaps as a result of vampires in this text being less constrained by the normative sexuality that humanity conforms to. The biting of the neck and subsequent fluid transmission resulting from this could be viewed as simply oral stimulation, or as a metaphor within the text alluding to seminal fluid being transmitted during sexual intercourse. With George I believe that his sub plot in Being Human was based around his unfulfilled desire to be closer to Mitchell, a man whom he respects greatly for what he has done for him, and how he looks after George like a mother figure as a protector from the vampires, who respect Mitchell greatly due to the story’s told about his dark past. I believe the result of this plot was George’s Oedipal desires being realised after the defeat of the threatening ‘father’ figure that stood in the way of his relationship with Mitchell. Through George’s actions at the end of the narrative he resolved the issues surrounding his complex and won Mitchell’s full attention, as a child desires of every mother during his formative years from a psychoanalytical perspective.

Lauretis, T. De. (2008) Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hergenhahn, B.R. (2008) An Introduction To The History Of Psychology, California: Wadsworth.

Schopp, A. (1997) ‘Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the Contemporary Vampire’, The Journal Of Popular Culture, 30, 4, 231-243.

Kaplan, R. L. (2011) ‘Spider-Man in Love: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation’, The Journal Of Popular Culture, 44, 2, 291-313.

Storey, J. (2009) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, Harlow: Pearson

£500 per month for a slum and that's considered a bargain!

I have begun searching for a place to live in recently. My temporary solution to having nowhere to live is coming to an end, after much more time has elapsed than I would have liked. It is utterly disgraceful to be living in your parents house closer to 30 years old than 20. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly common in the UK these days.

Last year I was forced to move back home after a few years away, a few beautiful years where the borders of my rest time between work wasn't confined to four relatively close walls. Since being back it seems that 80% of my disposable income, which is not that much really when you consider the ridiculously low wages, has been put aside for my impending move. Or so I had mistakenly thought.

It seems that was not nearly enough, or indeed would it be enough to support a half decent life when not living in a house once where the confines of my private space numbers no more than four walls. Previously, at university for example, that would have been acceptable. It is just what is done and, if were are being honest, forced communal areas took away a lot of the monotony of the day. This is not university. Having a space you can call your home, a space you can escape to after work, be alone without having to accommodate others, these are all required to relax from working hard in a stressful environment all bloody day. 

Alas, it seems that is a pipe dream in modern Britain. 

The housing crisis is well known. It is a huge and extremely important topic among the electorate. I may even go as far as to say it is the largest of the issues they choose to completely neglect, mostly because its effects are mostly deemed to be problems of the young. Although this is not strictly true. It is the problem of everyone but home owners and those lucky enough to be working and living in social housing. 

Yesterday I had a degree of optimism about moving back into my own home, albeit a rented one, it was an incredibly naive and uncharacteristic moment of ecstasy I was feeling. The preceding 12 months of saving was about to pay off. I would be a proper adult once more. The feeling lasted until about 30 seconds after my arrival. I am not a picky person, I don't want the world, all I am asking for is a warm house with a bit of space so I do not feel like my refuge from the world is a cell. For the maximum amount of money I can spend on rent I was not even expecting something to meet these expectations perfectly. What I was greeted with was a flat in an appalling state. There was plenty of evidence of damp in the flat that the owner had attempted  to cover up, a disintegrating kitchen with barely enough room to stand in, the bedroom was the smallest room I have ever seen that didn't contain shelves or a toilet, the carpet was terrible and definitely hiding something worrying going on underneath it. It was a dump.

I work in a prison in a department which aims to stop people dying whilst in custody, if one of the prisoners were living in those conditions they would be moved instantly for health reasons and because conditions that bad are only likely to make feelings of self harm worse. That's saying something when conditions in prisons in general are pretty dire for the offenders.

However, with the state of housing in this country, and the appalling wages I earn despite the job I am doing, I think I may have to take it.

70 Years Since Hiroshima; Does Britain Need Nuclear Weapons?

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the mass murder of between 90,000 to 160,000 people in Hiroshima through the dropping of the first atomic bomb on a civilian population, Swiftly followed by a second, larger, bomb being dropped on the city of Nagasaki a couple of days later killing between 39,000 and 80,000 innocents. War crimes which there have been very little remorse for and which has gone unpunished and even celebrated, despite a growing awareness that these are indeed what they were. This glorification of the use of nuclear weaponry on a civilian population is a major factor in why the establishment within the UK, and further afield, refuse to surrender their nuclear arsenal in spite of the knowledge that should two nuclear powers come to a disagreement resulting in war the end result would be that famous cold war solution of mutually assured destruction.

If we have any backing to assertion that we are a civilised species surely a path which resulted in the complete annihilation of two countries, but possibly most if not all of the world, would never be considered a viable solution to any disagreement. Surely now, on the anniversary of the first nuclear war crime, would be a good time for our government and the people to discuss the sensible solution to continually harbouring weapons of unspeakable destruction, complete nuclear disarmament.

The attitude towards our nuclear capabilities does not offer much hope of this coming to pass. As was evidenced by the leaders debates during our recent general election, the idea that Britain could still have a 'positive' effect on the world and maintain its status as an influential force in world politics was continuously framed, by the right, as being eternally tied to our status as a nuclear state. The assertion that renewing our nuclear missile programme, Trident, would be a waste of time and money by the leftist parties present, Plaid Cymru, SNP, and the Greens, was dismissed with that old troupe by the newspapers as being the inane ramblings of the 'loony left', whilst the right wing parties on stage, Labour, Tories, Libs Dems, and UKIP all insisted that it would leave us defenceless. None of this is true.

There are currently between 192 to 196 independent nations in the world today depending on your definition. Of those nations only 8 are officially known to have nuclear weaponry, USA, China, Russia, France, UK, Pakistan, North Korea, and India, with a 9th country possessing a nuclear arsenal but refusing to declare it, Israel. So of the near 200 countries on the world map. Thus, only 9 are rogue states possess a capability to unleash horrendous levels of destruction on the world. The only argument for the continuation of a nuclear programme by these countries is that it is a response to the continued existence of nuclear weaponry by the other 8 states. That any disarmament of the warheads would leave their nation vulnerable to the weapons of the remaining nuclear powers.

If that was true then the world would be infinitely more violent than it currently is, with nations such as Australia, Nigeria or Chile, or many of the others being invaded routinely by the nuclear powers for their land and resources. If it was impossible to walk the path of nuclear disarmament and still protect your citizens from the nuclear bogeymen then South Africa would have never done so in the early 1990's having developed their own capabilities in the 80's. The reason the UK would still be able to protect itself, and as has been the case recently, continue to kill hundreds of thousands around the world is that traditional defence capabilities are all that are required. Any nation that possesses nuclear weapons know that no matter what goal they wish to achieve they cannot use them. If you are invading a country you cannot use it without large swathes of the 'prize' essentially becoming useless to you. If you are being invaded you would have to damage your own country to use it. The are expensive and highly deadly deterrents. A role a traditional army serves just as well.

Another key component of the right wings argument for the continuation of our nuclear programme is that they are required to respond to the ever changing threats in our modern world. This also displays a lack of nuanced reasoning for their defence of the irrationality of nuclear weaponry. Since 1991, where there was at least a degree of support in their argument through the perceived threats to the nation, the UK has been engaged or supported in various ways wars with or within Iraq (twice), Sierra Leone, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kosovo (as part of NATO), Congo (as part of Operation Artemis), Horn of Africa (as part of Operation Enduring Freedom), Somalia, Trans-Sahara region (as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and operations against Boko Haram in parts of the same region), Libya, Syria, Northern Mali (as part of the EU), and intervention against ISIS/ISIL across various Middle Eastern countries, none of which would have ever required the use of nuclear weaponry.

All of the wars since 1991, which Britain has played some role in, have been played out on foreign soil, and with little to no risk to the UK civilian population and have not involved two nuclear powers on opposite sides of the conflict (the only one being a short lived conflict between Pakistan and India). In fact the only real threat the British populace faces from opposing forces are in acts of terrorism on its own soil or abroad, which cannot be countered or deterred with nuclear weaponry. The only realistic threat we face as a nation requires intelligence gathering on groups or individuals who seek to harm our population and, more importantly to preserve the safety of our nation, an end to warring with other nations to further the interests of the ruling class, also achievable without possessing nuclear weapons (although I would prefer their interests not to be met).

As a nation with a huge amount of 'soft power' internationally, warring to further the elites agenda is not as essential as it may be if Britain had not exported its ideology and national hegemony to a global audience. The Committee on Soft Power and the UK's Influence had this to say on the subject  of soft power, "In the context of shared global threats and high economic and political interdependence between states, and because military coercion alone is proving insufficient for defending a nations' interests, being able to build positive international relationships and coalitions-as well as being able to export goods and services-is vital for modern nations' security and prosperity. The degree to which populations now form networks across borders gives this soft power a newly increased impact because it relies to a significant degree on popular perceptions" (page 40).

Due to the increased connectivity of individuals across the globe, a hyper-connectivity, the influence of the West (or capitalist powerhouse nations if you prefer) has never been greater. Every aspect of their dominant culture of the west is penetrating and having influence on other peoples around the globe. The agenda pushed by the Bourgeois class in Britain, America, France, any other global source of 'soft power' on its own populace, for better or worse, is now as easily accessible in countries they otherwise would have had little to no impact upon. Culture has become and is becoming more and more trans-national. With it the need for 'hard power' to further the ruling class agenda becomes significantly lessened. Social media platforms and news sources, mostly on the internet, have become platforms for the spreading of western ideologies. The BBC is a immensely influential source of soft power that Britain wields around the globe and is one of a number of assets Britain has to influence other nations, such as sporting institutions, international NGO's, educational institutions, and other aspects of popular culture, all having the effect of making the nations values and people more desirable in the eyes of other populations. The committee also wrote that "the UK finds itself with a tremendous range of institutions and relationships politics, economics, science and culture, often amassed over generations, which give it a great deal of internationally recognised soft power" (page 20).

They concluded, in the section of the report titled 'Radical Changes to Balances of Power' that "if the UK is still effectively to protect and promote its interests its interests, how it interacts with other nations and communities will need to fundamentally alter.... this demands a radical change in the mindset of those who direct the UK's foreign policy and shape its international role" (page 34). Given that since the dawn of the UK's imperialist ambition, when foreign policy became synonymous with military actions, then surely a lessening on the reliance on 'hard power' to further the nations' (or our Bourgeois class') agenda would be prudent. The removal of our nuclear capabilities would be a clear signal of intent and the beginning of a transition to a UK where we can all be safe, prosperous, and above all proud of. Despite what the right might wrongly assert.

Glass Ceiling, Glass Floor, The Right Class Will Get All They Ask For

In perhaps the least surprising news story since it was revealed that our royal 'betters' were (and probably still are) racist, Nazi loving scumbags in the 1930's. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that the majority of people who enter into higher paying careers are, rather unsurprisingly, from privileged backgrounds. In fact those from professional backgrounds, with doctors or lawyers as parents, are significantly more likely to enter into professional employment than those from unskilled backgrounds, meaning parents working as labourers or shop-workers.

The report found that, whilst ability played a significant role in shaping people's post-educational opportunities, it was far from a level playing field. When rehashing old, well trodden ground, they acknowledged the "ways and unmeritocratic private school wage premium could come about; for example, if recruitment in to high earning occupations is biased towards people educated in private schools" (page 41). That is a direct quotation from the paper and has been left as it is written, but if you were to replace the word IF with WHEN then you'll find yourself staring at a Britain we recognise from the stories of the bad (good depending on your class) old days when social mobility for the working class was a pipe dream. Not at all similar to today, where it just heavily increases your chances to the point where you're almost guaranteed success if you're a toff, and gives you more obstacles to overcome than a run through the 'tough mudder' course if you're not.

They went on to explain how the system continues to keep the classes in their places, "as a result of shared interests, hobbies, accent, cultural norms, through networks, social circles, and personal networks, to name but a few." What a 'few' they are! It immediately brings to mind a small line written about the growing income inequality in America by Bob Herbert, "it's like chasing a speedboat with a rowboat", which I believe works just as well in this context. In theory you give everyone an equal opportunity to make it, but then you allow one group to continue a practice that equips every advantage to their kind, to the extent that they can exert comparatively little effort compared to the competition and win, and then once all the advantages are in places, you pull the trigger on the start gun and expect some degree of fairness. The commissions paper even goes as far as to point out that what economists call "signalling", the identification of another as belonging to their social class, is beneficial to obtaining a higher paid job (summary page iv) . Do the commission offer up any real solutions to these issues? Yes and no.

Firstly, they suggest fighting too much inequality between private schooling and state schooling by, and this truly is a cracker even for economists pretending to understand social issues, cutting the choice available to parents about which state schools to send their children to. That's not where the problems are at because they'll just move, more on that in the second paragraph, or send them to private schools. In fairness, they do acknowledge that this would have the knock on effect of simply sending more well off brats to private schools and creating even more privately educated toffs. You can hear the collective cries of middle England "oh no we cannot have poor Beatrice and Montague mixing with those oiks named Dillon or Chantelle". However, by stating that this is a risk of limiting the options, then why not offer up any other solutions? What I'd suggest would be an outright ban on private schooling. Do that and watch the quality of state education rapidly rise, I can guarantee it. If the Bourgeois gits decided to object, well, fuck them, there's more of us.

They follow this by mentioning the Grammar school system, which I am more familiar with than private schools, as I was born and raised in one of the last few bastions for this form of inequality in the UK. The report states that "low attaining children from better-off families were more likely to attend a Grammar school" (page 41), something I've witnessed first hand. Of all of the people I knew growing up one kid, ONE among many, many kids, attended a Grammar school. They were out of the way, not local enough, in the posher areas of the town. Yes, you could pass your 11+, but then if it was over-subscribed it would go to admissions criteria which included; children with family members currently there and distance from the school considered to be within the 'safe walking distance'. It is well known that areas with good schools are gentrified rapidly, so in effect, they simply become a state funded method for perpetuating inequality. The economists behind the paper even highlight the likelihood of poorer children attending poorer schools, but as is befitting their lack of understanding of the social causes of inequality, it fails to see the reason for this.

The report then turns it attention to the post-education barriers, such as unpaid internships, which unfairly exclude those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or more precisely non-advantaged backgrounds (because realistically only those on a very good wage could support an internship for however long it lasts in somewhere like London). Suggesting radical ideas such as, stopping unpaid internships and that existing legislation to prevent discrimination actually be enforced. Again, not quite far enough but at least it has fully identified a couple of the problems.

Finally, the report concludes with a challenge to the government in that "if politicians are serious about their expressed desire to increase social mobility in the UK they will need to address barriers that are preventing less advantaged children from reaching their full potential and remove barriers that block downward mobility". Judging by the governments list of educational reform policies, damaging the chances of the working class at all levels of education in this country, I'm going to guess that is not going to be happening. Just have a look at this article about how "some academy sponsors are 'harming' prospects of deprived pupils" or this article showing how much more poorer graduates will owe upon completion of their course than their rich classmates.

Clearly then, this inequality in education and beyond is what it has always been, deliberate and ideologically driven. Expecting this or any other mainstream government to do anything about it is pointless. They like the inequality. Capitalism requires it. It requires the scapegoats it provides. The best way to do this is by leaving the working class as poorly educated as possible. By asking economists of all people to look into the subtleties that lay behind the causes of inequality, rather than those more equipped with the knowledge to offer real solutions, proves what this report is... Governmental lip service to those demanding that they at least be seen to try to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. A gap they are delighting in actively widening. It's a non-story and fog to hide all that inactivity.