Politics and the media

It feels every year that I find myself lamenting end-of-year reviews for their clichéd and banal nature, for after all the calendar is an artificial concept - somewhat influenced by astrology - and needs little celebrating. I suppose it is an excuse to drink, which is why you're not reading this a few days earlier! Perhaps it is best for me to put that cynical perspective aside, because as with all of history, last year taught society a lot. Or has it? As I reflect back at what unfolded in 2021, politically and socially, I can only draw a single conclusion. That humankind continues to repeat its mistakes. With each passing rotation around the sun, we have more knowledge and power bestowed upon us on a world full of enrichment and opportunities for progress. The advent of technology has only accelerated that growth exponentially, through a combination of accessibility and sheer capability. As these ever-increasing complexities continue to dominate, we have become so attached to inno...

Throughout the past week, we have seen the political blame-shifting that the UK government has become accustomed to using as a panic-button since their election in 2019. In response to the most fatal loss of life of anyone crossing the Channel , Boris Johnson saw it fit to use Twitter to ask that France do more to take back migrants who reach the UK.  The result has been a small-scale diplomatic row between the two countries, for both of whom the issue of migration has long been a contentious issue. France's hostility to so-called "others" has been reflected through domestic laws such as  banning the burqa in 2014 , whilst immigration as a topic has snowballed in UK political discourse since the seismic events of Brexit in 2016. Perhaps I wouldn't make a good journalist, discussing this a week after the news cycle. Nevertheless, now that the political spiel has died down, it is of heightened importance to reflect on and humanise the 27 victims of a tragedy that shou...

It has been a while since I last wrote, in response to the racial abuse targeted at three England players after the Euro 2020 final. I've wanted to vary topics on this blog, but the same themes keep cropping up in the news and it sparks my feeling of discontent at the institutions that dictate this country.  For there always seems to be a recurring theme - and it is a tendency of the public to fall into the narrative of callously neglecting institutional failings and the power of language and semantics. In the news in the past few days has been the life-sentencing given to the former Met police officer Wayne Couzens for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in early March this year. It is undoubtedly justice in a legal sense of the word, but it's not really cause for celebration that we like to think our justice system offers. The murder of Sabina Nessa in the past week has shown again how men take advantage of women, in any scenario. Perhaps they will, for a few days at...

The emotion around Sunday's Euro 2020 final should have stirred me. The biggest English football match in both mine and my parents' lifetime is a moment that ought to be savoured. Yet, in the aftermath of the past 24 hours, I feel not pain, but apathy.  The sport I have followed religiously throughout my life has always had its reputation stained by violence and barbarism born out of the much-revered "firms" and hooliganism in the mid-20th century. Particularly in the international sphere, England fans have been cast aside and scolded for anti-social and disruptive behaviour. For all that people like to claim those days are a far-cry from the current crop of fans, they are not. Think back to Euro 2016 and its infamous clashes with Russians in Paris . Just on Wednesday, there were stories of Danish fans as young as 9 being harassed and spat at - in the midst of a pandemic - after their semi-final defeat. Last night, hoards of ticketless England fans tried to get into ...

  When I gazed out of the window of a deserted train sixteen months ago, the sense of anguish and uncertainty I felt was commonplace amongst the majority of the world. The biggest public health crisis in a century was upon us, and no-one truly knew the severity of COVID-19, or how the consequences would shape the world. Perhaps, as the hastily thrashed out blog  I wrote on that train  lamented, we knew it would affect us, but we had no idea what the reality of that would look like. Similar to that mid-March afternoon, I write this on a train. This time though, I don’t sit here with the same degree of uncertainty. For the world has adapted immensely in the last year. Masks, hand sanitizer, social distancing. Things that were unusual have become the norm – though I still haven’t found a way to stop my glasses steaming up under a mask! Credit: www.homelandprepnews.com But the biggest difference to that last train journey, is that last week , I had my COVID-19 vaccine ! V...

Last Monday night, I watched a video . A video which contained the pleas and cries of Indian suffering, cries that had previously reverberated around the world, but now were being ignored. Despite being at the forefront of Western media just a fortnight before, India's COVID-19 crisis has been cut from the news, and become largely sidestepped, in a drastically short space of time.  News cycles are constantly evolving, picking up the latest story that sells newspapers, gets website views, or captures a reader's attention. The constant demand for new, unique stories leads to a jolted inaccurate story of the world's events. Maybe that was somewhat acceptable, when news platforms weren't 24/7. But right now, exacerbated by social media, they are constantly churning out information, stories and content that isn't illustrative of what is happening worldwide. They pick and choose what story they care about - and then discard it when it no longer sells papers. When these is...

Supporting a football club, as many fans will tell you, is about far more than the football itself. Indeed, it is far more than the memories it can create, both on and off the pitch. Because in truth, once you start watching your favourite team, you are transfixed in the ebbs and flows of a beautiful game. For those 90 minutes, nothing else matters.    When the beauty of that is threatened by corporate greed - an ever-powerful part of the modern world - it feels not like an attack on the sport, but an attack on the distraction it gives us. The European Super League has dominated headlines for the past two days, and in that time it has been proposed, and fallen apart. For some context, the ESL wanted to replaced the current Champions League (which teams have to qualify for through their national leagues) and create a "closed shop" whereby 15 teams would play each other every year without the need for qualification.   Some will argue that greed enveloped the football w...