A Note on the Online Vote

Please vote online - anytime between noon on Wednesday February 25th and noon on Wednesday March 4th. Everyone in the University of London should automatically have received a username and password by email. Use this to log in on the ULU website and register your vote - voila - Democracy in Action!

I'm running to be London Student editor because I want to make it more than an inert observer of events - by actively covering the most important issues in a serious, broadsheet style we should be part of the CAMPAIGNS for CHANGE which students are orchestrating.

Below you can read my manifesto and some example of my journalism. Join the facebook group here and i'll remind you to vote nearer the time.

Use your vote!


THANKYOU

MANIFESTO (click on each page to read)

Palestine - Israel's victim for too long

The mainstream media often fails to present the relevant facts and displays severe 'historical amnesia' when discussing the Middle East - resulting in an implicit bias towards Israel, and apparent justification of its aggression.

This article was accompanied, predictably, by an article making the 'case for Israel', but (again predictably) it largely failed to engage with facts and instead fell back on a weak attempt to paint criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, and to claim that somehow the numbers killed in the recent bout of violence don't reflect the balance of power. I pre-empted some of these tired arguments in my article, and tried to address them. I hope I 'set the record straight' to some extent.

The legacy of slavery in Oxford

This article focuses on the prestigious postragraduate All Souls' college. The Codrington library was built on profits directly from the slave trade. (wiki 'Christopher Codrington')

I heard about its history on a BBC Radio 4 programme, but the details took a long time to research, chiefly because there is no mention of this element of the story in the version of the past presented in the college's online 'history'. I interviewed the Warden who didn't seem keen on my suggestion that people should know about all the history of this institution.

The headline is skewed because the article was one half of a centrespread; a friend wrote the other half which dealt with Oxford colleges' continued unethical profiteering through investments in arms companies such as BAE Systems.

The marketisation of education at Goldsmiths

The ongoing marketisation of education manifests itself in many ways - this article highlights one example, at Goldsmiths College, where the university mannagement are trying to out-source nursery facilities for student-parents in order to cut costs. Student-led campaigning has so far resisted these attempts...

SOAS's colonial past

As part of a series I'm writing on 'Hidden Histories' of University of London colleges, this piece about the contradictions of the colonial history of SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).

A soft attitude to racism at SOAS?

London Student article about the resignation of the Anti-Racism officer at SOAS after protests by students. The headline refers to it being 'spillover' from an incident at NUS in which the Union President at Kings made allegedly racist comments and was eventually sacked.

One question which was never answered was how Mullins (ex-Kings President) was cleared of racism but found to have broken equal-opportunities policy; harder questions should have been put to Wes Streeting (NUS president) to account for this apparent contradiction.

ART

I once even tried my hand at being a political cartoonist - I like to think the results were pretty decent!! This guy was the Young Tory candidate - a serious drinker who thought of himself as 'a ladies' man' and was very 'proud' of his lucious locks...

It's a remarkable likeness, I assure you ;-)

USA, WMDs & ‘FAB’s…

More a creative writing experiment than anything else, this was published in the satirical Monk's Passage newspaper in Oxford. I hope it doesn't offend any Americans reading - it was written during the Bush era...

Bjork - Volta

When I was a Music Editor at Cherwell, I commissioned myself this review - (scandal! corruption!). Brilliant album, brilliant picture, and believe me, the entire layout of this page was beautiful to see...

'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead'

Legendary director Sidney Lumet (now in his 80s) who was responsible for Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men, achieved another success with this film about greed-driven businessmen...

Classic film scenes - Being John Malkovich

Short piece for the Cherwell about my favourite moment in Being John Malkovich - namely when Elijah the monkey flashbacks a traumatic experience in thejungle...perhaps the first ever instance of chimp-psychoanalysis.

Disclaimer: the editor inserted the appalling cliche 'takes the biscuit' into the first line, presumable in a lazy attempt to shorten the article, and presumably also as a result making everyone stop reading...

Excellent anti-war film...

... specifically about the psychological effects of the (second) Iraq war on American soldiers. Good screenplay & very - dare i say it - 'thought provoking'

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

Cherwell music review>

(I seem like a very enthusiastic critic from the reviews posted here, all 4 and 5* ratings!)