Kate Jones

International Women’s Day – the fight continues

The official website for International Women’s Day describes the event as one that celebrates “the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women” and “also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity”. It’s a day that recognises the impact of women and aims for complete gender equality – something that, despite much progress, still fails to exist across the world.

Considerable strides have been made in terms of gender equality in recent times – strides that afford both myself and other women around me opportunities that our ancestors would never have had. Take a look at the Western world in which I, the writer, happen to reside. 100 years ago, no woman in the United Kingdom was able to vote. 50 years ago, no woman was able to attend Harvard, Yale or Princeton Universities. Just 25 years ago, not all British women were entitled to maternity leave. All of these were privileges denied to people purely on the basis that they happened to be females.

In the world we live in today, much is different from previous times. In many countries, such as the UK and the US, the ideas of women voting, going to work and accessing education are the norm, rather than things that are denied to around half the population on the basis on gender. All the rights both myself and other women around me have been afforded, as well as the remarkable achievements of women around the world, are all down to brave and strong-willed females who fought for a cause, and this day offers a great opportunity to celebrate those people and the steps they have taken in reducing the gap between genders.

when I choose to do something, I feel that it is my own personal interests that dictate this, rather than the fact I happen to be female

I am lucky to be living in a time and place where I have rarely experienced any negative treatment because I am a woman. I am able to do the things I want to do without discrimination because of my gender, whether that be, among others, going to university, getting a part-time job or editing the online version of the more political section of my student newspaper. Furthermore, when I choose to do something, I feel that it is my own personal interests that dictate this, rather than the fact I happen to be female.

Yet, it is important to remember that I have privilege in comparison to others. In the lottery of life, I am white and living in the Western World, with supportive parents and a relatively comfortable upbringing. Furthermore, I have not yet entered the world of full-time work, where sexist attitudes can be rife. The fight for equal rights for females, worldwide, is by no means over. Shocking things exist across the planet that confirm we all need to work together to fight gender inequality. The continued practice of female genital mutilation across the world. The fact that a MEP feels that he can tell the European Parliament that women should earn less “because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent”. The fact that some companies still insist that women must wear high heels at work, just because of their gender. The heart-breaking statistic that 130 million girls across the world do not go to school – all because they happen to be female.

In my opinion, it is incomprehensible that anyone’s gender should have any impact on the way they are treated. Why some people can’t see that too is a mystery to me.

Forever in style: an interview with The Sunday Times Style’s Dolly Alderton

To say that Dolly Alderton has had something of a meteoric rise to success in the media industry is a bit of an understatement. At the grand old age of 28, the University of Exeter graduate is the Sunday Times Style magazine’s dating columnist, a former story producer for Made in Chelsea, a former script assistant on Fresh Meat, and someone who’s penned articles for magazines including Grazia and Cosmopolitan. It’s not bad for the girl who once lived in a “slug-infested” property on Vic Street. This former Exeter student’s memories of her time at the University are mixed, though.

“In retrospect, to be completely honest, it probably wasn’t the right university for me,” she tells me. “Bar one or two modules, I wasn’t hugely inspired by my course and I went a bit stir-crazy being in the Devon countryside for three years. I actually sometimes think I left Exeter less intelligent than when I arrived, perhaps down to my brain cells being zapped by vodka shark buckets at Mambo [closed in 2008]. But, that said, I made some of my closest friends there and I did have a hell of a lot of fun. What I lacked in academic pursuits, I made up for in drinking and stealing and collecting trafﬁc cones and bollards.

“On my FIrst night in Holland Hall… we ate quails’ eggs and celery salt”

“I lived in Holland Hall for my ﬁrst year, which at the time was known as being the crème de la crème of student accommodation. When you took an, ahem, overnight visitor up the hill back to Holland Hall for the night it was like you were pulling up at The Ritz, what with the mini fridge and the balcony and the double bed. But with it came a stigma as well; I felt a bit like a shamed MP whose ludicrous expenses are revealed. And although it was a comfortable year, it wasn’t the student life I’d signed up for. I wanted to eat cereal out of chipped mugs and talk about communism until 6 AM in a room of waifs and strays sleeping on tie-dye sheets, but on my ﬁrst night in Holland Hall we all went back to a girl called Octavia’s room to eat quails’ eggs and celery salt.”

Alderton moved on to the Vic Street property in second year, which, despite the slugs, she describes as “glorious”. “Then a new ﬂat on Hoopern Mews, which was a bit soulless and Holland Hall-like, but it was a good place to ﬁnally do some work and focus on passing my ﬁnal year,” she continues.

Victoria (“Vic”) Street. Image: Derek Harper/Geograph

“In terms of going out, it was always Monday Mambo, Tuesday Arena [now Unit 1], Wednesday Timepiece, Thursday Riva, Friday Ram, Saturday Lemmy. I often tried to seek out fun on a Sunday but that would only ever amount to a world music night somewhere, so I think I gave up.”

One could argue that Alderton honed some skill in media as Publications Coordinator for RAG, a role that involved putting together and editing the magazines to go alongside RAG events, including the Safer Sex Ball and the fashion show.

“For one of the years I did it, I coedited with Sophie Wilkinson, who is still one of my best friends and a very successful freelance journalist, so it must have given us some experience,” she recounts. “The publications were completely insane as we didn’t have anyone telling us what we could or couldn’t do so it was basically two half-soaked friends staying up on InDesign, drinking beer and doing a scrap book of nonsense they found funny, and packaging it as a magazine – we featured a picture of Anthea Turner giving a piece of made-up advice in every publication, and on the back page we used to formally thank the font we had used.”

Following her time at Exeter, Alderton began with an arguably standard route for those looking to go into journalism after a degree, completing a Journalism MA at City University in London, then doing work experience and writing for websites and blogs. It was through this, however, that she got a lucky break that skyrocketed her career in ways that some might only dream of.

“We featured a picture of Anthea Turner giving a piece of made-up advice in every issue”

“One of the blogs I wrote was reviewing the ﬁrst series of Made in Chelsea. The exec producer happened to read them and got me in for an interview to be a story producer. From there they gave me my own episode to story-produce, then kept me on for the series.
I ended up doing four series. I stayed there a while longer to do TV development, then moved to Objective productions to be script assistant on Fresh Meat and do drama development. Then I was given the column, then I went fully freelance, as during all the years I was working full-time in telly I had also been moonlighting as a journalist.”

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. The way she describes her route to success, getting jobs on two prominent UK television programmes before writing for one of the country’s biggest papers, Alderton makes getting to the big hitters in media look like a walk in the park. And yet, reading her Sunday Times Style column, it’s clear why she has been successful. Aside from the graft she clearly put in during the early days through her work experience, Alderton is the kind of writer who makes you sit up and read. In her column, she charts the rollercoaster that is dating for millennials. Dating apps, relationships and speed dating are all touched upon.

Yet, Alderton is more than just a one-trick pony. Both in her articles and in her new podcast with Style’s Fashion Features Editor Pandora Sykes, she touches on topics that appeal to both those of her generation and beyond, including how to survive a life crisis, the appropriate age to have a baby and friend culling.

Real life is clearly Alderton’s bag. As an insider into the structured reality genre of programming including Made in Chelsea, (arguably her breakthrough moment), she knows all about this type of TV, and fear not, structured reality lovers – those programmes are very real. “When the cameras turn off on a structured reality shoot in which there is a huge reveal or conﬂict or new romance, the cast don’t take their hair and makeup off, all give each other a hug, get in an Addison Lee and cheerily say: ‘see you tomorrow!’,” Dolly explains. “There is no hair and makeup, there is no pretending. The screaming and the tears and the snogging goes on into the night and the next day and the day after that. There’s no clapper board for their lives; there’s no one shouting ‘cut’. Suspend any cultural snobbery you have and you realise that’s a sort of magic state of story-telling. And that engenders a particular kind of compulsive viewing.”

“Suspend any cultural snobbery … [reality TV is] a magic state of story-telling”

So how much groundwork goes into creating a TV show, with storylines that viewers are eager to follow (through and sometimes across series’), out of the lives of real people?

“You wouldn’t believe how much work goes into it,” Dolly replies. “I don’t think I ever left the ofﬁce during my time working on Chelsea when there weren’t at least ﬁve people still sitting at their desks or having meetings or on the phone to a cast member pacing around the kitchen. It’s a machine, that programme. There’s a reason it has the stories and aesthetic values of a glossy American drama like Gossip Girl, yet it’s all reality – it’s because there’s a team of people, from runners to producers to editors, who are incredibly hard-working and intuitive and intelligent. It takes a particular type of person to work on structured reality TV and they have to be really dedicated. Because as much as people think or like to tell me otherwise, it really is a reality show. Nothing is made up. And to be able to exhibit and stay on top of real life and channel it into a stylish, funny, gripping package while also caring for the well-being of a huge cast – that’s a round-the-clock job.”

With this much knowledge of media at such a young age, Dolly Alderton is clearly going places. With an ability to turn her hand to such a variety of media output, who knows where we’ll see her in the future? One thing’s for sure: it certainly looks bright.

What is Natalie Bennett’s legacy as Green leader?

Given the tectonic shifts in the political landscape that have rocked our country since the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, it is easy to forget about other political changes in 2016 that have been planned for some time. One such change is the resignation of Natalie Bennett, with the new Green Party of England and Wales leaders announced at the Party’s Autumn Conference, held at the University of Birmingham from 2 to 4 September.

Bennett was born in Sydney, Australia in 1966, the daughter of a part-time secretary and an apprentice carpenter. She did not take an immediate route into politics, and at first worked for a number of regional newspapers in New South Wales. She settled in the UK in 1999.

Joining the Green Party in 2006, Bennett took on the role of internal communications coordinator for the party’s national executive from 2007 to 2011. In 2012, following Caroline Lucas’ resignation as leader of the party, Bennett entered the running to be the new leader. She was successful, and announced as the winner of the Green leadership election on 3 September 2012.

Diana Moore was the Green Party candidate for Exeter in 2015 (Image: flickr.com)

Bennett has a number of strengths. She has certainly enlarged the party’s membership: at the end of 2014, it had 30,900 members, but by the end of 2015 it had 63,219 (though in August of this year that membership was down to 53,000). She views herself as a feminist, and founded the Green Party’s women’s group. She has also raised the profile of the party, taking part in The ITV Leaders Debate, televised on 2 April 2015, in the run-up to that year’s general election, against leaders of the other main UK political parties at the time, such as David Cameron for the Conservative Party and Ed Miliband for the Labour Party.

Some are quick to sing her praises. I interviewed Exeter Green Party member, activist and former Parliamentary Candidate Diana Moore after her appearance at a University of Exeter talk entitled ‘What the EU means for Women’. One of my questions was, in light of Bennett’s resignation, how she saw the Green Party moving forward and continuing to enlarge its profile across the UK. Moore was quick to commend the outgoing leader.

“Natalie has done a fantastic job as leader,” she told me. “When she came to speak here during the election last year we had queues of students out the door all wanting to hear what she said and the reason people want to hear her is because when you meet her and you hear her you know what an authentic leader she is. She is an honest politician – she was honest enough to say about her brain fades – and she was honest enough when she met people to actually help with the building of the party. The Exeter Green Party got the third highest vote share in the council elections. We are a serious opposition, a voice of reason, a voice standing up for social and environmental issues and that is Natalie’s legacy. She has built the party and made it a very strong party. She has taken particular interest in Exeter, promoting and supporting our young students who have been involved in the party and particularly supporting women. She is an amazing person. So the next leader has large shoes to fill and I have no idea who it’s gonna be.”

“We are a serious opposition, a voice standing up for social and environmental issues and that is Natalie’s legacy.”

However, Bennett has faced challenges during her time as leader. Her public speaking has been mixed – while her talks at the University of Exeter have been incredibly popular, she has given a number of awkward interviews, including a now-infamous one with Nick Ferrari on LBC in February 2015, where she couldn’t explain the cost breakdown of a Green policy to buy 500,000 new council homes.

It’s also important to note that the Green Party’s reach is still pretty small – there is only one Green MP (the new co-leader Lucas), one Green Lord, three Green MEPs (though this category will not be applicable soon, for obvious reasons) and two members of the London Assembly. However, maybe the Party are trying to build up from the grassroots – there are 165 Green party representatives in local government. However, this still only makes up 0.87 per cent of local government members. A new leader needs to further increase the Green Party’s reach across England and Wales, to allow it to become a party that is a key player in politics, one that can compete for increased influence alongside the British political parties seen as having a viable chance at leading the country. Now might be an ideal time to energise these goals given the fragmented nature of British politics at the moment.

Regardless of this, Natalie Bennett’s time as leader has clearly raised the reach and profile of the party. She is evidently a highly successful person – as well as having led a political party during her lifetime, she formerly edited The Guardian Weekly. Whatever she goes on to do, it doesn’t look like we will have seen the last of her.

A tan too far?

Given temperamental and often uninspiring weather conditions, it’s no surprise that more and more of us are keen to get that golden-brown, sun-kissed glow. An April report from The Grocer reported that, according to market analysts Kantar Worldpanel, sales of fake tan have increased massively – by 38.8 per cent – to £20.9 million in the past year. It’s also clear that alternative tanning options are still very much in use, like salon spray tans, tanning pills and, controversially, sunbeds. But is any tan 100 per cent safe for us? Let’s weigh up the options available.

Tanning in the sun

With everything that’s said about the risks of staying in the sun too long, it’s obvious that getting a tan the natural way isn’t problem-free. Sunlight contains both UVA and UVB rays. Both types have damaging effects – UVA can age your skin prematurely while UVB rays can potentially burn it, increasing your skin cancer risk. On top of this, you have to be especially careful in the sun if you fall into certain categories, including, but not limited to people with pale, white or light brown skin, people with freckles and people with a family history of skin cancer.

Yet, the NHS Choices website also highlights the pitfalls of a lack of Vitamin D, explaining that people can make enough of this themselves by “being out in the sun daily for short periods with their forearms, hands or lower legs uncovered and without sunscreen from late March or early April to the end of September, especially from 11am to 3pm”, so clearly some sunlight is good for you. However, you may not know that a natural tan is actually your body trying to guard itself from the negative consequences of UV rays. Given that tans are actually a bodily defensive mechanism, coupled with the risks of sunlight exposure, using this method to get a golden glow doesn’t seem advisable.

Sunbeds, sunlamps and tanning booths

These products emit ultraviolet radiation in an effort to give you a tan. While you generally lie down on a sunbed, you mainly tend to stand in a tanning booth.

Given that sunbeds don’t use natural sunlight, it might seem easy to believe that they are safer than lying out in the sun on a hot day. However, according to a page on the NHS Choices website, sunbeds, sunlamps and tanning booths give out the same kind of radiation as sunlight, with the page in question mentioning both UVA and UVB rays. NHS Choices also explains that sunbeds can actually be more dangerous than natural sunlight due to them using a concentrated source of UV radiation, with health risks from sunbeds including skin cancer, premature skin ageing, sunburn and eye irritation. It is illegal for under 18s to use them.

Salon spray tans

During a spray tan, a fine mist is sprayed onto your body. The best self-tanners now use dihydroxyacetone, or DHA, as the active ingredient, which provokes a chemical reaction with amino acids on the top layer of the skin. The effect can last up to ten days, and tans are often topped up by something called erythrulose to make them last longer. DHA is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for cosmetic use and isn’t viewed as a toxic or carcinogenic substance. However, inhaling isn’t yet approved, and erythrulose isn’t currently okayed by the FDA for purposes of tanning. In 2012, ABC News claimed that “DHA has the potential to cause genetic alterations and DNA damage”.

If you must have a spray tan, the website Organic Authority offers advice including not using the booths that automatically shoot the tan, but seeing someone who will use an air gun to spray the tan. They also advise you to use companies that specialize in spray tans, to wear lip balm, earplugs and nose plugs and, when the air brusher reaches your face and tells you to hold your breath, to do so for as long as possible, keeping eyes and lips tightly closed, unless you want to forgo having the tan on your face and use bronzer instead.

Self tanning products

Again, these products mostly have DHA as their active ingredient, and generally come in the forms of lotions, sprays and creams. Clearly, the aforementioned issues with DHA apply here as well. It should also be noted that, according to Mayo Clinic, most sunless tanning products don’t contain sunscreen and if they do, protection will only last a few hours, so topping up on sun protection is essential.

Tanning Pills

A less well-known method of tanning are tanning pills. These , a dye used as a colour additive in food. The tanning effect is caused by it accumulating in the epidermis and subcutaneous fatty tissue. However, the US FDA only approves canthaxanthin as a food additive, not in tanning pills.

Some people who have taken canthaxanthin for tanning purposes have experienced eye damage and vision loss. Other side effects of canthaxanthin include diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps, dry or itchy skin, hives, orange or red body secretions, the potentially fatal blood disorder aplastic anaemia and other effects. It’s a high price to pay if the use of the pills goes wrong. Canthaxanthin is also seen as likely unsafe for pregnant women when taken for tanning. Other pigment-based tanning pills are available offering other pigments, like carotene, while other pills, known as tanning accelerators, are supposed to speed up your body’s production of melanin. However, current research doubts the latter pills work. It must also be noted that in the US, the FDA states: “There are no such pills approved for [tanning purposes]. Nevertheless, pills bearing tanning claims continue to appear on the market.”

Suntan Injections

Melanotan, a synthetic hormone injected under the skin to increase the levels of the pigment melanin, is illegal in the UK as it has not been licensed under the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). There are two types available, Melanotan I and II, which require diluting in water before injection. Using non-sterile water to dilute the product can cause serious blood infections, while sharing needles can spread blood-borne diseases like HIV and hepatitis.

Clearly, some methods of tanning are far safer than others. However, it appears that, as with using many products, no method of tanning is completely harmless. If you want a tan this summer, serious thought needs to be given to whether your chosen method is worth the potential pitfalls that come with it.

Exeter tuition fees to increase to £9,250

Annual tuition fees at the University of Exeter will rise by £250 from September 2017 and look set to increase further in future years.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Professor Tim Quine said that, subject to final Government approval, new £9,250 annual tuition fees will be applied to both new and continuing students as of September 2017.

Students who graduate from the University of Exeter before 2017/18 will not be affected by the change.

Professor Quine also explained that the University intends “to apply moderate annual increases to UK/EU tuition fees in future years, in line with inflation, subject to meeting the terms set out by Government”.

The increase comes after plans allowing universities to raise their tuition fees above £9,000 were published in a White Paper entitled “Success as a Knowledge Economy” in May this year.

Students still studying at the university in September 2017 with a student loan will be able to borrow sufficient funds to cover the new fees.

Professor Quine went on to note that the fee status for EU applicants who apply to study at the University as of September 2017/18 will be determined by agreements reached during exit negotiations arising from the UK’s Brexit vote.

Professor Quine said: “The decision to charge £9,250 has not been taken lightly but follows four years in which tuition fees have been frozen, while the costs of delivering a world leading education have continued to rise. We need to increase our fees if we are to maintain and build upon the excellent education we provide as one of the top 100 universities in the world and to honour our continuing commitment to deliver an outstanding student experience.”

In an email to students responding to the announcement, President of Exeter Students’ Guild Toby Gladwin said: “The Students’ Guild opposes any increase [sic] in tuition fees and we have repeatedly made our position clear to the University.”

In 2011, the University of Exeter became the first university outside the Russell Group to announce that it would be charging the then-maximum £9,000 tuition fees from 2012. The University went on to become a member of the Russell Group in 2012.

Anti-Semitism in the UK: An interview with Marie van der Zyl

As Vice President of The Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl holds a prominent position in regards to the concerns of the United Kingdom’s Jewish citizens today. The Board of Deputies, according to its website, “has been the voice of British Jewry and the representative of Jewish communal interests to government, media and others for over a quarter of a millennium”. Furthermore, it “remains to this day the only democratically elected voice of British Jewry”, shaping and safeguarding Jewish communal interests through ways including its work in schools and its exposure of antisemitism.

Marie begins our interview positively when I ask what it means to be Jewish in Britain today, though none can doubt from her words that there are clearly difficult issues for the Jewish community in this day and age.

“There is much to celebrate about being Jewish in Britain today,” Marie says. “We have a very vibrant and diverse community, and are integrated into all walks of life. At the same time we are not complacent – as any visitor to a Jewish school will discover, for example (security etc).”

While being positive about the role Jews play in Modern Britain, van der Zyl is concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe and Britain. (Image: Wikipedia Commons)

It is hard to deny that Marie’s response has a small tinge of negativity to it, given her reference to “security”. It is unsurprising in a period where there has been rising antisemitism in Europe. In January, The Independent reported that 8,000 Jews left France for Israel in 2015, with the overriding reason cited being “a steady rise in the rate of anti-Semitism over the past 15 years.” Just a few days before, the spokesperson for Hamburg’s Jewish community, Daniel Killy, said that German Jews were “no longer safe” in Germany. What is Marie’s response to the crisis?

“In western Europe we have seen the deeply disturbing rise of attacks on Jews,” she explains. “A number of these attacks have been carried out by Islamists, including fighters returning from Syria. Unfortunately, there is a real issue of extremism which is poisoning community relations in a number of cities and countries. The Board of Deputies responds by advocating for governmental support on the issue, but at the same time we are also proactive. Our programme Nisa-Nashim brings Jewish and Muslim women together on a grassroots level, for example.”

“Malia Bouattia has not responded adequately to questions from Jewish students about her views”

When it comes to university life, Marie notes that there are difficulties specifically faced by Jewish students.

“Jewish students face a number of challenges, chief among them anti-Israel activity on campus which often directly impacts on their sense of wellbeing.”

In April, the National Union of Students elected Malia Bouattia as their president. The election was not without controversy, however. Bouattia attracted allegations of antisemitism, having co-authored a blog post for a Friends of Palestine campaign group in 2011 saying that “the University of Birmingham is something of a Zionist outpost in British Higher Education”. In response, Bouattia defended her claims, explaining in an article for The Guardian: “I want to be clear, again, that for me to take issue with Zionist politics is in no way me taking issue with being Jewish.”

However, Marie is firm in her response to Bouattia’s election when I press her about it: “Malia Bouattia has not responded adequately to questions from Jewish students about her views. She appears to believe she can neatly divorce Jews, Judaism and the State of Israel and that this shouldn’t have an impact on the wellbeing of Jews on campus. She has also made appalling remarks about a Jewish society on campus being one of the ‘challenges’ she faced.”

“The leadership of the Labour Party must take serious action against those accused of anti-Semitism and not give a platform to those who express anti-Semitic views”

lately. Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and a number of members have all recently been suspended from the party due to allegations of antisemitic remarks. Peers have suggested that antisemitism is a big problem within the party: Lord Levy told BBC Newsnight that it existed across the political divide but seemed “more prominent” within Labour, while cross-bench peer Baroness Neuberger claimed Labour’s antisemitism problem was “attached to Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader”, adding that it was “an issue with the hard left”.

When I ask Marie for her response to cases of antisemitism within Labour, she is clear.

“The Board of Deputies has been very firm and vocal on this issue.

We have called on the leadership of the Labour Party to take serious action against those accused of antisemitism and to not give a platform to those who express anti-Semitic views. We have also called on Jeremy Corbyn to disassociate himself from anti-Semites and terrorist sympathisers. We have also called for a robust and vigorous enquiry by the Labour Party into issues of antisemitism within the Labour Party.”

My conversation with Marie has shown me that, far from being an outdated issue, antisemitism is still a huge problem within our society. Evidently, a concerted effort needs to be made to tackle it to ensure a society in which different beliefs and ideas are wholeheartedly accepted.

#TheUKDecides: Referendums in the UK – power to the people?

There is no doubt that it will be a historic day. Voter registration is closed, the UK is going to the polls and it is clear that today, the UK voting population’s decision on whether or not to leave the European Union will, either way, have a massive impact on the future of the country. One could be forgiven, given all the hype, for thinking that this referendum will be the first of its kind. Yet, it is important to remember that it is categorically not.

After all, the subject of this referendum itself is not exactly new. Old dogs in the political world will likely be thinking back to the UK-wide referendum on 5 June 1975. Over forty years apart, the wording of this referendum and the one on 23 June read differently, but fundamentally mean the same: 1975’s question of whether the UK should remain in the European Community (or Common Market) refers to the three organisations that became part of the European Union in 1993.

The Labour Cabinet at the time were divided over whether the UK should stay or go.

It had been an erratic period in more ways than one: on 2 June there was snow in some parts of the country. The Labour Government at the time had renegotiated the terms of their membership of the European Community early that year and the House of Commons had already voted to for the UK to stay a member using these new terms. The British public’s opinion had been asked for in case of a successful renegotiation.

The Labour Cabinet at the time were divided over whether the UK should stay or go. Members campaigned on different sides of the debate, defying the doctrine of Cabinet Collective Responsibility. In the end, turnout was 64.62 per cent. Of the 25,848,654 valid votes cast by the British public, 17,378,581 people voted for the UK to stay in the European Community – 67.23 per cent of the vote.

Still, had the government suddenly decided they didn’t want to continue their membership, nothing in theory could have stopped them – though in practice, not going by the will of the people could have been bad news politically. Though the government had announced in advance that it would go by the result, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty – meaning that the legislative body has absolute power – means that the referendum result could have been overridden if necessary. It’s the same with all referendums under the UK Parliament – though the amount of UK-wide referendums that have been held since 1973, apart from the 1975 referendum and the upcoming referendum, numbers just one. In 2011, the British public were called upon to vote on whether the alternative vote system should be used to elect MPs to the House of Commons instead of the First Past the Post system. At 42.2 per cent, turnout was pretty low, but 67.90 per cent of valid votes were cast as no – hence we still have First Past the Post today.

Indeed, most of the referendums held since 1973 have been regional ones. 1973’s one itself was an example of this, put to the voting population of Northern Ireland to decide whether the country should remain part of the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland. The majority was overwhelming, with 98.9 per cent of valid votes choosing the former option. On 1 March 1979, two referendums were held in the UK on the same day, asking Scottish and Welsh voters whether there should be Scottish and Welsh Assemblies respectively. Both referendums yielded no results – the Scottish referendum required 40 per cent of the electorate to vote yes, and while there was a small majority for this option, it wasn’t enough to meet the threshold.

There were no referendums in the Thatcher era – in fact, the lady herself once referred to them as “a device of dictators and demagogues”. In fact, it was only after Tony Blair had come to power following John Major’s time at Number 10 that referendums were held again – strikingly similar to the last ones. On 11 September 1997, two questions were put to voters in Scotland: the first over whether there should be a Scottish Parliament, and the second on whether it should have tax-varying powers. In both cases, over 1,500,000 people voted yes to the proposals. Days later, on 18 September, a yes vote in a referendum was also given to create a Welsh Assembly. Just months later, on 7 May 1998, the voting population in London got to have their say on whether there should be a London Mayor and a Greater London Authority – the result was a majority of support for it. Many local authorities have held referendums to gage support for directly-elected mayors, with lots of other referendums having been held in local areas.

Sadiq Khan is current Mayor of London – a role decided by a referendum. Image: Policy Exchange / Flickr.com

Just over two weeks after the London referendum in May 1998, on the 22^nd of the month, important referendums were held in both Northern Ireland and the country of Ireland regarding the Good Friday Agreement, a pivotal part of helping to create more peace in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Northern Ireland saw a 71.1 per cent majority agree to a multi-party agreement by most of the political parties in the country, one of the two inter-related documents of the Agreement. One of Ireland’s referendums on that day was over the Nineteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which altered articles two and three of the constitution – before, they effectively said that Ireland had sovereignty over Northern Ireland. Of the valid votes, an overwhelming 94.39 per cent supported the change.

Referendums have clearly increased in popularity in recent years.

Big-scale referendums then went quiet in the Noughties, with the next major UK referendum being a yes vote from Wales on 3 March 2011 regarding Welsh devolution of powers. More recently, the well-known referendum over whether Scotland should become an independent country yielded a no result, with Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond resigning from both this role and his role as Scotland’s first minister following the referendum.

Referendums have clearly increased in popularity in recent years. It remains to be seen what issues the British public will be called upon to vote on in the future.

Back to Brontë

If there’s one name you could argue really encompasses classic literature, it’s Brontë. Though Charlotte, Emily and Anne, three of the children of a clergyman from Yorkshire, had relatively short lives and tragic deaths, their brooding works, including Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall respectively, achieved immense popularity. 200 years after the birth of Charlotte Brontë, the eldest of the Brontë children who became famous, works by the women are often some of the first you think of when it comes to Victorian literature or romantic fiction.

My introduction to the Brontës happened all the way back when I was a teenager, in Year 9, when I read my gran’s copy of Wuthering Heights, written by Charlotte’s sister Emily. I can’t remember how or why I dug out or found the copy at her house. The whole Twilight phenomenon dominating young adult literature at the time likely played a part, given the references to the novel in the series and the fact there was a reissue of the novel with ‘Bella and Edward’s favourite book’ on it at the time. Maybe it was the 2009 ITV adaptation or the general amount of references to the story in popular culture as well.

“works by the [Bronte] women are often some of the first you think of when it comes to Victorian literature or romantic fiction.”

Regardless of why or how I ended up reading Wuthering Heights, however, it was the first adult classic I had ever read, and I loved it. With its foreboding gothic gloom, its melodramatic emotion and its tale of irrevocable love and revenge, it was the ideal classic for teenage me to start with. Soon after, also in Year 9, I read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and loved the story of protagonist Jane too.

“it was the ideal classic for teenage me to start with”

The Brontës have shaped my visions – as well as many others’, I’m sure – of literature from the 1800s. Yes, I really like Pride and Prejudice, and Austen is a good writer, but she seems to lack the kind of grit that the Brontë novels have. There’s just something intriguing about the dramatic lives of the three sisters and the deep, dark twists and turns in their work. One day, I would love to make a journey to Haworth, where the women lived for most of their lives, and see the places and Yorkshire moors they saw – in true literature fangirl style. It would be an ideal way to truly get a feel for the extraordinary lives of three extraordinary women.

An interview with the Quilliam Foundation’s Haydar Zaki

Isit down with the Quilliam Foundation’s Haydar Zaki on a chilly February evening. A sizeable audience have just watched the counter-extremism think-tank’s Programs Officer discuss the impact of terrorism on the refugee crisis, a talk organised by Student Action for Refugees (STAR) Exeter. Zaki proves an engaging speaker, delivering hard-hitting messages regarding extremism, ISIS, universal human rights and the need for a humanitarian approach to the crisis.

Founded by former extremists, the Quilliam Foundation, according to Zaki, “aims to counter extremism through civil discourse and promoting universal human rights and that faith is compatible with it.” It’s a group active in an era where extremist sentiments, including far-right political movements and the rise of ISIS, have been widely reported on.

In fact, one of my later questions to Zaki concerns what he attributes to be the cause of ISIS’ development.

“I think there’s been many factors,” he responds.

“I think instability, and instability has come about through various different ways – namely, the Iraq invasion, the Arab uprisings and Assad’s brutal reaction to it, but it’s important to note that ISIS didn’t cause violent extremism – violent extremism caused ISIS, and I know that . . . if we don’t go after the ideology that birthed ISIS then ISIS today could be something else tomorrow – it sure as hell was Al-Qaeda before.”

I ask him to expand on “violent extremism”.

“ISIS didn’t cause violent extremism – violent extremism caused ISIS. . . .”

“Sure. So, within Islamist extremism there [are] non-violent elements, most characterised by movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, that do go about through the democratic process, where there’s also the violent aspects of it which is Jihadism, which is a minority of people within the plaudit as the Muslim movement,” he says.

“This idea of Jihadism, which rationalises the act of violence against those they deem as the enemy, which is the non-believer, is what birthed movements like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and if that ideology is not challenged, then we will only get rid of organisations as opposed to getting rid of the problem.”

Earlier on in the interview, I ask Zaki how terrorism has impacted the image displayed of refugees.

“So ISIS, being the world’s largest terror organisation, has directly impacted the refugee crisis because it says that it will use the refugee crisis as a means to do its terror,” he says.

“It will either use it as a vessel to travel or even radicalise refugees against the states that they’re entering.

“This obviously plays into the far-right sentiments to over-securitise the approach, but also tries to sensationalise and instil fear [into] the general population to take a harsh response to the refugee crisis.”

“ISIS, being the world’s largest terror organisation, has directly impacted the refugee crisis because it says that it will use the refugee crisis as a means to do its terror.”

Yet, Zaki is later quick to note that “the majority of home-grown radicals have been second and third-generations as opposed to first generation”, and soon after, says that “[the refugee crisis] doesn’t pose a direct threat.

“There could be the potential threat of an economic impact, of bringing in such a large number of people all at once or in a quick succession, but really, this is a bit of a negative compared to the great benefit that we take in taking a humanitarian approach, not only in fulfilling our duty to Western Europe – our European values – but also in countering the narratives that certain organisations like ISIS are trying to propagate which is that the West is at war with Islam.”

People in Cambridge showing their support for refugees and their disagreement with the British government’s reaction to the crisis. Image: John Sutton / www.geograph.org.uk

Meanwhile, responding to my question regarding whether Western media is helping or hindering a humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, Zaki explains: “I think the western media does have a responsibility not to over-sensationalise certain acts that are committed by refugees. “To put it into example: you have right-wing newspapers saying, you know, these refugees are common law barbarians and tries to link their Muslim heritage as the sole responsibility for why they committed or have not committed certain acts.

“But you also get a rise within the left-wing sentiment which tries to portray the refugees as infallible.

“Really what is needed is a nuanced approach that understands that these refugees are just people like me and you, and that certain crimes will be committed and that there should be responses aimed towards that as opposed to general frameworks aimed at a securitised approach to . . . the refugee crisis.”

Later, after the advantage he was talking about concerning taking a humanitarian approach, as regards what needs to be done as a whole to aid the refugee crisis, Zaki notes that the short-term solution is “to try and get security in regional areas like Syria.

“What is needed is a nuanced approach that understands that these refugees are just people like me and you. . . .”

“There’s also having to provide charity and accommodate for their needs right now, but really, to provide charity and accommodate for their needs right now, but really, the refugee crisis will always happen if we don’t address the problem long-term, and that is to address the extremist ideologies which have played into this crisis, and by that I mean the authoritarian extremism that the Assad regime has implemented, the Islamist extremism that organisations like ISIS have come around from and the far-right extremism which is dictating certain policies in Europe’s response to the refugee crisis.”

I ask if he means far-right political groups like those that have risen up in EU elections.

Syrian refugees striking at the Budapest Keleti railway station. Image: Mstyslav Chernov / Commons.wikimedia.org

“Absolutely. Like Golden Dawn. Organisations that directly say that Muslims should not be allowed in our countries, organisations that also try and get rid of Muslims existing within their countries, and organisations that really want a securitised approach to Muslims, the refugee crisis, and even tackling Islamism.

“Wanting to take non-violent extremist ideologies and criminalising [them] is an over-securitised approach that only serves the extremist agenda.”

This statement seems to have similarities to the think-tank’s #RightToDebate campaign, positing that no speaker should be banned on a university campus provided that they are not in breach of the law and do not incite violence or hatred.

“Wanting to take non-violent extremist ideologies and criminalising [them] is an over-securitised approach that only serves the extremist agenda.”

Discussing the campaign on its website, the Quilliam Foundation says: “We believe that students will feel safer knowing that contested platforms are given to extremist speakers who would have otherwise created an echo chamber for sentiments intended to make certain students feel threatened/unwelcome based on their religious/political-ethnic-cultural-sexuality-gendered identity.”

With so much media debate on the issues Zaki has mentioned, it’s clear the ideas discussed will not be going away at any point in the near future.

The science behind picky eating

I‘ve been a bit fussy with what I eat for years. Though I have a very healthy appetite and have never suffered from any eating disorder, I certainly wish I had a slightly broader palate. Included on the list of things I won’t eat are tinned tuna, salmon, many ready-prepared sandwiches, cucumber, raw fish and raw tomatoes. In other words, a cold buffet is not usually my idea of fun.

However, though there are quite a few foods I won’t try, I’m certainly not that badly off. For others, the situation is a lot more restrictive. It’s common for children to be fussy with food, yet some have extreme eating habits, only eating a single-figure amount of items. The Internet offers stories of adults who only live on one thing, such as chips or pizza. Similarly, the sympathetically-named TV show Freaky Eaters, with the UK version running from 2007 to 2009 and the US version from 2010 to 2011, often dealt with incredibly narrow eating, focusing on people with, across both shows, cheeseburgers, burnt sausages or even French fries, for example, as the sole mainstay of their diet. But is there a scientific basis behind picky eating?

It appears that there is. Some people are supertasters – people who perceive tastes far more intensely than the average person. The term ‘supertaster’ was first coined by Prof Linda Bartoshuk. According to Smithsonian.com’s 2004 article, “A Matter of Taste”: “To find what made supertasters special, Bartoshuk zeroed in on the tongue’s anatomy. She found that people have different numbers of fungiform papillae, with tongue topography ranging from, say, sparse cactus-pocked deserts to lush lawns. To qualify for supertasterdom, which is a genetically inherited trait, a person has to have wall-to-wall papillae on his or her tongue and also have an ability to readily taste PROP, a bitter synthetic compound also known as 6-n-propylthiouracil, which is used as a thyroid medication.” (See here). Indeed, genetics clearly plays a role – according to Wikipedia: “Taste receptor 2 member 38 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TAS2R38 gene. TAS2R38 is a bitter taste receptor; varying genotypes of TAS2R38 influence the ability to taste both 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP)^[1] and phenylthiocarbamide (PTC).” (Link here)

On a webpage on supertasters on the BBC website, a video from Dara O Briain’s Science Club suggests that 25 per cent of the UK population are supertasters, with the page itself suggesting that less than 15 papillae makes a person a non-taster, between 15 and 35 indicates an average taster and over 35 indicates a supertaster. However, one 2014 study could not find a link between the amount of papillae and supertasting.

Tongue’s fungiform papillae revealed with blue food dye. Image: Wikipedia commons

For some, picky eating be caused by an eating disorder. Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in 2013. ARFID denotes an eating or feeding trouble that is severe enough to mean that a person fails to meet ideal nutritional needs, resulting in problems like losing weight, being dependent on supplements or a feeding tube, nutritional deficiency or psychosocial disruption. The way symptoms manifest can include eating habits that on the surface might seem like fussy eating, such as only eating a certain brand or type of food. However, just because a person has certain likes or dislikes regarding food doesn’t necessarily mean they have a disorder – it is when the problem is beginning to interfere in the areas listed above that someone may need to seek help. Studies have also been done on food neophobia – a fear that people can have of consuming new or unfamiliar foods.

These are just some of the theories behind the phenomenon of fussy eating – many more studies have been done in this field. However, these ideas do suggest that those with narrow eating habits may not simply be being awkward or fussy after all.