Objects are designed to break under consumerism, otherwise no one would bother buying new. And when the waste generated by decades of constant buying, breaking, and binning gets too much, we get another spin. We are not doing enough to fix it. We are not good enough at recycling, or at eating vegan, or at sacrificing the convenience we have been told to desire to solve the overwhelming problems of climate change, of poverty, of war.

It has become a concerning trend that “my anecdote beats your expertise.”

The problem with trying to pretend that history was neutral, something that happened without deliberate political choices, is that history happened to real people. Africans were enslaved. Jews were murdered on a horrific scale. Women were assaulted and raped. Precious objects were looted and stolen from where they were created and displayed as exotic things thousands of miles away.

The Human Rights Act passed in 1998 as an assurance that all people in the UK would be treated with dignity, equality, respect, and fairness under all public authorities. Using this as a frame of reference, the act has been an invaluable source of protection for people in the UK at their most vulnerable, ensuring individual freedoms and their welfare. In the last few months, these rights have come under attack.

The most notorious policy move in the Bill is voter ID - mandatory photo ID checks for voters at polling stations - if you forget your ID you are denied a vote until your identity is proven, a big step away from the current election system where voters can turn up without their ID or polling card. Though at face value voter ID does not seem like too big a hassle, the reality is that it will further isolate marginalised communities from politics.

As a current third-year student, who has no interest in her current degree, I am currently debating whether a degree is relevant. The pandemic, specifically, has changed my perspective on degrees and university in general. There are lots of changes to how universities run and although some of the changes could not be helped, that has significantly changed the university experience.

The face of the internet, social media, and politics is all very different. Helped along significantly by the 45th President of the United States choosing Twitter as his main policy outlet, plus the fact that we’re still essentially in our homes and connecting with the outside world through our screens two years into a pandemic, social media is no longer an optional extra when it comes to politics.

The Nationality and Borders Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on 6th July 2021. It makes changes to the UK immigration system as it relates to asylum seekers and refugees; and does this primarily by introducing a two-tier system for asylum-seekers arriving in the UK, differentiating based on methods of arrival.

Dominic Cummings took his ‘tour de Barnard Castle’ for an eye test in early April 2020, and subsequently undermined public confidence and adherence to lockdown measures with his unapologetic stance. Priti Patel was found to have broken ministerial code and had been bullying her civil servants, and Boris Johnson decided that the inquiry didn’t matter.

It is important to first note that this article has absolutely no intention of trying to reconcile with what could have led to these specific and individual circumstances, nor to make judgment of those involved in this tragedy, but instead aims to look at what the current circumstances can indicate about this type of attack and what this indicates about the UK’s current socio-political climate.

If we don’t go out, we’re killing the economy. If we do go out, we’re narcissistic and thoughtless. We’re the most likely group to suffer long-term due to long COVID but women’s health is one of the least researched medical fields. It’s a bleak paradox, with no easy solution but please spare a thought for young people next time you click on that Daily Mail article – we’re probably in line at a walk-in centre.

On the 8th September, the Government’s plans for a new Health and Social Care Levy won a majority in a snap commons vote. The tax will raise funds for the NHS and subsidise health and social care reforms, including the long awaited care cap. But what is the care cap, and why does it matter?

When our ideas of happiness can only be achieved through overindulgence, we run the risk of prioritising greed above all else. It often feels as though we desire success over happiness because happiness is much more complex to attain, and even then, happiness is fleeting.