Democracy is usually described as something that happens in public. It shows up in parliaments, courtrooms, and polling stations. We measure it in elections, constitutions, and peaceful transfers of power. At its heart, it makes a simple promise: that people can govern themselves. But democracy also has a quieter life. It lives inside us, in the decisions we make, the way we interpret the world, and how we understand our own freedom. It shapes not just governments, but the shape of ourselves.

For my sins, and my father’s, I’m a Swindon Town fan. Once a proud railway town, Swindon is now better known as the place where hope dies when you’re forced to change trains on the way from Temple Meads to London. A few years ago, I went to watch my team. I walked into the Town End with a group of Premier League‑inclined university friends. Twenty minutes into kick-off, a chant began: “Oh Tommy Tommy Robinson”. I was mortified. It wasn’t just ugly; it was a glimpse into something bigger. I left the ground with one question lodged in my head: why is football such a hotbed for fascists?

There’s not a lot to say in terms of reporting the events. This isn’t a voyeuristic true‑crime retelling. We all saw the video. If we didn’t see the video, we saw the photograph: hands reaching to close an already gaping wound. Within hours, the footage was everywhere, framed as another sign of “unprecedented times”. But America has been here before. Many times. 

The plan to head towards Redcliffe to protect those at the Mercure hotel threw things into further chaos, splitting groups up leading to worse violence. Coined the Battle of Bristol Bridge, police had the far-right groups cornered on one side of the bridge and the counter-protesters on the other; while all police efforts were focused on keeping the two groups apart on Bristol Bridge some key members of the anti-racism protesters found their way ahead to Mercure. 

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 is the day of my tahoor, or purification; it is the day that I am to be cut. I am feeling joyous but slightly nervous (and a different feeling I couldn’t quite categorise) about the occasion: the communal ritual which will, in my eyes, make me a woman!

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.

Johnson’s pie-in-the-sky promise of making Covid-19 untransmissible – at least that’s what I’m assuming he means by declaring that there is no need to isolate even when you are infected and infectious – is a last-ditch attempt to maintain that bump of popularity.

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 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.

In a since deleted tweet, Good Morning Britain polled its viewers on a question that is hot on everyone’s minds – Should we be making vaccine’s mandatory? In the short time the poll was up, a resounding 89% of 45 thousand voters decided no, it isn’t time to make vaccines mandatory, whereas the remaining 11% agreed that we should.

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.

If we keep being shocked by their scandals, it diverts us from attacking the troubling legislation they vote through, and leaves us powerless to tackle the “I’m all right Jack” mentality that such policies stoke up within the UK population. The rot runs much deeper than cheese and wine. The question is not where the damage is, or how to paint over it, but whether we can finally face digging up the floorboards.

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.

With the union increasingly becoming shaky, exacerbated by the pressures of Brexit and COVID-19, parallel to existing divisions in England between regions, the government and others have proposed all sorts of ideas to solve these issues. But they will only paper over cracks and divisions will only become deeper.

In short, unparliamentary language is useful for allowing debates to simply not descend into a shit hurling contest, but since the age of spin and the rise of ‘alternative news’ Johnson and his unscrupulous colleagues have been able to lie and cheat with impunity. Butler’s actions do not threaten the nature of parliament, however they do set a worrying precedent. If those in opposition are increasingly unable to correctly hold the government to account, then what good is a chamber of debate.

As a history student who is currently studying apartheid, I was mortified that such comparisons were being made: these protestors had clearly misunderstood what apartheid actually is.

The defund the police movement does not suggest that the government fire every police officer and close every prison immediately. Rather, it quite rightly argues that our current method of manging social issues via policing are a waste of tax-payer’s money.

“Why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest”, tweeted Rihanna on the 2nd of February 2021, more than six months after the movement began. Unlike other protests from 2020, the farmers protest has been given minimal media exposure, leaving many completely unaware of India’s largest protest to date. Though protests began locally, unrest led to farmers hailing from various parts of the country, with most originating from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, to unite in Delhi and resist three agricultural laws that passed through government last August.