Matt Hancock, Health Secretary and grubby pink tie owner, has now been on our screens for over nine months, from televised daily coronavirus briefings to interviews on prestigious news shows. Matt has become a consistent presence, more so than any other MP that I can think of. In our lockdown boredom we’ve listened to Matt, […]Read More
After the insurrection outside Capitol Hill yesterday, how will Donald Trump be remembered once his time in office is over?Read More
When Donald Trump leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, his effect on the media will be felt for years to come.Read More
On January 20th, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. With a pandemic that has cost over 350,000 lives in full swing and the considerable economic fallout to boot, he faces some herculean tasks in his first days in office. Add to that his pledge to re-join the Paris […]Read More
Twelve months ago, if someone said the word hero you might have thought of Spiderman, Superman, or the Avengers. Now you hear the word hero, and your mind drifts to a doctor, nurses, or keyworkers. The changes to the world in the last year have led society to change its views and opinions. Some people […]Read More
It’s neither bold nor new to admit that this year, 2020, has been a nightmarish fever dream that we’d all love to wake up from. Alas, I regret to inform you that this isn’t a dream: you are awake, reading the latest copy of The Indiependent, maybe wondering how this year could get any worse […]Read More
What springs to mind when we hear someone mention ‘Venezuela’? Perhaps a country braving one taxing obstacle after another? A nation pummelled by famine, a buckling health service, and an education system in dire straits? What’s certain is that even a modicum of support from President Nicolás Maduro, who denies there is a crisis in […]Read More
For many people, the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine is joyful and prosperous news. Pride and a rare glimpse of optimism were felt as we watched 90-year-old Margaret Keenan get vaccinated by May Parsons in Coventry earlier this month. It was a celebration of the tiresome work of the NHS staff and the incredible achievement […]Read More
It seems to almost miss the point to suggest that lockdown has merely inflamed, rather than caused, the problems of the last nine months. To view the relative epidemics of domestic abuse and upward-crawling mental health complaints as being solely indicative of pre-lockdown structural problems lets current decision-makers off the hook. Al Jazeera has already alluded […]Read More
Fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing has once again faced backlash and uproar on social media after selling their clothes for as little as 6p during their 2020 Black Friday Sale. While the PLT sale boomed and items sold out in the snap of a finger, many on Twitter were eager to express their excitement at […]Read More
When we saw the Guatemalan Congress building ablaze on the 21st November, some of us expressed total dismay at the destruction of public property. Some of us were simply confused because in the UK, this seemingly came out of nowhere. But Guatemala – like Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela – has experienced a wave of protests […]Read More
A new report from UN Women shows that COVID-19 has widened the gap between male and female unpaid domestic labour. As positive news about the Pfizer vaccine circulates and the UK looks set to move out of COVID-19’s dark shadow at long last, we cannot let the Coronavirus reduce some of the strides women have […]Read More
This year has been challenging in many ways for people in every walk of life. It’s been a busy news year to say the least: a global pandemic, a global movement to combat racial inequalities, lockdown after lockdown, an ongoing climate crisis, a US election – you name it, it’s happened. The stress of it […]Read More
On Tuesday 10th November, Maggi Hambling’s statue celebrating proto-feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft was revealed. Wollstonecraft’s eighteenth century book A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women, is hailed as one of the first feminist texts. In the book, one of Wollstonecraft’s lead arguments is that “taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind […]Read More
When news broke that Wales were cancelling exams for GCSE and A-Level pupils I was ecstatic. As a tutor who helps mainly GCSE English pupils, I know how stressful the pandemic has been for these students. After the government’s mishandling of the results system last summer, many of my pupils have been left feeling anxious […]Read More