By Emily Woolf

February 23, 2023

An article, published by James Tapper in The Guardian, caused outcry in early December 2022, as it highlighted the sharp decline of working-class representation within the creative sector.

“Analysis of Office for National Statistics data found that 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had a working-class background, but that had fallen to just 7.9% for those born four decades later.”

Social Mobility and ‘Openness’ in Creative Occupations since the 1970s, Dave O’Brien, Orian Brook, Andrew Miles, Mark Taylor

There is currently heightened media attention surrounding inaccessibility within artistic industries. This is primarily due to the discourse on Hollywood’s ‘nepo-baby’ culture, after the publication of New York Magazine’s “The Year of the Nepo Baby” 2022 cover. The publication exposed how some of Hollywood’s elite are the children of previously successful, famous people. The piece highlighted the inaccessibility of the creative industry, especially for those who aren’t from an affluent background, without family connection.  

Last week I spoke to Dave O’Brien, Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at The University of Sheffield, whose research was originally featured in The Guardian article. O’Brien, alongside his colleagues, Orian Brook, Andrew Miles and Mark Taylor, co-wrote the decisive research, dispelling the myth that working class representation was more prominent in the 1960s and 1980s . The perception of a ‘Golden Age’ of classless access to creative employment during this era is false. 

“We tried to identify how there has been this massive social change in the class composition of British society and we can see continuity. It was a struggle in the 1980s and it’s a struggle now.” 

O’Brien’s research emphasised the need for practical, tangible change within the industry to ensure inclusivity within the creative sphere. He also co-authored the book Culture Is Bad For You, which discusses how the cultural inequalities in childhood have a significant effect on future career trajectories. The key to more diversity within the creative sphere is more access and exposure to it from an early age. 

To hear the interview in full, stream here on Spotify. 

Why is the arts considered an exclusive space for the middle-classes? 

I discussed this question with two students currently attending The Glasgow School of Art, Celeste Knight and Jude Porter-Chambers. Their interview highlighted how, without financial support, they are forced to incorporate recycled material into their work. Jude discusses how this has impacted his most recent project. 

“I’ve always had to work with scraps, with recycled materials, left overs. The wood that I use to make my instruments still has peoples names written on it. I could sand that off but I leave it on as a statement now.”  

Jude’s personal protest against the aristocracy of the creative sphere encompasses an important message of defiance. However, more importantly, it is recognition of pride. 

This article is an adaptation of an item created for our show ‘The Lunch Bunch,’ on Liverpool Student Radio, recorded on the 17/02/23 which you can listen to here. https://open.spotify.com/show/0MsUzMKuG8ka4SGBIo7aQP

By Izzy Scott

It feels like misogyny has become a common feature on social media in the last few years with the ‘memeification’ of Amber Heard’s rape testimony and the increase in the romanticisation of true crime in the form of Ted Bundy edits and fan pages for serial killers. This exploitation of victims and their stories has additionally found its way into mainstream entertainment, mostly notably The Gabby Petitio Story, Pam & Tommy and Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated Blonde. Despite the insensitivity of these ‘trends’ perhaps the most concerning part is that a worrying number of users of these apps have become desensitised to it. Online misogyny is so frequent that it is going unnoticed. 

The rise of Andrew Tate 

Incel forums have existed for decades, originally started as a way for ‘involuntarily celibate’ people to connect with others online. However, over recent years they have become a breeding ground for far-right extremism and have had real world impacts – most commonly in the UK linked to the Plymouth shooting in 2021. The violence found on forums that exist on sites like 4chan and Reddit is often downplayed but an investigation by the BBC in September 2022 found that there was a rape threat published every 29 minutes within the largest incel forums. 

Whilst this extreme misogyny has always existed in the deep corners of the internet, it has recently made a public appearance in the shape of media personality Andrew Tate. Tate currently has over 5 million followers on Twitter and his videos on TikTok have reached over 12 billion views with topics discussed featuring misogynistic ideas that women are men’s property, rape victims should be ‘responsible’ for their attacks, and the recommendation that 18-year-old girls are the best to date as you can ‘make an imprint’ on them. Whilst these views would normally be found on hidden, controversial forums, Tate broke new ground appearing on TV shows and hanging out with politicians. 

"I believe the woman belongs to the man in marriage, correct."

Tune in to TalkTV now to watch Piers Morgan's hour-long special with Andrew Tate.@piersmorgan | @TalkTV | #MorganTate | #PMU pic.twitter.com/ZNozRpc698

— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) October 7, 2022

Despite Tate currently being detained in Romania on allegations of human trafficking and rape, his influence on young boys remains evident across the world. In the UK, there has been an increase in abuse faced by female teachers and students from pupils who have become fans of the ‘influencer’ alongside some schools taking action to re-educate some boys as young as 11 years old. 

Overexposure to pornography 

Whilst the ethics of pornography have long been debated, social media provides a much quicker, easier to access route that many young people are able to take advantage of. A recent study by the Children’s Commissioner for England found that the average age children first watch porn is 13, with 1 in 10 children viewing it by the time they are 9 years old. These shocking figures are also feeding into children’s and teenager’s views on relationships and sex with many seeing porn that depicts ‘coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts’ by the age of 18 and 42% of teenagers believing that most girls enjoy acts of sexual aggression. Through the lack of regulation on sites such as Twitter and TikTok, children are being exposed to dangerous ideas about women and warped views of relationships. 

Whilst the rise in new technology can create new opportunities in work and entertainment, it can also create new opportunities for online harassment to arise. AI technology has become a permanent feature of online spaces with art generators and computer made speeches making the rounds on platforms like Twitter and Instagram, but AI is also having an impact on websites like OnlyFans. Deepfake technology allows users to create non-consensual, edited explicit videos and photos of celebrities and even of people they may know. As well as it being easier for ordinary people to take advantage of others online, it can also be used as coercive control and blackmail in the form of ‘revenge porn’ despite the victim may not even knowing it exists. 

The amount of body dysmorphia I’ve experienced since seeing those photos has ruined me.

It’s not as simple as “just” being violated. It’s so much more than that.

— QTCinderella (@qtcinderella) January 31, 2023

‘Cyberflashing’ – the inevitable result of being a woman online

Actress and comedian Emily Atack recently made a documentary examining the cause of the overwhelming amounts of ‘dick pics’ and explicit messages she receives daily and whether she is subject to this because of the photos she posts of herself on Instagram. Although Atack had blamed herself, 76% of girls aged between 12-18 have been sent unsolicited explicit photos, predominately from older men they do not know. For many women, simply owning a social media account means they expect to be exposed to cyberflashing. 

Co-founder of Reclaim These Streets, Jamie Klingler, told Atack that men send these explicit messages because they want to ‘silence and control’ women, that is it a product of wider patriarchal society. Through the impact that pornography has had on the ideas of sexual inequality in the minds of many men and the expectation that women then owe something in return for receiving these unsolicited photos, cyberflashing appears engrained within online society. 

With the Online Safety Bill currently not mentioning women and girls, I spoke to Demi Babalola from the charity Glitch to find out what this means for online misogyny. Listen below to episode 8 of Beyond the Headlines to hear the interview.

By George James

Holocaust Memorial Day is celebrated on the 27^th of January every year as this is the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death and concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Holocaust was the murder of approximately six million Jewish men, women and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War.

Every year Holocaust Memorial Day has a theme, and this year’s theme was ‘ordinary people’. This is to highlight that in every genocide both the perpetrators and the victims are mostly made up of ‘ordinary’ people and focuses on the fact that whilst the victims of genocide often don’t face a choice, the perpetrators always have a choice to make.

Why is Holocaust memorial day so important?

Holocaust Memorial Day is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, but also the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

The aim of Holocaust Memorial Day is to ensure the Holocaust is never forgotten and its lessons are learnt for future generations.

The Holocaust not only refers to the loss of millions of lives, but also the disappearance of cultures, communities, languages and traditions.

It is incredibly important to educate people about past genocides to ensure that such an atrocity can never happen again.

What kind of things happen on Holocaust Memorial Day?

Here in Liverpool, there was a remembrance service held at the town hall and in the build up to this service the City Council released stated that “Liverpool is committed to promoting understanding and awareness of the Holocaust”.

On a wider scale, charities like the Holocaust Educational Trust run events internationally to commemorate the day.

One of the projects run by the Holocaust Educational Trust is the Lessons from Auschwitz (or LFA) project. The LFA project offers post-16 students the opportunity to attend two one-day seminars, where they will meet Holocaust experts and hear from Holocaust survivors to learn about the individuals whose lives were affected by the Holocaust and to reflect on the relevance of the Holocaust on today’s society.

As well as these seminars the LFA project also offers students the opportunity to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and a nearby town in Poland in order to experience first hand the harrowing history of the Holocaust.

The aim of this project is to encourage these students to return to their places of education and to share their experience with their peers, to spread awareness and understanding of the Holocaust to the next generation.

I was lucky enough to be a part of this project in 2018 and it is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

What was it like taking part in the LFA project?

At the time I took part in the project I was only 16 and at such a young age I had never taken the time to properly think about the Holocaust. I vaguely knew what it was and had maybe done a class or two about it in history, but I did not understand the true scale of the Holocaust. Taking part in the LFA project opened my eyes to the true horrors of the Holocaust and it was a harrowing but highly educational experience.

I found the entire project but especially the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau very humbling, now this may sound odd but at the age of 16 there are certain problems in life that seem massive, like the end of the world, but when I was stood in a Nazi gas chamber in the middle of a forest in Poland where thousands upon thousands of people had their lives ripped from them it put my problems into perspective.

My trip to Auschwitz made me realise how truly lucky I am to be alive and to live a life where I am not in any immediate danger of persecution for something I cannot even control. The biggest problems in my life were nothing compared to the problems faced by those affected by the Holocaust.

As well as seeing the gas chamber there were two other profound moments for me that day, the second was walking along the railway line and through the gates into the camp. Images of this scene are readily available online and are what a lot of people will picture when they think of Auschwitz, I myself had seen photos of this before I arrived but that did not prepare me for actually arriving into the camp. We walked maybe 300 metres along the railway track and through the gates, spending most of the walk in silence. This gave me the time to reflect on how thousands of innocent men, women and children would have arrived at the camp during the second world war not knowing what to expect. Many people had been lied to and were still hopeful that they would be able to reunite with their families and return to their homes in time. It was on this walk that the feeling of being at such a horrific place began to set in.

The third and I would argue most profound moment of the day came inside one of the buildings in the camp where, behind a glass screen, there are thousands and thousands of children’s shoes. The shoes were taken off the children as they arrived at the camp but were seen as too valuable to throw away by the Nazi’s so they were stored in warehouses at the camp. This is when it set in that the Nazis valued children’s shoes more than the actual human lives of the children they were taking these shoes off. It was only at this moment, when I stood in front of the pile of shoes that rose well over 6 feet tall that I truly understood the horror that had taken place almost exactly where I was stood less than 80 years earlier.

Life was made impossible for the victims at Auschwitz, the Nazi’s sewed salt into the land to stop grass from growing as they did not want prisoners to be able to eat the grass. It was a horrific place full of death and atrocity. But when you visit now the grass has started to grow again, there are wild flowers that stand where guard towers once stood, there are dear and birds that sing and thrive where so many people had previously cried and died. Time has moved on at Auschwitz-Birkenau and nature has started to forget what once happened there. This is why it is so important that we can never forget what happened there, unlike nature we must always remember exactly what took place at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and this is why charities like the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day are so important.

This article is an adaptation of a segment created for our show The Lunch Bunch, part of The Politics Hour on Liverpool Student Radio, on the 3/2/2023 which you can listen to here!

All photos were taken by George James during his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2018.

By Matthew Bainbridge

Over the last month, large sections of our radio shows on the Politics Hour have been concerned with the World Cup in Qatar. On our Breakfast Show Beyond the Headlines we first discussed the issue of whether to boycott through a series of expert interviews and reports on the controversies clouding the event, before I then reported on how the world stage of Qatar had given rise to protest of the humanitarian issues plaguing it. Then, Dan Tagg interviewed a friend who had been following his country at the tournament to share his first-hand experiences, albeit with the limited scope of a straight white male. Whilst the Politics Hour’s other show, The Lunch Bunch produced a brilliant interview with Professor Laura McAllister, former Wales international footballer and and current Deputy Chair of the UEFA Women’s Football Committee, the woman at the centre of one of the aforementioned protests when wearing a rainbow bucket hat.

Like many, I have been guilty of getting distracted by the football. Selfishly and largely down to my own privilege I watched a good three quarters of what was certainly the best footballing World Cup of my lifetime. I will have enduring memories of sitting in the Guild of Students watching Japan shock Germany in the group stage with scenes of elation from Japanese international students; Saudi Arabia ending Argentina’s 36 game unbeaten run with a 2-0 win in their opening group game; the brief moment when the world stood still in anticipation of Harry Kane converting a second penalty against France before the English crashed down to earth; Morocco stunning Portugal to become the first African and MENA nation to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup. And then the final, watching the greatest footballer of all time, Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi put in one of the great footballing performances to finally win his nation a World Cup and complete his set of every trophy possible whilst Kylian Mbappe scored the first World Cup Final hattrick since Sir Geoffrey Hurst in 1966.

Qatar as a host nation and FIFA the footballing superstate had faded into insignificance, all the human rights abuses and issues over corruption that had dominated had vanished for many amidst reports of a well-run and successful World Cup, the safest of all time. But then came the trophy lift, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Emir of Qatar Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani took some of the limelight as they draped a bisht robe over Messi, a symbol of great honour in the Qatari culture reserved for kings and religious leaders. FIFA and Qatar wanted one last reminder of who had hosted this World Cup, but with it brought a flood of emotions, compounded by the BBC’s closing montage: the 6500 migrant workers who had died making this possible, some building the Lusail Stadium where Lionel Messi held the trophy aloft, the LGBTQ supporters who felt it impossible to travel to the tournament for fear of their own safety, the women’s rights issues that our radio show had discussed weeks prior, and less importantly, the shady figure of Infantino symbolising all the corruption that surrounds the modern game. For me and for many others now whenever that image is shared for decades to come obviously symbolising Messi and Argentina’s great achievement, it will also refresh the memory of all those who died needlessly making it possible and those who felt alienated and forgotten in the blatant disregard for their basic right to be. Laura McAllister summarised it well in her interview ‘the underbelly of discrimination and human rights abuses was very close and that was quite apparent whilst we were there’, this underbelly cannot be ignored forever.

So, thank you Qatar and FIFA, you gave us a wonderful display of football as what Arrigo Sacchi described as ‘the most important of the unimportant things in life’ but at what cost?

The interviews and reports mentioned about the World Cup from our radio show are all available to catch up with on Spotify at Liverpool Politics Hour. To get the latest information and news about the show follow us on Twitter @LSRPolitics.

By George James

In March earlier this year it was announced that all Russian clubs and the Russian National Team had received a global ban from both FIFA and UEFA competitions in the wake of Russia taking military action against neighbouring Ukraine. This of course means that Russia will miss the FIFA World Cup that is due to start on the 20th of November and now there are calls from across the globe to hand the same punishment to Iran.

The Ukrainian FA has appealed to FIFA to have Iran disqualified or banned from the world cup before it starts due to their supposed involvement in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This appeal from the Ukrainian FA came a week after the Shakhtar Donetsk CEO, Sergei Palkin, called upon FIFA to ban Iran from the world cup and instead replace them with Ukraine. Palkin made this call after it was claimed that 7 Iranian drones had been shot down in Ukraine during the Russian invasion according to Omar Garrick of The Athletic, but the Ukrainian FA’s appeal also took into account a number of Human rights violations that have taken place in Iran.

So what are the Human rights grievances the Ukrainian FA is talking about and are there grounds for Iran to be banned from the world cup?

The fourth general provision of FIFA’s statutes states: “Discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, wealth, birth or any other status, sexual orientation or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion“. This provision is the key part of the argument for Iran to be banned from the world cup and this is because in Iran women hold less rights than their male counterparts in society such as hijabs being compulsory and women needing their husband or guardian’s permission to leave the country. FIFA is a sporting body and therefore there is the argument it should only concern itself with sporting matters and this is highlighted in the second part of FIFA’s fourth general provision which states: “FIFA remains neutral in matters of politics and religion” and it can easily be argued that the aforementioned issues would fall under a religious matter and therefore is out of FIFA’s domain. However, there is also a sporting matter that is well within FIFA’s domain that would legitimize a FIFA sanction on Iran.

In Iran women are banned from spectating sporting events in stadiums. This is a clear example of discrimination against a group of people on account of gender and therefore is “strictly prohibited” by the fourth general provision mentioned above. It is this clear breach of FIFA’s statutes that gives real substance to calls for Iran to be banned from the world cup.

England are set to play Iran in their opening game of the tournament on the 21st of November and Wales are due to play them 4 days later on the 25th and this has led to further calls for some form of action to be taken against Iran from in the UK. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has written an open letter to England manager Gareth Southgate and captain Harry Kane urging them to make a display or gesture in solidarity with Iranian women who are “fighting for their civil liberties“. The issue of civil liberties in Iran has become particularly potent in world news due to massive protests, that have seen over 250 protestors die, following the death of Mahsa Amini on the 16th of September whilst she was in the custody of Iran’s Morality Police in Tehran for violations of Iran’s strict policy requiring women to cover their hair with a Hijab.

The issue is clearly highly contentious, and FIFA has controversially written to the 32 teams set to take part in the world cup and urged them to “focus on football”. According to the BBC the letter signed by Fifa president Gianni Infantino and secretary general Fatma Samoura reads:

“We know football does not live in a vacuum and we are equally aware that there are many challenges and difficulties of a political nature all around the world.

“But please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists.”

This letter appears to confirm FIFA’s position that they will not take action on Iran, either for their involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or for their Human rights violations.

Why is no action being taken on Iran?

There are just over two weeks until the start of the world cup and therefore it would be highly impractical for Iran to be completely banned from the world cup. Palkin’s plea for Iran to be replaced by Ukraine would set a dangerous precedent as Ukraine failed to qualify for the world cup via the conventional qualification rounds. This means that awarding them a place at the world cup if Iran were to be disqualified could be deemed as unfair, as the rest of the nations that reached the same qualification stage as Ukraine are being overlooked in a sporting sense. Ukraine being awarded a place at the world cup is arguably deserved for the hardship that the country has gone through since February this year, but it could be deemed as immoral and unsporting for Ukraine to be awarded a place at the world cup for political reasons.

While a ban for Iran seems justified (based on their breach of the fourth general provision of FIFA’s statute), with just over two weeks to go it would be almost impossible to come to a fair decision (in a sporting sense) before the competition starts. Although a ban for Iran may be justified, awarding a world cup place to Ukraine purely for political reasons goes against the second part of FIFA’s fourth general provision as mentioned above. This also seems to be FIFA’s stance, as no action has yet been taken against Iran and FIFA’s urge to “focus on football” ahead of the world cup seems to imply that their position will not change.

This article further develops a chat on the most recent episode of the Liverpool Politics Hour: The Lunch Bunch & we think you should go and give that a listen too! Listen here: The Lunch Bunch

How long will it be until the Royals become irrelevant?

For the first time since 1963, The Queen has pulled out of this year’s State Opening of Parliament and the reading of the Queen’s speech. Her eldest son Prince Charles will deliver the speech for her.  After advice from her doctors, the Queen has had to pull out due to “episodic mobility problems”, reluctantly,  Buckingham Palace added. Naturally, as the monarch goes through her 96th year she is finally showing signs of slowing down. In the last year she has missed events at Easter, including the Maundy Service, whilst also announcing that she would not host royal garden parties this year. With this information we can start to look forwards to see how the future of the Royal Family will unfold and affect our lives. Questions on tax payers money and their relevance will of course come to mind, but what other options could the public have on the table if we decided on abolishing our constitutional monarchy and getting rid of the royal family? 

For starters, The Queen is still very popular. It is quite the feat to be able to have your favourite son caught up in a scandal with Jeffrey Epstein and still maintain a 75% YouGov approval rating. There is without doubt a vicarious fascination with the royal’s lives, whether that be through film and TV series like the Crown or any tabloid newspaper gossip columns pondering over the hidden political meanings of the Queen’s dinner table cutlery arrangements. The money they bring into the country too cannot be overlooked, but ultimately they provide the function of national spirit and are essentially morale boosters for the public. The flipside is that this moral booster costs the tax-payer roughly £67m per year. But aside from when Prince Harry had backlash for his questionable Las Vegas or fancy dress antics, or when Prince Philip had his car crash, or Prince Andrew’s Pizza Express defence for the allegations put against him – the biggest danger to the Royal Family’s survival is the Queen’s death. Could Prince Charles being the next person to be crowned and on the throne change our opinion on the monarchy?  His approval ratings are significantly lower than even Wills and Kate. 

So let’s say that we voted in a referendum on removing the Royal Family… What would happen if the Queen, or King of England simply said no? Well the monarch still acts as head of the armed forces so technically they are all under their authority, all armed force members still swear allegiance to the Queen. Hypothetically if the Queen or King did not wage an all out war on the UK, the next question would be what political system would replace the constitutional monarchy? The UK would need a new head of state. This of course could be the Prime Minister, who has similar constitutional powers now, but another option could be a form of semi-presidentialism, where the Prime Minister and another elected official both run the country. For option one, total parliamentary democracy, the situation would mainly consist of removing the monarchy and then formalising parliament’s powers that pretty much existed already, just without the Queen overseeing everything in a ceremonial fashion. Option two of turning into a republic with some form of head of state would be a more complicated matter, you would have to redelegate all the existing prerogative powers.

Either way, these options are in no way swift and simple procedures that could happen anytime soon – but with the inevitability of death, there will surely be some question asked soon about the future of the royal family.