Comment: Can Murdoch Buy the Sky?

Can Murdoch Buy the Sky?

· Jordan Rowe

The media isn’t usually a united sector. It would be hard to find similarities between the Daily Mail and The Guardian, yet they seem to share a common view on one subject: whether Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation should be allowed to buy the 60% of BSkyB it doesn’t already own. Their answer is a resounding ‘no’ – and so is mine. Whilst the ownership of Sky may not seem like a big issue at first, we must remember exactly what News Corporation already owns. The list is endless; chances are you’ll come across some part of the Murdoch Empire at least once this week. The Sun, News of the World and The Times are all owned by Murdoch; he also owns part of ITV and all of Fox, home to The Simpsons, Avatar, the Star Wars franchise and even the sweet innocence that is Glee. In addition, he also owns MySpace. No one remember that? Me neither, but apparently he does...

The latest on his shopping list is Sky, which reaches over 10 million UK households – one of those being mine. I’d be the first to admit that Sky does a great job and has revolutionised the way we all watch TV.

Just this week, Sky launched a new channel, Sky Atlantic, home to all of HBO’s content in the UK – shows such as Entourage, Boardwalk Empire and Six Feet Under. The rights to this cost a staggering £150 million.

Isn’t all this a bit scary? How can one man own so much of one industry – the one we rely on most to inform and educate us? You may have read about our local MP and Secretary of State for Business Vince Cable being involved in this story after saying he was “at war with the Murdoch empire”. Unfortunately this ‘bias’ has led to him being replaced on the decision making of this affair by Jeremy Hunt, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary. If the deal is allowed to go through, it would create a media monopoly on our island. It would give Murdoch unprecedented power over what we see and hear. It may even pave the way for a Fox News-esque channel - a propaganda piece for the right which has been blamed in the States for inciting Islamaphobia over their handling of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ non-story and polarising American politics to the extent that a congresswoman in Arizona was shot earlier this year.

How do you solve a problem like Britain?

· Nazreen Chennile Osman and Jordan Rowe

As a country, I feel as if we are missing the mark and forgetting the underlying issues which will emerge after the education reforms take place. This is probably due in part to the media’s focus on the ‘violence’ that occurred during the various student marches that have taken place over the last few weeks.

When EMA is scrapped and the tuition fee cap is raised to £9000, we will effectively see a social hierarchy re-emerging in Britain, which will succeed only in making the poor, poorer and the rich, richer.

This comes as no surprise to me, but it does make me ponder if anything will ever change. As all three major parties chase the votes of middle-England, the power of the new generation to change what Westminster thinks and does has evaporated. The cuts that are being made are only one of the detrimental decisions which David Cameron and the coalition partners will put the country through, leading to a greater problem. How do you solve a problem like Britain? I don’t know for sure, but it’s definitely not by saying ‘hello’ to the neo-liberalist policies of Mrs Thatcher again.

Comment: I want a Locker!

I want a Locker!

· Kaoru Kodama

Contemplation of whether to start using suitcases on wheels to college has cropped up a lot lately. Carrying thick textbooks around college all day leads to aching shoulders and a longing for lockers... What happened to those that were along the corridors around college last year? I had been armed and ready with my padlock to grab and claim one as soon as the new term started. According to the Estates Department those lockers had to be removed: a decision that was made by inspectors who come to the college every few years to monitor Health and Safety. Currently, there are some lockers around the college which were bought by individual departments (e.g. in the Hairdressing area), solely for students on those courses. While this is reasonable, the majority of students agree they need a locker, especially those on coursessuch as Art, which require them to bring in a lot of materials. One student remarked that the college is large enough to have them, while another says that it would be a problem, “running to your lockers located on the other side of college during break will make you late for class, and it’s much easier to just carry your stuff with you.”   Although there isn’t enough space in the college, more lockers for individual students who need them would be helpful.

“Free Schools”—the end of comprehensive education?

· By Pedro Diogo

I admit I’ve never been a fan of Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Education) and his ‘Free Schools’ programme, which I’m reluctant to call ‘Academies’. This programme has distanced me even further from his policies and made me question the direction of educational policy in this country.

Little less than a decade ago, Tony Blair introduced the controversial City Academies Programme: this was largely aimed at failing secondary schools, who needed to have standards raised. Most were sponsored by businesses and were free of Local Authority control, although they had to adhere to the core National Curriculum.

Shortly after taking office as Education Secretary in May, Michael Gove gave in to the pressure of the so called ‘middle-class-pushy-parents’, such as Toby Young who wants to set up a Free School in Ealing. Mr Gove’s Bill, which has now become law allows parents and the local community to setup a school in their area, on their own and can expect to receive as much, if not more funding than the local comprehensive.

The most absurd thing is that there is very little—and dare I say no—control over how many schools are setup in an area, or what the curriculum for these schools will be. I fear that the complete freedom and disparity between what subjects students are taught in different schools may make these schools elitist and exclude those who haven’t been brought up on the readings of Shakespeare and the teachings of Plato...

I wonder whether anyone has thought that this system may actually widen the attainment gap between the poor and the rich? Those who can pay for their children to attend Public school and those who struggle to put food on the table? Are Free Schools, now confusingly branded ‘Academies’ the state-maintained versions of Eton and Harrow? Are taxpayers going to pay for the middle-class, private-like education of the few?  I fear the answer may be ‘yes’ and that soon we’ll be investing more money into Free Schools than in the comprehensive, nationally-standardised system that has been the pillar of state education for the past forty years. Sad.