UK

CALL A GENERAL ELECTION!

Rishi Sunak Formally Announces Leadership Bid As Senior Tory Says Johnson Would Be A

"Guaranteed Disaster"

Rishi Sunak has formally announced his leadership bid (Alamy)

John Johnston
23 October,2022

The former chancellor has confirmed he will stand in next week's leadership election as he builds significant support among Tory MPs.

Rishi Sunak has formally declared his intention to stand following reports he held talks with Boris Johnson on Saturday evening to discuss a potential joint ticket.

Announcing his leadership bid on Sunday morning, Sunak said: "The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis.

"The choice our Party makes now will decide whether the next generation of British people will have more opportunities than the last."

Highlighting his work as chancellor during the Covid pandemic, Sunak said he had helped "steer our economy through the toughest of times".

"The challenges we face now are even greater. But the opportunities - if we make the right choice - are phenomenal."

He added: "There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done."

Speculation that a deal could be struck comes as Boris Johnson's camp claim the former PM has broken through the threshold of 100 MPs needed to secure a place on the ballot, despite public declarations from MPs sitting at around 60.

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is backing Johnson said: "Clearly he is going to stand, there is a great deal of support for him as you have seen."

He added: "The people doing the numbers for Boris's campaign tell me they have got the numbers, so the 100 that is necessary for MPs is there."

In a boost to Johnson's campaign, he picked up the support of former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who credited him with "getting the big calls right" on Covid and Ukraine, and praised his decision to resign "for the sake of unity" in the party.

Johnson has reportedly been contacting wavering MPs to assure them that a second stint in Downing Street would not be marred with the same scandals which brought him down earlier this year, with Zahawi saying he had been "contrite and honest" about his mistakes in the final weeks of his premiership.

He added: "When I was Chancellor, I saw a preview of what Boris 2.0 would look like. He was contrite & honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No10 & the country better.

"With a unified team behind him, he is the one to lead us to victory & prosperity."

But Johnson's campaign have struggled to allay fears that an upcoming probe by the Commons Privileges Committee into his conduct during the partygate scandal could destroy his political career.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, senior Brexiteer Steve Baker, who was a vocal backer of Boris Johnson during his leadership, said he was now backing Sunak because selecting Johnson would be a "guaranteed nailed-on disaster" for the party.

"He's bound to implode, taking the whole government down. Boris Johnson would be a guaranteed disaster. I'm not willing to lay down my integrity for Boris Johnson," Baker said.

"I think it would be for the best if Boris did something big and statesmanlike."

He added: "What we can't do is have him as prime minister in circumstances where he's bound to implode, taking down the whole government with him.

"I'm afraid the trouble is because of the (Commons Privileges Committee) vote, Boris would be a guaranteed disaster."

The comments add further weight to Sunak's campaign as he continues to win the backing of significant figures from across the party spectrum, including from International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who proved popular with MPs on the right of the party in the summer leadership contest.

Sunak has already broken through the threshold required to get onto the ballot on Monday, with over 130 MPs already publicly announcing their support for him.

The battle between the two Tory heavyweights comes as the party struggles to unify after Truss's disastrous stint in Downing Street shattered public trust in their ability to manage the economy, and pushed Labour to historic poll leads.

Meanwhile, Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, who announced her bid on Friday, continues to struggle to build support with only 24 MPs currently publicly backing her.

Despite stuttering support, Mordaunt told the BBC she was "very confident" about her chances of winning the contest, saying she was "best placed to unite our party".

"I was a halfway house between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and I deeply regret that the debate now is about 'are you for stability or low taxes'," she said.

"That's not the right construct. There are two sides of the same coin. You have to have stability in order to deliver low tax and you have to have low taxes in order to grow the economy and create that stability."

But Mordaunt, who has already committed to keeping Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor if she wins, struggled to set out a coherent policy plan as she refused to be drawn on health and defence spending commitments. And she also refused to say whether she would raise benefits in line with inflation, despite committing to the move at the Conservative Party conference three weeks ago.

Whoever wins next week's contest is likely to face significant public and political pressure to commit to an early general election following months of chaos at the top of the Conservative Party.

But speaking on Sunday, Labour leader Keir Starmer admitted his party were not able to force the government to call an early general election, saying instead that Tory MPs should "put their country first" by backing calls for an early poll.

"They've got a choice to make. They can either put their party first, or their country first," he told the BBC.

"The country needs change, the country needs stability, the country needs to get rid of this chaos. It has been going on for the best part of 12 years. We don't need another change at the top of Tory party, we need a change of government."

Taking aim at the "ridiculous, chaotic circus" at the top of the Tory Party, Starmer insisted his party were prepared they could repair the "real mess" in the economy.

"My focus is on the millions of people who are struggling to pay their bills, have now got additional anxieties about their mortgage - I know what it feels like not to be able to pay your bills, that happened to me and my family when I was growing up," he said.

"They are fed up to the back teeth with this."

For The Next Tory Leader, Uniting The Party Might Be Impossible

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak (Alamy)

 

Adam Payne

@adampayne26

22 October

As the Conservative party prepares to elect its third leader and Prime Minister of 2022, senior Tory figures are asking whether their party is now broken beyond repair.

In a surreal scene on Thursday, Liz Truss announced that she would resign as Prime Minister after days in No 10, having taken over from Boris Johnson in early September.

Her exit from Downing Street was seen as inevitable after a truly calamitous few weeks in charge, with her succumbing to pressure from furious Conservative MPs. She delivered her farewell statement after just 44 days, beginning with self-inflicted economic turmoil and culminating in farcical scenes during a House of Commons fracking vote on Wednesday night, which left Westminster astonished.

Charles Walker, the long-serving Tory MP for Broxbourne, went viral that evening after telling the BBC that the affair had been a "pitiful reflection on the Conservative Parliamentary party at every level", "utterly appalling", and "a shambles and a disgrace".

Some dismissed Walker's comments as those of a demob-happy MP (he is standing down at the next election) – but the reality is that there is widespread belief in Westminster that the Conservative party as it stands may now be ungovernable, and can only be retrieved after a time out of power, during which it can locate a common purpose.

Speaking to PoliticsHome on this week's episode of The Rundown, just a couple of hours before Truss announced her resignation, former government adviser Jack Sellers said the state of the Conservative party was "completely embarrassing".

Sellers, who worked in 10 Downing Street and as special adviser to ex-Welsh Secretary Simon Hart, contrasted the party of "Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher" to the state it had got itself into, as opinion polls suggest that it risks being wiped out at the next general election.

"When I worked in No 10, I was working on the Union — which is in the title of the party: the Conservative and Unionist Party," he told the podcast on Thursday.

"At the moment, the reality that a lot of my colleagues have got to wake up to is that are we really going to be a Unionist party if we've only got MPs in England? That's what the polling is showing at the moment. In Wales and Scotland, we would get completely obliterated."

Another former senior Tory aide told PoliticsHome that winning the next general election was "almost impossible" for the party and that this latest leadership contest – the second in the space of a few months – was more about damage limitation.

“The Conservative Party is at a critical stage of make or break, damaged by poor leadership decisions, turbulence and political infighting," they said.

"The next leader must be committed to repairing that damage, unifying the party and crucially, restoring trust and credibility among the electorate. Securing a fifth term is almost impossible, so MPs and members must think carefully about who will give the party its best fighting chance.”

The state of the party at national level is being felt at local level, with one Conservative Association chair telling PoliticsHome that the turmoil was deterring candidates coming forward for selection, with "very poor" quality candidates making the final cut.

"Our top two going forward this year would have not made the top 10 in previous years," they said.

One party activist and former councillor said they were "completely miserable" and warned the party faced a "massacre" in May's local elections.

"You can feel the mood when we are out speaking to our own voters.

"People are mostly polite but it's obvious they have no faith in us because of what is happening in London. We have a really good team locally who have a fantastic record of delivering for our residents but the entire party is contaminated by this sense of complete incompetence."

Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson look like the frontrunners to replace Truss at the time of writing, with the latter hoping to stage a dramatic comeback after being ousted over scandal earlier this year. 

Penny Mordaunt, who finished third behind Truss and Sunak in this summer's Conservative party leadership contest, appears to be the only other realistic candidate to take over after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced on Friday that he would not be putting his name forward.

It is indicative of another area of concern among senior Tories – a lack of credible senior figures who have experience of the Great Offices of State. One senior source said there was a genuine sense of panic after Kwasi Kwarteng was forced to quit, as it was unclear who could step in to the role of Chancellor and offer the required experience and knowhow to calm the situation and extricate the government from the economic bind it had created for itself.

"We were very lucky to have [Jeremy] Hunt," they said. Another senior Tory said the impact of Boris Johnson's "Brexit purge" was catching up with the party, citing the loss of David Gauke and Amber Rudd among others.

The winner, who will be chosen some time next week, will have a long list of huge challenges when they assume power – not least unifiying a bitterly divided Tory party after a rancorous period.

Much of the discussion in the corridors of Westminster has focused on the Tories finding a "unity candidate" who can bring the competing wings of the Conservative party together. 

Speaking to PoliticsHome on this week's The Rundown, however, Dr Catherine Haddon from the Institute for Government think tank said she was "not convinced" that a unity candidate exists in the context of this bitterly divided parliamentary Conservative party.

"The issue is the party remains the same," she said.

"Too many people have got beef with somebody else and have red lines on various policy issues that makes it hard to see them rally behind someone."

On Sunak, who won the most votes from Conservative MPs at the last leadership contest, she said: "There are people within the party who are vehemently opposed to him. Even if he is a vote winner with the public and polls well, you still have that problem of ending up in the same situation as now where you have large parts of the party battling you."

There are warnings that Johnson's return would prompt some of his biggest critics on the back benches to give up the Conservative whip, putting the party in an even more chaotic position. Roger Gale, the Tory MP for North Thanet, has already issued that threat.

Mass ministerial resignations forced Jonhnson to resign in disgrace earlier this year after months of scandal, and swathes of Conservatives MPs are horrified by the prospect of a comeback. 

One Conservative MP this week told PoliticsHome that they also would consider quitting the party if Johnson followed in the footsteps of his hero Churchill and came back for a second stint in Downing Street. 
 

Another Tory predicted that around a dozen backbenchers would quit the party in the event of a Johnson return, but said the number who break away "could easily grow".

Sellers, who worked on the Sunak leadership campaign, said Johnson's supporters were showing no signs of "contrition" or honest "conversations" about why he had to srep down this summer.

"Nadine Dorries is saying 'you ousted the most popular Prime Minister we've ever had'," he said.

"Because of the chaos since Boris Johnson resigned, nobody is really looking at the historical factor that we had an 80-seat majority that because of basic and repeated mistakes and complacency, the government fell apart," he said.

"An 80-seat majority in two-and-a-half years fell apart — that is scandalous."

With additional reporting from John Johnston and Eleanor Langford.

PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe

Rival rallies march through Seoul after arrest of aide to DP chief


Members of conservative civic groups protest against the Democratic Party and former Moon Jae-in government on Saturday in Jung District, central Seoul. [NEWS1]Tens of thousands of protesters from both sides of the political aisle marched through central Seoul on Saturday, venting their frustrations over a range of issues involving the former and current administrations.

Liberal protesters mostly called for conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol to step down and cease his “political revenge” against the Democratic Party (DP) and former left-leaning Moon Jae-in government.

They also demanded a special probe on first lady Kim Keon-hee for allegedly forging her credentials to land teaching jobs at universities.

Conservative protesters, on the other hand, called on prosecutors to detain DP Chairman Lee Jae-myung for allegedly taking bribes to fund his failed 2022 presidential campaign and insisted that Moon should take responsibility for North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official in 2020.

No direct clashes between protesters were reported.



Members of liberal civic groups protest against the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in Jung District on Saturday. [NEWS1]The rallies came as Korea counted 26,256 new Covid-19 patients that day, which was 4,800 more than a week before. Daily cases over the past several days have all risen compared to the previous week, a grim reminder that the Covid pandemic is not over.

Over the past week, an average of 25,291 people have tested positive for coronavirus every day.

Health experts warn that Korea might enter its next Covid wave from November through the end of the year.

The first major rally was held near the Dongwha Duty Free Shop building in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, organized by far-right civic groups including the Liberty Unification Party. The group is led by Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, known for holding antigovernment rallies in mid-2020 against then-President Moon in defiance of government social distancing restrictions.

The rallies were blamed for driving up coronavirus cases at the time.

At 4 p.m. the same day, two separate rallies commenced, one siding with the DP and the other siding with the Yoon government.

Some 2,500 members of conservative civic groups gathered near Samgakji Station in Yongsan District, central Seoul, close to Yoon’s presidential office, urging prosecutors to probe all irregularities in the former Moon administration.

Around the same time, thousands of others affiliated with liberal civic groups gathered near Namdaemun Gate in Jung District, central Seoul, and started marching toward Yoon’s office at 6:50 p.m. The protesters dispersed about an hour later in Namyeong-dong, Yongsan, so as not to clash with the conservative civic group members protesting nearby.

Among the liberal protesters were DP lawmakers Kim Yong-min and Hwang Un-ha.

Police installed fences around the downtown area on Saturday to prevent possible clashes.

Neither Yoon nor his office made any public remarks about the rallies.

Political tension flared up last week after prosecutors arrested a close aide to DP Chairman Lee, who lost to Yoon in the March presidential election by the smallest margin in Korean history, and accused Lee of receiving kickbacks to fund his presidential campaign.

Both Lee and his aide denied taking any bribes and slammed the Yoon government for trying to get back at the liberals to divert public attention from its own problems and sinking approval ratings.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]

 

Biden trumpeting ‘Made in America’

PARK HYUN-YOUNG
The author is the Washington correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

Lately, a manufacturing boom is spreading in the United States. Large-scale investment announcements and factory groundbreaking ceremonies are often held. On October 19, Germany’s BMW Group announced a $1.7 billion investment in electric vehicles (EV), internal combustion vehicles and battery factories in South Carolina. It is the largest investment in the history of the state. On October 25, Hyundai Motor will start construction of an EV plant in Georgia. Last month, Intel held a groundbreaking ceremony for a semiconductor plant in Ohio, a $20 billion project.

Investments are made steadily under the banner of “Made in America” advocated by U.S. President Joe Biden. Most major projects involve high-tech industries such as automobiles and chips. A head of state who creates jobs is the best for the people regardless of their party affiliation. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the closest politicians to former President Donald Trump, was excited at the BMW event. “Batteries have become the new oil,” he said. “South Carolina’s going to become the Detroit of batteries.”

Biden has advocated “diplomacy for the middle class” since his presidential campaign. As diplomacy deals with relations with foreign countries, I wondered how he would implement diplomacy for Americans. Two years into his term, the policy is materializing. Basically, Biden wants to pursue national security and workers’ interests at the same time. To continue to demonstrate America’s power to the world, he believes the middle class has to be solid. At the root of the crisis with American democracy — as exemplified by Trump and his supporters’ refusal to accept his election defeat — is a lack of jobs from “offshoring,” Biden thinks.

But I am skeptical of the long-term effects of his initiative if what the U.S. wants to achieve is winning the competition with China and maintaining its hegemony. That’s because interests of the U.S. inevitably clash with interests of its allies. A notable case is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that only offers tax benefits to EVs assembled in North America. Excluding EVs made in Korea, Japan and Europe was not a haphazard mistake but an attempt to encourage production in the U.S.

As a presidential candidate, Biden promised steel workers that he would not join any new trade agreements without a promise for large-scale investment in America. In fact, the U.S. has not yet returned to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the meantime, China has applied for membership. America can win in the competition against China only when it has the courage to persuade voters that avoiding multilateralism will only weaken America’s standing while free trade is ultimately diplomacy for the middle class in the U.S.

A history of the horny side of the internet

In a new book, journalist Samantha Cole digs through the rich history of sex on the internet, from BBS to FOSTA


By RUSSELL BRANDOM
Oct 23, 2022

Vincent Kilbride / The Verge

From the very beginning, people on the internet have been obsessed with sex.

That’s the argument laid out in a new book by journalist Samantha Cole, How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex. Cole digs through early internet history to show how sexual content and communities were part of the internet from its earliest days and had a profound effect on how the online space deals with identity, community, and consent. From identity play on early bulletin board sites to the rise of online pornography as an industry unto itself, Cole makes the case that you can’t make sense of the internet without sex — even if today’s major platform companies would like to.

Content note: This interview describes multiple sexual practices in straightforward language. Readers who are uncomfortable with these topics should use discretion.

The book makes the case that sex was a fundamental part of the internet from the very beginning. Why do you think that is?

It’s just such a part of human nature to want to connect as deeply as possible to other people, whether it’s online or not — and the internet opened up a new venue for that. Suddenly people could be whoever they wanted to be. They could take on these personas that were different from who they were away from the keyboard. They could express themselves in a way they never had before. For a lot of people, that branches out into sexuality almost immediately.

“What level of reality do you want to experience through the internet?”

It’s interesting reading those old message boards where people describe themselves as mythological creators or blobs or whatever they wanted to be. Then they would have these really deep, interesting, philosophical conversations about love and sex and relationships. In many cases, they would meet up and go on dates after that. Sometimes they got married and had kids. I say in the book, there are real people walking around who only exist because these bulletin board systems connected their parents.

There’s an immediate security concern there because you have people adopting pseudonyms to share information that’s otherwise really private. But it seems like, at this stage, the internet didn’t have a ton of tools for keeping your identity private.

Right — just to get in the door of a BBS like this, you had to call someone on the phone and give them your name and credit card info. So it was tangibly personal between you and the admin. Once you were inside, a lot of them would let you use whatever name you wanted, but there were other communities that would demand you use your name. Others would have you put your email address at the end of every post so people could contact you directly. It’s an interesting divide: what level of reality do you want to experience through the internet? But the more sexualized communities really emerged when people were using the internet to pretend to be something they wished they were or wanted to try.

How much does this change when you get into the contemporary internet, built on companies like Google and Facebook that are able to treat sexual content very differently?

It gets really complicated when you go from a single person running their hobbyist bulletin board scanning Playboy pictures to this huge machine of moderators making decisions. People can get really frustrated not having a central person to talk to about what’s happening on this platform that is a big part of their life. So that definitely has been a huge shift. We have these huge monopolies that are just running the show for us now, and it’s hard not to feel like you don’t have any of that control left.

“The conversation is getting more heated because everyone has a stake in it.”

At the same time, these companies are now beholden to payment processors and banks, and so they have to push all of this stuff off of their platform, in many cases, because of those financial obligations. So just seeing that change, it’s hard not to imagine the internet is going to keep getting more sanitized and less sexual.

You describe a lot of early moments of sex panic in a way that seems very similar to what we see now — but then, in other places, the internet seems to have made people more accepting. Do you think the conversation over moderating sexual content is changing?

People are definitely more aware of the legal landscape. If you asked the average person in the late ’90s if they knew about something like the Communications Decency Act, they would have no idea what you were talking about. But now, lots of people have real opinions about Section 230 and are really read up on this stuff. It’s all a lot more visible, and the conversation is getting more heated because everyone has a stake in it. You have so many more people relying on the internet for their jobs, sexual or not. So people are paying attention now in a way that they haven’t been in previous decades

What about the second part of the title, how the internet changed sex? All through the book, you can see people getting turned on to new things or exploring themselves in ways that wouldn’t have been possible offline. Do you think the internet has made our sex lives more specific or extreme?

I think having access to communities of like-minded people can really be world-changing. I researched a lot about fetish and kink communities, and for a lot of people, before they found those communities, they thought they were the only ones. So it’s been really interesting to see that grow up with the internet. Suddenly, you have thousands and thousands of people reading forums about their specific fetish and talking about what they’re into and why they’re into it.

One thing that really surprised me was these forums about how to suck your own dick. People were just trading tips and advice about how to do it, exercises to do. You would never have access to that kind of information without the internet because, first of all, you would never say it out loud to someone, just hoping they were into it. But suddenly, you have access to all these people all over the world who are like, “Yes, I want to trade advice about how to suck my own dick.”

That one was actually too vulgar for the book.

Do you think the internet is creating these desires or just making it safe to express them?

It can be hard to tell. You can definitely discover something new that you didn’t know you were into. Or you might realize you were into it all along, and you didn’t know it.

One of the stories I wrote recently was about people who were into blueberries and blueberrification. A lot of them were into this because they had watched Charlie & the Chocolate Factory when they were kids and said, “Oh, that made me feel a way,” and carried that with them for years without telling anyone. Then they get online, and they see there are a lot of people who also feel this way. That’s a transformational change. It’s not just, “I found this thing I didn’t know I was into,” but also “Now I can really express myself and buy a blueberry suit because I see other people are doing it, too.”

Having that community makes you feel less weird. It’s less isolating. I think that’s a huge part of why people have so much shame about their sexuality and their porn use. They feel like they’re the only one who wants this. When you find out you’re not the only one, that can be revolutionary.


How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: A History goes on sale November 15th.

 Opinion: It’s important, period: The fight for menstrual sick leave

U of T just launched its free menstrual products program,

 but there’s more to be done

By Isabella Liu  THE VARSITY

JESSICA LAM/THE VARSITY

In January 2022, the University of Toronto officially launched its pilot project to provide free menstrual hygiene products across 75 of UTSG’s most ‘high-traffic’ washrooms. Pads and tampon dispensers have been installed in men’s, women’s, and gender-neutral washrooms, marking a significant step toward inclusivity and equity for the university. As of now, the pilot project will continue for the next six months with close monitoring and necessary adjustments from the university. The project’s primary end goal? Eliminating menstruation stigma.

Although this project marks a significant move forward in the conversation surrounding menstruation, it’s still important to consider our next steps. If U of T genuinely believes in its promise to work toward gender equity, then it shouldn’t — and won’t — stop at just free product dispensers. What comes after should be bolder, more progressive, and more dedicated to the movement — like implementing menstrual sick leave.

The health standard

Sick leave, paid or unpaid, has become a common workplace benefit. The Government of Ontario defines it as job-protected leave due to “personal illness, injury, or medical emergency,” and it’s generally used to allow someone time to address health needs. 

But, strangely enough, menstruation isn’t included under this umbrella of “health needs” — despite being probably one of the biggest health-related problems that around half of the population faces. Between the bleeding, fatigue, abdominal cramps, and much more, people with periods encounter a plethora of pains every month, which are nothing to be laughed at.

Period pain typically lasts between 12 and 72 hours, and consists of nonstop muscle and stomach cramps that can also spread to the back and thighs. Some people may also experience nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and even diarrhea — and these are only some of the most common examples. For people with severe menstrual symptoms, fever, rashes, and fainting aren’t too far out of the picture. In Canada alone, a 2020 study concluded that 500,000 women experience endometriosis — a gynecological condition that causes particularly painful menstrual cycles.

A study done by The Women’s National Health Service Foundation Trust and the University of Birmingham found that dysmenorrhea — the clinical term for period pain — can become so severe that it interferes with daily life — and it does, for up to 20 per cent of cis women.

It’s indisputable; withstanding the painful, and sometimes unbearable, physical conditions that anyone with a period endures every month is truly a feat. Even alone, these problems would be more than enough to be considered a sickness. In fact, during the pandemic, people with fevers and fatigue have been advised to not show up to work or class. 

It’s only when we stick the ‘period’ label on these symptoms that they become no more than an ignored occurrence that’s pushed under the table. The continuous dismissal of periods as small-scale, mild inconveniences has forced many people to hide their searing pain under tiny grimaces. Simply put, it’s stigma at work.

And if you care so much about economics…

Surprise, surprise: periods and all their damned health issues affect work life. According to a British Medical Journal article, menstruation symptoms can cause many workers to become substantially less productive by an average of 33 per cent. This comes out to an estimated loss of 8.9 days of productivity per year for every person with menstrual symptoms. A Forbes magazine article uses the term “presenteeism” to describe these cases where people are at work or school but are significantly less productive due to menstrual symptoms.

And let’s be real — ignoring the conversation about menstrual leave doesn’t do anything for anyone. In the same way that moms saying we can’t do something only makes us do it more sneakily, people with periods can’t and won’t just fully cater to the corporate world’s full-attendance expectation. 

A survey done by the British United Provident Association found that 23 per cent of cis women took time off due to periods in the last six months — 36 per cent of whom actually lie about their cause of absence. The reality is that we have been taking on the period game for ages, with no recognition for what we go through and not enough substantial support services. At the end of the day, we’re often left to our own devices to survive the weeks ahead.

These issues translate easily to the U of T environment: replace corporate meetings with mandatory tutorials, proposal presentations with uber-difficult midterms worth 45 per cent of your grade, and the working professional with the student aiming for that stellar grade, and you have the exact same scenario. There are thousands of people with periods across U of T’s classes, faculties, and staff. We make up a crucial part of the university’s backbone and contribute a great deal to all three campuses. All we ask for in return is respect for us and for our bodies — to the fullest extent.

Sandy Welsh, U of T vice-provost, calls the product dispenser project an “issue of equity.” She’s right — to a great measure, beyond this project alone. The period conversation continues on, and the university needs to fully commit to standing by it. Menstrual sick leave could be an important step to recognizing menstruation for what it is: painful, sometimes debilitating, and most importantly, normal.

Isabella Liu is a first-year social science student at Victoria College.

We already have the resources to stop climate change

The fight against climate change may seem hopeless, 

but we can do more than we think

By Sahir Dhall, THE VARSITY

JESSICA LAM/THE VARSITY

Climate change is no longer just a problem for the future. It is happening, and it is only getting worse. For decades, scientists have warned us about the impacts our choices and actions will have, and every year, governments and corporations have decided to do nothing, or at least not enough.

In the past year, we’ve seen just how disastrous the impacts of climate change are. From droughts and heat waves across Europe to floods and mass migrations in Asia to a surge in hurricanes and tornadoes in North America, it is clear that things are only getting worse.

We have had treaties like the Paris Agreement — a legally binding international treaty to mitigate climate change signed in 2016 — between major world powers to address climate change, but barely any member states are on track to reach the agreed-upon goals. Corporations, meanwhile, have continued their tirade upon the environment, tearing up rainforests, destroying marine life, and releasing overwhelming amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

With the lack of effort on many fronts in mitigating the effects and future impacts of climate change, it may seem as though there is nothing we can do — that all hope is lost and we might as well continue our lives as usual.

However, many climate activists and experts argue that we have the resources to fight climate change, but a lack of focus on the issue by governments is holding us back.

So how can we take steps in the fight against climate change, and are these changes even feasible?

Renewable and nuclear energy

Probably the most evident means we have of slowing down our carbon emissions into the atmosphere comes in the form of renewable or nuclear energies.

According to reports by the United Nations, burning fossil fuels is responsible for over 75 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions — more than every other source combined. If we are to slow down the rate at which our climate is being impacted, governments need to shift their economies and infrastructure away from fossil fuels as soon as possible.

And while this may seem like a major undertaking, we already have the technology needed. As of 2019, 16.3 per cent of Canada’s energy comes from renewable resources, including hydroelectricity, wind, tidal, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy. Hydro is the largest contributor, making up almost 70 per cent of Canada’s renewable energy, but wind and solar are rapidly growing in popularity and use.

New technologies have also made solar panels cheaper and easier to install by yourself. 

It’s clear that we have the technology to change energy consumption on a global scale. While it will take a lot of capital investment to modify infrastructure in countries across the world, this is an investment that has the potential to save millions of lives.

Sustainable land use

Agriculture has been another major contributor to climate change and accounts for nearly 90 per cent of all deforestation. 

Cutting down trees for land and wood releases significant amounts of carbon, as trees store carbon during their lives. Removing these trees also removes one of our planet’s only natural ways of decarbonizing the atmosphere, increasing the rate of climate change. 

Coupled with the use of fertilizers and pesticides in farms, agricultural practices have the potential to decimate ecosystems and cause damage for decades to come.

But sustainable methods for farming do exist. Crop rotations, where different species of crops are planted in a single field throughout the year, help to improve soil fertility as various plants give and return different nutrients to the soil.

Another drastic change to agriculture comes in the form of vertical farming. Vertical farming refers to the system of cultivating crops in stacked layers rather than side by side, as in traditional farming.

Vertical farming has immense benefits and leads to increased crop yields and a lack of plant diseases as these environments are entirely controlled. It also has the benefit of not being reliant on external environmental factors. 

While many other technologies have evolved so that a hot or cold year does not affect yields, agriculture remains largely affected by temperatures. This year’s heat wave over the summer led to immense food shortages across European countries, but vertical farming has the potential to change that.

The main benefit of vertical farming is the incredibly reduced land usage, reduced deforestation, and more immediate food supplies to cities. Building vertical farms within urban areas would also eliminate the need for long-range transportation of food, eliminating another major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

While vertical farming does have many benefits, it requires a large initial investment and is far more technologically reliant than traditional farming. Building vertical farms in urban spaces would be akin to constructing new buildings, and would require stronger foundations and more money than traditional farming.

Since these environments are also entirely controlled, farmers would also need to invest in powerful sensor technology and training for factors like moisture, temperature, lighting, and more. Any fluctuations in these factors could lead to disastrous crop yields, and some experts believe today’s technology is not ready yet for uses as sensitive as this.

Despite these caveats, agriculture and sustainability need to co-exist for improved food security and lowered environmental impact, and these changes need to start soon.

Why are we not there yet?

Considering how much technology and advancement we’ve seen, why is climate change still getting worse?

One reason is that climate change has reached a point now where it has developed momentum. Similar to Newton’s first law of motion, climate change will be significantly harder to stop now that it has gained speed and traction globally. It will require far more drastic action, ambitious goals, and rapid change to our ways of life before things have a chance of getting better.

While Canada’s renewable energy percentage is higher than the global average of 11 per cent, these values are not high enough. Reports by the World Meteorological Organization showed that despite the transitions to renewable energy, global greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise to new records each year. 

The pledges made by member states in the Paris Agreement would need to be nearly seven times higher to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the report.

But while climate change will be harder to stop, that doesn’t mean we are powerless. We possess the technology necessary to make these changes, and limiting a global temperature rise to 2.5 degrees or 3 degrees Celsius will still be better than letting climate change run rampant.

We have the technology. It is simply a matter of pressuring governments and corporations to make the changes needed.

Issues with climate change mitigation run deeper than simply doing more, though. One of the biggest contributors to climate inaction is psychological rather than physical. 

Factors like ignorance, where people either don’t know about an issue or don’t know how to react to it, are the most common of these challenges. Some individuals aren’t aware of the extent of climate change, believing that it isn’t too much of an issue yet. And even among those who are aware of it, some believe there is nothing we can do about it. This ignorance is also often manufactured by mixed messages we see in our media.

Another bastion of psychological barriers to overcome is a combination of the bystander and technosalvation effects. In these situations, people believe that either someone else or some new technology will come in time to save us, and therefore, tend to avoid taking the initiative. The bystander effect stops when people see others start helping, which is why individuals might be willing to attend protests or sign open letters, but few of us start and organize these actions.

Many also tend to avoid trying at all because they don’t think they could ever have an impact. Climate change is a global issue and is affecting all of us on such a scale that it seems ridiculous that one person could ever make a difference.

Overcoming the psychological barriers behind climate inaction will be essential if we are to mitigate the effects of climate change and treat our planet well.

MODERN SLAVERY

‘I endured bullying, intimidation, abuse and long, long hours’: Plight of migrant crews on Scots fishing fleet revealed

By Stephen Stewart

The Sunday Post
October 23, 2022

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Researchers have revealed harsh conditions and uncertainty endured by migrant crew, many from Africa, on Scots boats

An “invisible” underclass of up to 1,000 migrant fishermen are working on Scottish boats with some not even being paid due to a legal loophole, it can be revealed.

The men from countries including Ghana, Indonesia and the Philippines have found jobs on Scots vessels, according to a fisheries expert. Many have been exploited and abused while some have been unpaid for months of gruelling work on boats.

The loophole – involving the misuse of short-term seafarers’ transit visas by some employers to bypass strict migration law – means they are unable to complain and struggle to get thousands of pounds they are owed due to their immigration status.

Chris Williams, of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, estimated around 1,000 migrants were now working on Scottish ships as UK legislation enabled conditions for forced labour and modern slavery.

He said: “The hostile environment is a cruel framework for discrimination, which is also putting an already vulnerable group of people into a worse situation. The use of transit visas to employ fishing crews from the Philippines, Ghana, Sri Lanka in the UK fishing industry is a loophole that needs to be closed – but without displacing the problem offshore.

“Fishing is a dangerous and skilled profession and we should be attracting crews with the most relevant experience so they can fulfil their roles safely. Skilled worker visas are part of the solution but they need to be tailored to the specific requirements of working in fishing.

“The current migrant workforce in fishing are invisible but they are here doing the work and make up the majority of crew around the UK.

“Their lack of immigration status means they have to live on fishing vessels in UK ports and are dependent on their employer for everything – this sets a scene that is rife for labour exploitation and coercion due to immigration fears.”

Migrant crew members fear going onshore as they come here on the seafarers’ transit visas which were intended to allow seafarers from other countries to board ships in UK ports before departing into international waters. The use of transit visas – which are “endemic” across Scotland – makes crew members “invisible” and dependent on skippers for food, accommodation and legal status, according to Williams.

He added: “These people are working in the UK and need to be treated as such, with all the protections and responsibilities that entails, whether it’s minimum wage or labour protections. The current requirements for a stated monthly contract on their transit visa also creates a two-tier system with a migrant underclass being paid a quarter of what a UK deckhand would be paid.

“It’s time for UK regulators to take responsibility for shaping a sustainable and equitable solution.”

Academics have backed the bid to strengthen the rights of migrant crew. Dr Carole White, of the University of East Anglia, has studied their working conditions. Her work showed that the use of short-term contracts also makes crews reluctant to complain for fear of being labelled a trouble maker.

She said: “Changes should be made to address both the causes of vulnerability and the inability to recognise and address these forms of coercion and control. This would include ending the use of transit visas. Crews should move to an appropriate skilled worker visa. There is a need to draw up clear guidelines that distinguish what constitutes acceptable and abusive behaviour. This should be mutually created with migrant crew, accommodate the realities of fishing practice, and recognise the need to limit to skipper’s authority.”

The Home Office said: “Non-UK fishermen should have the correct permission before starting work in the UK and transit visas should not be exploited by fishing mainly in UK territorial waters.”

Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, which promotes the collective interests of Scotland’s fishermen’s associations, said: “Recent academic reports contain much that fishing industry representatives do not recognise, and are not representative of the situation across the UK, as some of these reports themselves acknowledge.”

“As industry representatives, we deplore and condemn bad practice and crew members being badly or unfairly treated, regardless of their nationality or immigration status.”

I endured bullying, intimidation, abuse and long, long hours

For fear of losing the chance of future work, Samuel does not want his real name published or even the country where he travelled from to work on a Scots fishing boat.

He has returned there for now but is still fighting to get paid for his time on the vessel.

The 39-year-old does not want the details of where he worked and what he did published, but said: “It was rather unfortunate for me not to have a good skipper to work with. There are a lot of good skippers out there but it’s unfortunate that the skipper I worked with didn’t value people’s efforts.

“The biggest problems I encountered were bullying, intimidation, abuse and working for far longer than we should.

“I think there’s no room for such actions in the fishing industry. I felt very bad physically and emotionally and that really affected my work. Sometimes I did not feel safe. I had to just put myself into the work and try to not get myself injured.

“The good news is that the issues for migrant crew members can be fixed by the authorities such as the Home Office.

“They need to issue or implement proper documentation for the migrant crews. The skilled worker visa is very good.

“The transit visa is causing problems which ends up by the owners or skippers terminating or breaching crew members’ contracts.


“It is sad because I never had a chance to really experience Scotland due to the nature of the work I was doing.

“The boat didn’t have enough time in the port or harbour. Most of my time on the boat was spent working out on the sea.”

Ghostly horsemen seen riding on Dartmoor according to spooky legend

As Halloween arrives, it's time to look out for Devon's phantom riders

Edward Oldfield

Agenda Editor

23 OCT 2022

Widecombe on Dartmoor (Image: Submitted)

As Halloween approaches and the nights draw in, thoughts turn to the supernatural. A recent survey found Devon to be the sixth most haunted county in England, where overall the most often reported sighting is of phantom horses and riders. Devon is not short of ghostly horsemen, and as the first of the autumn storms start to lash the countryside, it is easy to understand how previous generations thought they heard the sounds of a wild hunt crashing through the skies.

On Dartmoor, the phenomenon was known as the Wish or Wisht Hounds, led by Dewer, the ancient local name for the Devil. Folklore experts say the figure was the Christianised version of previous horned pagan gods of nature, such as Pan, or Odin, the storm god of the Vikings. Dewer even has a landmark named after him, the Dewerstone, a giant mass of jagged granite rising above woodland near Shaugh Prior on the south-western edge of the moor.

It was said that the Devil would lure or chase unsuspecting travellers to the top of the rocks then disappear, leaving them to fall and be devoured by his pack of hounds waiting below. Legend also has it that when the spectral hunt rides across the moor, searching for the souls of unbaptised babies, whoever meets it will die within the year.

The name is also linked to Wistman’s Wood, near Princetown, an eerie ancient group of stunted oaks, where the spectral pack of hounds is said to set off at midnight. One version has the Devil riding a headless horse, followed by a pack of dogs with burning red eyes, chasing their human prey towards death at the Dewerstone.

The figure of the Devil on horseback was also inserted into the story of a real-life disaster, when a bolt of lighting struck the church of St Pancras at Widecombe-in-the-Moor in the 17th Century, killing several members of the congregation and injuring many others. It was on October 21, 1638, when, the legend says, the Devil, clothed in black and with cloven hooves for feet, rode up to the Tavistock Inn at Poundsgate, went inside for a drink of ale and to ask directions to Widecombe.

The Devil paid with a gold coin that turned into a withered leaf after he rode off to the moorland village where he tethered his phantom black horse to a pinnacle of the church. The legend says he conjured up a huge storm, and with a clap of thunder a bolt of lightning, took hold of a snoozing member of the congregation, threw him over his horse, and soared off into the sky. The sleeping villager, a card player and gambler named as Jan Reynolds, was said to have a pack of playing cards in his hands. Four fell to earth over Birch Tor near the Warren House Inn, where the shape of the four aces can still be seen in the fields.

There is no doubt that the village church was indeed the scene of a tragedy that day, and is believed to have been struck by ball lightning during a fierce storm. Four people were killed and around 60 injured in a series of events that were recorded at the time as a ball of fire crashing through a window, breaking the roof open and ripping through the church.

The Dewerstone stands in a commanding position above the River Plym

 (Image: Alex Green/PlymouthLive)

The folklore tales of the Devil riding at the head of a pack of phantom hounds held a firm grip on the local imagination up to modern times. In the 1870s, a Coroner’s jury decided that a man found on the banks of the River Yealm was “struck down by the phantom hunt”, reports Ruth E St Leger-Gordon in her book the Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor. Two decades later a stable hand at Okehampton reported hearing the Wish Hounds in full cry on the moor above the town, spooking his horses.

The writer also tells how one of her friends saw what she believes was a group of a dozen phantom horsemen, accompanied by others on foot with greyhounds, at Lustleigh Cleave, in 1956. She thought she had stumbled across a film shoot as the people were all dressed in medieval clothing, but they disappeared around a bend in the road, leaving no trace.

The website Paranormal Database records other phantom horsemen in Devon, mostly on Dartmoor. Although details are scarce, the first is a ghost known as Old Crockern, riding a skeleton horse and waving a sword, near Crockern Tor. The next is the so-called Yeth Hounds of the River Tavy, another phantom hunt, complete with riders, heard after dark on the banks of the river.

Wistman's Wood is said to be the remainder of what was once a great forest which covered much of Dartmoor (Image: Alex Green/PlymouthLive)

A Dartmoor legend tells how a hunt master became hopelessly lost in the Green Hill and Black Lane area of the southern moor during a snowstorm, or in heavy fog according to a version on the website Legendary Dartmoor. The story goes that an old gypsy on a horse appeared from nowhere and without speaking, led the huntsman to safety then disappeared before he could be thanked. The grateful huntsman could find no one who knew of the gipsy. But a decade later saw a painting of a man called Limpety, who he recognised as his saviour, only to discover he had been dead for 50 years.

In another case, probably from the last century, a figure wearing a military great coat has been reported riding a horse near the ruins of the Newhouse Inn on Dartmoor. In Dartmouth, there are stories of the sound of a horse and coach arriving at the Royal Castle Hotel. Someone can be heard jumping on board, then the sound of hooves as it leaves.