Positive thinking

Stephen Gorard, Durham University For some, the British private school system evokes images of rolling playing fields and academic excellence that can pave the way to elite university education and a prosperous life. For others, it simply cements societal injustice and inter-generational inequality. Unsurprisingly, the UK’s Labour party is now in the latter camp. And at its recent national conference, it endorsed a series of measures that would effectively see private education abolished . The proposal would see endowments – or recurrent income from past benefactors – of wealthy private schools “nationalised”. The money would then be used to help subsidise the integration of private schools into the state-funded system. Creating one system of schools for all would have many potential benefits. For a start, it might mean that more high attaining pupils, currently in private schools, would be role models for a wider range of fellow pupils. It might also help to improve so...

Alana James, Northumbria University, Newcastle The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of global carbon emissions – and it’s estimated that by 2050 this will have increased to 25% . A staggering 300,000 tonnes of clothes are sent to British landfills each year. The fast fashion business model, first developed in the early 2000s is responsible for the increase in consumer demand for high quantities of low-quality clothing. Many fashion products now being designed and made specifically for short-term ownership and premature disposal. Clothing quality is decreasing along with costs, and the increased consumption levels of mass-manufactured fashion products are pushing up the consumption of natural resources. The pressure to facilitate consumer hunger imposes significant social and environmental pressures on the manufacturing supply chain. The UK’s consumption levels of fashion are the highest...

Andy Knott, University of Brighton UK politics is getting more dramatic, divisive and nastier . Nowhere is this more evident than in the populist turn taken by the Conservative Party. Problematically for them, however, populism is incompatible with some of the central principles of British conservatism. So while playing to the gallery might win votes in the immediate term, the Conservative Party could be managing the fallout for decades to come. Among the core features that distinguish conservatism and populism are their different approaches to the rule of law and their conception of “the people”. The law is not something pivotal to populists, and part of their shtick is to at least appear to flout it, whereas conservatives bestow reverence upon it. The collision course between conservatism and right-wing populism, set in motion by Boris Johnson, is nowhere more apparent than in the Supreme Court’s ruling that the government’s prorogation of parliament was “unlawful” . One ...