Netflix vs Cannes: The art of cinema, or defunct elitism?
Cannes: the crown of the French Riviera, upholder of the selfie ban, and guardian of cinema. Unsurprisingly, this prestigious film festival is also a particularly conservative institution – as evidenced…
Shoot first think later: The Trump administration
There’s a fascinating passage in Martin Wolff’s Fire and Fury that details the steps Trump’s aides had to go to in order to convince the President to give approval for…
Financial sector’s ‘gender quota solution’ presents problems
Spending two weeks interning in the financial sector made me fully appreciate the stark disparity between male and female employees. The institution I was working for released their gender inequality…
Zuckerberg’s interrogation was too bad to be true
I sent an email yesterday to James Patterson (best selling crime and thriller writer) with a great new idea for a novel that I think he could work wonders with….
Let’s invest before England goes emotionally bankrupt
We have a crisis in the way that we deal with mental health. This seems to be a pretty universally accepted truth, and while writing this article has some selfish…
Well said Ealing Council, let’s hope others follow
Despite being a difficult topic to discuss, it seems abortion has been on everyone’s minds. In light of the Irish referendum, the recent action of Ealing council bears more significance…
The UK was wrong to join in the Syrian airstrikes
With the debate surrounding Theresa May’s decision to join France and the US in bombing a series of chemical warehouses and key targets, there has been arguably more fire and…
Stop treating Calais like it’s a world away
Pictured above: Alice Bletsoe, Jemima Erith, Beth Boff, Lucy Browne-Swinburne, Laura Berg, Sophie Merrick (from left to right, photo credited to Laura Berg) I spent a week in Calais as a…
Interviewing Ruth Davidson: the women in Westminster
There seems to be an ‘all-eyes on Ruth’ effect in the media. Everyone is listening out for what she will say next, or anticipating which armoured vehicle she’ll jump into…
I’ve learnt the hard way Ireland’s attitude to abortion must change
In 2016, 724 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England or Wales to have an abortion, an illegal operation in their home country. South of the border, a further 3,265…
Corbyn’s just as bad as the rest of them
It’s clear that Jeremy Corbyn has achieved cult status among both students and wider sections of the population. He has an army of loyal fans on social media who dominate…
Government pay gap report ‘effectively comparing chief executives with secretaries’
Britain has one of the largest gender pay gaps in Europe. Women earn a mere 80p for every pound a man makes, and this inequality has increased slightly over the…
Another one bites the dust: sugar’s ill-fate
In 1795, the Duty on Hair Powder Act saw the taxation of hair powder and consequently marked the decline in fashion of the powdered wigs that were very much en…
May plans Syrian intervention whatever the cost
The chemical attacks that occured in Douma, Syria on Saturday were barbaric and deserve a response. But rushing into world war three on the heels of a deranged despot armed…
A knee-jerk ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Syria would be ignorant
On April 7th, 2018 a number of sources reported an alleged chemical attack on the rebel-held city of Douma in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta. Exact numbers of casualties are hard to…
Will FBI raids be the end of Trump or the end of privacy?
After months of controversy and public upheaval, it’s no surprise that Donald Trump’s presidency is under scrutiny once again. But do the recent FBI raids of Michael D. Cohen’s office…
Strikes? Not quite the last resort students were sold
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a student. You might not be. But I’m guessing you are. How do you feel about the industrial action in March, undertaken by the…
The Ulster case is sickening, but don’t look away
The case of the Ulster rugby players already concerned me even before I read the text messages sent the morning after the night before. The messages sent between the men,…
Overseas aid is a Western wolf in sheep’s clothing
You can almost taste the irony. Oxfam, the unassailably moral darling of the charitable establishment, which has accused capitalism (from which it has profited substantially) of causing world poverty, was…
Just a spoonful of sugar from the nanny state
Obesity is something we are all familiar with. Having more than trebled in the last three decades, and affecting almost a quarter of the UK population, it is a serious…
Power plays: the women in Westminster
The ‘visibility issue’ of women in politics is not just how many are sitting in Parliament. It’s also an issue of who they’re allowed to be once they’re there. If…
Why is ‘The Virgin Bride’ still on a pedestal?
‘Just because you lost your virginity doesn’t mean you can go around throwing your cat at everybody!’ Emma Stone’s Olive Penderghast, the self-proclaimed ‘slutty’ version of Hester Prynne, spends the…
The Tories are trying, but they need to do better
Worryingly, this is the second time this year that I’ve agreed with a Tory policy. Although it may be throwing my political identity into chaos, the recent government-sponsored report into…
We should not tar the diverse drag community with the same brush
Last week, The Broad’s Lucy Hodgeon criticised the use of cultural appropriation in the world of drag, and more specifically in RuPaul’s Drag Race. I feel there are a few…
Closing the pay gap is in the limelight but what we need is reflection
Ladies, we’ve been liberated from our rubber gloves. Put down your feather dusters because we’ve got Equal Pay Day, MeToo and TimesUp all under our belt in the short space…
A Note from the Managing Director
Welcome to The Broad - a tabula rasa for student journalism.
For many of us, myself included, we’re half-starved for well-written opinion among the swathes of online commentary among universities. Trashy, often unedited writing is published minute by minute. It seems where there is wifi, opinion is broadcast. So, here at The Broad we’ve decided to take a step back, a deep breath and focus. We have talent spotted and welcomed writers to the team, who have found a new home in the very collaborative environment created by our editors. Between writer and editor, we are hoping to challenge the current view of what it is to be a student journalist. We’re putting the way we feel about the world into words with a fresh take. Our entirely free online content is by students for students. We want to publish unbridled and beautifully written opinion. I hope the journalism on The Broad has the power to inspire, aggravate and sometimes silence. Essentially, if the girls, the boys, the lefties, the righties and everyone in between find something to shout about we’re doing our job right.
Felix Pawlyn, Managing Director
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