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Economics tells a lot of stories to make it seem inevitable the things it tells us to do. When it comes to climate action, the orthodox view has been to conceive of people as atoms; atoms who cannot hope to coagulate into some productive molecule: where we all know in some sense that cooperation would be wise, but cannot for the life of us put down our vanity. Now this is where capitalism sets up its stall. The incentive of profit, a return on green investment, rescues us from these unproductive collective action stalemates. Profit guarantees the benefits of cooperation; remunerating the productive whilst fobbing off the free-riders. This is the story that has been invoked to rationalise our current decarbonisation trajectory. Appease and reward the ‘productive’ (read the asset managers, the big financiers). Or else we are doomed. Decarbonising energy production alone will be formidable. 14% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050 could require technology currently non-existent. The price of appeasement? Just a guaranteed rate of return, please and thank you. As ever, how we describe our problems constrains how we might remedy them. Needless to say, we do not have to become global finance’s butler to save the planet from ecological breakdown. There are other ways of securing cooperation. We are now merrily traversing, what has been promised to us as, the path of least resistance. Beset by an understandable cynicism, we cannot seem to conjure how people might come together and mitigate the climate crisis deliberatively. Such creative imaginaries are utopian, pie in the sky thinking, time-wasting, and what we need now is action. Note here the persuasive radicalism, the rhetoric of urgency, awkwardly melded to a conservative politics. A politics of resignation. Or in the de-growther Geoff Mann’s words ‘desperation.’ It is as if we have no choice. But the current paradigm of decarbonisation cannot shunt the burden of proof onto alternative trajectories. Why? Because the present method, despite deploying $2.6 trn of resources on renewable energy in the past decade alone, has achieved little. Fossil fuels account for 84% of electricity generated globally. The figure was 86% in 1995. Moreover, finance for energy transition delivered to emerging market economies has flatlined. Our carbon offsets, Californian trees to be precise, have succumbed to forest fires – I mean the irony. Carbon Capture remains a boondoggle for now, a mere glint in the eye of those oil barons who really want to emphasise the ‘net’ in net zero. The marketising of ecosystems, putting a price on ecological services, has metaphorically flattened the unquantifiable – nature, and has actually flattened 99% of the habitats in a study of 558 such projects . HSBC has helped fund several questionable projects, one Indian cement company’s CO2 emissions outstripping the whole country of Greece, as parts of its green investment drive. The cold calculus of risk and reward, of profit and loss, should have gotten us much further. What gives? A carbon price of at least $135/t could equate to a balmy 1.5 degree warming. Perhaps we ought ditch the carrots and sharpen our sticks. So the current, hoped for, route to the sunlit uplands of net zero is not obviously efficacious. And nor is it efficient. At a 2% reduction of fossil fuel derived electricity in near three decades(!), the official policy of appeasement is decidedly wasteful. On this topic, and on giving a catchy name to our predicament, Daniela Gabor is essential. She finds that we are living under the ‘Wall Street Consensus.’ Under this consensus, the elite agreed paradigm of decarbonisation, the state pursues green development as ‘de-risking.’ That is the socialising of risks, and the privatising of gain. It therefore becomes the job of governments around the globe to assemble the choicest portfolio of assets. These investments will be suitably de-risked, think a new offshore wind farm contractually guaranteed to have its output bought at a set price in perpetuity. Now that’s a deal! Having read Gabor, and having waded through reams of green finance policy papers, our current paradigm really boils down to this. This is our mission: If the conditions are not right for private investment, we need to work with our partners to de-risk projects, sectors, and entire countries.’ Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President. The onus is on governments (and citizens it must be said) to lay the ground for private finance, more like the red carpet. The language may be one of partnership, but this is no egalitarian union. Indeed, the operative concern is about tending to the ‘conditions’ that are deemed to be ‘right for private finance.’ Private finance is very much the privileged constituency. You won’t believe what these conditions are for private finance to parachute in. For the World Bank, they just happen to be ‘fully consistent’ with past non-green World Bank programmes. Shocker. Again, countries are being asked to trade away economic sovereignty for the promise of cheap private capital tomorrow. Accordingly, Green investment requires Creating investment-friendly business environments. Treasuries should be repurposed, with the goal of guaranteeing revenues… providing investors with the confidence, and mending the social dislocation some of these disruptive infrastructure projects will create. Currently the transition to Net Zero is creating the greatest commercial opportunity of our ageand little else. We can have decarbonisation without the ransom demands. Be that from private finance, petrostates, or emergent electrostates. It simply cannot be that we are hopelessly beholden to this conspiracy against the social. We must radically open up the realm of the possible. Cooperation is what we need. This must be conducted on terms more egalitarian than the present method of privileging those who happen to exercise a monopoly on finance. Why? Because it turns out that creating masses of veto points – who can withhold investment on a whim if the conditions are just not ‘business-friendly’ enough – is not conducive to the rapid decarbonisation of human activity. We can no longer afford to be held to the pace that private finance sets.

September 2022 witnessed outbreaks of violent conflict between the armed forces of multiple nations within the Russian sphere of influence which resulted in over 300 casualties over the course of a few days. The first of these conflicts occurred when Azerbaijan launched an offensive along the Eastern Armenian border claiming it was in response to Armenian aggression but resulted in Azerbaijani troops briefly occupying portions of Armenian borderlands. Meanwhile, deadly clashes erupted between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as they engaged in combat along their disputed border. Whilst the death toll alone should be enough to capture the attention of the international community, it is also important to note that these conflicts erupted soon after Russia suffered a setback at the hands of Ukrainian forces during their Kharkiv counteroffensive. Furthermore, three of the four nations (Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan) involved in this conflict are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) headed by Russia. Therefore, the security of these nations is intimately tied to Russia’s ability to guarantee security in the region. These conflicts did not originate in September 2022. The conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is a legacy of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the resulting disagreements between Central Asian successor states concerning the proper delimitation of borders that were essentially porous before 1991. These countries share a 970 km border of which only 503 km is considered to be settled. This has resulted in over 150 clashes between the two countries and their border communities in the past 11 years with a marked escalation in 2021 followed by the most recent clashes which were the deadliest yet. The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is much older with its origins lying in the particularly brutal wars during 1918-1920 between their predecessor states. The conflict then lay dormant as both countries became part of the USSR. However, hostilities were renewed as the USSR began collapsing with Armenia and Azerbaijan clashing over the status of the Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan. These clashes resulted in the First Nagorno-Karabakh war which ended in 1994 with the Bishkek protocol and the establishment of the largely internationally unrecognized Armenian-allied Republic of Artsakh. Artsakh controlled the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and occupied seven Azerbaijani districts located between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. This occupation continued until the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war which resulted in an Azerbaijani victory with the victors reclaiming the seven districts lost earlier whilst also reclaiming parts of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan also secured a protected transportation route through Armenia connecting the newly liberated districts to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. To maintain the new ceasefire, a 2000 strong Russian peacekeeping force was deployed in the region for a minimum period of five years. Few states that emerged after the fall of the USSR have enjoyed an extended period of time free from war, conflict, and other internal insecurities. However, it has been argued that the CSTO has played a relatively important role in shielding signatory states, especially non-Russian post-Soviet states (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), from foreign state-led intervention. An important mechanism through which this was achieved was Article 4 of the CSTO which compels the military alliance to collectively respond to external aggression directed at any of the signatory states. The last time that this article was invoked was in January 2022 when the Kazakhstani government appealed to the CSTO for assistance in quelling violent anti-government protests. In response to this, the military alliance mobilised a multi-nation peacekeeping unit which assisted government forces in restoring stability in the country. This was the first time Article 4 was invoked to address internal security issues. However, no such aid was forthcoming when Armenia invoked the Article in response to what it considered to be Azerbaijani incursions into Armenia. Instead, the CSTO sent a fact-finding mission headed by its Secretary General to assess the extent of the damage which many Armenians considered to be an ineffectual response to the Azerbaijani attack. When this is viewed in conjunction with the failure of Russian peacekeepers to prevent the outbreak of fresh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, it casts a dim light on Russia’s ability to guarantee security in the Caucuses either through the CSTO or by itself. Furthermore, the CSTO has also proven to be largely ineffective in dealing with intra-signatory state conflict as in the case of the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan clashes where both states can block resolutions that could send peacekeeping forces. Both countries are hosts to Russian military bases that are important to Russian regional security infrastructure. So, Russia has largely relied on personal diplomacy to iron out most differences between these countries because it needs to ensure that any solution to the border problem is acceptable to both sides. Therefore, as Russia mobilises more troops and expends greater resources on the war in Ukraine, it becomes less likely that Russia would also be able to pay attention to the various mechanisms that are in place to maintain security within other parts of Russia’s sphere of influence. The Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan conflict has seen a de-escalation with both sides entering new rounds of discussions to resolve the border delimitation issue. However, tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan remain high as both countries rush to arm themselves while calling on their regional allies for increased support. As Europe plans to ramp up its import of gas from Azerbaijan, any prolonged conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia would further threaten European energy security. Furthermore, Turkey’s close strategic and military ties with Azerbaijan increase the potential for official or unofficial NATO involvement in a conflict at Russia’s borders with a country that the CSTO is beholden to protect. Finally, Iran has also promised to act in response to any attempt to ‘change the borders’ between Armenia and Iran. All in all, any potential prolonged conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has the possibility of quickly spiralling out of control and becoming a multi-state conflict and because of this, it is crucial for the international community to step in with high-level diplomacy and stem any further outbreaks of violence.

Have you heard about the five covid-19 vaccines developed in Cuba? Have you heard that Cuba has one of the highest vaccination rates in the Western hemisphere? It is hard to hear of Cuban successes over the incessant anti-socialist racket made by mainstream Western media. However, the Cuban people deserve recognition for the way they have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, in part because it places them in precedence over all Western countries. But also, because Cuba has achieved all of this whilst battling an equally egregious aggressor: the United States. For six decades, Cuba has endured blockades by the United States which have intended to suffocate the Cuban economy. In reverence of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States is determined to neo-colonise Cuba by forcing the Cuban economy to capitulate to neoliberal economic policies. One of the most devastating consequences of this blockade is the inability of Cuban doctors to access vital technology and equipment to treat their patients. This includes the prohibition of crucial covid vaccinations and ventilatory equipment being exported from the United States to Cuba. Despite this, in 2020 amid the height of the pandemic, Cuban healthcare ranked higher than the United States and Cuba has since become the smallest country in the world to successfully develop its own Covid vaccinations. Human flourishing, not corporate profits, is the fulcrum of Cuba’s biotech sector. In fact, it is stipulated in the Cuban constitution that healthcare is a human right and that all Cuban nationals have the right to receive free healthcare. Each Cuban citizen knows – and is regularly visited by - their neighbourhood primary care physician. Unlike the vaccines produced by Big Pharma, Cuban vaccine technology is accessible for low resource settings. The vaccines are easy to mass produce and are stable at temperatures 2-8 degrees celsuius, so do not require expensive specialist refrigeration equipment. This makes them invaluable to countries unable to afford the high prices demanded by major international pharmaceutical companies. Incongruent with the Western trend of vaccine hoarding, Cuba has extended offers to transfer technology and local production of vaccines to fifteen countries that also endure oppression by the United States. Such acts of solidarity by Cuba have not unique to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Henry Reeve foundation was established by Fidel Castro in 2005 to provide over-sea medical assistance to countries hit by natural disasters and epidemics. Since then, the Brigade has provided support following humanitarian crises including the 2005 hurricane in Guatemala; 2008 earthquake in China; 2017 floods of Sierra Leone; and 2019 hurricane of Mozambique. Assistance has never been denied even if they are not ideologically aligned with Cuba. Following the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in 2005, Cuba offered to send medical assistance to the United States (an offer the US declined). With absolute conviction, Cuba is refusing to succumb to US bully tactics. Instead, Cuba has become a beacon of kindness and friendship amongst other countries facing similar US subordination. In July this year, the Cuban people took to the streets to urge for an end to the US blockade, to which President Diaz-Canel of Cuba said, ‘Cuba is love, peace, and solidarity’. To see Cuban moral philosophy in action, you need only examine their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing-so, it is difficult to refute Diaz-Canel’s statement. Cuba is love, peace, and solidarity.

A 2020 article by CNBC offered that the racial wealth gap in the United States would be solved through education on financial institutions and processes alongside job training. This was primarily based on the McKinsey report that mentioned that Black Americans expect to earn $1 million less than White Americans. But while education surrounding finances is essential, it does not exactly explain the systemic problems faced by people of colour. While it is assumed and offered as a solution by several economists and financial analysts, financial literacy and ‘portfolio management tactics’ can change individual behaviour and decision-making, thereby allowing individuals to close the racial wealth gap. Various economic papers also attribute this loss to impatience and loss aversion behaviour, which is statistically more present in individuals at the bottom of the social ladder, such as ethnic minorities or households in lesser economically developed areas of the country, leading to more portfolio imbalances as a result of poor financial literacy. Literature over time has attributed this wealth gap to the lack of agency or education which ultimately makes individuals believe that access to these opportunities will, over time, reduce this divide. However, this is not seen in practice. Individuals who have access to the same financial institutions and education opportunities and are aware of these portfolio management tactics relating to investments and the like still see a $1 million lesser income than their white American counterparts over a lifetime. This means that financial literacy is not a leading factor of the wealth gap or even the access to opportunities but rather socio-economic circumstances that are inherently institutionalised. Of the 650 leading investment bankers in the UK, only three are black. While at face value this statistic might not mean much, this represents the very institutionalised racism within the credit system in the country. Mortgage lenders in the UK charge an extra eight percent interest rate on mortgage loans for ethnic minorities compared to white borrowers with similar overall financial situations. Similarly, their mortgage applications are also fourteen percent more likely to be rejected than their white counterparts. In 2015, it was also found that black borrowers pay about 29 basis points more than their comparable white counterparts. This statistic is found to be the worst for financially vulnerable black women in the UK. While this explains the wealth gap in part, a huge chunk of this is explained by the racial wage gap. A significant amount of this is attributed to bias in hiring. It is interesting to note that several educational institutions encourage students to amend the way they speak in order to sound more ‘white’ which is correlated with being ‘professional’. Similarly, fashion choices such as wearing hair a certain way such as having it cropped for men while wearing wigs for women are encouraged in order to avoid such racial biases. More subtle biases also exist in the hiring process where the ‘whitening of resumes’ - changing ethnic names to sound more ‘white’ ultimately led to more callbacks for interviews. This bias further explains why black individuals are less likely to be employed in higher-paying jobs which ultimately means that they can barely save up to purchase a home, where again, they are met with exorbitant interest rates on their mortgage loans. Buying a home is again a contributor to wealth accumulation and an overall better financial position due to the tangible nature of property ownership. Ultimately, wealth accumulation in black communities is affected not only by the lack of asset procurement financial systems such as mortgage loans but also the institutionalised racism due to biases in the hiring system. Financial education serves as a cop-out solution to reduce the wealth gap, especially because the exacerbation of this divide is due to socio-political forces. Building wealth and reducing this divide may therefore need further policy interventions and changes such as but not limited to redistributive policy and the upgradation of internal socio-economic processes.

Don’t be fooled by the shambles of a Tory government, they all want to take our Human Rights. On 19th October, former PM, Liz Truss appointed a new Home Secretary, Graham Shapps to replace Suella Braverman, who replaced Priti Patel in September. Whilst desperately clinging to her position as PM, Liz Truss was committed to withdrawing the UK from the European Court of Human Rights. The national mourning of Queen Elizabeth II provided Truss impunity in covertly passing the Policing, Crime, and Sentencing Act, which, amongst other things, criminalises the way of life of Gypsie and Roma travellers, and makes loud protests illegal. Truss’s ambitions were contingent on the regressive Bill of Rights proposed as a replacement for the Human Rights Act during Boris Johnson’s tenure. The Conservative Party seems intent on attacking human rights and this will have catastrophic consequences for everyone in the UK. Particularly pernicious is the legislation that has been passed and proposed over the last two years that aims to despicably erode the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK. In June 2021, former Home Secretary, Priti Patel, proposed the Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill, described by the United Nations as “almost neo-colonial” in its oppressive and racist formulation, proposed criminalising refugees arriving in the UK through clandestine routes and detaining people seeking asylum in camps. Despite breaching international law, this gratuitous piece of legislature received Royal Assent in April this year. Since being passed, the government has been attempting to deport refugees to camps in Rwanda, having already paid £120 million to the Rwandan government. Thus far, the Home Office has been prohibited from carrying out any deportations, with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) blocking the first planned deportation flight in June 2022. However, this policy has displaced survivors of genocide housed in hostels in Rwanda, such as the Hope Hostel. It is hard to imagine how this legislation could be made worse. However, when Suella Braverman replaced Patel as Home Secretary, she immediately announced her plans to initiate an even more aggressive attack against refugees and people seeking asylum. Her vision was to implement a complete ban on any person from claiming asylum if they arrived in the UK “illegally”. She also constructed a plan to increase the use of detention facilities and to introduce legislation to prevent the ECHR, or any other group motivated by morality, from blocking deportations of refugees and people seeking asylum. Revealing just how insipidly depraved and warped her motivations were, Braverman stated that sanctioning deportations of refugees to Rwanda was her “dream” and her “obsession”. Braverman has also described the British Empire as a “force for good”. However, on October 19th, Braverman publicly announced her resignation as Home Secretary. Braverman admitted that she committed a technical infringement of ministerial rules by sending an official policy document from her personal email and therefore felt duty-bound to resign. Former minister advisor, Dominic Cummings described this as a “laughable” excuse, explaining that it is commonplace for MPs to use their personal emails and work emails interchangeably, leaving open the question as to the real motivation behind Braverman’s sudden resignation. Demonstrating the sincerity (as in, lack thereof) of Braverman’s remorse, she was quick in vying for the role of Prime Minister after the resignation of Liz Truss. Even after only three months as Home Secretary, Braverman’s contemptible legacy condemns the most vulnerable sects of society to silently suffer exploitation and violence. She oversaw that modern slavery was reclassified as an “immigration and asylum issue”, making it even harder, if not impossible, for victims of modern slavery to access support and protection. But for Braverman, this suffering was not enough to satisfy her assiduous craving for cruelty. In her resignation letter, Braverman lamented the failure of Truss to commit to her manifesto pledges (and fulfil Braverman’s dreams) of introducing stricter measures to “[reduce] overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migrants”. In response, Truss thanked Braverman for her time in office, lauding Braverman’s “steadfast commitment to keeping the British people safe”. Braverman and Truss remain mutually connected by a steadfast commitment to racism and xenophobia. A desperate and increasingly unpopular Prime Minister replaced Braverman with one of her (many) nemesis MPs, former transport secretary Graham Shapps. Shapps previously stood in the leadership campaign following the resignation of Boris Johnson but dropped out to endorse Rishi Sunak’s campaign. Continuing his opposition to Truss, at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month Shapps spoke with acerbity about Truss and her political agenda and has, of particular note, condemned Truss’ decision to drop the 45p tax cuts. However, with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, Braverman has been thrown another life to get her initial plans up and going again. It seems as if the worst is yet to come. One can only imagine how far she will go and her next steps. But we cannot let that happen. Human Rights protect us all and we must stand together to oppose any attempts to erode them.

Liz Truss took just 45 days to prove that a leader without long-term answers is a leader unfit for office. Whilst her disastrous mini-budget is widely recognised as the catalyst for her demise, Truss’ history of failing to acknowledge future realities should have sounded alarm bells that her appointment to office was destined to fail from the start. In no area is Truss’ fantasy-land of no consequences clearer than her stance on environmental policy - both prior to, and during her premiership. Her actions have not just reflected a disregard for the environment, but a series of active attempts to reverse the already lacklustre progress that Britain has made to combat climate change. Truss’ voting record prior to becoming Prime Minister includes opposition to a catalogue of progressive amendments to the 2021 Environment Bill. Examples include voting against reducing the permitted carbon dioxide emission rate of new homes, and against a requirement for ministers to have due regard to the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 when taking actions. The now former Prime Minister also has a history of attacking renewable energy efforts. Whilst in the position of Environment Secretary under David Cameron’s government, Truss repeatedly expressed her dislike for solar panels, labelling them “a blight on the landscape” and making unsubstantiated claims that they harmed food production. She put action behind these words, by cutting subsidies for solar farms. Whilst scientists around the world shouted from the rooftops that switching to renewable energy is a vital step required to combat climate change, Truss chose to plug her ears and promote continuing to burn through finite energy resources. During her time as Environment Secretary, she also volunteered her own department for substantial funding cuts, emphasising her history of concerning herself with short-term financial and economic benefits for the wealthy, at the expense of long-term climate security. Now, Truss might have lasted just six weeks in office, but she certainly maximised that time to regress as much UK climate action as she could manage. Starting with the announcement of her cabinet, Truss filled environmental positions with Conservative politicians whose voting records reflected consistent opposition to progressive climate policies, making abundantly clear her desires to have no barriers to tearing down legislation designed to protect the environment. Jacob Rees-Mogg was selected to fill the role of Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and tasked with taking on the UK Energy Brief. Rees-Mogg blamed “climate alarmism” for high energy prices and claimed that scientists’ projects for future changes to the climate cannot be deemed realistic, because the meteorologists’ weather forecasts are not always correct. Earlier this year, he said that the government wanted to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas from the North Sea. The Business Secretary has also labelled the reopening of shale gas sites as “quite an interesting opportunity” and likened fracking to “a rock fall in a disused coal mine”. Yet such unsubstantiated claims and rhetoric designed to downplay the climate crisis were not deemed a cause for concern by our former Prime Minister - rather they came as music to her ears. Shortly after making her cabinet appointments, Liz Truss announced her plans to reverse a fracking ban. This is in spite of insufficient scientific data to track earthquakes caused by the drilling and limit the risk of their destruction, documented in a leaked government report obtained by The Guardian. This plan to reverse fracking also served to be one of the final straws in Conservative confidence in Liz Truss’ leadership. A crunch vote in the Commons on Truss’ fracking plans descended into chaos, with multiple MPs alleging bullying and manhandling, and more than 40 voting against Truss. From this moment, it was clear that even her own party members were concerned over the lack of long-term planning that was evidenced by proposing to lift the fracking ban. The following day, Liz Truss announced her resignation. However, it only takes a brief glance over Liz Truss’ history in politics to see that, just like Jacob Rees-Mogg, she too has a history of ignoring expert advice, as soon as it did not fit in with her short-term goals. Whilst she was Environment Secretary, Liz Truss allowed farmers to dredge watercourses running through their land without any regulation, in spite of expert advice warning her against this course of action. An Environment Agency report which had specifically explained how this can increase flood risk and lead to the destruction of river ecology was mysteriously removed from government websites. Another disastrous cabinet appointment for the environment can be seen in Truss’ decision to select Ranil Jayawardena to head the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The new secretary of state for the environment has a consistent record of voting against measures to protect the environment, including opposing government support for renewable energy projects. Jayawardena’s own East Hampshire constituency has been subjected to untreated sewage being pumped into its rivers for an average of 11 hours every day - amounting to over 4,000 hours of sewage discharge in 2021. Having surrounded herself with climate-sceptics, Truss quickly set to work dismantling environmental policy. Her government granted itself the ability to revoke or alter the 570 EU environmental laws that currently still apply to the UK. They had originally been upheld after Brexit as a part of a promise made by former Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, that leaving the Union would not lead to a weakening of UK environmental law. But Truss faced a problem. An influential figure whom she could not remove for their position of power: King Charles III. The monarch and long-term climate activist, who had reportedly wished to deliver a speech at Cop27, cancelled his plans to attend after she intervened to advise him to stay away. When the King’s commitment to environmental endeavours is so clear, Truss’ decision to advise him against attending highlighted her desire to silence the UK’s acknowledgement of the disastrous long-term realities that the climate crisis threatens. Conversative MP Tobias Ellwood, tweeted his disapproval for Truss advising the King against attending Cop27, saying that he hoped common sense would prevail and that as a “globally respected voice on the environment”, the King’s attendance “would add serious authority to the British delegation”. Meanwhile, Stanley Johnson, staunch Conversative Party politician and father of Boris Johnson warned that Truss’ plans put the environment at risk. He stated: “The mad dash for growth may seem essential now – but come 10 years from now, when we find that some of our key wildlife sites, our key landscape areas have been put at risk, we'll think differently about it.” As the speed at which our planet is being ravaged by devastating and increasingly irreparable climate destruction, Liz Truss really utilised her six weeks in power to put the UK’s pedal to the metal. However, whilst her reckless short-term approach to governing certainly set-back the UK’s already weak environmental commitments, Truss’ failure to hold on to the position of Prime Minister has at least set an example which makes it abundantly clear that realistic long-term vision is a non-negotiable trait in a leader.

After just 44 days of economic and political upheaval, Liz Truss announced her resignation as the PM of the country. By the end of the month, the UK would have had 3 Prime Ministers in just 8 weeks, 2 of whom did not have to face a general election to reach office. Further, Jeremy Hunt (the new Chancellor of the Exchequer) is expected to announce new fiscal policy plans after essentially scrapping the disastrous ‘mini-budget’. Expected to take place on the 31st of October, this might be derailed by the new Prime Minister’s possible reselection of the Cabinet. Politically speaking, the Conservative Party has lost wide swathes of public support and the last 6 weeks have forever tainted their reputation of a good economic record. With Labour peaking at more than 30 points ahead, there was a point where predictions suggested the SNP could have become the official opposition party if there were a general election held now. Institutional decay However, arguably, the biggest lesson to come out of this debacle is the ideal of confidence and credibility. Truss, in the Conservative party leadership races, commented on the ‘orthodoxy’ of the Treasury and –through her policies – showed disregard for the Bank of England, the independent Office of Budget Responsibility, and the civil service. The government labelling the mini budget as a fiscal event was most likely their flawed reasoning to block an official Office of Budget Responsibility report that would have been extremely useful for the Monetary Policy Committee to use as an official forecasting tool ahead of the 3rd of November decision regarding the interest rate. Truss’ pre-emptive firing of Tom Scholar – the Treasury’s permanent secretary – was also likely a plan to control dissent within the party. Without reliable forecasts from the OBR, their policies are essentially a blind leap of faith, which the public do not share. In a time of economic turmoil and the prospect of thousands facing absolute hardships, the least we can expect from the government is transparency and integrity. Most significantly, the reeling markets forced the Bank of England to act against their earlier plans for a ‘quantitative tightening’ when they had to bail out the gilt markets for £65 billion. For a few days, tensions were extremely high when it was unclear if Andrew Bailey was serious about the emergency buy-ins ending strictly on the 14th of October. If the markets had not yet adjusted and the central bank were pressured into going back on their word, it would have caused irreparable damage to its credibility. Ironically, it's these institutions that Truss tried to undermine that have stood strengthened and had a significant role in her resignation. Slightly reminiscent of Johnson’s departure, the loss of power recently has been coupled with problems of foregoing institutional checks and balances and not accepting accountability in the face of grave mistakes. Proposing unpopular policies and promising to follow through until public pressure reaches a boiling point to then announce another U-turn has been the modus operandi for much of the past 2 years. Poor governance has meant that the UK has an extremely tough road ahead in convincing investors of its potential. However, and more troubling, is the effect this has had on regular people. With the prospect of another period of austerity looming, and this winter set to be particularly tough due to the cost-of-living crisis, it is unlikely we will see the economy recover for the foreseeable future. The future This horrible episode in British history has delivered an effective blow to the rising anti-institutional rhetoric that has been on the rise for recent years. The importance of the Bank of England and the OBR, especially, has taken centre-stage and might make international investors more comfortable. There does, however, lie a huge caveat about who is elected as the next Prime Minister. If Johnson were to return, it would be farcical and would lead to important questions about the health of democracy in the UK and is extremely unlikely to boost confidence. Sunak would be more likely to prioritise stability and might not delay the 31st of October fiscal plans by Hunt, which might prove crucial. The cost of restoring market credibility is likely to be in the form of spending cuts. Another round of austerity would add pressure to already buckling sectors of the NHS, the care industry, and other public services. It is also unclear if the plans to help people with rising energy costs will continue and the degree of assistance it would offer. Further, the chaos caused by poor fiscal management might lead to an overly cautious fiscal restraint that is likely to plague the direction of economic policy, at least until the next general election. The resignation of Truss has also led to predictions that the Bank of England might raise interest rates by less than previously thought on their 3rd of November MPC meeting. ING’s analysis suggests that “The Bank essentially faces a choice between hiking aggressively and baking in the ultra-high level of mortgage and corporate borrowing rates, amplifying the depth of a recession through the first half of next year – or undershooting market expectations, at risk of a weaker pound and more imported inflation.” In the longer term, ING economists put the ‘political risk premium’ at around 0.5% in 10-year borrowing costs in comparison to the USA and Germany, possibly affecting millions of households and businesses. They also commented that it takes years to build confidence, and only one day to destroy it. Overall, economic institutions that have provided checks and balances to the government have come out of this with a bolstered reputation, in stark contrast to the Conservative party. The next few weeks will be crucial in seeing if the markets remain fairly stable with the new premiership and the next government will have a tough road ahead trying to restore its battered credibility.

As COVID-19 progressed, data revealed just how prevalent the inequalities in accessing healthcare were for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities with them being disproportionately affected. It was reported the BAME community was 1.9 times more likely to die during COVID-19 compared to their white counterparts, this is nearly double the likelihood, however, why is this? Several factors could explain this: their occupation making them more vulnerable to suspecting the virus, the location of where they live, household composition and pre-existing health conditions. Despite this recent data being published, has the UK government actively taken measures to reduce these inequalities for the future? In 2001, the Race Relations Amendment was introduced with the NHS to 'have due regard to eliminate unlawful discrimination' with it being unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of race, colour, nationality and ethnic origin. This was established with the aim to increase accessibility and promote equality. The establishment of this amendment led to staff being trained, undergoing performance assessment procedures, being subjected to disciplinary measures and in some cases were even required to leave employment if they could not abide by the amendment. Hospitals and NHS trusts were also required to monitor and publish data of differential treatment towards racial groups, their investigations of overcoming these issues and how they dealt with it. Although, in theory this should have significantly reduced inequalities for BAME communities regarding healthcare, it didn’t make much of an impact as COVID-19 clearly highlighted. Despite there being an increase in data being recorded, completion levels remained low, making it difficult to identify areas of disparities in healthcare across the UK. Whilst, the introduction of this amendment has led to monitoring, which was not previously recorded or at least in a regulated, formal way, it has not quite had the impact with which it was established with. The amendment also only focused on BAME patients experiences but disregarded to take a more holistic view and monitor BAME staff and their experiences too. It could be said that the most valuable resource the NHS has is its staff, with approximately one in five of its workforce being BAME. Despite this, BAME staff are treated considerably worse where they don’t have the same career progression opportunities, with them being 1.74 times less likely than white short-listed candidates to be appointed. A NHS report commissioned by employees revealed that BAME staff are twice as likely to be disciplined compared to white staff. To combat this, in 2015 the NHS Workforce Race Equality (WRES) was founded with the intention to monitor BAME staff experiences to provide equal access to career opportunities and fair treatment in the workplace. Not only is it important to have staff being treated equally, it also would result in higher quality patient care increasing patient satisfaction by having a valued workforce. Every year the WRES report shows there has been improvements however a lot more change is needed especially in specific hospital trusts where there has been very minimal improvements. To have more significant improvements the government needs to identify specific areas which require bigger change and to provide interventions and education to staff as well as closely monitoring these locations. Although, collecting and monitoring data is very useful to understand where the inequalities for BAME patients and staff lies across the UK it is more important what is done with this information and the proactive measures enforced to reduce these inequalities. The government and NHS need to work together to actively break barriers to decrease the gap between communities. This could involve communicating messages which are tailored to different cultures and religious viewpoints. For example, during COVID-19, the government could have put more of a conscious effort to be more inclusive and communicate more effectively. Specifically, regarding high-risk events such as Eid and weddings which tend to be on a much larger scale. Language barrier also contributes to the inequalities for BAME communities as it reduces their accessibility to healthcare. To decrease the gap, the NHS could create an initiative where BAME patients have the option to have a translator of their spoken language to be present during their appointment. Although, this is currently available at some hospitals it is only in action on a small scale due to resources being very limited. To resolve this, the government needs to spread their costs more equally where they look at socioeconomic maps regarding the BAME community to identify areas in the UK which would benefit the most from this scheme. This would reduce miscommunication and anxiety where BAME communities who may be of older age and don’t have family, could potentially feel quite anxious and maybe even apprehensive to go to the doctors as they feel as though they cannot communicate effectively. There needs to be more awareness when presenting information especially in relation to the COVID-19 vaccination. A lot of BAME communities may not be willing to trust the government due to past historical issues and institutionalised racism. To combat this there should be more reinforcement of facts and to give credible evidence and data to support what is being communicated. A policy intervention could be using community leaders to help spread information about vaccinations. Although, this was seen later during the COVID-19 period, it was an independent move, not a governmental organisation. Inequalities for accessing healthcare amongst the BAME community stems from institutionalised racism. The gap of inequality will continue to be there unless conscious efforts are made to reduce this. Although, the current government initiatives are good as there is increased monitoring on the treatment and conduct for BAME patients and staff, this is only of use if proactive measures are taken into action from the data being collected. The government needs to make an active change by reducing language barriers and being more inclusive when communicating public health measures. As reports and data has shown the inequalities are reducing however a lot more is still yet to be done for the BAME community and currently the government is not wholeheartedly putting in their efforts to make active change.

Whilst almost all media outlets were preoccupied with the national mourning of Queen Elizabeth II and her state funeral, worrying developments were coming out of Leicester. Growing tensions amongst the South Asian community between Hindus and Muslims reached boiling point on 17 and 18 September, when unrest erupted into riots on Leicester’s streets. Had they occurred a week later, it is wholly reasonable to assume it would have made front page news, and deservedly so. The unrest in Leicester represented the first widespread Hindu-Muslim communal violence witnessed within the United Kingdom, amidst a growing problem on the Indian subcontinent. However, the unrest was largely underreported. Most articles covering the riots were predominantly cursory in their coverage of its causes. The media were quick to directly link the violence to a violent disturbance in the city on 28 August after India played Pakistan in the cricket, with little inquiry into the other potential external factors at play. Whilst the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry is noted for its zealousness, ensuant violence over two weeks later, suggests there are potentially more serious factors at play. In highlighting the nuanced influences of ethnic nationalism, namely Hindutva, the power of radicalisation amongst diaspora communities, and to a lesser degree, demography, it can be suggested that the events of Leicester may not be as isolated as they first appear. The misinformation spread over a plethora of social media platforms, amplified the issue where, for the sake of solidarity, communities (both Hindu and Muslim) came to show support to their ‘brothers’ against each other. On the Indian subcontinent, Hindu-Muslim conflict has become so prevalent, particularly since the election of Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, that it “no longer constitute[s] news”. Whilst communal violence is therefore not a new phenomenon, its emergence within the United Kingdom is concerning. Hindutva is an extreme form of Hindu nationalism, noted for its “ethnic absolutism”, in the sense that it promotes Hindu cultural hegemony in India akin to that of Aryanism in Nazi Germany. It is widely considered Islamophobic. The Hindutva movement comprises of many organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the BJP, the ruling party of India since 2014. Collectively, these organisations form the Sangh Parivar, all sharing one goal, working towards the creation of a Hindu Rashtra (the ethnonationalist dream). The election of Modi and the BJP has significantly solidified the grip of Hindutva on Indian politics, with the Hindu Indian diaspora becoming a “major source of funding for the Hindutva [movement].” Some in the diaspora actively disseminate an “aggressive [ethnonationalist] brand of Hindutva identity” through provocative and calculated social media posts, often with radicalising effects. In the United Kingdom, Hindutva is not adhered to by a majority of the Indian diaspora community. Largely, it tends to be supported by a small, wealthy fringe minority. Nevertheless, the Sangh Parivar, and the wider Hindutva movement, certainly seek to assert their influence and play provocateur abroad. It is becoming increasingly clear that the containment of communalist Hindutva incidents to the Indian subcontinent is unlikely; Leicester potentially provides an example of this. In the instance of Leicester, whilst the tensions existed from the August cricket game, it is wholly reasonable to assume that the presence, no matter how small, of Hindutva-leaning supporters acted as one of the catalysts to the eruption of rioting in addition to the misinformation spread from both sides. The chants of “Jai Shri Ram” from masked Hindu men in Leicester as they marched through Green Lane Road (a predominantly Muslim area) demonstrates the fascistic techniques of the Hindutva being adopted in the United Kingdom; a worrying indication that increasingly radicalised religious sentiments are being shared in this country. Whilst there is no official Muslim equivalent to the Hindutva movement within this context, this is not to say that Muslim communalism is a less influential factor in Hindu-Muslim tensions and unrest in Leicester. The adoption of fascist Indian rhetoric from a minority of the Hindu community, seen in the marches down Green Lane Road, provided opportunity for radical actors within the two communities to radicalise the youth in response. In India, instances of communalism play off one another – with communalism seeping into the diaspora community in the United Kingdom, it is fair to suggest that the rules of engagement will largely be the same. However, the damage that it will cause is unclear, as this is one of the first major incidents that have occurred so recently. Whether the form of polarisation takes shape as street violence (as seen in this instance), lynching, or rallies, it is wholly unpredictable. Some Muslims radicalise in response to the Islamophobia of the Hindutva, and vice versa, fuelling the anger and hatred that already polarises them further. Whilst violence was perpetrated by both sides after the August cricket match, it became a ‘tit-for-tat', retaliatory affair, reminiscent of the communalist violence seen back on the Indian subcontinent. The communalist, almost tribalist, nature of Hindu-Muslim relations can be attributed to the ethnonationalism of both the governments of India and Pakistan, who both criticized the Leicester riots, but only in relation to their respective peoples and religions. The Indian High Commission condemned the events in Leicester, particularly those against the “Indian Community” and the “Hindu religion”. Similarly, the High Commission of Pakistan censured the “systematic campaign of violence...against the Muslims of [Leicester].” These binary views serve to reinforce extremist views, both on the subcontinent and within the diasporas, by blaming the other for the eruption of violence. Notwithstanding, to determine as to whether the unrest in Leicester was an isolated incident, it is important to look at the city’s demography. In India, instances of Hindutva translating into communal violence predominantly occurred over the fear of becoming a minority in a place like Leicester, known for its diversity. In the United Kingdom, Muslims outnumber Hindus for the most part. In Leicester, however, where 40 per cent of the population is of South Asian descent, the split is almost perfectly even. Hindutva can be seen to be largely triggered by the fear of the Indian Hindus becoming a minority, given in Leicester the Hindu population largely matches that of the Muslim community, the city provides the ideal target for Hindu nationalists to radicalise and provoke young South Asian men. It is unlikely we would see similar events take place in Birmingham or Bradford, where Muslims greatly outnumber Hindus. Thus, whilst demography is not the overall cause for the unrest, in this view, it is certainly a contributing factor. Therefore, it can be argued that the Leicester riots showed evidence of Hindutva radicalisation, suggesting this unrest was a part of a greater trend taking root in the diaspora. However, the effects of demography on the capacity for communalist violence to take place suggests the Leicester riots were unique and isolated in the sense that it was the most likely target in the United Kingdom. Whether this communalist sentiment takes root throughout other British South Asian communities remains to be seen. However, one of the main takeaways from this article is the deadliness of misinformation and how it can ignite the many minority groups to begin communal violence in Britain between diasporic communities. Written in collaboration with Drishti Patel and Gokul Krishnakumar

Index-Linked Gilts are in part a standard U.K. Government bond. An investor loans money to the government on the promise that the funds will be paid back, with interest. Introduced in 1981, the indexing part differentiates this product from other bonds, in that interest and principal are coupled – ‘indexed’ – to the going rate of inflation. We must ask who benefits (cui bono) from this de-risking. Quite obviously it is the bondholder and the interests of private finance. It follows that we ought to probe why investors have become a privileged constituency. This is a historical question that captures the neoliberal turn. Under the neoliberal regime of sovereign debt management, financial markets are empowered as a political choice. Whereas democracy once constrained markets, the demands of the market were made beyond reproach. The postwar era witnessed a rather different relationship between the state and financial markets. Indeed, amongst the developed economies, the average real interest rate was negative 1.94% due to a concerted policy of ‘financial repression.’ The postwar period sought to reinvent the financial system as one that only served the public good – vested with a ‘social purpose’ - defined as the full employment of a given economy’s resources. The state as guardian of this public good would command more legitimacy than the defenestrated financial rentiers. No longer would the financier be able to claim fat rents, in the form of interest charged, or deny lending unduly. Real interest rates were thus held down to make public investment feasible. This was the postwar ideology. Index-Linked Gilts are alien to this zeitgeist. They reward the financier. They are thus indicative of a relationship between state and financial market recast. If not impelled by dependency, why else would the government cede such concessions to the investor class? The rationale of the postwar political economy was that the prosperity of a peoples should never be held to ransom by striking private capital. Fiscal vulnerability had to be created by policy: capital controls were eased, hot money flows resumed once again, and ‘liability management’ banking took off. The once slayed financial monster had been wilfully resurrected, set against the public goods demanded by national polities; unruly, untrammelled capital sloshed around the globe. Out went financial repression, in came the voguish crusade of financial liberalisation. A funny kind of liberty. The Bretton Woods order was demolished, as countries became financially needy, reliant on markets for financing their sovereign debt. Whilst the financial sector amassed ideological and material clout, the U.K. government’s deficit started to swell. But one more factor served to inflame the government’s financial headache: the spectre of inflation. 24.9% in 1975, and 17.2% in the year Mrs. Thatcher took office. For the financier, inflation is enemy number one. Why would one invest in government bonds if one knew that their nominal return would de drowned by runaway inflation. Policymakers, embedded in this new ideology of market dominance, were terrified of a ‘gilt strike;’ they feared a repeat of Summer 1976. They fretted that ‘the capital market... [was] dead.’ No longer was it understood that the aspirations of a polity should trump the shrieks of financial markets. This ideologically informed fear materialised. The gilt market went on strike in September 1979. The markets could now cash in the structural dominance they exercised over the state. Despite Governor Gordon Richardson’s point that gilt sales, for the most part, had been robust, newly orthodox notions of ‘market management’ demanded index-linked gilts. Richardson lost the argument. The government in 1981 thereby forced itself to make a wager: inflation would come down faster than the markets suspected; the government would make sure this happened, and investors would kill to have their investment protected against inflation. As inflation would fall, the bill on these bonds, since they were so aggregable to the markets, for the government, would fall to. This was the plan. By its own logic, it mostly succeeded. Above I have articulated the rubric under which inflation-linked Gilts were inaugurated. We have probed how the privileging of the investor class came to be. Now we turn to the normative question: Is this good policy? The question of how to mobilise affordable finance is of paramount concern. The postwar period accordingly enacted financial repression; the neoliberal period chose to make nice with private finance. In fiscal year 2023, public debt servicing costs are forecast to reach £104bn. Index-Linked Gilts account for 25.4% of the total stock of public debt. Amidst the immiseration of those exposed to brutal inflation and recession, we must ask if it is right that bondholders’ rents are protected. It is plainly unfair. Instead, the financial markets should be brought to heel, with the apparatus of financial repression reinstated. For decades, states have wilfully shaken out the economic toolbox: ceding sovereignty – the historic dividend won in two world wars – to actors who are often inimical to a democratically defined public interest. The ideological justification for this self-neutering has been the veneration of the financial markets as the wellspring of all prosperity. How lame is it, that under this common sense, a democratic polity must resign itself to the whims of these markets, their risk premia, their policy proclivities? Yes, interest rates have declined since 1980. But at what cost? Politics may be insidiously disavowed in such discussions amongst ‘practical men,’ but make no mistake its presence is inescapable: politics is about ‘who gets what’. As such, the political decision to issue index-linked gilts is the granting of a real rate of return to a privileged investor class. It is the pecuniary reward that ideology and structural dominance has netted for investors. And in return what has the polity received from this concerted appeasement effort? The U.K. economy still craves good investment, our infrastructure is crumbling and dirty, and our growth is anaemic. The optimal policy option would ensure good investment is diffuse and yields only a fair rate of interest. Private finance has been bestowed a great public function - the creation of credit and money; this license ought to be held contingent upon acting in the public interest. The licentious empowerment of the financial markets has only created a socially corrosive market ‘utopia.’

England’s exam system has only been effective at upholding the notion of privilege through constricted tests and exams, resulting in an outcome of poorer mental health overall for young people. A September 2021 survey published by NHS Digital concluded that one in six children in England (17%) among the age range of 6 to 16 years had a “probable mental disorder”. This same rate was also the same between 17 to 19 year olds. The prevalence of this has risen by over 50% since 2017. Responding to a survey conducted by the Children's Commissioner for England in 2020, two-thirds of pupils regarded exams and excess homework as the leading driver of stress. Furthermore, a poll conducted by the NEU (National Education Union), 73% of teachers surveyed cited that the mental health of their students depreciated following the government's introduction of rigorous “reformed” GCSEs. These new GCSEs, introduced in 2017 by Michael Gove despite advice not do so, place more weighting on final exams at the end of Year 11, and less emphasis on other non-exam assessments and coursework. These statistics on young people in the English education system’s exam factory leads to the following question that needs asking. What is the substance of a fairer education system that promotes wellbeing and keeps social inequality to a minimum? The answer would be to look at Finland's education system. Finland’s school system has no examinations prior to leaving school. Instead, all assessments are conducted by teacher-based assessment. This method of assessment is pitched towards driving learning beyond in higher education. Teachers, educated to master’s level, in the process of assessing students can exercise a high degree of professional autonomy and discretion. Regarding the wellbeing of Finnish students, the country’s education system provides free school meals for all students and aims to remove social inequality. In addition, Finland outperforms the UK in health satisfaction of 15-year-olds alongside their success in OECD Pisa tests to measure reading, mathematical and scientific ability. Meanwhile, the English education system is overly centered on competitiveness and cramming information. The OECD in 2019 found that the UK ranked 69 out of 72 when assessing the life satisfaction of 15-year-olds, the steepest decline of any country since 2015 in children’s living standards. The Finnish system is underpinned by conceptualizing communication and collaboration skills in the classroom. The OECD’s Pisa measure, with Finland at the top, shows how the wellbeing of teachers and students in the English education system can be improved by providing ownership and autonomy over teaching and learning as the information age changes. The test of simply regurgitating information in exams is counter-productive; a well-rounded education can provide a supportive system for teaching children and allow them to reach their full potential beyond a standardized criteria of exam grading. The extreme stress of anxiety and exams in England asks what the point of this system is being in place. Former education secretary Damian Hinds in his article for the Sunday Times in 2019, acknowledged the stress of exams having a “disproportionate effect on young people’s wellbeing”, he insisted without any evidence that such stress was essential in “building character” and “developing resilience”. Realistically, it is statistically shown that the majority of people suffering from a mental health disorder is developed in early age, and large amounts of stress in childhood does not bolster resilience. Hinds’ article was narrow-minded to make a convincing case to show young people can pass exams and enter the top universities. It fails to show adequate levels of research and independent thought with reasoning with empathy. Then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, mindlessly insisted the UK returns to the exam model that was paused during the pandemic, but without any explanation for this. Exams are a measure of aptitude, ranking specific skills alongside retaining facts under pressure, only representing a small percentage of skills a person requires to traverse the real world. Many global challenges facing us are complex, multi-faceted and entrenched. The ability to spout facts to solve these issues is not necessarily a solution. The English education system needs to become more forward-thinking, develop the social and emotional intelligence of young people, and emphasizes collaboration over competition. The longer the system we have in place continues, the system will fail the student to create diversity and more disparities in higher education.

Recently, there has been a backlash over Disney’s casting for the forthcoming musical “The Little Mermaid.” The trailer itself has received approximately one million and a half dislikes due to fans’ outrage and disappointment in the differential racial identity of the actress who played Ariel compared to the original red-head Caucasian animation. Whilst there is some opposition-held against the actress, much of the protest is due to the deliberate advertisement of political correctness within the remake of the classical franchise. In other words, the backlash was against what the media today calls “woke movies”, with its former term originally stemming from the Black Liberation Movement but has later been lexicalized by those who aim to advance social injustice progress. You may ask if the woke culture holds a fundamental aim of dismantling systems of injustice, why are movies of such a kind still an issue when the perks of being woke, whose actions would seem righteous, are so fascinating? This article hopes to answer the question by arguing that the proportional fixations of western films on politically- correct storytelling may have limiting influences on the evolution of both woke and pop cultures. It is worth noting that woke movies do not simply refer to movies with a strong female lead or a dark-skinned actor/actress, but essentially those that involve deliberate swaps of gender and/or racial ethnicities of characters coming from the pre-existing franchise. Most importantly, it is usually done to symbolically deliver a political message while overlooking the entertaining nature as a major goal of franchises. One consequence is that woke movies have caused the culture to slowly lose its political applicability. Instead of using the term and its associated rhetoric to establish concrete policies for marginalized groups, companies like Hollywood today create movies that intend to idealize the values that are favoured by the woke society that we live in. This is due to the fear of the “cancel culture” which has been on the rise as people start looking at posts written by comedians to politicians. Whilst keeping people and institutions accountable for their actions, it is also necessary to stay respectable for differences in our society. Otherwise, pushing political correctness in all aspects of society will leave no room for mistakes nor expressions for any individual.This may lead the younger audience to grow in a society that is very critical and therefore susceptible to follow wokeness ‘involuntarily’ to a certain extent Over time, the term goes through what is known as the Phases of image, where narrative detaches from its initial root from the Black movement and shifts towards a hyperrealism concept in favour of white supremacy. Bacon Jr. (2021) noted in Stazi. M’s article stated that “woke” is a modern-day equivalent of other terms which are used as a simulacrum to establish legislations to alienate people from the administrative state further. It becomes a cognitive shortcut to label anyone perceived as “too woke” as an activist, a socialist and an anti-American. When it comes to the nature of administration, the performing and proliferating nature of media may commercialize the movements behind woke culture into a symbolic idea. As a result, symbolic activism is the new social construct under which one feels more motivated to engage in actions with no real change, but enough to make them feel contributional to making a change. The more walls are being painted declaring equality, the less emphasis is placed on policy change, hence the issue with the ‘woke’ culture at present. Another consequence is that woke storytelling has reversed the ideals of diversity when the public begins to believe that the way to change is to be “opinionated” and even judgemental about other people. This is exactly what Barack Obama, the former president of the U.S.A, pointed out in his speech against Woke culture. He exemplified that, “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or use the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel good about myself because did you see how woke I was?”. Due to narratives being proposed through dramatic rhetoric, plots and players, people may feel wokeness as something to perform rather than embody and live. Ironically, instead of striving to create a tolerant environment, people are now driven to be hyper-sensitive towards any comments of its counterpart, craving for conflicts and rejecting political diversity. In the art field, the domination of woke culture has largely hindered the freedom of artistic expression and creativity. In an article rating over the classical movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, the author asked a rhetorical question: “Can you imagine Hollywood doing a remake of that movie?”. Although meant as a joke, the question underlies the fact that contemporary film is losing a platform to express cultural variation. Ideally, any kind of story is granted its artistic merit when the narrative challenges the viewers with their imagination and inspires discussion upon a reflecting topic without violating anyone’s trust. However, the reality is that creators no longer produce stories from an artistic point of view, but are limited by the cautious attitude in depicting potentially debatable topics. As a result, from the unexpected Spanish lines spoken by Chavez in Dr Strange, to the bisexuality of Superman, these “forced” modifications of characterization merely unify established, unique work into a category, rather than contributing to diversity. As a result, movies in the recent decade are becoming more forgettable and unoriginal. Hence, with more entertainers taking on a propagandistic approach of production, our future society led by younger generations will begin to normalize and eventually show inclinations toward propaganda over art, leading to a monoculture. As much as a movie is free to depict politics, the aim should not be to throw subjective ideas of political correctness upon its viewers at the expense of artistic expression. Otherwise, the incompatibility of the two realms may hinder the advancement in each of their distinct evolution. For example, the entertaining nature of cinema culture may turn the bases of politics into a hyper-realistic concept, leading to the lack of emphasis on concrete systematic adjustments. Hence, opposing effects of the woke initiative may occur as symbolic activism drives people to be hyper-sensitive towards comments made upon minorities, leading to an intolerant environment as opposed to diversity. In terms of art, creativity is hindered under the industrial domination of political propaganda, eventually leading to the loss of artistic diversity. Nonetheless, woke art is still the norm today despite its major contradiction. It is crucial to reconsider whether it is worth sacrificing art for political popularity and to challenge the appeals of “woke” culture.