LSMedia or Liverpool student media at liverpoolstudentmedia.com is a brand new website launched by the University of Liverpool's students to promote and support talented Liverpool student's creative written, visual or radio content.

This week’s news round-up coming to a laptop near you:

 

The Good, The Bad and The UUP, My Big Fat Gypsy Qualification, Porn: A Parliamentary Business, A Pint of John Smith’s and a Tory MP, and other stories it would be morally repugnant to satirise…

 

 

 

As the final stage of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was put into practice, Gordon Brown described the vote to transfer London policing and criminal justice powers to Belfast as ‘the final end to decades of strife.’

 

However, the vote was not unanimous as the third biggest of the four parties, The Ulster Unionist Party, refused to back the deal claiming it had been blackmailed and bullied consistently by the English government and Sinn Fein in the lead up to the vote. The UUP stated that it was not against the motion, but that it prioritised gaining concession to change the education policy, which can only be considered a selfish electoral interest of the UUP in increasing its own role.

 

Hillary Clinton had been recorded pleading with leader Reg Empey for fears of dissident terrorist attacks, as well as former US president George Bush, who contacted David Cameron to ask him to increase pressure on Empey to relent. In reality neither Bush nor Cameron could sway Empey, but the gesture was in relation to the Conservative party’s connection with the UUP over an electoral pact aimed at grasping votes from each other during their respective elections.

 

 

 

Yet more back-biting and bickering in the world of politics as Lord Mandelson continues to capitalise on Tory floundering, saying ‘Cameron is too weak to pick a fight in his own party. That’s why the Tories remain fundamentally unchanged.’ This comes as Mandelson keeps up the fight to put Cameron at the heart of the Ashcroft Affair, as he tells The Guardian that Ashcroft had the Tory leader ‘by the balls’ and was unable to ‘call the shots in his own party.’

 

Unsurprisingly, the Tories backchat, accusing Labour of ‘rank hypocrisy and political opportunism’ over the Ashcroft Affair, with Eric Pickles calling the Labour outrage ‘false indignation.’

 

I’m afraid, during the endless cockfight of political spin, Tories you have got a point, as Lord Ashcroft has been a scapegoat for the many, many dubious financial exchanges within the Conservative party. But to be honest you’re all at it, so don’t give me that sob story. 3 can play that game, Right Mr Clegg…Mr Clegg?

 

Unsurprisingly, 3 more Labour MPs have been accused of expenses fraud, and despite pleading not guilty before City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the prosecutions of Elliot Morely, David Chaytor, and Jim Devine, are the first results from the Westminster expenses scandal.

 

Meanwhile the Tories are advertising transparency in the new Conservative Technology Manifesto, which follows the US ‘right to data policy.’ This is the claim that the Conservative party will publish ‘every item of central government spending worth over £25,000.' This gesture, so close to the election, and so soon after the expenses scandal, is not fooling anyone David, and simply putting the details of government spending into the public domain will not relinquish to them the control of expenditure.

 

 

 

Tory MP Anne McIntosh managed to rile one of her constituents, David Andrews, a campaign leader against a planned incinerator in his area, into giving her a ‘beer shampoo’ after she told him ‘the surgery is fully booked.’

 

The meeting, which took place in Anne’s local pub, resulted in Mr Andrews emptying the entire contents of his pint glass over her head. Andrews’ response to questions over his conduct during the meeting was that he felt ‘maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but she didn’t even listen to me and then said she disagreed.’

 

North Yorkshire Police are aware of the incident but have thus far registered no complaints. The sympathetic proprietor of the pub described the incident as ‘unfortunate.’

 

 

 

The popular social networking website, Facebook, loved and loathed by students due to its highly addictive nature, has threatened to sue the Daily Mail this week after claims the newspaper besmirched its good name over false allegations made by one of their reporters. The Mail employee posed as a 14-year-old girl on the site to test its security and claimed that, after being apparently ‘flooded’ with an influx of requests from sexual predators, it lets older men groom young girls for sex.

 

With over 23 million users in the UK alone, a spokesperson for Facebook described the catastrophic brand damage caused by such accusations, particularly from a newspaper with a demographic which also appeals to a large number of Facebook users.

 

The recent attack on the social network follows the recent tragedy of Ashleigh Hall, 17 who was contacted and groomed via Facebook by Peter Chapman, 33, who, during a meeting between the two orchestrated by Chapman, raped and murdered Ashleigh, before dumping her body on farmland near Sedgefield, County Durham.

 

The matter of ‘miscommunication’ which led to the law suit against the Daily Mail for directly naming Facebook, has only served to highlight the network further as an amalgamation of Guardian and Mail defamation described Facebook as allowing profiles to be infiltrated within seconds by ‘older men who wanted to perform sexual acts in front of them.’ Steady on.

 

 

 

Mrs Arrowsmith, an MP hopeful for the Liberal Democrats, is no ordinary woman.

 

Twice winner of the UK Adult Film and Television Award for Best Director, Anna Arrowsmith is also a ‘keen campaigner for women’s rights and anti-censorship issues.’ Arrowsmith states that her role in the porn industry and the aim of her film company, Easy on the Eye, is to make porn more accessible to women, as this is an issue she has fought for the past 12 years, with particular focus in the publication of her photographic guidebook to help couples create home-made porn.  

 

Students with the Virgin Media package may be aware of a little channel called Television X, and it was here that Mrs Arrowsmith, under her alias ‘Anna Span,’ began her career in adult televisual entertainment with her debut recording ‘Eat Me/Keep Me.’

 

The 38-year-old philosophy graduate decided to make her bid for a seat in Westminster after the highly publicised and ongoing expenses scandal sparked her interest in politics, as well as holding strong beliefs that women are under-represented in Parliament.

 

If only Anna’s influence had been available to MP Jacqui Smith before the humiliating investigation into her partner’s receipt of porn at the tax payers’ expense. It may have saved some money, her dignity, and their marriage, as well as picking up a few handy relaxation tips along the way. 

 

And who knows where this move will lead Mrs Arrowsmith, if she does indeed make it ‘from porn to parliament’ as she jokes on her Twitter. Despite positive assertions from Nick Clegg that she is no ‘cardboard cut-out Westminster politician,’ I see no reason why sex and politics cannot continue to go hand in hand as it has done in the entire history of parliamentary sleaze. Anna Span could certainly show the Labour party how you really ‘sex up’ a dossier.

 

 

 

It seems I too have been infected by the global outbreak of the McVirus, as yet again McDonalds has managed to squeeze its waistline into my weekly article. But this time, as your weekly news boob.

 

Well Ronald, you’ve done it again. This week McDonalds has been awarded the title as first UK employer to be given permission to provide a qualification to applicants enrolled on their new course, equivalent to a GCSE or Level 2 BTEC award.

 

You may remember from those horrifying multiple Maths GCSE exams, that the examination board was EDEXEL. No surprises for now guessing who has endorsed this ‘venture.’

 

Do you also remember those months of complicated classes and arduous revision? Well just 10 days after McDonalds have taken you under their chicken wing, successful candidates receive their qualification and a possible placement with the company. If only all fast food outlets offered such qualifications, I’d be picking up my McDoctorate as we speak.

 

The Guardian provides us with various statistics about the adolescent desire for (and considered importance of) work experience, culminating in an assertion that 86% of their poll agreed that work experience is more valuable if it leads to national qualification. But not if the awarding body is Maccy D’s or your local offy! However, as comes to our attention every single year during results period, young people are ridiculed no matter what their achievements, so if you’d rather gain your GCSEs serving chips than behind a desk, it won’t make much difference to the stuffy Telegraph reading demographic who believe exams, young people and possibly the world at large are dumbing down.

 

In reality, is McDonalds doing more for our country, not to mention a better PR job, than any of the parties in the election? Tackling national health as I mentioned last week, reforming the education system and increasing employment opportunities for young people in a turgid job market, forging trade links throughout the world, and single-handedly crushing cultural powerhouses under its morbidly obese, entrepreneurial backside.