Features Widdecombe’s defence of the Johnson legacy

Benedict Arthur Thompson, Features

FEATURES EDITORS:

Benedict Arthur Thompson and Austin Taylor

Student housing crisis deep dive

Austin Taylor, Features Editor, examines the ongoing student housing crisis

defending Boris Johnson

Editor, takes a look at Ann Widdecombe’s speech at Exeter versities) to secure accommodation for the 2023-24 year, with some telling ITV: “we’ll take anything, we’re quite desperate”. Here, in Exeter, the housing hunt has always started relatively early. Alex, a student I spoke to, said that she struggled to find the necessary time needed to find a house. Many universities, meanwhile, including York, Bristol, and Manchester, have housed students in neighbouring towns and cities. Chloe Field, the current NUS vice-president for higher education, has warned that “without urgent action to increase the amount of affordable housing, it is inevitable that both dropouts and student homelessness will increase.” rental market. Costs for university halls have not fared much better. A survey from 2021 conducted by the NUS and housing charity Unipol found that prices rose by 4.4 per cent between 2020-21 and 2021-22, whilst the average rent for university halls overall has risen by over 60 per cent in the past decade. Many students, meanwhile, are struggling to meet these increased demands, with average rent at £7,347 compared to only £6,900 for the average maintenance loan. In fact, 10 per cent of students surveyed by Save the Student are in rent arrears, owing an average of £409.

HOLD your horses, Ann Widdecombe. The former Conservative MP and minister visited Exeter University earlier this year to vehemently attack the past prime ministers of the UK against the motion that ‘Boris Johnson was the worst Prime Minister since World War II’.

The Labour councillor for Exmouth Halsdon, Paul Miller, appeared to mock Boris Johnson’s legacy with an open question, asking: Will he be remembered as buccaneering Boris?

Will he be remembered as buccaneering Boris?

Johnson’s ‘buccaneering legacy’, to some, has been a vaccine programme for COVID and defending Europe by standing up for Ukraine. Others have questioned his character, his integrity and his actions during COVID, including Partygate.

Widdecombe stood in stark contrast to Miller, stating: “there is no doubt that all that Boris has is unassailable competition for the title of the worst ever PM since WWII”.

First on Widdecombe’s hitlist was Anthony Eden. Widdecombe drew attention to Eden’s “legacy of Soviet involvement in the Middle East which affects us to this day”. That of course being, the short-term risk of an all-out war against Russia, and an economic and political fallout within Britain.

Second on the list was James Callaghan, or as Widdecombe prefers to call him, ‘Sonny Jim’.

Widdecombe was keen to point out the IMF’s influence in Britain’s economy which ultimately caused devaluation, and the cutting of hospital building programmes during Callaghan’s government.

“You couldn’t even get buried under James Callaghan’s government because the grave diggers were on strike”, Widdecombe added.

For instance, during the Winter of Discontent, gravediggers went on strike in Liverpool for better pay, leaving up to 150 unburied bodies in factories.

Widdecombe’s judgement so far ap pears to be dominated by the ability of governments to deliver for the public.

Third was Theresa May. May and Boris’ relationship seemed for some to be like a personal battle over Brexit. Their rivalry was history.

Widdecombe refers to May’s Northern Ireland Protocol, avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, something of which Widdecombe states that May probably “didn’t even understand. She was either a very stupid PM or a very dishonest PM. She had grand delusions — it had gone to her head that she was greater than Winston Churchill”.

To even compare Boris Johnson with past Prime Ministers — to draw parallels between his extravagant choice of wallpaper to the legacies of past conflicts including the Suez Crisis — is seen as preposterous by Widdecombe.

In reference to Partygate, Widdecombe sharp-wittedly stated that Boris was “given a bit of cake. He didn’t even eat the bit of cake. Somebody bought him a bit of cake, said happy birthday and that was enough to bring him down”.

“Are we seriously invited to compare Boris to the Suez Crisis, to the grave diggers being on strike, to the “Winter of Discontent?” Widdecombe added.

Discipline, it used to be said, was the secret weapon of the Conservative Party, even during times of rebellion as Widdecombe remembers.

Back in 1992, the Maastricht Rebels rebelled on the issue of the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty under John Major, while Widdecombe recollects memories of “Thatcher’s education and NHS reforms”.

Yet these Conservative governments were able to stay in power for years afterwards despite rebellions.

The problem under Johnson’s government, according to Widdecombe, was the “inability of the party to keep its nerve when it came under pressure”, particularly when the opinion polls started to sink in.

The question which Widdecombe leaves us now, is whether Johnson was entirely the architect of his own misfortune, or if this is wide of the mark when we consider his time in office in comparison to others?

STUDENT housing in the UK is now reaching a “crisis point”.

That is according to Martin Blakey, chief executive of the student housing charity, Unipol, who spoke to The Guardian towards the end of 2022. He warned that the situation is now comparable to the 1970s, when many students had to sleep in sports halls and their cars for lack of proper housing. This academic year seems to have been particularly bad, with students complaining of fierce and often unrealistic competition for housing in some cities, leaving many homeless or forced to commute to classes. What little accommodation there is available is often expensive in comparison to previous years. This, of course, comes amidst national cost of living and housing crises.

There is currently a chronic shortage of not only university-run halls, but private halls and private rented accommodation. StuRents, a student accommodation search platform that says it represents 70 per cent of student beds in the UK, suggests that there is a shortfall of some 207,000 beds. The ratio of students to beds in purpose–built student accommodation is now about three–to-one, further putting strain on the shrinking private rental sector, with Rightmove data suggesting a substantial decline in the sector compared with the 2017-19 average.

All of this has led to some extreme issues and solutions. Durham students infamously queued overnight in October (very early for most uni -

The problem seems to be acute in Scotland. Those who have friends at Edinburgh or Glasgow will be aware of the arduous house-hunting process. One Edinburgh student I spoke to said that he knew of several students who had been left homeless this year. Indeed, a 2022 NUS Scotland survey reported that as much as 12 per cent of students had experienced homelessness since starting their studies, rising to one-in-three amongst estranged and care-experienced adults.

Meanwhile, at the start of the academic year, Glasgow University automatically denied accommodation to those within community distance and told those who had not secured accommodation to consider quitting university, citing increased demand for halls places with a “significant contraction” in the city’s private rental market.

This has compounded pressure on a private rental market already affected by the cost of living and housing crises. Rents this year have soared, growing 10 per cent across the mainstream

10 per cent of students [...] are now in rent arrears

Any potential solution to these issues would necessarily either involve either an increase in the supply of student accommodation or a decrease in demand. The latter would be difficult to achieve in the short term, given the increasing student population (with a record breaking 44 per cent of 18-year-olds applying for higher education this past year). Aside from investing in more halls accommodation, universities could look at working in closer collaboration with local councils, residents associations, and private landlords. In speaking to The Guardian, Blakey highlighted the example of Nottingham, where the city council has collaborated with the two universities on a student living strategy to determine how much housing is required and available. Overall, the student housing crisis represents a major issue that should garner political attention at the next general election.