When one observes the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats in Bristol, it is little wonder that so many people are pessimistic about their prospects for 2015. In Bristol city council elections, 2009, the Liberal Democrats made four gains from Labour which gave them overall control of the council. On 6^th May 2010, two further gains increased their overall majority to six councillors. The Liberal Democrats in Westminster then abandoned their position as the party of protest in British politics when they joined David Cameron’s Conservatives in coalition, to the detriment of their colleagues in Bristol. In 2011, the Liberal Democrats lost overall control of Bristol city council and last week’s election was a disaster for the Liberal Democrats, whose vote share hemorrhaged to 20.85%, the Party’s lowest share since 1995, leaving a rump of twenty-three Liberal Democrat councillors, a 40% reduction from 2010. Meanwhile, the reduction in the Conservative vote share since coming into government is in the low single figures, 26.02% in 2009 to 23.43% last week. Clearly, in Bristol at least, the Liberals are taking on a disproportionate level of public anger at the policies of the current government.

Many students would cite the rise in tuition fees as a reason for diminishing Liberal Democrat support in Bristol and other centres of learning. In Stoke Bishop, which houses thousands of first-year students paying the £9,000 fees, the Liberal Democrat share of the vote fell from 28.37% in 2010 to just 10.95% in 2013. This analysis of voting behaviour has much to recommend it, but blaming the Liberal Democrats for the rise in tuition fees is a narrative that lacks any perspective of the broader political context surrounding tuition fee funding. While the Liberal Democrats pledged to vote against any rise in tuition fees, the Labour party, who incidentally introduced tuition fees in 1998 and trebled them in 2004, referred to the Browne review of higher education funding in their 2010 manifesto. The Conservatives also pledged to “consider carefully the results of Lord Browne’s review into the future of higher education funding”. The Browne review was a commission set up under Labour in 2009; it proposed a complete removal of the tuition fee cap, allowing Universities to create their own fee structure like they do in America, where 173 universities charge upwards of $50,000 in annual tuition fees, roughly equivalent to Eton’s annual fees. Viewed in this context, the raising of the tuition fee cap isn’t a Liberal Democrat capitulation, but a genuine consensus point between coalition partners whose positions ranged from abolition to deregulation. UCAS announced that the 2013 cycle saw an increase of 3.5% in applications and “application rates from disadvantaged 18 year olds at, or close to, record levels.” Students nationwide need to reassess their view of the Liberal Democrats and recognise their role in keeping education affordable to all and protecting those educated in the state sector from a savage policy of higher education as a province of the elite.

I risk offending the majority of people by confessing my frustration as I am well aware that many fellow students have food blogs in which they write recipes or reviews of restaurants. Our appetite for food is catered for visually by such blogs as well as the television shows that are in abundance. As you read this you may think ‘well if you are so sick of it all why not just turn the channel over?’ but that is the problem – we are saturated with an endless world of gastronomy.

It is worth remembering that some cooking programmes can occasionally be entertaining such as Come Dine with Me as a case in point. Yet the food phenomenon seems to have snowballed with the likes of Gok Wan venturing from fashion to food in hosting his own cookery show and adding ‘celeb chef’ to his repertoire. Even Simon Cowell is entering the culinary TV game with a show that aims to find Britain’s favourite home-cooked comfort food, nicknamed ‘The Egg-Factor’.

With the rise of cookery shows comes the rise of the celebrity chef. From Heston to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigella to Jamie Oliver, chefs have recognised the opportunity to flog their brand, advertising everything from their new restaurant to cooking utensils. But with this comes the growth of celebrity chef-obsessed snobs who, it is suggested, consider themselves more middleclass by watching these shows.   In an article by The Telegraph, the link between food obsession and social class is highlighted with the writer Will Self commenting: “It is arguably gastronomy that has replaced social democracy as the prevailing credo of our era. But whereas in the case of the National Health Service and state education it was politicians, social activists and campaigners who forged the new consensus, the vanguard of this chomping revolution was constituted by restaurateurs, television producers and celebrity chefs.” He continues: “We really could do with paying a bit less attention to what’s on the end of our forks, and a bit more to what’s at the end of our roads.” Self raises valuable points about the preoccupation with local produce and exotic cuisine when there is actually a food crisis right under our noses. Many charity food banks are struggling to feed those in need which shows that it is not just ‘foodies’ who think about food all day.

I am writing to complain about the article in your last edition: The South West, Druids and the occult. It was firstly a poor piece of journalism, filled with unsubstantiated claims (‘Druid use of Glastonbury Tor dates back to 2700BC’- almost certainly false) and simple inaccuracies (The standing stones, captioned ‘Avery’ are actually at Avebury).

Far more troublingly, the article presents the modern day Druids’ claims as, if not probable, at least plausible, especially their claim of ‘continuity’ of use of the various sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge. The brief statement: ‘Most Druids do not generally claim to be descended from Druids of old’ does not cancel out the bulk of the article which strongly implies the exact opposite! Modern day Druidism is in fact a relic of Victoriana.

The original link between Druids and Stonehenge was made before we had any radiocarbon dating when it was plausible to believe the world was only 6000 years old, due to the Bible. With that short time frame of human occupation, researchers looked at the ancient sources, found Caesar’s Druids and assumed they had to be the creators of Stonehenge and other monuments. Not unreasonable, considering previous theories involved giants and Merlin as the builders of Stonehenge.

However, we now know that Stonehenge is about 5000 years old (original phase 3100BC, continued to be dramatically changed and rebuilt until 1600BC), and Avebury is about 6000 years old (built between 4000- 3500BC). The ancient Druids, at best, were around from about 800BC, but we only have definite evidence of them from 100BC or later.  The ancient Druids and these stone monuments, then, were no more linked than we are to the Roman temple at Bath – we may regard it as a curiosity, but we do not worship at the shrine there. In fact, without written records (which prehistoric Britain certainly did not have) we would have no idea what the complex of Bath was for. Modern day Druids have no idea what made up the rituals or beliefs of either the ancient Druids or the monument builders.

Epigram’s article paints the Druids as an essentially benign force. Almost the opposite is true. Druids regularly campaign to curtail the activities of historians and archaeologists, claiming the sites as their own special heritage, and so off limits to the rest of us. The “official statement” from the Orders of British Druids can be read on their website, and articles by Emma Restall Orr adequately summarise their opinions. Suffice to say that if Druids’ wishes were complied with we would know far less about our prehistoric past. And it is not idle speculation: already enshrined in law is the compulsory reburial of all human remains within two years, and with such a vocal pressure group this situation could easily get worse.

As a university newspaper, surely Epigram should be supporting researchers, not fringe groups who oppose them?

It was with excitement and not a little anticipation that I picked up the latest copy of Epigram, featuring the god-like visage of Noel Edmonds towering above UBU’s newly elected officers. Imagine my dismay when the implicit promise of a feature on Deal or No Deal, Britain’s premier cult-like gameshow, turned out to be little but a thin premise on which to run an article about cheap food.

This misappropriation of Noel’s rugged wolf-like features has disappointed this reader, and I hope to see both Noel and Deal or No Deal treated with the respect they deserve in a future issue.