Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Debate

A quick post to say Congratulations to Louis O'Brien, a third year student, who managed to successfully organise the Hampshire Crime and Commissioner debate here at The University of Winchester, last Thursday. If you missed the Live Stream, you can watch it back here. With a lot of hard work, determination and time Louis organised the entire event, ensuring all six candidates running for Commissioner were present at the debate, the audience was filled, and his @WINOL team were on board. Furthermore, BBC South were filming the debate and Alex Forsyth did a fantastic job of hosting the discussion and Q&A. The night ran very smoothly, and it was an insightful night into the world of journalism and live debates! Well done again to Louis and the @WINOL team, some of which are featured in the photograph above. Great effort by all!

Economics

Adam Smith

Economics claims to a be a science, the way in which we look at things is subjective rather than objective. Adam Smith was the first economist, he wrote the first influential economic book 'The wealth of Nations' which answered why one country was wealthier then another. Smith thinks that wealthy countries are categorised by free people and free trade. Before hand, he wrote a book on moral philosophy similar to Kant with the view that people are only out for number one. He describes us as 'calculating' machines that are constantly totalling up what will provide us with the maximum pleasure; relating back to Bentham's Utilitarianism  view which was to maximise happiness in the absence of pain. Smith said that if we try to help others in life then this is damaging  and it only gives us more pain, we should allow people to be free and the hidden hand of the market will sort it out.

* Utilitarian outlook would be to achieve the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. For example, a train of 100 passengers is approaching full speed, an innocent man is working on the tracks, you are faced with two options, pull a leaver and the train obscures off the tracks injury 100 people, or continue on and save 100 people but you've killed the innocent man. The utilitarian person would save the 100 people and kill the innocent man because it has achieved the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.

David Ricardo 

David Ricardo was an economist who put forward a theory of Value. He believes the value of an object depends on the labour it requires to obtain it. The length of time the labour lasts equates to the value of the commodity. He thinks that there is a spirit of value in things and that the world of contingent objects has no value until human labour is implied. For example, A tree in a forest has no value until a man has come along and chopped it down to use the wood to make matchsticks, the labour required to do this action has given it value. However, a diamond would have greater value because the labour required in mining and the machinery needed to do so takes up more time and labour, in comparison to using an axe to chop down a tree. The more labour intense, the more value.

Thomas Mathus 

Thomas Malthus believed that humans would always starve to death, he stated that the natural condition of men is to be on the brink of starvation and continue the battling struggle to survive. He outlined this in his famous work 'An essay on the principle of population'. If the food system broke down then humans would starve to death within days, which will lead to extinction. Malthus had a theory whereby marriage was the only way to ensure we didn't starve, and specifically that we wouldn't have sex before marriage. A man should not marry unless he had a farm and therefore could support his family. (the farmers wants a wife)  Malthus believed that marriage was linked to economic growth because the passion between the sexes meant that early marriage with no contraception would lead to an extreme rise in population and he claimed that this rise would lead us to face war, famine and other kinds of diseases. 

Karl Marx 

Karl Marx is a political philosopher, who we have touched upon before. click here for my seminar paper on Marxism in case you missed it previously. Marx believed that the capitalist society in which he lived in reached a state of crisis, the opposing class struggles between the bourgeoisies and the proletariats would become stronger and lead to a revolutionary change. First of all socialism, whereby all property would be passed to the state and secondly communism whereby the state would wither away. He based these conclusions on the analysis of the nature of economic value. The value of a commodity is the rate at which it can be exchanged for other commodities, plus the the labour it has required. Marx's view was a combination of Ricardo's Value theory and Malthus' Iron Law of Wages. 

The Iron Law of Wages is the theory that real wages depend on the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of a worker. For example a widget costs £10 to manufacture, the worker gets £5 wages and the owner gets £5 profit. When the worker goes to the shop to purchase a widget that is priced at £10 they cannot afford it because they only have £5. The shop owner then lowers the prices of widgets meaning that the workers wages must be lowered to maintain a profit. When the value of a widget is lowered to £5 the workers wages will be lowered to £2.50 to maintain a profit for the owner. The value of a product will depend upon the productivity prevailing at the time. This demonstrates the iron law of wages. However, the problem with the iron law of wages is that you have to find more people who are willing to work for less money.

Dates

• In 1844, The Bank of England began to print money, before this time there was no centralised currency. 
• The year of 1848 was the year of the French Revolution, all the factory works were made redundant.
• In 1849 gold was discovered in California, this was known as the Gold Rush.  it allowed expansion in the economy for example investments and borrowing off banks. Depending on how much gold a country had was how rich it was. 

John Maynard Keynes

The great depression in the 1930's was solved by World War II which brought about employment; men went into the army and woman worked in factories. Keynes solved Marx' problem of wages simply by printing money. Keynes believed that the government had to be ready to invest, and borrow more in order to kick-start growth. 

Keynes focused on the question, how can we create more employment? If we devalue the currency and print more money then unemployed resources can come back in to play, and companies and consumers will have more money in their pockets. As a result people can be employed. However, Keynes did not think of the problems of inflation.

Keynes most famous work The General Theory outlined the central argument that the level of employment was determined by the spending of money. His work concluded 4 points:
1. Economies suffer from overall lack of demand, leading to involuntary unemployment.
2. The economy’s automatic tendency to correct shortfalls in demand operates slowly and painfully.
3. Government polices to increase demand can reduce unemployment quickly.
4. Sometimes increasing the money supply won’t be enough to persuade the private sector to spend more, therefore government spending must step into the breach.

The classic theory of employment is that people get paid for what they make, and people only work if their salary is worth it. It was assumed that unemployment was caused either by people not knowing where to find a job or if people demanded more money. The only solution would be to find people who were willing to work for less.

Fright night for Vulnerable Residents

Elderly residents are worried about young terrors disturbing them this Halloween.

Hampshire Constabulary receives panicked calls from vulnerable people who are frightened in their own homes.

Police have issued a ‘no trick or treat’ poster for residents who do not want people knocking on their door.  

The poster is available on the Hampshire Constabulary website for people to print out and put on their front door.

Local shops will be displaying posters to warn under 16s that they will not be selling eggs or flour.

Parents have been advised to send their children who are going out trick or treating, in a group, and ideally be accompanied by an adult. Police ask that parents ensure their children know not to enter anyone’s house.

If you feel threatened in your home, please contact the police.

31/10/12 TV Package 

Suicidal man sets himself on fire - WINOL Week 3

A suicidal man has been sentenced for an arson attack in which he poured petrol over his body and set himself alight.

In January, Lee William Cooper, from Totton, attempted to take his own life by setting himself and his flat on fire.

A commuter walking past saw Cooper run out of Mansergh Walk, in his underwear, blackened with soot and severe burns. Cooper was in a “distressed” state, shouting, “I just torched myself”.

He then ran back inside to alert the other residents to “get out”. No one else was injured except Cooper, who was treated for severe burns that caused him “excruciating pain".

The property owned by the Housing Association had around £60,000 of smoke damage.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Cooper was struggling to cope with the split from his long term partner and that this was not the first time Cooper had attempted suicide.

A psychiatric report concluded that Cooper was not suffering from a mental illness. The Judge described Cooper as an emotionally unstable drug user who was "recklace" as to whether life was endangered.

The 45-year-old was sentenced to 4 years in prison with an extended license period of 3 years.

Getting the story

This week has been a productive week. I have made some contacts and successfully produced a package worthy of the bulletin! I went down to court on Friday 18th October to hear the sentencing of Lee Cooper. Once I had gathered all the necessary notes from sources such as court, crown prosecution service and the police I could start to produce my package. I sent a request form off for a mugshot from Hampshire Constabulary to ensure he was identified correctly and to avoid any risk of libel. In addition, I got in touch with the officer in charge who gave me photographic evidence of the interior and exterior of the property; this was the hardest part out of the way, as I have often struggled to find footage that will make my package visually appealing. I went down to the scene of the crime, in Totton in order to do my piece to camera, to bring to life the location of where it happened. This made it far more interesting then standing infront of the law courts which is often the standard option. I have learnt many new skills on Final Cut Pro X this week, in particular giving a still image movement such as scaling in and focusing on certain aspects in the image. Overall, I felt this was a good week for me, and I have been given plenty of valuable advice and critic which I will learn from, to improve my package. 

If you would like to watch the bulletin in full, visit www.winol.co.uk or watch it below! Thank you.

Metal thief pays up coppers

A drug addict has been given an 18 month suspended sentence for stealing lead from the roof of a family centre.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Jack Payne from Bridle Court, Aldershot, stole lead and copper from the roof Hockliffe House in Aldershot. The centre provided help for disadvantaged families in the town. He stripped lead from the roof allowing rain to leak in overnight causing up to £25,000 of damage.

Payne later sold the metal for less than £1000 in order to pay for drugs.

Payne has many previous convictions of theft and violence.

He has been found in possession of class A drugs and served 20 months in prison for ABH. Following his release he was charged for drink driving.

Judge Dunkels told Payne he was “building up an unenviable criminal record”.

Payne's defence told the Judge he is motivated to change. In response to this Judge Dunkels said: "Your appearance shows me you have a lot of work to do."

The 21 year-old was also ordered to complete a drug treatment order and pay £2,500 of compensation.

17.10.2012. Christina Michaels, court correspondent: 

Seminar Paper - Logical Positivism and Karl Popper

Logical Positivism and Karl Popper

Logical positivism began when philosophers formed a group called The Vienna Circle. Their most notable proposition was the Verification Principle, which in simple terms means if something cannot be verified it is meaningless. For instance metaphysical statements have no meaning because they cannot be verified, we cannot prove notions that help us understand the world such as existence, cause and effect and space and time, e.g. in the past every time we have turned the tap on water has come out, but no one can prove that custard won't come out in the future, until it happens. This is the same for Aristotle’s syllogism: All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, and therefore all men are mortal. But how can you be for certain that in the future a man won't be born immortal? Only statements that are based on fact and are proven to be true will be considered meaningful. Wittgenstein, a key philosopher that was part of the Vienna Circle said “of that we cannot speak, we must remain silent.” This meant that any statement that could not be verified was just “gibberish” and therefore if it’s not true we should not talk about it.

The thinkers in the Vienna circle believed that the method of clarification was to show how empirical statements were truths derived from protocol statements; those that describe immediate experience or perception. Experiences recorded by protocol appear to be private to each individual, but this carried the question how can we ever understand anyone else’s meaning? If meaning depends on verification, which is a process carried out privately, then no one else has access to this.

Schlick answered this problem by distinguishing content and form. He described the content of experience as private and incommunicable, these are things we enjoy and live through such as ‘I see something red’. Whereas the form or structure of experience is common between us, even though we cannot be certain that others are experiencing the same thing as us, if we agree on it, for example that trees are green, then we can communicate and construct the language of science.

Karl Popper did not support the Logical positivists; he was against it and was given the nickname ‘The official opposition’. Popper believed that the verification theory could not be verified itself, moreover that scientific theories couldn't be proven to be true because of the theory of induction. Science helped us make a logical guess, but because it is based on experimentation and not pure logic, it cannot be proven true. Popper was a thinker that criticised Induction as these propositions are conclusions that are probable and based on educated predictions, meaning that it has the potential to be falsified. Everything we may see to be true could potentially be falsified and therefore untrue. This is why he thought logical positivists were on the wrong track, because similarly to Hume, he believed that even if you had all the data in the world you still could not predict what is going to happen in the future based on what you know from the past. Popper suggested that we assume that everything we have now is incomplete or is as close to the truth as we can possibly get, we still have to try to improve it. For example, if I wanted to cut exactly 2m of wood, we would never get it exactly spot on but we will strive to get as close as possible. For the simple reason that all our knowledge is fallible, we as humans can never work out what needs correcting, and therefore always torn between: what is right? and what is wrong?

Open Society and it's Enemies  

At the time of the Second World War, Karl popper developed upon political philosophy in the production of ‘The open society and its Enemies’. This outlined two important things; firstly that the ruled should have freedom to discuss and criticise polices proposed by their rulers, and secondly that it should be possible to change the rulers without violence, if they fail to promote citizens’ welfare. With these two factors put into practise we would be living in an open society. Popper did not rule out a government completely, he believed we needed a government that worried about problems and tried to fix them, in order to help protect the economically weak from the economically strong. The idea of Utilitarianism, to maximise happiness in the absence of pain, is what Popper agreed on, instead of making people suffer, give them enough freedom to be happy.

Popper attacked Plato and Marx because he considered these two philosophers as enemies of the open society. He attacks Plato’s Republic, he stated how knowledge was often seen as a justification for having a ruling authority, but why should we trust these experts? We only have because it’s been passed down to us that the expert should be in charge. In an open society there would be no secrets, and instead of an authority figure with knowledge of all, we would all have equal rights and be trusted with knowledge too. Popper’s target on Marx’s was his belief that he had discovered scientific laws that determined the future of the human race. Popper is anti-teleological and therefore strongly believes that we cannot predict the future, until it has happened and is therefore present.

Conspiracy Theories

Popper thought we were all vulnerable to conspiracy theories, naturally humans what to know everything therefore he believed we would be easily won over by theories that do explain everything.

David Ickes held a conspiracy theory that there was a secret society that controlled the world, an illuminati of shadowed elites ruling the world. He believed there was a big secret scam where elites manipulated the way we think and feel so we could perceive the world and behave in a certain way the agenda wanted us to. To begin with Icke was a public figure of ridicule; he was laughed at after claiming he was the Son of God. However, his audience soon grew and people started to listen to what he believed was Lizards ruling the world. There was a problem with this though because people started to think that his philosophy was anti-Semite, and that lizard was a coded word for Jews. But, Icke claimed it was not the case, and when he says lizards he does not refer to any human race.  He considered this accusation as an attempt to push him away from getting closer to the truth, he stood by the fact that people were controlling what we could think, because people stopped him broadcasting radio interviews, cancelled his book signings, and ruled out opportunities for him to voice his thoughts.

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy

Wittgenstein showed that private experience was something that itself presupposed a shared public world. He suggested we do justice to the private in the context of the social, rather then construct the public from private. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein believed that the connection between language and the world consisted of two features, firstly linking names to objects and secondly the match or mismatch of proposition to facts. However, he now considers this to be a mistake; he now believes that language is interwoven with the world in many different ways which he expressed as ‘language games’. Language games is a point of speaking whether its expressing sensations, reporting an event, making up stories, telling jokes etc, by ‘game’ he does not mean it’s trivial, they are simply linguistic activities. The meaning of the word is its use in a language game, if you want to give an explanation for the meaning of a word we must look for the part it plays in our life. For example, the meaning of a chair: in my life I use it to sit down on and rest.

After Wittgenstein’s death many people regarded Quine as the most respected analytic philosopher. Quine’s aim in philosophy was to provide a naturalistic explanation of the world through science. He offered to analyse language that is both empiricist and behaviourist, he said that all the theories that we use to explain the world were based on the input to our sense-receptors.

Finally, I found Popper a useful and intriguing figure for the journalistic world,  it is our job to tell people the ultimate truth, but this makes it very hard if everything we think to be true is potentially false. This is an eye opener to the lies we may face, we must always question the truth, so we can report it in a way that is fast, accurate and fair.

Campaign launched to promote Cyclists Safety

Almost 200 cyclists have been seriously injured across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the last year.

Police have launched a campaign to promote cyclists safety after the level of injuries reported on UK roads increased.

From 1st October new signs will be put up on the most high-risk Hampshire roads to make motorists more aware of cyclists.

Officers will be promoting safe cycling by handing out leaflets with advice and information for all road users. This includes discount vouchers for protective clothing such as helmets, lights and visibility vests.

Cyclists will be informed about basic road safety, the Highway Code and traffic awareness. Sergeant Darren Ord, who is co-ordinating the campaign, said, “our message to cyclists is very simple – be safe and be seen”.

The ‘Steer Clear’ campaign is a bid to educate road users on laws to reduce the number of road casualties and “foster a culture of mutual respect”.

Local councils are supporting the campaign; alongside its national governing body British Cycling and a number of local businesses such as Halfords, Hargroves and Wiggle.

The signs will change over the course of the next year.