Friday Roundup

In this article: We will look at why Trump won the election. Reactions to it have been very mixed, with the outcome upsetting many women in particular. However, many have rejoiced at a ‘fresh face’ being elected, although Trump is arguably a controversial face of America’s political past. Almost a week on from this decisive election, why did Trump win?

By Kierat Basi

In this article: Despite more and more women being elected into political offices, they remain underrepresented in politics, even in countries where significant progress has been made in terms of women’s rights and equality of opportunity. This begs the question of whether quotas would be an effective measure to improve female representation in government. While this would, in theory, lead to the election of more women, would it actually properly address the issues that stop women from standing?

By Grace Leather

In this article: As the popularity of disposable vapes has risen in recent years, particularly amongst young people, concerns over the negative impact of them have been growing. Arguably, their environmental impact and ability to get young people hooked on nicotine, many of whom have never smoked before, means their continued sale is unacceptable. Nevertheless, despite it being unclear the exact health effects of vaping, the UK’s relatively low smoking rate can arguably be attributed to the popularity of vaping, meaning a ban may force people to use tobacco products again which is surely undesirable. Do the negative impacts of vaping really justify a ban?

By Gabby Miller

In this newsletter: With Labour recently promising to abolish zero hour contracts, a number of arguments have been advanced against the proposal such as the fact that these jobs offer flexibility, may lead to fixed-term work for those struggling in the labour market and improve workers’ CVs, especially in the case of young or inexperienced workers. However, there is also reason to be worried about the impact of zero hours contracts as most people are not in these jobs as temporary work, they offer less flexibility than is commonly thought and their working conditions are unsatisfactory. Overall, there are benefits to these contracts but the question is whether these are outweighed by the harms done to employees in this kind of work.

By Jonny Ross and Kit Swift