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The Cherwell Encyclical: HT 1st Week

Just in case you weren’t present at Donald Trump’s recent rally in Florida, it premiered a new song from a group called ‘The Freedom Kids’. It received mixed reviews from critics: the Huffington Post described it as a “warbled creepy jingoism”, NME as a “haunting Lynchian Nightmare” and the Mirror as an “utterly bizarre North Korean style propaganda song”. Well, I guess those reviews aren’t actually all that mixed. It’s not all bad though: it frees up a lot of time in your week because after you watch it you can’t sleep for days. What’s more, I actually think they offer a surprisingly concise explanation of recent conflicts in the Middle East:

“Over here – USA! Over there – USA! Freedom and liberty everywhere. Oh say, can you see it’s not so easy? But we have to stand up tall and answer freedom’s call.”

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Although some are concerned about the snowstorm hitting the USA’s East Coast, Donald is said to be over the moon. It is the whitest he has ever seen America.

The award for the most irrelevant item in the news this week probably goes to the publishing of the Beckett report. What on earth is that I hear you say? Well, it is a 35 page document, but beyond that is is all speculation because it is so boring that no one has actually read it yet. Apparently it is about the reasons behind the 2015 election defeat, though I would have thought they could have summarised that pretty well with three letters and a picture of a certain Mrs Sturgeon. Presumably it will also be inscribed on the same tombstone that Miliband engraved his election promises on.

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Far more exciting is the announcement of a new reality TV programme, ‘I Want To Be A Nun’, that will be shown on Spanish TV later this year. The show will follow five aspiring nuns as they embark on their training, and there is widespread speculation that, upon reflecting on his current career, Ed Miliband has signed up to be a participant.

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It would appear that the conservatives have much better things to do with their time, such as preventing journalists from talking to the participants of their staged propaganda press conferences. Though it may initially seem worrying, after they blocked the press interviewing Muslim women at the PM’s speech about giving that same group a voice, I am beginning to think that it must all be ironic. I mean, it’s not as if the conservatives actually have anything to hide about their extremely well thought out policies. You’ve got to love Cameron’s sense of humour. One of my favourites is when he cuts the budget for English language classes (August last year) by £45 million, and then six months later says that it is a £20 million drive to teach thousands of Muslim women English. Though it would probably be a lot funnier if it wasn’t true.

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