Phil Laing: was it just another case of wrong place and wrong time?

"Phil Laing is an idiot. He is certainly a disgrace. But he's not the only one."

On Friday October 16 , 19-year-old Phil Laing's life took an unprecedented turn. As photographs of him urinating on a war memorial in Sheffield appeared across the British press, he became the target of a hate campaign.

Laing was photographed at the end of a Carnage UK bar crawl, in which groups don matching t-shirts, ticking off the bars they hit on the way as well as the drinks they consume. It would seem to us all that Laing more than rose to the challenge - first urinating on the memorial before falling asleep in a doorway, belly and boxers hanging-out.

Now a notorious public figure, Laing is at the centre of a hate campaign launched in the papers and also through social networking sites like Facebook. The group 'Phil Laing - what a c**t' currently has 6,988 members and is still attracting posts branding him "an idiot". The Sheffield Star printed comments from Sheffield locals in its Saturday October 17 edition, with one Charles Farleigh calling him "a disgrace".

It's very hard to disagree with so many disgruntled people. So I won't entirely. Phil Laing is an idiot. He is certainly a disgrace. But he's not the only one.

Go to any university town and you'll see much of the same behaviour. Girls getting their kit off and crying on the pavements, boys urinating in public and throwing up in bushes. This, as they say, is England.

I've known university rugby players be cautioned by police for weeing on a world heritage site, girls ending up in Accident and Emergency for trying to do the limbo and inadvertently knocking themselves out.

Whilst I fully understand and respect the gravity of Laing's actions and the shameful disregard he has shown for our war heroes and their families, I can't help but think he was just a victim of bad luck.

Think of how much other 'carnage' must have been going on that night across Britain. Elsewhere in Britain people were probably passing out in the street and indecently exposing themselves, the only difference is that they weren't caught.

As I attended a meeting at the Sheffield Star on Thursday, just as the story was breaking, I heard that a newspaper photographer had happened to be in the area to get a few shots of the Carnage UK bar crawl, probably as a student archive image. What he captured however was dynamite, and probably afforded him at least a decent upgrade on the train home.

What I'm saying is that Laing is merely a representation of student culture in this country, and that he is not alone in his actions. He perhaps took it further than some others and has brought shame on himself for disrespecting those who lost their lives fighting for our freedom. But instead of victimising Laing, should we not turn our attention instead to the state of our culture?

As I have said in a previous post, 'Britain needs to tackle its binge-drinking culture', and in light of this recent scandal, I think this message rings ever true.

If we don't want people acting in this way then something needs to be done about our attitude towards alcohol and drunken behaviour. Events such as 'Carnage UK' should simply not be allowed to exist. Promotions like 'buy a pint, get two free shots' should not be supported either.

Gradually the government is thinking more and more about the problems our country has with binge-drinking, and until they do something about it, I don't think Laing should be victimised in such a way.

We are all products of our culture, and with the best will in the world, it is hard for students to break the mould when there is such overwhelming promotion of binge-drinking.

The Sun sets on Labour

ON Wednesday September 30, as Gordon Brown anxiously awaited the public verdict on what many will consider his last ditch attempt to save his party in the polls, the Sun, who have unfalteringly backed Labour since the Blairite campaign of 1997 publicly pulled their political support.

In a move which has angered several Labour MPs, Murdoch’s project has become the target of much criticism: Peter Mandelson allegedly branding them “chumps” and the Prime Minister himself rushing to exit an uncomfortable interview with Sky News’s political editor Adam Boulton.

Although a highly provocative political move, and one which will undoubtedly please the Conservative Party, the Sun’s infamous front page is first and foremost an unabashed and astounding media stunt.

Fresh from James Murdoch’s grating Edinburgh speech on the overpowering dominance of the BBC, as well as reports that the Times readership is suffering a fall due to increasingly available free web content, the Murdoch dynasty appear to have taken matters into their own hands.

Famed for creating the news as well as reporting it, the Sun has now put itself into the headlines of most national newspapers and news broadcasts for a long period to come. It remains to be seen whether Dominic Mohan, the newspaper’s latest editor, had much influence in this decision, but it will be interesting to see how the once red Sun sells now that it is blue.

One suspects that by tapping into the public consciousness the Sun will see sales improve, and even non Sun readers will be overcome with the temptation to try out a paper which is so brazen.

The Labour Party has been losing public interest ever since Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister. Despite the many good measures put in place by Brown both as PM and particularly as Chancellor, these can easily be overlooked due to his uncharismatic presence and lack of media savvy.

Cameron knows how to court the Press: he’s slick, knows what the media wants and will provide that snappy little quote every reporter is searching for. For Cameron, his party’s relationship with the media is a reciprocal one. For Brown, it is a necessary inconvenience, and therein lies his lack of media and public appeal.

To be PM is to be the face of the country: to be a confident, unashamed and sociable-seeming head. Look at Obama: a family man who is witty, can hold a conversation with the American youth without once seeming cringe-worthy, and dare I say it, a rather sexy man. Brown could have the greatest policy Britain has ever known, but with his hunched stance and lack of media savvy, no-one wants to hear it.

All that the Sun has done is realise that it was flogging a dead horse and switched allegiance. Murdoch’s personal politics aside, the switch is sure to boost paper sales and perhaps also boost the newspaper industry. The media is about provoking a reaction, and the Sun has come to be the modern day definition.

The media industry, like politics, is all about survival, and with Labour losing votes, so was the Sun. Now the paper has done all it can to save itself, and after all, is responsible only for itself and its readers, not for a flagging political party.