Written journalism
The South-West Londoner
More than 4,500 ULEZ camera vandalisations since March 2023
There have been more than 4,500 counts of vandalisation of ULEZ cameras in little over a year, according to data crowd-sourced by the minds behind one of Facebook’s biggest anti-ULEZ groups.
I did an anonymous interview and dug deep into an exclusive data set to look at how much vandalisation has been happening and why.
The South-West Londoner
Starmer’s comprehensive cabinet “sends a positive message to people all over the country”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new cabinet has, by far, the highest proportion of MPs who were educated at comprehensive schools compared to previous cabinets.
I did a deep dive into the data with some visualisations.
Refugee starts Welsh-inspired special education centre amid missiles in Kyiv
A young Ukrainian refugee who taught children with special needs in Wales has returned to Ukraine, despite the ongoing war, to set up an educational centre which she has given a Welsh name.
She now teaches children through power shortages and under the constant threat of missile attacks.
This piece features an exclusive interview as well as a short video interview.
The North-East Londoner
London boroughs face funding “teetering on a cliff edge”
London boroughs will face a £400m funding shortfall in 2024-2025, according to a collective statement from local government in London, after MPs passed their funding through Parliament on Wednesday.
London Councils claim that despite the local government finance settlement 2024-25 providing a 5.5% real-terms increase in spending power, there is still a funding shortfall which is roughly equivalent to the collective spend on homelessness across all London boroughs in a year.
The South-West Londoner
Drugs and doctorates: A night with the Oxford university psychedelic society
“I do research on psychedelics and I do them myself” says the then president of the Oxford University Psychedelic Society. “The two go hand in hand with each other”.
I spent an evening with OPS, getting to know the drug users, researchers, and campaigners.
The South-West Londoner
Blitz survivor feels Gaza and Ukraine pain
Suffering in Ukraine and Gaza “doesn’t feel far away” to a 90-year-old survivor of the Blitz.
Jill Reeves was seven years old when she sheltered under the stairs, cowering from the German bombs that burnt Coventry Cathedral to the ground on the 14th of November 1940.
Now, she struggles to follow the latest updates in Ukraine and Gaza because of the traumatic memories it brings back – particularly of her friend Dorothy she used to walk to school with.
Varsity
‘The Uni doesn’t really care’: Meet Cambridge’s Sudanese students
I meet with members of Cambridge University’s Sudanese Society on a peaceful Monday morning in Trinity Hall, home to the society’s president, Aala. A third year politics student, she, like many others, has family living in the crossfire between the two warring groups: the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Cambridge and Khartoum seem like different worlds for most of us. But the gunshots that have incessantly echoed through the streets of Sudan’s capital for the last month are heard all too well by Cambridge’s Sudanese community.
Varsity
‘Hostels need to be a springboard’: tackling the homelessness crisis in Cambridge
Barry Griffiths is a personable man with an infectious drive to help the homeless. He slept rough before getting support from Jimmy’s, one of Cambridge’s emergency hostels.
He moved through the Jimmy’s system and eventually became employed by them as a community outreach officer. He knows better than most that the care hostels like Jimmy’s provides to its 20 guests and their handful of pet dogs is vital.
But he also says: “hostels need to be a springboard” for longer term solutions. Staying in hostels for up to two years is not the most efficient way to reintegrate into society. A room in a hostel is not the same as a home.
other
work
Editing
I was a features editor at Varsity Newspaper during 2023, leaving the newspaper as I graduated from University. The site gets almost 50,000 visits a week, and we had a strict schedule for creating content.
I edited a number of articles submitted by the writing team that I helped to manage some of my favourites were:
‘Outrageously disrespectful’: The view from the picket line
How effective is pet therapy really? Disentangling Cambridge’s welfare web
Behind the ball: the making of May Week