Thank you to all our community of staff, present students and alumni for commenting on the world of politics, appearing on the news and sometimes for making the news. Here is our year.
With a new monarch and 2 new Prime-Ministers over the last few months alone in the UK, it’s really been blink-and-you’ll-have-to-completely-re-write-the-syllabus times around here!
As a treat we’ve compiled the best statistics across our School and the UK’s ever-changing political landscape (all correct at the time of ‘going to press’ but we reserve the right to update every five minutes), as well as the best blogs and stories of 2022.
PolIR-Wrapped 2022!
We wrote 131 blogs this year, 13 about Russia and 12 about Boris Johnson.
The UK had 3 Prime Ministers in 7 weeks… see how Dr Andy Wroe’s students took the news!
Kent alumna Abena Oppong-Asare MP was in the top 100 Women in Westminster list this year!
Putin-Opposing Russian collective, Pussy Riot, spent 7 days on campus. Watch our film here!
Dr Nadine Ansorg cycled 4000km across Europe and finished 109th out of 280 riders.
Our most-read blog was student Halle’s lowdown of Model United Nations.
Professor Matt Goodwin made countless TV appearances in 2022.
Liz Truss became the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history, serving 44 days in office. In that time, she could have watched our Pussy Riot film 7,200 times.
We held 4 graduations this year, celebrating the Class of 2020, 2021, and 2022!
3 separate parties made our news this year: the Labour Party Conference, the Conservative Party Conference, and the Wine and Cheese party.
We wrote many blogs, but here were the most-mentioned World Leaders:
Our year can’t be contained in a playlist (of blogs), but we tried anyway.
- In January we deliberated: Casablanca or Black Panther?
- We went to the Political Psychology Conference in February
- We platformed Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in March
- In April we took part in a Model NATO conference
- We scored top marks in May
- In June we understood Turkey’s Realignment in the Middle East
- We imagined July
- In August we measured decentralisation
- In September we rioted
- In October we addressed human rights violations in China
- Valentine Basset chaired her first MUN conference in November
- And in December Dr Kuzi Zigomo explained the significance of Zimbabwe’s steps to re-join the Commonwealth
Our Future Leaders
- Théophane Gauthier discovered the European Youth Parliament (EYP) not thinking that this discovery would be life-changing.
- Student Meg Payne blogged about the campaign she organised to ‘reclaim these streets’.
- Student Benjamin Van Broeckhuijsen wrote about the government’s handling of the Manston detention centre for student paper Inquire.
Best Stories of 22
Our academics shared their favourite stories of the year. Follow our Insta for more and keep an eye out in January 2023 for everybody’s 2023 predictions!
A look ahead
Apply for a research scholarship before 20th January 2023! Submit your application here.