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A New Leaf for the Looking Glass 2026/27

Dear all, Upon inheriting the Looking Glass from our predecessors, we identified a number of key issues. Firstly, there were simply not enough articles being published, due both to a lack of submissions from the school community and limited responsiveness from the previous Academic Team. Secondly, the Looking Glass had not been advertised or explained effectively enough to the wider school community. As a result, we plan to implement a more consistent and engaging stream of articles on the Looking Glass. As part of this initiative, we are looking to recruit a select group of keen writers from across the lower school who would be willing to produce one high-quality piece of writing, discussion, or media each month for publication on the Looking Glass. We believe this will be hugely beneficial both to the school community, which will gain access to a wider range of opinions and viewpoints, and to prospective writers, who will be able to reference their experience contributing to the Look...

Can we trust our moral intuition?

by Daniel Evans U6P The question of following one’s moral intuition is entirely different to that of trusting it. Certainly, there are reasons for one to follow their moral intuition - indeed, the laws and sanctions of our society are aimed (and succeed to a great extent) to prevent actions deemed immoral. However, regardless of the benefits or disadvantages of having a moral intuition, the question of trusting it can only be answered through a lens independent of one’s own egocentric moral perceptions; and ultimately, the question can only be answered with a resounding no . First considered must be the concept of trust itself: trust may be defined as “firm belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone or something.” In this essay, these criteria will be applied to moral intuition in order to determine how much we really know right from wrong. Reliability Epistemology is one of the most distinctive and contentious features of ethical intuitionism. Many classical intuitionist...

IQ, gender and their effects on marriage

by Kai Gohil, U6P   "According to a study by researchers at four British universities, for each 15-point increase in IQ, the likelihood of getting married increases by around 35% for a man but decreases by around 58% for a woman. Why?"   Introduction to IQ IQ ("intelligence quotient") is defined as a number used to express the relative intelligence of a person (Britannica, 2024).  Therefore, if one were to have a 15-point increase in IQ, it would suggest that such a person is relatively more intelligent. This increase is significant, as past research (involving a meta-analysis on the effect of education on IQ) demonstrates that, on average, a year of education can increase IQ from 1-5 points (Ritchie, S.J. & Tucker-Drob, E.M., 2018). Therefore it can be fairly assumed that (at a maximum) 3 years of schooling would equate to a 15-point increase in IQ. Although it does not appear to be a notable increase, placing it in terms of the British Education system, this c...

Economic woes, distrust and the inability to disagree: Why Labour's Victory Won't Bring Instant Change

DISCLAIMER : This was written the week BEFORE   the election results were announced. by Sam Waddell L6F When Britain wakes up to a Labour government on Friday morning, it will be a government which the majority of people have not voted for. Keir Starmer will potentially command the biggest majority of the post-war era, with the power to pass anything and everything he chooses to, manifesto pledge or not. The Labour party will have the power to, as the Conservatives did on no less than 4 occasions in the last decade, install a new, unelected Prime Minister with the same power as Keir. Ordinary Britons will see their tax burden increased yet again, having already risen to its highest level in the post-war era. And all of this without the majority of the British electorate backing the Labour party at the ballot box. This article is not intended to be an attack on the UK’s ‘First Past the Post’ voting system, although it does desperately need reform. Neither, despite my obvious misgivi...

Is the UK becoming a police state?

  by Joseph Evans L6P Introduction A police state is defined as ‘a political unit characterised by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures’ [1] . In order to then call the UK a police state, the government would need to be moving towards control of political and social life (it already effectively controls economic life) through exercise of police power, which is most often exercised in the form of arrests. When the police identify a suspect, they can begin to gather evidence, which includes a warrant or permission to see what the suspect has been posting. If they then believe that the suspect had suspected involvement or attempted involvement in the commission of a criminal offence, and have reasonable grounds for believing that the person’...