Disabled people are treated not only like second-class citizens, but like babies

This week, I was in conversation with two disabled women, Sarah and Louise. When reflecting on her experience as a disabled woman, Sarah said, 'Disabled people are treated like...' and then paused. Louise quickly jumped in with, 'Babies!' Sarah clarified that she'd been about to say 'second-class citizens'. I said to them that from what I'd seen, I actually thought that Louise had nailed it!

The context of this conversation was a major protest that I was involved in organising in Abergavenny, over the proposed sell-off of the Tudor Street Day Centre (formally known as My Day My Life, a hub with services for adults with learning difficulties and mental health problems). My involvement in this came from the fact that before we met, my partner Owen worked at this day centre, helping some of society's most vulnerable adults get the most out of their lives. Owen found this a rewarding enough experience that this year, he has brought out the novel Vulnerable Voices, about a young man who does a similar job. The book is entirely fictitious, and features a day centre in North Yorkshire instead of South Wales, but some of the characters and incidents that occur within it are loosely inspired by real life events. The audiobook will be released soon, narrated by the actor Nico Mirallegro.

In addition to the nostalgia, the book also covers some of the darker side of that kind of job. Owen was aware of bullying and neglect that went on behind the scenes, and this is covered in his novel with characters whose depictions will be recognised by almost anyone who has worked in any kind of office - but it seems to happen all the time in the world of care. You can find myriads of news reports detailing unsavoury things that our vulnerable relatives have been through. I questioned recently why it is that the care profession, supposedly one that attracts the most compassionate people, so often attracts the precise opposite, and was drawn to the conclusion that it must be because it's one of the easiest industries to get into. More importantly, there rarely seems to be any sturdy and systematic process to stop these kinds of things happening - and the reason for that is very straightforward. Processes cost money, and processes that protect vulnerable/disabled people benefit people who are least likely to generate capital for the establishment - therefore, they are not considered worthy of the money. Compassion is not the goal; if compassion exists at all, it exists purely to create a smokescreen of a caring authority.

This is the underlying reason for the proposed sell-off and demolition of Tudor Street Day Centre. The My Day My Life service was closed as part of the 2020 lockdown, and has never been re-opened. The 'official' version of events is that other services have since come about which have provided new and better services for the former service-users; but this is untrue. Having spoken to numerous service users and their families, we have it on record from quite a few different people that there are now very few really decent services for them within the Monmouthshire area since the closure of the My Day My Life service. What's more, I understand Owen to tell me that the My Day My Life service was being undermined as far back at when he left in 2017, with alternative schemes being set up to take some of the funding and provide a lesser-quality service - i.e. to take people on day trips, but in a less person-centred and individualised way. The council claims that a review is currently being undertaken in regards to disability services within the county - but is selling off its greatest asset, which already has all the disability access sorted, in advance of this review being concluded. (Incidentally, the proposed sell-off is to a housing development trust, which the council claims is to house the homeless. This is patently not true; no one believes that any new homes built there will be affordable to homeless people, and saying they will is merely an attempt to pit one marginalised group against another.)

The protest was on Wednesday 7th December, and involved a large group of us, including many past service-users and their families, standing outside the building in Tudor Street holding placards and chanting. Joining us at the protest were local Labour councillors Tudor Thomas (Cabinet Member for Social Care, Safeguarding and Accessible Health Services) and Sara Burch (Cabinet Member for Inclusive and Active Communities). That these are their job titles is actually laughable, because neither of them behaved with the slightest interest in safeguarding, making social care health services accessible or inclusive in the slightest. They actually behaved in a consistently passive-aggressive manner; upon arrival, they set up a speaker system to lecture the crowd at our own protest, before attempting to leave without listening to any of the actual disabled people who wanted to speak.

Here is a picture of myself, Owen and another protester confronting Councillors Thomas and Burch as they attempted to leave. Whilst this was happening, there were service users addressing the crowd on the other side of the road:

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear much of what the service users were saying, as I felt it more important to try to reason with the councillors and try to get them to listen. We did eventually persuade them to come across to the other side of the road for a few more minutes, during which time they were confrontational, dismissive of people's concerns and, in my own humble opinion, quite rude. I think their body language in the above photo says quite a lot about what their priorities were; they had intended to come purely to represent the council to Wales Online and the South West Argus who were there on the day, rather than to listen to anyone's actual needs for that building. They couldn't have hurried away fast enough after they'd barged in to give the first speeches, and then we practically had to drag them back over.

At one point, I asked Councillor Thomas if he himself had ever actually visited any of the service users at their homes, sat down with them and asked them what they thought about all of this. He admitted that he had not. Doing this is absolutely essential to any review, because one of the most truly wrong things about this is that of all marginalised groups in society, the disabled are often the least capable of speaking out and defending their human rights. This is why disability rights so often lag behind the rights of other people - because no matter how oppressed someone is, in most cases they're easily able to network with other people who have similar experiences and band together to get their voices heard. I know from personal experience that there were a lot of interested parties who were simply unable to make it to the protest, either because they were too unwell, because they couldn't find people to bring them or because their carers had already made other plans for that day. This last was actually the basis behind the 'they treat us like babies' outburst - all too often, carers make plans for their clients unilaterally, irrespective of what the clients actually wish for. I can appreciate that on occasion someone with a severe learning difficulty will be unable to make their own decisions, but in most cases it seems to me that the whole point of having carers is to help people live more independently. If they can't do that, if they're treating their clients like children and making decisions for them like a parent, I would think that is separate from their remit).

Why am I so passionate about this, when I don't even live in the area? Well, aside from the fact that I got involved by accident through my partner, I actually believe in helping communities get the best out of their public services. We hear so often about unilateral decisions from politicians, without undertaking effective consultation from the people they are meant to serve. Disabled and mentally ill people are some of the most vulnerable in society, and it's important that we stand up for them - especially when they are unable to stand up for themselves, which many of them are.

The protest has so far been quite successful, in that it has generated a call-in of the council's decision to sell off the Tudor Street building pending a meeting in early 2023, which Owen and I will be attending. In the meantime, please sign this petition against the plans. And if you'd like to read a more impartial account of Wednesday's protest, take a look at this fantastic article in WalesOnline by the journalist Jonathon Hill.

Here are some more photographs of the protest, courtesy of photographer Annie Ward:

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Ten years since Jimmy Savile, nothing has changed

 It was about this time in 2012 when, a year following his death, it was revealed that Jimmy Savile, believed to be a beloved children's entertainer, was actually a predatory sex offender and paedophile. The case sparked probably the most talked about police investigation in the whole of the 2010s decade, and resulted in the exposure of other powerful predators, such as entertainer Rolf Harris and politician Cyril Smith.

The case against Savile in particular has always been a matter of intense interest for me ever since I first learned of it. The thing that I find deeply shocking is not so much the grotesque acts of sexual violence that he committed (which are bad enough); but more, the fact that his behaviour was so widely known within the entertainment industry. It was actually known enough that he joked about it himself on television - whilst watching a selection of old clips of him back, he often alludes to his own inappropriate behaviour. He said on television, in relation to volunteering at a hospital, he said, 'I am a voluntary helper. Sometimes, when nobody’s looking, I help the lasses'. He said on repeated occasions that he was 'barred from every girls' school in the country', and once, when asked how he thought he'd be remembered after he died, he openly laughed about it and said that he didn't care - knowing very well that allegations would only come out once he was no longer alive to take responsibility. He was able to do this without any fear of repercussions, because he knew he was untouchable. The Jimmy Savile case is so unsettling not because of the terrible things he did (as horrible as it is, we all know that there are many people out there capable of these acts); it's unsettling because it was deliberately covered up.

I'd like to be able to say that we've learned from the past - but I have not seen any evidence that that is so. In this article, Mark Williams-Thomas, who played a large part in exposing Savile's crimes, says that there are still protected sex offenders who work prominently in the entertainment industry, and one in particular, almost certainly a child molester, who he has worked very hard to get prosecuted. In this film, the broadcaster Louis Theroux interviews comedian Katherine Ryan, who talks about how she called someone out for being a predator on a panel show, and that this was cut from the broadcast version (that part of the conversation is about fifteen minutes in). I have no idea if Williams-Thomas and Ryan are talking about the same person (I think probably not, as I believe Ryan would have said if the person she was talking about had abused children - though perhaps she doesn't know that aspect). But if they're talking about different people, it almost makes it worse. It means that this is continuing to happen regularly. Since 2012, a few historical cases may have been brought to justice, but nothing has really changed systematically.

I have a bit of personal experience with this. A few years ago, a friend of mine confided to me that they had been sexually assaulted by a minor celebrity. There wasn't enough evidence to charge this person, however the story got into the media and the minor celebrity's name was dragged through the mud. The outcome was that the minor celebrity was dropped from their role as a regular on a popular BBC television programme - however, the BBC claimed that it had nothing to do with the allegations and that they were merely refreshing all the regulars on this programme. I do not believe either that this was true, or that anyone truly believed it, for a few reasons: 1) It coincided almost exactly with the celebrity's name coming out in the media; 2) None of the other regulars were dropped; and 3) They have not even repeated any old episodes featuring that person since, which they had done in the past when people had left the show.

I think that if the BBC had made clear that as a result of the allegations they were completely disassociating themselves from this contributor, that would have been reasonable. I think that if they'd said that it had nothing to do with them until the contributor was charged with a crime and that therefore they were taking no action, this would also have been reasonable. There are strong arguments for each of these reactions. However, they did neither of these things. What they did instead was to disassociate themselves from someone whose name carried baggage, but in a way that didn't actually hold them accountable for anything. This seems to me to be the worst of both worlds, as it protects neither the accuser nor the accused - all it does is allow the BBC to not take any position at all. And given that the BBC has historically been so heavily involved in covering up abuses of power by people like Jimmy Savile, I think it's important that they do take a position actually.

This kind of position from the BBC is very consistent. Time and again, we see them covering something up until it's unavoidable, then completely disassociating themselves from it - but only to protect themselves from the bad publicity. To take Savile as an example, they have removed episodes featuring him (or even referencing him) from their public archives. Essentially, the idea is to hide the fact that he was ever so closely involved with them. I find this really harmful - you cannot commit to doing better in the future unless you acknowledge and accept what you've done in the past. I've been writing this blog since I was 17 - I'm now 29 and there are some things I wrote in my early days which I certainly no longer believe. But I still keep them up, because they're a part of my history and it's dishonest to pretend I never wrote them. Likewise - the BBC should be clear not only that what Jimmy Savile did was terrible, but also that they themselves were complicit. They should acknowledge that, consistently, and only then can we have any faith that they will improve in the future.

I strongly suspect that the person who assaulted my friend was known about by those in the know before it got into the media - but no action was taken until it was unavoidable, and even then it was the most watered-down pathetic thing I've ever seen. The reason for this is largely because of our collective obsession with celebrity. Celebrity culture is utterly toxic. It creates a vibe that you should have a strong feeling about someone you don't know purely because they've reached a high place in society. I've come to realise in the last few years that I have no interest in celebrities. If someone is good at their job, fair enough, and if they're not that's as maybe - and neither of those things have any bearing on what I think of them personally as a human being, which I won't have any opinion on unless I happen to cross paths with them in real life.

I think that a lot of problems in our society are to do with the power of celebrity culture. I think about it a lot in relation to people like JK Rowling - who has gone from beloved children's author to transphobic pariah. I'm deeply disappointed in her, just as I'm disappointed in anyone with bigoted views, but the most important question I always ask is, why does she have such a big platform in the first place? She's just a person, who has managed to earn a lot of money through being good at writing stories, and we shouldn't know anything else about her besides that unless we happen to know her personally. But for some reason, being talented at entertainment or literature means that we allow complete strangers to have far greater an influence in our lives than they would otherwise have - and that gives them the ability to abuse that influence. Celebrity culture is such a powerful influence in Western society that it's actually quite hard to snap out of it and remember that - but I think it is important to, because it's the root cause of this protection of the powerful.

There are other Jimmy Saviles out there. If you happen to know about one of them, although I recognise that it may be quite difficult, I urge you to tell someone about it - but only if you know for certain, of course. Whether they're an actor, a TV presenter, a broadcaster, a teacher, a a janitor or a road-sweeper makes not one ounce of difference to their danger to the public.

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Five reasons why Black Friday is an international disgrace

 I have never participated in the celebration of consumerism known collectively as Black Friday. Ten years ago, I'd never even heard of it. It's been celebrated in the USA since 1952, but is a far more recent thing in the UK, only really starting around 2013.

The origin basically seems to come from the fact that in the USA, Christmas is the next major holiday once Thanksgiving is over, and Black Friday is traditionally held the day after... marking the beginning of 'Christmas shopping season'. Thanksgiving is an American holiday commemorating the Pilgrim Fathers, and has very little significance the rest of the world over. The reason Black Friday has crossed over to the UK (and many other countries as well) seems to be down to two things: 1) The rise in online shopping; and 2) Because Asda, which is owned by Walmart, decided to participate and it went from there.

I think the whole thing is foul, and I will not participate. Here are five reasons why I feel this way:

1) It's a celebration of consumerism

I don't tend to buy many Christmas presents. I don't really ask for people to buy them for me either. If someone would like to buy me something, that's up to them. And if I do buy something for someone, it's usually because I've seen something that's made me think of them, or that I know they could really use. I hate the formality of gift-giving. A gift is a non-essential special thing that you do for someone, a moment to demonstrate that you value their presence in your life and that you're interested enough in them to know what they want/need. It is NOT an opportunity for relentless marketing, advertising and selling for huge corporations to get a nice bottom line at the end of the year. The Christmas shopping season is a horrible, cynical attempt to cash in on people's kindness to one another.

People with small children are the greatest victims of this, because much of the marketing is aimed strongly at children. We have a cost of living crisis; I know anecdotally of people who can barely afford to eat, but still somehow manage to scrape together enough to buy their child the latest gadget. And how can you not, if their child is being led to believe constantly that this is how a good parent shows love to their child?

2) It's utterly hypocritical

This is more in relation to the American side, which I don't personally have much connection to, but it needs saying. The meaning of Thanksgiving is in the name - it's to do with being thankful for what you have, spending some much-needed time with your loved ones. This is the antithesis to our consumerist culture, and is an attitude that we urgently need more of in every culture. And then the next day, everyone dashes out to embrace consumerism even more wildly than they did before. What happened to being thankful for what you had?

3) It actually causes people to spend more

You know, we're in a cost-of-living crisis. If there's something you badly need, I won't begrudge you waiting until the day when you might happen to get a few quid off. But here's a great deal for you: if you don't buy it, you get 100% off! Yes, I know, almost too good to be true. There's a serious point here though - a lot of us could probably do with living more frugally, using fewer of the planet's resources, and if you don't need it, the cost being reduced is not good enough reason to buy it.

I've seen personally that it can actually cause selfishness. I used to be a door-to-door charity cold caller, and I will always recall the number of people who, in 2017, couldn't sign up to charity because, they claimed, they'd spent all their money in the sales. If you can't afford it, fair enough. But if this is about saving money, why are people suddenly more hard-up after it than they were before?

4) It can get physically dangerous

Just look at these. I'm a bit loath to share this link as the website talks about it in quite a flippant and humorous way - but every single year, there's some kind of report of a fight or someone getting hurt as a result of the Black Friday rush. That's not even counting abuse to retail staff.

5) It's bad for the environment

You know, Cop27 is over, and as usual it's Cop-Out 27, with very little in the way of commitments to phasing out fossil fuels. If we're going to do anything about this global warming thing, looks like we're going to have to do it ourselves. A festival celebrating consumerism and greed is not conducive to that. At all.

Thankfully, I've seen a lot less Black Friday stuff around this year anyway. I'm not sure if that's because the world is waking up or if it's because the cost of living crisis has got so dire that people don't have the time to think about purchasing useless items even if they are on sale, but it is at least welcome.

If you want to get some new stuff, why not take a visit to your local charity shop? Bring a bunch of your old junk whilst you're at it as well.

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I will not vote for someone hostile to immigrants

'We are not the country of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. In the coming weeks we must take the fight to those who challenge our values. Labour is an internationalist party and always will be.'

Keir Starmer, 2019

I had a fairly idyllic childhood in urban Bristol. I happened to grow up living with huge numbers of different people, probably from about 10-15 different countries (that's a rough estimate - not sure I can remember them all!) I had friends from pretty much every different class background, and I went to a secondary school so racially diverse that in some of my classes I, as a white person, was actually in the minority. It's only been during my adulthood that I've come to realise how privileged I was to grow up like this. It's given me the advantage of being able to relate to all kinds of people without seeing them as fundamentally different kinds of humans - which is something that most of us do, even if we don't like to admit it.

In my early twenties I was a student at the University of Essex, and it was this experience in particular that made me realise how flawed my view of the world had been. I had grown up naively believing that whilst incidents of racism still happened, it was predominantly all in the past and that we were swiftly moving in the right direction - even the President of the United States was a person of colour! Then I moved to Colchester, and this optimism died quite quickly. I had to walk past this extremely racist political poster every morning on my way to Uni:

Colchester is a garrison town, which tends to lend itself to quite extreme right-wing opinion. I remember a conversation with someone once where I told them about my experiences of sometimes being in the minority of white people at school, and their reaction was, 'Wow... didn't that make you feel weird and uncomfortable?' I was quite shocked by this at the time, but thinking back it actually says a lot about our knowledge of our own inherent racism; that person must have known, deep down, that the life of an ethnic minority person is often quite miserable largely because of the racist majority, therefore they presume that anyone in any minority group must feel that way. Whereas the reality, of course, is that if you grow up in a diverse community, you know nothing different and the idea of feeling uncomfortable for that kind of reason just doesn't occur to you.

This is not even taking into account that during the time I was a student, there was a lot of discourse within the media about EU membership, culminating in the 2016 EU referendum. There was a great deal of noisy opinion being shared about this by my fellow students, and the Leave vote happened a week after I graduated. I was distraught. Then later that year, the supremely racist and extreme-right Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States. I was distraught again, but in a bit more of a cynical way - I'd come to expect it by this point.

I don't wish to speak badly about Colchester, because I did make some very close friends there - it was simply that living in that town caused me to realise that far from my perception that I'd arrived just in time to see racism disappear from our culture forever, I'd just happened to grow up in one of the very few progressive bubbles that happen to exist from place to place. This is not a Colchester thing - it's a thing that exists overwhelmingly across the UK and the world at large, and I just happened to have grown up not really witnessing it. I consider myself really fortunate to have had that - but it also made me very naive, and seeing a bit of the rest of the world and the attitudes of the people who live there was an important wake-up call. We still have a fundamentally callous and racist society, and this is reflected in the attitudes of our politicians.

This week, the leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer gave a speech at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) where he said, and I quote, 'our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here' (you can watch the speech in full here). Steve Topple of the Canary points out in this article that Starmer may as well have said 'those bloody foreigners coming over here and stealing our jobs'. There were other points to this that I will go into shortly, but it's worth pointing out before I do that this kind of rhetoric is so problematic that even Nigel Farage has endorsed it, saying that it's straight out of UKIP's 2015 manifesto (let's recall, the manifesto that ultimately caused then Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a referendum on EU membership, turning an immensely complex issue into a slapdash yes/no question, and we've lived with the consequences ever since.)

Farage does acknowledge that Keir Starmer may not have meant what he said, and I have no idea if he did or not. Politics is such a dirty game at the moment that I don't think we can rely on nearly any politician to tell the truth at any given time. This article from the BBC highlights the incoherence of Starmer's position rather well - he knows that in reality, reducing immigration would be a disaster waiting to happen. He's trying to pander to two demographics people at once - firstly, figures in big business who rely on cheap labour from immigrants, and secondly, typical Conservative voters, who most likely have racist tendencies and are hoping to hear a politician promising to get rid of all those foreigners (promises that right-wing politicians have been making for decades, and it still hasn't happened). There are two problems with this: the first is that as I said above, these two positions are completely incoherent, which isn't a good look for a party leader; and the second is that these two demographics of people are probably the most destructive to our society, and by pandering to either of them Starmer is proving himself to be a cynical and morally corrupt human being. The choice should not be between a) getting rid of all the foreigners or b) using the foreigners as cheap labour. Both of these positions are actually pretty racist in themselves, in that they remove the agency of immigrants and consider them to either be a nuisance or a means to an end.

I wrote the other day about how I consider Labour to be an extremely racist party, in some respects even more so than the Tories. I do not say this lightly, as I have seen how badly racist the Tories are, and I don't want to water that down at all. But for quite a few years now, Labour has been trying to out-Tory the Tories on some things. I will remind you of this mug that some genius thought it a good idea to bring out in 2015:

Remember, they lost that election very badly, and the reason they lost it badly is because this kind of thing doesn't fly. People with these kinds of horrible opinions will just flock back to the Tories (especially when the Tories are emulating UKIP). Meanwhile, this kind of rhetoric will turn away anyone who actually wants us to embrace immigration and to treat these people as legitimate human beings who are welcome here.

But even worse than the racist attitudes is the cynicism involved. Look at that quote I've put at the top. Just look at it. It was only three years ago that Keir Starmer said that. In as little as 1,291 days, Keir Starmer has gone from publicly decrying the kind of attitudes espoused by Nigel Farage to being commended by him for echoing them. And this is not an isolated incident either. Labour lost the 2019 General Election largely for being seen as sore losers for calling for another referendum on our EU membership or lack thereof. This was the only major difference between this manifesto and the far more successful 2017 one, and Starmer was the Shadow Brexit Secretary at the time, meaning he is largely to blame for the outcome. It's quite staggering to see someone so opposed to UKIP's ideals that he'd call to reverse the electoral decision UKIP was heavily involved in creating go to actively peddling the same kind of shocking rhetoric.

Keir Starmer has no consistent political viewpoints. He blows in the wind, aligns himself with whoever appears to be powerful at the time and has absolutely no shame. As Owen Jones points out in the video below, Boris Johnson may have been an awful Prime Minister, but at least his bid to become Conservative Party leader was honest; Keir Starmer deliberately misled the Labour membership about what kind of leader he was going to be, and has ridden back on all of his ten pledges. Whether he actually holds racist views, I cannot say without knowing him personally - but he is trying to align himself with people who do. This is dangerous and highly concerning.

I'm going to finish with a rather good video from Owen Jones concerning exactly what causes the current issues regarding immigration and skilled workers (which is a valid concern, even if the solution is unethical and won't work anyway) but before I go I'll just clarify why so many foreign people choose to come to the UK, as opposed to other countries. The reason is that they mostly speak English. And the reason they mostly speak English is that historically, we invaded their homelands. When we spread our language around the world as effectively as we have, the consequence is plenty of people choosing to come where they speak the language. And personally, I don't have a problem with any immigrants coming here whatsoever - but if anyone does, they may want to get involved in climate activism, because we haven't even scratched the surface of how many refugees will be trying to escape their home countries when climate change really takes hold.

I will not vote for anyone who is remotely hostile to immigration. It's harmful rhetoric, largely untrue and deliberately misrepresents the causes of people's problems.

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The expansion of Bristol Airport

Note: Much of the information in this blog has been taken from this article in the Bristol Post by Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, although I've re-written it in my own words.

 At Cop27 in Egypt, the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, warned that 'we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator'.

It probably isn't necessary for me to outline exactly how and why that's the case because I think most people already know it all (although if you don't, there's tons of information online if you can bear to read it). From what I've seen, Cop27 is shaping up to be just like Cop26 - less action on fossil fuels, lots of talks of 'historic' agreements and a lot more of what Greta Thunberg calls 'blah blah blah'.

I want to talk about something more immediate, which is the proposed expansion of Bristol Airport. I live in Bristol and have flown from Bristol Airport in the past (although, apart from once in an emergency, I have not flown since 2015 as I cannot ethically justify it in the middle of a climate crisis). Bristol Airport has been pushing to expand its capacity for four years now, there have been campaigns to stop this from happening from the beginning and in 2020, North Somerset Council listened to the objection and rejected the planning application.

This was then overturned by the Government's Planning Inspectorate (which, incidentally, demonstrates how little power local councils have these days over corporations... corporations know how to play the game, they'll appeal up to the top of Government and the top of Government tends to side with them over locals and elected officials). In early November, an appeal was heard at Bristol Civil Justice Centre arguing that errors were made in the Planning Inspectorate's criteria, and the result of that is still awaiting. I took part in a protest outside the courtroom on the first day of the hearing - I was actually part of a choir of singers to raise awareness of this issue.

This campaign really matters, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it sets a precedent. There are many other airports in the UK looking to expand their output, who are eagerly awaiting the outcome of this particular case in the event that it helps to justify their own expansion. Secondly, it says something about Bristol's role as a city. In 2018, Bristol was the first city in Europe to publicly declare a climate emergency, thanks in no small part to local councillor (and now Green co-leader) Carla Denyer. I'm really proud of the conscientiousness of many of the people here in Bristol, I think it's something that much of the rest of the UK could learn from and I hope we can lead from the front in saying 'No more airport expansion' - not just here, but across the rest of the country and the world at large.

Finally though, I'd like to address the obvious discrepancy between the way we talk about transport in general. The idea of the 'personal carbon footprint', which was quite prevalent when I was growing up, has pretty much been debunked now. As I said above, I've only flown once since 2015 - but sometimes I think that the only thing this has really achieved has been avoidance of my own guilt. Save for exceptional circumstances I will not fly again until I'm sure that we've dealt with the worst of the damage and that flying can be morally justified (if that's ever the case, that is) - but is anyone truly better off as a result of me making that decision? I don't think so. I think the same number of flights have gone over the last seven years as they otherwise would have, which is quite dejecting.

This is because we emphasise two things at once which are impossible to square with one another. We encourage people to fly less often - and yet we also promote unregulated growth, which means increasing numbers of flights going. These two things are impossible to work together. Airports do not meet demand; they create demand. To truly deal with the pollution caused by air travel, we need to agree internationally that only a certain number of flights are allowed to go per year, and stick to this. If we did that, it would be easier for people to go on holiday, guilt-free. There's nothing wrong with taking the odd flight; the planet can cope with your occasional foreign holiday. What it can't cope with is the super-rich buzzing around on their private jets every week.

It's the scale of this problem we need to sort out - and this is why Bristol Airport must not be allowed to expand.

I'd also like to express my concern with the fact that damaging the environment is not in itself illegal. The case being heard in court is purely in relation to errors being made in the Government Inspectorate's process - nothing to do with the enormous amount of damage that airport expansion would cause. The latter seems to me to be far more important, and it seems that our laws are out of touch when it comes to protecting our collective home.

If you're worried about climate breakdown and its effects, I very highly recommend the YouTube channel ClimateAdam. Dr Adam Levy is a climate scientist, and very good at explaining what's happening and how you can help, in a way that is neither too complacent nor too despairing. I've only discovered his channel quite recently, but I've found it so helpful to keep myself informed of things.

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The UK Labour Party is fundamentally racist, impotent and sinister

Hello! Been a while, hasn't it? I've really had my hands full the last few months with professional commitments, despair over the ever-more-volatile state of the world and personal decisions for my future.

One of the things I've been doing recently is considering carefully the state of the UK opposition. I feel like I've been doing that pretty much every day for around ten years now (I kind of miss the days before I knew what the opposition was). One of the things primarily on my mind when I set up this blog as a lowly 17-year-old angry about tuition fees was that 'I hate the Government. EVERY Government.' What I meant by that was that I believed even then the old aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that anyone who comes to power is likely to experience the same effect. Do I still believe that? 'Yes, but...' is the answer. I think that in most cases that will be true, however I also believe that there are enough people in the world who wouldn't be corrupted by being in a leadership position. Jeremy Corbyn is one of them - I believe that had he become Prime Minister in 2017 or 2019, his general code of ethics would not have changed very much by being in that position. That is just my personal opinion; I could of course be wrong.

However, for better or worse he did not become Prime Minister. I still feel quite sad about that sometimes, but I also think it's better to move on and look to the future (something that us Corbyn-supporters are often accused - unfairly in my view - of being unable to do). However, I do need to say that if Jeremy Corbyn had been elected, irrespective of my personal views on him, things would still not have been brilliant. Far from it. Why? For the simple fact that Labour is a TERRIBLE party.

I've seen enough of the world of politics by now that I'm quite desensitised these days. Not that much shocks me. However, I admit to being very shocked by Al-Jazeera's three-part documentary on the UK Labour Party, The Labour Files. You can watch Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 on these links, and I strongly recommend doing so. It largely deals with the party's reaction to Corbyn's election as leader - but it's about so much more than that. It details how the opinions of people were deliberately misrepresented for cynical purposes; how personal details of campaigners, including things as sensitive as where their children went to school, were leaked to people with no right to that information; how incidents of racism amongst the staff were deliberately covered up; and so much more besides. Have a watch if you haven't already, but I warn you, it makes for grim viewing. It's immensely disturbing the levels of harassment that the Labour Party put sometimes quite vulnerable individuals through (and sometimes entire constituencies in a 'guilt by association' kind of way).

The message that I took from this is that the Labour Party is incredibly racist. The rules regarding leadership candidacy have changed recently (presumably to prevent any socialist ever getting in again); the current rules would have precluded every person of colour who has ever stood for Labour leadership from standing, as well as four of the six women who have ever stood (including Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, the two women who stood last time). To put this into perspective, the current Conservative Prime Minister is a person of colour, as were quite a few of the people who stood in July's Tory leadership race. Far be it from me to point at the Conservative Party as a beacon of progressive politics, but it's arguable that we have actually reached a point where it's easier to be a woman or a person of colour in the Conservative Party than it is in Labour!

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party was absolutely dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism. Another thing that us Corbyn supporters are often accused of is turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism, so I want to make something else extremely clear. Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party exists. It existed prior to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, it existed during it and it continues to exist now that he's gone. I was a bit too naive during the 2015 election period to recognise the anti-Semitic characterisation of Ed Miliband; but on reflection, I do not believe there would have been anything to say about the way a non-Jewish leader had eaten a bacon sandwich. Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, the complaints procedure was deliberately sabotaged by Labour's senior staff, making it harder for Jewish people within the party. Under the current administration, huge numbers of Jews have been suspended/expelled from the party allegedly for anti-Semitic behaviour. Although I do believe it to be possible to discriminate against one's own oppressed group (women can be misogynistic, black people can be racist, gay people can be homophobic) I have never before heard of people persecuted ON THIS SCALE supposedly for oppressing people who share their own protected characteristic. This seems to me that the definition of 'anti-Semitism' has been redefined by the Labour Party for a political purpose (largely by people who aren't even Jewish) and that there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' sort of Jew depending on a political belief. If that's the case, it is one of the most disgracefully racist things I have ever heard of.

This is not even taking into account the other various forms of racism present in the Labour Party. Diane Abbott (who received almost half of all abusive tweets to female MPs during the 2017 election campaign) highlighted in this article that she received no apology nor any reassurance of any action being taken after the Forde Report revealed much racism and misogyny aimed at her by party staff. Apsana Begum, the first hijab-wearing MP, has experienced such extreme levels of systematic misogyny and racism from Labour Party staff that she had to be signed off sick for her mental health - and even then, Labour initiated a trigger ballot process during her time off to potentially cause her to lose her seat. There has been no apology from Labour for this behaviour, nor any recognition that it has even done anything wrong.

It's also worth noting the reticence from the Labour Party to support strike action. UK workers are facing increasing demands on their time for very little pay, and have been for some time. Rail workers are striking, as are nurses. Quite rightly so. Does the Labour Party (a party largely founded on union action) support these strikes in the slightest? No, it doesn't. It even went as far as to deselect MP Sam Tarry (the then Shadow Minister for Buses and Local Transport, as well as the partner of Deputy Leader Angela Rayner) after appearing on picket lines. If the Labour Party cannot even back workers standing up for their rights and fairer pay, something so crucial to its identity that it's referred to in its name, it's very hard to see what it actually stands for.

The fact that the UK Labour Party is in such an awful state is particularly bitter right now, for two reasons: 1) Because in such awful times we desperately need it to be better; and 2) Because actually, the Government is falling apart at the seams. We currently have the third Prime Minister we've had THIS YEAR. We've gone in less than sixty days from massive tax breaks to incredibly high tax hikes. The Government has run out of ideas. It has no objective other than keeping itself in power until the next election. It should be a foregone conclusion that it will suffer a thumping defeat at the next election whenever it comes...

Except it isn't. Because with Labour in such a dire state, the only way it can win an election is if people think, 'Well, they can't be worse than the Tories!' And, to be fair, it's entirely possible that Labour will win like that, with the Tories being as dire as they are. But what happens after that? Do we trust a party with such an economical relationship with the truth, with a history of such racism and misogyny and a profound unwillingness to stand up for working to really do anything to deal with the huge challenges the UK and the world faces today? Particularly with climate catastrophe on the horizon?

If Labour wins the next election, all that will happen is mild amelioration for a couple of years. During which time the Tories will rebrand, eventually get back in and the whole process will start over again... except even worse than that, because I believe (although this is just personal opinion) that Labour is now even worse than it was during the Tony Blair years. Anyone relying on the Labour Party to sort out their problems is in for a very bitter disappointment. I'm sorry to be so cynical, but this is the truth.

So, what can we do? Here are some ideas if you're feeling depressed (it's a depressing subject):

1) Think very hard about who you're voting for. Remember it's not just about the party or the leader, it's about your local candidate and whether you have faith in them to represent you in Parliament. I will not vote Labour next time because I do not have faith in my local candidate - however, there are still some Labour candidates for whom it's worth voting. The website They Work For You is a brilliant tool to determine whether a certain candidate is or isn't worth supporting - loads of information about their votes, speeches and general Parliamentary behaviour to determine if they represent what you want. If you don't have a decent Labour candidate, research your other candidates... we have an awful electoral system where most votes don't count, but if you have to vote for someone who won't win it's still worth it in some respects. If it's a closer call than expected, your local candidate may feel that they have to take on some of the characteristics of their opponent in order to win again next time.

2) Find a way of protesting. Protesting doesn't mean you have to sit in the middle of the M25 (although I admire people who do that, and they'll most likely be the subject of a future blog). Even if it's just trying to keep a day centre open in your community, that's still activism. Help with someone's rent, sign petitions, find something you can do to make someone's life a bit easier... we have to look after each other because we simply cannot rely on the state (ANY of the state) to do it for us. Even if you know an activist who's experiencing a bit of burn-out, a cup of tea and a chat can work wonders for someone's ability to carry on when the going is tough. (And just a note - a year ago, nine activists were jailed for telling the Government to insulate Britain. Now, the Government has pledged £6 billion to help do just that. Direct action does work.)

3) Don't despair. It's really hard not to sometimes, and I'm as guilty of that as anyone. But it isn't productive. So many times in the past people have felt similar to this, and so many times we've come through it. Someone once told me that the reason human beings have survived so long is that we're really quick to adapt to new circumstances - but we cannot ever imagine ourselves out of our present ones. If things are going badly, we cannot ever imagine them going well again. If things are going well, it feels like all the bad stuff is in the past and we've won. The truth is, we never win and we never lose, because things fluctuate, always have and always will. Just because things are bad at the moment, doesn't mean it's impossible to come through it and change things. It being impossible is what they want us to think. Don't fall for it.

Open letter to Thangam Debbonaire MP, regarding recent Government legislation and the UK Labour Party's current role within politics

 Dear Thangam,

My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist, and I write about politics under the blog name The Rebel Without A Clause. I am writing to you concerning the most recent harmful legislation pushed through under the current Conservative Government, and the opposition's role in opposing such legislation.

I think political speaking, the last week (w/c 25/04/2022) was the most harmful week in politics in the almost three decades that I've been resident on this planet. Within seven days, Parliament passed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, effectively outlawing peaceful protest and significantly curbing the legality of the traditional ways of life of travelling communities; the Nationality and Borders Bill, allowing the Home Secretary to deprive British people of their citizenship; the Elections Bill, meaning that people will only be able to vote if they produce voter ID, supposedly in the interests of preventing voter fraud - even though instances of voter fraud are incredibly low (this Act also gives Governments powers over the Electoral Commission, something far more likely to actually increase voter fraud); and to top it all the Health and Care Bill, making it easier for the Government to sell off parts of our NHS for corporate profit. (This is without even mentioning Nadine Dorries' plans to sell off Channel 4, which is pretty much the only major broadcaster to consistently question the role of the state).

In writing to you, I wanted to talk in particular about the Labour Party's position on these things. I am aware that particularly in relation to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Lords were quite particular in passing it back to the House of Commons twice. However, on the third occasion, the Lords representing Labour chose to abstain. I am aware that thrice-blocking a Bill that has been passed by the House of Commons is a difficult position to put the Lords into - however, with the harm that this Bill causes, I find it very concerning that it was not opposed for all it was worth. Likewise with the other Bills - I am aware that the Lords worked on certain amendments to them, but the outcomes still seem incredibly harmful and divisive. Even if the Lords were defeated on things, I would hope that they would fight tooth and nail to keep our NHS public, keep citizenship sacrosanct and keep protest rights essential.

More broadly, I haven't been hugely impressed with Labour's position on very much of Conservative policy over the last few years. In 2019, I voted Labour for the first time, having previously always voted for the Green Party; I was so utterly inspired by the 2019 manifesto. I was terribly upset to lose the election so badly, but worse than that, I haven't felt Labour's response to the worst Government in history since the 2019 election, particularly given that we've had the most major public health crisis in a century since, to be particularly inspiring. There have been a lot of abstentions to harmful pieces of legislation, suspension of left-wing members (particularly left-wing Jewish members actually, in spite of the leader's claim to be trying to make a clean break with anti-Semitism); and even when opposition has been given, it hasn't felt particularly strong (an instance of that is Keir Starmer's recent interview regarding the suggestion of sending refugees to Rwanda; although he quite rightly opposed this idea, he focussed more on practical issues of it being uneconomical and so on. Although that is a concern, the primary concern here is surely that it's a really grotesque abuse of human rights, and I would have hoped the Leader of the UK Labour Party, the party of Clement Attlee, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn, would attack it from that angle.)

I sometimes question whether I was right to vote Labour last time, but for better or worse, I did and we are where we are. What I am essentially writing to you to ask is, will Labour commit to reversing the harmful pieces of legislation that have gone through in the past week if the party wins the next election? And, if the answer to that is yes, to what degree should I trust the accuracy of that statement given that nearly all of the ten pledges that the current Leader of the Labour Party was elected on have been broken?

Thank you for your attention, and I hope to hear back from you soon.

Best wishes,

George Harold Millman

This letter was sent to my local MP, Labour's Thangam Debbonaire, through the website WriteToThem, through which you can write to any of your local representatives. The links sourcing my points were not sent, they were added to this blog post. If and when I receive any response, I will post it on this blog.

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Call me crazy, but I kind of thought not having permission was the whole point of protesting?

 This week, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill finally reached Royal Assent, after bouncing back and forth between the Commons and the Lords for quite a while. This Bill is quite possibly the most dangerous Bill that has passed in the UK in my life time, as it effectively criminalises protest - or at any rate, any form of protest that is likely to be at all effective, at the cost of up to ten years in jail. Marches that have been pre-arranged with the police at certain times and don't make too much noise are still allowed, but I think we're deluding ourselves quite a lot if we think that kind of action would ever be remotely effective in achieving a goal. (Just as a side-note, another thing that happened this week was Nadine Dorries reaffirming her intention to sell Channel 4. That followed a massive consultation in which 98% of respondents said that they didn't think Channel 4's management needed any shake-up, and Nadine Dorries has effectively said that these responses do not matter. I just thought I would bring that up, if we think the Government ever listens to concerned citizens just telling them what they think, rather than taking any kind of action to make it so.)

The Bill also contains quite a lot of other concerning things, such as 'increased powers for police to respond to unauthorised encampments', which essentially turns trespass from a civil into a criminal matter, and disproportionately targets Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people (already some of the most vulnerable communities to invisible racism in the world). When I was at sixth form, I worked on a play about the evictions of the travelling communities residing at Dale Farm in Essex, an extremely hot topic back in 2011 - as a performer, I often feel quite emotionally close to the issues that I'm tackling in my theatre work, and ever since I've felt quite angry on behalf of traveller communities and held a deep-ridden desire to change things.

You'd think that I'd be quite demotivated by this Bill having gone through (there was admittedly a small part of me that thought it may not, although I think that was always the idealistic side of me). But I am not demotivated, I am inspired. I think the thing inspiring me is that the more draconian legislation goes through (I haven't even started on accelerating the privatisation of the NHS or being able to strip British-born people of their citizenship), the more determined I am to fight. And I think this could be true of all of us. In addition to just being greedy and cruel, I think there is method in the Government's madness; a determination not just to remove all of our rights, but also to make us feel depressed and disincentivised, to make us feel that we've lost.

We have not lost. We've never truly lost until after we've gone extinct. These pieces of legislation are disturbing and frightening, but they aren't the only ones, particularly if you extend your outlook beyond just the UK and into other parts of the world. Throughout history, and even today, people have risked their lives and their freedoms to fight for things that we now take for granted and couldn't imagine living without (things that even now, world powers would take away in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it). Why do you think they want to stop people protesting? They want to stop it because they know that we actually have more power than we think we do, and particularly recently with environmental groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, more people are starting to talk about the causes. The Government would quite like to stamp this out, and it will not work. Banning protest just makes people more angry, and more inclined to go even further in trying to achieve their goals.

It is my view that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is unenforceable, for a few reasons:

1) Because the number of people at a protest generally tends exceed the number who can be realistically arrested or charged;

2) Because defence in criminal cases regarding protest is slightly different to defence in criminal cases generally - the burden of proof on the defendant is not so much that their criminal acts did not happen or that it was not they who committed them, but that they were committed in order to prevent a much greater wrong being committed;

3) Because as citizens, we are becoming more concerned, and juries are starting to reflect this - this is demonstrated in outcomes in cases such as that of the Colston Four, which I wrote about at the time.

It's all very well to impose Government restrictions on protests, but that is not how protesting works, and never has been. Protesting is something that is done when Government or corporate policies specifically infringe on someone's rights, safety or livelihood, and more importantly is a human right. It's ineffective for it to be condoned by the Government every time, because the whole purpose of it is specifically to defy world powers. For this reason, this Bill will be ineffective, as the decision to take to the streets is not something that happens when we feel like a fun afternoon. It's something we do when we're unhappy about something, and it is an intelligent person who is unhappy in today's circumstances.

I've not been an especially good activist in the last couple of years. I haven't updated this blog as often as I probably should have, and I've been to very few marches and rallies. I can't really say why that is other than that I've allowed life to get in the way too much (which is actually healthy if it's in moderation - no one can be an activist 100% of the time). But currently I'm re-evaluating my place on this earth and my reason for being here, and quite a lot of this has spurred me on, made me think that actually we can make a success of this. No mountain is insurmountable; throughout history grassroots activists have made huge social and political differences to their way of life, and we will continue to do so for as long as the human race exists. And there isn't just one way of doing it either - some people chain themselves to railings, some people become lawyers and try to achieve progress through the legal channels, some people go on hunger strikes... there isn't a right or a wrong way a lot of the time, it's just what works for you and what you feel most comfortable with. But whatever way it is, we should be going out there and claiming that better world that could exist for us as long as we demand it hard enough.

Let's do it.

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Will a party bring about the end of Boris Johnson's rule?

This blog will be one of my shorter ones. I haven't really written anything about this bring-your-own-booze garden party that Boris Johnson is supposed to have hosted in the middle of lockdown. I haven't done a great deal of research into it either, although I have seen this rather wonderful video by Peter Stefanovic explaining why Sue Gray isn't as independent as people think she is.

Truthfully, the reason for this is that I don't really care very much if Government ministers had a party during lockdown. Doing such a thing was wrong, yes - but no more wrong than the constant breaches of human rights, the staggering numbers of excess deaths due to mishandling COVID, the moves to destroy peaceful protest, the deliberate weakening of the NHS just when we need it most or many of the other things this Government has presided over. It shows that they think it's one rule for them and another for us - well, I'd say that we already knew that, and have done for some time. They're extremely wealthy human beings, mostly born into grotesque levels of privilege and recipients of a form of education that reinforces that notion that 'we are born to rule, they are born to serve'. This notion is a vital part of British society; in most echelons of it, it's seen as fairly outdated now, but it's still nearly as prevalent as ever in our Governments, our media and our legal services.

Nevertheless, it has to be said that this revelation has caused a great deal of anger amongst the population, and thus I'm drawn to acknowledging it on this blog. I think the reason is basically just the unfairness of it all - that people missed birthdays, funerals, anniversaries and did everything they could to take one for the team, and the Government couldn't even be bothered to do that much. Unfairness is a social motivator much of the time. There's been a lot of talk in the media about whether this could be the straw that breaks our Prime Minister's back. It could be, but I'm sceptical. It seems that since Boris Johnson came to power, he's presided over scandal after scandal, and it never seems to come to anything (remember Dominic Cummings and his trip to Barnard Castle? You probably do now I mention it, but I haven't heard anything about that, or him, for a long time, and that had pretty much the same as this).

But perhaps I'm wrong. Sometimes you can't predict in advance exactly which scandal will be the one to take out a Prime Minister - in fact, in most cases you probably can't. A more important question is, why should we care? If Boris Johnson goes, it will be for one reason and one reason only - that the party has finally decided that his liability level outweighs his usefulness (a Prime Minister who can withstand scandal after scandal is INCREDIBLY useful for a Government, which is why this decision hasn't already been made).

And if he goes, who will replace him? Most likely, someone who was at this party. Someone who will continue with all the policies people object to about Boris Johnson. The removal of a leader and the process of bringing in of a new one is very rarely anything in the way of an attempt to resolve the problems caused by the previous leader, and to prove that one needs to look no further than the Labour Party. In the 2017 General Election, Labour's manifesto caused it to receive its highest share of the vote since 2001 and receive a net gain of seats for the first time since 1997. Only two years later, on an extremely similar manifesto, Labour had the most polar opposite result you could imagine, losing sixty seats. At the time I wrote about the various things that caused such a different result - but the only major difference between the manifestos was Labour's position on Brexit. In 2017, Labour pledged to respect the result of the referendum. In 2019, the then Shadow Brexit Secretary, backed by other political forces, championed another sore loser referendum, and then this was voted on at conference, forcing Labour to officially adopt this policy or else face quite reasonable accusations of being undemocratic. Who was this Shadow Brexit Secretary? Keir Starmer. Who succeeded Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader? Keir Starmer, and he immediately put the party into debt by agreeing financial settlements on cases the party had been advised it would win, conducted a purge of left-wing members and is so dull to listen to that under him the party struggles to stay afloat against the worst Government in history. Yes, things went wrong for Labour in 2019 - but if the party was even slightly interested in objectively analysing what went wrong and rectifying it, this man would not have come even close to the leadership.

In my humble opinion, Boris Johnson leaving over this is highly unlikely to happen. But if it does, it won't cause life to improve for anyone really. Nothing will change until we fundamentally alter the make-up of our society and our leadership, and that can only be achieved through campaigns and protest.

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Review of ITV's Anne

'They’re going to try and wear me down. But... I’ll wear them down before they wear me out.'

Anne Williams, 1951-2013

 Over the last week or so, my partner and I have watched the drama Anne (it's only four episodes, so catch it here if you haven't seen it already). It's about the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 and the aftermath, which spanned more than thirty years. Maxine Peake plays a fictitious version of the real-life campaigner Anne Williams, whose 15-year-old son Kevin died at Hillsborough and who fought for the remainder of her own life to uncover the truth about what happened.

I'm not really a football person, however I think every socially-minded person should take something of an interest. I've always been fascinated by the impact sport can have on social campaigns - particularly in the last couple of years, with the work provided by political activist and footballer Marcus Rashford. When I was a child, I remember first learning about Hillsborough (the disaster itself happened four years before I was born) and as I grew older I learned a bit more about how much the blame was shifted away from the police and onto fans who the press derided as being drunk hooligans. However, it's only been within the last week or so that I've realised that sheer scale of this, and how long the families fought to get justice. (The legal campaign itself actually only finished last year, and there's still one further aspect to it, which I'll outline below.)

Truthfully, I have rarely come across a drama which moved me so much. My partner and I write a political TV drama series, so we are extremely difficult viewers to impress! Nearly everything we've watched over the past few years, we've criticised quite significantly even if we've generally enjoyed it. With this, I have very little to criticise. Maxine Peake's performance was absolutely spot on, the best role I've ever seen her in by miles (she's an incredible human being even aside from her acting; she's done some extremely good work for socialist campaigns in the past). I think especially given that we follow her character in this for 24 years, she portrays the way in which her character ages over time exceptionally well (if I could level one small criticism at the programme it's that this can't always be said for the other actors, but I'm really nitpicking there). I really felt a sense of injustice at the way the families of the 96 (now 97, as the latest victim only died last year) were constantly finding themselves jumping through hoops and getting nowhere, as the system was determined to protect the powerful. I think that's a societal phenomenon that we've all tasted something of at some point in our lives, but rarely as consistently and to the extent of the Hillsborough families.

The drama has inspired me to find out a lot more about Hillsborough, which I think is probably the point of it. On my previous blog about the Colston Four, I talked about how successful activism is often retrospectively changed to become less grassroots, more of an establishment success. In the Hillsborough case, we have another aspect to this, which is our tendency to focus more on the horrors of the tragedies themselves than the failure on the part of authorities to prevent it. This happens in many situations, and is most noticeable during conversations about the Holocaust; we talk about the situations at the concentration camps, we talk about people being gassed to death in what they'd been told were the showers, but it's not often that we hear about the increased levels of public apathy towards Jews and other minority groups over the previous decade that precipitated these attacks. I've even heard people argue that likening it to forms of racism we see in modern times is insulting to anyone who died in the Holocaust - which is a complete own goal, because making that public knowledge is vital if we want to prevent it happening. The same is true of Hillsborough. I didn't know a great deal about it before I watched Anne - I probably knew a bit more than the general population because I'm someone who actively takes an interest in social campaigns, so I knew that the police were largely at fault and that the newspapers smeared the people of Liverpool, to the point where you can now no longer buy the Sun in Liverpool because it's boycotted. Watching Anne really inspired me to increase my knowledge - but I think most people probably don't even know that much.

When we talk about Hillsborough, we talk about the horrors of the crush itself - and whilst that is important to reflect on, it's not the only important thing, or even the most important. I think what is of more importance here is that this case really shines a light on the extent to which the powerful will go to protect themselves from accountability. In cases like former Special Constable Debra Martin's (who was with Kevin Williams when he died, and was one of the only police officers to be honest from the start), the establishment will even ruin the lives of people who were formerly part of it, if these people refuse to toe the line and stick to the approved story. We continue to see this all the time. Our present Government was only elected two years ago, and so far has presided over scandal after scandal. Almost no one is ever brought to account for any of it. In some ways, I think it's even worse now than it was in the 1980s and '90s - at least then, there were attempts to appear to be doing one's job properly. Now, it sometimes seems that the general public has become so disheartened by public bodies that public bodies can't even be bothered to put on a façade. That results in less scrutiny and more miscarriages of justice, and will until we as human beings demand a better quality of service from the people who are meant to serve us.

That's all quite depressing. But I think there's also something quite inspiring about this story. It's a story of survival, of victims pulling together and supporting one another through terrible things. This is something that we've seen a real resurgence of over the last few years or so, with movements such as #metoo, Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. I'm quite excited by the fightback that seems to have arisen in people. Sometimes it feels like it's not achieving enough, and I get frustrated by that myself - but I really hope that the Hillsborough story can give us some perspective on this. The knowledge that people in the past have felt exactly the same way we do is often a comforting one (I think a big part of why so many of us turn to religious texts), especially if their situations eventually improved. In the Hillsborough case, it's especially powerful because most of the victims were working-class - the very people who, in establishment eyes, are meant to just exist and provide capital, not to fight back.

The activist Anne Williams died in 2013, and is survived by two of her three children and a number of grandchildren. She'd played an instrumental part in the decision to order the second Hillsborough inquests,  but did not live to see the outcome - which ruled that supporters were unlawfully killed due to grossly negligent failures by police and ambulance services. Despite this ruling, all of the police officers standing trial were acquitted last year on a legal technicality. The Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, has written this very persuasive article arguing for a change in our legal system to prevent this kind of thing from happening again (this is the one further aspect which I mentioned above). It's appalling that the families had spend so much money and fight for this long (in some cases, like that of Anne Williams, for the entirety of the rest of their lives) simply to be told what they already knew - that their relatives had done nothing wrong. Even now, the fact that no one has ever actually faced any kind of sentence for it is something that I think we should all be quite disturbed by. Where is the reassurance that if any of us are victims of a major scandal in the future, that the legal system will be there for us? I don't see that anywhere.

Nevertheless, I think there is a lot to celebrate about the outcome of Hillsborough. The city of Liverpool really proved itself as a passionate and strong community, one that is willing to stand up to the system against all odds. I'm from Bristol and I think similar things about us, but honestly I think Liverpool probably outshines us! The thing I find most inspiring is Liverpool's ongoing campaign against Rupert Murdoch. You cannot buy the Sun in Liverpool even from Tesco, as there's no demand for it. I truly think this is the most effective boycott of the press in the world, and as a result Liverpool tends to be less susceptible to political game playing. You can see in Liverpool's election results that they don't tend to reflect that of the rest of the country - through boycotting the press, the people of Liverpool are able to see more clearly than most of us what is really going on, and they vote accordingly. This extraordinary city proves what can be achieved if ordinary people come together and fight the system - which is something most of us are far more capable of than we believe we are.

I'd like to take this moment to commend the communities in Liverpool for the incredible work they've done battling the powerful in this country, and particularly the activist Anne Williams, played by Maxine Peake in the drama Anne, who fought for 24 years to achieve justice and was largely successful. May she rest in power. I'd also like to thank the writer Kevin Sampson and ITV, for creating such a compelling drama that speaks truth to power, as drama should do and so often doesn't. It's rare to come across a television series so refreshingly honest about establishment bureaucracy and the poison within. May we see more of this kind of thing on television in the future.

Anne was broadcast from 2 to 5 January 2022, and can be viewed here.

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The trial of the Colston Four

This week, the Colston Four - Jake Skuse, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford and Sage Willoughby, the four people who pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston from Bristol City Centre in June 2020 - were found not guilty of criminal damage at Bristol Crown Court. The defence successfully argued that the presence of the statue was in itself a greater crime than the action of pulling it down.

There have been some quite angry reactions from media executives such as Kelvin Mackenzie and some MPs (mostly Tories) such as Robert Jenrick, who argue that the decision undermines the rule of law. In this excellent article, Graeme Hayes, Brian Doherty and Steven Cammmiss explain using legal terms why this ruling does not in fact undermine the rule of law - they explain it better than I can so I highly recommend reading it to anyone unsure, but essentially it explains why there were many legal reasons to acquit the defendants, particularly because the trials of protesters work a little differently from ordinary criminal trials, as the burden on the defendant is generally not to prove that what they are accused of did not happen, but that under the circumstances it was intended to prevent a far greater crime. There's more detail in the article, but ultimately this was demonstrated successfully in court.

The greater crime the defendants argued they were preventing was the continuing presence of a monument that was greatly offensive to the citizens of Bristol, that had been petitioned several times to the council to remove legally, to no effect. I've never written about the removal of that statue before, but I can say firmly that I am fundamentally in favour of its removal. I grew up very close to where that statue was, and I still live nearby today. I've walked past it hundreds of times, and I now regularly walk past the plinth where it was. It is not missed at all, either by myself or by others.

Since this statue came down, the subject has been discussed in the media frequently, and I actually think has been a great opportunity for education. It's only been in the last couple of years that I've realised that most people outside of Bristol hadn't heard of Edward Colston prior to the removal of his statue - because if you grow up in Bristol, his name is unavoidable. Pretty much everything in Bristol is named after Colston (or at least, was until a couple of years ago) - I can think of three different schools, a major music venue, student accommodation and many more, that bore his name. This is because the trade that Colston brought Bristol made this city rich.

I really love being from Bristol - it's an incredible vibrant city, with a real can-do attitude and a creative buzz to it, and most importantly it's very multi-ethnic. As a white male Bristolian, I've always been aware that not only am I a person of considerable privilege, but also that I'm a beneficiary of a city that got rich off the back of the slave trade. I don't think there's much point feeling guilty for that, but I like to think that as a city we've moved on from that and are now welcoming to people descended from nations that England has previously invaded and colonised. There's probably a lot further we could go with regards to that, but I feel that the removal of this statue is very much a step in the right direction. I've heard it stated quite a lot that the removal of the statue erases history - a statement that I'm tempted to respond to with a sarcastic 'That's why nobody knows who Hitler was' (a retort I borrowed from Philomena Cunk). But in all seriousness, how does it erase history? Nobody is pretending that history didn't happen. If anything, the opposite is happening - it's to create more awareness of exactly how we got rich, and saying that even though we might benefit from the wealth that history brought us, we are now making the decision to distance ourselves from the means. Making that decision actually makes it more possible for Bristol's economic value to be shared equally - until 2015, taxpayers were still reimbursing former slave-owning families for their loss of slaves. And with Edward Colston's name more widely known now than it was before, it is more possible to have a national conversation and a more broad understanding of history.

In relation to the frequently raised (and quite tedious) question of 'Does this mean we can remove any statue that people don't like then?', the answer from me is actually yes. If a statue is generally disapproved of by the ordinary people living nearby, I feel that they have every right to remove it. Ordinary people make up communities, and they should decide whether or not a statue represents the values of their community. For me personally, I don't like statues at all. I don't believe that any human being, whether living now, in the past or yet to be born, deserves that almost God-like level of accolade, and I'd theoretically be in favour of the removal of every statue in the world. But in reality, it shouldn't be my decision each time - it should be the decision of the people who live wherever it is. I was fortunate enough to get to see the statue of activist Jen Reid for the single day it replaced the Colston statue, but although I thought it was an insult for the council to take it down so quickly when they dragged their heels over Colston for more than three decades, I prefer the plinth with nothing. An empty plinth is a reminder of what happened there - how a statue was erected that was utterly hated by the city, how the authorities refused to remove it despite widespread pressure to, and how an act of civil disobedience ended it and made a strong statement about what our city stands for. To me, what is important now is the remembrance of that, particularly at a time when the Government is trying to make it harder to protest. Protest is a human right, and when successful is very often sanitised by history, the grassroots element watered down and forgotten over time, to morally separate it from any subsequent issues that may be campaigned about in the future. We cannot allow this to happen - this was an act of civil disobedience, and must be remembered as such.

I'm actually quite glad that the campaigns to legally remove Colston's statue were unsuccessful. If they'd worked, the local council would have been able to claim credit for it. In this case, there is no credit to be taken by anyone except the people who were actually there removing it. It's a classic case of ordinary people taking matters into their own hands, something that I think we could all do a bit more of. We all share this world and much of the time, delegating responsibility to politicians only results in half-baked platitudes and little else. As long as you aren't hurting anyone and you know there's good reason for what you're doing, there's often a lot of value to just cracking on with something. Here in my home city, where there used to be a statue emphasising our history of slavery and colonialism, there is now an empty plinth emphasising our collective desire to improve ourselves and right past wrongs - a desire that is organic and has not been fed to us by anyone at the top. I think that's something that we should all be bloody proud of.

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How to stay motivated when everything is against you

I'd like to start with an apology - to many, many people, whether they read my blog or not, but mostly to myself. Over this last year, I have not updated this blog even once. I have attended very few demonstrations. I've participated in political discussions on the Internet and increased my knowledge of things, but I think that's only the bare minimum we can do at the moment.

One of the hardest things about being a leftie activist is, as many of us will tell you, the constant draining of energy. Particularly in the current climate, it seems there is so much going on at any particular time that it's hard to know where to start in dealing with the problem. What should we deal with first - curbs on protest, the incompetent leader of the opposition or our own personal gripes? What if I don't have time to properly do my research? How will I have time with everything else going on in my life? And - the constant one - does it really make much difference what I write about?

These are the questions that are constantly swirling around in my brain. I've always been one to distract myself anyway, and particularly at the moment sometimes it's difficult to bring yourself to a point where you can focus on something tangible and positive. Then, if it goes a certain amount of time without doing anything, you feel guilty about that and that can cripple you from doing anything further.

It's super-important at the moment that we don't give in to these feelings, because I think since I started this blog in 2010 there has been more going on in the world that has needed my attention in 2021 than ever before. So, from a burnout veteran, here's a handy five-point guide to avoid it:

1. Force yourself to do something each day

It doesn't matter if it's not exactly what you wanted to do - talk to a stranger, write a blog even if it's not a very good one, write to your MP, read an informative piece of work or a political allegory... actually I think the most productive things that have happened to me over this last year have been Zoom chats with friends who have given me ideas and inspiration. Actually, as much as doing something productive can feel like a chore, once you're doing it it's actually quite cleansing to the soul and helps you feel in top of things, so it's worth finding something worthwhile with which to occupy your time.

2. Be kind to yourself

My problem is that I take some time out, feel guilty about it, don't deal with those guilty feelings, feel more guilty, time passes, things spiral and I still haven't achieved what I was going to. That's fine. If you don't feel up to being as active as normal, it's fine to allow yourself some chill-out time... as long as that chill-out time is used productively. There's a difference between chilling out in a way that's actually going to get your brain together, and chill-out time that's decadent and destructive. Different activities work for different people, so do what works for you. If you've messed up, don't waste valuable time blaming yourself, just crack on with whatever will help.

3. Remember that it doesn't matter whether people know you're doing something

This is an important one. I'm all for telling everyone what you're doing and bringing people on board -  but at the same time, it's not about showing off. If your time is spent helping one single person with something they're struggling with, you're contributing to society. You know what your limit is, no one else does. This is why in large part my apology is actually to myself, because my duty is to myself first. I can't help others unless I myself am able to mentally function, and mental function involves using the noggin.

4. Have go-to sources of information

Sometimes it can be really hard to do in-depth research on something important. But as long as you've got a couple of blogs that you regularly come back to (ones that are updated a bit more than mine, hehe) you'll at least be kept up-to-date about some things. If you're on social media, make sure you comment on things that interest you, and then the algorithms will keep showing you things from that same source. That said, try to make your sources of information a little varied so as not to be fed too much of an echo chamber, and always remember to fact-check.

5. Remember to accept what you cannot change, and change what you cannot accept

This is obviously not my own line, but I've never come across anything more accurate in the world of social change. You are ultimately only one person with a limited amount of power - but having said that, it's odds on that that power is limited at a much higher point than you give yourself credit for.

This is not the most complicated blog I've ever written, but it is an honest one. 2021 was quite a tough year for those of us who are trying to change the world positively, so let's make 2022 an improvement!

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