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 This notion is a vital part of British society; in most echelons of it, it's seen as fairly outdated now, but it's still nearly as prevalent as ever in our Governments, our media and our legal services.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.

My Facebook My Twitter

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.

My Facebook My Twitter

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.

My Facebook My Twitter

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!

My Facebook My Twitter