Category: activism
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Consequences of a ban
In June this year, the Home Office banned Hasan Piker from coming to speak in the UK because, they said, it ‘may not be conducive to the public good.’ I noted it as another nail in the coffin of British freedom and democracy but I didn’t know who Piker was, and my mind was awash…
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Truth and reconciliation
… and why you can’t have one without the other This is a contemplation of divides, the harm they do, and how they get fixed – please don’t worry whether you and I are on the same sides of all of them – we could still have this conversation… I was sitting in a café…
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An afternoon with Peter Oborne
With the Israeli elections coming up, and our government allowing a few chinks of light to appear in their formerly icy attitude to the genocide in Gaza, it seemed a good time to go listen to Peter Oborne. It was a totally different experience to many of the Palestine and Western Asia related events I’ve…
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Examining the hateful habit of hate
There was a damp handful of Israeli flag-wavers standing in the rain outside the Stade Hall last night, when I arrived to see Gillian Mosely’s film Planet Israel. I ignored them. It’s more or less standard these days, that if you arrive at an event that matters at all, there will be some people outside…
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The 10,000th article about last week’s election (but it’s not about *them*.)
(I don’t think there’s anything left to say about the parties, or the candidates, who stood in that election – but I would like to say congratulations to the Green Party members who turned their backs on an equivocating ‘leader’ and voted on their principles at conference, and solidarity to those citizens of Holburn &…
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We are in the majority for once
I went to listen to Hastings’ first Stop the War meeting this evening. I learned that… They are kidnapping young Ukrainian men off the streets — working class men mostly – the other kind have ways of avoiding this fate. They are sent to the front, where the average lifespan of a new arrival is…
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Protesting Labour Party Conference protests
I found several newspaper articles and more blogs listing the protests planned for Labour conference, and looking through them ignited a cascade of startling thoughts. Most reporters, mainstream and indie alike, thought there were two important protests – the one about Labour Women’s Conference being only for women (a situation which the Trade Union leadership…
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Three happy discoveries
Spuggies, brickies and the vital spark I haven’t written a blog article for more than a fortnight! Sure, September is always full for me, and this September is more brimming with work than average but there were gaps when, normally, I would have gathered the thoughts, chosen a topic and got typing but this time,…
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I think women may still have a problem or two
I feel as though I’ve spent the last few weeks tumbling down a rocky slope of broken feminism. I’d been reading Hilary Mantel’s graceful memoir, finding out what it feels like for a writer of historical fiction when characters from a past you are researching finally come alive in the cellar of an ancient house,…
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Sylvia, not Emmeline
Some thoughts on that far-right bookshop article’s bumpy journey round the world It is certainly a stereotype to say that a meeting of women is an argument, a stereotype that has a lot of evidence to keep it going. To my mind, it’s not really a criticism – I think it’s because women’s gatherings tend…
