Rebecca Elson-Watkins
As I type these words, I do so with a heavy heart; this will be my last column for PN. I would have written to and for you, PN readers, until the end of my days, but circumstances beyond my control are forcing me to step back.
Please know I do so with immense gratitude to every single one of you for reading my words over the past six years. I must also express my immense gratitude to my colleagues; Milan Rai, Emily Johns, Gabriel Carlyle, Emma Sangster and Claire…
Veggies Catering Campaign started in October 1984, when two Nottingham animal rights activists decided to present the manager of a local McDonalds with a huge veggieburger ‘to represent an ethical alternative to the products of death and destruction sold there’ (see Pat’s history of Veggies in PN 2514, published for the 25th anniversary in 2009). Since then, the group has gone from strength to strength, including catering for Peace News Summer Camp from 2009 onwards. Since Pat’s…
A week is a long time in politics. Ha! I promise I don’t need to be investigated by the Gambling Commission, PN readers! Couldn’t make it up.
For those wondering what I’m wittering on about, my last column two months ago urged readers to get out there during the election and make a difference, whenever it was called. Then, the election was called as we went to press.
Now, it’s the first Monday morning of a new government.
Our first Labour government since 2010’s…
Well, it wasn’t a May election. Given that I’m writing this on 20 May, I can say this with some certainty!
Another six weeks of this end-stage-capitalism, this dystopian nightmare that Britain has become under the Tories.
We have patients in hospital corridors. We have people drowning in the Channel. We have profoundly disabled people being told they are ‘fit for work’. We have little kids, barely more than babies, dying in mould-infested flats that are not fit to house sewer…
For the very first time since I began this column in January 2019, this month I have struggled to write. There are of course easily 100 issues I could champion, each as worthwhile as the others.
But I am tired, PN readers. So tired.
When our leaders are not the personification of political stagnation (I’m looking at you, Keir Starmer), they are Tories veering dangerously close to the right-wing in the hopes of capturing The Gammon Vote. The fact that already…
The phrase ‘two-tier society’ has become a fairly commonplace one. We hear it in reference to healthcare, housing, education, and the North/South divide. But the phrase is wrong. British society has at least five tiers. Which tier of society you experience comes down to one thing in modern Britain. The same thing it has always come down to: social class.
We have the Ruling Class, the monarchies, the elite of the Conservative Party, we all know the sort. Unaccountable and untouchable;…
Language is important. It’s one of the things, particularly written language, that sets us, as a species, apart from the animals. Having done a little wordsmithing in my time, of course I’m going to think that. But the science backs me up.
When I Google ‘the importance of language’ there are 3.6 billion results. When I narrow my search to ‘the importance of language in propaganda’ I get 61 million results.
The way propaganda uses language is both insidious and dangerous. It can…
Here are some of the climate actions that have taken place in the UK since our last issue. The major event was the acquittal, on 16 November, of the HSBC Nine: XR women prosecuted for £500,000 damage done to windows at the headquarters of HSBC bank in London in 2021.
The other major event has been the continuing Just Stop Oil (JSO) slow walk campaign in London, mostly marching from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall.
JSO claim there have been 612 arrests between 30 October and 22…
In this book, Graham Smith argues that the assumptions that allow monarchy to continue – that it is popular, profitable and does no real harm – are all false.
Beginning with ‘profitable’, Smith tackles royal tourism, patronage and schedules.
Not only is the monarchy not good for tourism (an oft-quoted figure that it generates £500mn a year in tourism revenue has long been debunked), but the royals are also phenomenally expensive, costing taxpayers around £345mn a year.
…
The other day, while speaking to a US friend online, I described the UK as ‘a damp little island with a tea fixation, and a deeply-entrenched class system.’
Now, we all know that the weather and the tea are non-negotiable elements of 21st-century Britain. If we can fix the climate emergency, I strongly suspect that they will be non-negotiable elements of 31st-century Britain – I’m fully okay with this.
But what of the class system?
Anyone who has spent half an hour with…
The latest Tory nonsense is yet another attack on university education. The phrase ‘low-value degree’ is being thrown around. I’m not entirely sure such a thing exists. Well, except maybe ‘PPE’ (politics, philosophy and economics); the Tory career politician degree of choice does not appear to equip folx to lead.
University was not easy for me. An undiagnosed, dyslexic, autistic: burnout and sensory overload followed me around university like my handy wheeled book bag. But it was a…
So, we have a king. That still feels strange to say, never mind sing, come the football, but here we are. Readers who remember my column about the late queen’s state funeral and all the pomp and circumstance and expense around it, can probably guess where I’m going with this. I’m sorry, readers, but I really am as cross as a bag full of badgers about this nonsense.
The figure that has been bandied about regarding the cost of the coronation is £100mn. Let that sink in.
In the…
There are two different ways I am disabled. There is what my body, my individual biology, does that no one can change. I will always have chronic fatigue and I will always have pain. My medical team and I do the best we can to ameliorate both, but they are inevitable.
Then, there are the ways in which I am disabled by society: lack of accessibility, lack of support, lack of knowledge and rampant ableism, to name a few. These are far from inevitable.
The cost-of-living crisis is…
On 11 March, thousands of NHS supporters marched through London, culminating in an #SOSNHS rally outside Downing Street. Footage from the day can be viewed on the ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ website.
An estimated 700,000 British workers downed tools and went on strike on 15 March – the same day the chancellor delivered his budget. Teachers, doctors, transport personnel and civil servants were among those on strike. An estimated 40,000 of those workers gathered at the #PayUp rally in…
In 1942 the American government forcibly relocated and imprisoned at least 125,284 of its own citizens, purely on the basis that they were Japanese-Americans. Among them was five year old George Takei and his family. Known to the world as Star Trek’s original Mr Sulu, and in recent years as an LGBTQ+ activist who has also brought joy to the internet with his catchphrase ‘Oh Myyyy!’, George’s boyhood experiences inspired Allegiance.
The story follows the Kimura family as they…
