Social justice

SoulsINQUEST is a photographic exhibition created by photographer Sarah Booker with 17 families bereaved by deaths in police contact, prisons, mental health and care units, in collaboration with the charity INQUEST, curated by Languid Hands. SoulsINQUEST uses photography and writing as a lens onto state violence, death, grief and resistance. The exhibition took place on Brixton’s Railton Road, a historic centre of resistance to state violence and racism, at the gallery of 198 Contemporary…

Though he doesn’t mention it in this book, I imagine activist Chris Saltmarsh is a big fan of the Chico Mendes quote that often appears on Twitter: ‘Environmentalism Without Class Struggle is Just Gardening.’

For Saltmarsh, ‘the root cause of climate change is our system of organising the economy and our relationship to nature: capitalism.’ With the ruling class profiting most from the crisis, he notes the resistance of capital is ‘perhaps the biggest barrier to climate justice.’…

Over a third of women in the world suffer physical or sexual abuse at some point in their lives, writes one of the contributors to this book.

For some, the resulting trauma leads to homelessness. While society reaches for easy narratives of deprivation and suffering, of the deserving and undeserving poor, the many circumstances that might lead a woman to homelessness are often ignored. These complex – often contradictory – attitudes are the subject of this book.

Firstly, this…

The term ‘austerity’ reminds me of comedian Stewart Lee’s quip that: ‘if political correctness has achieved anything, it’s forced the Conservatives to cloak their inherent racism in more creative language’.

This collection of essays brilliantly and engagingly covers everything from food and fuel poverty to welfare reforms and environmental degradation, reminding us that all spheres of life are affected by austerity measures.

Infant mortality rates have risen for the last four…

There is a certain harmless air to tales. They are always fun to read and listen to because they conjure up worlds beyond our own doubtful and complex one.

What is fascinating about the stories collected by Michael Rosen in this book is that they give us a glimpse into a time – the late 19th/early 20th century – when the ideas and concepts of socialism were being tested and acted out in fictional realms peopled with elves, spirits, talking poultry, Martians and, especially, giants…

Achieving 40 percent of the vote – a record-breaking 10 percent increase on its 2015 performance – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party carried off one of the biggest political upsets ever at the 2017 general election, dealing a serious blow to the Tory government and broader neoliberal ideology.

Steve Howell, deputy director of strategy and communications in the Labour leadership team, gives a detailed and engaging insider account of the election campaign. There are no big reveals, but…

This book analyses contemporary struggles for social justice against the spinning backdrop of New Labour’s Cool Britannia. Using pop culture subjects such as the all-women pop group, the Spice Girls, the rebranding of the British royal family, the class war of Britpop, and the public reaction to the Young British Artists (YBAs), the author shows how, while New Labour celebrated the image of a visibly diverse, post-colonial Britain, in reality the roots of our present struggles for justice…

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) occupied the central lobby of the Westminster parliament in London just before midday on 18 April. DPAC taped out a ‘crime scene’ with the outline of a ‘murder victim’ laid on the floor. They demanded the scrapping of Universal Credit, a working-age benefit. DPAC claim it produces ‘crimes against claimants’, including 160,000 children losing free school meals and the increased use of foodbanks in areas where it’s been introduced.

After the…

Stephen Armstrong shows how consecutive governments have abandoned Britain’s most vulnerable citizens and overseen the gradual dismantling of a welfare state that once protected them. Importantly, Armstrong also tells the stories of those most affected.

Beginning with the 1942 Beveridge Report – the founding document of Britain’s welfare state – Armstrong outlines how, by adopting its recommendations, postwar governments were largely successful in eradicating what the report…

Ian Sinclair writes: My new Peace News article ‘The biggest fight of our lives’ includes comments from George Lakey, Matt Kennard and Alex Nunns. Due to space considerations I could only include a small portion of the commentary each of them sent me in the article itself. Below are their full comments.

Why is Jeremy Corbyn seen as such a threat to the British establishment?

Matt Kennard, author of…

Leon Fleming's new play concerns a brother and sister growing-up and living in Birmingham trapped in the clutches of an uncaring welfare system. The story is told with flasback scences from their childhood, mixed with the contemporary tale of two people being processed by The System TM and trying to survive. It is a grim tale, but not without moments of comedy, but those bittersweet moments come from the past rather than the relentlessly grim present of our protagonists. Their lives now…

After I shared a cartoon on Facebook recently, I had an angry response (several hundred words long) from ‘John’, someone I haven’t heard from in years. The cartoon, by New Zealand-based illustrator Toby Morris, shows two people, equally intelligent and hard-working, growing up in different circumstances, and ending up in very different situations in adult life. The…

I’ve written a play, Kicked in the Sh*tter. Sounds a bit grim, but it's pretty funny.

It is.

That’s the plug over.

When I first wrote this play, I had no idea what I was writing. Or why.

But I soon realised I’d been writing about a world I know well; albeit one so much darker now, than it was when it was mine. The two characters are people I have known. More than that though; they are me, a lot of me; more than I would usually allow. That frightens me…

Using interviews, articles, personal stories and political commentary, Jeremy Seabrook’s latest book paints a bleak account of the current government’s ‘demolition’ of the UK welfare state.

Situated in and around Wolverhampton, local people, differing widely in their cultural backgrounds, tell their stories and the reasons that have led them to rely on benefits. Many of the interviewees are in low-paid insecure employment, or else are full-time carers and mothers.

The stories…

Sisters Uncut. It’s likely that if you follow the anti-austerity movement, you’ve heard of them. They are the feminists who dyed the fountains in London’s Trafalgar Square blood red in response to chancellor George Osborne’s announcement in his autumn statement last year, on the International Day for the Elimination of…