When I was at grammar school in the 1950s, our High Tory economic history teacher poured scorn on the Chartists, the suffragettes, the co-operative movement, trade unionism, conscientious objection and, of course, nationalisation.
When some of us asked about the freedom to protest and freedom of speech, he offered Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park as proof positive that we lived in a free country and anybody could say what they liked about anything.
Some of us had heard of Speakers…
Anyone who writes a column for any publication whatever, will naturally try to write clearly and unambiguously – and fail in one way or another. Life itself is frequently – always some will argue – not clear and unambiguous and then there’s the problem of language. Here’s an example….
When I was growing up the word ‘progressive’ belonged to the Left. Now it’s frequently used by the Right in the UK to describe policies which Lefties regard as reactionary. I’ve also heard…
I wonder how many BBC listeners and viewers are aware of the corporation’s motto and that this venerable and vulnerable institution has a coat of arms? This is not a pedantic and pointless question but one which, I insist, is important and relevant.
As a child of the Radio Age, and coming from a Old Labourite family, I grew up with inborn belief in mutualism and co-operativism and utter disdain for the reductionist view that the only worthwhile engine of human behaviour is profit…
On a whim, I googled ‘peace quotes’. Three things immediately struck me:
The quotes are overwhelmingly from men Many of them are from world leaders, generals, and politicians There’s a black hole where principled conscientious objectors – and even deserters – ought to be heardSo, how about this quote from that noted war criminal Henry Kissinger for example: ‘The Vietnam war required us to emphasise the national interest rather than abstract principles’. And what about this gem? ‘It…
It will be hard for young readers of PN to comprehend what living under the threat of aptly-named MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – was like, but believe me when I write that I didn’t expect to live to see my 21st birthday.
In 1961 (I think that was the year), the Labour Party conference voted in favour of CND’s policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament and on the strength of this commitment alone, I joined the Co-op Party which was affiliated – and still is as far as I…
It’s a curious journey to become a pacifist. I wonder if other pacifists who read Peace News – PN readers are not necessarily pacifists, incidentally – are like me, in that they ponder the whys and wherefores of their own journeys. If you’re born into a Quaker family or your parents are otherwise pacifists, then the journey may have a certain inevitability but how, otherwise, does pacifism take hold?
I’ve found as I’ve become older my pacifism has become more…
A couple of years ago I wrote a laudatory column here about my friend Bill Fay and his first commissioned album for 41 years. Life is People (Dead Oceans) received a five star review in The Independent as well as rave reviews elsewhere and deserved every word of praise it received.
I met Bill in 1970 and listened with admiration and wonder to his first LP, Bill Fay, which had just been released. His songs were both rooted in the natural world and committed…
As the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War draws to a close, I feel an undeniable sense of relief. The seemingly-endless grainy images of soldiers climbing out of their trenches and charging across no man’s land to be slaughtered in the name of king and country, have dominated the TV screens of the Dis-United Kingdom for long enough.
I suspect, however, that the urge to resist war has been strengthened by this prolonged assault on our human solidarity. There is…
I’m writing this on the very eve of what a folkie of the ’60s, Nigel Denver, used to yearn for in song. He sang about the ‘Scottish Breakaway’ and maybe it’s come about or even came aboot.
During the Thatcher years, Westminster presided over what seemed an unstoppable diminution of the power of local authorities to control their own affairs. Instead central government took over to the extent that LAs seemed doomed to become collectively a powerless rump. How odd it is now to hear…
When you read in the press, hear on the radio, see on the telly, or otherwise encounter someone banging on about ‘extremists’, you realise, don’t you, dear readers, that they are referring to the likes of you and me.
And what is my extremism? Like yours, it’s wide-ranging but at the mo my uppermost desires are: the removal of all nuclear weapons from the UK, the abolition of the monarchy, the house of lords and public schools, the disestablishment of the church of England…
On 5 March 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. It killed more than 30 people, wounded more than 100 and destroyed many businesses in the heart of a quarter famous for its bookshops, outdoor bookstalls, literary cafés, publishing houses and free-thinking society. The street was extensively damaged but re-opened in December 2008. May it thrive and ferment again. It wasn’t…
I went recently to a public meeting about the government’s proposed ‘gagging’ bill. It was packed and angry and Stroud’s Tory MP found himself trying to defend the indefensible. He’d been very badly briefed by his own party, couldn’t cope with the well-informed questioners, and was driven to a position whereby he feebly asked us to take his word for it that ‘this bill is well-intentioned’. Cue jeers of derision.
In fact, we all know the bill is a dangerous assault on freedom of speech…
I have written here before about The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds because, in darkest times, it gives me inspiration and hope. Life is pretty dark at the moment but it’s as well to remember that growth doesn’t stop because it’s winter time and the renewal of spring doesn’t come from nowhere:
Walls will come down
the prisons are burning
under cold ground
warm worms are turning
The unexpected destruction of the Berlin…
Lately I have been thinking – once again – about desertion from the military. This time, I’ve been prompted by reading a review (not the book) of Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War by Charles Glass (HarperPress, 2013, £25). The review reveals that ‘as many as 100,000 British and 50,000 US Servicemen are believed to have deserted at some point’. I hope to return to this book about ‘the final taboo’ in a future PN.
But taboo? Well, that’s as maybe but…
How powerfully songs can hit you in the heart and make the impact that politicians struggle to achieve with their leaden delivery and faux sincerity. Thus Margaret Thatcher and her protégé young master Blair spring to mind.
Songs, however, can almost leap from the radio such are their intensity.
Elvis Costello achieved this with ‘Oliver’s army’ – the best song to have emerged from Ireland’s modern troubles – and his heartbreaking response to the Falklands…
