To do his schoolwork, the bare minimum Johnny needs is: paper, a pen, a teacher, a school, a chair to sit on, a desk to sit at, and a packed lunch. If you take away just Johnny’s lunch, he will go hungry. It would be almost impossible for him to concentrate […]
Much of the history of protest in my lifetime has concerned the enforced occupation of physical space, from the perimeter fence of Greenham Common Airbase to tunnels beneath the A30 extension in Devon, to the Occupy Movement’s own encampments in Wall Street and The City, to a grocer’s in Hastings […]
Given their scale and intensity, perhaps the most surprising thing about the 2011 summer ‘riots’ is how quickly they have slipped into the past and how little has been learned from them. Perhaps this vacuity of understanding flows from the almost immediate political consensus about underlying cause: that the confrontations […]
In the absence of a full government inquiry into the riots, the Runnymede Trust was concerned that ethnic inequality and racial injustice, as potential factors in the civil unrest, were too quickly dismissed and marginalised from public discussions. In October 2011, I was part of a research team that went […]
Over 1,400 people in England and Wales have died in police custody or following contact with the police since 1990. Some of the better known include: Jean Dorothy, ‘Cherry’ Groce, Cynthia Jarrett, Blair Peach, Jean Charles de Menezes, Andrew Kernan, Harry Stanley, Mark Duggan, and Ian Tomlinson. Not one officer […]
COP What great luck you’ve had of late! The power to enforce the law is one thing, but to be deemed above it is a very handy get out of jail free card. You’re feeling untouchable, as if you could get away with murder. But don’t get too cocky, Chance […]
As the legal case against terrorist Anders Behring Breivik draws to a close in Oslo’s courthouse, his ideological relatives are approaching parliamentary power in several European countries. Mr. Breivik has described in court how the ideology of counter-jihadism inspired him, and how his terrorist actions are to be understood as […]
“I am very satisfied, I think we have taken a very decisive step” – Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, announcing Spain’s €100 billion bailout I’m puzzled. Our government is celebrating that it has received a “line of credit” (not a rescue) of €100 billion Euros, and our Prime Minister welcomes it […]
As the name already suggests, the LGBT (or “LGBTQ”, or “LGBTQI”) political community is incredibly diverse and complex. Class, race, gender, disability, age, nationality and immigration status intersect with “LGBT” to create multiple and sometimes conflicting interests and experiences. Additionally, there are huge differences in experience between lesbian, gay, bisexual, […]
‘Fracking’ is the commonly used term for hydraulic fracturing, or shale gas extraction. It is a method of extracting pockets of gas from deep underground by drilling into rock, then cracking it open through the injection of pressurised fluid and sand. Fracking – along with extraction of oil from tar […]