Comment on Ryan Air & Belarus by Mark Birkett

DEAR ALL,

Frightening as it might have been, I think the Captain and First Officer should have refused point-blank to co-operate with the Belarus Airport police when they started offloading this innocent passenger. By the time they landed, the Ryanair crew knew that this bomb threat was a hoax. They also knew by then that Mr Protasevich was the intended target of this criminal hijacking. Therefore the flight crew had an absolute moral and legal duty of care here. At the absolute least, they should not have taken off again without him safely back onboard. Had the Ryanair crew refused to co-operate, this would have forced Lukashenko to back down. Not even he would have had the temerity to jail an entire international airline crew.

There is precedent for such a brave but necessary flight crew response. Back in 1986, there was an attempted hijack of a Pan Am 747 on the ground in Karachi. And it failed because the flight crew all realised what was happening and bailed out of the aircraft's emergency hatch in order to stop the hijack from going airborne. Ryanair's crew should have done the same. The Captain has an absolute responsibility to look after the safety of all his / her passengers - and from start to finish of the planned journey.

If this Lukashenko bastard can get away with this outrage, NO-ONE is safe. The Saudi regime have done similar when they killed the Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi. The Rwandan government did the same when they abducted Paul Rusesabagina (of 'Hotel Rwanda' fame) and flew him to Kigali. And Putin got away with poisoning several people on British soil.

It's not often I'd venerate Margaret Thatcher. But I tell you this, she would not have put up with this sort of behaviour from a criminal gang without a significant military response. We have to learn to stop these bullies in language they understand. Closing their western bank accounts for half an hour - which is all our useless governments ever seem to threaten these days - is absolutely worthless.

Mark Birkett

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Dedicated Follower Of Fashion by Les May

I STARTED reading the then Manchester Guardian in 1960 when I started work and for the first time had the money to buy it. For forty or so years, during which it changed dropped the Manchester bit, I was a loyal reader, but somewhere around 2000 I finally tired of its increasingly uncritical feminism and stopped buying it.

The final straw was an article about a couple of women who claimed to have ‘taken on’ the builders. It turned out that one was an academic and the other a student and they had worked on a site for all of a fortnight in the middle of summer. In other words not exactly a lifetime working outside in the middle of winter. More like a fortnight in the sun and then back to a nice warm office or lecture theatre for the cold wet weather.

Though Suzanne Moore, with her ever so predictable man bashing columns, has never been one of my favourite journalists, but I certainly warmed to her comments; ‘the cult of righteousness that the Guardian embodies’ and ‘lately it has been hard to define what the Left consists of beyond smug affirmation’ in a piece entitled Why I had to leave The Guardian.

Moore had written an article which, as well as being in her usual man bashing style, complete with references to ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘who the real enemies are’ (a.k.a. Men), included the comment that some women ‘were uncomfortable with people being able to self-declare as a man or a woman – whatever their biological sex – for all sorts of reasons.’. It also referred to the ‘disinviting’ of Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, who was due to give a polite two-minute speech of thanks at an event at Exeter College, on the grounds that she had addressed a meeting of the group Woman’s Place UK, which was formed in 2017 after proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

This was too much for the sensitive souls at The Guardian and 338 of them took exception to it in a letter to the editor.

So long as the fashion amongst those who like to call themselves ‘of the Left’ was that women, however privileged, were to be seen as the most oppressed creatures in the world, Moore was never short of a market for her wares. But then being ‘trans’ knocked women off the top spot and suddenly Moore found some of her views were unfashionable. Hence the letter.

A friend recently suggested that Labour’s poor showing in the recent election might be because working people had no time for the world of identity politics which has become the go-to issue for many would be activists on the Left. Is it just coincidence that when they were Labour leadership candidates Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey signed up to a pledge put together by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights? Perhaps working people just have different priorities.

You can find Moore’s original article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced

And her version of the spat at The Guardian here:

https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian

For a quite different take on The Guardian look here;

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/05/the-ugly-truth-about-the-guardian/

NV can no longer embed links in the text of articles. To use these links copy the full text of the link into your browser (Startpage, DuckDuckGo or Google) and search in the usual way.

The Guardian Of Truth? by Les May

YESTERDAY, 2 May, the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa was presented with the World Press Freedom Prize by UNESCO in recognition of her fight for free speech in the Philippines where she has been the target of online attacks and judicial processes in which the law and law enforcement have been turned against journalists, human rights activists, and ordinary citizens under President Rodrigo Duterte.

In her acceptance speech she said "Equally dangerous and insidious (is the) virus of lies unleashed in our information ecosystem, infecting real people, who become impervious to facts… It changes the way they look at the world. They become angrier, more isolated. They distrust everything. In this environment, the dictator wins, crumbling our democracies from within."

This is an apocalyptic scenario of our political future: a world where as she puts it ‘power and money rule’. But it’s not just in the political sphere that people are susceptible to becoming impervious to facts as they navigate the information ecosystem. For some people the problem is ‘big tech’, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media, and the answer is for governments to regulate it. This view ignores the experience in the Philippines that it is the government that is using the law to determine what is acceptable as ‘facts’.

Nor is it just with social media that the problems reside. Mainstream outlets have exploited the knowledge that most people do not check what is fact and what is opinion. Pointing out that just because someone says something is true does not make it so, is unwelcome news both to some people in the media and to many readers and viewers. Facts become just what someone wants to believe and woe betide anyone who disagrees. I don’t take at face value what Meghan Markle had to say in her televised interview. I don’t matter, but Piers Morgan paid the price for his dissent.

The Guardian, once a byword for rectitude and fairness, has no qualms about printing a story about the actor Noel Clarke knowing that the likely outcome will be that he will never be able to clear his name and will probably never be able to work as an actor again. I have no idea about whether whether the allegations made are true or false, and importantly, nor does the person who wrote it or the editor who chose to include it in the paper. The editor could, and in my view should, have declined to publish any allegations which had not been reported to the police by the complainants.

By last Saturday The Independent, another supposedly quality paper, was running a story by Victoria Richards which began ‘I have never met Noel Clarke, but I have met men who have behaved in the way Clarke is accused of behaving’. Again, if what she says in this piece is true, why did she not report it to the police? Why should I believe her just because she says it?

A few days ago the Victims Commissioner said ‘Far too few rape cases are resulting in a charge and hundreds of complainants annually are being denied justice.’ But where is the justice for anyone, accuser or accused, in the Noel Clarke story? Where in the response of ITV and Sky is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? The question ceases to be whether the accused will get a fair trial, it becomes whether s/he will get a trial at all.

Maria Ressa spoke of a ‘virus of lies’; so how do we vaccinate ourselves against it? The first thing is to recognise that it is not just a problem of ‘Big Tech’. Supposedly more respectable, media outlets try to shape our perception of events by what they decide is a story and how they slant it.

The second thing is to recognise that it is a problem we have to solve for ourselves and our families, rather than relying on a government imposed solution, which itself may become dangerous to free thought and expression. As Maria Ressa put it "fight and win your individual battle for integrity". Don’t buy your teenage daughter an expensive smartphone and then complain when something bad happens to her.

Scepticism about the truth of what you see, what you read and what you are told if you venture into what Ressa calls the ‘information ecosystem’ has to be the order of the day. There is a lot of space between distrusting everything and watching the dictators win because you no longer know what is true and what is false, and filtering out (some of) the lies and manipulation by questioning everything.

We can ask: Who is saying this? How reliable have they been in the past? Is there any way of independently verifying their account? Who gains from this version of events? Are they trying to pass off assertions as facts? These things require some effort on our part. If we are not prepared to make it there is one thing we can all do; don’t pass on stories unless you are certain they are true. Better still; don’t gossip!

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Belarus plane: 'Perfect storm' prompts EU to act fast

by Nick Beake</i>

BBC Brussels correspondent

Published

2 days ago

"Had they not acted now," one senior diplomat told me, "an EU foreign policy as an instrument to project geopolitical power was pretty much buried."

The agreement reached on Belarus by the 27 European leaders last night was unusually swift, leading senior Brussels officials to claim they'd taken tough action in the face of a wholly unacceptable act.

Demanding the immediate release of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, they agreed Belarusian airlines should be banned from European skies and that EU airlines should not fly over Belarus, with a plan for further, targeted economic sanctions.

"This was a unanimous judgement," declared European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at an early hours press conference.

"It was an attack on democracy, freedom of expression and European sovereignty and needed a strong answer."

But, the same diplomat suggested, the crisis that Minsk had precipitated represented a "perfect storm": the circumstances were such that the EU would have been hard pushed not to secure some sort of agreement.

First, the shock that the lives of passengers travelling between two EU capitals were put at risk.

Second, the reason for their imperilment seemingly being the desire to detain a dissident journalist.

Third, EU officials were already at an advanced stage of tightening existing sanctions on the Lukashenko regime.

What happens with a military jet interception?

Some wondered whether Hungary may resist further measures against Belarus. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has continued to lend his support to the 27-year rule of Alexander Lukashenko amid allegations of vote-rigging and brutal suppression of dissenters. But it seems Mr Orban was not willing to pick a fight last night.

What difference will sanctions make?

At this point, it's hard to tell what impact the strengthened sanctions will have. EU officials are now assessing which of the individuals, companies (and therefore sectors) that have propped up the Belarusian government will find themselves targeted.

The leaders may have agreed on the principle of stronger economic sanctions, but there has been division within the bloc on the details.

Germany, Italy and France, countries with considerable commercial ties to Minsk, have reportedly been reluctant in the past weeks to embark on a path that may jeopardise their own legitimate economic interests. German media report that around 350 companies could be affected by harsher measures, including giants such as Siemens and Bosch.

In the coming days, this could become a renewed and heightened source of disagreement between the capitals.

What more can the EU do?

As had been widely trailed, the response to what has been described as "state-sponsored hijacking" and "airline piracy" focused, in part, on the aviation sector.

Here, the EU was not first out of the blocks - the UK and Ukraine had already announced a ban for Belarusian planes and called for a boycott of Belarusian airspace. But this collective action will serve to further isolate Belarus - and significantly its people, which will be of concern.

Why EU is often slow to act

To the EU's critics, foreign policy has long been the bloc's Achilles' heel: a supranational approach that all too often misses the mark. Two recent events symbolise the difficulties the bloc faces in both policy and practical terms in acting with a coherent, unified voice.

First, there was the uncomfortable visit to Moscow of Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief, in February when he failed to defend Europe's leaders from accusations of lying.

In Ankara in April, there was the sight of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen being a denied a seat, apparently because she was a woman, while European Council President Charles Michel got the VIP treatment.

After these sleights from Putin's Russia and Erdogan's Turkey, another "strongman" in the form of Lukashenko's Belarus has stepped forward this week to present a test in the sphere of foreign policy. Brussels feels its risen to the challenge.

But if there was any hope the converging European consensus would have an immediate impact on Mr Lukashenko, it was short-lived.

As the tougher measures were being agreed upon behind closed doors at the EU summit, the leader was himself approving stricter measures - banning the live streaming of protests his government has not authorised.

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Myanmar protests: BBC journalist Aung Thura held

BBC: Fri, March 19, 2021, 4:49 PM

A reporter with the BBC Burmese service has been detained in Myanmar as clashes continue between security forces and protesters.

Aung Thura was taken away by men in plain clothes while reporting outside a court in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.

The BBC said in a statement that it was extremely concerned and called on the authorities to help locate him.

At least eight people are reported to have died in the most recent protests, which took place in several cities.

Aung Thura was taken away with another reporter, Than Htike Aung, who works for the local news organisation Mizzima. Mizzima's operating licence was revoked by the military government earlier this month.

The men who detained the journalists arrived in an unmarked van at around midday local time (05:30 GMT) on Friday and demanded to see them. The BBC has been unable to contact Aung Thura since.

"The BBC takes the safety of all its staff in Myanmar very seriously and we are doing everything we can to find Aung Thura," the corporation said in a statement

.

"We call on the authorities to help locate him and confirm that he is safe. Aung Thura is an accredited BBC journalist with many years of reporting experience covering events in Nay Pyi Taw."

Forty journalists have been arrested since a military coup on 1 February, which saw the detention of elected civilian leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi. Sixteen are still in custody, and the military has revoked the licences of five media companies.

The eight people killed on Friday were shot dead by security forces in the central town of Aungban, according to a funeral director and local media.

"Security forces came to remove barriers but the people resisted and they fired shots," a witness told Reuters news agency.

Reports from Yangon say the streets have been congested as many people try to flee violence in the country's main city. Police there are also said to be forcing people to remove barricades put up by protesters.

Post-coup violence has claimed the lives of at least 232 Burmese, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group says. One of the bloodiest days was 14 March when 38 were killed.

A joint statement by European Union embassies and those of the US and the UK condemned "the brutal violence against unarmed civilians by security forces".

The statement called on the military to lift martial law, release detainees, end the state of emergency and restore democracy.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has meanwhile criticised the use of lethal force by the military and called for "a path towards peaceful solutions".

He echoed a call by the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold a summit on the situation in Myanmar.

Myanmar profile Myanmar became independent from Britain in 1948. For much of its modern history, it has been under military rule Restrictions began loosening from 2010 onwards, leading to free elections in 2015 and the installation of a government led by veteran opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi the following year In 2017, Myanmar's army responded to attacks on police by Rohingya militants with a deadly crackdown, driving more than half a million Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh in what the UN later called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing"

A Not So Rotten Borough? by Les May

WHILST I think the claim that the ‘No Wrong Door’ approach, quoted by someone speaking for Rochdale Council in the original report by Nick Statham, as being ‘highly effective’, might be ready for some reappraisal after the report by Ofsted which resulted in yet another entry for the town in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column, I am not unsympathetic to the problems that any town will face in trying to care for recalcitrant teenagers.

It should be noted that no one at this home, or any other, has the power to detain these children against their will. When the ‘grooming scandal’ came to light there were claims that at least one parent had been unable to control his daughter’s movements and had felt it necessary to approach Social Services for assistance. It is by no means impossible that had the parent exercised the control he thought necessary to protect his daughter, Social Services would have been expected to intervene to protect her from deprivation of her liberty by her father.

As a society we demand two sometimes incompatible things; that young people up to the age of 18 be treated as ‘children’, which by definition implies that they be given special protection, and that young people always be treated as independent agents able to make rational choices. As the case highlighted demonstrates a tension exists between what we expect and what we will allow.

Until we as a society find a satisfactory way of resolving this tension we will continue to read of many more cases like this.

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Distracting Dilemma of Deserving Councillor Class by Brian Bamford

WHO'S JUMPING JAB LINE-UP FOR VIRUS IN ROCHDALE?

NICK STATHAM of the local Rochdale democracy service, in last Saturday's Rochdale Observer delivered front-page story entited: 'Warning to Covid queue jumpers' with a byline 'Evidence some school staff have been "gaming" the system'.

On page 7 of the same Ob. issue he claims: 'A leaked emal from Rochdale council to all headteachers in the borough said some staff had been using an "inappropriaterly-shared" link intended only for NHS workers.' Furthermore, according to Gail Hopper head of children's services, this practice could 'scupper the borough's attempts to hit its vaccination targets, and even lead to doses being withheld by government.'

And Mr. Statham continues: 'The message reads: "Rochdale has a tight target to vaccinate all care home residents over 75 years and "clinically extreamely vunerable" residents, along with NHS and social care staff by February - if sufficent vaccine supplies reach us. This is a really challenging target. For every vaccine given to someone outside the priority groups, the risk is increased of our most vulnerable residents being delayed in receiving it".'

The message warns: 'The publicity of this happening would be very damaging for the borough. It will also increase the risk that NHSE cancels future supplies until it can be assured that the borough follows required process.'

COUNCIL CONFIRM COVID WARNING LEAK

A spokesman for Rochdale councile has confirmed that an e-mail was sent out to the Rochdale schools in the borough.

Their statement concluded: 'This letter was about a wider concern over the vaccination booking link being shared inappropriately, which has happening in many areas of the country. the letter is not about a specific school but an attempt to prevent abuse of the system.'

A LACK of INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN ROCHDALE

It is worth mentioning that local journalism in Rochdale in recent times has been notable for its lack of curiousity and penitrating investigative powers. The journalist Nick Starham himself was drafted in from Ludlow to take on the role of 'democracy service' to manage to see that local reports are circulated regularly and that the locals are informed about what's going on in their area.

It has not worked well, because the effect in the local media including the Rochdale Observer, Rochdale Online, and even the Manchester Evening News, has been that what we have got is a form of megaphone journalism in which people in power like the Rochdale Council issue press statements and the local news outlets obediently echo what they have to say. In normal circumstances Northern Voices would have welcomed the revelation of this leaked e-mail by Nick Statham. Perhaps we would have even labelled it an exclusive. But it does take much imagination to consider that this e-mail was deliberately leaked to the media by the top brass at Rochdale Council to distract the public from the fact that local councillors themselves have found a way of side-stepping the vaccination process and getting the innoculated ahead of schedule.

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John Humphrys on Freedom of Expression

FREEDOM of speech, especially freedom of the press is in danger the world over.Two major Western Democracies, USA and the UK are trying to curb the press. Not my own opinion but also recently retired broadcaster, John Humphrys, who wrote this headline in his newspaper column this week: "Don't silence us hacks, Boris....muzzle your 'evil genius'"

He quotes Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the American Declaration of Independence: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press. Were it left to me Ito decide between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I would not hesitate to choose the latter".

UK police just arrested two journalists in one week

The UK government likes to brag about how we live in a democratic nation that “supports human rights, democracy and good governance around the world”. But its support for democracy doesn’t seem to stretch to upholding the rights of journalists.

In the past week, two journalists were arrested trying to go about their jobs, reporting on protests in different parts of the country. Meanwhile, the UK continues to score badly in rankings for World Press Freedom. At 35th in the world, it lags behind much of Europe. And in September 2020, The Council of Europe issued a Level 2 “media freedom alert” after the government blacklisted journalists from Declassified UK.

Taken together, this paints a grim picture of press freedom in the UK. And it’s one that should worry us all.

Threatened with a Covid fine & then arrested

Denise Laura Baker was arrested on Saturday 30 January as she attempted to cover the police evicting anti-HS2 activists from their protest tower in Euston.

Baker is an accredited photo and video journalist who has been making a long-term documentary about the resistance to HS2’s high speed railway line. Police and National Eviction Team bailiffs began to evict activists on Wednesday 27 January, and Baker had been there daily documenting it.

She told The Canary that there were lots of police on the Saturday of her arrest. In Baker’s opinion, the police were trying to remove anyone that could witness and document the actions of police and bailiffs. Baker said:I was approached by a female officer who told me to leave the area. I informed her that I was working legitimately and showed her my NUJ press card. She told me that it was not a recognised card and that it did not prove I was working. I informed her that I had been there since Wednesday with no issues. She called over colleagues who said they were going to issue me with a Covid fine. When asked for my details I refused and explained that in accepting the fine I would legitimise their accusation of me being unlawfully in the area and give them free rein to keep moving me on. I then walked away from them and continued working.

They followed me, insisting that they were issuing a fine and if I didn’t give my details they would arrest me, which is eventually what they did. They then cuffed me, put me in the police car and took me to Kentish Town station.

Baker continued:

'It is my belief that they simply wanted me out of the way so there were less witnesses to their work on that day.'

Journalists are classed as key workers in the coronavirus pandemic and Baker should, legally, have been allowed to carry on doing her job.

The second arrest of the week

But Baker wasn’t the first journalist finding herself in police cells last week. Freelance photographer Andy Aitchison was arrested on Thursday 28 January. The police came to his house more than six hours after he photographed a protest at Kent’s Napier Barracks, where hundreds of asylum seekers are currently being imprisoned. The police seized Aitchison’s mobile phone, as well as the memory card from his camera, and arrested him under suspicion of causing criminal damage.

Commenting on Aitchison’s arrest, Baker told The Canary:

Mine is the second recent incident where a reporter has been arrested while working. It’s extremely concerning that if a photographer or journalist appears to be on good terms with the activists, they are at risk of being targeted. These actions set a dangerous precedent. Aitchison’s case is particularly concerning given the seizure of his phone and memory card. Journalists not only do not have to reveal their sources, but they are also obligated to protect them. As the NUJ states:

The NUJ ethical code of conduct stipulates that a journalist must protect the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her or his work.

Normally if the police want to view a journalist’s footage for evidential purposes, they have to do it through the courts. In 2012, media organisations won a High Court battle against the police who wanted their footage of the eviction of Dale Farm. On winning the case, head of newsgathering at the BBC stated:

Journalists must maintain their independence, must not be seen as evidence gatherers and must not have their safety compromised

NOT ISOLATED INCIDENTS

Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents.

In 2019, The Canary reported how the Metropolitan Police arrested freelance journalist Guy Smallman while covering an environmental protest. And in September 2019, journalists from The Canary were obstructed and assaulted while covering protests against the London arms fair.

At the end of 2020, the National Union of Journalists reminded the police to respect journalists’ roles as key workers after “hostility towards reporters and photographers” who were covering anti-lockdown protests.

The Canary contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment on Baker’s case. But it had not responded to the specific case at the time of publication and instead referred us to the guidance from National Police Chief’s Council.

UK press freedom is a “cause for concern”

Reporters Without Borders releases an annual World Press Freedom Index. It highlights that while the UK “champions” media freedom, the reality is different for reporters on the ground. The organisation argues that:

Despite the UK co-hosting a Global Conference for Media Freedom and assuming the role of co-chair of the new Media Freedom Coalition, the UK’s domestic press freedom record remained cause for concern throughout 2019.

And it pointed out that:

During the general election campaign, the Conservative Party threatened to review the BBC’s licence fee and Channel 4’s public service broadcasting licence if the party returned to government.

Reporters Without Borders has also highlighted how the current government has done its best to shut down the dissenting voices of what it calls “campaigning” media. In particular, it argues that government bodies have used:

heavy-handed responses to reporting on stories related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It continues:

We are alarmed by the UK government’s dismissal of serious public interest reporting as ‘false’ and coming from ‘campaigning newspapers’. These Trumpian tactics are only serving to fuel hostility and public distrust in media. While high-profile cases like that of Julian Assange fill newspaper headlines, many lesser-known journalists, whose work is absolutely vital in holding the government and corporations like HS2 to account, are also facing persecution. We should all be horrified at these attacks on press freedom.

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Navalny ally vows to press for his freedom despite crackdown

by DARIA LITVINOVA January 26, 2021 AP NEWS

MOSCOW (AP) — A top ally of Alexei Navalny vowed Tuesday to keep up the fight to free the jailed Russian opposition leader and his battle to influence this year’s parliamentary election despite a government crackdown on nationwide protests and its attempts to create a climate of fear.

U.S. officials said President Joe Biden raised concerns about Navalny’s arrest in his call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the G7 foreign ministers also criticized the jailing of Navalny and the demonstrators demanding his release.

Lawyer and politician Lyubov Sobol told a news conference that Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his team’s regional offices will continue to operate even amid the “arrests of our followers and allies, open criminal probes (and) criminal probes that are yet to come.”

Sobol, herself under investigation on criminal charges of trespassing that she insists are bogus, said she is not afraid of being arrested and doesn’t plan to leave the country.

“It would be hard to say that I’m prepared for it, but silence, fear and indifference are more dangerous,” she told reporters.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, was arrested and jailed earlier this month after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had spent nearly five months recovering from a poisoning with a deadly nerve agent that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny the accusations.

The politician faces a prison term, with authorities accusing him of violating the terms of a 2014 conviction for fraud, a prosecution that he says was politically motivated.

On Saturday, nearly 4,000 people were detained across Russia during nationwide protests that drew tens of thousands demanding Navalny’s release, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political arrests.

Authorities launched 20 criminal investigations in different regions in the aftermath of the protests, mostly on the charges of violence against police, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

Dozens of Navalny associates in various cities were detained before the protests, including Sobol, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and longtime ally Georgy Alburov. Sobol was released within hours and ordered to pay a fine, while Yarmysh and Alburov were jailed for nine and 10 days each.

“Putin is trying to stop people from protesting and fighting for their rights through fear and criminal probes,” Sobol said. “We can only continue our work in these circumstance"

The crackdown continued to bring international outrage. The top diplomats of the United States, Britain, Canada, France Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as the high representative of the European Union, condemned the “politically motivated arrest and detention” of Navalny and said they were “deeply concerned by the detention of thousands of peaceful protesters and journalists.”

The Kremlin had earlier dismissed Western criticism as interfering with Russia’s internal affairs.

Navalny’s team has called for more demonstrations on Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, when a court is scheduled to consider motions to convert his suspended sentence into a real prison term.

Even if he is sent to prison, his supporters won’t be deterred, Sobol said, citing the political goals of stopping the Kremlin’s party, United Russia, in the upcoming parliamentary balloting.

“There are lots of plans and tasks for the nearest future, (as well as) midterm and longterm (ones), and everyone understands what needs to be done both tomorrow, and a month from now, and half a year from now,” Sobol said. “One of the main goals is to ... destroy the monopoly of United Russia in the parliamentary election that will take place this September.”

Navalny has launched a campaign known as “Smart Voting” that is designed to promote candidates who are most likely to defeat those from the dominant ruling party.

In 2019, the project helped candidates backed by Navalny win 20 of 45 seats on the Moscow city council, and regional elections last year saw United Russia lose its majority in legislatures in three cities.

Analysts believe Navalny is capable of influencing the parliamentary vote, a key for the Kremlin as it will determine who controls the State Duma in 2024. That’s when Putin’s current term expires and he is expected to seek reelection, thanks to constitutional reforms last year.

On Thursday, a court is scheduled to hear an appeal on the ruling to jail Navalny. When asked about a possible outcome, Sobol said that “we do live in an unpredictable country; what will happen next and tomorrow is literally unknown.”

She cited an example of police officers unexpectedly showing up at her home 10 minutes before the news conference.

Almost proving her point, an official interrupted the event minutes later, trying to serve a subpoena to a Navalny ally who wasn’t there.

“I (didn’t do it) on purpose, they come on their own,” Sobol said with a chuckle.

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Collision course: The Return of Alexei Navalny

Collision course Moscow: The Return of Alexei Navalny Five months after he was poisoned, the opposition leader is headed back to Russia. By Eva Hartog in POLITICO January 15, 2021

MOSCOW — The last time a plane carrying Alexei Navalny landed on Russian soil, the Russian opposition leader was unconscious and pilots had to make an emergency detour to save his life.

Five months later, after a miraculous recovery, a lucid Navalny plans to board a flight to Moscow this Sunday that will bring him back to the country where he suffered a near-fatal attack.

“I ended up in Germany, in an intensive-care box, for one reason: They tried to kill me,” Navalny said in an Instagram post announcing his arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport this weekend. “Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, I miss it.”

For Navalny, his return to Russia from Germany where he underwent treatment for poisoning from the military-grade nerve agent Novichok is at once a personal risk and a political boon. Notably, he is choosing to fly back with the airline Pobeda, Russian for “Victory.”

For the Russian authorities, however, his return spells nothing but trouble at the start of an important election year — trouble they were hoping to avoid by piling on the legal hurdles for Navalny and his entourage.

Most recently, in January, Russia’s penitentiary service asked a court to rule Navalny had breached the terms of his suspended sentence by staying in Germany. In a statement on Thursday, a day after Navalny’s Instagram post, it vowed to do “everything possible” to detain him upon his return to Russia.

It had all the semblance of a last-minute warning: Stay put, or else.

Pointing at Putin

That warning — or threat — seems to have fallen on deaf ears. As Russia’s No. 2 politician after President Vladimir Putin, Navalny has built his brand on refusing to be cowed. If anything, the poison attack has made him redirect his arrows at the very top of Russia’s pyramid of power.

From the moment he woke up from a medically induced coma in Berlin’s Charité Hospital in September, Navalny has accused Putin of personally being behind the poison attack (which the Russian president has denied). And he hasn’t stopped there.

Last month, building on an investigation by the journalism collective Bellingcat, Navalny prank-called a man whom he claimed worked for the FSB, tricking him into admitting the supposed involvement of the security services in his poisoning. A YouTube video of the call has been viewed more than 22 million times.

“No one has humiliated the FSB in this way in a long, long time — if ever,” said political commentator Konstantin Gaaze. “His return will be interpreted as an explicit challenge, there’s no doubt they will want to put him away.”

There are other reasons than revenge to want Navalny sidelined.

This autumn, Russians are set to vote for a new parliament to serve during the so-called power transition in the run-up to the end of Putin’s presidential term in 2024. Pundits are unsure about what will follow — will Putin hang on to the presidential seat, or appoint a successor while maintaining his grip on power? But whatever the preferred option, the Kremlin will want full control over the process.

Ahead of that election — and amid an economic downturn because of the coronavirus pandemic — commentators have pointed to a tangible tightening of the screws against dissent, including the hurried passing of a law late last year that allows individuals to be labeled as “foreign agents.”

Navalny’s “smart voting” strategy against the ruling party United Russia, which coordinates protest votes in challenges to their biggest contenders, and his ability to organize large street protests threaten to throw a spanner into the works.

Conspiracy theories

Russia has a tradition of dissidents returning to their homeland. Sometimes — as with Vladimir Lenin’s train ride in 1917 — they have triumphed. But then there is also the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, who returned to Russia in 2003 only to disappear behind bars for a decade.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, there has been a flood of speculation as to how the Russian authorities will thwart Navalny’s arrival.

Theories have ranged from the conventional (Navalny could be refused boarding on the pretext of COVID restrictions or detained on the runway and placed under house arrest) to the outlandish (the air carrier could be shut down, his flight canceled or a freak snow storm be used as an excuse to divert the plane).

Rather than a rich imagination, the speculation reveals a general sense of lawlessness after a summer that included a controversial vote on constitutional reforms which will allow Putin to stay in power beyond 2024 and Navalny’s brazen poisoning.

“If before we understood that Navalny could be jailed at any moment, now the scenario we have in mind is that he could be killed,” Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician and a close ally of Navalny’s told the Dozhd television channel.

Moreover, most commentators agree that political unrest in the United States ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden plays into the Kremlin’s hands by drawing international attention away from Russia.

Touchdown

Presumably in an effort to prevent his immediate arrest, Navalny has called upon his supporters to meet him at the airport on Sunday. A large turnout could convince the authorities to hold back — temporarily at least.

Then again, a low turnout could backfire and convince the hardliners in government that punitive measures against the opposition politician will go largely unprotested.

A poll by the independent Levada Center late last year showed that fewer Russians believed the Kremlin was behind the poisoning than those who suspect the West — echoing the Kremlin’s own claims of a foreign conspiracy. Most Russians, however, were indifferent or believed the entire poisoning was staged.

But the authorities have to tread carefully: Jailing Navalny could risk making a martyr out of him and be interpreted as a sign of weakness. But leaving him free practically guarantees he will be a nuisance. In deciding how to respond to that conundrum, the Russian authorities are like a character in a fighting video game, forced to pick a weapon before entering into battle.

“Тhere are a million different options of how it will play out, but Sunday will undoubtedly be a very sharp start to the political season,” said Gaaze.

Or, in the words of political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya on Telegram: “The situation with Navalny is very similar to two trains rushing towards each other, doomed to collide. There will be many victims.”

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Trump And Freedom Of Speech by Les May

A REGULAR THEME of what I have written for Northern Voices is the threat to freedom of speech posed by those who try to prevent people whose views they disagree with from presenting them to others. When this happens in universities and colleges it is commonly called ‘no platforming’. It’s a staple tactic of those who engage in the politics of identity.

It is the antithesis of how George Orwell defined liberty when he said ‘It is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’. So is the decision by Twitter to refuse to allow Donald Trump to post on the social media platform an attack on liberty?

The Twitter decision does not prevent Trump saying whatever he likes. Twitter is under no obligation to provide space on it’s servers for the outpourings of Trump, myself or anyone else. If he wants to use some form of social media to enlighten his followers with his wisdom, he is entirely at liberty to set up his own version of Twitter.

Veteran Trump watchers will recognise the irony of his complaint. There are many instances at his press conferences of his refusing to answer questions he does not like and denigrating accredited journalists.

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Judge Rejects Extradition of Julian Assange

A JUDGE today has refused to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US.

In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning, Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition on grounds that Assange is a suicide risk and extradition to the US prison system would be oppressive, given the likely impact on his fragile mental health.

The US, which has been seeking to bring Assange to the country to put him on trial for conspiracy to hack as well as a number of charges under the controversial Espionage Act, has said it will appeal.

Assange, she said, is "a depressed and sometimes despairing man genuinely fearful about his future," and if extradited, would be "housed in conditions of significant isolation," hampering contact with family.

There was evidence of a risk to Assange's health if he were to face trial in the United States, Baraitser said, adding that the 49-year-old activist's risk of committing suicide appeared to be "substantial."

Lawyers for the United States immediately said they would appeal the ruling.

Assange was arrested in April 2019 and has since been held in a high-security prison. He had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, where he sought asylum to dodge sexual assault charges in Sweden.

Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew its offer of asylum. Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said the country's patience for Assange had "reached its limit" after "repeated violations to international conventions and daily life."

Assange was indicted on 17 new charges of violating the Espionage Act in 2019 and already faced a charge from March 2018 of conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion, which carried a maximum five years in prison.

He was accused of working with former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain and publicly release classified information. The new charges brought his total charges to 18 counts with each violation of the Espionage Act carrying a maximum 10-year sentence.

Assange has consistently claimed he was acting as a journalist but Baraitser said earlier in extradition hearing that his receipt of thousands of classified files went beyond investigative journalism.

In her ruling, the judge dismissed arguments from Assange's legal team that he couldn't be afforded protections under the U.S. Constitution, but agreed that he could not be extradited on health grounds.

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Zhang Zhan, sentenced to 4-years by Shanghai Court for reporting on pandemic outbreak

Chinese Citizen Journalist Jailed For 4 Years For Wuhan Virus Reports

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.

Shanghai:

Updated: December 28, 2020

A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurled, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia" surfaced in the central China city.

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.

Her live reports and essays were shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they defang criticism of the government's response to the outbreak.

Beijing has congratulated itself for "extraordinary" success in controlling the virus inside its borders, with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world stutters through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year on from the start of the pandemic in Wuhan.

Controlling the information flow during an unprecedented global health crisis has been pivotal in allowing China's communist authorities to reframe the narrative in their favour, with President Xi Jinping being garlanded for his leadership by the country's ruling party.

But that has come at a serious cost to anyone who has picked holes in the official storyline.

The court said Zhang Zhan had spread "false remarks" online, according to one of her lawyers Zhang Keke, but the prosecution did not fully divulge its evidence in court.

"We had no way of understanding what exactly Zhang Zhan was accused of doing," he added, describing it as "a speedy, rushed hearing."

In return the defendant "didn't respond [to questions]... She refused to answer when the judge asked her to confirm her identity."

The defendant's mother sobbed loudly as the verdict was read out, Ren Quanniu, another member of Zhang's defence team, told reporters who were barred from entering the court.

Concerns are mounting over the health of 37-year-old Zhang, who began a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed via a nasal tube.

Her legal team said her health was in decline and she suffered from headaches, dizziness and stomach pain, and that she had appeared in court in a wheelchair.

"She said when I visited her (last week): 'If they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end.'... She thinks she will die in prison,"Ren said before the trial.

"It's an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment."

China's communist authorities have a history of putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year in an effort to minimise Western scrutiny.

Example made

The sentencing comes just weeks before an international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19.

Zhang was critical of the early response in Wuhan, writing in a February essay that the government "didn't give people enough information, then simply locked down the city".

"This is a great violation of human rights," she wrote.

Rights groups and embassies have also drawn attention to her case, although diplomats from several countries were denied requests to monitor the hearing. "Zhang Zhan's case raises serious concerns about media freedom in China," the British embassy in Beijing said, urging "China to release all those detained for their reporting."

Authorities "want to use her case as an example to scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year", added Leo Lan, research and advocacy consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO.

Zhang is the first of a group of four citizen journalists detained by authorities after reporting from Wuhan to face trial.

Previous attempts by AFP to contact the other three -- Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- were unsuccessful.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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LANCASHIRE RE-UNITED?

For a New Lancashire County-Region

WHILE our Yorkshire neighbours are building up momentum for a ‘One Yorkshire’ region, Lancashire is lagging behind. This paper argues for a re-united Lancashire, with its own democratically-elected assembly, based in part on its historic boundaries but looking to the future for a dynamic and inclusive county-region that could be at the forefront of a green industrial revolution. As well as a new county-region body to replace the mish-mash of unelected regional bodies and mayors with little accountability, a re-united Lancashire also needs strong local government working co-operatively with the communities it serves and a vibrant economy that is locally based.

Back in 1895, Bolton writer Allen Clarke said: “I would like to see Lancashire a cluster of towns and villages, each fixed solid on its own agricultural and industrial base, doing its own spinning and weaving; with its theatre, gymnasium, schools, libraries, baths and all things necessary for body and soul. Supposing the energy, time and talent that have been given to manufacture and manufacturing inventions had been given to agriculture and agricultural inventions, would not there have been as wonderful results in food production as there have been in cotton goods production?”

(Allen Clarke, 1895, slightly adapted)

THAT was Allen Clarke, the Lancashire journalist, philosopher and novelist writing in 1895. Utopian? Perhaps (we need our utopian visions!) but there’s an element of realism there too. He recognised that capitalism had unleashed enormously powerful productive forces, but not necessarily with the best results. What Clarke was saying over a century ago is being said by many green activists and thinkers today and was what Gandhi preached in his own time. Humanity has the resources and skills to create a better world, for everyone; the consequences of not trying are worsening climate change and all that follows from it.

Clarke looked forward to a Lancashire that was a greener, more self-sufficient place – within a co-operative rather than a capitalist system. Now, as we struggle to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, is the time to think differently about the world we live in. This paper is about what Lancashire could look like in the next twenty years – by which I mean the ‘historic’ Lancashire, including Greater Manchester and much of Merseyside. But this is not about looking backward – it’s about creating a progressive and inclusive vision for a re-united Lancashire ‘county-region’ within a prosperous North and a Federal Britain. A Lancashire Co-operative Commonwealth.

The STATE of the COUNTY

THE Lancashire of Allen Clarke’s day has changed in so many ways. In the towns, gone are the mills and mill chimneys with their attendant pollution and poor working conditions inside the factory walls. But we have also lost some of the civic pride and buoyancy of the great Lancashire boroughs including Clarke’s beloved Bolton. ‘Lancashire’ itself has been split and divided in what was a travesty of democracy. No wonder there is a very worrying degree of despondency and cynicism within these towns that ‘nothing can be done’ and we are powerless. It becomes easy to blame scapegoats, be they immigrants, asylum seekers, politicians or whoever.

Lancashire has yet to find a new role that can build on its past achievements, without just being a dull collection of retail parks, charity shops and sprawling suburbia, nor indeed a heritage theme park. We have many successful businesses and a thriving academic sector with great universities, some world-class, in many towns and cities; there is the potential for that to spin-off into new industries and services that are world-leaders.

Manchester has emerged as a dynamic regional centre, though many of the once-thriving towns surrounding it are in a parlous state. This has got to change and consigning towns like Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury to the role of commuter suburbs is not acceptable. Instead of the centralised ‘city-region’ we need a more decentralised and collaborative ‘county-region’.

There is a disconnect between urban and rural, with tourist ‘honeypots’ around Lancashire and areas like the Ribble Valley and Trough of Bowland besieged by traffic from towns and cities and homes for local people made unaffordable by urban dwellers buying up second homes – a process accelerated by Covid-19.

The County that was Stolen

ALLEN CLARKE’s Lancashire has been shrunk by an undemocratic diktat in the 1970s. Nobody asked the people of Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, Wigan and other towns if they wanted to be part of ‘Greater Manchester’. We have an elected mayor but without the democratic oversight of an elected council – which at least the original Greater Manchester Council had, before it was abolished by Mrs Thatcher in 1986. Something else we weren’t asked about. Now, in 2020, some politicians are talking about further municipal vandalism with the destruction of the remaining ‘Lancashire’ county council and three ‘super’ councils replacing it and the existing districts. Talk about making a bad job even worse. In Cumbria, there is talk of creating one single unitary authority; this would mean the death of ‘local’ government.

Allen Clarke was a strong believer in municipal reform and backed The Municipal Reform League, formed in Lancashire in the early 1900s. There’s a need for something like that but on a bigger scale, addressing the huge democratic deficit in the English regions, particularly the North, as well as the loss of power by local government. We need a ‘Campaign for Northern Democracy’ that can involve Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumbria and the North-East as friendly allies and partners.

Samuel Compston of Rossendale, a radical Liberal of the old school, spoke of the virtue of ‘county clanship, in no narrow sense’. He was on to something and his words were carefully chosen. Regional or county pride does not pre-suppose antipathy to other regions and nations, and it needs to include everyone within the region. But it requires a democratic voice, not just one person elected every few years as ‘mayor’, nor a collection of local authority leaders whose prime loyalty is to their own council ward.

Yorkshire has been quicker off the mark and the Campaign for a Yorkshire Parliament has won wide cross-party support; the Yorkshire Party has made several local gains. The Yorkshire-based ‘Same Skies Collective’ has developed some fresh new ways of thinking about regionalism.

Here, there’s a ‘Friends of Real Lancashire’ but the issue needs a higher profile and cross-party support. A reformed Lancashire that includes Greater Manchester and Merseyside makes sense as an economic unit but also chimes with people’s identities – in a way that artificial ‘city regions’ never will.

‘Greater Manchester’ has reduced the once proudly-independent county boroughs to the status of satellites - commuter suburbs of Manchester (or ‘Manctopia’ as it was described in an excellent TV programme recently). Nearly 50 years on from the creation of ‘Greater Manchester’ our ‘city region’ still has precious little legitimacy and if there was a referendum tomorrow on being part of Lancashire or ‘Greater Manchester’ I have little doubt about the result.

A Democratic New Lancashire

REGIONAL democracy must be the next big jump for our political system with regional assemblies, elected proportionately, taking real powers out of Westminster and Whitehall, backed up by strong well-resourced local government which has the right scale (not too big!).

In England, we haven’t grasped the distinction between the national, regional and local, with cack-handed attempts to combine the regional and local (witness current attempts to create a unitary authority for all of Cumbria and three huge ‘local’ authorities covering all Lancashire). The latter are neither sufficiently ‘strategic’ to be effective regional bodies, and anything but ‘local’. Cumbria itself is big enough to be a county-region but still needs effective local government beneath it.

We need to get power out of the centre – Westminster/Whitehall – and give country-regions such as Lancashire real powers (see below) complemented by local government which really is ‘local’ and relates to historic, ‘felt’ identities which make economic and political sense.

Parameters and Powers

A RE-CONSTITUTED Lancashire county-region should include much of what once constituted Lancashire with the additions of parts of historic Cheshire to the south (Stockport, Tameside and Trafford in Greater Manchester). The historic ‘Lancashire north of the Sands’ really makes more sense within a Cumbria county-region that works closely with its Lancashire sister. This provides a county-region of significant size able to wield economic clout without being too large (which a region of ‘The North’ would be, both in population and geographical scale). Crucially, it would reflect people’s identities.

A major failure of the attempts to create regional assemblies during the Blair Government was their obvious lack of powers, prompting the successful attempts by the advocates of the centralised status quo to label them as expensive ‘white elephants’. While on one hand it makes sense for a new county-region to evolve gradually in terms of the powers and responsibilities it has, it must be able to demonstrate a clear reason to exist from the start. That means taking over responsibility for many of the areas which Wales and Scotland already have. It should include tax-raising powers.

The county-region should be empowered to support economic development across its area, investing in emerging industries, research and marketing. The ‘Lancashire Enterprises’ of the 1980s, stimulated and overseen by Lancashire County Council, would be a good model to start with. Part of its role should be to encourage new social enterprises and encourage greater employee and community involvement in large enterprises.

For transport, a ‘Transport for Lancashire’ should be created to take over the powers of existing transport authorities, as well as the ineffective Transport for the North. There should be close collaboration between sister bodies in Yorkshire, Cumbria, the North-east, and the Midlands, with formation of joint bodies to develop inter-regional links.

Another regular canard against regional government is that it creates ‘more politicians’ - ’Jobs for the boys’, another effective line of attack against the idea of a North-East Assembly in 2004.

It depends how you look at that. Regional devolution must include reducing the number of MPs at Westminster, as their functions transfer to the county-region. The same goes for the civil servants. Some powers that are currently devolved, but with little democratic scrutiny (transport health, etc.) would simply come under the democratically-elected county-region, with members elected by a proportional voting system.

Localising Local Government

ONE of the most disastrous decisions of local government reform in the 70s was the destruction of small, usually highly efficient, local councils. Medium-sized towns, such as Darwen, Heywood, Farnworth, Radcliffe and others often ran their own services, built good quality housing and underpinned a very strong sense of civic pride. They were ruthlessly destroyed in the spurious cause that ‘big is better’ and the knee-jerk approach of far too many bureaucrats to centralise as much as possible. Can anyone honestly say that these medium-sized towns have benefitted from the changes imposed on them in the 70s?

Within a Lancashire ‘county-region’ local government should be based on smaller but empowered and well-resourced units that reflect people’s identities – the Darwens, Athertons, Radcliffes as well as larger towns such as Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn and Blackpool.

These smaller but more powerful local councils should co-operate with their neighbouring communities on issues of mutual concern within a Lancashire county-region – a ‘co-operative commonwealth’ as argued below.

Having vibrant town as well as city centres must be a major element of the county-region. This means having a vision for town centres which offer something that the mega-stores don’t offer: a sense of conviviality and sociability. The arts have a key role to play – small galleries, larger public facilities including theatres and annual festivals (Bolton’s Film Festival is a good example) can help revive town centres and give them a new role.

Some Lancashire towns have been successful in developing niche manufacturing which offer highly skilled, well-paid jobs – but there’s a need for much more, working in partnership with the higher education sector. The ‘Preston Model’ should be rolled out to other similar-sized towns and cities to encourage much more local procurement and business support. It all needs sensitive encouragement which should come from re-structured and empowered local councils working within a collaborative framework provided by the county-region’s Lancashire Enterprises, as part of ‘The Lancashire Co-operative Commonwealth’.

A new Lancashire industrial revolution

ALLEN Clarke’s prophecy in Effects of the Factory System in (1895) that the cotton industry was doomed has finally come to be. Most of the Bolton mills that you could once see from the moors above Bolton, described so vividly in his Moorlands and Memories (1920), have been demolished. A few have survived but many are in poor condition, with only the prospect of demolition ahead of them unless something is done. The University of Bolton has had the sense to re-use some old mill buildings as part of its campus.

Yet most of the surviving Lancashire mills, perhaps with the exception of Manchester’s Ancoats, don’t have the wonderful mix of creative industries, office space and living accommodation that has been achieved with some of the mills in Yorkshire. At Saltaire, Salt’s Mill is perhaps the finest example, though rivalled by the Dean Clough Mills in Halifax. More should be done to protect our Lancashire mills and find good uses for them. Why should Yorkshire have all the fun?

Allen Clarke would have loved the idea of putting the mill buildings to better use - as places to live, but also as office and art space, recreational centres and performance areas. How about mill roof gardens? There’d be no shortage of space, with room to grow fruit and veg. Time for the ‘Incredible Edible Mill’!

We also need to build new, inspirational buildings that can take their place alongside the fine architecture bequeathed us by past generations. We need a vision, at least as radical as that of the Bolton landscape architect T.H. Mawson, of what our towns and cities should look like in the next 20 years, not what developers think is ‘good enough’ for us and makes the quickest return for them. We need some new Lord Leverhulmes, women and men of vision, able to work collaboratively and creatively.

Lancashire needs to be at the forefront, once again, of an industrial revolution – but this time a green revolution which benefits the many and not the few...

Sharing the same Skies: the countryside for everyone

ALONGSIDE a vibrant urban society, economy and culture, we need to make the best of our countryside, the ‘green lungs’ that make Lancashire so special. At its best, it can compete with the Lakes and the Peak District in terms of scenic beauty and is relatively well served with vibrant shops and smaller towns. It’s a huge asset in attracting talent into the region as a place to live and work.

Yet public transport access to the countryside is nothing like as good as it ought to be. Some of the most attractive areas have little or no bus services, or they don’t operate on Sundays – just when people need them. Places like Rivington, Pendle and Holcombe – let alone the Ribble Valley and Pendle - can be heaving with cars and motor bikes at weekends. At the same time, many stations that gave walkers access to the countryside, have closed.

Never mind HS2, let’s rebuild a world-class local transport network. For a fraction of the cost of that high-speed white elephant, we could have a network of modern, zero-emission trams and buses serving town and country, feeding in to a core rail network. If we look at the examples of Germany, Switzerland and Austria their popular rural areas typically have either frequent train services or rural trams connecting from the larger urban centres.

One of the few bright spots during the coronavirus outbreak has been the remarkable growth in cycling. Clarke and his friends Johnston and Wild would be delighted. Quiet roads, good weather and time on your hands was the ideal combination. Cycle shops have enjoyed a boon. I hope this renewed interest in cycling will survive, particularly if the Government puts its money where its mouth is and provides funding to expand cycle facilities in both town and country.

People will still use their car to get out into the countryside and that needs to be managed and provided for. Car parks can be ugly, but so can cars parked alongside verges. The more alternatives there are available, the less likely we are to assume that the only way to enjoy the countryside is by that form of transport which does most to disfigure it.

Why not copy the example of some of the national parks in the United States, which prohibit car access to the most sensitive areas? If you get there by car, leave it in a ‘parking lot’ and either walk, get on a local bus or hire a bike. It could work in some of our national parks including the Lakes and popular visitor locations such as Rivington and the Pendle Forest. The exciting plans for a ‘South Pennines’ regional park could include sensitive measures to restrict visitors’ car access and promote use of public transport, cycling and walking.

Allen Clarke want to see a new ‘agricultural revolution’ in Lancashire, and that’s still relevant. Much of Lancashire has a highly productive agricultural sector and we need to guard against precious agricultural land being lost to development. We need to do much more to feed our own people and not be dependent on imported foods. The ‘incredible edible’ model, of small-scale food production within towns was invented here in Lancashire and needs to be rolled out in every town and village.

Beyond a boundary: a Red Rose Co-operative Commonwealth?

THE future of England should be about county-regions co-operating with empowered, but geographically smaller, local councils. There should be strong encouragement to co-operate on issues when it makes sense, and to share resources and specialist staff. That co-operation should extend further, across the North. Why not a ‘Northern Federation’ of regions – Lancashire, Yorkshire, the North-East and Cumbria, collaborating on issues of joint concern, such as strategic transport links and academic co-operation? As the late Jo Cox (a committed regionalist) said, “we have far more in common than what divides us.”

Good, democratic governance must be about addressing inequality, jobs, the environment, health, education and having a thriving and diverse cultural sector. Allen Clarke’s vision in 1895, of locally-based and socially-owned units of production make sense in a modern digital age, co-operating as equals with partners across the globe.

His idea of a ‘co-operative commonwealth’ could certainly work at a Lancashire level; after all, it’s where co-operation began. Allen Clarke, with and his radical friends Solomon Partington, the co-operator and feminist Sarah Reddish and Samuel Compston looking over his shoulder, would have said “what are you waiting for?”

And we can’t wait. The coronavirus pandemic has focused people’s minds on the dysfunctional way we have lived our lives. An even bigger threat is climate change which requires re-thinking every aspect of how we live, travel, work and play.

Now is the time to create Allen Clarke’s vision of a ‘Lancashire Co-operative Commonwealth’ that can, in the words of Clarke’s heroine, Rose Hilton – get agate with the job of “washing the smoky dust off the petals of the red rose” and create a county-region that is fit for the 21st century. A Lancashire re-united.

Lancashire Day, November 27th 2020

See facebook group #LancashireUnited and www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

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Harold Evans: a Northern Campaigner Dies!

HAROLD EVANS who started his career on independently-owned Tameside Reporter, which was first published in 1855 died last week at the age of 92. The 157-year-old title was known as the Ashton-under-Lyne Weekly Reporter when future Sunday Times editor Sir Harold started there as a 16-year-old school leaver in the 1940s.

Harold Evans, was the Patricroft, Eccles born journalist who was widely regarded as the greatest newspaper editor of our times.

He was famous for his work on the Sunday Times, particularly for his long battle to get compensation for victims of the Thalidomide drug.

In 1944, in a bomb-ravaged city, he was just another 16-year-old who got on his bike and pedalled from his home in Newton Heath to the offices of the Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter. He was to be paid just £1 a week on a three-month trial, about half of what his mates were earning working in factories. He was one of a number of schoolboy reporters, filling in for men fighting the war.

Perhaps his most remarkable campaign concerned Timothy Evans (no relation) who had been hanged for murdering his wife and child at 10 Rillington Place in London in 1950. Evans would be regarded now as a vulnerable adult, and it later transpired that mass murderer John Christie had been living, and indeed killing, in the flat beneath. Christie was, in all probability, guilty of murdering Evans’ family, yet the unfortunate man, unable to mount his own defence, had hanged.

As editor he campaigned to have his namesake pardoned, and when Home Secretary Roy Jenkins granted it in 1966, it effectively ended the death sentence for all but high treason.

When Evans arrived at the Northern Echo, it was deeply rooted in its community but hadn't done much campaigning for decades. 'A rocket needs a solid base and The Northern Echo was deeply rooted in the region,' he once said. 'All I had to do was put some fuel in the engine…'

He modernised the Echo so that it sounded like a newspaper for the 1960s. He channelled the 'vigour and bluntness' which he found in the North-East cultural scene through writers like Sid Chaplin and artists like the pitman painter Norman Cornish to create a sharp and punchy paper.

He gained a national fame by presenting What the Papers Say on Granada Television, and left the Echo to edit the Sunday Times where he ultimately won compensation for victims of the thalidomide morning sickness drug.

Since 1984 Sir Harold has been living, writing and editing in New York, with his second wife, Tina Brown. He founded Conde Nast Traveler magazine and served as president and publisher of Random House from 1990 to 1997, and was Reuters' editor-at-large.

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Will Po-faced Politics Trump Local Custom?

Britannia Coconut Dancers

by Brian Bamford

BELOW is a news report this month by Stuart Pike , the 
Rossendale Free Press Deputy Editor, which claims
that the public up Bacup and beyond, are backing
the rights of the Britannia Coconut Dancers* to
continue to black-up to do their traditional clog dancing. 
Meanwhile Northern Voices has spoken to Gavin McNulty
for the Britannia coconutters and he says that the motion for
them to wash their faces has come from 'down South' 

*  The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers or Nutters are a troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who perform every Easter in Bacup, dancing 7 miles (11 km) across the town.^[1] There are eight dancers and a whipper-in, who controls the proceedings.^[2]

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In an e-mail Derek Pattison asks:

'After toppling statues, the woke / trendy left, have now got the Rossendale coconut dancers in their cross hairs. Should the Nutters remove their black face paint which they say has no racial connotations but is connected with the mining industry and is a Lancashire tradition.  Northern Voices writers, Brian Bamford and Chris Draper, have fond memories of the anarchist Julian Pilling who was a celebrated and legendary Lancashire Nutter.  What do they think?'

Chris Draper replies:

'Definitely not! The whole "Nutter" tradition is demonstrably laced with irreverent humour and irony - it is not an unwarranted celebration of dominance, celebrity, exploitation and savagery as exemplified by the memorialisation of Colston, Hawkins, Churchill, Gladstone et al.  It is an eccentric historical anachronism that reminds all true Northerners of those glory days when off-duty, unwashed miners laboured in the vast Rossendale Coconut Plantations.'

Row over use of face paint for Britannia Coconut Dancers routines

The [Irwell] Valley public are firmly behind the Britannia Coconut Dancers in a row over the use of face paint, the group has said.

The popular dance troupe say they are among folk dancing groups affected by a potential ban on the use of full-face skin tone makeup - in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Coconutters, which date back to the mid-19th century, say their full-face black makeup has no racial connotations and reflects the origins of the dance in the mining community.

Three Morris [Dancer] organisations issued a joint statement this week calling on the use of full-face black or skin tone makeup to be eliminated by member groups.

A motion will be put forward to the AGM in September moving that the Morris Federation should not renew membership for teams that do not comply.
Group secretary Gavin McNulty told LancsLive they are working with their Morris governing organisation, but said if they were unable to agree “a compromise” the Nutters would be forced to go “on our own”.
He said: “There’s been a lot of strong support for the team to carry on as it is. It’s infuriating that people think they don’t like something or don’t agree with it and they want to change it.
“It’s a tradition that’s been going and will be kept going. We move forward how we think is best. Teams like ourselves have been there for hundreds of years. Our tradition is going to remain.”


He said they would know more once they have been able to convene a meeting - probably next month.

The Coconutters website states: “The dances the team perform are ‘folk dances’ and the custom of blackened faces are thought to reflect a pagan tradition as a disguise from the evil spirits / and part of the mining connections.”

The Morris Dancer's Federation statement said:  “While no morris dancer wants to cause offence, we must recognise that full-face black or other skin tone makeup is a practice that has the potential to cause deep hurt.
“Morris is a living tradition and it is right that it has always adapted and evolved to reflect society.
"We want people from all races and backgrounds to share in this pride and not be made to feel unwelcome or uncomfortable by any element of a performance.”

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Another Outing For Mr Nobody

by Les May

LISTENING to the news reports of the response by the different agencies one might have expected to have taken action earlier to shut down the Leicester ‘sweat shops’ I had a strong sense of deja vu; I’ve heard it all before.  I saw it in my own town a few years ago when a ‘marked register’, a precaution against voter fraud, went missing, possibly stolen, from a polling station.  There should have been a police investigation; there wasn’t.  A candidate who should have been informed that this had happened and wasn’t, tried to pursue the matter and found nobody would take responsibility.  He described it as the ‘sloping shoulders syndrome’. I saw it again when a Rochdale Labour councillor, Faisal Rana, who had voted twice in the election failed to declare his interests within the specified time.   Council officers wriggled and squirmed to avoid taking any action.   Once again nobody would take responsibility. It reached scandal proportions with regard to the Grenfell Tower fire.   It was Mr Nobody who was responsible yet again.

In Leicester it not even true to say the existence of the sweat shops and what was happening in the decrepit buildings that housed them was ‘an open secret’; it wasn’t even a secret!  A journalist had written an article for the Financial Times drawing attention to them.  In January 2020 Tory MP Andrew Bridgen had raised serious concerns over the conditions in garment factories.  Nobody took notice.

The agencies which might have been involved, HMRC to check no one was fiddling the furlough scheme, the Health and Safety Executive that social distancing by workers was being enforces, the Fire Service that the decrepit buildings were not a fire risk, the Police to check that no one was being forced to work in unsafe conditions against their will, do to some extent have the excuse that that they were no asked to intervene by the body that has ultimate responsibility for what goes on in Leicester, the local council. It seems Mr Nobody was responsible once again.

What is perhaps most disturbing about this is that responsibility for keeping the rate of transmission of the SarsCov2 virus which causes Covid19 disease is being placed in the hands of local councils.  Will Mr Nobody be responsible if they don’t do the job properly?  Figures released on Friday show that Rochdale where I live has 149 cases which is an infection rate of 68 per 100,000 of the population. (These figures are based on data for the fortnight up to 12 July)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-53448533

If you actually look at the advice being given by RMBC to bring down the rate of infection, limit visitors in your home to two, wear a face mask in public and keep two metres apart from at all times they are not really much different from the vague advice coming from Boris Johnson et al.  Where is the guidance about work?  About travel?   About eating out?  But should I really expect better from a council which feels it is acceptable that a councillor who admitted voting twice in the same election should be appointed to a committee which deals with planning applications?

http://democracy.rochdale.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=6271

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