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Articles by Joe Barson
Blog: Nick Mattingly
Looking out towards Manchester from my home in Stretford a couple of years ago, a silvery tower started to appear through the trees. When I arrived in Manchester 20 years ago, no one lived in the city centre. Now a 45-storey tower block was emerging. What had changed? The idea for the BBC documentary series that became Manctopia wasn’t mine, but when Minnow Films, the production company, called me to ask if I’d be interested in directing it, it made perfect sense to make a programme about the boom.
Childcare should be
Once upon a time, in a pre-lockdown world, I’d often find myself wondering how people with kids manage to cope. I’d be there, washing dishes at 11pm after a hectic day at work, looking at my diary for the week ahead and panicking about how I was going to fit everything in – all while finding time to feed myself three times a day, shower, exercise, sleep, read, fold washing and keep my dog alive.
Draconian enforcement
Meeting my friend Stuart in Leeds is always arranged by text, so I was surprised when he called my mobile. “Let me put this out there,” Stuart said. “How about taking off for a walk in some remote spot where we’re not going to come within two miles of anyone, never mind two metres?” No, I had to tell him. The fresh air Gestapo are mounting spot-checks on cars heading into the Dales and Pennines. We’ll be lucky to cross the A1 if we try for the North York Moors.
Saskia Murphy points to a long, hot summer when migrants enriched her life
When I was 14 I got my first job waiting on tables in a hotel in Blackpool. Every morning during the summer holidays I got the 7.16am bus into the town centre, dodged the seagulls pecking away at discarded fish and chip wrappers, and spent my days learning how to balance three full English breakfasts on one arm.
The Red Pill is no mother’s helper, says Saskia Murphy
“Hey! Little Girl/Comb your hair, fix your makeup/Soon he will open the door/Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger/You needn’t try anymore,” warns crooner Jack Jones in his 1963 song Wives And Lovers, a sickening ode to domestic servitude. The song is a relic, an ancient fossil dug out from a time when women were shackled to the home and expected to paint on a smile of acquiescence while they dutifully cleaned the oven.
Actor calls for media FGM stories
Liverpool actor Sunetra Sarker has called on storytellers working in TV and radio not to shy away from tackling “honour-based” abuse and FGM in their work, saying discussion and representation “validates” the experience of victims and can give them strength to speak out.
Restitution: too simple a solution
Big Issue North issue 1322 contained an interesting article on property restitution in Poland. The article explored the difficulties around property that had been confiscated in the twentieth century by the Nazi and Communist regimes in Poland. This is a point worth noting. It is awful that families who have been affected by the political turbulence of the twentieth century are still struggling to regain their property.
Saskia Murphy calculates her way through some long division problems
We’ve entered a new decade divided. It was easy to forget about over Christmas, the reality of what’s ahead covered up in glittery wrapping paper and drowned out by the sound of cheery carols, but now the new year is here it’s time to face the real music. I hate to be miserable, especially in my first column of the year, but the simple fact is that the next five or 10 years are going to be very difficult for a lot of people.
Will the truth out over the next five years, asks Saskia Murphy
The truth has never felt more sacred. In the run-up to last week’s general election it was denied, distorted, inflated, ridiculed. The truth became something that could be avoided, talked over, surreptitiously bundled into a pocket. We saw last week how quickly a lie can bury the truth – even when the truth is a sick child lying on a hospital floor with an oxygen mask.
Sisters’ high rise and fall
Plans by Rochdale Borough Housing to demolish four of the Seven Sisters high rise flats on the College Bank estate are polarising opinions. Two years ago, Rochdale Borough Housing (RBH), which took control of the local council’s housing stock seven years ago, announced a 20-year regeneration project for College Bank and the nearby Lower Falinge Estate and began to draw up proposals, including demolition.
Square root of protest
It was the revolution that failed. Following the death of reformist former premier Hu Yaobang in April 1989, demonstrators took to the streets in cities across China demanding change – first in their hundreds, then in their thousands, then in their tens of thousands. The protests were led by students, but supported at all levels of society. Intellectuals wrote petitions. Train drivers allowed protesters to travel for free to Beijing.
Post-Windrush fears remain
Owen Haisley is recounting one of the hardest phone calls of his life. “I had to phone my boys from a detention centre and tell them Daddy was being sent to Jamaica and might not see them for a while,” he recalls. “They’re only five and seven years old and it nearly broke their hearts. Now, whenever I miss a call from them, they’re scared that I’ve been deported.
Outsider in - Big Issue North
Last week, the Ukrainian electorate selected Volodymyr Zelensky to be their president, with a majority of 73 per cent. The story of this former comic actor, who once played a president on television, now actually being elected president is well known across Europe. It is telling of these politically turbulent times that people do not appear shocked by the election of a politically inexperienced comic to the presidency of Ukraine.
The local election test
Local government elections will take place across England and Northern Ireland on Thursday 2 May, including 57 council districts in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. Nearly all councils will hold elections in the regions, with the exception of Harrogate, Doncaster, Rotherham and Warrington. “The 2019 contests will be a revealing test of where support for the parties has shifted since 2015,” said Stuart Wilks-Heegs, senior lecturer in politics at Liverpool University.
As British as Brexit
There may have been a third meaningful vote on the Withdrawal Bill by the time you read this. Or Theresa May might have decided she didn’t have the numbers, decided against, and launched yet another week of Brexit chaos. It’s in the gap between meaningful and meaningless that Cold War Steve is at his savage best. Christopher Spencer created the Twitter account McFadden’s Cold War in March 2016, before the June referendum.
Free tuition fees benefit society as a whole, not just students
We should invest in education because it improves society The continued deadlock over Brexit brings with it the possibility of a snap General Election. Amidst the endless discussion and political paralysis over Brexit, the parties are quietly sound-boarding potential manifesto pledges. One potential Tory policy in a snap election appears to be a reduction in university fees. Theresa May’s review of university funding seems likely to recommend a cut in fees from a £9,000 maximum to £7,500.
Curtain raised on hidden homeless
When Chris was placed in a private guesthouse after being kicked out by his partner, he was taken aback by the Dickensian squalor. “It was a shock,” he recalls. “The stench was overpowering – it was a mixture of everything: alcohol, body odour, fag ash, vomit. My room was so tiny that I could touch both walls at once. My door wouldn’t lock and was hanging on one hinge. “The walls were black with muck and had blood splattered across them, and the sink and fridge were filthy.
The Magid touch
One of Sheffield lord mayor Magid Magid’s 10 commandments is “Do epic sh*t” – his asterisk. He practises what he preaches. Since his inauguration photo went viral in May – Magid looked more rap star than mayoral, crouching atop a column in the town hall wearing his 18-carat gold chain – he’s become a worldwide celebrity. “How can I not use my position to speak out?
Farmers aim to win public over
Farmers hailing from Lancashire, Cumbria and Cheshire are among those honoured at the prestigious British Farming Awards. The awards have been made at an uncertain time for British farming, following a hot summer that threatened crops and ahead of Brexit and changes to the Common Agricultural Policy. Tom and Karen Halton, from Chance Hall Farm near Congleton in Cheshire, won a silver award for dairy innovator of the year.
Off the rails
Chris Hill has learned a few things while running a business in a railway arch. “Over the decade we’ve been here, I’ve realised having a make do and mend approach makes more sense than pestering the landlord, Network Rail,” he says. Guardians of the Arches hopes the new landlord will fulfil promises to put tenants first “Around 60 trains a day travel over this arch. Rain falls on the track above and, as a result, we have water coming in through every brick.
Music Q&A: The Snuts
How do you feel to be playing on the bill at this year’s Neighbourhood Festival? Yeah, class. Always feel really welcome in the north so looking forward to putting on a show. What informs your music and songwriting? Informs? Most of our music derives from straight-up, honest, indie rock ‘n’ roll – heart on your sleeve material while maintaining our best in the game attitude. How have you evolved as a band over the years? It’s insane, the progress we’ve made.
Why don’t we just... adopt the same housing laws as Scotland
Last month, the government published its Rough Sleeper Strategy. Aside from redirecting money towards services for rough sleepers, the strategy promises a review of the legislation that regulates homelessness. However, just north of the border, Scotland has been bringing in changes to homelessness legislation since 2002. According to Shelter, Scotland has the “best homelessness laws in Europe”. There are stark differences between the legislation in Scotland and England.
We’re within a cat’s whisker of a second EU referendum, suspects Roger Ratcliffe
This week Big Issue North has a world exclusive. There will be another referendum to determine the final Brexit outcome. Larry the Downing Street cat already knows this is going to happen, even if his pet prime minister Theresa May – whom he rescued from the Westminster Dogs and Cats Home – is still blissfully ignorant. Also in the second-referendum loop is Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat who lives across the street and is Larry’s bitter adversary.
To tackle rough sleeping, we need to combat the root causes
Photo by Maureen Barlin (Flickr) Yet again, the government has seen fit to ‘tackle homelessness’ without addressing the root causes, or committing any more funding to combat the effects of austerity. This tactic is nothing new. As Karl Marx observed, from the 1500s, the state began regulating begging and destitution as the development of a capitalist economy resulted in people becoming impoverished.
Why don’t we just… have more empathy for migrants?
The Brexit debate was littered with bland and ill-thought out statements regarding people who migrate. The whole debate was two-dimensional. There were those who criticised self-serving migrants for stealing jobs and placing pressure on services. More positive narratives praised migrants as “net contributors to the economy”, reducing them down to instruments in their economic calculations.
State of flux
There is always a grim anniversary with which to recall the darkest hours of the Troubles. Next month it will be the turn of the small town of Enniskillen to remember. That was where in 1997 the IRA bombed a Remembrance Day parade, leaving 11 dead and 63 injured.
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