SOCIAL EQUALITY, NOT SOCIAL MOBILITY

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Boris Johnson, british politics, class, conservative, conservative party, conservatives, education, equality, EU, EU ref, eu ref results, EU referendum, european union, further education, grammar schools, Labour, labour party, Lib Dems, Liberal Democrats, middle class, olympics, school, social equality, social mobility, Tory, uk politics, working class.

by Olivia Hanks

Theresa May’s indication earlier this month that she will reintroduce selective schooling has reignited the debate on ‘social mobility’. Tory backbenchers believe the secondary modern system (or the grammar school system, as they insist on calling it) was good for social mobility, but various reports support the opposite view, that selective schooling entrenches inequality. Of the tiny percentage of children from working class backgrounds who attended the old grammar schools, two-thirds did not manage to achieve three O-levels.Continue Reading

DEALING WITH BREXIT DEPRESSION

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged alternative news, behaviour, Brexit, culture, depression, eu exit, eu ref results, EU referendum, Europe, european union, keep calm and carry on, language, learning, media, mentality, opinion, passport, reading.

by Kelvin Smith

Content warning: mentions depression

A sign of depression, I was once told, is that you do things that you know are against your own best interests. By this measure, the ‘leave’ vote on 23rd June was an example of a depressed populace voting ‘leave’ not because they thought things might be better, but because a majority didn’t care if they actually got worse. Now for the first time, we really are all be ‘in it together’ — in the shit that is: happy as pigs.Continue Reading

WHAT IS DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. WE ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF OUR FUTURE.

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged austerity, ballot box, Brexit, capitalism, climate change, creative writing, cuts, daesh, democracy, devolution, eu ref results, EU referendum, Europe, european union, eurozone, expression, financial collapse, future, Greece, human history, immigration, Iraq War, left, left leave, Lexit, Merkel, NHS, Northern Ireland, opinion, pluralism, politics, progressive parties, prose, response, riots, Scotland, snp, solidarity, strength, terrorism, test, tuition fees, Unite, unity, voting, xenophobia.

by Natasha Senior

I keep replaying the same slide show, projecting it on the back of my mind. I see the temperature rising, 9/11, the Iraq war, financial collapse. I enter the ballot box for the first time, eager for change. The coalition forms. Mass extinctions. The SNP wins a majority. Tuition fees triple. The Arab Spring. House prices rise. Riots. The Olympics. Food banks. Austerity. Austerity. Austerity. Benefits slashed. The NHS in turmoil. The Eurozone crisis. Scotland votes for unity. Greece votes for change. They are hung, drawn, quartered. We reach the 1°C threshold. The ballot box takes away a piece of me every single time. The far left brings hope but the far right brings hate. They spread their infectious disease. Storms, droughts, forest fires. Everything I fear begins to materialise in front of my eyes. Refugees fleeing the wars we started but we just condemn them to their fates. Floods everywhere. Terrorism. Xenophobia. Half-truths and outright lies. A vote for fear, a vote for suspicion, a vote for fascism.

The weather joins us in this violence as we drive another dagger into the heart of the world. I tell myself lies to ease the pain, looking for ways to return to the past. Hindsight is 20/20 but we never learn from our mistakes. Hatred and fear, symptoms of this deeply tortured nation. I want to leave this place, I want to end the nightmare, but there is no place on Earth that isn’t infected. I collapse into the carnage. I am in free fall. At the mercy of the past. It’s over.

But it is not over. I will not let it be over.Continue Reading

THE GENERATION GAME

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged baby boomers, ballot box, blame, Brexit, Britain, divide and rule, EU, EU ref, eu ref results, EU referendum, european referendum, fear, Free Education, generation, inequality, media, NHS, older generation, pensioners, pensions, privitisation, referendum result, Remain, tuition fees, twitter, vote, voting, young people, younger generation.

by Kelvin Smith

The older people I know are not rejoicing about the result of the referendum. They are sad, angry, shocked. They are doing what they can: signing petitions, writing to their MPs, looking for rays of hope in (to borrow and reclaim the phrase purloined by the current xenophobic tendency) a country they do not recognise. An additional hurt comes from a feeling that, on top of this, they are being demonised; portrayed as self-satisfied and uncaring as they bask in their privilege of free education, secure pension rights, a place to live and a little money in the bank. The word ‘baby-boomer’ has become a term of abuse. ‘Pensioner’ has become code for selfish old bastard.

The principle of the secret ballot means that the British voting system cannot provide definitive information about the demographics of the ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ votes, but this has not stopped the press from putting forward as fact the idea that older voters were the reason for a ‘leave’ majority. I have not seen any statistics that explain this except for a reliance on polls that we all now know are unreliable. But then this has been a referendum based on lies so there’s no reason to think this should be any different.Continue Reading

HANG ON

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged art, Brexit, cathart, design, EU ref, eu ref results, female artists, Green, hope, image, ink, ink work, knots, leaf, leaves, natural art, nature, original art, personal, response, rock, sketch, solidarity, together, trees, twist, women artists.

by Cadi Cliff

BREXIT — THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES STARTS NOW

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Brexit, british politics, campaign, conservatives, environment, EU, eu citizen, EU ref, eu ref results, EU referendum, european commission on human rights, european union, fight, grassroot, greens, human rights, immigration, Labour, Leave.EU, left exit, Lexit, migration, Plaid, points based system, refugees, snp, trade, TTIP, UKIP, vote, Vote Leave.

by Josh Wilson

For all those who voted and campaigned to leave the European Union I would like say congratulations, we may have had a difference of opinion but that shouldn’t leave any animosity between us. For all of those that voted and campaigned to remain within the EU, like myself, it is okay to cry. It is okay to feel upset, angry and disappointed. It is not easy to let go of something you believed in so passionately. The future is scary; it is uncertain what direction the country will now head in, whether we will enter into another period of recession and who our next Prime Minister will be now David Cameron has said he will resign. But this is exactly why we must come to terms with the fact that Brexit is going to happen, and the fight has only just begun.

The referendum was largely fought between different sides of the right-wing of British politics, but the opportunity now lies with the Left. I truly believe everyone on the Left, whatever your party affiliation and which ever way you voted must unite and galvanise around a campaign for a progressive exit from the EU. This view was recently aired by Paul Mason in the Guardian, although in fear of being a hipster, I thought of this before it was ‘cool’ (You can read Paul’s more eloquent article here). In this article I want to cover another angle and lay out some of the biggest battles that are going to be thrown our way in the very near future.Continue Reading

eu ref results

DEALING WITH BREXIT DEPRESSION

WHAT IS DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. WE ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF OUR FUTURE.

THE GENERATION GAME

HANG ON

BREXIT — THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES STARTS NOW

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