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Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, 19 May 2017
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...but you'll be better served visiting our main website, here, for monthly issues hosting citizen journalism covering Manchester's independent culture.
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Friday, 25 July 2014
NOW THEN | ISSUE 11 | A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER
We have all sorts of news to share along with this issue, our 11th. The final few drops of our ale collaboration with Marble Brewery are out and about (try the Marble Arch) after an incredibly successful run. Here's the photo blog of our brewing day again.
Here are our supporters for this issue (in page order). Be independent, buy independent.
MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.Manchester Academy.
MARBLE & NOW THEN ALE.Marble Beers.
CHORLTON DRINKING.Electrik / Volta.MONO Chorlton.Strange Brew.
FOOD AND DRINK.Proof Chorlton.Morley Cheek's.International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
HEALTHY LIVING.The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen.Manchester Acupuncture Clinic.Chin & Tonic.
ARTS & DESIGN.East Street Arts.Opus Distro.Hazel Bee.Chorlton Art Market.
GOING OUT IN MCR.Museum of Science and Industry.Hot Damn @ Liars Club.
SUMMER FESTIVALS.Cloudspotting Festival 2014.Ramsbottom Festival (sponsored by Outstanding Beers.).
MUSIC AND THEATRE PERFORMANCE.Brighter Sound.Band On The Wall.Into The Road @ 3MT.
TWENTY TWENTY TWO.Brand new ping pong room now open.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
NOW THEN | ISSUE 10 | A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER
Here are our supporters for this issue (in page order). Be independent, buy independent.
MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.Manchester Academy.
CHORLTON FOOD AND DRINK.Proof Chorlton.Morley Cheek's.
INDEPENDENT COFFEE.The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.International Anthony Burgess Foundation.Passion Fruit Coffee.MONO Chorlton.
INDEPENDENT ALE.Outstanding Beers.Marble Beers.Electrik / Volta.Abbeydale Brewery.
CREATIVE MINDS.Kagyu Ling Buddhist Centre.East Street Arts.Manchester Craft & Design Centre: Tactile Illusions vs Sonic Delusions.
EVENTS AND DESIGN.Opus Distro.Mogul.MONO Chorlton.Party For The People.
FESTIVALS.Cloudspotting Festival 2014.Sheffield Doc/Fest.
LIVE MUSIC.Glasswerk Concerts.Band On The Wall.
PERFORM AND SUPPORT MUSIC.Brighter Sound.MoodWarp Studio.
STUDY DESIGN IN MANCHESTER.Shillington College.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Personal or Political: Hip Hop Lyrics in Manchester
It could be true to say that all lyrics will fall on either the personal or the political side of the fence. Popular interpretations of the personal often grow around strong emotions; love, hate, friends, enemies, ambitions, memories; introspection generally. Whereas the political song challenges the world around us, from immediate society to global issues; interpersonal, if you like. After all, it is a distinction found throughout society and life, so to find it in music can only make sense.
The two styles are evident within a pair of Manchester’s more prominent hip hop groups, Broke’n’English and The Natural Curriculum (TNC).
The former opt for a personal touch, reminiscing fondly or with tongue placed firmly in cheek about Life on the Costa Del Salford. Either way, they’re inclined towards experience, like rapping raconteurs dramatising their own lives. This interpretation of their music writing style is encapsulated in the line “I’m doing this for my family and the rest is just bonus,” bringing to a close ‘Kill Em’ from Broke'n'English MC Strategy's Pre-Season Training digital album.
Compare this with TNC who, on paper, on video and on record, are the more socially aware. Certainly through the Dayse & Aver splinter group, backed by DJ Omas, they point out dystopian aspects of society and rasp viciously about the double standards of the status quo. They enter dialogue with the world’s uncomfortable truths ringing in their ears from sci-fi films and Moondog epigrams (“Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time, but now that it’s the opposite it’s twice upon a time”), bringing a barrage of metaphor (“You live your life like a white rat behind glass / Trapped by the dread of what could happen if you bite back”) and messages for us all.
Conversely, it is Broke’n’English who rise to the occasion of performing to and with a crowd. Their shows are more of a spectacle, sharing inward looking lyrics with the utmost external confidence. Their audiences are encouraged to participate by choosing words or topics for them to freestyle around, which adds a jocular entertainment that Dayse & Aver avoid.
The latter tackle the grim with gusto and the real with relish, enshrouding the listener in a darkness of supposed sci-fi just beyond the looking glass; the sort found in A Clockwork Orange or Nineteen Eighty Four that sits a little too close to home, while staying arm’s-length enough to leave many readers thankful for small mercies and oblivious to the puppet strings. It doesn’t lend Dayse & Aver's music to an uptempo outlook.
There’s no doubting that Broke’n’English have more renown both in Manchester and beyond but you’ve seen Dayse & Aver as well, I guarantee it. It’s hard to miss them when walking around Manchester; past the city’s streetlamps, bars, venues, signposts. Their paraphernalia is peering back at you in mugshot poses, waiting for you to take note. And take note you will.
The recently released video for one of Dayse & Aver’s debut EP’s standouts ‘No Exit’ brings the images to life, with Dayse donning his trademark ski goggles in untypically apt, snowy terrain. While other members of the TNC collective have their own distinct styles, it is the political voices currently shouting the loudest. And those voices, of Dayse & Aver, are there to proclaim more than entertain, so the contrast with Broke’n’English continues. By comparison they’re static, stoic and standoffish, visibly waging verbal wars by facing each another with words fired back and forth, but letting lyrics rather than gimmicks do the work.
This isn’t to say their performances are motionless. Past gig costumes have included CCTV camera heads leering at them – a nod to the video for ‘Human Zoo’ – and a string of future shows will fill stages with instruments as part of a live collaboration with former members of The Mind On Fire Band, beginning with Antwerp Mansion on Thursday 22nd March. It is just a case of what they say more than what they do being the cause for movement, which is an apt contrast with Broke'n'English given the lyrical dichotomy.
Words: Ian Pennington
Dayse & Aver album art from Dayse & Aver EP
Strategy album art from Pre-Season Training
Photos #1 & #2: Ged Camera
Photo #3: Gary Brown (GB Multimedia)
Flyer design: Hattie Lockwood
Dayse & Aver headline Antwerp Mansion on Thursday 22nd March. Support comes from Mothership Connection and Krankit.
The two styles are evident within a pair of Manchester’s more prominent hip hop groups, Broke’n’English and The Natural Curriculum (TNC).The former opt for a personal touch, reminiscing fondly or with tongue placed firmly in cheek about Life on the Costa Del Salford. Either way, they’re inclined towards experience, like rapping raconteurs dramatising their own lives. This interpretation of their music writing style is encapsulated in the line “I’m doing this for my family and the rest is just bonus,” bringing to a close ‘Kill Em’ from Broke'n'English MC Strategy's Pre-Season Training digital album.
Compare this with TNC who, on paper, on video and on record, are the more socially aware. Certainly through the Dayse & Aver splinter group, backed by DJ Omas, they point out dystopian aspects of society and rasp viciously about the double standards of the status quo. They enter dialogue with the world’s uncomfortable truths ringing in their ears from sci-fi films and Moondog epigrams (“Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time, but now that it’s the opposite it’s twice upon a time”), bringing a barrage of metaphor (“You live your life like a white rat behind glass / Trapped by the dread of what could happen if you bite back”) and messages for us all.Conversely, it is Broke’n’English who rise to the occasion of performing to and with a crowd. Their shows are more of a spectacle, sharing inward looking lyrics with the utmost external confidence. Their audiences are encouraged to participate by choosing words or topics for them to freestyle around, which adds a jocular entertainment that Dayse & Aver avoid.
The latter tackle the grim with gusto and the real with relish, enshrouding the listener in a darkness of supposed sci-fi just beyond the looking glass; the sort found in A Clockwork Orange or Nineteen Eighty Four that sits a little too close to home, while staying arm’s-length enough to leave many readers thankful for small mercies and oblivious to the puppet strings. It doesn’t lend Dayse & Aver's music to an uptempo outlook.
There’s no doubting that Broke’n’English have more renown both in Manchester and beyond but you’ve seen Dayse & Aver as well, I guarantee it. It’s hard to miss them when walking around Manchester; past the city’s streetlamps, bars, venues, signposts. Their paraphernalia is peering back at you in mugshot poses, waiting for you to take note. And take note you will.The recently released video for one of Dayse & Aver’s debut EP’s standouts ‘No Exit’ brings the images to life, with Dayse donning his trademark ski goggles in untypically apt, snowy terrain. While other members of the TNC collective have their own distinct styles, it is the political voices currently shouting the loudest. And those voices, of Dayse & Aver, are there to proclaim more than entertain, so the contrast with Broke’n’English continues. By comparison they’re static, stoic and standoffish, visibly waging verbal wars by facing each another with words fired back and forth, but letting lyrics rather than gimmicks do the work.
This isn’t to say their performances are motionless. Past gig costumes have included CCTV camera heads leering at them – a nod to the video for ‘Human Zoo’ – and a string of future shows will fill stages with instruments as part of a live collaboration with former members of The Mind On Fire Band, beginning with Antwerp Mansion on Thursday 22nd March. It is just a case of what they say more than what they do being the cause for movement, which is an apt contrast with Broke'n'English given the lyrical dichotomy.
Words: Ian PenningtonDayse & Aver album art from Dayse & Aver EP
Strategy album art from Pre-Season Training
Photos #1 & #2: Ged Camera
Photo #3: Gary Brown (GB Multimedia)
Flyer design: Hattie Lockwood
Dayse & Aver headline Antwerp Mansion on Thursday 22nd March. Support comes from Mothership Connection and Krankit.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
NHS: Competition and Privatisation
Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill has been attacked on many grounds. I’ll summarise these objections before adding my own.
Neither the Conservative Party nor the Liberal Democrat Party mentioned wholesale reforms of the NHS in their manifestos. David Cameron expressly promised there would be no top-down reorganisations. Questions regarding the influence of donations to Andrew Lansley’s political office by private healthcare providers remain unanswered. In January 2010, The Daily Telegraph revealed John Nash, chairman of Care UK, donated £21,000 to Lansley’s private office.
GPs currently receive no training in the commissioning of services and have no expertise in the management of large budgets. The administration of these large sums of money by the same people who provide care will create conflicts of interest and affect the trust that patients place in their doctors. The provision of services by ‘any willing provider’ will lead to fragmentation of services, which will make the co-ordination of care more difficult. Currently, the management of patients with complex medical conditions – e.g. children with multiple related but separate diagnoses, such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, learning disability or psychiatric illness – require the GPs and specialists to collaborate to provide a delicate, customised, evolving package of care. If the service providers are seeking to compete with one another, the smooth provision of such a package will become more challenging. Similarly, junior doctors require exposure to many environments and specialties during their training. This will become increasingly haphazard.
The bill will lead to duplication of services, rather than the streamlining that one would associate with economic efficiency. The evidence that competition within healthcare improves efficiency is sparse and mixed. The duty of care of the secretary of state to provide or secure health services will be removed.
I wish to add one more reason to oppose the bill; it will make the NHS less beautiful.
Yesterday, I stood at a urinal in an airport in another country. In front of me, there was an advertisement for earplugs. Below the name of the brand and a picture of what one was being led to assume was a satisfied user, it read, ‘Ask for them by name and beware of imitators.’ In other words, buy our earplugs, not our competitors’. We won’t deign to explicitly say that ours are better, but we will imply as much by describing our rivals as ‘imitators’.
Of course, that’s all they can do, because they are just earplugs. How much better can one brand be than any other? But in order to ‘compete,’ they must cast aspersions. They must secure the custom and loyalty of the public. In order to do this, they do not need to provide a better product. They just need to convince the public that they are providing a better product by devoting time and money to doing so.
Is this what we want in healthcare? Apart from the vulgarity of describing health services as products, is the way to deliver the best, safest and most efficient care by opening it up to a system in which each provider will have to budget for advertising as much as they do for the actual care they provide? I not only contest the evidence that this will lead to greater efficiency or better health, but I also object on aesthetic grounds.
The tone of the earplugs advertisement was bullying. It was meanspirited. It aimed to hector me and to denigrate its competitors. It was ugly. But it was a necessary component of the market. And the principles of the earplug market will apply to the healthcare market as well. Providers will vie to convince those who commission services that their product is better, but the cheapest way to do this will not always be to actually provide a better, safer service. Mr Lansley’s hopes that forcing competition on the NHS will also force increased efficiency are misguided. They may lead to increased efficiency in some cases. In others, they will lead to cost-shaving, corner-cutting and the expert concealment of this by companies whose key purpose is to turn a profit.
We have already seen evidence of this in other public services that have been privatised. Within the UK, the railways have become a running joke, and utilities prices are a source of continuing worry for normal people. 15 million British citizens are currently facing fuel poverty. In Australia in April, the outsourcing giant G4S pled guilty to failing to ensure the health and safety of a person in police custody being transferred from one facility to another in one of its private security vans. The man was cooked to death over three hours in the back of the badly maintained van with metal seats, no air conditioning and no water while the outside temperature was above 40°C.
I would like to think that I am wrong. I would like to think that in ten years time, I will look back at these opinions and see them as quaint, but to force myself to think that now would be disingenuous. I believe we are throwing away something great.
Words: Piyush Pushkar (doctormagiot)
This article first appeared in the December issue of Now Then, published and distributed in Sheffield.
Neither the Conservative Party nor the Liberal Democrat Party mentioned wholesale reforms of the NHS in their manifestos. David Cameron expressly promised there would be no top-down reorganisations. Questions regarding the influence of donations to Andrew Lansley’s political office by private healthcare providers remain unanswered. In January 2010, The Daily Telegraph revealed John Nash, chairman of Care UK, donated £21,000 to Lansley’s private office.GPs currently receive no training in the commissioning of services and have no expertise in the management of large budgets. The administration of these large sums of money by the same people who provide care will create conflicts of interest and affect the trust that patients place in their doctors. The provision of services by ‘any willing provider’ will lead to fragmentation of services, which will make the co-ordination of care more difficult. Currently, the management of patients with complex medical conditions – e.g. children with multiple related but separate diagnoses, such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, learning disability or psychiatric illness – require the GPs and specialists to collaborate to provide a delicate, customised, evolving package of care. If the service providers are seeking to compete with one another, the smooth provision of such a package will become more challenging. Similarly, junior doctors require exposure to many environments and specialties during their training. This will become increasingly haphazard.
The bill will lead to duplication of services, rather than the streamlining that one would associate with economic efficiency. The evidence that competition within healthcare improves efficiency is sparse and mixed. The duty of care of the secretary of state to provide or secure health services will be removed.
I wish to add one more reason to oppose the bill; it will make the NHS less beautiful.
Yesterday, I stood at a urinal in an airport in another country. In front of me, there was an advertisement for earplugs. Below the name of the brand and a picture of what one was being led to assume was a satisfied user, it read, ‘Ask for them by name and beware of imitators.’ In other words, buy our earplugs, not our competitors’. We won’t deign to explicitly say that ours are better, but we will imply as much by describing our rivals as ‘imitators’.
Of course, that’s all they can do, because they are just earplugs. How much better can one brand be than any other? But in order to ‘compete,’ they must cast aspersions. They must secure the custom and loyalty of the public. In order to do this, they do not need to provide a better product. They just need to convince the public that they are providing a better product by devoting time and money to doing so.
Is this what we want in healthcare? Apart from the vulgarity of describing health services as products, is the way to deliver the best, safest and most efficient care by opening it up to a system in which each provider will have to budget for advertising as much as they do for the actual care they provide? I not only contest the evidence that this will lead to greater efficiency or better health, but I also object on aesthetic grounds.The tone of the earplugs advertisement was bullying. It was meanspirited. It aimed to hector me and to denigrate its competitors. It was ugly. But it was a necessary component of the market. And the principles of the earplug market will apply to the healthcare market as well. Providers will vie to convince those who commission services that their product is better, but the cheapest way to do this will not always be to actually provide a better, safer service. Mr Lansley’s hopes that forcing competition on the NHS will also force increased efficiency are misguided. They may lead to increased efficiency in some cases. In others, they will lead to cost-shaving, corner-cutting and the expert concealment of this by companies whose key purpose is to turn a profit.
We have already seen evidence of this in other public services that have been privatised. Within the UK, the railways have become a running joke, and utilities prices are a source of continuing worry for normal people. 15 million British citizens are currently facing fuel poverty. In Australia in April, the outsourcing giant G4S pled guilty to failing to ensure the health and safety of a person in police custody being transferred from one facility to another in one of its private security vans. The man was cooked to death over three hours in the back of the badly maintained van with metal seats, no air conditioning and no water while the outside temperature was above 40°C.I would like to think that I am wrong. I would like to think that in ten years time, I will look back at these opinions and see them as quaint, but to force myself to think that now would be disingenuous. I believe we are throwing away something great.
Words: Piyush Pushkar (doctormagiot)
This article first appeared in the December issue of Now Then, published and distributed in Sheffield.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Interview: Dayse & Aver
Following the release of their debut vinyl EP and in the run up to a live show at Chorlton's Dulcimer bar for Mind On Fire and Now Then Manchester this Thursday, Dayse and Aver of The Natural Curriculum met with MOF’s Spurious Scholars to discuss their inspirations for the EP, social issues and what’s next for TNC.
MOF: The EP’s really vivid in describing a totalitarian dystopia. Could you give us a bit of insight into your inspirations?
MOF: Was it your intention to make a 'sci-fi' record or is it just something that evolved naturally?
MOF: Musically, it switches a lot, futuristic synths one minute, deep spiritual jazz the next. What’s your typical song writing / production process?
MOF: Speaking of books, you reference a lot of philosophers on the EP – particularly those who deal with ideas of the state and control. In these dark times how relevant do you think these issues are?
MOF: So in effect you’re questioning the right of the state to watch over and control us. You mention it on the EP so I’d like to hear your thoughts on Hobbes’ Leviathan...
MOF: Anyone who has been to a rave in Manchester has seen the GMP misuse of this ‘monopoly on violence’, but it extends (perhaps less visibly) to every aspect of the rest of society. To quote a wise man: “What is to Be Done”?
MOF: Indeed the idea of The Protestor as an Identity (or, even worse, as a way of relieving middle class guilt) is as much a part of the system as the police - but what about the source material, Marx and the ideals of a 'real' revolution?
MOF: And in what ways is this reflected in your lives and music?
MOF: Back to music then, it’s clear you dig deep; any tips for find the wax Holy Grail in Manchester?
MOF: The bass sounds really stuck out for me, are they all samples or is there an element of live instrumentation as well?
MOF: A lot of people know you from TNC, how different have you found working as a duo?
MOF: Hip Hop has always been about consuming different influences, but in some quarters it seems like the digestion process is getting a bit clogged up. As Flow Inspectors what’s your diagnosis… does UK Hip-hop need an enema?
MOF: And finally, which producers and MCs are doing it for you at the moment, locally and from further afield?
This interview first appeared on Mindonfire.co.uk. The Now Then Mind On Fire showcase, also featuring Danny Drive Thru, Vieka and Zoir, takes place on Thursday 11th August at Dulcimer in Chorlton. Danny Drive Thru, Dayse & Aver and Vieka will all have new vinyl records available to buy for the first time on the night.
MOF: The EP’s really vivid in describing a totalitarian dystopia. Could you give us a bit of insight into your inspirations?
Dayse: How long have you got?
Aver: Manchester & its rain…. George & Aldous... Edward & Sigmund... Curtis & Morris...
MOF: Was it your intention to make a 'sci-fi' record or is it just something that evolved naturally?
D: That really does depend on whether you put Star Trek on the same shelf as Blade Runner...
A: Sorry about him. We meant to make a record that sounded advanced and industrial in order to differentiate ourselves from the guitar pickers, the endgame of which is to spit roast a cyborg, if you get my meaning?
MOF: Musically, it switches a lot, futuristic synths one minute, deep spiritual jazz the next. What’s your typical song writing / production process?
A: I’ll make a beat from the weird noises with big drums, Dayse will write a verse or two based on some old book he just read, then blam!!! 6 months later Omas will murder the cuts and we got ourselves a B-side...
MOF: Speaking of books, you reference a lot of philosophers on the EP – particularly those who deal with ideas of the state and control. In these dark times how relevant do you think these issues are?
D: It’s relevant to us at least, because our consciousness was born into it. The whole world got paranoid after 9/11. That paranoia got real in the United Kingdom during the events that surrounded the 7/7 bombings. Both events happened at a time when our generation was beginning to sow the seeds of its own political and philosophical consciousness. So things such as the illegal murder of Jean Charles de Menezes on the Northern Line by London Metropolitan Police in 2005, for a crime that he never committed, naturally stained our outlook.
It showed a weakness in the technology and dangers of human error when using it. And there’s a substantial list of fuck-ups like this. We put the whole mass surveillance operation under scrutiny and began to rebel against it. For panopticism to work in society at large, the state can’t afford to reveal itself as it did. You have to stand back and keep people paranoid without them knowing why they feel the way they do. The state held it up for a while with their right-wing, anti-Islamist propaganda and some groups in society are still struggling to see through it today. But eventually I think we smartened up on a whole issue and the state failed. Thankfully, we never became a police state, but we nearly did. That paranoid fear turned into something else. You’re seeing the results on the news everyday now.
MOF: So in effect you’re questioning the right of the state to watch over and control us. You mention it on the EP so I’d like to hear your thoughts on Hobbes’ Leviathan...
D: Bollocks to the serpent! My take on social contract theory is simple: I didn’t sign shit! I don’t believe in absolute chaos, but if you’re going to grant the state a monopoly on physical violence, which is what law enforcement and social governance really boils down to, then it should be there in black and white. This country has no constitution so to speak, we just have a long history of conflicts and fuck-ups that we’ve never learned from, partly because they’re not included in the traditional agenda of our education system.
I also think that we should be deriving certain rights from the State of Nature. In the modern world, the right to bear arms is an extension of the human animals’ natural right to defend itself. That includes defending itself against the state. The state could justify another Peterloo by hiding behind a social contract that doesn’t exist. This is relevant until we get together as a nation and make it irrelevant.
MOF: Anyone who has been to a rave in Manchester has seen the GMP misuse of this ‘monopoly on violence’, but it extends (perhaps less visibly) to every aspect of the rest of society. To quote a wise man: “What is to Be Done”?
D: We should all buy a mocha and a blueberry muffin from Starbucks. And cherish them...
A: Honestly though, I could mash off a double-choc-frappacino with extra cream right now... Then it’s off to a march about capitalist oppression in the 3rd world.
MOF: Indeed the idea of The Protestor as an Identity (or, even worse, as a way of relieving middle class guilt) is as much a part of the system as the police - but what about the source material, Marx and the ideals of a 'real' revolution?
D: The global economy is upside down. I’m broke and looking for answers. Naive as it may be (and it definitely is, but let’s not get into a debate about the PRC or the Soviet Union or Cuba... the list goes on) where do you think I stand on this issue? Accept it or not, this is still a class society, it just lacks a clear divide.
MOF: And in what ways is this reflected in your lives and music?
D: That’s life I guess. Music is my life...
A: Very
MOF: Back to music then, it’s clear you dig deep; any tips for find the wax Holy Grail in Manchester?
A: Not a chance son. I dug so deep once I woke up in a record store in Japan!
MOF: The bass sounds really stuck out for me, are they all samples or is there an element of live instrumentation as well?
A: Brother Tom played bass for tracks 3 [Dark Matter] & 5 [Dear George].
MOF: A lot of people know you from TNC, how different have you found working as a duo?
A: Not that different.
MOF: Hip Hop has always been about consuming different influences, but in some quarters it seems like the digestion process is getting a bit clogged up. As Flow Inspectors what’s your diagnosis… does UK Hip-hop need an enema?
D: Old-timers cashing their Hip Hop pensions + Untalented senseless urban youth that can’t relate = Yes.
A: What’s an enema?
MOF: And finally, which producers and MCs are doing it for you at the moment, locally and from further afield?
A: [Old Bill] Sykes' EP is nearly finished and that is gonna be nuts. It’s mostly Chalky-p on the beats, with a few tracks by myself and Poynton’s one & only DJ Omas, so that’s something to look forward to. As for further afield Odd Future are sick, check the Earl album if you get a minute.
This interview first appeared on Mindonfire.co.uk. The Now Then Mind On Fire showcase, also featuring Danny Drive Thru, Vieka and Zoir, takes place on Thursday 11th August at Dulcimer in Chorlton. Danny Drive Thru, Dayse & Aver and Vieka will all have new vinyl records available to buy for the first time on the night.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Where next for art in Manchester?
The announcement of the fortunate few recipients of the Government’s Arts Council England (ACE) funding scheme is due by the end of March. To put it bluntly, thanks to irresponsible bank management, public money that could have been used as funding for the arts has already been distributed as bankers’ bonuses and to rub salt in the wounds we now live under the rule of a government convinced that a regressive state is the answer. As a result, even those who usually expect funding wait with bated breath. This has affected Manchester groups in differing ways; Ian Pennington spoke to representatives of Mooch N4 Street Art Gallery and Blank Media Collective, two examples of local groups with contrasting responses to the cuts.
To set the scene, a 10-year strategic framework was published under the title of Achieving great art for everyone last November and, as the result of what the Arts Council North West’s spokesperson describes as “major consultation with all those involved or interested in the arts,” Arts Council England is certain that it represents the best option for everyone, particularly given the circumstances of the recession’s playing field.
You’ll be aware of the recent cuts to public spending, I’m sure. Here’s a quick recap on how the ConDem blade fell on the arts: last October the Arts Council England (ACE) announced a 29.6% cut to their budget over the next four years, with 6.9% immediately trimmed from the majority of funds previously announced for 2011/12, and its Chief Exec Alan Davey adding that he expects the ruling to have “a significant impact on the cultural life of this country.” Then in January the inevitable scramble to the top of a thinning money tree was reported by ACE; the consequence is that “approximately 1,340 arts organisations across the country [have] submitted a request to be part of the new portfolio.”
Davey, in something of an understatement, admits via the ACE website that, “demand for funding will outstrip supply.”
Many will be left without the funding that they hope for, although it’s worth remembering that some Manchester arts organisations have been coping well enough without public funding. But that isn’t to say that public spending won’t affect currently non-funded arts projects, at least indirectly.
Certainly, by the time the cuts have filtered down through the hierarchy, smaller independent groups will be left to feed on scraps. Christina Pavlou, former curator at the recently closed Mooch N4 Street Art Gallery and now unemployed, makes the point that lack of funding for other local organisations can have a knock-on effect to those operating in related industries. “The strain can still be felt in the privately funded sector. With Mooch N4 we were completely independently funded, with the income on sales supporting the payment of staff, rent, electricity and publicity. There was a definite drop in sales when the arts cuts were announced, and as a result we did not have the income to stay open. We decided to close rather than change our independence by getting funding and having to follow what the government man says we should do.”
The final point is salient. There are benefits to remaining free from funding in that ticking boxes to adhere to application regulations doesn’t have to clog up your to-do list. However, it does make life more difficult when you’re forced to organise and promote shows under your own steam, something that Pavlou has persevered with under the HldTght moniker.
Of the Arts Council’s expressed funding goals, one seems most relevant given much of their upcoming work could potentially revolve around alternatives to funding: “Goal 3: The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative.” Reading between the lines, this aim essentially exists to encourage non-funded artistic practice and to diminish reliance upon the Arts Council to make a living in the arts.
This is a mindset that Blank Media Collective has adopted from the outset. Their DIY mentality has led to a gradual and organic growth over the past five years, culminating in a new home on Hulme Street, BLANKSPACE, which was formerly the easa HQ. Talking after their successful launch party at the new gallery space, the Blank Media Collective Director Mark Devereux insists that all is not lost following the cuts. “There are potentially both good and bad implications and time will only tell over how each organisation, gallery, artist and creative reacts and responds. As the Director of a small arts organisation I feel our role is now even more integral in making sure the platform and opportunities are given to emerging artists and nurturing the future artists for the next generation.”
However, the funding question rears its head here as well. Compared with Mooch N4, Blank Media’s attitude differs in the sense that they seek Government funding where possible, but have the foundations in place to maintain their work on a tight budget. To take the next step Devereux admits that Blank Media will require some outside monetary help, “[we are] currently working on a number of funding applications to help the future of the organisation, increasing the support we are able to give to emerging artists. We are well aware this is our next big challenge, however because of our background of implementing projects on shoe-string budgets we know we are able to continue our work even without any external funding.”
The overriding sentiment is one of stoicism; it’s not exactly business as usual when the goalposts have moved and narrowed, but there’s no point crying over a pot of government gold that has long since been spilled into the coffers of flagrantly foolhardy bankers. “If we start worrying about how the cuts will affect this, that and the other it will spurn creativity even further,” offers Devereux. “Groups should work within their means, continue to create platforms and raise the interest in the fantastic work by the artists they support. We should do what we are good at – think outside the box...”
Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Courtesy of Blank Media Collective
[An edited version of the above article appeared earlier this week on the Manchester MULE website]
To set the scene, a 10-year strategic framework was published under the title of Achieving great art for everyone last November and, as the result of what the Arts Council North West’s spokesperson describes as “major consultation with all those involved or interested in the arts,” Arts Council England is certain that it represents the best option for everyone, particularly given the circumstances of the recession’s playing field.You’ll be aware of the recent cuts to public spending, I’m sure. Here’s a quick recap on how the ConDem blade fell on the arts: last October the Arts Council England (ACE) announced a 29.6% cut to their budget over the next four years, with 6.9% immediately trimmed from the majority of funds previously announced for 2011/12, and its Chief Exec Alan Davey adding that he expects the ruling to have “a significant impact on the cultural life of this country.” Then in January the inevitable scramble to the top of a thinning money tree was reported by ACE; the consequence is that “approximately 1,340 arts organisations across the country [have] submitted a request to be part of the new portfolio.”
Davey, in something of an understatement, admits via the ACE website that, “demand for funding will outstrip supply.”
Many will be left without the funding that they hope for, although it’s worth remembering that some Manchester arts organisations have been coping well enough without public funding. But that isn’t to say that public spending won’t affect currently non-funded arts projects, at least indirectly.
Certainly, by the time the cuts have filtered down through the hierarchy, smaller independent groups will be left to feed on scraps. Christina Pavlou, former curator at the recently closed Mooch N4 Street Art Gallery and now unemployed, makes the point that lack of funding for other local organisations can have a knock-on effect to those operating in related industries. “The strain can still be felt in the privately funded sector. With Mooch N4 we were completely independently funded, with the income on sales supporting the payment of staff, rent, electricity and publicity. There was a definite drop in sales when the arts cuts were announced, and as a result we did not have the income to stay open. We decided to close rather than change our independence by getting funding and having to follow what the government man says we should do.”
The final point is salient. There are benefits to remaining free from funding in that ticking boxes to adhere to application regulations doesn’t have to clog up your to-do list. However, it does make life more difficult when you’re forced to organise and promote shows under your own steam, something that Pavlou has persevered with under the HldTght moniker.
Of the Arts Council’s expressed funding goals, one seems most relevant given much of their upcoming work could potentially revolve around alternatives to funding: “Goal 3: The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative.” Reading between the lines, this aim essentially exists to encourage non-funded artistic practice and to diminish reliance upon the Arts Council to make a living in the arts.This is a mindset that Blank Media Collective has adopted from the outset. Their DIY mentality has led to a gradual and organic growth over the past five years, culminating in a new home on Hulme Street, BLANKSPACE, which was formerly the easa HQ. Talking after their successful launch party at the new gallery space, the Blank Media Collective Director Mark Devereux insists that all is not lost following the cuts. “There are potentially both good and bad implications and time will only tell over how each organisation, gallery, artist and creative reacts and responds. As the Director of a small arts organisation I feel our role is now even more integral in making sure the platform and opportunities are given to emerging artists and nurturing the future artists for the next generation.”
However, the funding question rears its head here as well. Compared with Mooch N4, Blank Media’s attitude differs in the sense that they seek Government funding where possible, but have the foundations in place to maintain their work on a tight budget. To take the next step Devereux admits that Blank Media will require some outside monetary help, “[we are] currently working on a number of funding applications to help the future of the organisation, increasing the support we are able to give to emerging artists. We are well aware this is our next big challenge, however because of our background of implementing projects on shoe-string budgets we know we are able to continue our work even without any external funding.”
The overriding sentiment is one of stoicism; it’s not exactly business as usual when the goalposts have moved and narrowed, but there’s no point crying over a pot of government gold that has long since been spilled into the coffers of flagrantly foolhardy bankers. “If we start worrying about how the cuts will affect this, that and the other it will spurn creativity even further,” offers Devereux. “Groups should work within their means, continue to create platforms and raise the interest in the fantastic work by the artists they support. We should do what we are good at – think outside the box...”
Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Courtesy of Blank Media Collective
[An edited version of the above article appeared earlier this week on the Manchester MULE website]
Friday, 31 December 2010
Capital, Workers & Democracy
"We’re All In It Together…"
How often have we heard this phrase, presented as a statement of fact by political leaders? It seems to have become the ‘must have’ phrase, to be repeated ad nauseam every time some new round of ‘austerity’ is to be inflicted on the majority of citizens. Certainly it’s the phrase of the moment for the likes David Cameron and George Osbourne.
But are we?
We all know how badly most people have been affected – and are about to be affected – by the largest global financial ‘crash’ since the Great Depression following 1929. Unemployment, falling wages, reduced benefits and welfare across the board – with much more on the way.
But what about the rich? How are they doing, and what are their prospects? Don’t know about you but I’ve found that any facts and figures for this minority, who hold the vast majority of society’s wealth, seem to be so far under the Politics and Media radar as to be deeply subterranean.
However, Daniel Raventos of US Political Newsletter ‘Counterpunch’ has come to the rescue. He cites a report by Merrill Lynch, a bank owned by Bank of America, whose target clients are the 9 million or so persons, worldwide, who are either rich (HNWI – High Net Worth Individuals with assets of $1M+) or super rich (‘Ultra’ HNWI - assets of $30M +) [‘Assets’ here exclude primary residence, ‘consumer durables’ or ‘collectibles’]. So, that would include, oh, David Cameron, certainly Tony Blair with his reported £20m ‘consultancy’ for JP Morgan (bank), most, if not all, political leaders and a great many politicians anywhere in Europe or the US. Probably a lot of the senior TV media ‘journalists’ and presenters too.
So how are they all doing in our ‘we’re all in it together’ financial crisis?
Yep, you guessed it! Not badly at all. Aside from a sharp, temporary, dip when global shares fell at the onset of the crisis in 2008, their aggregate wealth is back pretty close to where it was before the crash – back up to $39 Trillion by 2009. Sure, they lost a couple of years of ‘growth’, but not to worry, things are looking good. Merrill Lynch are confident in their projections for the next 3 or 4 years that they can help them along to an average 5% year on year growth in ‘net worth’. That’s ‘net worth’ of course after, you know, life’s mundane essential consumables and consumer durables have been deducted – restaurant bills, a few designer rags to knock about in, the his‘n’hers Ferraris, toilet paper, that kind of thing.
So maybe we’re not all in it together then? If you’re wondering why, read on…
Surely it's time we looked at the fundamental driving forces deep underneath all the propaganda and BS? Simply put, there are two utterly opposing interests at work. On the one hand, Owners of Capital, who primarily live off renting (or investing) money or other assets and the Workers whose primary income is derived solely from their Labour.
Yes, it really is that basic. The fewer Workers can be paid for their Labour, the more wealth the Capital Owners gain and vice versa.
But here's the rub with Democracy. Intrinsically the Workers are in the majority – always. So a democratic system that actually represents their interests is fundamentally at odds with the interests of Capital Owners whose main desire is to own ever-increasing, limitless Capital. Which is without a shadow of a doubt where the evidence leads. How many Owners of Capital have we heard say that they have 'enough'? Virtually none. Over the last few decades the wealth of the rich has risen dramatically whilst the wealth of Workers has stagnated or decreased, with real costs in health and peoples' lives, to say nothing of unrealised potential. And the divide is increasing.
Of course, both sides need each other. Entrepreneurial drive is very often a good thing and works to the benefit of all. Crucially, such worth to all is the very thing that ultimately guarantees the consent of Workers for Owners of Capital to operate and even be highly rewarded. But if the system of democracy worked properly, the welfare of the majority would place limits on the accumulation of wealth. It clearly doesn't. The 'banking' system has been shown to be a casino, run by Owners of Capital, where they retain the profits but vast losses must be paid off by Workers nearly exclusively.
Most of us recognise the need for both 'sides'. This is entirely consistent with what, in a single phrase, might best describe the route for all of us to our maximum fulfilment and happiness – “...to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities...”
Furthermore, most us know what psychological and sociological studies have confirmed. ‘Needs’ are different from 'wants'. Needs make us happy, wants really don't. And the freedom and opportunity to pursue our abilities is also vitally important.
Some of us need to live life on a ‘bigger stage’, some don't, and all can be equally rewarding. What we need is society that reflects this truth whilst ensuring equality of opportunity.
So a balance must be struck between Capital Owners and Workers. In a democracy, this is the job of Politics and equally importantly those who should enable us to be accurately and fully informed, primarily the Print and TV Media, but also Science and Academic research. It should be obvious that these institutions need to be as independent as possible from both competing primary driving forces. But by our own foolish consent, corruption, both legal and illegal is endemic in Politics and Media and, partially so, but increasingly, in Academia.
Demonstrably, Capital Owners have become so wealthy and powerful that both Politics and Media are effectively owned by them. Greed is something that can and does infect us all and it is certainly at the core of the most powerful Capital Owners we have today. The speed with which humanity is degrading the very planet and ecology that gives us life is the absolute evidence of this. The best, untainted and overwhelming evidence we have from Science is that the wipe-out of 95% of all species, including our own, is a serious possibility that may become irreversible within less than a few decades; a result of climate change. And that is far from the only resource or pollution catastrophe that awaits us imminently.
The only way out of the impending demise is for the key institutions of democracy to be removed from the hands of the Owners of Capital. By definition, those representing the majority (Workers) cannot also be members of the minority (Owners) club. This does NOT need to be, nor should be, state, beaurocratic control or ownership of everything, but simply a system where 'rules' – rule of law – applies fairly to all. We are told no such system can exist. Don't believe it. A system that removes corruption by State, Private or other 'concentrated' interests is perfectly possible. It is absurd to believe otherwise of a species that has developed such immensely more complex systems in science and technology. We simply need to devise appropriate employment rules and terms in the same way we have for other 'special' categories of employment, such as police or military.
Remember, none of the basic welfare provisions that have been won (and are now being rapidly eroded) have ever been voluntarily 'gifted' by the Owners of Capital (now owners of Politics and Media) – nor can we expect them to be. Since the Owners now own Politics and Media virtually entirely, any attempt to work within the present system is no more than rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The system must change.
To the younger generation of Workers (or the unemployed or underemployed): good luck – you'll need it. Sad as it is to have seen the mere fledgling attempts at democracy so badly undermined, your lives, either way, will be nothing like mine.
Words: Mike Hall
Images: Tabz O'Brien-Butcher
How often have we heard this phrase, presented as a statement of fact by political leaders? It seems to have become the ‘must have’ phrase, to be repeated ad nauseam every time some new round of ‘austerity’ is to be inflicted on the majority of citizens. Certainly it’s the phrase of the moment for the likes David Cameron and George Osbourne.
But are we?
We all know how badly most people have been affected – and are about to be affected – by the largest global financial ‘crash’ since the Great Depression following 1929. Unemployment, falling wages, reduced benefits and welfare across the board – with much more on the way.
But what about the rich? How are they doing, and what are their prospects? Don’t know about you but I’ve found that any facts and figures for this minority, who hold the vast majority of society’s wealth, seem to be so far under the Politics and Media radar as to be deeply subterranean.
However, Daniel Raventos of US Political Newsletter ‘Counterpunch’ has come to the rescue. He cites a report by Merrill Lynch, a bank owned by Bank of America, whose target clients are the 9 million or so persons, worldwide, who are either rich (HNWI – High Net Worth Individuals with assets of $1M+) or super rich (‘Ultra’ HNWI - assets of $30M +) [‘Assets’ here exclude primary residence, ‘consumer durables’ or ‘collectibles’]. So, that would include, oh, David Cameron, certainly Tony Blair with his reported £20m ‘consultancy’ for JP Morgan (bank), most, if not all, political leaders and a great many politicians anywhere in Europe or the US. Probably a lot of the senior TV media ‘journalists’ and presenters too.
So how are they all doing in our ‘we’re all in it together’ financial crisis?
Yep, you guessed it! Not badly at all. Aside from a sharp, temporary, dip when global shares fell at the onset of the crisis in 2008, their aggregate wealth is back pretty close to where it was before the crash – back up to $39 Trillion by 2009. Sure, they lost a couple of years of ‘growth’, but not to worry, things are looking good. Merrill Lynch are confident in their projections for the next 3 or 4 years that they can help them along to an average 5% year on year growth in ‘net worth’. That’s ‘net worth’ of course after, you know, life’s mundane essential consumables and consumer durables have been deducted – restaurant bills, a few designer rags to knock about in, the his‘n’hers Ferraris, toilet paper, that kind of thing.
So maybe we’re not all in it together then? If you’re wondering why, read on…
Surely it's time we looked at the fundamental driving forces deep underneath all the propaganda and BS? Simply put, there are two utterly opposing interests at work. On the one hand, Owners of Capital, who primarily live off renting (or investing) money or other assets and the Workers whose primary income is derived solely from their Labour.
Yes, it really is that basic. The fewer Workers can be paid for their Labour, the more wealth the Capital Owners gain and vice versa.
But here's the rub with Democracy. Intrinsically the Workers are in the majority – always. So a democratic system that actually represents their interests is fundamentally at odds with the interests of Capital Owners whose main desire is to own ever-increasing, limitless Capital. Which is without a shadow of a doubt where the evidence leads. How many Owners of Capital have we heard say that they have 'enough'? Virtually none. Over the last few decades the wealth of the rich has risen dramatically whilst the wealth of Workers has stagnated or decreased, with real costs in health and peoples' lives, to say nothing of unrealised potential. And the divide is increasing.
Of course, both sides need each other. Entrepreneurial drive is very often a good thing and works to the benefit of all. Crucially, such worth to all is the very thing that ultimately guarantees the consent of Workers for Owners of Capital to operate and even be highly rewarded. But if the system of democracy worked properly, the welfare of the majority would place limits on the accumulation of wealth. It clearly doesn't. The 'banking' system has been shown to be a casino, run by Owners of Capital, where they retain the profits but vast losses must be paid off by Workers nearly exclusively.
Most of us recognise the need for both 'sides'. This is entirely consistent with what, in a single phrase, might best describe the route for all of us to our maximum fulfilment and happiness – “...to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities...”
Furthermore, most us know what psychological and sociological studies have confirmed. ‘Needs’ are different from 'wants'. Needs make us happy, wants really don't. And the freedom and opportunity to pursue our abilities is also vitally important.
Some of us need to live life on a ‘bigger stage’, some don't, and all can be equally rewarding. What we need is society that reflects this truth whilst ensuring equality of opportunity.
So a balance must be struck between Capital Owners and Workers. In a democracy, this is the job of Politics and equally importantly those who should enable us to be accurately and fully informed, primarily the Print and TV Media, but also Science and Academic research. It should be obvious that these institutions need to be as independent as possible from both competing primary driving forces. But by our own foolish consent, corruption, both legal and illegal is endemic in Politics and Media and, partially so, but increasingly, in Academia.
Demonstrably, Capital Owners have become so wealthy and powerful that both Politics and Media are effectively owned by them. Greed is something that can and does infect us all and it is certainly at the core of the most powerful Capital Owners we have today. The speed with which humanity is degrading the very planet and ecology that gives us life is the absolute evidence of this. The best, untainted and overwhelming evidence we have from Science is that the wipe-out of 95% of all species, including our own, is a serious possibility that may become irreversible within less than a few decades; a result of climate change. And that is far from the only resource or pollution catastrophe that awaits us imminently.
The only way out of the impending demise is for the key institutions of democracy to be removed from the hands of the Owners of Capital. By definition, those representing the majority (Workers) cannot also be members of the minority (Owners) club. This does NOT need to be, nor should be, state, beaurocratic control or ownership of everything, but simply a system where 'rules' – rule of law – applies fairly to all. We are told no such system can exist. Don't believe it. A system that removes corruption by State, Private or other 'concentrated' interests is perfectly possible. It is absurd to believe otherwise of a species that has developed such immensely more complex systems in science and technology. We simply need to devise appropriate employment rules and terms in the same way we have for other 'special' categories of employment, such as police or military.
Remember, none of the basic welfare provisions that have been won (and are now being rapidly eroded) have ever been voluntarily 'gifted' by the Owners of Capital (now owners of Politics and Media) – nor can we expect them to be. Since the Owners now own Politics and Media virtually entirely, any attempt to work within the present system is no more than rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The system must change.
To the younger generation of Workers (or the unemployed or underemployed): good luck – you'll need it. Sad as it is to have seen the mere fledgling attempts at democracy so badly undermined, your lives, either way, will be nothing like mine.
Words: Mike Hall
Images: Tabz O'Brien-Butcher
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
The Co-operative Quarter
Fundamentally, both the Council and the Co-op believe that a partnership approach will deliver this next great piece of urban development in the UK… through the pursuit of a common goal of high quality, socially inclusive, sustainable and economically successful urban regeneration… For the Council, the common goals reflect the regeneration objectives that will keep Manchester at the forefront of economic and social change.
The shiny new Co-op Quarter in the north of the city centre presents us with a microcosm of future Manchester – partnership-led regeneration to pioneer the low-carbon economy and spur new investment in our supposedly green and sustainable tomorrow. Problem is, that model is the same that’s been used for the past 20 years, and it hasn’t exactly brought about the perpetually promised prosperity and inclusion for the majority in Manchester.
Manchester City Council (MCC) recently handed over £20 million to the Co-operative Group for the redevelopment of the so-called ‘Northern Gateway’ into the city centre. The Co-op Quarter is set to cover 3.5 million square feet of land behind the M.E.N. Arena when it’s done, centred around a brand new head office on Miller Street. According to the Co-op the 15-storey HQ – which should be completed by 2012 at a cost of £100 million – will be “one of the most sustainable in Europe.”
The funding was endorsed in principle back in May 2008, and after the approval of the Co-op’s Strategic Regeneration Initiative (SRI) in May 2009 and subsequent consultation and planning permission, it was finally confirmed by the Council Executive last month.
The Council will “contribute £12m towards the development of public spaces which will be focused on creating a sense of place and world-class environment… by delivering the highest quality of public realm, improved pedestrian linkages and new high quality open spaces over the first phase and subsequent phases” while a cap of £8 million “will be allocated to a contribution towards infrastructure work, primarily focused on the narrowing of Miller Street.” The rest, expected to be in the region of £120-£150 million, will be put up by the Co-op.
People may argue that MCC could be putting taxpayer money in worse places. After all, the Co-op does ‘ethical investment’ doesn’t it? But maybe that’s not the right question.
The Co-op makes “profit for a purpose”, and partly due to what now seems like prudent investment policies after the global economic crisis, it’s been doing very well at that recently. While numerous banks, property developers and companies in similarly high-risk sectors have crumbled around it, the Co-op has been posting huge profits and growth. Last month it paid out record dividends of over £50 million to its shareholders, while sales last year were approaching £14 billion.
Why then does the Council think it needs taxpayers’ money, especially at a time when swingeing cuts are supposedly necessary everywhere else? Why doesn’t the Co-op pay for all of it? Profit’s “for a purpose” after all. Because the fact that it treats its staff a bit better than Wal-Mart and doesn’t shovel cash into the Burmese military junta doesn’t mean it doesn’t act like any other business, a huge and powerful one at that.
There were suggestions before the Co-op announced in late 2008 its intention to stay in the City Centre that the Group was considering moving out of town to either Oldham or Rochdale. MCC certainly didn’t want to lose one of the city’s most recognisable icons. In our post-industrial, globalised city, we’re told image counts for a lot when it comes to the all-encompassing end-game of attracting investors. The City Council recognises it has to “create world-class destinations and provide the conditions to attract further investment” and generate “the right conditions and attractive environment” for that to happen. If making the city nice for developers means throwing a load of money at the project then so be it.
The Co-op of course has deep roots in Manchester, as does the Labour Party, which has controlled the City Council it seems for time immemorial. The two are also intricately bound up with one another. This was obvious for all to see at the Executive meeting in May 2009. When the Co-op Quarter item came up councillors streamed out of the room, unable to participate in the discussion due to conflicts of interest regarding the project. The meeting only just had enough members remaining to proceed.
The Council was desperate to enter another ‘local partnership’. Public-private partnerships (PPP) have been the mainstay of local development policy for over 20 years now. In 1987, after another shocking national defeat to Thatcher’s Conservatives, the Labour Council, led by the current Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer, became proto-New-Labour, “modernising” and giving up on the idea of ‘Municipal Socialism’ – though it wasn’t something they were exactly putting into practice. They embarked upon the brave new world of entrepreneurialism and PPP. It’s something they became very good at.
The new mantra was geared towards winning funding for projects embarked upon with private sector partners. Mega development schemes functioned this way throughout the ’90s and ’00s – think Hulme regeneration, the redevelopment of the city centre after the IRA bomb in 1996, the Commonwealth Games and New East Manchester. While the city elite celebrated the so-called urban renaissance as investment flooded in, the cold reality saw public money effectively pouring into the coffers of private developers.
Prosperity and jobs were always the promised outcomes of incoming capital, but what was really being fuelled were gentrification, a property boom and an increasingly exclusive city where enclaves of poverty and inequality persisted and grew. At the same time every bit of this city’s proud cultural past became bastardised and commodified, allowing the likes of Urban Splash’s Tom Bloxham (MBE) and Ian Simpson to become icons of the ostensibly ‘creative city’.
Meanwhile, as quangos and local partnerships blossomed – where lines between democratic decision-making and private profit-seeking were becoming increasingly blurred – those operating at the top of the public-private sphere became ever more powerful. Out of the ranks of the so-called ‘Manchester Mafia’ came the rise and rise of MCC Chief Executive Sir Howard Bernstein and new Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.
A couple of years before his death Tony Wilson was talking in Liverpool and said that their city was “fucked” because they didn’t have an enlightened despot like Manchester had Bernstein. For Urbis co-founder Justin O’Connor this “set a seal on the increasing moral and political bankruptcy of the post-rave urban growth coalition which had taken over Manchester post-1996.”
Of course Wilson meant this as a compliment to Sir Howard, but despite the former Factory Records man’s questionable judgement it highlighted the pre-eminence of the Council’s seemingly omnipresent chief exec. Returning to the Co-op Quarter we find none other than Bernstein on the Project Board, “comprising the City Council’s Chief Executive and senior representatives from the Co-op,” who “meet regularly to oversee the project, the regeneration objectives and to take forward priority actions.”
This supposedly “community-led” scheme works within the very narrow parameters of traditional PPP. The public consultation, which lasted less than a month, managed to elicit a staggering 14 responses.
The Co-op’s plans for a ‘green’ HQ do look genuinely exciting and innovative, and could act as a catalyst for wider changes needed in the city. But beyond that it’s the tired slogans of “creating identity” and “laying foundations for investments.” There’s more to urban sustainability than how energy and water are sourced and how much waste and carbon is produced each day.
So what exactly is meant by the Co-op’s corporate-speaking masterplan when it talks of “adding value for local communities?” Or the third contribution to the Community Strategy identified by the Council, the mind-blowingly vacuous phrase “individual and collective self esteem – mutual respect?”
The fourth, “Neighbourhoods of Choice,” is specifically about attracting people with ‘aspiration’ to the area, young people coming to live and work in the ‘knowledge economy’ while consuming the ‘service economy’. Others see it as code for yuppie flats. But it’s supposed to be a regeneration project, about creating opportunities for those who really need it in the surrounding and affected areas of Cheetham, Ancoats, Clayton and the City Centre.
Over the next 15-20 years it’s said that 15,000 jobs will potentially be created by the whole project. These estimates often fall way short, but even if it turns out true that’s only 750 to 1,000 jobs per year, without specifying what the jobs might be. In what almost seems like the Town Hall document equivalent of a Freudian slip, the reports don’t even refer to any impact on poverty reduction, one of the criteria such proposals are assessed by. The new Co-operative Academy set to open in Blackley in September is all well and good – well, if you believe in private interests, in this case a multi-billion pound corporate entity, setting curriculums.
There are chinks of light here and there. Take the SRI section titled “Jobs and community”, and under ‘Working together’ what could happen:
Renewable energy systems may generate surplus heat which could be connected to neighbourhood systems to address fuel poverty. The public open space could facilitate community markets, supported by urban farming and community allotment initiatives.
But it’s no more than a glimpse. In the end we see the same old policies, coming from the same old ‘leaders’. Bereft of ideas, they pursue that which has manifestly failed to address issues of poverty, inequality and exclusion in Manchester, or anywhere else for that matter. Maybe that’s exactly why they pursue them, or it’s the only way they know how to keep the unquestionable wheels of growth and profit turning.
Don’t let the shiny brochures fool you. Just because it’s the Co-op and it’s low-energy doesn’t mean this development is somehow different. In the end it’s just another market opportunity to create and exploit. That’s a system they’re all desperate to sustain, whatever the cost.
Words: Andy Lockhart
Pictures: Ian Pennington
Monday, 31 May 2010
The British People, Part II
[Andy Rees follows his pre-election musings - found here on page 15 - with this post-election analysis]
So here we are. The sky hasn't fallen on our heads. Maggie hasn't come down from the clouds on a black chariot pulled by seven snarling horses. But still, it's Torygeddon, right?
Perhaps. But the big thing is – who really knows? No-one!
There's been an awful lot of very strong reaction to the Tory-Lib Dem blood pact, but personally I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Now I'm no Tory, but I'm no Labour or Lib Dem either.
The thing is we can't actually expect politicians to live up to the promises that they make during election campaigns. And I don't think it’s entirely their fault either. As far as I can see, it's all a big colourful game. It's a circus, and the politicians are the trained animals in the middle, getting all the applause and all the anger when it doesn't go right. The crowd bays or it cheers, depending on whether they like what they see or not.
Can you blame the animals for performing? Hardly. In the same way you can hardly blame the politicians for wild lies and emotive promises such as 'free cancer drugs', because that's what the people want.
Or is it what the people want? There's someone, something else we haven't mentioned yet.
It's not just the people and the politicians, just like it's not just the lions and the audience. The ringmaster... They mitigate everything. They are the conduit between one and the other. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give youuuuuu.... The Media.
Such is the vastness of this country; such is the concentration on political might in Westminster, that we very rarely have any first-hand contact with big party politics, or big party politicians. So how do we find out? The media. Newspapers, TV interviews, the radio, Bloggy McBloggerson and his friends.
And guess what? They've all got an angle, an opinion, a take on it. There's not a single news show or newspaper, not a single piece of text written on, about, around or after the election (including this one) that doesn't take a perspective. And taking a perspective means, inevitably, that something gets exaggerated, and something gets lost.
And this is a two-way process. We learn about the politicians, and the politicians learn about us. And just as we think of them as a bunch of slimeballs, they must look at the people like they're from another planet. Who are these angry men and women? Why do they shout at us all the time? They can have all the focus groups in the world, but it's from the media where the impression really comes.
The media needs a good story. A good story is, often, perhaps always, a short and snappy story. Quick news. Gossip, opinion, slander, promises. And if there's ever a pause to consider the bigger issues – justice, wealth redistribution, national identity – it's always done by getting some experts to disagree with each other so that they all look stupid. It's all conflict. And if it's not conflict, it's quick news.
Even so-called respected journalistic programmes like Today on Radio 4 seem unable to do anything but ask vicious questions in the hope of getting a headline. You might say that it's right to challenge those who hold power, and bring them to account. Of course. But when that challenge becomes a few acerbic questions where the answers are then ridiculed or disbelieved – a hunt for the quick hit story – what use is that?
We pick each word that politicians say to pieces. Look at the linguistic glass-treading around 'cuts'. Some said 'deep', some said 'savage', some said 'severe'. Politicians were chastised for saying too much, or not saying enough. Is it any surprise that they never tell the truth? If they told us the truth about the amount of money that would have to be cut from the Budget to avoid us becoming a Hellenic mess, no-one would've voted, or we'd all have voted BNP.
So, two things. First, the truth is shit and hard to bear. Second, the Media pounces on any mistakes, and we clap and eat some more popcorn as they rip open the proverbial jugular. I'll say it again: is it any surprise that they never tell us the truth?
To come back to my starting point – what's the big fuss? I bet that nothing much will change, or at least it won't be vastly different to a more ‘left-wing’ coalition. Sure, there is a chance that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition will 'cut' by launching a moral crusade against the poor and vulnerable. But that would've happened under a Labour Government too. No-one likes a scrounger.
I think we all need to take a step back. I think we all need to stop believing that this country is simply the sum of its Cabinet and Prime Ministerial parts. The Government, although it and the media would have you believe otherwise, is one tiny cherry on top of a massive civil service and civic society that is far more static and far more resistant to top-down change than the Twittering social commentators would have us believe. I hear it so often – 'we're the internet generation, it's a new age.' No. You just spend too much time on Facebook and reading G2. Get outside, smell the piss and the honey, the beauty and the beast, and you'll get a much better idea of what the hell is going on.
Words: Andy Rees
So here we are. The sky hasn't fallen on our heads. Maggie hasn't come down from the clouds on a black chariot pulled by seven snarling horses. But still, it's Torygeddon, right?
Perhaps. But the big thing is – who really knows? No-one!
There's been an awful lot of very strong reaction to the Tory-Lib Dem blood pact, but personally I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Now I'm no Tory, but I'm no Labour or Lib Dem either.
The thing is we can't actually expect politicians to live up to the promises that they make during election campaigns. And I don't think it’s entirely their fault either. As far as I can see, it's all a big colourful game. It's a circus, and the politicians are the trained animals in the middle, getting all the applause and all the anger when it doesn't go right. The crowd bays or it cheers, depending on whether they like what they see or not.
Can you blame the animals for performing? Hardly. In the same way you can hardly blame the politicians for wild lies and emotive promises such as 'free cancer drugs', because that's what the people want.
Or is it what the people want? There's someone, something else we haven't mentioned yet.
It's not just the people and the politicians, just like it's not just the lions and the audience. The ringmaster... They mitigate everything. They are the conduit between one and the other. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give youuuuuu.... The Media.
Such is the vastness of this country; such is the concentration on political might in Westminster, that we very rarely have any first-hand contact with big party politics, or big party politicians. So how do we find out? The media. Newspapers, TV interviews, the radio, Bloggy McBloggerson and his friends.
And guess what? They've all got an angle, an opinion, a take on it. There's not a single news show or newspaper, not a single piece of text written on, about, around or after the election (including this one) that doesn't take a perspective. And taking a perspective means, inevitably, that something gets exaggerated, and something gets lost.
And this is a two-way process. We learn about the politicians, and the politicians learn about us. And just as we think of them as a bunch of slimeballs, they must look at the people like they're from another planet. Who are these angry men and women? Why do they shout at us all the time? They can have all the focus groups in the world, but it's from the media where the impression really comes.
The media needs a good story. A good story is, often, perhaps always, a short and snappy story. Quick news. Gossip, opinion, slander, promises. And if there's ever a pause to consider the bigger issues – justice, wealth redistribution, national identity – it's always done by getting some experts to disagree with each other so that they all look stupid. It's all conflict. And if it's not conflict, it's quick news.
Even so-called respected journalistic programmes like Today on Radio 4 seem unable to do anything but ask vicious questions in the hope of getting a headline. You might say that it's right to challenge those who hold power, and bring them to account. Of course. But when that challenge becomes a few acerbic questions where the answers are then ridiculed or disbelieved – a hunt for the quick hit story – what use is that?
We pick each word that politicians say to pieces. Look at the linguistic glass-treading around 'cuts'. Some said 'deep', some said 'savage', some said 'severe'. Politicians were chastised for saying too much, or not saying enough. Is it any surprise that they never tell the truth? If they told us the truth about the amount of money that would have to be cut from the Budget to avoid us becoming a Hellenic mess, no-one would've voted, or we'd all have voted BNP.
So, two things. First, the truth is shit and hard to bear. Second, the Media pounces on any mistakes, and we clap and eat some more popcorn as they rip open the proverbial jugular. I'll say it again: is it any surprise that they never tell us the truth?
To come back to my starting point – what's the big fuss? I bet that nothing much will change, or at least it won't be vastly different to a more ‘left-wing’ coalition. Sure, there is a chance that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition will 'cut' by launching a moral crusade against the poor and vulnerable. But that would've happened under a Labour Government too. No-one likes a scrounger.
I think we all need to take a step back. I think we all need to stop believing that this country is simply the sum of its Cabinet and Prime Ministerial parts. The Government, although it and the media would have you believe otherwise, is one tiny cherry on top of a massive civil service and civic society that is far more static and far more resistant to top-down change than the Twittering social commentators would have us believe. I hear it so often – 'we're the internet generation, it's a new age.' No. You just spend too much time on Facebook and reading G2. Get outside, smell the piss and the honey, the beauty and the beast, and you'll get a much better idea of what the hell is going on.
Words: Andy Rees
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Council Peddling Stupid Laws.
For three years Manchester City Council have been persistently trying to legally restrict the rights of pedlars in the city. They were delighted then in early April when the Manchester City Council Bill squeezed through the Houses of Lords and Commons just before Parliament was dissolved. Pedlars have been fighting the legislation for years and are still fighting hard.
A pedlar, in the beautifully lyrical words of the 1871 Pedlars Act, is “any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs or other person who without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men's houses carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods wares or merchandise or ...offering for sale his skill in handicraft.”
While they’re a massively diverse community, pedlars have their own cultural identity and traditions of which they’re fiercely proud. They’re generally self-employed, trying to supplement other income or retirement funds. Many started as a way out of unemployment or low-skilled work – something pretty important nowadays.
If you’re over 17 you can apply for a pedlar’s certificate from the local police station. It costs just £12.50, lasts a year and allows you to legally trade anywhere in the city, subject to certain conditions. Being able to set up cheaply and legitimately has proved invaluable for budding artists, craftspeople and other young entrepreneurs for the past 140 years – the founder of Marks and Spencer’s actually started as a simple pedlar!
The fight against the new legislation has been going on since its inception. Those opposing the Bill have won some major concessions, getting rid of some of the most draconian clauses. These included one which would have let council officers impose £300 fixed penalties on so-called ‘offenders’ and another which would practically restrict pedlars to being door-to-door salespeople.
There are four more bills to be heard by the Parliamentary Select Committee, but thanks to pedlars’ opposition a reported 50 councils have dropped their interest already.
But the Manchester City Council Act 2010 has still made it very hard for pedlars to sell their goods and services on the streets of the city. According to Altrincham-based trader David Murphy, there are now “conditions for a pedlar to work in Manchester's streets that will be difficult to apply, and will involve the council spending more money and take away the right of pedlars set out in the 1871 Act.”
The Act allows council and police officers to seize a pedlar’s goods and “any receptacle or equipment being used by that person” if they reckon an offence has been committed. An offence like not moving at least 200 metres every five minutes, or returning to the same place within 12 hours.
So why exactly has the Council – which loves to talk Manchester up as the ‘entrepreneurial city’ – been pushing so hard for such restrictive new powers?
Research by Durham University showed that councils across the land see “both certificated and uncertificated itinerant traders as a nuisance, and wrongly and pejoratively refer to both groups as simply ‘pedlars’. Enforcement activities tend to be similarly indiscriminate in targeting legal and illegal pedlars”. According to Professor Barry Hough, Professor of English Law at Bournemouth University, “There is without doubt a powerful and organised lobby against pedlars...[operating] both at national and local level.”
The head of the Local Government Association said of pedlars in 2008, “[they] operate in packs, sometimes linked to criminal gangs, obstructing passers by and using intimidating and threatening behaviour.” Seriously.
The academic research seemed to point to quite the opposite, finding the “vast majority” of people said their “experience with pedlars had been positive... No respondent indicated that they thought pedlars should be banned from trading in the streets.”
Not the view of Manchester’s political masters though. Acting Council Leader Jim Battle was elated back in September when John Alesbury – who had a pedlar’s certificate – was ordered to pay £700 for selling woolly hats and scarves from a cart on Market Street. He parroted the familiar mantra of “illegal street traders” undermining “legitimate traders who are struggling now more than ever before” and causing “obstructions on busy streets”.
In a press release on March 31st, Manchester’s director of neighbourhood services Vicky Rosin declared:
“We will [soon] be able to deal effectively with illegal street traders who sell shoddy, counterfeit and sometimes dangerous products, while causing major obstructions to emergency services on our busiest streets.”
She apparently isn’t aware that pedlars often buy from the same wholesalers as the High Street shops, or that they voluntarily carry products which are CE labelled – a certified mark of quality assurance – and carry manufacturer's names and addresses on them. Still, she continued:
“It will also mean hard working legitimate traders will no longer have their efforts undermined by people who think they can get away with turning up on our streets with the intent of deceiving Manchester people.”
Rosin also wished to “thank Manchester residents who have lent their support to this campaign”. I asked her who exactly these residents were – there’s no evidence of a consultation on the Council’s website, and judging by the Durham research it seemed unlikely there would be many. Perhaps it’s the High Street stores – those poor and persecuted “legitimate traders” – who are really so worried about the guy outside selling woolly hats?
I also asked her how much the pursuit of this law had cost the Council (and local taxpayers) on top of more than £100,000 paid to Clarkson of Sharpe Pritchard to argue – misleadingly as it turned out – to the Select Committee that pedlars legally had to trade while in “perpetual motion”. It’s probably quite a lot, but Ms Rosin declined to comment on either question, so we’re waiting on the results of a Freedom of Information request instead.
What we do know, thanks to information obtained by the Pedlars Information and Resource Centre, is that during the three years up to June 2009 Manchester City Council spent less than £10,000 on prosecuting 11 illegal street traders. That’s less than one tenth of what it cost to lose a legal argument in the Select Committee!
The battle will go on, probably in the courts. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has already recognised that the bills “may raise human rights issues which are worthy of further scrutiny”. One thing for sure is that the pedlars won’t give up any time soon – it’s their livelihoods which are being systematically trampled on.
For more on the UK’s pedlars and those campaigning against the new laws, check out www.pedlars.info
Words: Andy Lockhart
Pictures: Courtesy of www.pedlars.info
A pedlar, in the beautifully lyrical words of the 1871 Pedlars Act, is “any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs or other person who without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men's houses carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods wares or merchandise or ...offering for sale his skill in handicraft.”
While they’re a massively diverse community, pedlars have their own cultural identity and traditions of which they’re fiercely proud. They’re generally self-employed, trying to supplement other income or retirement funds. Many started as a way out of unemployment or low-skilled work – something pretty important nowadays.
If you’re over 17 you can apply for a pedlar’s certificate from the local police station. It costs just £12.50, lasts a year and allows you to legally trade anywhere in the city, subject to certain conditions. Being able to set up cheaply and legitimately has proved invaluable for budding artists, craftspeople and other young entrepreneurs for the past 140 years – the founder of Marks and Spencer’s actually started as a simple pedlar!
The fight against the new legislation has been going on since its inception. Those opposing the Bill have won some major concessions, getting rid of some of the most draconian clauses. These included one which would have let council officers impose £300 fixed penalties on so-called ‘offenders’ and another which would practically restrict pedlars to being door-to-door salespeople.
There are four more bills to be heard by the Parliamentary Select Committee, but thanks to pedlars’ opposition a reported 50 councils have dropped their interest already.
But the Manchester City Council Act 2010 has still made it very hard for pedlars to sell their goods and services on the streets of the city. According to Altrincham-based trader David Murphy, there are now “conditions for a pedlar to work in Manchester's streets that will be difficult to apply, and will involve the council spending more money and take away the right of pedlars set out in the 1871 Act.”
The Act allows council and police officers to seize a pedlar’s goods and “any receptacle or equipment being used by that person” if they reckon an offence has been committed. An offence like not moving at least 200 metres every five minutes, or returning to the same place within 12 hours.
So why exactly has the Council – which loves to talk Manchester up as the ‘entrepreneurial city’ – been pushing so hard for such restrictive new powers?
Research by Durham University showed that councils across the land see “both certificated and uncertificated itinerant traders as a nuisance, and wrongly and pejoratively refer to both groups as simply ‘pedlars’. Enforcement activities tend to be similarly indiscriminate in targeting legal and illegal pedlars”. According to Professor Barry Hough, Professor of English Law at Bournemouth University, “There is without doubt a powerful and organised lobby against pedlars...[operating] both at national and local level.”
The head of the Local Government Association said of pedlars in 2008, “[they] operate in packs, sometimes linked to criminal gangs, obstructing passers by and using intimidating and threatening behaviour.” Seriously.
The academic research seemed to point to quite the opposite, finding the “vast majority” of people said their “experience with pedlars had been positive... No respondent indicated that they thought pedlars should be banned from trading in the streets.”
Not the view of Manchester’s political masters though. Acting Council Leader Jim Battle was elated back in September when John Alesbury – who had a pedlar’s certificate – was ordered to pay £700 for selling woolly hats and scarves from a cart on Market Street. He parroted the familiar mantra of “illegal street traders” undermining “legitimate traders who are struggling now more than ever before” and causing “obstructions on busy streets”.
In a press release on March 31st, Manchester’s director of neighbourhood services Vicky Rosin declared:
“We will [soon] be able to deal effectively with illegal street traders who sell shoddy, counterfeit and sometimes dangerous products, while causing major obstructions to emergency services on our busiest streets.”
She apparently isn’t aware that pedlars often buy from the same wholesalers as the High Street shops, or that they voluntarily carry products which are CE labelled – a certified mark of quality assurance – and carry manufacturer's names and addresses on them. Still, she continued:
“It will also mean hard working legitimate traders will no longer have their efforts undermined by people who think they can get away with turning up on our streets with the intent of deceiving Manchester people.”
Rosin also wished to “thank Manchester residents who have lent their support to this campaign”. I asked her who exactly these residents were – there’s no evidence of a consultation on the Council’s website, and judging by the Durham research it seemed unlikely there would be many. Perhaps it’s the High Street stores – those poor and persecuted “legitimate traders” – who are really so worried about the guy outside selling woolly hats?
I also asked her how much the pursuit of this law had cost the Council (and local taxpayers) on top of more than £100,000 paid to Clarkson of Sharpe Pritchard to argue – misleadingly as it turned out – to the Select Committee that pedlars legally had to trade while in “perpetual motion”. It’s probably quite a lot, but Ms Rosin declined to comment on either question, so we’re waiting on the results of a Freedom of Information request instead.
What we do know, thanks to information obtained by the Pedlars Information and Resource Centre, is that during the three years up to June 2009 Manchester City Council spent less than £10,000 on prosecuting 11 illegal street traders. That’s less than one tenth of what it cost to lose a legal argument in the Select Committee!
The battle will go on, probably in the courts. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has already recognised that the bills “may raise human rights issues which are worthy of further scrutiny”. One thing for sure is that the pedlars won’t give up any time soon – it’s their livelihoods which are being systematically trampled on.
For more on the UK’s pedlars and those campaigning against the new laws, check out www.pedlars.info
Words: Andy Lockhart
Pictures: Courtesy of www.pedlars.info
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