UK politics

As the weather turns hostile, even in London, which is experiencing its hottest summer ever, I look at the dangerous disconnect between everyday life and the grim future that awaits us if we don’t take immediate and concerted action to address catastrophic climate change. Failed by politicians, by the oil and gas industry and by the mainstream media, can we find a way out of our predicament before it is too late?

My review of the WOMAD festival’s welcome return to Charlton Park in Wiltshire for the first time since 2019, and my reflections on the festival’s history, and my 20 years of attending and working in the children’s workshops, which culminate in a children’s procession through the festival site on its final evening.

My exclusive report about the plight faced by the residents of 2-30a Reginald Road (aka Reginald House), a block of flats next to the former site of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, in south east London. Although the flats are structurally sound, the block faces demolition as part of a housing ‘regeneration’ project that is already underway on the former site of the garden, the former Tidemill primary school and its grounds, and residents — secure tenants, leaseholders and temporary tenants — all have problems with how they are being treated by the council regarding being moved out and being rehoused.

As temperatures reach 40°C in the UK for the first time ever, I look at the failures of politicians, the media and ourselves to take the required action necessary to keep the earth habitable, and particularly ask why, after the COP26 climate summit in November, we’re not seeing any efforts to implement the 7% cuts in emissions that are necessary to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030, a target that we are all supposed to have agreed to.

As crowds return to Stonehenge for the summer solstice, I look back on the days of the Stonehenge Free Festival, which last took place 38 years ago, and wonder how both Stonehenge’s builders, and the travellers and festival-goers of the ’70s and ’80s, would react to the currently unfolding environmental catastrophe of our own making, whose roots were sown when dissent was so brutally suppressed in the ’80s and ’90s, and the unfettered neo-liberal exploitation of everyone and everything took over.

Marking the 5th anniversary, today, of the Grenfell Tower fire, on June 14, 2017, when 72 people died, in a disaster that should never have happened, but that came to pass because everyone responsible prioritised cost-cutting and profits over the safety of residents. I also discuss how the insanely flammable cladding, which was the primary cause of the disaster, was also used on hundreds of other buildings, both public and private, and discuss how, in the shameful deregulated world of housing safety, much of it is still in place, still endangering lives, and leaving everyone involved – whether leaseholders or tenants – trapped in homes that are both worthless and unsafe.

Marking the 37th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, on June 1, 1985, when the police, under Margaret Thatcher, violently assaulted a convoy of travellers en route to Stonehenge to establish what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Free Festival, with commentary about how, today, Gypsies and travellers face a threat to their very way of life via legislation introduced by our dangerous and bigoted home secretary, Priti Patel.

My review of Hat Vickers’ documentary film ‘The Battle for Deptford’, now available for free on YouTube, which focuses on community activism and the long struggle to save the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden and Reginald House, a block of structurally sound council flats, from destruction for a housing project in Deptford, in south east London.

Recently discovered videos of speakers at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo that was held in London in January 2022, featuring speakers including John McDonnell MP and myself, to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison.

A fundraiser marking ten years of my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, and marking five years since I began posting a photo a day from the project, plus accompanying essays, on Facebook. This is an entirely reader-funded project, so any help you can provide will be very gratefully received.