Monday 5 January 2015

Levellers @ Manchester Academy; Saturday November 22

Within thirty seconds I am already wearing half a pint of beer and Selecter – the support act - have not even finished yet;  it’s obviously going to be one of those nights, especially given the size of the already-heaving pit at the front.

And if the excitement was palpable when you entered the room, it gets positively electric when the lights flashed and the band stride onto stage.

Ostensibly, this is the last night of Levellers’ Greatest Hits tour.  In reality, as lead singer Chadwick explains, not everything they will play tonight is a ‘hit’.  And so it proves, as the gig develops into something more akin to a career resume.


The surprising, but welcome, aspect to this is the inclusion of some older tracks that don’t normally get an airing – World Freakshow; Exodus; Come On and Far From Home force their way on to the set-list, jettisoning other more well-known tracks.


But to kick off the party there is probably no better way to start than with Beautiful Day and from the first chord of that trademark song right through to the last frenetic drumbeat of Riverflow this is a revved up, foot-stomping, sing-a-long kind of night.


There is no appearance from Billy Bragg or Imelda May, as on the greatest hits album, but Selecter do lend a hand on Together All The Way and Dog Train with She Makes War helping out on This Garden

As ever the band, and especially maverick linchpin Jeremy, look like they are having the time of their lives. It is rare to see a band and audience so in harmony; several times Chadwick steps away from the microphone and lets the crowd carry the songs. Two decades as a powerful lead singer hasn’t altered Chadwick’s voice; this isn’t a shouting, screaming, can’t-hear-the-words vocalist, this is a powerful articulator who brings the words to life.

A twenty three song setlist, with two encores, gives some insight into the depth and wealth of material that this band possess; still making great music twenty five years down the line and showing no signs of stopping.


On this evidence The Levellers are far from done; they’re simply getting stronger. Next up is an acoustic tour throughout January, February and March, to promote their new film ‘A Curious Life’; this documentary charts the band’s rise to fame in the early nineties and has been produced by ex Chumbawamba singer Dunstan Bruce.  Further details from www.levellers.co.uk

Sunday 6 May 2012

From 1997 - 2012 Via The Northern Rock

Re-posted below is one of the only human interest pieces I've read on the banking crisis.  I think it really does put in to words what a lot of people think and feel.

And this from the lead singer John Jones of Oysterband - a band  that spent much of the 80's raging against Thatcherism and the Tories in general; you couldn't get a greater, musical, social commentary of that era than "The Shouting End Of Life"

Read and consider how far we've really come:


"CONSCIENCE: Reading the paper today reminded me there was a moment this week during the Today programme when the radio was nearly thrown through the window. It was when Mervyn King, our benign innocent Head of the Bank of England was being questioned on the credit crunch and the banking collapse and his role in it.
Time and again he was let off the hook and it ended in a 'boys together' chat about football with the sports presenter. What angered me was his assertion that the procedures and regulations were not in place to control the banks, as if gut feeling, instinct and morality....just a sense of "this isn't fair, this doesn't feel right"...were completely alien to him. Maybe they are absent from his world. Like the Vatican and the Catholic Church of Ireland when facing terrible abuse claims! They know how to deal with it now but they didn't know back then, the procedures were not in place. Where was the conscience? Within the large closed financial and religious institutions that run our lives they only hear the cries and feel the pain when the procedures are in place. We are burying a collapse in free-market capitalism in weak questions and vacuous answers that fill a 24 hour indiscriminate media........just as surely as the Vatican will bury the cries of those children. That outburst of anger on the streets of England last summer burst the complacency but missed the hypocrisy. If you want to know why I walk so much, it is to help me dissipate overwhelming anger that consumes me sometimes, like now. I waited before posting this. JJ"

Thursday 26 April 2012

Ode To The Miners (a.k.a : death of an industry)


Smokeless skyline, Thatcher’s byline
84 and it’s all out war

She sold your soul for the price of coal
No more coal, just a life on the dole
84 on the floor, 84 and it’s all out war

Anything goes, a blow to the nose
You went down, tasted blood
Felled again by the copper’s wood
84 and it’s all out war

Old man, young lad
Break the line and you’re a scab, scab, scab
Who’s the friend, Who’s the foe
All day long you just don’t know
84 on the floor, 84 and it’s all our war

Thatcher’s guards they got their pay
Just to march and fight all day
They got their thrill, we had the will
Dogs sent in just for the kill
84 and it’s all out war

With horses and shields
They chased us over fields
We lost teeth and a lot of blood
We got lost in our local wood
84 on the floor, 84 and it’s all out war

We were run over hill
And down through ditch
Pursued endlessly by the iron-fisted bitch
84 and it’s all out war

Victors wore the Tory blue
History tells us that’s what’s true
But there’s another story I’m telling you
And this is the one, the one that’s true
It was 84 and it was all out war

No one won, we all lost
All of us left counting the cost
It was a war but what was the score?
84 on the floor, 84 that was our war

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Speech to Labour Party Conference : 28 September 2011

Good morning conference, members, comrades.
Patrick Dennehy from Dewsbury CLP in Yorkshire, first-time delegate.

I would like to move the following, as proposed in the delegate’s report Chapter 3: The creation of a new clause, Clause I to stipulate that all constitutional amendments, submitted by affiliated organisations and CLPS that are accepted as in order shall be timetable for debate at the first annual conference following submission.

Considering members were asked to vote on and accept a new 100-page rule book that they had sight of for only three hours, we do not think it beyond the wit of the NEC to consider short statements from CLPs within a few months.  Dewsbury has had to wait 18 months from initial proposal for me to stand here today and move what is effectively only a four-line motion.

David Cameron runs a party dominated by top down management.  We believe the opposite; that grassroots members should have as much opportunity to influence and be involved in the formation of party policy as those at the top.

As a party we are still learning the lessons and paying the price for ignoring the thoughts and opinions of our grassroots members during our 13 years in power.  We became complacent about our grassroots support and it cost us.

If we are truly going to take our party forward on the principles of refounding Labour then it’s motions like this that need to become our core – positive change involving al members not the top-down dictats as demonstrated by the party currently leading Governement.

This resolution goes someway to redressing the balance and we hope, on behalf of Dewsbury CLP, that you will accept it.

Thank You conference.

Friday 27 May 2011

Time For A Cuppa And A Chat

I’m back.
Not that I ever went away you understand – I’ve just been filling my time with other projects.
Namely a new-found love of Twitter @pacey_patrick and my pictorial blog: thisisingaleesh.blogspot.com.

However a quote I read today from @BristolEditor sparked this blog back into life; in his 10 Commandments of Social Media (trust me to pay attention to something with a Catholic reference) it was Number 5 that jumped up and slapped me squarely round the chops:
One number and four stark words: 5. Thou shall not kill.
Guess I'd better stop sharpening my axe and polishing my gun then.

But, I digress.  So the quote:
“Nothing is quite as bad in social media-land as an account which is established and then sits there. Dead. No content. Nothing contributed. Setting up a social media space, such as a...blog, and then not adding content to it regularly is a sure-fire way of killing your social media credibility in front of a global audience. Add content. Add value. Just add!”
Therefore I decided it was high time I launched myself at Sebastian Vettel pace right back out there into the blogosphere.

As is probably clear from previous posts, my blog has two central themes: politics and my journalistic ambitions.
And in many ways the topics themselves explain my 3 month blog-lethargy.

1) The Tories and Lib Dems have been killing each other in the last few months, so I haven’t felt the need for blog-based Tory bashing; I simply sat back and let them get on with it, waiting to pick off the spoils at the opportune moment – more of that to come soon.

2)As for journalism, I haven’t had much to blog about there either; four months down the line, £3,000+ lighter and I’m still working for @bradmanagement (which is not to be sniffed at in the current climate).
However, I’m still hunting and ever optimistic – I’ve been wanting this for 15 years so it’s in my nature to be patient. 

My job hunt has taken me to some interesting places (Congleton among them); yesterday’s destination of choice was Dubai (lots of journalism jobs out there), although I’m not sure whether my forthright political views would be that well received in the land of milk, honey and erm…oil. Then again I should at least be able to tap up @Bin_Hammam for cheap Qatar World Cup tickets, if they ever get to host it that is.

So what's happened while I've been away?
Crucially,
Doreen and Neville Lawrence appear another step closer to getting justice for their murdered son Stephen http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13438629
And,
A court officially confirmed what anyone who saw the G20 video footage already knew – newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson was ‘unlawfully killed’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECMVdl-9SQ

Everything else simply pales into insignificance.

Thursday 17 February 2011

Power To The People


It started on the 6 May 2010, when the British public in its wisdom decided it did not trust David Cameron or his party enough to run this country of ours.

However Cameron is like a car salesman in a polyester suit, who smiles at you as he sells you a ‘fantastic bargain’, then dances with glee when you drive off in what is really an MOT failure.  In the days following the election Cameron went into full wheeler-dealer mode and after convincing Nick Clegg to dance with the devil and part with every liberal value he ever held, he weaselled his way into Number 10 like the snake into the Garden of Eden.

Once there he thought that was it, he thought the hard work was done.  The monster had his hands on the keys of power and off we all sailed on the Big Ship Tory with Cameron’s hands on the tiller.

But this time, things are different.  This time, from the word go, people showed they were not prepared to sit there and trust this man; a man who claims to rule our country despite never having achieved an electoral mandate.

And that is why the coalition’s first two-thirds of this year have been marked by u-turns and backtracking.

Let’s look at what has happened to some of their major projects:

Increasing Tuition Fees – protests and direct action leaving Cameron bloodied and battered although proposals will still go ahead.
Scrapping EMA – looking like going ahead despite vociferous protests.
Scrapping the Building Schools for Future project – abandoned.
Plans to sell the forests – abandoned.
Plans to impose a 10% housing benefit cut for anyone unemployed for more than a year – dropped.
Big Society – crumbling.
Cameron’s hopes of avoiding a referendum on electoral reform – failed.

And today what does a Tory think-tank propose? Scrapping the National Minimum Wage.  You couldn’t make it up.  This must be opposed, as must the complete and systematic dismantling of the NHS and cuts to other frontline services like the Police.

But why have the projects listed above been stopped, halted, cancelled, turned around?

Because of the actions of a defiant public mobilized against the power brokers in Downing Street. People who realise that we have to do all in our power to stop the total and premeditated decimation of everything we hold dear.

Peace and Love may be the values we all aspire to, but sometimes it takes direct action to make people sit up and take note.  And, led by a new generation of protesters, headed excellently by the students, this defiant response has now been taken up by many other open-eyed and fearful citizens.  People who realise that this government, this Tory government cannot be allowed to rule in the way it wants, cannot be allowed to push through the plans it has. 

The ‘Big Society’ plan has been exposed at every twist and turn for what it really is, a cloak of the most transparent kind, used in a failed attempt to hide from the reality that Cameron wants to impose on us – a society decimated by cuts at all levels.  Except the highest levels – not the bankers. 
The men who make the money to buy the spoons that have been in the mouths of Cameron and his cronies from the moment they were born. They’re safe.  They’re DC’s ‘pals’.  Much like the MP for Dewsbury, Simon Reevell, who refuses to give up his highly-paid job as a barrister, and in fact dedicates time to being in court instead of being in his constituency carrying out case work.
How ironic that Dewsbury has lost its court services.

On the 10 October 1980 Margaret Thatcher made a speech which has been oft-quoted ever since.
She said: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"

It is this speech that gives us hope today, because despite what he and some of his supporters may think, Cameron is not Thatcher.  He does not have the right to even be mentioned in the same breath.  He is a weak man.  A posh boy in a posh suit.  Someone who wishes he had half the strength, power and respect of Mrs Thatcher. If he did, we should all be very worried.  And every flight out of Britain since May 7 would have been fully booked.

Nobody who lived through the 80s wants to go back there again.  Even people who didn’t live through the 80s but were born before 1997 remember the overwhelming relief and unconfined joy that greeted the dispatching of the Tories on 1 May 1997. It would appear some of that spirit is alive and well in little corners of this land.  All we need is something to fan the embers and get the flames glowing once more.

The recent uprisings in Algeria and Egypt have illustrated the power of the people, and the effect of public demonstrations.

Britain, is slightly more democratic than those two countries, and hopes of a collapse in the coalition and an early election may still be (are) ridiculously optimistic.  But make no mistake, it’s a lot more likely than it looked on Wednesday May 12 2010.

These anti-government protests are not just the rantings and ravings of a few either, it is bigger than that this time round.  If more local authorities follow the example of Liverpool City Council and opt out of ‘The Big Society’ Cameron could soon have a full scale rebellion on his hands.

If he doesn’t, he’ll still have the public to answer to.  And the unions.  The poor, The dispossessed, The Working Class, The Middle Class.  In the words of Mr Marley “Get Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Rights.”

Let me leave you with the words to the famous protest song “The World Turned Upside Down” :

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feed the rich
While poor folk starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

Change Of Tack

This blog started out as a way for me to document my time on the NCTJ Diploma course at News Associates in Manchester (now the best NCTJ course in the country!).  It was also meant to give me the opportunity to offer my point of view on the world at large.

As my time at News Associates has now ended the thrust of the topics of my blog may change slightly.  However I intend to keep using it to broadcast to the world at large.

I make no apology or excuse for the fact that I will now become (as if I wasn’t before!) overtly and deliberately political in my musings. Like journalism, politics is something close to my heart.  Had it not been for News Associates, then I probably would have run for local council this year…but that’s a story for another day.

My hope is that you have enjoyed reading my blog so far and I hope you will continue to enjoy what I have to say from here on in.

And it will be kicking off in typically ebullient fashion, so read on to my next post.