It’s two hundred years since Peterloo, where those calling for democratic reform were slaughtered by government forces. A new campaign called The Six Acts aims to honour those who fell, in the struggle for a more inclusive democracy, by rebooting democracy today. And they need your help to do it! On the 16 August 1819, […]
The Riot Act: its 23 years after Peterloo and those demanding reform are still being slaughtered
The lessons of the Peterloo Massacre have not been learned and those campaigning for reform decades later are still being slaughtered by government forces. Review of The Riot Act by Rob Johnston, performed as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe 2019. The year 1842 was one of great hardship for workers across the north west […]
A democratic media for Manchester
Traditional media is in crisis. A shrinking number of corporations control more and more of our media, as they try to survive the Digital Revolution destroying the advertising-based business model they relied on. Journalists are laid off and titles closed, as the media corporations protect their bottom line and shareholder pay-outs. This relentless attrition of […]
It’s time for Manchester Museum to decolonise
Imagine that news emerged of 18,000 undiscovered historical artefacts relating to Manchester were illegally taken out the country by a museum in North Africa. We can only think what the response in the city would be in such circumstances. Political leaders would demand the return of the stolen goods, public protests would break out and […]
Peterloo and Protest at the People’s History Museum
A new exhibition opened last Saturday at the People’s History Museum in Manchester to mark two hundred years since the Peterloo Massacre. Featuring artefacts never displayed before, as well as a short film giving the whole history, Peterloo is brought up to date with a Protest Lab, where people from Salford and beyond can put […]
School climate strike to hit Manchester – backed by 12 local academics
A school climate strike, a call to action against the climate crisis started by one young Swedish girl, is set to hit Manchester tomorrow as well as more than 50 other towns and cities in the UK. The action has received the backing of 224 academics, 12 of whom are from the University of Manchester, […]
Philosophy Café: ‘Should democracy tolerate those who wish to destroy it?’
In what feels like a time of increasing social and political uncertainty, I have found myself employing a few strategies to keep my mind from imploding. They include thinking about the ‘big’ questions, as they tend to withstand the relentless plot twists of the theatre of current affairs, paying more attention to the questions posed, […]
Review: Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
Mary Quaile, a Manchester Irish trade unionist and one of the first women to be elected onto the Trades Union Congress, led a women-only delegation to the Soviet Union in 1925. Their objective was to investigate the lives of women and children in the new socialist state. Mary left school at 12, like most working […]
Bluedot Festival celebrates sounds, science and sustainability
Manchester University’s Jodrell Bank Observatory, the site of many scientific discoveries which has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, will once again host the award-winning Bluedot Festival of discovery this weekend. Proceedings kick off in spectacular fashion on Thursday 19 July when the Halle Orchestra perform ‘The Blue Planet in Concert’, a special […]
Why we students should back our lecturers on strike
If ever there was a situation when students and academics should be thinking as one, this is it. Coverage of the dispute between university tutors and management is focusing on the proposed cuts to pensions. But what is largely being overlooked is that the whole situation is a result of the creeping commodification of higher […]