February « 2016 « John Harris

Archive for February, 2016

Irrational, unhinged, gullible? No, the many who want Britain out of Europe deserve to be listened to | John Harris

Friday, February 26th, 2016

Huge swaths of the country have had rapid social change imposed on them because of the EU. Their response is logical

The EU referendum is announced, and less than a year after its humiliation at the last general election, the dismal science of opinion polling is back. A YouGov survey in Wednesday’s Times, for instance, led off with news that, once the all-important don’t-knows had been excluded, 51% of its respondents wanted out, while 49% favoured staying in. Some 26% said David Cameron had got Britain “a good deal”, but 35% thought the opposite.

Most of my beliefs on Europe are as awash with emotional factors and shaky optimism as anyone else’s

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Asda backs down over food bank ban

Friday, February 26th, 2016

Supermarket chain to allow collection points back into its UK supermarkets after backlash

The supermarket chain Asda has announced a policy U-turn that will see the return of permanent collection points for food banks and other charities in all its UK stores.

The move comes after the Guardian broke the news that the collection points were being removed across Britain. Some food banks said the move would threaten 25% of their supplies, while the Trussell Trust food bank network warned of losses of food of up to a third.

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Asda removes food bank donation points from UK stores

Thursday, February 18th, 2016

Supermarket chain ceases scheme, which allowed customers to donate food bought in store or brought from home, without announcing to media

Asda has removed permanent collection points for food banks from stores across the UK, in a move that has caused alarm among charities and the supermarket chain’s customers.

Following reports on social media that collection trolleys and boxes had disappeared from stores across Scotland, as well as in Hampshire, Lancashire, Norwich and Newcastle, the Guardian has established that Asda, which is owned by the US retail giant Walmart, has removed donation points from all of its UK stores.

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From towers to Toast Rack: the brutalists with concrete plans for Britain

Friday, February 12th, 2016

Long maligned as eyesores and an offence to human values, modernist architecture is enjoying a passionate upsurge in interest. John Harris visits Manchester and Sheffield to talk to the enthusiasts campaigning for these urban landmarks

On a bitingly cold Thursday morning, Jack Hale and I are standing next to a stretch of the Sheffield inner ring road, and staring, awestruck, at an electricity substation.

On the face of it, those last two words might suggest some anonymous brick box. But the Moore Street substation is nothing like that. Completed in 1968 and granted Grade II-listed status in 2013, it suggests a futuristic version of a castle, complete with ramparts, and its overall dimensions are stunning. “It’s the same feeling some people get from mountains or waterfalls,” Hale says. “This is man-made, but it’s powerful. It seems … what’s the word?”

Concrete is emancipatory in terms of form – there are things you can do with it that are sort of heroic

Why can’t people love a big dirty concrete building that’s not meant to be elegant and beautiful, necessarily

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I’d rather have a Margaret Thatcher state school than a Michael Gove one | John Harris

Friday, February 12th, 2016

His legacy is clear to see: no room for creativity and critical thinking, plenty for exams and rote learning

The other week, my six-year-old daughter had one of her school friends over for tea, and the two of them decided to have a read of Julia Donaldson’s The Snail and the Whale. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s the story of a worldwide voyage jointly undertaken by the titular animals, with lovely subtexts about friendship and co-operation, and some brilliantly executed dramatic tension.

At our local state primary school, my daughter’s class do brilliant work inspired by it – building a huge humpback whale out of household rubbish, learning about the same creature’s migration paths, and so on. But that afternoon, such things receded into the distance, as my daughter’s friend looked intently at the text, tuned out of the actual story, and began to pick out the word types: “Noun … verb … noun … verb.”

I was taught three to a desk, but the teaching had no end of things going for it

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