Archive for May, 2020
« Older Entries |The pandemic has exposed the failings of Britain’s centralised state | John Harris
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
Councils have been kept in the dark and starved of funds as coronavirus has spread. Power must be dispersed
And so it is that we reach a watershed point in the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, manifested in a tangle of stories all unified by vivid themes: power concentrated at the centre, a lack of meaningful checks and balances, and the exposure by incompetence and arrogance of the mess beneath. Primary schools are meant to partly reopen next Monday, but many are in no position to do so; a test-and-tracing regime that should have materialised weeks ago is still frantically being assembled. And then along come the revelations of Dominic Cummings’s wanderings – ostensibly a tale of one man’s self-importance, but really the story of an unelected courtier whose influence and reputation speak volumes about how broken our system of government now is.
One recurrent spectacle has defined the last couple of months: ministers, presumably egged on by their advisers, grandly issuing their edicts, only for people to insist that they simply do not match the reality on the ground. The schools story is one example; another was the shambolic and arrogant way that Boris Johnson announced the shift from “stay at home” to “stay alert”, and his call for droves of people to return to work. Watching the leaders of Wales and Scotland insist they had no input into the government’s change of message and then stick to their existing lockdowns was a stark reminder that the UK is continuing to fragment. In England, meanwhile, the council leaders and mayors who were suddenly faced with huge consequences for transport and public health had been caught on the hop. “No one in government thought it important to tell the cities who’d have to cope,” said the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham. Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle city council, told me last week: “The first I knew about it was when I saw it on TV.”
Posted in Guardian RSS | No Comments »
Virtually anywhere but Westminster: ‘We’ve found a new kind of sincerity’
Saturday, May 23rd, 2020
In lockdown, our series is using footage sent in from around the UK to tell the story of the world outside the political bubble
The day after the 2019 general election we were on an early-morning train from Stoke-on-Trent to London, feeling as if a long and messy chapter of recent British history had at last come to some kind of full stop. Brexit was a certainty, the Conservatives had won a big parliamentary majority, and the Labour party was more estranged than ever from its old heartlands. Having covered a country in mounting political ferment since 2010, we thought we could at least put Anywhere but Westminster on pause.
I have found moments of emotion in the footage that it would be hard to match in anything I shot myself
Posted in Guardian RSS | No Comments »
‘Normal’ life failed us. The coronavirus crisis gives us the chance to rethink a new economy | John Harris
Sunday, May 17th, 2020
It’s now clear that drastic changes are needed: the Labour party cannot afford to play it safe
About a month ago, many people I know on the political left were brimming with the belief that the Covid-19 crisis opened the way for a watershed conversation about deep social change. Now, as the full horror of the UK’s coronavirus experience becomes clearer and we begin to understand an all-enveloping crisis whose effects will be felt for years, that mood seems to have been supplanted by a pained mixture of anxiety and fatalism. On a bad day, our national nightmare now appears so deep and complex as to feel not just depressing, but insurmountable.
But from a somewhat unlikely source, there was recently a note of hope. Around the time of the recent VE Day celebrations, the journalist and historian Max Hastings – something of a freethinker, but also someone with a classic establishment background – wrote a piece for the Times. His jumping-off point was the social revolution that began in 1945, but he quickly moved his focus to 2020. “The present crisis seems destined again to change the face of Britain, unleashing demands for social, political and economic reform unprecedented in our memories,” said this one-time editor of the Daily Telegraph. To him, the immediate future was clear: “The polo season, figuratively speaking, is over.”
The dysfunctional centralisation of power in England, a blind spot for both the left and right, needs to be reversed
Posted in Guardian RSS | No Comments »
Musicians call for industry shake-up to protect artists during lockdown
Monday, May 11th, 2020
Two new campaigns call for artists to receive greater cut of Spotify and streaming royalties
Two organisations that represent thousands of British musicians and songwriters will today launch a Keep Music Alive campaign calling for urgent changes to the music industry to protect artists at risk of ruin as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
The campaign calls for solutions to the problems that the lockdown has inflicted on musicians. The suspension of live music under lockdown has cut off most artists’ one dependable source of income: gigs. And payments from streaming services such as Spotify are so negligible that they cannot hope to fill the massive hole in artists’ incomes.
Related: Musicians ask Spotify to triple payments to cover lost concert revenue
Related: Musical notes: how is pop music changing during the pandemic?
Related: Spotify’s ‘tip jar’ is a slap in the face for musicians. It should pay them better
Posted in Guardian RSS | No Comments »
We can’t hide behind the bunting – let’s face up to what’s happened to Britain | John Harris
Monday, May 11th, 2020
There are seeds of collective action in the Covid-19 crisis, but don’t underestimate the power of nationalist mythology
It was Boris Johnson who used the term “unlockdown” at the last prime minister’s questions; it was presumably sources in government who encouraged newspapers to think that giddy headlines about “freedom” reflected what he was about to announce. God knows, plenty of us are in the market for anything remotely hopeful. But in the wake of the mixed messages and bungling that blurred into the prime minister’s statement on Sunday, millions are likely to be feeling yet more anxiety.
Notwithstanding its rather forced delivery and the surfeit of diagrams and scales, what he said could perhaps have been worse. But Johnson had already undermined his words by his own actions, or lack of them. Promises of a “world-beating system” for testing and tracking, and plans for quarantining new arrivals at airports, only underlined the fact that these things have yet to materialise. And at the dread moment that the screen was filled with green and yellow and the baffling words ‘Stay alert’, his context overwhelmed him. Here, inevitably, was yet another reminder of dire incompetence at the top.
Posted in Guardian RSS | No Comments »
John's Books
-
Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll:
The Ultimate Guide to the Music, the Myths and the Madness
-
"The Dark Side of the Moon":
The Making of the "Pink Floyd" Masterpiece
So Now Who Do We Vote For?
The Last Party:
Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock
Britpop:
Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock
-
-
You are currently browsing the John Harris blog archives for May, 2020.
Archives
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- January 2010
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
Categories
- blogs (3)
- comment (4)
- features (2)
- Guardian RSS (1010)
- Labour Party (1)
- Music (3)
- Politics (6)
- Uncategorized (1)