Britain, according to an old Spy Master called Sir Richard Dearlove, should be no country for the old Master of Spy Fiction called John le Carré

The former Head of MI6, 74 year old, Sir Richard Dearlove has criticised the 87 year old John le Carré for trading his experiences in the intelligence services to write books. Sir Richard joined MI6 in 1966 and was its Head from 1999 until 2004 and drew a contrast between those he described as the "primary myth makers of British intelligence : James Bond and John le Carré." He said that although Bond had his benefits, when it came to Le Carré, although the Smiley series of novels “have some quality, he is so corrosive in his view of MI6 that most professional Secret Intelligence Service officers are pretty angry with him. He flips the coin of reality. Intelligence organisations are based on trust between colleagues. His books are exclusively about betrayal.”

Sir Richard said that while reading Le Carré’s memoir ' 'The Pigeon Tunnel : Stories from My Life,' he had concluded that the author was “obsessed with his membership of the Secret Intelligence Service. He was only in the service for three years and something must have happened to him while he was there to breed this cynicism. I rather resent the fact that he has traded on his knowledge and reputation and yet the feeling I get is that he really rather intensely dislikes the service.”


John did not take all this lying down and responded by saying that : 'Sir Richard is not sound on the details of my career — dates wrong, duration wrong, scant mention of my years in MI5 or my extramural work for both services. But he claims, rather quaintly, that since I only served a mere three years in MI6 (not true), I was scarcely qualified to write about the service anyway. My books, he goes on to complain, are “exclusively about betrayal.”  Something, he says darkly, “must have happened to me to breed this cynicism.” Well, yes, actually it did.'

Born David John Cornwell in 1931, it was  after studying foreign languages at the University of Bern in Switzerland when he was 17 to 18 years old that he joined the Intelligence Corps of the British Army garrisoned in Austria, working as a German language interrogator of people who crossed the Iron Curtain to the West. In 1952, he returned to Britain to study at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he worked covertly for the British Security Service, MI5, spying on far-left groups for information about possible Soviet agents.

It wasn't until he was 27, in 1958, that he became and MI5 officer and ran agents, conducted interrogations, tapped telephone lines and effected break-ins and it was three years later that, still an active officer, he began writing his first novel, 'Call for the Dead.' By this time he had transferred to MI6, the foreign-intelligence service, and worked under the cover of Second Secretary at the British Embassy at Bonn.

 He then transferred to Hamburg as a political consul and it was there that he wrote 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' as 'John le Carré 'in 1963. He left the Service the following year to work full-time as a novelist, because his intelligence-officer career was brought to an end as the result of the betrayal of British agents' covers to the KGB by Kim Philby, the infamous British double agent.


According to John, he first picked up his cynicism at the age of 30 when George Blake was unmasked as a spy in 1961 after he had decided to become a Communist and work for the KGB while a prisoner during the Korean War. 'I had barely finished my basic training when George Blake, a longstanding and greatly treasured officer of the service, was exposed as a Russian spy. The taxpaying public wasn’t allowed to know it at the time, but Blake had consigned several hundred British agents to prison, death, torture, or all three. Exactly how many hundred he couldn’t be sure, as he later declared from his safe haven in Moscow.'

That cynicism was increased when 'Kim Philby was exposed, although again the scale of the damage was just too much for the public to swallow. Add together all the MI6 agents and the MI6 special operations that Philby betrayed over his 30 years of working for MI6 and the Kremlin, throw in Blake’s few hundred or so, and we’re safely into the thousands: liquidated, imprisoned, or missing believed interrogated.'

With his knowledge of the damage caused by Blake and Philby it is little surprising that John said : 'So yes. Something did happen to me, and it would have happened to Sir Richard if he had been around at the time, which he wasn’t.'

As to Sir Richard's point that "most professional Secret Intelligence Service officers are pretty angry with him" John rejected this by saying : 'Soon after Sir Richard’s retirement as Chief, his successor, Sir John Scarlett, invited me to dine with some of his senior staff. I was flattered, but felt queasy about what I had read of the service’s alleged role in the run-up to the Iraq War. So I said thanks, and reluctantly declined.'

In addition, another Intelligence Chief, David Spedding : 'invited me to lunch with his directors at the service’s new headquarters. He later visited us in Cornwall. He kindly believed that, due in part to my novels, MI6 had assumed a sensible place in the public awareness : human, fallible, aspirational, contentious, and part of real life.' Also, Antony Duff, 'a former Director-General of MI5 and a longtime friend, thought my books were trash but harmless.'

John concluded : 'Take your pick. One thing is certain. When my new novel comes out next month, Sir Richard and his notional colleagues are going to be mad as bedbugs. But thanks all the same for the much-needed publicity at this busy time in the publishing year.' 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/07/exclusive-john-le-carre-new-novel-brexit-intrigue-agent-running-in-the-field

Austerity Britain is no country, Rochdale no town and Yorkshire no county for and old Egg Trader called Peter Jordan

Rochdale, a town of  96,000 inhabitants in Greater Manchester, sits in the foothills of the South Pennines on the River Roch. It has a long history and was first recorded with an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086 under 'Recedham Manor.' By 1251, Rochdale had become important enough to have been granted a Royal charter and flourished into a centre of northern England's woollen trade.

In the Middle Ages it started life as a market town when weekly markets were held from 1250 when Edmund de Lacy obtained a grant for a market and an annual fair. At that time the market was held outside the parish church where there was an 'Orator's Corner.'

Rochdale rose to prominence in the 19th century as a mill town and centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and is the birthplace of the modern Co-operative Movement. The Rochdale Pioneers' shop was the precursor to The Co-operative Group, the largest consumer co-operative in the world.

Peter Jordan, who is 76 years old has worked at the market for years and known affectionately as "The Egg Man”, had been hoping to pass on his stall to future Jordan generations. This is not to be because  last week the local authority said the market, which is in its third location in five years, is no longer “financially viable” and will be closed next month.

Peter's grandfather first began selling his produce from his 768 year old farm in 1919 and next month the family would have celebrated their 100th anniversary as Rochdale market traders.

For Peter's fellow traders, who say they have been moved "from pillar to post,” this news of the closure of the ancient market  was death knell for their livelihood. The official letter told them they were being given four weeks’ notice to vacate their plots, with the last day of trading on Monday 14 October. The council says it was not contractually obliged to give any notice but wanted to give traders time 'to make alternative arrangements.'

Peter believes that the market is as relevant today as it was in the 1950s when as a teenager he started helping his father and said : “I have the same people coming every week, sometimes twice a week, to buy their eggs. They want fresh produce and don’t want to get everything from supermarkets.”

Fully in step with mean-spirited Austerity Britain and without a shred of reverence for Rochdale's long history a council spokesperson said : “Ultimately we can’t use public money to subsidise the market indefinitely when it is losing money month after month. We will help any trader who wishes to relocate.”

Peter said : "They think they can kick us out as if it means nothing to the town, but it means a lot to the town. But it's people in offices dictating the wishes of the people of Rochdale, so we will have to wait and see."

"A nation which forgets its past has no future."

Brexit Britain is a country graced by the soaring oratory of a Senior Lawyer called Aiden O'Neill

At the age of 59, Aidan O'Neill is scarce 'old' . As a lawyer on top of his game he was appointed Queen's Counsel in England and Wales in 2017 and in fact holds rare 'double silk' status, having became a Scottish QC in 1999.

He was in the news this week because of his combative closing comments, before the 11 Justices of the Supreme Court hearing the prorogation case to reject legal arguments advanced by the Boris Johnson Government that the courts do not have the power to intervene in his decision to prorogue parliament for five weeks.

His speech was delivered in the afternoon of the second day of the emergency hearing at Britain's highest court into whether the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen, to suspend debates at a time of a national constitutional crisis over Brexit, was lawful.

In contrast with other lawyers who addressed the Supreme Court this week through detailed reference to past cases and subsections of law, QC O’Neill adopted a centuries-long historical perspective and an emotive approach to the nature of Britain's constitution.

His speech, which approached two hours in length, was rich in metaphors. For example, in making the point that the Court represented all four nations in Britain he said : "This Court is very conscious of the symbolism of its creation. I look down at the carpet, it notices what is being said. Symbols speak. Emblems are there for a reason and what we have before us is a Court which picks up four national emblems : a flax, a thistle, a rose and a leek, embraced in an omega - the last instance, embraced in a matrix and presumably, that imagery, that iconography is telling us that the Court cherishes, protects and nourishes the four traditions that together make up this Union. This Court will be well aware that we live in a union state. We don't describe this as a 'union state' but 'a state of nations.'"

He referred to a statue of Nelson Mandela outside the Court as "a reminder of civil resistance against unjust regimes and also a reminder of the triumph of truth and reconciliation, the reinstatement of the rule of law and enlistment of a properly constitutional court."

"Immediately outside the Court is a statue of Abraham Lincoln who, at a time of great constitutional crisis in his own nation, when it was questioning its fundamental identity said : "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies, though passion may have strained, it must not break our bands of affection touched as surely by the better angels of our nature."

"Those are the images, those are the matters, that is the backdrop against which this Court is determining the issues before it."

Thirty five minutes into his presentation he made the point that the Johnson Government was accountable to Parliament and Parliament was accountable to the people and the to say that the Government is accountable to the people is government by populism. "In the present case the Prime Minister's power to prorogue Parliament has had this intent and effect of impeding Parliament of holding the Government to account at a time when the Government is taking decisions which will have constitutional and irrevocable impact for our country.That fundamentally alters the balance of our constitution. That cannot be a lawful use of the power of prerogative."

His opponent sitting next to him, Sir James Eadie, provided excellent entertainment with his repertoire of body language which ran from boredom to what appeared to be despair. At one point he covered his eyes with his fingers and mute QC O'Neill by sticking his thumb in his ear and at another exercised a barely concealed yawn.

The QC urged the 11 Justices not to make this a “Dred Scott moment,” referring to the landmark 1857 US Supreme Court case that affirmed slave owners rights and paved the way to the American Civil War and “Instead stand up for the truth, stand up for reason, stand up for unity in diversity, stand up for Parliament, stand up for democracy by dismissing this government’s appeal and uphold a constitution governed by laws and not the passing whims of men. What we’ve got here is the Mother of Parliaments being shut down by the Father of Lies.”

His “father of lies” was a Bible reference to the devil, as Jesus in the Gospel of John says of him: “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

QC O’Neill finished with  : “Lies have consequences but the truth will set us free. Rather than allowing lies to triumph, listen to the angels of your better nature and rule that this prorogation is unlawful and an abuse of power which has been entrusted to the Government. This Government is showing itself unworthy of our trust as it uses the powers of its office in a manner that is corrosive of the constitution and destructive of the system of parliamentary representative democracy on which our union polity is founded.

Enough is enough. Dismiss this appeal and let them know that that’s what truth speaking to power sounds like.”

https://www.supremecourt.uk/watch/uksc-2019-0193/180919-pm.html

Brexit Britain is a country with a Conservative Party which is no longer a home for two old Tory politicians called Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames

Page views : 731

Born in the first summer of the Second World War in 1940, Ken Clarke is 79 years old and has been in politics for most of his life. In fact, he first became a Conservative Member of Parliament at the age of 29, fifty years ago. Earlier this week he joined 20 other rebel Conservative MPs to vote against his own Conservative Government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Effectively, they helped block Johnson's "No Deal" Brexit plan from proceeding on 31 October. Subsequently, all 21 were told that they were no longer they were members of the Conservative Parliamentary Party and would be barred from putting themselves forward as Conservative candidates in a future general election.

In one fell swoop Prime Minister Johnson had put an end to Ken's 50 year career as a a professional politician. He is well-respected and is currently Father of the House and had held all the great offices of state under Prime Ministers Heath, Thatcher, Major and Cameron having served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Justice Secretary, Health Secretary and Education Secretary.

Interviewed after his ejection he said that he no longer recognised the present Conservative Party, referring to it as "the Brexit party, rebadged". Referring to Prime Minister Johnson he said :"It’s been taken over by a rather knockabout sort of character, who’s got this bizarre crash-it-through philosophy … a Cabinet which is the most right-wing Cabinet any Conservative Party has ever produced."

Interviewed in the Observer today he reflected that he first became a Conservative MP when Boris Johnson was “a small toddler” and before he was born first came in Tory politics. He first attended a Conservative party conference as a student in 1962, where he supported Harold Macmillan’s application to join the Common Market against the fierce opposition of the imperialist wing of the Tory party and recalled : “I was one of the students who was going around wearing a ‘Yes’ badge.” Asked if he were a 20-year old student again would he make a different choice he said : “In its present state, I would not join the Conservative party. I would not follow Boris Johnson in this wild, rightwing nationalist stuff. The party wasn’t like that when I joined.”

Another Tory grandee and one of the 21, is the 71 year old Sir Nicholas Soames, who has served as an MP from the age of 35 in 1983. He hadn't risen as high as Ken in Government, but he had been a former Conservative Defence Minister and the grandson of Winston Churchill and he admitted that he, unlike Ken, had shed a tear this week when he was told that he had lost the Conservative whip for rebelling over a no-deal Brexit after 37 years as an MP : “I did blub actually, it was a sad moment. I was very emotional. I don’t want to end like this particularly as I am so far from being a serial rebel.” 

He told 'The Times' : “I am worried about the Tory party because . . . give or take the odd spasm we have always been seen as pragmatic, sensible, good at our job, sane, reasonable and having the interests of the whole country and now it is beginning to look like a Brexit sect.”

“My anxiety is that the Party which I joined 40 years ago was humane, principled, serious, decent, understanding, always One Nation Conservatives.” Now, “I have colleagues in my party who I look at and think I have nothing in common with them at all and they look at me and think they have nothing in common with me”.

He told the House of Commons : ‘I’m truly very sad that it should end in this way and it is my most fervent hope that this house will rediscover the spirit of compromise, humility and understanding that will enable us finally to push ahead with the vital work in the interests of the whole country that has inevitably had to be so sadly neglected whilst we have devoted so much time to wrestling with Brexit’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awA6D5k5VI8

Brexit-obsessed Britain is a country with a nation called England where old men in need of social care are lost in a "sea of inertia"

Britain in 2019 is a country where the failure of funding to keep pace with rising demand created by more and more old men and women living longer and longer, can be explained by the fact that nearly £8bn has been cut from Council Adult Social Care Budgets since 2010, which has meant that 1.4 million old man and women went without help, which means they no longer get help with basic activities such as :

* getting out of bed
* washing
* going to the toilet

In its Report 'Care in Crisis', the charity, 'Age UK', said services for older and sick and disabled people were 'under extreme duress' and unable to respond to rapidly growing need : 'Growing levels of desperation described by those individuals, families and professionals on the sharp end bear testament to a system working at full pelt, stretched to its limit and still failing people left, right and centre.'

It also highlighted fears that the market for residential care in England in many areas was failing, with half of councils witnessing the closure of domestic home care providers in their area in the past year and a third seeing residential care homes shut down.

Age UK’s Charity Director, Caroline Abrahams said the Report painted a “frightening” picture of what might happen to social care unless the Government intervened decisively to lift massive pressure on local authority social care budgets. “When you strip out the complexity the story is really very simple: demand is going up but funding and supply are going down, leaving increasing numbers of older people to fend for themselves, rely on loved ones if that’s an option for them, or pay through the nose via a hefty stealth tax without which many care homes would not stay afloat.” 

The Report is the latest in a string of recent reports highlighting the fragility of the social care system in the face of massive underfunding. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said in June that the system was adrift "in a sea of inertia” as Brexit dominated Government Ministers’ energy and attention.

Again, will heed be paid to the cross-party Lords Committee, including two former Chancellors, which in July called for an immediate £8bn investment to tackle the long-neglected “national scandal” of social care which had left more than a million vulnerable older people without proper support ?

And should heed be paid to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who said in July that he had a “clear plan” to fix the social care crisis ?  In fact, subsequent reports suggest that, having shelved the long-delayed social care green paper commissioned by his predecessor, Theresa May, his own blueprint was unlikely to be published before the end of the year.

The fact is that social care services in some areas of England are so fragile that they face complete collapse next year and inestimable hardship to old men and women unless the Government commits substantial extra investment

Should old men and women in England best take heart when s Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said : “We have given local authorities access to nearly £4bn more dedicated funding for adult social care this year, and a further £410m is available for adults and children’s services. The Prime Minister is committed to fixing the social care system and we will outline proposals in due course.” ?

Britain, awash with 'casual ageism', is no country for old men

SunLife Insurance Company has recently published the result of its consumer research of 4,000 men and women in Britain with a Report entitled 'Ageist Britain ?'

It made the point that if you type phrases like ‘old fart’ and ‘bitter old man’ into Twitter and you’ll see they’re used thousands of times a week and casual ageism is part of our everyday language. It’s so ingrained that many ageist remarks are often overlooked, missed or simply accepted. In fact, ‘ageist’ language, however casual, can have a huge impact on our perception of later life for men and women and the way we treat people we meet and it perpetuates the myth that life for older men and women must be worse than before it.

Some statistics :

• over a third of Brits (34%) admit that they have at some time discriminated against people because of their age.

• almost half of Brits in their thirties (48%) admitted to having been ageist at some point.

• more than two thirds (68%) of over 50s say the ageism apparent in everyday life has made
them feel less valued.

• almost 1 in 3 Brits have experienced age discrimination at work, 1 in 10 on public transport and 1 in 7 while shopping.

• Southampton is the most ageist city in Britain with  46% of residents admitting to being ageist whereas Bristol the least ageist with only 20% admitting to being ageist.

• a fifth don’t believe that Britain is a good place for older people to live and 31% say they believe ageism is a bigger problem today than three years ago.

Ageist phrases directed at old men :

• Old fogey
• Old codger
• Old goat
• Old fuddy-duddy

• Decrepit old man
• Drive like an old man
• Grumpy old man
• Cranky old man
• Miserable old man

• Past it
• Over the hill
• Senile
• Out of touch
• Having a senior moment
• Silly old fool
• You can’t teach an old dog new tricks
• Ancient

Common terms that we think aren’t ageist, but are:

• Looks good, for his age
• Gentlemen of a certain age

Over a 7 day period ageist phrases were used on social media channels including Twitter and blogs 2,400 times and 125,684 casually ageist terms are used each year on social media.

• ‘old fart’ is used 436 times a week
• ‘bitter old man/woman’ 253 times a week
• ‘little old lady/man’ 308 times a week
• ‘grumpy old man/woman’ 168 times a week
• ‘ladies/gentlemen of a certain age’ 140 times a week

As a result of ageist behaviour directed at them, men and women in their sixties are most likely to feel :

• ‘less valued’ 73%
• ‘self-conscious’ 52%
• 'alienated’ 53%
• ‘unhappy’ 62%

Emma Twyning at the 'Centre for Ageing Better' welcomed the Report and said : “These subtle, but damaging messages, are everywhere, from the TV shows we watch featuring “doddery but dear” characters and the “anti-ageing” face creams we buy, to the constant media reports about the “burden” of our ageing population. The evidence suggests that this ageist societal narrative negatively impacts on our personal experiences of ageing and perhaps even our health and well being.”

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director of Age UK, said : “Ageism must become as unacceptable as every other form of discrimination.”



Shelley Hopkinson, Public Affairs Manager at 'Independent Age', agreed, adding : “Part of the problem is that people often don’t even realise that the language they’re using can be ageist or cause offence”.

Brexit-obsessed Britain is no country for more and more old men living in severe poverty

The recently published report, 'Pension Reforms and Old Age Inequalities in Europe' has revealed that the proportion of men and women people living in severe poverty in Britain is five times what it was in 1986 and the largest increase among western European countries,.

Its author, Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus, of the University of Oxford said that the rise, from 0.9% of the elderly population to around 5%, is attributable to Britain’s state pension system and its low basic payments and means-tested supplements. He told a European Sociological Association Conference that Britain is one of five countries out of 16 that he has studied where there has been an increase in people aged 65 and over who are living in “severe poverty”, which is defined as having an income of 40% or less of the median average.

As the graph shows in the mid-1980s about 1% of those aged 65 and over in Britain were living in severe poverty, putting it equal-lowest in poverty rates of 16 western European countries. In France it was 12% and in Germany 6%. However, by 2008, the proportion had risen to 6%, making Britain fourth-equal highest with Switzerland, Ireland and Spain standing higher. Over the following eight years, the proportion dipped slightly but remained at just under 5%.

Professor Ebbinghaus said Britain compared unfavourably with many other countries : “The lowest poverty rates among older people are found in the relatively generous Dutch basic pensions and Nordic welfare states, while the UK, but also Ireland and Switzerland, with basic old-age security, had the highest poverty rates.”

Why do a larger proportion of old people live in poverty in Britain than in Germany for example ? For the answer you have to go back to the social welfare reforms initiated by the economist and social reformer, William Beveridge and the Labour Government in the 20th century after the Second World War and the reforms in Germany initiated by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the 19th century.

The Professor said that Britain "is a good example of the Beveridge-lite systems that have historically failed to combat old-age poverty. These have rather ungenerous basic pensions with means-tested supplements and this reproduces relatively high severe poverty rates among the elderly. British basic pensions are particularly low, 16% of average earnings, and require a long contribution period. Income-tested or means-tested targeted benefits are needed to supplement basic pensions and to lift them out of severe poverty – every sixth British pensioner receives such additional benefits.”

He contrasted the British system, with its flat-rate basic pension, with the “Bismarckian” system used in Germany and several other European countries, where mandatory pension contributions are based on earnings. “A comparative analysis of poverty rates in old age reveals that Beveridge basic security is not always capable of effectively reducing poverty despite the explicit purpose of doing so, while some contributory Bismarckian systems are better suited to reducing poverty, despite focusing on status maintenance.” 

Whatever the reasons, Brexit-obsessed Britain in 2019 is no country for those 5 old people in every 100 who are living in severe poverty.

Brexit Britain is country where an old film director called Mike Leigh invokes the democratic spirit of Peterloo to fight 'the forces of deceit'

The 76 year old film director Mike Leigh had an article published in the Guardian today :

It was an impassioned piece in which he ended with the plea : 'Brexit is the epitome of democracy under threat – indeed, of democracy gone wrong. To end this awful impasse we must have another referendum, one that is not afflicted with the lies and spin of 2016 – the People’s Vote. The spirit of Peterloo must endure.'

Mike wrote and then directed his historical film drama 'Peterloo' in 2018,  He based on events on 16 August 1819, when a crowd of some 60,000 people from Manchester and surrounding towns gathered in St Peter’s Fields to demand Parliamentary reform and an extension of voting rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h92eN7zc1fU&t=0m50s

The meeting had been peaceful, but in the attempt to arrest a leader of the meeting, the mounted yeomany, armed with sabres, panicked and charged the crowd and as a result as many as 15 people were killed and up to 700 wounded. In parody of the Battle of Waterloo which had taken place five years before, the the killings were given the name 'The Peterloo Massacre.' 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Wp37haiG4&t=0m39s

The immediate after effect of the Massacre was a crackdown on reform, as the authorities feared the country was heading towards armed rebellion. The outcry led to the founding of the Manchester Guardian and played a significant role in the passage through Parliament of the Great Reform Act thirteen years later.

Mike referred to his attendance at the bicentenial of the Massacre in Manchester last Friday. 
'Monday 16 August 1819 was a beautiful summer’s day, when at least 60,000 people came in their Sunday best to St Peter’s Field in Manchester for the peaceful demonstration that turned so tragically into the bloody Peterloo Massacre. On 16 August 2019, by contrast, there was a relentless downpour of the worst Mancunian variety. But the spirit of 200 years ago was not the least bit dampened by the torrential rain.'

'In our complex world of lies and fake news and sinister manipulation, democracy is under threat on so many levels. And the radicals and reformers of two centuries ago have much to teach us – the lessons of Peterloo go far beyond the issue of universal suffrage. As John Thacker Saxton, a real-life radical played by John-Paul Hurley in my film, says :
“Though we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

 '

'Nellie, the poor mother in my film played by Maxine Peake, referring to the Corn Laws, asks, “When has the government ever done anything to help us?” She would be astonished at the cost of living now that drives so many to despair, by the five-week wait for universal credit, by the likely rise in food bills of £190 per annum per person because of Brexit, by zero-hours contracts, and by a health minister who refuses to rule out deaths caused by lack of medicine if the UK leaves the EU with no deal.'

'Nearly 4,000 people silently meditating in the pouring rain is a deeply moving experience. So many thoughts, feelings, ideas, memories, hopes, fears, all in those few precious minutes.'

'The Midland Hotel, right in front of us, was built on the site of the house from which the misguided magistrates watched the meeting, before so stupidly instructing their forces to attack. Suddenly, I felt a rare sense of connection to those events on this very spot.' 
'

'We were so close, too, to the spot where Henry “Orator” Hunt and the others stood on the hustings – two horse carts – by what is now the Radisson Hotel, but was in my youth the Free Trade Hall concert venue.' 

Mike asked : 'What if the folk at Peterloo, who were fighting for the vote, could time-travel to 2019? Would they not be appalled and disgusted by the fact that we have the vote, yet so many people don’t use it? Would they not be astonished at the deceit of Brexit? At how working-class people still starve two centuries after the iniquitous Corn Laws? That last year there were 1.6 million recipients of emergency food parcels in the UK, half of the contents going to children?'

'These thoughts and feelings, and many more, raced through my head and heart as I stood, wet and silent, with many kindred spirits.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVd-SVmsBbY