Latest news with #GeorgeMonbiot
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
What is the word for deaths in Gaza?
Lisa Nandy describes the BBC's failures as 'catastrophic' (Tim Davie admits 'significant failing' by BBC over Gaza documentary, 14 July), though as far as I am aware she has not disputed the accuracy of the content of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. What adjective does she apply to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, many of them children?Richard MunroOxford What those responding to George Monbiot (Letters, 15 July) fail to grasp is that it is not about whether the target of the 'joke' is on the right or the left; it is about whether they have power and privilege or not. The 'jokes' that Monbiot described are all aimed at those who are disadvantaged in some way; that is what makes them GardnerWest Bridgford, Nottinghamshire So the two men who felled a tree have received prison sentences of four years and three months (Two men behind 'senseless' felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for more than four years, 15 July). They cut down a tree! When are we going to see any sentences at all for those people responsible for the deaths of 72 people, including 18 children, in the Grenfell fire?Angela SingerCambridge About 1,500 days in prison for felling a tree. Justice and value for money would be better served by the guilty men spending their next 750 weekends planting GarnerVale, Guernsey Anyone who remembers 1976 can advise the government how to end the drought – appoint a minister for drought (Thames Water announces hosepipe ban as dry weather depletes reservoirs, 14 July).Mary HuttyBath Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The National
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Activists 'to wear illegal Palestine T-shirts' at Edinburgh protest
A protest had been called for the Scottish capital at 1pm on July 19 in response to reports that the UK is continuing to send spy flights over Gaza and sharing information with Israel. After a man in Glasgow was charged last week with terror offences for allegedly wearing a T-shirt in support of Palestine Action, The National understands that activists will now also don the same piece of clothing in protest. The T-shirt, which bore the logo and web address of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), read: 'Genocide in Palestine. Time to take action.' The words Palestine and Action were in a larger font than the other text. 'Action' was in red, while the rest of the words were in white. Image showing a version of the T-shirt which the activist is believed to have been wearing (Image: Supplied) The Labour Government has proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, meaning being a member of – or showing support for – the group could lead to up to 14 years in prison. One protester, speaking anonymously, said: 'I'm scared to wear a T-shirt with the words 'Palestine' and 'Action' for fear of being charged under the Terrorism Act, which would then prevent me from visiting aged relatives [abroad] next year who may not be here for very long. 'It's not just wearing T-shirts. It's now becoming increasingly risky to attend Palestine protests and speak out against the genocide for fear of being arrested.' Over the weekend, campaign group Defend Our Juries organised demonstrations in cities including London, Derry, Manchester, and Cardiff, and reported 86 people had been arrested for holding signs which read: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.' The police had been informed beforehand, and The National understand activists in Edinburgh intend to do the same. READ MORE: Pro-Palestine protesters drive van through fence of arms firm factory in Edinburgh Writer George Monbiot shared an image of himself holding a sign saying: 'I support Palestine. Action must be taken." He added: 'My aim is to highlight the absurdity of the Government dictating what can and cannot be said by peace-seeking people. 'Absurdity is a hallmark of authoritarianism. It's not just that those who believe absurdities commit atrocities. It's also that those who endorse atrocities become absurd. 'This is where Keir Starmer's Government now finds itself.' Police Scotland has been approached for comment. After the charge last Friday, outside TRNSMT festival, the force said: 'A 55-year-old man was charged in connection with an offence under the Terrorism Act for wearing a T-shirt expressing support for a proscribed organisation. "A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal." The Edinburgh protest is set to begin at the foot of the Mound at 1pm on Saturday, July 19.
The National
12-07-2025
- General
- The National
What would this play's cast say about the Scotland we live in today?
What if a group of 2025 creatives set out, like John McGrath and his 7:84 company once did, to dramatise power, land, resources and belonging in Scotland? What would they say now? And how would they say it? It might be worth jumping back and forth between the eras, to see what persists of the Cheviot's original themes to this day. Start with the very title. The structure of the play – dramatised as a wild ceilidh night – maps to three historical periods of dispossession in Scottish history. The Cheviot is the sheep that replaced those human Highlanders cleared from their lands in the 18th century. READ MORE: Man jailed for 'despicable' wildlife crimes after setting dogs on other animals The stag populates the hunting grounds that many of those clearances became, at the hands of aristocratic landowners in the 19th century. And the black, black oil is obviously the 1960s and 70s discovery of fossil fuels in Scotland's coastal waters. The Cheviot today? Still nibbling away. They take up 55% of land dedicated to agriculture in Scotland – around 3.6 million hectares. But the sheep farming sector makes up only 7% of our overall national income from farming. In terms of their destructive impact on the environment, George Monbiot once described rural Scotland as being 'sheep-wrecked'. Vegans, rewilders and methane watchers have sheep-farming on notice, never might the weight of history from the Clearances. The stag's symbolism has hardly diminished as a misuse of the Scottish landscape, the extraction represented by hunting grounds still continuing. The campaign group Revive tell us that 12-18% of Scottish land is currently being used for grouse-shooting – about the size of Wales – while contributing a tiny amount to GDP. Wildlife tourism – which protects the diversity of species in landscapes, rather than blast away at them to keep game numbers up – brings in five times as much revenue as hunting. The case against is as strong now as in the 70s. The black, black oil was in its early potent surge when McGrath did the play's first performance in Aberdeen, April 1973. The following year, the SNP eventually elected 11 MPs on a proprietary slogan, 'It's Scotland's Oil'. But could the legacy of the black stuff be more complex? In the play, with amazing foresight, the American oilman Texas Jim thanks God that the UK Government 'didn't believe in all these pesky godless government controls like they do in Norway'. This anticipates the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund from oil and gas established in 1990, its trillions now invested in 1.5% of the globe's company stocks. Feel the pain. Which can be trebled. Firstly, the loss of such anchoring capital, because a tax-frittering Westminster had full sovereignty over the North Sea fields. Second, we have to admit the contribution that the exploitation of oil and gas has made towards what now looks like irreversible climate worsening. And thirdly, the pressure to leave remaining reserves where they are. Climate scientists urge that every ounce of carbon saved is worth it, if only to prevent an even more calamitous outcome. What a troubling, ethics-bending, dark-and-sticky mess this turned out to be. In 2025, the great theme of McGrath's play – extraction without consent – rolls back round again, with the stampede to develop renewable energy in Scotland. After the black, black oil comes the endless saving wind. READ MORE: I was homeless and using drugs. Now I'm playing at the Edinburgh Fringe But are the enemies as clear as the Cheviot identified them, with all the brutal clarity of seventies Marxists? Lesley Riddoch reported this week on the miasma of political and economic snarl-ups involved in wind-farm applications across the Highlands and Islands. It is, shall we say, a dramatic scene. Ed Miliband rejects zonal pricing, which would lower electricity costs in Scotland. MSPs raise their hands, saying they're legally bound by Westminster climate targets to allow rampant corporate and commercial developers to dominate bids – over that of community owners. Rural communities themselves are divided – between their commitments to the planet (which you'd expect, given their proximity to wildness). And then the despoiling of these conditions under breakneck imperatives – the 'industrialisation of the Highlands', as Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis puts it). They're suffering all the environmental chaos and disruption of next-stage renewable engineering, but on the poorest of terms. Turbines and pylons are on the march, sending clean energy to England. Meanwhile localities endure high domestic energy prices, as well as a structural prejudice against them benefitting directly from wind developments. Great and stormy meetings take place among and between communities. Rural electoral parties are mooted for next May. They look like they're urging a plague on all existing party-political houses. What theatrical drama could encompass such live political and social drama? The 2025 forms that might comprise a follow-up to the Cheviot are a really intriguing question. So many of the reports around its 50th anniversary in 2023 emphasised how much the play answered its audiences' thirst – for themselves and for their history to be represented on stage. The energy of the play seems to parallel Billy Connolly's explosion into the TV and concert mainstream. Both 7:84 and the Big Yin were relentless giggers, adapting themselves to whatever church hall or community centre could house them. However, we are also social media people in 2025, wherever we are strewn across Scotland. The young are on TikTok, but even the oldies are on Facebook and WhatsApp. And Zoom or Teams are the default organisational tools for many. What kind of single dramatic 'representation' could take purchase, when we have so many ways and means to represent ourselves? Creatives worth their salt should rise to such a challenge. Another major difference between these eras may be the acute need to foment less an anti-capitalist critique, more a pro-planet tendency. What's the bigger vision we can land, that makes Nigel Farage and his anti-green populism seem small and petty, in a Scottish context? Between makars and folk, can we co-compose 'cli-fi' – climate fiction – that puts emotional and dramatic flesh on the lives of Scots in this future? We can also be eclectic about the forms this cultural intervention takes. What's the 2025 equivalent – EDM club night, immersive event, game platform, social cosplay: let's explore – of the ceilidh which originally frames the Cheviot? And which often continued onwards, for real, after the final call? READ MORE: TRNSMT main stage act calls out politicians' attempts to cancel Kneecap Many stories from the Cheviot's past cherish the interaction between performer and audience. Again, assuming the presence of digital networks, how could culture and performance click directly into other democratic and self-determining behaviours? Both face-to-face and virtually? Powerful, co-created arts should be one motivating element to help you persist with the planning and deliberation of projects like community energy, civic assemblies, collective envisioning. To defeat the Faragists, we need a dollop of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's advice about projects: 'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up folks to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.' And reflecting on the Cheviot, it may not be that we need a 'theatre of the oppressed', as the Brazilian Augusto Boal once asked for. But what Simon Starkey, one of the founders of the National Theatre of Scotland, calls a 'theatre of opportunity'. Let's push back against yet more 'extraction without consent'. But as many of Scotland's greatest artists would agree, let's raise visions of a desirably complex and alternative Scotland at the same time. That's the kind of new Cheviot I'd yearn to see – and maybe even help shape. Something vast and unruly enough to hold our anger, our grief, our planetary hopes, all at once. So what's your version? Who's your cast? Where's your stage?
The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
We have only ourselves to blame for the UK's land monopoly
While we might fume at the eviction of a whole village by its landlord, we only have ourselves to blame for allowing such power to remain in the hands of so few (An entire village in Dorset is facing eviction – proof that private money holds all the power in rural England, 28 June). Even socialist governments have balked at dealing with the issue of land monopoly, and we have failed to hold them to account. In 1909, when landed power was largely synonymous with the aristocracy, Tom Johnston, later to become secretary of state for Scotland, noted that land titles had originally been created 'either by force or fraud'. He urged the people to 'shatter the romance that keeps the nation numb and spellbound while privilege picks its pocket'. As George Monbiot's article shows, land monopoly today is not confined to the aristocracy. The most effective way to neutralise its power would be through land value taxation, which would ensure that those who claim to own the country bear its running costs. In 1910, the Inland Revenue initiated a full survey of land use, value and ownership across Britain. It was completed in five years, but the outbreak of war and a change of government meant the proposed tax measures were never implemented. Our present Labour government has four years to repeat the exercise and reform our broken tax system. It should start DigneyStirling The eviction of the inhabitants of Littlebredy in Dorset by their new owner Bridehead Estate Ltd, excoriatingly exposed by George Monbiot, has a strong historical echo from the 1770s at Milton Abbas, less than 30 miles away. Lord Milton bought Milton Abbey, near Dorchester, in 1752. Capability Brown was brought in to 'improve' the surrounding landscape. He faced the problem of what to do about the unsightly medieval village of more than a hundred households. The solution was to move it. In 1774 Brown drew up plans for a new 'model village' of new homes. Over the next decade the villagers were decanted, some against their will, to new homes in Milton Abbas. Barely a trace of the old village exists. Lord Milton is often cited as one of the worst examples of the callous ostentation common among the English landowning Whig oligarchy of the 18th century. But at least he felt obliged to rehouse his tenants. Judging from Monbiot's piece, it seems that a corporate landowner in today's Britain is not even obliged to do that when it decides to socially engineer an inconvenient community out of house and GutchLondon Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
We have only ourselves to blame for the UK's land monopoly
While we might fume at the eviction of a whole village by its landlord, we only have ourselves to blame for allowing such power to remain in the hands of so few (An entire village in Dorset is facing eviction – proof that private money holds all the power in rural England, 28 June). Even socialist governments have balked at dealing with the issue of land monopoly, and we have failed to hold them to account. In 1909, when landed power was largely synonymous with the aristocracy, Tom Johnston, later to become secretary of state for Scotland, noted that land titles had originally been created 'either by force or fraud'. He urged the people to 'shatter the romance that keeps the nation numb and spellbound while privilege picks its pocket'. As George Monbiot's article shows, land monopoly today is not confined to the aristocracy. The most effective way to neutralise its power would be through land value taxation, which would ensure that those who claim to own the country bear its running costs. In 1910, the Inland Revenue initiated a full survey of land use, value and ownership across Britain. It was completed in five years, but the outbreak of war and a change of government meant the proposed tax measures were never implemented. Our present Labour government has four years to repeat the exercise and reform our broken tax system. It should start DigneyStirling The eviction of the inhabitants of Littlebredy in Dorset by their new owner Bridehead Estate Ltd, excoriatingly exposed by George Monbiot, has a strong historical echo from the 1770s at Milton Abbas, less than 30 miles away. Lord Milton bought Milton Abbey, near Dorchester, in 1752. Capability Brown was brought in to 'improve' the surrounding landscape. He faced the problem of what to do about the unsightly medieval village of more than a hundred households. The solution was to move it. In 1774 Brown drew up plans for a new 'model village' of new homes. Over the next decade the villagers were decanted, some against their will, to new homes in Milton Abbas. Barely a trace of the old village exists. Lord Milton is often cited as one of the worst examples of the callous ostentation common among the English landowning Whig oligarchy of the 18th century. But at least he felt obliged to rehouse his tenants. Judging from Monbiot's piece, it seems that a corporate landowner in today's Britain is not even obliged to do that when it decides to socially engineer an inconvenient community out of house and GutchLondon Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
