Tuesday 18th January 2022

I reflect on attacks on the BBC, the defeats suffered in the Lords by the PCSC Bill and the fact that Boris Johnson is still PM.

There has been a drinking culture at the heart of the UK government from the very start. I reflected on this with a short blog post.

 This article was published by Freedom on 11th January 2022. I wrote it between Christmas and the second week of January. The section on Boris Johnson probably already having done things that will come to light and be controversial was written before the news broke of the party in Downing Street that he performed a non-apology over at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons on 12th January. I didn't realise he would prove me right quite so quickly but this article was designed to stand the test of time. 

 In late summer 2021 I started to gather some thoughts for an article that would be published in the printed edition of Freedom, timed to coincide with the London Anarchist Bookfair. It needed to be a more reflective piece, one that was not going to be time-bound. I suggested a skewed look at the concept of mutual aid, focusing on the ways in which the powerful and the rich support one another in crisis. This idea was accepted and it would sit nicely alongside articles on solidarity and mutual aid during Covid. It was published online at Freedom at the start of January 2022. I was pleased with it when I'd finished writing it but since publication it seems to have impressed people, which is always nice. On the day of the Bookfair itself, I bumped into an anarchist writer whose work I admire. I got a message later that day from them congratulating me on the article. When that happens you really start to feel that the piece was good. Since it was published online it received a shout out as "Article of the Day" by the Independent Media Association. So I'm guessing this one is pretty good.