LGBT rugby in Manchester: an interview with Manchester Village Spartans

Earlier this month Leeds Rhinos became the latest rugby league club to reaffirm their active lead in the fight against homophobia. Dedicating their home match against Widnes Vikings to raising funds for Stonewall, it represents the latest in a substantial number of efforts within the sport to diversify and push for equality, following the launch of the multi-faceted equality campaign, “Tackle It”. It also comes just two years after the RFL took a hard-line stance towards the Castleford fans caught hurling abuse at Gareth Thomas, the first notable rugby player to ”come out” whilst active in the game and a year after Stonewall awarded RFL a place in its top 100 gay-friendly workplaces.   Altogether this has had the effect of encouraging some commentators to say rugby league, whilst still having considerable way to go to eradicate homophobia completely has made more significant ground than football in recent years.

It's sporting twin, rugby union, has made significant grassroots level efforts to attract more LGBT defining people to the game who may have distanced themselves from the sport due to fears or experiences of homophobic attitudes. The International Gay Rugby Association Board (IGRAB), a predominantly union based organisation founded in 2002 as an umbrella organisation for the growing number of inclusive, self-defined LGBT rugby clubs around the world, is trying to promote rugby as a non-discriminatory, all-inclusive sport .

This year its gay rugby world cup, named after player Mark Bingham who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, celebrated its sixth contest in Manchester.The city is also home to IGRAB member Manchester Village Spartans RUFC, formed in 1999 initially to provide a supportive playing environment for men who identify as gay or bisexual. Gareth Longley, representative and player of the Village Spartans, talked to me about the positives of having self-defined LGBT-friendly rugby teams, how the sport is making progress in terms of equality and what more there is to be done to reach a time when self-defined LGBT teams need no longer exist.

Why did you choose to get involved with the Village Spartans?

I’d always played rugby as a kid but when I came out just before going to university I gave it up because the perceived macho image of university clubs didn’t appeal to me and due to a fear of discrimination within them for being gay, although this was only a perception rather than due to an actual bad experience. It was only when i moved to Manchester when i was 24 that i got back into playing rugby after discovering the Spartans.

Do you think that LGBT rugby clubs are important to the LGBT population?

I think they are important. It’s not that they necessarily act principally as a haven for people who fear being persecuted for being openly gay, although LGBT teams can be a valuable place to gain enough confidence in the sport to perhaps join a mainstream team or at least play with others regardless of their sexuality. We hope that rugby players and officials in general are really trying to work towards greater inclusivity within their clubs both nationally and internationally.

LGBT teams can, however, additionally offer a certain type of social understanding that a chiefly straight team can’t always do to the same degree. On a night out for example, Manchester Spartans go predominantly to the gay bars and I can talk to them about my relationship more openly because the majority of them are gay too so I think it offers the opportunity to feel a real part of the team both on and off the pitch due to having that common ground in social terms. We hope to be capitalising on this aspect with gay men interested in rugby.

At the end of the day we are there to play rugby and our team is an inclusive one, it’s by no means exclusive to any particular sexuality so we welcome all men who show an interest in playing for us. I think self-defined, LGBT-friendly teams work both ways in attempting to encourage inclusivity and diversity whilst highlighting to everyone that sexuality is by no means a barrier to being good at sport.

Do you think that rugby is more progressive in terms of its attempts to ensure substantial LGBT equality and inclusivity than football and if so, why?

I think rugby in the main has been more progressive in this area. I can’t comment on rugby league but in terms of rugby union I’d say that maybe this is due in part to the fact that historically union was and continues to be a lot more of an upper middle class sport where it’s been easier for people to ‘come out’ due to their more privileged positions. This can be seen on an international level too to some extent.  Rugby Union is now gaining popularity in the more affluent gay scenes in countries where it’s traditionally not been played such as the US within some expensive universities.

In general though, perceptions in sport are changing for the better across the board in terms of real inclusivity due to changing social attitudes. Sexuality shouldn’t be a barrier to sport and I envisage a time where in ten, 15 years we won’t have to have LGBT teams because sport will be completely inclusive. We’ve still got a long way to go yet though both in union and league as in other major sports.

Have you been successful in attracting more LGBT people into the sport?

I think we’ve helped make an impact; some people shy away from the sport at school because of fears that they’ll be discriminated against for being gay and feeling that they couldn’t adequately identify with the people that they were playing with. LGBT teams offer people the chance to take up the sport at a much later age than in regular adult teams where a certain standard of playing is more likely to be expected. Because of this it has the ability to offer newcomers a safe inroad into the sport that’s more open to beginner level playing.

We like to give opportunities to people who haven’t come from a sporting background not only to gain confidence to play the sport but get involved in the team-oriented social side too. We want to give people the chance to become involved in an activity that’s bigger and broader socially than just going to a gay bar, its giving people the chance to be part of something bigger that comes with a solid support network founded on team mentality.

I think hosting the rugby world cup in Manchester definitely highlighted the sport’s attempts to encourage people interested in playing the sport but with little experience to get involved, but I’m not sure that it alone radically increased our team’s LGBT following or participation. 

What do you envisage for the future of LGBT teams such as yours?

Now that we have an established team our focus is to improve the quality of the rugby that we play. Being a niche team in the past we’ve struggled to get enough players to ensure we’ve got reserves which has limited us in terms of inevitable injuries that players suffer. We’d love to do more outreach to change people’s perceptions of gay men not being sporty and to encourage gay men and boys that do like sport to stay involved in it; unfortunately we don’t have the resources to be able to do that effectively at the moment. We hope that by improving the standard of the team will be able to challenge any continuing stereotypes some people may still hold about gay men in sports.

Now that we’ve been established for a while people’s attitudes towards us have changed; they realise that we are just blokes who happen to fancy men and are good at rugby. Hopefully that’s something that will ripple throughout the community; we want people to see us as rugby players first and as gay men second.

I think educating people that just because you’re gay it doesn’t mean that you’re going to jump on them in the shower or be remotely interested in them is an important part of what both LGBT teams and the wider rugby community need to focus on. Hopefully with the support of big names like Ben Cohen, Gareth Thomas and Mark Bingham alongside other notable LGBT public figures and governing sports bodies like RFL and RFU we will all play a part in helping stamp out homophobic bullying in sport. 

The Manchester Village Spartans team photo

Living amongst ghosts: Manchester's under-appreciated local history

How well do you know where you live? You probably know the shops, the best takeaway (and which late night kebab place to avoid) and more likely than not, your local pub. You know the best way into the town centre, the local amenities and there's a good chance you'll know some if not all of your neighbours; whether that's out of choice or due to the thin walls. But when you stand outside on the street and look up at the places you know, how well do you know their history?

Living in Victoria Park for the last year our local shop on Anson Road, Venus supermarket,  has been famous to my housemates and myself for its incredible baklava counter, turkish delight and whole aisle devoted to pickled vegetables (and deservedly so!). So when I stumbled upon Longsight's Manchester history page I was not expecting to find photos and recollections of the very same building 80 years ago in its past life as Birchfields Skating Palace.

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Lemn Sissay advert for  the International One

A quick google search later and this now already historic building was revealed to also have been more well-renowned as International One, an epicentre of Manchester's 1980s music scene, host to bands like Husker Du, Inca Babies, Simply Red and REM as well as the base of The Stone Roses. That a building of such historical importance, not just for Manchester's local history but to recent British musical history has had its past literally plastered over and hidden away only for those lucky enough to remember its legacy to revive its from time to time and share it with a wider audience is an all too saddening reminder of the reality of Manchester City Council's attitude when it comes to honouring its musical heritage.

The demolition of the Hacienda

As much as the image of Manchester as a city proud of its musical clout prevails and is countlessly regurgitated in its official tourism drives, the council itself has a much more dismissive day-to-day relationship with the city's musical history. Whilst its long-standing plaque scheme honours Manchester's notable people, events and buildings none pay homage to the places where scenes were born, raised and nurtured. The International Nightclub is of course not the only, or even most famous musical building to have been snubbed by the Council. The Hacienda, a locus of the acid house and rave music scenes that inspired the cult film 24 Hour Party People was demolished in 2002 to make way for a luxury apartment block, despite attempts by groups such as the OK Cafe to highlight the threat to the building's future and reclaim it for the community.

Marcel King in the 16 track set up at The Kitchen,
Barry Crescent

This story of demolition is by no means an anomalous conclusion to landmark venues in Manchester. The existence of the infamous Kitchen squat club in Barry Crescent in Hulme which formed part of the thriving counter culture scene there, where John Robb believes it felt like "every band in the city had done time there" can only be traced through the memories of its attendees.

The Russell Club aka PSV and Factory records

In the cases of the Hacienda and The Kitchen it is perhaps very easy to see why the Council have never been too keen to commemorate sites that during their heyday occupied a large amount of time in the minds of authority figures. The untold quantities of not so legal substances that helped keep the parties going well into the next day (at least) and their dislike of locations that were inevitably going to be difficult, if not impossible to police, makes it unsurprising that they were all too keen to bury their fiery pasts in unmarked graves. Yet it does not fully explain the Council's apathy towards revered venues that attracted less notoriety whilst they were open. The plot of land  which was home to the former Russell club (AKA PSV and home to the Factory club night) on Royce Road in Hulme is now host to a generic brick flat cube, a now sadly ubiquitous sight in an area which has been purged of much of its meaningful infrastructure.

Unrecognisable: the current view of the site on
which the Russell Club once stood.

The Twisted Wheel, a veteran Northern Soul club that emerged out of the Left Wing Cafe helped pioneer the scene in the early 1960s is the latest iconic music venue to feel the icy indifference of the Council planners. Last week they approved the destruction of the 6 Whitworth Street building which the club made its home, after moving from premises on Brazennove Street, to make way for the building of a Motel One chain budget hotel. Attracting fans from across the UK every weekend during the years it was open and a strong following when the building re-opened as Legends, hosts of the successful alternative gay clubbing night, Bollox, the building's cultural significance sadly seems no match for the Council's finance-capital oriented preoccupation.

A resurrected all-nighter at the soon to be
demolised Twisted Wheel

Even the Lesser Free Trade Hall, the legendary location of purportedly the most influential concert of all time that a good many more people than the 40 capacity allows claim to have witnessed first-hand, including Mark E Smith, Morrisey and the members of the Buzzcocks has been given no formal recognition by the Council. Today it too is occupied by a hotel chain magnate, though as a listed building it has survived the council's profit-driven chopping block.


This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive list (and probably couldn't be having not lived in the area long enough to know the full extent of the 'musical shadows' I'm walking in). It's overlooked the Electric Circus, only open for a year or so but host to many early punk bands such asThe Clash, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Rezillos, Warsaw (later Joy Division), Buzzcocks, Penetration alongside John cooper clarke whose last night has been immortalised on a 10 inch colour vinyl recording. It doesn't mention Rafters on Oxford Street or The Mayflower in Gorton that operated within the same era, the Gallery on Peter Street, the mostly reggae 'The Osbourne' on Oldham Road or even the Free Trade Hall proper that was home for one night to the likes of Lou Reed and Captain Beefheart.

What it does show is that the extent of Manchester City Council's disregard for our musical inheritance leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to representing the interests and honouring the memories and accomplishments of its residents, the very people who elected its members into power. Its eagerness to turn venerated institutions over into private hands in return for financial gain over a sense of responsibility to respect all aspects of local culture, not just the more traditional and canonised types is explicit and seemingly remorseless. Fortunately, the people of the city themselves are ensuring that this integral part of Manchester's history is not forgotten. Whole websites, exhibitions and community initiatives are constantly being generated to try engage residents both old and new with their home-town's musical legacies and provide a lasting memorial long beyond the disengenous actions of the council.
Have a look at the links below, keep your eyes peeled and keep wondering: do you really know the story behind the places you thought you knew so well?

...this one needs no introduction!

Thanks to Michael Herbert Exhulme, Manchester District Music Archive, Culture Word and Manchester History for their invaluable insights.

Olympic restrictions force house boats off the Regent’s Canal

Talk of the Olympics is everywhere, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon with a piece I wrote whilst on work experience at the Hampstead and Highgate Express about how London's canal boat dwellers are the latest community to suffer as a result of it. Underneath is the original piece, the edited version is shorter and has a slightly different slant. I've linked it here. 

Canal boat residents have raised their anger over the effect of restriction zones put in place for the Olympic Games.

A restriction zone of 15 miles has been implemented around the Olympic Park area, stretching from Little Venice to Lea Bridge Road in Lea valley and the Limehouse Basin in the south.

The restriction zone means that boat owners within the area who are classified as ‘continuous cruisers’, those without a permanent home mooring, will have to either pay to stay or relocate for the 10 week duration of the Games from the 3^rd July.

Continuous cruisers are legally permitted to stay in any one area for 14 days. However, this is often overlooked by British Waterways, the agency that deals with canal boat matters, if the owners do not cause any trouble. This means that canal boat residents can sometimes stay in one area for months at a time.

Boat owners with permanent moorings within the area will be exempt from the Olympic restrictions.

The cost of a designated Olympic mooring site will cost in-between £50-£350 per week whilst £36 per week ‘summer mooring’ permits have also been issued on a first-come-first-served basis for any free spots within the controlled zone.

Whilst 94 people have taken the designated mooring option and a further 100 have requested to stay within the Olympic mooring zone it is estimated that 176 boat owners will move to avoid the charges into the buffet area outside of Little Venice.

Boat owners in the Regents Canal area are worried about the effect of people being forcibly moved from their current homes.

Jasper Rolfe, 22, a student who owns one of the house boats, said:

“There’s a lot of dislike amongst boat owners about being asked to leave for the Olympics. I don’t think the welfare of the people on the house boats is being taken into adequate consideration. We won’t be allowed to move back to the area for 10 weeks which obviously could affect people in terms of in the area their jobs, hospitals and education for their children. It’s a terrible inconvenience and plus it’s going to create a massive backlog along the canal as people try find somewhere new to moor outside the Olympic exclusion zone, it’s just pants for the people, really.”

British Waterways have also been contacted by the owners of boats that nesting birds have made their home. As it is illegal in the UK to disturb nesting birds they fear they may risk falling foul of the law if they have to move their vessel in time for the Olympics period. The agency has made special provisions in connection with Natural England for anyone affected to have their stay extended to the 12^th July by which time they believe that any active nests will be fully fledged. Currently four boats on the Regents Canal have been granted additional stay on these grounds.  

Joe Coggins from the Canal & River Trust has defended the decision to implement additional mooring costs during the Olympics.

He said: “The income from Olympic moorings will be used to cover the additional staff resource required for the course of the Games, and to improve facilities and infrastructure in the area.

“We have recognised, through consultation with stakeholder groups and boaters, that the Games are going to cause disruption for local boaters, and we want to minimise this. We have been working with them to find a solution that strikes a balance between their needs and lifestyles and the wider requirements of the Olympics.”

minimum wage and poor working conditions-the reality of working in the UK's care industry

For the last four years I've worked part time as a care assistant in residential and nursing homes across Leeds and Manchester, initially because a town near where I went to high school is a haven for Yorkshire's elderly. Although maybe not the most obvious job choice for a teenager, I still found the work to be a generally rewarding experience. However after four years of low pay and sometimes tough working conditions ,especially at my latest job in a nursing home in Manchester,  I see no reason for us to continue to accept the unjust conditions we are subjected to as care workers.

 As the UK’s population ages care work is becoming an ever increasingly expanding and crucial part of the British economy. Yet the wages paid to its staff continue to be amongst the lowest in the country and working conditions remain tough. Out of the four homes I've worked for, only one paid more than minimum wage (£7.20 ph) and that was in Ilkley, one of Yorkshire's richest towns. 

So in that way it's not surprising that at my current care home in Manchester all care staff are paid minimum wage. To me £6.08 for any job is poles apart from a living wage in the UK when you factor in the price of living, bills and childcare. That those who work in care; one of the highest risk sectors both for staff and their clients with a comparatively large amount of staff responsibility get this is incredible. 

The standard shift length for carers at the home I work in is 12 hours, with a total one hour's unpaid break split into two 15 minute and one half hour periods. For the remaining 11 hours it is rare that we get to sit down for more than a couple of minutes at a time, it not being uncommon to spend the entire shift on our feet. There are around 30 residents at the home, the vast majority requiring some form of nursing care which includes helping them get up in the mornings and assisting to bed at night. In between those times they require care throughout the day, whether that's helping with eating at mealtimes, when going to the toilet or monitoring in general. Just under half are in wheelchairs which means that they need hoisting each time we move them, a crucial measure which places our far too small workforce under added pressure to get residents into the dining room in time for their meals. Most of the residents also have some signs of dementia which means that staff must constantly be alert and responsive to any potential risks to the patients as well as ensuring that someone is there to reassure them if they get anxious.

There are only ever four care staff present for each shift to care for all the residents in these ways. Alongside the home's understaffing, our low pay, overwork and consequential fatigue our knowledge that any ill-thought out action by ourselves could result in injury and potential death to both the resident and staff adds to our daily pressures.

Sick leave, which is common in homes like mine due to the risks that come with a job spent mostly on your feet and dealing with sometimes heavy loads, is another area of worry always at the back of our minds. Despite the increased potential for injury due to unsatisfactory working conditions sanctioned by management the onus is placed firmly on the employee and not employer to ensure their own safety. Being granted only the statutory sick pay rate of £86 per week means that sometimes staff will continue to try work when they really should be recovering due to being unable to afford to survive on such a miniscule amount of money. This is the thanks we get for taking on a tough, high-risk job.

As someone who can afford to live off a part-time salary, I'm incredibly lucky compared to most of my colleagues. Several of the staff work around four shifts per week, that's 48 hours, for a £267.52 weekly wage that barely supports themselves and their families.  Living as far as over an hour away from the home means that on the days they are at work their door-to-door return trip is over 14 hours. The Low Pay Commission has revealed that nationwide working conditions can be worse for carers, around 9% were reported to be receiving less than this minimum wage rate last year.

All of these considerations make caring jobs in nursing and residential homes like ours rank amongst the most crucial yet arguably most high pressured, exhausting and stressful jobs in the UK. Yet despite this care workers still remain amongst the lowest paid sectors and poorly treated workforces in the country. 

One of the main problems with conditions in care work can be attributed to the lack of substantial, wide-spead union presence. A 2011 report by the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King's College London revealed that only 24% of domiciliary care workers are unionised. Unison's national officer for social care, Helga Pile, suggested that private home care providers' hostility to union activity could be deterring staff from joining unions. 

Whilst successive governments have addressed issues in care homes in terms of formal health and safety measures such as making mandatory the completion of a level three NVQ they have paid little serious attention to the pay and conditions of staff.  

So when David Cameron made his most recent welfare speech in June, his suggestion that his 'reforms' would create greater fairness is for care workers like myself, and the millions of other low paid workers in the UK, way off the mark. Focusing largely on penalising benefit claimants who he believes do not appear to be making an effort to look for work to make the system "really fair" will do nothing to improve the working conditions and pay of those like myself who undertake some of the most crucial, yet minimally paid jobs.

With the reality of tough working conditions and effect of minimal pay on many people’s quality of life there remain there are dwindling incentives to look for work. Cameron’s attack on benefit claimants has pushed people into a situation of Hobson’s choice, with the threat of welfare payment stoppages for those not actively looking for work and the spectre of day-to-day living financial costs alongside potentially unjust working conditions for those who are engaged in minimally paid work.

Recent reports have revealed that low income families are struggling more than ever to meet childcare costs in the UK, which are amongst the highest in Europe. The Daycare Trust reported that 40% of low-paid parents interviewed were considering quitting their job with another third admitting to turning down job offers due to unaffordable childcare. Childcare can now cost families one third of their incomes, with Nursery World estimating that this may increase by 2016 by an additional 62% for those on minimum wage, this largely due to the 10% drop in support by the Tax Credits system implemented earlier this year.

This article isn't just an argument for higher pay and better working conditions for care staff alone. It's an argument for a radical revision of collective priorities and conceptions of fairness that would lead to a more equitable distribution of pay on a societal level which would see low paid workers in the UK become a concept confined to the past instead of an ever present reality. Richard Seymour, in his book ‘The Meaning of David Cameron’ pointed out that whilst cleaners in London hospitals add an average of £7 to the British economy, bankers are costing our society on average the same amount. Whilst those who genuinely add positive value to the UK are treated with contempt those who gamble and squander large portions of the country’s finances are rewarded.  I think we can say what's "really fair", David Cameron, but it's definitely not what you're proposing.

Cameron’s welfare speech is the latest sign that we can’t rely on governments to win substantial reforms of working conditions; least of all a Conservative dominated one. Union presence within low-paid workplaces, especially sectors like care work where it has traditionally remained minimal needs to be encouraged. We must all fight at work to reverse fears, if legally unwarranted, that industrial militancy could cost people their jobs amidst a context of worsening personal economic situations and lack of alternative jobs. We must also push to inform all staff, including the increasing contingency of migrant workers taking up care work in the UK of their workplace rights. As I have found out at my workplace, this is no easy, straightforward task; due to the widespread reality of poor working conditions industrywide staff who have spent their entire working lives in the domiciliary care sector have come to put up with them due to never experiencing a more positive alternative.

Making links with other types of workers within our workplaces, alongside linking up with those in similar lines of work across companies will help strengthen our confidence in face of hostile managements. The decentralised nature of the industry, due to the prevalence of small, privately owned care homes, will make it hard to establish these links with workers in other homes that we have virtually no contact with. Yet it is something that we must continue to push for over time if we are to have any real chance of reforming our working conditions for the better.

Looking outside to examples of worker-led struggles within other industries that traditionally were not union strongholds, such as British Airways Flight attendants, the Dagenham Ford machinists and May Hobbs’ London Night Cleaners should act as an inspiration to many low-paid workers like my colleagues and myself. That we should not accept our current conditions and pay should be the beginning of a fight, not a dream that we feel resigned to put on the back burner.

Canada's hidden student rebellion

This is just a short mention to ease me back into blogging after a much bigger break than i realised.

Although happening a lot where internet access is scant or content controls are numerous I was surprised to discover this largely unreported, or at least greatly under-reported, account of Quebecois students fight against the provincial government's plans to increase tuition fees by a huge 75% over the next few years. Despite 250,000 strong protest marches against the plan their struggle is relatively unknown in comparison to other, recent international student protests such as in Greece, the USA and south america and is only being gradually picked up upon by international, english-speaking mainstream media 2 months after the first huge wave of activity. Let's hope this new international interest gives them the (if belated) support that they deserve. Solidarity!

Capitalist realism in the twenty-first century

Last week I had the latest in a series of encounters with purportedly left-leaning individuals in which the summary of their points in relation to the current economic crisis and the government’s reactions more or less roughly boiled down to these points:

-the capitalist, free-market economy is the only foreseeable economic model which can and will now ever work effectively in this country, regardless of its faults. 

-Austerity measures are the only means we can impose to alleviate the effects of and reverse the current recession.

-Unions must be prepared to make concessions to help overcome the current economic crisis.

-No other forms of economic system exist or have existed to convince me that they are a viable alternative to capitalism.

Although opposing Conservative-led government strategies on the basis of cuts to key services such as healthcare, he believed cuts in other areas were vital to resolve the economic crisis. This came alongside the lack of an identifiably distinct ideological alternative to free-market capitalism. Why is it that despite knowledge of the many shortcomings of capitalism through living our day-to-day lives, the foremost being its cyclical boom-and-bust nature, many of us find ourselves acquiescing to the ubiquitous idea that it is our only option today? The results of January’s public poll on support for the Conservative party are a case in point. Despite rising unemployment, drastic marketization of key areas such as health and education and public spending cuts which have been employed to try stabilise the free-market economy their ratings have reached a 22 month high of 40%.

Despite the implementation of policies that are more than likely going to visibly make some impact negatively upon the quality of our lives, why do so many of us accept, albeit potentially grudgingly, this status quo? Is a system that is based upon a certain level of inequality to allow pursuit of individual profit really the best that we can now hope to achieve as Fukuyama alleged? Why are the proclamations of anti-capitalist groups, most recently the global Occupy movement, alongside the nationwide pensions and education protests, not to mention last summer’s riots, allowed to temporarily permeate into our lives through tv screens but denied permanent residence in our minds? 

Capitalist realism is a term resurrected by Mark Fisher in his book of the same title. In it, he argues that the idea of capitalism has grown to permeate every aspect of our lives to the extent that it has become accepted amongst a large proportion of people in Britain as a sort of natural fact. Its incredible hegemonic power can almost be quantified by its ability to continue to remain as a viable economic system despite its evident pitfalls which are highlighted frequently through the largely moral arguments of its opponents. Yes, capitalism allows the continued deaths of millions from easily treatable illnesses, allows them to starve and even impacts incessantly upon the lives of us in the prosperous ‘West’ but when its advocates shrug their shoulders and say “better the devil you know” there is no truly mass and sustained objection.

In Britain, the days of vehement belief in Keynesian economics are gone. The failings of Labour governments in the 1960s and 1970s to provide a convincing façade of a compassionate capitalism have been cemented by New Labour’s continuation of a Conservative-imposed neoliberal agenda under the control of Blair and Brown.  The result of this in Britain, Fisher argues, is the growth in the public of a state of ‘reflexive impotence…they know things are bad, but more than that, they know they can’t do anything about it. The ‘knowledge’ of this is not just a passive observation of an already existing state of affairs but a self-fulfilling prophecy.’ Consider the recent protests surrounding the student fees hike. What created a huge reaction amongst students, leading to a 50,000 strong march and subsequent other mobilisations around the country has dissipated in the last year. The global Occupy movement, which was for a time embedded in endless headlines of news agencies around the world has been oddly silent since most of the camps disbanded.  Or what about the proposed NHS reforms, that despite drawing vast criticism have not translated into large, orchestrated outright protests? Fisher suggests that although we are constantly aware of opposition, it is our struggle to turn a reaction, i.e. protest, into anything more than that, i.e. the projection of a concrete ideological alternative to capitalism. Perhaps this is even best embodied by the riots of summer 2011, which although highlighted deep unrest, alienation and obvious disillusionment of young people over what our present society has to offer, when asked of their motives by the media lots found it hard to express how their economic reality corresponded to their feelings and subsequent outbursts.

This fragmentation of thought, which makes it hard for us to fully and meaningfully to firstly connect our negative experiences of capitalism in action in our present reality and secondly to how we feel (Fisher highlights the increasing rates of mental health issues such as depression that seem to be symptomatic of problems within our present economic system) is said to be representative of our position in a late capitalist society. Going further than Lacan’s breakdown of the signifying chain to illustrate how consumerism has a fragmenting effect upon subjective thought, Fisher suggests that the highly technology-based form of capitalism that we exist within today could have affected our capacity for constructive forms of concentration. Wired into ‘hypermediated consumer culture’, we are constantly surrounded by a ‘sensation-stimulus matrix’ that thrive on the notion of instantaneous access and constant availability. This wealth of new cultural information in itself is not something Fisher strikes out against. Rather, it’s the way that the notion of experiencing ‘true’ sense-stimulation has been radically reworked by companies to make consumers dependent on them and in return create profits. We’ve been encouraged to believe that we need to be provided with sense-stimulating products that rely more and more on notions of distraction rather than real, useful stimulation. Fisher suggests the effect of these repetitions by companies have worked to reduce our attention spans. Himself a teacher, he suggests that the burgeoning need to be ‘plugged in’ at all times is like an incessant addiction that means that the younger generations he teaches are now more likely to cast off something he is trying to teach them in school as “boring”. This, he says is due to their increasing estrangement in other parts of their lives from the understanding of proper time and devotion to a subject in order to gain the most from it, expecting instantaneity and ready-packaged entertainment. Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror episode, ‘15 million merits’, set in a dystopian future where citizens have become absorbed in a world of screens and whose only recognizable want for change is the individual accession to reality tv star status. The injustice of the system that is evident to the viewer is largely unrecognised, or in the case of the Liverpudlian female who repeatedly complains of the TV producers’ dismissal of her as unfair cannot easily be used to form a sustained objection to the present society she exists within. Introduced to the gaudy and deafeningly loud virtual world that they find themselves in front of without a break, their thought process seems to have been disrupted by an overload of sensory information, acting ironically to desensitise the population to the overarching misery the elusive authorities have doled out to them.

In much the same way Raymond Williams comments upon the blurring of the distinctions between the dominant, emergent and residual forms of culture, Fisher highlights how elites are keen to cash in on crises of ethics. Firstly, doing so creates an illusion of altruism on their part towards those not fortunate enough to share in the dazzling prizes of capitalist venture and thus sustain customer confidence in their goods. Secondly, superficial concern with issues such as global warming and poverty works enough to assuage themselves of any moral anxieties between themselves and the capitalist process by which they acquired their wealth. Fisher, drawing upon Zizek’s preoccupation with charity, which he sees instead of a limited distribution of wealth from the few to the many disadvantaged as a tool for actually strengthening the status quo, uses several examples to back up his claim. The promotion of Live8 by the likes of the super-rich of Bono and Richard Curtis and Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and co.’s ‘creative capitalism’ are amongst those highlighted. Through the harnessing of dominant culture through ‘emergent’ types, by which I mean ‘new meanings and values, new practices, new significances and experiences’ proponents of capitalism are able to transcend some of the explicit differences between ‘us and them’ and thus make it harder to observe upon first look the contradiction between their alleged want to alleviate the conditions of those less well-off and their actual hand in helping create or at least perpetuate the continuation of vast inequality in the world through capitalism. ‘Anti-capitalist capitalism’, as Zizek terms it, is used to create an illusion of unity sometimes even against things that can be more straightforwardly attributed to capitalism. Hollywood’s dabbling with environmental disaster movies is one example Fisher uses. This has effectively caused a decentralising effect: when we look to the opposing side for the malevolent other we don’t find anything there, instead we find what we thought it was when we glance around standing next to us on our side.

This attempt to create the image of responsible capitalists is part of a larger hegemonic process. Although we see attempts by elites to legitimate their actions through charity and the smokescreen of concern, we’re not blinded to the shortcomings of capitalism, which alongside its perceived altruistic side are highlighted again and again in the public realm by means of the media, protest and knowledge of everyday life. However, recent historical moments, encompassing most famously the crushing of union power from the seventies onwards, the construction of the ‘red menace’ and the growth of neo-liberal institutions like the EU, World Bank and IMF alongside the seemingly unstoppable rise of the financial sector in place of the industries that are talked of as being long in ‘decline’ has worked at least to instil a sense of impotency within our society. Governments that attempted to keep un-harnessed capitalism at arms length whilst promoting social democracy have given way to governments increasingly more and more accepting of neo-liberal measures due to the perhaps inevitable flirtation with a fluid force that they believed could somehow be easily at once curtailed from within the boundaries of state control whilst given freedom to create this imagined idea of profits for society at large rather than for certain individuals.

Our old forms of fighting against the injustices of the capitalist system do not work as well on their own in our present situation. Reliance on government channels to enact substantial reforms, that is if we elect a supposedly left-leaning alternative to the current Con-Dem arrangement, are likely to lead to disappointment. Those working in the interest of capital have enough power and resources at the moment to comply with government demands only to the extent it assures them further legitimation. Their threat of pulling the plug on connections with countries that wholesale rely on them in the twenty first century and relocating somewhere they are wanted is too worrying for the vast amount of politicians, especially now during the recession, who believe they at least need them for jobs and keeping state costs down to avoid more borrowing from neo-liberal institutions. The lack of overt voices at the moment from states that are unhappy with the capitalist system has furthered this want for reliance on the present system. It will take a lot to persuade people that it is beneficial to pursue more egalitarian economic systems due to the way governments are run to create visible change in the short term rather than long term change that could be taken credit for by another party.

The belief that capitalism can be in some way used for the good of the many holds strong because it has been allowed to become so hegemonic within our societies that to think of an alternative, for elected officials, is too giant, risky and hard a project to envisage when compared to just falling back on something that although not perfect is to a large extent accepted in at least some part, and although maybe grudgingly, by the majority of people.

Like Fisher in his book, I don’t have an exact theory for how we best go about enacting real change. I believe his considerations to be true in the sense that they have made the creation of sustained oppositional economic alternatives harder to galvanise proactive mass support for. A win for Labour in the next election does carry potential for encouraging change but only through highlighting the shortcomings in the policies they themselves enact, to try again to prove the limitations of acting within the parliamentary political system. At present, we should attempt to avoid the repetitions of the Eighties, when the Tories proved able to go after unions one by one by ensuring that we try build links of solidarity between different industries and to hope that the continued illustration of the unjust nature of capitalism, especially through workplace struggle that carries with it a more stable base of support, will at least keep a place in peoples’ minds. Real change I think is best ensured through revolutionary means, however whether the mood of our society will begin again to change to start to consider this is far from certain within our lifetimes. Yet, despite the vast power of capitalism, with the current crisis being arguably the deepest since the Second World War its future is by no means ensured for good. What we must try make sure is that we do not let ourselves slip either into total despondency and grudging acceptance of our current situation or give up the hard struggle of formulating strong alternatives in favour of the easier hope that capitalism will fall down of its own accord. We must continue to push through this period of seeming ideological oblivion through continued action to encourage the potential for change in the future, whether in our lives or only our descendents.

Merrion Market Leeds

Last month plans were announced for the transformation of the current Leeds Merrion Market site into a new leisure development to coincide with the completion of the city’s entertainment arena by 2013. A once bustling centre offering independent, low budget shopping, recent years of high rents, competition from high street stores and the site owners’ most likely relatively long-standing ambition to increase profits through a redevelopment overhaul make it one of the latest and saddest gentrification processes in central Leeds.

 With the market’s closure earmarked for the end of this year its future seems confined to the forums of ‘secret places’ websites and online photo galleries, whilst its replacement, a development of a gym, restaurants and bars, alongside the gradual leasing of new space to larger and more profitable companies in the main Merrion Centre suggests the tussle for the contents of the purses of the increased number of visitors who will come in search of sell-out tours in 2013.

I can’t speak for all Leeds residents as to how much, if at all, the market will be missed. Several years of neglect of this part of the building, probably because its cheap and cheerful image is at odds with its owner’s most-likely long standing goal of drastically increasing profits through redevelopment has meant that each trip to the market has seen more and more empty plots and a high turnover of businesses who can’t afford rents alongside a lack of customers due to this attempt to wind it up.

However, the building’s charm came not just from its idiosyncratic and low-budget shops but its architectural significance. Housed inside a Brutalist façade, the quaintness of the hand-painted signs and playfulness of the units’ cheap-and-cheery pre-fab like walls are hard to find in the UK today.

The process of renovation seems to be a similar, if much more gradual and out of sight process as the Corn Exchange, whose new owner Zurich Financial Services in 2008 removed existing shop tenants with the aid of increasingly high rents to make way for a range of upmarket boutiques and gourmet food outlets with a view to profit of the higher rents that their clients would be able to afford.

Even Leeds’ beloved Kirkgate Market has not escaped this drive to maximise profits from already existing local hubs through their regeneration and subsequent gentrification. Leeds City Council have enlisted what traders have branded “white collar consultants” to help plan the future of their market, which has already been threatened with a reduction in size to increase efficiency

The only sort of market which developers and property owners seem keen on developing in Leeds is the Granary Wharf and its visiting pannier market, in an attempt to ‘reinvigorate’ the area through an influx of upwardly mobile clientele, thus encouraging demand to live in one of the waterfront apartments whose future has seemed uncertain since the beginning of the economic recession.

The closure of the Merrion Market this winter will symbolise yet another stage in the gentrification process of city centres as we know them, a process that has found root in other major industrial cities such as London, Manchester and Birmingham, whose shopping centres and residential quarters have been rebranded in parts to attract an increasingly upwardly mobile clientele. How far this will go and the change it will have on the demographic of people who come to visit Leeds is something that remains uncertain but most likely part of a trend spreading across the nation that will see the less wealthy pushed out to the peripheries.