He has been held since July 2010 in solitary confinement, 23 hours a day; he is given one hour a day to leave the cell, whereupon he is allowed to walk in circles, while shackled; he is continually questioned; he is woken at night whenever he curls up in the corner of his bed or otherwise is outside the guards’ view. Now, in the last few days, it has been decided to strip him at night before he goes to sleep, and to keep him naked when he steps outside his cell for his morning inspection.

It goes without saying that these measures are punitive and seem designed explicitly to affect his mental and physical health. To say that they are disproportionate to his alleged crime supposes both that he has been convicted – he hasn’t – and that they are proportionate to any crime, when, simply, they are inhumane.

This is a good summary from The Guardian, with a rightfully impassioned conclusion. [ADDED: This also makes the point brilliantly].

There is much more detail at the Bradley Manning Support Network. This afternoon I’ve signed the petition on their site and donated to the support fund. There is also a UK Friends of Bradley Manning network.

I have also written to my MP and to the US Ambassador to the UK (letters below). You can easily write to your MP via this site. The name and address for the US Embassy is

Ambassador Louis B. Susman
U.S. Embassy
24 Grosvenor Square
London, W1A 1AE

I urge you to do the same.

Dear Ms Jowell,

The demo was arranged for 11.02am. I entered Topshop around twenty minutes beforehand and immediately felt like I was in an episode of Hustle; the hired security looked edgy and poised and I had fun spotting other ‘shoppers’ who were plainly there for purposes other than the purchase of skinny jeans. There was a lot of cursory browsing going on in the half-hour leading up to 11 o’clock!

At 11.02am, some people started blowing whistles. There was a brief suspended moment as everyone stopped – shoppers bemused, demonstrators looking for a lead – and then someone started up a chant of “Pay your tax!”. By this point, the security guards, not needing to be asked twice, had grabbed someone and started to pull them towards the main entrance, which was now barred by a line of police.

Someone was grabbed in front of me, with what I considered to be excessive zeal, and I shouted at the guard to leave him alone. I approached him and said again “Oi, leave him alone!”, touching his arm to attract his attention. “Why are you pulling me?” he asked, which was a bit rich, given that, in typing this sentence, I’m using more force on the keyboard than I was on his arm. “I’m not pulling you!” I said, by which point a second guard appeared. “Why are you assaulting a security guard?” he demanded. This was beyond ridiculous. “I’m not assaulting anyone!” I exclaimed – but the question had been rhetorical as I found myself being dragged by the two of them towards the door. I let myself go limp; within seconds two more appeared and, with one on each arm and leg, I was carried towards the police line and dumped on the floor. A moment later someone else was pushed on top of me, with another to follow, given the shouts of people around me. I scrambled to my feet: directly in front of me was a group of protestors sat on the ground, immediately in front of them was a bank of photographers and cameras. Behind me was the line of police officers. Having just been on the floor, I didn’t want to sit down and, instead, grabbed a sign from someone and held it up. I was one of the first to be thrown out, which, I suspect, is why I later found myself occupying such a prominent position on the websites of many of the major newspapers (one, below, by way of illustration).

There were a few more people ejected before a sizeable group managed to stage a sit-in in the body of the store. This next half-hour was probably the optimum point of the action: the entrances were blocked by police and protestors and, with the sit-in in progress, the store was closed for business.

Eventually, the group inside was bundled out. We stayed, directly outside the main entrances, for about an hour and a half. During this time the police were talking among themselves, joking about the whole thing, as I imagine you might. At one point I turned to two of them who were being disparaging and told them that, as they were paid from the public purse, this was an issue that affects them as well. “Yeah,” one replied. It had been a pleasant conversation, if a trifle concise, but that about wrapped it up.

As efforts were being made to breach one of the blockades to allow shoppers in, a decision was made by someone to move down the road to BHS, another of Green’s Arcadia empire. And therein began a series of moves up and down Oxford Street, trying to stay one step ahead of the police and, in the process, disrupting business at BHS, and causing a temporary closure of Miss Selfridge, Boots and Vodafone (the latter two, not owned by Green, but also notable tax avoiders).

What was marked, for me, about the protest was the upbeat and peaceable nature of it; and you could feel that we were emboldened and cheered by the effect of our collective action.

And when I say “we” you shouldn’t take that to mean either that we were a homogenous group or that I have any affiliations hitherto undisclosed. I’d only been on one demonstration before – outside Parliament for the Age of Consent vote in 1994. I felt compelled to attend then because it was an issue of identity; what was being debated directly affected me. But it strikes me that this is also an issue of identity: my identity as a citizen of this country*. The cuts currently being made to public services, and within the public sector, and the increase in tuition fees, are nothing less than an assault on those of us who believe “we’re all in this together” to be a quotidian reality rather than a chokingly-offensive smear of disingenuous expediency.

I’ve been working full-time since I was 21, paying tax all the while, and happy to do so. As we live in the same country it makes sense to me – more, I think it’s a wonderful and civilised thing – that we all put a bit of money in a pot, according to our means, and that money is used for the good of everyone; I include within that the support of those unable or less able, for whatever reason, to contribute. To live among my neighbours and not do this would diminish my identity as a compassionate human being. This current swathe of cuts diminishes us. It makes our society weaker because it imposes, concomitantly, an ideology that is self-interested and mercenary. The Conservatives (it makes no sense to talk of a ‘coalition’ when the Lib Dems have been so thoroughly assimilated**), never a party that projects an understanding of empathy and community, are attempting to remould the country in their own image; what matters is to be moneyed and influential. What doesn’t matter – more, what is to be despised – is to be poor and, well, ordinary. The way this is being sold to us, as both a “difficult” thing which impacts upon everyone and simultaneously a necessary corrective to a hastily-commodified sub-culture of feckless abuse, is contemptuous and cynical.

I didn’t want to attend a demonstration yesterday. I’ve got a cold and I’d have happily stayed in bed, read the paper and listened to the radio. But, with each day, those of us who believe that there is such a thing as society – a continually undulating network of actions, from the smallest courtesy to the largest sacrifice, that, reaffirmed daily, distinguishes us from animals – are being provoked to prove it. To defend it. Or, in a formulation the Government might choose, to put our money where our mouth is.

When he first proposed the chimera that is the “Big Society”, David Cameron said “obligation and duty are in danger of becoming dead concepts instead of living value systems”. What brought me – no seasoned marcher – onto the streets yesterday was obligation and duty. The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. I’ve no great desire to attend another demonstration. But I will. It continues to be my duty to oppose, in whatever way I can, this callous and severe brutalisation of our country.

*I know that technically we’re ‘subjects’, but… more honoured in the breach and all that.

**Oh, Nick, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for a house-share with William Hague?

I remember starting the most heated correspondence the Catholic Herald letters’ page had seen for years, partly as the process that led towards me shedding my own faith, but mainly as validation: if people were talking about the sexuality of ‘name and address supplied’ then it meant that I had a sexuality. I existed! There was a gay man I knew: me, hidden, in print.

But there was little sustenance in that thin gruel. Oh, those nights when I would boggle that no one could see how lonely, how scared, how miserable I was. Those mornings, when I would wake up, and still, against all hope, be me.

But mornings became days, weeks, years. The boy became a man, and the man made friends, good friends, and then, one day, a friend who shared his bed, his house, his life.

That’s a story worth telling, and I wish I could tell it to my fifteen year old self – crippled by the opprobrium of a non-existent creator (who had perversely created the boy in a form unpalatable to himself); gasping for the oxygen of empathy, understanding, friendship.

Stories like this are now being told. Angry at the suicide of Billy Lucas – a fifteen year old boy who endured worse treatment than I did, as his was doled out daily, inescapably, with cruelty by his classmates – American author Dan Savage responded:

I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren’t allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don’t bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don’t have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

He recorded a video with his partner, talking about their lives and how, for them, it got better. Hundreds of other people have since done the same: http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject

This is remarkable. We are now able to make our stories, our testimonies, accessible. The idea that a young person, floundering in recognising, embracing, and growing into their homosexuality, scared and alone, might see these videos and take comfort from them, might draw some strength from them, I find wonderful and astonishing.

This is the internet working, the power of being able to talk to each other in a way previously unthinkable; a point Sarah Ditum makes in response to another tedious Twitter-bashing salvo.

Is there a caveat? You could, of course, suggest that for some people it doesn’t get better; there’s no gainsaying that, except that it would be to miss the point. This initiative allows a myriad of happy, contented, gay voices to be heard. They claim to speak for no one but themselves, but the message is ‘I thought it would never get better for me. It did. It can for you too’. That these testimonies are being shared, and LGBT people staking a claim as happy, healthy members of society, makes that outcome more likely. Thoughtfully, Guy, Interrupted explores the idea that, in creating our own stratified culture, the project is founded on a falsehood; however, his conclusion that it is worthwhile is, I think, the right one.

Hearing a story won’t stop an insult or a fist. But stories can affect how we feel. Loneliness and fear are feelings; they resonate down the years and I can see my fifteen year old self clicking through those videos and I can feel some of the bewildered loneliness receding and I can feel him grow. I hope that that’s true for a teenager somewhere in the world right now. I feel that it is.

I’ve made the choice to start this posting with a very personal paragraph because what follows is predicated on the personal: my love of the BBC.

Those five words were carefully chosen. Love feels like an odd word to use in relation to an institution, a corporation, especially for a British person. But the BBC is no ordinary organisation. It’s the most incredible cultural institution in the world.

Another choice: to make such a bold, unequivocal claim – but with good reason. The BBC is an anachronism, but a glorious one. Originally created as a focal organisation for experimental radio services, it now covers all broadcast media and has a significant online presence, all of which is informed by its original public service principles. It’s funded by the licence fee, at a cost of £142.50 per year. The range of channels and services that this provides is astonishing. Imagine such a thing being proposed today; a package (as I’m afraid we’d have to refer to it) consisting of 8 television channels, 10 radio stations (not including the World Service or the dozens of regional stations) and a large and eclectic website that not only supplements the broadcast programmes but also features an enormous amount of original material – and yet, that bare enumeration doesn’t begin to communicate the variety and import of what is produced.

When it began, the BBC was, of course, more modest. It has grown: because of the way it is funded, which ostensibly frees it from commercial pressures; because this freedom allows it to take risks and to consider potential in the way a commercial broadcaster might not (the website being a good example of this); and because it consistently delivers the goods: programmes that people want to watch and listen to. No, more than that: the very best of programmes, that other broadcasters seek to emulate.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. The constituency is too large. Everyone in this country has a view on what the BBC is doing wrong; it’s as certain a conversation saver as the weather, because everyone feels a peculiar ownership of the BBC that goes beyond the mere transaction of having paid the licence fee. For my part, I think BBC1 and Radio 4 are often too cosily ‘Home Counties’ in temperament; that BBC3 is asinine, and BBC4 desiccated; I wish more bold decisions were taken with drama and comedy; that the casting pool was opened out beyond the same half-dozen faces. Do all the best programmes come from the BBC? No, but, in terms of home-grown programming, the BBC sets the benchmark. It makes plenty that is good and original, and if commercial broadcasters deliver quality, and they can and do, it is because they are rising up to meet the BBC. This state of affairs is good; it means viewers and listeners have a wealth of programmes to choose from, good quality programmes of real variety. A proper choice.

Choice is an important word. It was bandied around a lot in the early 90s, when satellite broadcasting was in its infancy; it was the great promise: that more channels meant, ipso facto, more choice. Plenty of us could see then, and even more can now, that this was fool’s gold. Superficially, there are more channels to choose from, but what do they show? Shopping, or cheap imports, or repeats, or repeats of cheap imports. Or, perversely, if you turn onto the right channel, repeats of BBC programmes. But no one could honestly say that this has given us more to choose from. The ‘choice’ of free-market broadcasting is a chimera – or, to put it another way, a lie.

I’ve written this on the day that Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, has announced the closure of 6 Music and the Asian Network, along with half of the BBC’s websites. In support of this, he writes in today’s Guardian that the BBC

should focus even more than it does today on forms of content that most clearly build public value and that are most at risk of being ignored or facing underinvestment. It should take significant further steps towards building the distinctiveness and uniqueness of its programmes and services.

How that is served by axing two of the stations that most distinctly affirm the BBC’s independence from the marketplace is unclear. That this whole affair seems like a pre-emptive self-flagellation in anticipation of an unfriendly Tory government seems supported when he goes on to say

Where actual or potential market impact outweighs public value, the BBC should leave space clear for others. The BBC should not attempt to do everything. It must listen to legitimate concerns from commercial media players more carefully than it has in the past, and act sooner to meet them. It needs the confidence and clarity to stop as well as to start doing things.

This is the pitiful squeak of the abused; the victim who, cowed by years of abuse, now inflicts the torment on themselves, and, robbed of all dignity, asserts that they are better for it, even as the swelling starts and the bruise starts to blacken.

This post was prompted by today’s announcement but there is a wider issue. Post-Hutton, post-Sachsgate, the BBC has embarked upon a process of self-abnegation, of which this latest announcement seems to be the nadir. But I don’t want the BBC to behave like this. It doesn’t need to behave like this. The BBC is brilliant – I mean it in all senses of the word. It shines. Yet it seems over-eager to make itself a victim, and this needs to stop. The BBC’s commercial rivals will never be satisfied with any cuts or limitations that the BBC either imposes upon itself or that are imposed upon it; they will only stop attacking once it is dead.

Put simply, the BBC needs to grow a backbone, and start going on the attack, rather than rolling over and allowing itself to be kicked into irrelevance. How, one might ask, is anyone to respect the BBC if it doesn’t respect itself? Not that I’m not sympathetic to its situation: during that fateful week following Russell Brand’s Radio 2 show, the Daily Mail featured its self-generated anti-BBC non-story on its front page for five consecutive days, and on only one of them was it not the headline story (27-31 Oct 2008). One doesn’t need to be a conspiracy-theorist or even a week into a Media Studies course to spot an agenda at play. The Corporation is under continual onslaught, and I appreciate that that is difficult. But appeasement does not work; they will not have it. Capitulation might quieten the immediate attack, but it also guarantees another.

Well, I say, enough. I want the BBC to try answering back. Try it. They might be surprised to find that people respond to that; that they do have support; that they are valued.

Through the BBC, I continue to be entertained, to learn, to let my mind and imagination be taken to places that it otherwise wouldn’t. The BBC, through the multiplicity and reach of its channels, stations and websites, maintains that joy of adolescent discovery. It continues to shape my cultural life, which is another way of saying that I continue to grow because of it. £142.50? That is a bargain. This needs saying, and I’m fed-up enough not to be embarrassed to say it.

Because I’m tired of the attacks from the Daily Mail and the Murdoch-owned titles and the Conservative Party and, sigh, the Labour government, and every other grub with a vested-interest who is irked by this marvellous, eclectic, inventive, vibrant, market-snubbing, non-corporate corporation that our country is lucky and clever enough to sustain. I’m tired of the dull, the cynical, the stupid, and the greedy, swaggering around as though they embody the essence of all that is true, when they do not. These people diminish. They add to the despair of the nation, not the joy. One day, it is entirely plausible that they will succeed and that the BBC, as we know it, will be gone. Gone. Will we call that progress? Is that something to be desired? Is that choice?

What I offer these parasites is choice language: with all the passion I can muster, speaking sincerely, from the heart, truthfully and intently and unapologetically, I say to them: Fuck Off.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Similar and related posts:

Jonathan Freedland
Anton Vowl
Justin McKeating

Then the train came.

1. Any jokes being broadcast on television or radio which take as their start – and end –  point that John Prescott is fat. Yes, he’s quite a stout man, but there are fatter. I mean, is that it? Go for a new angle, why don’t you. Surprise yourself.
2. Celebrity anything.
3. People in shops contorting themselves into peculiar shapes to squeeze past and around other people in order to avoid the appalling ordeal of having to say the words “excuse me”.
4. This:
5. Anyone who thinks the line “Global warming? Bring it on! It’s freezing where I live!” or any variation thereof is amusingly iconoclastic.
6. The Daily Mail having conniptions every time Jonathan Ross leaves his house. Tedious.
7. Any discussion, of any kind, about Twitter. If you use it, as I do – marvellous. If you don’t – marvellous. But, really – we don’t need to talk about it.
8. The spivvy affectation of ending sentences with “yeah?”. Ugly.
9. Radio 4 announcers talking up their parts by spoiling the jokes in the programme you’ve tuned in to listen to, two minutes before the programme starts. I’m sorry that their job isn’t more interesting but, well, hard luck. If you want to be a comedian, go and be one. If you want to reach out to a confusing and uncaring world in order to try and validate your existence, start a blog. But, as it is, just say “And now – The News Quiz” or whatever and then button it.
10. Warts.

It’s not only a sense of propriety, though; there’s a sense in which I recognise that blurring these boundaries is pointless. If I’m troubled by something in another part of my life, it’s not going to be remedied by discussing it with people who don’t know the context or who I don’t want to open up to in that way. In which case, walking round in a markedly distracted manner, pointedly not engaging in conversation, and responding in monosyllables would be an indulgence.

I never understand what it’s supposed to achieve, beyond a little, immediate, and cheap attention; that, and creating an atmosphere for everyone in the vicinity, which is unfair, as they don’t know how – and usually aren’t able – to help. And having been one of those bystanders, on more than one occasion, only fuels my own desire not to create that discomfort for others. It’s childish, selfish and silly.

Not that I’ve encountered that recently, you understand. Just saying.

Monday morning: the get-in starts at 9am. I arrive at the theatre around quarter to; say hello, find the dressing room that acts as the company office, and have a quick look at the stage, so we’re ready to start on the dot. We open that evening, so there’s not a lot of time to hang around.

Hmm. Sounds like the introduction to some cheap ITV2 documentary. (Any takers…?)

Pregnant with anticipation...

Everything we tour is in one large articulated lorry. First thing out is the floor – 33 wooden sheets, which we screw to the deck. I use these to determine the position of the lighting bars, and the electrics department (LX) then rig the appropriate lanterns on the bar, according to our lighting plan. Meanwhile, the remaining crew are starting to take the rest of the set from the lorry. We ask for 10 crew from the touring venue: 6 stage and 4 LX. How much nous and how much civility they have really determines what kind of day it’s going to be. I hope for a lot of both, though I expect very little, and most of the time the answer is somewhere between the two extremes.

We’re about an hour and a half in by now, and, as LX are still rigging bars, I’ll send the remaining crew on a tea-break – part of my responsibility is making sure that everyone has the appropriate breaks. At this point, most of the crew will disappear from the theatre, to a local café that makes bacon sandwiches. The café is always at least 5 minutes away, the sandwiches take about 8 minutes to make, which means that the exact point of the 20-minute break elapsing always coincides with the crew just about to take their second bite. I’m therefore obliged, by the fact that I need them onside, to let them finish eating, while treading that fine line between gesturing at my watch like a demented mime artist or giving in and calling an early lunch break.

Once the LX bars are rigged, they’re flown out so we can start building the set. This comprises 15 flats, 4.5m high and various widths, plus several smaller pieces that make up the French window. Oh, and a ratty old chandelier. It all goes up quite easily, really, so then it’s lunch. I like to try and eat with the crew, if possible, to try and maintain contact, but I wouldn’t say these lunches are a hotbed of warm and convivial repartee. At least the homophobic banter that’s acted as a commentary to the morning usually subsides during this hour. Once back, the crew tidy up the backstage areas, put down carpet runners, tidy up cables, that kind of thing, while I’m onstage with the LX team, focusing lanterns. There are 98 lanterns in total, so that all takes a few hours. The lighting states are saved to a disc, so after we’ve focused I run through the states, tweaking as necessary.

By this point, it’s around 5.30pm, and the cast are starting to arrive. They have a walk round the set, and backstage, to acquaint themselves with where everything is, and how the auditorium looks and sounds. This is also the time when they, forgetting or not quite comprehending the fact that I’ve been working continually onstage all day, ask me about tickets or local amenities or whether I can fax their tax return to their accountant.

Finally, at 7.30pm (usually), the show starts. I’ll watch from the front, to make sure it looks OK, and then make any adjustments to the lighting the next afternoon. It also means I can let the cast know how it sounds, and whether they need to project more or pull it back a bit.

Mondays are by far the most demanding day, and if anything goes awry – old lanterns not working, difficult access from the dock to the stage, crew being stupid or inexperienced or both – then I can be working on things right up until the moment we open the house.

Often, on the first night, the ‘Friends of the theatre’ have a post-show event in the dress circle bar, which means a free drink and the experience of opening the door from backstage to a cluster of blank faces, disappointed that you aren’t someone they recognise. Then, the chairman of the Friends gives a speech, praising the cast for their hard work over the last couple of hours. Mind you, the flipside of being ignored is that no one’s waiting with a picture of me in a funny outfit taken 20 years ago to be autographed.

And that’s the show up, then. Rest of the time, I’m the point of contact for everyone who has a question, and for the cast regarding almost everything to do with their working day; this covers anything from liaising between them and the marketing department in the setting up of interviews to letting them know how many people are in for a performance. I’ll fix anything that’s causing a problem or acting up in the show (including fellow cast members, if need be!), and if a bulb’s blown or a tap’s leaking in their dressing room, I’ll get that sorted too. With the exception of day-to-day costume issues, which are overseen by our Wardrobe Mistress, everything comes through me. It can make for long, sometimes frustrating, days, but if you have a good company, who are well behaved and generally happy, helpful and sociable, as I’m thrilled to say is the case at the moment, then it can be quite fun.

And on Saturday, the moment the curtain comes down, we chuck it all in the lorry, ready to start again.

IN SUMMARY: Yeah, well, this is as interesting as I get right now.