The divine @Writerer❤️-socialist, feminist, writer, broadcaster, non-dull intellectual who wants the world to be a better place- what’s not to love?
I was gripped (see face!) by her scathing brilliance on the ‘lying liars’ in power.
Buy all her books waterstones.com/book/we-are-at…
What can you say about a double bill of Shami Chakrabarti and @MichaelRosenYes except we were all lucky to witness it?
Shami was chilling on the vile Tory legislation she’s been working so hard to mitigate (virtually impossible, but she keeps fighting for us)
How wonderful to welcome Michael again after all he’s been through!
Charming & funny as ever, he had fans from 6 - 60 beaming : but pulled no punches warning us to remember the lessons of Nazi Germany & keep resisting this shocking administration. #Matchfest
How did #Matchfest22 go (&did the fash turn up as promised)?
Here’s a look at the amazing day we had at @BowArts on Saturday.
First to join me round the table (we don’t do stages- or PowerPoints): @carolinebressey & @SuffragetteKate, on women fighting racism through history
Caroline discovered incredible new information about this woman, Catherine Impey, who set up an anti racist journal, with her mum & sister, *in 1888!* Same year the Matchwomen went on strike.
Catherine lived in Street, Somerset.
Visiting 1870s America, Catherine was horrified by the racism.
She met with Black activists including legends like Frederick Douglass & Ida B Wells.
This is our riposte to the old excuse ‘well everyone was racist THEN’!
Buy Caroline’s extraordinary book: waterstones.com/book/empire-ra…
What a day!
25 years after I first looked at the wall of a match factory in Bow and thought, That should have a blue plaque..and their story should be told..
Today a beautiful @EnglishHeritage plaque was unveiled.
I was honoured to speak about the women & my long obsession!
Anita Dobson speaking, and getting ready to pull that cord..
A sad, proud, moving day at St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street today, for the memorial service for #ShireenAbuAkleh
The shock and pain of Shireen’s friends and colleagues, just 6 weeks on from her murder, is palpable.
Her niece Lina, by video link, called her‘my best friend’.
‘A part of me is broken’, she said-but because Shireen was brave & optimistic, she has to go on, and hope for justice
Lina noted that Shireen was actually ‘still reporting, still exposing truths’ even at her own funeral- when the world saw Israeli forces attack mourners.
Because Tommy Robinson complaining about the ‘humourless’ left mass reporting ‘people they don’t like’ reminds me of a story about-
Tommy Robinson.
Mass reporting.
Me 😂
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, I thought it would be interesting to use by history slot in BBC radio to look at past ‘demics and how London has coped with them.
It was fascinating to research. Plagues, cholera: the things people did to survive, tragedy and bravery
The monarchs and rich who legged it out of the city every plague season, abandoning the poorer population to its fate; the brilliant working class Dr Snow who saved untold lives by proving cholera was waterborne.