“It is an absolutely fantastic thing for Northern Stage to do this year when the children and schools have had such a hard year. We really appreciate it. It’s just such a kind and lovely gesture.” Karen Turland from Lobley Hill Primary School in Gateshead
Universal suffrage has been achieved for the majority of working people aged 18 and over. Yet some people still find it hard to vote in elections. For instance, people with physical disabilities sometimes face barriers, with 67% of polling stations not being accessible. Partially sighted or blind people experience obstacles to even make it onto the electoral registration system. In some councils, the forms aren’t easy to read or makes sense of.
The North, chipped and scavenged in these standing stone days, does not fall asunder nor domino down in sight of barber surgeons with their slingshots, chippings. Long abraded by high seas, we stack lean as limestone, holding our breath like we have held our noses, impassive in the face of this flitting ephemera. We Danelaw […]
Jessie Joe Jacobs, candidate for Tees Valley Mayor said: “Our High Streets are the heart and soul of our communities, my family’s business Jacobs’ carpets began on Stockton High Street and I am committed to seeing new life breathed back into it. Today’s news about the Arcadia group is desperately sad but we won’t go down without a fight.”
yes man, yes man, three bags full of grass
Where you been lass?
You ate what? From a stranger?
Crucially, the Chancellor missed today’s opportunity to reassure the hundreds of thousands of families across the region who have benefited from the £20 Universal Credit uplift, and who now face yet more uncertainty about the overnight loss of this lifeline in April after many months of enormous hardship and stress for so many.
But who is really looking out for the hungry in the UK? It seems to be down to all of us and businesses around the UK and an army of volunteers who so generously give their time energy and often money to volunteer in a charity food bank.
One result of this legal change was that some landlords refused to invest in their properties as a way of maintaining high profits. Rents were cheaper in 1919-1938, but the condition of homes declined with overcrowding a big problem across the northern industrial heartlands.
“I’m very excited for people to see this show. I’ve never written a musical before but with the amazing work Jen Stevens has done, we have put together something truly special. Now more than ever we need to make sure the magic of Christmas stays alive and with this fantastic cast, I think we may have done just that.”
“We have become more driven towards raising money for the LGBTQ+ community and trying to increase their presence in the North East gaming and streaming environment. In going forward, we are hoping to set up SFST as a charity aimed at helping members and organisations of the LGBTQ+ family, with an interest in streaming and gaming, by offering them support and technical help. We also are looking to assist with micro grants to help get people set up and ultimately build a Northern Gaming LGBTQ+ Network”.
One striking exception to this was the ‘Byker Wall’ development in 1968 to 1982 – a block of 620 maisonettes with colourful architecture and sensitive landscaping. Five years ago the estate was transferred to the Byker Community Trust and has £20m investment since 2012. It won an award in 2017 – ‘Best Post War Neighbourhood’ at the Academy of Urbanisation.
The mainstream government funded support schemes, such as the ‘Work and Health’ and former ‘Work’ programmes are widely criticised for multiple reasons. They appear to be focusing on low hanging fruit, on clients who need little support in order to progress, while putting minimum effort into supporting those with complex needs or facing multiple issues, and at the same time channelling money into multi-nationals and corporations and Tory donors instead of supporting charities and social enterprises.
“With the EU summit on 19th November being seen as the deadline for a draft Brexit Deal, a protest took place at the Port of Tyne. This was to highlight the difficulties we will face importing and exporting goods into and out of the UK, if we crash out without a deal or if a bad deal is secured. We cannot necessarily rely on a trade deal with the US either to bail us out because Biden has stated for this to happen the Good Friday Agreement needs to be respected which is not scheduled to happen with the Internal Markets Bill. With less than 50 days to go before the transition period ends, let us not forget that the North East stands to be the worst affected by a No Deal Brexit.”
There remains a real danger that UKIP or even Nigel Farage’s re-launched Brexit Party into the new Reform Party could become more racialised. If Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy and programme fails to deliver in the North and Midlands, these parties could enjoy a future resurgence in the region’s urban towns and coastal communities. They already hold a number of council seats in both Hartlepool and Sunderland, and they polled well in local elections in Newcastle’s east end.
Normalising emergency food aid as a response to child poverty is both stigmatising and completely unsustainable in the long term.
6,500 British employers now pay their staff the Real Living Wage of £9.30 an hour including Newcastle and Sunderland Councils. The implementation of the RLW has benefitted 1,200 city council employees. These staff are primarily based in schools or are ancillary workers, such as cleaners and cooks. Most are £1,100 better off as a result of this pay policy.
Northern Stage and Kitchen Zoo are creating a new adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. The new production will be streamed to your home from 12-31 December.
There’s very little happening in theatre – but just wait five minutes for that could change at any time as the government keeps changing its mind, knee-jerking to everything that catches our masters’ attention – so news and reviews are very thin on the ground, and as for writing new plays…
The notion that the ‘family’ no longer cares about its older kin and has abdicated its responsibilities to the state is misplaced. Pre-industrial society is often portrayed as ‘The Golden Age’ of the family and ageing, when older relatives were respected and cared for by their own families. The assumption was that people lives in ‘extended’ type families. This is a myth.
UTCs working in partnership with general FE colleges, apprenticeship agencies, local councils and devolved combined authorities like North of the Tyne and Greater Manchester may be one way forward.
Falling profits, automation and the demise of heavy industry meant that the number of new jobs was shrinking in the region’s manufacturing industries. By 1981, the number of apprenticeships had halved since the mid-1960s peak, when over a quarter of male school leavers got an apprenticeship.
From the 1970s onward, successive governments have pulled back from the state provision of a nutritional meal. Remember “Thatcher the Milk Snatcher”? Usually the dogma was around the Nanny State – though I’m rather taken with David Baddiel’s comment that the ”people who most object to the Nanny State are nearly all brought up by nannies”. The growth of the food industry, junk food, consumer choice and fast food – also the drive of privatisation, reduction of council costs, crackdowns on benefits and the reduction in numbers of those entitled to Free School Meals resulted in a decimation of the school meals service.
Plastic Glass is no stranger to the local live scene, having played sold out headline shows at venues such as Think Tank (Newcastle) and Independent (Sunderland) as well as supporting indie outfits The Snuts, The K’s and The Pale White. Now working with nationally acclaimed promoters Scruff of the Neck and This Feeling, the Sunderland four piece are travelling further afield, having already played shows in Leeds, Glasgow, Carlisle and Manchester this year before being cut short.
We have to ask, if this missing chapter was uncovered purely by coincidence, what else has cultural amnesia airbrushed from history?
Alphabetti Theatre’s Love from is a show for just one household/bubble (maximum 5) and runs from 3–24 December 2020 (excluding 6, 7, 13, 14 & 20) with various time slots available. A family/bubble tickets is £30.
How have we come to this is the question I have asked most often in the last week, why is leadership on the most fundamental of issues coming from a young man of 22 with no political experience or ambitions other than to make sure children are fed. I think it’s clear Marcus Rashford’s own experience has given him a deep seated understanding and empathy; he knows what it’s like to be a child who is hungry and to feel the accompanying shame and stigma.
Yes, the railways in 1963 may have been old fashioned and a bit dirty but they provided a space where people could talk in an unhurried environment and also, certainly if you read the references to railways in Howards End, an environment where the whole gamut of life could be seen.
The group dressed in Halloween costumes, including witches, warlocks and even the Grim Reaper. Placards displayed messages such as ‘A No Deal Brexit is a Rocky Horror Show’, ‘No Deal No Nissan – Horror’, ‘No Deal shocker – scary!’ and ‘No Deal will be the death of us.’ As the protest took place at night time, many of the signs were lit up.
With Lucy’s freedoms curtailed in so many ways she, and many other young people, are certainly having a tough time of it at the moment. With no nights out with friends allowed to ease the pain it’s going to be a long hard winter. Let’s hope Boris Johnson considers this during the current crunch time Brexit talks and gets a good deal for the sake of everybody but especially our young people.
How did the North East fare in the awards of grants for the cultural recovery Fund?