The Fightback Starts Here

Richard Bratby reviews Someone Else’s Music by Alexandra Wilson:

When Martin Graham died in April this year, a light went out in the world of opera. You might have read the obituaries: Graham was the Gloucestershire music-lover who staged Wagner’s Ring cycle in his chicken shed and created one of England’s most ambitious country house opera festivals in his back garden at Longborough.

Except Longborough isn’t a country house, and Graham wasn’t some Glyndebourne-style landed toff. He was self-made: an autodidact who left school at 17 to labour on a building site and listened to the Third Programme on his transistor as he heaved bricks. “Building an opera house is easy,” he liked to say. “You just go into a field and start digging.”

Martin Graham’s story doesn’t appear in Alexandra Wilson’s new book, but it doesn’t need to. Wilson is our pre-eminent living expert on the history of opera-going in Britain, and she has many, many testimonies like it. The two typist sisters who saved for three years in the 1920s for the chance to hear the soprano Amelita Galli-Curci sing live; the queues of clerks and factory workers who slept on the pavement outside Covent Garden to buy cheap tickets in the 1950s. 

Most surprising (to me, anyway), the British soldiers who occupied Italy during the Second World War then took a love of opera back home — packing out performances of Rigoletto and Tosca in a post-war Britain where no political party seriously disputed the idea that great art should be available to all.

And now: well, here we are. Like Wilson, I write as a beneficiary of that postwar vision. My father began his career in Wills’s cigarette factory in Newcastle; he blew his first pay cheque on Solti’s recording of the Ring, and discovered a lifelong passion (indeed, it’s why I’m called Richard). The teenage Alexandra Wilson discovered the art through Opera North in Leeds. My first taste of the genuine article came from Welsh National Opera, on tour at the Liverpool Empire.

It couldn’t happen now. Today, the Arts Council has turned on the art of opera with vindictive and devastating ideological fury — hiding behind the skirts of indifferent governments (whether red or blue) and lying about “levelling up” whilst it dismembers the touring programmes and regional companies that have worked hardest to take opera to the nation.

For the first time in a century, my home city of Liverpool now has no regular professional opera, and it is far from alone. The message to my low-income, opera-curious teenage self — if he were around now — is plain. This isn’t for you. It isn’t “relevant”. Stick to what you know, and above all, know your place.

You’re probably wondering how we got here, and Someone Else’s Music provides an answer. It’s “the e Word”, elitism — the myth, as unkillable (and as dishonest) as Rasputin, that opera “is expensive and exclusive; ergo the people who enjoy it must be social and intellectual snobs”.

“The very word ‘opera’ has become a form of shorthand in the contemporary imagination for a mishmash of anxieties about money, class, dress, privilege and social status,” laments Wilson, acknowledging that the prejudice (at least in Britain) has deep roots. Antipathy to opera’s expense and (above all) its perceived foreignness dates back to the 18th century. Tabloid stereotypes about fat Italians in tights still come easily to opera’s enemies on the philistine right and the progressive left alike.

The puzzle Wilson tries to untangle is why, cockroach-like, that myth persists. And it really is a myth: Wilson deploys a century’s worth of evidence to demonstrate that between the wars, opera was a classless, widely-enjoyed form of mass entertainment. Then as now, the lavish productions and bejewelled audiences at Covent Garden were an exception rather than the norm — a source of aspiration, as well as resentment.

Yet this was still an era (and Wilson has a lively eye for human detail) when East End schoolboys could perform The Magic Flute, and when Dido and Aeneas was a classroom staple. Incredibly, all this happened long before surtitles (introduced in the 1980s) removed opera’s supposed “incomprehensibility” or, indeed, the massive post-war investment in outreach schemes, music education and accessible new companies such as Sadler’s Wells (now English National Opera), Scottish Opera and Opera North. In 1988 alone, Wilson points out, Channel 4 broadcast 17 operas.

In short, the “elitism” myth simply doesn’t stand up. But if it’s satisfying to watch it shrivel in the face of Wilson’s research, the gruesome truth is that it’s back and more damaging than ever. Wilson dates its re-emergence — like so many bad ideas — to the 1960s, and the radical-chic dogma of cultural relativism. Great art? Says who?

It metastasised into a more deadly form (let’s call it the Cool Britannia variant) after 1997 under New Labour. John Major had admired Dame Joan Sutherland; Blair preferred to hang out with Oasis. Coming after the mid-1990s PR disaster of the Royal Opera’s BBC documentary The House, this was the moment when opera’s fortunes in the United Kingdom were forced into sudden (possibly terminal) reverse.

The ideological toxins began their long march through the nation’s cultural organisations like some slow-growing autoimmune disease, until the scholars and institutions that were supposed to nourish opera in Britain began attacking it.

Audiences (and they’re still abundant, diverse and passionate) must be re-educated. Find yourself weeping as Cio-Cio San sings “Un bel di”? You’re sexist, racist and colonialist. As Wilson points out, under the Arts Council’s risible new “Let’s Create” strategy, even the word “Art” itself has been cancelled. It’s just too problematic.

This isn’t an optimistic book, then, but it’s certainly an energising one. With any study of this scope, there will be omissions: perhaps inevitably (and she’s far from the worst offender) Wilson occasionally gives the impression that the whole of British opera comprises two London theatres plus an outstation at Glyndebourne.

There’s a Gilbert and Sullivan-shaped hole in her narrative, echoing the notion (weirdly prevalent amongst British opera buffs) that G&S somehow doesn’t count as opera. Exhibit A, surely, in any study of the relationship between opera and class in these muddle-headed isles?

But Wilson already has an Armada of ignorance to fight, and Someone Else’s Music is a broadside of objectivity and intelligence in a battle that currently hangs by a thread. No art form is more subtle, more visceral, more preposterous and more life-affirming than opera; for my money, none is more entertaining, too.

Civilisation-wise, this is what peak performance looks (and sounds) like, and British defenders of that ideal will find a formidable intellectual arsenal in these pages. “To talk endlessly about opera being elitist is, it turns out, just about the most elitist thing one can do,” Wilson concludes. “It is time to change the conversation about opera.” The fightback starts here.

Why The Brussels Money-Grab Will Fail

Thomas Fazi, of course, writes:

Belgium’s prime minister learned the hard way that one does not need to be a rabble-rousing populist to incur the EU’s wrath. Until recently, the moderate conservative Bart De Wever had largely stayed out of the European spotlight. This was relatively easy, given that his party belongs to the centre-right European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, which has strongly aligned with Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission on Ukraine. Yet in a matter of months he became the Brussels establishment’s public enemy number one.

His offence? Opposing Brussels’s plan to seize Russia’s frozen assets held in Europe. The overwhelming majority of them are parked at Euroclear, a Brussels-based clearing house that sits at the heart of global securities settlement. For Europe’s pro-war lobby, led by France and Germany, confiscation was presented as the only way to continue financing Ukraine’s war effort — or, failing that, to force member states to assume the burden collectively through other, increasingly extraordinary means.

Belgium, however, had compelling reasons to resist. Confiscating — or functionally expropriating — Russian central bank assets would violate one of the most sacrosanct principles of international finance: the neutrality and inviolability of sovereign reserves. Breaching that principle would not only set a dangerous precedent, but would also expose Belgium to potentially severe legal, financial and geopolitical consequences — as Euroclear is domiciled there.

As Robert Volterra, one of London’s most respected international lawyers, warned, confiscating Russian assets would be “absolutely illegal” and would haunt the EU for generations. The legal fallout could be enormous. Russia had multiple avenues for challenge and had begun to explore them, already filing a lawsuit in Moscow against Euroclear.

From there, Russia could pursue litigation in Belgian courts, potentially all the way to the supreme court. Belgian judges would be forced to determine whether Russian property rights under domestic law had been violated and whether the principle of sovereign immunity had been breached. On both counts, Russia’s case would be strong. Were Russia to prevail, Euroclear itself would be liable. Given the sums involved, the clearing house would almost certainly be rendered insolvent, triggering national and EU-level deposit guarantee mechanisms.

In such a scenario, Euroclear would in turn be compelled to sue the Belgian state, which would have ordered the effective expropriation of client assets. The prospects of such a claim would be far from negligible. Beyond Belgium, Russia could also bring cases before the European Court of Justice, the International Court of Justice and multiple international arbitration forums. Even setting litigation aside — one might argue that in the current context it would be hard to find a Western judge willing to rule in Russia’s favour — it is difficult to see how Belgium could justify refusing to unfreeze Russia’s reserves if and when a peace settlement is eventually reached.

It is therefore hardly surprising that Belgium emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the plan. De Wever has bluntly warned that confiscation would amount to “an act of war”, likening it to entering a foreign embassy, stripping it of its contents and selling them off. One might reasonably conclude that he is simply defending his country’s interests by upholding international law. And yet, for this, he has found himself subjected to a smear campaign by the EU’s political and media establishment. He has been accused of acting under Russian intimidation — or worse, of being a Russian asset himself. At the same time, Brussels threatened to “treat Belgium like Hungary” if it continued to oppose the plan. That’s what happens when even loyal pro-EU governments dare to step out of line.

Despite the massive pressure, De Wever stood his ground. And he was joined by a growing front of dissenters. Hungary and Slovakia openly rejected the scheme, with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán accusing the Commission of “systematically raping European law”. Italy, Bulgaria and Malta also expressed reservations.

The economic and financial implications of confiscation, after all, would extend far beyond Belgium. Once the assumption that sovereign reserves held abroad are immune from political seizure is broken, there is no telling what the consequences may be. Countries would begin to view euro-denominated assets not as a safe store of value, but as a political liability — one that can be confiscated at Brussels’s discretion. The message would be unmistakable: your assets are safe only as long as you remain politically compliant. The result would almost certainly be that capital would start to flee Europe — even faster than it already is.

Nonetheless, faced with growing resistance, Brussels last week resorted to invoking emergency powers under Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to indefinitely freeze the Russian assets, claiming this would allow it to act by qualified majority rather than unanimity. Yet this represents a blatant distortion of the Treaty. Article 122 applies strictly to emergency economic measures in response to natural disasters or severe economic disturbances. It does not apply to foreign policy, which unequivocally requires unanimity. The fate of Russia’s frozen sovereign assets, however, is self-evidently a foreign policy matter. Claiming otherwise is an extra-legal sleight of hand.

This is another example of a Brussels power grab. If Article 122 — or any other provision — can be stretched to justify the seizure of foreign sovereign assets and the imposition of massive liabilities on unwilling member states, it can be used to circumvent unanimity across a wide range of foreign policy decisions.

The threat, however, worked. On Friday, at the European Council meeting, the Commission failed to secure an agreement on the use of the frozen Russian assets. Instead, it secured agreement on a separate €90-billion loan, backed by the EU budget and underwritten by all member states except three (Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), which were granted opt-outs. In effect, the political obstacle was bypassed not by changing strategy, but by shifting the financial risk directly onto European taxpayers. As von der Leyen made clear in advance of the summit, there was little room for dissent: “No one will leave the EU summit until the issue of Ukraine’s financing is resolved.”

Incredibly, the deal foresees that the loan will have to be repaid by Ukraine only if and when Russia agrees to pay war reparations — effectively transforming hypothetical future reparations into immediate financing. This idea is, at best, wishful thinking. It is highly unlikely that Russia would accept binding reparations even in the event of a peace deal, meaning that there is little chance Ukraine will ever repay the loan. This is all the more striking given how much Europe has already spent: EU parliaments have approved at least €187 billion in support for Ukraine, on top of massive indirect costs.

This episode illustrates how the EU operates: by manufacturing false binaries that foreclose genuine political choice. Member states were presented with a stark alternative — either agree to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets or be prepared to collectively underwrite a massive new loan. What was never seriously considered was a third option: to stop pouring money into a demonstrably failed strategy and instead work to bring the war to an end through negotiations.

Yet it’s easy to see why the EU can’t afford to confront the failure of its Ukraine strategy — one that has inflicted immense economic damage on Europe while delivering nothing on the battlefield, and that has left Ukraine in a worse position than at the start of the war. Acknowledging this reality would carry enormous political costs for EU elites, particularly those most invested in the victory-at-all-costs narrative — hence their determination to keep the war going at all costs. This is why, even after failing to agree on confiscation, Brussels pushed through a massive, budget-backed loan as a substitute. The consequences will be dear: Ukrainians will continue to suffer and die in an unwinnable war, while Europe will remain entrenched in a permanent state of economic warfare and military-by-proxy confrontation with Russia, with a constant risk of escalation into direct conflict.

If there is a silver lining to this grim trajectory, it is that the recklessness of these choices will only exacerbate the contradictions of a project that is pushing the continent to the brink, ultimately forcing a reckoning — within member states and among Europe’s citizens alike. Indeed, the Commission may have succeeded in avoiding a catastrophic humiliation, but in doing so it exposed the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Union, willing to override national interests and discard legal constraints, democratic norms and basic economic rationality in pursuit of ideological crusades. Meanwhile, the enormous financial burden imposed by the latest deal will only deepen internal fractures and push national budgets to the breaking point — especially when it becomes clear that it will entail yet more resources diverted from Europe’s own crumbling infrastructure, underfunded hospitals and overstretched schools.

And Ukraine is far from the only flashpoint. Brussels is also struggling to secure backing for the Mercosur free-trade agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Here, too, resistance is growing. France has long led the opposition, with Emmanuel Macron reiterating recently that the deal lacks reciprocity on production standards, pesticide rules and food safety. The front broadened significantly this week, when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the deal as “premature”, citing inadequate safeguards for European agriculture. Italy’s stance is pivotal, as it raises the prospect of a blocking minority in the Council that includes Poland, Hungary and Austria too.

Protests have added to the pressure. On Thursday hundreds of tractors converged on Brussels as farmers from across Europe denounced what they see as unfair competition. Proposed safeguards have done little to calm opposition — leading to the ratification of the deal to be postponed once again at the European Council.

And so, as the contradictions within the EU continue to accumulate, it is increasingly difficult to see how Brussels can manage the backlash for much longer. The Union is beginning to resemble a crumbling empire, reliant not only on repression, censorship and electoral manipulation to maintain control, but also on ever more aggressive tactics directed even against pro-EU governments themselves. By forcing through ever more reckless commitments in the name of unity, it is simply setting the stage for an even more catastrophic implosion down the road.

Civilisational Erasure

Excerpted from The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East by Sean Mathews:

Walking from the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter to Jaffa gate, you can spot the flags of Israeli settlers dangling out of windows and above rooftop water-tanks.

The hospice was constructed 150 years ago by another empire which was devoured by the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian. Like the Ottoman one, it was of the East and cosmopolitan. The hospice was built for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Its halls are tiled in cemento and the gardens are manicured but not overdone.

The Austrian Hospice is the only place I know in the Muslim Quarter where you can sip a glass of wine, which I needed after being in ideological and suspicion-riven Jerusalem, but some of the customers are also pious Muslims. The takeaway is that no one here cares if you are Jewish, Muslim, or Christian.

Even the Israeli settlers haven’t gone after the hospice yet. In that sense, it reminds me of Cairo’s Greek Club. It is not a coincidence that these Levantine redoubts are where local authorities’ oppressive rule and stifling social and religious codes subside.

I left this sanctuary after a morning coffee to meet George, the leader of the Greek community in Jerusalem’s Old City, at Samaras Cafe next to Jaffa Gate. The Petra and Imperial Hotels that the settlers had seized were above us. Jaffa Gate is the Old City’s meeting point. It was crowded with people, even though tourists were staying away due to the war.

George told me that like the Palestinians, Greek Jerusalemites face the same problem of being non-Jews in an increasingly intolerant Jewish state:

“The Jews have decided they don’t want anyone but them left in Jerusalem. Doesn’t matter if it’s Christians or Muslims. But they especially don’t like us Greeks because we aren’t Palestinians, but have been here for generations. There were literally thousands of Greeks here. We kept Christianity alive in the Holy Land. The last of us are a thorn in their side.”

There are different statistics on the exact number of Greeks who once lived here. Michael Vatikiotis, a journalist and son of the late Greek-Jerusalemite scholar PJ Vatikiotis, who wrote a book about his Greek and Jewish-Italian family in the Levant, said Jerusalem was home to at least 8,000 Greeks, in addition to those in trading ports like Jaffa. The statistics I obtained from the Greek Consulate in Jerusalem put the number higher from 1922, with almost 20,000 Greeks residing here.

What can be stated with certainty is that a century ago, Greeks were a part of Jerusalem’s cosmopolitan fabric.

In fact, by the early twentieth century, the community was blossoming so much that it had outgrown the Old City and established the Greek Colony between the present-day neighborhoods of Katamon and Baqa in upscale West Jerusalem. Fewer than 100 Greeks still live in Jerusalem, George told me.

Since its founding, Israel has been arguably as intolerant as Atatürk’s Türkiye toward Christians, and as intolerant as Nasser’s Egypt toward the Greeks.

In 1922, Christians accounted for twenty-three per cent of Jerusalem’s population. That was twenty-six years before the creation of the state of Israel. At the time of writing, they number barely two per cent, despite Jerusalem being home to at least six major churches.

In Stratis Tsirkas’ World War II trilogy, Drifting Cities, Greeks jump off the pages of his main character, Manos’ sojourn in Jerusalem when it was part of mandatory Palestine. This is how one Greek resident of the city described the political maneuverings of Jerusalem’s communities during the early days of the Second World War:

“Never mind the local authorities, the Allies, the Arabs and the Bedouins, who all have their own organizations; never mind the Knights, the Protestants, the Catholics, the Armenians, the Russians, our own Greeks and all the missions who won’t stop at anything when it comes to winning souls ... it’s the Jews who are organized best. They’ve really set their minds to getting Palestine for themselves ... the Haganah, the Irgun, who collect the arms for after the war ... the Hadassah, who scoop up boatfulls of American dollars.”

It was a rainy late-November afternoon. Samaras Cafe was drafty and our jackets were damp. The Near East is at its finest during winter when the olive-toned terrain is blanketed in grey and wet-cold. We devoured our hummus, labne and mutabbal, washing the assortment of mezze down with hot mint tea.

“When the 1948 war started, the inhabitants of the Greek Colony fled the Jewish militias and took refuge at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They crowded into the Old City for the Arab Legion to protect them. Everything you see here became part of Jordan,” George said, motioning out the window of the cafe to the bustling crowd outside.

George spoke with an American accent. He had spent more than twenty years in the United States, where he told me he worked for Las Vegas star Wayne Newtown. I asked him whether he feels Greece advocates for its few remaining nationals here.

“Athens doesn’t care about us. Most Greeks don’t even know we exist, so if we get destroyed, it won’t matter to the politicians,” he said.

George, like many Greeks I met in the Middle East and Greece’s borderlands, believed the destruction of Greeks in Jerusalem is part of a subtler, centuries-old effort to Europeanise the Greek state and uproot them from the lands of Byzantium. This might sound far-fetched, but east of Thessaloniki it is widely believed.

He told me:

“We were the first nation-state in Europe. But Europe never wanted us to be independent. They were scared of a Greek democracy and our ambitions. The first thing they did was erase thousands of years of Roman and Byzantine history and telling us to be like ancient Greece. The same thing is going on here. Erasing the Greek presence.”

George wanted to talk to me about the United States. He was flabbergasted by the Evangelicals’ rise within the Republican Party and their messianic support for Israeli settlement-building and annexation. “These people have hijacked the Republicans’ foreign policy on Israel,” he said. “I don’t understand what is going on. American Christians have abandoned the Christians here in Jerusalem: Greeks, Armenians and Palestinians. Do they realise what this Israeli government is allowing to happen to the Christians?”

The Evangelicals’ diehard support for Israel’s expansion in the occupied Palestinian Territories is tied to their literal interpretation of Bible passages where God promises a homeland for the Jewish people and the so-called end-of-times prophecies. One strand of evangelical theology states that the end of the world will be ushered in when Jews return en masse to the Holy Land. After that, an Antichrist will come to earth and rule for seven years until this empire is destroyed in Armageddon. Then, Jesus Christ will return to earth and establish his Kingdom in Jerusalem.

I was curious about the evangelical Christians myself. Tens of thousands come each year to visit the Holy Land. I asked George if they ever meet the Greeks or Palestinian Christians in the Old City. “They want nothing to do with us. We don’t see them at the church or at restaurants in the Christian Quarter. They have Jewish or American tour guides. Besides, the Israelis don’t want them to hear from us,” he said. “They go to the Jordan River to get baptised and outside the Old City,” he added. “Where they think Jesus was buried.” 

Evangelicals believe Jesus was buried at the Garden Tomb, which has become a major pilgrimage site for them. Other Christian denominations believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre sits in the Old City.

Custodianship of the sprawling, cavernous church is shared among six denominations: Roman Catholics, Armenian Apostolics, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Copts, and the most powerful of all, the Greek Orthodox. Saladin, the Muslim leader who conquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, entrusted two prominent Sunni Muslim families with the keys to the church and the duty of opening and closing it each day. That tradition continues. It’s a good way to keep the Christians from killing each other. At times, bearded priests at the Holy Sepulchre get into fistfights over who has right of way in small corners of the church. I personally saw a group of Coptic and Greek priests get into a brouhaha over where a candle holder was placed.

I walked to the Greek Colony a day before meeting George. It is now Greek in name only. It’s an oasis where bougainvillaea and pine trees spill out of Levantine gardens. The handsome limestone villas and apartment buildings that once housed Greeks were settled by Jewish refugees after 1948. I wanted to find the Lesky. This is the Greek club where the characters in Drifting Cities dance late into the night, drinking and listening to tango records.

The club was built in 1902, in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. It is made of Jerusalem limestone, with a red-tiled roof and painted shutters. It is set back in a verdant garden behind a wrought iron gate. When we arrived, the club was closed. I learned later from a Greek diplomat that the Greek community - fewer than 100 of them - were in a bitter dispute over the club and fighting over the keys.

The Lesky’s status fit too well with the mood in half-occupied Jerusalem. Shuttered and unapproachable, it symbolised the withering Greek presence here.

Ordinary Members Are Taking Control

It is no small deal that the largest trade union has elected a General Secretary who has been, and remains, expelled from the Labour Party. But to everyone who has been in touch from among my Unite comrades, while I am terribly flattered, we are going to have to find someone match fit for next year. We should, though, on a commitment to disaffiliate both from the Labour Party and from the ILGA. Join Unite Community here. As Andrea Egan writes:

I started my working life as a low-paid children’s residential care worker supporting vulnerable children, and I am still a registered social worker today. I discovered the labour movement through the powerful women who mentored me and showed me that working-class people will only win the dignity we deserve if we join together in our workplaces.

On Wednesday, I was elected general secretary of Britain’s biggest union, Unison. Trade unions are meant to be vehicles for workers to collectively organise, represent and lead ourselves, so my election should be an unremarkable event.

Yet I will be the first ordinary member to lead my union in its history. This represents a huge opening for the democratic renewal of the labour movement. The fact that my election is so unprecedented tells its own tale.

It is the blows inflicted upon us by Thatcherite politicians and employers over the decades that explain the enduring weakness of trade unions – clear to see in our industrial impotence and stubbornly low member engagement.

But some at the top of our movement have contributed to its decline, too, by creating cultures where workers, ordinary members, are consistently disregarded by their own organisations. Defending our class interests, the core work of unions, has been an afterthought, at best. Careers and cosy Westminster clubs have come first.

Not any more. That’s the one simple reason I was elected by such a decisive margin to lead Unison: members want our union to put our people first.

Ordinary members are taking control. With my clear mandate, I will work relentlessly to implement the industrial, political and organisational changes necessary to turn our union into the incredible, member-led force it should be. That’s the hopeful project we need the whole union to unite around.

Industrially, I am putting all the employers we bargain with – from Reform UK-run local councils to Wes Streeting’s Department of Health and Social Care – on notice: Unison will be fighting without hesitation to win for members. Our size and resources are without parallel among trade unions in this country. From this point on, those great assets will be geared towards transforming the lives of public-sector workers.

That begins with building on and properly scaling up the “organising to win” strategy introduced in 2021, after a motion by ordinary members at Unison’s conference. This was a member initiative, from the grassroots. Now I will work for it to be fully supported and resourced at the centre.

I will, on top of this, strive to reverse Unison’s industrial underachievement. We are the biggest and best-resourced union in the country; there’s no reason for us not to be among the most industrially formidable.

This will include a wide-ranging strategic review of taking strike action across the labour movement, leading to our adoption of the best methods to win. I will also launch a new strike-ready conference, convening workplace reps from across Unison to forge new organising approaches in the fight for better pay.

Politically, with ordinary Unison members giving a clear mandate for change, our union will defend the interests of the working class as a whole without apology and without exception. I am in no doubt – that requires being unbowed in our support for the Palestinian people’s freedom struggle, and proud of our internationalism and opposition to war. I am also clear that Unison on my watch will not sit idly by while this Labour government allows imprisoned Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists to starve while protesting for their basic rights. Keir Starmer must act now.

So it should be clear that putting members first doesn’t mean relegating or turning away from politics. That would be an abdication of responsibility. But it does mean bringing Unison’s support for the destructive right wing of the Labour party to an end.

We will call time on our union’s inexcusable habit of propping up politicians who act against our interests, undermine our fundamental values and make our lives worse. Like colleagues across the movement, I have, in recent weeks, been appalled by Streeting’s attacks on resident doctors and their union. It is simply unacceptable for a Labour politician to describe striking workers as “morally reprehensible”.

I will, of course, engage open-mindedly with the health secretary as I would with any other employer or government minister. But given the likelihood of a Labour leadership election in 2026, it’s important for me to be clear: swapping Starmer out for Streeting or anyone else from the right wing of the party would be no solution to the gigantic challenges facing the country. What’s needed is a radical change in approach based on the labour movement’s core values.

My victory is no individual matter. It is a collective triumph for ordinary Unison members who have voted to take charge of their own union at long last. Public sector workers keep this country running. We are disrespected, overworked and underpaid. That must change. It will change. With everyone from members to branch reps and our union’s staff pulling together, Unison under my leadership will make sure of it.

Lobby Terms

Lobby briefings are to be replaced with press conferences in Number 9 Downing Street. Inside No. 9. One of the best is on tonight. But what will be the twist to this one? The reaction of the Lobby, it would appear.

Boris Johnson moved the briefings to Number 9 from the House of Commons. That was an Executive usurpation of Parliament. As will be the announcements made in this new manner rather than to the House.

And who are to be the "sector journalists and content creators" invited by Keir Starmer? Or by Nigel Farage? Or by Zack Polanski?

Commonhold?

The Government is asking 63 local authorities whether they wanted to “delay” the elections that were due in May. If they cancelled your local elections, then do not pay your council tax. Much less join up, even under compulsion. All trials of Ajax armoured fighting vehicles have today been “paused”, so it would be anybody’s guess how you were supposed to sweep across the Steppe. But sweep across it for what?

See also the Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill. Or, rather, do not see it, since it is already more than a year late, and on Monday Keir Starmer told the Liaison Committee that it would not be published before Christmas. As a twentysomething recently said to me about the prospect of conscription, “Send my freeholder, he’s the one with a stake in this country.” Try to explain leasehold to anyone from almost anywhere else in the world. Give three cheers for the three-term Labour Government that never abolished it. And note how feudalism has morphed into global capitalism, so that nostalgia for the former does not provide the basis necessary for resistance to the latter.

Leasehold should simply be abolished. People who wonder why I keep up the politics, no one else is saying things like this. Angela Rayner did not help herself, but between the failure to cap ground rents at £250 per year, and the decision that you could not be unfairly dismissed until you had worked somewhere for six months, you do begin to wonder about the throwing of her under the bus. Yet even from down there, she is aiding the 39 Labour MPs who had announced their opposition to the abolition of almost all jury trials and of the automatic right of appeal from the Magistrates’ Court to the Crown Court, and who had made sensible suggestions towards clearing the backlog.

The defence of the presumption of innocence and the promotion of timely justice are no place for the insinuation that the Palestine Action hunger strikes had been convicted of anything, nor for the dismissal of their grievance as to the length of time that they had been held on remand, nor for the erroneous suggestion that they were the same people who were on trial for an incident involving a sledgehammer, and nor for the treatment of those defendants as if they were guilty. The Government’s outriders are doing all of those things. But Britain is neither Russia nor Ukraine, and we want to keep it that way. Then we might begin to create a country for which anyone might want to fight.

Bold and Essential

Christopher Kinch KC, resident judge at Woolwich Crown Court from 2013 until 2024 writes:

Ministers and MPs with legal qualifications have been trotting out the line that the Lammy reforms restricting right to jury trial are bold and essential.

“To restore trust. To prevent collapse. To uphold the rule of law,” as Alex McIntyre put it last week.

Those who oppose the reforms are characterised as traditionalists who cannot be allowed to stand in the way of doing what is right. Given my 11 years as a Resident Judge at a busy London court, I hope I know a bit about managing a crown court list.

For me, the government argument falls short both on evidence and analysis. It also deliberately and cynically ignores practical answers that would do much more to “restore trust” and “prevent collapse.”

Public trust lies at the heart of the government’s argument, yet juries remain one of the most trusted elements of the criminal justice system at a time when confidence in public institutions is in short supply.

Removing the responsibility for deciding verdicts from juries in a large category of cases risks undermining that trust. Despite ministerial rhetoric, the reforms would not be confined to minor offending but would extend to burglary, most offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and even cases involving death or serious injury caused by careless driving.

Transferring these decisions to judges may be described as “bold” but it is unlikely to strengthen confidence in the system.

The claim that the reforms are essential is also questionable. The Leveson Review suggested that judge-only trials might reduce trial length by up to 20 per cent, but acknowledged that such projections are inherently uncertain.

That optimism may underestimate the time judges will need to produce reasoned decisions clear to everyone involved and capable of surviving scrutiny in the Court of Appeal criminal division.

During that period, courtrooms would lie empty rather than being used for other trials. Any marginal saving in time is unlikely to make a significant impact on the backlog. If we are to sweep away a substantial part of the jury system which has provided the crucial and unique link between the courts and the communities they serve, then a far more compelling and rigorous justification is required.

A more credible solution lies in supporting judges, court staff and advocates who already work within the crown courts. After the pandemic, these professionals demonstrated that, with determination and cooperation, they could keep the system functioning even under extreme conditions. With adequate resources, they can do so again.

The experience of Woolwich Crown Court provides a clear illustration. 

By October 2022, the backlog at Woolwich had reached around 1,200 cases. To operate efficiently, the court needed a “reservoir” of roughly 750 to 800 cases to keep its 12 courtrooms fully listed. Once the total exceeded 1,000, it became increasingly difficult to list cases within a year. The post-pandemic surge therefore required urgent intervention.

Judges and staff devised an intensive case-management strategy aimed at eliminating weak cases and reducing the number of trials that collapsed on the day they were due to begin. Every case was listed for a mandatory pre-trial review four weeks before trial. One or two courts each week were devoted to reviewing up to ten cases at a time, with all parties required to attend in person.

Judges rigorously tested the prosecution and defence on the viability of their cases and their readiness for trial. The process was demanding and often unpopular. Advocates had to take time away from other work or ensure substitutes were fully briefed, often for limited remuneration. The administrative burden on the list office was significant and the workload on those conducting the reviews was heavy. Judges had to prepare each case in depth, to a level at least matching that of the advocates.

Nevertheless, the results were immediate and striking. Fundamentally flawed cases were resolved early, compromise pleas were negotiated, and defendants were encouraged to plead guilty by the prospect of a final, meaningful sentence discount. Trial dates were also adjusted to accommodate advocates’ availability, improving efficiency.

Over seven months, the backlog steadily reduced. By May 2023, outstanding cases had fallen below 1,000 and there was genuine optimism that acceptable levels could be restored within a year. Progress stalled only when two judges moved to other courts and were not replaced, making it impossible to sustain the effort.

Of course that is only one court, but with proper funding for courts and advocates, the dedicated teams working in the crown courts could manage a short term offensive that would make huge inroads into the existing backlog.

Looking to the long term, there needs to be a sensible discussion about categorisation. Governments have the right to determine where the line should be drawn between summary trial and trial by jury.

The irony is that successive governments have spent the last 30 years expanding the range of offences which should carry a right to elect trial while simultaneously reducing court capacity. The Leveson Review lists many of these cases.

Consultation on a sensible approach to recategorisation would identify suitable cases without threatening long-held rights to jury trial.