Section: UK

“Leave Spotify on and go live your life for a couple of hours. Then come back and see what Spotify has selected for you. 90% won’t do much for you but that other 10% … that could be life-changing.”

Eco anxiety is real and defined as “a chronic fear of environmental doom”. But how can we as individuals really make a difference? Group action has achieved positive change already and it can again. This article highlights six practical steps you can take this week to tackle the climate crisis, including switching your bank to a more ethical provider, changing your energy supplier to one which uses 100% renewable energy, and pledging to rewild your garden.

The parallels between 1920s Spain and 2020s Britain are unnerving to say the least. Tom Serpell sounds a warning from history

Structural racism is endemic in our society, but it can be challenged. Sussex Bylines shines a light on the nature of unconscious bias, the racial inequalities highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic and hears from Shamser Chohan, creative director of the social enterprise Communities Inc.

Susie Courtault and Vivienne Griffiths interviewed five women aged between 12 and 72 about their experiences of male violence and abuse. They conclude that boys need to be educated to process their emotions and to understand that sexual harassment and violence are never acceptable.

Watching the Meghan Markle interview triggered difficult emotions for Paige Furlonge Walker, a young black British woman. The interview felt to Paige like an attack on all black people and all non-white folk. Paige felt angry, with nowhere to direct the momentum it gave her. This article is her doing something about it.

Take heart, if everything’s connected, holistic theory will help us through the pandemic. Rod Watson’s uncle had the answer …

While nurses are offered a 1 per cent pay rise, multi-million pound Covid-related contracts have been awarded to “friends” of the government, often secretly and without going out to tender. Viv Griffiths reveals the cost of some of this cronyism and how it is being successfully challenged in the courts and even by the UK’s medicine agency (MHRA).

Conservative orthodoxy tells us that balancing the books of the public economy is both good business and good for business. The last ten years suggest that this is partially or wholly untrue. But why is this model so broken? Michael Green gets his hands dirty digging into the economy’s oily bits.

This week’s Bylines Network podcast comes from Sussex: Mo Kanjilal and Stephanie Prior in conversation about the importance of encouraging representation at a local level.

Meghan Markle talking about British society stirred up a lot of feelings for Mo Kanjilal and many other people of colour. The fragility of your legitimacy in being British if you are not white is always there. It might not be on the surface all the time, but it is always there, and you don’t know when it’s going to come to the fore.

“In the UK, only 21-25% of science research grant applications are successful, meaning that over 75% are rejected…Additionally, the system drives competition, leading to inequalities. Managing a work-life balance is more difficult when you are constantly being made to feel that you could achieve more if only you worked more.”

Terry Reintke attributes her growing awareness of inequality and the injustices in the world to the fact that she grew up as a German. Living with the knowledge that my grandparents and great-grandparents had a duty as citizens in a democracy to speak up for the rule of law, for minorities, and they didn’t really do that. That knowledge brings a level of responsibility and it is why politics and democracy have always played an important part in my own thinking.

In January, when bees are huddled together for warmth in their hives, the government decided to allow farmers to use Thiamethoxam, a neonicotinoid, to treat sugar beet seeds as 2020 had been a bad year for the beet. The government must be made to see that neonicotinoids must never be used as they will always be a threat to bees, to nature, and to its much-vaunted green revolution.

To mark International Women’s Day 2021, we feature this selection of articles published in Sussex Bylines in the run-up to 8 March, along with other pieces about women who have fought for political representation, challenged prejudice, refused to remain invisible, and who have been proud to hold the banner of women’s rights high.

Thousands of EU citizens were disenfranchised in the 2019 European elections – and yet the High Court has ruled that they have no redress against the government. And to avoid becoming an ‘undocumented migrant’ they are forced to apply for EU Settled Status. Cllr Marianna Ebel explains the issues.

As International Women’s Day approaches, Susie Courtault regrets the loss of EU anti-discrimination protection of women’s maternity rights as she discusses the recently lost Pregnant then Screwed court case and argues why they should have won.

Lewes district councillor Emily O’Brien warns of “grotesque over-development” if the government’s “build, build, build” policy doubles the number of planned builds for Lewes district. But despite the government’s U-turn, Conservative MP Maria Caulfield and Emily O’Brien can’t agree on the revised figures.

As International Women’s Day approaches on 8 March, Vivienne Griffiths remembers two of her aunts: Florence Rourke and Kay Williams. Both were remarkable women, in very different ways, and both had a profound influence on Vivienne’s life.

Nine months after contracting COVID-19, Sophie Wilson has still not recovered from the disease and is enduring a range of physical and mental symptoms on a daily basis. She describes the debilitating impact that Long COVID is having on her health and her life.

The pandemic shows the value of key workers, such as hospital staff, to our society. But will chancellor Rishi Sunak recognise this in the Budget?

Captain Sir Tom Moore, 99, raised over £32 million for the NHS by walking around his garden. But he should not have had to do this. When he died, at the age of 100, Boris Johnson asked us to clap for him. Sir Tom’s marvellous effort was hijacked by the government to distract attention from the deaths of more than 120,000 people.

Britain spends billions on ‘defence’, not because it needs to but because our rulers are still intoxicated by military greatness and by the money to be made. Isn’t it time to move on?

For years, the Queen has been meddling in what laws are passed in this country – just one more example of a corrupt system weighted in favour of the wealthy.

Since 18 January, all travellers to the UK from overseas must show proof of a negative Covid-19 test and quarantine for up to 10 days on arrival. Travel corridors have also been closed and the government is set to announce mandatory quarantine hotels. But why has it taken so long to introduce such measures?

As hospital workers struggle to cope with the Covid crisis, a group of doctors is speaking out about the toll on their mental health.

Mental health stigma persists and continues throughout people’s lives. If children are to cope with the scarring of the past year and the extra mental demands of living in a post-Covid society, we must talk about mental health more so they find it as easy as talking about their physical health, and embed that approach into society.

Brexit is far from sorted. Now Britain has left the EU, the government is embarking a radical programme which will remove protections for employees and threaten the future of the NHS.

A new technique to potentially improve crops, via gene-editing, is being considered now Britain is out of the EU. It’s not like controversial genetic modification (GM). But consumers may still have their doubts.

The question of the degree to which market forces should determine remuneration — especially for those in public service – is a thorny one. Do we let the market decide? How can such work be valued? Tom Serpell explores these and other questions thrown into sharp relief by the Covid pandemic.