Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
I’m not encouraging those well-meaning clowns who blocked main roads, sat down in the street until they were dragged away, or even defaced great works of art.
But was it right that some of these self-proclaimed eco-warriors ended up getting prison sentences longer than some criminals?
Furthermore the courts had just finished dealing with Just Stop Oilers and Extinction Rebellion fanatics when they discovered the jails were brimming over and the Government had to open the gates to let hundreds of villains out in advance of their release dates.
I’m not sure we’ve got the balance right when environment protesters stand in the dock while serial thieves and wife abusers walk free.
Journalist Allison Pearson might not agree that we are a nation of free speech. She was doorstepped by police on Remembrance Sunday having caused offence to one person with an item she had re-tweeted on social media. The police would not tell her exactly what had caused the offence.
Even if she was accused of a non-crime hate incident, the words non-crime are the dead giveaway. If it’s not a crime then what in heaven’s name are the police getting involved for?
In the 12 months up to June police forces in England and Wales recorded more than 13,200 “non-crime hate incidents.” Are there no real crimes to solve?
While kids are being stabbed to death in the streets and criminals think they have carte blanche to help themselves it seems a futile waste of police time to be pursuing one man’s complaint.
But then, it appears cops are even getting dragged into playground spats. In one incident I saw reported last week they attended a school after a nine-year-old girl said something unpleasant about a boy’s mother.
Our farmers look like being the next protest group. If this was France they’d be out already blockading the motorways and refusing to supply food for the supermarkets.
The authorities may find it harder to argue with a muck spreader than a few cans of orange paint.
And what will cops do if they are confronted with agricultural machines blocking roads and cutting off food supplies in protest at the Government’s inheritance tax policy?
Arrest them. Drag their combine harvesters away. Fall in a heap of silage. If the countryside comes to town it might not be an easy one to solve.
Unsettling reading
There’s something about a book. The tactile feel of it, the smell of a new book, the frisson of pleasure it gives when you open its pages.
I am not what you would call an avid reader. But I usually have a book on the go. One I can take up when I have got half an hour in which to relax and lose myself in a good tale.
I am not a crime fiction fan. Most of my reading is sport-related. Currently I am reading a book called Journeyman about the life of a footballer in the lower leagues, far removed from the ghosted biographies of Premier League stars.
Sadly thousands of young people never get to share my enjoyment in reading. Indeed children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce believes we are at risk of “losing a whole generation” of readers.
The National Literacy Trust has pinpointed the drop in children’s reading. They say it’s at crisis point, especially among boys. Only 34 per cent of children aged from eight to 18 told a survey they enjoyed reading in their spare time, compared with 43.4 per cent in 2023.
Reading has so many benefits, aiding vocabulary and comprehension, creativity and communication skills. It can also help the elderly with their mental health wellbeing.
I suspect that literature, and therefore reading, fell out of fashion in education at one time. Yes, we need engineers and scientists, but not at the expense of our rich heritage of reading.
I don’t mind if kids are reading the Beano if they prefer it to Wordsworth and his blooming daffodils. I just want them to put away their phones for a while and try reading some real words on a page.
The Literacy Trust is calling on the Government to form a reading taskforce and action plan to address the declining rates of reading and promote reading for pleasure in its curriculum review.
I sometimes watch a half hour programme on the BBC called Between The Covers in which a group of well-known people discuss their favourite books.
Audiences at literature festivals suggest there is still a market for books. As well as my sports books I do like to bury myself in political diaries which are popular at these events. But how do we persuade young people that they are missing out on one of life’s joys?
Reading is that “invisible privilege” Cottrell-Boyce refers to. Can we reverse the trend away from it? “The good news is it’s in our hands,” he says.
