The Stokes Croft area of Bristol has been transformed by a local regeneration movement that’s led by the arts—and has little room for Tesco in its heart
BRITAIN
Is this the big society?
David Cameron has made it one of the cornerstones of coalition rhetoric, yet no one knows quite what the “big society” is, writes David Goldblatt. Is it a new wave of voluntary service, an expanded role for the third sector—or local initiatives in health and education, perhaps? In Stokes Croft, the most rundown area of inner city Bristol—pictured, above—we might find an unusual and unexpected answer in the form of a radical grassroots organisation: the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC).
Stokes Croft is wedged between St Paul’s and the city centre. For half a century, it has been in freefall. Once a smart Edwardian shopping area, it steadily declined until, by the 1990s, it had become a cluster of massage parlours and abandoned beautiful buildings, home to Bristol’s cider drinkers and heroin addicts.
In 2007, however, one man saw beyond the blight and decided to do something. Chris Chalkley founded PRSC as an urban experiment in grassroots regeneration. With just his savings to keep him going, he created a community interest company devoted to transforming Stokes Croft into a unique cultural quarter. This was, after all, the area where Massive Attack used to hang out before they made it big, where Bansky painted some of his earliest works and where the Cube (an arts cinema successfully run on volunteer labour and without a single penny of public support) was located. Chalkley declared that Stokes Croft would become the biggest outdoor art gallery in the world and, with a few pots of paint, began to create brilliant murals.
Over the last three years, Chalkley has catalysed an amazing, if unfinished, transformation built on the area’s strengths and existing population. Alongside the street art, he has led a guerrilla redevelopment scheme, introducing new and humorous signage, reinventing lost and abandoned space, establishing an art gallery and a pottery factory and—above all—building a coalition of like-minded individuals and activists. Today, new cafés and restaurants have moved in, artists’ studios have appeared and a funny, innovative Museum of Stokes Croft has been created on a shoestring. A new model of community based urban redevelopment is being invented.
Property developers, ever alert to the real estate value of successful bohemianism, are circling. But they will face an almighty fight. Tesco’s attempts to open a store here have been met by a massive wave of protest and occupations. This might not be what David Cameron had in mind when mooted the Big Society. Yet this is exactly what PRSC is: an inspirational example of what people themselves can do where the state or the market can do nothing.
Frank views on police pay
Police pay and working conditions have long been among the toughest challenges in public sector reform. The last major report, the Sheehy inquiry of 1993, was rejected almost in its entirety thanks to the determined opposition of the Police Federation and its “Say No to Sheehy” campaign. Similarly, in 2002, the Federation forced the government to withdraw many of the proposals in its 2001 white paper on police reform with a protest involving more than 10,000 off-duty officers.
It’s either very foolish or very brave, then, for the present government to have announced the appointment of former rail regulator Tom Winsor as the head of what it’s calling “the most comprehensive review of police pay and conditions in more than 30 years.” Winsor, 52, has a reputation for being a forceful negotiator—and is unafraid to express his dissatisfactions. While rail regulator, he fought the Labour government tooth and nail over its decision to declare Railtrack insolvent, subsequently describing its actions as akin to those of “third world governments whose promise is suspect.” Given that the police review is likely to require plentiful measures of both tact and determination, the choice of Winsor to head it is bold, to say the least. No doubt his recommendations will be both frank and far-reaching. As to whether they’re translated into reform—don’t hold your breath.
A British film triumph
As he explains in this month’s Widescreen column, Prospect’s resident film critic Mark Cousins has given national pride a mighty boost after winning the Prix Italia in Turin for his documentary The First Movie, which follows his experiences on a 2009 trip taking both films and handheld video cameras to children in a village in northern Iraq. The film and its director are touring in Picturehouse cinemas in Britain until 26th October. Full details at http://thefirstmovie.net.
Murdoch versus the rest
The news this October that Rupert Murdoch plans to take full control of BSkyB brought howls of protest from much of the rest of the British media. But just how worried should Brits be? According to a report by Jean Seaton and Steven Barnett in the latest Political Quarterly, quite a lot. Seaton and Barnett calculate that, while the BBC’s annual spend on creating original programmes (excluding sport) is over £1.5bn, the grand total spent on original non-sport commissioning by Sky and other pay TV operators is just £100m—15 times less.
Combine Murdoch’s growing muscle with the government’s cost-cutting mood and powerful forces are ranged against the BBC. But rumours are swirling that a minor revolution might also be on its way there—and that the Beeb may finally appoint not only its first ever female chair of its board of trustees, but even a female director general. Among others, Helen Boaden—current BBC head of news, and recently appointed to the executive board—is said to be in the frame for the DG position, when and if Mark Thompson departs. Meanwhile, Patricia Hodgson—a leading candidate for the chairmanship in 2006 before she ruled herself out—is once again a strong possibility for that post, with an appointment due in the new year.
Free-thinking events
Prospect is partnering two notable events this autumn. On 31st October, we’re sponsoring a day at London’s Battle of Ideas festival titled “The Battle for the Past.” Participants including philosopher Roger Scruton, historian Ian Morris and rector of the Royal College of Art Paul Thompson will be joined by Prospect’s David Goodhart for debates on history, culture, ancient Greece, memorialising the Holocaust, and archaeology. For more details, click here. There’s also exclusive content on our website from speakers—and we have a pair of day tickets, worth £100, to give away. To enter, simply send your name to battle@prospect-magazine.co.uk.
Next, on 4th November, we’ll announce the winner of our think tank of the year award: a prize given in partnership with Shell to recognise the best ideas, publications and organisations in the policy world. Watch this space for news on the ideas shaping the political future.
EUROPE
Germany’s bleak bestseller
For a hardback work of non-fiction to sell over 750,000 copies in Germany is almost unprecedented. Since its publication at the end of August, however, Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany abolishes itself)—a polemic by the 65-year-old Thilo Sarrazin, a politician and former board member of the Bundesbank—has done exactly that, topping the bestseller charts and feeding a storm of criticism and praise. The most controversial of Sarrazin’s views focuses on Muslim immigrants, whom he argues are Islamifying and damaging Germany.
Sarrazin resigned from the Bundesbank at the end of September as a result of protests against his book, but the debate he has begun shows little sign of dying away. Sarrazin is a Social Democrat, and his views have received considerable support from much of the German public—but the centre-left SDP itself receives a large number of immigrant votes, and has called on Sarrazin to renounce his more extreme ideas or risk expulsion from the party. Meanwhile, the book continues to fly off the shelves, and there is even talk of him founding a separate political party and running for chancellor. What’s certain is that Sarrazin has blown wide open a debate on race and immigration that has for decades been largely taboo in Germany. And its repercussions are likely to be felt all the way to the elections taking place in six German states in 2011.
AMERICA
Social democratic America
Is a remarkable geopolitical switch imminent? For decades, British public spending as a percentage of GDP has stood well ahead of America’s, close to the continent’s social-democratic norm of over 40 per cent. Within three years, however, the US is set to overtake Britain on this sensitive economic ratio. As British academics Peter Taylor-Gooby and Gerry Stoker have noted in a recent analysis of public finance data, US public spending stood in 2007 at around 35 per cent of GDP, compared to 41 per cent in Britain. By 2013, though, Britain’s spending will have declined to just under 40 per cent of GDP—while US spending will have risen to almost 43 per cent. The real story here is not so much a transatlantic lurch on Britain’s part as an extraordinary surge in US public spending. Perhaps the Tea party’s “socialism” smear has half a truth in it after all.
WHAT'S COMING UP
31st October Tanzanian national elections 2nd November US congressional elections 5th November Bonfire night and Diwali 7th November Burmese general elections 11th November G20 Seoul summit begins 12th November Asian Games begin in China
BRITAIN
Is this the big society?
David Cameron has made it one of the cornerstones of coalition rhetoric, yet no one knows quite what the “big society” is, writes David Goldblatt. Is it a new wave of voluntary service, an expanded role for the third sector—or local initiatives in health and education, perhaps? In Stokes Croft, the most rundown area of inner city Bristol—pictured, above—we might find an unusual and unexpected answer in the form of a radical grassroots organisation: the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC).
Stokes Croft is wedged between St Paul’s and the city centre. For half a century, it has been in freefall. Once a smart Edwardian shopping area, it steadily declined until, by the 1990s, it had become a cluster of massage parlours and abandoned beautiful buildings, home to Bristol’s cider drinkers and heroin addicts.
In 2007, however, one man saw beyond the blight and decided to do something. Chris Chalkley founded PRSC as an urban experiment in grassroots regeneration. With just his savings to keep him going, he created a community interest company devoted to transforming Stokes Croft into a unique cultural quarter. This was, after all, the area where Massive Attack used to hang out before they made it big, where Bansky painted some of his earliest works and where the Cube (an arts cinema successfully run on volunteer labour and without a single penny of public support) was located. Chalkley declared that Stokes Croft would become the biggest outdoor art gallery in the world and, with a few pots of paint, began to create brilliant murals.
Over the last three years, Chalkley has catalysed an amazing, if unfinished, transformation built on the area’s strengths and existing population. Alongside the street art, he has led a guerrilla redevelopment scheme, introducing new and humorous signage, reinventing lost and abandoned space, establishing an art gallery and a pottery factory and—above all—building a coalition of like-minded individuals and activists. Today, new cafés and restaurants have moved in, artists’ studios have appeared and a funny, innovative Museum of Stokes Croft has been created on a shoestring. A new model of community based urban redevelopment is being invented.
Property developers, ever alert to the real estate value of successful bohemianism, are circling. But they will face an almighty fight. Tesco’s attempts to open a store here have been met by a massive wave of protest and occupations. This might not be what David Cameron had in mind when mooted the Big Society. Yet this is exactly what PRSC is: an inspirational example of what people themselves can do where the state or the market can do nothing.
Frank views on police pay
Police pay and working conditions have long been among the toughest challenges in public sector reform. The last major report, the Sheehy inquiry of 1993, was rejected almost in its entirety thanks to the determined opposition of the Police Federation and its “Say No to Sheehy” campaign. Similarly, in 2002, the Federation forced the government to withdraw many of the proposals in its 2001 white paper on police reform with a protest involving more than 10,000 off-duty officers.
It’s either very foolish or very brave, then, for the present government to have announced the appointment of former rail regulator Tom Winsor as the head of what it’s calling “the most comprehensive review of police pay and conditions in more than 30 years.” Winsor, 52, has a reputation for being a forceful negotiator—and is unafraid to express his dissatisfactions. While rail regulator, he fought the Labour government tooth and nail over its decision to declare Railtrack insolvent, subsequently describing its actions as akin to those of “third world governments whose promise is suspect.” Given that the police review is likely to require plentiful measures of both tact and determination, the choice of Winsor to head it is bold, to say the least. No doubt his recommendations will be both frank and far-reaching. As to whether they’re translated into reform—don’t hold your breath.
A British film triumph
As he explains in this month’s Widescreen column, Prospect’s resident film critic Mark Cousins has given national pride a mighty boost after winning the Prix Italia in Turin for his documentary The First Movie, which follows his experiences on a 2009 trip taking both films and handheld video cameras to children in a village in northern Iraq. The film and its director are touring in Picturehouse cinemas in Britain until 26th October. Full details at http://thefirstmovie.net.
Murdoch versus the rest
The news this October that Rupert Murdoch plans to take full control of BSkyB brought howls of protest from much of the rest of the British media. But just how worried should Brits be? According to a report by Jean Seaton and Steven Barnett in the latest Political Quarterly, quite a lot. Seaton and Barnett calculate that, while the BBC’s annual spend on creating original programmes (excluding sport) is over £1.5bn, the grand total spent on original non-sport commissioning by Sky and other pay TV operators is just £100m—15 times less.
Combine Murdoch’s growing muscle with the government’s cost-cutting mood and powerful forces are ranged against the BBC. But rumours are swirling that a minor revolution might also be on its way there—and that the Beeb may finally appoint not only its first ever female chair of its board of trustees, but even a female director general. Among others, Helen Boaden—current BBC head of news, and recently appointed to the executive board—is said to be in the frame for the DG position, when and if Mark Thompson departs. Meanwhile, Patricia Hodgson—a leading candidate for the chairmanship in 2006 before she ruled herself out—is once again a strong possibility for that post, with an appointment due in the new year.
Free-thinking events
Prospect is partnering two notable events this autumn. On 31st October, we’re sponsoring a day at London’s Battle of Ideas festival titled “The Battle for the Past.” Participants including philosopher Roger Scruton, historian Ian Morris and rector of the Royal College of Art Paul Thompson will be joined by Prospect’s David Goodhart for debates on history, culture, ancient Greece, memorialising the Holocaust, and archaeology. For more details, click here. There’s also exclusive content on our website from speakers—and we have a pair of day tickets, worth £100, to give away. To enter, simply send your name to battle@prospect-magazine.co.uk.
Next, on 4th November, we’ll announce the winner of our think tank of the year award: a prize given in partnership with Shell to recognise the best ideas, publications and organisations in the policy world. Watch this space for news on the ideas shaping the political future.
EUROPE
Germany’s bleak bestseller
For a hardback work of non-fiction to sell over 750,000 copies in Germany is almost unprecedented. Since its publication at the end of August, however, Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany abolishes itself)—a polemic by the 65-year-old Thilo Sarrazin, a politician and former board member of the Bundesbank—has done exactly that, topping the bestseller charts and feeding a storm of criticism and praise. The most controversial of Sarrazin’s views focuses on Muslim immigrants, whom he argues are Islamifying and damaging Germany.
Sarrazin resigned from the Bundesbank at the end of September as a result of protests against his book, but the debate he has begun shows little sign of dying away. Sarrazin is a Social Democrat, and his views have received considerable support from much of the German public—but the centre-left SDP itself receives a large number of immigrant votes, and has called on Sarrazin to renounce his more extreme ideas or risk expulsion from the party. Meanwhile, the book continues to fly off the shelves, and there is even talk of him founding a separate political party and running for chancellor. What’s certain is that Sarrazin has blown wide open a debate on race and immigration that has for decades been largely taboo in Germany. And its repercussions are likely to be felt all the way to the elections taking place in six German states in 2011.
AMERICA
Social democratic America
Is a remarkable geopolitical switch imminent? For decades, British public spending as a percentage of GDP has stood well ahead of America’s, close to the continent’s social-democratic norm of over 40 per cent. Within three years, however, the US is set to overtake Britain on this sensitive economic ratio. As British academics Peter Taylor-Gooby and Gerry Stoker have noted in a recent analysis of public finance data, US public spending stood in 2007 at around 35 per cent of GDP, compared to 41 per cent in Britain. By 2013, though, Britain’s spending will have declined to just under 40 per cent of GDP—while US spending will have risen to almost 43 per cent. The real story here is not so much a transatlantic lurch on Britain’s part as an extraordinary surge in US public spending. Perhaps the Tea party’s “socialism” smear has half a truth in it after all.
WHAT'S COMING UP
31st October Tanzanian national elections 2nd November US congressional elections 5th November Bonfire night and Diwali 7th November Burmese general elections 11th November G20 Seoul summit begins 12th November Asian Games begin in China
