How I Turned my Android Phone Into a Camera Monitor

I’ve used the advantage of using my phone larger screen as an external monitor. Useful for studio and location shots. landscape etc and especially useful for me in re-photographing my negative archive. [Not much cop in a riot though].

How to Turn Any Android Phone Into a Camera Monitor
Paul Figueiredo
If your camera doesn’t have built-in functionality to use an Android phone as a monitor, try this workaround
https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-turn-android-phone-into-camera-monitor

What Software Do You Need? – this one works better for me.
The app we recommend for this method is called nExt Camera, available for Android on the Google Play Store.
nExt Camera – USB
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.nextcamera

No Budget? No Problem
DIY filmmaking with inexpensive home-brewed solutions like the one we just described can be a reward in itself.
While this method won’t be competing with the likes of Atomos or BlackMagic Design with their Ninja and Video Assist series of monitors respectively. But thanks to the nExt Camera app and some inexpensive accessories, those of us with lower-end hardware can optimize our filmmaking skills a little bit more than we could before.

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Lecture 2 Festivals Events 400 pics. 60mins

Lecture 2 Festivals Events 400 pics. 60mins

Festivals, Travellers, Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Free Party, Music, Environmental Protest, Reclaim the Street, Unions, Civil Disobedience, Policemen and ……..

Lecture Slideshow 2 60mins. 400 pics / 9 sec change

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Traveller E Raver’ by Italian Publishers ‘Shake Edizioni Underground’

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Bristol van dweller numbers have quadrupled says report

By Pete Simson & Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley

BBC News, Bristol

The number of van dwellers in Bristol has quadrupled since 2020, according to new figures.

Bristol City Council report said the number had increased from 100-150 three years ago, to 600-650 in 2024.

Councillor Steve Smith said residents near the Downs in Clifton want to see “tougher enforcement action”.

But Deputy Mayor Asher Craig said other locals wanted to “find a happy medium because [they] respect the fact these people have nowhere else to live”.

She added: “They just want to make sure that the park is not impeded, that they’re not parked in an unsafe way.”

Leaflets are going to be distributed because many residents are confused about what the law is, Ms Craig said.

‘Not a passing fad’

The city council report contains a number of recommendations around van dwellers, which will be discussed by the council cabinet in the spring.

It said there should be a city-wide response and accepted that people living that way is not “a passing fad” but also “not a problem which needs to be solved, and not something which can be ignored”.

The report adds: “Vehicle dwellers are citizens of our city and need to be respected and represented as such, with equal access to services as would be available to any other resident or visitor.”

Recommendations include investigating providing more permanent sites, setting up a task group to explore options, and offering training to elected members on the subject.

Luke looking out from inside his truck that he lives in
Image caption,Luke said there is a “stigma” around the vehicle-dwelling lifestyle

Luke, who works 70 hours a week as a fine dining chef, has lived in a truck on the Downs for a year.

He said he could afford to live in a house if he wanted to but “doesn’t need to” and believes there is a “stigma” around his choice of lifestyle.

“I always wanted to live in a truck but also circumstances [affected my choice] and the cost of living and rent in Bristol is insane. I don’t want to pay a grand a month in rent ever again,” he said.

“I pay around £70 a month for insurance and tax and in the winter it’s around £8 a week for my diesel heater,” added Luke.

He said the community of van dwellers on the Downs and in the city in general is “an excellent community”.

‘Residents are exasperated’

The council’s official policy states it is to support and manage vehicle dwellers in places that are “low impact” to local residents – including areas such as the Downs.

However, about 40 residents have written to the council to complain about a lack of enforcement in the area.

Some described the report as “woefully inadequate” and have concerns over rubbish, sanitation and the view.

Henleaze and Westbury-on-Trym Conservative representative Mr Smith criticised the report for being “very one-sided”.

“It says almost nothing about the impact of encampments on the area and the people that live around them,” he said.

“Residents are exasperated over the inaction of the Labour administration to deal with the highway encampment on the Downs.

“The Downs is what David Attenborough described as the jewel in Bristol’s crown. This is a heavily-protected beauty spot.

“The city now has the largest population of van dwellers in the country.”

‘Where would they go?’

Speaking to the BBC, Bristol’s Cabinet Member for Housing Services councillor Kye Dudd said the policy wouldn’t be changing, and that vehicle dwelling sites considered “low impact” will be supported and managed.

“No site with a large number of people is going to be without problems, and we do get a large number of complaints – many of them are genuine concerns about rubbish and things like that,” he said. “But this isn’t a fad, the root cause is the housing crisis.

“If we took a possession order on the Downs and dispersed the encampment, where do they go? They could disperse into the nearby streets instead.

“At the moment, although it’s not ideal, it’s probably better that they are there,” the Labour councillor added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-68512498

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‘Negative Art’

I the middle of re-photographing black and white negatives. Thought I do a couple of direct negatives without inversion.

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Much of England’s ‘national landscapes’ out of bounds, say campaigners

Right to Roam finds areas of outstanding natural beauty have on average poorer footpath access than rest of England

Helena Horton Environment reporterFri 15 Mar 2024 12.00 GMTShare

England’s most stunning “national landscapes” are largely out of bounds, and 22 of the 34 have less than 10% of their area open to the public, research has found.

The government last year renamed areas of outstanding natural beauty to national landscapes, and said part of their aim was to widen access to nature. Ministers said at the time the new name reflected a recognition that they are not just beautiful but important for many reasons including improving wellbeing. ………

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/15/much-of-england-national-landscapes-out-of-bounds-say-campaigners-right-to-roam

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Right to roam: paths to 2,500 public areas are being blocked by landowners due to outdated laws

Vixen Tor is a distinctive, craggy granite outcrop on the western side of Dartmoor, the largest and highest upland area in southern England. But this secluded moorland beauty spot, with a right to roam provided by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, is hard to get to.

Close of up old broken wooden sign stating 'no right of way' with green leaves and countryside path in background
Right to roam protestors want fairer access to countryside in England and Wales. Peter Turner Photography/Shutterstock

Surrounded by private land, this tor is one of around 2,500 access islands in England and Wales. Other examples include Gillcambon in the northern Lake District and land near the village of Wylye in Wiltshire.

These wild places are open to the public but can only be accessed by helicopter or by trespassing over private land.

The right to roam campaign to draw attention to these legally inaccessible islands has been popularised by veteran campaigners such as authors Guy Shrubsole and Nick Hayes.

These advocates for access contend that it is now time to rethink access law in England and Wales. Based on my research into environmental and land law, I argue access islands seem to be a legacy of laws that have been poorly executed, and outdated before even coming into force.

The campaign for a right to roam predates the Labour party, but gained momentum under the post-war Labour movement. In fact, the promise of a wider right to roam over the English countryside can be found in most of the Labour party’s post-war general election manifestos. This included the manifesto that preceded Blair’s 1997 landslide victory, which had promised “greater freedom for people to explore our open countryside”.

Blair had promised to govern as new Labour however, and sought to distance his party’s policies from those of his predecessors. This included support for the politics of the “third way”.

This was a controversial ideology inside his own party, positing that political solutions are not always found on the left or the right, but can draw on a range of ideas with an aim of finding balance and compromise. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 can be seen as a product of this era, balancing a limited right to roam on foot with significant powers for landowners to close their land temporarily.

Specifically, the right to roam extended to common land, and to mountain, moor, heath and down, all described in this act as open country. Access was not extended to more accessible lowland areas, other agricultural land or woodland.

There are no access islands in Scotland, however, where access laws are more generous than those in England and Wales. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act contains a presumption in favour of the right of access, with small exceptions such as private gardens, schools and industrial land. By contrast, access law in England and Wales works on a presumption of trespass, with small exceptions allowing access.

My own research into parliamentary papers from the late 1990s shows that the current right to roam was also chosen because it was one of the cheapest solutions, and could be rolled out quite quickly at a time when Blair’s cabinet was looking for support from Labour backbenchers.

A lot of the mapping of open country was done quickly and cheaply through aerial photography. Surveyors would only be dispatched to a site with equipment to count plant species to settle the most contentious cases.

Landowners could appeal and, at times, exploit the uncertainties of this mapping process. According to the Right to Roam campaign organisers, possible trespass protests at the island of Vixen Tor are planned for later this year as a result of this.

Much of the surrounding fields were originally mapped as access land but this was later appealed by the landowner on the grounds that it was improved grassland rather than moor. This closed a vital corridor of access land and left the tor itself as an island.

Following the introduction of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, grants were made available for landowners to improve gates, stiles and footpaths. Local authorities have the power to negotiate with landowners to open or divert new footpaths. Some have indeed done so. In spite of this, there was no general power to provide pedestrian routes to these islands.

The future of access

Since the introduction of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, improving and widening access has been a low political priority, but the possibility of a Labour victory in a 2024 general election has led many to believe that a new and more effective right to roam could soon be established.

Kier Starmer’s team has spoken of Scottish-style access which would provide a much wider right of access over woodland, green belt and other open countryside. Starmer has already been accused of a U-turn, promising better rights of access while protecting the rights of landowners.

Rather than a U-turn, this looks like evidence that Labour’s policy on access is still a work in progress. Access campaigners will be waiting for the next election manifesto with eager interest.

Meanwhile, future protests are planned and campaigners are still asking for Scottish-style rights of access to be extended to England and Wales. Whatever the solution, our access to the countryside should be given the parliamentary time and investment that it deserves

https://theconversation.com/right-to-roam-paths-to-2-500-public-areas-are-being-blocked-by-landowners-due-to-outdated-laws-224135

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Castlemorton, May 1992 : A Slideshow

The annual Avon Free Festival which had been occurring in the area around the May bank holiday for several years, albeit in different locations. [Inglestone, Sodbury Commons etc].

However, 1992 was the year Avon and Somerset Police intended to put a full stop to it. As a result the thousands of people travelling to the area for the expected Festival were shunted into neighbouring counties by Avon and Somerset’s Operation Nomad police manoeuvres. The end result was the impromptu Castlemorton Common Festival, another pivotal event in the recent history of festival culture.

In the event, a staggering 30,000 travellers, ravers and festival goers gathered almost overnight on Castlemorton Common to hold a free festival that flew in the face of the Public Order Act 1986. It was a massive celebration and the biggest of its kind since the bountiful days of the Stonehenge Free Festival.

West Mercia Police claimed that due to the speed with which it coalesced, they were powerless to stop it. The right-wing press published acres of crazed and damning coverage of the event, including the classic front page Daily Telegraph headline: “Hippies fire flares at Police”. The following mornings Daily Telegraph editorial read: “New Age, New Laws” and within two months, government confirmed that new laws against travellers were imminent “in reaction to the increasing level of public dismay and alarm about the behaviour of some of these groups.”

Indeed, the outcry following Castlemorton provided the basis for the most draconian law yet levelled against alternative British culture. Just as the Public Order Act 1986 followed the events at Stonehenge in 1985, so the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill began its journey in 1992, pumped with the manufactured outrage following Castlemorton.

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Bristol venue to host legendary 90s rave sound systems and DJs at ‘free party’ exhibition

The event at Lost Horizon will bring together some of the most instrumental people from the early 1990s free party scene

By Mark Taylor Life Writer

The free party movement of the 1990s launched the careers of many DJs and sound systems

Festivalgoers these days are used to paying hundreds of pounds for the privilege of spending a few days under canvas in a muddy field. But a new exhibition in Bristol celebrates the 30th anniversary of the free party movement born with the secret raves of the 1990s.

Free Party: A Retrospective will celebrate the birth of the UK’s iconic free party movement, with a week of events, art, music and more hosted at the Lost Horizon venue in St Jude’s. The event will bring together some of the most instrumental people from the early 1990s free party scene and mark the 30-year anniversary of the legendary Castlemorton free festival, the UK’s biggest ever illegal rave which took place in Worcestershire in May 1992.

Inspired by and working alongside the creators of ‘Free Party: A Folk History’, a major independent documentary currently in post-production, Free Party: A Retrospective, is a mixture of free activity and ticketed club night events from the people who lived and breathed this movement. Organisers say it will celebrate part of cultural history and be a place to revisit memories as well as understand the journey that built today’s free party and festival scene from the perspective of those involved in it from the start.

The week-long programme of events will include free talks, panel discussions with Q&As, and an exhibition of photography, audio, artwork and film. Partygoers will also be able to buy tickets to an array of club nights from legendary sound systems of the time such as SP23 (Spiral Tribe), Bedlam and DiY, alongside Bristol collectives such as Duvet Vous.

Profits from the tickets and donations will go to related causes. These include Refugee Community Kitchen, Spirit Wrestlers, Drive2survive and Friends Families and Travellers.

One of the images on display at the Free Party retrospective

Speaking about the programme of events, director of Free Party: A Folk History and curator of the exhibition, Aaron Trinder, said: “When independently embarking on the idea to make a feature documentary about the Free Party movement I had no idea of the breadth and depth of the stories I would find when interviewing people from the scene, including Circus Warp, DiY, Spiral Tribe, Free Party People, Bedlam and many others within the travelling, sound system and rave communities.

“As a result, I realised that the film could only ever show so much of such a rich and interesting cultural history, so the notion of an exhibition, allowing many of the contributors to the film to tell their own stories came about.”

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/bristol-venue-host-legendary-90s-7034326

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Free Party Exhibition and Show. A Retrospective

Free Party Exhibition and Show. A Retrospective Lost Horizons, Bristol Samsung S10 4K Video 3840 x2160 I’m there again next Saturday 28th May and on the panel discussion then: 4pm – 5pm – Talks w. Q&A – DiY (Harry H & Jack), Tash Lodge, photographer & Aaron Trinder, filmmaker 5pm – 9pm – DiY Day Party in the garden (Tim Wilderspin & Andy Compton) 10pm – Late – Sound System with Nottingham’s anarchic collective DiY: Pezz, Jack and Grace https://alanlodge.co.uk/blog/?p=6182

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Free Party, A Retrospective. Film and Panel discussion at Lost Horizon, Bristol

Free Party, A Retrospective. Film and Panel discussion at Lost Horizon, Bristol.

* Aaron Trinder, Filmmaker
* Harry Harrison, DiY
* Steff Pickles, Traveller
* Alan Lodge, ‘Tash’, Photographer

…. video of the panel by Sam

also check out the groove at ….

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My Castlemorton Exhibition of Photographs in Berlin. 18 January – March 2024

At the British Shorts Film Festival in Berlin, Germany.

As the co-organiser of the British Shorts Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. We are an independent weeklong festival organised with a love for all kinds and genres of short films and music videos and are quite grateful to have a wide audience attending our screenings. Our 17th edition will be taking place in Berlin from 18th until 24th January 2024.

For this edition I am planning a retrospective programme about the Acid House and Rave-scenes of the 90s, showcasing essential short films, documentaries and music videos from that time an beyond. Amongst the films we will be showing is the documentary RAVE (1997) by Torstein Grude and the music film WEEKENDER (1992) directed by Wiz. While researching (I was in contact with Aaron Trinder, the director of the recent documentary FREE PARTY: A FOLK HISTORY amongst others) I found out about your amazing photographs of the Free Party-scene and the Castlemorton Common Festival in 1992.

Since every year we have an exhibition as part of the British Shorts Film Festival at the cinema bar of Sputnik Kino (https://www.sputnik-kino.com) located in Berlin-Kreuzberg, I want to enquire whether there is a possibility to exhibit some of these great pictures in this setting. They would be able to provide more context to the retrospective film programme and give some great insights of this time to our audience attending the festival.To give you an idea, exhibitions in the past couple of years included “The Ties That Bind” by Grey Hutton, works from The British Culture Archive and “Don’t Call Me Urban: The Time of Grime” by Simon Wheatly.

You can find more information about our festival and past programmes on our website and social media:
https://www.britishshorts.de/history.html
https://www.instagram.com/britishshorts
https://de-de.facebook.com/BritishShorts

If this sounds interesting, I would be happy to hear back from you. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding our festival or this exhibition idea.

Henning Koch

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One Minute ‘sketch’ around Nottingham

One Minute ‘sketch’ around Nottingham Insta360 Ace Pro – 4K Video 3840 x2160

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A first test to see if this sends a tweet?

Have just set this up using the ‘Uncanny Automator’ plugin for my WordPress Blog.

https://automatorplugin.com

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Up to Kinder Scout by Jacobs Ladder

Kinder Scout, Derbyshire Peak District

60 second TikTok

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGefxqFyP/

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Re-Photographing / Digitising my Photographic Archives

Illustrating my method of digitising the work. A Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera. A 50mm macro 1:1 lens and a Nikon ES-2 copying attachment with negative and transparency racks.

Then post-processing in Adobe Lightroom. Inverting from negative to positive and correction for brightness and contrast. Keywording and storage. Exporting to Photoshop, further correction for display.

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A Photographic Archive

Here at Tash Towers, this is my photographic library of Black and White negative and Colour Transparencies taken between 1979 and 2003. After 2003, my work has been most digital. Hence there is a shedload of scanning / re-photographing the work to make digital derivations.

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MPs, understand this: protests are inevitable when you fail to represent the people

Andy Beckett

Politics is not just an activity conducted in Westminster corridors, with the voters locked out – as marches over the climate crisis and Gaza show

Sun 10 Mar 2024 13.01 GMT

Where should politics happen? For most MPs, accustomed to the Palace of Westminster’s inward-looking spaces and rituals, the answer is obvious. In parliament and its associated offices, corridors, committee rooms, bars and tea rooms; in Downing Street and its surrounding maze of ministries; and in the parts of the media that mould political opinion.

This country is supposed to be a representative democracy. Except for very occasional referendums, periodic elections, voxpops and opinion polls, or perhaps the odd exchange with their MP, voters are not meant to be directly involved. A sign of a healthy political system, we are often told, is one where most people get on with their lives and leave politics to the professionals.

But Britain doesn’t feel like that kind of place now. Political professionals – whether MPs, ministers or party functionaries – are regarded by many voters with contempt: as incompetent, corrupt, uninspiring, or a combination of all three. Meanwhile the public spaces of Westminster and the centres of other cities are busier with protests than they have been for years. Gaza, the climate crisis, cuts to public services, the crisis in farming and other huge and urgent causes compete for attention, week after week. On many weekends, last Saturday being the latest example, much of central London in particular has changed from a place dominated by consumerism, tourism and statues of dead politicians to a place of banners, placards, chants, speeches, blocked roads and activists climbing lamp-posts, with coloured smoke gushing from protesters’ flares and police helicopters endlessly throbbing overhead.

Rishi Sunak amid protesting farmers after he delivered a speech at the Welsh Conservatives conference in Llandudno, north Wales

For some politicians, many but not all of them Conservative, this is almost a vision of hell. The language they use to criticise the pro-Palestinian and climate protesters in particular is strikingly strong, describing them as extremists, thugshate marchersa mob – despite the protests’ overwhelmingly peaceful nature. Even slightly less intolerant members of the government have had enough. The Gaza demonstrators “have made a point and … made it very, very loudly,” said the home secretary, James Cleverly, last month. “I’m not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument.”

Some of this Tory exasperation and outrage is selective and transparently party-political. Rishi Sunak supports farmers’ protests against the Labour-run Welsh government, despite a disruptiveness to their campaign that he condemns in other activists. Desperate opportunism and inconsistency have always been his prime ministerial hallmarks.

A demonstration against the Israeli invasion of Gaza in London on 2 March 2024.
A demonstration against the Israeli invasion of Gaza in London on 2 March 2024. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

The more revealing thing about the reaction of many MPs to the wave of protests is what it tells us about mainstream politics in general. Both the big parties are moving rightwards, having concluded that conservative voters will be decisive at the coming election. This shift means that our revered but often narrow representative democracy is representing the country as a whole even less well than usual – for example, the 45% of voters who believe Israel’s attack on Gaza is not justified. And so, when a parliament fails to speak for enough voters, politics takes other forms. In one sense, the Gaza protests, like the climate protests, are a highly public rebuke to the House of Commons, and a reminder of its limitations – of the things that most MPs cannot or will not say. No wonder many MPs wish the demonstrators would just go away.

In London, the protests have arguably been energised further by the built environment and atmosphere of Westminster itself. Britain has long been a democracy that centralises an unusually large proportion of political power in a tiny part of its capital, yet since the 1980s this enclave has become much more fortified. The official rationale is that it’s to deter terrorists, and in this the strategy has largely succeeded, but another consequence has been to separate MPs further and further from voters, behind layers of security barriers, bag scanners, surveillance cameras and armed police – while at the same time making Westminster feel ever more unwelcoming to non-insiders.

Invading this space for a few hours as a demonstrator can feel excitingly transgressive and politically worthwhile in itself, and even more so when ministers and the rightwing media are blustering about your actions being outrageousand trying to find ways to ban them. In the 1990s the American anarchist philosopher Peter Lamborn Wilson (writing under the pen name Hakim Bey) devised the concept of the “temporary autonomous zone” to describe fleeting but politically vibrant territorial occupations, in which “a guerrilla operation … liberates an area of land … and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere”. One common current protest chant is “Whose streets? Our streets!” In an age when many feel politically disempowered, the potential of such small victories to be formative experiences shouldn’t be underestimated.

When and if the Tories go into opposition, it’s possible that they will suddenly develop their own appetite for street politics. During the most dominant phase of the Blair government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance organised large marches in London, which became important rallying points for the Tories and conservative Britons in general.

Pro-Palestine protesters with flags in Westminster, London

Awkwardly for today’s Tory critics of disruptive protest, the pro-hunting movement had a militant fringe, which compared itself to the IRA, and threatened acts of sabotage such as draining water reservoirs and even planting fake bombs. These militants received coded support from parts of the rightwing press, such as a Telegraph editorial in May 2002 suggesting that opponents of Labour’s rural policies should “take the gloves off”.

Two truths of our politics are that memories are short and the Conservatives are shameless. It’s not that hard to imagine Tory MPs and voters marching down Whitehall in protest at the policies of prime minister Keir Starmer, while the former prosecutor tries to silence them by taking the current Conservative anti-protest legislation even further. Some controversial Tories, such as the MP Miriam Cates, are already concerned about government plans to create a new, broader definition of extremism, and the restrictions it could place on the right as well as its enemies.

One day, more MPs will hopefully see protest as an essential companion to parliamentary politics, rather than its barely legitimate rival. But as the clampdowns keep coming, that day feels far off.

  • Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/10/streets-mps-protesters-politics-gaza-climate-parliament

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Kodak Carousel S-AV2000 Slide Projectors on interval dissolves

Kodak Carousel S-AV2000 Slide Projectors on interval dissolves. With long focus 250 mm lenses. One Eye on the Road.

This is how it was done, back in ye olde days!

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Socialism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion on Prevent list of terrorism warning signs

Communism also among ideologies on document as human rights groups say UK scheme has been politicised

Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent Thu 7 Mar 2024 13.38 GMT Share

A document from Prevent, the official scheme to stop radicalisation, includes believing in socialism, communism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion in a list of potential signs of ideologies leading to terrorism.

It comes as the Conservative government considers widening what it will consider to be extremism.

The document is part of online Prevent awareness training for those covered by the duty to inform if they suspect radicalisation. That includes teachers and youth workers.

The guidance was updated last year and published with little or no fanfare, after William Shawcross’s controversial government-ordered report on Prevent was released.

A former head of counter-terrorism said it risked damaging Prevent, and human rights groups said the government was playing political games under the guise of stopping terrorism.

In a section on the left wing it states: “Two broad ideologies: socialism and communism. Each are united by a set of grievance narratives which underline their cause.”

In a section on single-issue ideologies, the document reads: “Narratives are likely to come from those who seek to change a specific policy or practice, as opposed to replacing the whole economic, political or social system. Examples include animal rights, anti-abortion or anti-fascism. Single-issue narratives can be politically agnostic, meaning they may be neither right nor left aligned.”

Neil Basu, a former police head of counter-terrorism, said: “That is far too nebulous, and there is no qualification. It might lead to unforeseen consequences such as overwhelming the system and bringing the system into disrepute.

“The reputation of Prevent is still very fragile. It makes the haystack unnecessarily bigger in which you are trying to find the needle.”

Those completing the online course get a certificate to say they have awareness of Prevent.

The government commissioned a review of Prevent by Shawcross, whose appointment led to a boycott of the review because of his alleged anti-Muslim and rightwing views.

The guidance for those covered by the Prevent duty was updated afterwards in July 2023.

The document details the main two ideologies driving the terrorist threat to the UK: Islamism, which makes up the bulk of the caseload, and the extreme right wing, which makes up about 20-30% of the caseloads, according to counter-terrorism sources.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Prevent deals with all forms of radicalisation and it is important that this is effectively communicated within our training products so that frontline professionals are equipped to take the appropriate action.

“All training products are regularly updated to ensure they are reflecting the latest threat picture.”

Jacob Smith, from Rights and Security International, a human rights advocacy group, said: “For years, we have expressed concern about how the government’s broad concept of ‘extremism’ could be open to politicised abuses. It appears that this concern has now been realised through a blatant distinction between how the government wants to treat people on the ‘left’ versus people on the ‘right’ under Prevent.

“Our concern is only heightened by government rhetoric during the past few days that appears to be targeting British Muslims and protesters for Palestinian rights. If ‘extremism’ can mean anything the government wants it to mean, that’s a clear problem for democracy.”

Ilyas Nagdee, from Amnesty International, said: “This is yet another crackdown from the UK government to stifle freedom of expression – including political speech and activism – using the blunt instrument that is Prevent.

“Prevent is brazenly being used here to target political expression as it has long been criticised of doing. The government should not be in the business of rolling out training and guidance on what they deem acceptable or unacceptable political ideologies and forms of activism.”

Other official training documents for Prevent state that “under the Prevent duty” those covered by it must “support” anyone at risk of radicalisation.

It says: “It’s not your responsibility to risk assess the level of radicalisation,” and urges providing “as much context as possible before it’s shared with the police”.

Other official material says details that should be provided to the authorities about anyone being referred to Prevent should include name, religion, social media name, ethnicity, nationality, main language, immigration or asylum status, and any additional family details. It also says data that can be shared can include, neurodivergence, mental health, details about emotional health and cultural factors.

It also asks any referral includes details of the “ideology of concern … provide details of the ideology which may be contributing to making the person susceptible to radicalisation”.

“This training is designed to make sure that when you share a concern that a person may be being radicalised into terrorism: it’s informed; it’s with good intention; the response to that concern is considered, and proportionate.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/07/socialism-anti-fascism-anti-abortion-prevent-list-terrorism-warning-signs

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