Columns & Opinion

Ahead of Next Wave – a new all-day festival at Bootleg Social built around the artists set to define the next few years of alternative music – promoter Milo McManus makes the case for why the North West's next great music discovery shouldn't need a train ticket. I’ve always believed that experiencing something at the right moment can change you. It might be a band you’ve never heard of playing in a room you’ve never been in. An artist whose work makes you stop and look at something differently. A meal you wouldn’t normally order. A conversation with a stranger.…

In light of disturbing revelations about a massive online network of men encouraging each other to drug and assault their partners, Tim Christian examines the role men play as bystanders, and why speaking up matters more than ever. In a field in Derbyshire, sometime in the mid-2000s, I stood with tens of thousands of other music fans watching some band I struggle to name now on the main stage at Download Festival, when the familiar shifting in the crowd behind us signalled the approach of another crowd-surfer. As we had already done many times that day, with one eye on…

Behind the UK’s image of equality lies a system that still demands proof of identity from those seeking refuge. Blackpool & The Fylde College Student Barrie Howard calls for reform in the asylum process. Imagine you have escaped your country, enduring a harrowing journey in an attempt to reach safety. Now you have arrived in the UK safely – you are exhausted from your trials and relief washes over you. That relief dissipates as you sit across from a Home Office asylum officer, facing bizarre and inappropriate questions about your sex life. “You don’t even look gay or transgender,” they…

Growing up in Blackpool, a town famous for its piers, donkeys, and deckchairs, Grace E Hawkins was no stranger to traditional seaside entertainment. Amid the ice creams and arcades, the shrill cackle of Mr Punch was part of the background noise. It's a puppet show most of us watched without a second thought, but behind the slapstick humour and wooden mallets lies a darker legacy. As I began to question the cultural norms I’d grown up with, I started to wonder: what does Punch and Judy really say about our attitudes towards violence, especially against women and children? And how…

Why are women not mentioned in any ancient sources? What was women's role in the ancient world? To celebrate International Women’s Day, Blackpool Sixth Form student Isabella Aiton. M travels back to Ancient Greece and Rome to find out. Women, interrupted We all know about the famous philosophers – Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and all the way up to John Hick. But if you were asked to name the female equivalent to Descartes – who would you name? You likely wouldn’t know one. Have you ever wondered why that is? Women are mentioned consistently throughout the ancient world – in the likes…

Yesterday violent scenes broke out in Blackpool town centre as an angry mob gathered to spread racial hatred under the guise of peaceful protest. Rob Gomm writes about what he witnessed. “You’re going nowhere.” The boy, around 15, stood in front of a bus in St John’s Square insisting that the bus would have to run him over to move him. Why? He didn’t know, neither did his mates. “Stop the boats” became stop the buses. Later he would talk about having “Muslim friends” but believing all immigration needed stopping now. When challenged, he said if we stop all migrants…

A new study from a children's charity has revealed that Blackpool is the toughest place to be a girl in the UK. 15-year-old Ella Lucy Humphries lent her voice to the research and now shares her reflections with Blackpool Social Club readers. On the 18th of July 2024 the results of a study about the life quality of young women was released. My hometown Blackpool ranked as the second worst area. Plan International UK’s State Of Girls Rights in the UK report looked at local authority data for 12 different indicators to understand the place-based inequalities girls aged 16-24 face…

This week Blackpool South heads to the polls for the second time in as many months, this time along with the rest of the country. Chris Webb, who spent 24 days in office before the election was called, appeals to Blackpool Social Club readers to lend him your vote of Thursday. It was an absolute honour and a privilege to be elected as your MP for Blackpool South just a few short weeks ago. My home town showed the country that we have had enough of Tory chaos and I called on the Prime Minister to hold a general election…

In all the hoo-ha around the Scott Benton and the Blackpool South by-election you may have missed that over in the neighbouring constituency of Fylde the incumbent Tory MP has been having a ‘mare of his own. Tim Christian tells the tale. At 3:15am one morning in December last year, Mark Menzies MP, who has held the seat of Fylde for the Conservative party since 2010, telephoned a local Conservative party activist to say he had been locked in his flat by “bad people” and needed £5,000 to pay them to let him out and that this was a “life…