Protest has shaken us up

THE leaders of Extinction Rebellion will no doubt say that the dangers facing the world are so great that bold action must be taken to draw attention and action from commentators in the newspapers and influence public opinion to their way of thinking.

Well, they certainly caught everyone’s attention last Saturday, not least those who felt that their weekend’s enjoyment had been spoilt by the blockade of newspaper printing presses.

Extinction Rebellion will attempt to justify their actions on the grounds of urgency but some may feel that this is not an opportune moment due to the entire world population being in the throes of Covid-19.

The governments of all countries are striving, some better than others, to deal with the virus and find the antidote which will enable us, we hope, to return to some sort of normality.

However, the one thing which lockdown has given us is time to think and it is quite clear that Covid-19 will mark a watershed in the way we order our lives.

We have had it easy, we have squandered world resources, some of which are damaging in themselves, we have not renewed cities is designed to balance out the nation’s prosperity.

When I was a youngster the travel time between Manchester and London was four hours at best but could also take anything up to seven hours.

These days the duration of the journey from Piccadilly to Euston is around two hours and eight minutes. That is considerably quicker than it was all those years ago, but is the north any more prosperous now than it was when the trains were hauled by mighty steam engines? ‘No’ is the simple answer to that question, because we live in a London-centric society which has been governed for the majority of the time by the Tories, who have, and always will, preserve the domination of the capital and south-east.

If they were genuine in their mission to align the north with south they would have started this project by linking Manchester with Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle.