In the News

Richard Booth is in the B&R this week - he's decided to stand for the European Parliament on behalf of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party (I wonder if Arthur knows that Richard once supported Jonathan Evans, the Conservative candidate, against Roger Livesey, the sitting Lib Dem - and Jonathan Evans just scraped into Parliament?). However, he wants to be one of the 4 MEPs that represent Wales in Brussels, and he's standing on an anti-globalisation ticket, he says.

Meanwhile, on the back page of the Amnesty Magazine, where they put interviews with interesting people who sympathise with their aims, this time it's the turn of Peter Florence. Possibly they chose him to interview because 'Free?', Amnesty's new story anthology for children, has been picked by the Guardian for an exclusive promotion at the Festival this year.
On the size of the Festival these days (and the corporate sponsorship) he says: "It's lost some of its shakier beginnings, its shambling amateurism and its financial insecurity."
He also talks about taking the Festival into Parc Prison, one of Wales' biggest prisons. He worked with the Special Unit at Barlinnie in the 80s, and was also thinking about the great works that have been written in prisons, and the way that repressive regimes lock up writers.
Finally, they asked him why he cares about human rights: "Because in this society of police brutality, ID card fiasco and deep fear we are still luckier and freer than anyone else on the planet. British democracy may be fallible, abused and casual, but it's still a place of huge privilege, and it affords amazing opportunities to do better."