School workers on strike at The Hastings Academy in Hastings
The number of school children suffering anxiety is soaring.
Referrals to NHS mental health services for anxiety in children have risen from under 4,000 in 2016-17 to 204,526 in 2023-24.
As a special educational needs co-ordinator in a school in a “deprived” area of London, I have seen this process first hand.
While each child has unique experiences and ways of responding to stresses, there are a number of common themes facing the children I work with. Many have inter-generational trauma.
They are refugees or children of refugees who have escaped war, famine and repression only to encounter the hostile environment created by British politicians of all parties.
The pandemic ramped up all the things making parenting difficult.
One family I worked with lived in a domestic abuse shelter with three children. One child with autism, one with Down’s syndrome and a teenager trying to study for GCSEs—all in a single room with bunk beds.
They were allowed to leave this room for one hour a day.
Many schools have imposed Zero Tolerance Behaviour Policies, where sanctions such as isolation are used to punish any behaviour that communicates unhappiness or disagreement.
The curriculum in state schools has also become increasingly narrow, joyless and exam-focused.
Underlying all this is the poverty, low wages and two-child benefit cap. Our kids are the canary in the coal mine of a society that is in multiple crises and failing to provide a decent life for large sections of the population.
The right has no answers and no hope. Labour is offering only more miserable austerity.
We need to keep fighting to make schools safe, compassionate places full of hope for all of us.
Lucy, Teacher in London
When he touched down in France in his private jet, the authorities arrested CEO and founder of Telegram Pavel Durov.
Telegram is an encrypted messaging app.
Durov was detained as part of an investigation involving Telegram’s alleged complicity in serious crimes ranging from drug trafficking to the distribution of child pornography material.
It’s also a common platform for the far right and Nazis to network on.
The arrest of the Russian-born billionaire raises the question—are the hosts of internet sites responsible for the speech they platform?
The “free-speech” champions and libertarians will tell us no. On social media the right to free speech is inalienable. But the French investigation into Telegram is nothing to do with free speech.
It is about stopping ongoing harms—like child porn—from being freely shared. It’s also well established that moderation—deciding what gets shared, what gets censored and so on—is essential to every platform’s operation.
It’s not a violation of free speech to stop Nazis using Twitter, or an attack on the right to privacy to stop sex-traffickers using a messaging service.
People who create social media platforms should be accountable for what they allow on their platform.
Hannah Wilson, Birmingham
I need to make a correction to the otherwise excellent article How did we beat the National Front? (Socialist Worker, 28 August).
The Anti Nazi League did not help found Rock Against Racism (Rar) in 1978. Rar was an idea of Red Saunders in discussion with me—after the growth of the Nazi National Front (NF).
The NF was on the streets and made gains at the ballot box during 1976.
We decided to launch a cultural united front against the NF after Eric Clapton’s racist rant from the stage in Birmingham in August 1976.
Rar was very much an independent single issue campaign for a year before the ANL.
We were united with the ANL in the struggle against the NF from 1977 onwards. The unity was best in the carnivals where together we broke the NF.
Roger Huddle, east London
The intersection between racism, the climate crisis and workers’ rights became even clearer this month.
A brutal heat wave saw tens of thousands of migrant workers suffering in 40 degrees Celsius temperatures picking fruit and flowers for European markets.
Last summer over 47,000 people died in Europe as a result of these temperatures.
The highest number of these were in Italy, where over 12,000 died. But no one is counting the deaths of migrant workers.
A 54-year-old worker Dalvir Singh was found dead in a field.
He was just one of tens of thousands of workers brought to Italy by crooked gangs. They force them to work long hours in the sun, and live in ghettos with low wages and few facilities.
Official racism from the Italian government against migrants forces desperate workers, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, to turn to gangs who ruthlessly exploit them. The food industry makes billions while workers suffer.
The Italian trade union movement and left should take up this fight. They must bring together the fight for migrant rights and the fight for safer working conditions in a hotter world.
Martin Empson, Manchester
Keir Starmer’s Labour dropping its green pledges showed clearly it will need to be dragged to a just transition.
One 103-turbine project in the Shetlands in Scotland produces enough power for almost half a million homes. That could be replicated across Britain and hugely drop reliance on electricity from fossil fuels.
Jack Thorne, Hull
The Home Office under the Tories was criticised for massive asylum budgets in trying to push through the racist Rwanda deportation plan.
But we can’t let Labour use it as an excuse to fund its “more efficient” plans to deport people.
Rebecca Swinney, Portsmouth
The BMA doctors’ union is being petitioned and criticised. That’s because our leadership expressed concerns about the impact of implementing the Cass review.
To the critics—where are the trans+ voices in your protestations and surely we should welcome scientific rigour not just placidly accept findings?
As doctors it’s key that we keep supporting trans+ rights.
Dr Jackie Applebee, east London
The clearly monetary reasons for an Oasis reunion are as tedious as they are predictable.
Britpop came in the 90s when as ever black music in Britain was overshadowed and overlooked. I wouldn’t necessarily blame Oasis for that as the music industry is almost totally white at the top.
But crass statements from omnibore Noel Gallagher like “Hip Hop has no place at Glastonbury” didn’t help.
Rick Blackman, east London
Plus: readers on Zionist football chants and the legacy of empire
Plus: readers on the far right in Scotland, The Odyssey and Jason Arday
Plus: Why socialists visiting picket lines is our bread and butter
Who provides the best terrain for struggle?
