Spotlight: Don’t mistake protests for a passing summer storm

Taking back a country – one bath bomb at a time

How far would you go for some naff plastic shoes, a bag of hive-inducing bath bombs and a lukewarm bottle of milkshake?

Well, if you’re a good patriot, it seems, all the way to prison.

After all, what better way to display your partisan tendencies, and help regain control of your country’s borders, than a spot of opportunistic thievery?

‘We’ve made good ground Tommy; all the Crocs have gone, we’ve wiped out Lush’s Watermelon Slice charity soap – you know, the one that’s helping pay for kids’ mental health services in Palestine – and there’s plenty of Frijj going spare too…’

Facetiousness aside, the looting was but a ridiculous subplot to an altogether deeper story.

When the army of agitators marched upon Southport and Sunderland, Hartlepool and Hull, Middlesbrough and Manchester, Darlington and Dorset and the many other places in between, they did so not with full stomachs but heads crammed with narratives left to stew too long on the social media stove.

There go the wheelie bins; there goes a carer’s vehicle; there arc bottles and bricks through the evening sky; there go the windows of a hotel housing asylum seekers – and all because the internet fed a line the country is overrun with wrong ‘uns.

For too long, our online platforms have operated as lawless states, outbacks of obscenity where gatekeeping stands tantamount to placing a door in an empty field, allowing users to ingest wildly inaccurate information, chew for a while and belch out a few more falsehoods.

In the time it takes to smash a Greggs’ window and pilfer a portion of pasties, a distorted reality – fuelled by fallacies and fabrication – has seeped into algorithms and is stirring the minds of young and old.

To seek good from such a summer of chaos sounds rather incongruous, but if the bedlam helps deliver swift revision of the Online Safety Act and similar associated deterrents – arming authorities with sharper teeth to bite harder those that choose to publish hate and half-truths – then some progress will at least have been made.

Having said all that, it would be wrong to lay the riots solely at the door of social media companies and lethargic online policing.

Because, for all its toxicity, not every protestor was whipped into a frenzy by a Facebook post or message on X about immigration.

For many others, the travelling circus was an opportunity to kick back at those in power and vent at a country splintered by economic malaise, at towns left hollow by industrial demise, at rising social housing lists, at rapidly disappearing community services and at a healthcare system stretched to breaking point.

And the Government must heed their warning.

The prison sentences doled out to rioters point to a new regime keen on making a statement, but that action must be matched by a commitment to reducing the wealth inequalities and social imbalances that continue to sink deeper into the UK’s towns and cities.

After years of shambolic Westminster governance, the country’s disparities are more marked than ever.

And ignoring them – or dismissing them as simply the consequences of a social media front – will only lead to more violent storms.

The value of strong opposition

Speaking of heavy weather, as you read this, the Conservative party will be midway through its leadership contest.

And if the standard of candidates’ campaigning logos are anything to go by – most of the slogans resemble Clip Art creations of yore – then we’re all in for a long, and not necessarily exciting, ride.

I mean, it’s hardly too much of a surprise given those left behind are the bin-end faces of a party that soured faster than a particularly cheap plonk.

But one of those discount dregs is going to win.

And whoever it proves to be must hit the ground running, not just for the sake of their party but for British democracy too – we need only look back to the superciliousness and sneering complacency that grew across Tory benches during Jeremy Corbyn’s feeble reign to see the importance of a strong opposition.

Of course, much will depend on the direction of travel taken by the next leader, and how serious they are at matters beyond STOP THE BOATS rhetoric and popping the Reform bubble.

They could choose to pick up where the party left off at July’s election, or – if they’re truly serious about rebuilding its status as a viable polling option – they could put down the Farage pin and instead opt to needle Labour.

Doing so would not only help dig foundations to rebuild the Tories’ reputation, but also direct much-needed accountability towards a Government with such a huge majority.

And the latter, whatever the colour of your party rosette, is something we should all support.

Moving in the right direction

A few years ago, to walk into Teesside International Airport – or Durham Tees Valley Airport, to use its then (geographically nonsensical) name – felt like disappearing into a void.

With departure boards barren of anything but shuttles to Amsterdam and Aberdeen, a section of car park given over to motorhome storage and plans to sell land for housing, the site was a world away from its 2006 pomp, when nearly a million passengers walked through its doors.

Public spats between frustrated campaigners and then operator Peel only added further fractures to a broken reputation, while gaffes like booking a bagpiper to welcome (short-lived) Scottish airline flights – only to leave him standing in a car park because he hadn’t brought his passport – added a further layer of embarrassment to proceedings.

Things, though, are beginning to change.

Over the summer, the site’s new bosses – who have revamped its terminal, attracted new European holiday flights, welcomed a breaker and aircraft painter as tenants and are building a new business park – were cheering a first profit in more than a decade, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £308,555 on annual revenues of £14.5 million in the year to March 2023.

In black and white, it represents a modest sum, yet in the context of what went before, it’s a noteworthy achievement.

The numbers, though, are important for the wider region too, because if the North East is to truly capitalise on its twin-mayor devolved future, then it must show the world it is open for business.

And having both Teesside and Newcastle International Airport providing viable connectivity points would certainly do that.

Challenges remain – Teesside used its profit announcement to flag a likely dip in passenger numbers due to supply chain and new aircraft delays – so any talk of a full renaissance would be far too premature.

The airport still has a long way to go before it fully takes off again.

But some of the turbulence is seemingly beginning to ease.