The sixth Byline Festival took place at the spectacular Dartington Hall, south Devon on the first weekend in July and the timing was accidentally exquisite.
Coming off the back of electoral annihilation of the Tory party, the game was on for a cocktail of jubilation and nascent hope. We, the tofu-eating wokerati, were anticipating a delicious, schadenfreudic belly-laugh at the dismissal of a despised government whose only mission had been to cling to power as long as possible, by any means possible.
All this was delivered, along with a bucketload of food for thought.
It’s impossible to attend any festival without the occasional ambush, cake-like, by FOMO. No one can be everywhere at once, and there were times where I was torn between events in the three halls, a browse in the bookshop, and, let’s be honest, a pint of Devon Red and a falafel bowl on the lawn. A particular regret was not arriving in time for Sangita Myska.
Of the things life, bladder, and the laws of physics allowed me to witness, there were many highlights. The conceit of the headline constrains me to four.
From Punk to Protest
Chris Packham’s Saturday afternoon conversation with festival co-founder, Stephen Colegrave, began with a mutual love of theirs. Discussion on punk, a movement I narrowly missed as a kid, ran deeper than the safety pins and spitting I remember from 70s news clips. It was the sense of belonging, the do-it-yourself, outsider ethos, which attracted a young Chris Packham.
On activism, I can only share his frustration at the media’s indifference to the climate emergency and focus on the means of protest and not the message. The paint has already been removed from Stonehenge but the humanicidal march of the fossil fuel industry grinds on.
Throughout, Chris’s straightforward honesty about his childhood, late-diagnosed autism, and self-loathing was deeply affecting. You could trace a direct line from these to his passion for the living world and fury at our own species’ inability to grasp its fragility. That, and his tenacity and determination to fight for it “until my last breath.”
No Such Thing as Bad Press?
Headlining Saturday night was The Bad Press Awards, an explicit—pardon the pun—riff on Literary Review’s Bad Sex Awards.
Proceedings opened with a screening of Jonathan Pie’s montage celebrating the election result: Tory lowlights spliced with Pie’s past excoriating monologues and clips of him lip-syncing around Westminster to Kirsty McColl’s Days. Strangely moving, it was the embodiment of the weight lifted from the nation less than 48 hours before. Tory lowlights, of course, are so plentiful he could have doubled the length of the piece if only he had used MacColl’s 12-inch version.
What followed was a hilarious takedown of the worst excesses of the right-wing press hosted by Pie and Rosie Holt MP. The only thing that tainted it for me was the knowledge that the lamentable, delusional rants Peter York and Otto English were reciting had actually appeared in actual publications that people who vote actually read. Funny not funny.
Saving the NHS
By way of a busman’s holiday, I attended a discussion around the future of the NHS, refreshingly led by people who understand how the NHS works. This was a highly pertinent conversation on the weekend we gained a new health secretary, Wes Streeting, who appears for now to be in listening mode.
Mark E. Thomas, co-author of The 99%’s The Rational Policy Maker’s Guide to the NHS, confirmed that the NHS remains among the most efficient and equitable health systems in the world. Its challenges, however, mount up. Thomas explained the complex feedback loops between poverty, economic activity, the nation’s health, and investment (or lack of) in wellness and prevention. Get the balance right, and we could pull the NHS out of its doom spiral.
The panel members had a powerful message for Streeting about trusting the clinicians and avoiding the temptation of yet another re-organisation.
The overriding theme was of the importance of connection: between patients and doctors, and within and between communities. These aren’t nice-to-have, fluffy aspirations, but vital components of living well as a nation with a functioning health service.
Hope for the Hopeless
Having stayed offsite, it was a race against time and occupied car charging points to make it back for George Monbiot’s appearance on Sunday morning. I’d describe the experience as a hope sandwich.
Monbiot and West Country Voice’s Anthea Simmons described what the recent general election looked like in South Devon. Progressive candidates in the constituency signed up to a People’s Primary model. Through a series of meetings, local residents selected the candidate most likely to beat the Tory incumbent.
Although under no obligation, all candidates involved honoured the process and got behind the winner, Lib Dem Caroline Voaden. The result was a historic swing away from the seemingly unbeatable Conservative and a win for Caroline. Playing first past the post at its own game, this is surely the way of the future until we can get proportional representation on the books.
George then took us through a darker tale of the insidious, destructive nature of neoliberalism. He asserts that inequality, far from being an unfortunate side-effect, is a central aim of a doctrine so pervasive most don’t realise it exists. It’s hard to argue against this. Anonymity is the neoliberals’ favourite weapon. Their most effective strategy is to convince us that the dominance of capital over human need is not an ideology at all, but a natural law.
For the neoliberal, social and economic shocks like Brexit and Covid, are not tragedies but opportunities. Changes of government are not inflection points, just reshuffling of a deck stacked against the many in favour of the few.
And it’s no secret. Neoliberals themselves have written books openly telling us so. The key to power over the majority is atomisation. If people think as individuals not collectives, they hold no sway. Of course, the reverse is also true; the South Devon People’s Primary proves that.
As he did last time I heard him speak, George took me to the brink of hopelessness before offering solutions. All change is impossible, he says, until it reaches the tipping point when it becomes inevitable. The power lies in gathering 25% of people to the cause. Social consensus—our need to fit in—takes care of the rest. When change happens in a complex system, it happens rapidly. So we need to keep talking. Tell a compelling story about where we want to be, and how we could get there. What a group of writers I know would call Thrutopia.
Inevitably, I bought the book and queued to get George’s autograph on it. He signed it, “With hope, George Monbiot.” I like to think it was an apology of sorts for bursting my post-election bubble.
Homeward Bound
The five-hour drive home gave me plenty of opportunity to reflect. So many problems seem unsurmountable: climate, war, greed, and corruption. It’s easy to see why people feel powerless and disengage. It’s all too dark, too difficult to do.
Byline Festival made me realise I’m not alone. There are so many of us who want to see a peaceful, clean, more equal world. The inspirational, clear-thinking speakers I saw gave me hope that every single act—every article written, every protest marched, every idea shared—is worthwhile. Because it’s a step towards the 25% tipping point for change. We all have something to contribute if we take a small step up.
One final takeaway for me was the sheer strength of character I witnessed, particularly in Packham and Monbiot. To face open-eyed the bleak truth of our situation, and go on fighting, is exactly the courageous leadership we need now.
Sir Keir, take note.
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