Death Becomes Him: Munroe Bergdorf in conversation

The announcement of Bergdorf’s book came with much fanfare in July 2020. At that point it was described as part political tract, part memoir and part history. Bergdorf had apparently written eighty-thousand words (that’s about 260 pages) though I think I also recall seeing claims of the more modest effort of just forty-thousand. Anyway, despite apparently writing the whole thing upfront (final version is 224 pages) the publication date was beset by a number of delays. Ordering an advance copy from Amazon I was kept abreast of the ever vanishing release date as it went from 2021, to at least two dates in 2022, a promise of January 2023, until finally March 2023, which was suddenly bought forward to February. (I personally wonder if this was to get in first before any attention was given to Hannah Barnes’s expose of the Tavistock Time to Think, whose publication was announced on the same day of this event.)

Abolition event held at Law School. Yes, *really*.

Let’s bear in mind throughout please that this was a discussion about ‘abolition’ held in a university law school. In essence abolitionists seek the destruction of the police, prison and all forms of organised justice in favour of anarchy. The conference started proper by closing our eyes and looking into darkness of our minds to supposedly create a moment of visualisation we could return to later. This was suggested by the moderator of the event, Natasha Mutch-Vidal, a complete numbskull, who behaved throughout with unparalleled precocity. Her role at City University is as ‘Senior Equality Diversity Inclusion Officer (Race Equality)’, which is really just a way of saying she does nothing all day long and gets paid for it.

An Evening with Greta Thunberg

The Southbank took the unprecedented step of closing the building for a hour on the day of Greta Thunberg’s appearance for ‘security’ and thus when we duly arrived the entrances were mob-handed by security guards, who looked like they’d been in bought specially for the event. I’ve never experienced that before when attending the Royal Festival Hall. There was a ticket check outside, then a bag check outside the main door and then another ticket check inside before we were allowed to wander around the building. Outside Piers Corbyn and friends protested.

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