Child poverty in the UK

'It's Not Working, Minister': Kay Burley Slams Senior Tory Over Million Kids In Destitution

A damning report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows the extent of poverty in the UK.

By Kevin Schofield
24/10/2023


Kay Burley told the minister her government's policies were not working.
SKY NEWS

A Tory minister was told by Kay Burley that the government’s attempts to tackle poverty “are not working” after a new report revealed more than a million children experienced destitution last year.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) study found that their families could not afford to adequately feed, clothe or clean them, or keep them warm because of the cost of living crisis.

Overall, 3.8 million people experience the most severe form of hardship in 2022 - more than double the number of five years ago.

Appearing on Sky News this morning, Treasury minister Victoria Atkins was grilled on what the government was doing to solve the problem.

Burley told her: “A million kids are destitute according to the [Joseph] Rowntree Foundation, that can’t be right in 21st century Britain.”

Atkins replied: “What we’ve tried to do as a government is ensure that our benefits system rewards work but also helps to support families.”

But Burley hit back: “It’s not working.”

The minister said: “Since we’ve taken over in government, 3.8 million more people are in work - that really matters for children.”

Burley said: “I hear you minister but a million are destitute - [that has] doubled since 2017.”

Atkins insisted “one of the first things Rishi Sunak did when he became prime minister was to focus on the cost of living”, with the government providing help worth £3,300 for the average household.

But Burley told her: “It’s not working, minister. A million kids.”

The minister said: “I would have to ask the [Department for Work and Pensions] whether they accept those figures, but the premise of your question, namely helping children in the most deprived families is absolutely what this government wants to do.”

Paul Kissack, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s chief executive, said: “The government is not helpless to act; it is choosing not to.

“Turning the tide on destitution is an urgent moral mission, which speaks to our basic humanity as a country, and we need political leadership for that mission.”

A million children now living in poverty, reveals Joseph Rowntree Foundation


Telegraph reporters 

WENT TO PRESSER HAD SNACKS
Tue, 24 October 2023 

Food banks have proved to be vital as families struggle to feed their children - Bloomberg/Hollie Adams

Almost four million people, including more than a million children, experienced the most extreme form of poverty last year in the UK, according to social change organisation the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

It said the figure for children has almost trebled since 2017 and topped one million for the first time since it began its research in 2015. About 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, the charity said, adding that the figure has more than doubled from 1.55 million in 2017.

The number of children living in poverty was 1.04 million, up from 362,000 in 2017.

The organisation defines destitution as when someone cannot afford what they need to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.

The report – the fourth in a series of Destitution in the UK studies published regularly in recent years – puts the rise down to a combination of very low incomes, rising cost of living and high levels of debt.

But it also said the social security system is failing to protect people from destitution, with 72 per cent of those destitute being in receipt of benefits.

While single people aged between 25 and 44 years old remain the key group experiencing destitution, more families and older people are now destitute, the report said, adding that it is more often being left to charities to try to plug gaps for people in desperate situations.

It stated: “The shocking statistics revealed in this report reflect a social security system now so full of holes that it falls to charities – such as food banks – to try to prevent people from experiencing the worst of destitution, but the task is too great for them.

“What is more, relying on charity to fulfil what should be the responsibility of the Government is morally unacceptable.”

Earlier this month, the Trussell Trust, a food bank network, warned that more than one million emergency parcels, a record high, could be handed out this winter owing to an ever-growing need.

While food remained the most common essential people were lacking in 2022 – reported by 61 per cent of all destitute respondents – heating was for the first time the second greatest essential people were lacking.

The proportion lacking lighting also rose substantially, the JRF said, attributing the increases to the recent steep rise in energy prices.

London had the highest destitution levels in 2022, followed by the North East and North West, and then the West Midlands, with the lowest rates in the southern English regions, the report said.

It added that Wales and Scotland had rates comparable with the Midlands in England, but Scotland had improved its position which the JRF said could be down to the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment in 2021.

While the report is UK-wide, the JRF said the local authority indicator database does not extend to Northern Ireland councils, so much of the data used to construct these are not available and instead an estimate has been given for the region.

Some 72 per cent of destitute survey respondents last year were born in the UK, but migrants are disproportionately affected by destitution, the JRF said, with an “especially rapid increase” since 2019.

The total number of migrants who were destitute in 2022, including those with complex needs, was 488,600 households.

“Migrants experiencing destitution are seriously and increasingly lacking in access to both cash and in-kind forms of support,” the report said.

Overall, the charity said destitution was “an expanding phenomenon in 2022, reaching across a wider swathe of the population than previously”.

‘Figures should shame us all’

JRF is calling on all political parties to make tackling destitution a priority and to set out their plans to reverse the rise.

Imran Hussain, the director of policy and campaigns at Action for Children, said the figures are “a disgrace that should shame us all” while Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner for England, warned there must be an “urgent laser-like focus from within government to tackle child poverty so that we can consign childhood destitution to the history books and Dickensian novels where it belongs”.

A UK Government spokesman said: “Our number-one priority is driving down inflation because that will help everyone’s money go further.”

The spokesman outlined financial support “worth an average of £3,300 per household” which has been provided to date, as well as an investment of £3.5billion to help people into work, and the expansion of free childcare.

Charities and other organisations are hoping Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, will announce a rise in benefits which is at least in line with inflation when he makes his autumn statement on November 22 – although Downing Street has declined to make any commitment, saying there is a process to follow.

Child poverty in the UK: The latest figures as more plunged into destitution in the cost of living crisis


Here’s what you need to know about children living below the breadline across the country

ISABELLA MCRAE, HANNAH WESTWATER
24 Oct 2023


Millions of children are living in poverty in the UK. Image: Unsplash

Child poverty in the UK is reaching worrying levels. Paltry wages, low benefit payments and a cost of living crisis mean the UK’s poorest families are getting poorer.

Around 4.2 million children were living in poverty in 2021 to 2022, according to the latest government statistics. But the situation is growing worse.

A major report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has revealed 1 million children in the UK experienced “horrifying levels of destitution” in 2022. That is the most extreme level of poverty, with families unable to meet their most basic needs of keeping warm, dry, clean and fed.

Children’s charities, schools and food aid organisations are working tirelessly to plug the gaps created by the welfare system. Here are the basics on what child poverty is, what causes it and the impact it has.
How many children are living in poverty in the UK?

There were 4.2 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2021/2022. That is one in three children.

Around 350,000 more children were pushed into poverty last year, according to the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). And families who were already struggling to cope have been plunged into even greater levels of deprivation in the cost of living crisis.


The latest stark data from the JRF shows that 1 million children experienced the most extreme levels of poverty – destitution – in 2022. That is an 88% increase since 2019.

Since 2017 the number of children experiencing destitution has almost tripled – an increase of 186%

Food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network saw record numbers of people seeking help between April 2022 and March 2023. Of the almost three million food parcels given out to people by food banks, more than 1 million went to children.

More than 2 million children are eligible for free school meals in England, according to the latest government figures. This is 23.8% of state school pupils, up from 22.5% in 2022.

But charities including the CPAG warn there are at least 800,000 children living in poverty who are not eligible for free school meals. To be eligible for free school meals, a household on universal credit in England must earn less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including benefits).

Around 1.7 million children are in families poor enough to receive universal credit but are not eligible for free school meals. That is seven in 10 children in families on universal credit.

What is meant by child poverty in the UK?

Child poverty is when a child is living in a household with an income less than 60% of the UK average, according to the government.

Absolute poverty, on the other hand, means something different depending on who you ask. The UN’s definition means someone cannot afford basic essentials like food, clothing and housing.

This measure makes it easier to compare conditions between countries – as the minimum income to keep up with basic living standards differs depending on where you are.UK poverty: the facts, figures and effects in a cost of living crisis

Food poverty in the UK: The causes, figures and solutions

UK fuel poverty in 2022: Causes, statistics and solutions

Poverty can present in several different ways. If parents cannot afford the basic necessities, that is an indicator of poverty. Having to go without heating and electricity, sacrificing foo or living in insecure housing because they can’t keep up with rent, are all indicators of poverty. It can affect every part of a child’s life.

According to CPAG, “a child can have three meals a day, warm clothes and go to school, but still be poor because her parents don’t have enough money to ensure she can live in a warm home, have access to a computer to do her homework, or go on the same school trips as her classmates”.
Where is child poverty most common in the UK?

North-east England has the highest rate of child poverty across the regions, but many of the worst affected constituencies and local authorities continue to be in London, according to Action for Children. This is due to high housing costs in the capital.

Tower Hamlets had the highest concentration of child poverty in the UK in 2021/22, with almost half of children living below the poverty line after accounting for housing costs. This is followed by Birmingham, Manchester and Sandwell.

Child poverty increased most dramatically in north-east England between 2015 and 2020, rising by over a third from 26% to 37% of all children.

A third of the north east’s rise in child poverty happened between 2019 and 2020, with families pushed into hardship by low wages and frozen benefits, according to research carried out by Loughborough University.

A report published in January 2023 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) found that child poverty in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East is currently at its highest level since 2000/2001.

APPG’s co-chair Emma Lewell-Buck, Labour MP for South Shields, said: “Whilst poverty is, sadly, not a new experience for many children in the north, the scale and severity of deprivation is now unprecedented.

“As the cost of living crisis worsens, vulnerable children and families, especially in the north, are being pushed to the edge.”

Demand for free school meals is also highest in the north-east, where around 29.1% of children qualified last year, compared to 17.6% in the South East.

The Childhood Trust has found 40% of children aged six to 16 are facing food poverty in London, meaning their families cannot afford to keep them fed.
What are the main causes of child poverty?

There are many reasons a child may be living in poverty. Soaring rent costs, insecure work and low pay plus a patchy welfare system are some of the factors that leave families without the means to get by.

But some children are more likely to be living in poverty than others.

Around 44% of children living in single-parent families were in poverty in 2021/2022, according to the most recent government statistics. Lone parents face a higher risk of poverty partly because they have to rely on one set of earnings, but also because of low rates of maintenance payments, gender inequality in employment and pay and childcare costs.

Children from an ethnic minority background are also more likely to face poverty. An estimated 47% of children in Asian and British Asian families are in poverty, and 53% of children in Black, African, Caribbean and Black British families are in poverty. That is compared to just 25% of children in white families.

Where families whose youngest child is aged under five, 45% of all children are living in poverty. Larger families are struggling more too – 42% of children in families with three or more kids were in poverty, up from 36% a decade earlier.

Disabled people or families with disabled children are disproportionately impacted by poverty. Approximately 36% of children living in families where someone has a disability were in poverty.

The proportion of kids living in poverty whose parents or carers are in work increased from 67% in 2015 to 71% in 2021.

Campaigners and economic experts have repeatedly called for an overhaul of the social security safety net, particularly reforms for universal credit and an end to the two-child limit to receiving some benefits.

The five-week wait for a first universal credit payment has been blamed for rising food bank use and an increase in children living in poverty. New claimants can receive an advance loan, but this must be repaid – meaning their payments for the year are spread over thirteen weeks rather than twelve, pushing families further into debt.


The work and pensions committee presented evidence to the government showing the wait had a damaging impact on both adults and children, but ministers refused to investigate the problem or reform the controversial benefit.

The £20 cut to universal credit in October 2021 plunged families back into poverty after giving them light relief throughout the pandemic. As inflation continues to rise, the increase to universal credit payments in April was not enough to shield families from the rising cost of living – and there are fears that benefits will not be increased in line with inflation in April 2024.

Another 400,000 children will be “plunged into poverty” if benefits are not increased in line with inflation from April, experts have warned.

Research from the Resolution Foundation has revealed that nine million families will see their incomes reduced by an average of £470 if benefits are frozen in cash terms, which would push hundreds of thousands of children into absolute poverty.Almost half a million kids could fall into poverty if benefits don’t rise with inflation, experts warn
One million UK children experienced ‘horrifying levels of destitution’ last year, study finds

The Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation have estimated universal credit claimants are £35 short of the money needed to live each week, meaning they are forced to sacrifice essentials like food and heating to pay their bills.

It means many of those who are unable to work – whether it be because there are fewer and fewer vacancies, because of disability or because of caring responsibilities – struggle to make ends meet even when claiming benefits.
How does poverty affect children?

Poverty can have a serious impact on a child’s wellbeing. Some report feeling ashamed and unhappy and worry about their parents. Disadvantaged children are 4.5 times more likely to develop severe mental health problems by age 11 than their well-off peers, a Millennium Cohort study showed.

Kids in inadequate housing have been shown to be more at risk of respiratory illnesses and meningitis. Those in the most disadvantaged areas can expect 20 fewer years of good health in their lives than children in places with more resources.

It affects their education too. Research carried out five years ago showed that just a third of children who claimed free school meals achieved five or more good GCSE grades compared to two-thirds of children whose families are comfortable.

Children who were eligible for free school meals earn less than their peers, and the gap grows as they get older, new data shows. The Office for National Statistics has revealed half of free school meals pupils earn less than £17,000 a year by the time they reach 30 years old.

School closures during the pandemic hit the most deprived children hardest, while research by the Education Policy Institute showed the attainment gap between rich and poor classmates started widening prior to the pandemic.

Laurence Guinness, chief executive of the Childhood Trust, previously told the Big Issue hunger has a significant impact on children’s health – they will be lacking in vitamins, nutrients and proteins which will weaken their immune systems and expose them to illness and disease. It will also have an impact on their mental health.

Guinness said: “We’ve never seen levels of food insecurity at that high before. It’s an alarm bell, in the face of growing adversity and the diminishing power of household income. It’s really hard now for families on low and even middle incomes to make ends meet. And if a net consequence of that is as the children are having to miss meals, that’s really serious. That’s actually a public health crisis.”

Poverty also puts kids at greater risk of being groomed or exploited by criminal gangs, according to Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner for England.
How is the cost of living crisis impacting children?

The cost of living crisis is worsening the levels of child poverty in the UK. Around 68% of school staff say pupils increasingly don’t have money for enough food at lunchtime, according to the CPAG.

And a large majority of teachers (79%) are having to divert time away from their usual roles to help kids affected by poverty – with some schools setting up food banks.

Children are eating rubbers and stealing food from their classmates because they are so hungry in school, teachers reported in a study released last year.

Families living in poverty are struggling to feed their children in the cost of living crisis. Denise, a single mother of two young boys, told The Big Issue she is battling to cope and does not have enough to keep her children healthy.

The Childhood Trust is supporting Denise’s family. Guinness, its chief executive, said: “The 11-year-old is fairly tall for his age, but he is so thin. You can see his ribs sticking out through his T-shirt. It is pitiful. These children are not getting enough to eat on a regular basis.

The cost of living crisis threatens to stunt children’s development and increase their risk of respiratory illness, paediatricians at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have warned.

In a study by the Childhood Trust, around one in three parents who said their children had raised worries about the cost of living crisis. Of these, 9% said their children had started self-harming and a similar number said their children had shown suicidal tendencies.

Denise reached out to her council, but was told there was nothing it could do. “Her children are starving and nobody can help,” Guinness said. “That’s where we’ve ended up. She can’t access government ministers, she can’t access policy makers. Her story is representative of millions of low income households, many of whom are in the same situation and can’t access any support whatsoever.”
What can be done to end child poverty?

Charities have said the government’s plans to combat the cost of living crisis won’t be enough to end child poverty. They are calling for an expansion of free school meals, scrapping the two-child limit on benefits and extending the Holiday Food and Activities Programme to more children. They also want benefits to be raised in line with inflation next year – at the very least.

Chief executive of CPAG Alison Garnham said: “Investing in social security is the way to remove children from poverty. Indeed, the government did lift many kids from poverty with the £20 universal credit increase, but it plunged them back again with a subsequent cut.

“It’s inexcusable for ministers to sit on their hands. The government must extend free school meals, remove the benefit cap and two-child limit and increase child benefit. The human cost for the children in today’s figures is incalculable. The economic fallout for all of us is vast. But if the political will is there, child poverty can be fixed.”

Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, from the Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research (I-SPHERE) at Heriot-Watt University, said: “The number of children living in destitution in this country has nearly trebled since 2017. This is morally reprehensible and must act as a stark wake up call to policymakers across the political spectrum. No one of any age should be destitute in the UK today.

“To have these horrifying levels of destitution in a country like ours is a political choice. The scale of extreme material hardship we have uncovered reflects the state abdicating its responsibility to ensure that all members of our society are able to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed without having to rely on charitable help. There must be immediate action from all levels of government to tackle this social emergency.”

Labour MP Zarah Sultana wants to change the law to guarantee all primary school children in England receive free school meals.

She said: “This bill would tackle the injustice of child poverty in Britain, where around a million kids living in poverty don’t have access to free school meals, and it would bring England into line with Scotland and Wales, who are already putting it into practice. If the government was really serious about ‘levelling-up’, this is what they’d do.”

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell Trust are calling for an ‘essentials guarantee’ so that universal credit claimants can afford the basics they need to live – at the very least.

Paul Kissack, the chief executive of the JRF, said: “Across our country we are leaving families freezing in their homes or lacking basic necessities like food and clothing. Such severe hardship should have no place in the UK today – and the British public will not stand for destitution on this scale.

“The government is not helpless to act: it is choosing not to. Turning the tide on destitution is an urgent moral mission, which speaks to our basic humanity as a country, and we need political leadership for that mission. That is why we are calling for clear proposals from all political parties to address this challenge with the urgency it demands.”

Freed reporter criticises Afghan media crackdown

Joris FIORITI
Tue, 24 October 2023 

French-Afghan journalist Mortaza Behboudi was freed last week after charges against him were dropped (JULIEN DE ROSA)

Journalist Mortaza Behboudi, who had spent 284 days in jail in Afghanistan, said he thought he would never make it out alive.

The French-Afghan reporter was covering a gathering of students in front of Kabul University when he was arrested in January this year.

He was imprisoned just two days after entering Afghanistan.

What followed next were "10 months of torture," Behboudi, 29, told a news conference in Paris on Monday following his release from prison last week.

He said he was beaten by his jailers, nearly choked to death by members of the Islamic State group, and questioned by the Taliban government's intelligence services.

"You know in these countries interrogations by intelligence services are not at all easy," he told the news conference organised by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

- 'Journalism stifled' -

Behboudi refused to go into detail about the abuse he said he suffered out of concern for other journalists who are still imprisoned in Afghanistan.

"We don't know if they will be released soon," Behboudi said.

Originally from Afghanistan, he became a refugee in France in 2015 where he set up a news site, Guiti News, with other exiles from Afghanistan.

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has cracked down hard on what had been seen as a thriving sector.

"Journalism has largely been stifled since the Taliban came to power," said Christophe Deloire, RSF director general.

According to the press advocacy group, "more than half" of media outlets have disappeared.

Of the country's 12,000 journalists, barely 4,800 are still working now, and "more than 80 percent of female journalists" have been forced to quit their jobs, RSF says.

Behboudi planned to write about female students who could no longer pursue their studies in Kabul when he was arrested.

Officials had initially promised a softer version of the strict Islamic rule that characterised their first stint in power from 1996 – 2001, but restrictions affecting women have gradually been reintroduced.

Teenage girls have been banned from attending most secondary schools and women from universities, and last year women were prohibited from entering parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths.

Women are also barred from travelling without a male relative and have been told they must cover up, with a veil or burqa when outside the home.

Most women have lost their government jobs –- or are being paid a tiny salary to stay at home.

- 'Kidnapped' -

Behboudi said neither his French passport nor his press cards saved him from arrest by the Taliban government's intelligence services. He was accused of being a spy and supporting the anti-Taliban "resistance" and jailed.

"I felt kidnapped," he said. He shared tiny cells, measuring just two to three square metres, with a dozen other inmates including members of the Islamic State group.

He said he was "harassed all the time", could not see the sky and lost track of time.

Speaking to broadcaster France Inter on Tuesday, the journalist, who is a representative of the Hazara ethnic minority group, said several members of the Islamic State group tried to choke him in his sleep.

"They wanted to strangle me one night," he said, adding that the guards intervened and transferred him to another cell.

The Islamic State, a Sunni jihadist group, has for years targeted predominantly Shiite Hazaras and other religious minorities.

More than six months into his ordeal a delegation of Taliban officials came to see him.

Afterwards he was transferred to Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul where conditions improved. He also learnt that RSF had hired a lawyer to defend him.

Last week, the journalist was finally freed after all charges against him, including espionage and illegal support for foreigners, were thrown out at a court hearing in Kabul.

Taliban officials have issued directives on the protection of detainees' rights, but a recent report by the UN mission in Afghanistan said prisoners were still subject to mistreatment and urged the authorities to put a stop to abuses.

The interior ministry this week said an internal investigation had found evidence of mistreatment at its detention centers and that it was working to address the issue.

Asked about his plans for the future, Behboudi said he wanted to "move on".

He admits he was fortunate and that other Afghan journalists do not have the "support of Western media and the international community".

Under the Taliban, "everything is censored these days", Behboudi said.

"If I a take photo on the street, I risk being arrested," he said. "There is no longer freedom of expression, there is no longer freedom of the press in Afghanistan."

jf-as/jxb/rox

GM QUIT YER WHINING
General Motors profits top estimates on limited Q3 strike hit

John BIERS
Tue, 24 October 2023 


United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain appeared with US President Joe Biden last month at a picket in front of a General Motors Service Parts Operations plant in Michigan (Jim WATSON)

General Motors reported better-than-expected quarterly profits Tuesday behind strong US sales and a limited impact from a labor strike that began late in the quarter.

The big US automaker reported third-quarter profits of $3.1 billion, down seven percent from the year-ago period but better than analyst estimates, as it withdrew its full-year forecast due to uncertainty over the strike, which is nearing its sixth week.

Revenues rose five percent to $44.1 billion, the company said.


"Great vehicles are the foundation, and we have earned leadership in key segments like full-size pickups and full-size SUVs that have consistently strong pricing and margins," said Chief Executive Mary Barra in a letter to investors.

GM notched higher vehicle sales in the United States amid still-strong pricing trends for popular truck and sport utility vehicles, offsetting a drop in sales in China and some other overseas markets.

The United Auto Workers strike, which has also affected fellow Detroit automakers Ford and Stellantis, cost GM $200 million during the quarter.

The stoppage, which was launched September 15 about two weeks before the end of the quarter, has also resulted in a $600 million hit thus far in the fourth quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson.

- Expanded strike -

The strike has been gradually expanded as the UAW seeks to raise pressure on Detroit's "Big Three" in a push to win higher wages and better benefits for auto workers.

GM's dealer inventories actually grew modestly in the third quarter compared with the prior quarter, although the stocks significantly lag those from pre-pandemic levels.

In an interview with CNBC, Jacobson acknowledged that supplies at GM repair shops have "gotten a little bit tighter" after the UAW ordered a stoppage at the company's parts and distribution centers last month.

On Monday, the UAW halted work at a giant Stellantis truck plant in Michigan. The union has threatened to expand the strike at GM if the company does not improve its offer.

Jacobson said the strike results in a $200 million weekly impact based on the operations targeted by the UAW thus far.

"We remain optimistic and hopeful that we'll make progress and get this resolved," Jacobson told reporters in a briefing.

Jacobson acknowledged that the earnings are "strong," but said the union needs to recognize that "there's a lot of uncertainty out there in the future with electric vehicle adoption and with the economy."

"We can't get ourselves into a situation of signing a deal that we can't afford to pay or that doesn't allow us to compete in the global marketplace."

In her letter to investors, Barra defended the company's current offer to the UAW, reiterating the proposal of roughly $84,000 a year for the majority of the hourly workforce constitutes a "record" contract.

GM said earlier this month it was delaying the conversion of the Orion EV truck plant in Michigan to late 2025 instead of next year due to slowing demand growth in EVs.

Jacobson said the deferred timetable would save GM "at least" $1.5 billion in capital in 2024.

Shares of GM rose 1.6 percent in pre-market trading.

jmb/st

Ukraine's Stolen Children, review: an unsettling glimpse into Russia's alleged mass abduction

Anita Singh
Mon, 23 October 2023 

14-year-old Danii with his mother Alla in Kherson, Ukraine - ITV

With the focus now on Israel and Gaza, Ukraine has fallen down the news agenda. Perhaps that is why ITV1 chose not to promote Ukraine’s Stolen Children from the 10.45pm slot reserved for its Exposure strand. The documentary felt a little rough and ready, with the air of an extended news item. But it told an important story about children taken from Ukraine by the Russian authorities, and the efforts of their relatives to bring them home.

According to Shahida Tulaganova’s film, this is a tale of alleged “abduction and indoctrination”. Some of the children, for example, were taken to Russian “holiday camps” as respite from the conflict. One boy, Kostya, pleaded to be allowed to go, because it sounded exciting. The children thought they’d be staying for a couple of weeks. But when that date passed, they were told that they would not be going home. It was “not safe” to return. Desperate parents tried and failed to get in contact.

According to some of the children interviewed here, they were soon moved to a prison-like environment, where they were required to speak Russian and sing patriotic Russian songs. Anything connected to Ukraine was forbidden. The months dragged on. “They said Santa would arrive by boat,” one girl recalled. “The next day we woke up at six and started looking for our presents. We checked every room… they said Santa didn’t make it.”

Some parents managed to get their children back with the aid of a charity, Save Ukraine. The cameras followed one of these journeys. But a woman who attempted to reach her 17-year-old godson was turned back. That boy, Denis, now appears in Russian propaganda videos talking about “our President” Putin. In calls home, he spoke of being well-fed and clothed, and being given a voucher to buy a property. The programme alleged that Russia wants to keep boys of Denis’s age so that they can be drafted at 18.

Into the film came Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s children’s commissioner and a woman who could have come straight from Roald Dahl’s The Witches. She granted Tulaganova an interview and smoothly batted away all of the allegations about children being indoctrinated. Russia is doing “all we can” to reunite children with their families. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to “demonise” Russia.

Lvova-Belova has many foster children, including a Ukrainian teenager from Russian-occupied Mariupol. His mother died when he was young, he didn’t know his father, and he had been raised in care. “Maria, my beloved mother, she’s the person I’ve been missing my whole life,” he said, eyes shining. His appearance, under the watchful eye of Lvova-Belova’s press officer, was unsettling.

RIP
Massive Attack confirm death of guitarist Angelo Bruschini


Ellie Iorizzo, PA
Tue, 24 October 2023 

British band Massive Attack said they were “devastated” to announce the death of guitarist Angelo Bruschini.

It comes after the Bristol-born musician confirmed in a social media post in July that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and that several specialists had wished him “good luck” in battling the condition.

On Tuesday, an official X account (formerly Twitter) for Massive Attack confirmed the death of Bruschini in a statement that read: “A singularly brilliant and eccentric talent.

“Impossible to quantify your contribution to the Massive Attack canon.

“How lucky we were to share such a life together.”

Sharing the same black and white image of the guitarist on Instagram, the band added that they were “devastated” over the loss.

The trip hop band was formed in the 1980s and secured two number one albums in the UK with Mezzanine and 100th Window, as well as winning a Brit award in 1996 for best British dance act and outstanding contribution to British music prize at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2009.

In July this year, Bruschini wrote a post on Facebook updating fans about his cancer diagnosis.

He wrote: “Twice now I have been told ‘Good luck’ by specialists at the hospital over lung cancer, I think I’m f***ed!

“Had a great life, seen the world many many times, met lots of wonderful people, but the door is closing, think I will write a book.”

Last of the ‘gentlemen gangsters’ Dave Courtney bows out


Louisa Clarence-Smith
Mon, 23 October 2023 

Dave Courtney started a security firm and gained notoriety for organising the security for the 1995 funeral of Ronnie Kray - ITV/Shutterstock

Friends mourning the death of the notorious gangster Dave Courtney remember him as a “gentleman”, but he was never far from a weapon.

At a digital clay pigeon shooting bar in the City of London where I was celebrating a friend’s birthday last year, he offered advice to fellow participants on how to hold a gun.

Impressed by a female friend’s attempts, he cheered: “Go on gel, you could be a gangster.”

Ticking off an instructor for his shooting poise, he grabbed the gun and wielded it like a sawn-off tool of gangland murder.

Mr Courtney, 64, was found dead by his best friend Brendan McGirr, 56, in bed on Sunday morning.

Police are investigating his death, but friends said they believe Mr Courtney took his own life.

When I met him unexpectedly last year he appeared to be enjoying life running a film-prop company, supporting his football club Charlton and gallivanting as a reformed celebrity gangster.

However, he was famous for his earlier life as a gangster with associates including the ruthless Kray twins behind the 1960s East End criminal empire.

Friends said Mr Courtney was capable of knocking people out with one punch with a knuckle duster - Alex Woods/Shutterstock

Thousands of tributes have poured in to friends and family of the larger-than-life character, who is rumoured to be the inspiration behind Vinnie Jones’s character in Guy Ritchie’s gangster film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Mr Courtney was born in Forest Hill, south east London, friends said. His mother, who is still alive, was a cub scout leader and his late father was a gas fitter.

He started a security firm and gained notoriety for organising the security for the 1995 funeral of Ronnie Kray. He also worked as a “debt collector”, said Mr McGirr.

Friends said that the Kray funeral effectively marked an end to his security firm because he became known to the police who told companies not to work with him.

He later reinvented himself in the entertainment industry. He starred in a film called Hell to Pay, published six books and starred in podcasts.

Mr Courtney had a reputation for repeatedly evading the law, claiming to have been found not guilty in 19 separate trials.

He has previously told journalists that he killed people, but was never convicted of murder. He spent time in jail, including at Belmarsh. Friends said he was on remand for assault for which he was later found innocent.
From painters to porn stars

Mr Courtney called his own gang “The Firm” and friends said loyal fans ranged from painters and plumbers to porn stars. Always by his side in recent years was Mr McGirr, his flatmate and business partner.

Mr McGirr said of his death: “I opened his bedroom door and he was slumped on the bed. But he looked at peace. He looked happy.”

He added: “I’ve lived in that world a long time. So you know, I’ve seen dead people before and I’ve seen people… so it wasn’t the shock that a normal person will probably feel.

“It was a relief for me to see someone I love at peace, because I’d seen him in so much pain for a long, long time. And I just kissed him and said thank you, and I’m eternally grateful. He has left me just so many good memories and so much love.”

Mr McGirr said: “He was the last era of gentleman gangsters.

“Like pirates, cowboys, knights in shining armour, they don’t exist anymore. They’re all now fictitious figures. That gangster world doesn’t exist anymore. The new gangsters are modern-day drug dealers. Drugs have changed the whole criminal era to a very ruthless, violent way of life.”

Another mourning friend of Mr Courtney, who didn’t want to be named, said: “Gangsters respect women, they respect elderly people, and they respect communities. The young ‘uns of today don’t. They don’t respect anyone.”

Friends said that while Mr Courtney diversified his career long ago, he never gave up his knuckle duster.
‘Lovable rogue’

“He was a lovable rogue,” Mr McGirr said. “A very crafty character. But he was always, on the day, if he had to be violent, if you want to use that term – if he had to apply violence to protect his own, or to do justice, he was exceptionally good at it.”

He said he was capable of knocking people out with one punch with a knuckle duster.

“He was still doing that up to about four months ago”, knocking out a young man who was “being rude and cheeky” at a bare-knuckle boxing show.

Mr McGirr said that his friends believed he “only ever used a fair amount of violence for what was needed at the time”.

“He wasn’t a bully,” he said. “He would bend over backwards to be exceptionally nice to everyone.” All the people he harmed had “antagonised him” and “left him no option but to make that decision”, he said.

Bunches of flowers were piled up outside Mr Courtney’s home on Monday afternoon, where police have taped off the premises.

Mr Courtney leaves behind five children. In a statement on Monday, his family said: “On October 22 Dave made the decision to ‘stop the ride’.

“He had lived an incredible, colourful rock-‘n’-roll life in which he touched the hearts of so many.

“The physical pain of living the lifestyle he chose, especially due to the pain of both cancer and arthritis in his later years, became too much.

“So, rather than be a burden to his family and friends, he chose to ‘stop the ride’ and take his way out.”

George Marwick, entrepreneur who brought modern farming to Orkney and led the islands’ 1970s oil negotiations – obituary

Telegraph Obituaries
Mon, 23 October 2023 

George Marwick, departing Lord-Lieutenant of Orkney, being made Commander of the Victorian Order by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 - Alamy

George Marwick, who has died aged 91, was a progressive farmer whose cheese, made on his family farm on the wind-battered northwesterly tip of the Orkney mainland and on the remote Kintyre Peninsula, fetched high prices, and was sold at Harrods; in the 1970s, as the first ever Convener of the newly instituted Orkney Island Council, he skilfully led negotiations with oil companies to get Orkney a good deal, resulting in the strategic Oil Reserve Fund, which is now worth over £200m.

He was born on February 27 1932, a scion of Orkney’s notable Marwick family; his relatives included the archaeologist Dr Hugh Marwick and the folklorist Ernest Walker Marwick, who anthologised Orkney verse. His father Robert Marwick was a civil engineer in charge of the construction of several wartime aerodromes, including Wick, and was later a director of George Wimpey Ltd; his mother Agnes (née Robson) was from Northumberland.

After graduating from Edinburgh School of Agriculture in 1953, George Marwick returned to manage the family farm of Swannay at Birsay. Hitherto cows on Orkney had been fed with neeps (turnips) and hay (which was difficult to make in the rainy climate); Marwick’s innovation was to use silage, which was a better option in Orkney’s damp and temperate conditions (typically 15C during the summer, with an annual rainfall of around 1 metre).

Growing better grass became his metier. He believed that only good grass would produce good milk, which in turn was essential for good cheese. He introduced chemical fertilisers, such as nitrogen, before his neighbours, who thought him iconoclastic, but soon he was able to sell Swannay Farm cheese at a premium.

By 2001, when the capital expenditure required by stricter EU regulations forced its closure, Swannay was making 280 tonnes of Cheddar annually, drawing on herd of 400 dairy cows, across 870 acres, and also buying in 900,000 litres of milk each year from the Orkney dairy farmers’ cooperative.

The cliffs of the Brough of Birsay, on the mainland of Orkney - Alamy

In 1968, he was asked by a couple of his farming neighbours to stand for Orkney County Council. He served for 10 years and, in 1975, became the first Convener of Orkney Island Council after Scottish local government reforms of the early 1970s.

The greatest challenge of his term as Convener was dealing with new opportunities presented by North Sea oil. His positive attitude – “If it is good for Orkney we should grasp it with both hands” – and entrepreneurial credentials made him the ideal figure to lead negotiations with the oil men.

The many well-paid jobs created at Occidental’s Flotta Oil Terminal and in OIC’s new Department of Harbours were a direct result of Orkney’s well-managed welcome to the oil industry under Marwick’s leadership. Most importantly, the oil money became the Oil Reserve Fund, now standing at about £200 million, which has cushioned for Orkney the recent Scottish Government funding cuts to local authorities.

In the mid-1970s, Marwick and Rupert Cooper took over and revamped the ailing Campbelltown Creamery, thus ensuring the continued viability of many dairy farms in the Kintyre Peninsula. Here they also produced high-quality cheese to complement that made at Swannay, and which was sold at a premium in the best outlets, including Harrods.

George Marwick in 2007

He was also a Director of North Eastern Farmers, Orkney Islands Shipping Company and Chairman of the North of Scotland Water Board, a member of the Countryside Commission for Scotland and of the Council of the National Trust for Scotland, an Honorary Sheriff in Kirkwall Sheriff Court and a Justice of the Peace.

Marwick was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Orkney in 1976, Vice Lord-Lieutenant in 1995 and Lord-Lieutenant from 1997 to 2007. He said one of the most satisfying aspects of being Lord-Lieutenant was the ex-officio appointment as Chairman of The Society of The Friends of St Magnus Cathedral, which helps keep up the impressive medieval St Magnus Cathedral, which is – unusually – not owned by the Church, but was bestowed upon the people of Kirkwall by James III of Scotland in 1486. George Marwick was appointed CVO in 2007.

He was the first President of Orkney Rugby Football Club in 1966, and enjoyed motorsport and rough shooting.

George Marwick married, first, in 1958 Copenhagen-born Hanne Jensen, and they had three daughters, one of whom, Kareen, represented Britain in the rowing team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The marriage was dissolved in 1989 and he married, secondly, Norma Gerrard (née Helm) in 1990. He is survived by his second wife and three daughters from his first marriage.

George Marwick, born February 27 1932, died September 1 2023

Killers of the Flower Moon and Hollywood’s ‘red face’ shame



Tom Fordy
Tue, 24 October 2023


Marilyn Monroe with extras on the set of her 1954 film River Of No Return - Moviepix

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon may have racked up five-star reviews across the board, but not everyone has been enthusiastic.

The film tells the story of the Osage Indian murders in 1920s Oklahoma. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, who – along with his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro) – conspires to poison Burkhart’s Native American wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), in a plot to seize Osage oil land headrights.

Christopher Cote, an Osage language consultant for Scorsese, attended the premiere and told The Hollywood Reporter he had “some strong opinions” about the finished film. “As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced,” said Cote, “but I think it would take an Osage to do that.”

The criticism comes despite efforts from Scorsese to not make this story about white people. Scorsese had dinners and meetings with members of the Osage Nation and – based on these meetings – decided to change the perspective of the script, to steer it away from a white saviour narrative about law enforcement investigating the case.

Scorsese worked with Osage Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, and local Osage people were also employed in behind-the-scenes and consultant roles. “But no Native American is credited as being involved in the movie’s screenwriting, production or directing creative processes,” wrote Angela Aleiss, a film historian and author of several books on Native Americans in films. “This is an ongoing problem.”

Native Americans and Hollywood have a long history together. Depictions of Indians go back to some of the very first moving pictures. Angela Aleiss explains that film representations of Native people have gone through cycles – from noble savage to savage warrior, from hostile to sympathetic portrayals. More positive portrayals – as well as significant contributions from Native American filmmakers and actors – have been lost to time, since overshadowed by the more popular, negative stereotype: untamed Indians in headdresses, firing arrows at cowboys and talking in what Indigenous Canadian critic Jesse Wente called “Tonto speak”.

Over the years, Native American actors have had to go along with it. Navajo actor and filmmaker Brian Young wrote about the issue for Time Magazine. He vowed to never wear war paint and feathers again. “At some point, every Native American actor comes to a career crossroads and has to answer the question: do I participate in stereotyping or maintain my cultural integrity?” That’s if Native American actors are cast at all. Hollywood has a history of casting white actors as Indians – playing “red face”. Higher status “Indian chief” roles have gone to non-Native actors, while Native actors make up the background (not to mention lower paid) roles.

As recently as 2013 there was controversy over Johnny Depp playing Tonto in the Disney reboot of The Lone Ranger – then Rooney Mara playing Tiger Lily in 2015’s Pan. The problem, perhaps, is that movies – including Killers of the Flower Moon – are made through white eyes. Hanay Geiogamah – a Native American playwright, producer, and UCLA professor – agrees. “It’s not that complicated,” he says. “The only way to tell the American Indian’s story is for American Indians to write it.”

Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in The Lone Ranger - Peter Mountain

Westerns – and Native Americans – became popular in the early days of silent cinema. By the time of the silent Westerns, Native people had been herded into reservations. “This part of American history, of course, was really still ongoing at the time cinema was really being born,” said Jesse Wente in the 2009 documentary, Reel Injun.

As noted by Angela Aleiss, early film studios pumped out one or two-reel pictures at a rate of around 12 to 15 per month (a reel amounted to around 10 minutes). Portrayals of Native people – sometimes sympathetic and romantic – were inspired by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West vaudeville show, dime novels, and classic literature, such as James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. “The silent films were a mixed bag,” says Aleiss. “You had the savage warrior, the noble Indian, the ‘half-breed’. Then you had movies that very much said Indians were loyal.”

Director DW Griffith – best known for the landmark, KKK-glorifying epic, The Birth of a Nation – made 30 Indian-themed films. Thomas H. Ince – a pioneering producer dubbed “the father of the Western” – moved families of Oglala Sioux to his mountainside production village in Santa Monica.

Hollywood’s first Native American filmmaker was James Young Deer, who managed the West Coast base of Pathé Frères. He oversaw production of over 150 silent one-reel Westerns and enjoyed significant creative freedom. His films were quirky satires that subverted the already-traditional Western stories. Young Deer was also embroiled in Hollywood’s first sex scandal. In 1913, he was accused of introducing an actress into a sex-trafficking ring and then the rape of a 15-year-old. He fled to England but returned to the US, by which time his accusers were long gone. His career never fully recovered, though he did make the first film about the Osage murders – Tragedies of the Osage Hills. The film premiered in May 1926, just four months after the arrests of the men portrayed by De Niro and DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon.

John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter and Beulah Archuletta in The Searchers - Getty

By the early 1930s, Westerns fell out of favour and were reduced to B-movie status – formulaic, churned-out films that often starred John Wayne. The Hollywood Indian became a stereotyped savage – all war bonnets, teepees, and Tonto speak. These films would later fill up TV schedules, cementing negative stereotypes. “In the 1960s, those B-movies were sold to TV,” says Aleiss. “People saw this very superficial thing of cowboys and Indians. There’s so much more out there that wasn’t sold to TV.” Indeed, there were films about the Native American experience – such as The Silent Enemy and Laughing Boy – but they flopped. “The problem is, people didn’t want to see it,” says Aleiss. “They didn’t line up.”

In 1936, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman reinvigorated the Western, followed by the John Ford-directed Stagecoach. In that film, John Wayne and a rabble of white folk journey to New Mexico – under the threat of attack from Geronimo and his bloodthirsty Apache warriors. “Stagecoach is the iconic Western,” said Jesse Wente in Reel Injun. “It’s the Western that all others were really modelled after and it’s one of the most damaging movies of Native people in history. You have white society inside the stagecoach and they are besieged – and on all sides – by Native people. By the wild of America.”

Even now, the stereotypes of those Westerns hold firm. Hanay Geiogamah describes being “instantly exotified” as a Native American. “There’s almost no way you can respond to it,” he says. One age-old stereotype seen in movies is the “drunken Indian”. “Even somebody like myself would be suspected of being a drunken Indian behind the scenes,” says Geiogamah. “Or I have a herd of horses in my backyard that I jump on, or I have a big tepee and prefer to sit in that than my house. All of that is so firmly rooted in the non-Indian mind. I don’t think non-Indian people employ this thinking in a mean, negative way. I think it’s just there.”

Dewey Martin and Elizabeth Threatt in the 1952 film The Big Sky - Getty

During the Second World War, onscreen relations between white Americans and Native people softened. “Studios didn’t want to send movies abroad where white people are shooting down Indians,” says Aleiss. “We were supposed to be fighting fascists and genocide.” Aleiss points to 1941’s They Died with Their Boots On, a history-bending biopic of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer (Errol Flynn), leading to his death at the Battle of Little Bighorn. “What happens to Custer is they modify him,” says Aleiss. “He becomes a friend and ally to Crazy Horse [the infamous Lakota who fought against Custer’s cavalry at Little Bighorn]. Custer even calls Crazy Horse his brother.”

In the film, Crazy Horse is played by Anthony Quinn, an American actor of Mexican-Irish descent. Many non-Indian actors took Native roles – standard practice in Hollywood. The likes of Burt Lancaster, Elvis, Rock Hudson, Burt Reynolds, Boris Karloff, Chuck Connors, Audrey Hepburn, Debra Paget, and Charles Bronson all played Native Americans. “The reason they give Indians is because, ‘Y’all don’t know how to act,’” says Geiogamah. “That’s just absolutely not true. There are some really good Indian actors. I know, I’ve worked with them in the theatre! But there’s still that perception built into the system.”

The issue of authenticity goes back to the early days of cinema. As noted in Aleiss’s 2005 book, Making the White Man’s Indian, trade magazine Moving Picture World praised a film in 1910 for using real Native actors. “The public is no longer satisfied with white men who attempt to represent Indian life,” wrote the magazine. “The actors must be real Indians.” The following year, a delegation of Chippewa people protested against “a false representation of Indian life” in a film called The Curse of the Red Man.

The actor known as Iron Eyes Cody - who was actually Italian - with Roy Rogers - Reuters

In 1936, the actor, author, and activist Luther Standing Bear started the Indian Actors Association in response to non-Native actors being cast in Indian roles. Members slated Indian stereotypes who “talk and grunt like morons” and demanded equal pay. Non-Indian extras were paid almost double what the actual Indian actors were paid. And roles were few and far between (which Brian Young was still saying in 2015).

Native American athlete Jim Thorpe – the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, in fact – became a film bit-player and spoke out against casting non-Indian actors. “There are only a few pictures each year that we can work in and when they use white men it just means we can’t make a living,” he said. The decidedly white Burt Lancaster would play Thorpe in a 1951 film of his life, Jim Thorpe – All American.

There were other issues of authentic Indian-ness: Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance claimed Canadian Blackfoot ancestry. It was revealed he was of mixed African-American descent. He later shot himself. Iron Eyes Cody was famous for playing Native American roles – most famously as the crying Indian in the anti-pollution commercial. Cody claimed Native heritage, though he was actually of Sicilian descent. Even Sacheen Littlefeather – who declined Marlon Brando’s Oscar at 1973 Academy Awards – was revealed to be of Mexican descent following her death last year. (Which the Native community apparently knew for years.)

Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse - Getty

Brando had boycotted the event to protest Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans. Certainly, it was a bloody period for Native people on film. As detailed in Reel Injun, the American Indian became an allegorical tool amid anxieties over the Vietnam War. In 1970, Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue depicted the US cavalry carrying out a censor-troubling slaughter of a Cheyenne village – a nod to both the Sand Creek Massacre from 1864, in which US troops killed 230 people, and the My Lai Massacre, which happened in Vietnam barely two years before Soldier Blue.

There was more brutality in A Man Called Horse, also released in 1970, in which Richard Harris survives the savagery of the Sioux. The film provoked protests for its depiction of Sioux and for making a white man the hero. The director, Elliot Silverstein, clashed with the studio bosses over scenes of the Sioux laughing. The studio apparently thought that their Indians were too inhuman to laugh.

The controversial 1970 film Soldier Blue - Getty

The Brando-Littlefeather protest came at the time of more real-world activism. From 1968 to 1971, Native American protestors and supporters staged a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz. In 1972, 500 Native Americans marched on Washington DC over political sovereignty. And in 1973, the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee – the site of an 1890 massacre – in a two-month standoff with the FBI.

As the Hollywood legend goes, John Wayne was incensed at the Sacheen Littlefeather Oscars protest and had to be restrained. The story has been debunked in the years since. But Wayne’s Westerns created the kind of cultural damage that Brando was protesting against. The Searchers, released in 1956, contains awful stereotypes and has one of the most obscene assaults on Native Americans: Wayne’s hero – a bigoted cowboy – shoots out the eyes of an already-dead Comanche.

By the mid-1970s, Will Sampson – from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – became a new type of Indian hero. “He was trying to take the Indians out of the old cliches and put them into modern settings,” says Aleiss. “He was very successful at that.”

Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined Marlon Brando's Best Actor Oscar at the 1973 Academy Awards - Getty

After falling out of favour, the Western – and Hollywood Indian – was revived by the huge success of Dances with Wolves in 1990, which was credited for humanising its Indians. The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Native Canadian actor Graham Greene. Dances with Wolves, however, has since been criticised for telling the story from a white perspective.

Hanay Geiogamah found the same problem when working on a series of five TV movies in the mid-1990s. “I worked with five white writers – five,” he says. “They were talented but they had no idea about Indian life. Not at all. I offered thematic suggestions that would have been really effective – it just didn’t happen. They were following the standard. They grew up on decade-after-decade of the Hollywood Indian persona. It was burned in their minds, like the minds of millions of American citizens.”

For Geiogamah, the portrayal of Native Americans is like so much else in the US: a matter of economics. “The Hollywood system has so many things built into it,” he says. “There has to be a star – a big white hero – a Robert Redford or John Wayne. The distortion begins immediately with the economic factors that are attached to the process.” That’s likely the reason Hollywood doesn’t have white actors playing red face now: because The Lone Ranger was a dud.

Geiogamah credits Little Big Man – the 1970 Western starring Dustin Hoffman – as a rare success in depicting Native Americans. Also, Chris Eyre’s 1998 comedy Smoke Signals, a then-rare story about modern day Native Americans – actually starring, written, and directed by Native talent, no less. Other recent, contemporary stories include the TV series Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls.

While many Hollywood portrayals have been sympathetic to Native Americans, that is perhaps not the same as culturally sensitive – particularly in the context of our current awareness of representation and cultural appropriation. Which is easy for a white man in 2023 to say. The history of protest within the industry shows that depictions that it’s long been an issue for Native Americans actors and filmmakers. As recently as 2015, there were reports of Native actors walking off the set of the Adam Sandler spoof, The Ridiculous 6, for offensive portrayals. The reports were apparently overblown but the story tapped into still-present tensions. For Geiogamah, Hollywood’s attempts at telling Native stories is “by and large a failure”.

Angela Aleiss is keen to stress the achievements of Native actors and filmmakers. That’s the subject of Aleiss’s book, Hollywood’s Native Americans. Aleiss points back to Chickasaw filmmaker Edwin Carewe, who made around 60 movies; Will Rogers, a Cherokee actor and mega-star of his day; and Jay Silverheels – TV’s Tonto – who started the Indian Actors Workshop. “Native people don’t have the numbers of black Americans, Asians, or Latinos in American society,” says Aleiss. “I think that’s why it’s important to look back and give them the credit they deserve.”