Praxis TV

Praxis TV is a series of interviews with a number of people researching and exploring class in contemporary society. Each interview helps to counteract the lack of working-class representation in traditional media, address the frequent stereotyping of the working-classes, and help people to better understand their working-classness.

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Praxis TV Interviews Alice McLarnon

The COVID crisis and austerity prior to that have impacted most heavily on those within society that already had the least to begin with. Working class people have been much more likely to lose their lives, be exposed to infection through their work, face Long COVID, lose their incomes and homes and see their children fall even further behind at school.

What if there was a way to make a living from the job you already do but:

For better wages

With more job satisfaction

You could work more flexibly around your family/care commitments

Had more choice and control over who you work with/for

Became your own boss as part of a democratic collective team

Enjoyed complete equality at work

Became involved in every part of the process, start to finish

Alice McLarnon gives us the lowdown on how the Belfast Cleaning Society started up, how it has managed to weather the crisis whilst paying its workers 100% of their wage whilst on furlough, why councils need to understand and pro-actively promote and support frontline working class flat-structure co-ops and how a solidarity economy differs and offers more to all of us than the extractive economy we currently exist within.

Praxis TV Interviews Jim Shannon

Working class community activist Jim Shannon talks to Mandy Clare about taking a positive and local community approach to affecting larger scale change, about the distance between most working class people and politics and how that has changed since 1980s, Child Tax Credits as a distraction turned weapon against working class terms and conditions and collectivism, how that relates to the irony of being called a Commie and more!

Praxis TV Interviews Chris Fairley

Founder of Britain Has Class, working class pioneer and activist Chris Fairley talks to Mandy Clare about where things are up to with the class-focussed youth organisation, how the LGBT+ model provided a blueprint for formal working class support within LSE, the repetitive conversations about class required to move the class awareness and equality agenda forward, Tommy Robinson, masculinity and loss within a class context, the role of working class mothers and all things class activism.

Praxis TV Interviews Osman Baig

Actor, writer, journalist and producer Osman Baig discusses with Mandy Clare some of the rocks in the road for working class people with talent and skill, how classism and racism can present as indistinguishable from one another and how for anyone working class who achieves success, their journey and achievements are bigger than their own personal experience. Our stories of struggle and strength can help others to navigate difficult terrain...

Praxis TV with Paul Sng

Mandy Clare chats with Paul Sng, writer and film-maker (Sleaford Mods - Invisible Britain, Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle, Social Housing, Social Cleansing and Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliche) about his chosen focus on the lives and work of people who have been neglected, marginalised or misrepresented within the arts and media. We discuss the profound impacts of racism on the formation of class identity and self-acceptance, being in a creative industry that is mainly within the control of middle class colleagues, adapting and assimilating, understanding how the working class has been politically failed and more.

Praxis TV with Lizzie Fletcher

Mandy Clare and Unity News founder, Lizzie Fletcher take a look behind the scenes of British journalism, reflect on what the UK's outlook might now be had Corbyn managed to survive the media and wider attacks on him personally and on his leadership and share comparisons of leadership and communication styles of Blair, Miliband and Corbyn from Lizzie's first-hand journalistic perspective. The discussion covers the demise of democracy as working class people drift further and further away from being able to access behind-the-scenes insight into how the media and political worlds operate behind the scenes and considers what steps could be taken to reverse this process.

Praxis TV with Jon Trickett MP

Mandy Clare and Jon Trickett MP discuss the lack of working class representation within politics and why that is important to him. Jon shares experiences of being a working class MP for approaching three decades and some of the challenges in achieving his long-term commitment to improving working class belonging and visibility within the Labour Party. Jon's assistant joined us on the call, hence the empty box on the screen.