Clinks Conference and The Longford Lecture 2022 — a review
It is difficult to imagine a more grand venue than Drapers Hall in Throgmorton Street, metres from the Bank of England, for Clinks’ annual conference and AGM.
Plush carpets line historical corridors, as historical men of Empire gaze down from high oil paintings on time-honoured walls. As at least two speakers (of colour) noted, they felt ‘Uncomfortable’ there, while the majority of the well-intentioned audience were more likely just put in mind of school trips to stately houses.
The culture clash didn’t end there, as Sophie Gordon from Frameworks gave a lecture on how to spin your special interest so as to make the idea of rehabilitation appetising to the general public. Pragmatize, economize and humanize was the message, and never mind the 50% of haters when it was intended that inclusivity would conquer all in the end.
It was an interesting diversion into what would have been called introductory media studies, political science and marketing theory, in another, pre-critical theory-obsessed era.
Earlier the day had kicked off with poet, co-chair and Prison Radio DJ Lady Unchained hurrying through some of her prison-written poetry, and later Ash Nugent had performed his crowd-coercing, audience-written rap (over a Snoop Doggy Dogg instrumental backing track, no less).
Clinks’ gentle message of the UK’s justice-experienced minorities taking their place in an establishment palace of Empire, if just for one day, was again nudged/hammered home. The legendary good-nature of Anne Fox, Clinks CEO, reigned supreme in the end, corralling the many varied interests into one humming spirit.
Other speakers included HMPPS deputy Jim Barton and Justin Russell, Chief Inspector of Probation since 2019, explaining how they were going to make probation better in various ways, while Kilvinder Vigurs and Roma Hooper explained what was wrong with the system right now.
Evening closed in for this representative of FASO (False Allegations Support Organisation), and it was a tube ride with Ruth and Dan from DWRM (Do What Really Matters) across the city of London to Church House, by Westminster Palace. Could the day get any nearer to the seats of power?
Church House is a mini Royal Albert Hall; round, intimate-but-impressive, and tonight finely helmed by the resplendent Longford lead, Peter Stanford.
Peter explained that this was the 20th annual Longford Lecture — having been introduced himself by Channel 4’s own Voice of God of the Ages Jon Snow, hovering grey-suited onstage — it having been already graced by the likes of national treasure Michael Palin, bishop Desmond Tutu and Time/Cracker writer Jimmy McGovern so far this century.
This year was the turn of Mina Smallman, a warm, devout black Londoner former archdeacon, two of whose daughters had been murdered in 2020. While she had found it in her very big heart to offer their killer ‘Grace’, she was ‘Still working on that’ idea for the two officers jailed for sharing photos of her daughters’ bodies in a Whatsapp group.
It was naturally a deeply emotional lecture, delivered as a seated conversation — only hampered by a strange questioner from the audience who, following the talk, started to regale the audience with a bizarrely out of place sing-along (apparently designed to entertain prisoners listening in via Livestream around the country).
Still, everyone moved on, Peter regained the night, of which Smallman’s appearance was always going to be the highlight. A day of various injustices highlighted over two stunning venues, packed to the gills with good intentions, power imbalances simmering from the walls.
States of Independence: From Pop Art to Art Rock and Beyond available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B45DXC98/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
