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Martin Bright

Headshot of Martin Bright

Martin Bright is former political editor of the Jewish Chronicle and a former political editor of the New Statesman. He is founder of youth employment charity The Creative Society and writes a regular column, Sharp end, for Society

May 2024

  • Seven men, some in soldiers' uniforms, watch as Commandant Oberst Schwalm talks to Brigadier Alfred Ernest Snow, surrendering on Alderney on 16 May 1945 next to a metal bunker with an open door

    Inquiry into Nazi camps on Alderney to examine if there was British cover-up

    Government investigation into wartime atrocities on Channel Island will ask why Nazi perpetrators never stood trial in Britain

August 2023

  • Russian graves on Longy Common during the second world war

    Today in Focus
    Uncovering the truth of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands

    A UK government review plans to get to the truth of what happened when the German army built concentration camps on Alderney
    Podcast32:29

July 2023

  • Alderney was the only Channel Island to be evacuated during the second world war as the island became part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall defence.

    Channel Island Nazis inquiry under pressure to find out why perpetrators never faced justice

  • Russian graves on Longy Common in Alderney, photographed during the second world war.

    ‘No more cover-up’: Nazi concentration camps on Channel Island finally to be officially investigated

March 2022

  • Police detain a woman during a protest against Russian military action in Ukraine, in Manezhnaya Square in central Moscow on 13 March.

    double quotation markIndex on Censorship, inspired by Soviet dissidents, marks 50 years of fighting for free speech

    Martin Bright
    The brave protests of Soviet dissidents in 1968 spawned an organisation that is still giving voice to Putin’s critics today

November 2019

  • Minority employment rate survey<br>Embargoed to 0001 Monday December 28 File photo dated 16/09/14 of the entrance to a Jobcentre Plus, as substantial weaknesses for jobs remain for ethnic minority people, who have lower employment rates than other groups, research has revealed. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday December 28, 2015. A study by the Resolution Foundation found that the employment gap between the best and worst performing regions of the UK was 11%, but for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people the figure is 26%. See PA story INDUSTRY Employment. Photo credit should read: Philip Toscano/PA Wire

    double quotation markPoliticians could help young people into creative jobs. Here’s how

    Martin Bright
    If we can link up jobcentres with the creative industries – and boost diversity, then why can’t politicians, asks the Creative Society’s Martin Bright

September 2019

  • Katharine Gun
Former translator at the Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.
28 February 2004

    Today in Focus
    The British spy who tried to stop the Iraq war

    In the weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN in leaks published in the Observer. She joins former Observer journalist Martin Bright to tell their story ahead of a forthcoming Hollywood adaptation. Plus the BBC’s Carrie Gracie on how she fought for equal pay
    Podcast31:13

April 2018

  • Ruth Wilson, a Surrey schoolgirl in the mid-1990s, vanished one morning in November 1995.

    Ruth Wilson, the schoolgirl who caught a cab to oblivion

    In 1995 a teenager travelled to a local beauty spot and disappeared. A new documentary finds many unanswered and troubling questions remain

April 2017

  • Scotland Jobcentre closure plans<br>File photo dated 19/03/09 of a Job Centre Plus branch as UK Employment Minister Damian Hinds is to be questioned by MPs on plans to close more than 20 Jobcentres in Scotland. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Wednesday February 8, 2017. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed plans last month to divest itself of 16 premises north of the border, nine of them Jobcentres. See PA story SCOTLAND Jobcentres. Photo credit should read: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

    double quotation markWhy I’ve had to set up a jobcentre: the old model is broken

    Martin Bright
    Our job studio will be a place of optimism and hope for young people trying to break into the creative sector

October 2015

  • Camila Batmanghelidjh

    double quotation markKids Company: a charity so toxic everyone who supported it is tainted

    Martin Bright
    From its leader, Camila Batmanghelidjh, to the trustees, to the politicians who held the organisation up as a model, no one comes well out of its collapse

September 2015

  • 56997494<br>BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM - MARCH 18: People queue outside a Job Centre on March 18, 2009 in Bristol, England. Official figures published today show that UK unemployment has risen above two million for the first time since 1997 - and according to the TUC, there are now 10 jobseekers for every vacancy advertised in UK jobcentres, with many economists predicting it will go above three million mark next year. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

    double quotation markWhy the Work Programme didn’t get Sarah a job

    Martin Bright
    The government’s flagship welfare-to-work programme institutionalises bullying, interrupted only by undirected job searches

June 2015

  • Female Trainee Plumber

    double quotation markApprenticeships should give young people skills for today’s world

    Martin Bright
    It is one of the buzzwords of modern political rhetoric, but we need to redefine the concept for the digital age to ensure they provide real training and jobs

April 2015

  • Job seekers walk past a jobcentre

    double quotation markManifestos fail to fix young jobseekers’ woes so we need steps that work

    Martin Bright
    For many young people, finding a job is traumatic. While politicians are hailing apprenticeships as a solution, the fix we need may be more radical

October 2014

  • Unemployment figures rise in Britain

    double quotation markPoliticians should stop bullying young jobless people into trying to find work

    Martin Bright
    Martin Bright: Young people need help and support to find work, not benefit cuts and constant scapegoating as an idle underclass

July 2014

  • Unemployment Figures Set To Rise Further In UK

    double quotation markUnemployed? Don't go to your local jobcentre

    Martin Bright
    Martin Bright: Jobcentres have failed young people abysmally. This redundant service should be replaced by effective local job brokerages

April 2014

  • Coutts

    double quotation markHigh time for banks to give something back

    Martin Bright

    Martin Bright: My charity is to lose its free banking at a time when banks should support those helping young people affected by economic downturn

January 2014

  • Souter lighthouse in Whitburn near Sunderland, photographed every morning by a young apprentice

    double quotation markDon't underestimate work as a beacon of hope for young people

    Martin Bright
    Martin Bright: Warnings that youth unemployment represents a 'public health timebomb' recognise its terrible power to sap physical and mental wellbeing

October 2013

  • jobcentres failing unemployed

    double quotation markOnly finding young people real, paid jobs will get them off benefits

    Martin Bright
    Martin Bright: Getting people back to work is a serious business that requires trained public servants just like teachers, the police and doctors

August 2013

  • Jackson Pollock at work in East Hampton on Long Island, New York

    double quotation markFinding the next Jackson Pollock: how we can create jobs through the arts

    Martin Bright

    Britain's successful creative industries are crucial in the drive to get young people into jobs, and my charity is delighted to be involved the Arts Council's Creative Employment Programme, says Martin Bright

June 2013

  • a4e-society-bright

    double quotation markThe Work Programme didn't work for us

    Martin Bright
    Martin Bright: My charity's experience of the government's flagship payment-by-results jobs scheme has been a flop – we have had to duck and dive to find people employment outside of it
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