A city remembers

200 years ago last week, militia and cavalry (under orders from the magistrates) attacked peaceful demonstrators near to this site in Manchester, killing 18 of them. Jeremy Deller's memorial has attracted criticism for not being fully accessible; but I have to say that I felt no need to climb up it in order to appreciate its quiet acknowledgement of those who died, the places they came from and the struggle they were engaged in.

Among the dead were a young man of 17, a small child, and an unborn child - a reminder that politics touches children's lives and that they do engage in political action, regardless of whether they have the vote. Earlier in the day I chaired a semiplenary session focused on children and young people's activism at the biennial conference of the European Sociological Association, held this year in Manchester. When schoolchildren are stepping up to lead the campaign to face the reality of global environmental breakdown, and are attacked, insulted, patronised and even threatened for doing so, this all seemed particularly timely.

In extra, the arrows point to the sites of other violent attacks on peaceful demonstrators (many of them also young); and then suddenly a large group of boys on bikes swept past (photo shows only a third of them).