About The New Era

The ‘new era’ in the UK started in March 2020. Prior to then we lived in a modern, liberal democracy. But then things went very, very wrong.

China’s approach to managing the outbreak of a ‘novel coronavirus’ – lockdown – was adopted by Italy, the UK and then most of the ‘developed’ world. While the disease was fatal for some – especially the very elderly and those with underlying health conditions – most people were only mildly affected, if affected at all by Covid-19. Lockdowns, however, became the preferred method of dealing with the disease in the UK.

This policy has resulted in a rapid removal of most of the most basic civil liberties that we took for granted before March 2020: freedom of association; freedom of speech; freedom to travel; parliamentary scrutiny of legislation.

The government has become all-powerful, mandating stay-at-home orders, the closure of business and travel curbs. It has also become the most important advertiser (propagandist) almost overnight, thereby ‘owning’ the Covid editorial agenda of most of the media. The BBC refuses to give voice to arguments against the government policy response to lockdown. Social distancing, a masked population, and mandated vaccination are portrayed as the definitive ‘science-based’ responses to the “pandemic”. However, not all share this view.

The New Era (TNE) is a website for people who don’t subscribe to the view (or aren’t completely convinced) that the wholesale removal of liberty is an appropriate policy response to a novel coronavirus – one of many coronaviruses that have been circulating and mutating within society for thousands of years.

On November 25th we’re holding our first in-person debate on the subject of Digital IDs (under the guise of Vaccine Passports). Please visit our sister site TECH | The New Era for more information and booking details.

Latest

October 14, 2021October 22, 2021

Digital ID : The London Debate

First there were lockdowns. Then came the vaccines. Next, the idea that certain parts of society might be for the vaccinated only – enabled by smartphone-based vaccine passports. But is this momentum towards social control the precursor of digital biometric ID? Will the state require us all to sacrifice our independence and free will to …

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October 10, 2021October 10, 2021

Monetising Fear

I have worked in marketing for over 30 years. I know the monster that I, and other marketers, have created. The monster is called FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubt. To come to my own defence, I’ve only ever worked in the business-to-business end of marketing. It’s trickier to instil fear, uncertainty and doubt into a …

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October 6, 2021October 6, 2021

Together in Manchester

Every year the major political parties hold their conferences in the Autumn. In 2020 lockdowns and extended Covid regulations disrupted things. But in 2021 in-person conferences are back. But still the spectre of yet more regulations hang over the proceedings. Covid certification is now required for certain critical workers to keep their jobs. There’s a …

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Keep us Open

In the last year the big social media platforms have shown that they’re not too keen on freedom of speech. We can speculate on the reasons. Perhaps they have become too dependent on government or corporatist advertising. Perhaps it’s something else, who’s to say? But this site is a humble attempt to provide a platform for views and perspectives that used to be given air-time – but are no longer tolerated by legacy media.

Over time we hope to extend our editorial team and contributor network. We’re young but our traffic is building. But writing good content takes time and commitment from volunteers. If you like what you read perhaps you might consider attending our upcoming debate in London focused on Digital Identity. We have some stellar speakers including Bob Moran (the award-winning political cartoonist), Francis Hoar (the Barrister and legal commentator) and Bill McCluggage, former Deputy CIO at the Cabinet Office. Tickets are priced at just £20. We need to sell about 100 just to cover our costs – so please consider attending and supporting our debate series.

Buy a Ticket to Our Debate

Contact

We want to hear from you. If you’d like to write an article for the site you can email Jeffrey Peel, Editor, on thenewerauk@protonmail.uk – just submit a synopsis of around 100 words of what you’d like to say in the article. We’re especially interested in topical pieces – reactions to the latest news stories, insights and analysis. Please consider pitching on topics we cover such as politics, health, science, education, business and technology.

By the way, before pitching, be aware of our editorial position. Here are the things we like and the things we don’t (from an editorial point of view).

We Like:

Individualism and free thought
Liberal democratic values
Small government
Entrepreneurial business
Free markets

We Don’t Like:

Big, authoritarian governments
Censorship
Socialism and corporatism
Great “resets”
Pseudoscience parading as science

Put “Pitch Idea” in your subject line. Should we like your idea expect to write around 800 words. We don’t pay for articles but if we build a relationship with you we may commission you to become a regular columnist (where we’ll pay for each article).

If you have written a short story or long-form non-fiction piece and would like us to consider it for publication then please send it to us in full. Fiction short stories should be around 1,500 – 2,000 words.

Just paste the words into the body of the email and put “Short Story Pitch” into the subject line. We pay a small fee for published short stories or longer long-form articles. We don’t pay much but at least it’s a start for people starting out on the journey towards being published writers.