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Metro
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
We recreated the January 6th insurrection through a wargame - here's how it went
In January 2021, thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC. But four years later, in one of his first moves as President for a second term, Trump issued mass-pardons to all those who were charged and convicted in relation to the insurrection. So, what's the best way to tackle the all-consuming frustration, grief and despair over Trump's decision? Create a tabletop wargame about it, of course. Enter Fight for America! – an immersive art installation where players are invited to revisit the moments leading up to the storming of the Capitol and are faced with questions of 'division, democracy, and dialogue' as they take part. It was created by the American Vicarious, an American not-for-profit organisation that makes pieces designed to grapple with America's identity crisis. Their past work includes a theatre reproduction of the famous Cambridge Union debate between the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. Last week, they launched the game in the UK. The creators told Metro they felt it was right to relocate its premiere due to the turbulent political situation in the US, one which they had 'never imagined' when they began production two years ago. The game experience was run for a month and saw people take part in recreating the events of January 6th (Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) How it works is, players are broken up into sides – the 'red team' or the 'blue team' – and asked strategy-based questions about how they're going to proceed, similar to Warhammer. In fact, the game was designed by Alessio Cavatore, a renowned Warhammer games designer responsible for penning the rules to Games Workshop's flagship three tabletop titles – Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and The Lord of the Rings. If you're a bit lost here and need a sense of how important this guy is, he was given a cameo in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. There's a running question throughout that the players need to bear in mind when making their controversial moves – What about America is worth fighting for? As members of Metro's GameCentral team, we were invited along to take part in one of the games at their month-long residency in central London to see what it was all about. Owen was assigned to the 'blue team', representing the police officers who were on duty to defend the Capitol building that day, and faced off against Izzie, who in her own words, 'magnanimously' volunteered to join the 'red team'. She took charge of a host of tiny painted figures of The Proud Boys and QAnon, who were intent on breaching the doors to overturn an election that they considered was 'stolen.' Owen pledged his allegiance to the flag before the game (Picture Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) While Izzie pledged her allegiance to…Aladdin's Proud of Your Boy (Picture Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) We were also assigned real-life individuals who were at the Capitol that day. Owen was given the role of Commander Robert Glover of the DC Metropolitan Police while Izzie was appointed Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys. Neal Wilkinson, co-creator and designer, told Metro the game was created in consultation with DC police officers, who were present on January 6th. The tabletop battle was, to put it bluntly, totally one-sided. Just like on the day, police officers at the Capitol were vastly outnumbered by the insurrectionists, hell bent on forcing their way inside the building. Needless to say, the only way the police could win any clashes at all was through sheer luck. While playing it, we found it gave us just a small glimpse into what the mindset of the police must have been on the day – it was soon no longer about 'winning', it was about buying time for the people inside to get out with their lives. Each unit had a corresponding number of dice to be rolled – a group of Proud Boys were worth three dice, for example – and they could be backed by other units to increase that number, in turn increasing the likelihood of success (Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) Lose a dice roll by more than three and the losing unit is removed from the board completely (Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) Even against the overwhelming odds, only one Proud Boy unit made it inside the Capitol before time was up, although Owen's forces had been reduced to just a single riot police squad to guard the doors. The final minigame now was to find then-Vice President Mike Pence, hiding within the Capitol Building. One mad scramble later and he was discovered. But the highs of winning were short-lived. Almost immediately after victory was declared, TV screens in the venue displayed real-life footage of January 6th – showing the maiming that we had been so gleefully recreating for the past couple of hours. While we had not devised the game, its rules or its irreverent tone, it was hard not to feel a sense of guilt at taking part in it. Christopher McElroen, one of the games' directors, emphasised that despite being a fun time, there are serious messages about the current state of American democracy at the piece's heart. 'We decided to pursue this as a game, as a metaphor for democracy because a game only works if people participate,' he told Metro. 'Democracy only works if people participate.' Neal added they had initially planned to premiere the piece in New York City on January 6th earlier this year. But these plans changed after Trump was re-elected. 'We quickly came to realise that a New York crowd would not be willing or interested in gaming about those events,' he said. 'We thought a critical distance of an ocean would be good for us.' Certainly none of the audience showed any signs of trepidation about the evening's premise. The mini figures were mocked up to look like members of the police and also of the insurrectionists (Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) At the end of the game, the goal was to find former Vice-President Mike Pence (Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) Izzie, who played on the side of the insurrectionists, won the game. But at what cost?(Picture: Izzie Jones and Owen Davies/Metro) Before the game began, Christopher said: 'It was a violent insurrection and that history is actively being rewritten. On the President's first day in office, he chose to pardon or commute the sentences of everyone who participated in that act of violence.' Indeed, this included Izzie's 'character' for the evening, Enrique. He is currently suing the US government for $100 million alleging that they 'violated his constitutional rights'. It seems that even if we did, for a moment, consider the events of January 6th a game, there are quite a few who have never taken it seriously at all. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. Arrow MORE: 'Hide your bridesmaids': The inside story of Wedding Crashers as it celebrates 20 years Arrow MORE: Maga faithful warn Trump 'we won't fall in line' over Epstein investigation Arrow MORE: Rosie O'Donnell posts fiery response after Trump threatens to revoke citizenship
South Wales Guardian
27-06-2025
- South Wales Guardian
Review that led me to resign as archbishop was partly ‘wrong', says Welby
The former archbishop resigned in November last year and stepped down officially in early January after an independent review by Keith Makin concluded he had not done enough to deal with allegations of abuse by Christian camp leader Smyth. The report said Smyth 'could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013'. During an interview which took place at the Cambridge Union in May, Mr Welby denied having learned the full extent of Smyth's abuse until 2017. 'Makin is wrong in that,' Mr Welby said during the event. 'Not deliberately, but he didn't see a bit of evidence that subsequently came out after his report and after my resignation. 'The bit of evidence was his emails from Lambeth to Ely and from Ely letters to South Africa, where Smyth was living, and letters to the police in which the reporting was fully given to the police, and the police asked the church not to carry out its own investigations because it would interfere with theirs. 'Now I had checked, and I was told the police had been informed.' Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, John Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives. Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was 'never brought to justice for the abuse', the Makin Review said. Asked at the event why he did not report John Smyth in 2013 when he first heard of allegations made against him, Mr Welby said: 'First of all, I first knew of John Smyth's abuse in 2013 at the beginning of August, when one person in Cambridge disclosed to the diocesan safeguarding advisor that they had been abused. 'A few days later, I had a report through my chaplain who had been rung up from the Diocese of Ely, which Cambridge is in, saying … there was an allegation of abuse by one person. 'I didn't know the full details of the abuse until 2017 – that is clearly in the report … 'And it wasn't until about 2021, in a meeting with Keith Makin, that I discovered there were more than 100 people who had been physically abused. 'I disagree with the report on that … it's not truth. 'Secondly, I certainly didn't know about anything in Zimbabwe for the same period, and that emerged steadily as well.' Mr Welby added that, in 2013, he only knew of one person alleging they had been abused by Smyth, and that he was in the midst of dealing with other prominent cases of sexual abuse within the Church. Mr Welby said: 'I was dealing at the time with Peter Ball, the bishop of Gloucester, where we knew there were at least 30 victims, and he was going to prison, obviously, and one of those victims had committed suicide. 'That was among many cases that were coming out, and they were obviously getting my attention. 'I was focusing my attention on making sure it didn't happen again. 'I don't apologise for that. 'The worst of all possible things would have been to say, we're not going to change the system sufficiently to reduce the chances of such appalling events with such lifelong damage to survivors happening again.' The former archbishop, however, acknowledged he was 'insufficiently persistent' in bringing Smyth to justice while he was still alive – which ultimately compelled him to step down from his role as archbishop of Canterbury. Mr Welby also said he was seeing a psychotherapist with whom he has been discussing the time of his resignation, which he described as 'one of the loneliest moments I've ever had'. Asked about what he would have done differently, Mr Welby replied: 'I have thought a great deal about that. 'One must be very careful about making it sound as though it was all about me. It's really not. 'There will be people here who've been abused, who are the victims of abuse, sexual abuse, or physical abuse, emotional abuse, and I've been very open that I'm one of them, so I'm aware of what it means. 'There were two reasons it was right to resign. 'One was, although I thought I had done at the time everything I should have done, I hadn't. 'It had been reported to the police, the first signs of the abuse … and it was reported to Cambridgeshire Police and then to Hampshire Police, where he (Smyth) lived at the time. 'But I was insufficiently persistent and curious to follow up and check and check and check that action was being taken. 'And I felt that that had re-traumatised the survivors.' Mr Welby added: 'The other point was shame, because in my role, it wasn't only the Smyth case (in) the whole time I've been in post as archbishop for 12 years. 'There were more and more cases (that) emerged, very few from the present day, but going right back to the 60s and the 70s – 50, 60 years. 'And I'm sure we have not uncovered all of them, and I'm sure it goes further back than that. 'And there's one area the psychotherapist I have been seeing has helped me understand better, is: one develops an idealisation of an organisation, particularly the Church, and the sense of its failure made me feel that the only proper thing to do was to take responsibility as the current head of that organisation. 'It's one of the loneliest moments I've ever had, the reverberations of that I still feel. 'But I can persuade myself I could have done other things. I could have taken on the interviewers more strongly.' The process to replace Mr Welby is under way. It is expected there could be an announcement on a nomination for the 106th archbishop of Canterbury by autumn – a year after Mr Welby announced he was standing down.
Leader Live
27-06-2025
- Leader Live
Review that led me to resign as archbishop was partly ‘wrong', says Welby
The former archbishop resigned in November last year and stepped down officially in early January after an independent review by Keith Makin concluded he had not done enough to deal with allegations of abuse by Christian camp leader Smyth. The report said Smyth 'could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013'. During an interview which took place at the Cambridge Union in May, Mr Welby denied having learned the full extent of Smyth's abuse until 2017. 'Makin is wrong in that,' Mr Welby said during the event. 'Not deliberately, but he didn't see a bit of evidence that subsequently came out after his report and after my resignation. 'The bit of evidence was his emails from Lambeth to Ely and from Ely letters to South Africa, where Smyth was living, and letters to the police in which the reporting was fully given to the police, and the police asked the church not to carry out its own investigations because it would interfere with theirs. 'Now I had checked, and I was told the police had been informed.' Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, John Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives. Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was 'never brought to justice for the abuse', the Makin Review said. Asked at the event why he did not report John Smyth in 2013 when he first heard of allegations made against him, Mr Welby said: 'First of all, I first knew of John Smyth's abuse in 2013 at the beginning of August, when one person in Cambridge disclosed to the diocesan safeguarding advisor that they had been abused. 'A few days later, I had a report through my chaplain who had been rung up from the Diocese of Ely, which Cambridge is in, saying … there was an allegation of abuse by one person. 'I didn't know the full details of the abuse until 2017 – that is clearly in the report … 'And it wasn't until about 2021, in a meeting with Keith Makin, that I discovered there were more than 100 people who had been physically abused. 'I disagree with the report on that … it's not truth. 'Secondly, I certainly didn't know about anything in Zimbabwe for the same period, and that emerged steadily as well.' Mr Welby added that, in 2013, he only knew of one person alleging they had been abused by Smyth, and that he was in the midst of dealing with other prominent cases of sexual abuse within the Church. Mr Welby said: 'I was dealing at the time with Peter Ball, the bishop of Gloucester, where we knew there were at least 30 victims, and he was going to prison, obviously, and one of those victims had committed suicide. 'That was among many cases that were coming out, and they were obviously getting my attention. 'I was focusing my attention on making sure it didn't happen again. 'I don't apologise for that. 'The worst of all possible things would have been to say, we're not going to change the system sufficiently to reduce the chances of such appalling events with such lifelong damage to survivors happening again.' The former archbishop, however, acknowledged he was 'insufficiently persistent' in bringing Smyth to justice while he was still alive – which ultimately compelled him to step down from his role as archbishop of Canterbury. Mr Welby also said he was seeing a psychotherapist with whom he has been discussing the time of his resignation, which he described as 'one of the loneliest moments I've ever had'. Asked about what he would have done differently, Mr Welby replied: 'I have thought a great deal about that. 'One must be very careful about making it sound as though it was all about me. It's really not. 'There will be people here who've been abused, who are the victims of abuse, sexual abuse, or physical abuse, emotional abuse, and I've been very open that I'm one of them, so I'm aware of what it means. 'There were two reasons it was right to resign. 'One was, although I thought I had done at the time everything I should have done, I hadn't. 'It had been reported to the police, the first signs of the abuse … and it was reported to Cambridgeshire Police and then to Hampshire Police, where he (Smyth) lived at the time. 'But I was insufficiently persistent and curious to follow up and check and check and check that action was being taken. 'And I felt that that had re-traumatised the survivors.' Mr Welby added: 'The other point was shame, because in my role, it wasn't only the Smyth case (in) the whole time I've been in post as archbishop for 12 years. 'There were more and more cases (that) emerged, very few from the present day, but going right back to the 60s and the 70s – 50, 60 years. 'And I'm sure we have not uncovered all of them, and I'm sure it goes further back than that. 'And there's one area the psychotherapist I have been seeing has helped me understand better, is: one develops an idealisation of an organisation, particularly the Church, and the sense of its failure made me feel that the only proper thing to do was to take responsibility as the current head of that organisation. 'It's one of the loneliest moments I've ever had, the reverberations of that I still feel. 'But I can persuade myself I could have done other things. I could have taken on the interviewers more strongly.' The process to replace Mr Welby is under way. It is expected there could be an announcement on a nomination for the 106th archbishop of Canterbury by autumn – a year after Mr Welby announced he was standing down.
North Wales Chronicle
27-06-2025
- North Wales Chronicle
Review that led me to resign as archbishop was partly ‘wrong', says Welby
The former archbishop resigned in November last year and stepped down officially in early January after an independent review by Keith Makin concluded he had not done enough to deal with allegations of abuse by Christian camp leader Smyth. The report said Smyth 'could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013'. During an interview which took place at the Cambridge Union in May, Mr Welby denied having learned the full extent of Smyth's abuse until 2017. 'Makin is wrong in that,' Mr Welby said during the event. 'Not deliberately, but he didn't see a bit of evidence that subsequently came out after his report and after my resignation. 'The bit of evidence was his emails from Lambeth to Ely and from Ely letters to South Africa, where Smyth was living, and letters to the police in which the reporting was fully given to the police, and the police asked the church not to carry out its own investigations because it would interfere with theirs. 'Now I had checked, and I was told the police had been informed.' Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, John Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives. Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was 'never brought to justice for the abuse', the Makin Review said. Asked at the event why he did not report John Smyth in 2013 when he first heard of allegations made against him, Mr Welby said: 'First of all, I first knew of John Smyth's abuse in 2013 at the beginning of August, when one person in Cambridge disclosed to the diocesan safeguarding advisor that they had been abused. 'A few days later, I had a report through my chaplain who had been rung up from the Diocese of Ely, which Cambridge is in, saying … there was an allegation of abuse by one person. 'I didn't know the full details of the abuse until 2017 – that is clearly in the report … 'And it wasn't until about 2021, in a meeting with Keith Makin, that I discovered there were more than 100 people who had been physically abused. 'I disagree with the report on that … it's not truth. 'Secondly, I certainly didn't know about anything in Zimbabwe for the same period, and that emerged steadily as well.' Mr Welby added that, in 2013, he only knew of one person alleging they had been abused by Smyth, and that he was in the midst of dealing with other prominent cases of sexual abuse within the Church. Mr Welby said: 'I was dealing at the time with Peter Ball, the bishop of Gloucester, where we knew there were at least 30 victims, and he was going to prison, obviously, and one of those victims had committed suicide. 'That was among many cases that were coming out, and they were obviously getting my attention. 'I was focusing my attention on making sure it didn't happen again. 'I don't apologise for that. 'The worst of all possible things would have been to say, we're not going to change the system sufficiently to reduce the chances of such appalling events with such lifelong damage to survivors happening again.' The former archbishop, however, acknowledged he was 'insufficiently persistent' in bringing Smyth to justice while he was still alive – which ultimately compelled him to step down from his role as archbishop of Canterbury. Mr Welby also said he was seeing a psychotherapist with whom he has been discussing the time of his resignation, which he described as 'one of the loneliest moments I've ever had'. Asked about what he would have done differently, Mr Welby replied: 'I have thought a great deal about that. 'One must be very careful about making it sound as though it was all about me. It's really not. 'There will be people here who've been abused, who are the victims of abuse, sexual abuse, or physical abuse, emotional abuse, and I've been very open that I'm one of them, so I'm aware of what it means. 'There were two reasons it was right to resign. 'One was, although I thought I had done at the time everything I should have done, I hadn't. 'It had been reported to the police, the first signs of the abuse … and it was reported to Cambridgeshire Police and then to Hampshire Police, where he (Smyth) lived at the time. 'But I was insufficiently persistent and curious to follow up and check and check and check that action was being taken. 'And I felt that that had re-traumatised the survivors.' Mr Welby added: 'The other point was shame, because in my role, it wasn't only the Smyth case (in) the whole time I've been in post as archbishop for 12 years. 'There were more and more cases (that) emerged, very few from the present day, but going right back to the 60s and the 70s – 50, 60 years. 'And I'm sure we have not uncovered all of them, and I'm sure it goes further back than that. 'And there's one area the psychotherapist I have been seeing has helped me understand better, is: one develops an idealisation of an organisation, particularly the Church, and the sense of its failure made me feel that the only proper thing to do was to take responsibility as the current head of that organisation. 'It's one of the loneliest moments I've ever had, the reverberations of that I still feel. 'But I can persuade myself I could have done other things. I could have taken on the interviewers more strongly.' The process to replace Mr Welby is under way. It is expected there could be an announcement on a nomination for the 106th archbishop of Canterbury by autumn – a year after Mr Welby announced he was standing down.
South Wales Argus
27-06-2025
- South Wales Argus
Review that led me to resign as archbishop was partly ‘wrong', says Welby
The former archbishop resigned in November last year and stepped down officially in early January after an independent review by Keith Makin concluded he had not done enough to deal with allegations of abuse by Christian camp leader Smyth. The report said Smyth 'could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013'. During an interview which took place at the Cambridge Union in May, Mr Welby denied having learned the full extent of Smyth's abuse until 2017. 'Makin is wrong in that,' Mr Welby said during the event. 'Not deliberately, but he didn't see a bit of evidence that subsequently came out after his report and after my resignation. 'The bit of evidence was his emails from Lambeth to Ely and from Ely letters to South Africa, where Smyth was living, and letters to the police in which the reporting was fully given to the police, and the police asked the church not to carry out its own investigations because it would interfere with theirs. 'Now I had checked, and I was told the police had been informed.' Justin Welby resigned as archbishop of Canterbury in the wake of the John Smyth sexual abuse scandal (Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace/PA) Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, John Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives. Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was 'never brought to justice for the abuse', the Makin Review said. Asked at the event why he did not report John Smyth in 2013 when he first heard of allegations made against him, Mr Welby said: 'First of all, I first knew of John Smyth's abuse in 2013 at the beginning of August, when one person in Cambridge disclosed to the diocesan safeguarding advisor that they had been abused. 'A few days later, I had a report through my chaplain who had been rung up from the Diocese of Ely, which Cambridge is in, saying … there was an allegation of abuse by one person. 'I didn't know the full details of the abuse until 2017 – that is clearly in the report … 'And it wasn't until about 2021, in a meeting with Keith Makin, that I discovered there were more than 100 people who had been physically abused. 'I disagree with the report on that … it's not truth. 'Secondly, I certainly didn't know about anything in Zimbabwe for the same period, and that emerged steadily as well.' Mr Welby added that, in 2013, he only knew of one person alleging they had been abused by Smyth, and that he was in the midst of dealing with other prominent cases of sexual abuse within the Church. Mr Welby said: 'I was dealing at the time with Peter Ball, the bishop of Gloucester, where we knew there were at least 30 victims, and he was going to prison, obviously, and one of those victims had committed suicide. 'That was among many cases that were coming out, and they were obviously getting my attention. 'I was focusing my attention on making sure it didn't happen again. 'I don't apologise for that. 'The worst of all possible things would have been to say, we're not going to change the system sufficiently to reduce the chances of such appalling events with such lifelong damage to survivors happening again.' The former archbishop, however, acknowledged he was 'insufficiently persistent' in bringing Smyth to justice while he was still alive – which ultimately compelled him to step down from his role as archbishop of Canterbury. Mr Welby also said he was seeing a psychotherapist with whom he has been discussing the time of his resignation, which he described as 'one of the loneliest moments I've ever had'. Asked about what he would have done differently, Mr Welby replied: 'I have thought a great deal about that. 'One must be very careful about making it sound as though it was all about me. It's really not. 'There will be people here who've been abused, who are the victims of abuse, sexual abuse, or physical abuse, emotional abuse, and I've been very open that I'm one of them, so I'm aware of what it means. 'There were two reasons it was right to resign. 'One was, although I thought I had done at the time everything I should have done, I hadn't. 'It had been reported to the police, the first signs of the abuse … and it was reported to Cambridgeshire Police and then to Hampshire Police, where he (Smyth) lived at the time. 'But I was insufficiently persistent and curious to follow up and check and check and check that action was being taken. 'And I felt that that had re-traumatised the survivors.' Mr Welby added: 'The other point was shame, because in my role, it wasn't only the Smyth case (in) the whole time I've been in post as archbishop for 12 years. 'There were more and more cases (that) emerged, very few from the present day, but going right back to the 60s and the 70s – 50, 60 years. 'And I'm sure we have not uncovered all of them, and I'm sure it goes further back than that. 'And there's one area the psychotherapist I have been seeing has helped me understand better, is: one develops an idealisation of an organisation, particularly the Church, and the sense of its failure made me feel that the only proper thing to do was to take responsibility as the current head of that organisation. 'It's one of the loneliest moments I've ever had, the reverberations of that I still feel. 'But I can persuade myself I could have done other things. I could have taken on the interviewers more strongly.' The process to replace Mr Welby is under way. It is expected there could be an announcement on a nomination for the 106th archbishop of Canterbury by autumn – a year after Mr Welby announced he was standing down.
