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New Statesman
2 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
The town that loathes Keir Starmer
A boat passes through the northern industrial town of Burnley. Photo by Lancashire Images /Alamy On the shop floor of Burnley's last mill, 28 looms are thrashing away with a dull roar. At modern machines all around this stone factory, workers are diligently constructing the product that turned this town from a backwater into a centre of global capitalism: one man examines a roll of fabric for flaws; behind a glass partition a group of young women are sewing; upstairs others map out new patterns on CAD software. Steven Eastwood, who has driven forklifts around Ashfield Mill for decades, remembers a time when his employer still had local competitors. Now, from a peak of 99,000 looms a little over a century ago, only the weaving machines in this room remain in commercial operation. As Burnley's traditional industry has faded so too has its connection to Labour, its traditional politics. After winning every election here from 1935, the party lost to the Liberal Democrats in 2010, and then the Conservatives in 2019, before narrowly taking back the seat at the last election. Eastwood has voted for Labour his entire life. He says he will continue to do so with an apologetic shrug, as if he can conceive of no possible alternative. But asked what its leader now stands for, he cannot say. Speaking to his aides in opposition, Sir Keir Starmer told them he wanted to be judged by a simple test: in five years time, could he look in the eyes of voters in towns such as Burnley and tell them that Labour had made a genuine difference to their lives? Almost one year after he entered office – according to residents of the town – he appears to be on track to fail. Sitting on a bench inside Charter Walk Shopping Centre, Janine, a supply teacher, is using her half term holiday to people watch on a quiet afternoon. Born locally into a 'very poor working class family' she has been living in Bonn for the last two decades. When she moved back to Burnley recently she was shocked at the area's decline. 'I came back to a society that I could not recognise behaviour wise, attitude wise,' she says. 'I love this town but it's so run down. Betting shops, charity shops, boarded up shops. It breaks my heart.' She estimates her quality of life was 10 times higher in Germany doing the same job. At one school at which she now teaches, 14 and 15-year-olds have the literacy levels of primary school children. At another, a charity had to buy Christmas presents for pupils because their parents could not afford any. 'That was not the case when I was last teaching in the UK,' she says. 'I couldn't believe it.' A former Labour voter, she cannot understand why, in her eyes, the government is determined to penalise those in need of help. 'They're taking the Winter Fuel Allowance away, taking farmers' inheritance from them, they have no plan on illegal immigration and public services are on the floor.' Janine is now convinced the party's core voters will abandon them for Reform. 'I never thought I would say I wouldn't vote Labour but at the last election I voted Green even though I knew they wouldn't win,' she adds. Paul, a bus driver nursing a hot drink nearby, insists he cannot begin to talk about Starmer because his opinions will be unprintable. 'The government is fucking too right wing,' he eventually says. 'They're fucking backwards bastards on everything.' They are targeting people who have worked 'all of their bastard life', he says. 'Even the Conservatives left the Winter Fuel Allowance alone – they knew not to touch the pensioners.' Until last year, Paul had always voted Labour. At the next election he will not turn out at all. 'I don't like Farage, he's too fascist,' he says. 'I don't trust any of them.' When I say that Starmer wants to be able to tell the people of Burnley he has made a genuine difference to their lives, Paul laughs. 'I don't think that whichever government has ever been in they've ever had an impact on my life. You work your arse off all your life and they screw you.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Manning the till in a British Heart Foundation shop on Burnley's high street, Amanda says that she also used to support Labour. Now, she believes the party is 'not doing such a good job' in office. 'They've not done what they said they were going to do. Their decisions have been bad,' she says. 'As a person Keir Starmer seems alright. As a politician he's not doing a good job.' Shops are closing in Burnley, but at least it's not as bad as nearby Nelson, another Lancashire mill town, which has now become a 'dump', she claims. 'The government always say they will give us money but we never see any of it, or they spend it on stupid stuff.' At the next election, Amanda plans to vote for the Liberal Democrats or the Greens. 'They seem to believe in their principles more. The Conservatives and Labour have been in power for so long. They always get in so they've become a bit more complacent.' Like many Burnley residents, Afrasiab Anwar was brought up on traditional Labour values. After moving away for university he came back to his hometown in 2002, a year after local race riots saw white men attack takeaways and Asians firebomb a pub. 'It wasn't a place I recognised,' he says now. In an attempt to improve the town, he began working for the local authority before winning election to represent Labour himself and then, in 2021, becoming the council leader. In November 2023, however, when Starmer failed to call for a Gaza ceasefire, he and 10 other Labour representatives quit the party. Anwar's Burnley Independent Group now runs the local authority in coalition with Lib Dem and Green councillors. [See also: Why is Birmingham leading Britain's child poverty spiral?] Sitting in his office within Burnley's grand town hall, he is contemptuous of the government he once wished to see elected. 'It's been a complete letdown in every aspect. There's been nothing for places like Burnley. There's been no additional investment,' he says. 'Traditional Labour voters, what are they getting? Working-class people, what are they getting out of this Labour government? The two child benefit cap, the winter fuel allowance. It's the complete opposite of what a Labour government stands for.' On the doorstep, Anwar claims, voters tell him they did not believe things could decline further after 14 years of austerity. Under Starmer's government, though, 'they think it's far worse'. Burnley has long struggled to manage an uneven transition from the days of King Cotton. In 2019, it was ranked as the eighth most deprived area in England. It has some of the highest rates of fuel poverty, health deprivation and child poverty in the country. At the same time, however, the town has become a centre of high tech manufacturing that has seen it touted as a model for northern revitalisation. Former mills have been turned into campuses for the University of Central Lancashire; local firms engineer ultra-lightweight parts for Airbus planes. Anwar is convinced the old ways of doing politics here are gone: Labour's ties to their core support are irreparably broken. 'People are much cleverer now,' he says. 'They vote for people who they think will represent them, who will be their voice and who are genuinely a part of the town, a part of the fabric of the place.' While Labour won Burnley at the last election, its vote share dropped. Having received the endorsement of Muslim community leaders, Lib Dem candidate and former MP Gordon Birtwistle shot up to second place. When I ask Anwar if he plans to challenge his old party at the next general election he insists he is focused on running the council for now. For many others in Burnley, Westminster simply has no relevance to their lives. Standing on the high street, Uwais, a young boxing trainer in a green shell suit, says he has no opinion of Starmer at all. He does not watch television. He does not follow the news. 'I don't think it makes much difference,' he says. 'There's still potholes and shit.' In any case, he insists, Burnley is great. He pivots to gesture at a ragged figure smoking on a nearby street corner. 'Look at that guy over there on spice: he's living his dream!' Luc Paul would vote but he has no ID. On a break from his shift at a children's toy shop, he tells me he is appalled at Starmer's volte-face on trans rights. In opposition, the prime minister said there was a 'desperate need' to introduce gender self-ID. Now, he does not believe that trans-women are women. 'I don't think he stands for anything. He only wants power so he can get money for himself,' Luc Paul says. 'The Greens, Lib Dems and the Scottish party have a lot more going for them.' Cradling his walking stick under his arm and smoking a rolled cigarette, Steven says he remains a Labour supporter but does not know anyone who could run the country now. 'The government aren't meeting the requirements,' he says. After being admitted to the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital recently for a routine operation (Burnley's A&E closed in 2007), his wife picked up an infection and became seriously unwell. He blames outsourced agency staff for messing up her care. Retired on health grounds himself, he says the government has not helped to improve his life to date. 'It's a case of surviving,' he adds glumly. What does Starmer stand for? Steven says he cannot put his finger on it. Perhaps the most positive assessment of the government available in Burnley is that it has simply not yet had time to get to grips with problems that long predate its election. Perhaps further decline is just to be expected. Perhaps Britain is headed inevitably in the same direction as Burnley's mills whichever party is elected. John, an older man standing alone by a handsome stone building, says that of course Starmer is going to make mistakes. 'They're miles better than the previous government,' he says. He plans to back Labour again at the next election. 'I don't think Starmer's doing a bad job,' he says. 'You've got to remember what they came into office to. You've got to bear in mind it's not going to turn around too quickly.' [See also: Reform UK's taproom revolutionaries] Related
Elle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 6, Episode 5 Recap: June And Moria's Undercover Mission Hits Some Snags
Spoilers below. If there is one thing June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) knows on The Handmaid's Tale, it's that nothing ever goes according to plan in the fight against Gilead. But this uncertainty has made June an expert at adapting to tricky situations, which she puts into practice when the undercover mission to Jezebel's with Moira (Samira Wiley) hits major snags that require quick thinking from the pair. Given how tense it was between the best friends last week, it isn't surprising that this tension boils over in these fraught circumstances. FIND OUT MORE ON ELLE COLLECTIVE June and Moira aren't the only ones finding themselves in a tricky predicament; Nick (Max Minghella) has to clean up a mess of his own making, and Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) isn't as popular as he thought he was. Plus, Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) receives a surprise offer that could change her entire trajectory in the final season. Getting into Jezebel's is easy. There is nothing unusual about two Marthas arriving in a delivery van (Luke is the driver), and it helps that Moira and June's faces are partially covered, which are now part of the uniform. The plan is to find Janine (Madeline Brewer), tell her about the Mayday plan to assassinate commanders in the penthouse, and then get out unnoticed. Sounds simple enough, but when they try to locate Janine, they learn that the commanders are making an unscheduled visit to Jezebel's. Rather than bail, June talks their way upstairs under the guise of making final preparations for the commanders. Time and circumstances lead to a more muted reunion, but Janine's face still lights up when she finds out a rescue and assassination plan is in motion. Janine gives June a keycard to one of the bedrooms, telling them to wait until she can slip away. Upon arriving, Commander Bell (Timothy Simons) tells the Martha pair to 'get your ugly butts out'. He also uses the spilled champagne to humiliate one of the Marthas, telling June to kneel and clean his pants. Lawrence stops this, and June purposefully turns her face away so he can't see her eyes. Yet, Lawrence has the look of recognition (but can't put his finger on why) as she walks away. June tells Moria that Lawrence's attendance is a surprise, as he 'was never a Jezebel's guy'. Maybe she doesn't know him as well as she thinks she does? Later, emotions run high when June tells Janine the plan details. Janine has letters the other women have written to their families for June to deliver. To aid their operation, Janine gives an updated map of the private elevator and the pass code. In the heat of the moment, June tells Janine to leave with them today, and someone else can coordinate with the other women. Janine says she can't 'leave without my girls' and will wait a week until Mayday comes in, guns blazing. After Janine leaves, Moira lets June know how irresponsible that was. June admits that the impulsive offer was her way of making up for her leaving Janine in Chicago. But if Janine had gone with them, security at Jezebel's would be impossible to penetrate, and the main plan would fail. June mentions how guilty she feels, leading Moira to vent her pent-up frustrations against her BFF. 'Your guilt. Your feelings. Your friends. Your trauma. You, you, you, you. Do you have any idea how fucking sick of you I am?!' This confrontation has been a long time coming, as June is always the center of everything. Moira raises multiple valid points. 'Do I get to have PTSD? Do I get to have guilt? Friends? Trauma?' Moira continues. Moira is living in a nightmare too, yet it is always about June. As they compare their horrifying experiences, the conversation starts with anger, followed by laughter, and then understanding. The mood quickly shifts once more because as Moira and June are making up, a guardian comes into the room and finds the materials Janine left behind. He locks the letters and map in a safe and will only give them back after he has raped both women. The Handmaid's Tale is at its most horrifying when it goes from memories of abuse and rape to it happening in real time. Moira fights back with June quickly joining in, and with two against one, they overpower the guardian. Moira wraps a phone cord around his neck, killing the man. But they can't get the letters and map out of the safe, and the dead body will definitely put an end to the plan. Moira quickly thinks of an alternative solution to buy them time. They wheel his body to the incinerator in the basement in the laundry, and are disposing of the remains when the guardian check-in call comes over the radio. The pair doesn't have long to get out before a complete lockdown. Unfortunately, security stops Luke (O-T Fagbenle) from making a pickup, and they have to find an alternative escape. Luckily, Lawrence is leaving in his car, and June uses her gut that he is the man she thought he was. 'Ah, hell no,' says Lawrence when she steps out in front of his car. June begs him to take her and Moira, and he relents. They get in the trunk, but don't know if he can get them out of Gilead. Are they stuck here? Perhaps Lawrence should've listened to his wife, Naomi (Ever Carradine), who said that the high commanders associate virility with power. At Jezebel's, Lawrence keeps up appearances, but still thinks his reforms are the key to power. First, he overrules Bell when it comes to Janine telling the high commander he is 'a pig' and 'no one here likes you, no one, and no one respects you.' Bell might be vile, yet he still has the ear of the other men. When Janine takes Lawrence into the adjoining bedroom, she reveals a peephole that the girls of Jezebel's use to get an idea of the men they are dealing with. Janine also tells Lawrence, 'You're not a good guy,' but he is in comparison to the other high commanders. She then makes her excuses before heading to see June and Moira. Lawrence's eyes are opened when he learns he is part of a long con to get as many people back to Gilead before they close New Bethlehem and the borders, and the country returns to its harshest practices. Lawrence will be blamed, and then Bell will want to see him on the wall. The others are hesitant about the latter, but Bell convinces them it is the way forward. Lawrence takes his glasses off in disbelief. Mayday might just have a new ally in the making. Commander Wharton (Josh Charles) checks in with Nick about the busy day in New Bethlehem, as 26 more families reunite?. The question of security comes up, and Nick says it is his highest priority, so Wharton wants to know what he is doing about the two guardians who were shot in no man's land by rebels, as it was an 'alarming breach' on Nick's watch. Nick is surprised to learn that one of the men is recovering from being shot point-blank, and tries to sound happy about it. Nick was the man who pulled the trigger (to aid June, Luke, and Moira's escape), and must keep this involvement from his father-in-law (and everyone else in Gilead). Nick visits Toby, the surviving guardian, in hospital, and is warmly greeted by Toby's mother. Though Toby has been mumbling so far, the chances of a full recovery are slim. Nick tells his mother to take a break, offering to stay with Toby. She calls Nick an angel, but little does she know the commander is the culprit. After she has gone, Toby's heart rate goes up when he sees Nick, suggesting recognition. However, he says something unrelated about his dog. Nick briefly leaves, but returns to the room as it is far too dangerous for him to leave a loose end. We don't see Nick killing Toby, but the locked door and ominous music suggest Toby will not be identifying the person who shot him. What is doing the right thing in Gilead? How can someone make up for all their wrongs? Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) continues to make a case for saving Janine and the other former handmaids from Jezebel's, turning to Serena for help. Lydia says that her girls suffered greatly in Serena's house, and Serena replies that they also suffered greatly in Lydia's house. Neither is wrong—the unifying factor in Gilead is hypocrisy. Serena thinks opening a fertility clinic in New Bethlehem could be a suitable place for former handmaids to be assigned, as fertility is a handmaid's brand (Lydia bristles at this wording, calling it a 'divine calling'). During Lydia's visit, Serena receives a giant bouquet, and Lydia wants to know if Serena is going dancing with Commander Wharton again. Serena tries to play it down, but the commander wants to see her before he goes back to Washington for work. Wharton has a big gesture planned under the guise of picking a new name for the library. A mock-up reveals his preferred choice is the 'Serena Joy & Gabriel Wharton Library'. Yep, this is a proposal, and it catches Serena off guard. She didn't come back to be a wife. Wharton reassures her he will be everything Fred was not, and she doesn't have to move or stop working. The influential high commanders want to change the world together, convincing Serena that this will be a true partnership. Wharton gets down on one knee, and Serena says yes. Like June, Lawrence, and Nick, she makes a gut decision. Will she regret returning to this path? Only time will tell. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE. Emma Fraser is a freelance culture writer with a focus on TV, movies, and costume design. You can find her talking about all of these things on Twitter.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
How ‘The Handmaid's Tale' Made Sure at Least One Character Got a Genuinely Happy Ending
Madeline Brewer's Janine sure went through a hell of a lot of hell over six seasons on Hulu's dystopian drama. In the first episode of the first season of The Handmaid's Tale, viewers met Janine, played by Madeline Brewer. Like June, the main character played by Elisabeth Moss, she's been abducted by Gilead and is now in the Red Center, where new handmaids are forced to learn their horrifying new duties. When Janine talks back, she's hauled off for a biblical punishment: the loss of her eye. That set the tone for Janine's harrowing journey throughout the series—but she never lost her spirit, and in the end, the show rewarded her with an ecstatically happy last moment. Her missing eye—often, but not always, concealed with her trademark patch—was more or less the only constant for Janine over six seasons. After being the first handmaid in June's group to give birth, she entertained fantasies of keeping her baby girl. Of course, that is not the way of Gilead, and Charlotte (Janine's name for her daughter; her captors, Commander Putnam and his wife Naomi, called her Angela) was ripped from her arms, almost literally. After that, she held different roles with varying levels of freedom—at one point she ended up in exile, shoveling toxic waste in the dreaded Colonies; at another, she survived a bombing after briefly escaping Gilead for Chicago. In the last seasons of The Handmaid's Tale, we saw her assisting Aunt Lydia in the Red Center, building on a complicated relationship rooted in power, guilt, shared trauma, and the occasional attempt at kindness. In season six, former handmaid Janine is forced into a different kind of sexual slavery, toiling at Jezebel's, the brothel created for the pleasure of Gilead's two-faced commanders. There, she encounters Angela's new adoptive father: the grumpy but not-evil Commander Lawrence, who reluctantly married Naomi for reasons that are frankly too long to get into here. (It's The Handmaid's Tale—expect the worst!) He's aware of Janine's situation and brings one of the little girl's drawings to her, an act of kindness that renews Janine's hopes that one day she'll get to see her again. That situation feels ever-bleaker when Jezebel's is destroyed and Janine is snatched up by a commander who's taken a cruel interest in her. Eventually, though, her prolonged suffering finally ends when June kills the guy (stabs him in the eye, in fact), and after another brief yet awful stint in captivity, she's freed from Gilead forever. Best of all, though, as June and company are rushing to get her to safety, we see Aunt Lydia and Naomi appear. Incredibly, they're bringing Angela/Charlotte to be with her mom, to live a life away from Gilead's cruelty. Though The Handmaid's Tale series finale ended with a lot of characters still at the mid-points on their journeys, that's not the case for Janine. This is a real and true happy ending for her, at long last. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Brewer was understandably thrilled that her character finally got her greatest wish. 'I thought it was so beautiful. I'm so satisfied with the ending for Janine,' she said. 'It could have gone a lot of different ways and it's all she's ever wanted.' She continued. 'I don't think I really, truly hoped for anything because I couldn't even imagine. That's also not my job (laughs) [to write the show], but it's the same reason why I never made too many decisions about Janine's life before … So I didn't want to make too many decisions. I wanted it in ways to surprise me. And it did … I'm just so proud of Janine for always being herself and not letting them take the fire away from her. And for being a good friend and a good mom and a good person.' The show was often very bleak, but praise be—at least Janine finally triumphed in the end. All seasons of The Handmaid's Tale are now available on Hulu.
Elle
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
Madeline Brewer Is ‘Very Happy' With Janine's Ending in 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Major spoilers below. If there was any character that The Handmaid's Tale fans were praying would get a happy ending in the series finale, it was Janine, the feisty, and at times delusional, handmaid played by Madeline Brewer. Like all those forced to don red in Gilead, Janine has been through hell and back, but season 6 was particularly brutal: Throughout the show's last 10 episodes, viewers find out that Janine has been forced into a life of sex work at Jezebel's. When Commander Wharton (Josh Charles) then shuts down the brothel, Janine watches as her friends get violently murdered, and she gets reassigned to be a handmaid for the abusive and obsessive Commander Bell (Timothy Simons). Even after Mayday retakes the city of Boston, and Bell is murdered, Janine is still trapped in Gilead—until one night when she's delivered across the border and into June's (Elisabeth Moss) arms. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Naomi Lawrence née Putnam (Ever Carradine) appear soon after, finally ready to give Janine her daughter, Charlotte, back. 'I know [fans] are [getting] what they've been asking for, and insisting upon, for seasons and seasons now,' Brewer tells ELLE of the emotional reunion. 'Every time I post anything about Handmaid's, [the comments are] like, 'I just need her to get into Canada with Charlotte.'' Below, the actress gives her full thoughts on Janine's resolution, filming the episode's dream karaoke sequence (featuring a few deceased characters), and the parallels between Handmaid's Tale and Brewer's other talked-about series, You. I was just saying earlier today that I was like, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. And now that the final episode is [airing], I'm like, No, I'm not ready for it to be over. It is just always a little bit anxiety-inducing to meet the end of a very major chapter of your life. I've been really proud since season been allowed to evolve. They didn't try to keep her as the crazy, screw-loose [handmaid], a little bit of almost comic relief at times. They allowed her to become more fully grounded between season 4 and season 6. So, season 6 has been especially gratifying to me as an actor. Janine is grounded. She has a purpose, but she's willing at the drop of a hat to help her friends. No, I don't have any say in anything. But one of our writers told me in season 4, 'We're not killing you. It's just not going to happen. I think that's something we've pretty firmly decided will not happen.' So, I was like, I wonder how this will end then. I found out reading the script. Lizzie [Moss] had said something to me during season 6, something like, 'I think you'll be very happy with where you end up.' And I am. I'm very happy with where Janine lands and with whom she lands. It's just such a beautiful moment of these four women—Naomi, Lydia, Janine, and June—and the sacrifices that they've all made. I've called it a quiet ending, because it's so peaceful for me. It's not chaotic and bombs going off and a plane blowing up. It's such a beautifully peaceful, quiet, earned ending for a character who has been through so much. And she's the one that you'd think is going to go out with a real bang and a real fight. I'm so glad that she just gets to quietly go into the next phase of her life. I never really allowed myself to do that, because I think part of me, despite what they told me, thought Janine would die in Gilead, maybe in the fight or something...I'm glad that I just let it be. And I trust our writers. I think with all of the chaos of what happens in the days prior, and some of the things Serena has been saying to Naomi, it really cuts to the core that Naomi is a mother. She's been a mother to this girl. Especially seeing [Commander] Lawrence with Charlotte, I think it just changes something for her. Because when we think about the timeline, Naomi would've been raised to read books and to form her own opinions. And regardless of what she believes in this patriarchal structure, I think she wants her daughter to know how to read. I think she wants her to know how to form her own opinions and experience the most out of life, and she knows it's not going to happen in Gilead. It's a really beautiful sacrifice that Naomi makes where she, for the first time it seems, casts aside her own ego and her own hatred of these handmaids, and puts the life and happiness of her daughter [first]. Oh, it was beautiful. Nina [Kiri, who plays Alma, who died in season 4] and Bahia [Watson, who plays Brianna, who also died in season 4] are two of my closest friends, so to have them back, to see Alexis [Bledel, who plays Emily] after so many was a beautiful moment. It was bittersweet, which is how I think we've all described the ending. But that is a callback to season 1 where I'm on the bridge, and June is trying to get Janine to come down, and she's like, 'We could drink margaritas and do karaoke.' It's such a beautiful callback to their friendship and the way these women have saved each other, repeatedly, and in a different world, in a different time, they could have been was really nice to just think about what could have been. It was also a beautiful goodbye for all of us. I think that's really what they wanted. To say: Our final image of these women together is not going to be in strife. Let's remember them as what they could have been together. There's too much history and too much guilt, and resentment, and love, and fear that they could only just part ways. Janine recognizes what Lydia did for her. And I think Lydia cannot move forward without doing this. But I don't think that absolves anyone of their participation, speaking only for Janine and Lydia. I think that guilt will haunt Lydia for a very long time. What she learns in episodes 9 and 10 of this series sets up The Testaments. But I don't think their relationship could ever meet peace. There's just too much history. Let's say they both ended up in Canada and were living normal lives. I don't think they'd go out for coffee. It's like, this is over now, because this is all we can be to each other, is this relationship. This can't take on another life in another place and time. She just texted me this morning! I've worked with so many brilliant actors on The Handmaid's Tale that it would be impossible not to take with me some of the technical things I've learned as an actor. But what I'll take with me, from Ann specifically, is that is the warmest and most generous human being you will ever meet in your life. As archaic as it is, and icky as it is sometimes, it's a caste system on a set. It's hierarchical, and you don't really step out of your rank, which is insane. Ann has a way of being at the top of the totem pole and making every single person feel like her closest friend. She has a way of touching every person and making them feel heard, and wanted, and valued in just a quick interaction. She makes sure to thank everyone, all of our crew, all of our background [actors], our crafty, everybody. I've seen the warmth that she brings to people. And I will take that with me because it changes your life. She's magic. Lizzie doesn't blink. She blinks, of course, but she has a way of maintaining eye contact and connection where I think most people might shy away. I have trouble with eye contact—I'm looking anywhere but in someone's eyes. And watching her, that connection is so powerful and engaging. That was when all of the Jezebels get shot. It was like my body was ignited. It was so hard, but necessary. She's lost so much, Janine. That was one of the only things she was really living for. She was living for Charlotte, but her purpose was with these women, her friends, her sisters, and she can't save them. There's nothing she can do. It's just so utterly devastating. Janine has just made me a better person. She's smarter, and funnier, and more compassionate, and stronger. She's so many things I'm not and that I aspire to be. She is smart! That's the thing about Janine that I've always loved and admired is that she knows how to survive. When we meet her in seasons 1 and 2, and she's checked out, it's because that's how she's going to get through. Because, otherwise, what? Is she supposed to meet despair and torture every day? And in the meantime, that sisterhood—with Alma, Brianna, and June—uplifts her and holds her, as she does them. It really drives home for me the truth that we are nothing without our sisterhoods, whatever they may look like. Our sisterhoods, our brotherhoods, our everythings. Our communities are how we get through. Not between the characters, but definitely thematically. I guess that's part of the zeitgeist right now. That's a reflection of a bit of our world. Handmaid's Tale, You, Adolescence—these are conversations that are being had on large and small screens because they are part of our lives. Patriarchy hurts everyone. And in our own way, in Handmaid's Tale and You, we're trying to help people understand that fact and that it's not an admonishment of maleness, it's not an indictment of masculinity, but it is worthy of conversation. Especially with You coming out, I naively assumed most of the fans were young women and girls like me. And it's a lot of men, really boys, like 18- to 23-year-olds. They idolize this man [Joe]. They want to model themselves after him because, to them, he is the perfect picture of masculinity. He's strong, powerful, clever, charming, good looking, he's rich at the end, and he gets the girl nine times out of 10. I can see on the surface why they admire him, but they're doing mental acrobatics, or it's not bothering them, the cognitive dissonance of the man they admire is also a murderer. I think for some of them, unfortunately, the murder makes him even better—the fact that he's willing to go the distance to punish a woman for what she has done to him. The conversations around the two shows... I want to be in a Netflix Christmas movie. [Laughs] I'm so tired. No, I do love it. And this is the greater picture around getting to be an actor. I get to be on shows where the conversations are important and interesting. And I feel sorry that the boys who are mad at me for playing Bronte [in You], I'm sorry that they don't have better role models. I was at a meeting at Netflix, and they were like, 'What do you want to do?' And I was like, 'I would love to do a Christmas movie.' And they were like, 'Really? That's not really your thing.' And I'm like, 'It could be.' I love a musical. I'm a musical theater girl. It would take several years, but I would want to be Mama Rose in Gypsy. Then, of course, after seeing Sunset Blvd., I simply must play Norma Desmond, who I'm obsessed with from the film. But there are so many great shows out there and great roles for women in musical theater and more being written. I think theater is having a really great time right now, and I'm excited to join. I have a few irons in the fire and things I'm cooking up. I want to go back to theater. I live in New York, so that's where my heart is. I'm getting married in less than two months. So I'm like, Nothing can hurt me right now. I get to get married to the love of my life. I feel a lot of possibility. I feel like the world is my oyster. I just finished two extraordinary shows. I'm very proud of them. And I can't wait to see what's next in store for me. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Janine di Giovanni: It's important to get Putin, but it's really important to get the people that did the torturing, the killing, the murdering
Janine di Giovanni has spent over three decades chronicling wars. One of the world's most renowned war correspondents, she has reported from nearly every major conflict of our time: Bosnia, Syria, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. Her reporting has appeared in The Times, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Guardian, and she has received numerous awards for her courageous journalism, including the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation. But Janine's work goes far beyond journalism. As the founder of The Reckoning Project, she now works to transform stories of war into legal evidence – building cases for international justice. In Ukraine, her focus has shifted to crimes that don't always leave craters: forced russification of children, indoctrination in occupied territories, and the quieter violence of memory erasure. In this interview, Janine speaks candidly about justice, trauma, Putin's impunity, and what it means to resist – not just with weapons, but with testimony. We recorded this conversation in Lviv during the Lviv Media Forum 2025. Your work is about documenting war crimes. When did you understand that it's more than just documenting? I felt like it wasn't enough that we were just documenting Bucha or child deportation. It's one thing to use it as journalism, but it's another thing to use those stories to try to put the people that do those crimes in jail where they belong. So how do you do that? You documented the testimonies, and then you work directly with the prosecutors so that you can help build cases against Putin. And not just Putin. It's important to get him, but it's really important to get the people that did the torturing, the killing, the murdering, who operate the drones, who are driving the buses taking the children away, who bomb the hospitals in Mariupol, who torture Ukrainian soldiers that are prisoners of war. All these people are breaking international law. There is something called the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions, which should be maintained and followed. If you don't follow them, you are breaking the law, and you deserve to be punished. So this is how accountability works, and what worries me now is that we live in a world where there is so much impunity. People get away with it. Putin gets away with it. Netanyahu gets away with it. Netanyahu is starving two million people to death. He's not let food aid go into Gaza for 10 weeks [as of 16 May – ed.]. He's not punishing Hamas – he's punishing babies who are dying. He should be punished for this. You cannot operate as a leader committing war crimes and, in his case, genocide. Putin cannot continue to wage a war and commit hideous crimes against civilians, bombing Ukrainian hospitals, schools, train stations where civilians are gathering, trying to evacuate. So, it's really important to me that these crimes are investigated, documented, and then given to prosecutors so they could be tried in courts of law. You mentioned cases when Russians bombed the Mariupol drama theatre and Kramatorsk railway station. However, how do you document the crimes that don't leave behind explosions and bodies; in terms of informational warfare, how do you document, for example, forced russification of Ukrainians? It's interesting you ask that because we are working now on indoctrination. Indoctrination is not a crime. It's not codified, it falls between international criminal law and international humanitarian law, but indoctrinating kids – not just kids, adults as well – in the occupied territories, taking away their concept of being Ukrainian. The first thing they do when they take the Ukrainian kids and deport them is they take away their names and they give them Russian names. They take away their language. They can't speak Ukrainian, they have to speak Russian. They take away their identity. They're no longer Ukrainian, they are Russian. And then indoctrinating them into the Soviet, not Soviet but Russian mindset, whether it's by patriotic music or songs or poems or Russian authors rather than Ukrainian authors, all this is indoctrinating people, and it's what Pol Pot did in Cambodia. It is a crime. Right now, we're working on trying to investigate where does it fall in the law. Deportation is a crime, but indoctrination is kind of a gray area. So it's really interesting you ask about that because to me that is something really disturbing and really worrying. So what should we do as Ukrainians and organisations like The Reconing Project, to hold these people accountable? We're working on it. It's really important for us. We've just published a report. Because it is interesting that no one is looking into this. Okay, you can drop bombs and you can go to Bucha and assassinate people point-blank. We know these are war crimes. But to take a population in Ukraine's east and basically begin to work on their minds... Because children before the age of 9-10 are incredibly vulnerable. I worked a lot on child soldiers in Africa. I spent years working and studying child soldiers. You know what I was told that they make the best killers because before the age of I think eight, you don't determine a sense of right and wrong. So you could pick up a gun and you could kill an entire village, and an adult would say, "I have committed a terrible crime." A child wouldn't. So this is what the Russians do, in a sense. They're counting on the fact that we could take small children and we could begin to russify them. And if you start with children, what is that? That's the future of Ukraine. Because I'm going to get old, you're going to get old, but those kids are growing up now. So, in 20 years' time, they will be the next leaders. It's a very chilling strategic plan – indoctrination and russification. The Russians are really skilled at it. They've spent decades to perfect it. They know how to do it. So, we have to get it codified within the law, and we have to have it recognised. We have to keep writing about it. We have to keep going, we have to keep working with lawyers to use these as cases. We have many of these cases in our archives of children who have been indoctrinated. Not just children, by the way, but adults as well. How do you choose the priority of what to document? Well, right now, for us, it's indoctrination in children. How do we choose it? I try to work with my team on things that others don't – there's a lot of civil society in Ukraine that is really good at gathering evidence. So, we try not to overlap with them. You know, we try to find an area where we could really work and focus with our team and do good work. Because I just don't want to work. I want to have an impact. You know, I want to go to the Hague. I want to see the crimes against Putin laid out methodically so that we can help the ICC, so that we can help the prosecutor general in Kyiv. We're really lucky because the Ukrainian government is the first government I've ever worked with that we work with. We work with the Office of the Prosecutor General. In other countries where I worked, the government is always your enemy. You don't work with governments. Journalists, our job is to kind of criticise government. But, we work with the prosecutor general and he has been so helpful to us. The former one, now there's an interim. But the Office of the Prosecutor General has asked us to do certain things, asked us to look into things, and they've been incredibly supportive. Justice isn't quick. It's slow. As long as you know that there is something happening, that we are documenting cases, then, it is there. It's a record. No one can say this didn't happen. Well, yeah, it did. Because we have this testimony, we verified it, and this is happening right now. It's really important that we get that down on paper, on tape, on video so that no one can ever say in 10 years, 20 years that it didn't happen. Because you know what? That's how Russia works. It's how Russia works. I was in a genocide in Bosnia, Srebrenica. The Putin machine is now working in Bosnia as well. There are people who just say it didn't happen. There was no genocide. There were no people killed. It's like, what are you saying? It did happen. Srebrenica did happen. There were 8,000 men and boys who were killed, who were taken to a forest. People tend to rewrite history. At The Reckoning Project, if we can have solid evidence, evidence does not lie. Evidence is not fake news. Evidence is not disinformation or propaganda. It is just evidence. Read also: "I'm talking to you from your future": a conversation with Aida Čerkez, 30 years on from the siege of Sarajevo You mentioned other civil organisations. As far as I see, with cutting the help of USAID, there are less organisations who document war crimes in Ukraine. Did you feel this impact on your organisation or your work? Look, when Trump got elected, all of us knew the world is going to change because he's not a friend of human rights. He hates the press, he hates journalists. That's why he creates his own TruthSocial and Fox News – these aren't journalists, they're propagandists. He hates real journalists. He hates the rule of law because he breaks the law. He is above the law. He even controls the Supreme Court. The third thing, human rights, he's tried to destroy it by closing down civil society. Personally, at The Reckoning Project, we decided that we were going to just put our heads down and keep working, no matter what. So, we're just putting our heads down. I always say it's one step, one foot in front of the other. You just keep going. That's what we're trying to do. How Trump's politics influence your work right now, and how can it influence the Ukrainian case in the Hague in the future? In the long run, I don't think he will. I mean, I think he tries to scare people, and that's why USAID was pulled. He's mainly focused right now on America, on deporting millions of people. People, many of whom have the right to be there. You know, they were born there but if they don't have the right papers… I think he's operating with fear. I went to America a month ago and before I got on the plane people called me and said, "Leave your computer at home, don't take your phone, erase your phone." I have nothing to hide. The only thing that I worry about is our archive of testimonies and that he can't access on my phone. I think they want us to be afraid, and they want us to be disheartened. But look, after that White House terrible incident with President Zelenskyy [the meeting in the Oval Office – ed.], what did it do? It made Ukrainians stronger, right? More united. More united because his [Zelenskyy's – ed.] popularity before was not good, and now he's more popular than he was before. People saw it. Even people who looked at that and thought, "How can you humiliate an exhausted wartime president because he's not wearing a suit?" It was a terrible thing to watch, but it actually brought Ukraine back to the center of news. Also, it made people who might not have been supportive of Zelenskyy before supportive of him. How do you envision transforming collected testimonies into real justice? The way that our researchers work is different from being a journalist asking questions. So, there are very specific questions that a prosecutor will look for. If we're working on the case of the deported children, where we want to talk to people around the children – their parents, their caretakers, the people in the orphanage, wherever they were last seen. When we get them, the testimonies are, you know, like a questionnaire. Very specific, very detailed. We then verify it. It's verified using open-source intelligence, but also satellite imagery, different things, like the Kramatorsk train station, right? To make sure that everything is solid. Then, either the ICC or the Office of the Prosecutor General will want very specific things, like, "I want you to look if the name of this person, a Russian officer, comes up in any of your testimonies in Kherson region or in Sumy or in Donbas." Then, we give those specific files to the prosecutors to help them build their case. Now, the case against Putin at the ICC is specifically about the children. So, when will that happen, and will Putin actually go to jail? When people say to me, "Putin will never go to jail," I say, "Look at what happened to two dictators, Duterte of the Philippines and Slobodan Milošević of the former Yugoslavia." Both of them killed many, many, many, many people. Both of them exercised tyranny over a civilian population. Both of them never thought they would get anywhere near the Hague. Where did Slobodan Milošević die? In a jail cell at the Hague because his government fell, and the new government handed him over to the Hague. Duterte – same thing. He's now in prison in the Hague. So people say Putin will never go, but we don't know that. We don't know when a new government may come in. There may be a coup d'etat, there may be a junta, there could be anything. He could be handed over as political leverage. So, that's one scenario. The other is that sometimes it's not as important to get the big leaders on the chain of command as it is to get the people that committed the crimes. If you go to Bucha and you talk to the witnesses who saw their husbands or their sons being killed. The people that did it – it wasn't Putin, it was a low-level soldier from Chechnya or Buryatia or wherever they were from. Those are the people that pulled the trigger or tortured or raped or killed. They deserve to be in prison because there is justice. Sometimes getting those people is to me more important. Because, going back to Bosnia, there are so many people walking around Bosnia today that committed horrible crimes. They murdered, they raped, they burnt houses, they did terrible things, and they are still walking around. And the people they raped or survivors of families that they killed see them in the villages. That's when justice is so important. Really, really important. I've interviewed so many Bosnian women who were raped. There was a horrific systematic rape campaign to rape Bosnian women and make them pregnant with Serb babies. When the war ended, those men that raped them didn't go to the Hague. They're still there. Those women have to see them every day. So for me, getting those men is important. It's important for the society to heal. Sometimes it's not Putin that's essential. It's the people that entered the villages. It's the people that are doing the indoctrination. The teachers that are teaching children and forcing them to learn Russian language, Russian history, their version of a Russian world. Do you believe that justice can be fully served in Ukraine, and the international tribunals are ready to do this? I think the international tribunals are ready to do this, absolutely. The biggest office of the ICC in the world is in Ukraine, in Kyiv. So, I think that's already a sign. I think the willingness of the prosecutor general in Ukraine to work directly with the ICC and ICJ, with other mechanisms like universal jurisdiction shows that there's a real pathway. Does justice work? I have to believe that. Otherwise, I couldn't do the work I do. And I do think that the arm of justice eventually reaches. We have to believe that the work we're doing is going to have an impact. Otherwise, we couldn't wake up in the morning and do it. How do you envision justice for Ukraine? I'm hopeful. I really am. First of all, there are a lot of people focused on it. Second is that the Ukrainian people themselves are going to demand it. Knowing the character of the Ukrainian people, which is very strong. You know, you're not victims. You're not people that sit back and say, "Look at what happened to us." You are like, "We're going to fight back." I don't think the Ukrainian people would allow justice not to be delivered. Also, remember that the domestic courts are working right now. So, there will be international justice. The crime of aggression – whether that tribunal happens, I believe it will, is really important. The ICC, whether that's set up as a tribunal, a hybrid court, maybe something that happens here, that's really important and that's already going on. Every conference I go to, whether it's Davos or Munich, the priority is Ukraine. And the Europeans are backing Ukraine because they're afraid. They're afraid that if Ukraine goes, what's next? Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania? And what comes after that? If Putin wasn't stopped in Ukraine, would he be in Warsaw tomorrow? Would he get to Paris? I don't think he'd get to Paris, but he might get to Latvia. He might take Estonia. It is a matter of security as well as solidarity with Ukraine. You worked on many wars and you have seen a lot. What is the story that impressed you the most in Ukraine, maybe which person whom you talk to? I think Bucha. Talking to some of the mothers who had lost their… There was one mother, her son had been taken from the street and then tortured and killed, and her pain at a child of her suffering that much. But also equally some of the Ukrainian soldiers I spoke to who were just like had lost their arms or their legs and they still believe so much in what they're fighting for. They also know, "I'm not just fighting for Ukraine, I'm fighting for something bigger." It's about democracy. It's about fighting for what you believe is right. Overall, the entire country impresses me because I've never seen people who operate without a sense of victim. Instead, it's a real sense of "we are driven, you're not going to break us, we are Ukrainian." It's emotional, and it's very powerful to see that. It's an amazing country. What is the most important when you talk to those people who lost the loved ones or maybe were tortured themselves? It's really hard. If you're taking testimony, it's very different from being a journalist. The testimonies have to stand up in court. One time I remember being in Kharkiv and I was with a colleague of mine, we were interviewing this old man who was from… Do you know that part of eastern Kharkiv that's completely destroyed? Saltivka, yeah. He was living in an apartment, it was completely bombed out. He was there alone. He was so traumatised that we couldn't use his testimony because you can't use traumatised people's testimonies in court. People who are traumatised, their sense of memory is distorted. But we realised we couldn't use his testimony, but he wanted to talk and we just listened to him. The greatest skill that a journalist or a social worker or anyone could have is empathy , is to put yourself into their shoes. What would I feel like if I were an old person, having to be evacuated from the home I've lived in my entire life, leaving behind my animals and my roots, my home? I don't want to be a refugee going to Poland. I don't want to be a refugee going to Kyiv. I want to stay in my home. So, I try to put myself in their shoes. That's very hard because it's very painful. Journalists are meant to be objective. Personally, I've never been objective. I will always be on the side of people who are suffering. How do you protect yourself and your team from the burnout in this case because it's very traumatic? Yeah. I think you protect yourself by having faith in what you do. Your work is going to save you. Your work, believing in what you are doing, is important – the most important thing to have during wartime. I know with my team, my Ukrainian team, that they feel they're doing something. Otherwise, they would feel so helpless because the terrible thing that a war does is it strips you of power. You don't have the power to end the war. You don't have the power to protect people. But you do have the power to write about it. You do have the power to tell a story. You do have a power in a way to control the narrative, to make sure it's a truthful narrative. You have to keep believing that. It's really hard to do that when a war's been going on for three years and you're really tired. You want it to end, and you want a normal life. You can't leave the country easily. Many people I know say they're not having children right now because they don't want to start a family. They don't want to bring a child into the world right now. War is helplessness and I think the only way to overcome that helplessness is to have some sense of power by controlling your own destiny. You could write about it. You could keep a diary. You could take photographs. You can keep the part of you alive, which is hope. The war will end. I don't know if it's going to end with Trump or his conditions, but it will end. It absolutely will end. When it does, life will begin again, and then you will have to put your life back together. But you will never forget what happened to you, and you might not be able to forgive. That will be a part of you forever. But, in some way, it makes you stronger to appreciate when the day comes and the war's over and you could take a plane from Kyiv to Warsaw or to Greece or to Italy or to America. You're going to really appreciate that airplane in a way that you never have before. I didn't take a shower in Bosnia for months and months on end, and I could tell you when I got somewhere where there was hot water, I never have taken for granted electricity or hot water ever again. Because I lived for years without electricity. I'm not the same person I was before I went to Bosnia and I'm really glad. I feel privileged to have lived through that. In one of your interviews, you mentioned that memory it's a form of resistance. How can we as Ukrainians preserve the memory of this war? You write about it, you take photographs, you draw, you create art, you create theater pieces, you use art or words in a way so that it never is forgotten because it's exactly what I said. In 30 years' time, whoever's in charge of Russia at that time will try to rewrite this whole story – "they didn't invade Ukraine, the Ukrainians invaded Moscow. There was no Bucha. There was no Irpin. There was no Mariupol." It's all lies, but you can say, "No, there was because here is my family's diary." That's why I always tell people to write. It's like the most important resistance you have is that you keep a diary. Not just your journalistic work, but keep a diary because your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren are going to read that and say, "Wow, my grandmother had an app on her phone called Air Alert. And when there was a drone, it went off, and they had to go to a parking garage and sleep there!" or "Wow, 19,000 children were taken from Ukraine and put on buses and taken to Russia, and their names were stolen from them!" The Russians say that didn't happen, but it did happen because here's a list of the names. So, yeah, memory is our greatest resistance. Memory and documentation. Because then no one could ever say you made it up. It's evidence, and evidence doesn't lie.
