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Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny is a contributing editor to the New Statesman. She is the author of five books, most recently Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies, and Revolutions.

Articles by this author

	Views Tuesday, October 04, 2011 It's Easy to Mock, but This Is How Real Change Begins "This isn't just about America," reads one hand-painted sign among the carpet of placards at the Occupy Wall Street protest. "It's about the whole world." The sit-ins and occupations currently springing up across the United States in response to an initial call-out by Adbusters magazine claim to be part of a "global revolution". And the first part at least is hard to argue with. Read more
	Views Tuesday, August 09, 2011 Panic on the Streets of London I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. Read more
	News Sunday, June 05, 2011 Profit, Not Care: The Ugly Side of Overseas Adoptions In rural Nepal, where the going rate for a healthy orphan is $5,000 (£3,000), some 600 children are missing. They were taken by agents who came to the villages promising that they would educate the children and give them a better life in the capital, sometimes for a steep fee. The children never returned. Read more
	Views Wednesday, November 24, 2010 This Isn't Just a Student Protest. It's a Children's Crusade Outside Downing Street, in front of a line of riot police, I am sitting beside a makeshift campfire. It's cold, and the schoolchildren who have skipped classes gather around as a student with a three-string guitar strikes up the chords to Tracy Chapman's Talkin Bout a Revolution. The kids start to sing, sweet and off-key, an apocalyptic choir knotted around a small bright circle of warmth and energy. "Finally the tables are starting to turn," they sing, the sound of their voices drowning out the drone of helicopters and the screams from the edge of the kettle. Read more

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