Nerve 5 Editorial - Boiling the Lobster

What strange times we are living in. It is said that if a lobster is put in cool water and slowly brought to boil it won't feel anything until it's too late. This is Britain today. A police state is slowly creeping our way, with the new ID card scheme, control orders and detention without trial stripping back our freedoms. In Liverpool, affordable housing is being run down or demolished whilst swanky apartments are being built. The council is cutting money for voluntary services and community centres but there's always enough in the pot for another executive pay-rise or pension fund. Greedy developers are eating up public space, and even some of our roads will no longer belong to us. We have the most sophisticated surveillance systems in Europe run by unaccountable private security firms. We can be watched and followed by cameras every step of the way from the cathedrals to the docks. But you are still six times more likely to die from work-related illness than be murdered, and a report released in March 2005 states that between 65% and 70% of children are living in poverty in some areas of Liverpool.

We have a lot to say, and there are thousands of us out there. We are the ordinary, extra-ordinary people of Liverpool. One look through this edition of Nerve magazine shows you that. There are courageous tenants refusing to give in to the profit-hungry developers. There are campaigns against the cuts to vital services. There are artists with exciting and challenging art that kicks against the emptiness of the culture imposed from above. And the fight-back isn't just on Merseyside; we have reports from Palestine and Brazil, where people have been dispossessed on a much larger scale, but are organising to reclaim what has been taken from them.

Nerve magazine is the only local voice for those who have been silenced by the mainstream media. Liverpool artists have less funding and a smaller voice since the Capital of Culture award, which favours corporate blandness. But we rely on contributions from our readers to help us produce articles that truly reflect local concerns, and create pressure for change and justice.

This is your city. This is your magazine. We're in it together.

Email us: catalystmedia@mersinet.co.uk