UK Newswire Archive
Cameron guillotined by anti-capitalists
07-05-2013 12:17
David Cameron visited Worthing in West Sussex on Saturday May 4 to promote the G8 summit, but was captured and guillotined by local anti-capitalists.UG#634 - The Coming Apocalypse etc. (Catastrophism, Zombies, The "Fiscal Cliff")
07-05-2013 03:13
German Actor Til Schweiger shuts down 21 Websites
06-05-2013 13:24
Via his lawyers "Kanzlei Eisenberg Berlin" German Actor Til Schweiger has gained a court injunction against ucrony.net to surpress a blog article dealing with a paintball attack on his house in Berlin.MI6 caugth in Finland?
06-05-2013 13:15
At Oulu Down-Town walk-street has been found a black Jaguar, with a featured person at driver's seat familiar to James Bond. Inside the car one finds a sign with text "Lisence to Park", "007", "On Her Majesty's Secrect Service".Person travelling from Anonymous London demo detained in Glasgow
06-05-2013 12:55
Late yesterday evening an attendee of the London Anonymous Anti-Austerity demo was taken into custody upon their return journey via Glasgow airport.
U.S. Plowshares on trial THIS WEEK 4disarmament@ Y-12 National Security Complex
06-05-2013 10:42
U.S. Plowshares go to trial this week for disarmament action at Y-12 National Security Complex, the “Fort Knox of Uranium".Greg Boertje and Michael Walli are old friends from my time in the United States. I lived & worked with Greg at Jonah House Baltimore and Michael at Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington D.C.
Leeds residents in Bedroom tax Trap:
06-05-2013 09:30
Leeds residents in Bedroom tax Trap:Residents of Leeds City Council ALMO managed properties (Council houses)
Are claiming they have been trapped in to an automatic eviction system by the council and have no choice but to face eviction.
Ground the Drones Week of Action 2013
05-05-2013 21:51
Closing Guantanamo—Why it’s Symbolically, Spiritually and Materially Important.
05-05-2013 20:41
President Barack Obama has made a clear and convincing case for closing Guantanamo! Mostly the same reasons finally articulate were just as true when he initially took office. Closing the stigma of war, crime and national shame has always been a high agenda item for many Americans. It is now the watermark battle ground that could begin to show who or what really runs this country. But think of the mindless excuses from war hawks (including complicity by the mainstream media) to try to stop any transparency about Guantanamo prisoners. But there is simply no way President Obama can close this base on his own without major and active U.S. citizen and world support. How can Congress possibly stand in the way of the reasons President Obama announced for closing the Bush Legacy? Where is the Free Speech movement, where are the campus protests at Madison and Kent State Ohio?UK ready? Fracking Sacrifice Zones in U.S. West
05-05-2013 18:52
Fracking: Sacrifice Zones of the American West. What can the UK expect? Four voices from the Bakken shale lands. Polluting oil & gas extraction impacts in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana & North Dakota. The dark side of the fracking boom.Nottingham Mayday - not a safe space
05-05-2013 12:55
Yesterday's Mayday Rally at the Brian Clough statue organised by the Nottingham and Mansfield Trades Union Council recounted the gains of the Labour movement over the past year and spoke of current struggles against the Bedroom tax in particular. The rostrum almost shone with the hard work of the labour left in defeating the tory monster in the County.
However as soon as the march arrived it was clear a petition to the Trades Council from feminists about the speakers list had been completely ignored.
A disgraceful display of unity
A larger than usual Socialist Workers Party contingent had obviously turned out to defend overt support in the region - by self-identified SWP members - for their Central Committee's disgraceful dismissal of rape 'allegations' in the party. The Party's dealing with this in recent months has already resulted in many members leaving, and protests at conferences from those who did not leave.
But from the display yesterday it appears that denial was very much on the cards with at least one SWPer even suggesting the whole thing had been made up by the tabloids and that they did not believe rapes had even happened. Some much for past decades of feminist advancments where dismissing a women's experience became unacceptable. Moreover at the start of the speeches 'SWP women' were called to the front by one of the other Central Committee open letter signatories, who perhaps seemed fearful of a 'no platform' attempt. This did not arise, only boos and walkings-off when 'Richard B' came forward to speak. This behaviour smacks more of a cult who cannot believe their leader to be infalliable.
As for the Nottingham and Mansfield Trades Union Council, they appear to believe in unity at all costs. This is precisely the problem of a (still) male-dominated trade union movement that cannot allow a sliver of dissent and will happily side-line concerns from the wider activist community about a very serious gender issue - which means that a place we may wish to act can no longer be considered a 'safe space'.
So it was the usual self-congratulatory show that mostly repeated last year's fiasco where a Notts Labour MP who was mired in the expenses scandal was invited by Notts TUC inspite of protests by anarchists and other autonomous groups and individuals, who count among them long-standing union members. This year, the extent of denial about what has happened in the SWP, and those involved in the region with supporting their Central Committee's dismissal of rape 'allegations' within the Party, is serious, and demands a proper response.
Blast from the Past: “Give Up Activism”
05-05-2013 12:04
An article from Do or Die Issue 9. In the paper edition, this article appears on page(s) 160-166.
Culling the Middle-classes
05-05-2013 11:53
This article looks at the continuing destruction of blue and white-collar working and middle-class occupations and considers the implications of this in the developing crisis of the capitalist mode of production. It also considers the current 'poverty of politics' and the other side of this coin - the 'politics of poverty'. The latter being used to blame the victims of this corrupt and exploitative system.Anarchism, Marxism,
05-05-2013 10:55
Protection Not Profit! Cov Sol-Fed calls for pressures to be put on Primark.
05-05-2013 10:35
Details of yesterday's protest in Coventry.Take action to stop Framework using workfare
05-05-2013 08:55
Framework the Nottingham based charity that exists to tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness has got itself involved in the workfare programme. Workfare is the name given to various government programmes that force benefit claimants to work full-time jobs just to get their dole money.
On Sunday 5th May we'll be raising the issue on their Facebook page and Twitter feed. We ask that you join us.
1) Ask Framework to end their involvement in the workfare programme.
2) Explain to them that the Workfare programme is exploiting the very people that they proclaim to be supporting.
3) Share this information with as many people as you can.
4) Get in contact with us and join forces in stopping Framework's
exploitation.
Framework's involvement in workfare
This is the text of a leaflet delivered to Framework bosses by anti-workfare campaigners:
Dear Andrew Redfern,
We are writing in order to express our sadness that your organisation is participating in the Work Programme. As we're sure you know, the Work Programme is both this government's and its predecessor's attempt to penalise poor and working class people for the failures of the current economic system.
We know that Framework has a Training and Employment side called EVE Works, which delivers the work programme as a subcontractor to A4e in Nottingham as well as the county. Secondly, Framework set up a wholly owned CIC (community interest company) called EVE Trades to deliver/manage its social enterprise activities. This is the side where mandatory work activity is used in the businesses, referring to participants as "volunteers", despite the fact that they are obliged to participate or risk losing their benefits. The manager of both parts is Claire Eden and she is based at 36 Bentinck Road. We know that the Paint It project organised apprenticeships for six of your service users, enabling them to gain valuable experience and qualifications, whilst helping financially sustain Framework. We know that you have now ended these apprenticeships and use the government's workfare programme in order to provide yourselves with free labour. There can be up to 10 people at a time forced to undertake this for a 4 week period. This we feel is a grievous error, but one you could remedy quickly and without drawing attention to your participation in workfare, simply by choosing not to participate in the Work Programme.
As we are aware of the considerable work you do which benefits those struggling to survive in this system, and also of your reliance on the public perception of Framework as a charitable and socially positive organisation, we felt it was only fair to inform you of our intentions. We have decided to hold a demonstration outside your main offices on Gregory Boulevard at the end of the month, and we will be inviting the local press along to cover the demonstration as we feel it would make an interesting story. Following this demonstration we will build a campaign aimed at highlighting your participation in Workfare. We do this in solidarity with all those who are being forced into unpaid work by both this government and its predecessors.
Sincerely,
Notts Against Workfare
Election nightmare for the BNP
05-05-2013 08:55
The BNP’s election campaign turned out to be a disaster yesterday as their share of the vote was seriously cut down across the East Midlands and the country as a whole. Newcomers, the British Democrats, failed to make any impact and the English Democrats did very badly as well. UKIP’s populist right wing politics seems to have eclipsed the far right, perhaps for good.
Here’s how the BNP share of the vote looked in the wards in which they stood at the last elections in 2009 compared with the current results.
- Derbyshire: 2009: 19.2% 2013: 5.5%
- Leicestershire: 2009: 14.3% 2013: 8.4%
- Lincolnshire: 2009: 11.1% 2013: 4.3%
- Northamptonshire: 2009: 13.2% 2013: 4.7%
- Nottinghamshire: 2009: 10.9% 2013: 2.4%
In other words the BNP has done extremely badly, a view shared by their last remaining councillor, Cathy Duffy, who flounced out of the count in Leicestershire before her (poor) result was even announced.
Another welcome result at these elections was the booting out of Graham Partner, elected as BNP Councillor for Coalville in 2009 and being rejected by the electorate as a British Democrats candidate this year. We won’t be sad to see him go.
Whilst the further collapse of the BNP is to be welcomed, the rise of UKIP poses new questions and challenges for those who oppose anti-migrant racism and right wing populism. This analysis by the Independent Working Class Association is not a bad place to start in understanding the relationship between UKIP and the BNP and stating the challenges facing those who seek to oppose their right wing populism with a genuine working class politics.
UG#633 - Putting The 'Mental' Back in Environmental (Food Waste & FMNR In Niger)
05-05-2013 02:11