We want answers.

Why on earth is it being presumed that Brendan has to stop the construction of this new facility? He should not be named and pointed to like this, as if it was somehow his fault these applications have been overlooked or wrong that he hasn't single-handedly put an end to them!

If you have a genuine objection to this new facility, then *you* are just as responsible to do something about it as anyone else in the movement. Just because someone is an active and visible campaigner, doesn't mean they therefore have to run every campaign agaist everything - above all else, this is not physically possible and is actually more of a reason that this person should NOT have to run extra campaigns. Each and every one of us have the ability to campaign as much, or as little as we wish, we can all do what we want and should never expect it just to be 'for everyone else' to do.

This may well be a pretty worthy thing to look into but a bit difficult to take seriously or see as a genuine post when no normal activist would single out another as having sole resposibility in this way.

I don't think that attacking a possibly new, young and worried activist for asking if there is a campaign against the Stevenage lab is acceptable. Not all veggies or activists are "in the movement". If the poster is for example a new, inexperienced but genuine and enthusiastic 13-14 year old who is worried about a lab on his / her doorstep then you've just bullied them away. Maybe they don't KNOW the "usual" way's of communicating. Why don't you just provide an email address for the poster instead of behaving like a ranting and bullying thug? Well done.

It's pretty silly to say "it might a be worthy thing to look into"...they are building a torture lab so stop them. What do you mean "look into it"?

What I find much more worrying than a psot by an inexperinced and young activist is the statement made by an older "activist" who said "We should be discreet about the lab and our involvement in the campaign against it". What's the use of a discreet campaign? If you want to campaign in an underground manner then that is up to you, but don't use sly Big Pharma thug methods and underhand threats to stop other people. [Unless you work for them which could of course be your agenda, only Big Pharma etc would tell activists to be discreet about any lab].

I think the original poster is probably just an over enthusiastic and young activist who has heard of Brendan and thinks that Brendan is the "leader" of AR. The young poster is probably genuinely horrified by the laboratory in Stevenage. Not everyone who posts up here is "in the movement" and attacking them for daring to say anything isn't productive and it makes us all sound unapproachable. As we've just said, if the first poster is say 13-14 or something then you should be a bit more tolerant instead of behaving like an irrational and raging idiot online for everyone to read. It is you who is not behaving like someone who should be taken seriously. It is people like you who give everyone in AR a bad name. Learn some patience although I suspect that you have none and are not quite all there.
The "movement" is not confined to a clique of people, it is bigger than that and while you are right that we are all activists and therefore can do something and have a right to to, please don't attack people for simply not knowing what's what. Having said that, people who have tried to campaign outside or speak "out of turn" near the "movement" have been harrassed by the "movement" as you have just demonstrated. We are not a "movement" full of thugs, yobs and bullies like you whoever you are. Get back in your pram.

I believe that Bedford Animal Action [who are all really nice, friendly approachable people] are doing some campaigning on the Stevenage lab, so I'd say to the first poster, look them up, they won't bite and will genuinely welcome you to campaign with them. Everyone is welcome, has right to be active, is needed and has something to contribute.

"Overlook"?! Fucking hell.

Gordon Brown's New Labour is supporting the creation and expansion of Silicon Valley style "Bio Clusters"...or Lab Towns, areas that are centred around the bio tech industry...a bit like mining towns.
I don't see how anyone can think it's OK to "overlook" something so important. Whoever wrote this in defence of Brendan has missed the far more inmportant issue that a campaign in Hertfordshire / Beds does indeed need to be supported and quickly if we are to do anything about this at all. Bedford Animal Action and the people of Stevenage need your support from today, whatever you can do.
I agree that the person who wrote the piece in defence of "overlooking" this lab complex is a ranting bully and should not be anywhere near the movement in any capacity.

The animals and residents in Stevenage need defending rather more urgently.

"This may well be a pretty worthy thing to look into but difficult to take seriously" and "I don't think the post is genuine" or from someone "normal".

What?

You work for the Medical Research Council or something? Sounds like it.

Does Brendan know you? If so I would recommend that he gets you as far away as possible as you sound like a Big Pharma agent. If this has been "overlooked" then everyone in AR should damn well look into it...what's with the ridiculous comment "it may well be a pretty worthy thing to look ionto but difficult to take seriously" ?!. Google search the GSK / Wellcome Trust / Peter Mandelson / Stevenage altogether and it comes up. You might well want to take this seriously and do so straight away unless of course you think that teenagers have made hoax Stevenage lab websites at school in their lunchbreak for a laugh you fucking idiot.

As for bullying kids online for posting this up when it has been overlooked, how could you and how dare you? At least they have pointed it out to everyone which is more than anyone else seems to have done. They should be thanked and applauded not berated online by an adult harridan in a public place. Brendan is big enough to take criticism or a request. You shoudn't bully and heckle new people, especially kids, online. YOU are the one in the wrong and are simply an aggressive bully. I don't think that you should be anywhere near AR. Get back to the MRC you nasty piece of work.

If young people want to ask Brendan something the correct email is :
 info@londonanimalrights.org.uk

Look up Bedford Animal Action

 http://www.bedfordanimalaction.org/

We need to close HLS and the Oxford lab before we move on to labs that havn't been built yet or are we giving up on those?

Do people feel the need to come on IM and communicate? Cant people just contact the relevant people?

i am shocked if it is genuine, brendan dose not run the uk AR scene, and if you had a clue about anything you would know that, if you had any common sence you wouldnt assume such things and make them public.
start your own campaign, locals need to start camapigns not people living miles away, it is ilogical.
get a website put up some info and organise a demo it is not rocket science....

Communities are the last people to know what's going on. The government are tactically and purposefully silent.

Focus, no we shouldn't jsu concentrate on HLS and Oxford. If Oxford was stopped in the first place we wouldn't have yet another lab to fight. Stop the before they start. If you mean that this will divert funds from these campaigns then I can sort of see your point but local campaigns need support in stopping labs before they go up in th first place.

As for idiotwatch and the others who think it's OK to have a go at a kid in defence of Brendan [who does claim to co ordinate UK Animal Rights / ARC actually] you need to get your priorities right.

The person who says we "should be discreet about labs" is a plant and even the thickest of thick people should be able to see that but for some reason still let that person into AR.

The priority here is the labs not Brendan. What are we going to DO about Stevenage?

Bedford AA need some help and quickly, the year 2011 is next year peeps.