London Calling - November issue

LONDON CALLING

THE BULLETIN OF LONDON CLASS WAR
NOVEMBER 2004
PO BOX 467, LONDON E8 3QX
 classwaruk@hotmail.com
www.londonclasswar.org

WHEN THE SIRENS ARE GONE… WE ARE LEFT TO CARRY ON
WITH THE METROPOLITAN Police’s reputation in London over the years everybody has a story to tell about how corrupt, racist and arrogant they really are. We could even go as far as saying that the met are the real London gangsters. Times have changed, we are sorry to say, for the worst. Why do they join the police in the first place? Certainly not to help people. We suspect it is because they couldn’t make the Army, or perhaps, they were bullied at school - or were the bullies. But one thing is certain: they joined the Met with a grudge against people. A bit harsh, you could say; but what we see day in and day out is the Met blatantly taking the piss, and the working class areas and people have never had it so bad.
Operation Trident, what a farce, all the Met seem to do is put bigger and bigger posters up asking the public to grass on each other and playing “the people are scared to say anything” card. The truth is quite the reverse: people don’t trust the Met. Gun crime will get worse and worse until the community takes their own action and do something. Until then the areas we live in will not get better. The Met really don’t give a shit if brother is killing brother just as long it stays in the working class areas, and when the sirens are gone we are left to clean up the mess.

We only glimpse at what the Met are up to. If they are not boy-racing they're clogging up the best kebab shops, which is a damn liberty. Recently it has hit the hearts of people in Hackney after Irene Stanley fought the Met for over 5 years, with their lies and cover ups after Met shot her husband, Harry Stanley, in the head and hand after they thought he was carrying a shot gun. It was subsequently revealed he was carrying a table leg. It was a long and hard struggle for Irene to finally get justice and to get an appeal that resulted in an unlawful killing verdict. The two officers finally been suspended.
Ms Stanley told the BBC: "It has been a long hard struggle for Harry's family and my family.
"We can't bring Harry back but we've got an unlawful killing verdict.
"We had the first inquest and it was one-sided for the Metropolitan police, but now we've got a fair inquest with a new coroner and we've got justice."
When the two officers who pulled the trigger got suspended we saw the Met's little tricks again, Officers from the firearms unit laid down their weapons in protest against the decision. We wish they would lay down their weapons for good, the trigger happy freaks. Their only concern is to cover their backs as the two officers suspended could, and should, face manslaughter charges.
“Look, we can kill who we damn well like and we should be able to get away with it” is the message a lot of people are reading. As we see time and time again shootings by the Met Police, and one after another most cases are forgotten about and left in the archives. The likes of Irene and the Harry Stanley campaign is just an example to show the Met that they cant get away with murder.
What is frightening are the lengths the Met will go to to justify themselves. In the last issue of LC we reported the Met's action when they took it upon themselves to dig up people’s back gardens to find any more clues to who hacked Blacklock to death, even though they put away three innocent people for the crime, nothing was found. Just the memories were dug up.

An independent body should investigate allegations of racism and corruption in the Metropolitan Police, according to two MPs. Week in, week out we see the Met’s dodgy behaviour. Corruption, lies, swindling, getting away with murder, so bleeding obvious even two MPs are calling for action - and that’s saying something. Lib Dem Simon Hughes and Labour Andrew Mackinlay have called for proper inquiries to be set up under a high court judge.
Mr Hughes, MP for Southwark North & Bermondsey, added: "You cannot have accountability unless the inspectors are not police officers or former colleagues of the people they are investigating.”
The time is ending for the Met to investigate themselves and we will see a lot more cases coming to light, as this action will be stopped.
It seems the Met still have something up there sleeve, recruitment for specials are being advertised, street wardens are being set up on our estates, ASBOs are being thrown everywhere especially at the kids. Has it come to the stage where the police can’t do the job anymore so they are getting local have-a-go heroes to police our streets and to become pretend filth?

Has the time come when people are starting to realise that we don’t actually need the likes of the Met enforcing Laws they break on a daily basis? It’s only when our communities start realising that they will and can police themselves will we see a change for the better in and around where we live. When we say A.C.A.B. we are not joking.

REVIEW
“YOU AND WHOSE ARMY?”
BOTTLEJOB
CD album with DVD.
I just finished listening to the best oi/punk album I've heard in years with tracks like “Kill Your Boss” and “Bullets 4 the Rich” class-conscious punk fans old and new will love this rebellious offering from London’s most promising punk line up. A little taste of some of the lyrics from a track called “Our History” ‘They tell me things I can’t see, about people like you and me, well I’m descended from the peasantry, CLASS STRUGGLE AND ANARCHY”. And was that a Class War skull I saw in the corner on the video?

For information contact  BOTTLEJOB@HOTMAIL.COM or call (44) 208 442 4143

THE KNACKERED CHEF
In the last few issues of London Calling we have run some stories on that smirking git Jamie Oliver’s rip-off restaurant, 15, in Hoxton and we are pleased to report that that it that hasn’t turned a profit since it opened and has losses of over £1.23 million. Surely with beans on toast at £8 there has to be some profit? But with food critics constantly knocking the place and the rip-off food served there has started having an effect, a spokesman on behalf of 15 stated that “these loses are normal for a new restaurant”. £1.23 million? Come on, get a grip!
Instead of winging on aimlessly in each issue about Jamie we at London Calling are going to e-mail his restaurant the recipes below for people with jobs and tight budgets:
Rocket Pesto Beans On Toast with Goats Cheese & Cherry Tomatoes (serves 1-2)
1. Go to Sainsbury's before work and spend a fortune on overpriced wanky novelty ingredients such as rocket, fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. Feel very “middle class” and kid yourself that you’re living the good life.
2. Arrive home feeling tired, frustrated and alone after another day of pointless wage slavery. Decide you really can’t be arsed with bloody rocket pesto.
3. Make beans on toast.
Red Wine & Chocolate Soup with Guilty Feelings
1. Gorge yourself with chocolate in a vain attempt to cheer yourself up.
2. Open a bottle of wine.
3. Have guilty feelings.
Sorted, pukka food you can't be arsed to make.

COUNCIL TAX RIP OFF
Once again Hackney Council have been caught out not by charging people high council tax but by making people pay twice. We see on a weekly basis how the council officials threaten to take away peoples homes, send the bailiffs around straight away when they believe someone hasn’t paid there Council Tax . An insider has recently told London Calling that the council want every penny they scrape together and “try it on” by hassling people to re-pay and they will not listen to people who claim they have paid. This happened to me recently, and I know of two more cases where people are being threatened on a weekly basis. What was sickening from the leak was the story of two old people who actually paid twice, they got the money back. But how many people out there fall for the con?
Reading the Hackney Gazette another case came to light, bungling officials from hackney hounded a women for four years for council tax arrears she didn’t owe. By keeping all the receipts and proof of payments the council still didn’t believe her and couldn’t resolve the problem until January 2004 by which time the arrears for 1998 had been carried forward each year and she had received countless summonses, liability orders and threatening bailiffs letters. It is surprising how the council cant seem to find the time to check the files to see if she did pay but they are always quick on the ball to send a court summons out left right and centre.
The Ombudsman found Hackney Council guilty of misadministration (fuckwittery to you and me) and the women received £1,800 in compensation and all costs. What can you do if you find yourself being hounded by the council? You could send a letter to your local MP Diane Abbot but that would be like pissing in the wind. It appears she likes to pamper herself at Brighton health spas, she recently stated, after missing this years Labour Party conference, which also was in Brighton “I thought I would pamper myself a bit, besides I had no duties at the Conference and nothing to say”. Unbelievable, we advise people to always keep proof of payments made and to phone the Citizens Advice Bureau to make an appointment, and don’t give in to their threats.
Hackney Council was also rapped around their knuckles by a local government watchdog when they tried to make an old lady pay twice …………
But they got caught out because of the simple reason the lady was dead.


COMMUNITY FIREWORKS DISPLAY – WITHOUT THE COMMUNITY
GUY FAWKES' NIGHT has been once again. Unluckily it was be a sad affair for people living in Hackney. Hackney hasn’t held a firework display for over three years, the lack of money is always the excuse. Yet MP Diane Abbot’s constantly in Brighton treating herself to Health Spas and Jules Pipe the Mayor, trying to persuade everyone that spending £64 million on doing up the town hall is a good idea. A local firework display brings the community together, people meet each other and it’s one of the few times people can locally mix, the Council must think that people have forgotten firework night and are getting away without forking out.
Last year a fireworks display was held inside a fair that charged £8 to get in, which had funding from Hackney Council, It was held in Shoreditch of all places! I wonder what sort of parents can afford the entry fee, for a family it would cost £25 entry, without the cost of food and fairground rides. Maybe that’s why they put the display on in Shoreditch and not Hackney Wick. I remember standing by the outside fence with the poor families waiting to enjoy the display. No start time was stated and the security just laughed when locals asked. A lot of children were pissed off waiting and had to go home without seeing anything, as it was late when the fireworks display actually started. The Mayor and his wife arrived and were shown in near us and a few of us booed him and shouted why didn’t he have to pay. Unbelievably the filth stood in front of everyone “keeping an eye on things”. But we saw the display in the end. The above just goes to show what the Council really think of the local community and are prepared to make a profit out of anything, This year I might just buy fireworks and chuck them through Diane Abbot’s fucking letterbox.

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SWP – FRIENDS OF THE FILTH

THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL Forum took place in London from 15 to 17 October. The ESF is supposed to be a massive forum where progressive and revolutionary ideas and experiences can be shared, and areas of mutual concern – such as the war in Iraq – can be addressed in an open and non-oppressive fashion. That’s the theory!
In practice, though, it was very different. The Socialist Workers Party had teamed up with ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone in a state-sponsored jamboree supposed to show off London and to boost the SWP’s credentials – as well as giving Livingstone some much-needed radical chic. Ken threw at least £400,000 of council-tax payers’ money down the drain on the ESF – paying for the travel of 20,000 lefties, subsidising accommodation, at the Millennium Dome if you please, printing fuck loads of nonsense – and hiring Alexandra Palace.
Throughout the event, working class people including many anarchists were excluded from the junket. It was something like £30 for a ticket, and all the decisions relating to the ESF were taken in closed meetings months ago. Trots and their lickspittles do do one thing well! They can stitch up events and conferences with great skill. And this time they had Ken Livingstone and his police force on their side.
The Wombles organised an alternative, Beyond ESF, which was a well-attended event in Tottenham. They did themselves proud by organising, at short notice, a full programme of events and discussions, and provided free accommodation for hundreds of people from across Europe in squats. Sadly, their event was marred by the constant presence of the filth. Forward Intelligence Teams sat outside the venue the Wombles had hired, they dogged the Wombles’ footsteps – and generally made their lives a misery.
To protest the ESF stitch-up, to highlight the way the SWP and Livingstone had gerrymandered the entire social forum process, and to bring the views of the anarchist alternative to the ESF we stormed Alexandra Palace. Well, not so much stormed as pushed our way in! But from the response of the SWP and their poxy lickspittles you’d think we’d lynched St Paul Foot or something!
We heard that Livingstone had cried off addressing a meeting, curiously about racism and fascism, because the police had wind of the plot to gatecrash the ESF and couldn’t guarantee his safety. When we got into the large hall at Ally Pally there was a bit of confusion – but nothing violent. In retrospect, we might as well have smacked a few SWPers, they acted like we had anyway.
Weyman Bennett, an SWP bigwig claims that his mobile and wallet were stolen, and that he was assaulted in the irruption of anarchists. Lee Jasper claimed, in a letter to the Guardian, that the uninvited guests were all white males – which we plainly weren’t – hellbent on smacking black and Jewish people. Which is utter bollocks: the following day the Guardian had the decency to publish a letter from a number of people who’d observed the to-do which righted the previous day’s nonsense.
Still, the SWP refuse to retract their libellous attacks on anarchists – and we feel strongly that they should not be treated as comrades (though given the SWP’s attitude to us over the years, we doubt any CW reader or supporter has any sympathy for them anyway).
To add injury to insult, at the ESF anti-war get-rid-of-Bush march on the Sunday of the ESF, the SWP had the gall to hand anarchists over to the police. When members of the Wombles tried to make an announcement from the podium in Trafalgar Square, the stewards apparently initially said it was fine, then some SWP “arrested” them and passed them to the filth. Such behaviour marks a new nadir in the SWP’s pisspoor record.

A LIGHT SENTENCE
IN OCTOBER’S ISSUE of London Calling we reported on the case of a bent copper and a corrupt education worker who swindled £100,000 intended for poor children in Hackney. They both received jail terms after a judge called them “despicable and mean”. In a taped conversation between the two Nwadikwa-Jonathon was heard saying, “We will make a lot of money and all the children will get is orange squash and a biscuit and that’s all we need to pay,”
Nwadikwa, the corrupt copper received a dismal 18 months, and Uche Woga got two years. Nwadikwa, we think, received a very light sentence, what most people would get for minor offences. Was this because he was a policeman, we wonder in dismay?
Whilst we are on the subject of corrupt filth, a Met officer was arrested by ANTI-CORRUPTION cops (even I’m getting confused here!). the 37 year old Hackney officer was involved in the illegal interception of private phone calls for the clients of a central London detective agency. He was bailed until January 2005, watch this space.

DON’T BE A BERK – ROB A MERC

A GANG OF professional criminals has stolen millions of pounds of cars - simply by lifting them off the streets with a tow-away truck. And these thieves are not interested in just any old cars. They have been specifically targeting E-Class Mercedes Benz worth up to £62,000 each. The gang operates in west London and has stolen more than 40 Mercedes since August. It strikes at night, using a low-lifter vehicle to move the car out of its parking space - often outside the owner's home - without causing a disturbance. Class War have always stated that if you are going to nick a car always take the most expensive “Rob The Rich Not Your Own,” The usual statement from the filth as always not having a clue and stating the bleeding obvious:
"We believe they have tools which enable them to break into the cars with minimum disruption. The vehicles are then lifted on to a low-lifter or into the back of a lorry and taken to a destination in London."
He added: "There is no glass left at the scene, suggesting there is little damage to the car.
"The thefts always take place in the middle of the night in quiet, well-lit, middle to upper class residential streets close to the main arterial routes including the North Circular and M4 which provide an easy getaway."
The "Gone In 60 Seconds" gang, whose trademark was ultra-fast theft, had stolen 144 top-of-the range cars including Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches and a Maserati.
Within days of being stolen, the cars would be shipped abroad before being sold on. They later emerged in countries including Pakistan, South Africa and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, in west London the Motor Vehicle Crime Squad has been conducting extensive house to-house inquiries because they haven’t a clue and are scared because the gang are thieving there bosses cars, they are trying to establish whether there are any links between where the victims bought their cars, or where they have them serviced.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We are appealing for witnesses who have seen something suspicious or someone acting suspiciously in and around Mercedes vehicles in their area to contact us. Perhaps you have been woken up by the sound of a tow truck late at night. If so, did you get a good look at the occupants? Can you remember the registration or colour of the vehicle?
"Have you seen anyone taking an interest in your or your neighbour’s E-Class Mercedes recently?” Apart from traffic wardens, where I live it would be hard spotting an E-Class Merc never mind having a neighbour who owns one.
We wish the gang “Gone in 60 Seconds” good luck and let's hope you don’t get silly and last more than 60 seconds.

73 ROUTE CAMPAIGN
THE CAMPAIGN TO keep the old 73 bus is still active even though the changes have been made. We at London Calling would like to say “Sod off and find better things to do”. I mean who really gives a flying fuck about a rackety old bus you cant stand up in, aren't there real matters out there on our streets than winging on about something that has happened anyway. Surprising enough, the 73 route goes through Church St, Clissold Rd and Angel, notorious haunts of the middle class home owners whose only concern is to get to work on time and to get back to their wine bars.
Meanwhile up the road in Tottenham, Dalston Junction and around the corner in Lower Clapton Rd there are gang wars and people are being shot and killed every week, surely that’s more of a concern than having a bus that bends or maybe the middle class don’t really believe these places exist.

DIARY DATES
27 November, ULU, Malet Street
Tubes: Euston, Euston Square, King’s X, Warren Street, Russell Square.
10am – 6pm
Get your copy of the new Class War!
See the merchandise box for this month’s recommendations!
4 December: London Class War meeting. Contact your local member for details.
11 December: Class War Christmas Social. Contact the London group for details.

MERCHANDISE
This month’s top items are two anti-fascist t-shirts.

Design 1: ANTIFASCIST (in Lonsdale style) in red and white, with small Antifa logo underneath, on black t-shirt.

Design 2: RED SKIN with Fred Perry wreath, again on black t-shirt.

We have them in all sizes, and they’re a snip at just £8.00.
On the music front, we recommend our anti-royal compilation, ANTI-ROYAL ANTHEMS, 21 cracking tunes, featuring the Sex Pistols, the Smiths and Catatonia amongst others. Cheques/POs payable to “London Class War” only.

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