Friday 29th April 2005 starts 17:30
Critcal Mass is a regular event. The meeting point is the Savoy cinema on Derby Road in Lenton on the last Friday of every month now at 5.30pm.
The ride lasts no more than a couple of hours (depending on the weather!)
Most all, they are peaceful, safe and fun!
“We are not blocking the traffic – We are Traffic!”
Piccys of previous events:
Critical Mass Bike-About in Nottingham :: The Pictures
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/02/305420.html
&
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1468695,00.html
Photography shapes our world – and our perception of it. Think of the Vietnam war and what comes unbidden into your mind? Here’s my guess: that photograph of the naked little girl running in terror after a napalm attack. Marilyn Monroe? That wonderful picture of her standing over a ventilator outlet with her skirt swirling up. The liberation of France? Henri Cartier-Bresson’s shot of a woman collaborator being denounced in the street. And so it goes: we think in images. And many, if not most of them, are still provided by photography.
But then ask yourself: what if, when the technology was being invented, the law had required that before you took a photograph of anyone or anything, you had to ask permission? Imagine how restricted photography – both as reportage and art – would have been. And how impoverished our culture as a result.
Now spool forward a century or so. A film-maker is shooting a low-budget documentary about a musical performance. He discovers that the character of Homer Simpson appears for three-and-a-half seconds, on a barely visible television, in the background of a key shot. In accordance with the strict intellectual property (IP) laws that apply today, he has to ask broadcaster Fox, owner of The Simpsons , for permission to include the shot. The response? Sure – on payment of a $10,000 fee.
That’s the world we now inhabit. And if the big multimedia organisations get their way, control of intellectual property will become even tighter. Until recently, everything was going their way. Clueless legislators were bamboozled by lobbying propaganda about the need to protect ‘property’ and stamp out ‘piracy’ and ‘theft’. Mass media – generally owned by outfits with a vested interest in strong IP law – reported the issue in terms that were at best uninformed and at worst rabidly partisan.
And nobody, beyond a few isolated voices, spoke out for the public interest. Or pointed out the implications for free culture of a world in which every idea, and every expression of an idea, is ‘owned’ by someone (usually a company). Nobody asked what would become of music if every songwriter had to pay a royalty on every idea they’d borrowed from earlier songs. Or what would happen to film-making if the rights to every out-of-focus billboard, chair, poster or magazine cover had to be cleared and paid for before movies could be released.
The answer, of course, is simple. It is that creativity would be stifled because the barrier to entry to the market for cultural products would be too high for everyone except corporations. There would still be innovation and competition, but only on the terms that multimedia conglomerates would allow. The Disneys, Time-Warners, Pearsons and Bertelsmanns of this world would do fine. And everyone else would be kept in their place as passive consumers of whatever content-owners deigned to provide for their entertainment.
Until recently, this was the way the world was heading. But now something significant has happened to buck the trend. The BBC – the world’s greatest creator of high-quality multimedia products – has finally launched its Creative Archive. The project – first announced by former director-general Greg Dyke in August 2003, and much delayed as BBC staff grappled with the rights issues implicit in it – will allow British residents to download clips of BBC factual programmes from bbc.co.uk for non-commercial use, keep them on their PCs, manipulate and share them, thereby making the BBC archives more accessible to licence-fee payers.
The content is not available yet but the licences under which it will be provided have now been published. In the next, pilot, phase of the project the Creative Archive will make 100 hours of BBC content available. The early stuff will come from the corporation’s stupendous archive of nature and wildlife programmes, for two reasons: the IP issues are less complex because the BBC owns most of the rights; and nature programming will be of immediate use to important target groups, like schoolchildren doing their own video projects. And although some people are critical of this (one cynic described the content as ‘shagging marmots’), there’s no doubt about where this is heading. The world’s leading public-service broadcaster is declaring it believes that creative output for which the public has paid should be in the public domain.
This is big news. Some years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blew the nascent educational-content business out of the water by making its courseware available for free on the web. Who would pay for content from Mickey Mouse universities when MIT’s was free? By challenging the IP mania that threatens to engulf us, the Creative Archive project is doing something similar. And in the process showing us what public-service broadcasting is for.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1468695,00.html
It’s 20 years, since the major trashing of my community, travelling on the way the make the “Peoples Free Festival of Albion” at Stonehenge.
Piccys of the event at:
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=415990
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=415991
It was a regular event on the calender. A little different to the ‘managed access event’ on the solstice, currently on offer from English Heritage.
The full story of these events from June 1985, I’ve described in a previous post at:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308800.html
On Wednesday 20th April, the exhibition moved to The Sumac Centre in Nottingham. It is up until Thursday 12th May
Opening with a showing of “Operation Solstice”: a film describing the events of the day, and what we did about it.
There was also a talk by Andy Worthington, author of “Stonehenge – Celebration and Subversion”
Sumac Centre
245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham NG7 6HX
Ph: 0845 458 9595
http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org
These pictures are from the Nottingham Event. St Peters Church, Nr Broadmarsh:
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=411775
>>>>
Trade Justice believe everyone has the right to feed their families, make a decent living and protect their environment.
But the rich and powerful are pursuing trade policies that put profits before the needs of people and the planet.
To end poverty and protect the environment we need Trade Justice not free trade.
The UK Government should:
Fight to ensure that governments, particularly in poor countries, can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment.
End export subsidies that damage the livelihoods of poor communities around the world.
Make laws that stop big business profiting at the expense of people and the environment
Press Release
14 April 2005
Biggest mass protest of election campaign says parties must go further on anti-poverty pledges
World poverty and environmental groups descend on Whitehall Friday 15th April to show strength of public concern on the UK’s role in global trade.
Public concern on international trade will be demonstrated as thousands mobilise for a mass rally on trade justice this weekend.
People are traveling from across the country to be in Westminster and Whitehall on Friday evening for ‘Wake Up to Trade Justice’ – a night-long vigil and protest to ensure that all political parties know the strength of the public demand for trade justice not free trade.
The vigil, organised by the Trade Justice Movement as part of a Global Week of Action for Trade Justice, will start with a special celebrity-supported event at Westminster Abbey.
Participants, led by representatives of Trade Justice Movement organisations – which represent nine million UK voters – will then form a ‘Human White Band’ around Parliament Square, the symbol of Make Poverty History, highlighting the policy changes on trade the campaign is demanding the parties adopt.
The activists, public and celebrities will then proceed along Whitehall for a candle-lit vigil, including a mass 1-minute’s silence at midnight to mark the millions of lives being destroyed worldwide by unfair trade laws. A night of film, music, debate and education at venues around Whitehall follows.
The event is set to culminate in a dawn procession before Trade Justice campaign delegations meet representatives from the three main political parties.
Glen Tarman, Trade Justice Movement coordinator, said:
“The British electorate is rightly concerned about the economy, health and education – but not just in the UK. The free trade policies the rich countries are pushing on the developing world are robbing people of health and education services and promoting economic insecurity for communities on a global scale.”
“This is a wake-up call for political leaders of all the main parties – if elected, they must make sure urgent action is taken if we are to have justice in international trade and start to make poverty history in 2005. We are making world poverty a doorstep issue.”
“All the parties claim to be concerned about apathy towards politics especially among the young. Yet thousands of potential voters are coming to Whitehall to demand the parties address their concern that Britain’s trade policies do not hurt the world’s poor and the planet. The parties would do well to listen.”
The Trade Justice Movement has called on all UK political parties to make public statements setting out their position on stopping the push for poor countries to open up their economies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and through other forms of international pressure.
Around the world millions of people in more than 80 countries are taking to the streets in the Global Week of Action running from 10-16 April – calling for trade justice to help lift people out of poverty.
For further information:
Sarah Finch 07870 823485
Trade Justice Movement 020 7523 2417 www.tjm.org.uk
Notes for Editors:
1. Wake Up to Trade Justice on 15/16th April is a celebrity supported all-night carnival of music, art and protest. See www.tjm.org.uk.
2. The Trade Justice Movement is a coalition of 67 organisations including aid agencies, environment and human rights campaigns, fairtrade organisations, trade unions, and faith and consumer groups.
3. Trade Justice is one of the key calls of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY, the UK’s largest ever anti-poverty mobilisation already supported by 400 UK organisations.
4. The Global Week of Action is the biggest mobilisation yet on trade, with events in every continent, including all of the G8 countries. Thousands of events, in both rich and poor countries, include demonstrations, petitions to governments and institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, voting for trade justice, street theatre and marches. Over a hundred events have already taken place across the UK. For more information see www.april2005.org/media.
5. Opinion polls show international poverty ranks high (eighth) among the most important election issues, above Europe, transport, Iraq and interest rates (Economist, 9th-15th April: Sources MORI, ICM, Populus, YouGov). For the first time in a UK election the leaders of all three main parties have pledged to make keynote speeches about world poverty on the same day (24 April).
6. The Trade Justice Movement is calling on the UK Government (whichever party takes power) to ensure that developing countries can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment. The coalition has written to the leaders of the major parties demanding they adopt policies to stop forcing trade liberalisation on developing countries in areas including industrial tariffs, trade in services and agriculture.
The letter can be read at: www.tjm.org.uk/wakeup/letter.shtml
Jason Deans, broadcasting editor
Friday April 15, 2005
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1459919,00.html
The widow of British documentary film-maker James Miller, who was shot dead in Gaza two years ago, has condemned the Israeli army’s decision to acquit an officer of illegally using his weapon as a “mockery”.
Sophy Miller accused the Israeli army of having “no genuine will to uncover the truth” about her husband’s death, despite claiming to have mounted an exhaustive investigation into the fatal shooting in Rafah in May 2003.
The army’s decision came despite a military court’s recommendation last month that harsh disciplinary action be taken against the soldier.
“This new decision by the deputy chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces’s southern command makes a mockery of Israeli claims that they follow due process where IDF soldiers have acted criminally and outside their own rules of engagement,” Mrs Miller said.
“It shows that Israeli military activities in Gaza are carried out with impunity. We deplore the total failure to hold anyone responsible for the most serious breaches of Israeli rules of engagement.”
“We believed at the outset there was no genuine will to uncover the truth because the site of James’s death was not secured for forensic investigation, the site was destroyed by bulldozers three days after James’s death [and] it took the Israelis 11 weeks to impound the guns involved in James’s death,” Mrs Miller said.
“And now, almost two years after James was killed and after what the Israelis claim was an exhaustive investigation, our suspicions have been confirmed by this IDF decision.”
The officer who fired the shot that killed Miller is a first lieutenant in the Bedouin desert reconnaissance battalion and was commanding the unit at the time of the killing. He was acquitted by Brigadier General Guy Tzur, the head of the army’s southern command.
In an army statement issued to the family last month, military prosecutor-general Avihai Mandelblitt cleared the officer, who was not identified, of Miller’s death, saying there was no evidence to support the charge.
But Mr Mandelblitt did say the officer would be disciplined for misusing his weapon and for changing his story several times during the investigation.
“The court found [the officer] was operating in very difficult circumstances, including taking incoming fire from terrorists, and concluded that he acted appropriately”, the military official said.
Mrs Miller said she and her sister-in-law, Katie, were told by military investigators last month that the officer admitted to firing his weapon in Miller’s direction.
They said they were told that the officer acknowledged he knew when he fired the weapon that journalists were in the house and that the area surrounding it was well lit.
Miller, who won awards for his work in Afghanistan, was shot as he and colleagues attempted to leave the home of a Palestinian family in Rafah on May 2 2003, while filming for a Channel 4 documentary
The group claim they were carrying a white flag and called out to troops stationed nearby to inform them they were British journalists.
As they walked towards an armoured personnel carrier, a soldier fired and seconds later aimed a second shot at reporters, striking the 34-year-old father of two in the neck between his body armour and helmet.
Mrs Miller has said she plans to bring a civil action for damages against the Israeli army and to seek a judicial review of the decision not to prosecute the soldier responsible for murder.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1459919,00.html
Nottingham IMC meeting will be on the 18th of April at 7.30pm at the Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone St, Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 6HX, 0845 458 9595.
There is an idea to set up an Indymedia Collective in nottingham. Various people have been in contact with people from the Indymedia UK Collective and other local Indymedia groups across the country that are more than happy to help us setting up an Independent Media Centre (IMC) in Nottingham. Part of a local IMC could be a website, film showings, interactive workshops within our communities, fundraising events, parties, and a possible radio station!
So photographers, filmmakers, DJ’s, writers/reporters, musicians, artists, sound engineers, visual artist and people with technical skills; get involved!
The first meeting will be on the 18th of April at 7.30pm at the Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone St, Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 6HX, 0845 458 9595.
The email list to help setting up the local collective;
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-nottingham
Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.
Independent DIY media projects are spreading around the planet at unprecedented speed. Triggered by discontent with the mainstream media and supported by the widespread availability of media technologies, groups all over the world are creating their own channels of information and distribution in order to bypass the (mainstream) corporate media. The idea behind most of these projects is to create open platforms to which everyone can contribute – not only a small media elite with theirparticular interests. By eliminating the classic division between professional producers and passive audience, many issues and discussions that were previously suppressed become visible and available.
Nottingham IMC
List: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-nottingham
How Tory made a family disappear
Nicholas Watt
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1457742,00.html
Left: Conservative candidate Ed Matts with Ann Widdecombe protesting in support of the Kacheps family, who were facing deportation.
Right: The same picture, doctored to support the party line, on Mr Matts’ election leaflet.
Labour campaign chiefs were last night rubbing their hands with glee when a Tory parliamentary candidate admitted altering a photograph to ensure that he was fully in tune with the party’s hardline stance on immigration.
Ed Matts, the Conservative candidate in Labour’s most marginal seat of Dorset South, thought he might garner a few votes when he appeared at a rally last month to show his support for the heart-rending case of the Kachepa family who are facing deportation. In a coup he managed to haul in Ann Widdecombe, who held a banner at the rally proclaiming: “Let Them Stay.”
Eagle-eyed Labour activists could hardly believe their luck when a completely different version of the same picture appeared on Mr Matts’s election leaflets. The striking figure of Ms Widdecombe is still there, alongside the aspiring MP. But the crowds have disappeared and Mr Matts’s picture of the Kachepa family and the words on Ms Widdecombe’s banner have been replaced with words supportive of the party’s tough line on immigration. Labour admitted passing them to the Times.
Conservative HQ defended his actions. A spokesman said: “Ed Matts excluded the family who appeared in the original photo by creating a new image in order to protect them from media attention.”
Jim Knight, defending a 153 majority in the seat, called for his Tory rival to be removed. “This is a deceit that will appal the people of Dorset South.”
It’s 20 years, since the major trashing of my community, travelling on the way to make the “Peoples Free Festival of Albion” at Stonehenge.
It was a regular event on the calendar. A little different to the ‘managed access event’ on the solstice, currently on offer from English Heritage.
Please check out my recent Indymedia Post about it all at:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308800.html
An exhibition I’ve contributed to, is currently at the Kebele Cafe, in Bristol.
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire/display/21996/index.php
Then, on the 20th April, it will move to The Sumac Centre in Nottingham.
Opening with a film showing of “Operation Solstice”: a film describing the events of the day, and what we did about it.
and a talk by Andy Worthington, author of “Stonehenge – Celebration and Subversion”
More details at: http://www.veggies.org.uk/arc/event.php?ref=252
Sumac Centre
245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham NG7 6HX
Ph: 0845 458 9595
Just after PM’s Questions, this chap stood up, to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill titled:
“Equal Enforcement of the Law”. A fine sentiment perhaps, that what law we do have, should be equally applied to all citizen.
However, he doesn’t mean that! It’s all about travellers, land to stay on, planning permissions, and all to reinforce the present; “lets be horrible to travellers” line, currently being peddled by the main political parties at the mo…….
After he finished, the vote was that he could continue in the subsequent stages, and that the Second Reading, has been scheduled for the 5th May. This being the same date as the election, it problably wont proceed. But this lot, just serves to show the continued attitudes to travellers, and the like.
>>>
Andrew Robathan MP ten minute rule bill
Equal Enforcement of the Law
6th april 2005
Mr speaker i beg to move that leave be given to bring in a bill to make provision for direction to police forces to enforce the law equally as it applies to settled communities and travellers; to amend the law on trespass; and for connected purposes.
One of the abiding principles that runs through the development of british democracy and society is the principle of equality before the law. The peasants revolt, magna carta, the civil war and habeas corpus, the abolition of the test acts and many other instances show this principle being developed and a very important principle it has been. But under this government, some people have discovered that the law will not be applied to them equally. The terrorists of sinn fein are one such group, but i wish to dwell on the treatment of travellers in the country at the moment.
As far as i am concerned, if people wish to live in caravans and travel about the country, that is entirely their own affair. I do not believe in prescribing how people lead their lives, just as long as they do not impinge unreasonably on the lives of others. There is a permanent campsite at aston firs in my constituency which i have visited in the past and will probably visit in this election campaign. I believe people there are entirely law abiding and while there may not be many votes there for me, but i think it important to make myself available to all my constituents.
I was brought up on the romantic notion of gypsies in attractive and colourful caravans pulled by horses, where romanies lived their unique lifestyle travelling around the country. This still happens and there was indeed, only last week, a traditional caravan in swinford, in my constituency.
On monday, by coincidence, my constituency office was deluged with calls from concerned people in lutterworth about an illegal gypsy encampment at the ladywood works. I went to see the site where half a dozen caravans had moved in on saturday night. A local garage had been closed because the 17 year old female cashier said that she had been intimidated by travellers. When i spoke to the owner, he told me that he had not reported it to the police because last time he caught a gypsy stealing something on cctv from his forecourt, the local police had advised him not to press charges, because he might be vulnerbale to criminal damage in retaliation. A disgrace.
Another three caravans have now arrived in lutterworth on the same illegal site, where they are trespassing. When the first ones arrived one of the travellers made an offer to the manager of the site, saying that they would leave straight away if paid £350 a van. When i visited the site, there were helpful police officers present. When i pointed out that one car had no road fund licence, the police officer explained that, although the owner of the car was committing an act of trespass, the police had no rights to enforce the law on private land. The phrase “catch 22” comes to mind. At this site, one of the particular complaints of the businesses of the site was that human excrement had been left on their doorsteps.
In northfield park in blaby a couple of years ago, i saw the astonishing rubbish that had been dumped by travellers there, including abandoned cars. Local residents were so intimidated they did not dare use the park, i met some very aggressive travellers, whilst the police stood off, not wishing to make trouble.
This is a pity because there are two issues relating to caravans and police which have been drawn to my attention by people involved in the legal caravanning world. The first is the width and length of caravans. Photographs published in the sun and elsewhere show that some caravans have twin or even triple axles, and they are too long to be legally towed by anything other than a full size commercial vehicle in the uk.
At the same time, the maximum width caravan that can be towed in the uk is just over seven foot five inches. There are photographs, for instance, in the sun on the 12th march, of a german-made lmc caravan just under eight foot wide. This is illegal. Yet the police very rarely stop these sorts of illegal vehicles. Perhaps the minister might like to answer the written question that i have already put down about prosecutions for over-wide or over-long caravans in this country.
The second and enormously important issue is theft. Some five thousand touring caravans are stolen and not recovered each year – about 20% of total uk sales of new caravans. All these new caravans have c.r.i.s. identification numbers. They also generally have transponders in them. If a new caravan is found without such means of identification, the question should be asked why not, and is it stolen. Unfortunately when one police officer in bedfordshire followed such a course of action he was moved to an office job because he upset travellers in bedfordshire. He also upset bedfordshire social services because they might have had to find accomodation for families whose caravans were confiscated. Surely it is the duty of the police to make simple enquiries to ascertain whether caravans are stolen.
It is also interesting how many brand-new vehicles tend to be pulling these vans – it might be pertinent for the inland revenue and customs and excise to be making enquiries about taxation and vat. Little council tax gets paid and i doubt much else gets paid either.
If any honourable member does not tax his car, i expect that he will be prosecuted with the assistance of the police. If he or she dumps rubbish on public land or by the side of the road, he or she is committing an offence. Human excrement in a public place should incur the wrath of environmental health departments. Furthermore, we all pay taxes and the overwhelming majority of our constituents pay council taxes for the services they expect to receive.
It is not unreasonable that we should all obey the laws of this country, be they planning laws, motoring laws or laws relating to environmental health. Illegal encampments of travellers have been much in the news recently and one does not have to be a reader of the sun or the daily mail – which i understand to have been particularly campaigning on this – to believe that it is wrong that people can flout the planning law in a flagrant fashion and then apply for retrospective planning permission.
Sadly, this government believes that “whilst some planners think that treating everyone the same helps to ensure equality this is not the case. Explicit recognition of difference is needed to ensure that the right action can be taken to deliver a planning service responsive to different needs within the communities it serves”. Similarly, the government has said regarding unauthorised camping, “where the occupier of the land is a public body such as a local authority then every effort should be made to avert forced eviction. Where trespassers are for instance irish travellers, public bodies are required under the race relations act to have due regard to the need to promote good race relations”.
The law does not apply to everyone. The law is not applied equally to all people in this country.
I think the overwhelming majority of people in this country, faced with casting their votes in a general election, will consider that everybody should be subject to the same laws. I propose that trespass be made a criminal offence, where it involves occupancy. This would give the police the certain power to move on trespassing travellers. The house will know that this is exactly what has happened in ireland under the housing (miscellaneous provisions) act 2002. That of course is why there has been an influx of irish travellers into this country, where we are seen as a soft touch.
I further propose that councils be allowed to refuse applications for retrospective planning permission by travellers or rogue developers who are cynically manipulating the planning system, often advised by disreputable lawyers. I would allow local councils to ensure that there was the rapid removal of caravans where planning permission did not exist and that large fines or confiscation of assets were imposed on travellers who were trying to profit from illegal developments.
Police must know that they not only have the power but the duty to stop travellers of whom they are suspicious and check their road fund licences, the road worthiness of their vehicles and the provenance of their vehicles. If i am stopped by a police officer, i must be displaying my road fund licence and i may be required to produce my insurance. There is no reason why this law too should not be applied to travellers – but at the moment, police officers seem wary of doing this because they fear it may cause trouble.
Finally, these travellers, who probably a minority of the travelling community, that are behaving illegally know their rights, but not their responsibilities. I propose a review or even the repeal of the so-called human rights act 2000. It sounds attractive, a human rights act, but actually it is used by smart slick lawyers to drive a coach and horses through the laws that the rest of us have to obey. In particular, the human rights act has allowed travellers to break planning laws, but takes no account of the rights of others whose lives are made a misery by illegal traveller encampments. When my right honourable friend the leader of the opposition suggested this, there was one person who commented that this had “the whiff of the gas chamber about it”. Only a bitter twisted and perverted mind could imagine that to say that all people should obey the same laws is in some way wrong. We are all equal before the law and i propose that that equality should be enforced. I urge the house to support this bill.
>>>>>
So, if you want to tell him, what you thing about all this, he can be cobtacted at:
conservative@blaby.force9.co.uk
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=people.person.page&personID=5091
6th-10th April 2005
From Wednesday the 6th until Sunday 10th of April 2005, the “Festival of Dissent!” will take place in rural Lanarkshire, near Coalburn, Scotland. Hundreds of people are expected to attend the event, which is one of many aiming to inform people about the issues behind the G8 Summit and what it represents. The Festival is a space in which people can learn new skills, meet others interested in the issues, get inspired and plan actions to be taken around the Summit. People from across Scotland and beyond are invited to attend.
One of the organising collective explained, “For many people, the G8 represents a great deal that is wrong with this world. The G8 exists to secure the continued political, economic and military domination of the world by the richest eight nations- it’s about oppression, exploitation and the pursuit of profit for the few at the expense of everyone else. We want to use the opportunity presented by the Summit to build new spaces, open to everybody, in which we can demonstrate our very real alternatives: of self-management, of non-hierarchical and consensus based decision making and of ecological sustainability. The Festival of Dissent! will provide exactly such a space.”
Workshops at the festival include training sessions on the G8, consensus decision making, hill walking and navigation and direct action training. On the Sunday afternoon there will be bands and entertainment. Sarah, who will give a workshop at the festival said “I don’t believe the G8 are going to do anything about climate change or Africa. Any suggestion otherwise is more of Blair’s public relations nonsense. The G8 Summit is about opening up markets, extracting oil and carrying on business as usual. These type of policies are killing the planet and its people, and we simply can’t afford to do this any more”
Liam Spencer, a resident of Glasgow who will attend the Festival later this week said, “I am going to the Festival of Dissent! to find out more about what people want to do, about direct action politics and how I can get involved. This is an interesting and inspiring time.”
The Festival is being organised by a collective belonging to the Dissent! Network. Dissent! is a loose network of groups and individuals planning to use creative direct action to resist the G8. The Network has grown and successfully spread across Europe. It has no central office, no spokespeople, no membership list and no paid staff. It is simply a mechanism for communication and co-ordination between local groups and working groups involved in building resistance to the G8.
For more about the Dissent! Network, see: www.dissent.org.uk
Martin Wainwright
Wednesday April 6, 2005
The Guardian
http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,8150,1453090,00.html
An overhaul of the way Nottinghamshire police deals with serious offences begins next week after its chief constable claimed that government budgets had left his officers “reeling” in the face of a sharp rise in gun crime.
Steve Green, the head of the Nottinghamshire force, is to share his headquarters with an outside specialist drafted in by the Home Office to sort out failings in dealing with murder and other serious crime.
Chris Sims, the deputy chief constable of West Midlands police – Britain’s second biggest force – will start work in Nottingham on Monday, after a critical report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. A team of inspectors was sent in three weeks ago by the home secretary Charles Clarke, after Mr Green claimed his force was struggling to cope because of recruiting restrictions.
The chief inspector, Denis O’Connor, rejected the complaint and concluded, in a report published yesterday, that Nottinghamshire’s main problem was the way police resources were being deployed.
“The emphasis upon detecting major crime is too passive and the force needs to move to a ‘control and protect’ strategy,” he said.
His report denies that Nottinghamshire police have been overwhelmed – a claim Mr Green withdrew after vociferous local complaints about his comments in a Sunday Telegraph interview.
Mr O’Connor says: “Processes that have underpinned Nottinghamshire’s successes against volume crime [relatively minor] have yet to be developed for serious crime.
“This limits the force’s ability to prevail on this aspect of policing and the same rigour now needs to embrace serious crime. Resources are and will remain an issue, but they are not at the heart of the problem, which is more about how to structure and utilise resources, skills and expertise to best effect.”
Mr Sims, a former colleague of Mr Green, will initially spend three months giving “intensive support”, with a further spell depending on a second inspection by Mr O’Connor in early July. Mr Sims’s specialities in West Midlands have included tackling bureaucracy and internal coordination, and drawing up force management strategy.
Mr Green said he welcomed the helping hand but added: “The command team of this force has never had anything other than total commitment to dealing with serious crime.”
He denied inertia in tackling serious crime and said: “Whilst we want to examine every option in preventing murders, we would argue that there has been excellent work and significant reductions in shootings, which prove that we have been anything but passive in this area.”
The home secretary, speaking in Nottinghamshire during the government’s preliminary election campaign launch, said he had absolute confidence in Mr Green.
“Every inspection makes criticisms of the way a force is run,” he said. “That is the means by which we get improvement.
“These are strong measures but I would not say unprecedented. They are strong measures to deal with a situation in a very strong way.”
Graham Allen, the Labour MP for Nottingham North who led criticism of Mr Green’s newspaper interview, said the test of real change would come during Mr Sims’s secondment.
“The installation of better management will increase, not decrease the likelihood of yet more resources coming to Nottinghamshire,” he said.
“We will see today and over the next few weeks if we have left behind ‘excuse making’ and ‘blame culture’ and maverick media punditry, and moved on to clear goals shared with partners, effective management and a well-led, motivated workforce determined to give villains a tougher time.”
Victor Bates, a Nottingham jeweller who called the chief constable a “menace to law and order” after a teenager was convicted last month of murdering his wife in their shop, called for Mr Green to resign after the inspectors’ report. “Our police need a change in management,” he said.
“They are sending an officer up from the West Midlands to look over his shoulder. I would have thought a chief constable would consider his future after that.”
http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,8150,1453090,00.html
2:00pm
May 1ST
2005
PARLIAMENT SQUARE
Mr Blair is calling an election, but what choice do we have? The percentage of people voting falls each year as the main parties become ever more similar in their bid to woo middle England.
Leaving the general public with a choice of lots of the same thing. Increasingly the governments agenda seems to represent business and corporate gain before human concerns, it promotes war in the name of peace? It takes away our rights and forces us to give up our freedoms in the name of freedom. Protest will soon be banned anywhere within earshot of the government, and we are told it is for our own safety.
Ladies and Gentlemen it will not do!
Over 600 letters will be handed to the House Of Commons on Monday April 4th, challenging every Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP to a game of cricket over their lack of honour and morals.
Click here to read the letter of challenge
http://www.spacehijackers.org/html/projects/mayday05/challenge.html
The match will take place at 2pm on May 1st in Parliament Square.
Everyone is of course welcome to join us on the day, to watch the match and see which of the MP’s have the honour to turn up and put their batting skills where their mouths are.
Bring Tea and Cucumber Sandwiches, Pimms and Lemonade, Picnics, Moral Fibre and Good Sportsmanship.
In Nottingham, there was a noisy demo at Market Square at noon, Saturday 2 April
Pictures at: http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=399281
and on Indymedia at: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308207.html
Several hundred turned out on this bright sunny afternoon.
We stand against racism and fortress Europe and for the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. For citizenship based on residency and the closing of all detention centres. We oppose deportation of migrants. We see the demand for freedom of movement encompassing different struggles of migration taking place every day throughout Europe: struggles for housing and legalisation, struggles against racism and camps, struggles in the workplace, the struggles of women and men to free themselves from patriarchy, racism, homophobia in their country of origin but also of their country of arrivial.
Both main political parties are trying to out-do each other in the ‘lets be horrible to asylum seekers stakes’. Playing with peoples’ lives. ….. the Archbishop of Canterbury has just pointed out that its a bad idea. Bad politics. We agree with him!
All over the country, there are demonstrations drawing attention to this issue
*****
Yesterday …. Occupation at Labour Party Offices for East Midlands.
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308040.html
A group of concerned people from around Nottinghanshire had occupied the Labour Party’s Regional Offices at Harold Wilson House in Attenborough, Beeston. The object being to urge their local MP’s to act on inhumane policies towards asylum Seekers that leave many destitute. At the moment nearly 900 refugees in Nottinghamshire alone, live in destitution. Most experience hunger, and cannot afford to buy clothes or shoes and many are not able to maintain good health.
More info from:
Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum Ph: 0115 941 5599 http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk
Sumac Centre 245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham NG7 6HX Ph: 0845 458 9595 Email: sumac@veggies.org.uk http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
Zoe Williams
Tuesday March 29, 2005
The Guardian
http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/comment/0,8146,1447147,00.html
Some statistics don’t do anybody any favours, and here’s one of them. Since it was reclassified from class B to class C at the beginning of last year, cannabis has lost its lustre, especially for the young.
This is bad news for those lobbying to reverse the classification. It’s bad news for people selling the drug, who are now caught in the classic Tory conundrum – if you don’t attract new blood, all your supporters will eventually die. It’s not even terribly good news for marijuana lovers, since nobody likes to see their poison of choice consigned to the dustbin of drug history.
Matthew Atha, director of the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit, noted that the change in the law had had no effect at all. In fact, though, since the increase in regular users dropped to 0.5% last year, down from 45% in 1998, I’d say the legislation has had a very marked impact. It has made everyone lose interest. You might just as well have dressed this drug up in a sailor suit and sent it on tour with Geri Halliwell. It just isn’t cool anymore.
An intelligent observer of youth behaviour in relation to government initiatives would be able to deduce the following: people below 25, say, are counter-suggestible. I chose that 25 figure totally at random, and since I’m still quite counter-suggestible and don’t intend to change radically in the next couple of years, I’m going to amend it up to 35.
Thus, if you tell them things are dangerous, they will do them, and if you shrug and say “actually, it doesn’t seem to do too much harm”, they will do something else. Whole swaths of aberrant behaviour could be addressed with this in mind. Obesity, smoking, drinking, fighting, snowboarding and joyriding would all become terribly passé if the government were to become their advocates, particularly if prominent members of the government were to lead by example and take up dangerous activities in a high-profile way. I rather fancy Alastair Campbell for this job.
Failing that, they could always start by decriminalising all drugs. There seem to be three main strands of argument for the criminal status of psychoactive substances. First, they’re bad for people. Whenever anyone suggests slackening the laws against dope, for instance, the antis are immediately full of statistics about how very much worse are its effects than simply making everyone feel a bit foggy and forget to turn off the heating when they go to bed.
You’d think that by now we’d have devised ourselves a sliding scale for legality based not on the damage you do to yourself, but the damage you do to others. Regular smoking would therefore be a class A (for its efficacy as a long-distance carcinogen), alcohol would be class B (it makes people fight and drive badly), heroin and crack would be class C (they make people steal things), cocaine would be class D, along with PlayStations and an interest in sport (they make people very tedious) and dope would weigh in somewhere closer to the bottom of the alphabet (it sometimes makes people quite quiet), unless mixed with tobacco, in which case it would scooch back up to A.
The second argument is that, the laxer the penalties, the more people will do something. This might work with speeding (in cars, not on amphetamines). But it does not seem to work with drugs. It’s possible that people only do drugs at all because the anti-authoritarian impulse behind law-breaking attracts them, but they are too decent to mug. That would be quite hard to prove, though.
Thirdly, there is the contention that people shouldn’t take illegal drugs because they thereby keep buoyant an industry based on the most scandalous exploitation – a position given new expression since the release of the Oscar-nominated film Maria Full of Grace, which shows the horrifying realities of being a drug mule.
But, clearly, the only reason drug overlords can treat their mules so badly is that they’re unregulated, and they’re only unregulated because the product itself is illegal. And frankly, even industries that are regulated don’t seem to be able to ensure that the workers at the bottom of their foodchain are treated an awful lot better.
These are all arguments that were rehearsed an awful lot a decade ago, but the debate seems to be steadily receding back to “Shall we or shan’t we put people in prison for having the odd joint?”. It’s hard to say how that happened. Possibly, the first pioneers for legalised drug use have smoked too much dope and lost interest. And if that’s the case, we can look forward to the next generation, registering almost no uptake of a dope habit, being very radical indeed.
zoe_williams@ntlworld.com
http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/comment/0,8146,1447147,00.html
NNRF is an independent, voluntary organisation set up to help and support asylum seekers and refugees in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
In support of the European Social Forum Day of Action against racism and in defence of asylum seekers and migrants ….. Nottingham is having a Noise Demo on April 2nd
Organized by the Campaign Group. Bring banners and all manner of musical instruments – everything from trombones to dustbin lids – to the Market Square at noon.
Download a flyer here: http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk/noisedemo1.pdf
The Sumac Centre, showing its support with a bloody great banner…..!
More info from:
Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum
Ph: 0115 941 5599
http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk
Sumac Centre
245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham NG7 6HX
Ph: 0845 458 9595
Email: sumac@veggies.org.uk
http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
Pictures at: http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=394218
and on Indymedia at: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/307825.html
Earlier on Indymedia at:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/01/304467.html
During Mayday 2001, police trapped protestors in Oxford Circus for 7 hours without access toilets, food or water.
Nearly four years later, the High Court has rejected compensation claims by Lois Austin and Geoffrey Saxby who claimed they had been ilegally imprisoned and that their “right to liberty” under the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached when they were held for over seven hours along with thousands of other people.
The concequences of all this, might be a bit grim !!
Pictures of the event, to be seen at:
Pictures of this event, can been seen at the following links
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_mayday2001-1.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_mayday2001-2.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/surv_mday1.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/surv_mday2.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_action10.htm
” ” Don’t let the bastards grind you down ” ” 🙂
There are around 150 other claims by people held by the police operation which are depending on the test case outcome.
The pair have been given leave to appeal and say they will do so.
03/TLQ/0350 Austin v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis
03/TLQ/0411 Saxby v Same
The full judgement will soon be available here:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2005
http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgments/judg_home.htm#queen in the near future
* * * * * *
Guardian Articles about it:
May Day detainees lose damages case
Agencies
Wednesday March 23, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1444240,00.html
Two people who were detained during a May Day protest for more than seven hours without food, drink or toilet facilities today lost a high court damages action against the police.
The case was brought by demonstrator Lois Austin and office worker Geoffrey Saxby, who were among about 3,000 people corralled in Oxford Circus from 2pm until 9.30pm by riot police during an anti-globalisation demonstration in 2001. Another 150 claims were hanging on the case brought by Ms Austin and Mr Saxby.
The pair claimed damages for false imprisonment and a breach of their right to liberty under the European Convention. They said that the police action caused them distress and alarm, and left them feeling humiliated and intimidated.
Today Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the police had been “duty bound” to impose an absolute cordon to prevent violence and the risk of injury to persons and property. It was not practicable for the police to release the crowd collectively earlier than they did, he said.
“It is obvious from the videos of the three previous English demonstrations that on May Day 2001 there was a real risk of serious injury and even death, as well as damage to property, if the police did not control the crowd. Those at risk included members of the public, police officers and other demonstrators,” he said in his written ruling. “The organisers’ literature could reasonably be understood as incitement to looting and violence, and it was hard to understand it in any other way. The belief of the police was clearly reasonable.”
Ms Austin and Mr Saxby were given permission to appeal today’s decision.
During the hearing of the case the court had heard how Ms Austin, 35, who was still breastfeeding, was not allowed to leave to collect her 11-month-old daughter from a crèche and had to arrange for a friend to collect the baby. She had travelled into central London from Southwark with her partner to attend the peaceful protest.
Mr Saxby, 48, who was working for a company selling data recording equipment, claimed police ignored him when he told them he was not involved in the demonstration, and was merely in the area to make a collection from a bank for his employer. He was caught up when he got off a slow-moving bus and complied with police requests not to take certain routes as he walked to Oxford Circus on his way to a restaurant. He was under the impression that there was a security alert of some sort.
Their counsel, Keir Starmer QC, told the judge that the lack of toilet facilities led to “inconvenience and distress”, with many individuals inevitably being forced to urinate in front of others in the crowd and police officers. That, he said, was relevant to the reasonableness of the action taken by the Metropolitan police and the question of damages.
“Our broad position is that there is no power to detain those who are not presenting any danger to the peace. Transitory detention might be justified in certain circumstances but seven-and-a-half hours without a toilet is unreasonable and certainly not transitory,” Mr Starmer said.
Ms Austin, who was present in court, said after the decision: “It is a disappointing judgement in terms of the right to protest in this country. We are worried that protesters are being criminalised for going on the streets and making their protests heard against war and world poverty.”
Her solicitor, Louise Christian, said the judge had found that the claimants were effectively imprisoned, but that on the particular facts of this case the police were justified in doing so.
“The police are looking at this as a test case on whether they can detain people in other circumstances,” she said. “Hopefully the court of appeal will take a different approach, otherwise the problem will be that the police will see this as a green light to use this tactic again.”
In a statement, police said: “The MPS believes that in the circumstances present on May 1 2001, we were duty bound to protect public safety through implementing this containment in Oxford Circus. For us not to take this action would have run a very real risk of serious injury to the public and our staff, looting and widespread criminal damage.”
Scotland Yard added that the organisers of the May Day protest had “contrived to make the policing of the day as difficult as possible by refusing to even communicate with us.”
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “Today’s judgement should alarm anyone who believes in the right to protest or that people should not be detained en masse like cattle. We do not believe that the reasoning will survive the court of appeal’s anxious scrutiny.”
* * * * * *
Two fail in May Day test case
Rosie Cowan
Thursday March 24, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1444342,00.html
A breastfeeding mother and an office worker detained during a May Day protest for more than seven hours without food, drink or toilet facilities lost a high court claim for damages against the Metropolitan police yesterday.
The test case brought by Lois Austin and Geoffrey Saxby is now likely to go to the court of appeal.
The two were among about 3,000 people who were corralled in Oxford Circus, central London, from 2pm until 9.30 by police during the anti-globalisation demonstration in 2001. Ms Austin, 35, from Southwark, south London, was a protester but Mr Saxby, 48, from Hastings, East Sussex, was on an errand for his employer.
Both claimed damages for false imprisonment and a breach of their right to liberty under the European convention on human rights. Both were given permission to appeal. But Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the police’s actions were justified.
Ms Austin was not allowed to leave to pick up her 11-month-old daughter from a creche and Mr Saxby claimed police ignored him when he told them he was not involved in the demonstration.
Ms Austin said: “We are worried that protesters are being criminalised for going on the streets and making their protests heard against war and world poverty.”
Her solicitor, Louise Christian, said: “Hopefully the court of appeal will take a different approach, otherwise the problem will be that the police will see this as a green light to use this tactic again.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4374853.stm
Pair lose protest damages claim
Two people have lost a High Court damages claim against the Metropolitan Police after being detained for several hours during May Day protests in central London in 2001.
Geoffrey Saxby, from Hastings, East Sussex, and Lois Austin, of Southwark, south London, claimed the tactics in 2001 breached the Human Rights Act.
They were among people corralled in London’s Oxford Circus without food, drink or access to toilets.
The Met said the action stopped serious injury to the public and the officers.
Mr Saxby and Ms Austin, who had claimed damages alleging false imprisonment, have been given permission to appeal against the court decision
Ms Austin said: “It is a disappointing judgement in terms of the right to protest in this country.
“We are worried that protesters are being criminalised for going on the streets and making their protests heard against war and world poverty.”
The court heard how Ms Austin, 35, had to get a friend to collect her 11-month-old daughter from a crèche because she was not allowed to leave to pick up her up.
Mr Saxby said he had told police he was not involved in the protest but had got caught up in the chaos while collecting money from a bank on behalf of his employer.
Widespread criminal damage
Ms Austin’s solicitor, Louise Christian, said the judge had found both her client and Mr Saxby had been detained but in this case the police were justified in doing so.
Ms Christian added: “Hopefully the Court of Appeal will take a different approach, otherwise the problem will be that the police will see this as a green light to use this tactic again.”
But Assistant Commissioner Steve House said after the case: “The Met believes that if we had not taken this course of action on 1 May 2001 we would have run the very real risk of serious injury to the public and ourselves, plus looting and widespread criminal damage.”
Mr Justice Tugendhat agreed with the Met was “duty bound” to impose an absolute cordon to prevent violence and the risk of injury to persons and property.
He added: “The organisers’ literature could reasonably be understood as incitement to looting and violence and it was hard to understand it in any other way.”
But Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “Today’s judgment should alarm anyone who believes in the right to protest or that people should not be detained en masse like cattle.”
My pictures of this event, can been seen at the following links
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_mayday2001-1.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_mayday2001-2.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/surv_mday1.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/surv_mday2.htm
http://tash.gn.apc.org/gal_action10.htm
” ” Don’t let the bastards grind you down ” ” 🙂
In advance of the main G8 meeting at Gleneagles, there are a number of mini-meetings. This one was for Environment & development ministers meeting at Breadsall Priory Hotel, a few miles north of Derby. However, demonstrations, outside of a market area, within the City of Derby, were banned.
There was thus, an area marked out by fencing in Market Place. Quite reminicent of cattle pens. People arranged themselves anywhere, but ‘in there’!
Pictures of this, and related events, can be seen at:
G8 Environment & development ministers Meeting at Derby Pt1
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/306935.html
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=384246 [more piccys]
G8 Environment & development ministers Meeting at Derby Pt2
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/306956.html
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=384247 [more piccys]
&
Recent ‘Collected links’ re: G8 matters:
UK Indymedia 2005 Shakedown ‘05 – Nottingham G8 — The Pictures
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/306592.html
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=380071
UK Indymedia 2005 Nottingham Critical Mass Bike-About
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/02/305420.html
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=353433
UK Indymedia 2004 Nottingham Colwick ‘Oil’ Demonstration – Blockade
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293040.html
http://tashcamuk.fotopages.com/?entry=129926
* * * * * *
For your interests, these links are about ‘public concern’ and disruption advice.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/4348429.stm
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/7.html
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/642.html
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/641.html
and at this one, you can download a copy of the Public Order Act 1986, Sections 13 & 14. These orders having been applied for because of the ‘serious threats’ to public disorder
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/644.html
These sections, together with the help of the Crime and Disorder Act 2003, now define an assembly as TWO OR PERSONS.
BLOODY HECK !!
As it turned out, a couple of hundred gathered, and to police these folks, cost the council tax payers of Derby £2,000,000. Still, the suppression of democracy, doesn’t come cheap, does it? If my maths is correct, that’s £10,000 per protestor.
Andy Worthington
I’m sure the impending 20th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield hasn’t slipped anyone’s memory – and if it’s something you don’t know about, the basic story is that on 1st June 1985, a convoy of vehicles en route to Stonehenge to establish the 12th annual free festival was set upon and ‘decommissioned’ with extreme brutality by the police.
To mark the anniversary, a few venues around the country will be hosting an exhibition of photos of the Stonehenge festivals, the Beanfield, and the exclusion zone – including photos by Tash and Adrian Arbib, as well some little-seen photos of the Beanfield. On the opening nights, we’ll also be showing ‘Operation Solstice’, the acclaimed 1991 documentary about the Beanfield, and I’ll be giving a talk on the Beanfield and its aftermath, based – in part – on my book Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion.
The opening night of the first of this year’s shows is next Wednesday (16 March), at 7.30 pm, at the Kebele Kulture Project, 14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6JY, where the exhibition will run until 7 April.
On Wednesday 20 April, the exhibition will move to SUMAC, 245 Gladstone Street, Nottingham, NG7 6HX, where there will also be a showing of ‘Operation Solstice’ and I’ll also be giving a talk. The opening night starts at 8pm, and the exhibition will run until 8 May.
I’m also collating some information for a small book to commemorate the anniversary, with Neil Goodwin, the co-director of ‘Operation Solstice’, and other interested parties, featuring, among other things, a cache of photos, most of which have never seen the light of day, transcripts of interviews made during the making of ‘Operation Solstice’ and other documentation from the time, so if you’ve got anything to contribute, please feel free to contact me.
There’s more to come, but I reckon that’ll do for now.
All the best,
Andy
Kebele: www.kebele.org or 0117 939 9469
SUMAC: www.veggies.org.uk/diary.htm
Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion: www.hoap.co.uk/alternative.htm
‘It’s the best bit of modern British social history I’ve seen’,
John Hodge, SchNEWS
From pro-hunt rallies to fuel blockades, media-backed direct action campaigns have repeatedly captured the political agenda in the Blair years
Kirsty Milne
Tuesday March 15, 2005
The Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,7494,1438081,00.html
The budget is ready, the parties are poised. Everyone is braced for a general election – except the electorate. Pollsters predict a turnout lower even than the 59% of 2001. Politicians warn against apathy, evoking the image of a public too inert to heave itself off the sofa.
Yet outside conventional politics, civic life is far from inert. From pro-hunting rallies to fuel blockades, from raids on GM crops to demonstrations against the Iraq war, surges of single-issue protest have marked Tony Blair’s years in power. They suggest that voters, far from being apathetic, have interests that do not fit party platforms and are seeking other outlets of expression.
Popular protest has a history, so why pay any more attention to it now than 30 or 300 years ago? What is new is the congruence of protest, a partisan press in search of causes and an electorate whose anxieties are not being represented.
Direct action tends to be bracketed with the left. But the Countryside Alliance, fuel protesters and section 28 campaigners championed causes associated with the right. Protest has been reclaimed by anyone who feels their identity under threat, be they foxhunting polo-players or villagers with Gypsies on their doorstep.
These are issues that parties have been slow to spot or reluctant to take on. The fuel protests in September 2000 caught ministers unawares, although they knew from focus groups that the price of petrol annoyed voters. Hunting and section 28 belonged naturally to the Tories, yet the party had to run to catch up. A nationwide consultation found mistrust of GM crops, yet it was ignored by the prime minister.
The political vacuum has been filled by the press. The Countryside Alliance has been able to count on powerful allies at the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. In Scotland it was the Daily Record, a Labour-supporting paper, that led the campaign to stop repeal of section 28. The fuel protesters were hailed by the Sun and the Mail, both of which backed a cut in petrol duty, as honest folk whose tolerance had snapped. The Mail, its finger on middle England’s pulse, has even opposed GM crops, featuring Jude Law’s designer activism.
Faced with falling circulation and competition from the internet, newspapers are joining a 21st-century mutation of the picket line. The alliance is symbiotic. Protesters want instant attention, usually from government; the press wants instant attention from readers. Things have changed since the 80s and early 90s, when striking miners and poll-tax resisters would have hardly made bedfellows for right-of-centre papers. The Iraq protests had backing from the Mirror, Guardian and Independent. But the broadening of the protest spectrum suits editors and owners who dislike the Blair administration and what they see as its pro-tax, politically correct agenda.
This is not to suggest an invincible media conspiracy. None of these protests succeeded in its primary aims. Gordon Brown did not slash duty on ordinary petrol. The government banned fox-hunting, though it took seven years, and repealed section 28 north and south of the border. The decision not to go ahead with GM crops was taken by biotech firms, which proved more sensitive than ministers to public opinion.
The success of the press-protest axis lies in short-lived coalitions that capture the political agenda. The hunting ban mutated from an animal welfare measure into a debate about freedom and the countryside. Fuel blockades established motorists as a martyred class and made it politically impossible to raise duty. Section 28 was rehabilitated as vital for protecting children and even marriage, leaving the Scottish parliament nervous of legislating on anything relating to morality or family values.
What’s wrong with that, a robust editor will ask. Papers respond to opinion, and it is not their fault if they make a better job of it than politicians. When the governing party has a big majority and a weak opposition, they act as a safety valve for dissent.
They also get results. Party policy forums may toil away, but it only takes a handful of campaigners and a newspaper to stop a hospital closure or speed the deportation of asylum-seekers. For a generation that can vote someone out of the Big Brother house in minutes, a month-long media uproar makes more sense than waiting four or five years to express a view.
But the press is going further, using dissent to challenge the legitimacy of elected politicians. The Record’s unofficial referendum on section 28 drew 1.2m votes – from a population of 5 million – with the vast majority opting to keep the clause. The Mail followed suit with its 2003 ballot on whether the EU constitution should be put to a referendum, a demand Tony Blair conceded a year later. This time 1.7m votes were received, with 89% in favour. Despite the lack of oversight and scope for multiple voting, these numbers are hard to ignore.
Press protest matters, for reasons heartening and disturbing. The good news is that people have not given up on politics. They may not care to vote yet feel strongly, if intermittently, on single issues such as cannabis laws or asylum – and could be engaged through some form of direct democracy.
The bad news is that newspapers create their own political ecology, a one-party state of yes/no answers where the majority wins and the losers are, Big Brother-style, evicted. The Sun’s campaign against Gypsies (“Stamp on the camps”) shows how press protest tends to close off compromise on issues that divide us.
· Kirsty Milne is the author of Manufacturing Dissent: Single-Issue Protest, the Public and the Press, published by Demos on Thursday
http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,7494,1438081,00.html
Tash on YouTube
