Anti-cuts, public services

Health, education, housing, benefits, local councils, ...

Labour women's solidarity with domestic violence refuges

Lewes Labour Women have combined practical solidarity with political campaigning and policy discussion in taking on the issue of violence against women. Six months into lockdown, we asked Labour members in Lewes constituency to donate clothes, toys and other items for our local women’s refuge. We knew that lockdown had made domestic violence more common, leaving an abusive relationship more difficult, and refuges unable to meet demand. Driving round our patch of East Sussex collecting donations also meant talking with members about the need for political campaigning. We had no intention of...

Diary of a firefighter: Pumps off the run

P opens BOSS, an operation database. “What do we reckon then, gents?” It’s become a daily ritual – guess how many pumps (the frontline workhorse fire engine of the brigade) are off the run. The guesses come thick and fast, mostly between 25 and 40, although J, ever the optimist, plumps for 20. “33”, P informs us. It’s a shocking shortfall, but about average for recent months. And that’s just the pumps off the run, let alone pump ladders, aerials or any other specialist appliance. The brigade is chronically, woefully short staffed. At every change of watch, Resource Management Centre play a...

Sheffield Archaeology: a cut with a "global impact"

A student involved with the Sheffield University Save Archaeology Campaign spoke to us. Back in February, a few students were emailed, asking us to attend an “informal chat” with the Deputy Vice Chancellor. Only a few of us were chosen and around a dozen or more of us turned up. She asked us for negative views as well as positive views about the department – she only received positive views. At a follow-up meeting, the Deputy VC laid out the conclusions from this “consultation”: they would close the Department of Archaeology and move two of its “areas of strength” into other departments. These...

Three protests on 26 June

As the well-advertised, heavily union-backed People's Assembly (PA) march moved off on 26 June, I cycled from it to join the trans rights protest assembling at Wellington Arch. It was a good few thousand. It was smaller than the PA protest but not that much smaller. It was younger and livelier; and, as far as I could judge from literature sales and conversations, pretty much as left-wing on "average" but in a more positive, less addled, way. There were contingents (small contingents, but contingents) from a clump of National Education Union (NEU) branches (Haringey, Waltham Forest, Newham...

Join the 26 June protest

The People’s Assembly (PA), an anti-cuts group, has called a demonstration in London for 26 June, noon from Portland Place. The PA was formed in 2013, is financed by trade unions including Unite, and now has “Corbynite” former Labour shadow minister Laura Pidcock as its secretary. The small socialist group Counterfire is important in its backroom workings. The protest is supported by several unions besides Unite (NEU, PCS, RMT, FBU...), and by Extinction Rebellion, which plans additional protests of its own on the weekend 26-27 June. Awkwardly, the protest, planned months ago, has accumulated...

"This is about the kind of world we want to live in"

Ali Treacher is a care worker, Unite the Union activist and workplace rep, and Secretary of the Care and Support Workers Organise! network (CaSWO!) She is also a supporter of Anti-Capitalist Resistance . She spoke to us about care workers' fight. CaSWO! has been meeting throughout the last year, since the start of the pandemic, after a Unison-organised call which brought together care workers around issues like workplace health and safety and PPE. The initial focus was basically offering each other solidarity and advice and sharing information. Government guidelines were so vague that we had...

Marching for Moulsecoomb

Hundreds of parents, kids, workers and supporters braved the rain to march from Moulsecoomb primary school to a rally at The Level in Brighton on Saturday 15 May, demanding that the school remain in local authority control.

Despite overwhelming opposition, the Department for Education is...

After 6 May, renew fight against Tories and cuts

Thursday 6 May sees elections for 143 councils covering the majority of England; the Scottish and Welsh parliaments; the London mayor and assembly; a number of other mayoral and police and crime commissioner positions; and the parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool. The local elections are for seats last contested in May 2016 (when Labour did poorly) or in May 2017 (when Labour did very poorly, though it recovered quickly between then and the June 2017 general election). So it shouldn’t be hard for Labour to show some gains. Yet Labour’s campaigns have been deeply uninspiring. A focus on NHS...

Using the local elections to fight for workers' rights

Edd Mustill (pictured right) is an NHS worker and GMB trade union activist who is standing for Labour in the Graves Park ward of Sheffield city council. He spoke to us about his campaign. My ward – which I also live in – has a long history of Lib Dem councillors so I’m unlikely to win. I’m standing to get a decent vote, but also to raise issues, build our Labour Party branch and get more people active as campaigners. I was selected a year and a half ago, and I planned to run a campaign based on extensive voter contact, with lots of door-knocking and discussions. Obviously, events intervened...

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