The Europe Against Austerity conference held in London on October 1 was attended by 681 people, including 150 from outside Britain. This happened the same weekend that two big demonstrations took place.
In Glasgow, a “People First” demonstration of 15,000 called by the Scottish TUC took place on October 1.
The next day, 35,000 joined a demonstration in Manchester outside the governing Conservative Party conference, which was called by the Trades Union Congress and backed by the Coalition of Resistance and the Right to Work Campaign.
London
Living in north London, I often travel via the interchange in Tottenham. Walking between stations I found myself on Ferry Lane Bridge on the evening of August 14, the spot where Mark Duggan was shot by police on August 4.
“Mob rule”. “Wanton destruction”. “Mindless thuggery”. “Sheer criminality”. Media, politicians and police always say the same thing about urban riots. Riots can spin out of control and engulf ordinary people. But that does not alter the fact that they are rooted in social oppression.
Why is it that the same areas always erupt first, whatever the cause? Pure accident? Might it have something to do with race and class and institutionalised poverty and the sheer grimness of everyday life?
You've probably heard it said a dozen times today: "It's like 28 Days Later out there." Every thirty seconds, there's a new riot zone. I've rarely known the capital to be this wound up.
How do YOU suggest we cut Britain's deficit then? You'll be asked this if you ever oppose a cost-cutting scheme, such as merging the sewerage system with the library service or something.
So here's one answer, we could pay a bit less to ATOS, a private company that receives ￡100 million a year from the British government for assessing who should be cut off from disability benefit.
About 500,000 people marched in London on March 26 against the British government’s program of huge spending cuts. Called by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the march drew people from every part of Britain — a splendid cross section of the country with numbers dominated by the working class.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke to reporters outside a London court following his bail release from prison, where he has been held since Dec. 7th.
“Rise like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number!/Shake your chains to earth, like dew/Which in sleep had fall’n on you/Ye are many —they are few.”
These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley’s “Mask of Anarchy” from 1819 may seem unattainable. I don’t think so.
Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a British government spreadsheet.
At first glance, you might have mistaken London’s packed streets on November 10 for a Mardi Gras carnival. There young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet-blasting and drum-beating. All mixed together to form the din of student protest.
The noise took shape and all of a sudden burst from the centre of the crowd, picked up by everyone else: “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts” — the main chants of the 50,000 students marching forward from Westminster to the destination of the Milbank headquarters of the Conservative Party.
In what Sky News described as one of the largest demonstrations to hit London streets in decades, tens of thousands of students, teachers, staff members and their supporters rallied on November 10 in opposition to the new Conservative-led government’s plan for tuition increases and cutbacks at Britain’s colleges.
Organised by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Union (UCU), the demonstration drew students from across the country for a march through central London, during which students occupied the Conservative Party headquarters.
British rail unions branded Transport for London (TfL) “barefaced liars" after its management attempted to claim minimum disruption during a 24-hour strike on November 3.
London Underground services were crippled by strike action called by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) over safety-critical job cuts.
All 11 of the London’s Tube lines were hit by the walkout. The action was the latest in a series of strikes over plans to axe up to 2000 jobs, including 800 station staff.
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