The biggest strike in the public sector for decades, has been a huge success.
We are just back from Birmingham where we joined a march of around 5000 strikers and their families who turned out to tell Cameron and Osborne what they thought of their attempt to make us work longer and pay more for less. And this despite Birmingham City Councils last minute attempt to put the kibosh on us having a march!
Despite a concerted and vitriolic anti-union barrage from the Tories, both the blue variety and their yellow fags, and their hangers-on in the gutter press, support for the strike was running at 60+ %. Today’s events- over 1000 marches and rallies the length and bredth of the country, 20,000 marching in Manchester, 40,000 in London- can only increase this bedrock of support as we were able to put across our basic case for fair treatment, face to face, to a wider swathe of the public.
But, to win, this must be the start, not the end, of a campaign which needs to escalate from one-day token strikes and which needs to reach out to wider layers of those pissed off with the ConDems.
March 26th monster demo in London. Yep, I am lurking somewhere on this photo (thanks to Rob Morgan)… see if you can spot me.
I don’t normally attend academic conferences but this looks interesting…
Discourses of Dissent- Social Theory and Political Resistance
www.discoursesofdissent.com
Public Symposium, Warwick Social Theory Centre
16th February 2011, 1:30pm-6:30pm, Drinks afterwards
Birmingham Midland Institute
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2011 off to a brilliant start…
The Tory-LibDem Coalition is a government of millionaires for the millionaires: 18 out of the 24 cabinet ministers are millionaires. Last year, they told us that we are “all in it together”. Now, they let banks set aside £7 billion for bonuses. It really is “them and us”.
The state-owned bank RBS will pay out £1 billion in bonuses to its top bankers including £7 million to boss Stephen Hester. Bob Diamond, the boss at Barclays, will receive £8 million and has pocketed £75 million since 2006! No wonder he’s just told the Treasury select committee that the period of “remorse and apologising” for banks was over!
The Coalition government has launched a programme of cuts and privatisation designed to destroy the welfare state and bring poverty to millions. Notices have been issued warning that 130,000 council jobs are at risk of redundancy. In Manchester, 2,000 jobs are to go – that’s 17% of the non-teaching staff! The NHS bill will denationalise healthcare services in England and cost £1.7 billion on restructuring rather than on patient care.
Instead of cuts, we need investment in jobs, homes, transport, public services, and a sustainable economy. And it is those who are responsible for the crisis, the speculators, tax-dodgers, and the rich, who should pay for it.
We have to meet the Con-Dem attack with a wave of demonstrations, occupations, and strikes powerful enough to stop the cuts and defend public services. The students have shown the way. Now we have to unite to carry on the fight.
The Coalition of Resistance is organising a week of action from the 14 to the 19 February.
That is the time to rally together everyone in your town for demonstrations and meetings, to organise against all cuts in jobs and services, and to start filling the coaches for the TUC demonstration on 26 March. This can be the start of resistance by millions to defend our welfare state and the day we begin to turn the tide on the Con-Dem Coalition of millionaires
I
was reading of Lichfield’s woes- losing £800,000 from this years council budget and £1.4 million from next years, when I hit upon a simple solution.
Lichfield, and other towns facing similar cuts, should adopt or ‘twin’ with a banker receiving a sizeable bonus. The town could then write formally to this banker and ask them to donate their bonus to save much needed jobs and services.
Surely only the most stony-hearted of fat-cats would refuse?
Some enterprising individual has produced this handy Google map showing the location and contact details for many of the anti-cuts campaigns which are springing up like mushrooms across the country.
Isn’t it high time Tamworth also had a campaign?
The awesome creativity, commitment and courage of the students and their supporters in opposition to this government of jeremy hunts has been fantastic.
From those engaged in occupying their colleges, to those facing down police horses and baton wielding paramilitary thugs on the streets of London, from those taking the message out to the wider public with open air lectures, alternative media, interventions on news programmes etc. to those taking direct action against tax dodging companies and fat cats- a generation has awakened. Hope pervades the air- this is what democracy looks like.
One of my favourite videos is here- there are many others.
