Support the postal workers – London meeting tomorrow

London Suppport Group meeting – supported by CWU London, UCU London and Right to Work

Time: 7pm

Date: 26 October ’09

Venue: Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London

Speakers include: Mark Serwotka (PCS, general secretary), Martin Walsh (CWU London divisional rep), Alison Lord (Tower Hamlets UCU), Charlie Kimber (Right to Work speaker from RMT).

• Full solidarity with the strike to private public services, jobs, pensions, pay and working conditions.
• Support the picket lines.
• The London Division of the CWU is appealing for donations to their hardship fund. Please make cheques payable to CWU London Divisional Committee – Hardship Fund and send to: John Denton, London Regional Secretary, Second Floor, 33-41 Dallington Street, London EC1V 0BB

Well, I will be going see you there……..

More pix from yesterday

Some more pix from yesterday.

Kevin’s pic below after being let loose with my camera.

More pix across the Thames from Tate

I am an atheist though I admit I am fascinated by religious art and buildings, and what they represent. The image below is from the church near Waterloo and I tried to capture the orange light from the street lamps that lit up the church but I just couldn’t get the angle quite right. And for some reason when I see depictions of the crucifixion I always think of my x-boyfriend Rob, strange but true and a very long story…..

Oh, and it is great to be able to take evening shots at last!!

Get well Morrissey

So hope Morrissey is ok.

And to start Sunday morning The Smiths.

Yay!

Anti-war demo today

The weather was rainy. There were around 5 – 10,000 people (but like I say I am bad at estimations). We marched from Hyde Park Corner to Trafalgar with Military Families Against the War leading the march.

The demo, well for me anyway, was not spectacular nor dynamic actually I found it depressing with the dwindling numbers demonstrating against war. Well, that is my overall impression.

Anyway, I saw people around to say hello to. I met up with Random Blowe for coffee and cake at the members’ room, Tate Modern (with the fantastic views across the Thames).  Harpy knows where to take people for coffee and culture.

I remember Kevin from the mists of time when he was London area NUS convener person. Ahh, the days of my yoof.

Btw: Kevin, you didn’t whinge *cough* that much…..

Will upload pix when my feet stop aching and flopped on sofa……

DLA: the plot thickens

The plot thickens………….

One avenue I do want to close down, however, is the debate and controversy over Disability Living Allowance. We recognise that this is an important benefit for disabled people, and I can state categorically that we have now ruled out any suggestion that DLA for under-65s will be brought into the new National Care Service. This is because, whilst there will be increases in the numbers of disabled people of working age who need care, the majority of the people needing care in the future will be older people. (Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham)

This contradicts Lord McKenzie of Luton, DWP Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Lords, said last week that ‘all disability benefits’ were under consideration as part of the government’s plan.

So this is speculation on my part but I wonder whether this may expose the tensions between the government and the lords…maybe even a split? Pure conjecture…who knows and who do you believe out of them.

Afghanistan- Bring the Troops Home demo tomorrow

Just to plug the anti-war demo tomorrow which will start at Hyde Park (assemble midday) and end at Trafalgar Square.

I will be on the demo clutching my new camera seeing what wonderful imagery it can create…..Oh, and will be wearing my new specs just hope my eyes aren’t too traumatised by the increase in lens strength and that I don’t have visually weird trippy experiences….and that I don’t fall over carrying my new camera ‘cos I misjudged the pavement level. It’s like being drunk but without the booze.

Question Time demo

Back from the picket of Question Time at the BBC. Totally knackered. I got there with other union activists from 5pm. The protest was lively and dynamic (will upload pix later). Some of the cops were wearing their numbers, some were not. I tried to get to the front of the demo by the gates but was pushed back.

The cops were violent towards people at the front of the demo, I saw one woman sitting on the pavement, think she came from the front of demo, looking very distressed and staring into space. I asked if she was ok, she said she was but shook up.

We spent time chanting outside the BBC and it seems we delayed filming ‘cos of the noise being made (ha!). At around 8 onwards we moved off towards the main road as we heard that Griffin would be leaving from a side road.

Think that confused the cops a bit though I did wonder whether they would try to kettle us around that side road but as it led into the main road they would have had great difficulties, though the riot cops were on hand and lots of vans following. We marched back towards the BBC and there was an impromptu rally in middle of the road.

Oh, and hello to Catherine who was also at the protest. I saw FBU, PCS, Unite, Unison, NUT and UCU banners.

I watched a bit of Question Time when I got home but really couldn’t stomach it so switched it off.

Not platform for fascists!

John Pilger on the postal strike

Excellent piece by John Pilger in the latest New Statesman regarding the postal strike.

An extract to whet the appetite:

Communication Workers Union negotiators describe intransigent executives with a hidden agenda – just as the National Coal Board masked Thatcher’s strictly political goal of destroying the miners’ union. The collaborative journalists’ role is unchanged, too. Mark Lawson, who pontificates about middlebrow cultural matters for the BBC and the Guardian and receives many times the remuneration of a postal worker, dispensed a Sun-style diatribe on 10 October. Waffling about the triumph of email and how the postal service was a “bystander” to the internet when, in fact, it has proven itself a commercial beneficiary, Lawson wrote: “The outcome [of the strike] will decide whether Billy Hayes of the CWU will, like [Arthur] Scargill, be remembered as someone who presided over the destruction of the industry he was meant to represent.”

The record is clear that Scargill and the miners were fighting against the wholesale destruction of an industry that was long planned for ideological reasons. The miners’ enemies included the most subversive, brutal and sinister forces of the British state, aided by journalists – as Lawson’s Guardian colleague Seumas Milne documents in his landmark work, The Enemy Within. Postal workers deserve the support of all honest, decent people, who are reminded that they may be next on the list if they remain silent.

Solidarity to the striking postal workers!

These are details of picket lines regarding the postal strike tomorrow.

Solidarity to the comrades on strike.

And sod off Peter “we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” Mandelson….

Workers united will never be defeated!!

Keyword searches

Unlike Splintered (and please do tell what your latest ones are) the keyword searches people use that lands them to my blog are pretty straightforward, precise and unoffensive…..

In the past few days:

Sarah Palin
Barbara Kruger
Hannah Hoch 
Suffragettes
Women suffrage 
Nan Goldin
Women’s suffrage
Camille Claudel
Batman
Rodin’s sculptures

Echo and the Bunnymen

….Though this keyword search is still my favourite from August 2008

“I hate New Labour”

….Don’t we all.

Sarah Palin…. gone from the political limelight but not forgotten (unfortunately!)