Monthly Archives: September 2010

Videos from Barnet anti-cuts meeting last night

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These are video cuts from last night’s public meeting in Barnet.

There was an impressive turnout. Most people said they were Barnet residents (there was a show of hands towards the end).

Haven’t edited the vids, so there are rough moments.

First video: Shirley Franklin, Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition.

Talks about government attempts to close accident and emergency departments in London hospitals.

Nick Grant from the Anti Academies Alliance (not Alasdair Smith! – he went to another one. h/t vickram7).

Speaks about BBC giving in too easily to spending cuts rhetoric and the ‘class war’ in education. Says academies are about decentralising schools management. ‘The government has lied on its website,’ and deliberately overstated finance available to schools.

Next: John Lister from London Health Emergency.

Talks about hospitals that have lost their accident and emergency departments since the election – Queen Mary’s in Sidcup, Chase Farm, etc.

Continue reading →

Hammersmith and Fulham’s voluntary sector raid

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Hammersmith & Fulman funding cuts demonstration

Hammersmith funding cuts demonstration

A couple of months ago, Tory Hammersmith and Fulham council voted to cut voluntary sector funding by 16%. The cut will be considerably more than that in real terms, because the council has stopped adjusting its voluntary sector fund for inflation.

The squeeze is due in the next three years – savings targets of £158,738 for 2010 to 2011, £284,772 for 2011 to 2012 and £257, 481 for 2010 to 2013, with a total savings target of £700,791 by 2014.

The council claims, of course, that the recession has forced its hand – “the impact of [the coalition’s public sector cuts] will need to be shared with the third sector,” thunder cabinet agendas.

The amusing (kind of) part of this claim is that the total annual allocations budget for Hammersmith and Fulham’s voluntary sector is a comparatively tiny £4m. That’s hardly major money, no matter how you slice it.

The amounts that the council wants to slice from it will destroy voluntary groups (some exist on amounts as small as £50,000 pa), but barely touch the sides of the council’s own three-year £50m savings target. As for the chances of annual cuts of £200,000 having pregnant impact on the national deficit – well, you have a quiet life if that adds up in your mind. These are petty savings, not temperate ones.

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Hammersmith and Fulham’s cuts are – as they always have been – part of an ideological raid. Continue reading →

The importance of strikes

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Over at the Grauniad today talking about the importance of strike action.

Hope we see more of this sort of thing – people really need to know that striking is the only option a lot of people have. Strikers aren’t lazy or greedy – quite the reverse. They usually have work at the centre of their lives and are desperate for it to continue.

Regarding the Fremantle careworkers – I have it on good authority that it was the union’s regional office that ended that strike. It wasn’t the strikers themselves. They wanted to continue.