Difficulties in getting 'Boys on the Blacklist'?

A reader recently wrote: 
'I would really like to purchase a copy of this but I don't have a chequebook.  Is there another way that I could pay for a copy?'


She was asking about buying a copy of 'Boys on the Blacklist' published by Tameside TUC and partly funded by the North West TUC as part of its grants to Trade Union Councils.  Understandably, the TUC has issued a disclaimer until it has had time to peruse and scrutinise its contents to see if its contents and conclusions meet with the policies of the TUC. At present the person charged with this is at present out of the country, and we will await her decision with interest.  Meanwhile the regional secretary of Unite the Union in the North West has placed the book on the agenda of the Finance & General Purposes Committee for its consideration.


This book has been available for almost three weeks and the first print order has now almost sold out.  We hope to reprint the book in the coming weeks.  It is selling remarkably well among trade unionists across the country, and was available on the Unite Manchester train to London for the TUC March on the 18th, October.  On that occasion Steve Acheson, who has led the campaign against the blacklist in the Manchester for over a decade, was signing copies of the book.


At the moment because casual sales are doing so well we have resisted placing copies in bookshops in the North.  Copies were being sold on the Crocodile Protest by the GMB union at G-Mex today.  However, a few outlets have taken a few copies including Housemans, Freedom Bookshop in London, Hydra the Bristol Radical History community bookshop, and Bob Jones's Northern Herald Books in Bradford.  Housemans Bookshop was mentioned by Ian Kerr before the Scottish Affairs Select Committee as the outlet in London at which he used to buy left-wing publications for his purposes of collecting intelligence and information to fill his blacklist files at the now defunct Consulting Association, which was closed down by the Information Commissioner in February 2009.