OCTOBER WEEK OF ACTIONS - BOYCOTT WORKFARE!

We are publishing a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"The government fears workfare could “collapse”. We want to make it do just that. On 4-12 October, take part in the week of action against workfare. The list of events is growing…. read on to find one near you, and if you can’t find one, why not plan your own? We can help – get in touch! There’ll be mass online actions on Mon-Fri of the week of action too. Get involved and help show workfare profiteers and exploiters “If you exploit us we will shut you down!”

4 Oct, SLSF calls anti-workfare picket in Lewisham
Saturday 4 October, Lewisham Clocktower at 1pm.

Join the South London Solfed roaming anti-workfare picket in Lewisham this Saturday, 4th October, in solidarity with Boycott Workfare’s week of action.

We will be targeting a number of organisations on Lewisham High Street who continue to exploit unemployed people as free labour.

More info here.

4 Oct, Stroud Against the Cuts leafleting about workfare
Saturday 4th October, 10am outside the 99p Store

Advice for claimants and information about the affect on us all.

6 Oct, Brighton Benefits Campaign picket of Avanta
Monday 6 October at 11am, Meet at Brighton Station forecourt

Join us in picketing Avanta, private provider and bully of unemployed and disabled people, sending them out as unpaid labour or forcing them into unsuitable badly paid work, and referring them for sanctions.
See the Facebook event. 

6 Oct, TUC Backs Workfare: protest at Co

Mon 6 Oct 1 – 2 pm, TUC Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell St, London WC1B 3LS, (nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road), Then 3 – 4 pm at CBI, 78 Cannon St, London EC4N 6HN (tube: Bank)

On 1 Aug 2014, the Trade Union Council (TUC) made a joint statement with Confederation of British Industries (CBI) to back Traineeships for 16 – 23 year olds.

Knowing first hand how unemployed people get harassed into workfare, get declined lunch & travel expenses to such workfares, get sanctioned or threatened with sanctions either during workfares or if they oppose them, we knew (despite TUC denying this) that TUC was now backing Workfare.

Join our protest to end this shoddy deal with Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) – members of Unite Community Union. Listen to your members TUC!

Download the flyer here.

8 Oct, Barnet, Rename the Job Centre the Sanctions Centre!
Wednesday 8 October, 9am-3pm, Jobcentre Plus, Finchley Lane, London NW3 8DP

Come and join us in a protest against sanctions on claimants and targets for staff! and take part in a mock ceremony and sign replacement when we re-name the job centre WITH ITS TRUE PURPOSE – THE SANCTION CENTRE

Join the Facebook event.

9 Oct, Edinburgh Shut down LearnDirect! Let’s make workfare unworkable!
Thursday 9 October, at 12 noon, Learndirect, Conference House, 152 Morrison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EB

Learndirect are the workfare providers for the compulsory “work-for-your-benefits” schemes Mandatory Work Activity and the new Community Work Placements scheme, which forces jobseekers to work for nothing for six months. Learndirect profit from the forced labour schemes and shamelessly refer jobseekers for sanctions, making people penniless to try and intimidate jobseekers to submit to forced labour.

But resistance to workfare is winning. To date 422 organisations have rejected the compulsory schemes and signed the “Keep Volunteering Voluntary” agreement – including the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Christian Aid, Shelter and the Edinburgh Volunteer Centre. This month Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty approached Cancer Research UK to urge them to withdraw from workfare – they have now told Learndirect in Edinburgh that they will not take any more of their workfare “placements”.

Share the flyer. Join the Facebook event.

10 Oct, Amsterdam: action against workfare during meeting of minister with aldermen

On October 10, the action committee Dwangarbeid Nee (No to Workfare) will demonstrate during a regional meeting of Social Affairs aldermen from the west of the Netherlands. State secretary Jetta Klijnsma invited the aldermen to talk about the labour market. The committee Dwangarbeid Nee seizes the opportunity to demand the immediate abolishment of workfare, or “forced labour” as the unemployed call it.

Read more about the action and the impressive campaign in the Netherlands!

10 Oct, Peckham Job Centre protest

Outside Peckham Job Centre, Friday 10 October, 12 noon-3pm

Please join us to protest against sanctions and workfare. Bring noise, banners, speeches, friends… and ideas! We plan to liven up the street again in a noisy and direct protest to tell Peckham JCP, Southwark council and the DWP that we will not stay quiet whilst Peckham Job Centre continues to sanction job seekers at over double the London average. Come and say NO to cuts and attacks on the poor, and build the fight back!

More info.

11 Oct, Bristol – Bristol Day Of Action Against Workfare!
Saturday 11 October at 12:30pm, meeting point tba

Following on from successful actions against workfare in Bristol over the past few years (no more forced unpaid labour at: St Wherburghs City Farm, Homebase, Argos, Holland & Barratt…) We will be taking to the streets again, along with others across the country.

Join the Facebook event.

11 Oct, Haringey: 6 month workfare: No way! Picket North London Hospice and Traid
Saturday 11 October, 12 noon, 19 High Road, N22 6BH – Three minutes’ walk from Turnpike Lane tube station

Update: This action has had success even before it has happened! Traid has said it has cancelled the placements in its Haringey store after pressure from Haringey Solidarity Group. The picket will go ahead – calling on North London Hospice to follow suit!

Hundreds of people in Haringey are being forced to work for 6 months with no pay under threat of sanctions. Profiteering Urban Futures have a contract for Community Work Placements and are busy finding placements in charities and “community benefit” projects across North London. But these schemes cannot work without charities making the placements possible – charities like North London Hospice and Traid.

Since they aim to improve lives and help people, charities should not be putting people at risk of destitution. As Haringey Solidarity Group put it “North London Hospice provides a service which places value on the quality of life of local people. Its complicity in this workfare scheme seems totally at odds with its main aims.”

Take part in this picket of North London Hospice and Traid: call on them to remember their values and withdraw from punitive workfare, which forces people to work without pay for twice the length of the maximum community service sentence. Bring placards, noisemakers and come ready to let people know what these charities are up to. Make them realise that there is no place for workfare in our communities.

Can’t make it? Haringey Solidarity Group are asking the public to contact North London Hospice here and you can tweet @TRAID. North London Hospice and Traid have other shops across London.  If you would like to organise a picket of your local shop, Haringey Solidarity Group may be able to help you with resources.  Please get in touch: info@haringey.org.uk

Let us know if help with travel fares would help you get there. Action called by Haringey Solidarity Group and Boycott Workfare.

Do you have an event to add to this list? Email info@boycottworkfare.org to let us know!"

Blacklist latest!

1. Another death in the building industry

Our thoughts are with the family of yet another construction worker killed at work as the carnage in the industry continues. This time on a Laing O'Rourke site in Heathrow. 

http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2014/10/02/laing-orourke-worker-killed-at-heathrow/

2. Protest at High Court 

Blacklist campaigners were outside the High Court on 26th September 

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39088/Blacklisting+protest+at+High+Court

3. High Court 16th October

Royal Courts of Justice

The Strand

(nearest tube: Holborn or Temple)

4. Blacklisting public meeting in Shetland 

Tuesday 7th Oct - 7;30pm start

British Legion Club

Lerwick

organised by the UNITE LT 156 Construction branch and stewards committee at Sella Ness - everyone welcome 

Some of the blacklisting companies are currently building in Shetland; Balfour Beatty are a major contractor at Sullum Voe, a project where union members from UNITE and GMB have had difficulty getting onto the site, prompting accusations of ongoing blacklisting.  

5. Crane drivers ballot for industrial action

http://www.ucatt.org.uk/construction-sites-facing-standstill-crane-drivers-ballot-industrial-action

6. Balfour Beatty are up to their cost cutting measures against workers, this time on the M25 contract. With 25 years left to run on the contract, the blacklisting firm are trying to take away holiday entitlement, lower terms and conditions and holiday pay.  

 

Balfour Beatty Protest

8^th October 2014 - 12 Noon 

130 Wilton Road

London

SW1V 1LQ

(nearest tube: Victoria)

 

Flyer attached 

Blacklist Support Group

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlCa8yQmZ70

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

'War Within World War I'

Celebrate the Resisters: The War within WW1, with Adam Hochschild- 22 October 2014, Derby      

Celebrate the Resisters: The War within WW1

Adam Hochschild

22nd October, Quad Arts

http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/contact-us

7pm

Tickets £5.00 (£4.00)

01332 290 606

Derby People’s History

http://www.derbypeopleshistory.co.uk/

England Arise: National Tour

IN 1914, the young men and women of Huddersfield Socialist Sunday School believe passionately in a better world.  Inspired by the revolutionary art, music and literature of the times, Arthur Gardiner and Percy Ellis refuse to take arms against their fellow workers and fight in the First World War.


Buoyed on by the support of their community, both at home and abroad, they take on the military in a momentous battle.  They suffer prison and brutality, and are taken to breaking point in a war of wills.
It costs them everything – except their conscience.


National Tour
24 & 25 October
LAWRENCE BATLEY THEATRE
Huddersfield
01484 430 528
30 & 31 October
KARDOMAH 94
Hull
01482 363 004
1 November
CARRIAGEWORKS THEATRE
Leeds
0113 224 3801
4 November
CAST
Doncaster
01302 303 959
7 November
SUNDERLAND STAGES
Royalty Theatre, Sunderland
0844 870 0887
9 November
SQUARE CHAPEL
Halifax
01422 349 422
10 & 11 November
MECHANICS THEATRE
Wakefield
01924 789 815
14 & 15 November
PEOPLE’S HISTORY MUSEUM
Manchester
07508 421 749
18 & 19 November
PIONEERS MUSEUM
Rochdale
01706 524 920
Inspired by the book ‘Comrades In Conscience’, by Cyril Pearce, drawing on Jill Liddington’s story of the Northern women’s suffrage movement, ‘Rebel Girls’, and using first hand source material,
England, Arise! brings to life a world of young people full of ideas, good humour and optimism for a brighter tomorrow.
For them power comes from knowledge, not a gun.
This is a story of hope.
Written by Mick Martin
Directed by Jude Wright
Designed by Barney George
Music by Jamie Lockhart & Lee Smith
www.bentarchitect.co.uk

Downgrading European Court of Human Rights

DAVID Cameron, in an effort to deal with the Ukip threat, is threatening to take Britain out of the European Court of Human Rights.   The Court has become something that the right-wing tabloids, some Conservatives, as well as Ukip deplore.  Jumping ship could be a popular position for Cameron and the Tories to adopt.But the Strasbourg-based court is not a part of the European Union and has nothing to do with the bureaucracy based in Brussels.  It was created in 1953, and was inspired by Winston Churchill, no less.  It tries to set a standard for civil liberties among 46 member states including the EU, the former Soviet block countries and Turkey.


What upset the Tories was when in 2005, the Court in Strasbourg overturned a British ban on giving prisoners the vote.  Cameron said the judgement made him feel 'physically ill'.  Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has claimed that decisions on deporting terrorists made in Strasbourg threatens security in the UK. 


Up to now rulings by the Court are binding on all member states.  If the Tories win the election in May, they will insist that Westminster is granted the right to veto any judgement it doesn't like.  Hence, a Tory government would claim a privilege to pick and choose, and if it does get this right it will leave the convention that underpins the European Court altogether.


This would open up the possibilities of other countries doing the same.  A FT editorial last Saturday says:
'Were the Council of Europe to give Britain the sweeping derogation the Conservatives seek, then other signatories, in particular Russia, would likely demand similar treatment.  This would reduce the convention to the status of a bleating wish list carrying little force.'


The Tories, like the Home Secretary Ms. May, often sneer at the European Court's insistence on the right to a family life.  But those of us who are electricians and have been campaigning for over a decade against the blacklist, know that if the national courts fail to tackle blacklisting in this country workers such as the Manchester electricians will have no alternative but to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.  And, the right to a family life may be one of the arguments used.

Labour Should Hold Heywood & Middleton

THE poll conducted by Survation for the Sun newspaper over the last two days, suggests that Labour is set to hold onto the northern constituency, retaining 50% of the support among those who have decided how they will vote so far.  However, 19% of voters are yet to make up their minds.

The survey suggests that 35% of Ukip's support comes from Labour, and 33% from the Tories

Green's Tough Task in Heywood & Middleton

ABI Jackson is the Green Party candidate for Heywood and Middleton, and is a Middleton lass who went to the Catholic Cardinal Langley High School, and she completed her Master's Degree at Huddersfield University.  Ms. Jackson has said:
'I joined the Green Party because they stand against austerity, and for investment in decent jobs; against fracking and for sustainable forms of power; from the beginning, they have opposed the bedroom tax.'

The constituency's former MP, Jim Dobbin, was a devote Roman Catholic, and he often pointed to the diverse nature of the area it covered from middle-class residents in Norden and Bamford, to working-class families in the council houses of Langley which straddles the two towns of Heywood and Middleton, to Alkrington south of Middleton town centre where Jim Allen the left-wing scriptwriter for Ken Loach's films and once upon a time Granada TV's Coronation Street, used to live and ultimately ended his days.

Jim Dobbin's final few years as MP had been tragic and acrimonious as well as eventful.   The local Labour Party in the area was bitterly divided between those who supported Dobbin a traditional Labour MP, and those who preferred Simon Danczuk MP for the neighbouring constituency of Rochdale.

In 2012, Heywood was shocked by a sexual grooming scandal in which white girls as young as 13 were systematically abused by a  group of older men.  Later nine men - eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan - were jailed for between four and 19 years.

The authorities were found to have failed to address this criminal activity for years, with some claiming this was down to a fear of being landed with the accusation of racism.

Ms. Jackson has made safeguarding the vulnerable as one of her core policies in her campaign.  Her Green Party flyer says:
'With recent child abuse scandals and the recent revelation that 1 in 4 of our care homes fails its quality tests, we are clearly failing to protect those in need.  We need a fundemental review of what we should be doing as members of society to care for and protect those in need.'

She and the Greens will have an up hill struggle in Heywood and Middleton which is traditionally Labour.  Although the recent lack lustre performance of the Labour Conference and Ed Miliband and the bitter conflicts within the local Labour Party may help Ms. Jackson a bit. 

Book Reading by Former Angry Brigade Member

4pm, Sunday 26th October
Canny Little Library at the Star and Shadow Cinema, Stepney Bank, Newcastle, NE1 2NP.

John Barker, author of Bending the Bars: Prison Stories of an Angry Brigade Member, will host a reading from his recently published novel Futures.

'It's 1987. A hurricane and stock market crash bring the world of finance capital, corrupt cops, cocaine and a single mum in collision...'
The reading will be followed by an open discussion on the nature and possibilities of ‘political’ fiction, encompassing the very nature of ‘the political’; varieties of such fictional work, and an estimate of what such fiction can do that other writing - whether reportage, theory, history or philosophy - cannot.
Praise for Futures:
'Rollicking, uncompromising stuff. The prose grabs you by the throat and squeezes. The characters are by turns reckless, ambitious, vulnerable and weak. The story is set in the past but couldn't be more relevant. Futures is funny, frightening and very dark.'  - Ronan Bennett

John Barker was one of the ‘Stoke Newington Eight,’ prosecuted and jailed in 1972 for activities as part of the Angry Brigade. His written works include Bending Bars, a prison memoir, and published texts on political economy, writers and writing; as well as on the capitalist psyche and ideological opportunism. More recently he has been collaborating with the Austrian artist, Ines Doujak, as writer and performer in the ongoing work on cloth and colonialism, Loomshuttles/Warpaths, parts of which have been shown in Vienna, Malmo, Stuttgart and London.

Read more on Futures here: www.eastendreview.co.uk/2014/06/05/john-barker-angry-brigade-futures-stoke-newington-literary-festival/

This is a free event.

The Star and Shadow is fully accessible.

Directions to the venue: www.starandshadow.org.uk/the-venue

Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/1536402993262571/

Canny Little Library
http://cannylittlelibrary.tumblr.com

Man with epilepsy hangs himself following threats to cut his benefits. How does IDS sleep at night?

Tragic: Trevor Drakard

We are publishing below an article from the Daily Mirror by Jeremy Armstrong.

"A man with permanent brain damage and ‘uncontrolled’ epilepsy hanged himself after being ordered to take part in ‘work related activity’ or risk his benefits being cut.

Trevor Drakard was panic-stricken at the thought he would have to find a job when he could suffer a severe attack at any time.The shy 50-year-old suffered from meningitis at five months old which left him brain damaged, causing severe epilepsy first seen when he was just six. He suffered countless attacks throughout his life, never went 10 days without a fit and would fall ‘like a tree’ to the ground.

Despite heavy medication, he was regularly taken to hospital and had suffered a broken nose, cheekbone, jaw, lost his front teeth and split his head open after hitting pavement during attacks.
Even disabled employer Remploy - where he worked for six years - deemed his condition so severe he had to leave.

Yet ConDem reforms meant he received a letter saying his Incapacity Benefit was being replaced with £112.05-a-week ‘Employment and Support Allowance’. It stated he had to attend a ‘Work Related Activity Group”, or his benefits could be hit.
Shortly before his suicide, he wrote a heart-rending note begging DWP chiefs not to change his status.

He told them: “I have never been able to work due to my epilepsy. I had a job at Remploy but I lost my job because they could not longer cope with my attacks.”But a June 23 standard Benefits Agency letter informed him his appeal had been rejected.

His family struggled to gain detailed medical records of his multiple hospital visits down the years to make a second appeal. He was given a month to get the information, and, as the deadline approached, became more and more worried. On July 19, anxious parents Doreen, 80, and Tom, 86, went to his home in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear - and made the horrific discovery of his body hanging in his bedroom. They say there is ‘no doubt whatsoever’ the stress of the benefits changes caused his suicide.

Tom, a retired marine engineer, said: “Trevor had meningitis as a baby, and it was caused by the scar on his brain. He had his first epileptic attack when he was six. He did not know when a fit would come, it was completely random. He would have two or three in a short space of time, he did not go ten days without one. Trevor would get so anxious about little things, that was a feature of this condition - we would tell him not to worry, but he just could not help it.”

His parents had been helping with the second appeal to the DWS on the eve of his suicide.

“They asked for his full history but he had countless attacks in his life time, it was despicable really,” said Doreen, who ran a wool shop as well as bringing up Trevor and siblings Michael, 51, and Pam, 48. “He often hit the pavement when he fell, there must have been hundreds of occasions when he ended up in hospital. On the day he died, we went around for him to sign the appeal letter we had been working on the day before. The door was open, the curtains were closed, so I thought he must have been poorly.”

Fighting back tears, her husband added: “He was here on the Friday, and we went around the next morning and we found him like that... “It was such a shock, what shocked us more than anything the way he did it. He had panicked because of the benefit changes.There is no doubt that is why he did it. You cannot bring him back.”

The Drakards agreed to speak out to raises awareness of benefit cuts, and how devastating their impact can be on the vulnerable in society. Trevor worked at Remploy until he was 30, but his condition was deemed so severe he left after six years. He had saved up enough to buy his own home, and with the help of around £100-a-week in Incapacity Benefits, lived an independent life.

The first letter about the change in his benefits arrived in March this year. Due to his condition, Trevor was ‘beside himself’ with worry over it. Doreen explained:

“We went to Citizens Advice Bureau, we explained we could never get his medical records together in a time needed to appeal. He was on the bare minimum really, but the benefits agency said they intended to change it because he needed to look for work. He had to attend a job interview, and this work group, or his money could be stopped. Trevor did not know from day to day how he was going to be, and if he would take a fit, so this just stressed him even more. He was worried about taking a job in case he had attacks. He lost teeth, broke his jaw, cheekbone, he was always in accident and emergency with his injuries. We tried to explain, his GP had just retired and so had his consultant in Sunderland, it made it hard to get his history.”

His family helped make his home ‘safe’, with a specially made bed, cushions scattered to break any falls, and child-safe furniture. “He had been alone for 19 years, he never had a girlfriend but he had helped us, did gardening, wood work, loved bird watching, photography and walking,” added Tom, a grandfather-of-five. “He wrote his own letter of appeal - but they told him they would not change their minds.”

Trevor’s brother Michael, of Leeds, added: “The system is not appropriate for someone like Trevor, who really needs help. “It was never about the money. He did not drink, smoke, he had the most frugal existence - he probably had about ten shandies a year. He may have ended up on about the same in benefits. But he could not cope with the stress of thinking he had to make himself available for work. There is no doubt whatsoever that is what caused his death.”

Olive Marrs, 65, a retired social worker, said she and Trevor’s other neighbours were ‘disgusted’ at how he had been treated. She added: “He was a lovely man. He was quite obviously vulnerable, so depressed about his benefits.”

Coroner’s officer Neville Dixon told the inquest into Trevor’s death earlier this month that he had been warned his benefits could be stopped. He added: “He had been feeling very down, due to the stress.”

Senior Sunderland coroner Derek Winter was satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr Drakard had been responsible for his own death. The city’s Labour MP Julie Elliot said: “Sadly, the removal of benefits to genuinely sick people is becoming all too common, having a devastating impact on “The system is not fit for purpose. The Government needs to act now to stop anymore tragedies occurring and causing unnecessary hardship to people.”

Eccles Lad Alan Henning Murdered

Head Severed in Horrific Execution!

 

DESPITE appeals from the family of Alan Henning, and Muslims in this country, was killed by his  Islamic State captors yesterday.  A video showed Alan kneeling in the desert in a jump suit.

 

The taxi driver from Salford was delivering aid to Syria last December when he was kidnapped.  It seems that two sharia courts in the north of Syria had also demanded his release.

 

Earlier this week Mrs Barbara Henning had asked for 'mercy' for her husband, saying his family was continuing their attempts to communicate with the group.  She said she had received an audio message of her husband pleading for his life.  Mrs Henning had said some people thought her husband was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she said:  'He was in the right place doing the right thing.'



Dr Shuja Shafi, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, tweeted:
'Saddened by reported murder of Alan Henning. A despicable and offensive act. He helped Muslims. My thoughts and prayers with his family.'

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said:
'This barbaric killing is an attack against all decent people around the world.'

 

The suspicion is that the killing is an attempt to provoke the western powers into making a greater effort to defeat Islamic State, and to draw the west into a Holy War.  The urge the do something is powerful when such obscene acts are committed.  But it is difficult to see that any action by Britain will help resolve the situation, and the present involvement by the UK has been described as largely cosmetic.

 

Local people interviewed this morning were calling for action to tackle the situation but more involvement in either Iraq or Syria may easily encourage more support for Islamic State throughout the world.  The best that can be expected is that the Kurds and others forces in the region can get their act together to defeat Islamic State. 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester

TENSIONS EXPLODE IN SCORCHING NEW PRODUCTION OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ DEEP SOUTH CLASSIC 

A Royal Exchange Theatre, Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Northern Stage co-production 

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

by Tennessee Williams

directed by James Dacre

designed by Mike Britton 

Royal Exchange Theatre

St Ann’s Square, Manchester

Thursday 30 October – Saturday 29 November

 

 

PRESS NIGHT: Tuesday 4 November at 7.30pm

A scorching new production of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer prize-winning classic CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF arrives on stage at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre from Thursday 30 October to Saturday 29 November.

A co-production between Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Northern Stage, Newcastle, this bold new staging is directed by James Dacre and features original music by Charle Cave  from award-winning band White Lies. 

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is one of the stage’s most seductive evocations of the Deep South. Brimming with emotional intensity, this powerful family drama sees Maggie the Cat and her husband Brick return to his home on the night of patriarch and cotton tycoon Big Daddy’s 65^th birthday. 

The family keep from him the news that he is dying. Life-altering secrets are revealed and tensions explode as they scramble to secure their part of his inheritance.   

The cast includes Ian Charleson Award nominee Charles Aitken, whose credits include SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH at The Old Vic, as Brick; Kim Criswell, who was nominated for an Olivier award for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN in 1993, as Big Mama; Victoria Elliott (last seen at the Royal Exchange in TWO and whose TV credits include HEBBURN) as Mae; Ian Charleson Award

 

winner Mariah Gale, whose many credits with the Royal Shakespeare Company include Juliet, Ophelia, Miranda and Portia, as Maggie and Daragh O’Malley, who is best known for his role in long-running television series Sharpe, as Big Daddy.   

The cast also includes Matthew Douglas as Gooper; Kieron Jecchinis as Doctor Baugh and Sean Murray as Reverend Tooker.   

Royal & Derngate Artistic Director James Dacre directed a highly acclaimed production of THE ACCRINGTON PALS at the Exchange last year. Other recent credits include A TALE OF TWO CITIES and THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN (Royal & Derngate) and HOLY WARRIORS (Shakespeare’s Globe). 

 

He said: “"I'm looking forward to working again with many of the team who staged THE ACCRINGTON PALS. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, written on the eve of the sexual and civil rights revolution, is one of America's greatest plays. The Royal Exchange - as intimate and as grand as the story itself - is the perfect location for this incendiary masterpiece.” 

The creative team is completed by Mike Britton (design), Richard Howell (lighting) and Emma Laxton (sound).

The production arrives at the Royal Exchange after successful runs at Northern Stage in Newcastle and The Royal & Derngate in Northampton.

 

PRESS NIGHT for CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF  is on Tuesday 4 November. For further information, images, or for interview / press review ticket requests, please contact JOHN GOODFELLOW (Press & Communications Manager) on 0161 615 6783 / john.goodfellow@royalexchange.co.uk 

 

Production photos will be available to download from Friday 31 October at www.royalexchange.co.uk/press.

 

Further information also available online at www.royalexchange.co.uk/catroof

Poll says Labour win in Heywood & Middleton

THE first POLL by The Sun in the Heywood & Middleton constiency of the former MP Jim Dobbin suggests that Labour will win, but that Ukip will come second.

The full figures are:
Labour 50% (Up 10% on 2010)
Ukip 31% (Up 28%)
Conservative 13% (Down 14%)
Lib Dems 4% (Down 19%)

The one worry for Labour is that 19 percent of voters have not yet made up their minds. The Ukip figure also shows an enormous leap from the 2.6 percent which Ukip recorded in 2010. The poll suggests that 35 percent of Ukip’s support comes from Labour, and 33 percent from the Tories.
Polls in by-elections often affect the dynamics of the campaign, and build up momentum for a challenging party. While Ukip may succeed in further squeezing the Conservative share of the vote, it is hard to see how, in the remaining seven days, Nigel Farage’s party can bridge the 19 percent gap suggested by the Survation polling figures for The Sun.

In recent days, according to a senior Ukip source, the party has redirected some of its resources away from the Clacton by-election and towards the Lancashire seat, in the hope that it can pull off a shock double defeat for the two main parties.

- See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-crick-on-politics/byelection-bacon-butty-battle-heywood-middleton/4443#sthash.X3WULnqU.dpuf

Rochdale Council Boss Asked to Step Down

BECAUSE of his period in office as leader of Rochdale Council up to 1992 Richard Farnell who took over against as Council leader last May has been asked to stand down by the prospective Liberal- Democratic parliamentary candidate for Rochdale, Andy Kelly.  Mr. Farnell was the leader of Rochdale Council in the early 1990s at a time when reports were produced about child abuse at Knowl View residental school for boys.  Mr. Farnell has recently insisted that he knew nothing of these reports at the time he was in office.

Mr. Kelly, who was until last May a Milnrow councillor, said:
'It is worrying for Rochdale that Ed Miliband refused twice in the glare of the public spotlight to support Richard Farnell as Rochdale Council leader.  Given Ed Miliband's very vocal stance on Rotherham, I am now seeking his view on the Rochdale situation.  It does appear odd that the council leader denies knowledge of not one or two council reports, but three reports on Knowl View written during his first time as council leader.  The current Labour approach needs an intervention from Mr. Miliband for the confidence of the Rochdale public.  I think it would be better for all parties if Coun. Farnell stepped down for the duration of the investigation.'

The Rochdale Observer tried to contact Mr. Miliband's office but he was not available for comment before the Observer went to press.  Councillor Farnell declined to comment when approached by the Observer.

Earlier this year Richard Farnell took over the leadership of Rochdale Council from the then leader Colin Lambert, following an internal party coup.  At that time, Jim Dobbin, then the MP for Heywood and Middleton, told Northern Voices that he thought that throwing Mr. Lambert out and installing the new leader to run the Council was 'unwise'.

Ukip's Transfered Racism Claim against Labour

A leaflet issued by Ukip in the Heywood and Middleton By-election suggests that the Labour Party is guilty of transferred 'racism'.  The claim is based on the attitude of Ed Miliband and the Labour Party to the part now being played by its Scottish MPs in the UK parliament, in which these MPs from North of the border are allowed to vote on matters of specific concern to England, but that English MPs are not going to be allowed to vote on Scottish affairs. 

The text of this leaflet, while it may not be easily understood as a piece of election literature by the general public, shows some sophistication as an argument.  In his essay 'Notes on Nationalism' (in Polemic: May 1945) George Orwell introduced the idea of 'Transferred Nationalism' in which he argued that:
'The old-style contemptuous attitude towards "natives" has been much weakened in England, and various pseudo-scientific theories emphasising the superiority of the white race have been abandoned' [but] 'among the intelligentsia, colour feeling only occurs in the transposed form, that is, as a belief in the innate superiority of the coloured races.'

Orwell surmised then in 1945:
'This is now increasingly common among English intellectuals, probably resulting more often from masochism and sexual frustration than from actual contact with the Oriental and Negro nationalist movements.'

What the Ukip leaflet is claiming is that:
'In the 1990's the racist anti-English Labour government gave the Scots their own Parliament but denied one to the English.  This is anti-English racism [which] led to the West Lothian Question, where Scottish MP's could come to the United Kingdom Parliament and vote on laws that only affected the English.'

The result as Ukip say in their leaflet:
'Scots do not have to pay Tuition Fees or Prescription Charges, the English do.'

To be fair the Scottish National Party's MPs, as I understand it, do not vote on English matters in the House of Commons as a matter of principle, but the Scottish Labour MPs do vote on matters of specific concern to the English.  This is what is called 'The West Lothian Question'.

 Consequently Ukip is accusing Labour of anti-English 'racism', because it means the Scottish MPs can determine policies purely of concern to the English.  This similar to what Orwell was talking about when he accused some people like left-wing intellectuals of 'transferred nationalism' when they preferred the Soviet Union to their own country.  Similarly, the American municipal anarchist writer, Murray Bookchin (Society & Nature: 1994), observed:
'The 1960s also saw the emergence of yet another form of nationalism on the Left:  increasingly ethnically chauvinistic groups began to appear that ultimately  inverted Euro-American claims of the alleged superiority of the white race into an equally reactionary claim of the superiority of non-whites.'

Ukip accuses Labour:
'Now we have the scandal were the racist anti-English Labour Party can exploit the West Lothian Question for party political reasons, it can bring in racist Tuition Fees and prevent England being a Democracy by bussing in Scottish MPs into the UK Parliament to vote on English only issues.'

Thus Ukip call on people to 'Join the Fight Against Racism', and to end 'years of anti-English racism in the United Kingdom'.  It is a fascinating argument to be sure.

Manchester Literature Festival at the Cervantes

Andrés Neuman: Talking to Ourselves ExhibitionThe Faces of Masculinity in Cuba Friday 10th October, 6.30pm Instituto Cervantes Sooner or later, we all face loss. Spanish writer Andrés Neuman comes to Manchester to promote his new novel, Talking to Ourselves. Told in alternating narratives, it's the story of a family transformed by grief, journeying along the fringes of the Spanish speaking world and beyond the borders of their own moral comfort zone. The son of Argentine musicians who emigrated to Spain, Neuman has published numerous short stories, essays and poetry collections. His book Traveller of the Century was awarded the Alfaguara and national Critics Prizes, and was described in The Guardian as 'a beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart'. more info... Free event: Bookings on: secman@cervantes.es and 0161 6614206 This exhibition is the personal work of photographer Javier Pinto Grajera and is a graphic representation of the different realities of Cuba in relation to masculinity. The images play with the ideas mentioned in some of the interviews the photographer did while he was there and the validated realities on the streets of Cuba, showing in a personal way the typical masculine-feminine stereotypes that appear in the island.more info... The opening of the exhibition will be on the 10th of October at 20.00, after the presentation of writer Andrés Neuman. A food and drink reception will be served. Please book in advanced on secman@cervantes.es and 0161 6614206.

5 ways we’re winning against workfare. And a few ways to get rid of it altogether.

We are publishing below the latest briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"With the week of action against workfare coming up on 4-12 October, we wanted to share some of the things your action and active support has already achieved. With so much impact already, the week of action is the next step where you can help put an end to workfare altogether.

We have helped each other to defend our rights

The job centre and workfare providers rely on misinformation, lies and bullying to push people around. That’s why finding out and claiming our rights is so important. We find out our rights, spread the word and have helped cancel workfare placements for many who have contacted us. The Welfare Action Gathering in February brought together tens of groups of people from around the country who take action against workfare and who support each other to get their rights on workfare, rights at the job centre and in navigating Atos’ tests.

Over 20,000 people support this campaign. The more people who know their rights the more people can say no to workfare – or help expose who is using workfare…

Our actions make workfare exploiters pull out

Workfare relies on placement providers – every time we get them to pull out is another step to ending workfare. Many big names including Argos, Holland & Barrett and PDSA have pulled out.

A highlight this year: George Osborne was publicly humiliated after a visit to promote his new 6-month brand of workfare (CWP) backfired when Byteback IT pulled out just a week later, following a backlash against workfare from the public.

The list goes on, and we’ve been keeping track of it here (where you’ll also find the crowd-sourced list of the organisations still exploiting people on workfare).

We have shrunk the number of workfare placements

We know that Workfare providers like A4E regularly complain how hard it is to find placements now that so many places are boycotting them. A DWP report into Mandatory Work Activity complained that it was unable to find placements for everyone because: “The high profile withdrawal of placements from a number of larger charities meant a sharp reduction in placements” (Dec 2012). There has since been a significant decrease in Mandatory Work Activity referrals: December 2013 had the lowest number since the summer of 2011. This is because together we are all…

Turning the tide: hundreds of charities won’t touch workfare…

Since the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign launched in April this year, 420 voluntary sector organisations have pledged to defend the values of volunteering and steer clear of workfare. Charities like Shelter, Oxfam and Crisis which tackle poverty in the UK were among the first to sign up, and have been joined by major charity umbrella bodies and tens of local organisations. In the week of action, why not contact the charities you support and ask them to sign up too?

… councils are also coming out against workfare…

Councils are beginning to take a stand against workfare too: 24 are now boycotting the schemes. Scarborough Council pulled out after we exposed them as one of the worst workfare using councils in the UK. You can ask your council to join them here. Little wonder that…

The DWP is scared the schemes will “collapse” when the public know who is exploiting workfare…

When the DWP tries to find yet another way not to reveal the list of the businesses and charities exploiting people on workfare schemes, we know we’ve got them running scared. They’ve said they’re worried the schemes will “collapse” when the public discovers which brands are exploiting people on the schemes. There’s good reason for it too: we are succeeding in pushing back workfare.

That’s why your action is so important…

Take part in the week of action on 4-12 October in whatever way you can:

• Take part in one of the actions already called in Edinburgh, Brighton, London, Amsterdam or Bristol or check out the list of workfare exploiters and plan your own action!
• Visit the boycottworkfare.org website Mon-Fri in the week of action and get involved in mass online actions!
• Help spread the word: Invite your friends to the Facebook event.

Work without pay is a threat to everyone. Whether you’re in paid work or not, you need to know that these schemes replace paid work, undermine the welfare state, and undermine wages and working conditions for everyone. Workfare is enforced with sanctions. If we don’t stop it now, the government has part-time and low paid workers in its sights for workfare and sanctions – that could be you. So support us to support you. Say no to workfare, join the rebellion and take part in the week of action!"

Child Sexual Exploitation for 'Political Gain' or 'Personal Profit'?

Who is exploiting sexual grooming?

LAST Friday The Guardian reported that 'the father of the main prosecution witness in Britain's biggest child grooming scandal' had accused Nigel Farage of exploiting the issue for 'political gain' in his party's attempt to 'unseat Labour' in the Heywood and Middleton by-election.  In The Guardian piece the father was given the name 'Tom' to protect his daughter

Heywood in Greater Manchester was the centre of yet another Rochdale scandal in which a sexual trafficing gang of men of mostly Pakistani origin were found to have exploited at least 47 young white girls.  Mr. Farage in a leaflet distributed around the  constituency blamed the Labour Party for its 'love affair' with 'immigration, political correctness and multiculturalism' for betraying the 'white working-class girls'.

It is known that Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for the neighbouring constituency of Rochdale, has had contact with one of the fathers of one of the victims of the earlier sexual abuse grooming scandal which led to the prosecution of nine Asian men in 2012.  Mr. Danczuk has also claimed that a culture existed in Rochdale which allowed these activities to flourish.  Judging from the contents of his book 'Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith' that he and his fellow author Mat. Baker are pushing at the Rochdale Literature & Ideas Festival, he still believes in this narrative.

This book by Danzcuk shows that Mr. Danzcuk has some skills not only in the realm of Victorian melodrama, but in the ability to get other people to utter statements that fit his own narrative. 

The Guardian report states:  'Tom was moved to speak to the Guardian about Ukip’s tactics after receiving the leaflets through this door.'  [and] 'To heap blame on “political correctness” did not fully explain the many reasons why the abuse was allowed to continue, he said.'

'Tom' the father of the girl, concluded:  'Its a complex issue about the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and social services, all turning a blind eye.  It’s not all about political correctness, although it was a factor.'

The Guardian story notes:  'Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale who has campaigned for greater transparency around child sex abuse, has been drafted in to help.'

Mr. Danczuk declares:  'Ukip are a genuine threat and people across the party are working hard to fight them street by street...'

The problem here is that Simon Danczuk, with all the money he has made from the serialisation of his book by of all newspapers the Daily Mail, could also be accused of making hay out of exploiting child sexual grooming for both political gain and personal profit.  Certainly when I spoke to the former Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton, Jim Dobbin, some weeks before he died he told me that the whole thing 'had become a money making exercise', and he wasn't referring just to the book that had been published but to the serialisation in the Daily Mail by Danczuk and Baker.

Tory Bedroom Tax eviction widow forced to sleep with COWS!

We are publishing below an article by Nick Dorman, which appeared in the Sunday People on 27 September 2014:

"A widow who is going blind was forced to live in a field with cattle after she was evicted from her home of 30 years ­because she couldn’t ­pay a £210 Bedroom Tax bill.

Carol Sutherland, 56, covered herself with a plastic sheet and hay in a ­desperate bid to keep dry and warm, writes Nick Dorman in the Sunday People. She had to dig a hole under a hedge to use as a toilet.
And her weight plunged to 6½st as she struggled to survive after being kicked out of her two-bed council flat.

The scandal is yet another example of the misery caused by a tax the Sunday People has been campaigning to have scrapped since it became law in 2012. Its latest victim Carol said: “I’d lived in my lovely flat for 30 years and even though I didn’t have much, I had a roof over my head and my dignity.

“When I was in the field I could not believe it had come to that. I cried so much I didn’t have any tears left.”
Bailiffs booted Carol out after she told a housing officer she couldn’t ­afford the £11.35-a-week spare-room penalty imposed as part of Tory Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare shake-up.

Carol had been struggling to get by on a widow’s pension of just £90 a month since a heart attack killed her husband Peter in 2001. Her rent and council tax were covered for her by public money.
But everything else – including power bills – was funded from her pitiful £3-a-day pension.

Carol’s plight meant she was eligible for further housing ­benefits and employment ­support allowance.
But she insisted she didn’t know about them because no one had ever mentioned them to her.
Carol (pictured) who gave up trying to have children after a string of miscarriages – said: “Things went pear-shaped after my husband died and I started losing my sight with cataracts.
“I just about managed on his pension without claiming ­anything else.
“When I started getting letters from the council I couldn’t read them. I asked them to send the details in bigger print – but they never did.

“So I ignored them until a housing officer turned up and told me I was in arrears with bedroom tax payments.
“I told him I couldn’t afford it and the next thing I knew the bailiffs were at the door.”
Carol, who has depression, claimed she was given an hour to pack up her possessions as the flat in Waddington, Lincs, was cleared in April.
She said: “I was in such a state I couldn’t find the only picture I have of my mum and dad.

“I had to tell the bailiffs I couldn’t afford to pay for any of my stuff to go into storage so they might as well take it all – which they did.”

She gave a neighbour her pet canary and went to stay with a friend, having lost touch with her own family.

But a week later she moved out, spent a night in a bus-shelter, then built her rudimentary camp in a cow-field. Carol said: “My friend would have lost her housing benefits if I’d carried on staying with her so I decided the field was my only solution.”

The decision was not as bizarre as it sounds because as the daughter of an agricultural labourer she had grown up on a farm helping with animals as well as planting and picking crops.

Recalling her time living rough, Carol said: “I’d walk round the village by day and at night I’d go to the field and bed down under the plastic.

“When I needed the loo I’d dig a hole in a hedgerow and I didn’t bother combing my hair or washing.” She added: “You don’t think it’s mad when you’re as low as I was then.”

Carol was finally rescued by worried Waddington friends who took her to the church of St Mary-le-Wigford in nearby Lincoln, the base of a charity helping the vulnerable.

City councillor Jackie Kirk, who helps to run the project, found Carol a bed at a shelter for the homeless.

Jackie said: “Carol is a remarkably brave woman. She worked all her life and after her husband died she was eligible for Employment Support Allowance and Discretionary Housing Payments. “

But as many vulnerable people discover too late, if you don’t know you’re entitled and don’t ­apply you end up as a victim of the system.”

And Carol said: “I’d like David Cameron to spend a day with me so he could see the impact his government’s Bedroom Tax has on people like me who already live below the poverty line."

Rochdale Labour Party: Danczuk's Reselection

LAST night we learned that our earlier posting 'Danczuk's D-Day' was in error, and that the actual re-selection of Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale will be held as reported below:

 ROCHDALE CONSTITUENCY LABOUR PARTY

Notice to the members of the executive committee of the Rochdale Constituency labour party.

RESELECTION OF SIMON DANCZUK AS SITTING MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE ROCHDALE CONSTITUENCY:  

I would like to invite you to a special meeting of the executive committee of Rochdale CLP on Tuesday 14 October 2014 at Labour HQ Oldham Road Rochdale at 7.30pm.

The business of the meeeting is as follows  

1. Apologies for absence.

2. Declaration of the designated representative of the Regional Director who will act on behalf of the National Executive Committee in liaison with Rochdale CLP.

3. Declaration of the freeze date as 14 October 2014.

4. Declaration of the organisations entitled to make an affirmative declaration.

5. Timetable for the reselection.

6. Appointment of nominated member of the executive committee to oversee proceedings at each branch or forum meeting.

7. Any other business solely connected with the reselection if permitted by the designated representative.

I look forward with pleasure to seeing you on 14 October 2014.

Phillip Bethell   Procedures Secretary  01706 674812

COPIES SENT TO   

Anna Hutchinson for information  

Simon Danczuk as courtesy.