Bath Against Cuts - Join Your Local Anti-Cuts Group

An important message from a member of Bath Against Cuts - Bath's number one opponents to cuts and austerity.

I expect you are all gutted by the election result but five years ago some of set up a anti-cuts campaign to fight the coalition's attacks on the poor and vulnerable. We together have done good work over the last five years. With a majority Tory government we are now needed more than ever. This new government will continue to attack the NHS, people on benefits and trade union activists. If you feel as I do please come to the anti-cuts organising meeting on Tuesday 12th May at the Ram Widcombe at 8 pm. 

The fight back starts now.

Bath Against Cuts usually meets on the first Tuesday of every month (it's the second Tuesday this month due to the election) at 8pm in The Ram.

For more info, follow @bathagainstcuts and check their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/bathagainstcuts

Read our post-election commentary here

Contact details of Bath and Bristol activist groups here - get involved

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Citizen's Advice Bureau - Cuts and Protests

Bath and North-East Somerset Council are planning to cut the budget of the local Citizen's Advice Bureau by 55%. Many people rely on the services our local CAB provides, and we can't let the council cut the funding.

If you haven't already used the CAB, it's very possible that you or someone you know will need to at some point in their lives. These are some of the reasons why people have needed to use the Bath CAB in the past:

• Help! I've been diagnosed with a serious illness and I can't work any more - what am I entitled to?
• Help! I've got rent arrears and I've lost my job. What can I do?
• Help! My employer sacked me while I was pregnant - can they do this?
• Help! My landlord threatened to evict my family because I complained that the roof is leaking

The CAB is often the only thing that stands between a lot of people and families becoming "vulnerable and greatest in need".

So what can you do? Three actions have been planned to attempt to get the council to change their minds - if you can help with one or more of these then it will go a long way to helping the campaign.

1. A petition has been set up on the 38 Degrees website. Sign it and share it everywhere: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-cab-in-banes 
2. A demo will be taking place on the steps of the Guildhall at 1pm on Tuesday 5th November. If you can make it, please come along and show that you care, and tell your family and friends.
3. Local resident Lin Patterson has managed to get 3 mins to speak about the CAB at the full council meeting on Thursday 14th November. There will be a demonstration at 6pm outside the Guildhall, just prior to her slot. Please come along and support her!

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Austerity: A Public Meeting in Bath

From Bath People's Assembly:

Press Release 13/5/13 - Austerity: A Public Meeting

Following a strong line-up of successful public debates and events in recent times, including debates on fracking, the NHS and nuclear power, as well as last month's Visions for Change event, featuring stalls and talks from over 25 groups working for a better world and film director Ken Loach, Bath People's Assembly is now returning to its roots and organising a public meeting on austerity this Friday.

The aim of the meeting is to discuss the impact of the government's austerity programme on Bath residents, and to generate ideas for actions to ensure that no-one is unjustly affected. In particular, issues such as benefit cuts, changes to disability welfare, cuts to the NHS, the bedroom tax and related issues such as growing income inequality, workfare and redundancies will be addressed. All are welcome to attend the meeting, which is held between 7.15 and 9pm at the Friends' Meeting House, York St., Bath, BA1 1NG

Entry is free and light refreshments will be provided.

A Facebook event page has been created to promote the meeting: https://www.facebook.com/events/299842250148616/?fref=ts

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Bath Bedroom Tax Demo

Bath Bedroom tax demo

The ConDem government's much-despised Bedroom Tax got a thrashing in around 60 cities today with protests in opposition to the tax taking place across the country.

In two weeks the Bedroom Tax will be implemented unless we stop it. This tax could hit half a million or more of the most hard-up in society. Essentially, anyone in social housing with a spare room will be hit by this tax - under which benefits could be slashed by up to 14%. This is yet another example of getting the poor to pay for the mess made by the rich.

The Bath demonstration was attended by around 150 people, with banners, placards and megaphones. Many were not affiliated to any particular party or group, and those groups with members in attendance included BARF, SolFed, Bath Against Cuts, the Socialist Worker's Party, Occupy Bath, the Green Party and the Quakers. Lin Patterson from the Quakers said about the demonstration: "This is an unfair discriminatory tax that's being challenged in the courts and will be revealed as a wrong turn by court decisions and people's activism". Celia from the SWP was appalled at the Bedroom Tax: "I think it's fantastic to see so many organisations united against this disgusting attack on the poor and vulnerable in society. This attack is an attempt to divide us, to encourage people to blame a neighbour with a spare room, rather than unite against this vicious Tory government".

Demonstrations were planned by a wide range of groups across Britain, however one Eoin Clarke of the Labour party decided to co-ordinate the day of action by creating Facebook event pages. Eoin has a large social media following, and writes the blog "The Green Benches" (on which he has apologised for making false claims), and is the founder of Labour Left, a relatively small faction of the Labour party with more left-wing ideals than the main party. While Eoin may have co-ordinated these demonstrations, there have been accusations of failing to contact existing campaigns, including tenants' groups who will be directly affected by the tax. While the mainstream Labour Party has attacked the Tories over the tax, there has been some division within the party, with an MP claiming that the Labour Party would enforce the tax in cases where people turned down smaller accommodation. The Labour Party also introduced the bedroom tax to the private rented sector back in 2008. What is more, I have personally witnessed the removal of several posts making this point on Bedroom Tax demonstration Facebook event pages and there have been reports of several more instances. Simon Jilley was one such person who had a post removed from the Bath page: "I was absolutely shocked to find myself being blocked from the Bath Bedroom Tax Facebook page after I had put a post on it at about 5pm on Friday afternoon regarding the corruption within the British Labour Party in its stance towards the Bedroom Tax. This is a deeply repressive action from a political party that, inherently, should not be leading demonstrations if they are going to act like this. We, the people, are much stronger than their party, and we will continue to prove this in our future force that we show". Rather than discussing these points in an open forum, they were simply deleted and the users were blocked. There were also reports on Twitter today of the Labour Party in Liverpool protecting the National Front during the demonstration there who were also photographing anti-fascists.

Having spoken to one of the Bath Labour Party organisers, I am satisfied that they are personally opposed to this tax, and are genuinely outside of the mainstream Labour Party - and this is not a personal attack on them, and I know that - in Bath at least - some attempt was made to engage with other groups. However, I believe in seeking alternatives to the outdated party political system, and Labour are certainly not a party that I, and many others opposed to the coalition's assault on the 99%, have any respect left for.

Bearing the above in mind, many felt that Labour were in no position to claim the demonstration as their own, and many took it upon themselves to continue the demonstration by having a march around town, passing through Southgate, Milsom Street, the Abbey Church Yard and ending up in Queen Square, a site of special for significance for many radicals, having been previously home to first Occupy Bath encampment. Approximately 80 people joined this impromptu march, fronted by a large number of anarchist banners, with much chanting against all three main political parties as well as the Bedroom Tax, the rich and government cuts. The police were not numerous enough to stop it, and instead gave in and flanked the march - and even stopped traffic to allow us to progress. Many of those left behind at the Guildhall were either Labour organisers (who had signed a contract with the police that this would be a static demo) or were too ill to march.

Bath Bedroom Tax march through Southgate.

Bath Bedroom Tax demo in Queen Square

The march enabled us to reach a wider number of people, and we were cheered on and joined by passers by. Following the march, Jon from SolFed commented: "The day of protest was great, but up and down the country people are organising to refuse to pay the Bedroom Tax and resist bailiffs. Direct action can beat the Bedroom Tax". An Occupy Bath and BARF supporter said: "I think the genuine anger people feel with the ConDem government is evident in the spontaneous but vibrant march through the city centre."

The government has the choice to listen or to ignore us. And if they ignore us, we'll be there out in force once more, and will support those affected by the tax by any means possible. With so many attacks on the poor, the vulnerable, the students, the unemployed and the normal hard-working people of Britain, the time to start fighting back - more than ever - is now. Today showed that more and more people are paying attention to what is happening to this country, and they don't like what they see.

Today, the people have spoken. This is what democracy looks like.

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Bath Anti-Cuts Demo, 5 Dec 2012

Anti-Cuts Demo, Bath, December 2012

Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance, with support from members of BARF and Occupy Bath, staged an anti-cuts demonstration on Milsom Street, in front of the Abbey, on the day of George Osborne's Autumn statement. 15 people turned up for the demo, and many members of the public stopped to chat and find out more information about what the cuts mean for them.

George Osborne's Autumn statement has just been released, and it is as bad as everyone expected. Whilst in the past, the ConDems have frozen wages, introduced 'Workfare' slave labour, tripled tuition fees, upped VAT and begun dismantling public services, this government's policy hits the poorest and most vulnerable in society hardest, leaving the rich and bankers virtually unscathed. Whilst attacking benefits, pensions and teachers' unions, Osborne has been forced to admit that austerity measures are failing to save the economy, and will continue until at least 2018. And the scandals of private companies being handed over control of health services will mean widespread hospital closures, and the complete destruction of the NHS.

While we suffer, the Sunday Times Rich List reported that the wealthiest 1,000 UK citizens have seen their fortunes increase by over £18 billion over the past year, to more than £414 billion, ovr a third of the national debt. Their combined wealth has risen to record levels in the past year, despite the recession, whilst we still suffer. Restoring corporate tax to pre-Thatcher levels (£27.5 billion), closing down the rich's tax loopholes (£95 billion) and collecting their unpaid taxes (£28 billion), as well as getting troops out of the Middle East (£4.5 billion) and scrapping Trident (£97 billion) - these steps would also heal the deficit...
But the budget has more to do with the old Tory policies of privatisation, public sector cuts and looking out for their rich mates, than it does about helping average people, indeed, the current cabinet includes 18 millionaires, and over half went to private school: no, were not all in this together.

And all this is taking place whilst banks and companies like Marks and Spencer, SABMiller (brewers of Grolsch), Starbucks, Cadburys, Boots/Top Shop and Vodafone are graciously allowed to opt out of the taxes they owe - with the latter two owing £300 million and £6 billion respectively.

Meanwhile, B&NES council are making their own plans to carry out the governments cuts, including cutting 400 or more council jobs over four years, as well as privatising or winding down its youth services, healthcare, adult support services and libraries, as well as thousands of MOD jobs to be lost from all three Bath sites. In fact, by adopting its proposed new buzzword of being an 'enabler rather than a 'provider of services, the council itself will cease to have any relevance, or power to do its job and serve its community, in any way.               

Just like with the fight against the poll tax at the beginning of the 1990s, a massive campaign has been started to defend our services and fight back against the cuts, up and down the country. We can win, but we need as many people as possible to fight back against these cuts and to defend their jobs and communities.

Standing out in the cold on a December night may not seem like the most comfortable way to spend an evening, but these cuts need to be fought at every opportunity. Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance, along with numerous other groups in the Bath area, including BARF, Occupy Bath, 38 Degrees, Socialist Worker Party and trade unions are doing what they can to fight them. Get involved with them - unless you are the 1%, these cuts affect you too. And if you are the 1% - where's your compassion for those less fortunate?

Links
Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance
UK Uncut
BARF
Occupy Bath Facebook Page

Note: Some text taken from Bath Anti-Cuts Alliance literature handed out during the demo

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An Open Letter to Nick Clegg

Dear Nick Clegg,

Like the vast majority of people who care about the future of our country, and indeed the world, I watched your "apology" video to see what you had to say. Naturally, I was left feeling even more disappointed in you than ever. My reasons are thus:

1) Your apology only relates to a single issue. Although it was an issue that is important to many of your voters, it is by no means the only thing you should be apologising for. Making apologies is the very least that you could do, and I assume that this is only the first in a series of videos apologising for your (in)actions on issues such as the NHS, cuts to frontline services, the voting system, VAT, amongst others.

2) You broke your promise on tuition fees nearly 2 years ago. An apology this late in the day is next to meaningless. Why has it taken you so long to apologise?

3) It is only now, when support for the Liberal Democrats (particularly in their current incarnation led by yourself) has dropped to an all-time low, that you have come out and made this apology. It frankly wreaks of desperation.

4) Considering that tuition fees was one of your flagship policies, and that many of your MPs signed a pledge to not vote for a rise in them (including my MP, Don Foster, who represents a city with two universities and a large student population), you did not appear to put up much of a fight, at least not in public. I am therefore having great difficulty in believing that your apology is at all sincere.

5) You say that you shouldn't have had the policy in the first place, as it was likely that you would be in a coalition with either Labour or the Conservatives. What message does this send to the other smaller parties? Should the Green Party therefore drop most of their environmental policies just in case they one day go into coalition with a less green party? You painted yourself and your party as a genuine alternative to "politics as usual", and the one thing you should not be apologising about is having the policy in the first place. Will your next manifesto therefore simply be an amalgamation of Labour and Conservative polices just in case you have to get into bed with one of them following the next election?

6) At no point did you explain what you are going to do (or at least attempt to do) to make amends for your error. How are you going to help students (or for that matter, the rest of the "99%") in the future? An apology does not lower the cost of living, give us jobs, education or healthcare, stop climate change, sort out the economy or make anyone's life better in any way shape or form.

WE DON'T WANT AN APOLOGY, WE WANT ACTIONS.

When you were in the position of "kingmaker" following the election results, people trusted you to make the right decision. When you went into coalition with the Tories, it was an unpopular choice - but then so would a coalition with Brown's Labour have been. We expected you to keep a tight rein on them, not the other way around. We expected you to fight for us, not be pushovers having to apologise for not doing anything.

If this were an apology for a battle well-fought, I could accept it. If you had really put your foot down on one, just one, of your flagship policies, the British public might still have an ounce of respect left for you. Believe or not, you still have a chance. Admittedly, it will be harder now, as you have sunk so low in the public's opinion. Stop being a spineless coward and fight for us. SAVE THE NHS, and do not stop fighting until you have done it. Make it your mission, every single day, from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. Or be confined forever to the political wastelands.

We don't want any more apologies, Nick. If you fail, it is better to have gone down in a blaze of glory, than to have kept quiet and let the Tories wreck our country.

Standing Stone
Bath

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Occupy the UK. That's at Least What The Shittro Thinks (Guest Blog)

This a guest blog from a fellow Occupier who I've known since Day 1 of Occupy Bristol, and at 18 years of age he has a better grasp of politics and protest movements than many people twice his age. His weekly newspaper "The Shittro" can be found at http://theshittro.blogspot.com/, blending relevant politics with profanity and humour. More righteous ranting from Standing Stone coming later in the month.

EDIT: Standing Stone's Blog has returned the favour by writing a piece for The Shittro: "By the people, for the people - An Introduction to People's Assemblies" http://theshittro.blogspot.com/2012/03/shittro-v6-is-here.html

Hello there, and welcome to The Shittro. The newspaper of an 18 year old Occupier who makes it his job once a week to construct a word document containing news which is always well researched and opinionated. I have decided to come out as The Shittro and explain why I think Occupying the UK is the way forward.

Every day we hear the news of cuts, privatisation, reform, war and injustice. Who is doing anything about it? No-one is. Only the Occupy movement has drawn up the resistance to so many different things under one banner. We have brought things such as tax evasion, illegal wars, inequality in society and slave labour together so we can fight a battle in which we are slowly winning. I say that because people are starting to wake up to the injustice. I've been awake to what's been happening for a while. I started in Occupy Bristol on 15th October 2011 on a bright Saturday at College Green (when it was still green). We sat there until January protesting against the corporate greed and corruption while informing people of what the reality of the world was. We met some very nice people but then we found out that not everyone agreed with our aims and decided to personally attack or harm us in some way which is fine, I mean, people can attack the people in the camp but they can't get us to go away.

The reason I occupied was because I felt it was my civic duty to do so. David Cameron talks of his ideas of Big Society, the community running things. That's essentially what we did, we ran our own community (with a little help from the public!). The fact that we were able to keep what could be described as an anarchist society running for 3 months is amazing. Nothing like that had ever been tried in Bristol before so it was great to see it work. We worked under a system of direct democracy in which everyone had a vote on issues brought before a General Assembly in which the whole camp were able to take part in. The voting was consensus decision making which had again never been fully tried on the scale that we were using it with. The most successful use of consensus decision making is when Occupy have used it. So many camps across the world have used this system and many of them are still active today! Without it, we would have come crashing down and our protest would have been ineffective.

Other things which make us effective is the way people naturally work when put into a group like this. There were people that automatically sat down and decided what they were going to do to make their part in the camp successful. I tried out for the media team at Occupy Bristol but then I found that finance was more my thing so I did that for a week. I learned how to manage finances for the first time in my life using a real organisation’s money and I had to record it all in a book and report it back every GA. People found that as a result, we were very transparent. Transparency is something we aim for at Occupy. We feel that in order to gain the trust of the public, we must tell the public what we are doing when they aren't around. People would give us donations and it was my job to record them and allocate where the money should be spent. It was then found that I did this incorrectly to the person that took over. To this day, I don't understand what went wrong with that, but the fact that I had tried and appeared to be so successful at the role prompted people to trust me with similar positions again. At the moment, I am acting as a media/networking person who relays information to and from other occupy sites about Bristol. In Bath, I don't really have a responsibility but I'll talk about that in a minute.

My role in Occupy Bath was a short one, but I quickly learned the ropes of Bath and learned how to be an effective team player. Bath was a lot smaller than the Bristol camp, having about 2/3 of the people that were on site at Bristol. Bath would often have problems with people staying over at the camp and it was the case that people had to sit by themselves manning the camp for the whole day because no one could turn up to relieve them. That kind of camp couldn't be sustained which is why we decided to close it on December 8th and had the final camp meeting to organise logistics on December 9th to pack up by December 10th.

The reaction from people at Bath was very similar to those from Bristol. We still got the abuse and the mockery although there was a different class of people at Bath. I met two students from St Brendan’s College in Bristol who came over to talk to me. They were nice guys who had come over to talk to me about why we were there. I tried explaining it but it was obvious they didn't see the full picture and had a very one sided argument about things. For example, we discussed tuition fees and a few other things. I said most universities were charging £9000 to which they claimed was wrong. They then claimed the bankers had not committed any crimes and then they claimed that the Vickers report was going to solve everything. I was not feeling up to my prime that day so I stormed off, doubting whether what I was saying was right. It turns out that I was! I counted all of the universities that were charging £9000 to which at the time was 57 which is a large majority. I then looked up the Vickers report to which it said ring-fencing between investment banks and high street banks was needed. So does that mean they were right? No, ring-fencing just means limiting the amount of money that can go through, not eliminating it meaning from 2019, the rules will just get slightly stricter. So in fact, the students were ill informed and looking for a fight, which unfortunately, they had. As I said, I do regret acting like a spoilt child, but in my defence, they were being small minded. What else could have I done if they weren't listening to me? I agreed to look these things up but when I pointed these things out to them they pretended like nothing had happened. I'm not saying I was in the right, but then again, they weren't either.

The fact is, my experience of Occupy has been to inform, persuade and argue. Three things that I am good at because I am doing A Level English Language at college. Doing it in real life to real people can be difficult when people aren't willing to listen. They claim we have the wrong end of the stick when in reality, if people do the research themselves, they would find that we are in fact the ones who are right. But people feel that they don't have to do this extra research because what they are being told is right. Well guess what, it's not right what we are being told, it stinks. It's so full of bullshit it's hard not to scream at people that believe it. It's really easy to turn around to someone and ask them 'so what's your opinion on fractional reserve banking?' They don't know obviously, but it's the fact that people don't know how the money system works which is the worrying thing. In fact, more people know who the latest singer is on the chart then they do their local MP or even who messed up the economy.

So what am I going to do about this? Well, after remembering my experiences I want to shout and scream and go blue in the face at people for not listening but I know that won't help. I will continue to offer peaceful resistance to what is going on in this country and just because a bigot tells me that I am wrong doesn't mean I am going to stop and become ignorant again. I am 18 and I am writing this stuff, doesn't that mean something? Isn't it good that I am getting off my arse and contributing to the debate? Apparently not. People would rather me get wasted so they can complain about me doing nothing rather than doing something. People that complain that I am protesting don't have a leg to stand on. They are the ones who are consenting to the government ripping us off daily and they are the ones who need to stand up and say 'this isn't right'. I don't care what your political views are, I don't care of your age, gender, sexuality, height, weight, appearance, skin colour, origin or any other feature, get out there and protest! If you understand what is happening you have to say something. If you don't, your rights are going to be eroded away like the NHS.

If you are interested in writing a Guest Blog for Standing Stone's Blog, relating to the Occupy Movement, environment, other protest movements, or your visions and ideas for the future, get in touch at standingstonesblog@hotmail.co.uk . No commercial requests please.

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