Dorset’s first Radical Bookfair will take place on Saturday 3rd June 2017 at Portfield Community Hall, Portfield Rd, Christchurch BH23 2AQ (approximately 5 minutes walk from Christchurch railway station). Ground floor is accessible for the disabled.
Free entry to the public from 10:30 to 17:30
with afterparty from 19:30 to 23:00 £5 suggested donation.
Will be in the main hall downstairs, disabled access.
Winter Hill, towering over Bolton, is an iconic landmark to people in the northwest: one that in 1896 pushed thousands of activists to march to it to demand the right to roam. In a new play called Winter Hill, playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, uses the landmark to explore modern day themes about women’s political activity and to what ends should people go to to defend their community.
In 2017 the numbers of older women involved in politics is notable. The play touches on an important theme: how do you feel if you have been politically active over many decades but now feel, in the face of rampant capitalism – in this case the selling off of land on Winter Hill for a luxury hotel that will be the preserve of the rich -a sense of hopelessness about how you can ever change anything.
As five women of a book club…
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US / UK Series – What’s this about?AngryWorkers and friends are holding a series of meetings to get in touch with comrades in the USA to discuss the hot topics of the day.
The left, the right, the front pages and conversations across the globe have been chewing over the election of Trump and what this signifies. This has been echoed over here with the Brexit vote, as well as the recent French election. An ‘anti-establishment’ message combined with ‘protectionist’ promises and anti-immigration propaganda has a significant appeal within the local working class in the UK. We think it would be useful to speak directly with comrades in the States about recent developments in order to understand the similarities and differences. This might also have a mobilising effect on how and where to centre our political activities over here.
Amongst the left, there are two predominant ways to look at…
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We Like history.
These extracts are from John Wright’s recently published book, A Natural History of the Hedgerow (2016). I began reading it partly out of my love and hatred of hedgerows, about which I have written before on this blog in an article on Land Values, but also as an escape from the violence, injustice, political corruption and urban squalor of estate demolition. Little did I expect that, far more than a natural history of the hedgerow, Wright’s book also contains a social history of the struggles arising from the enclosure of common land in England and Wales between the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; and reading it I was struck by how similar the motivations and injustices of enclosure were to the conflicts arising today from the privatisation of land through the programme of estate demolition, not only in London but across the UK. Above all, I was struck by the…
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A few of us went along to the Southend Radical Fair that took place on Saturday May 6th at The Railway in Clifftown Road. To be honest, we weren’t quite sure what to expect but when we turned up, we were greeted with the welcome sight of a busy, buzzing event with plenty of deep conversations and networking taking place. The stallholders were a fairly eclectic mix ranging from greens, community gardeners and vegans through to groups dealing with gender issues and some funky ‘zine makers.
Basically, the kind of groups who want to start making a difference in the here and now – in other words, starting to build a new world in the decaying, fractured shell of the one we currently endure. In all honesty, a bit of a contrast to the more class struggle focused, combative, stroppy attitude that we have here at the Stirrer! Which is…
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It hasn’t escaped our notice that another orgy of representative politics is underway, with folk who do nothing else offering to lead you hither and thither.
When we conceived this event back in February we made a collective decision not to accept bookings from political parties, without anticipating that a general election would be scheduled for the following week. Some of the participants in the bookfair are members of political parties and will be participating in the forthcoming shenanigans, nevertheless we ask comrades to refrain from electioneering on the day.
We don’t want to labour the point; it’s just not what we’re here for.
Monday 1st May 11am Palmerston Park, Southampton Centre, SO14 1ND
Southampton Trades Union Council, Unite Community and People’s Assembly Against Austerity will celebrate International Workers’ Day with a family-friendly march and Rally.
11am Assemble at Bandstand
11.15 March from Bandstand to Peace Fountain, past the Cenotaph to Bargate and back through the parks to the Bandstand
12.00 – 3pm music, poetry, speakers, with local trade union, left and progressive stalls and Indian food
There will be a large marquee in case of bad weather.
Donations welcome toward the cost of event
For peace and a united Working Class. HAPPY MAY DAY!
We wrote the following as a contribution for discussion at a recent event on UBI in London…
Can’t buy me love – UBI ain’t working for workers’ liberation
Parts of the radical left see the Universal Basic Income (UBI) demand as a potential vehicle to a) ‘make people think’ about productive potentials and wealth distribution in capitalism; and b) unify a (fragmented and atomised) working class through a common demand. We think that the demand ain’t helpful for the following reasons:
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