Stop,Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house

Watch….Vampires in Havana, another interesting film being shown by the Manchester Film Cooperative. Juan Padron’s animated film is a spoof on gangster and vampire movies. Set in 1933, at a convention of vampire-gangsters who are meeting in Havana to get their hands on a fabulous new potion called “Vampisol” that at last lets vampires out into the sun without the harmful effects of UV rays. Living proof is a young vampire who was raised so normally that he has no idea he is a vampire — though that will soon change. As is the norm with MFC they do not just show a film but try and get people involved in activity so they have linked the film up to a dayschool on Latin America, see the world economic crisis from a different viewpoint. The film will be shown on 22 January, 7.30pm at On the Eighth Day, Further details see

Read….Campaigning Online and Winning How LabourStart’s Act Now Campaigns are Making Unions Stronger by Eric Lee and Edd Mustill. Like me, you may subscribe to the online LabourStart and have sent messages of support to trade unions across the world. It has been in existence for 15 years and in this book we learn about their successes, including supporting union reps not just get to their jobs back but to get out of prison, and fighting for union rights and representation across the world. There are lessons for all of us to learn but it iss also an inspiration to read given the depressing outlook for trade unions in this country. To buy it use NFN

Find out.. about a history of protest Christmas cards….Glad Tidings of Struggle and Strife: Derby Peoples History 7.30 pm Wednesday 15th January The Quad, Derby DE1 3AS. Further details see

Listen to… Victoria Brittain, journalist and campaigner on 17 January, 7pm at the Friends Meeting House Mount Street Manchester . Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign has organised this as part of an on-going discussion group programme. Victoria will speak about the horrific situation of Palestinian child prisoners. Children as young as 10 years old are arrested, often during the night, from their homes, taken away to detention centres, usually without an appropriate adult and held for any length of time that suits the captor. They are ill-treated and often prevented from any access to their families. Join them and take part in the discussion about how we can publicise and protest at these human rights abuses.

Enjoy…. opera in Salford, no not at the Lowry but at the Kings Arms, a much friendlier and accessible venue. Opera is often seen as a middleclass pursuit. Pint sized Opera is a new company based in the northwest who want to change that, and are presenting their version of The Love Drug or L’elisir d’amore: “Sung in Italian (with English subtitles) using young professional singers, true to Donizetti’s score and the original libretto. Can the love drug turn a computer geek into a sex god? Business is booming and emotions are running high in an office not far from here. Nerdy Nemorino doesn’t stand a chance with ambitious Adina; she’s set her sights on playboy tycoon Belcore. Then dodgy “Doc” Dulcamara appears on the scene with a new wonder-drug that could change Nemorino’s life forever”…Join them at the Kings Arms in Salford on 24/25/26 Jan. £14/7. Further details see

Go on a march…..Northern Towns against the Cuts..Austerity Bites..Game Over..march on Saturday 2 February 10.15 Halifax Town Hall, followed by speeches at Halifax Piece Hall. Organised by 12 unions with the support of Yorkshire and Humber TUC. Further details see

Get active… Legal Aid is being cut in April 2013 for many areas of social welfare law, including housing, employment, benefits, debt and immigration. At this conference Free Legal Advice in Crisis on 9 February 2013, organised by Access to Advice, they are bringing together all those affected by the cuts to share ideas and experience.
‘Free Legal Advice in Crisis’ – one day conference 10am to 4pm at Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester. M2 5NS.
Please book a place by emailing: accesstoadvice2013@gmail.com

Book review; This Changes Everything Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement

This Changes Everything Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement
Edited by Sarah van Gelder and the staff of YES! Magazine
ISBN 978-1-60994-587-9

The Occupy movement in this country was dominated by events at St. Paul’s in London, but smaller groups did exist in towns and cities beyond the metropolis. How Occupy has effected the politics of this country is probably too early to tell, in fact it could be said that in this country we are still reeling from the effects of the austerity agenda that the Con/Dems have been pursuing since 2010.

Occupy Manchester

In the USA the impact of the Occupy Wall Street was immediate and dramatic and activists and writers, including Sarah van Gelder and the staff at YES Magazine, decided that they needed to not just post articles on what was happening but also produce a book which would articulate the views of people inside and outside the movement, highlight changes that would be needed to empower the majority of people and show how social movements can make changes.

YES magazine and Yesmagazine.org was started in 1996 and exists to provide alternatives to the status quo, covering key issues including the reform of health care, building local economies and promoting alternatives to the climate crisis.

They are not an unbiased organisation; they proudly take the side of the oppressed;

We decided to write in a voice that recognised that we, too, are part of the 99%

They wrote the book as a collective of activists and writers, which makes the book more interesting than many of the books and articles written about the Occupy movement, including those produced in this country.

Occupy Wall Street was important because it targeted the centre of world capitalism. It started because activists were moved by the uprisings of the Arab Spring and the protests in countries such as Spain and Greece. On 17 September 2011 Adbusters magazine challenged activists to turn up at Wall Street and “bring a tent” and a few thousand people did. By the end of the day some people decided to set up a camp in Zuccotti Park and began what became a national and international movement.

What were they protesting about? Sarah van Gelder explains:

The Occupy movement, as it has come to be called, named the source of the crises of our time; Wall Street banks, big corporations, and others among the 1% are claiming the world’s wealth for themselves at the expense of the 99% and having their way with our governments.

The movement was not just about saying what the problem and how it needed solving, but most importantly, challenging the orthodoxy of the American dream, that individuals were not responsible for the dire state of the economy nor their consequent unemployment, underemployment or personal debt.

It is also utopian in its belief that the majority of people (the 99%) are key to;

Unleash(ing) the political power of millions and issued an open invitation to everyone to be part of creating a new world

The figures for the unemployed in the USA are staggering; 25 million are unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work. Over 45% of people have been unemployed for over 27 weeks.

Other contributors to the book showed what happened next as thousands of people descended on Zuccotti Park. Andy Kroll explained that it was not just Adbusters issuing a call to the streets, but the work of a small group of people in the New York City General Assembly that laid the foundations for the creation of a community in Zuccotti Park.

Andy’s article addresses many of the issues that activists struggle with in setting up organisations that are democratic and inclusive. One of the problems in this country is the ingrained nature of the Left which is dominated by the trade unions and socialist organisations which are out of touch and struggle to attract new activists into campaigning and struggles. I have been an activist in trade unions and community organisations and the cultures are very different. I saw this clash of cultures recently in the Greater Manchester Community Union which was set up by Unite. Trade unions are large, rich organisations which do not want to give their power away to activists, inside and outside the union. This does not bode well for their future!

Andy explains what a people’s general assembly is about;

Put simply, it’s a leader-less group of people who get together to discuss pressing issues and make decisions by pure consensus.

Sounds good and it obviously worked to an extent in Occupy, but one of the major problems with these kinds of activist movements is the absence of working class people. In this book there are many references to the diversity of the constituency at Zuccotti Park. Unfortunately, and I think this is one of the weaknesses of the book, it seems that all the contributors are writers or political pundits of one kind or another. I would have liked to seen a contribution from the security guards of 9/11 site who shared lunch with the Occupiers or the marines who formed their own group.

And whilst supporting the spirit of we are many, they are few, I am not convinced by the basic premise that everyone is affected in the same way by the global economic crisis. Young unemployed working class men in this country have been affected over a long period by the changing nature of our economy. Their lives and experiences are very different from the majority of students, graduates and trade unionists who have formed a significant part of recent protests. Some of them took part in the riots of August 2011, where they showed their contempt for capitalism and the establishment. Any movement that calls itself representative of the 99% needs to bring those young people into a political movement that reflects their lives and hopes for the future.

Overall I think this is an important book. It shows the role that large corporations and Wall Street have played in the international crises and the fact that the political establishment have refused to acknowledge this. It captures the hopes and dreams of not just the people who took part in Occupy Wall Street but of many peoples across the world who want a better world to live in. It is a manual for change providing ideas and actions that can make a better, more humane society.

Lipstick Socialist Awards 2012

Welcome to 2013! Thanks to everyone who made nominations. Hope it is inspirational for all of us in 2013 and there is certainly lots to be learnt from the choices made. Here’s to the New Year!!

Trade Unionist of the Year…Mark Serwotka of PCS.

He has constantly and continually hammered both Labour and Con/Dem Governments over their attack on our public services. His members (like local authority workers) have been privatised, marketised and given pariah status as the finance sector has been lauded and rewarded, whilst the public services have been given a deathblow by successive governments. It was Mark Serotka who led the fightback over the Con/Dems attack on public service pensions followed by the other public service trade unions. And he recognised how significant an issue it was for the government. Unfortunately the other trade unions failed to follow his lead, and they are now presiding over their own meltdown as their members are being stripped of their jobs and the public services are melting like the polar icecap.

A Unite member says Let’s hope that in 2013 we see a real fightback by the unions and maybe its time that Prentis, McCluskey et al start listening to Mark Serwotka before its too late!

Film/DVD of the Year… The Snows of Kilmanjaro. A French film with an unusual title that wouldn’t immediately label it as a film about trade unionism and globalisation. Over the last few years the French film industry has led the world in addressing some of the major issues facing many people in the west. Other films worth taking a look at are Army of Crime (about the French Resistance and the influence of other nationalities), Le Havre (about immigrants and the French)and 35 Shots of Rum ( about the African community as metro drivers and fathers).
The Snows is set amongst dockworkers who, facing a declining industry agree through theire trade union, the CGT, to ballot their members for redundancies.

Michel picks his own name for redundancy

Michel,the local shop steward, picks his name out of the drum and alongside other younger men faces the rest of his life on the dole. But, unlike some of the younger men, he is in his 50s, has had a life of permanent work, paid for his house and has a pension. He has a good relationship with his partner, children and grandchildren, but as the story unfolds, this is not the future that other redundant workers are facing in France, Britain or many other European countries. This is an important film because it reveals the anger that many young people are feeling towards an older generation of trade unionists who are experiencing redundancy but are doing so after a lifetime of not just secure wages, employment rights but also funding of education and welfare benefits. Young people are not just angry with the Con/Dems and the past Labour government but, like the young man in this film, are questioning the way trade unions are collaborating, particularly with Labour councils, to get rid of jobs and services.
George nominated this film: The Snows Of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guediguian is the best, maybe only, socialist film this year”

Demonstration of the Year…. One of the most important issues this year has been the attack on Gaza by the Israeli Government and every time I feature some aspect of the Palestinian struggle on my blog I have had an amazing response, it is a very important issue to you, dear readers. There have been many public responses to the outrageous attacks by the Israelis but the one that has been chosen as the demo of the year took place on 24 November in London.

Gaynor was there:
we managed to have the podium for the speeches set up in the pouring rain right outside the Israeli embassy and they must have heard every word of the speeches bellowed out. It was absolutely pouring down and yet there so many people were, young and old and very wet!! Tony Benn had a very bad chest. I was also late for it and very much enjoyed catching up with the tail end outside the Ritz and seeing peter tatchell chatting to the tail enders and the boat from Gaza. I was inspired as people turned up notwithstanding the ceasefire announcement (pah!) a couple of days earlier and despite the weather, and by the fact that so many of my Jewish friends were pro-same.

Further info see

Website of the Year… the Salford Star…maybe not so well known outside the north west but it should be! Run by Stephen Kingston, it is in the tradition of the local radical press of the 1970s and sits firmly on the side of the working class of Salford. Over the last year it has exposed the villainy of Salford Council and the new Mayor of Salford in their support for the interests of big business against those of the people of Salford. Not just featuring politics, the Star aims to educate and inform its readers about art, history and sport. Always cheeky and sometimes hilarious, it is on its own in trying to address the major issues, including the bankruptcy of local politics, and the struggle by people to hold onto the important things in life, including decent services and jobs.

Salford Star fan…forget Peter Kay and the millionaire comedians… read the Star and the highjinks at Clown Hall, Salford..its funnier and you can make a donation to keep it going!

Book of the Year Sex Race and Class- The Perspective of Winning by Selma James. She addresses the power relations within the working class movement, on how to organise despite and against these power relations, and drawing on the experience of Occupy in London and the US in which the Global Womens Strike has been active.

Selma James

Christine nominated this book: Selma gives an insight into the political economy of the exploitation of women, producing a theoretical basis for a revolutionary and autonomous womens’ struggle.

Music of the Year… Sarah Gillespie has won a deserved reputation on the basis of the two albums In the Current Climate and Stalking Juliet and her powerful live performances, both solo and with her band. She writes about life, love and politics, including a song about Shaker Amer, How the West was Won. Her next album, now being recorded, will be launched in July 2013.

Michael says; she wowed us at the Manchester Peace Conference social and its heartening to see a performer who is concerned about some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Campaign of the year ….the fightback by disabled people as the Con/Dem Govt stripped some of the most vulnerable sections of the community of their benefits. Their campaign against Atos (who made the decisions) during the Paralympics was inspiring and they have led the way in the fightback against the Con/Dem Govt.

The Disabled People Against the Cuts’ message for 2013: DPAC will not be resting in any tents in 2013 but fighting with disabled people in the courts, on the streets, online and everywhere we can

Shameful Act of Betrayal of the Year… . The United Nations and Ban ki-Moon for sending into Haiti soldiers from Nepal as peacekeepers who took with them cholera. A reminder that we might believe things are bad in Europe, but that for some countries and peoples oppression means more than losing your job or benefits.

Chris says :Thousands of people died from the disease. Despite the medical evidence the UN will still not admit culpability or compensate some of the poorest people in the world. For more information see this report on the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20024400

Most Hopeful Event of the Year…Spanish Miners’ Strike. Nominated by George: The Spanish miners’ strike was inspirational. Its militant nature and tenacious support received in mining communities were exceptional. Yet again, disciplined militant tactics brought employers to the negotiation table and won results. This holds many lessons for the timid and increasingly irrelevant leadership of the TUC, who continue to act as an arbitrator of, rather than a participant of industrial disputes. The heroic struggle of the Spanish Miners provided a militant lesson for the combat of austerity for the peoples of Europe.

Book review; Utopia

Utopia Five Leaves Publications ISBN 978-1 907869-50-1

We are living in the age of austerity. As a socialist and a writer my aim in life has always been to act collectively in my union, my neighbourhood and with my friends to make the world a better place. But in 2012 it is hard looking around to find organisations that give a lead and, most importantly, offer hope to achieving a better future.

Tom Paine, philosopher and revolutionary, wrote We have it in our power to begin the world over again. Five Leaves Publications in their latest book Utopia have reminded us of how important it is for all progressive people to have a vision for the future.

The book includes a mixture of essays from past and present writers.

Mike Marqusee in his essay Let’s Talk Utopia sets out the case for utopian thinking:

We need the attraction of a possible future as well as a revulsion at the actual present. If people are to make the sacrifices required by any struggle for social justice, then they need a bold and compelling idea of the world they are fighting for.

Utopia is not a new concept and has a fine tradition in this country. Earlier this year, for instance, I attended the 2nd Diggers Festival in Wigan which lauded Gerald Winstanley of the True Levellers (aka The Diggers). They did not just dream about a utopian lifestyle, but in 1649 occupied St.George’s Hill to set up a colony on common lands, cultivating the soil and distributing the crops without charge to their followers. Utopia includes Leon Rosselson’s song The World Turned Upside Down which encapsulates Winstanleys’ dreams:

They make the laws to chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven or they damn us into hell
We will not worship the god they serve
The god of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve

A song for 2012 as the bankers are bailed out by the government, our public services are being dismantled and poor people are having their benefits cut. The Wigan festival will hopefully become an annual starting point for activists, not just a get together but to look at campaigning on these issues.

Gillian Darley in her essay Equal in Death: the Moravian Burial Ground explains how the Moravian community has survived whilst others, such as the Shakers, have disappeared. The English Moravian settlements were founded in the 1700s near Manchester, Leeds and Belfast. Originally from Germany the Moravian missionaries took their message across the world, establishing communites based on economic self sufficiency and close communal ties:

They observed the egalitarian customs and norms of their own society …and while their contemporaries lived bound by a mesh of intricate social gradations and subtle measurements of class and conditions, the Moravians – largely artisans- had effectively absolved themselves from all this in favour of equality in life and death.

Moravian Settlement Fairfield Manchester

The Moravians understood the importance of linking work with home life and, in his essay on William Morris, Colin Ward explains why the latter is still an important socialist thinker for us today. He quotes Paul Thompson, biographer of Morris:

Morris stands alone among major socialist thinkers in being as concerned with housework and the home as work in the factory. The transformation of both factory and home was equally necessary for the future fulfilment of men and women.

Utopia includes Morris’ own essay A Factory as it Might Be in which he sums up his vision of creating factories that would combine work and pleasure, extol training and education, as well as art and culture. He believed that machinery should be used to save the time of the worker so that s/he would have time to develop their own individual artistic and cultural needs.

Morris’ ideas of a modern factory were taken up by some employers, including William Lever at Port Sunlight and George Cadbury at Bournville, but they were never the norm for most people. And as Colin Ward points out, capital has eliminated labour and, in its drive for lower labour costs, it has relocated to China and Latin America.

Public anger about tax dodging organisations, including Amazon, will hopefully remind people about why co-operatives such as the News from Nowhere bookshop were started in the first place and why they are even more important today. NfN started in 1974 and became a co-operative in 1984. One of the founders, Bob Dent, explains why they took the name of William Morris’ book News From Nowhere:

To create that better world which William Morris envisaged in NfN, we need ideas which counter the prevailing ideologies. Access to alternatives, creative radical ideas,which help us challenge the different power structures of society, is not a sufficient condition for changing the world, but it is a necessary one.

News from Nowhere bookshop

In Mandy Vere’s contribution about News from Nowhere, we are shown how collective action can produce radical workplaces and centres for political activity.

Her essay is insightful on how they created the co-operative and decided to make it women only and the response this got, not just the customers, but from sections of the more traditional left. One of the strengths of the cooperative has been its openness to all political movements, individual activists from the left and all strands of progressive thought.

Utopia is a good book to read to inspire and motivate ourselves and make us think about trying to encourage other people to join us and become more politically active.

Through Lipstick Socialist over the past year I have interviewed many individuals and groups about their political activity and how they see the future. There are many positive things going on, particularly in terms of new groupings, and people trying to work together on many issues from opposing the public sector cuts to encouraging more people to learn their own history.

If we as socialists want to see more people become involved in creating a better society, a utopian society, then we need to engage with the majority of people who are not active and show them that it is possible to live in a more collective and compassionate way. To quote Oscar Wilde:

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

Season’s greetings and see you in 2013 in a utopian society!

Still Anarchy in the UK in 2012!

My politics have been influenced by my background, including class, and the era that I grew up in. So trade unions, community and the women’s movement have dictated where I have put my political energies in past years. But in 2012 where would someone like me growing up on a council estate in the north west look for a vibrant political lifestyle? Unfortunately trade unions and the left are not particularly inspiring to me at the moment, never mind to younger people!

Last week I went to the Manchester and Salford Anarchist Bookfair because, just looking at the publicity, it seemed to be offering a way of exploring a different way of life that had some resonances with the lives that younger people lead today.

The bookfair took place at the Peoples History Museum, quite a formal venue, but once inside the main hall I was surprised at the numbers of young people mingling with an older generation of anarchists. Yes, many people were wearing black, but there was an interesting array of stalls displaying books, photos, cartoons, veggie food as well as the more mainstream North West Labour History Society and International Brigade Memorial Trust.

Dave, one of the organisers of the bookfair, told me how it started;

It started 10 years ago and the idea behind it is to show what anarchism is, to get political people together, not to recruit them but to inspire people to do something whether it’s to get involved in some activity from squatting to writing or setting up a website. It’s about being outwardly looking and a space to show people what they can do.

Running alongside the bookfair were a series of talks offering people the chance to find out more about anarchism, and providing a venue for debate. The talks included: an introduction to anarchism, squatting, women and abortion in Ireland, and parenting and anarchism.

There are two main anarchist groups in Manchester; the Anarchist Federation and Solidarity Federation. They reflect different political strains of anarchism; the former describe themselves as “anarchist communists and revolutionary class struggle anarchists”, whilst the latter describe themselves as “ a revolutionary union initiative: a working-class organisation which seeks the abolition of capitalism and the state”.

What does it mean to be an anarchist today? Dave says that just looking around the bookfair it reflects some of the activities that people are involved in and which are relevant to their lives:

For example, there are hundreds of empty houses around Manchester and we can do something about it by squatting and this is a direct action. The idea is one of do it yourself, rather than waiting for someone else to tell you what to do, and this is our response to the issue of homelessness

In the talk An Introduction to Anarchism the speakers explained some of the political roots of anarchism and looked reasons why it continues to be attractive to new activists. Anarchism opposes the state and capitalism, and concentrates on individuals achieving their potential as political and creative beings. Contributions from the audience reflected on the difficulties of working with other mainstream left organisations in movements ranging from Occupy to strikes.

In another talk two members of the Anarchist Federation showed a film called Why Women Travel which they had made to highlight the issue of the lack of abortion in Ireland. In the film Irish women were given the opportunity to explain how difficult and expensive it is to find out about abortion services abroad from Ireland and the obstacles faced in accessing these services. The AF have made the film to encourage people to take part in protests against the lack of abortion in Ireland and also to offer practical support (such as accommodation) to the women once they come to England. Although I think that it is good that people are organising to support a very vulnerable group of women the bigger issue is the unresolved political situation in Ireland.

In the age of the internet it was good to see that the anarchists are still producing paper leaflets and zines and books. One that caught my eye was Footnotes issue four, produced by the Footprint Workers Co-operative in Leeds. They are printers and produce the occasional paper zine, as well as having their own website and Facebook page. They use these to share campaign updates from direct action groups including Corporate Watch who have produced information on the housing crisis and a Nuts and Bolts Guide to Banking and Finance.

Within issue four one of the footprinters, Claire, gives her account of being at Dale Farm when 86 Traveller families were evicted from their land. Although a co-operative, they came out on strike in solidarity with the striking public sector workers as they stated;

Public sector pay, job losses and pension cuts are one major and high profile battleground in the fight against Tories’ frontal attack on public services and the welfare state.

Spending a day at the anarchist bookfair I could see why they attract such a mixture of ages and people. It is a movement that does respond to the creativity that most people have within themselves. It does offer a more direct solution to some of the problems that young people face including homelessness, low pay and isolation. And at a time when more traditional organisations such as trade unions and the left are struggling to cope with the Con-Dem attacks it seems that the anarchists, to use an old adage, understand that the personal is political.

Listen to Anarchy on the Airwaves at

Vote for the Lipstick Socialist Awards 2012!

It’s that time of the year again when we look back on the last 12 months. I am very pleased to announce that the nominations for the Lipstick Socialist Awards for 2012 are now open, and the categories are:

Campaign of the Year

Trade Unionist of the Year

Film/Dvd of the Year

Demonstration of the Year

Blog/website of the Year

Book of the Year (either fiction or non-fiction)

Music of the Year

Most hopeful event of the Year

and finally…

Shameless Act of Betrayal of the Year

All nominations must be in by 31 December and the awards will be announced mid January. Vote early and vote often!! Please send your nominations with a short explanation as to why you have chosen them to lipsticksocialist636@gmail.com.

Events for next week……..

Attend … ‘Salt of the earth’: empowering working class communities across the land – a talk by Jacqui Carroll, who is Director of REELmcr and will talk about the organisation’s work giving individuals and communities groups a chance to tell their stories, using filmmaking as a medium for storytelling. The talk will include some film highlights. Wednesday 5 December 2pm at the Working Class Movement Library. More information here.

Be entertained…….at Studio Salford. Their last couple of offerings of 2012 starts off with Embryo (an eclectic cabaret of all things new) which is coming up next Friday 7th Dec, 7.30pm. Expect script-in-hand performances of new-writing-in-development, films, poetry, maybe a bit of high kicking and feather boa action, stand-up comedians, singer songwriters, head-shaving, bands, in fact anything performance based could happen see

Protest against the government’s cuts …say no to Osborne’s cutbacks and more Con-Dem Austerity Support the Fight to save our NHS………assemble 12. 30 All Saints Oxford Rd. Rally 2pm at Manchester Cathedral Gardens on 8 December. Further info Organised by Greater Manchester Association of Trades Councils.

Later…. Disabled people are amongst the hardest hit by the ConDem government’s attack on welfare. Disabled people and their carers are fighting back attacks cuts which will drive them into further poverty and leave them even isolated through lack of adequate social support. Manchester Coalition Against Cuts is facilitating the launch of a DPAC group in Manchester on 8th December, 3:30pm after the anti-cuts demonstration to protest further cuts expected in Osbourne’s budget announcement on the 5th. They are seeking volunteers to help ensure that the meeting is accessible to all those who want to attend. If you can help out contact MCAC

Later still…at 4pm demo against Starbucks who UK Uncut has announced a national day of action targeting Starbucks coffee stores in protest against the government’s spending cuts that are hurting women. Activists have chosen to target the company as a result of its tax avoidance; taxes they claim could fund public services currently being cut by the government. The action will see Starbucks stores transformed into refuges, crèches and homeless shelters to highlight the disproportionate impact of the government’s spending cuts on women. The action will take place on Saturday 8 December. See

Support local services (before Salford Council close them!)….the wonderful Salford Art Gallery still feels like a local service and has art that reflects the lives of the people who support it through their local taxes. Last week I went to the Re-tracing Salford Exhibition in which curator Lawrence Cassidy is collecting peoples memories of the streets of Salford. The exhibition includes family snaps, oral histories, home videos and street signs from the people who lives in Salford streets over the last 50 years. What makes it an emotional experience is seeing the faces and lives of ordinary people, something missing from many public art works. On the day I was there it was great to see people rediscovering their past as they looked at street maps and photos. It is to the credit of Lawrence and the other staff that they have created something that is so engaging and reflective of Salfordian life.

Book review: At the Coalface; My life as a Miner’s Wife by Catherine Paton Black

At the Coal Face; My life as a Miner’s Wife by Catherine Paton Black ISBN 978 -0-7553-6325-4 Headline publishers.

Many books have been written about the Miners’ Strike 1984-85, but few have been written by the wives of the miners. Catherine Paton Black’s book is important, not just because of her husband taking part in the strike but because she was one of the few women who were NUM members and became official pickets during the strike. It is also the story of why those mining communities had such a sense of solidarity during the strike; they realised that, without those jobs and their union, their lives would be one of poverty and instability. This is why they put up such as fight for their jobs and communities and why they were such an inspiration to people in Britain and across the world. It was also the reason why they were dubbed “the enemy within” and why Thatcher was determined to destroy them.

Catherine was born in 1946 in Hamilton, near Glasgow. She came from a poor background:

My father,George was a drunk gambler, always looking for a quick buck to pour down his throat, and my mum suffered a heart condition all her life and struggled to cope. Luckily my grandparents stepped into the breach and became my heroes.

At an early age she was aware of her future:

from a young age us girls knew our fates. We’d grow up to be wives and mothers like our mums and maybe get a job in a factory if we had to. That was our lot in lives and we didn’t know any different.

Catherine left school at 15, got a job in a factory and spoke out when she realised that they were earning very little in comparison to the profits the company was making:

The strike never happened, but the seed had been planted. Even the lowliest paid worker had a voice if they wanted to use it. Little did I know that was a principle I’d stick to much later in life.

Tradition in those small communities wasn’t just about what women did and what men did, it was also about who you married. Catherine meets Doug and when he comes to meet her granddad asks him straightaway What colour are you?, referring to religion. Catholics and Protestants did not mix, so her granddad was relieved when he found out Doug was “blue” ie Protestant.

Through her relationship with Doug she gives the reader an insight into the horrors that his father and brothers experienced as miners;

Working conditions in the pits in the 40s and 50s were primitive. Before the modern machines arrived Doug’s father and brothers were at times quite literally going at parts of it with a pick axe…They were all injured at some point.

If young men didn’t want to go down the coalmines they had few other choices and for Doug that meant going in the Army. In 1968, when she had their first child, he left the Army and took the only other alternative, a job in a pit in Nottingham in England, but as a surface worker. There were other advantages, as Catherine says, after living in a tenement in Glasgow they now were given:

A smart new Coal Board house, with clean red bricks, it really did feel like a piece of heaven after where we had been living. The village, pronounced “Renoth” by locals, had been built especially for the pit and had some lovely rolling green fields, farmland and lake areas nearby.

Catherine was also now living near her Mum and sister, who had moved south several years previously. Catherine and Doug had five children. His work on the surface did not pay enough to keep the family so she went back to work. Eventually Doug went down the mine to improve his wages while Catherine joined him in the colliery canteen (and joined the union). Unfortunately he had an accident in the pit, injured his back and could not go back underground, so the Coal Board found him another job at the pit;

So Doug started a new role on the surface in an office alongside two poor fellas who’d lost their legs in terrible accidents.

During the Miners Strike of 84-85 the Nottinghamshire coal field had many miners who did not support the strike and Catherine believes that this was because :

the mines in Notts employed lots of people from all parts of the country so fewer people felt a sense of loyalty to the area.

Controversially pickets from Yorkshire visited their area to try and get them to join the strike. Catherine did not support this;

As much as I supported the strike, I resented this. We didn’t want or need people from another county telling us what to do, but I did just wish more Nottingham communities were joining in.

Like many people from the coalfields she could see the government’s strategy of provoking the miners into striking at a time when they had been stockpiling coal at the power stations. As she puts it:

It all seemed terribly cynical, like open war had been declared on miners. Yet they were decent, hard- working people who just wanted to protect their jobs and communities.

Many miners wives got involved with the strike, but Catherine was different because she was an NUM member and she could officially join the picket line. Her husband didn’t want her to so she went one morning with her daughter;

After shinning down the drainpipe, we walked into the street, where we spotted other people coming down the road.
The other women commented;
We’re off to find a demonstration. We can’t just sit at home cooking and cleaning while all this is kicking off.

Catherine throws herself completely into political activity. She organises the soup kitchen and attends pickets, demos, travels around the country and comes across other peoples ways of life that she never knew existed. But she wasn’t interested in the bigger politics of the strike as she comments:

We had them all up here, including Scargill, but I never took time to listen. I wasn’t interested. …I was too busy to think or consider any further issues or the politics of it all

For many miners’ wives (and miners) the strike showed them different ways of life and some of them took the opportunity to get an education and jobs and move away from the coal mining communities. Catherine was happy with the life she had, and after the strike ended she returned to her husband and family. And her feelings today about the strike?

Echoes of its legacy lives on. We’ll bear both the scars and the memories forever.

National Women Against Pit Closures 2012

In 2012 with growing dissent about energy costs it is even clearer that the demise of the coal mining industry was not just a defeat for the NUM and its members, but has left this country now hostage to large energy companies with a government that has no sympathy or concern for poor families.

At the Coalface is a reminder that communities and trade unions can work together to campaign for a better society and we need to remember those lessons now.

Political Women (10) Alice Nutter

Alice Nutter …
Formerly in Chumbawamba, now a regular scriptwriter for TV and radio, Alice is from a working class family in Burnley, Lancashire:

It’s a myth that all working class people are leftwing. My parents were weavers, but were Tory in their politics. My Dad was a Tory councillor and petrol pump attendant, while my Mum re-trained as a nurse when I was 18 months old, but we still lived in the same working class area.

She grew up at a time when, if you lived in a small northern town, the roles for men and women were clearly laid out:

I used to go to the soul events at Wigan Casino, but it was the men who did the dancing, the women just stood and watched. The men worked in factories, the women were “someone’s girlfriend or wife”. There weren’t many options for women in Burnley at that time.

Alice left school at 16 and worked in Asda and in waitressing jobs A year later she went to Art School to do a Foundation Art course. It was the advent of punk rock in 1977 that showed her that there could be more to life…….
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Punk rock was liberating for girls like me, and for a generation. Bands such as the Slits opened my eyes to a different life. I met other people who like me were looking for something different.

In the 70s the new wave of feminism meant that even if you couldn’t meet other feminists, because you lived on working class council estates, you could still find books that would broaden your ideas:

I have always enjoyed reading and always wrote stories. One day I got the bus from Burnley to Manchester and went to the radical bookshop Grass Roots Books. I bought some books, including Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. Politics interested me but I didn’t know anyone like me.

Alice’s Mum supported her daughter in a search for a new way of living:

She let me be anything I wanted to be, even when I was a punk. She never thought I should get married, and I haven’t.

After finishing her course Alice decided not to go to University, and instead started going to punk rock gigs:

I went to a party in Liverpool and from there went down to London to an anti-nuclear war demo. It was the first time I ever went on a demo, and from there I got involved with anti-Falkland war activity with other people, and we went on to form Chumbawamba

The Chumbawamba website says:
Chumbawamba was our vehicle for pointing at the naked Emperors, for telling our version of the truth; it gave us more than the joy and love of playing live, writing songs and singing together – it gave us a chance to be part of a broad coalition of activists and hectors, optimists and questioners.

From the late 70s there was a culture of radical dissent with people opposing racism and the National Front, the war in Ireland, cruise missiles at Greenham Common, Tory cuts, against a background high levels of youth unemployment. It defined a whole generation of young people including me and Alice:

We moved from Burnley to Leeds and set up Chumbawamba in a commune. We had all the zeal of new political activists, demonstrating, printing leaflets on our press etc. I worked on Leeds Radical Paper and at Suma, the wholefood collective, as well as being active in local womens’ groups.

In 1984 the Miners Strike began and like thousands of others, Alice and Chumbawamba got involved:

It changed everything. We had our own Miners Support Group, we worked with other groups such as SWP and for 18 months supported the soup kitchen at Frickley.

For Alice, like many other people on the Left, the Miners Strike defined their politics, particularly around issues such as class:

I joined Class War, wrote for the newspaper, and stayed with it until it became a parody of itself

From there she went onto anti-capitalist politics with Chumbawamba used its profile and finances to support events such as the Leeds May Day Conference and campaigns such the Liverpool Dockers Strike in the 1990s.

In 2005 she left Chumbawamba and took her creative skills to scriptwriting:

I’ve always thought I could write scripts, I have always written stories which looked like scripts. I just put my head down and it’s been a combination of luck and self confidence (from 23 years with Chumbawamba) that I have been able to get work.

Alice says her scriptwriting reflects her politics, trying to tell stories about the complexity of human life. She has turned down writing for the soaps because:

My heart isn’t in it and I just couldn’t do it. I work with Jimmy McGovern and I enjoy the work, it’s creative and his heart is in the right place. I want to write about the struggle to be human in difficult circumstances.

One of her heroes is Jim Allen, who put his politics of the class struggle into his plays and films in the 1970s and 1980s. She feels that over the last 25 years there has been a major shift in society and that class is once again the issue for political activists:

There is no social mobility, all those avenues that I went down ie punk rock/art school/being able to have a creative life on the dole, have been shut down. If I was growing up now, and from a working class background, I would be screwed.

Alice is now involved with the Plan C campaign:

It is recognising that we had Plan A and that has been swept away by the neo liberals, there is no Plan B and we want to work out what to do next. A group of people in Leeds have got together to look at other societies eg Scandinavia and then collectively work out how we can build a better life here.

And what is her message to those young women who are perhaps 17, working class and living in small towns but want a different life?

Find things that you love doing, it doesn’t have to be political, find the life you want, and find people that you enjoy working with and enjoy yourself!

Further info on Alice’s writing see

Book review; A World between Us by Lydia Syson

 

A World Between Us by Lydia Syson
Hot Key Books ISBN 978-1-4714-0009-4

Taking part in the march on the 75th anniversary of Cable Street in October 2011 made me feel very proud of the history of working people’s opposition to fascism, whether on their streets in 1936 or in the protests against fascist groups such as the English Defence League. As the economic system nationally and globally goes into decline there are some similarities with the 1930s in Britain. Unemployment is rising, we have a Conservative government that is cutting the benefits of the poor in its strategy to pay off a decifit caused by the monied class. Unlike the 30s we do not have a vibrant political organisation such as the Communist Party which provided working class people with not just a political way forward but in its actions in areas such as the East End of London took the class struggle to the street. It is this context that Lydia Syson has set her new novel.

Lydia Syson’s, A World Between Us, explores some of the most important issues about how and why people ( and young people in particular) get involved in political activity. Her book is set in London in the 1930s, at a time of a worldwide economic crisis and the mirroring rise of fascism. Her grandparents were involved in the Communist Party and were part of a movement that organised against the growing rise of fascism in this country and abroad, particularly in Spain:

I wanted to write about the Spanish Civil War and its effects in this country because my children didn’t know about it. It was important on many levels, not just in terms of people going to fight in Spain but in the whole political culture of that time.

Like many people in the 30s, and particularly in the East End of London, her grandparents took part in the large political demonstrations such as Cable Street:

I wanted to show in the book how people got swept up into the street politics and how different life was for them. Being a communist now is seen in a negative way so I wanted to show why people did become communists and that it was a response, a gut feeling, about the political and social situation they were in.

The novel begins with the Cable Street demonstration when the British Union of Fascists attempted to march through a largely Jewish and working class area of East London:

Missiles kept flying overhead-saucepans, bottles, rotten vegetables, god knows what. It was like a tide on the turn, with banners and placards dipping and rearing. There were all sorts here, not just East Enders. Even the side streets were packed with protestors.

It is at this march that the two main characters meet, trainee nurse Felix (Felicity) and young communist Nat. He is about to go to Spain, and explains to her why he thinks being a communist is important:

It’s changed my life really. I can see everything clearly now. It gives you hope, doesn’t it? When you realise how things could be much better, so much fairer? And that you can do something about it.

One of the reasons Lydia chose to write about this era was to show young people now how the SCW did motivate young people of that generation to not just become politically active, but to go and fight in Spain:

When I was writing the scene about Cable Street I wondered if my audience, young teenagers, would understand what it meant to be on a demonstration and being threatened by police on horses. But at the same time I saw on the news the student demonstrations and it struck me that this will make sense to a different generation of young people.

One of the startling aspects of British people going to take part in the Spanish Civil War was their age, like Nat and Felix in this book, many of them were teenagers when they made that decision. Lydia captures the horror of war, and for me reading Felix’s story as a nurse on the frontline gave it a potency that is quite different from reading about a battle:

Leaning on the doorjamb, Felix began to tremble. She couldn’t go any further anyway: a body lay at her feet, blocking the way. She had nearly stumbled onto it. She bent to apologise, but as she put a hand on the man’s arm, she could feel that already beginning to stiffen….There were bodies everywhere.

In AWBU Lydia is writing fiction, but her motivation in writing the novel was to remind her readers of the importance of the Spanish Civil War in the history of Europe in the 20 Century:

I used the history of the war as a framework but I was committed to making the novel mainstream. I wanted it to work on different levels in terms of its romance and its politics. I hope the politics will seep into readers’ consciousness so that later on the significance of the SCW will be understood.

AWBU is published by Hot Key Books for young adults but I think it is a book that can be read and appreciated by people of all ages. The love story between Felix and Nat is beautifully written and shows how political activity can bring people together in loving relationships. The novel finishes in 1939 and one of the reasons why it is important to understand the politics of the SCW is that the defeat of republican Spain led onto the Second World War. Lydia’s book is well researched and is a good beginning for further reading and studies in what is a crucial history of Britain and Spain in the 30s.

To buy it see
See Lydia’s blog for links to SCW It is also published as a Multi-touch iBook2 from Apple iBook store with lots more info on the SCW.
See wcml.org for more info on SCW
See IBMT for more information and activities regarding the International Brigadiers see

Political Women (8) Voices of Trade Union Women

Education has always been the escape route for working class children out of low paid work but in 2012 it is not just the demise of Education Maintenance Awards and the rise of student fees that are changing their lives, but the changing nature of the labour market which means that, even if you do get a degree (at a high financial cost), you may not get a better job.

I decided to do some research into the lives of women from similar backgrounds to me, but who did not stay in education, and instead went into traditional working class jobs. But, through their involvement in trade unions, they found another way of getting an education, and also developing their own self confidence, and went on to change their lives.

My research started with interviewing women who are active in trade unions. Historically trade unions have offered women opportunities to improve their wages and working conditions, to get an education, to become active in the union and take union jobs, as well as moving into the wider job market. The women I interviewed were Marilyn, Cath, Sharon and Julia. Their ages varied from early 40s to 60s.

Most of the women were not from trade union families, but had worked in industries that were unionised. All of them had left school at 15 or 16, none of them achieved any qualifications at school and all went into unskilled work:
Marilyn (who is in her 60s) said I left school in 5th year and was not encouraged to stay on. My job was to go out, get married and have babies. That was what women’s lives were then and therefore I got married at 17 and had a baby

Why did they join a trade union:

Cath; at 16 I went to work in “Cadburys factory” and it was unionised so I joined.
Marilyn; “I worked in factories that were unionised so if there was a union I would join it. I must have believed in it because I don’t follow like a sheep.”
Julia; “At 16 I went to work in KwikSave and it was unionised so I joined the union and the store.”
Sharon; “At 17 I went to work as a machinist at a factory and I joined the union. I was the youngest person in the union.”

How did this affect their lives?

Three out of the four women worked in factories which had track records of union organisation.
Cath worked on the Wirral in Cadburys factory from 1972-88: There were 2000 members, all in the TGWU, and it was a closed shop. But of the 50 shops stewards only 4 were women. She worked in the factory when single and then went back after her husband was made unemployed, working on the weekend shift as she now had 4 children. Cath became the shop steward and the female deputy convenor spotted her potential: She was my biggest inspiration and encouraged me to do courses. I went back into education and that made me realise I could do anything I wanted. Cath is now a tutor on trade union courses at a college.

Julia also left school at 16 and worked on a checkout at KwikSave. Usdaw recruited her at her induction. She came from a trade union family, her father had been a shop steward on the docks in Liverpool and took part in the Merseyside Dockers Campaign to try and save jobs and the industry. Julia went to Argos, got married and had 2 children, and whilst working on the dayshift became a shop steward. Through the union she has gone on many courses to improve her own qualifications and develop her role as a full time official in her trade union. For her the benefits are clear: Initially I did the learning to improve myself. People don’t realise how being part of a union and taking up educational opportunities can give you confidence in improving your own life and career.

Marilyn’s life changed when she went to work in the food manufacturing industry: In 1996 I went to work in a local bakery, well it’s a factory producing cakes, there are 2000 workers and 90% of them are in the union. For Marilyn joining the union changed her life; It had a massive effect on me, I went on every course and it meant for the first time I travelled by myself on trains and buses all over the country. She worked for the union for a year and wished she had got involved earlier: If I had got involved in the union thirty years ago my life would have gone in a different direction. I would have run for a fulltime officer post and be more active.

Sharon left school at 15 years without any qualifications, mainly because she was dyslexic and was not provided with the appropriate support. In the 1980s she trained as a machinist and joined GMB as the firm was unionised. She was the youngest person in the union. Sharon thinks attitudes to unions were better in the ‘80s: I think unions had a higher and better profile in those days and now they have been run down by the Government.
In 2004 Sharon moved to a large biscuit manufacturer and, as soon as her position was made permanent, she joined USDAW. In the factory there is a Union Learn Centre, a joint employer/union learning centre where staff can obtain qualifications. Sharon was encouraged by the union convenor to do so: He had faith in me, he kept saying you can do it and don’t give up. She has now become a Union Learning representative and says; I now feel able to talk to other people about learning and encourage them the way I was encouraged by the union.
It’s not just in learning that the union has helped Sharon. She has a back problem which affected her attendance at work and may have cost her her job. The union supported me when the company wanted to get rid of me. The union ensured that my condition has been recognised under the DDA and backed me all the way otherwise I would have just given in and given up my job. So being in a union has made a big difference to me and that’s why I say to people that they should join a union.

The key issue for these women was working in organisations that were unionised. It provided not just opportunities to access education, but also enabled them to take positions of authority in the union such as shop steward.
In 2012 unions still have a key role in providing free education. This is rarely recognised in the negative press which unions get in the media. It is clear from my interviews that union membership was a key event in changing the lives of these four women and many others who have taken up the opportunities available to them as union members.

At a time of increased cuts and privatisation of education and training the unions can offer a way out for some of the most disadvantaged groups in society. However the unions themselves have often underplayed their educational role. As Cath says; Unions don’t promote the value of what they do for women, including the confidence they can gain through being a member of a union and being active in it.

In 2012 the TUC has its first woman leader, Frances O’Grady, a single parent from a trade union background. France’s appointment reflects the important position that women hold in the trade unions, they make-up nearly half of all members, they are also taking the brunt of the ConDem cuts. It is an important step in the history of the trade union movement but one woman cannot change history but many women and men can do so and that has got to be the future.