At your service: tales from community service
An article written by a contributor who is currently serving a 120 hour community payback order, in which they are required to do a program of unpaid work for the terrible “community”1. This article forms the first part of a short series detailing different aspects and analysis of the community payback program, from thinking about the actions being performed and their implications to offering a kind of insight into what this shit is actually like.
Part 1: Honor amongst thieves.
Street parties greet news of Thatcher's death
Submitted by libcom on Apr 9 2013 09:22
Hundreds gather in spontaneous celebrations in London, Glasgow and Bristol on the day former Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's death was announced.
Although there had been talk for some years of gatherings to take place after the passing of the former Conservative leader, as the event happened people emerged onto the streets rather quickly.
Review of "The Couriers are revolting"
A review of The Couriers are revolting! The Despatch Industry Workers Union, 1989-92 (Kate Sharpley Library, £1.50) from the Australian publication Rebel Worker Vol.19 No.5 (167) Oct.-Nov. 2000.
This pamphlet under review focuses upon an organising drive by anarcho-syndicalists associated with the British Solidarity Federation among courier workers in London. This was a genuine attempt at facilitating workers self activity rather than a vanguardist exploit to recruit for a sect or establish a Potemkin union" to provide fake credibility for overseas observers of such a sect.
Academies & Lies: Downhills Primary documentary
Submitted by Choccy on Feb 18 2013 15:21
Documentary detailing the community campaign against the forced academisation of Downhills Primary in 2012.
Some interesting scenes in this documentary. Effectively charting the campaign against something that was clearly a done-deal long before parents or school workers were told anything about it.
The street where God did not strike down Feigenbaum
Submitted by Battlescarred on Feb 7 2013 15:52
A short account of anarchist connections to Hanbury Street in the East End of London.
The article A Rose By Any Other Name (here at libcom) dealt with Rose Street (later Manette Street) in central London and its continuing links with anarchism.
Echoes of Ferrer in an East End back street
Submitted by Battlescarred on Feb 7 2013 15:49
An anarchist history of Fieldgate Street in the East End of London
Before the Jewish anarchists in the East End started to meet at the Sugar Loaf pub in Hanbury Street, they conducted regular meetings at the King’s Arms pub at 16 Fieldgate Street until it closed in 1892.
South London Women’s Hospital occupation 1984-85 - Past Tense
Submitted by Jim Clarke on Feb 6 2013 10:10
Past Tense tell the inside story of the work-in and occupation of a women's hospital in South London faced with closure.
First I’ll give you some background on hospital occupations, which goes back to the late 1970s. In the early 1970s both the private and private sector was being restructured: partly in response to IMF directives, and in response to the relatively high wages and defenses (‘restrictive’ work practices that workers built up through the years.
Corio, Silvio¬¬ (1875-1954) aka Crastinus, Qualunque
Submitted by Battlescarred on Jan 31 2013 16:49
A short biography of Italian anarchist Silvio Corio, active in London
Silvio Celestino Corio was born on October 28th, 1875, the son of Eugenio Corio and Chiara Domenica , in Turin, Italy. He progressed from the Turin Socialist Club to the anarchist movement and by 1897 was associated with anarchists like Alessandro Clama and Enrico Ricchiero. He worked as a printer and typographer and this became highly useful in the course of his subsequent life.
No NUT ballot after school drops academy plans
Submitted by Choccy on Jan 30 2013 20:22
NUT will not be balloting members for industrial action at Warren Comprehensive after school drops academy conversion plans.
Warren Comprehensive in Chadwell Heath, east London, has dropped plans to become an academy. This week school governors voted against the plans to convert to academy status. NUT members and local councillors had been opposed to the proposed change.
Local NUT in Barking & Dagenham said:
The difference engine - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Seminal novel set in an ahistorical Victorian England, where Lord Byron leads the technocratic government funded by trade unions, the Luddites and their Swing Riots threaten London and the first commune is declared in New York.
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