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WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S YER ANNIVERSARY...

FROM BRADFORD TO BINGLEY EVERY WEEK

Issue 165/166, Friday 1st May 1998

ONE YEAR'S HARD LABOUR

One year on from the election and the reality of what a Labour government is all about is hitting home. All the hype in the world can't hide the reality of a tacky little government elected to defend the interests of the well off at the expense of the rest of us - all in the guise of 'reforming' the welfare state, 'revitalising' the labour market and 'modernising' everything in sight.

Labour are quite clear what they're about. The alliance of big business and the middle class that brought Labour to power is desperate to ensure that Britain maintains its competitiveness - and their privileges - in a world of increasing globalisation. Labour's 'modernisation' is all about gearing up for globalisation by creating a cheap, 'flexible' workforce that will be able to compete with other cheap, 'flexible' workforces around the world.

The New Deal is all about creating just such a workforce by forcing the unemployed into crap, low paid 'jobs'. Employers are given £60 a week for each full-time job they create and are not expected to pay employees any more than that - free labour! The New Deal is as old as the hills - forcing the poor to work for the rich for peanuts.

Many of Labour's other policies are geared towards creating poverty pay jobs. The minimum wage will be set at a level low enough for big business to accept (they're setting it after all!) allowing benefits to be set just below it, making it easier to force people into crappy jobs. As Gordon Brown put it in his budget speech, 'Because in future work will pay, those with an offer of work can have no excuse for staying at home on benefits'.

Cheap childcare - no doubt using New Deal conscripts - will be brought in making it easier to harass parents on benefits into taking low paid jobs. People on invalidity or disability benefits will suddenly find these benefits stopped. Short-term contracts, lack of rights at work, removal of sick pay, maternity leave and holidays are all on the cards as casualisation - which the Liverpool dockers went on strike for two years to resist - becomes the norm for all but the better off.

The Tories never thought they could get away with forcing the unemployed to work for little more than dole money. Labour, with their support in the unions, reckon they can. But they know they will only get away with it if resistance from those under attack can be kept in check. So the Tory anti-union laws will stay in place to ensure that Britain has, as Tony Blair has proudly stated, 'a more restricted trade union legislative framework than any country in the western world'. Alongside this, of course, Jack Straw's ever more authoritarian police, courts and prison system will be ready to deal with objectors.

The contrast between Labour's attitude to the poor and its attitude to the rich could not be greater. Wage differentials are now greater than since records began and set to grow. Britain has the lowest state pension in Europe while private pensions for the well off are subsidised. The countryside is destroyed so that middle class consumers can have their out-of-town shopping complexes while no one seems bothered about the homeless still sleeping on our cities' streets.

Labour has been true to its friends in the middle class and big business. The last budget saw corporation tax cut by £1.5bn a year. The middle class voters who elected New Labour continue to be subsidised by £10bn a year through tax breaks. Not surprisingly the middle class are very happy with this - their support for Labour since the election has gone up by 16% while working class support has remained unchanged.

Labour has been quick to incorporate big business into government. Interested in developing an ethical foreign policy? Lets appoint Lord Simon the boss of BP, a company famed for its championing of the downtrodden, to the Department of Trade. Need someone who understands what living on benefit is all about? Who better than Martin Taylor, £976,000 a year (plus £762,000 bonuses last year) boss of Barclays Bank, to be given the job of chairing the government's tax and benefit taskforce. And who will we get to head the low pay commission? Why it's obvious - the £130,000 a year principal of the London Business School!

No one is going to win any victories by expecting Labour to change its spots or by expecting the unions to lead any sort of resistance. Unions are big businesses these days, investing millions on the stockmarket. While 40% of union members are managers or professional workers, less than 2% of union members are under 20. Unions represent well-off workers in steady jobs rather than the low paid. As TUC General Secretary John Monks puts it, "the days when the trade unions provided an adversarial opposition force are past." Well, quite. Ask the Liverpool dockers, refused real support from their union for two years. Or the Hillingdon strikers.

The Labour government may appear strong at the moment - but only because no real opposition exists. Their 'landslide' victory was won with less than a third of the electorate's votes and with fewer votes than the Tories got in 1992. The alliance of the haves that the Labour government represents excludes millions of have-nots, itself a potentially enormous alliance of those with nothing to gain from Labour's championing of middle class privilege and consumer culture.

That alliance is waiting to be built. It won't be built by going on boring marches and letting ourselves be organised into safe, respectable and ineffectual campaigns. It won't be built by bickering amongst ourselves about nothing while loads needs to be done either. It will mean in-yer-face direct action, supporting each other, learning lessons from the past and from struggles around the world. As events from thirty years ago show, things can move very quickly - so who knows what's round the corner? It could be US!

BELTANE & MAY DAY

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MAGNET WORKERS STRIKE ENDS

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HILLINGDON STRIKERS WIN!

Despite being abandoned by their union, the Hillingdon Hospital workers have continued their fight against low pay. Sacked over 30 months ago for refusing to take a £40 a week pay cut (they were already earning less than £7,000 a year) they have forced old employers Pall Mall to agree that they unfairly dismissed them! Donations needed desperately c/o 27 Townsend Way, Northwood, Middx., HA6 1TG 0956 135311

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DEDICATION

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68 R.P.M.

The events of May '68 were utterly unforseen, but were a revolt without compromise. "This is revolution... a total onslaught on modern industrial society" reported the Observer at the time. A handful of rowdy students at a suburban annex of the University of Paris launched a nationwide movement of revolt, which, within a month, brought the French state to its knees, exposing the fragility of what had seemed the most stable regime in Europe.

People rose up out of the desire to live, as intensely as possible: "revolt is festival or it is nothing" read one bit of student agit-prop. In the lead-up to '68 a French judge condemned such radicals who "do not hesditate to commend theft, the destruction of scholarship, the abolition of work, total subversion, and a world-wide proletarian revolution with 'unlicensed pleasure' as its only goal".

The sixties were a bit of a mad one all around the world. Counter-cultures were flying about all over the place, and you could barely move in some parts without tripping over another commune, squat, festival, or 'be-in'. But while the kids at Haight-Ashbury were discovering 101 ways to love one another, their parents were blustering in the White House, finding even more ways to napalm strangers in Vietnam. So the ongoing anguish of the war leant a whole other dimension of urgency to the cultural dissent; while civil rights movements in Northern Ireland and black America embroiled swathes of those populations in full-on grassroots struggle.

At the same time, the international student movement was getting restless in Europe, Japan, Mexico and elsewhere. Students in the US were occupying their universities to protest the Vietnam war, and British students were going for it too. Italy, like France, had incredibly overcrowded universities run by up-tight old dinosaurs; thirteen of the places experienced occupations in 67/68. In March '68 all of Polandís universities went on strike. In Spain, where the fascist government was expelling rebellious students and closing entire universities, Vietnam came second to the native issue of Franco's whole regime.

Spain was like France in that the strength of its student movement lay in its links with loads of the working class population. The black people rioting in American ghettos didnít much identify with the students and the more-or-less white and affluent hippy scene. But in France, the student radicals were hardcore enough in their aims and outlook, to stir into action millions of ordinary folks. The spark of revolution, struck by the student extremeists, had found tinder on the shop floor. So - deep breath - here's those May events in full (it's yer SchNEWS history lesson)...

May 2: After some cheeky student actions at the University of Nanterre, battles with the cops and anti-Vietnam occupations, the Dean shuts the whole place down.

May 3: Loads of students gather to demonstrate at the Sorbonne (University of Paris) so its Dean shuts that too, and sends in the CRS (French riot police). Rioting spreads throughout the student part of the city, the Latin Quarter, and with each day that passes, more and more Parisians join the increasingly militant demonstrations.

May 7: The students' and teachers' unions call a strike and demand police withdrawal from theLatin Quarter, the release of those nicked and the re-opening of the university facilities.

May 10: "Night of the Barricades". Some 50,000 go for it and occupy the whole of the Latin Quarter, barricading the streets with up-turned cars, and construction equipment. The ensuing battle lasts several hours; the CRS firing tear gas and mounting baton charges, the students and others responding with molotov cocktails.

May 11: The Prime Minister withdraws the police from the Latin Quarter, and capitulates to the unionsí demands, but the balance has already tipped. Thousands of young people from across Europe areheading for Paris.

May 13: All the main trade unions strikein solidarity with the students, and Paris is brought to a standstill by a 800,000-strong march. Now the CRS withdraw from the Sorbonne, and students reclaim their university, filling the lecture halls and convening a general assembly to manage their own affairs.

May 14: The first factory occupation takes place at the Sud Aviation plant in Nante, where workers hold the chairman hostage.

May 16: Workers occupy Renault plants, followed by various other factories around the country.

May 24: Mass demonstrations take place across France. By now 9 or 10 million workers are on strike. Footballers occupying the French Football Federation with the slogan "Football to the Footballers!" President De Gaulle orders the army and police to stay in their barracks and stations, as their safety cannot be guaranteed.

May 30: Having ensured the support of French armed forces stationed in West Germany, De Gaulle addresses the nation on TV, threatening to send in the troops. He calls on citizens to standup to subversion, claiming France is threatened by a "communist dictatorship".

After that, the whole thing starts folding in; riot police re-occupy some factories, while in others, people go back to work. Union officials have kept a lot of workers out of the factories, letting them sit at home in the belief that a bit of a pay rise is all people are after.

"The first impression was of a giant lid suddenly lifted, of pent-up thoughts and aspirations suddenly exploding, on being released from the realm of dreams into the realm of the realm of the the real and the possible. In changing their environment people themselves were changed. The shy became communicative. People just went up and talked to each other without a trace of self-consciousness."
- English student in Paris '68

But for a while, everything was up for grabs. The Observer said at the time: "by taking to the streets, they have set themselves against every organised political force in France. Both Government and opposition last week tried desperately to contain them. Both failed."

What are we to make of all this? SchNEWS has its own panel of historians and political scientists who are drawing forth the lessons, due to report back sometime in the new millenium. Meanwhile, we can all witness the strength that came from people looking beyond their own specific concerns (as 'students', 'workers', whatever) and coming together in common action; look at the energy and excitement that came out of the Liverpool Dockers getting together with Reclaim the Streets.

What makes May '68 so sexy is that people were taking back the whole of their lives, unleashing their desires and a wave of creativity. The first non-university territory to be occupied during the revolt was the French National Theatre at the Odeon. The folks raided the wardrobe department and dozens of them came out to face the CS gas dressed as centurians, pirates and princesses.

Rene Vienet, one of the 'situationists' whose ideas were important in driving the revolt, wrote; "Everyday life, suddenly rediscovered, became the centre of all possible conquests. People who had lived their whole lives in offices declared that they could no longer live in the way they had before. The strikers recaptured the time so sadly lost in factories, on motorways and in front of the TV. People strolled, dreamed, learned how to live. Little by little, desires became reality"

We look around everywhere today and see seamless routine, capitalism just getting on with it. "But what about the impossibility of living, what about this stifling mediocrity and this absence of passion?" asks situationist Raoul Vaneigm. The desire to play lives on beneath this society's avalaunch of TVs, cars, and electric kettles.

One of the participants in Paris declared at the time: "another epoch is starting: that in which people know that revolution is possible under the conditions of modern bureaucratic capitalism."

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CAMBRIDGE CAPERS

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SUMMERTIME...

MAY

• Fri 8 - London Anarchist Forum (LAF) Symposium on Anarchist Alternatives @ Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 (Holborn Tube). 8pm, free
• Sat 9 - Reclaim The Streets @ 12noon, City Square, Leeds; Stop the Madness - Reclaim The Streets @ 12noon, St Peter's Square, Wolverhampton. Info: 0961 838508; Farcical Freedom of Speech Night, Inner Terrestrials, Head Jam etc. @ Pembury Tavern, 90 Amhurst Road, Hackney, E8. 8.30-1am, £3.50/£2.50. Benefit for GANDALF Support Campaign and Russian Publishing Project, who translate previously unavailable radical literature into Russian; Welfare Before Warheads - women's gathering @ atomic weapons base, Aldermaston. Men's event @ Burghfield.
• Sun 8 - 10 - Young women's camp Info: 01703 554434; Save our Downs, public meeting. 2pm Brighthelm Centre, North Rd., Brighton. (NB: people should be boycotting the Brighthelm Centre because of their involvement in Project Work)
• Sun 10 - Wild Thyme Vegan Cafe night, Cambridge to raise funds for Animal Rescue service
• Wed 13 - Demonstrate outside British Field Sports Society AGM 1pm @ Royal Inst. Chartered Surveyors, 12 Great George St, London SW1 (Westminster tube) 0171 2783068
• Fri 15 - Conscientious Objectors Day - short Amnesty meeting @ Tavistock Square, London WC1. Other events all over, call 0171 2784040; LAF talk, May 68 in Paris with participant Sebastian Hays @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free.

While leaders of the most industrialised nations of the world meet in Birmingham squillions of people will join the Global Street Party. From Australia to Israel, Slovenia to Switzerland... 33 cities in 21 countries (and counting!). Full list: RTS, PO Box 9656, London, N4 4JY 0171 281 4621 E-mail: rts@gn.apc.org Web: http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/rts.html

Gyrate Not G8! Jubilee 2000 human chain around the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, where the G8 summit is meeting @ 2pm- followed by a Global Street Party. Meet 4pm, meet New St Station, Birmingham. 0171 2814621

Fancy a bit of clowning around? Want to help incite outbreaks of internationalist revolutionary optimism? People are needed to set up affinity groups which can function as stewards/party game organisers/performers during the party. No experience necessary, there will be a workshop before hand. Call 0171 281 4621 and say you want to become a clown, or e-mail clown@persist.demon.co.uk

DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION 16-20 MAY

GENEVA - After Birmingham, leaders of the G8 will be fly to Geneva to join "celebrations" at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference - those nice people who in their own words are writing the constitution of the single global economy Actions have been organised including a street party on Saturday, which will be joined by unemployed marchers from several French cities, bicycle caravans from Germany, a special train from Italy, and up to three thousand small farmers selling local food on the streets. Monday is Peoples Trade Day where several symbols of global capitalism (like banks and fast food restaurants) will be blocked by small scale local traders. A candle procession to the WTO will take place on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday people will walk with hands tied in an attempt to enter and stop the conference. Other anti-WTO actions are planned in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Canada, Colombia, Peru in addition to the 31+ street parties on the 16th. E-mail: playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de Web: http://www.agp.org/

• Sat 16 - Quakers Open Day @ Friends Meeting house, Brighton. 10-6pm, free; Levellers' Day - Burford, Oxfordshire - four speakers (on May 17th 1649, 3 Levellers were executed). 10.30-4.30pm, £5/£2.50. Info: 01865 735360, e-mail: levellers@btinternet.com; Night Vigil at Hillgrove Laboratory Cat Farm, Dry Lane, Witney, Oxon. 10pm. Info: 0121 632 6460; Sustainable Lewes - debate + workshops @ All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes 9.30 am - 4 pm 01273 477942
• Fri 22-Mon 25 - National Animal Rights Gathering, workshops & action. Also: Vegan-Fruitarian Gathering in Leicester. Info: 01902 711935;
• Fri 22 - LAF (London Anarchist Forum) General Discussion @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free; National Gathering to Defend Council Housing, (also Sat 23rd) East London. Info:0171 2542312 (call now)
• Fri 22-26 - Earth Spirit Spring Awakening Camp 01273 814490
• Sat 23-Sun 24 - Occupy a Genetix Test site, somewhere in East Anglia. Info: 01603 768235
• Sat 23 - Fight Poverty Pay - Demonstrate against Polygram Glenfield Park, Blackburn Meet 11am. It's one year since Nigel Cook was sacked for trying to organise a trade union at M&S Packaging, who package CDs for Polygram. Workers are paid as little as £3 an hour, for 12 hour shifts with no sick or holiday. Organised by the Re-instate Nigel Cook Campaign 01254 679605 Picket Info/travel: 0171 8371688; Reclaim The Streets in Lancaster. Meet 12noon, Dalton Square.
• Sun 24 - International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament, contact (Geneva) +41 22731 6429, e-mail: ipb@gn.apc.org
• Mon 25 - A Tea Party is planned @ The Flat Oak at the end of the new Thanet Way in Kent, in contrast with the official fun run all-for-charity-mate opening. Info: 01227 720183; Green Fair @ Canbury Gardens, Kingston, Surrey. 11am-9pm, £3. Info: 0181 9745621; Maidstone Green Fair, Mote Park, Maidstone, Kent FREE 01622 750543
• Thur 28 - London Gandalf Support Campaign meeting 7 pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq. WC1
• Fri 29 - LAF Symposium on Anarchism and Science Fiction @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free
• Sat 30 - Roots Reggae Night @ the Lott, 382 Mentmore Tce, London E8. 9pm-6am, £5/4. Benefit for Advisory Service for Squatters & Asylum Seekers; Liverpool Dockers 2nd March for Social Justice @ Thames Embankment (Temple Tube). Meet 12noon, info: 0181 4420090; No Open Cast Action (proposed) in the north, info: 0181 7673142
• Sun 31 - National Demo against cat breeding for vivisection @ Hillgrove Farm (as above), 12noon 0121 632 6460!

JUNE

• June 98-99 - Interfaith Pilgrimage retracing the journey of slavery. Walk from Liverpool to Senegal. Info:0171 2289620
• Mon 1-Wed 3 Close Down Eurosatory Arms Fair @ Le Bourget, near Paris. Non-violence training, protest at fair, day of action in Paris. Info: 00-31 2061 64684
• Mon 1-Sun 7 National Vegetarian Week. 0161 928 0793
• Fri 5 Blyth Power + Dole Claimers + Judge Trev etc. Benefit gig for London Animal Action and Reclaim The Streets @ Pembury Tavern (as above). 9-1am, £3.50/£2.50.; LAF General Discussion @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free; 25th Anniversary of London Greenpeace, gathering and reunion @ Conway Hall (as above) 6.30pm. Info: 0171 7131269
• Sat 6 - London Reclaim The Streets, meet 12noon outside Euston Station. Evening: parties, North and South, info: 0171 2814621; Rage Against the Cage (food, exhibition, workshop, kids stuff) - 11am-5pm @ Devonshire Green, Sheffield, inc. National March Against Vivisection - 1pm. Info: 0114 2530020; Strawberry Fair, Midsummer Common, Cambridge, free. Info: 01223 350542; Real Peoples Europe conference 10am-6pm, University of London, Malet St. 0171 6079615
• Sun 7 - Vegfest, Castle Field, Manchester. Info: 0161 9280793

Radical alternative to Eurosummit and its corporate agenda in Cardiff. Mass cycle blockade, demos, workshops, street events, parties and other surprises. Info: 0171 2729333, e-mail: europ@globalnet.co.uk http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5581/

• Sat 13 - Massive demonstration No to a big business Europe - Yes to Jobs, Public Services and Democracy, Cardiff at 1.30pm. 01222 220347 e-mail: reclaim.Europe@btinternet.com - Should be fun!!
• Wed 10 - Anti-hunt Demo @ Houses of Parliament, 12noon. Info: 0171 2783068
• Fri 12 - LAF symposium, Does Social Class Matter? @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free
• Sat 13-Sat 20 - Nottingham Green Transport Week. 0115 9585666
• Sun 14 - It's Not Fayre, Midsummer Meadow, Northampton. FREE 01604 232295
• Tues 16 - International Refugee Day. Events all over, contact refugee support and human rights groups
• Thurs 18 - Farcical Freedom of Speech II and Pre-Solstice Night with Revolutionary Dub Warriors, Ruby Throat + Tragic Roundabout @ The Garage, 20-22 Highbury Corner, London, N8. 8-12midnight, £5/4. Benefit for GANDALF Support Group...
• Fri 19 - LAF talk, 'What I Want is Facts' by Nicholas Walter @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free; McLibel Anniversary Day of Action. 0171 7131269;
• Fri 19-28 Stonehenge Free Festival, Wiltshire. Bring what you expect to find! (wot - like some wirecutters and a polevault?)
• Fri 19-22 Solstice Eco-Festival, Lincolnshire Wolds. £10: 01522 887169
• Sat 20 - Hackney Show, London FREE details to be confirmed; Salisbury Reclaim The Streets 12 noon Train Station
• Sat 20-21 Leamington Peace Festival - Pump Rooms, Warwickshire. FREE;01926 421830
• Fri 26-Sun 28 Glastonbury. Only £80!(or maybe free!!??) 01179 767868...
• Fri 26 - LAF General Discussion @ Conway Hall (as above). 8pm, free...

JULY

• Fri 3-Sun 5 July - Bracknell Festival, South Hill Park, Berkshire. Info: 01344 484123
• Sat 4 - Pride 98, Clapham Common, London. Free; Lewisham Peoples Day, free, details to be confirmed
• Sun 5 - Lazy Sunday, St Mary's Gardens, Bedford. 01234 360601
• Sat 11 - Greenwich Anti-Racist Festival - Plumstead Common. London. Free; Rainbow Festival, Watford details to be confirmed
• Fri 10-Sun 12 - Winchester Hat Fayre, Hampshire. 01962 863966; Larmer Tree Festival, near Tollard Royal (A354), Wiltshire. £45/£27/£6, 01722 415223
• Wed 15-Sun 19 - Buddhafield Festival, near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, £25. 0181 6779564
• Fri 17-19 - Music in the Sun Festival, Don Valley Grass Boll, Sheffield. £4 a day, £9.50 weekend. 0114 2754504/2763727. web: http://www.solis.co.uk/ e-mail: admin@solis.co.uk
• Sat 18-Sun 19 - Bristol Community Festival, Ashton Court FREE. 0117 9042275
• Sat 18 - Music in the Square, Portsmouth. 12noon-11pm FREE 01705 834142
• Sun 19 - Festival of Global Rights, Hackney Marshes, London. FREE
• Wed 29 -Sun 2 Aug - Big Green Gathering, West Wiltshire, £50/concs. Info: 01747 870667
• Fri 31-2nd Aug - Taunton Green Fair, Somerset.To be confirmed; watch this space.

AUGUST

• Sun 2 - Sundaze Festival, Rushton Hall, Kettering, Northants. £7/£5. 01536 710002
• Sun 9 - Smokey Bears Picnic, Southsea Common, Portsmouth 2pm FREE
• Tues 11-Tues 25 - 2-week disarmament camp at Trident base, Faslane, bonnie Scotland. 01603 611953
• Fri 14-16 - Megadogs Lizard Festival becomes the Beach Party; Carlyon Bay, St. Austell, Cornwall. £60 (!!). tel:0181 8012662; fax:0181 8088161
• Sat 15-16 - Day of Protest @ Faslane Peace Camp - street campaigning in Helensburgh, a march to, and rally at the base, food and a Ceildh
• Wed 19-Sun 23 - Northern Green Gathering, near Pontefract, W.Yorks 0113 224 9885; Vegan Summer Gathering (TBC) 01395 270280
• Mon 31 - Sutton Green Fair, Carshalton Park, Ruskin Rd., Surrey FREE 0181 647 7706

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FREE PARTY GUIDELINES

• Be prepared to be self-sufficient. Facilities could be minimal.
• Park sensibly, keep site roads clear.
• Be friendly be local residents, ramblers etc. Smile - you're at a free party!
• Bury your shit!
• Don't trash the site - take a binbag.
• Don't take drugs cos its illegal. Honest.
• Fires - use dead not live wood (which don't burn anyway.)
• Make a donation - if someone passes a bucket round don't be a mean git. It costs money to put on free parties.
• Know your rights - get yourself a BUST CARD, 10p from Release. Advice Line 0171 729 9904. Emergency Help Line 0171 603 8654.
• Enjoy yourself - and don't let the party poopers get yer down!

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MEN IN BLACK

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BIGOT'S BIMBLE

Talking of local elections...

London Greenpeace (no relation), who were sued by McDonalds in the McLibel 2 trial (issue 79), were infiltrated by a Mcdonalds employed security firm headed by ex- chief superintendent Nicholson. Nicholson has now retired from McDonalds and is standing for the Tories in Greenwich on May 7th. Wanna rant? His office is 0181 850 2880.

Those sexy tree sitters from the Kingston Campaign have formed The Kingston Poplar Front to stand in the By-Election. Their Manifesto? "That the council be represented by someone from each street thereby establishing a greater degree of democracy": info 0181 287 31182

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GENETIC SOUPER-HEROES RETURN MONSANTO'S BULLSHIT

• On Tuesday a farmer in Totness, Devon, received a visit from 600 locals, concerned about his genetically modified maize site - including a neighbouring organic farmer whose sweet corn could well be contaminated when the engineered pollen is released... Contact: Genetic Engineering Network 0181 374 9516

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CAMBRIDGE ARRESTS

If you witnessed any of the arrests on Saturday, phone the SchNEWS office as soon as you can - (01273) 685913 - or write to Box A, Arjuna, 12 Mill Road, Cambridge CB1 2AD. Your call is confidential, and you could earn a Community Action Trust reward. (Er - actually, you couldn't. But helping out those being fucked over by the police is its own reward).

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JOHN PENDRAGON

John who died of cancer last week was one of the beautiful people, involved in the Stonehenge Campaign, for which he campaigned tirelessly for 20 years. More recently he was involved in the Rainbow Centre, Wandsworth Eco-Village and Dead Womens Bottom.

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NO NEWS IN PORTSMOUTH

• The trial date for Green Anarchist editor Paul Rogers and Animal Liberation Front Press Officer Robin Webb has been set for the 11th May. More info 0956 694922

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CAMPING '98

Peace Camps

Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp: Every 2nd weekend of the month, outside the atomic weapons establishment in Berkshire. May 9th: Welfare Before Warheads, (a women only event) calling for a nuclear free world without war and arms! More info 0170 355 4434 or 0122 2396563. Bring usual tents, instruments and sense of humour!!

Menwith Hill Women's Peace Camp: always stuff happening. 01943 468593.

Sellafield Women's Peace Camp: Bi-monthly camp. The next weekend of actions is on 24-25 May. More info 0141 226 5066 or 0113 262 1534.

Alvis: Camped in Coventry outside the company that sells Scorpion tanks to Indonesia. Regular events including music nights on Thursdays. Aiming to get a permanent office through a local housing co-op. Get down there and give yer support! Info 01926 338805 or 0336 774113.

Road Camps

Birmingham Northern Relief Road: 27 miles of private toll motorway to campaign against. Excellent local support. The local vicar is going for the Guinness Book of Records for the longest sermon. According to an old law, a vicar cannot be interrupted whilst preaching, and so during the eviction he will be reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation as his basic text - the pulpit is presently being constructed up one of the trees! Site on 07970 932224 for directions/details or a copy of the campaign newsletter.

Nottingham: contact 01636 679979 or 0467317649 for details as to what's happening.

Derby: Anti-Road protest through inner-city green space. Benefit Gigs - 9th May, Victoria Inn, 7.00pm, Life on Venus/Spiral Towers (site band) plus others. Lots going on at site, excellent local support. Contact 07970-318397 for details/directions/happenings.

Crystal Palace: On the highest hill in London, this site is gaining fantastic local support. Southwark Council, together with three neighbouring councils, have joined in opposing this inner-city destruction. Lots of building and digging continues in order to ensure that the £56m, 20 screen mutliplex cinema complex (with parking for 1000 cars!), doesn't get off the drawing board. Wanna get there? By train to Crystal Palace station, by tube to Brixton then No3 bus. Details etc. 0181 7617826.

Bingley Bypass: Still awaiting decision by John Prescott. In desperate need of bodies, so get there. Contact 01274 504626 for details/directions etc..

Bangor: contact 01248 351541 or 0836 563980 for details e-mail: jimk@undeb.bangor.ac.uk - the camp is protesting against a greenbelt housing development.

Ashton Court, Bristol: 20 acre quarry extension into Ashton Court public park. 0467 430211.

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AND FINALLY

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CORRECTIONS

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