Another Case For The Coming Together Of Communities.

        Sometimes you can't help but think that the Glasgow City Council is a gang from the financial Mafia, hell-bent on destroying the lives of the people of Glasgow, all in the name of big business, of course. The people of the East End of the city have been trampled over in the glorification of a spectacle that will only benefit big business, the Commonwealth Games. In the North of our city, in an area of high deprivation and low amenities, Springburn/Sighthill, they have decided to flatten one of the very few amenities in the area, namely, the Sighthill Park Standing stones. It is supposed to be in preparation for the 2018 Youth Olympics, but even if that doesn't go through, they still want to get rid of it by handing it to developers who will build more unaffordable housing. Just what an area of high unemployment, high poverty rate, low amenities is in need of, my arse. 

       The park with its standing stones is one feature in the area worth preserving, a place for kids and families to enjoy. The area has an abundance of empty brown site space crying out for some sort of development that will benefit the people of the area, why destroy the one they have?

 
Sign the petition HERE:

       The stone circle in Sighthill Park is Britain's first stone circle built according to the alignment of the stars in several thousand years. Built, in 1979, it is one of Glasgow's treasures and can teach youngsters a lot about history and astronomy. It is something unique that the people of Sighthill can call their own.

     But Glasgow City Council is currently planning to demolish the stone circle as part of the bid for the 2018 Youth Olympics - and if this falls through, they plan to destroy the circle anyway for 'redevelopment' - which the council seems to believe can only be done by flattening what is already there instead of working with it. If they simply build a path around the circle it will be preserved.

       Plans also include destroying the wildlife habitat in the vicinity. Surely enough damage is already being done to the environment, without wrecking another part of nature? It is important to preserve what we have left, not destroy more land.

         Please sign this petition to call on Glasgow City Council to preserve the stone circle and surrounding park.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Democracy And Water Cannons Don't Walk Hand In Hand.

 

       Do the hounds of Oxbridge sniff dissent in the air? While Theresa May, possible future queen of the Tory party, and Cameron, with his crown slipping, mull over the possible use of water cannons on our streets, dangerous, ambitious buffoon Johnson, has jumped the gun and order three. Meanwhile the police are salivating at the mouth at the thought of getting new, great big toys. Do they see a rising tide of dissent, have their expert advisers advised them that their continuing plans for swing the austerity axe, will bring in its wake mass unrest? Whatever the reason, water cannons will usher in the end of peaceful protest on our streets. When protesting against some injustice, how do react when faced with rows of shield covered, baton wielding riot police and behind them this monstrosity of brute force, the water cannon? Do you feel confident that everything will be OK as we live in a democracy? Water cannons and democracy do not walk hand in hand. Their only purpose is to intimidate and get you off the street.

This from 38 Degrees:

       Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is deciding on whether to allow the police in England & Wales to use water cannons on our streets. The police say they need them to control protests “from ongoing and potential future austerity measures”. [1]
       Yesterday, London Mayor Boris Johnson jumped the gun and ordered three water cannons for the capital before Theresa’s decision has been made. He’s now been backed by David Cameron, but Theresa May says she’s refusing to be rushed on the important decision. [2]
       38 Degrees member Neal has started a petition demanding that Theresa refuses to lift the ban on water cannons. If we can show there’s enough public opposition to the plans, it could be enough to encourage Theresa to defy David and Boris and keep the machines out of the police’s hands.
     What do you think? You can sign Neal’s petition to keep the ban on the cannons here:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/water-cannons

       He says: “The use of water cannon would be a violent and excessive use of force to combat protests on the streets of the UK. The right to protest is one of the most important aspects of our free and open democracy and I believe that the threat of this weapon will be an inhibitor to people of all ages from exercising that right.“

       We have seen all too frequently instances of police abusing their power, and using unnecessary force to break up protests. Be it the death of Ian Tomlinson, or the assault on anti-fracking campaigner Sean O'Donnell, elements of the police force would prefer to use violence and aggression to silence peaceful protest.” [3]

     Can you sign Neal’s petition and demand that Theresa keeps the cannons off our streets?
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/water-cannons

      Neal started his petition on Campaigns by You, part of the 38 Degrees website where anyone can start a petition to try and make the UK a fairer, more democratic and peaceful place to live. If there’s an issue close to your heart, it takes just a few minutes to get your campaign off the ground. [4]

Thanks for everything you do,
Robin, Bryony, Maddy & the 38 Degrees team.

NOTES:
[1] The Guardian: Police to ask home secretary to approve use of water cannon across country http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/22/police-home-secretary-approve-use-water-cannon-austerity-protest
[2] The Guardian: Cameron and May at odds over Boris Johnson's water cannon http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/11/cameron-may-boris-johnson-water-cannons
[3] The Guardian: Police accused of brutality as fracking protester is left 'battered and bruised' http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/21/police-accused-brutality-anti-fracking-protester
[3] Wikipedia: The Death of Ian Tomlinson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson
[4] Campaigns by You: http://www.CampaignsByYou.com 

  

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

It's Our City, Let Us Shape It.

 

      All you good people who turned up last Monday for "These Streets Were Made For Walking" Perhaps you could all come together again for another matter of abuse in our city. The Accord Centre in the East End of our city, WAS, a day centre for more than 100 kids with learning difficulties, a place of fun and learning and a chance of respite for parents and carers. Our caring city council decided to demolish it to create a temporary bus park for the "Games". The families were promised a new centre, to date, nothing.

 
   

     The families and friends of those kids have been fighting a lone battle to get something to replace the centre that the council demolished, all to no avail. Perhaps if the thousands that turned up that Monday in Govanhill, threw their might behind those struggling kids and their families, the council might listen. This is a community matter that demands support from across our city, these are vulnerable kids, they and their families are being abused. Mass protests could change the picture, and end this abuse. It's our city, let's shape it the way we want it.

This from Vice:

        Grace Harrigan is an East End resident for whom the Games have not been a blessing. In early 2011, she learnt that the Accord – a day centre used by her son and 120 other adults with learning disabilities – was to be demolished. It was, to quote a clinical letter from a council official, “located in the area designated for the Games”, with their plot lined up to become a coach park. Unsurprisingly, knocking down a disability centre for the sake of a temporary parking facility, for an 11-day event, proved controversial. Carers at the centre found themselves thrown into a high profile campaign and even Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, mindful of an approaching election, waded in to remind Glasgow’s Council not to risk jeopardising the “reputation and integrity” of the Games.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Power Of Marketing.

      Anybody fancy a bit of chicken, or a nice pork chop? The power of marketing, the slick propaganda creators, sell us cruelty and shit and we swallow it, literally.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

All Of Glasgow Is Our City.

      It was great to see such a magnificent turnout at Monday night's walk through Govanhill. A community issue and a massive response from across the city. To be able to safely walk through any district in Glasgow at any time of day or night is a given, and must not be jeopardised by a handful of mental freaks. The only thought of disappointment that crosses my mind is that Glasgow has a limitless number of community issues, some jeopardise the life and safety of children, others the health and welfare of families, some the well being of the elderly and the vulnerable, but we can't get the same mass response to these issues as we got with this particular matter.

   

    I would like to ask all those who turned up at Govanhill on Monday night to come together on all those other issues that blight lives in our city. For example, in Springburn, we have 52% of children living in poverty, the highest of any district in Scotland, why? As far as I'm aware, Springburn also has the highest number of request for care orders for children. There are other districts in Glasgow not that far behind Springburn. How does this blight and destroy the lives of these children as they grow into adulthood? What kind of adults will they become?

     Like I said, wonderful to see such a mass of people take to the streets on this issue of safety on our streets, but where are they on all those other issues?

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Anarchy, -Civil or Subversive-.

 

        A page from a new publication called Anarchy, -Civil or Subversive- from 325 This page is from the chapter called The Submissive Crowd.

The Submissive Crowd.

     “All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self-justifying – a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.”

Edward Abbey

         You can be the most pleasant, easy-going, kind-hearted person, but it really doesn’t matter to the “normal’ members of Society: “the followers”, those who are scared and hostile towards anybody they see as different from what they perceive to be acceptable or decent. Wearing differently cut clothes or having a weird hair cut is enough to risk the ire of the “good people” it seems, without even mentioning possessing different manners or perspectives counter to the mainstream. If you have ideas that challenge the status quo, and you’re determined to commit them to experience , be ready for their anger and grudges. With narrow minds and low horizons, the submissive crowd is the eyes, ears and mouths of repression; Grovelling conformists, who, -when they are not looking out for “terrorists” and “criminals” - are busy sniffing and snitching out any of those who don’t go through life like one of a herd of sheep.

      Sheep who scrabble for money , lie, cheat and back-stab to get what they want, dominate other people when they can, and beg for protection and mercy from the authorities. “Neighbours”, “communities”, and “citizens”; mostly just more words for those who fill the streets with their xenophobia, nationalism and hypocrisy. Those who respect social mediocrity and fawn to power deserve my contempt. Their world must go. What is normal? I ask because obviously , from the reaction of those strangers I live amongst, I am not remotely ‘normal’. Holding down some shit job, marrying and breeding, running to own your own house, consumerism, drinking beer and watching TV after a day at work: this is the good life, this is the normality that those who love Society check everyone else against. These citizens hate anybody who dares to shine brighter than that and will do everything in their power to destroy the light-bringers. Because it is the Unique ones whose light makes the ignorant aware that their own grovelling conformity is nothing but a shadow of life.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Glasgow Date For Your Diary.

         An evening of documentary, discussion and action about the work of 

The Freedom Theatre Palestine.

Friday 13th June 2014 - 6-9.30pm

Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) 

350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3JD - Map here

        Disability Access-Email - glasgowfreedomtheatre@gmail.com for information or see you there!

 

         The Freedom Theatre was built in the heart of the Palestinian resistance in Jenin Refugee Camp in 2006. The aim was to create a political and artistic movement of theatre and film makers who could fight the Israeli Occupation through art and use cultural resistance as a tool to fight oppression. Due to the provocative nature of the work the theatre has had its building attacked, received numerous death threats, had its members interrogated and imprisoned and in 2011 the theatre’s Artistic Director Juliano Mer Khamis was murdered. Despite this the theatre has managed to tour their work internationally as well as open many productions in Jenin Refugee Camp where it is based.

       The discussion will be led by Nabil Al-Raee. Nabil was born in Alrob refugee Camp in Palestine and is an actor, director and teacher. He has worked at The Freedom Theatre since 2006 and took over as artistic director when Juliano Mer Khmais was murdered.

         The evening will also include the documentary Arna’s Children which was directed by Juliano Mer Khamis telling the story of a Palestinian theatre group that was established by his mother Arna in Jenin. Juliano went on to found The Freedom Theatre, leading the artistic vision for six years until he was murdered in 2011.

  أمسية الوثائقية ومناقشة مع مسرح الحرية فلسطين.

.تم بناء مسرح الحرية في مخيم جنين، في قلب المقاومة، في 2006. كان الهدف هو خلق حركة سياسية والفنية من المسرح والمخرجين. يمكنهم محاربة الاحتلال الإسرائيلي من خلال الفن. يمكنهم استخدام الثقافة لمحاربة الظلم.

يليه الفيلم جائزة آرنا الأطفال.

الجمعة 13 يونيو 2014 - 18:00 حتي 21:30

مركز الفنون المعاصرة (CCA) 350 سوشيل شارع جلاسجو G2 3JD

وصول العجز

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk  

Is Revenge Sweet?

     I suppose I could call myself an old person. Through all those years I have seen the system under which we live, use and abuse friends and family. I have had relatives ravaged and destroyed by war, seen others sink into the swamp of poverty, and the system rolled on painting the illusion, that hard work will sort everything out. If that was the case I should be a very rich old guy, as my father worked hard and ceaselessly as a coal miner all his life, but we struggled all our life.

     Throughout my life, I have always taken the stand, with many others, of trying to change the system to one that benefits the ordinary people, its been a long haul and the system is still there, still using and abuse friends and family, still painting that illusion, that we will all do well if only we will work longer and harder.

     Looking globally, the signs are encouraging, more and more people in more countries are standing up and fighting, with the realisation that the system is unjust, corrupt, rotten to the core, and must be changed.

     However I have waited a long time and saw a lot of poverty and misery inflicted on innocent people, and perhaps I'm getting a wee bit bitter. I saw the image below and felt that it now seems to suit my desires more than I would have said some years ago. Is revenge sweet?

Visit ann archy's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Without Our Labour, Nothing.

Time for a wee poem.

We The Labouring Mass

We the people have, every brick laid,

have fed the world with sweat and spade,

every instrument played in every band

created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.

We made every truck and every load,

our toil our effort every winding road,

every ship that ever sailed the sea,

our power our imagination made it be.

Cities and towns large and small,

our labouring hands fashioned them all,

every home, every spire,

luxury mansion or humble byre.

No matter what dreams the mind might spawn

without labour's hand they'll never see the dawn,

without labour's strength and labour's skill,

we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Grotesque Display Of Pomp And Power.

 

 UK democracy at work.

      Those who, for some reason or other, don't see this society as a class structured, class ridden entity, surely changed their minds after seeing the grotesque display of privilege and power, they call "The Queen's Speech". We saw the parade of monarchical power being escorted through the streets of London, flanked by military symbolism. Then we had this so called democratic government, sitting in awe, listening to an old woman steeped in heredity power and wealth, telling them what "Her" government will do. Her continued reference to "My government", was not a slip of the tongue, but a deliberate statement to reinforce where the power really lies in this country. The very way the The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are set up follows this pattern. You have "the Commons" and the "Lords", while sitting at the head of that lot of pompous privilege, we have "The Monarch". She signs off their bills, and gives their legislation the stamp of approval. You'll look long and hard to find a dictionary that puts such a structure under the heading of "Democracy".

 An honest display of the UK power structure.

       All that pomp and ceremony is paid for by you and me, the gold encrusted coach, the fancy jewel festooned crown, extremely large gold covered throne, all the military trimmings, do you honestly believe that it is all to show that we live in a democracy, or is it more a display to let you know your place in this medieval class structure? I think it does the latter very well, we are on the outside looking in at the power that rules our lives. We could of course change all this and create a real democracy, but that would mean you and I taking control, and making all the decisions that matter in our lives, rather than abdicating our power to a bunch of privileged parasites.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Coming Crooks And Liars Competition.

       A general election next year, it will be the usual attempt by the crooks and liars to prove they are the best crooks and liars in the game. Same old crap spouted from the same old privileged Oxbridge educated millionaire class. They will be promising you and I, the same old pie-in-the-sky, if we will only let them screw us for another five years. They will be asking you to legitimise their entrenched power and  pilfered  wealth, seeking your approval as they bolster the wealth and power of their buddies in the financial/corporate Mafia. Sadly, the great fraud show, the election, will be accepted by most people as giving them that stamp of legitimacy.

     By then, as George Carlin said, "they have you by the balls".

      Though there is a call for change, there doesn't seem to be a great ground swell to scrap the ballot box and take control of our lives. So perhaps Ian Bone's Class War election campaign has something going for it. An opportunity to use that platform as a propaganda excercise, a chance to talk class war politics to a wider public, to put class war on the agenda, to once again get more people talking about class, and the realisation that this is a class war situation.

 

From Ian Bone's Blog:

        We are standing Class War candidates in the general election on May 7th 2015. We are doing this to launch a furious and co-ordinated political offensive against the ruling class with the opportunity an election gives us to talk politics to our class. We in no way see the election as an alternative to direct action. By the brick and the ballot.
      We are not talking community politics here. It’s too late for a patient slowbuild like the IWCA. The ruling class have us by the throat -they need a short sharp kick in the bollocks. Our election campaign will use any means necessary. we won’t be ushered away by PR minders – we will make ourselves central to the campaign in a funny, rumbustious combative and imaginative way. We will be on the streets and in their faces.
     Comrades whatever our yesterdays you are welcome now. join in. reject cynicism. have fun.
FULL STEAM AHEAD THROUGH THE SHIT

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Weapon Of Poetry.

     With Michael Gove removing books from the curriculum, one step before burning them, we have to accept that his straight line brain can't think any other way, it's his way or no way. He displays the true attitude of a fascist mind, his pure untainted, flawless, self-centred line of thought, unsavaged by the opinion of others, pushed to mould the future in his own image.

      He and all you homophobic, racist, nationalist, xenophobic, patriotic, white- supremacist, religious fundamentalist, closed minded bigots, banging your drum, shouting your superiority, and the purity of your heritage, listen and learn, let the weapon of poetry carve your mind.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Class Warriors See Off ATOS.

 More photos on Glasgow Against ATOS.
 

       Friday, 30th. May, saw the last picket held by Glasgow Against ATOS, and though I couldn't make it, I think I can safely say, from all accounts, it was a large, colourful, noisy, cheerful picket, that can claim success. All of us must take our hats off to this ever growing army of class warriors, that saw injustice, got together, and stood on the line. For almost two years, month after month, in wind, rain, hail and frost, there they were, outside the ATOS offices at Corruna House in Cadogan Street in Glasgow. 

 

      The dogged determined campaign to highlight the traumatizing, intimidation, and humiliation heaped on our most vulnerable, by the profit junkies ATOS at the direction of the Cameron millionaire cabal, spread nation wide. Through the continued bad publicity being brought to the public's notice by this army of class warriors, ATOS decided to pull the plug on its despicable operation. The campaign succeeded in doing what it set out to do, getting ATOS off the backs of our disabled. 

 

    ATOS may have gone, but the millionaire vermin that sits in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, has in no way changed its policies. They still want to remove benefits from our disabled. Their first hatchet man has gone, we can rest assured that they are already looking at what vampire squid to hand the lucrative contract to next. Will it be the ruthless, bungling G4S, or perhaps the mighty  Serco, the company that has been dogged by scandals from overcharging for prisoner tagging to allegations of sexual assault at an immigration detention centre. The choice our parasitical millionaire government has to do its dirty work, is wide and vile.

 

     So Glasgow Against ATOS, well done, you are class war heroes, but, keep your powder dry, the enemy is re-arming.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Barcelona Is Bubbling.

     The Can Vies, was an abandoned building in Sants district of Barcelona, owned by the city's transport authority, it was occupied in 1997 by young people as a protest against the lack of public facilities in this mainly working class area. It remained a squat and social centre since then until last week, when the authorities decided to evict the occupants.
       What has followed has been three continuous nights of rioting, that has spread to other districts and pushed the authorities to bring the full force of their repressive regime to bear on the protesters.
       Of course our babbling brook of bullshit the mainstream media, has not give it much cover, they never like to show people fighting back against any Western authority.
      Spain, like Greece, is at the forefront of the Financial Mafia's looting attack, as the greed merchants attempt to plunder all public assets in rapid fashion. However, what the Financial Mafia should think on is, that when you have everything stolen from you, you have nothing to lose by fighting back. We should watch and prepare as the plundering is going on in all our countries, it is just at  a different pace, but the end result will be the same, poverty and deprivation for us, and unbridled wealth for the few, unless----

An extract from Anarchist News:

       If the chronicles of the recent events in Barcelona have turned into summaries and the summaries grow shorter, this does not reflect a diminishing of activity, but the contrary.

      During the day, conversations among friends repeated what was more or less insurrectionary common sense: today is the key day. A riot continuing from one day to the next was unprecedented in Barcelona since the end of the dictatorship. Now, if it could continue for a third day, it would have the chance to expand. Otherwise, calm would be restored until the major protest convened for Saturday, politics as usual with or without riots.

       Until nightfall, normality reigned, although people across the city were discussing the events. In the evening, people gathered in many different neighborhoods. In Nou Barris, a potentially rebellious proletarian zone, a strong police presence prevented the gathering. In Sant Andreu, a gathering blocked a major avenue with burning dumpsters. Most other neighborhoods went to Sants, probably making things easier for the police to contain, but giving many first-time or unexperienced participants who did not yet feel prepared to take over their neighborhoods a chance to win street experience.---

Read the full article HERE:
A video and report from RT.
 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

East End Injustice.

       Glasgow East End residents got an opportunity, (at last) to voice their anger, (perhaps I should say "righteous anger") at the treatment the have and are receiving, as the council steamrolls a path for big money to make a killing, in what is called, The Commonwealth Games 2014.

This from Glasgow Games Monitor 2014:

      1.  Very interesting 'Angry Games Residents Meeting' last night: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/2014/05/28/residents-vent-games-anger-at-packed-meeting/

       2. We meet next at 6.30pm-8.30 pm, Monday 2nd June at UNITE the Union offices, John Smith House, 145/165 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 4RZ. All welcome! http://gamesmonitor2014.org/meetings/

    3. Event challenging stigma in the East End, 5.30, Thursday (tomorrow) 29th May, Parkhead Library (Community Meeting Hall), 64 Tollcross Road, G31 4XA: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/2014/05/28/event-beyond-stigma-exploring-everyday-lives-in-the-east-end-of-glasgow-and-the-cwg2014%e2%80%8f/ Cheers,http://gamesmonitor2014.org/ 

Also from Glasgow Games Monitor:

   This event tomorrow night may be of interest to people in the East End especially... Beyond Stigma: Exploring Everyday lives in the East End of Glasgow and the CWG2014 The East End of Glasgow has had a lot of negative media and political commentary attached to it. With your help, we want to explore the lives and promote the voice of people actually living in the East End of Glasgow. We are looking for people to keep diaries of their thoughts and experiences throughout the Commonwealth Games 2014 and beyond. To be involved, please come to our community meeting at:Parkhead Library (in the Community Meeting hall)Thursday 29th May 2014 at 5.30pm64 Tollcross Road, G31 4XA If you would like to be involved, or want more information please contact Vikki McCall.Phone: 01786 467698; e-mail: vikki.mccall@stir.ac.uk 

       More about the Project… We seek to explore the impact of territorial stigmatisation on the people that live in the East End of Glasgow in the context of the Commonwealth Games 2014 and other social and economic changes that are impacting on the city.The 2014 Commonwealth Games sets out ‘Glasgow’s ambition… for a meaningful legacy that will go beyond 2014 and will benefit everyone’. Yet beneath the fanfaring, there is little supportive evidence that mega sporting events can achieve the aims set out by local government. Further still, this regeneration initiative was envisaged in different set of economic and political conditions.The City of Glasgow has the highest number of people living in conditions of multiple deprivation and the East End in particular is subject to negative media and political discourse and stigmatisation. Those living in the East End of Glasgow will have a certain level of awareness of these discourses and are also actors in negotiating the process of stigmatisation as well as living with the consequences of it. But how exactly are such discourses being received and experienced in the East End? Do they create further material inequalities?     How do stigmatizing narratives and structural inequalities coalesce? In asking these questions, this research will examine the relationship between territorial stigmatisation and gentrification/regeneration. 

        It will explore the material underpinning of narratives of lack which devalue and/or valorize neighbourhoods and people of those places. It will compare these narratives to the everyday lived realities of Glasgow’s East Enders. Who is involved… The project is led by Dr Gerry Mooney, from the Open University in Scotland.The project is being managed by Dr Vikki McCall, from the University of Stirling. Vikki lives in the East End of Glasgow and is on the Board of Parkhead Housing Association. Please feel free to tweet @vikki_mccalland Dr Kirsteen Paton from the University of Leeds. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Vulnerable Children, Profit Making Entities?

      The plan rolls along merrily, privatise everything that they can make money from, whether it be education, health or child care. The millionaire Oxbridge cabal in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are pushing hard the ideology of the financial Mafia. We had ATOS killing the disabled, now it is the turn of vulnerable children, as Gove looks at ways of getting such humanitarian institutions as G4S, ATOS and Serco to squeeze a profit out of our vulnerable children. No doubt if this goes ahead, the children involved will suffer the same stress, humiliation and trauma that the disabled suffered under ATOS.

An appeal from 38 Degrees:

      Would you trust private companies like G4S, Atos or Serco to look after vulnerable children? Or to influence decisions about taking children into care? Protecting children is one of the most difficult and sensitive roles for a government to perform. But education secretary Michael Gove is consulting on whether to outsource this role to profit making companies.
       If we want to stop this, we don’t have long - the consultation closes this Friday. So far, the issue’s had very little media coverage, and the consultation has barely been publicised. If thousands of us write in today, we can show Michael Gove that we’re watching - and make sure he drops these plans.

Please can you write to the consultation today:  
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/childprotection

        Decisions by child protection professionals affect lives and can break up families, these decisions should be kept miles away from any hint of a profit motive. Adoption services have already been protected from privatisation. And there’s no evidence to suggest that outsourcing services is a good idea anyway.

       The government’s proposal argues that letting private companies provide children’s services will encourage innovation. But we all saw the mess that G4S made of providing security at the Olympics, would we really want them to care for vulnerable children’s lives?

       Experts have already voiced outrage at the plans, now we need to hammer the message home with people power. Previously when 38 Degrees members have responded to Michael Gove’s consultations, our voices have been heard loud and clear. Last year, he dropped his plans to remove climate change from school curriculums after we wrote in our thousands to oppose them.

Can you write into the consultation and help stop these plans today:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/childprotection

Thanks for everything you do
Robin, Ali, Blanche and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] The Guardian - Privatise child protection services, Department for Education proposes: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/16/privatise-child-protection-services-department-for-education-proposes
[2] Public Finance - Child protection: not for sale: http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2014/05/child-protection-not-for-sale/
[3] The government proposal: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/304660/Powers_to_Delegate_Con_Doc.pdf
[4] The Guardian - Child protection services too important to be privatised: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/16/child-protection-privatised
[5] 38 Degrees blog - Victory: Climate change will stay in the curriculum: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2013/07/09/victory-climate-change-will-stay-in-the-curriculum

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk