Category: Uncategorized
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What is the difference between work and slavery?
Freedom of association – that is, the right to organise. The right to join a union. 2. Freedom to withdraw your labour – that is, the right to strike, and 3. An administration that treats the unemployed with respect, and provides for their basic needs. We have already lost the last one – the DWP…
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Victory to the RMT – Victory for all
Hastings Demands Better 25th June 2022 At Hastings Station Plaza, at midday on 25th June, the RMT rally was mc’ed by Simon Hester of Hastings TUC. He said that, like all privatised industries, the railway companies have money. They have plenty. They have millions for bosses, and for profits. He said that, due to the…
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Under-rated heroes and forgotten wives
Happy anniversary, Gustav and Isobel Holst A guest post by author Philippa Tudor Fame and fleeting, modest fortune Aspiring but not-yet-famous composer Gustav von Holst and Isobel Harrison were married on 22 June 1901. It was a quiet wedding in Fulham Register Office (a former workhouse), witnessed by Isobel’s brother and Gustav’s aunt, who had…
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Four Long Years
It feels like about 200 years ago I stepped down as a Labour Party CLP officer, and got stuck into the women’s rights campaign. Initially, I didn’t have a particularly articulate view of the conflict between women’s legal rights and Stonewall et al’s demands under the title ‘trans rights’, but I did have a very…
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Dear Morrisons, Customers do not ‘have to’ anything.
Dear Morrisons, This morning, as I walked away from your unstaffed kiosk to find somewhere I could actually do what I wanted to do, I stopped to ask the man on the door to please tell the manager they are losing customers. I told him it was around the third time I’ve done that in…
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Excluded by inclusion
Or: who will save us from nice blokes? Mark Drakeford tramples on women’s rights Mark Drakeford is a nice bloke. He was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and, from his comfortable position as a white male with a successful political career, has a firm grasp on the idea that inclusion is always a good thing.…
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We have got what we need
We wanted a Corbyn government. The others wanted a ‘more electable leader’. No matter. Meanwhile, the Tories wanted to stay in charge, despite not having anyone remotely suitable, so the nation got Boris the Liar, Boris the evil clown who let his friends run away with anything that wasn’t nailed down, then literally sat there…
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Train cleaners deserve better
Last week, I went to the Hastings Demands Better TUC meeting, and learned a lot about what various local community groups and industrial unions were doing about the cost-of-living crisis. One of the speakers, Bella Fashola, told us about the Churchill train cleaners’ dispute. The overarching issue is clear: how are people who clean trains,…
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The original mistake?
Has it ever occurred to anyone that the founding of the Labour Party might have been a mistake from the start? I have spent a large part of my political time over the last decade on campaigns arguing for workers’ rights and women’s rights. The Labour Party has been, to put it generously, a fair-weather…
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This is what we’ve been waiting for
Hastings Demands Better is one of a series of meetings being held in the region by the South Eastern TUC, leading up to the big demo against the cost-of-living crisis, to be held in London on 18th June. Yes, we gather to tell the government we cannot and will not put up with any more…
Kay Green 