Press release: Protests against banks across UK and America
Posted on Sat 26th Feb 2011, 3:58pm26/02/2011
ukuncut@gmail.com
www.ukuncut.org.uk
07591 992 825
Photos available on request
For Immediate Release
UKUNCUT: PROTESTS AGAINST BANKS ACROSS UK AND AMERICA
UK Uncut and the newly formed US Uncut are today holding protests inside and outside bailed-out banks in over 100 locations, from London and Dundee to New York and Honolulu.
In the UK, activists have been setting up creches, laundries, school class rooms,libraries, homeless shelters, drama club, walk-in clincs, youth centre, job centres, and leisure centres in more than 40 branches of RBS, Natwest and Loyds acrosss the country [1].
This is in reaction to the bonus annoucements that were released this week. Despite RBS making a loss of £1.1bn, RBS still paid out £950m in bonuses, including a £2m bonus for the cheif executive Stephen Hester [2]. Lloyds TSB also annouced large profits of £2.2bn bonuses, and in addition, because of previous lossess, they paid no corporation tax in the last financial year. [3]. Both banks have also revealed they have 135 and 121 offshore subsidiaries in tax havens respectively [4]
At midday in Islington, North London, 50 activists set up a laundry in an RBS branch in reaction to the Islington Council threats to cut services to the elderly, including a much-needed laundry service. The activist set up washing lines, clothes horses, buckets for handwashing, and a team of window cleaners on the outside. The protest was attended by over 15 pensioners and the local MP Jeremy Corbyn.
A classroom was set up In a Lloyds branch on Oxford street, London, in which Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation, John Christienson from Tax Justice and Anna Nolan from the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, gave lectures on the failures of the banking industry, tax avoidance and the alternative's to the public sector cuts.
Branches of bailed out banks around the country have been transformed; including hospitals in Liverpool and Redhill; a classroom in Cardiff; a leisure centre in Eastleigh; a job centre in Birmingham; and 20 people brought tents and sleeping bags into natwest in Brixton to create a homeless shelter.
Ruth Griffiths, 36, said, “RBS, Natwest and Lloyds would have all collapsed if it were not for the billions given to them by the tax payer. It was their greed and reckless gambling that caused the economic crisis, yet while ordinary people are paying the price in cuts to vital services and benefits, like hospitals, creches and disability living allowance, they are awarding themselves obscene bonuses."
Aisha Atkins, 32 said, “There are alternatives to the cuts, for example, making the banks pay for a crisis they created or by stopping tax dodging by big business and the super rich. But the government is making a political choice to reduce the deficit by making ordinary people pay with job losses and savaged services. RBS's bonus pool alone could pay for around 45,000 nurses"
She continued, “We are transforming the banks into schools, leisure centres, laundry services and homless shelters to show that it’s our society that’s too big to fail, not a broken banking system.”
In America, protests are planned in around 50 locations [5] from the East right across to the West Coast, after taking inspiration from the UK Uncut movement in the UK. American activists will targeting the Bank of America which recieved a $2.3 bail-out. It is the largest Bank in the world, and the 5th largest corporation, yet it is a major tax avoider, paying less tax than the average American household [6].
Commenting on the new international alliance, Tim Jones, 28, one of those who founded UK Uncut in October, said, "Tax avoidance, reckless banking, and unjust cuts are international problems that need international action by ordianary people. This international day of action will be one of many to make governments around the world stand up to the banks and make them pay for their crisis, and to ensure the super rich stopping dodging tax ."
ENDS
[1] The complete list of locations in the UK is Aberdeen, Abergervenny, Ashby de la Zouch, Bedford, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Brighton, Cambridge, Canterbury, Colchester, Cardiff, Coventry, Doncaster, Dundee, Durham, Eastleigh, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Ipswich, Jedburgh, Leeds, Lewes, Liverpool, Brixton, Hanovery Square, City of London, Islington, Peckham, Regent Street, Wood Green, Manchester, Middlesborough, Minehead, Nottingham, Oxford, Portsmouth, Redhill, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southport, Tenby, Tunbridge Well.
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12563720
[3]http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/25/lloyds-returns-to-profit-high-street-booms
[4] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/02/26/lloyds-pays-zero-tax-despite-2-2bn-profit-115875-22950108/
[5] www.usuncut.org for the full action list
[6] http://usuncut.org/files/US-Uncut-DC-Fact-Sheet.pdf
-- UK Uncut www.ukuncut.org.uk Twitter @ukuncut twitter.com/ukuncut Facebook www.facebook.com/ukuncut
UKUNCUT: PROTESTS AGAINST BANKS ACROSS UK AND AMERICA
UK Uncut and the newly formed US Uncut are today holding protests inside and outside bailed-out banks in over 100 locations, from London and Dundee to New York and Honolulu.
In the UK, activists have been setting up creches, laundries, school class rooms,libraries, homeless shelters, drama club, walk-in clincs, youth centre, job centres, and leisure centres in more than 40 branches of RBS, Natwest and Loyds acrosss the country [1].
This is in reaction to the bonus annoucements that were released this week. Despite RBS making a loss of £1.1bn, RBS still paid out £950m in bonuses, including a £2m bonus for the cheif executive Stephen Hester [2]. Lloyds TSB also annouced large profits of £2.2bn bonuses, and in addition, because of previous lossess, they paid no corporation tax in the last financial year. [3]. Both banks have also revealed they have 135 and 121 offshore subsidiaries in tax havens respectively [4]
At midday in Islington, North London, 50 activists set up a laundry in an RBS branch in reaction to the Islington Council threats to cut services to the elderly, including a much-needed laundry service. The activist set up washing lines, clothes horses, buckets for handwashing, and a team of window cleaners on the outside. The protest was attended by over 15 pensioners and the local MP Jeremy Corbyn.
A classroom was set up In a Lloyds branch on Oxford street, London, in which Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation, John Christienson from Tax Justice and Anna Nolan from the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, gave lectures on the failures of the banking industry, tax avoidance and the alternative's to the public sector cuts.
Branches of bailed out banks around the country have been transformed; including hospitals in Liverpool and Redhill; a classroom in Cardiff; a leisure centre in Eastleigh; a job centre in Birmingham; and 20 people brought tents and sleeping bags into natwest in Brixton to create a homeless shelter.
Ruth Griffiths, 36, said, “RBS, Natwest and Lloyds would have all collapsed if it were not for the billions given to them by the tax payer. It was their greed and reckless gambling that caused the economic crisis, yet while ordinary people are paying the price in cuts to vital services and benefits, like hospitals, creches and disability living allowance, they are awarding themselves obscene bonuses."
Aisha Atkins, 32 said, “There are alternatives to the cuts, for example, making the banks pay for a crisis they created or by stopping tax dodging by big business and the super rich. But the government is making a political choice to reduce the deficit by making ordinary people pay with job losses and savaged services. RBS's bonus pool alone could pay for around 45,000 nurses"
She continued, “We are transforming the banks into schools, leisure centres, laundry services and homless shelters to show that it’s our society that’s too big to fail, not a broken banking system.”
In America, protests are planned in around 50 locations [5] from the East right across to the West Coast, after taking inspiration from the UK Uncut movement in the UK. American activists will targeting the Bank of America which recieved a $2.3 bail-out. It is the largest Bank in the world, and the 5th largest corporation, yet it is a major tax avoider, paying less tax than the average American household [6].
Commenting on the new international alliance, Tim Jones, 28, one of those who founded UK Uncut in October, said, "Tax avoidance, reckless banking, and unjust cuts are international problems that need international action by ordianary people. This international day of action will be one of many to make governments around the world stand up to the banks and make them pay for their crisis, and to ensure the super rich stopping dodging tax ."
ENDS
[1] The complete list of locations in the UK is Aberdeen, Abergervenny, Ashby de la Zouch, Bedford, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Brighton, Cambridge, Canterbury, Colchester, Cardiff, Coventry, Doncaster, Dundee, Durham, Eastleigh, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Ipswich, Jedburgh, Leeds, Lewes, Liverpool, Brixton, Hanovery Square, City of London, Islington, Peckham, Regent Street, Wood Green, Manchester, Middlesborough, Minehead, Nottingham, Oxford, Portsmouth, Redhill, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southport, Tenby, Tunbridge Well.
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12563720
[3]http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/25/lloyds-returns-to-profit-high-street-booms
[4] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/02/26/lloyds-pays-zero-tax-despite-2-2bn-profit-115875-22950108/
[5] www.usuncut.org for the full action list
[6] http://usuncut.org/files/US-Uncut-DC-Fact-Sheet.pdf
-- UK Uncut www.ukuncut.org.uk Twitter @ukuncut twitter.com/ukuncut Facebook www.facebook.com/ukuncut
Guest post: The Breakfast Club Bail-In
Posted on Thu 24th Feb 2011, 12:25pmThis is a guest post by Sara A, who attended a bail-in of Barclays Tottenham Court Road last Saturday.
Last Saturday my four-year-old son and I were among a group of Camden parents and children who occupied a branch of Barclays Bank as part of a 'big bail-in' day of action held by UK Uncut -- the anti-cuts campaigning group. We held a 'breakfast club' in the Tottenham Court road branch of the bank to highlight the massive cuts to Camden's childcare services. The cuts will result in the closure of all school breakfast clubs together with after school clubs, play centres and holiday schemes. Nursery provision will also be reduced from the current 25 hours a week to only 15.
So what is the connection between childcare cuts in Camden, and Barclays Bank, and what would motivate responsible parents to take their children on a direct action, albeit a playful one? It is estimated that the UK loses over £25 billion a year in tax avoidance -- if even a quarter of this could be clawed back, we would be able to avoid the huge cuts to services which will amount to £18 billion over the next four years. The £6 million cuts to Camden's childcare budget are a direct result of a 26% reduction in central government funding for local council services.
Over the past few months, UK Uncut has been targeting large companies who either avoid paying UK tax at all, or like Barclay's have avoided paying full corporation tax. The protests began as occupations of high street branches of Top Shop and Vodafone, and have now moved onto the banks that have profited from the tax-payer funded bail-out yet continue to pay bankers massive bonuses.
Last week it came to light that despite announcing profits of over £11 billion for the last financial year, Barclays has only paid £113 million in corporation tax: 1% of their profits, rather than the 28% they are supposed to pay. Anger grew as we learnt that Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, will be awarded an £8 million bonus – enough to cover the childcare costs of two boroughs the size of Camden, or for more than 8,000 children. UK Uncut called for those who were affected by government cuts to set up 'alternative' services in their local branch of Barclays. On Saturday nearly 50 branches were occupied by people who set up libraries, playgroups, a bus and even a comedy club. Next weekend it will be the turn of RBS.
Despite the fun had by the children who attended on Saturday, who played games, read books, and ate breakfast, we cannot underestimate the seriousness of the loss of these services. For working parents, universal affordable children's services are a lifeline. They enable low and middle-income families to stay in work, and give children access to high-quality childcare and outdoor space to play. They also play a vital role in creating social cohesion. Without them we will see an increase in families on welfare as it becomes impossible for many to either combine a working day with taking and collecting children from school, or to afford private childcare. We also risk a rise in youth crime as older children lose contact with trusted and dedicated youth workers: they’ll have nowhere to play but the streets. Parents will also lose out on the sense of community we feel as part of a network of families, nurseries and play centres.
For me and my son, over the last two years, the reduction in nursery provision would have meant that he would have lost out on attending the wonderful Coram’s Fields nursery, the friends both he and I made, and the vital social skills he learnt which prepared him for school. I would have been unable to work full-time, resulting in the loss of vital family income.
Camden does intend to provide some subsidised childcare, but only to the most 'vulnerable' and to disabled children, and this will be contracted out to voluntary organisations. Additionally, to lose universality risks socially isolating and ghettoising these children. This is counter-productive and directly opposes all expert advice.
UK Uncut is holding a 'feminist big bail-in' in Camden this Saturday to highlight the disproportionate impact of government cuts on women and childcare.
Last Saturday my four-year-old son and I were among a group of Camden parents and children who occupied a branch of Barclays Bank as part of a 'big bail-in' day of action held by UK Uncut -- the anti-cuts campaigning group. We held a 'breakfast club' in the Tottenham Court road branch of the bank to highlight the massive cuts to Camden's childcare services. The cuts will result in the closure of all school breakfast clubs together with after school clubs, play centres and holiday schemes. Nursery provision will also be reduced from the current 25 hours a week to only 15.
So what is the connection between childcare cuts in Camden, and Barclays Bank, and what would motivate responsible parents to take their children on a direct action, albeit a playful one? It is estimated that the UK loses over £25 billion a year in tax avoidance -- if even a quarter of this could be clawed back, we would be able to avoid the huge cuts to services which will amount to £18 billion over the next four years. The £6 million cuts to Camden's childcare budget are a direct result of a 26% reduction in central government funding for local council services.
Over the past few months, UK Uncut has been targeting large companies who either avoid paying UK tax at all, or like Barclay's have avoided paying full corporation tax. The protests began as occupations of high street branches of Top Shop and Vodafone, and have now moved onto the banks that have profited from the tax-payer funded bail-out yet continue to pay bankers massive bonuses.
Last week it came to light that despite announcing profits of over £11 billion for the last financial year, Barclays has only paid £113 million in corporation tax: 1% of their profits, rather than the 28% they are supposed to pay. Anger grew as we learnt that Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, will be awarded an £8 million bonus – enough to cover the childcare costs of two boroughs the size of Camden, or for more than 8,000 children. UK Uncut called for those who were affected by government cuts to set up 'alternative' services in their local branch of Barclays. On Saturday nearly 50 branches were occupied by people who set up libraries, playgroups, a bus and even a comedy club. Next weekend it will be the turn of RBS.
Despite the fun had by the children who attended on Saturday, who played games, read books, and ate breakfast, we cannot underestimate the seriousness of the loss of these services. For working parents, universal affordable children's services are a lifeline. They enable low and middle-income families to stay in work, and give children access to high-quality childcare and outdoor space to play. They also play a vital role in creating social cohesion. Without them we will see an increase in families on welfare as it becomes impossible for many to either combine a working day with taking and collecting children from school, or to afford private childcare. We also risk a rise in youth crime as older children lose contact with trusted and dedicated youth workers: they’ll have nowhere to play but the streets. Parents will also lose out on the sense of community we feel as part of a network of families, nurseries and play centres.
For me and my son, over the last two years, the reduction in nursery provision would have meant that he would have lost out on attending the wonderful Coram’s Fields nursery, the friends both he and I made, and the vital social skills he learnt which prepared him for school. I would have been unable to work full-time, resulting in the loss of vital family income.
Camden does intend to provide some subsidised childcare, but only to the most 'vulnerable' and to disabled children, and this will be contracted out to voluntary organisations. Additionally, to lose universality risks socially isolating and ghettoising these children. This is counter-productive and directly opposes all expert advice.
UK Uncut is holding a 'feminist big bail-in' in Camden this Saturday to highlight the disproportionate impact of government cuts on women and childcare.
Guest post: The Broken of Britain – Fighting a Good and Just Fight
Posted on Wed 23rd Feb 2011, 1:29pmThis is a guest post by Lisa J. Ellwood, a disability & mental health activist
"The moral health of a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members" – a new twist on an old saying that is itself rooted in religious antiquity. How sad it is that 3,000 years later this sentiment is still very relevant. Author and MS Philanthropist J.K. Rowling made much the same observation in her best-selling Harry Potter series with the following pearl of wisdom: "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
Recent media coverage has shone the spotlight on disabled people, and that spotlight has been less than favourable. We are castigated as 'scroungers and 'fakers' not only by journalists and their employers, but also neighbours, friends and even family. It would seem that the vast majority of the great British public knows several people who are as fit as a fiddle and audaciously raking money in hand-over-fist thanks to bogus benefits claims based on faked illnesses. There is an endless stream of rhetoric to be found when reading any newspaper, blog or listening to talk radio. Too often I find myself reading the latest venomous shots fired by the disgruntled and wonder if the face behind the pseudonym is a familiar one.
It takes much more than one voice singing in the darkness to shed light on a given concern. It is this basic understanding which brings the most unlikely of people together to work towards a common purpose. While "The Broken of Britain" campaign is in its infancy, the core group of people involved are seasoned veterans when it comes to raising awareness about their lives as disabled people in the modern world. We come from differing backgrounds, have a wide range of illness physical or mental - and we all have differing perspectives on the contentious issues concerning disabled people. The one thing that brought us together as a collective was our tacit agreement that the current coalition government is waging wholesale warfare against the most vulnerable in British society: women, children, the poor and disabled people specifically. The irony is that funds and services for disabled people includes women and children from all backgrounds (including celebrities collecting benefits for their disabled children).
We have supported the various UK anti-cuts initiatives including boycotts, protests and petitions. That support will continue. The only thing that we have ever asked is that the not yet disabled keep an open mind and lend their support to our efforts in kind. Contrary to populist belief, disabled people do as much as we possibly can to help ourselves – as much by personal choice as driven by circumstance. However, we do need the active support of able-bodied people. What we bring to the UK anti-cuts movement is no different to what we've always had to do in order to get even a modicum of much-needed help with daily living.
However, it is a double-edge sword for us – standing up for ourselves, so to speak, by participating in protests typically elicits the salvo "if you can manage that then you are fit to work" or even worse "you asked for trouble just by participating". Disingenuous statements and worse have been levelled at Jody McIntyre, the disabled activist pulled from his wheelchair during a recent student protest and dragged across a London street by no less than four Met Police Officers. We are made to hold account for our unenviable predicament by the society which victimises us. Many disabled people hold back from activism because they are afraid of taking the risk and then having it used against them. We are broadsided on a daily basis by the insensitive and uninformed, no less because of the stigma attached to being physically disabled, mentally ill or wresting with the energy-stealing demons of "invisible illness". It's bad enough for someone who struggles with physical disabilities, but for those with 'invisible' and/or mental health problems there is added trauma in processing the searing hatred coming from wilfully ignorant and wholly unrepentant able-bodied people. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the US, “justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
For those that care to, it is easy to engage with disabled people; all that is required is communication. Yes, we will have missteps along the way and on both sides. But in speaking to members of the various students groups via social media, I have reminded them that once-upon-a-time I was student, able-bodied and thinking I had my 'whole life ahead of me'. The life I lead now as someone who lives with both physical and mental illness was not one I had ever considered for myself. As little as two years ago I could not have foreseen how drastically my life has changed in the past year alone. The only good thing that keeps me holding on is the fierce determination of those whom I work alongside. It is a great privilege to fight a good and just fight with people whose entire lives have included coping with chronic illness far more admirably than I have in my situation in the past year. The powers-that-be have come first for the most vulnerable of British Society. It's easy to close hearts and minds to a situation because you believe it's nothing to do with you. But one day it just might be you they come for, you who needs to fight tooth and nail to save your home, you child or even your own sanity.
The afore-mentioned Ms. Rowling has bequeathed to us a legacy of accessible wisdom. To paraphrase The Greatest Wizard of the Age, Albus Dumbldore, Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry: it is our choices my friends, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. These are dark times and the moment is already upon us when we must choose what is easy and what is right. We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. All who are not in the decidedly comfortable position of an assured future must work together bound by the fears which concern us all. It is imperative that we fight, fight again and keep on fighting - for only then can the underhanded be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated. "We teach people how to treat us" – so the old saying goes. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. The consequences are far worse should they be the result of simply giving up.
If you want to write a blog post for UK Uncut, you can send proposals to ukuncut@gmail.com
"The moral health of a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members" – a new twist on an old saying that is itself rooted in religious antiquity. How sad it is that 3,000 years later this sentiment is still very relevant. Author and MS Philanthropist J.K. Rowling made much the same observation in her best-selling Harry Potter series with the following pearl of wisdom: "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
Recent media coverage has shone the spotlight on disabled people, and that spotlight has been less than favourable. We are castigated as 'scroungers and 'fakers' not only by journalists and their employers, but also neighbours, friends and even family. It would seem that the vast majority of the great British public knows several people who are as fit as a fiddle and audaciously raking money in hand-over-fist thanks to bogus benefits claims based on faked illnesses. There is an endless stream of rhetoric to be found when reading any newspaper, blog or listening to talk radio. Too often I find myself reading the latest venomous shots fired by the disgruntled and wonder if the face behind the pseudonym is a familiar one.
It takes much more than one voice singing in the darkness to shed light on a given concern. It is this basic understanding which brings the most unlikely of people together to work towards a common purpose. While "The Broken of Britain" campaign is in its infancy, the core group of people involved are seasoned veterans when it comes to raising awareness about their lives as disabled people in the modern world. We come from differing backgrounds, have a wide range of illness physical or mental - and we all have differing perspectives on the contentious issues concerning disabled people. The one thing that brought us together as a collective was our tacit agreement that the current coalition government is waging wholesale warfare against the most vulnerable in British society: women, children, the poor and disabled people specifically. The irony is that funds and services for disabled people includes women and children from all backgrounds (including celebrities collecting benefits for their disabled children).
We have supported the various UK anti-cuts initiatives including boycotts, protests and petitions. That support will continue. The only thing that we have ever asked is that the not yet disabled keep an open mind and lend their support to our efforts in kind. Contrary to populist belief, disabled people do as much as we possibly can to help ourselves – as much by personal choice as driven by circumstance. However, we do need the active support of able-bodied people. What we bring to the UK anti-cuts movement is no different to what we've always had to do in order to get even a modicum of much-needed help with daily living.
However, it is a double-edge sword for us – standing up for ourselves, so to speak, by participating in protests typically elicits the salvo "if you can manage that then you are fit to work" or even worse "you asked for trouble just by participating". Disingenuous statements and worse have been levelled at Jody McIntyre, the disabled activist pulled from his wheelchair during a recent student protest and dragged across a London street by no less than four Met Police Officers. We are made to hold account for our unenviable predicament by the society which victimises us. Many disabled people hold back from activism because they are afraid of taking the risk and then having it used against them. We are broadsided on a daily basis by the insensitive and uninformed, no less because of the stigma attached to being physically disabled, mentally ill or wresting with the energy-stealing demons of "invisible illness". It's bad enough for someone who struggles with physical disabilities, but for those with 'invisible' and/or mental health problems there is added trauma in processing the searing hatred coming from wilfully ignorant and wholly unrepentant able-bodied people. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the US, “justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
For those that care to, it is easy to engage with disabled people; all that is required is communication. Yes, we will have missteps along the way and on both sides. But in speaking to members of the various students groups via social media, I have reminded them that once-upon-a-time I was student, able-bodied and thinking I had my 'whole life ahead of me'. The life I lead now as someone who lives with both physical and mental illness was not one I had ever considered for myself. As little as two years ago I could not have foreseen how drastically my life has changed in the past year alone. The only good thing that keeps me holding on is the fierce determination of those whom I work alongside. It is a great privilege to fight a good and just fight with people whose entire lives have included coping with chronic illness far more admirably than I have in my situation in the past year. The powers-that-be have come first for the most vulnerable of British Society. It's easy to close hearts and minds to a situation because you believe it's nothing to do with you. But one day it just might be you they come for, you who needs to fight tooth and nail to save your home, you child or even your own sanity.
The afore-mentioned Ms. Rowling has bequeathed to us a legacy of accessible wisdom. To paraphrase The Greatest Wizard of the Age, Albus Dumbldore, Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry: it is our choices my friends, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. These are dark times and the moment is already upon us when we must choose what is easy and what is right. We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. All who are not in the decidedly comfortable position of an assured future must work together bound by the fears which concern us all. It is imperative that we fight, fight again and keep on fighting - for only then can the underhanded be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated. "We teach people how to treat us" – so the old saying goes. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. The consequences are far worse should they be the result of simply giving up.
If you want to write a blog post for UK Uncut, you can send proposals to ukuncut@gmail.com