Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #23
free/donation
June 09

“Nick Grif­fin: if you’re read­ing this, we’re in your house”

Pulling A Fash One: Bath 3, BNP 0

The BNP went three goals down on Fri­day the 22nd May in the con­tin­u­ing grudge match between them­selves and the peo­ple of Bath. This time the venue was the pres­ti­gious BRL­Si, on Queen Square. Near­ly 100 peo­ple from a vari­ety of back­grounds (includ­ing antifa, anar­chists, greens, IWW, social­ists and a good num­ber of pissed off Batho­ni­ans) respond­ed to a call out from Bath Activist Net­work to protest a hus­tings meet­ing fea­tur­ing the fas­cist BNP.

The demo was a huge suc­cess, see­ing the front doors block­ad­ed for near­ly two hours, pre­vent­ing the meet­ing from going ahead. The major­i­ty of speak­ers due to rep­re­sent their par­ties pulled out of the meet­ing and opt­ed to speak on the street instead, many mak­ing the deci­sion to do so on the night. A tiny mob of eight fas­cists, most from out of town, turned up and made a piti­ful attempt to force their way in before giv­ing up and spend­ing the rest of the night moan­ing to the police (one of whom had an anti-BNP leaflet mys­te­ri­ous­ly taped to his back). Bris­tol-based BNP mem­ber Clive Court­ney was arrest­ed after shov­ing a local man to the ground.

The block­ade end­ed when the 50 police who were even­tu­al­ly draft­ed in demand­ed that the demo move out of the pub­lic view — pro­test­ers unan­i­mous­ly refused, and the pick­et was vio­lent­ly bro­ken up, allow­ing the fas­cists entry to a desert­ed build­ing, as the real democ­ra­cy was in full swing on the streets! While address­ing the emp­ty room, BNP Chip­pen­ham MEP can­di­date Jere­my Wother­spoon denied being racist, said he recent­ly ‘shook hands with a negro’ (his words, not ours).

In an inter­est­ing side note, mem­bers of the pub­lic let pro­test­ers know that the police were describ­ing them as ‘scum’ and activists have some inter­est­ing video footage of angry, rotund Bris­tol BNP high-up Mark War­ren-Clut­ter­buck hav­ing a pri­vate chat and a laugh with senior police. The BNP request­ed that once the block­ade was end­ed, they should be allowed to move in en masse — a request that the police were all too will­ing to facil­i­tate. The back-pat­ting and obvi­ous mutu­al sup­port between the cops and Nazis was sick­en­ing, but on the night the facts spoke for them­selves — pub­lic sup­port was over­whelm­ing­ly in favour of the block­ade, and the ‘no plat­form for fas­cists’ posi­tion.

The BNP still fea­tures hate­mon­ger activists con­vict­ed of bomb­ings, mur­der and assault, inter­nal­ly calls for a reduc­tion in demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion-mak­ing in the par­ty, and only per­mits white eth­nic, ‘indige­nous’ Brits to join as full mem­bers. It is impos­si­ble for the BNP to pub­licly adver­tise, or hold a meet­ing with­out pro­tec­tion from the police and a huge and angry reac­tion from the vast major­i­ty of the pub­lic. Well done to every­one who turned up and showed once again that the BNP are not wel­come in civilised soci­ety, let alone Bath. It’s just a shame that the BRL­Si orga­niz­ers tooth­less­ly felt oblig­ed to pro­vide the BNP the cred­i­bil­i­ty they so crave by invit­ing them; hope­ful­ly, there won’t be a next time. And if you do have any info on BNP activ­i­ty in your area, email either bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk, or phone 08451 265011.

http://bristolantifa.org
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/inyourtown/corsham/4365146.Corsham_family_stands_as_BNP_candidates/

Eco Bat­tle For Bathamp­ton: Round 2

News has reached us that B&NES Coun­cil has made the pub­lic-friend­ly deci­sion of approv­ing the mas­sive­ly unpop­u­lar drain on finan­cial and envi­ron­men­tal resources that is the park and ride at Bathamp­ton Mead­ows. The park and ride, part of a ludi­crous­ly expen­sive, environmentally/socially destruc­tive and mas­sive­ly flawed trans­port pack­age, is to be built on the ancient mead­ow­lands which are part of the Cotswolds AONB (Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty) and con­tain two ancient mon­u­ments. The loca­tion is poor­ly-cho­sen and the coun­cil them­selves have con­ced­ed that the traf­fic eas­ing effects of the park and ride will be ‘min­i­mal’.

Maybe the coun­cil have for­got­ten the headache that was caused last time the author­i­ties tried to bull­doze the nat­ur­al habi­tats sur­round­ing Bathamp­ton. In 1994, a large tree camp was set up to oppose the Bathamp­ton A36/A46 link road, cost­ing the author­i­ties thou­sands in secu­ri­ty costs and putting the project way behind sched­ule. The same looks set to hap­pen again, with local activists hon­ing their eco-defence skills. Rest assured that if the bull­doz­ers roll in, so will scores of angry locals and activists deter­mined to fight for the mead­ow inch by inch. The council’s dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment looks set to ignite a bat­tle that will be giv­ing them seri­ous headaches for years to come. You can still write let­ters of objec­tion to the scheme, and a tem­plate let­ter can be found at http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk, and, short notice, push a ‘call in’ for a pub­lic enquiry by the 23rd of this month.

Stop the press: at a recent pub­lic meet­ing, we have just heard that the Gov­ern­ment Office for the South West have just ini­ti­at­ed an ‘Arti­cle 14’, a mod­est-sound­ing bit of jar­gon that indi­cates that they now require more time to con­sid­er the scheme – so nothing’s set in con­crete yet.

Debt Advice Cen­tre Opens In Twer­ton

The Bath ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ cam­paign has opened a drop-in cen­tre for advice on debts, ben­e­fits, bailiffs and gen­er­al help with the reces­sion – and pos­si­bly any oth­er prob­lems you may have! Pop round the Twer­ton social cen­tre (4 Day Cres­cent, Twer­ton) on Wednes­days between 4pm and 7pm, for a friend­ly cup­pa and a chat with one of our help­ful trained vol­un­teers.

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

debt advice drop-in, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, Twer­ton social cen­tre, Day Cres­cent

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

anti-foie gras demo, Fri­days, meet Queen Square 7pm

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

Bub­bling Under, Sun­day 21st June, 1–4pm, Porter Cel­lar, George Street

Calais No Bor­der Camp, 23rd-29th June, France

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 22nd June, venue TBC, 7.30pm, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Tran­si­tion Bath talk on pub­lic trans­port issues, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, Wid­combe Social Club

Tran­si­tion Drinks, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, upstairs at The Raven

anar­cho-punk gig, Fri­day 26th June, 8pm, The Porter Butt, Lon­don Road, Bath, feat. Cit­i­zen Fish, A heads, Sur­ren­der, Filthy Habits

ani­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies ben­e­fit gig Sat­ur­day 27th June, 7.30pm, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, feat Babar Luck, Rat­face & Tracey Cur­tis, £4 entry

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 28th June, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Wednes­day 1st July, 7.30–8.30pm, back­room of The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 2nd July, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade

Bath Friends of the Earth meet­ing, Mon­day 6th July, 8pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place, Broad Street

Film: ‘Wed­ding in Galilee’, Tues­day 7th July,7.30pm, Mason­ic Hall, Frome, £5/£3 con­ces­sions; pre­sent­ed by Frome Friends of Pales­tine — part of Frome Fes­ti­val

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 8th July, 8.30pm, the Porter, George Street

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, email broad­land­sor­chard­share [at] googlemail.com or phone 07532 472 256

Dan­ish Cli­mate Camp, Den­mark, Sat­ur­day 11th July – Sun­day 19th July, http://camp09.dk

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 12th July, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Green­peace meet­ing, Mon­day 13th July, 7.30–9pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place

Tran­si­tion Open Forum, Tues­day 14th July, 7pm, Wid­combe Social Club

French Cli­mate Camp Mon­day, Mon­day 3rd August – Sun­day 9th August, France, http://www.campclimat.org

Belgian/Dutch Cli­mate Action Camp, Mon­day 3rd August — Sun­day 9th August, near Antwerp, http://www.klimaatactiekamp.org

The Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land, Mon­day 3rd – Tues­day 11th August, Scot­land, http://climatecampscotland.org.uk

Cym­ru Cli­mate Camp, Thurs­day 13th – Sun­day 16th August 2009, Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales, http://climatecampcymru.org

Greek No Bor­ders Camp, Tues­day 25th August – Mon­day 31st August, Lesvos, Greece, http://lesvos09.antira.info

The Camp for Cli­mate Action 2009, Thurs­day 27th August and Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber, Lon­don, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, The Island, Sil­ver Street, Bris­tol, 10.30am-7pm, http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

Bris­tol Co-Mutiny: Social Change Not Cli­mate Change gath­er­ing, Sun­day 13th Sep­tem­ber – Sat­ur­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action, Sat­ur­day 24th Octo­ber, http://www.350.org/ oct24

Exclu­sive: Dirty Don’s Dodgy Expens­es

With the ample evi­dence pour­ing out of the cash trough that is West­min­ster to attest to the cor­rupt nature of the vast major­i­ty of our MPs, it may come as no sur­prise to many of you that our own ‘Dodgy’ Don Fos­ter MP is also appar­ent­ly on the take. Our favourite every­man has been claim­ing a stag­ger­ing £380 per week allowance for his sec­ond home (£230 above the nation­al aver­age, and work­ing out to a huge £19,760 per year). In addi­tion to this, Mr Foster’s ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ claims per year total over £5,000 and have risen by 60% since 2001. Obvi­ous­ly as Don gets more and more used to rub­bing shoul­ders with the show­er of cheats and liars that pass them­selves off as our lead­ers, he gets more and more com­fort­able with help­ing him­self to a plush life using our cash. But, on a salary of a mere £65,000 a year, can we blame poor Don for claim­ing an addi­tion­al total of £92,000, includ­ing expens­es, sec­re­tar­i­al ser­vices and ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ expens­es in 2007?

As if this weren’t enough, Don makes a nice lit­tle earn­er for his polit­i­cal career by accept­ing huge wedges of cash; £99,015.09 in 2007 alone to be exact, from a shady char­ac­ter with his roots in white col­lar crime. The super rich and super crooked Paul Stras­burg­er is a local mil­lion­aire, own­er of no less than three local estate agents and by far the largest bankroller of the local Lib Dems. While huge­ly dis­taste­ful, being a mil­lion­aire and a land shark is not tech­ni­cal­ly a crime. What IS stray­ing towards the ille­gal how­ev­er is Strasburger’s deal­ings with a cer­tain Michael Brown, anoth­er bankroller of the Lib Dems. While on the run for theft and mon­ey laun­der­ing (Brown is now hid­ing out in the Caribbean) police took an inter­est in search­ing the home of Stras­burg­er who had put his house for­ward as Brown’s bail address. This is just anoth­er exam­ple of big busi­ness scratch­ing the back of politi­cians – the old boys’ club in action – and adds to the image we are see­ing more and more of the rich and polit­i­cal class­es sneer­ing at us while they rob for the poor and keep for them­selves. Yet still, we can’t hold Don and his Dodgy big busi­ness pals sole­ly respon­si­ble; after all, when in Rome…

…And The BNP Are At It, Too!

Wonk-eyed Nazi Nick Grif­fin has gone to great lengths to dis­tance his par­ty from their white suprema­cist, fas­cist image, dress­ing the par­ty up as an alter­na­tive to cor­rupt main­stream politi­cians. But while the par­ty has tem­porar­i­ly un-stiff­ened their arms, and tries not to be open­ly racist (an attempt foiled by even the light­est scruti­ny), a brief look over their expens­es claims show them to be just as bad as the rest. In Bark­ing and Dagen­ham, sev­en BNP coun­cil­lors attend­ed only 27% of meet­ings while still pock­et­ing their full £9,801 allowance. A BNP coun­cil­lor in Sandwell attend­ed none of the meet­ings at which he was expect­ed and took the full allowance while the party’s 2007 accounts failed their audit as sev­er­al grand of expen­di­ture was not prop­er­ly record­ed. They have also been in trou­ble recent­ly after being caught claim­ing some paid-up par­ty mem­bers were self employed to avoid pay­ing income tax and NI con­tri­bu­tions. So, as well as being obvi­ous­ly racist (Nick Grif­fin recent­ly expressed a hope of ignit­ing a racial war while address­ing a KKK ral­ly in the USA, and has pub­lished books deny­ing the Holo­caust), vio­lent and gen­er­al­ly repres­sive and obnox­ious, it turns out that the BNP are just as cor­rupt as the rest of them, and have been join­ing all the oth­er par­ties in wal­low­ing in unearned piles of our cash. Bas­tards, the lot of ‘em!

Nobody Wins Euro Elec­tions

The recent Euro­pean elec­tions were a resound­ing defeat for main­stream polit­i­cal par­ties – and anoth­er exam­ple of how unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment actu­al­ly is. Labour suf­fered their biggest set­back since the birth of Tony Blair, UKIP strug­gled to keep the votes they already had, whilst left­ist main­stream par­ties such as the Greens made sig­nif­i­cant gains. How­ev­er, the real win­ner was Nobody. Europe-wide, an incred­i­ble 57% vot­ed for Nobody – 65% in the UK – an aston­ish­ing man­date for social change on a scale unseen since the incep­tion of the Lib­er­al par­ty in the 1870s.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, and to the dis­gust of a dis­il­lu­sioned elec­torate across the con­ti­nent, the EU REFUSED to acknowl­edge these votes, and declared that all the seats fair­ly won by Nobody would be REDISTRIBUTED amongst the oth­er par­ties. And so we have a sit­u­a­tion where par­ties such as the BNP, who took LESS votes in this elec­tion than the last, have tak­en seats in the EU Par­lia­ment for the first time in his­to­ry.

In France in 2007 the state’s refusal to rec­og­nize a 16% vote for Nobody led to riot­ing in most major cities. Ear­li­er this year, the Ice­landic government’s refusal to allow Nobody to take posi­tions of pow­er demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly theirs con­tributed to the pop­u­lar over­throw of that gov­ern­ment. With the anger cur­rent­ly brew­ing across Europe, can sim­i­lar upris­ings be far away?

Art With A Cap­i­tal ‘F’

Those das­tard­ly john­nies from B.A.D. (Bath Arts Dic­ta­tor­ship) have been up to their old tricks again. This lot make up the secre­tive lit­tle cabal of the Bath Fes­ti­vals com­mit­tee who hide them­selves away in their suite of rooms atop the city’s Tourist Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, busi­ly mas­sag­ing their fan­tasies and egos, lay­ing down the law to you, the Bath pub­lic, on vot you vill and vill not enjoy, ja?

Their lat­est two fin­gers-up to pub­lic opin­ion came in the form of a pair of mon­strous and ugly mashed-wire-coathang­er ‘sculp­tures’ by Glouces­ter ‘artist’ Sophie Ryder, which were dumped in Abbey Square in ear­ly April. These met­al hor­rors have no link what­so­ev­er to Bath, oth­er than as a shop win­dow for Ms Ryder’s oth­er out­put, cur­rent­ly on sale at extor­tion­ate prices in the city’s Vic­to­ria Art Gallery. Are we see­ing yet anoth­er B&NES-sponsored exam­ple of steal­ing from the poor to give to the rich?

In arguably one of the best and most enjoy­able dis­plays of direct-action ad hoc pub­lic com­ment since the Bush shoe-throw­ing episode, both beasts were pulled (or pushed) over at East­er week­end. The only thing which marred this dis­play of sound artis­tic judg­ment was their mirac­u­lous res­ur­rec­tion by crane soon after­wards. How much pub­lic dosh was wast­ed on hoist­ing them back on their plinths?

Was it just coin­ci­dence that Bugs Bun­ny and pal Bul­ly from TV pro­gramme ‘Bulls­eye’ pitched up at the same time as the Bath Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val? As they formed a back­drop to the com­e­dy stage itself, how could any­body take them seri­ous­ly? So is there a bunch of cul­tur­al wor­thies, not a mil­lion miles from Kingston Build­ings, extract­ing the urine?

Care In The Co-Mutiny

Activists and groups, dream­ers and schemers from across the south­west are com­ing togeth­er from the 12th to the 20th Sep­tem­ber in Bris­tol for a week of themed autonomous days of action and prac­ti­cal skill shares, pro­mot­ing an alter­na­tive fair­er and more pos­i­tive future, in con­trast to the cur­rent night­mare sce­nario of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. If you want to get involved and join the Co-Muti­neers – you know you do – email comutiny [at] riseup.net.

http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Nobody Takes You Seri­ous­ly Until You Have An Insane Arch-Neme­sis

Bath Ani­mal Action’s cam­paign against foie gras – over­priced liv­er from tor­tured ducks and geese, pro­duced under such appalling con­di­tions that only obscure EU trade laws allow its sale in the UK – remains defi­ant and com­mit­ted in the face of one of the most ret­i­cent restau­ra­teurs yet.

Upmar­ket tapas restau­rant Mini­bar are still refus­ing to remove foie gras from their menu, despite bogus claims of eth­i­cal con­cerns, poor sales of the dish, and con­fes­sions to the Chron­i­cle that they have a “ter­ri­ble night” and lose mon­ey when­ev­er pro­test­ers vis­it. The rea­son for this appar­ent­ly sui­ci­dal devo­tion to cru­el cui­sine may be relat­ed to a small, bald­ing and clear­ly unsta­ble man claim­ing to co-own the restau­rant. His com­bi­na­tion of abuse, mock­ery and delib­er­ate­ly run­ning down an activist with his expen­sive 4x4 has bright­ened up sev­er­al dull nights already.

Despite an increas­ing­ly diverse and des­per­ate array of respons­es – push­ing an activist in the road, claim­ing to have proof that the food was eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced and then refus­ing to show it, the afore­men­tioned vehic­u­lar assault, repeat­ed and ground­less threats of arrest from an open­ly one-sided police farce, and being bored to death for hours by an idiot who could bare­ly hold an opin­ion for five min­utes, let alone an argu­ment – the cam­paign­ers have vowed to fight for a foie-gras free Bath!

www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/foiegras/index.html

Upping The Veg-Ante

Last month’s Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre – an annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of veg­an food, health and ani­mal-cru­el­ty-free ethics – went shin­ing­ly on the 30th and 31st May at Bristol’s Har­bour­side. Open to peo­ple of all dietary deci­sions, the food and drink flowed freely, par­tic­u­lar­ly the free sam­ples of choco­late and deli­cious fake meats, and there were stun­ning dis­plays of Sikh sword­fight­ing, and a sol­id line-up of reg­gae and rock over both days. Also on offer were info stalls on nutri­tion, char­i­ties, ani­mal res­cue cen­tres and cam­paign­ing groups – although unfor­tu­nate­ly there were slight­ly few­er ven­dors and high­er costs this year, and a more com­mer­cialised atmos­phere than pre­vi­ous­ly: with stalls reflect­ing the social issues con­nect­ed to veg­an­ism being rel­e­gat­ed to out-of-the-way spots in favour of com­pa­nies intent on tap­ping into the bur­geon­ing veg­an mar­ket. Still, a some­what more grass­roots veg­an fayre is planned for Bath in late Summer/early Sep­tem­ber, so keep your eyes peeled.

http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, email bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com