Category: Unnecessary Developments

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #20
free/donation
Mar 09

“News and abuse from Bath and beyond”

Somer Ten­ants Do ‘Ave ‘Em

Ever got that sink­ing feel­ing that your land­lord is a lit­tle more con­cerned with cash than your well­be­ing? That must be the feel­ing amongst Somer ten­ants who now face a well-above-infla­tion rent hike of 7.5%. Somer’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion? They say that their rent is below the local aver­age, and that they need the mon­ey for main­te­nance work. Hmm… A cou­ple of points spring to mind here that may go some way to debunk­ing Somer’s greedy lit­tle lies. One, being a sup­pos­ed­ly social hous­ing trust, specif­i­cal­ly set up for peo­ple on low-to-no incomes, hav­ing a low­er than aver­age rent rate is noth­ing to boast about – it is the sole func­tion of Somer to pro­vide low cost hous­ing for Bath res­i­dents after all. Their claim to pro­vide “low­er than region­al aver­age” rent also falls down when a brief look at local prop­er­ty web­sites reveals the region­al aver­age month­ly rent for a 2 bed­room flat to be a whop­ping £894.00! In an area with a far high­er than usu­al (you might say dis­gust­ing­ly high) per­cent­age of toffs, the rent is obvi­ous­ly going to be wild­ly beyond the bud­get of the aver­age per­son in social hous­ing. Somer also claims to need the addi­tion­al rent mon­ey for main­te­nance work. Okay, this sounds rea­son­able, but should that cash be sucked from the pock­ets of res­i­dents or from the cof­fers of Somer’s direc­tors? A recent advert to recruit anoth­er direc­tor to Somer reveals a £125,000 annu­al salary (plus bonus­es, plus 10% car allowance) – so who best should shell out for the work? And what have our brave Coun­cil done to come to our aid? Don Fos­ter – as well his oth­er admit­ted­ly urgent duties of pos­ing for the local press with mouth­fuls of banana (what are you good for?) – has asked Somer to intro­duce the hike over two years instead of one. We’ll, we’ve got news for you Don­ny boy, whether they ram it home hard, or slide it in gen­tly, we’re still get­ting screwed! With the reces­sion wors­en­ing, Somer have once again showed that they val­ue prof­it over peo­ple and that the Coun­cil pri­ori­tis­es busi­ness inter­ests over Bath res­i­dents. If we want fair rent, it looks like we’ll have to fight for it our­selves, and not rely on Dodgy Don’s das­tard­ly deals with degen­er­ate direc­tors to den­i­grate dwellings.

On a sim­i­lar note, it turns out that the equal­ly dodgy Night­stone hous­ing asso­ci­a­tion are lean­ing on elder­ly res­i­dents on Wal­cot Street to move out, as they want to bump up the rent and lure in young pro­fes­sion­als instead. But the res­i­dents are still refus­ing to budge – we’ll keep you post­ed.

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Somer-tenants-face‑7–35-rent-rise/article-725102-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/slip-ups-banana-record-attempt/article-752574-detail/article.html

Game On!

Whilst big busi­ness and the state claimed “We did­n’t know” when the eco­nom­ic col­lapse kicked in last year, any­body with half a brain could see the reces­sion com­ing from miles away. Maybe all these wealthy cap­i­tal­ists thought it was just a game. Well now it is: BAN presents the ‘It’s Not My Respon­si­bil­i­ty’ game on Sat­ur­day the 14th March! The game is played with two teams, one rep­re­sent­ing lib­er­ty, and the oth­er rep­re­sent­ing well-dressed big busi­ness and the state. The game is played with pre-pro­vid­ed big bal­loons, and the idea is to bounce away the respon­si­bil­i­ty bal­loons – (Boo! Hiss!) Cred­it Crunch, Bank­rupt­cy, Unem­ploy­ment, Sur­veil­lance, Com­pe­ti­tion, Bailiffs – whilst shar­ing the bal­loons rep­re­sent­ing the more anar­chic side of life – Free­dom, Com­mu­ni­ty, Coop­er­a­tion, Eth­i­cal Liv­ing, Fun, Courage… The more peo­ple the mer­ri­er, so come and join this cre­ative oppor­tu­ni­ty to share wis­dom with the peo­ple of Bath, and the odd tourist. Meet at the FreeShop stall out­side the Pump Rooms on Stall Street Sat­ur­day at 1.30pm, and let the games com­mence at 2pm. Bring musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of play­ful­ness, and pom-poms to cheer on your side. Oh, and dress to impress!

Sum­mit For The Week­end

In a few weeks’ time, the lead­ers of the world’s rich­est 19 coun­tries, plus del­e­gates from all EU states, will be meet­ing in Lon­don to dis­cuss deep­en­ing the glob­al reces­sion. And as it is get­ting more and more obvi­ous that it is them and their fat­cat and banker bud­dies who have got us into this mess, we’ll be there to meet them! The week of action kicks off with the ‘Put Peo­ple First’ march on Sat­ur­day the 28th. Meet­ing at 11am at the Embank­ment, it calls for “jobs, jus­tice and cli­mate” and is shap­ing up to be pret­ty huge. The demo will con­sist of thou­sands of peo­ple who’ve had just enough of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’, as well as the usu­al sus­pects: social­ists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, trade union­ists and anar­chists. This will be fol­lowed up by sev­er­al mid­week events, start­ing with ‘Storm The Banks’: start­ing at 11am on Wednes­day the 1st of April, four simul­ta­ne­ous protests will make their way into the heart of London’s finan­cial dis­tricts, where some will par­ty, some will protest and some will be a lit­tle bit naugh­ti­er! There’s room enough for all forms of dis­sent — peace­ful pro­test­ers, direct action enthu­si­asts, expe­ri­enced and inex­pe­ri­enced pro­tes­tors alike. Towards the end of the event, the Net­work for Cli­mate Action have called for a camp to be set up in the finan­cial dis­trict to oppose the car­bon-dri­ven econ­o­my that led to this reces­sion – bring a sleep­ing bag, food, and sense of adven­ture, ‘cos this one’s not to be missed! The fol­low­ing day will see a series of protests around the venue of the G20 sum­mit (the ExCeL Cen­tre), dur­ing which some will attempt to block the del­e­gates out, some will try to get in, and oth­ers will hold a ral­ly. The actions are look­ing to be pret­ty dynam­ic, so if you’re feel­ing pissed of at the state we’re in, then this is the event for you. Peo­ple will be trav­el­ling to all of the events from Bath, so to find some­one to trav­el down with, drop Bath Activist Net­work an email to the usu­al address. What will you tell your grand­kids when they ask you where you were when the rev­o­lu­tion start­ed? (Not up late slav­ing over two-bit rad­i­cal news rags, we hope!)

http://www.g‑20meltdown.org/
http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/
http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1084&Itemid=1

Tak­ing Lib­er­ties Back

On Sun­day the 22nd of March (a week lat­er than usu­al, for those who’re pay­ing atten­tion), the lat­est in the series of ‘Bub­bling Under’ film screen­ings will roll at the Porter Cel­lar on George Street, from 1pm. This month’s film, pre­sent­ed by Bris­tol Indy­media, will be ‘The Take’: in the wake of Argenti­na’s dra­mat­ic eco­nom­ic col­lapse of 2001, Latin Amer­i­ca’s most pros­per­ous mid­dle class sud­den­ly found itself wan­der­ing a ghost town of aban­doned fac­to­ries and mass unem­ploy­ment. The For­ja auto plant lay dor­mant too, until its for­mer employ­ees decid­ed to take it back, and refused to leave! Fac­ing off against boss­es, bankers and a whole sys­tem that sees their beloved fac­to­ries as noth­ing more than scrap met­al for sale, the work­ers are part of a dar­ing new grass­roots move­ment of work­ers who occu­py bank­rupt busi­ness­es and cre­ate jobs and viable futures in the ruins of crum­bling economies – it remains to be seen whether Batho­ni­ans will fol­low suit! Direct­ed by jour­nal­ist Avi Lewis and writer Nao­mi Klein.

http://www.thetake.org/index.cfm?page_name=argentina_hostpry_timeline

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

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

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 14th March, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 14 Mar, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, email broad­land­sor­chard­share [at] googlemail.com or phone 07532 472 256

Reclaim­ing Pub­lic Space street par­ty, Sat­ur­day 14th March, 2–3pm, base of Mil­som Street

Nation­al Squat Meet 2009, Sat­ur­day 14th – Sun­day 15th March, some­where in Bris­tol!, FTI near­er the time site or call 07790073015

‘Build­ing Bridges in the Sum­mer of Rage,’ Wednes­day 18th March, 7.30pm, Kebele, 14 Robert­son Road, Bris­tol: dis­cus­sion on anar­chist iden­ti­ty and pub­lic engage­ment: shar­ing ideas and tac­tics for mak­ing anar­chism more acces­si­ble and vis­i­ble. Free/donation.

‘ Garbage War­rior’ screen­ing, Thurs­day 19th March, 7.30pm, upstairs at the Cork, West­gate Street, dona­tion entry

Sol­i­dar­i­ty pick­et with EDO Decom­mis­sion­er defen­dants on remand in prison, Sat­ur­day 21st March, 3pm, meet at cor­ner of Cam­bridge and Glouces­ter Road, Bris­tol, bring fly­ers, plac­ards, ban­ners and noise­mak­ers: http://decommisioners.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/resistin…rime
Send let­ters of sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty to the 2 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers: Robert Alford VP 7552 HMP Lewes , 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sus­sex, BN7 1EA; Eli­ja Smith VP 7551 HMP Bris­tol, 19 Cam­bridge Rd, Hor­field, BS7 8PS;
See here for info on writ­ing to the pris­on­ers:
http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/things-to-do…mand/

Bub­bling Under screen­ing, Sun­day 22th March, 1–4pm, Porter Cel­lar bar, George Street

‘The Age of Stu­pid’ eco film screen­ings, Sun­day 22nd – Tues­day 24th March, 6pm, 8.30pm & 1pm, Lit­tle The­atre, £6.90 entry

Greek Rebel­lion Info Tour, Fri­day 27th March, 7.30pm, Kebele, 14 Robert­son Rd, Bris­tol

‘Put Peo­ple First’ march, Sat­ur­day 28th March, 11am, Lon­don, http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair 09 punk ben­e­fit gig, Sun­day 29th March, 7pm, The Junc­tion, Stokes Croft, £5, with Cross-Stitched Eyes, the A‑Heads and Jesus Bruis­er

‘Green Light’ lec­ture on wind pow­er, Tues­day 31st March, 7pm, BRLSI, 16–18 Queen Square, £3 waged, £1.50 unwaged

Storm The Banks car­ni­val, Wednes­day 1st April, 11am, Lon­don, http://www.g‑20meltdown.org/

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

Anti-G20 protests, Thurs­day 2nd April, ExCeL cen­tre, Lon­don, http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1084&Itemid=1

‘Chris Carls­son in Con­ver­sa­tion,’ Fri­day 3rd April, 7.30pm, St Wer­burghs Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Hor­ley Road, Bris­tol, talk by the author of ‘Now­topia’, a founder of crit­i­cal mass bike-ins, mem­ber of San Fran­cis­co rad­i­cal his­to­ry group, http://www.nowtopia.org

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

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 8th April, 8.30pm, the Rum­mer, Grand Parade

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 9th April, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade

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

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

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

‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: From Poll Tax Rebel­lion to Reces­sion Resis­tance’ talk and film, Thurs­day 23rd April, 7.30pm, The Cube cin­e­ma, Dove Street South, Bris­tol

World Day for Lab Ani­mals march, Sat­ur­day 25th April, Hyde Park, Lon­don, coach leav­ing Bath £10n waged, £8 unwaged, info@wdail.org to book place

The­o­ry Cor­ner: Safe­ty Or Snob­bery? B&NES vs. NFA Round 3

Last week, the Chron­i­cle gave front page to the sto­ry of a young woman ASBO’d out of Bath for three years, the third home­less per­son to be sim­i­lar­ly eject­ed in as many months. Yet how much of a threat is the home­less com­mu­ni­ty to the rest of the city’s pop­u­la­tion? Are they thiev­ing, anti-social and threat­en­ing like the Coun­cil, or are they on the receiv­ing end of B&NES syco­phan­tic dri­ve to sweep away any­thing ‘unde­sir­able’ from the eyes of the wealthy? And before we start with the Dai­ly Mail-esque cries of “it’s their own fault,” sta­tis­tics show that the vast major­i­ty of home­less have been the vic­tims of domes­tic or sex­u­al abuse at a young age, or have served in the armed forces, spat out with­out the skills to inte­grate when they cease being use­ful killers. In this journalist’s expe­ri­ence, I’ve had next to no trou­ble with Bath’s home­less, and only ever once have been threat­ened. There are how­ev­er groups that I have often been made to feel unsafe by – those peo­ple who fol­low the accept­able con­ven­tions of suc­cess­ful soci­ety, who get ham­mered in a bar or club ever week­end before spilling out onto the pic­turesque Geor­gian streets to puke, threat­en passers­by and fight the ear­ly hours away. So why is it the home­less who bear the brunt of B&NES’ right­eous wrath, rather than the bet­ter off, drunk­en lit­tle daddy’s boys?

Well, those who choose to get pissed up in bars and clubs pour their pay­pack­ets into Bath’s econ­o­my. They’re maybe not vis­i­bly dif­fer­ent from you and I, and they fol­low more accept­able out­lets for anti-social behav­iour than Bath’s street dwellers. So a mes­sage to the lit­tle fas­cist gate­keep­ers in office who think it’s okay to decide who stays and who goes: the home­less aren’t a threat and they’re not ver­min. You may not like them, or like see­ing them, but that’s your frag­ile sen­si­bil­i­ties being offend­ed rather than your well­be­ing. B&NES are not expelling the poor for your safe­ty or mine, they’re pur­su­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion to impress the tourists and keep this look­ing like a her­itage city, what­ev­er that is. The Council’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’ pol­i­cy is noth­ing short of clas­sist dis­crim­i­na­tion that they get away with because chunks of the pop­u­la­tion view those poor­er than they as some unde­sir­able ‘oth­er’, scared of a stereo­type rather than fact. Until we address the fun­da­men­tal prob­lems at the root of our soci­ety, rather than allow­ing those at the top to bul­ly and vic­timise those in need of sol­i­dar­i­ty, things can only get worse.

And for Sonya: until we sweep the bureau­crats out of our city, don’t let the bas­tards grind you down.

South West Women Reclaim The Night

On Fri­day the 20th of Feb­ru­ary the streets of Bris­tol were brought to life when 300 women marched in sol­i­dar­i­ty to demand safer streets and the right to roam at night with­out fear. The march was won­der­ful­ly colour­ful and com­prised a sam­ba band, bel­ly dancers and females, (and some males) of all ages. The response of onlook­ers was very pos­i­tive and was often joined by bystanders. The march last­ed for two hours and was fol­lowed by speech­es, fundrais­ing and aware­ness-rais­ing stalls and music at the Trin­i­ty Cen­tre in Lawrence Hill.
This was organ­ised with the inten­tion of achiev­ing three key goals.

First­ly, improve­ments in rape con­vic­tion rates: alarm­ing­ly, the con­vic­tion rate of rape cas­es is in decline, being only 4.2% in Avon and Som­er­set, high­light­ing yet anoth­er major prob­lem with the judi­cial sys­tem. Sec­ond­ly, the event sought to obtain vol­un­teers and fund­ing for the Bris­tol Rape Cri­sis Cen­tre (email info [at] bristolrapecrisis.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion). And third­ly, the event also addressed the fact that, whilst sex edu­ca­tion is taught wide­ly in schools, there is still a dis­tinct lack of sup­port and edu­ca­tion avail­able to young­sters on respect­ful rela­tion­ships and safe, con­sen­su­al sex. Incen­tives for such sup­port in schools are advo­cat­ed by var­i­ous organ­i­sa­tions like Wom­en’s Aid, and the Nation­al Children’s Bureau, whose cam­paign ‘Beyond Biol­o­gy’ seeks to help young peo­ple pre­pare for the issues they will face as they grow up. If you would like to encour­age your local school to take this issue more seri­ous­ly, a mod­el let­ter is avail­able through the fol­low­ing link: http://www.bristolfeministnetwork.com/activism.html.

All in all, the event was a great suc­cess and will hope­ful­ly bring women a step clos­er to the free­dom they con­tin­ue to fight for.

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: 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.

Can’t Pay, Shouldn’t Pay

As the reces­sion con­tin­ues to bite, a group in Bath have had an ear­ly tan­gi­ble suc­cess in their effort to stop the work­ing class bear­ing the brunt of an upper class cri­sis. A Bath res­i­dent approached the group’s reg­u­lar ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ stall in White­way as a sud­den job cut had left the fam­i­ly strug­gling and unable to pay Coun­cil Tax. Good ol’ B&NES did the decent thing and imme­di­ate­ly resort­ed to court and repos­ses­sion threats. For­tu­nate­ly, the campaign’s legal team were able to inter­vene, stop the court action, and get repay­ments fixed at a rea­son­able, humane lev­el. A small start, of course, and it’s going to be a long fight, but the White­way group have expe­ri­enced solic­i­tors, a high lev­el of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, and a will­ing­ness to put bailiffs in their place, wher­ev­er that might be. If you know some­one hav­ing prob­lems with bailiffs, or have any infor­ma­tion on the activ­i­ties, move­ments or where­abouts of these par­a­sites, you can con­tact the cam­paign con­fi­den­tial­ly on resist­bailiffs [at] yahoo.co.uk, or give them a call on 07794 774938.

Bird Abusers Get Cocky

After a slight lull in the local anti-foie gras cam­paign (at least we had one issue off) – caused by the scum being dri­ven under­ground by spir­it­ed protests – some opti­misti­cal­ly-called restau­ra­teurs decid­ed to stick their heads back above the para­pet. Appar­ent­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the reces­sion has yet to fin­ish them off, the masochists at Beau­jo­lais, off Queen Square, have placed the ‘del­i­ca­cy’ back on the menu. Not con­tent with attract­ing the inevitable noisy con­tin­gent of ani­mal rights activists to a series of demos out­side their premis­es, they’ve also decid­ed to charge enough that most of their cus­tomers will prob­a­bly be join­ing the demo once they see the bill… If you’re one of the rare minor­i­ty of locals who haven’t yet been hand­ed a leaflet about foie gras, it’s a pate made from duck or goose liv­er. But to get the per­fect tex­ture, the unfor­tu­nate birds spend the last 12 weeks of their lives in bat­tery cages, being force-fed through a tube shoved down their throats, until their dis­eased liv­ers swell to ten times the nat­ur­al size. It’s ille­gal to pro­duce in the UK, but EU laws allow posh-poseur restau­rants to acquire the slop, dodgy black mar­ket-style, and sell it on at a huge mark-up to the crowds of wealthy aris­to-wannabes who throng Bath cen­tre in the evenings. And so, the first in a short series of week­ly demos will be hap­pen­ing soon out­side a Beau­jo­lais near you. Save the birds! Starve the rich! After all, what else is there to do on a Fri­day night?

www.banfoiegras.org.uk

Off The Map, But Still Squat­ting The Lot

In a fol­low-up to last month, two days after the ille­gal evic­tion of a squat­ted prop­er­ty in Twer­ton, mem­bers of the Squat­ters Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion of Bath retook their home. Despite the first legal hash-job, and Net­work Rail’s inep­ti­tude in secur­ing the build­ing or indeed the occu­piers’ pos­ses­sions with­in, the SCABs report that they are cur­rent­ly safe and sound back in from the win­ter rain, wind, snow (and what­ev­er else the con­fused cli­mate is pass­ing off as weath­er), and work has re-com­menced erad­i­cat­ing damp and dry rot from the inte­ri­or of the his­toric build­ing, replac­ing dam­aged beams, ren­der­ing the sab­o­taged pow­er sup­ply safe, and clear­ing debris. Indeed, whilst Net­work Rail is more inter­est­ed in piss­ing mon­ey away on bailiffs and illic­it prop­er­ty empire expan­sion than actu­al­ly see­ing to the work of main­tain­ing its sub­stan­dard and over­priced rail net­work, the occu­pants are get­ting down to the duty of clean­ing away the tan­gled foliage on the out­side of the build­ing, that near­by res­i­dents had been demand­ing for years. In the mean­time, fur­ther threats of police raids were made on the 18th of last month, but a six­teen-strong resis­tance demo and com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters per­suad­ed bul­ly­ish British Trans­port Police to no-show.

http://www.squatter.org.uk/

The Dai­ly New Tesco Express

They breed like flies, don’t they? No soon­er than the monop­o­lis­ing spoilt brats whee­dle their new store onto Bath­wick Street, but there’s due to be anoth­er one tak­ing over the exist­ing Somer­field in West­on. And they’ve also been upset­ting res­i­dents by apply­ing for a 6am to 11pm liquor license that the spine­less Coun­cil will no doubt grant. Must be déjà vu.

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Concern-Tesco-drinks-licence-bid/article-744662-detail/article.html

BNP Can’t Do That There Here

What’s in a name? Nick Grif­fin, leader of far right nation­al­ist BNP, would have posed the exact same ques­tion on Sun­day the 8th of March, when he was due to talk at a fundrais­ing char­i­ty do for the party’s Euro elec­tions. The BNP are so respectable that they were forced to book the func­tion room of the Park Hotel in Glouces­ter­shire under a false name, as usu­al. How­ev­er, as antifas­cists organ­ised to gate­crash, the hotel itself was tipped off as to nature of their hate­mon­ger­ing guests and can­celled, as did their back-up venue. So, instead they all went home, tails between legs. Despite the party’s new dri­ve towards legit­i­ma­cy – “we’re not racist, but” – the ongo­ing free ‘Soho Road to the Pun­jab’ exhi­bi­tion in Bris­tol, cel­e­brat­ing 50 years of Bhangra music & cul­ture in the UK (sit­u­at­ed in Cen­tral Library off Col­lege Green), has recent­ly been attacked by racists who stole exhi­bi­tion mate­ri­als and left behind a BNP call­ing card. Equal­ly com­pro­mis­ing the party’s be-suit­ed facade is the fact that many high-up mem­bers of the group, such as for­mer chief lieu­tenant Tony Lecomber, dab­ble in assault, explo­sives, arson, assault and even the odd attempt­ed con­tract killing. Fun for all the fam­i­ly, eh?

http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2009/03/anger-as-bnp‑l.…html
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/the-real-bnp/BNP terroris…s.php

Ero­sion Of Civ­il Lib­er­ties: Case #324

Since the 16th of last month, the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000 was amend­ed by sec­tion 76 of the Counter-Ter­ror­ism Act 2008, now mak­ing it ille­gal to take pho­tos, or indeed to “elic­it infor­ma­tion” about police intel­li­gence ser­vices, or the mil­i­tary, which might be “use­ful to a per­son… prepar­ing an act of ter­ror­ism.” Which seems okay, if you lived in a par­al­lel world where the def­i­n­i­tion of ter­ror doesn’t get stretched to the point of ridicu­lous­ness where leafleters, CND Quak­ers or let­ter-writ­ers are con­sid­ered ter­ror­ist: the pen may be might­i­er than the sword, but it’s hard­ly on the scale of nail­bombs. Pre­vi­ous to this, the pres­ence of cam­eras has often been a use­ful tool for keep­ing police with­in the law, or at least aid­ing in pros­e­cu­tions against them… So remem­ber, gen­tle tourists, don’t acci­den­tal­ly catch a cop­per in your hol­i­day snaps, or you might be one of them for­eign ter­ror­ists, and go down for 10 years.

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=839141

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