Category: South West England

South West Eng­land

Construction site sabotaged

To kick start Bris­tol co-mutiny three vehi­cles were sab­o­taged at a Som­er­set site con­struct­ing unaf­ford­able hous­ing (urban sprawl for the mid­dle class).

In antic­i­pa­tion of the Autonomous Days of Action elec­tron­ic cables were cut and the pierc­ing sound of split hydraulics was endured ren­der­ing the earth destroy­ing machines unus­able.

Social change not cli­mate change!

ALF/ELF

To kick start Bris­tol co-mutiny three vehi­cles were sab­o­taged at a Som­er­set site con­struct­ing unaf­ford­able hous­ing (urban sprawl for the mid­dle class).

In antic­i­pa­tion of the Autonomous Days of Action elec­tron­ic cables were cut and the pierc­ing sound of split hydraulics was endured ren­der­ing the earth destroy­ing machines unus­able.

Social change not cli­mate change!

ALF/ELF

CoMutiny on it’s way — are you heading to Bristol? 12th-20th September

Less than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

Co-Mutiny final posterLess than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The pro­vi­sion­al CoMutiny timetable is avail­able now. There is more time to add any events/actions/skillshares/performances/happenings so please send the infor­ma­tion to: bristolcomutinyworkshops@riseup.net

http://comutiny.wordpress.com/

RBS glued shut by the ELF

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is one of the largest investors and prof­i­teers of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. They destroy nat­ur­al habi­tats, there­fore unbal­anc­ing the ecos­phere, by using geno­ci­dal meth­ods against the species pop­u­lat­ing the Earth.

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is one of the largest investors and prof­i­teers of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. They destroy nat­ur­al habi­tats, there­fore unbal­anc­ing the ecos­phere, by using geno­ci­dal meth­ods against the species pop­u­lat­ing the Earth.

Whilst hold­ing shares in arms deal­er ITT, who sup­port­ed the Nazis and now make wars pos­si­ble in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pales­tine, RBS are also the largest financier of the arms indus­try, hav­ing loaned £44.6 bil­lion in the last ten years and hold­ing £36.4 mil­lion shares.

In response to the call for action against the arms trade, in the run up to the DESi arms fair, their locks were glued shut in Som­er­set.

ELF

EF! summer gathering — exact location, travel info & updated workshop programme announced; coal-blighted communities visit

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

EF!-rabbit-in-canoeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

WHO
Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of what we do, whether we’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open­cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions at a low impact eco-liv­ing camp organ­ised non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly

WHAT
Plan­ning actions and cam­paigns, meet­ing and shar­ing skills with oth­ers who care. Over 80 train­ing work­shops plus games and evening fun:
• Learn skills for direct action. Tree Climb­ing, Ori­en­teer­ing, Secu­ri­ty for activists, Legal brief­ing, Escap­ing pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions, street medics – first aid, self defence, Boat blockad­ing using kayaks, radio pro­ce­dures and rock abseil­ing.
• Net­work your cam­paign against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. open­cast min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, agro­fu­els, dam-build­ing, hunt-sab­bing, cli­mate actions, oil pipeline resis­tance, road stop­ping, anti-whal­ing, squat­ting, rain­for­est pro­tec­tion.
• Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco­cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of exploita­tion.
• Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing, field trips and hands-on work.

YOU
We are all crew! This is your gath­er­ing come pre­pared to help run the camp and con­tribute to the pro­gramme. Con­tact us in advance with ideas for work­shops, help with organ­is­ing the gath­er­ing, come ear­ly to help set­up the site or stay on for a cou­ple of days for take­down.
If you can help get in touch!

BRING
Bring tent and sleep­ing bag. You can either cook food for your­self or for £4 per day chip in with col­lec­tive cook­ing of deli­cious veg­an organ­ic food. There’ll be qui­et sleep­ing areas, toi­lets and run­ning water, a children’s space and spaces for work­shops and info stalls.
Veg­gies will pro­vide veg­an cake and snacks. Chil­dren and young adults wel­come with sub­si­dized meals.

Arrive Tues pm. Work­shops from Wed am until Sun pm.

Loads of cam­paigns are tak­ing to the water in defence of the plan­et, like at Ross­port where Shell are try­ing to lay onshore pipelines and the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta at last sum­mers cli­mate camp. This sum­mer’s EF! gath­er­ing will be build­ing on these tac­tics with train­ing in water based actions.

An excur­sion to vis­it com­mu­ni­ties in the North East threat­ened by an expan­sion of coal min­ing on Mon­day 24th August. Vis­it beau­ti­ful val­leys and strong spir­it­ed com­mu­ni­ties and make links for ongo­ing resis­tance.

We aim to make the site as acces­si­ble as we can please con­tact us in advance if you have spe­cial needs, ques­tions or con­cerns.

WHERE
The site is near in the Lake Dis­trict, Cum­bria. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith and there is a bus ser­vice to the site, there are car and liv­ing vehi­cle spaces out­side the camp.

Dogs: We are for­tu­nate this year to be able to accom­mo­date well behaved own­ers with dogs on leads but think about whether your dog will feel com­fort­able in work­shops. Please call before­hand so we know num­bers.

Cost: £20 — £30 accord­ing to what you can afford. We are not for prof­it all extra cash goes to help fund next year. Under 14’s free.

For more info con­tact us at :
summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk
www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Villagers stage Oldbury anti-nuclear protest

Direct action by local res­i­dents against new E.On / RWE npow­er nuclear pow­er plant planned in Old­bury, Glouces­ter­shire.

Vil­lagers stage Old­bury anti-nuclear protest
August 4 2009

Vil­lagers liv­ing near the pos­si­ble site of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion near Bris­tol staged a five-hour protest to pre­vent con­trac­tors get­ting on to the land.

Direct action by local res­i­dents against new E.On / RWE npow­er nuclear pow­er plant planned in Old­bury, Glouces­ter­shire.

Vil­lagers stage Old­bury anti-nuclear protest
August 4 2009

Vil­lagers liv­ing near the pos­si­ble site of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion near Bris­tol staged a five-hour protest to pre­vent con­trac­tors get­ting on to the land.

Res­i­dents of Shep­per­dine, near Thorn­bury, blocked the access road to a field near the exist­ing Old­bury atom­ic plant until they were final­ly asked to move by police.

The site is one of a num­ber around the coun­try put for­ward by the Gov­ern­ment as a pos­si­ble loca­tion for one of the new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear sta­tions.

Pow­er firm Eon has acquired land at Shep­per­dine with anoth­er com­pa­ny RWE and wants to build a £4‑billion sta­tion.

The process involved in get­ting per­mis­sion will last for many years but as part of the ini­tial site devel­op­ment work, small-scale ground inves­ti­ga­tion and seis­mic stud­ies were due to have start­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing on the Shep­per­dine land to help deter­mine the type and best loca­tion for the foun­da­tions.

But when con­trac­tors from Almonds­bury firm Hydrock arrived with lor­ries, they found their way blocked by the pro­test­ers.

About 13 res­i­dents occu­pied the lane lead­ing to a field that has already been turned into a com­pound.

They said they had two con­cerns at this stage – whether per­mis­sion had been giv­en by the British Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey (BGS) for the drilling to take place and whether South Glouces­ter­shire Coun­cil had giv­en the all-clear for the com­pound and park­ing area to be cre­at­ed.

Pro­test­er Reg Illing­worth said: “Ulti­mate­ly, we don’t want a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion here.

“But this protest is sole­ly about per­mis­sion for the pre­lim­i­nary work and the com­pound, which has already been built.

“We want to know if con­sent has been giv­en and if we see that in writ­ing, then we will stand aside.”

At one point, four police­men were at the scene but that was lat­er cut to two.

Act­ing sergeant Steve Wil­son said: “It’s a peace­ful protest and we are here to ensure it remains that way.”

There was also a debate through­out the morn­ing about whether the road being blocked was part of the pub­lic high­way or pri­vate­ly owned.

When it was con­firmed it was a pub­lic road, the res­i­dents moved aside and the Hydrock lor­ries went through.

Alan Pin­der, of South Glouces­ter­shire Friends of the Earth, was among the demon­stra­tors.

He said: “We want to ensure Eon is going through the prop­er process.

“You have to do every­thing by the book if you are going to run a nuclear pow­er sta­tion.”

Eon spokes­woman Emi­ly High­more said: “While we respect the right of peo­ple to protest, we would like to reas­sure every­one the ground inves­ti­ga­tion works and estab­lish­ment of a con­trac­tor’s com­pound have been car­ried out with the full knowl­edge of South Glouces­ter­shire Coun­cil and the BGS.

“It’s still very ear­ly days but we’re com­mit­ted to keep­ing every­one informed of our activ­i­ties and would urge any­one with any ques­tions or con­cerns to get in touch.”

BGS spokesman Clive Mitchell said the organ­i­sa­tion had to be noti­fied about drilling of holes deep­er than 30m for water abstrac­tion and min­er­al explo­ration but not site inves­ti­ga­tion.

South Glouces­ter­shire Coun­cil spokesman Ryan Skeets said: “The coun­cil was made aware of inten­tions by Eon to car­ry out some tem­po­rary ground inves­ti­ga­tion works that appear to be cov­ered by per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights and there­fore would not require pri­or plan­ning per­mis­sion.

“The coun­cil will mon­i­tor these works to ensure they are being car­ried out in line with these inten­tions.”

London Rally Supports Vestas Workers — 6 Aug

The Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

London Rally in solidarity with Vestas workersThe Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

The ral­ly out­side the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change in White­hall on Thurs­day evening start­ed in light rain, but it was pour­ing by the time it fin­ished. Despite the weath­er, the 80 or so present lis­tened intent­ly to speech­es from a Ves­tas work­er, trade union speak­ers from the RMT, PCW and Bil­ly Hayes of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union, as well as for­mer Labour Sec­re­tary of State for the Envi­ron­ment Michael Meach­er MP and Green Par­ty GLA mem­ber Jen­ny Jones, who arrived at the event by bicy­cle.

Despite the gov­ern­ment hav­ing spent thou­sands of bil­lions prop­ping up the banks it is unwill­ing to put up the much small­er amounts need­ed to sup­port green indus­tries. The prob­lems of Ves­tas are indeed very much of the Gov­ern­men­t’s mak­ing, with its fail­ure to put it’s mon­ey where its mouth is on green ener­gy poli­cies, rely­ing on hot air rather than sup­port for wind pow­er and oth­er alter­na­tive ener­gies.

Mak­ing wind tur­bines is a prof­itable busi­ness, and will become even more so, but unless action is tak­en — such as nation­al­is­ing Ves­tas, at least (as with the banks) on a tem­po­rary basis, the UK will be buy­ing them from abroad rather than mak­ing mon­ey sell­ing them to the rest of the world.

This sto­ry is also on Demotix, and I’ll put more pic­tures on My Lon­don Diary next week:
http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2009/08/aug.htm

Bristol Solidarity With Vesta Occupation

A wide selec­tion of peo­ple: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, Respect Par­ty, Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, FBU, UNITE, Decom­mis­sion­ers and Bris­tol Co-Mutiny took part in a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo Out­side the Envi­ron­ment Agency, today, Tues­day 4th August.

Bristol solidarity demo for VestasA wide selec­tion of peo­ple: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, Respect Par­ty, Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, FBU, UNITE, Decom­mis­sion­ers and Bris­tol Co-Mutiny took part in a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo Out­side the Envi­ron­ment Agency, today, Tues­day 4th August.

On Tues­day 4th August, pro­test­ers descend­ed on the Bris­tol Head­quar­ters of the Envi­ron­ment Agency in Aztec West car­ry­ing wind­mills and ban­ners to sup­port the action of Ves­tas work­ers who have occu­pied the St Cross wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight for the last two weeks because of plans to close the site with the imme­di­ate loss of 600 jobs

The work­ers are ask­ing that the gov­ern­ment — who have pledged £100bn towards renew­able ener­gy — nation­alise the fac­to­ry to save it from shut­ting. On the 4th August the Ves­tas com­pa­ny are going to court to evict the work­ers.

Around 20 peo­ple turned out to sup­port the protest and they hand­ed out fly­ers to staff and chat­ted to them about the Ves­ta Occu­pa­tion. Many of the Envi­ron­men­tal Agency staff sup­port­ed the protest and under­stood the con­cerns of the pro­tes­tors and the rea­son­ing for the Ves­ta occu­pa­tion.

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

Car tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

People stop logging trucksCar tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

A report back from the Coal Car­a­van, plus info about the com­mu­ni­ties along its route.

Court news — what hap­pened after pro­test­ers planned to shut a coal-fired pow­er plant, and climbed atop a train, plus handy Secu­ri­ty Tips for Going on Actions.

Leav­ing it All in the Ground — news of glob­al fights against the min­ing of gold, cop­per, baux­ite and alu­mini­um — blockad­ing, torch­ing and night-time pix­ieing.

A View from the Trees — a sto­ry from our eco-cen­tric cousins. And indige­nous Peru­vians fight on against the whole­sale onslaught on our world.

And a round-up of your favourite pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions — G20, SmashE­DO and Athen­ian rub­bish dumps!

Read, down­load and print it here, sub­scribe so you get it direct to your door, or look out for it at a cli­mate camp near you.

If you want to be list­ed or get a bunch of them to dis­trib­ute, please get in touch.

Share your inspi­ra­tional news at EF! Action Reports, and it’ll find it’s way into your very own print­ed EF!AU, in good old black and white print.

Bath Bomb #23 Out Now

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 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