Culture of Capitalism - “WELL, what a year it’s been!” says Mike Storey

They want to privatise the city centre streets??? What the f***? Can you say a bit more about that please? Does this mean the whole city centre will be one big shopping centre, where no one can hand out leaflets, like a shopping centre?

It would seem that George Orwell was right when he said Big brother was is watching you. Do you know who big brother is? Well it’s the middle class council officers and the middle class RSL officers, who are in the process of stealing our public, owned (that means we own them because we are the public) council houses of us. Why can’t they give the houses to us?

Us working class folk will have to stop thinking that the middle classes don’t exist. Guess what they do and they are up to their old tricks again. They are shafting us working class folk and making our lives a misery. Next thing you know they will expect us to tip our caps to them when they walk past us on the street. Good on yer Kie, but when are us working class guys going to get together and cause some agro for these RSL’s and the council. No good talking. Working class tenants must unite and make contact with other working class tenants and have dialogue.

privatise the city centre streets
22.01.2004 01:52

They want to privatise the city centre streets??? What the f***? Can you say a bit more about that please? Does this mean the whole city centre will be one big shopping centre, where no one can hand out leaflets, like a shopping centre?

steve


Well yes... Read the articles on the rest Liverpool Indymedia site, they clearly say that we won't be able to eat in public, won't be allowed to hand out leafets or sell papers, like Socialist News (for us SLPers out there) or organise protest marches through the city centre, skateboard without permission of the private security company. I've experienced this up in Darlington trying to sell the above mentioned newspaper, your told to leave the shopping arcade, so you go outside and they then tell you to exactly what line you've got to cross. Go a set up a tripod in the Albert Dock and you'll be stopped from videoing, myself and some fellow Students were not allowed to film inside the Albert Dock in 1992 because it's privately owned, we were actually making a promo' type video and it was spoilt because we couldn't film inside... "It's a free country?" you hear the beloved lemmings say when reality dawns on them. Yes it looks like most of the city centre is being given to the Duke of Westminster, 30+ streets if I recall off the top of my head. I don't suppose we'll get one of those rigged 'referendums' the council likes to run when it wants the public to agree to their already pursued agenda, this will mean the remaining market traders will now be kicked off the streets, in town centres in the rest of the country market stalls are a vibrant addition to the shopping areas.

Kai Andersen

"When are we guy going to get together and cause some agro' for these RSL's and the council..." Say's Mike!

Causing *agro'* Mike is just likely to get us arrested or harrassed by the police, as I was harrassed in Norris Green outside the Cobalt show house and outside the Cobalt temporary office in Fazakerly during April 2002.

Without numbers, we're nothing, nothing at all, but even when we are in sufficient numbers we need trusted leadership who ain't got a hidden agenda. Trusted leaders like Kevin Donnellon (survivor of thalidomide)an SLPer, a guy with short arms and legs, who led the street demo's 'Stop The Traffic' in early 1998 in Bootle and outside Birkenhead town hall against the attack on single parents and disabled people's benefits. When you've got the numbers and *you're disciplined* you've got the power mate. Believe me when you get arrested in the course of protest, then twenty minutes later you're 'unarrested' by the police because the people (well over a hundred) won't let the rush hour traffic move until you are, you feel empowered you feel you can make a difference. We should be organising more of that kind of protest, where ordinary working class people can feel our 'collective' power. Even the police in the van were telling me and my friend that they supported what we're doing because they've got disabled collegues working in offices who can't get around because they're in wheel chairs and they can't protest or complain, that was only after they ignored us at the start trying not to look at us or listen to us, like as if we could hypnotise them with our words or eyes or turn them into communists at the flick of a wrist ((-:

Regarding the harrassment during the Stock Transfer campaign I was on my own those two times, police came and started asking me who I am, my name and address, telling me the people in the show house had complained that I'd stopped people going into their show house (which ain't true) and that I'd been slandering them, which isn't an arrestable offence cos it's a civil action taken through the courts by the rich and powerful when they want to silence their critics. They then told me my car was illegally parked and demanded my name and address to prove it was my car so I was actually obliged after refusing three times already to give them my details. I said what about all those other illegally parked in front of it by the people in the show house, before they left I asked to see their warrant cards/badges ie their police ID, they refused and drove off in their maroon unmarked Ford Sierra. Later gardeners were sent out to mow the lawn just where I was standing, covering me in grass. The fact is I told people to go and have a look at the show house then come and speak to me after they'd seen it, telling them the Cobalt people had sent the police to harrass me, while I was doing nothing wrong. Then I got harrassment off a couple of women (the community traitors) who were under the control of Cobalt, one a former member of a tenant association (led by a houseowner) she knew me well, she starts coming out with a pile of abuse about me not living in Liverpool, not living in the area. I said to her you're chair of this Estate Management Board (EMB) and in the nearly ten years it's been going it hasn't achieved very much has it?

EMBs were another component in the process of pulling public housing to pieces bit by bit, EMBs were talk shops, give the mouthy know-it-alls a small budget the illusion of power and some personal status and they'll lord it up over their neighbours and do the bidding of their enemy willingly, without being elected or being accountable to the local tenants.

Up in Fazakerly I was handing out leaflets outside the Cobalt office and the 'fat cat' lord mayor Jack Spriggs came along I said "so you support this stock transfer then councillor?". His reply was both sides should get equal funding I said but 'we' the opposition get zero funding no offices, no nothing. He went in for his free buffet and drink, then along came the hired TV camera crew and you've got the Chief of LHT talking on camera outside the office I'm shouting 'VOTE NO - VOTE NO' and so he comes over to me and steps towards me in a very threatening manner saying "The cameras aren't here for you". Later a police officer walks by me three times, the final time telling me in a patronsing manner "hope you keep it peaceful" I reply "officer, I don't wanna be giving you an excuse to arrest me and stop me doing what I came here to do, that would be pointless wouldn't it?" I asked the people in the bakery shop, "do the police come along here on the beat very often?" No never... Proving what most of us working class know, the police ain't there when our old folks are mugged at night, they won't come around for two to four hours when we've been burgled, they're just like prison guards in a prisoner of war camp a show of force to contain us and remind us whose got the power. Ever since the Charists in the 1850's they've been there to stop us organising ourselves in our communities and at work, that's the reason for their existence to stop the inevitable 'social uprising' of the working class. But heck just go out and do some working class organisational work, like leafleting and you'll get the police within ten minutes. I had someone else call the police on me while I was trying to get a 100 name petition door-to-door in 1999, I was obviously trying to get the 100 names before this person put through the door the very leaflet I was accusing them of not delivering in time for a AGM, ie the afternoon before the evening meeting. This woman called the police and said I'd pushed her, I didn't even touch her. That was in the Boot Estate so the Tenant Association fuckwits under the crooked leadership of a local house owner got police harrassment on to me, I got police officers at so called public tenants association meetings ordering me to leave meetings or they'll arrest me just for telling the truth or handing our leaflets. I'd love to know how many of these people recall ringing me up to tell me I'm wrong back in 1998/99 when I said "the council have got the money", when I said "when you move out you'll lose your neighbours and friends in your street, because you won't be allowed or able to move back next door to them in the promised new built houses, even if you can afford the rents even". I've even been ordered off a train by British Transport police for handing out leaflets against rail privatisation in Darlington, so anyone with the nice-fluffy illusion that we live in democracy - I'll tell you this "you've never tested it have you?"

So Mike, sure we've got to unite with other working class people and tenants, when I said I was building the SLP back in 1999 I meant it, even while 'fuckwits' were taking it apart piece by piece here in Liverpool, yes we've got to have dialogue which is what this is and I'm always in favour. But without an organisation and leadership we're just going nowhere fast, if we can't gain control of our own 'working class' organisations then we ain't going to gain control over our lives and communities 'collectively' are we?

I recall the low level demo' I quickly organised outside the LHT AGM in September 2002 at the Liverpool Yachting mariner, just myself and two women handing out quickly drafted leaflets, with our SLP banner, I'd faxed the local media, no interest from them, Radio Merseyside reporter rang but wasn't prepared to come down to our demo'. While it didn't go in the direction some might have wanted it to, ie causing ourselves to get arrested by causing a public disturbance or a breach of the peace, it had an impact, it was a show of force it was intimidating in the way we stopped cars and gave people a leaflet, telling them LHT were making decisions at the meeting on our housing, people overwhelmingly sympathised with us. But just imagine if we'd had 10 people there just keeping it lawful the impact that would have had. Trying to get outselves arrested loses us support from the very people we need to gain support from. We have to learn from the mistakes of the past, otherwise we repeat them again and again.

Maybe I'm wrong here Mike? But without the consential and willing support of the people themselves we can't ultimately storm the barricades...

Kai Andersen

go spend a little time here...

Kings Waterfront Development exhibition at the Moat House Hotel, Paradise Street. Wed 28 Jan - Mon 2 Feb (times vary). The flyer states:

"The development of King's Waterfront is vital to Liverpool's ambition to become a Premier European City. The masterplan envisages a vibrant waterfront destination including a Multi-Use Arena, Conference Centre, Apartments, Offices, Hotels, Retail and Lesisure uses together with high quality public spaces - a vision fit for Kings. Please come along and give us your views."

interesting use of capital letters there.

Just a response to Steve, read the duke of westminster article about city centre.
And Kai think your article is really good - but pushing the socialist party cheapens it. Choose which party you want - but indymedia has a policy that indivduals wishing to spread alternative news is cool - but trying to recruite or encourage hiarchial parties is against its policy.
But I think this debate should be well and truly pushed and local people need to be educated on it.
yeah city of culture - using tax payers money to get more money for the rich, ban skateboarders, the homeless, protests and in the end those people living on low income. They are turning the city into a sterile playground for people with money or trying to.

You said:
"Kai, really good article, but do you have to push the
party?

And Kai think your article is really good - but pushing
the socialist party cheapens it. Choose which party you
want - but indymedia has a policy that indivduals wishing
to spread alternative news is cool - but trying to recruite
or encourage hiarchial parties is against its policy."

The letter doesn't mention any party in the body of the
text. I published the 'letter' exactly as it was sent
to the Liverpool Merseymart. The fact is I signed the
letter.

As regards me trying to 'push' any party in the letter
or to recruit?? Fact, I'm not trying to recruit people
to the SLP via Indymedia, you're being paranoid!

As regards discussing the issue that is what I was doing,
so what's the big fuss then?

Kai Andersen

since when was an ice rink an indication of culture? since when did brookside represent liverpool culture? and please, please...grow up and stop calling people yuppies.

I think if we sit back being armchair socialists and say this and that, nothing will change. What we need is to get organised and make a difference. We need to take a stand.

Revolution not Evolution!

I have read the articles on what's happening in and around Liverpool. I find it quite worrying and certainly a threat to the existence of the working classes.
I think the problem is: There are too many armchair Socialists about - What we need, is a revolution not evolutionary progression - We need to make a BIG change if we are to make a society that will benefit everyone -
I really admire the French - When the workforce come out on strike - All other workforces join them and so they win every time - Solidarity, not little socialist groups here there and everywhere. We need to stand UNITED, divided we fall...

James :-)

This is the full article I wrote just after CofC was awarded to Liverpool in Summer 2003.

"out on the Scouse reservations we've heard all this before, we know it won't benefit us"

On Wednesday 4th June 2003 the public announcement eagerly awaited by Liverpool’s power elite and business fat cats was greeted with hysterical joy by them and the selected few at an exclusive city centre location. Mike Storey, Lib-Dem leader of Liverpool City Council and leading member of the city’s power elite was seen on TV news reports with a disgustingly smug grin on his face.

Liverpool was supposedly neck and neck in the bidding race with the Newcastle-Gateshead bid. Liverpool City Council (LCC) spent over £14 million pounds of our money buying the title. Money was spent on a huge propaganda campaign, producing thousands of window stickers, expensive enamel badges, leaflets, signs and all kinds of promotional materials that were displayed across the city and in all council buildings. One of Liverpool’s famous landmarks was decked out with a huge and expensive piece of tacky artwork, which showed John Lennon morphed into a mutated Mona Lisa complete with guitar.

To put the above in context, earlier this year LCC’s director of social services, himself a doctor, had the bare faced cheek to tell carers at a meeting in a Mencap centre that the council couldn’t afford to spend an estimated £16 million to continue free care at council run day-care centres for people with disabilities. Wearing the increasingly obligatory enamel Capital of Culture (CofC) badge he feebly tried to justify the unjustifiable and came under a barrage of tricky questions from an upset but admirable section of our community.

Most working class people in Liverpool are sick of hearing about CofC. Liverpool’s power elite are obsessed with rebranding the city with titles such as Music City, 21st Century City, Liverpool Bay, City of Learning and the most recent “Greater Liverpool”. It’s glossy propaganda and coverup, it’s a conscious denial of the deep poverty which LCC itself has helped to deepen with its obsessive revenue raising policies.

Many of my friends have serious doubts about the benefits of CofC and have said “Why hasn’t Liverpool got a large concert arena for bands or exhibitions?” The other cities competing for CofC such as Birmingham, Newcastle-Gateshead and Cardiff all have concert arenas. The best we’ve got is a tent on the dock front. Liverpool is a city of broken promises and continual betrayals to the public, our city’s only ice skating rink was closed in the mid 1980’s and we still don’t have one. Furthermore there isn’t an olympic sized swimming pool or diving pool in the city now, the LCC closed the last one in 1993. There are no community arts venues in the city centre with affordable prices or access for local artists.

Since the mid 1990’s arts and cultural events organised by local people have become a rarity, the Lib-Dems drastically cut funding since 1998. Events such as the Toxteth community carnival and the Earthbeat ‘free’ music festival which promoted local unsigned bands, brought in national and international musicians and employed local people. To compound the cultural exclusion further LCC cynically cut its funding yet further in 2002 to grassroots art organisations as the title bid was launched.

The issue with culture and arts in Liverpool is the elitist and exclusionary nature of the arts and cultural establishment here. Throughout the 1990’s working class people like myself and friends have been evermore excluded from employment and funding. LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts) was launched by Paul McCartney in the late 1990’s, however talented Scousers make up a token minority of the students or even staff at his elitist money making institute. LIPA is absolutely nothing like the New York institute of the performing arts, known as the ‘fame’ school, which McCartney modelled his project on. Liverpool did have SCOPA (Sandown College Of Performing Arts) which was more like the New York ‘Fame’ school in terms of it being primarily for the people of the city, it was closed in the late 1990’s, the buildings recently demolished to make way for a new Tescos.

In 1993 the European Union (EU) granted Merseyside Objective One (Obj-1) status, due to our levels of poverty, with funds of over £600 million pounds granted, when matched with public and private funds it is close to £2 billion pounds of investment in total. However, all the economic indications show poverty has increased and not been reduced since granting of Obj-1 status to Liverpool and Merseyside. So while Liverpool has never had more money in it, we the working class have never been poorer. A startling figure, more than 60% of adults in Liverpool earn less than £10,000 a year, according to the recent ‘Wealth of the Nation’ survey, with some areas at the bottom of earnings with £9,100 a year. Poverty is most extreme on the outer housing estates with the most disadvantaged still living in what is some of the poorest housing in Europe.

Liverpool pressure group ‘People Not Profit’ (www.peoplenotprofit.co.uk) are rightfully critical of the way public money has simply not reached the people in most need of it and I agree with their analysis of the financial and political corruption here in Liverpool, an article from one of their news sheets stated; “A recent report showed that: architects, surveyors, lawyers, letting agents and specialist consultants are all collecting fees on an unprecedented scale. Meaning the latest flow of money from Europe has not gone to local people to improve our lives, it has gone to people who are already some of the highest earners in Liverpool.”

A tourist (sporting a CofC enamel badge) was telling me “surely it’ll trickle down to benefit the whole community”, I replied “well out on the Scouse reservations we’ve heard all this before, we know it won’t benefit us, because Obj-1 didn’t benefit us and that was granted because of poverty here.” So a Canadian tourist is telling me that gaining CofC will benefit our communities. It’s patronising, we Scousers now get talked down to by tourists after years of being talked down to by out of town middle class students. Also singing the praises of CofC was a poet from St.Helens (near Liverpool) when I said “it won’t benefit us”, she repeated the same trickle down benefit nonsense. I said, “we’ve had Obj-1 funding, it’s not benefitted the poorest communities in Liverpool, it’s actually helped destroy them”, she begrudgingly agreed, saying “I’ve noticed the dereliction on the route I travel into Liverpool.”

I write poetry and have been involved in the local music and arts throughout the 1990’s and have friends who are artists, musicians, comedians, writers, actors and we find it close to impossible to get resources, access to venues, our ideas heard or funded. Many of us are surviving on benefits or low waged employment. We, the local people are the creators of the real culture here in Liverpool, however arts and culture have become evermore elitist and totally middle class dominated, with local working class people excluded from expressing ourselves artistically, creatively and culturally. While funds have been cut to projects run by local people, public funds have been siphoned into prestige projects and thus arts and culture become a tool to aid the insidious social engineering project.

Gaining CofC could also be seen as a celebration of two decades of oppression of Scouse ‘working class’ culture and identity. What’s happening in Liverpool now is similar to what happened to working class communities in London and who were also victims of gentrification and class cleansing in the 1980’s. This insidious social engineering is becoming a seething class issue, for Liverpool’s rich power elite gaining for themselves CofC title was the icing on the cake of gentrification of Liverpool city centre with the accompanying exclusion and expulsion of working class people and communities from the city centre on all levels. CofC was the victory parade of the middle class, yuppies, right wingers, Liberals, big business fat cats and the rich power elite elements here in Liverpool.


TV News reports were talking about the triumph of the ‘Armani suit’ over the ‘Track suit’ an unguarded moment of class prejudice by the BBC reporter, what was meant is that working class people wearing street wear of ‘trackies’ ie track-suits are not welcome in the city centre but middle class - yuppies wearing ‘Armani suits’ are to be fawned over and catered for, this is already a fact. Laughingly, Derek Hatton, former deputy leader of Liverpool City Council during the Trotskyite/Militant Tendency’s leadership in the mid 1980’s, claimed it was the foundation built by his council leadership that gained CofC. How ironic that he’s a noted yuppie & ‘fake’ socialist who favours expensive Armani suits - he was probably closer to expressing the truth than he realised!

Local über-propagandist Roger Philips is the presenter on a daily phone-in show on BBC Radio Merseyside where many voice their opposition to what’s going on in Liverpool and Merseyside. Those who call in have the most reactionary nonsense thrown back at them by Philips. Many of those who’ve rung in clearly haven’t thought out why they’re opposed to CofC, ironically they end up strengthening the self-congratulating power-elite view, however they do represent many who feel completely detached from the decision making processes by LCC, they realise they’re the victims of decisions made behind their backs. Many would question -if they only knew- why £14M was found for buying this title while the council constantly tells us it hasn’t got money to run our essential services. There are suggestions of disloyality to your home city if you oppose or criticise Liverpool getting CofC.

I find myself allied to many people who oppose CofC for what it represents, they have clearly thought out the whole farcicial nonsense and realise at best they’ll be no worse off or worse case scenerio they’re going to end up a lot worse off, facing evermore exclusion and possibly their community gets demolished as many already are. There is a looming crisis in affordable housing provision for working class people in Liverpool which has been created by the Liberal led council in collusion with Labour.

In a post-celebration BBC TV interview, Mike Storey was interviewed in regard to CofC. He stated, “Independent research has shown, this is not us saying it [LCC] that getting this prize is worth about £2 billion pounds in extra investment, an extra 1.7 million tourists, and for us the most important thing is jobs, and it’s going to create an extra 14,000 jobs. -Where do these figures come from though councillor Storey- you’ll be pleased to know that I don’t make these figures up. The consultants, worthy people, who look at the effect on Dublin, on Graz, on Glasgow they’re the people who say this, and err if only half those figures are correct then it’s a real bonus not just for Liverpool but for the North West as a whole.”

I’ll finish with a quote from ‘People Not Profit’ from one of their recent news sheets: “The trickle down effect was discredited in the days of Margaret Thatcher, yet the poor people of Liverpool continue to have little say in the spending of regeneration money as it piles into the city centre. In the same way many hard working local artists, bands and writers feel excluded from the Culture bid and related projects. It's a classic example of something that is organised from the top down, by people who don't appreciate the diversity and value of grass roots activities. Voluntary projects and small arts venues are struggling for money while the cultural image of Liverpool is being shaped by councillors, PR firms and other business interests. Culture is produced where ever people meet and by everyone.”

Just like to throw my hat in the ring regarding all of the development in Liverpool at the moment.

Firstly a big fat "well done" to the Council for causing more traffic problems than they have solved with the New Look Lime Street. What was once a fully functioning, albeit tatty city centre junction, that pretty much looked after itself, is now a congested, slimmed down version of its former self. After causing months of delays and frustration, and the closure of at least one city centre institution, Uncle Sam's, and leaving us with nothing more than wider, dirty pavements, and two traffic cops to direct the traffic, in addition to traffic lights, you have to wonder, what was the point? I recall there being a nice flower bed in the centre of the junction, which is now gone, and the traffic flow is even worse than what it was before, and all the work has done aesthetically, is highlight how tatty the rest of the city centre is. Perhaps the money would have been better spent on just maintaining what we have, rather than trying to recreate what the council thinks we need.

I also await with intrepidation and dread the completion of the various stages of "yuppification", sorry regeneration of our beloved city centre. I have looked at the frightening Liverpool Vision website, and cant seem to whet my appetite for all the new sparkly builidings we are promised. I cant seem to get that excited at the prospect of Liverpool becomming a Clone Town version of Everytown in the UK. Armani, Timberland, and Coast are coming? And Debenhams. How did we cope without them? Maybe the site of the central post office that is to house these corporate behomoths would be better used, and the community better served, by the addition of another post office? Since the Lyceum closed, the main post office in St John's is a badly planned, crowded mess. (Incidentally, see if you can spot the staff from the old Lyceum in there, looking glum and depressed at being made to work in such a god-awful place) There used to be at least 5 city centre post offices, now there are two.

Slowly but surely, the last pockets of reality in the city centre are dwindling away, to be replaced by glowing neon clad hell holes. Soon Quiggins will be no more, and will be moved to, I believe, where Lee's is now. Has the Duke of Westminter missed the point. Is Quiggins not the place it is now, because it is NOT located on the "high street", both culturally, AND geographically?

One final point, the new science park, up by the Uni, has also been taken over by the corporates: Greggs, Subway, and of course the omnipresent Tesco. I hope the little shops, just up by Barclays Wank will survive the onslaught. I see with disdain, that the students, the so called radical and free thinking members of the city seem content to queue in Tescos for their lunch, while their money gets siphoned out of the city, to the coffers of Tesco.

Dont let them win, dont go in the new shops, (I cant afford to anyway)