Nottinghamshire Indymedia

Events

Startpage

> UK Indymedia
> Global Indymedia

> Guidelines
> Chatroom
> About Us
> Security

> Projects
> On Ya Mobile
> Local Weather

Support Us

We are an all volunteer collective and receive no regular funding. Please consider donating.


Local Events

This events wire is no longer being updated. Please use the new site to publicise events.

More local events on Veggies/Sumac Diary


Freedom of Information

Search archives

Topics

Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech

Nottingham responds to budget

Notts IMC + Disillusioned kid | 25.06.2010 09:34 | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles

On Tuesday June 22nd, ConDem Chancellor George Osborne revealed the contents of the "emergency budget." As expected, this included a pay freeze for public sector workers (except the lowest paid) along with cuts in housing benefit and an increase in VAT.

The SWP-initiated Right to Work campaign called for protests across the country against the budget. These were supported by Unison and, locally, by the Nottinghamshire and Mansfield Trades Council. Trade unionists and others demonstrated outside the Council House from 5.30pm. There were also protests by the PCS (the civil service union) at lunchtime.

On the newswire: Budget protest: Nottingham | No Austerity Budget: Market Square Protest

Previous features: Action against cuts in Nottingham | Protests against county council cuts | Nottingham City Council workers protest job cuts | Credit Crunch Hits Nottingham

Links: Right to Work | Notts Indymedia workers movement topic page



Since the redevelopment of the Market Square, activists have begun to get used to protests juxtaposed by intriguing temporary landmarks, whether massive sandpits or council-branded fairground wheels. This was perhaps the weirdest, with demonstrators framed on one side by a huge St George's flag on the Council House (the biggest in the country if we are to believe the authority's PR) and on the other by the "Lady Boys of Bangkok".

The protest was not huge, but hardly tiny either and despite the prevalence of "usual faces". The SWP, Socialist Party and AWL (a full-set of local socialist parties) were all out in force. Local Maoist group Revolutionary Praxis also had a stall. Despite the sense of familiarity, there was a surprising number of young people, many of them apparently from one of the local colleges. The anarchist turnout was less than impressive. It isn't clear if this was because of the issue at hand, previous negative experience with the organisers, poor publicity or just because it was far too nice a day to be at a protest.

There were banners from the Trades Council and NUT along with Unison placards and a solitary one from GMB, as well as a bevy of PCS flags. Whether this was truly representative of the union's present wasn't clear. Some of them may just be better a publicity than others.

As people have always done at demos outside the Council House, protesters set up banners and placards on the steps. This attracted the ire of some jobsworth from Octavian Security who appears to have been given the vital job of ensuring that nobody besmirches the entrance to the building. Activists were understandably disinterested in his entreaties to move and he went off to call the police (I kid you not).

Astonishingly, the police did not immediately leap into action. Instead two Community Protection Officers (CPO) turned up. While having an overblown sense of your own importance is part of the job description for a CPO these two seemed particularly arrogant and had gone for the Miami Vice-look with reflective sunglasses. Astonishingly, when these two clowns stopped performing for the cameras long enough to demand banners be moved, people actually complied.

Encouragingly, when the NUT set up their ban on the steps later on, Liam Conway decided he wasn't going to back down and demanded to know what powers the CPOs was using to move protesters. Of course, as glorified traffic wardens they don't have any such power and they soon gave up and went off to sulk.

There were speeches from any number of trade unionists and students. No doubt all of them heartfelt, although I couldn't hear much of what was being said. The chanting which was interspersed between speakers was less than imaginative. If we're serious about building a long-term campaign against the cuts agendas the somebody is going to have to come up with some more exciting slogans. If only for my sanity.

Local media were out in force, looking for a local angle on the budget. The Post turned out for a photo opportunity before scurrying off. (People are always more enthusiastic about posing for the Post than for Indymedia, even though they know we're more likely to use the pictures).

Central News and BBC East Midlands also turned out. Watching the two gave an interesting insight into their differing approaches to journalism and it has to be said the coverage of the event did not reflect well on the BBC.

Central News did their interview on the edge of the protest. They spoke to Unison's regional head of local government Ravi Subramanian and to leader of the city council Jon Collins, but also garnered the opinions of Richard Buckwell from Unison and Paul (whose surname I forget) from the PCS. While both are prominent members of a certain lefty political party, they are also genuine, grassroots trade unionists.

The BBC, by contrast decided that it was sufficient to speak to Subramanian and Collins. The politician and the bureaucrat as exemplars of representative politics. The BBC apparently even told Liam Conway that Collins was speaking about cuts in education, strange Liam noted, given the record of Nottingham City Council in promoting city academies at the expense of staff terms and conditions and in the face of union opposition.

During his speech, Liam had mentioned that, earlier on, the BBC had approached the NUT looking for a teacher to discuss the impact of the budget. To his astonishment they hadn't been interested in the union's response or any proposed actions. Instead they were going to have the teacher speak to a financial adviser to see if they could help make ends meet. This underlines the depoliticised interpretation of the cuts being pushed by the BBC. A particularly ironic position given the likelihood that swingeing cuts to the BBC are only just around the corner.

It is also worth noting that while Subramanian and Collins were keen to get their faces on TV, neither of them were prepared to speak to the demonstration. Collins in particular made a point of standing a long way from the protesters, his media handler never far from his side. This of course, reflects their respective politics and the fact that neither wants to be too closely associated with anything genuinely left-wing. Collins is the leader of a particularly Blairite council which has already overseen major job cuts, even before the new government were elected. Subramanian meanwhile is a union bureaucrat and the partner of recently elected MP for Nottingham South Lillian Greenwood (who was also previously a prominent union bureaucrat).

Notts IMC + Disillusioned kid

Download this article in pdf format >>
Email this article to someone >>
Submit an addition or make a quick comment on this article >>