Monday 11 April 2011

National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts

Just a quickie today.

Thursday, April 14th sees the 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefits Cuts. Details below.

I will be "blogging from the sickie bunker" again, but if any of you would like to join the physical protests, you will be more than welcome.


Press Release

Protests will be taking place around the UK as part of the Third National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts.

Protests and events will be taking place in London, Bristol, Scotland, Poole, Brighton, Leeds, Burnley and Cardiff with more cities expected to confirm events this week.

Protest Outside The Daily Mail – Stop the Defamation – Stop the Lies
Thursday, April 14 – 2pm
Daily Mail Headquarters, Young Street (off Kensington High Street), London W8 5TT
Protesting about the media's defamation of benefit claimants.

Islington Protests Against Benefit Cuts
Thursday, April 14 - 8:30am – 9:30am
There will be a protest at 8.30am to 9.30am outside the Atos Healthcare Assessment Centre at 1 Elthorne Road, just off Holloway Road.
Protesting against the company which carries out the Work Capability Assessments.

Protest Outside Westminster City Hall & Mass Food Give Away!
Thursday, April 14 -  5:00pm – 9:00pm
Protest Outside Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QP
Protesting against the ban on rough sleeping and handing out food, as well as the Housing Benefit caps.

Millions are set to be affected by savage cuts to housing, disability, sickness and welfare benefits. Disabled people,those with long term illness, the unemployed, single parents, carers the low waged, part time students, volunteers, homeless people and college students are all likely to see a devastating drop in disposable income with many slipping even further below the poverty line.

Claimants are being asked to pay for the mistakes and extravagances of the richest. Meanwhile poverty pimps like Atos Origin and A4e are set to rake in hundreds of millions on government contracts to bully and intimidate people from claiming the pittance handed out in benefit payments. Many disabled people have threatened suicide if these cuts are allowed to continue. Some have tragically already carried out that threat.

The first two days of protest against benefit cuts have seen demonstrations, meetings, unemployed discos, public pantomimes and occupations in cities across the UK. Atos Origin have been forced to close offices, protesters have gathered inside and outside workfare sharks A4e and demonstrations have taken place from Downing Street to local town centres such as Lydney and Crawley.

We are fighting for our homes, our livelihoods, our very survival. It’s time to show these public school parasites and their poverty pimp collaborators we mean business.

For further details plus details of other protests around the UK please visit: http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/ 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=164277070288955

Supported by:
o Anti-Benefit Cuts Glasgow
o Armchair Army
o Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign
o Brighton Benefits Campaign
o Cardiff’s Unemployed Daytime Disco
o Carer Watch
o Carer Watch fb page
o Crippen – Disabled Cartoonist
o Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
o Disabled People Against Cuts
o Dundee Unemployed Workers
o East Lancs Right to Work
o Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP)
o Free London Listings
o Goldsmiths in Occupation
o Haringey Solidarity Group
o Ipswich Unemployed Action
o Islington Hands Off Our Public Services (IHOOPS)
o Islington Poverty Action
o Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group
o Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts
o London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP)
o London Foodbank
o Mad Pride
o Medway Against Cuts
o Mental Health Resistance Network
o Norfolk Community Action Group
o Nottingham Claimants’ Union
o Nuneaton Against Benefit Cuts
o Oxford Save Our Services
o Squattastic
o Tyneside Claimants Union
o Welfare Action Hackney
o Welfare Rights 4 u (UK)
o Work Programme & Flexible New Deal Scandal
o World Homeless Day 

12 comments:

  1. We're having a protest here in Poole, just hoping people show up for it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. thesilentmajority11 April 2011 at 17:25

    Hi Sue,

    I haven't posted on your site before but am an avid reader --- Thanks for keeping us all up to date on your progress.
    I thought this article in my local paper may be of interest to you and add some ammunition to your arsenal of stories about the affect of cuts.

    http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/local/dismay_at_council_care_price_hikes_1_3275462.

    Hope you are soon out of your "sickie bunker" you really are an example to us all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thesilentmajority - Welcome! What a nice comment. I'll take a look at the article, thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. "and what the hell is "public school parasites" supposed to mean?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Stephen

    Sue is referring to people who have never done real work or ever will, who somehow manage to live off the graft of the rest who do work.

    Not all public school pupils will become parasites and not all parasites go to public school.

    Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are three in the category of public school parasites. Miliband isn't (state school) and Harriet Harman is.

    I apologise to Sue for taken up her cudgel but I gather she is indisposed. Gezondheid :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Howard, that's about it. I didn't write the above though, it is just a press release from those organising the day.

    I don't believe it is my job to censor OR to judge which protests are "acceptable" or not. Opinion is opinion and I hope to just share 'em all.

    Howard, as ever, though, says it brilliantly. The real "parasites" of today are those sitting back on a pile of cash in their island retreats while we carry the can.

    ReplyDelete
  7. [QUOTE]Many disabled people have threatened suicide if these cuts are allowed to continue. Some have tragically already carried out that threat.[/QUOTE]
    I do so hope that someone is keeping a record of the names of those who have committed suicide so that the government can be held to account at a later date for crimes against the vulnerable

    ReplyDelete
  8. "public sector parasites"
    "welfare scrounging parasites"

    Both hate speech whichever way you cut it.
    A disgrace from people who are supposed to be campaigning against bigotry and simplistic, ignorance.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fair point Stephen. Like I said though, I don't want to censor, everyone must oppose (or of course support ;)) in their own way.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm sure it's a great cause. I don't take any exception to anything else about it.

    It depresses me though when people who are meant to fighting pointless hatred indulge in it themselves.

    It means they haven't understood the basic principle that bigotry and hatred are generally wrong.

    Not just that in this particular instance it's wrong to hate us because we're in the right and they're in the wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  11. People often say to me "Well....He can talk the talk....but can he walk the walk?". As a disabled person, that isn't always easy. I wish I had been there, I wanted to be there, and I am working on ways I can play my part through business and creative arts.

    Cameron has clearly gone for what he believes is a soft target. One can only imagine the level of detachment that must have been required for him to justify such viciousness, given his own family's history of disability.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nurses in California is also against benefit cuts and other labor disputes.

    Read why this is happening at http://blog.uniformpoint.com/post/2011/09/22/California-Nurses-To-Strike-Over-Benefit-Cuts-and-Other-Labor-Disputes.aspx.

    Hope it would stop.

    ReplyDelete