David Cameron, hear us say, hands off EMA!

Monday 13th December
Day of Action to defend EMA

4pm onwards – after school protest at government offices

Called by Education Activist Network, supported by London Region UCU
Department of Business, Innovation and Skills
1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET

Unkettle Education!
Fees, cuts and EMA: how do we fight to win?

6pm – public meeting, Central London (watch this space for venue)
Called by Education Activist Network, supported by London Region UCU

Speakers include school and college students, university occupiers, parents, teachers and special guests to be announced

This Monday a coalition of trade unions has called for a day of action to defend the Education Maintenance Allowance. This will come just days after MPs vote on the trebling of University tuition fees. Access to higher and further education is already grossly unequal. A report published this weekend by Shadow Education minister David Lammy MP reveals that 21 Oxbridge colleges did not accept a single black student last year. Now the attacks on education could mean that millions of ordinary people are denied the right to higher and further education altogether.

But over the past four weeks tens of thousands of students have walked out, defying sub-zero temperatures and police harassment to fight against fees, cuts and the scrapping of EMA. This is the generation that will not be silenced, kettled or denied the right to education and it has inspired parents, teachers and millions of people facing the Con-Dem axe. Now we need to come together and ask how we can defeat these attacks and win the right to education for all.

For more on the trade union day of action around the country, see www.emacampaign.org.uk

Celebrating the life of Basil Davidson

Celebrating the life of Basil Davidson
27 January 2011

An event commemorating the life of Basil Davidson, long-time member of the IRR and member of Race & Class Editorial Committee.
Thursday 27 January 2011, 6-9pm
Khalili Theatre, Main Building, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG
Speakers include:
Opening remarks by Prof. Stephen Chan, SOAS
Victoria Brittain - co-chair
Richard Gott
António Gumende - High Commissioner Republic of Mozambique
Adotey Bing
Lionel Cliffe
Peter Brayshore
Senait Jones

To RSVP, contact Nick Davidson: nprdavidson@yahoo.co.uk. Sponsored by the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental & African Studies, in association with the Institute of Race Relations, Review of African Political Economy and Action for Southern Africa.

Remembering The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Forthcoming event at The Women’s Library

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Saturday 29 January 2011, 10.30am to 2pm
£10 / £8 concessions

Robert Tressell’s famous novel ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ is one of the classic novels on how capitalism operates in the workplace. The book is still a leading best seller and many politicians, writers and historians have acknowledged the ongoing legacy of this book. The original manuscript of ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ has been in the care of the Trades Union Congress since 1958 and is now held in the TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University. A digital copy can be seen on the TUC History online website here .

Join this special event that marks the centenary of the death of Tressell [Robert Noonan], and celebrates this famous work with speakers Professor Karen Hunt, Keele University; Marion Walls, co-editor of ‘Revisiting Robert Tressell’s Mugsborough’; Dave Harker, author of ‘Tressell: The Real Story of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’, Andrew Lynch, producer of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists play in 2008, and a Trade Union speaker discussing the significant role this novel has played. There will also be a special screening following the event of ‘Give us this day’.


This event is being held at:
The Women’s Library, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT

To book: contact moreinfo@thewomenslibrary.ac.uk
or phone 020 7320 2222
For further details go to www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk
For press / listings images contact: pressinfo@thewomenslibrary.ac.uk

Next LSHG seminar

Monday 13th December
Jessica Fenn, 'The abolition of the dock labour scheme in London 1989: Industrial relations theory and practice'

LSHG seminars at 5.30pm, the Pollard Room, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London. All welcome.

Also - reminder for people to support the Peoples History Museum campaign

Black and Asian Britain seminars

Black and Asian Britain seminars

Organised by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, in conjunction with the Black & Asian Studies Association
Senate House, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1
6 to 7.30 pm, room G34, except for March 29 – room G37
Everyone is welcome. You do not have to pre-book/register. (Contact: Marika.Sherwood@sas.ac.uk)

Final seminar for 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Jan Marsh (National Portrait Gallery), Black kings and horsemen in European art 1400-1700 : how can we find out more about them?

Seminars January – June 2011

Tuesday, 18 January - Hakim Adi, The West African Students Union - A Photographic History

Tuesday, 15 February Leslie James, 'Playing the Russian Game': British government attempts to suppress George Padmore's criticism of colonialism, 1945-1949

Tuesday, 29 March Donald Hinds, Slavery, should there be an apology and reparation? Who should make it and who should say 'Thank you. It was long overdue! Now I am truly free?’

Tuesday, 19 April Brian Joyce, Black People in a Kentish Conurbation: The Medway Towns Before 1914

Tuesday, 17 May Christian Høgsbjerg, Mariner, Renegade and Castaway: Chris Braithwaite, the Colonial Seamen's Association and class struggle Pan-Africanism in late Imperial Britain

Tuesday, 14 June Onyeka (no title yet – will be on some aspect of the life of Africans in Tudor Britain)

Day X for Workers

From the Education Activist Network:
“Day X for workers”

The NUS president Aaron Porter has apologised for “dithering” and now gives full support to the occupations. Unison, one of the country’s largest unions with members across the education sector, has issued a statement supporting the student protests, as have many leading members of the National Union of Teachers. Delegates at the special HE conference of the UCU voted for a national demonstration on the day when Parliament votes on tuition fees.

The national student coordination meeting this Sunday, with over 150 delegates representing most of the occupations, voted to back this call and issued a statement calling for “parents, workers and trade unionists to do everything in their power to join our resistance on the day of the vote in parliament, up to and including walking out to join our demonstration.”

Next, this Sunday, occupations in many cities will be hosting “General Assemblies” of resistance to bring school students, parents, workers, trade unionists and campaigners together and coordinate future plans. Parliament will vote on tuition fees some time before breaking up for Christmas, and this kind of united organisation will be essential in defeating their proposals. Our contribution to this will be a teach-in in Central London, close to several occupied universities.

Teach-in: Education for the People, Not the Market

Sunday 5th December, 12noon-4pm, King’s College London

Speakers include journalists George Monbiot and Laurie Penny, King’s College lecturer Stathis Kouvelakis and veteran of the 1968 student movement John Rose.

CFP: Local Communisms conference

'Local Communisms, 1917-89
University of Glamorgan (South Wales, UK). Friday 1 and Saturday 2 July 2011

The study of communist parties globally has, perhaps inevitably, always involved finding a balance between overarching relationships with Moscow and the specific influences of a diversity of local environments in which the individual parties functioned. While recognising the importance of the former, this conference aims to address the extent to which national and sub-nation political, social and cultural traditions and developments, crises and continuities shaped the character of ‘world communism’.