UCU Left conference

Defending Post-16 Education in an Era of Austerity

A conference of resistance, Saturday 22 September, Central London.

Speakers include: John McDonnell MP, Melanie Cooke Action for ESOL & Kings college UCU, Owen Jones author of chavs, Zita Holbourne PCS NEC and co-chair of BARAC, Professor Andrew Mcgettigan, Alex Kenny NUT NEC, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Jane Aitchinson PCS DWP Group President 2004-12 Y, Professor Ken Spours, Kostas Skordoulis lecturer at Athens University.

The Tory led coalition government has made clear its intent. It wishes to dismantle the “state monopoly” in education. Free schools, academies, and the privatisation of Higher, Further and Adult Education are being pursued with full vigour by this government.
Its goals are to once again make Higher Education a place for the most privileged, while turning Further and Adult Education into sectors that simply train working class people in low-level skills for non-existent jobs.
Alongside this reshaping of education, our pay, pensions, jobs and conditions of service are being attacked.
Rises in bullying and workload are increasing stress levels among lecturers, leading many to take time off work due to serious illness.
The autumn looks set to see a significant development of the resistance to the government’s austerity policies.
The TUC-called demonstration on 20 October will see tens of thousands take to the streets and more coordinated strike action among public sector unions in defence of pay and pensions.
The tide has begun to turn against governments of austerity. From Spain to Greece, working people are saying no to cuts. We are a part of an international movement against austerity.
This conference will be debating alternatives to the coalition’s cuts and privatisation agenda, and mapping out the next steps in the campaign to defend post-16 education. Register online here

Autumn LSHG seminars

Socialist History seminars - more tbc

Convenors: Dr Keith Flett, Dr David Renton, Dr John Geoffrey Walker

Venue: Gordon Room (G34), Senate House, Ground floor, Institute of Historical Research
Time: Monday, 5.30pm

Autumn Term 2012

Date	Seminar details
15 October	George Paizis (UCL) Retranslating Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary
5 November	Dan Gordon (Edge Hill) Immigrants & Intellectuals. May 1968 and the rise of anti-racism in France Please note:  this session takes place in the Bedford Room (G37)
12 November	Chris Blakey Georges Cheron and the 1936 Hotchkiss factory soviet
10 December	Keith Flett History of Riots project: research update

Paul Gilroy on The Value of Multiculture

National Union of Journalists, Black History Month celebration 

Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture
 
Monday 22 October, 7pm at Thomson Reuters, Canary Wharf, London E14
 

This lecture will be given by Professor Paul Gilroy who is currently

Professor of English and American Literature at Kings College London 

on the theme of The Value of Multiculture. Well known for his writings 

about the culture and history of the African diaspora in the western hemisphere, 

Professor Gilroy is the author of the seminal work, 

'There Ain't No Black In the Union Jack': The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation, 

1987.
 
 
All welcome. Registrations for this lecture should be send to 

lenac@nuj.org.uk

PS - Paul Gilroy is speaking on 'There Ain't No Black In the Union Jack' Revisited 

this Saturday in London as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of

Love Music Hate Racism. 

Film showings: Battle of Orgreave / Who Polices the Police?

 

The Battle of Orgreave

Sertuc film club Screening & Panel Discussion

Wednesday 26 September 2012

7 – 9.30pm (Doors open 6pm)

TUC Congress House, Great Russell Street

(62 mins) Jeremy Deller / Mike Figgis

Jeremy Deller is a British artist whose work typically involves collaborations with large groups of individuals from diverse backgrounds. On June 17, 2001, in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, Deller staged an historical re-enactment of the violent clashes that took place in June 1984 between strikers from the Orgreave coking plant and the police. The battle marked a turning point in the Thatcher government’s efforts to overcome the political opposition posed by the trade-union movement. Many of the people who were part of the original clash - both striking miners and policemen - participated in the reconstruction (although sometimes in reverse roles), which was recorded by filmmaker Mike Figgis.

PLEASE REGISTER FOR SCREENING - FREE ADMISSION

sertucevents@tuc.org.uk / 020 7467 1220

* Please specify any disability access and other facilities/needs

*****

Garden Court Chambers in conjunction with the Institute of Race Relations

Screening of Ken Fero’s: Who Polices the Police?

Followed by panel discussion. Speakers include:

Ken Fero

Rigg family

Leslie Thomas (Rigg Family Barrister)

Friday 5 October 2012, 6-9pm

Garden Court Chambers,

57-60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3LJ

Nearest Tube: Holborn

Tickets: £10

Please visit website to book tickets:

http://www.irr.org.uk/events/who-polices-the-police/

Sean Rigg dies in a caged area of Brixton Police Station in August 2008 and the Independent Police Complaint Commission (IPCC) is called in to investigate. Sean’s family are shocked at the death and this soon turns to anger when the IPCC makes error after error in its inquiry – raising the question as to whether it is incompetence or collusion. Sean’s family begin a four- year struggle to investigate the death themselves and in the process ask ‘Who Polices The Police?’

Book launch for new issue of Revolutionary History

Meeting to Launch Vol. 10 No. 4 of Revolutionary History
'European Revolutionaries and Algerian Independence 1954 – 1962'
This volume considers the course of the Algerian War 1954-1962, and the response of the French and European left. It gives the fullest account in English of the role of the revolutionary left in giving political and practical solidarity to the Algerian liberation struggle. It presents substantial extracts from Sylvain Pattieu’s Les camarades des frères (Paris 2002), and gives the fullest account of the role of Trotskyists in this period, drawing on documents and interviews with participants.

Speakers: Ian Birchall
Fritz Keller (Vienna – author of Internationalism in Practice: The Austrian Left and the Algerian Resistance.)
John Plant

Thursday 27 September, 6.30pm, at Bookmarks, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3QE: entry £2 redeemable against any purchase on the night.

Call 020 7637 1848 or e-mail events@bookmarks.uk.com to reserve your place.

Mike Berlin: The Partisan Coffee House of 1958

Mike Berlin: The Partisan Coffee House of 1958
Thursday September 6th, 6.30pm

Firebox London 106-108 Cromer Street, London, WC1H8BZ, United Kingdom

Firebox is the Partisan Coffee House of the 21st Century.

Historian Mike Berlin presents a historical tour of the Partisan and its political context, in a timely event just before Firebox's grand launch.

Established in 1958, the Partisan Coffee House in Soho was the central hub of the New Left.A space for ideas, discussion and often heated debate, it was short-lived but central to a creative and visionary political force.Founded by Raphael Samuel, a young radical historian, the Partisan was the heart of a radical left during this era of events such as the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution.

With an excellent exhibition of original archive materials including the brilliant panorama documentary and BBC radio program this event will have an air of the late 50′s so expect a few lovely surprises.

£5 suggested donation, includes free drink.Doors open at 6.30pm for refreshments, event starts promptly at 7pm.

Edited to add:
Reminder of Socialist History Society meeting.


Tuesday 25 September

2012 A. L. MORTON MEMORIAL LECTURE - Michael Berlin (Birkbeck College, specialist on the social history of early modern London and the British left), speaks on The Partisan Coffee House: a micro history of the New Left?

Time: 7.00 pm; Venue: Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2. Admission free, all welcome

Events at Bookmarks

Events at Bookmarks

 

This week come and hear journalist, author and documentary film maker Andre Vltcheck talk about his laterst investigative work on Indonesia.

Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear with Andre Vltchek

Thursday 6 September, 6.30pm, £2*
 

The Cinema of Globalisation & Labour with Tom Zaniello

Thursday 13 September, 6.30pm, £2*

As part of the London Labour Film Festival, American author Tom Zaniello will be discussing radical cinema with a focus on films addressing globalisation and the working class wordwide.
 

This week the Guardian magazine ran a 4 page extract from Matt Kennard about how the US Army recruited neo-Nazis and people unfit to serve in the military in order to boost numbers of troops for the war on terror. Come and hear him talk at Bookmarks on Tuesday 18th September:

Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to fight the War on Terror with Matt Kennard

Tuesday 18 September, 6.30pm, £2*

*£2 redeemable against any purchase on the night.
 

Prior booking is recommended for all events. Please email events@bookmarks.uk.com to book your place, or see the website for a full list http://www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk/
 

For any Bookmarks information or opening hours phone 020 7637 1848 or go to www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk or email enquiries@bookmarks.uk.com or write to Bookmarks, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3QE