Edinburgh Anarchists

Well that didn’t take long did it? New Chief Secretary to the Treasury has resigned after it was found out that his landlord was his boyfriend, pocketing him £40,000 over 5 years. And of course, he’s a millionaire ex-banker, the boyfriend a political lobbyist.

Showing that the Political Class looks after its own, Laws is described as “an honourable man” who’ll be back in the government as soon as possible.

Put aside the sexuality issue. If you’re on Housing Benefit and in a relationship with your landlord, then you don’t get HB. A millionaire ex-banker in charge of cutting the public sector doesn’t know this, or is it one Laws for him and one for the rest of us?

In fact, someone else has already made this point:

Meanwhile on Friday a Norfolk mother, Sarah Riley, was imprisoned for falsely claiming £10,000 in housing benefit over a period of 7 years after neglecting to inform the authorities that she had started a relationship.

The Anarchist Federation were asked  by the local national newspaper to take part in a written argument about voting and non-voting. The two pieces as published can be seen here at LibCom. The unedited version of the submitted piece is below the fold. It is punchier. (more…)

Ahh the weird parallel universe of rolling news. Just watched 5 minutes of footage of a guy with blood streaming down his head, shouting at police. And the guy from the BBC blandly carries on his voiceover, only commenting when there’s scuffling at the police line, chatting on to the chief cop as he sets up his narrative of, “these are the [bad] protesters that haven’t spoke to us, they aren’t like the others, they’re fine.” Clearly setting the scene for them to put the boot in later on.

Also: that’s the biggest-looking crowd of 3000 I’ve ever seen….

…is kind of difficult. I don’t know anyone involved and don’t know people who know people who are involved. The media is painting it as purely “anti foreign worker” but 200 Poles joined a walkout in Plymouth.
And then the BBC pulls this nakedly propagandistic stunt. Watch this 30-second video if you think that its reporting is fair and impartial.

“Quotes from News At Ten and Newsnight (half an hour later), Feb 2 2009. The striker’s quote is edited in the News At Ten segment to make it appear as if he does not want to work alongside foreigners – to justify an editorial claim that the strike is xenophobic. In the fuller Newsnight report, it is clear that he is saying that he _cannot_ work alongside them, because they are segregated.”

This is just a quick post to make sure all is well here at our new flagless home. Here’s a link to a blog post that made me laugh this afternoon:

Cactus Mouth Informer

Go read the whole thing, because I don’t want to give away the punchline.