Dear All,

Last night I nearly indulged in what my grandma used to do everyday at work. She worked in the Carding Room at the local Mill and it was so loud she used to be able to mime or meemaw with other mill workers. She used to meemaw across the street to her friend Mrs Iddon and use it to talk about 'unmentionable's' when she didn't want me to hear. Anyhow at the Webinar my microphone packed in and I was tempted to meemaw but it was bad enough looking at myself on…

The following article has been published by the NCIA at http://www.independentaction.net/2012/01/25/for-insurgency-the-case-against-partnership/#more-8961.

This, we are told, is an era of ‘partnership’ requiring government, business and voluntary and community organisations to cooperate for the common good.   Partnership is the solution to everything from poverty…

Something is happening in the world economy that has not happened before within historical memory. It concerns the future of nation states of the world – all of them.

It concerns a way in which state activity is essential to capitalism.

You won’t hear this from orthodox economists and commentators for they do not take account of the way that money creation distorts the operation of the “free” economy. And they do not appreciate why the creation…

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/regeneration/pdf/2064899.pdf

Interesting that the Government state they have been busy putting spending decisions into local hands; Birmingham Council state in their 2012 Budget public consultation document that they only control 35% of the budget, the other 65% is allocated to nationally controlled expenditure (making you wonder what…

Although the things we wish for the coming year we are unlikely to get in just 12 months, let's remind ourselves at the beginning of a new year what are the results we are actually aiming for...

• reduce poverty and excessive…

Consumer Credit Act 1974, Credit Agencies, Personal Information and the ‘Regulators’

I am writing this to express my utter frustration, anger and resentment against the way that consumers either individuals or small companies are treated in this country. Unfortunately ‘data controllers’ quite often get it wrong when it comes to your personal and/or financial information.  First of all they charge you £10 to have this disclosed since the Data Protection Act 1990 allows them to…

Click links below for media reports.

Note... the building was not barricaded as people had been entering and leaving up to 2mins before cordon was put round building (3 hours after police first arrived), and section 6 legal notice of squatting had been clearly affixed to door and no evidence was produced by police to indicate that criminal damge had occurred during entry.…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01946pr

David Cameron's Big Idea, Radio4, 1.30pm Sunday 8th January - part one (of three).

Found this while doing the annual email tidy out…

Yesterday's announcement of the conviction of racist thugs Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 led to a busy afternoon of messages from activist friends and some mixed feelings, including a certain amount of ambivalence that I know others shared.

The phone calls came because Newham Monitoring Projectplayed a…

Positive Money believes that we are in a crisis because so few of us, including policy makers, economists, journalists and ordinary people, truly understand how our monetary system works. This is a dangerous situation to be in when money drives almost all activity on the planet.

Unless we make significant changes to the way our banking and monetary system works, we will see further financial crises, rising debt and poverty, worsening inequality and faster environmental…