Wembley mums set up Eid supermarket boycott campaign for the children of Gaza

Children protest on behalf of their brothers and sisters in Gaza, London, July 26th 2014

A group of Wembley mothers, sickeded by the sight of children being murdered in Gaza, have set up their own campaign over Eid  to boycott large supermarkets that sell Israeli produce.

This is what they say on their Facebook page:

MUMS 4 CHILDREN OF PALESTINE

EID TOTAL BOYCOTT OF ASDA, TESCO, WAITROSE, SAINSBURYS UNTIL END OF 29 JULY 2014

This group has been created because of the affinity mothers and grandmothers feel for the plight of the people of Palestine. In this month of July 2014 Israel has mercilessly bombed Gaza resulting in countless deaths, suffering, trauma and horrendous injuries, mental and physical.

WE ARE SICKENED AT SEEING BABIES, CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN WITH UNBORN BABIES IN THEIR WOMBS BEING MURDERED!

We feel helpless as we do not have much power to effect justice for the Palestinians, who have suffered for decades. But what power we do have is our spending power. We often make the decisions in our families on what we purchase for our families and homes. And now we are using this power to force change.

In the first instance, we want to use this power to transform our buying patterns and to boycott companies, supermarkets and other outlets that sell produce from Israel and the Occupied Territories. We are bringing our local Mums together to effect real change - because money speaks!
We have had enough of British companies propping up Israel economically, which allow it to act with impunity. We will no longer be complicit in this genocide because we will no longer buy Israeli & OT produce. We will run Total Boycott Strikes targeting all the supermarkets until they comply with our demands.

We are demanding that all supermarkets:

• Stop sourcing all their produce from Israel
• Stop sourcing their produce from the Occupied Territories
• Support Palestinian Farmers and other ethical producers around the world

We are an organic movement of Mums of all backgrounds and this is only the beginning. We are not going to stop until children of Gaza can sleep safely in their beds in a free Palestine and there is a JUST resolution for the Palestinians.

‪#‎FreePalestine‬ ‪#‎FreeGaza‬ ‪#‎Boycott4childrenofgaza‬

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

Follow on Twitter @Mums4gazakids

The Lion Will Roar Again in Wembley on Monday

A lion's head corbel, rescued from the demolition of the last of the British Empire Exhibition buildings, is to be unveiled at its new resting place in Wembley on Monday at 12.15pm.  The unveiling coincides with the end of the exhibition 'The Lion Roars - the World at Wembley' at Brent Civic Centre which marks the 90th Anniversary of the British Empire Exhibition.

I publish Philip Grant's Guest blog account of the Lions of Wembley below:

Demonstrate for Gaza and its children today: Noon, Israeli Embassy, Kensington High Street

Writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen will be one of the speakers at today's rally for Gaza in Parliament Square. This is a poem published on his blog LINK earlier this week. The names of Gazans, including children,  killed by the Israeli Defence Force can be found HERE

Assemble today at Noon opposite the Israeli Embassy (Kensington High Street) and then march to rally in Parliament Square.

Don't Name the Dead Children

Israel bans radio advert listing names of children killed in Gaza (Guardian 24.07.14)

Don't mention the children.

Don't name the dead children.

The people must not know the names

of the dead children.

The names of the children must be hidden.

The children must be nameless.

The children must leave this world

having no names.

No one must know the names of

the dead children.

No one must say the names of the

dead children.

No one must even think that the children

have names.

People must understand that it would be dangerous

to know the names of the children.

The people must be protected from

knowing the names of the children.

The names of the children could spread

like wildfire.

The people would not be safe if they knew

the names of the children.

Don’t name the dead children.

Don’t remember the dead children.

Don’t think of the dead children.

Don’t say: ‘dead children’.

Children's activities at Wembley's LDO summer weekends

There will be play opportunities for children at the London Designer Outlet during the summer holidays.

Activity Timetable:

Date	What’s On?
19th July	Capeoria Workshop & Steel Pan Band, Bungy Trampoline*
20th July	Jazz Duo
25th July	imPULSE Youth Dance
26th July	Stilt walker with balloons
27th July	First Impressions dance group, Face Painting
2nd August	Dance Workshop
3rd August	Storytime, Mini Football
9th August	Surf Simulator
10th August	Mini Football
16th August	Bungy Trampoline
17th August	Bungy Trampoline
22nd August	Hillside Dance Group performance
23rd August	Bungy Trampoline
24th August	Bungy Trampoline, Face Painting
25th August	Bungy Trampoline, Face Painting
30th August	First Impressions dance group, Spanish Classes
31st August	First Impressions dance group, Storytime
6th September	Football trickster
7th September	Fitsteps dancelikenow

Barham Park planning appeal – the Community fights for its Community Facilities

Guest blog by Philip Grant

It is now more than eight months since Brent’s Planning Committee refused an application by the Barham Park Trust (sole corporate trustee – Brent Council) for a change of use of the former Barham Park library building from community use to business use. On 3 December 2013, the Trustees (five members of Brent’s then Executive) accepted the recommendation of a senior Council Officer to appeal against that decision, but it was only last Tuesday, 22 July, when a Planning Inspector finally held an informal hearing of that appeal at the Civic Centre. The delay was due in part to the Trust’s appeal not being submitted to the Planning Inspectorate until the end of March 2014 (it has been suggested that this was to ensure that the appeal could not be decided before the local elections on 22 May). 

Around thirty local people attended the hearing (including two of the Brent Cabinet members who now have Trustee responsibility, for parts of the proceedings), and although less than half of these came forward to speak when given the opportunity by the Inspector, this impressive display of support for the former library building remaining available for local community use will have been noted by him. This was a planning appeal, so the fact that many of them were Friends of Barham Library was only relevant to the extent that it showed a need and demand for the sort of community facility which could be available on a permanent basis in Sudbury, but there were many other reasons shown to the Inspector why Brent’s planning policy CP23, aimed at protecting existing community and cultural facilities that meet the needs of Brent’s diverse community, should be upheld, as the Planning Committee had already decided. 

Greens call for Wealth Tax on the richest 1% with assets of more than £3m

THE Green Party, the only party committed to progressive policies that tackle Britain’s persistent inequality problem head on, is calling for a Wealth Tax on the top 1%, those with assets of more than £3million. 

The Green Party, which is already fighting for a Living Wage for all and fairer company-wide pay ratios, says a tax on wealth would help to ensure that the richest 1% (300,000 people) pay their fair share back to society. 

The richest 1000 people have doubled their wealth in the last five years . Meanwhile, the number in poverty has risen and the queues at food banks have lengthened. 

Policies that tackle the disparities in income do not necessarily address the problem of excessive wealth. That is why an annual wealth tax which taxes the assets of the wealthiest at a rate of 1% which would raise approximately £21billion is needed. 

Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, revealed the Party’s commitment to a Wealth Tax ahead of the General Election live on LBC’s Duncan Barkes Show. 
Bennett said:

Our strong General election polling and surge in membership goes to show that the Green Party’s commitment to people over profits policies are really hitting home. The Green Party is prepared to take principled stands and an increasing number of voters recognise and value this. 

Other political parties are offering business as usual, only minor changes to our failed economic system and policies that are helping the super-rich and making the poor pay for the economic crisis that they did not create.   

A Wealth Tax is part of the Green Party’s policy programme that will deliver real change for the common good. It is this change that British politics and British society desperately needs.

R.I.P COPLAND COMMUNITY SCHOOL 1952- 2014

Professionals and Mercenaries
 

Guest blog by ‘All in this together’.

Richard Marshall, the interim Copland Head hired by the Gove/ Pavey/IEB coalition to do their dirty work for them, this week  gave a new meaning to the much-abused word ‘professional’ when, in his last-day-of-term address to staff (and his first official recognition that any member of staff had left the school all year) he used it to describe the manner in which staff at Copland had responded to the one hundred and thirty three redundancies he had diligently imposed on the school since last July. By ‘professional’, Mr Marshall presumably meant that his sackings had been achieved without loss of life and, ultimately, with a kind of cowed resignation from the staff. In George Osborne’s  would-be-macho world of balding male willy-wagglers, where’ tough’ decisions have to be made with a fearless lack of concern for the comfort or security of any individuals (except themselves), this version of ‘professionalism’  can be framed as some kind of brave and realistic acceptance of the unavoidable new realities. 
                                                   

The inconvenient truth, however, is that Copland staff did not behave at all in the manner which management clones mean when they employ the weasel word ‘professional’  to mean ‘that of which I approve’.  In reality, Copland teachers  used their collegiate solidarity to resist at every stage what Richard Marshall and his sidekick  Nick John had been hired to do. When the pair arrived last July and demanded of Copland Heads of Department that they nominate people they wanted sacked, apart from the odd shameful exception they refused to do so. When the Heads of Department were then threatened that they themselves would go unless they provided names, they still refused. That resistance, an expression of the self-confident autonomous decision-making which is the mark of real professionalism, set the tone which continued throughout the year. Teachers at all levels (except senior management, inevitably) have been united in their action against the surrendering of the school to Ark Inc and its removal from local democratic accountability.   In the end, the fight was lost, as any fight by a few hundred teachers, parents and pupils  against Cameron plus Gove plus their friends on Brent Council plus a hand-picked and craven IEB plus a couple of hired ‘tough’ guys was always going to be lost. 

However, there are defeats and there are defeats.  Ark and the spivs who own it have grabbed Copland. They will give it a new name and claim the credit for the new  building (which, in fact, was planned to go ahead whoever ran the school).  But Gove has gone from the DfE and, as a result of his perceived ‘toxicity’ in the eyes of the electorate (in large part a result of the loud and active resistance of teachers like those at Copland) his hopes of leading the Tory party, and God help us, the country, have gone too.  

Copland staff can feel  proud of the fight they put up in defence of the jobs of their colleagues (including dinner ladies, classroom assistants, mentors, support staff, sports coaches, caretakers, cleaners as well as classroom teachers).  Their professionalism was manifested in action not in apathetic quiescence and  this kind of professional engagement and concern  is a crucially important part of the checks and balances in any democratic society’s resistance to a bullying centralised state. 

So ‘professional’ is certainly what the great majority of Copland staff have been, particularly in face of the despondency and disillusionment which they inevitably felt as they watched their various ‘Leaders’ abandon them. But to use the word ‘professional’ in the way Mr Marshall used it on Wednesday was an insult.  However, there is another variant of ‘professional’’s  many shades of meaning  and it relates to an any activity performed primarily for financial gain. At this point the word almost takes on the meaning of ‘mercenary’, where any moral qualms on the part of the people hired to carry out the activity can be silenced by, to misquote a great British politician of the past, ‘stuffing their mouths with ten pound notes’. There were  people in the hall at Copland on Wednesday who maybe were worthy of such an appellation; but it was certainly not those teachers and ex-teachers who were having to listen to that ill-judged  speech.

Congratulations to all the staff, parents and pupils who fought so hard and persistently to prevent forced academisation. Although you didn't succeed it was a battle worth fighting and an example and inspiration to others.

Martin Francis 

Help Barham Park Estate's Temporary Residents extend their tenancies

An urgent petition has been launched following the failure of attempts to rectify 'premature notices to quit' on tenants of landlord Brent Community Housing affected by a regeneration in Barham Park. Signatures need to be collected before Monday July 28th .

This is the petition - link to sign at end

We the undersigned petition the council to intervene in the premature issue of 42 "Notice to Quit" orders issued by Brent Community Housing to its tenants and subletting organisations who are resident in the Phase 3 development area of the Barham Park regeneration plan. These NTQs require all the affected residents in these 42 properties to leave by 18th August 2014, when the Council's website clearly indicates there are no plans to proceed with the Phase 3 demolition until early 2015. We therefore request the Council uses its influence with its contractor to extend the above tenancies until January 2015.

We believe that the premature issue of these 42 NTQs is liable to be financially detrimental to the Council in terms of lost rental income and the security of tenure and duty of care for existing Council tenants.

It is our understanding from viewing the Council’s regeneration plans, and from discussion with the contractors and others involved in the proposed scheme that Phase 3 is unlikely to start for at least six months. The Council’s website states that the current building under construction, Phase 2C, is not due to become occupied until “Early in 2015” (http://brent.gov.uk/regeneration/barham-park-estate-regeneration/the-barham-park-estate-project/). To date it has been usual to start to move tenants into the new builds prior to initiating the next demolition schedule.

In addition to forcing a large number of young single people to seek alternative accommodation, which will impact on the council’s Housing Options Team, and the substantial loss of income to the Local Authority, we are also concerned about our neighbours who have council tenancies and are awaiting rehousing. They have already expressed their worries that leaving these 42 properties empty will encourage anti-social behaviour from outside elements.

 Sign ePetition