How our universities were “liberated” & why New Labour’s structural reforms have failed
Having been expelled from all university committees as VPE for a protest against the university’s controversial ban on protests, I have started a series of posts on the university based on its private papers to deliver in pamphlets to the university community. This is the third of these posts, the second & first can be [...]
Private police?: Georgian Policy for the Modern Age
What did you do if you were the victim of a crime in Georgian London? Say, for example, you’d been held up by bandits on the road, or had your house burgled? The answer – private policing. People, if they could afford it, would go to the local ‘thief-taker’ who would track down your brigand, [...]
The Never-Ending Campaign Against Privatisation
When I said that an Edinburgh campaign had won the fight against the privatisation of some of our local council’s services, I may have spoken too soon. It turns out that the City of Edinburgh Council have awarded a street cleaning contract to Enterprise, the company which unsuccessfully bid for a contract to run the [...]
A Community Strategy to Beat Austerity
Guest post by Jon Bee The attacks on our standard of living as a result of the economic crisis and the neo-liberal cuts agenda are currently being fought against by single issue campaigning groups and coalitions, without strong roots in communities. Lessons from the Poll Tax struggle show us that this is a strategic mistake, [...]
The bill is gone but the fight is on
We need to step up our game on the White Paper; the government is no longer going to do the work of defeating it for us. They were about to put its proposed regressive changes to higher education into the cold light of day where it stood a fair chance of withering and dying. We [...]
Sometimes We Win
After the heartbreaking defeats of several popular anti-cuts campaigns in the last few months, we can sometimes forget that campaigning isn’t always a futile activity. But yesterday, after a six-month-long campaign by local residents, the City of Edinburgh Council voted to reject proposals to privatise two major service areas. The proposals were part of an [...]
Cuts and Privatisation: Still on Edinburgh’s Agenda in 2012
In November 2011, the City of Edinburgh Council took the decision not privatise environmental services (that’s waste and recycling, street cleaning, and parks maintenance), following pressure from a local grassroots campaign. I’ve been involved in the campaign from the early stages and it has been amazing to see how a little bit of public scrutiny [...]
Edinburgh’s Not for Sale – Time to Stop Privatisation Plans
Today City of Edinburgh Councillors are making the most important decision of their political careers. The Liberal Democrat-led administration has proposed a dramatic change in the level and mechanism of service delivery. While there’s been a lot of discussion of the Edinburgh Trams this change, if implemented, promises to turn vast swathes of Council services [...]
Privatisation and the SNP
While Alex Salmond received a hero’s welcome at the SNP conference in Inverness last weekend, controversy has been brewing back in Edinburgh. On Thursday, the City of Edinburgh Council – led by a coalition of the Liberal Democrats and SNP – will be taking the first of a series of votes on whether council services [...]
Caring about Care
This post is published as a series of blogs about privatisation and in support of the ‘Week of Auctions organised by an alliance of anti-cuts groups across the UK. The following is a personal perspective on care work. By Jess Stanton After his health worsened last Christmas, my Grandad Jack had to leave his bungalow [...]
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