Also see: http://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/

Or if you do want to be talked at there’s a conference happening tomorrow with tons of great speakers. Just look at the website above.

Building a long-term movement and an infrastructure to oppose the Coalition, eh? Well, it all sounds tempting but, er – still – will there be booze?

You are right. This will be a long battle (though with luck we will have a chance to fight in an election before 2015 – the coalition has had long enough to show its colours, and they are clearly unfit to govern). The risk is that the fight will peak too soon, and that people will wind up feeling demoralised and disillusioned, not to mention intimidated by the state response (both directly violent through the police and emotionally draining as the mainstream media pour scorn on “troublemakers”) when the government doesn’t fold immediately. It won’t, but it will if the fight goes on. Whether Netroots is comprehensive and inspiring enough, I remain to be convinced.

Andrew Murray and Lindsay German, eh?

Dave’ll be quivering in his boots.

Political Dynamite will be partner aswell – just had an agreement from majority of co-editors

Where is the money supposed to come from ? Margaret Thatcher summed up the situation very nicely; “The trouble with socialism is that you run out of other peoples money to spend?.” What part of this rather simple statement is it that you don’t understand ?

7

Yes, yes…we’re all going to be convinced by someone summoning the ghost of Thatcherism as an argument for how we ought to be improving our society……. you’ll be telling us New Labour increased equality and social mobility next.

Wasn’t it taxpayers i.e. “our” money which just bailed out the banks? The correct rejoinder would appear to be: “The trouble with Thatcherism is that they never learn that the markets aren’t always right”.

Well said Galen! That guy was speaking so badly out of his arse he stank up the thread with his insnane and v false comment. Which govt is always the one that leaves us in crippling debt because apparently we need that medicine of severe cuts to make them and their wealthy friends even more rich?

It says it all that I was arguing with a Friedman groupie begging him to give me one nation that his mental freemarketism has worked and he said Chile. With a straight face. ( of course he was neither indegionous nor of a poor working class)

Says it all.

Netroots in the US Sunny isn’t about being anti-govt but about progressive idealists coming together to work towards action plans that lead to outcomes.

But why have this become a Labour thing? I followed the one in the US and it wasn’t. Why is everything party blimming political with you guys? It’s so redundant and so illogical. Can’t you see the reason we’re in this mess is because of ideology?

Left wing and right wing?

Labour is inherently about the state-how the he’ll did that become progressive??

I want to come because I am progressive and incredibly passionate about strategically fighting those large corporate sociopaths who work in govt and also outside but I don’t want to have someone come up to me with a board asking me to sign up to Labour. Why? After what they did?

It’s so sad that this will become a little click for buddies to hangout together instead of true co-production between a range of people not Labour or party affiliated but who are 100% about progress in mind, society, business and government.

@Rantersparadise: Have a look at the site – http://www.netrootsuk.org – It’s not planned to be a Labour Party gig at all – as you say that would be very much counter to the point. We’re hoping to get together progressives of all stripes – political, community, issue-focused, etc to learn from each other and build together online and off. Inevitably, a lot of people there will be Labour members or activists, and we definitely want and need them there as part of any progressive movement, but it certainly won’t be crawling with membership forms for Labour or any other party for that matter!

This is a welcome occurrence, but I’m slightly perplexed.

Why isn’t the event offering concessionary entrance?

Unless we assume that the blogosphere and this event is aimed at politicians, professional media types, journalists and full-time trade union officials, then it should aim to reach out and in doing so offer concessions.

That is the traditional way within the movement, to offer concessions to the unwaged etc

I do hope that the organisers implement such a practice and try to reach out more.

It’s a very good point Modernity, and one we’d debated (including making organisations pay a separate tier to offset concessions). In the end, we came down on the side of making everything simple so as to get it done as cheaply as possible. We’ve lots of people to run everything on the day (can always do with more volunteers though!), but an absolute shoestring on organisation and systems in the run up to it. One price for tickets (set absolutely as low as we can) was one way we were able to help keep accounting and website reservation processing simple.

It’s a conscious decision to make it a fiver (including lunch & refreshments) rather than the hundreds you pay for the kind of conferences you mention that are aimed at the media and NGOs rather than the grassroots.

Obviously when you’re on no wage or benefits, a fiver becomes a big deal, but we thought the bigger disincentive would likely be travel costs (getting worse especially for those further afield), which is why we’re putting money into a bursary fund to pay for train tickets for people who couldn’t otherwise afford it – there’s more on the site about making applications to this.

If anyone has serious problems with the ticket price though, do get in touch via the site – I’m sure we can work something.

John,

All well and good, but unless you are **seen** to make a conscious effort to open up such events to the unwaged and others, then it will be rather limited.

Or at least limited to a certain range of people, which has been a constant problem in the movement for years,

Your offer to help people is very generous, but people don’t like to go begging (as anyone familiar with the workings of the DWP would know), so it’s better to include something at the bottom of publicity material (such as this post), which expressly offers concessions, etc etc

Additionally you might provide some other methods of payment, rather than just Paypal, etc (bearing in mind that many people live in a cash based economy, and Paypal is, in that context, a bit of an extravagance).

Good points Modernity. Will try to make travel bursary info both more obvious, and less stigmatised in future promotions – ie clearer that it’s intended for unwaged, low waged and students to apply, rather than people thinking they need to apply to some kind of hardship fund.

PS – We’re hoping to get direct sponsorships to make travel money go futher, but haven’t had any offers specifically for this yet – if anyone out there has deep pockets, get in touch!

Also good point on PayPal-only payment (due to having too few person-hours on this to process cheques/cash) – will consider if there’s a way around that.

John,

I appreciate why these items probably weren’t highlighted (particularly in this post), as it didn’t seem relevant to most attendees, but surely that’s the point?

To go beyond the obvious, to get out of the middle-class comfort zone that pervades much of the blogosphere, etc etc

People need to imagine and to put themselves in that position of those outside London, unwaged, non Paypal accessible, interested in the issues, but living in a cash based economy, and how to make it possible for them to attend (or contribute) without feeling like tolerated beggars.

I do hope that there will be some video coverage, for those unable to physically attend.

Yes – we’ll have the largest sessions covered on reasonable quality video to post up ASAP after (can’t unfortunately afford to set up live streaming, which would have made for interactivity for those who can’t get there – again, any generous sponsors out there get in touch!), and trying to get all the smaller workshops videoed by volunteers in the sessions so we can get them up on the site afterwards too.