Fanatics organising more vigils against abortion
Religious fanatics from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) are organising vigils across 50 towns and cities this month to mark the 44th anniversary of the Abortion Act.
On Saturday 28 April, supporters of SPUC will form chains and hold placards. The Abortion Act 1967 came into effect on 27 April 1968.
Here’s the list of ‘chains’ that will take place on Saturday 28 April from 11am to 1pm, for pro-choice activists:
Ashton-under-Lyne
Balsall Common
Banff
Bath
Bedford – 12 noon to 1.30 pm
Bideford
Blackpool
Brecon
Brighton
Bristol
Cardiff
Carnforth
Cheltenham
Chester
Chorley
Congleton
Crosby
Eccles
Edgbaston
Edinburgh
Enniskillen – 12noon to 2pm
Erdington
Farnham
Godalming
Guildford
Hammersmith
Handsworth
Huddersfield
Hull
Lincoln
Llanelli
Loughborough – Sat 21 April
Milton Keynes
Narborough
Newcastle under Lyme
Newcastle upon Tyne
Nottingham – Sat 21 April, 10am to 12noon
Paignton
Peterborough
Plymouth
Preston
Reading
Sale
Salisbury
Sheffield
Stevenage
Swansea
Telford
Truro
Uxbridge
Vale of Glamorgan
Wavertree
Worthing
Key live webcast to debate Robinhood tax
A line-up of politicians, bankers and tax experts from the UK and Europe are to participate in a roundtable debate on the Tobin Tax to be webcast live from London on 23 April 2012.
Discussion on the topic has already started at the microsite tobintax.theinformationdaily.com launched earlier this week.
Update: Follow the debate on Twitter
Articles from Simon Chouffot of the UK’s Robin Hood Tax campaign, Ryan Bourne, Head of Economic Research at the Centre For Policy Studies, Marina Yannakoudakis, the Conservative MEP for London and a host of others have been published, with interactive discussion in full swing on the Twitter stream #tobintax.
The financial transactions or ‘Tobin’ tax has become the subject of intense debate following the European Union’s stated intention to implement such a tax under the enhanced participation procedure in the Eurozone countries.
The roundtable event on 23 April run in In association with The Centre for Policy Studies.
The line up of UK and EU politicians and experts on the panel includes:
Andrew Tyrie MP, Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee
Roger Liddle, former adviser to President Barroso
Kay Swinburne MEP
Iain Anderson, Cicero consulting
John Chown (a leading tax expert)
Tim Knox – Director, Centre for Policy Studies
The webcast will be available free-of-charge for anyone that registers in advance. The webcast audience will be able to participate by putting their questions to the panel during the event via email and Twitter.
EDL member arrested after threats
An English Defence League member was arrested on Saturday night for racially inflammatory material posted on to Facebook.
In posts highlighted by EDL News, he allegedly threatened Muslims with an Oslo-style bomb attack.
A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: “A 29 year old man was arrested on Saturday night on suspicion of assault and possessing racially inflammatory material. He is currently in custody and is helping police with their enquiries.”
There is plenty of evidence out there that [Norwegian terrorist] Breivik was partly inspired by the English Defence League, in fact before he went on his murderous campaign, he emailed his manifesto to a large number of EDL members who he had been in contact with.
Leadership claim time and time again that their far right organisation does not breed extremism. South Shield’s Division member, Kenny Holden, seems to prove the opposite when he states his intention to set a pipe bomb off in Ocean Road, a predominantly Asian area in the City.
Last week five men were arrested by anti-terrorism police for inciting racial hatred online – all linked to North West Infidels, a splinter group with links to the English Defence League.
Event: racism amongst Muslims and Jews
Against a background of public debate, often taking the form of accusations and counter accusations, the emphasis here will be self-critique.
The meeting will begin by examining the historical resonances between Jewish and Muslim experience of discrimination and continue with analysis of the causes and manifestations of hostility between Jews and Muslims in contemporary Britain.
It will end with reflections on new directions and initiatives in Jewish-Muslim relations.
Independent Jewish Voices seeks to bring new perspectives to the troubled question of anti-Muslim attitudes among Jews and anti-Jewish attitudes among Muslims.
THURSDAY 26 APRIL, 7-9 PM
THE SMALL HALL, FRIENDS HOUSE,
173-177 EUSTON ROAD, LONDON, NW1 2BJ
(Opposite Euston Station, close to Euston Square and Kings Cross Stations)
Entrance: £10 / £5 concession (for students or unemployed only)
CHAIR: REETA CHAKRABARTI is the Education and Social Affairs Correspondent for BBC News
PANELLISTS: GILBERT ACHCAR is Professor in Development Studies and Chair of the Centre for Palestine Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is the author of many books, the latest of which is The Arabs and the Holocaust (Saqi Books, 2011).
ROB BERKELEY has been Director of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading race equality think tank, since January 2009. He is co-editor of Identity, Ethnic Diversity and Community Cohesion (Sage: 2007).
TONY KUSHNER is Director of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton. He has recently completed The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys, 1685 to the Present to be published by Manchester University Press later this year.
ADAM SUTCLIFFE is Senior Lecturer in European History at Kings College London. He is the author of Judaism and Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and the editor of Philosemitism in History (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Watch: Ian Bowler for Mayor campaign
Sir Ian Bowler, aka comedian Nathaniel Tapley, is standing for Mayor of London.
And he has an amazing team to back him up.
via eBowler.co.uk
6% of UK’s wealthiest pay under 10% in tax
Around 6% of the wealthiest people in Britain use tax relief to reduce their tax bills to less than 10% of their incomes, according to figures published today.
The startling figures are released by the Treasury today. It found that of 200 taxpayers earning more than £10m a year, 12 are paying less than 10% in taxes.
The Treasury’s numbers also revealed that a thousand taxpayers earning more than £1m a year have a tax rate of less than 30% of their income.
Theoretically, anyone earning up to £34,370 pounds is liable to pay income tax of 20%, while those earning over £150,000 a year must currently pay 50% for earnings above that sum.
The Treasury says 10,000 taxpayers earn between £1m and £5m. Of those, 10% pay between 30% and 40% in tax, 5% pay between 20% and 30% tax, and 3% pay less than 10%.
Of those earning between £250,000 and £500,000, the Treasury found that 27% were paying tax of less than 40%.
It’s not clear whether this rough but shocking picture of tax avoidance by Britain’s super-rich takes secretive tax havens into account. It is usually impossible to detect money funelled through tax havens.
The Treasury says its figures illustrate the importance putting a cap tax-relief via charities.
Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday also found that the big five internet firms paid 0.8% tax on UK profits.
MPs mark Venezuelan coup defeat
MPs, writers and activists have signed a letter welcoming a decade since the a military coup in Venezuela temporarily ousted Huge Chavez.
The statement said:
April 11th-13th 2012 marks a decade since a military coup in Venezuela temporarily ousted the elected government led by President Hugo Chavez. During the three days that the coup plotters held power, over a dozen people were murdered, human rights violations were perpetrated and Venezuela’s democratic institutions shut down.
Only the reversal of the coup by millions of people heroically taking to the streets prevented further bloodshed, repression and human rights violations.
The defeat of the coup led not only to the restoration of democracy – more elections have been held in Venezuela over the past 12 years than in the previous 40 years – but the flowering of social programmes that have delivered free healthcare to millions for the first time, eradicated illiteracy and lifted millions of people out of poverty.
Evidence has revealed that the coup plotters received backing from US government agencies. Since then US government interventions into Venezuela’s democracy have continued – mainly through tens of millions of dollars in funding to opposition movements. Concerns have been expressed that this is to strengthen those backing the free-market policies and multi-nationals’ control of Venezuela’s huge oil reserves that dominated Venezuela’s past.
On 7 October 2012 Venezuelans will be voting in a Presidential election. It is for the Venezuelan people alone to choose their next government, free from any external intervention.
Signatories include
Colin Burgon (Chair, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign)
Ian Davidson MP
Ian Lavery MP
Michael Meacher MP
Grahame Morris MP
Jim Sheridan MP
Dave Anderson MP
Micheal Meacher MP
Sir Bob Russell MP
Angus McNeil MP
George Galloway MP
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen, Vice Chair All Party Parliamentary Group on Latin America
John Pilger (Journalist & filmmaker)
Owen Jones (Author, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class )
Linton Kwesi Johnson (Performer)
Ken Loach (Film Director)
Jon McClure (Musician from the Reverend & the Makers)
Lowkey (rapper)
Richard Gott (writer)
Professor Ernesto Laclau (writer)
Dr Francisco Dominguez (Head of the Centre for Latin American Studies, Middlesex University)
Prof Doreen MAssey (Open Unversity Faculty of Social Sciences)
Bruce Kent (Vice President, Pax Christi)
Billy Hayes (General Secretary, CWU)
Manuel Cortes (General Secretary, TSSA)
Tony Burke (Assistant General Secretary, Unite the Union)
Heather Wakefield (Head of Local Government, UNISON)
Kanja Sesay (NUS Black Students’ Officer)
Lindsey German (Stop the War Coalition Convenor)
and over 40 others.
“Actors” hit back in new Ken video
Ken Livingstone’s election team have today hit back at accusations they paid actors for his election broadcast with a new video.
The video features three of the Londoners who appeared in Labour’s earlier broadcast explaining why they took part and why they are backing Ken’s campaign.
None of them were paid for this broadcast either.
In contrast Boris Johnson’s party election broadcast featured Boris Johnson talking about Boris Johnson.
UKuncut plan ‘street parties’ for Olympics
UK Uncut, the anti-cuts direct action group, announced yesterday a new plan of action to start shortly before the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations and the Olympic period.
The group will hold street parties in major towns and cities across the UK in the run up to the Jubilee and Olympics which will, “resist the cuts and celebrate a future that is decided by us, not a handful of billionaires.”
They will take place on the weekend before the Queen’s Jubilee. UK Uncut has dubbed these events as street parties with a ‘twist’.
They plan to block major roads and high streets up and down the country to call for a ‘future uncut’ and protest the government’s cuts, austerity agenda and the closure of local public services.
In a statement on their website, UK Uncut drew heavily on parallels with British society in 1948, the year when the Olympics were last held in London. They stated that although Britain’s post-war national debt was much higher than it is today, there was a future for people to look forward to.
UK Uncut will hold training sessions across the UK in the coming months to encourage people to organise mass street parties in their regions and block roads in major cities across the UK.
UK Uncut has no plans to directly disrupt the Jubilee ceremonies or Olympic games.
Greens unveil punchy local elections video
The Green Party of London yesterday evening unveiled their own election broadcast for the London Mayoral local election.
The stylish black and white film was directed by Rebecca Frayn (screenwriter for The Lady, Luc Besson’s biopic of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi) and produced by Christina Robert, founder of Bright Green Pictures.
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» We’re turning The Spirit Level into a film: help us in that goal
» I love the counter-productive attitude of right-wing commentators
» Watch out for the TPA’s report arguing for more cuts tomorrow
» The resurgence of bigoted conservatism in Ireland
» What’s the point of being ‘British’?
» The tragedy behind the Sam Hallam case
» Will JP Morgan be able to walk away from billion dollar losses?
» Labour is now even more reliant on left-wing voters
» We need the minimum wage for under-21s to be raised
» Has Liam Byrne discovered his conscience over disability benefits?
» Why the jobs crisis is far worse than headline figures
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