Homes Not Spikes – a victory that will send a message
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The spikes are gone. Tesco buckled under the outcry after it was found to have put in ‘anti-homeless spikes’ outside a central London store, and the company was forced to remove them.
Activists used a range of tactics, from the tweeters to the 100,000 who signed an online petition to the people who covered some of the spikes in concrete in the dead of night. Left Unity played a key part in piling on the pressure. Our action outside the Tesco yesterday was covered by the Independent, the Guardian, ITV News online,BBC Radio London [starts at 02:20:50 in], BBC Radio WM [from 1:39:55] and many more.
At one point Tesco was even coming onto our Facebook page to try to persuade us not to protest! Then, just as we were arriving, we found they were hurriedly pulling out the spikes – here’s what it looked like:
This is a victory that will send a message to any other company that is thinking of using these spikes. It’s also helped us spread the word about the real issue: that there are 700,000 homes lying empty in Britain, enough to house all homeless people right now.
Michael Gove is annoyed with Left Unity
It’s not just Tesco we’ve rattled… Left Unity activists, teachers and students protested a few weeks ago at the Department for Education against the removal of To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men from the literature curriculum as part of the Tories’ efforts to narrow our education. And it seems we made an impact on education secretary Michael Gove – see the video below!
People’s Assembly demonstration, 21 June
It’s just a week and a day to go until the People’s Assembly national demonstration on 21 June. Left Unity will be there, supporting the protest and giving out our broadsheets and leaflets. Bring your banners and come join the Left Unity contingent on the steps of the church next to BBC HQ.
Ed Miliband and The Scum
We’ll leave you with this – if there was ever a picture that shows why Left Unity is needed, it’s this photo of the leader of the Labour Party posing with a dirty lying rag even while the Hillsborough inquests are going on:
Tell your friends: join Left Unity today.
2 comments
2 responses to “Homes Not Spikes – a victory that will send a message”
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I just received an invitation from one Baroness Lawrence, requesting a donation of at least £3, with a chance to participate in a prize draw with the prize being a chance to stand next to Mr Miliband and enjoy a swanky dinner with the Baroness.
The whole email, along with my reply, is in this blog post. http://toscapetheserpentstongue.blogspot.com/2014/06/patronising.html
I have declined the offer – politely – but maybe somebody else could take up her offer, for the chance to stand next to Miliband and ask him what he was thinking of when he posed with a copy of The Sun, knowing nobody in Liverpool is ever going to even talk to him again.
I could not trust my self my wheelchair might accidentally run him over. I’ve seen many leaders in my time some good some not so good, but this time this leader is well to be nice not the person we all hoped he’d be.
Oh blow it he’s rubbish.