Stuff the DWP! (doesn’t want you to know)
Full text for a flyer I wrote re our basic rights on Universal Credit. Please use this as a tool for organising and to help people on benefits (please let me know when you use it! I need the encouragement to keep writing!). This was all correct and checked as of 2022, but nothing has […]
Class and Oppression – an injury to one is an injury to all!
Most people face other kinds of exploitation than just class. For example women get paid less, and do far more unpaid work as well. [1][2] Black people are often “last hired, first fired” and face racist bullying and harassment at work. [3] This isn’t just about prejudice or people being mean. It’s economic – some […]
Working Class Direct Action (how we fight the class war)
Direct action is about forcing things to change. We make it too expensive for bosses and landlords to refuse our demands. It works because they are in it to make a profit. Hit that profit, and you have them on the ropes. How do we actually do it? There’ll be a list of tactics in […]
Why we Fight the Class War
Most people work for a wage. [1] And what is it like for us at work? We spend the best years of our lives, the brightest part of our days, doing whatever the bosses and managers tell us. Some people love their job and others hate it, but none of us are in charge. Anything […]
Stealth Cuts to Trans Healthcare in Plymouth
We have recently learned of cuts to transgender healthcare in Plymouth. There has been no public announcement. No consultation. Public questions to the responsible “Integrated Care Board” [1][4] have not been answered. But we’ve seen a letter [2] confirming local GPs are no longer allowed to perform blood tests or offer prescriptions for Hormone Replacement […]
We Fought NHS Cuts to ADHD and Autism Services… and we WON
In 2018 Livewell Southwest, the private company who run mental health services in Plymouth, stopped ALL assessments for adult ADHD and autism. There was no announcement, and the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group helped to cover it up – ignoring questions and refusing Freedom of Information requests. However, in October last year, we finally beat them! […]
ADHD, Capitalism, and Disability Activism
It seems like every couple months, the ADHD community on twitter has another phase debating capitalism and ADHD. How many of our problems are caused by capitalism, and how many are just a medical condition that will never go away? This tends to end badly, with polarisation and over-simplification on all sides. But if we […]
An attack on benefit claimants is an attack on ALL of us!
“I would have quit this job months ago, but I’d be sanctioned by the Jobcentre”. That’s what one person told me after working unpaid overtime every evening that week, on low pay that barely covered bills and rent. It’s a dilemma faced by everyone working in unsafe or illegal conditions. If you are fired then […]
How to Change the World
What does it mean to change the world? Where do we start? How do we get masses of people to wake up and rise up? Sometimes it feels impossible. People vote for parties who openly attack their interests. Most of the time only a handful will join protest marches or do anything more militant. The […]
The Market is not Enough!
Market Anarchism is the idea we can replace capitalism with a reformed “free market”, to better meet human needs. [1] It mostly died out at the end of the 19th century, replaced by Anarchist Communism. [2] Market Anarchism is now gaining momentum again, but the arguments against it are often stuck in the 19th century, […]
Vote With Your Feet!
In the 2015 election, 22 million of us in the UK didn’t vote [1]. That’s more people than voted for any political party. It wasn’t because we’re apathetic – it’s because most of us saw through the “good cop, bad cop” routine of Labour and the Tories. At the time, both parties supported cuts, privatising […]
Should Revolutionaries Back Corbyn? The Case Against
New video: Is promoting Corbyn a realistic way to change our lives for the better? Or should revolutionaries stick to direct action?
Get the Payrise you DESERVE
Do you want better pay? How about less stress, and safer conditions at work? The internet is full of people telling you how to ask for a payrise, or improve your CV to get a nicer job. What they don’t tell us is that doing things this way starts from a position of WEAKNESS. The […]
Lessons from the Dale Farm Eviction (repost)
“Dale Farm” is a Traveller site near Basildon, Essex. Even though the land is owned by the Irish Travellers that live there, the council decided to evict half the families from the former scrapyard because they did not have the right planning permission. [1]. While it took years for them to get around to it […]
Initiative, Reaction and the Class War (pt1)
What is Initiative? Something happened at work and everyone’s pissed off. People would probably join in if there was a strike, or at least a joint complaint. But nobody does anything. People grumble to each other in ones and twos but that’s all it is – no-one knows how to initiate action. How many of […]
Guerilla Tactics: How Activists can Fight to Win (repost)
Guerilla warfare was invented to answer the question: “what can a weak force with grassroots support, do against an army with far more weapons, experience, and resources?”. Organisers and activists have a similar problem – how can small groups of dedicated people stand up to capitalism, when the odds of winning on the streets, in […]
Corbyn: a new theory
In a system rigged to protect the rich, how did a “socialist” candidate get nominated to the top of Labour party? And how can he stay in charge of the Labour party, when most of his MPs have been against him from the start? Why did Labour end up with an anti-cuts candidate years and […]
HOW we win, not just WHAT we win
Back in 2015 I’d not had much experience of organising, and I worked in an industry where it’s rare for people to be unionised (IT). But I did win some small victories at my old workplace (mostly thanks to my union’s workplace organiser training) and like they say, the best way to learn is by […]