Monday 14th January 8pm The Cube, Dove Street, Bristol.  Entry £3/£4 (But nobody turned away due to lack of funds)

We are really pleased to present the Secret City film a film produced by local lad Lee Salter and Michael Chanan, a film that exposes the power that the City of London has over our lives.

London and the City of London are not the same place. London is a metropolis of 8 million people. The City of London is the famous square mile in the middle, with about 7,000 residents. A Corporation older than Parliament, the City of London has played a key historical role in protecting and promoting the interests of finance capital.

Secret City investigates the power wielded by the Corporation of London over British economic policy, through which it sustains London’s prime position at the hub of global finance capital — not least through control of the majority of the world’s tax havens.

The film exposes the Corporation’s anti-democratic constitution, the ancient laws which allow it function as a state within a state, and thus to promote an illusory promise of economic growth at the cost of the real economy.

The filmmakers will be present to discuss the film after its screening.

Global giant Starbucks has been using tax dodges to aviod paying millions in tax. Starbucks has made over £3bn in UK sales since 1998 but had paid less than 1% in corporation tax.

Whilst local businesses who pay their taxes struggle through a double-dip recession and prolonged period of stagnation, multinationals such as Starbucks are able to continue making huge profits as they don't pay the 27% corporation tax they ought to. Local services are being cut, public services such as the NHS are being privatised and vulnerable groups such as the disabled are targeted while multi-billion dollar multinationals who could most afford to bear the brunt of the age of austerity pay nothing towards the society that sustains them.

Join us on Saturday 8th December to transform the tax dodgers such as Starbucks into services women depend on, such as refuges and creches.

Meet 1pm at the Band Stand in Castle Park, before heading to Starbucks near Debenhams in Broadmead

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/actions/943

 

On Friday 8th June, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (Bristol branch) and The Solidarity Federation (SolFed) joined to protest outside the offices of notorious “bad handlers” Tomorrows People.

Tomorrow’s People (ran by a Tory Baroness) were the ones who made thousands of pounds out of sending unemployed people, desperate for a job, into the clutches of companies like Close Protection, who camped their staff under London Bridge before working the Jubilee last week.

The protest aimed to raise the issue that any form of forced work for free is a form of slavery, whatever the excuse given, and is not fit for a country as Great as Britain. It also aimed to raise the issue that security is skilled labour, not slave labour, and that workfare is just the latest way of bringing down job rates in the security industry.

Close Protection is not the only place that Tomorrows People sells on its workfare clients, a member of Tomorrows People staff confirmed that BRISTOL ROVERS also regularly uses workfare to replace paid staff! The are many gasheads in Bristol IWW, and this news came as a nasty shock. Bristol IWW will be writing to Bristol Rovers to ask for reassurances that none of the long-serving club stewards’ roles have been replaced by unpaid workfare, rather than letting others in need work for the club they support and earn a bit of money.

The No Tesco in Stokes Croft Campaign took Bristol City Council to court. Despite exposing the flawed planning process, the Council won. Nearly £2500 costs were awarded against the No Tesco Campaign. Bristolians have been asked to help collectivly pay the fine...

The No Tesco Campaign writes; Prepare to party at the People's Republic of Stokes Croft!

On Friday 13 April at 7.30 pm, the No Tesco in Stokes Croft campaigners are holding a fundraising night at 35 Jamaica Street, BS2 8JP - with DJs, live music, poetry, street theatre, and The Occasional Cinema in the adjoining Yard.

Buy a limited edition "I paid the fine" mug - £12 each - and you could win 12 of the last post-riot  "Tesco Value Petrol Bomb" posters donated by Banksy (pictured). Randomly selected, 12 of the mugs will come with the graffiti artist's original April 2011 "commemorative souvenir poster". Mugs with Banksy posters are available ONLY on the night of Friday 13 April 2012. We are partying a year after Tesco opened in Stokes Croft on 16 April 2011.

We tried to stop Tesco with every legal means - and we lost. We may have lost the legal battle but the war is by no means over. As the Bristol People's Supermarket starts to trade, the Boycott Tesco campaign continues and the Carriageworks and Westmoreland House Action Group gains momentum, local resilience continues to thrive. Check this latest piece on Stokes Croft from the Guardian on Bristol's most bohemian neighbourhood.

Help pay off our £2,000 judicial review court costs - and be part of social history. Full article...