Category Archives: Exclusive Video Interview

May 8 2012

Fighting for our Open Rights

Economic Survivor attended a Sheffield meeting of Open Rights Group yesterday evening and interviewed supporting activist Richard King on issues of net surveillance and censorship.

The Sheffield group is a new cell and this was was its second monthly meet-up, with sixteen attendees bringing their informed views and covering a broad spectrum of technical, political, academic and other relevant experience.

The main topic for this evening was the issue of Richard O’Dwyer’s extradition to the United States for creating a website, TVShack, that allegedly linked to copyright material. It is disputable that a crime was committed in the first place, but the US is clearly keen to make O’Dwyer’s case into a show-trial in order to justify broader internet censorship – which potentially affects anyone who writes a blog, tweets or posts links on social media such as Facebook. Tonight was a precious occasion, not just for the quality of those attending but also because Richard’s mum Julia came along and gave the group a real insight into real life issues involved (see http://juliasblog-the-fight-of-our-lives.blogspot.com for regularly updated news).

Here is an exclusive interview that Richard King kindly gave economicsurvivor.net before the ORG meeting:

See also:

May 2 2012

NHS will be shown no mercy!

EXCLUSIVE! Today, one day before local elections in Britain, Sheffield-based activist Andy Cropper conducted his second “silent protest” against radical reforms to the UK’s National Health Service being brought about under the Health & Social Care Act recently passed in Parliament.

In this exclusive video interview (see below) with Andy’s close friend and supporter Nigel, government ambitions to dissect the NHS are discussed – with close links exposed between Prime Minister David Cameron and a man, Mark Britnell, who is advising on an apparent whole-scale abolition of the UK health service as part of a global strategy. (See our coverage of Andy’s first protest here).

According to Office for National Statistics data published today, expenditure on healthcare in the UK (in current prices) totalled £140.8 billion in 2010. This represents a sizeable pot of public money for private interests to get their hands on.

UPDATE …..
Later this afternoon, Andy told economicsruvivor.net: “A very very very very good protest session, spoke with several councillors (Jilian Creasy, Rob Murphy both of the Green party), several high level key civil service folk, several NHS workers came and gave support as well as several regular supporters. Very good and deep and difficult conversations with a really good range of folk asking what was going on and seriously shocked at what I was communicating … will be doing this again in 2 weeks time.

“Here is a directory where you can see 4 photos of today’s action and the 3 posters I made as pdf files where you can actually click on any of the url links to see more -http://artbyandyonline.com/nhsprotest/

“The key bit to this protest is this document from a global healthcare conference set up by APAX which I mention in the first poster looking at global privatisation of health services: http://www.powerbase.info/images/f/fe/Apax_Healthcare_conference_2010.pdf. This is the place where Mark Britnell of KPMG fame (aka ATOS – the UK arm of KPMG was bought by ATOS in 2002), says The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years. and In future,The NHS will be a state insurance provider not a state deliverer. This quote can be found on page 12 of the booklet.

“When I say global privatisation of the health service … I mean that the whole of the globe is being harmonised to fit within a standardised privatised structure/network. this is the document that shows the thoughts and plans”We all knew about this, we all suspected it, but here’s the actual information that proves it: If you’re on FB you can see my gallery of protest stuff here -http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150692041511288.390915.647096287  or look at this directory - http://artbyandyonline.com/nhsprotest/“

Apr 18 2012

Silent protest over Health and Social Care illegalities

Protest continues against arguably illegal handling by the UK Conservative-led  government of its controversial Health and Social Care Act 2012 that was enacted last month. One such action took place today in Sheffield at noon as activist Andy Cropper stood in silence for an hour as he and several fellow activists handed out information about the Act to the public.

Apart from ongoing concerns that the National Health Service is being carved up to benefit private contractors, to the point even where it is unclear where responsibility for the NHS lies within government, a gravely outstanding issue is that of Ministers’ resistance to publishing the Risk Register – despite a clear decision by the Information Commissioner that risks of restructuring the NHS should be made public.

Economicsurvivor.net attended Sheffield Town Hall to hear how activists want Sheffield City Council to take a lead in demanding a full explanation from government:

(Thanks to Andy’s friend David Kirkham for the explanatory interview)

Mar 21 2012

Only Socialists protest Workfare and UK Budget in Sheffield

Economic Survivor received an email invite from UK Uncut to a “flying picket tour of businesses profiting from the forced labour of the unemployed” on this day when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his Spring Budget in Parliament. Sadly, no one from UK Uncut actually turned up.

However, around a dozen protestors, mainly from the Sheffield Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, did attend, along with a few journalism students from the local university.

Alistair, an activist with the Socialist Party, gave an insightful interview to economicsurvivor.net covering reactions to the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, the passing of the Health & Social Care Act in Parliament yesterday, and the government’s controversial Workfare programme which has been scandalised by allegations of fraud at leading provider A4E.

Towards the end of this interview, a particularly interesting comparison is made between how many millionaire MPs sit in the current UK Government’s Cabinet and the number of “low-paid workers” who were, according to the government, “lifted out of poverty” by an increase in the lower tax threshold mentioned in today’s Budget statement.

And here is a short clip of the protestors making themselves heard outside the A4E main offices several moments later:

Mar 17 2012

What’s left of politics?

Sheffield was once celebrated as being the capital city of the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire. Even today, different socialist factions set out their stalls and petitions in an effort to persuade passers-by in the city that a communist utopia is achievable.

David Blunkett, before becoming a Member of Parliament and putting in time as Home Secretary, was considered a leftist firebrand well to the left even of London’s Ken Livingstone. He was Leader of Sheffield City Council during the 1980s – often referred to as “the Thatcher years”. This fact, along with the (recently closed) National Union of Miners HQ being in the city, helped establish England’s fourth largest city’s reputation for leftism.

Saturdays on Sheffield’s Fargate pedestrian precinct usually mean Socialist Party members and Socialist Worker Party activists are airing their ideologies for anyone who cares to listen – and quite a few punters actually do stop to discuss the patently bad job that the Tory-led government is currently doing with the economy and the paucity of the opposition Labour Party as a force for workers’ rights.

Given ongoing cuts to public services and other austerity measures, all brought about by criminal use of public money to bailout international banksters’ toxic debts, these socialist revolutionaries are more than ever in their element.

Jack is 19 years old and working full-time for the SWP before he starts a politics course at university later this year. He is clear that socialism is a step towards a communist “utopia” and clearly believes such a possibility is very real.

Meanwhile, Sharon from the Socialist Party says that a new political party is forming that will replace Labour as the voice of the working class.

Despite having much in common, the SWP and the Socialist Party are rival factions that, according to Jack, share similar aims but differ in their tactics to achieve them.

What do you think? At this time when capitalism is undeniably in crisis, is there any future for a socialist or communist society in the UK?

Mar 10 2012

Push to Save Our NHS

As a controversial Health and Social Care Bill progresses towards final reading in the House of Commons this month, trades unions, professional associations and healthcare workers are campaigning to stop it.

Out in a windy Sheffield earlier today

Opponents claim that the Bill will, if it passes into law, “fragment and privatise” the UK’s National Health Service by transferring much of its resources into the hands of commercial healthcare companies. Under scrutiny in Parliament, there have already been 137 amendments made to the Bill.

There is also deep controversy concerning Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley’s financial ties with private healthcare providers CARE UK who allegedly bankrolled his election campaign when he was previously Shadow Secretary of State for Health.

Ali, a paramedic based in Sheffield, spoke to economicsurvivor.net about the issues driving the Save Our NHS campaign:

The Trades Union Congress has also posted videos of key speakers at a Save Our NHS rally staged last Wednesday and these can be found on YouTube.

Easy tools for lobbying MPs and Peers can be found at these links below:

Mar 9 2012

Quakers and the Occupy movement working together

Occupy Sheffield held a “General Assembly” earlier this evening outside Sheffield Town Hall to discuss forming a 24-hour “pop-up camp” as part of their campaign for social and economic justice.

Although over a dozen people turned up for tonight’s meeting, some carrying tents, they talked at length before opting to set up their new camp tomorrow morning instead. They aim to continue their effort to engage further with the people of Sheffield and highlight how the rogue banking system and resulting cuts to public services are, they say, ruining society.

Occupy Sheffield was evicted from the expansive pavement outside the city’s Cathedral just under a month ago and were later based for a while in an abandoned building that was once a Salvation Army hostel.

Economicsurvivor.net went along (on a rather windy night!) and found that there has been a great deal of practical and moral support for Occupy from the local Quaker community.

In this exclusive interview, a Quaker named Jean explained how basic values, particularly “peace, justice and equality”, are shared between the 17th Century movement and its six-months-old Occupy cousin: