Former Foundry Bar Gets Anti-ConDem Makeover

There are those who look back with fondness on the Foundry, the dingy bar, venue and art space on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch that closed in May and is due to become the site of a depressingly corporate 18-storey hotel. My own recollection of the bar, based on the occasional and reluctant visit, was that it was a complete dump, the artwork was awful and it was full of pretentious tossers pretending that cod-bohemianism is somehow revolutionary. Well, I suppose that appeals to some people.

Far more impressive is the 'Great Brain Robbers' mural by Dr D that has been plastered on the front of the now empty building - a brilliant piece of anti-government propaganda. See here for more pictures.

NETCU Uses Friendly Journalists To Send Message To Government

Tucked away at the end of a piece in today's Observer about the National Union of Students' plan to 'decapitate' senior Lib Dems at the next election is this passage:

"As police face continued criticism for failing to control the march, the Observer has learned that defence firms are working closely with UK armed forces and contemplating a “militarisation” strategy to counter the threat of civil disorder.

The trade group representing the military and security industry says firms are in negotiation with senior officers over possible orders for armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment.

The move coincides with government-backed attempts to introduce the use of unmanned spy drones throughout UK airspace, facilitating an expansion of covert surveillance that could provide intelligence on future demonstrations.

Derek Marshall, of the trade body Aerospace, Defence and Security (ADS), said that such drones could eventually replace police helicopters. He added that military manufacturers had discussed police procurement policies with the government, as forces look to counter an identified threat of civil disobedience from political extremists".

The idea of a a “militarisation” strategy is incredibly alarmist and has certainly alarmed some people - or at least those prepared to believe that links between the police and the security industry is some kind of new development.

In reality, the rise of paramilitary-style policing in Britain over thirty years has resulted in the steady growth of an industry to supply the police with new gadgets and equipment. The trade group mentioned in the report is itself the result of a merger between three older industry bodies: the Association of Police and Public Security Suppliers, the Defence Manufacturers Association and the Society of British Aerospace Companies. Companies that are members of ADS are not talking to the police because of a new threat of civil disorder - it's what they do all the time. ADS has itself denied that its comment to the Observer about sale of kit to police forces has anything to do with recent protests.

So why pretend otherwise? I believe there is a different message being conveyed here and that the presence in the byline of Mark Townsend, the Observer's Crime, Defence & Legal Affairs correspondent, should have been an immediate indicator of the need to exercise an enormous amount of scepticism.

Some may recall that Townsend was responsible for a thinly disguised propaganda-piece for the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) in November 2008, written with a former army officer called Nick Denning, which claimed a "growing threat from eco-terrorists" and linked this to activists involved in Climate Camp. It was such blatant police spin that the Observer subsequently withdrew the story. Townsend is clearly in close contact with NETCU and today's hysteria about 'militarisation' is followed by a more telling piece of spin - another opportunity for the Observer to act as NETCU's mouthpiece, with unnamed 'police sources' claiming an increase in "the criminal intentions of political extremists" and “extreme leftwing activity”.

In September, I wrote a short piece for the Manchester Mule suggesting that as police numbers are cut, the government may be persuaded of the benefits of cheaper alternatives such as "targeting potential 'troublemakers' even more than at present." With the debate growing over why the police were so unprepared for the student protest at Millbank, it looks as though NETCU is simply issuing a few reminders through the press to its government paymasters. It is using its friend at the Observer and its contact at the Sunday Telepgraph to say to ministers that, whatever else is cut, its role must be protected or further disorder cannot be prevented.

A substantial increase in covert surveillance of anyone deemed a potential 'domestic extremist', a term that has no legal definition and can apply to almost anyone, is far more alarming - and far more likely to actually happen - than any nonsense about a supposed 'militarisation strategy'.

Tonight's Launch Of 'Dispatches from the Dark Side'

No-one organises political events on a Friday night. It's almost a golden rule. But this evening's launch in Stratford of Dispatches from the Dark Side, a series of essays by the radical lawyer Gareth Peirce, was packed out, completely absorbing and, because of Gareth's long association with Newham, an opportunity to celebrate her extraordinary commitment to fighting injustices that most people choose to ignore.

In the past this commitment involved challenging the state over its treatment of black and Irish communities and innocent so-called 'terrorists' like the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, people vilified during an earlier period of paranoia and suspicion. Now it means defending those who are caught up in the government's new and increasingly draconian 'war' against Islamism, suppression of which is used to justify 24 hour surveillance, house arrest and state complicity in torture, actions that Britain has the audacity to condemn others nations for participating in. Who knows, in the future perhaps another group - anarchists maybe, or anti-government campaigners in general - may become the new enemies (the concept of 'domestic extremism' certainly points in that direction) and the widening powers to suppress and harass in the name of 'security' will turn onto others. That's why we need lawyers like Gareth - and as she made clear this evening, campaigns to bring injustice to the attention of a public that might prefer not to hear what has become of their 'free' country.

Tonight was also, quite deliberately, an opportunity to show support for former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, who has been one of those horrendously vilified over the last year. The unsubstantiated and often irrational attacks on him by Gita Saghal and her supporters from February this year, which left many of us utterly confused and then increasing angry, have undoubtedly had an effect on Moazzam - as he said this evening, he is a survivor of torture and although he tries to appear confident and articulate, like the rest of us that isn't always how he feels.

Inviting him to speak alongside Gareth was a way of expressing a little solidarity and it was great that he was able to attend. It's also to the credit of Stratford Circus that they ignored a complaint from at least one (as yet unnamed) Newham councillor and a telephone call today from anti-terrorism officers, saying they were aware of the event and asking for copies of any leaflets distributed this evening to be kept. When a literary event becomes the subject of state suspicion and condemnation by council morons, you begin to understand why solidarity is so important.

In ten days time we have another event organised jointly by Newham Monitoring Project and Newham Bookshop - about the 'terror plot' that never existed. In January 2003, the media splashed the news that anti-terrorism police had disrupted an alleged al-Qaeda cell, poised to unleash the deadly poison ricin on London. Police had reportedly found traces of ricin, as well as a panoply of bomb and poison-making equipment in the cell’s ‘factory of death’ – a shabby flat in north London. ‘This danger is present and real, and with us now’ announced former prime minister Tony Blair.

But, when the ‘ricin plot’ came to trial at the Old Bailey, a very different story emerged: there was no ricin and no sophisticated plot. Rarely has a legal case been so shamelessly distorted by government, media and security forces to push their 'war on terror’ agenda. In Ricin! The Inside Story of the Terror Plot That Never Was, jury foreman Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon give the definitive story of the ricin plot, the trial and its aftermath.

The event takes place on Monday 22 November at 7 pm at St John’s Church, The Broadway, Stratford E15. Tickets cost £5 from Newham Bookshop (020 8552 9993) and copies of the book, published by Pluto Press, will be available to buy.

Redbridge Enforcement Officers 'Out Of Control'

Here’s an interesting statistic to ponder. According to information made available online by Defra, one east London council absolutely loves issuing fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for alleged flyposting.

In 2008-09, the London borough of Redbridge issued more than any other local authority and its 206 FPNs accounted for 16% of all those around the country. The year before, it again topped the list and was even more enthusiastic about threatening legal action: it issued 25% of all the FPNs recorded by Defra.

What is really surprising, however, is that in the year to March 2009, a staggering 49% of Redbridge’s FPNs for alleged flyposting were subsequently cancelled.

As I reported at the time, in early September I was issued with three fixed penalty notices by Redbridge council for allegedly fly posting leaflets about the Save Wanstead Flats campaign. At the time these ‘offences’ supposedly took place, I was at work in Forest Gate and so I refused to accept liability for paying them, challenging the council to take me to court if necessary. After some prompting, a senior official in Redbridge’s Street Scene Enforcement team wrote on 18 October to left me know that “having reviewed the evidence and circumstances in this case”, he had graciously decided to waive the FPNs, adding that “as long as there is no repeat if the original offence, you will not hear from us again.”

Although pleased that I wasn’t facing a day in court, I was understandably livid at this last comment. Redbridge council clearly had no evidence it felt it could substantiate in front of a magistrate and any ‘original offence’ involving me had never occurred, so it could hardly be repeated. With help from Newham Monitoring Project, I therefore spoke to a solicitor, who wrote to demand an apology. Today, he received an extremely intemperate response expressing anger at the accusation that the council issues FPNs without evidence. It states:

“The posters concerned were advertising the ‘Save Wanstead Flats’ campaign and bore an address, which you have agreed is your client’s work address. I would contest that in any other proceedings, this would be viewed as legitimate evidence, for instance we deal with many cases of flytipping, if correspondence is found in a bag of fly-tipped rubbish, would this not be considered evidence of the origin of the rubbish? As your client is a ‘well known community activist in the Save Wanstead Flats campaign’, what would a ‘reasonable’ person think?”

What indeed? The problem with the comparison to a stray letter left in a dumped bag of rubbish is a simple one – my name does not appear anywhere on the campaign leaflet that was apparently pinned to a tree in Wanstead High Street back in September. It’s a clear admission that Redbridge thought it ‘reasonable’, with no other evidence, to simply find a name linked to the campaign, presumably through a quick Google search, and use this as the basis for a threat of a fine or court hearing. It’s also an admission that a senior member of the borough’s Street Scene Enforcement team doesn’t understand the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2003, which forbids the issuing of FPNs unless there is reason to believe that a person has ‘personally affixed or placed’ a poster illegally. That involves rather more than plucking someone’s name off the internet - such as catching them in the act of flyposting, for instance - and it’s hardly surprising that Redbridge council wasn’t prepared to risk scrutiny by a court of its officers’ flimsy conjecture.

But it is also far from surprising that so many of its FPNs are cancelled if this is the cavalier attitude towards evidence adopted by Redbridge’s Street Scene Enforcement officers, who appear to be completely out of control. Decisions about whether to send out letters demanding an £80 penalty, with the prospect of a £5000 fine for non-compliance, shouldn’t be taken lightly. But Redbridge council seems to throw them out as though they are confetti.

I have been offered an apology 'for any distress', but that's simply not good enough. Council officials can't exercise what are considerable powers with a complete disregard for the law or their accountability to the public. Meanwhile, someone in Redbridge council really needs to look at its FPN statistics and start asking questions about what on earth is going on in the Street Scene Enforcement team.

POSTSCRIPT

At the same time as instructing a solicitor, I made a Data Protection Act subject access request, demanding to see the information that Redbridge council's Street Scene Enforcement team holds on me. They have 40 days – until 29 November – to release this data. If they fail to keep to this deadline, which considering their casual approach to the law seems probable, then I’ll have no hesitation in seeking a court order to force them to do so. It looks like I'll be facing a hearing after all.

The Start Of Something Big?

Kudos to Spanish newspaper El Pais for photograph of the day from the national student protest at the Tories' Millbank headquarters. More great pictures here.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers perform Martin's original a capella 'gospel' tune at this year's Austin City Limits for the non-believers among us.

'Save Newham Services' Launched

This evening at Durning Hall Community Centre in Forest Gate, the ‘Save Newham Services’ campaign finally became a reality with a planning meeting to formalise local opposition to cuts in public services. The campaign aims to:

• Publicise, encourage, support and provide solidarity to local opposition to cuts in the London Borough of Newham.
• Provide a point of contact and coordination for local opposition to cuts in the borough.
• Research and publicise the potential impact of cuts on people living in Newham.
• Put pressure on local elected representatives to stand alongside local people to insist that cutting services is dangerous, unnecessary and must be opposed.
• Ensure that our local experience is fed upwards to all regional and national opposition to the government’s cuts programme.
• Call for greater transparency and accountability within public services in Newham.

A website has been set up - see savenewhamservices.wordpress.com for more details.

The next planning meeting is on Thursday 18 November at 6.30pm, again at Durning Hall Community Centre. It is open to anyone who wants to get involved in developing and widening the campaign.

Newham Pledges Not To Screw Up on Release Of Council Spending Data

At the beginning of October, the Guardian published an article revealing that, despite pressure from central government, only 66 local authorities had already managed to publish every item of their spending over £500. By the end of this year at the latest, all 326 councils in England must have systems in place to provide this data.

In September, the government published its guidance for local authorities, which states that "data should be published in a timely manner and with a licence that allows open reuse" and that "files are to be published in CSV file format". Both these requirements are mandatory. However, as Chris Taggart of OpenLocal highlighted at the end of September, many of the initial batch of 66 councils have already managed to completely ignore these instructions, by publishing insufficient or incomplete information in PDF format and therefore making the data extremely inaccessible.

At least there is time for these councils to fix their failure to follow the guidance. We can expect the new England-wide system that starts in January 2011 to include many more examples of data that does not indicate department names, identify suppliers or describe what different payments were actually for.

Needless to say, Newham wasn't one of the 66 authorities that has made a start. Out of curiosity, I therefore dropped the council a line, asking whether it was able to confirm whether it intends to make its spending information available earlier, as a number of other councils have done. For some strange reason, this simple query was treated as a Freedom of Information request and the council then proceeded to take the full 20 working days to reply. And its response? This is what took all that time:

London Borough of Newham will comply with the regulations regarding publication of payments set out by Government.

I guess that's an abrupt 'No' to earlier publication, then.

But at least this otherwise anodyne statement confirms something - that Newham council promises to publish its spending on a monthly basis, in CSV format, with the detail of "all individual invoices, grant payments, payments to other public bodies, expense payments or other such transactions", broken down into meaningful expense areas and including supplier names. That's what the regulations require.

Anything less from New Years Day 2011 - including the kind of evasiveness demonstrated by other local authorities - would be a breach of that promise. Fortunately, I'll be in the country for a change at the start of next year to check and see - but it's Newham, so I'm still obviously expecting the worst...

Thoughts On Saturday's Deaths in Custody Protest

Paul Hanes of Fourman Films has posted this video from Saturday's United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) protest from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street against deaths in police custody, in prison and in secure psychiatric care. There are also photos on Indymedia UK and Harpymarx (Louise took the great photo below).

I wasn't able to make it on Saturday because of a promise to see friends in Brighton (one I've known for 30 years) who are heading to new jobs in Europe. But for a decade, I was one of the principal organisers of this annual remembrance procession along the same route down Whitehall. After the tenth year and with UFFC essentially wound down as a campaign, those of us left making arrangements for the march decided to call it a day. Although it had gradually been ignored completely by the government and the press, without doubt the procession's most important element was the gathering together of bereaved families, acting collectively and in solidarity with each other. However, it was also emotionally difficult for many families and harder to explain how taking the same action every year was making any impact. The small group that planned each procession was just too exhausted after ten years to come up with anything else that was quite as powerful. We also really missed the crucial contribution made to the planning of the annual march by our friend Gilly Mundy, whose sudden death in 2007 was such a huge loss, politically as well as personally.

Nevertheless, there is still no other national gathering of custody-death families and that is why I was personally relieved when, after a break last year, others have stepped in to pick up the UFFC banner. From reports, it seems that the police at the gates of Downing Street refused to accept a letter from the marchers, as has been customary in previous years, which is itself a reminder that protests don't just happen but need considerable organisation. The intense security around Downing Street meant that a delegation to No 10 to hand in a letter was only possible with prior negotiation each year with the police. That didn't happen this year. One conclusion to draw from this is the need for greater skill-sharing - those of us who previously organised the march need to pass on what we know to avoid a repeat of the same problem in the future.

But another conclusion is to consider whether it is possible to hold a wider caucus or convention of custody-death families that can collectively help to organise an annual protest, ensure that it is bigger and that it reflects the true scale of the state's betrayal of bereaved relatives and their loved ones. As a trustee of INQUEST, the charity that supports families following a death in custody, I would be keen to see such a national gathering, one that enables bereaved families to meet, debate, plan and organise - and perhaps succeed where some of us failed after ten years and organise a protest every year that is as powerful as the remembrance procession, but with a far greater impact on the state and on public awareness of its failure to protect those held in its custody.

Churches Accuse Osborne Over Benefit Fraud

Three of Britain's churches have accused Chancellor George Osborne of exaggerating the scale of benefit fraud during his speech to the Commons on the Spending Review a fortnight ago.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the United Reformed Church argue that the government's own statistics show the Chancellor's claim that welfare fraud amounts to £5 billion every year is untrue. A Department for Work and Pensions report [PDF] says that benefit fraud is estimated at £1 billion and tax credit fraud is estimated at £0.6 billion, making a total of £1.6 billion. However, the report also makes clear that the remaining £2.2 billion is due to genuine error on the part of officials or benefit recipients.

The churches say that deliberately conflating these figures has the effect of depicting the poorest and most vulnerable in society as thieves. They also challenge the the Chancellor's claim that he is targeting £7 billion of uncollected tax revenues when, according to HM Revenue and Customs, there are actually around £42 billion in uncollected taxes. This suggests that Osborne is deliberately downplaying business tax fraud - the biggest shortfall was in VAT, with £15.2 billion or 16% of all potential tax was uncollected, followed by an estimated £6.9 billion in unpaid corporation tax - whilst exaggerating the level of illegal payments to welfare claimants.

I'm am not, as you may gather from other posts on this blog, at all religious but this intervention by the nonconformist churches is very welcome. Simply and clearly, it shows how the ConDems' talk about fairness is meaningless when the most senior members of the government are prepared to mislead with statistics. It's just a shame that their efforts haven't attracted more media coverage.