Friends and family of Harry Stanley confronted the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens at a meeting in Hackney, east London, on Thursday of last week.
Harry Stanley, an unarmed man, was shot dead in the street by two police officers almost three years ago. His widow, Irene Stanley, asked Stevens, ‘If the police have a body, a weapon and two people who admit to having killed the person, what more evidence would they need, and why won’t the police prosecute such people? It would be far better for you, Mr Stevens, to go and sort out the conduct of your officers who are totally immune to prosecution, rather than coming here to give a speech to the community about crime.’
AROUND 100 protesters marched through the centre of Swansea last Saturday against the building of a massive incinerator complex. The march followed an 80-strong protest meeting on Thursday organised by the Welsh Socialist Alliance.
OVER 100 parents and pupils lobbied Liverpool City Council on Friday of last week against school closures. One of the campaign organisers, Ann Roach, told Socialist Worker, ‘We’re not stopping until we keep all the schools open. Next up is a march through town and we’ll shame them about their behind the scenes decisions.’
PARENTS AND children campaigned in the streets of Hackney, east London, last week against threatened nursery closures. They leafleted shoppers and collected hundreds of signatures in support.
The Labour-run council has said it wants to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from the nurseries budget, and that either St John’s nursery or Fernbank could close.
Diana Swingler, a parent at St John’s and a Socialist Alliance candidate in the forthcoming council elections, says: ‘We are going to fight these closures for our children and future generations of children. It is a disgrace that Hackney under New Labour has closed three nurseries in the last 18 months.’
SOME 26 people attended a lively and angry Northampton Trades Council sponsored meeting to debate how to fight privatisation on Tuesday of last week. Steve Marks, a Unison union steward and former Labour Party member, said:
‘Our branch have discussed the political fund, and we are aggrieved that we give more money every year to a party that stabs us in the back and will throw many of us on the dole.’
Ron Linsdell, ex-mayor, said, ‘I have been a member of the Labour Party since 1955 and was a councillor for 26 years. I will never vote Labour again.’
Unions have called a general strike
Interview with a member of French revolutionary socialist group Autonomie de Classe
