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Tories' council opposes culture AROUND 300 people demonstrated in North Finchley, London, on Saturday against the threat from Barnet's Tory council to halt construction of the Community Arts Centre.

"WE'RE FIGHTING to save our jobs, save our pensions and to not be privatised." That is how Nicky, a striker and Unison union member at Tory-controlled Westminster council, central London, summed up the battle to stop the wholesale privatisation of services. Nicky, along with 76 other members of the parking department at the council, has been out on strike for three weeks.

THE FIRE Brigades Union has called three further major demonstrations and rallies as its 55,000 members move to ballot for strike action over pay. There will be demonstrations in Swansea on Saturday 17 August, in Belfast on 24 August, and a rally in London on 2 September. A final meeting with the employers, who spurned calls for an increase in firefighters' pay to £30,000 a year, will take place at the beginning of September.

IN 1948 a young black man from Trinidad, Alwyn Roberts, was sitting on the deck of an old troop carrier which had been converted to civilian use. The ship was four days from England. Alwyn started to compose a tune. Although unknown in Britain, he was well known in the calypso tents of Trinidad as Lord Kitchener.

SOME 300 people attended a Stop the War Coalition event in Brockley, south east London, on Wednesday of last week. One activist said he thought it was the largest political event in the borough of Lewisham for at least ten years.

AROUND 40 people demonstrated in north Finchley, north London, last Sunday over the threat to a community centre by Barnet's new Tory council.

SAVAGE RACIST attacks on three black men within 48 hours could easily have been murders. That has been the toll recently in Eltham, south east London, where Stephen Lawrence was murdered nine years ago.

Newham I'm a road sweeper employed by an agency, and working at Newham council in east London. There are 120 of us, most on £4.80 an hour. We were told we had to go into work at the central depot at 10am. We normally start work at 7.30am.

MS DYNAMITE released her debut album A Little Deeper six weeks ago. This came after the single "It Takes More", which featured some of the best lyrics I'd heard from a chart hit in a long time. The artist behind this is 20 year old Naomi Daley from north London. She recently said her music is "a way for my message to be heard for and by everybody". And what a message.

WESTMINSTER council workers began an all-out strike on Monday against a major privatisation plan by their Tory council. The strike in the London council began with 77 workers in the Parking and Highways Licensing Departments striking and staging lively pickets. At least three people joined the Unison union on the picket lines in order to take part in the strike.

OVER 5,000 firefighters and control room staff marched in Glasgow on Monday as part of the Britain-wide campaign over pay. It was a brilliantly colourful and noisy protest with big delegations from London, Yorkshire, Cornwall, Ireland and many other places. Many of those present said that it was "not like a trade union demo-it was more like the sort of thing they do in Europe".

ANTI-DEPORTATION campaigners will be holding a vigil at the Home Office in London next Thursday to highlight the case of Aziz Ahmed and his family. Aziz, a political refugee from East Africa, has been held in detention for over a year, in four different centres.