Update Jan 2020: a full PDF of this issue can be viewed here.
This issue:
Cover story on council rent increases.
Dock strikes – dockers sold out by the union.
A Cautionary Tale – The eviction of a family squatting on Sandringham Road E8. “There is no such thing as squatters rights” […] “if we organise ourselves, the sky’s the limit: we can defend whole streets of squatters, as they started to do in Bride Street Junction: we could take over blocks of flats, new hotels, as they have done in Italy (and did in England after the war). We could stop communities like De Beauvoir and Mapledene being ‘redeveloped’ into luxury flats, and the poor being pushed out into new towns…
“Many of us have squatted ‘successfully’ – without being evicted – for a long time now. But it’s not enough: we haven’t won until there’s no more homeless, until the system that made us homeless and makes profit out of empty houses, that puts the rich in palaces and the poor in overcrowded ghettoes is TOTALLY OVERTHROWN.”
“There are squatters meetings every week in a different house: contact CENTERPRISE to find out when and where the next one is. CENTERPRISE, 34 Dalston Lane E8”
A Living Income For All – “I’m not interested in the right to work, what must come is the fight for a share of the wealth that’s going”
Shitting Bricks – builders’ strike.
Strikers and the SS – “The Social Security is the biggest strike fund of them all! Strikers are beginning to realise this on a large scale and organising with Claimants Unions to make sure they get their benefits”
Antisocial Insecurity – on how protest movements have forced welfare concessions from the state.
Courting the Union – the continuing saga of three Claimants Union members who were charged with criminal damage after a protest at the Lower Clapton Social Services office the previous February. The three defended themselves and challenged the jury selection process (rejecting managers from standing and challenging the lack of black jurors).
The main allegation was that the defendants “smashed up two cubicles and kicked open the door separating staff from claimants”.
The defendants countered this by highlighting discrepancies in the prosecution witnesses testimony and pointing out that “people had been waiting for over four hours, how the office was packed with about 80 claimants, how many of these claimants had been deprived of their rights, how the SS clerks stopped working apparently because of the noise and how one SS clerk, John Fawcett, hit a claimant in the face and smashed his camera. They all said that [defendant] Chris Ratcliffe had been sitting in the waiting area at the time of the damage and [defendant] Eddie Rose didn’t arrive until well afterwards. The defence witnesses described how the cubicles were smashed up by about 20 or 30 angry claimants.”
One defendant was acquitted, the other two were found guilty and conditionally discharged and ordered to pay £20 costs each.
Laughter in Court – another set of Claimants Union activist on trial, this time following a demonstration at Bonhill Street Social Security the previous March. 3 of the 4 defendants were women. One of them was pregnant and asked for an adjournment because she felt ill. This was refused and resulted in the defendants disrupting proceedings until an adjournment was granted.
Women and the Tory Rent Act – being disproportionately effected by rent increases.
Asian Invasion – against the Powellite racism against immigrants from Idi Amin’s repression against Asians in Uganda.
Plus updates on the Stoke Newington 8, attempted eviction of squatters by Acetel Housing Association and the usual classified ads (click to enlarge):
Despite the “this could be the last time” story on the back page (see above,) there was at least one further issue of Hackney Gutter Press.
After this the paper merged with Hackney Action to form the much longer running Hackney People’s Press. More about which in due course…
The Radical History of Hackney 