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The Gerrard Chronicles 2010 - The Campaign Trail & Fun |
This section, much thinner this year, as Ken has dropped all his commitments because, fortunately, younger people have been moving into positions in his favourite campaigns & in Avis' case, because everyone with a cause or think they have a cause, in Islington, want her to run it or sort out the problem, when they would be quite capable of doing it themselves. However, she maintains a watching brief for the theatre below.
THE MAY ELECTIONS
We do things differently in Islington. While the rest of the country were turkeys voting for Xmas to bring in the most savage bunch of class warriors we have seen since 1931, we re-elected our MPs, Emily Thornberry here in the South & Jeremy Corbyn in the North on 3.3% swings to Labour. Emily had a majority of 3,569. Ken had been predicting 5,000, which we would easily have got if the National scene had not been so dire. Jeremy's was 12.401. We put in a big lump of money so as to out-leaflet the Lib-Dems. Turnout was well up (over 10%) this time, as this very poor area woke up to the dangers, now realised, of a Tory Government.
We also ejected the Lib-Dem Council, described by Polly Toynbee as 'a bad Lib-Dem Council' in the Guardian. Catherine West, who had lead the Labour Group in the bad days of LD control, remains as leader, with the difficult task of making do with little money & also, we hope, finding out what happened to so much money under the Lib-Dems.
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DUBBIN THOSE DEMO BOOTS! Here we go again, with 'our' government treating its own people as the 'enemy within' to be milked to protect their guilty friends, the bankers, from having to pick up the bill for their irresponsible actions. Both of us had attended the pro-Proportional Representation demo immediately after the election, which took place before the dirty deal between the careerist Clegg & the unmentionable gang. When the tearing up of the fabric of British Society was announced in October, Ken attended the first demo, seen here forming up at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Better demos were to follow but with his health problem, he has so far bowed out. Hopefully he will be well enough in the New Year to participate in the overthrow of these crooks. |
October 20th. 1st of many Education Cuts demos |
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THE CLAREMONT We have been using this club more, as they have musicians from the Royal College of Music to play on Friday afternoons as well as ethnic dancers. In the Summer, our co-ordinator, Louise was (as was inevitable) snapped up by a husband & carted off to Yeovil but her replacement, Mollie, seems just as good so far. |
Bollywood Dancers |
Louise & thank-you cake |
THE THEATRE ON THE ANDERSON SITE
This has been delayed because it is plagued by legal actions, the details of which Avis cannot reveal for fear of prejudicing the case of the theatre developers, who have been badly let down by another party. Until this is resolved, EDF, the electricity company, will not even queue a request for the theatre sub-station to be installed & then, do not consider it a priority'. We intend to start a petition to EDF as soon as the legal situation is clarified, pointing out that the community has waited 22 years for their new theatre & if that is not a priority, what is?
Avis recruited Eric Sorensen, the Chair of the Docklands Development Board, to try to find out what exactly is going on but at the time of reporting, we have no news from him.
Contact: Ken Baldry or Avis Saltsman, 17 Gerrard Road,
Islington, London N1 8AY +44(0)020 7359 6294 or e-mail him or her
This page's URL: http://www.art-science.com/Xmas2010/campaign.html Last revised 1/12/2010 Copyright: Ken Baldry & Avis Saltzmann 2010 All rights reserved but print it off if you want to.