Cost of Living Crisis: Enough is Enough Campaign

[andysays]

Urgh. The death of it.

Yeah, whatever we might think of Corbyn politically, the fact that this so-called planning meeting seems to be more about listening to speakers rather than genuine and equal discussion doesn't sound encouraging.

I had been toying with the idea of attending, as it's just up the road from me, but this is actually off-putting.

 

[The39thStep]

Corbyn has now been announced as a speaker at this meeting, according to an email I've just had from Haringey TUC

Local resident as well

 

[The39thStep]

Yeah, whatever we might think of Corbyn politically, the fact that this so-called planning meeting seems to be more about listening to speakers rather than genuine and equal discussion doesn't sound encouraging.

I had been toying with the idea of attending, as it's just up the road from me, but this is actually off-putting.

Go and report back please

 

[andysays]

Go and report back please

Were it not for the fact that I have to get up at 5am the following day to go to work, I possibly would go just out of curiosity, but I'm still unconvinced.

I will register for a ticket and see how I feel about it tomorrow...

 

[The39thStep]

Were it not for the fact that I have to get up at 5am the following day to go to work, I possibly would go just out of curiosity, but I'm still unconvinced.

I will register for a ticket and see how I feel about it tomorrow...

Good man. We will get you a pint at the next Bookfair

 

[Smokeandsteam]

CWU announce 19 days of strike action:

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Another AnarCom Network article on the cost of living crisis

Red October

Saint Petersburg on the eve of October 1917 “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” Aesop Coordinated strike plans will result in over 165,000 workers from Aslef, t…

anarcomuk.uk

 

[ruffneck23]

I cant to seem to find a list of the 50 demo's tomorrow, I want to try and find one local to me ( around the M25 area really ), Id like to give my support but im too skint to get into London

I have tried looking but cant find much (that's probably down to me more than anything else.)

 

[The39thStep]

Never knew one of The Hairy Bikers was a comrade

 

[ruffneck23]

I found this if anyone else is looking

Day of Action - Enough is Enough

Day of Action - 1st of October.

wesayenough.co.uk

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I went to the march and rally in Brighton today and was very pleasantly surprised by the size of the turnout (I'm not going to guess beyond many hundreds which blocked the entire length of North Rd for anyone who knows the town), the average age which was a lot lower than I was expecting and the upbeat/angry feel of it. Speeches called for workplace and community action, for direct action and disruption. I am looking forward to Tuesday evening's event and the future possibilities which seem to be out there. On what is probably a sectarian note, I was also encouraged by the almost invisible number of paper sellers...but maybe that's just me.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Wilf]

I went to the march and rally in Brighton today and was very pleasantly surprised by the size of the turnout (I'm not going to guess beyond many hundreds which blocked the entire length of North Rd for anyone who knows the town), the average age which was a lot lower than I was expecting and the upbeat/angry feel of it. Speeches called for workplace and community action, for direct action and disruption. I am looking forward to Tuesday evening's event and the future possibilities which seem to be out there. On what is probably a sectarian note, I was also encouraged by the almost invisible number of paper sellers...but maybe that's just me.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I'd guess manchester had 3,000 or so. I left early for football but a few more probably arrived later. I'll post a bit more when not on phone.

 

[Serene]

Is Maximilien de Robespierre up for the labour job yet?

 

[Serge Forward]

Decent turnout in Leicester yesterday...
Bugger. Can't upload the video.

 

[hitmouse]

I cant to seem to find a list of the 50 demo's tomorrow, I want to try and find one local to me ( around the M25 area really ), Id like to give my support but im too skint to get into London

I have tried looking but cant find much (that's probably down to me more than anything else.)

Shit, meant to post a reply to this earlier but forgot and it's a bit late now, but one to bear in mind if there's a next time - the day was partly called to coincide with the RMT and CWU strikes, so if something similar happens again and you're not sure if you can make it to anything big, getting down to your local post office/sorting office/train station should still be a decent way to show support.

 

[cloudyday]

3 mates sat in a pub.

Don’t Pay Took Down Kwasi Kwarteng | Novara Media

We should be talking about the campaign's pivotal role in sending the government into a tailspin, argues Keir Milburn.

novaramedia.com

 

[MickiQ]

3 mates sat in a pub.

Don’t Pay Took Down Kwasi Kwarteng | Novara Media

We should be talking about the campaign's pivotal role in sending the government into a tailspin, argues Keir Milburn.

novaramedia.com

Definitely wildly bigging up their own part there. It's not impossible that the threat of the Don't Pay campaign (which never actually happened) might have at least partly fed through into the decision to implement the energy cap.
But there were lots of others pressing for action including the energy companies themselves. The plan the Govt went with is basically what the CEO of Scottish Power suggested.
But claiming any credit for the downfall of Kwasi Kamikaze and Loopy Lizzie really is stretching things, they also seem to have forgotten that the scheme was a lot more generous originally and Kamikaze's replacement has cut it from 2 years to 6 months.

 

[cloudyday]

Definitely wildly bigging up their own part there. It's not impossible that the threat of the Don't Pay campaign (which never actually happened) might have at least partly fed through into the decision to implement the energy cap.
But there were lots of others pressing for action including the energy companies themselves. The plan the Govt went with is basically what the CEO of Scottish Power suggested.
But claiming any credit for the downfall of Kwasi Kamikaze and Loopy Lizzie really is stretching things, they also seem to have forgotten that the scheme was a lot more generous originally and Kamikaze's replacement has cut it from 2 years to 6 months.

A threat that doesn't happen is still a threat. As for stretching it a bit so what? maybe it's a tactic to try again and to see what happens next time. Your last sentence is irrelevant.

 

[Brainaddict]

Got invited by EIE to a 'rally' in London that they also billed as a 'protest' in their email, though I don't think it leaves the hall. It also seems to be TUC rather than EIE per se, though that wasn't clear in the email. And specifically demanding a general election. I'm still asking, where is it going? What's the plan? More and bigger rallies? A march through central London at some point? Woohoo. Join the rally in London: General Election NOW #DemandBetter

 

[LDC]

Got invited by EIE to a 'rally' in London that they also billed as a 'protest' in their email, though I don't think it leaves the hall. It also seems to be TUC rather than EIE per se, though that wasn't clear in the email. And specifically demanding a general election. I'm still asking, where is it going? What's the plan? More and bigger rallies? A march through central London at some point? Woohoo. Join the rally in London: General Election NOW #DemandBetter

Yeah I was thinking and chatting to someone about EiE this morning. Had absolutely nothing from them via email, their website is poor and dated, and zero on all these community groups they promised were being set up. Wonder what's going on with them?

 

[Karl Masks]

Got invited by EIE to a 'rally' in London that they also billed as a 'protest' in their email, though I don't think it leaves the hall. It also seems to be TUC rather than EIE per se, though that wasn't clear in the email. And specifically demanding a general election. I'm still asking, where is it going? What's the plan? More and bigger rallies? A march through central London at some point? Woohoo. Join the rally in London: General Election NOW #DemandBetter

12 years of this kind of crap, but thousandth time's the charm I guess.

 

[hitmouse]

Yeah I was thinking and chatting to someone about EiE this morning. Had absolutely nothing from them via email, their website is poor and dated, and zero on all these community groups they promised were being set up. Wonder what's going on with them?

Yeah, I'm now more and more inclined to think that Enough is Enough's time is up after having had a conversation last week with someone who's an elected delegate from an affiliated organisation and has access to their closed internal organising discussions, and he's still no closer to having any idea what their plan is. Looking at the website I see they have big plans for October 1st, though?

 

[Wilf]

Does anyone know what happened? EiE ticked all the boxes and looked like it was going to make some links, cross a few boundaries and actually seize the moment and the anger. It also demonstrably had the numbers from some of the early public meetings. I appreciate the model of 'community organising' the union leaders had in mine wasn't going to work out anything like bottom up purity, but still, fucking hell, it looked like a real initiative and potentially something sustainable.

What seems to have happened hasn't been any kind of sell out. It's something worse, everyone just seems to have packed it in. I'm not aware of any intervention by the TUC/union leadership/anyone else to stop it (?). The website is just tumbleweed and the key next step, actual organising, just didn't happen. Not some tale of bad politics and wasted initiatives, just... nothing. There would have been risks if they'd just called local meetings and let them run and organise as they wished, but that would have created something with potential. As much as anything in these dark times, a presence.

 

[Wilf]

A reminder of where we were - 'tens of thousands' crashing the website trying to join in August:

'Enough Is Enough': Campaign launches to give 'back working class their dignity' | ITV News

RMT's Mick Lynch is among those heading up the campaign, which has promised more picket lines and rallies if the government doesn't meet its five demands. | ITV National News

www.itv.com

Even if there was a bit of poetic licence about the 'tens of thousands', still, thousands at least.

 

[Brainaddict]

Apparently we do have a single with lyrics that sound like an angry middle aged socialist's twitter feed

I guess one question that arises is: what did they do to jump-start local groups? Who was meant to lead them and did they know? And what were those local groups meant to do?

 

[Karl Masks]

Apparently we do have a single with lyrics that sound like an angry middle aged socialist's twitter feed

I guess one question that arises is: what did they do to jump-start local groups? Who was meant to lead them and did they know? And what were those local groups meant to do?

I thought that was going to be discussed at subsequent meetings. But those don't appear to have been organised or have happened. I could be wrong.
As perverse as that sounds

 

[Brainaddict]

Also, not the most important thing, but that single - is this what Johnny Lydon died for?* A country with a pop music heritage like the UK should be able to produce something better than that.


*we wish

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Does anyone know what happened? EiE ticked all the boxes and looked like it was going to make some links, cross a few boundaries and actually seize the moment and the anger. It also demonstrably had the numbers from some of the early public meetings. I appreciate the model of 'community organising' the union leaders had in mine wasn't going to work out anything like bottom up purity, but still, fucking hell, it looked like a real initiative and potentially something sustainable.

What seems to have happened hasn't been any kind of sell out. It's something worse, everyone just seems to have packed it in. I'm not aware of any intervention by the TUC/union leadership/anyone else to stop it (?). The website is just tumbleweed and the key next step, actual organising, just didn't happen. Not some tale of bad politics and wasted initiatives, just... nothing. There would have been risks if they'd just called local meetings and let them run and organise as they wished, but that would have created something with potential. As much as anything in these dark times, a presence.

My understanding is that 'tensions' have arisen within the trade union bureaucracy and noses put out of joint by EiE. Specifically, Unite has decided to launch its own competitor 'campaign' Unite for a Workers Economy : this has zero echo among activists and is being kept (barely) alive by full timers and union lay bureaucrats. I also hear that the dreadful and irrelevant Peoples Assembly are angry with EiE. No doubt there is loads of lefty sectarian shit unfathomable to all but 100 weirdos at the root of this but also, in my view, the question of prestige and power.

I'm more relaxed than many of the posters on this thread - some of whom seemed desperate for EiE to fail from the outset. This is a long war. The public sector unions are now balloting. The Tories are planning austerity 2.0 but we do not yet know the precise details (but can guess) and the cost of living crisis isn't going away because energy bills are capped at £2,500 on average. The launch events of EiE show the latent potential.

I'm not going to pretend all is going swimmingly, it clearly isn't and by now planning locally should be further along in my view. I agree with you that EiE got it wrong by not just calling local meetings and let them run/organize. An error. But, to suggest EiE has 'packed it in' is well wide of the mark.

 

[Wilf]

My understanding is that 'tensions' have arisen within the trade union bureaucracy and noses put out of joint by EiE. Specifically, Unite has decided to launch its own competitor 'campaign' Unite for a Workers Economy : this has zero echo among activists and is being kept (barely) alive by full timers and union lay bureaucrats. I also hear that the dreadful and irrelevant Peoples Assembly are angry with EiE. No doubt there is loads of lefty sectarian shit unfathomable to all but 100 weirdos at the root of this but also, in my view, the question of prestige and power.

I'm more relaxed than many of the posters on this thread - some of whom seemed desperate for EiE to fail from the outset. This is a long war. The public sector unions are now balloting. The Tories are planning austerity 2.0 but we do not yet know the precise details (but can guess) and the cost of living crisis isn't going away because energy bills are capped at £2,500 on average. The launch events of EiE show the latent potential.

I'm not going to pretend all is going swimmingly, it clearly isn't and by now planning locally should be further along in my view. I agree with you that EiE got it wrong by not just calling local meetings and let them run/organize. An error. But, to suggest EiE has 'packed it in' is well wide of the mark.

Thanks for the reply and the detail. Just for the record, I wasn't one desperate for it to fail, thought I don't think you were accusing me anyway. I hauled myself round Manchester city centre with a bad back in the last wave of rallies and, far more heroically, missed going to football as a result . Greater love hath no man etc. I did query the Unite involvement at the very start, it was a startling omission and the fault seems to have been at the Unite end from what you say. But when you add together the apparent reasons for it not developing, it's a pretty depressing picture. While, as you say, the conditions for a fightback are still there, this is a real loss of momentum. I'll take your word for it that this is a pause or a delay, but if you are someone who just signed up for EiE and was waiting for something to happen, the very thing they announced would happen - community groups, it looks like it's finished. All the events on the website are previous ones and there don't seem to be any updates of any kind.

Just looked on the facebook page and there are a couple of upcoming local meetings. Maybe there are a few things going on, but they need a basic communication strategy. But yeah, if the bigger picture is one of petty self interest and pitch battles, that's really shit. And yeah, the people's assembly, fucking hell...

 

[8ball]

CWU announce 19 days of strike action:

I think it’s going to be never.