Friday, January 28, 2011

Support EDM 1334 - Support the Morning Star

Please find below a letter sent to a local MP urging her to sign EDM 1334 calling on the Director General of the BBC to ensure that the Morning Star is covered by the BBC. You can find your MP using Write to Them, which you can easily do yourself here: http://www.writetothem.com/

Please feel free to adapt the letter. Let's make sure every MP, especially Labour MPs, gets one of these.

Dear ____

I am writing to ask you to add your name to EDM 1334, The Morning Star, put down by Ian Lavery MP and supported by a range of Labour MPs.

The Morning Star is the only socialist daily paper in the English language. Uniquely, for a national daily paper it is a cooperative, owned by its readers, and covers issues concerning working people that are ignored by the mainstream media. As you are probably aware, it has strong links with the trade union movement. These features give it a different character from the mainstream print media. Yet it is almost never referred to by the BBC. I believe that the BBC as a public service broadcaster, has a duty to reflect the full spectrum of opinion in the print media. By ignoring the Morning Star, seemingly because it is not a large circulation paper owned by a large media corporation, the BBC is failing in that task. Consequently, the BBC is betraying, unwittingly perhaps, a political bias against the stories and angles expressed in the Morning Star.
EDM 1334 calls on the Director General to ensure that the Morning Star is featured regularly on an equal footing with other papers.

I think at a time when working people, and indeed public service broadcasting are under sustained attack, the trade union and progressive movements need as many public avenues for our views as possible. Ending the tacit censorship of the daily voice of the left and the trade union movement would be a big contribution to that fight.
I hope you will sign EDM 1334 and I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Next branch meeting -The crisis in higher education

Our next branch meeting will be held on Monday 7th February at our usual venue the INCA-CGIL, 124 Canonbury Road N1 2UT (nearest tube: Highbury and Islington).

The meeting will begin at 7.30pm.

Our speaker will be Simon Renton, who will be discussing the current situation in the Higher Education sector. Simon is active nationally in the University and College Union.  Given the current crisis and the waves of resistance from students and education workers, this is not to be missed.

District Aggregate - Fight the Cuts - 12 February

District Aggregate - Fight the Cuts:

All comrades in London should be trying to attend the forthcoming London District aggregate meeting on Saturday 12th February which will also be held at the INCA-CGIL.

The meeting is 10.30-4pm and will be discussing organising to resist the Con-Dem cuts in London.

The morning session is to be an internal discussion for CP members. The afternoon session is being opened up to invited fellow travellers. Our sister parties AKEL, the CP Bangladesh and the Indian Workers' Association will also be participating.

Attendance is on a first come, first served basis so please let the District Secretary Steve Johnson or Jim Gledhill know if you wish to attend.  Email Jim at northlondoncp@hotmail.com  

Cuts campaigning survey:

Please also fill in the survey that has been circulated. This is intended to help the Aggregate and the District to plan and coordinate campaigning around the cuts and it's vitally important that all comrades active in London campaigns fill it in. It only takes a minute. Click here to complete the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JFLKVPJ