Thames Valley

In the news recently, there have been a few articles about a cop and various politicians downplaying the seriousness of rape. These unfortunately aren’t only the words of a few ‘out of touch’ old sexist men, they reflect a wider culture that blames women being 'provocative' for rape, and excuses rapist men on the grounds that they have uncontrollable sexual drives.

In days gone by it was a popular cry for mediums when attempting to conjure the spirits of the deceased to ask: ‘is there anybody there?’ (for older readers think Margaret Rutherford in Blythe Spirit). The same phrase seems to have found its way into the lexicon of the state in recent weeks as it attempts to mop up the strays and slackers who have failed to return their census forms. An army of civil servants have been annoying people around the UK who have forgotten to fill in their forms.

As anarcho-syndicalists we are often placed in highly contradictory positions with regard to the state as the current anti-cuts campaign illustrates. We support public services but not in the manner in which they have been delivered under the welfare state. But to make such criticisms, in a time when said services are under attack by a Government eager to open them up to businesses to profit from, leaves us open to the charge of being anti-public services.

On Friday 13th May Thames Valley (Reading) SolFed returned to the local Office Angels in support of Dan’s wage claim. By now people had begun to recognise us and in general the public were taking our leaflets quite happily. At 5-45 some of the staff from Office Angels came down and in contrast to the previous night's scuffle the mood was light-hearted. The man from the office who had sought to grab our leaflets came to apologise and tell us how much he respected our actions in support of Dan.

On Thursday 12th, Thames Valley Solfed leafleted outside Office Angels in Oxford, in addition to the pickets that we undertook in Reading.

We had about 10 people over the course of the picket, including friends of SolFed members who were passing & wanted to help out, a member of The Commune up for the day, and other Oxford locals. The office looked deserted at first but a member of staff came out & accepted our leaflet, but produced one of their own which deplored “the need for direct action”.

On Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th May two members of the Thames Valley SolFed local leafleted outside the Reading branch of Office Angels as part of the nationwide campaign against the firm’s dodgy practices. Round one of the leafleting started on Wednesday at 9 am and included an imaginative re-working of the Office Angel's logo on the door of their building. On both days members of the public showed interest and often support for the campaign with at least 6 people saying that they would phone Office Angels to complain about their behaviour.

In the face of the media storm over the protest on March 26, it’s important for all of us involved in fighting austerity to take a step back, whether we think the occupations and property destruction were useful or not. Ultimately, whatever their worth, it’s not through riots or occupations that we can defeat austerity. Only by causing economic disruption, and making it more expensive to carry through with the cuts than to make us concessions, will we win. And where we have the most power over the economy is in the workplace. It’s our work that makes up society and if we withdraw it by striking, or take other forms of direct action such as go-slows or work-to-rule’s, we – the working class – can call the shots and stop this attack on our class!

This short article was written by a member of the Thames Valley Solidarity Federation for inclusion in the upcoming fourth issue of 'The Ox-Fly', Oxford's radical newsletter, asking whether government is really the common foundation of our day-to-day lives...

‘Anarchy’ is a word that has a very bad reputation these days. The mere mention of it causes most people to imagine nothing but rows of burning cars, roaming gangs of looters and senseless violence in the streets. Anarchy, we are told, means nothing but the very breakdown of social order itself. Yet is it the truth? Is government really the vital foundation of our society?

This article was written by a Thames Valley Solidarity Federation member for Issue 3 of The Oxfly, a local anarchist newsletter produced and distributed in Oxford. It argues that winning the argument is all very well but society "is not a debating chamber but a power struggle between different groups with competing interests" - and we should fightback accordingly.

There has been a lot of talk in the anti-cuts movement about the importance of ‘winning the argument’. This strategy holds that the best way to go about fighting attacks on wages, living conditions and services is to point out the flaws in the pro-cuts arguments and suggest alternative policies which would avoid the need for cuts.

This article was written by a Thames Valley Solidarity Federation member for Issue 3 of The Oxfly, a local anarchist newsletter produced and distributed in Oxford. It argues that winning the argument is all very well but society "is not a debating chamber but a power struggle between different groups with competing interests" - and we should fightback accordingly.

There has been a lot of talk in the anti-cuts movement about the importance of ‘winning the argument’. This strategy holds that the best way to go about fighting attacks on wages, living conditions and services is to point out the flaws in the pro-cuts arguments and suggest alternative policies which would avoid the need for cuts.

On Saturday 15th January around 50 people, including members of the fledgling Thames Valley local, marched across Reading from the Royal Berkshire Hospital to the Civic Centre to register their opposition to the government’s cuts in public services.

Leafleting the public along the way the turnout was double the number that attended the previous protest and culminated in a series of speeches outside the civic centre. Spokespeople from the Reading Save Our Services group, Unison, the Reading Trades Council, a Labour Party councillor and a councillor for the Green Party all took part. All made clear how the proposed cuts, both locally and nationally, would impact hardest on the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community, from cuts in services for children to the loss of up to 600 jobs at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.