The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
On February 15, 2003 the British Stop the War Coalition held a protest in London against the War in Iraq, which the BBC estimates was attended by a million people. It remains the largest protest in the UK's history. Globally, up to 30 million people in 800 cities are said to have protested that weekend in a co-ordinated effort against the war. This includes Antarctica where 70 scientists and colleagues demonstrated on the ice forming a peace sign. Nine years in the making and released last...
Britons will go to the polls on Thursday, May 7, 2015, but membership of all political parties is at an all time low. There are more members of 38 Degrees, a campaigning website than there are of all the main political parties put together in Britain, argues political analyst, Zac Goldsmith.
Overall there has been a downward trend in voter turnout since 1997. Politicians blame the phenomenon on voter apathy, but Goldsmith contends that public disengagement with the political process in...
Jamie Stern-Weiner -
On October 13, 2014, British MPs voted 274 to 12 to recognise the State of Palestine. The abstention rate was high—just 286 of 650 MPs voted—in part because in accordance with convention government ministers abstained, in part because the Labour leadership demanded that those of its MPs who showed up vote ‘yes’ (and thus, a substantial minority did not show up), and in part because most Tory MPs were absent.
By my count, the vote broke down as follows.1 Of 56...
Oxford University Professor, Danny Dorling, unpacks the latest research into how the lives and ideas of the 1% impact the remaining 99% in the UK. He says there’s a new cleavage opening up. The 1% used to have a more diverse group of professions, but increasingly it is concentrated in the financial sector. Britain’s 2,200 bankers earn over a million euros annually. In comparison Swiss bankers earn only half as much. A consequence of this growing division is that the UK now has...
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died at the age of 87. Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, serving three terms in office. Known as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher became synonymous with austerity economics as a close ally of President Ronald Reagan. She famously declared to critics of neoliberal capitalism that, "there is no alternative."
Her long-running battle with striking British miners dealt a major blow to the union movement in...
More than a 100 000 union workers, students and supporters converged on London on Saturday, October 20, to have their voices heard in a massive protest for a "Future that Works" against the Cameron government's austerity cuts. A call for a nationwide general strike from Britain's trade union leaders is imminent. Many of those protesting on Saturday carried banners that read, "24 Hour General Strike Now". Protestors believe that the government's strategy of austerity is...
