The Public Interest Research Network
The network is not a think tank or a lobby group. It does not take corporate funding. Its members are committed to uncovering the truth behind the spin and evasion which clogs up much public debate. Also:
Sarah Glynn page School of GeoSciences
Positive Action in Housing’s New Migrants Action Project is organising information sessions for refugees recently granted leave to remain, particularly those granted status via the case resolution (legacy) programme
Deadly Cargo – New Camcorder Guerillas Film
Nuclear weapons are regularly transported in secret convoys on ordinary roads in Britain. How close do they come to you? Find out the chilling truth about these lethal convoys, how they are tracked by people in the NukeWatch network and how you can help stop them. The Scottish launch will be in the Glasgow Film Theatre on 29th March, 12.30 -2pm. Admission free. The film scrfeeening will be followed by guest speakers and a Q & A.
Pink Elephants in the Botanic’s. (Avoid seeing what the council want’s you to see)
January Reshuffle pictures. (More to come and video soon)
They will never tell us when we succeed
The one thing that comes out of these campaigns [Canongate] is that the peoples voices can be heard. It may take all of our energy and invention to fight the biggest banks, the fancy law firms and our own councils. (Who continuously work against our interests, using our money to fund others interests) We need to break from the one dimensional thinking that money without meaning or accountability can fix our cities. People are the sustainable dynamic of city life – our most valuable and under used asset.
EDINBURGH NEEDS YOU
Wednesday the City of Edinburgh`s Planning Committee decided they want to go forward with the legacy they were left from the previous New Labour administration.
Shopping Town USA: Victor Gruen, the Cold War, and the shopping mall
These so-called ‘shopping towns’ were supposed to strengthen civic life and structure the amorphous, mono-functional agglomerations of suburban sprawl. Yet within a decade, Gruen’s designs had become the architectural extension of the policies of racial and gender segregation underlying the US postwar consumer utopiaIs it time for a Save our Parks, city wide campaign with a remit of zero tolerance to any form of private business in any of our parks?
Save Our Botanic’s
To oppose, by campaigning, supporting legal action, or by any other legal means, the proposed development by G1 Group PLC or its subsidiaries to develop a site within the Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, by the construction of a nightclub, café, restaurant, and conference centre (or any part thereof);
Independent Republic of the Canongate
Edinburgh campaigners showing us the way then? And the could teach us a few lessons in joind-up-campaigning to. Meet some of our friends from the east at the Jan Reshuffle. See some of what they’re up against here. EH8
ACCOUNTING FOR THE COMMON GOOD FUND: A GUIDANCE NOTE FOR PRACTITIONERS
LASAAC has now released the final guidance on accounting for the common good. The guidance, entitled Accounting for the Common Good: A Guidance Note for Practitioners was the subject of an successful initial consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. The guidance sets out consistent and modern financial reporting requirements as well as prescribing, for the first time, the formal requirement for asset registers.Glasgow Corporation Common Good 1914An account of Glasgow’s Common Good written by the Town Clerk, John Lindsay, and published by the Corporation of the City of Glasgow in 1914.
“The social movements that exploded in Argentina that December not only transformed the fabric of Argentine society but also highlighted the possibility of a genuinely democratic alternative to global capital. Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina is the story of those movements, as told by the men and women who are building them.” Author, activist, Marina Sitrin, Interview Sunny Govan (audio) Lets bang some pots and pans and kick out a few Governments.
Common good a concern for us all
The press has been littered with cases where there has been public outcry that the council is trying to sell or develop ground that is not theirs to do so. Many of these protests focus on land and property classified as “for the common good”. Whether it is plans to develop Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens or Edinburgh’s controversial blueprints for Caltongate, there are persistent claims that councils are disregarding the safeguards surrounding common good assets.”
Save our Glen (Community campaigning and history) This site was set up as a result of the recent attempts to commercially develop Pittencrieff Park (The Glen) and the massive outpouring of public opposition to that move.
Welcome to Scottish Commons
New Common Good website – With CG Quick guide “I am also looking for correspondents – people who can act as a contact for the exchange of information on common good in specific burghs. If you or anyone you know would like to be one, let me know – it involves being named on the relevant burgh page (but no contact details unless you wish otherwise). In the longer term I envisage a correspondents conference of all correspondents in scotland’s 196 and more burghs. ” Andy Whightman
The Spine
As HM Revenue & Customs loses 25 million confidential records in the post, the programme to introduce a centralised NHS database slouches on, only delayed by a classically wasteful PFI project. Total data transparency may be good for corporations and security obsessed governments, but what does it mean for the recipients of ‘joined-up care’?, asks Damian Abbott
The Herald whoring for the motorway again
(sorry, “setting out the overwhelming economic case” for a road that cuts our distribution costs a wee bit). [M74] The city that is still building it’s dream on a primitive technology that is poisoning the planet. The excuse: It will create jobs; It will unblock the traffic, Bullshit – It will create vast profits for the contractors. The employees will be imported for the duration of the construction and will then disappear out of town along with the profits and our subsidies. The only things that will increase for people – is the pollution, the traffic, the 4x4s from the suburbs and the intercity shopaholics, who will drive any distance for a bargain – and of course the Business and property section of the Herald. That’s the ” overriding economic case”
GPs threaten to block national patient database
One in two GPs have signalled their intention not to upload patients’ clinical details to the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS) without explicit patient consent, in direct opposition to Department of Health (DH) policy.
Washing Machine Misery
Cleanliness is next to healthiness ” Tenants in high flats across Glasgow have been left without working washing machines. To do a wash, their machines have to be filled by hand with water. Glasgow Housing Association know about the problem, and know how to fix it. But shockingly, GHA are stalling with the fixes.”
GalGael re-visits the “Pollok Free State” on the anniversary of Colin Mcleod’s birthday and GalGael’s 10th year. This picture was taken in the same woodlands a few hundred yards away from the motorway the community of Pollok fought so hard to stop. Worth fighting for pictures here Sound and Poems here
“It is no secret that I am a life-long admirer of America. I have no truck with anti-Americanism in Britain or elsewhere in Europe and I believe that our ties with America – founded on values we share – constitute our most important bilateral relationship. And it is good for Britain, for Europe and for the wider world that today France and Germany and the European Union are building stronger relationships with America.” More US Brown nosing here
Climate March Join the people of over 60 other countries on calling on there politicians to prevent catastrophic climate change.