Here is just a selection of the stories from Friday’s Independent, in the order in which they appear:

• Heathrow expansion plan could demolish village.
• Benefits to rise less than inflation under Labour.
• Fast-track teacher training to get ex-troops into classrooms.
• Half the people living in the UK in 2020 will endure cancer at some point in their lives.
• Cuts may cause councils to collapse.
• Government’s own lawyers condemn legal aid changes.
• Labour defends tax-free donation that dodged £1.5m in tax.
• Britain admits torture of thousands of Kenyans, but offers them pathetic compensation.
• Archbishop of Canterbury resisting Governmnt’s attempts tp legalise gay marriage.
• Turkish people show the way to protest, planting flowers and undertaking yoga sit-ins, while we criminalise 21 climate change activists that can be bothered to take direct peaceful action in a power station.
• Many degrees simply increase debt, not job prospects.
• Magnetic levitation trains, first tested in the UK in the 1960s, are proving a massive success in Japan.
• Car making is alive and well in the UK, but it is nearly all foreign owned.
• Satirist Tom Sharpe dies. Comic genius who vented his fury at racists, thoughtless modernisers, greedy capitalsists and smug poloticians.
• Homelessness at a five-year high.
• UK rail firms charge highest fares in Europe.
• Worries over spiralling violence between muslim extremists and the EDL.
• Labour will stick to the current Government’s spending plans.
• Just 1% of Norwegians attend a church and 72% declare themselves atheists. The Norwegian government has recently passed a constitutional amendment severing all ties with the Church of Norway. Way to go!
• A humble garage in Crouch End, East London, was sold for £80,000 to be converted (at an additional cost of £183,000) into a 10mx5m two storey home that sold for £495,000.

The UK is becoming a truly depressing place to live. It simply does not have to be this way.

There are beacons of light all around the world for us to learn from, but apathy and misplaced, self-centred, short-term thinking seems to be the British way these Con-Dem days.

There is much work for us to do.

Andy C.

This nice British lady is kind enough to do the math on what’s wrong with our thinking on immigration so you don’t have to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bJX5XHnONTI

The People’s Assembly looks set to be a historic event that will transform the anti-austerity movement in Britain. Already close to 3,000 people have registered to attend. Crucially we want the assembly to be focused around action.

The proposed declaration and action plan of the People’s Assembly:

The declaration represents the beginning of a democratic process leading towards a second People’s Assembly in early 2014. This declaration represents the views of all those who initially called for the People’s Assembly. We hope it will be endorsed by the People’s Assembly on 22nd June. It will then be open to the local People’s Assembly’s, union bodies and campaign groups who support the People’s Assembly to suggest amendments, additions, or deletions. These will then all be discussed and decided upon at the recall People’s Assembly in 2014.

The plans for action are simply the most obvious rallying points for a national anti-cuts movement for the remainder of 2013. They are not intended to supersede local or sectional action by existing campaigns or trade unions. They are intended to be focus national, collective action by the whole anti-austerity movement. Click here to see the draft declaration and action plan: http://thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/draft-statement/

Most of the day will be based on sub-assemblies, broken into three sessions during the course of the day. This will total around 15 individual sessions devoted to discussing various aspects of the cuts and the fightback against them. The full timetable of workshops and sessions at the People’s Assembly will be available by the end of next week.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 22 June!

People’s Assembly Against Austerity Hosted by People’s Assembly, Saturday, 22 June 2013 from 09:30 to 17:00 (BST) Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, Westminster, London SW1H 9NH

Are you listening Wales? Vote Labour, Get TORIES!!!
Want social justice? Vote GREEN!!!
Get it yet?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/miliband-makes-his-play-do-everything-the-same-8647494.html

Mark Steel:

“At last, the Labour Party leaders are revealing their election strategy. They’ve announced they’ll stick to the current Government’s spending plans, and the current Government’s welfare cap. Next week, Ed Miliband will announce:“The British people are sick and tired of the way this Government runs the country, and that’s why we promise to do everything exactly the same. There are so many things they’ve ruined, which is why I assure you categorically we will keep ruining the same things. THAT is the exciting prospect we will be putting to the British people in 2015.”

As the election draws near, Labour will become more specific, until Miliband says: “To show how responsible we have become, we promise that if we win the election, for the first two years we’ll let the Tories carry on as the government. We’ll even go on holiday so as not to get in their way, on a cruise round the fjords so we won’t even be able to get back quickly if we get the urge. THAT is how much you can trust us with the economy.”

Many great inspiring speeches in the past have used this technique. That’s why so many people were moved by Martin Luther King, when he said: “I have a dream, to keep everything pretty much as it is. I have looked into the valley, brothers and sisters, and seen a world in which we don’t bother trying to change any of the laws as they’re all in place now, and you don’t want to get a reputation for making a fuss. Will you join me in that struggle, my people, will you join me?” “