Message from Autonomy films: three fantastic events coming up! All at W.I. Hall, North St. Bridport.

Thurs 25th February

5.30pm – 6.30pm a free Youth Council workshop for 16-30-year-olds with the former Frome youth mayor.  Reserve a place from events@stirtoaction.com

7.30pm  Talk: Flatpack Democracy

In Frome, Somerset  local people have achieved an extraordinary revolution in how their council runs and have revitalized local politics. 5 Speakers from Frome are coming to Bridport to tell us about their ‘Flatpack Democracy’. All welcome. Organised by STIR. Entry:  £4

Sat 12th March

International Women’s Day Celebration focuses on Women Writers, all welcome.

5.30 for 6pm Play: Five Break the Spell  Join The Bookshop and members of Bridfem for a delightful evening of family friendly fun with a Participatory Pop-up Play where you can join in as actors or audience.  Our play, about a certain well-known British children’s author who set many of her adventures in Dorset, will be led by Beth Shaw, co-author of The Domestic Theatre Handbook.  The Bookshop will have a stall of books for sale by and about women. Admission Free/Donation, with tea and coffee.

8pm Autonomy Films presents: An Angel at My Table Jane Campion’s award-winning 1990 film of Janet Frame’s autobiography tells of her childhood in New Zealand and her triumph over mental illness to become a successful writer. (Colour, 2hrs 38mins)

Admission £3  or less if you’re skint Vegetarian soup on sale from  7.30pm.

Tolpuddle martyrs’ show in Taunton 19 th – 21st January.

A cast of 21 young student actors relive the story of the Tolpuddle martyrs in drama, dance and song .

Tues 19th, Wednesday 20th and Thurs 21st January.  7.30pm – 9.45pm. Licensed bar & cafe, free Parking on site. Union Stands in the theatre foyer pre-show and during interval.

Tickets £6.50 / £5.00 concessions £4.50 students.Box office 01823 414141

The Tacchi – Morris Arts Centre, Monkton Heathfield, Taunton TA2 8PD, 2 mins from junction 25 of M5 or from A358 roundabout (Taunton ).

Dorset rejects bureaucrats’ plan to risk children’s lives.

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For the second time this year, a couple of thousand Dorset residents jammed the county town of Dorchester to remind the Clinical Commissioning Group that we will not accept cuts to paediatric or maternity services in West Dorset under any circumstances. For some time now, the ordinary people of this county have been at war with those who would pillage the health service we built for ourselves, and leave us at the mercy of private corporations who see us as commodities.

dsOur campaign, started by a determined group of working class women whose only motive was defending their kids, has grown and spread beyond the county. We now have the support of thousands of Dorset residents plus Unite Community, Unison, Industrial Workers of the World, Dorset People’s Assembly, Dorset Eye, Dorset Socialists, Bristol SolFed, the local Zumba community, scaffolders, Daleks, anarchists, snowmen, footballing bears, local media and some politicians.

e_2139Oliver Letwin M.P. author of ‘Privatising the world’  and Britain’s biggest enterprise, his plan for selling the NHS; – who once claimed that within five years of a Conservative election victory the NHS “will not exist anymore”  – is proper squirming now. He said:

“I am absolutely clear that the best interest of patients lies in maintaining paediatric in-patient services at Dorset County Hospital. I have had absolute confirmation that there is no money to be saved from moving them to Bournemouth or Poole, and the advantages of Dorchester in terms of access are huge.”

He will have to look elsewhere for his retirement fund then.

We’re glad to have the Daleks on our side but we still don’t trust Oliver Letwin.

We’re relieved the Daleks are on our side but we still don’t trust Oliver Letwin.

Dorset Eye.

BBC News

TTIP Play by Cartoon Action Theatre

Kingfisher mothers picnic picket in Dorchester.

Angry parents and their children held a picnic picket at the offices of the Clinical Commissioning Group in Dorchester to save the Kingfisher ward and Special Care Baby Unit at Dorset County Hospital. They were entertained by Bridport players performing their anti-austerity street theatre. This is expected to become a regular fixture so support it if you can.

Keep our paediatric services local – they save lives!

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Autonomy film show in Bridport Sat 13th June 2015.

1506 The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Events organised by others.

Wed 3rd June. Dorset Israel/ Palestine Peace Group.
Gilad Atzmon – Israeli-born international jazz artist, composer and author, talks on: ‘From A to Zion – truth and concealment in Palestine and Israel’ Free entry – donations.
7pm. United Church Hall, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1EE.

Sat 6 June. Dorset Socialists meeting.
Tackling Climate Change. Speaker: Peter Barton, Green Party.
1.30pm Colliton Club, Dorchester.

Sat/ Sun, 6-7th June. Renewable Energy Co-ops.
Jon Halle facilitates the renewable technology workshops. £75. http://stirtoaction.com/workshop/
10am – 5pm. Chapel in the Garden, East Street Bridport.

Wed 10th June. Somerset Branch of the Communist Party.
Public meeting in Yeovil; Which Way Forward after the General Election? Speaker: Rob Griffiths, General Secretary, Communist Party of Britain.
7:30pm. Unity Hall, Central Road, Yeovil BA20 1JL.

Wednesday 17th June Just Press Mini-Festival of Dissenting Ideas & Book Fair 2015. Reverence or Reason in an Ecological Crisis? Two short illustrated talks about nature.
Lucy Goodison: If God were a Tree
Horatio Morpurgo: Climate & Culture: Twin Tipping-Points Entry £4 Drinks & vegetarian food BOOKS FOR SALE
7.30pm for 8pm W.I. Hall, North St., Bridport

Friday 10th July Photographic postcards: A People’s Art? Austin and Potts, two early Bridport Photographers.
Illustrated talk by Carlos Guarita and launch of his booklet: ‘Clarence Austin the Photographer and the Bridport Wildcat Women’. Entry: £4 Refreshments BOOKS FOR SALE
7pm for 7.30pm W.I. Hall, North St., Bridport

Sat 11th July Pop-Up Play! Come to watch or join in you want!
Karl Marx at Home from the The Domestic Theatre Handbook Author Beth Shaw will be there in person to start the play. Entry: FREE Refreshments BOOKS FOR SALE
5.30pm W.I.Hall, North St., Bridport

Sat 11th July for 8pm Agit-prop & Activism since the Sixties
Readings, performances, reminiscences and ideas from the psychedelic 60s to austerity Britain. What was it all about? What does it mean now? BOOKS FOR SALE Entry: £6 incl. glass wine. Vegetarian food.
7.30pm W.I.Hall, North St., Bridport

Victory for Dorset Health Campaign! Community rejects pathology privatisation.

The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it” – Aneurin Bevan.

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The people of Dorset have seen off the piratisation parasites and foiled attempts to flog off the Dorset county hospital’s pathology lab to private contractors out of the county.

Street theatre by Bridport Unite Community Branch outside Dorchester hospital ahead of its board meeting on Wednesday.

The directors caved in to the avalanche of public outrage over the profiteering scheme. Demonstrations have been taking place outside the hospital for a year and a petition gathered over 11,000 signatures. This is one up the shitter for ‘evil Oliver’ Letwin the bloodsucking M.P. for West Dorset whose manifestation is anticipated in Bridport next month.

Discussions began in July 2013 to sub-contract the service to South West Pathology Services in Taunton – See more:

In August, 24 Dorset G.P.s wrote to the Echo:

“The innovation of electronic reporting means we can receive a result in the late afternoon from a sample taken in the morning. This is great for patient care. There is no intention from local GPs to destabilise or undermine our local service by forcing competition and making a market where none is needed.”

In September a row erupted over a proposal to spend three and a half grand training the governors and appoint a spokesperson to stop them giving the game away to the media.

On Monday midwives at Dorset County Hospital will strike over an ‘insulting’ one percent pay rise. The Royal College of Midwives estimate that if their members, who rely on food banks to survive, began billing the NHS for the 13 hours of overtime they clock up on average over a few weeks, it would increase their pay packets by one percent anyway.

The NHS was built by the working class for the working class. Drugs and medical equipment are made by workers not capitalists. Cleaners, doctors, nurses, midwives, porters and technicians are workers. It belongs to us, it’s not a source of revenue for the socially useless. Keep your filthy grasping bourgeois hands off it!

Dorset Eye report

To celebrate, here’s a song about vampires:

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Letwin in Bridport! Saturday 8th November.

Bridport Chamber of Trade and Commerce are putting on a ‘networking brunch’ with Oliver Letwin M.P. On Saturday 8th November, 10 a.m. – 12 noon, at: Avenue, West Street, Bridport, Dorset, DT6 3QW Map

Oliver-Letwin“Oliver Letwin, Member of Parliament for West Dorset will be hosting a Q & A session. West Dorset District Council will also be speaking. Our networking brunch is only open to businesses* and early booking is advisable.” Mr Letwin is considered a world-class authority on flogging off the fruits of our labour and pissing off with the money.

Click here to book online.

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felix2Rrrright, now, ahahahahahaa!

A warm welcome is assured for the old etonian author of ‘Privatising the World’ who will be delighted to answer questions about how he has made a career out of selling us things we already own.

In addition there will be speakers from West Dorset District Council. – what more could you ask?

Bridport is a bastard to get to as the train only goes to Dorchester, then you have to get the X31 bus, which has itself fallen victim to cuts. Timetable.

*We will award prizes for the most imaginative business names and the most pertinent questions, as determined by our panel (whoever comes down the pub on the night).

Some highlights of Letwin’s career you might want to ask him about.

When asked about his membership of the Cambridge University Liberal club he explained: “I was also a member of the Fabian Society. But I am sorry to have to tell you that this was because I was interested in the thoughts of Liberals and Fabians … rather than because I was ever a Liberal Democrat or a Fabian.” – The technical term is ‘hypocrite’.

In 1988, with John Redwood he published a pamphlet entitled Britain’s biggest enterprise; his blueprint for selling the NHS. Both of these MPs were directors of NM Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd‘s international privatisation unit. Letwin remained a director until December 2009, being paid £60,000 a year for an eight-hour week whilst he devised Tory party policies in line with their corporate agenda.

In 2001 Letwin failed to live up to his name when he ballsed up Hague’s election campaign by telling the Financial Times that the party would slash public spending by £20 billion a year. They hid him until after the election

Later in 2001, as Shadow Home Secretary he was credited with forcing the Home Secretary to withdraw his proposal to introduce an offence of incitement to religious hatred.

In 2004 Letwin  told a group of economists that it would be “irrational” to tell voters by how much he wanted to cut public spending. He later astonished a gathering of construction industry representatives in his constituency by saying that within five years of a Conservative election victory “the NHS will not exist anymore”, according to one of those who were present.

Between 2004-2009 Letwin claimed claimed more than £80,000 in parliamentary expenses for a cottage in Somerset.

In 2009, according to the daily Telegraph, he was induced to repay a bill for £2,145 for replacing a leaking pipe under his tennis court.

In October 2011, the arrogant twat dumped a pile of his constituents’ personal letters  in public bins in St. James’s Park – how fucking rude! If he was going to breach their confidentiality he could at least have done it in Dorset.

In 2012 by e-mail to Terry Stewart, president of the Dorset branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England Letwin said:

“I anticipate that subsidies for both solar photovoltaic and onshore wind will come down to zero over the next few years and should have disappeared by 2020”

Along with his colleague, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax M.P. for South Dorset, whose family introduced slavery to the Caribbean and made their fortune from brutal sugar plantations, he is a vociferous opponent of wind farms, mainly on cosmetic grounds. Despite campaigning for the abolition of renewable energy subsidies, Drax will now cash in on a 174 acre solar installation on his vast estate, over the heads of 500 local objectors. If ever a piece of land was paid for by the blood of the working class, it is the 7,000-acre Charborough house, surrounded by what is known locally as ‘the Great Wall of Dorset’

In July 2014 he told a meeting of right-wing think-tank Politeia that an improvement in the economy would open the way for a flat tax rate, so that preposterously wealthy toffs like him (and most of the cabinet) would pay the same rate as us.

Here are some of Ollie’s replies to e-mails, on his own website, in which he supports fracking, foxhunting, raising the pension age for fire-fighters and the transport of live animals for slaughter. He also expresses the opinion that legal controls on dog breeding are adequate (he says he hasn’t got time to attend the debate, sorry) and implies that the education secretary Michael Gove knows what he’s doing!

More info:

The Dorset Health Campaign

Journal of the Royal College of Physicians: Opening the oyster: the 2010–11 NHS reforms in England

Recipe for Ruin: TTIP the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Why do politicians tell us Debt/Deficit myths which they must know to be untrue?

Can there be a political theatre? A talk by Roland Muldoon at The Lyric Theatre, Bridport, Friday 5th April 2013.

Black & White

Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, award winning show visits Puddletown as part of Martyrs Festival.

As part of this years Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival organisers are bringing back Townsend Productions version of Stephen Lowe’s original adaptation of Robert Tressell’s classic working-class novel to St Marys School, Puddletown on Friday 13th July at 7.30. Tickets are £9.50 and £8.00 and can be bought in advance from the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum Shop in person or by calling (01305) 848 237.

It is a hilarious fast-paced show following a year in the life of a group of painters and decorators, as they renovate the town Mayor’s house. These workers are the “philanthropists” who throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters.

This vibrant, lively story is brought to life by two hugely talented and experienced performers, Neil Gore and Rodney Matthew, using comedy routines, entertaining songs, live music from the Music Hall and uplifting hymns sung in graceful harmony. Directed by Louise Townsend

The show has been selling out all over the country, including a couple of runs care of Artsreach in Dorset. After the festival it heads to the Edinburgh Festival for a month residency.

ON TOUR THROUGHOUT 2012

Its is a brilliant adaption of an important book and is as relevant today as it was when Robert Tressell wrote it over a 100 years ago. It is lively and entertaining, and though it gets serious points across it does so in a way that never preaches or attempts to alienate the audience.