London Calling The bulletin of London Class War September 1999 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Death Notice With regret we record the recent murder of John Whitney, one of Harry Roberts' companions the day they executed three filth in 1966. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nazi Bomber in Court On August 9, alleged nailbomber David Copeland appeared at the Old Bailey. Appearing calm and confident, he was remanded in custody until September 24, as the police served new evidence on the defence. Word has reached us on the prison grapevine that Copeland, far from keeping his head down, has taken to abusing black inmates. Not a clever man. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 121 Evicted .... Rest in Peace 12 August saw the eviction of the 121 Centre in Railton Road, Brixton. Bailiffs, backed up by filth, evicted 7 people. According to the Evening Standard of that day, armed cops were used in the back up, although the police have been denying this. 18 years young, the 121 was not only London's oldest squat, but also had served as a music venue, bookshop, cafe and meeting place. Although it is fair to say that the 121 varied greatly in quality (and cleanliness!) Over the years, it served as a valuable resource as well as a bulwark against the determined attempts to gentrify Brixton in recent years. The 121 will apparently be auctioned. We urge everyone to keep a careful eye on this property in the future, although there surely cannot be room for another yuppie bar in the area? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Anarchist Trade Union Network As mentioned in Class War #77, this new network is looking to raise the profile of anarchists in the unions, as well as acting as a meeting place for like-minded people. They are now onto the second issue of their rather good bulletin, Fighting Talk, which is available from them at Box EMAB (ATU), 88 Abbey Street, Derby DE22 ESQ. You can get onto their email list by going to http://ATU.listbot.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brimming With Bullshit Following the violence at the Cardiff v Millwall match on the opening day of the season, several journos turned to authors Dougie and Eddy Brimson for quotes, Eddy even being interviewed on Newsroom Southeast. Both claim to be former hooligans, although Dougie managed to combine his time as a terrace terror with serving 18 years with the RAF, Eddy with being an actor. They both support ............ Watford. A glance at the brothers' books on football hooliganism show their considerable flair for fiction. Anti-Fascist Action gave the brothers both barrels for inventing an interview with an AFA member, and their analysis (and interviews) with the far-right seem merely to be based on press cuttings and supposition. So why then did Class War give an interview to the brothers for their book, 'England, My England'? The simple answer is that we did not. The Bothers Grimm made it up. Every last word. Do you sense a pattern emerging here? So far the brothers have confined their activities to the world of football, and ripping off gullible journalists. However, a glance at Eddy's CV reveals that he claims to have been Press Officer for the National Anti-Hunt Campaign. Given the occasional prominence given to football hooliganism in England, and the importance of the forthcoming hunting season for fox-hunters and sabs alike, a careful eye needs to be kept on this pair of 'experts'. Any sighting of these vermin should be reported to the usual address. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle It was recently announced in the music paper, Pulp, that the Sex Pistols have refused Tim Scargill's band Los Paraliticos permission to use the tune of EMI when recording their anti-royal song, Di and Dodi. How the mighty have succumbed to the establishment - perhaps Lydon, Cook, Jones and Matlock are hoping to become proper old farts by getting OBEs. A sad day for rebellion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pub Culture Pub chain Wetherspoon's recently announced plans to call a pub they've acquired in Saltaire, Bradford, The Sir Titus Salt. Titus Salt was the nineteenth-century indrustrialist founder of Saltaire, and his claim to fame was that he banned pubs (and, one suspects, offies) from the town. Till recently, it was assumed that this meant he was a firm supporter of the perverse temperance movement, and a staunch opponent of alcohol. Au contraire!! It seems that he banned pubs from his industrial town in an effort to prevent politicos meeting in pubs and plotting subversion! Even in those days, the pub was a hotbed of sedition, a tradition which continues to today. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Loony Left FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT Sunday September 12th. 11am Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, N16. Anybody who wishes to play in the Class War seven a side team please turn up with your kit - we have a reputation to maintain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Merchandise Update We are still selling copies of the 'Get Rid of The Royals' video at £7. Copies of Ian Bone's superb novel, 'Anarchist', are going quickly at £3 (+A4 sae) and we will have some copies of a new pamphlet by South Yorkshire Class War member Dave Douglass, entitled 'All Power To The Imagination'. Again, please send £3 (+A4 sae). Badgewise, we have both Class War and ABC metal badges, at £1.50, with stickers available at 40 for £1. Finally, we have several of the Mark Barnsley Campaign t-shirts, available for £5 (in person from any member of London Class War), or £6 by post. Please make all cheques/postal orders payable to 'London Class War only'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Class War Issue 78 Will be out in late September. Bulk order rates are £10 for 20 copies, £45 for 100 copies, and £5 for ten copies. For individual orders please send 4 first class stamps. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bushell on the Fox "I was against hunting until I tried it and found the truth..they're not a bunch of sadistic hooray henrys" Tony Blair has catapaulted hunting back into the spotlight by vowing to outlaw it before the next election. The last attempt to ban it came from Labour MP Michael Foster's Private Member's Bill in 1997. It sparked a huge reaction from people living in the country, furious that their way of life was threatened by city folk who had no knowledge of, or interest in, rural areas. Their Countryside Alliance march in London last year was one of the biggest and best supported demonstrations seen in recent years. Foster's Bill later fell when the Government refused to allow it enough time to become law. Here, a Sun townie who was anti-blood sports, reveals how he changed his mind after a day's hunting. "Tally-hopeless! That's what I thought of fox-hunters. A bunch of toffee-nosed toffs revelling in a sport more noted for cruelty and snobbery than skill and enjoyment. Yet the pageantry and tradition of the hunt appealed to me. And having lived near foxes, and seen the devastation they cause to lambs and chickens, I knew they weren't the cuddly Christmas card critters of urban mythology. So when professor of philosophy Roger Scruton offered me the chance to ride to hounds with one of Britain's 200 packs, I went along to see for myself. I joined the Vale of White Horse hunt in Wiltshire. First surprise? The people. I was expecting a bunch of braying snobs, but all souls turned out to follow the action - farm workers , housewives, workmen and kids. "We never see the kill, it's the excitement of the day we love," says spectator Wendy Clarke. "It's a social occasion." A very social occasion. We start by sampling the stirrup cup - mulled wine served hot and flavoured with cinnamon. Four of those with the stable girl and I am a very unstable boy. Most of the VWH hunt members are farmers who wear black coats to set themselves apart from the "nobs" in their red tunics. A blacksmith, a postman and a scrap iron merchant also ride with this hunt, which has just two paid professionals, the huntsman and the whip. Plum-faced huntsman Sidney Bailey works the 41 hounds like magic between copious mid-morning liveners of scotch and ginger. The horse is my first problem. The nearest I had got to riding before was the merry-go-round on Blackpool's North Pier. My steed, Sam, stands a towering 16 hands and two inches high. Ginormous. Getting off before I'm thrown off, I join the lively throng of spectators watching the start of the hunt on foot. The riders stop on the edge of the first covert. In shoot the hounds. Suddenly I spot the fox - codename Charlie - tearing out of the other side of some distant trees. The hounds find the scent and race after it with the huntsman close behind. Suddenly the hunters are gallumphing past just a few feet away from us spectators. "Jorrocks," I say. Or something similar. The riders are a good 500 yards behind the hounds. "Most foxes get away," says hunt enthusiast Bill Reid as we try to work out their likely route. We follow in farmer Ted Dibble's Land Rover. Why are they here? Gordon Clark, who works a council-owned farm near Cirencester, says: "It's a great country sport and the only way to control foxes. It's part of our traditions and our way of life." It's exciting for sure. But is it right? "Hunting isn't cruel," Bill Reid insists. "Death by the hounds is quick and certain. It is all over in seconds. "If you accept that the fox population has to be controlled, and everyone does, then hunting is far less cruel than the alternatives - gassing, poisoning, snaring or shooting. "Poisoning mucks up the ecological chain." Ted Dibble adds: "Foxes are very destructive. But the ones we catch are the old, weak or cowardly foxes. "The big, strong one who is going to breed gets away - the survival of the fittest." I thought I'd be spending the day with a bunch of sadistic hooray henrys. But the men and women I meet are rational, sociable and bright. Hunting is not a prohibitively expensive hobby. It can cost less than £3,000 to get started. Horses start at around £1,000 and cost £3,500 a year to feed and stable. Annual hunt subscriptions are another £500. It costs less than £1,000 to kit yourself out with the coat, hat, boots and breeches. Meat auctioneer Mark Hill, 36, says: "Hunting costs me £20 a week - only a bit more than the rent at a council caravan site. "I manage by going without holidays. The wife isn't too happy but this is my way of life. I'd be lost without it." So why the public image problem? Professor Scruton says: "The League Against Cruel Sports has been taken over by quasi-Marxists who like to portray hunting as a class issue. "Their strategy is to pick country sports off one by one. After hunting it will be shooting, then fishing. "Banning hunting would be a social catastrophe for the country. It would also be an infringement of civil liberties. "Riding with the hounds is no different from keeping cats to drive away mice, or using terriers to keep rats under control." Hunting isn't for me, but I've yet to hear a valid argument for banning it. The anti arguments are more to do with slushy, misinformed sentimentality and misguided, puritanical class hatred than genuine concern for animal welfare. - Gary Bushell in The Sun, July 13, 1999 BUSHELL ON THE DOCS "OAP-LESS! That's what I always thought of euthanasia. A group of stuck-up docs sticking their noses and syringes in where they weren't wanted, and knocking off our old folk before their time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some bleeding-heart liberal with a rose- tinted view of the old. I know they're not the kindly, twinkly-eyed grandparents you see in the Werther's Original advert. I was brought up in the middle of London, and I've seen the havoc a Chelsea Pensioner can cause to a queue of people trying to get on a bus. Even so when I was invited to go along and see a mercy killing for myself in a Staffordshire nursing home, I went along not expecting to have my opinions changed. How wrong I was. The first thing that struck me was the pageantry. There can be few more stirring sights on an English summer morning than a band of physicians in their splendid white coats and shiny stethoscopes gathered in the lobby of a nursing home. My second surprise was how friendly everyone was, standing round laughing and joking over a glass of sherry. My third surprise was they weren't all toffee-nosed doctors. "All sorts of people turn out to follow the action of a mercy killing," said Wendy Hardwood, a ward orderly. "There are nurses, consultants, physiotherapists - even a couple of airline pilots and a lorry driver. It's very much a social occasion." A very social occasion. I hardly have time to finish my sherry and we're off. The doctors stop at the end of the first corridor. Nothing seems to be happening. Then suddenly, a flash of beige from the breakfast room and the chase is on. The baying doctors pick up his unmistakable scent and set off in hot pursuit. I'm caught up in the excitement as the pack careers along the corridor, knocking furniture and visiting relatives flying. Our prey is a sly old fellow, surprisingly fast, and is heading for the safety of the day room. "Most old people get away," says euthanasia enthusiast Edward Chipboard, as we try to work out our old man's likely route. "The ones we do catch tend to be the weak, senile or the terminally ill." We finally run down our quarry. He's cowering in the corner of the dining room, his rheumy eyes filled with terror. He knows he is beaten. The chief consultant moves in for the kill with his syringe. It's exciting for sure. But is it right? "Euthanasia isn't cruel." insists Chipboard. "This way, the end is relatively quick and painless. It's certainly kinder than allowing them to linger on up to a very old age." I thought I'd be spending my day with a bunch of murderous hooray henrys. But what I saw changed my mind. Euthanasia may not be everyone's cup of tea, but one thing's for certain - The people who oppose it are slushy, misinformed, sentimental, misguided Marxists. And if you accept that the aged population has to be controlled, which everybody does, then anaesthetic overdose is far less cruel than the alternatives - smothering them. Pushing them downstairs or attacking them with hammers. - Latest issue of VIZ - we couldn't have put it better. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIARY DATES Please note that this month may also see a meeting called at short notice in South Yorkshire to discuss the next Class War pamphlet. Phone hotline for details. Sunday September 5: London Class War meeting. Will include discussion of next paper. 8pm kickoff. Sunday September 12: 7-a-side footie tournament for the Looney Left Cup. Meet 11am, Clissold Park N16. Saturday September 25: Smokey Bear's Picnic, Hyde Park, London, Early afternoon, about 2. Following the 41 arrests at the Portsmouth event last month, we need numbers to turn up. Tuesday September 28: Stop the Countryside Alliance in Bournemouth! 17,000 foxhunters, village idiots and landowners expected to demonstrate. Let's stop them in their tracks! Meet 10am outside Bournemouth International Centre. Book your B&B well in advance! Saturday October 16: Anarchist Bookfair, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. Tuesday November 30: June 18 Part II! This time it's personal! Watch Commisioner of the City Filth Perry Nove get the axe! Or the chop! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Security Alert Following the events of June 18, the police are raiding people. If you have anything embarrassing under your bed you wouldn't want your Mum to see, you might want to take appropriate precautions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Remembering the Past Anniversaries for September Compiled by the Class War historian. 1 September: 1863-Haitian insurgents proclaimed republic; 1864-Sir Roger Casement, Irish nationalist, born. 3 September: 1843-Revolution in Greece; King Otto compelled to re-establish National Assembly; 1848-Insurrection at Leghorn; Governor forced to retreat to citadel; 1888-Friedrich Nietzsche begins writing The Antichrist; 1969-Ho Chi Minh died; 1872-Hurrah!! Fire in Canterbury Cathedral; 150 feet of roof destroyed. 4 September: 1850-General Haynau, Austrian commander, assaulted by labourers and draymen when visiting Barclay's Brewery. 1870-Revolution in France; dethronement of Napoleon III proclaimed; Defence Government formed. 5 September: 1972-West German special police, GSG9, kill 11 Israeli athletes during Black September operation in Munich; 1977-Red Army Faction kidnap Hanns-Martin Schleyer, employers' leader and Daimler-Benz Chief Executive. He is executed after 43 days in captivity. 6 September: 1898-President McKinley of the United States shot at Buffalo, NY, Exhibition; 1966-Hendrik Frensch Vorwoerd, South African PM, assassinated. 8 September: 1890-Strike of dock labourers at Southampon, leading to collision with military; 1970-Angry Brigade bomb house of Attorney General Sir Peter Rawlinson. 9 September: 1976-Mao Tse-Tung died. 10 September: 1898-Empress of Austria assassinated at Geneva; 1935-Huey Pierce Long, US senator from Louisiana, assassinated; 1945-Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death for treason; 1968-Seven young anarchists arrested in Spain, accused of conspiring with the 1st of May Group and of participation in actions in the Valencia region. Information leading to the arrests came from the Met Filth's 'Special' Branch; 1971-Ipswich courthouse bombed; 1974-Second June Movement members, posing as detectives, rob a Bremen arms store. 11 September: 1848-Revolt in Hungary against Austrian rule; 1973-Salvador Allende, President of Chile, allegedly topped himself. 12 September: 1878-Cleopatra's Needle set up on Thames Embankment; 1992-Battle of Waterloo! Fascists get a trouncing! 14 September: 1896-Tynan, 'No. 1', of the Phoenix Park murderers arrested; 1901-President McKinley pops his clogs. 16 September: 1971-Bomb discovered in officers' mess inside Dartmoor prison. 17 September: 1942-Des Lynam's birthday. 18 September: 1809-'OP' (Old Prices) Riots at Covent Garden Theatre; agitation against increased prices; 1867-Rescue at Manchester of Fenians Kelly and Deasy from police van, and execution of Police Sergeant Brett. 19 September: 1803-Robert Emmett convicted of high treason; 1881-President Garfield ups stumps and retires to the pavilion after receiving wounds 81 days before; 1908-Strike of cotton workers in Lancashire, 120,000 cardroom hands out of work; 1945-William Joyce, 'Lord Haw-Haw', sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. 20 September: 1801-Robbery at House of Lords; throne stripped of gold lace and ornaments; 1971-Support of Chelsea Bridge opposite army barracks bombed; blast heard 3 miles away. 21 September: 1970-Wimbledon Conservative Association firebombed. 24 September: 1971-Despite the fact that the filth claim to have nicked all the Angry Brigade, the Albany Street Army Barracks (near the bomb squad HQ!) is bombed by the Angry Brigade in protest against the actions of the British Army in the Six Counties; 1993-Ian Stuart Donaldson crashes his car and dies. Hurrah! 25 September: 1880-Execution of Lord Mountmorres at Rusheen, Ireland, by boycotters; 1971-Holger Meins and Magrit Schiller out of the RAF shoot two cops. Unfortunately neither of them die; 1983 Republican PoWs escape from the Maze; unfortunately 19 men are recaptured almost immediately. 26 September: 1848-Trial of Chartists for 'inciting to rebellion'; 1970-Hampstead Conservative Association firebombed; simultaneous bomb attacks against Iberia, the national airline of the fascist Franco regime in Spain, in Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and London airports. 28 September: 1960-Estelle Sylvia Pankhust died; 1964-Arthur 'Harpo' Marx died; 1976-Seven members of the Red Army Faction are sentenced to prison sentences of from 2 to 7 years for fire-bombings in 1970-72. 29 September: 1829-Metropolitan Filth first on duty.; 1970-The Red Army Faction pull off their 'Triple Coup', robbing three banks in West Berlin and netting DM 217,468. 30 September: 1888-Nietzsche finished writing The Antichrist. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- And finally... 6 Years On, We're Still Laughing! Just to end on a lighter note, September 24 marks the sixth anniversary of the timely demise of double barrelled nazi Ian Stuart Donaldson. For Skrewdriver read Bad Driver! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To Come from Class War Provisionally timetabled for Wednesday October 20th BBC 2, 9pm. "Living With the Enemy". Class War member David Douglas stayed with an aristocratic Lord - he was scum of course. Class War issue 78 - out for around late September. 21st Century Class War - the new manifesto! To replace the old version of "This is Class War". Get your news and views from the Class War stall and public meeting at the Anarchist Bookfayre on Saturday the 16th of October - 10am to 6pm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- London Class War PO Box 467 London E8 3QX United Kingdom Email: class_war@hotmail.com Web: /homestead/CapitolHill/9482