Cases against 109 Fortnum activists dropped

Prosecutors have dropped more than 100 cases against UK Uncut activists who staged a sit-in at Fortnum & Mason almost four months ago in protest over the company’s alleged tax evasion.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has thrown out all 109 charges of aggravated trespass that were under review, leaving just 30 of the original 146 protesters arrested for occupying the central London department store on 26 March to face court on 9 November this year. The CPS said yesterday it was not in the public interest to pursue the case against the majority of the anti-cuts campaigners.

Police arrested 146 activists and detained them for up to 24 hours after they stormed Fortnum & Mason during the TUC anti-cuts rally. Two cases were dropped and five minors aged between 15 and 17 had their charges thrown out earlier this month. If convicted, the remaining activists face a maximum three-month prison sentence.

University on strike over cuts

Hundreds of academics, staff and students are holding mass strikes and demonstrations at one of the largest universities in the country today, over decisions to cut jobs and almost two thirds of the courses on offer from next year.

Picket lines will be set up at London Metropolitan University from 8am this morning as members of UNISON and UCU unions agreed to a day strike at the institution on the same day as a board of governors meeting and a week before up to 750,000 public sector workers are set to strike in defence of their pensions.

Unrest amongst some staff and students has risen at the central London university since management announced plans to cut 70 per cent of its courses, closing subjects such as History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, and Performing Arts, as well as around 200 Business courses.

Watch out for planning reforms, warn environmentalists

The coalition’s plan to relax planning policies across England could have “disastrous” effects on the country’s environment, said government advisors and conservation groups after a draft of the framework was published yesterday.

Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark unveiled drafts of his plans, in which local councils could “move to a system where the default answer to development is ‘yes’,” unless it would infringe key sustainable development principles set out in national planning policy to be consulted on next month.

But his announcement came under immediate scrutiny, as critics said the plans prioritised economic growth at the expense of the environment, failed to clearly define “sustainable development” and encouraged “speculative” planning models across England.

Cuts will be 50 per cent higher, NHS bosses told

Hospitals could have to make savings of up to 50 percent higher than initially outlined by the government in order to meet guidelines under the NHS reform programme.

Monitor, the independent foundation trust regulator, wrote to health officials around the country to warn them that they might face a “substantial challenge” in trying to meet the coalition’s drive for efficiency.

The regulator suggested hospitals could have to make savings of up to 7 per cent a year to be granted foundation trust status compared to the four percent previously outlined by the Department of Health (DoH).

The government is trying to convert all hospital trusts into foundation trusts by 2014, meaning they would be free from central control. It wants to cut £20bn across the NHS by 2015 and reduce administrative costs in non-front line organisations by 33 percent over the same time period.

Cosmetics tycoon helps fund protesters’ legal fight

A multi-millionaire entrepreneur has donated thousands of pounds to assist UK Uncut in their fight against upcoming legal battles.

Lush cosmetics co-founder and managing director, Mark Constantine, has given his company’s largest charitable grant of £10,000 to Green & Black Cross, a volunteer-run group of activists, who are providing legal support to the 138 members of UK Uncut facing criminal charges next month.

Members of the anti-tax avoidance group, whose methods of direct action against high street stores culminated in mass-arrests at London department store Fortnum & Mason on 26 March, are facing charges of aggravated trespass and a maximum of three months in jail and or a £2,500 fine. 

UK-based Syrian TV station denies secret funding from US government

A south London-based satellite channel run by less than a dozen staff has been hit by claims that it was one of several Syrian political opposition projects that have been secretly funded by America’s State Department.

Barada TV, a pro-democracy Syrian news channel based next to Vauxhall Park in south London, started broadcasting in April 2009. It is reportedly one of a number of Syrian anti-government organisations that have received as much as $6m (£3.7m) from the US government.

Documents published by WikiLeaks suggest that the State Department has been funding opposition groups including the 24-hour free satellite channel for the past five years. The channel covers what it calls “oppositional” politics in Syria in a bid to overthrow the country’s long running autocratic regime, led by Bashar al-Assad.

‘Cyclists don’t have a shield of metal to save them from harm’

Readers have welcomed our campaign to make travelling on two wheels safer

James Hoggarth, 36, a civil servant from London: Last April, a van driver deliberately swerved at Mr Hoggarth while he was cycling through central London. Mr Hoggarth reported the driver to his boss, who sacked the driver after reviewing CCTV evidence.

“It was shocking: you don’t expect someone to use half a ton of metal to win an argument,” he says. “This is an absolutely brilliant campaign. Cyclists are quite vulnerable road users as they don’t have that shield of metal to protect them from harm. The more cyclists on the road, the more aware drivers will be. Ultimately, that’s better for everybody.”

Michael Sayburn, 51, accountant from Winchester: Mr Sayburn was thrown off his bike 11 weeks ago after slipping on diesel that a van sprayed in front of him. He had three pins placed in his hip, and can now walk only with a stick.

“I am itching to get back on my bike,” he says. “Accidents sort of go with the territory of cycling… but nothing can put me off. What we need is more awareness on the part of the drivers. They need to give cyclists a wider berth and we need more cycle lanes. Campaigns like these are fantastic. The thing that scares people off cycling is the state of the roads and the way that car drivers and truck drivers behave. You can ride along lit up like a Christmas tree and you still get: ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you.’”

Jill Truman, 75, from east London, a cyclist for more than 60 years: “In London, it comes down to the fact that there really aren’t any safe places to cycle. The cycle lanes are rubbish and cars drive in and out of them. I almost never go on a busy road and feel like cyclists are treated as third-class citizens. Transport for London has put the cart before the horse by encouraging the use of bicycles before the roads are safe. The “cycling superhighways” turn out to be car, lorry and bus superhighways, with patches of bright blue paint and pictures of bicycles on the tarmac, and a few timid signs.”

Graeme Hitchen, 51, from Sheffield: Mr Hitchen was knocked off his bike in 2008. “I lost all the feeling in my leg. I had on a luminous jacket, a helmet, and had my lights on. I just don’t know how the driver didn’t see me. All I can remember saying is: ‘Why didn’t you see me?’ I am much more wary and defensive now; some people on the road are completely inconsiderate.”

Soho pub shuts its doors hours before gay kissing protest

By Sarah Morrison and Emily Fairbairn

A pub at the centre of a dispute over a gay kiss shut its doors last night as hundreds of demonstrators converged on it to hold a kiss-in.

James Bull, 23, and Jonathan Williams, 26, were enjoying their first date on Wednesday evening when they said they were forcibly removed from the John Snow pub in Soho, central London, by management who described their behaviour as “obscene”.

Word of the ejection caused a storm on social networking sites and a protest was quickly organised on Facebook for demonstrators to fill the John Snow and start a kiss-in. But after learning of the event, the pub management decided to close for the evening.

Up to 300 demonstrators, not all of them gay, arrived at the John Snow to find the doors locked. But they went ahead with the planned mass kiss in the street at 7pm. A rainbow flag was hung across the door of the pub and the doorstep became a platform for kissing couples.

BP faces the wrath of Gulf Coast fishers and shareholders

By Sarah Morrison and Sarah Arnott

Chanting, raging arguments which escalated to scuffles, and shareholders carried out sideways by security – BP’s 2011 annual general meeting, held in London yesterday, broke corporate conventions.

The company’s first meeting with shareholders since last year’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in history, saw its executives face questions over their own basic competence and high pay, as well as the company’s safety and environmental records.

In an unusual shareholder rebellion, there was a sizeable protest vote against the pay deals handed to the company’s top bosses. Seven per cent of BP investors voted against the re-appointment of the company’s unpopular chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and 25 per cent voted against the re-election of Sir Bill Castell, the non-executive director who heads BP’s safety committee. Eleven per cent voted against the remuneration report.

Number of women on dole highest in 15 years

The good cheer felt by the Treasury at yesterday’s unemployment figures, which less bad than expected, will be tempered by the knowledge that some groups are being hit worse than others. The number of women claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance is at its highest for 15 years.

Women have been particularly affected by unemployment as part-time posts, and jobs in the service and retail sectors, which have traditionally been held by women, have been among the first to be axed.

Changes to benefit rules have also seen women switching from income support to Jobseeker’s Allowance over the past two months. If current trends continue, more women in the UK will be unemployed than men for the first time since records began, a woman’s campaigning group has claimed.

According to a forthcoming report by the Fawcett Society and the Women’s Budget Group, the situation for women will get worse with public sector job losses as they hold 65 per cent of positions in the sector.

They predict job cuts in the public sector could run into the hundreds of thousands.

“For the first time, after decades of steady progress, we will be turning the clock back on women’s access to the jobs market,” said Fawcett’s chief executive, Anna Bird.

This article appeared here in The Independent.