Dozens enjoy People's Festival guided walk around radical Edinburgh

Local activist and historian Allan Armstrong led today’s ‘Radical Auld Reekie’ tour as part of the Edinburgh People’s Festival. He explained the fascinating revolutionary history of the city and the struggles it is connected to from the 1790 to 1938 and highlighted key figures like James Connolly who led the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Thomas Muir the leader of the Reform movement in Scotland at the time of Burns and those who went to aid the Republican side in the Spanish Civil war of 1936-1938 amongst others.
Allan highlighted the many episodes of that most important side of Edinburgh, its working class history and struggles. You will not find any of his tour notes on the ‘Visit Scotland’ website, or BBC TWO’s ‘Festival’ coverage, or the Rough Guide to Edinburgh – but you will be able to see Allan for yourself soon on the Edinburgh People’s Festival website.
The picture shows Allan and part of his party in Calton Hill cemetery, where there stands a monument to Thomas Muir and the Scots radicals sentence to penal servitude for championing the rights of working people in the 1790’s, as well as the first statue erected to Abraham Lincoln outside the USA.

Let the people speak

The Edinburgh People's Festival August 2009 programme opened last night at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre in Muirhouse.
The public were able to see our award winning exhibition explaining the history of the People's Festival from 1951-today and the entries in our arts competition 'Let the people speak' for the first time. Each show runs until 29th August.
The photograph shows myself and Professor Richard Demarco one of the competition judges with the prize winners Steven Hood, Joyce Gunn Cairns, Shelagh Atkinson and Alan Kilpatrick. ‘Let the people speak’ is a fantastic show which is well worth seeing and complements the huge success of last years arts competition.

Hamish Henderson memorial lecture

Last year the Edinburgh People's Festival initiated the Hamish Henderson Memorial lecture. Hamish Henderson [ 1919-2002] was a remarkable figure in Scottish culture, celebrated in many different ways. He was a poet, song writer and scholar who wrote Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica about his experiences as a soldier in North Africa during World War 2. As the father of the Scottish folk music revival in post war Scotland he left us the wonderful anthem Freedom Come All Ye. He took the Italian surrender in World War 2 and translated the work of the celebrated Italian writer and thinker Antonio Gramsci into English. He established the ground breaking School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University and was also the founder of the Edinburgh People's Festival in 1951. He even found time to turn down an OBE.
In last years inaugural lecture Hamish Henderson's biographer and close friend Mr Timothy Neat delivered a thoroughly engrossing talk about the man to a highly appreciative sell out crowd.
The Edinburgh People's Festival is absolutely delighted to announce that this years lecture will be delivered by Dr Fred Freeman a celebrated authority on Hamish Henderson from the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University. Fred recently presented an acclaimed hour long special on Hamish's life and legacy on BBC Radio Four.
The lecture takes place on Wednesday 12th August at the Nelson Hall in St Leonards [7.30pm] which is not far from where Hamish Henderson used to live. It is widely expected to be another sell out crowd so get there early if you want a seat.

Out of conflict comes clarity

Not satisfied with bringing in 'scab' labour to try and break the binmens' industrial action SNP leader Steve Cardownie is quoted in the Evening News warning that the entire refuse service may be privatised.
It says a great deal about the SNP and the kind of alternative to New Labour they offer.
The bin men are poised to go on strike because this SNP/Lib Dem Council intends to take £6,000 off their already low wages. The bin men deserve our full support as they rightly rejected the Councils outrageous interpretation of the Equal Pay Act which involves savaging the pay of low paid male workers rather than increasing the wages of their even lower paid female colleagues.

Johnny Walker Protest

Around 10,000 people marched through the centre of Kilmarnock today in protest at the decision by Diageo, the world's biggest drinks company, to close their Johnnie Walker whisky factory in the town with the loss of 700jobs. Johnnie Walker, the world's most popular whisky brand, has been produced in Kilmarnock since 1820. Diageo made £2bn profits last year, including those at its Kilmarnock factory but recently proposed to close the plant and move the bottling plant to Leven in Fife with the loss of 900 jobs in order to make even more profits. If this decision goes ahead it will be a hammer blow to the town of Kilmarnock with unemployment rates expected to double overnight. The Scottish Socialist Party joined the protest and pledged our full support to the communities fight to keep these jobs in Kilmarnock.

Edinburgh binmen refuse to lift £70/week less as Council demands cuts

The Scottish Socialist Party received a call from David Cameron last week.
But this wasn't the David Cameron born with a silver spoon in his mouth who went to Eton or votes Tory. He is a bin man with Edinburgh City Council and has been for 21 years. David contacted us to ask for help after the Council's SNP/Liberal administration informed him and 600 of his colleagues their pay was to be 'modernised', by chopping £3,000 a year from it. Bin men like David earn £16,000 including bonuses. Management aims to take £70 per week off them.
Council leaders insist the cuts are necessary if they are to implement the 'single status' agreement in the Equal Pay Act. This Act, passed into law three decades ago but not fully implemented, affords women workers the same rights as men by insisting that work of equal value be equally rewarded regardless of gender. The Scottish Socialist Party supports this principle wholeheartedly, however we, and the rest of the labour movement for that matter, are determined that wages are 'equalised up' not down. In other words it must mean a substantial pay rise for women not a cut for men.
In a ballot result announced last week David Cameron reported that the 600 bin men in Edinburgh had voted '599 to one' to strike against the proposed wage cuts. He further explained that the workforce had begun a 'work to rule' refusing overtime or taking up shifts on their days off.
The union believes the ballot result puts the ball firmly in the Council's court. The prospect of rubbish piling up in the city's streets with temperatures, as we have seen this week, into the 80's and with 200,000 visitors heading here for the Festival will put the SNP/Liberal coalition under huge pressure to back down.
Meanwhile I have written to Stephen McGregor, TGWU Unite shop steward pledging the Scottish Socialist Party's full support for the union. I added that as far as I was concerned bin men earning only 2/3rd of the average wage was an inadequate level of pay for the important and yet dirty job they do in serving our communities across this city.

Edinburgh People's Festival Art Competition

People’s Festival launches £1,000 visual arts competition with Richard Demarco to judge entries.
Visual Artists (including photographers) across Scotland are invited to submit wall mounted work on the theme ‘Let The People Speak’.
Entries will be exhibited at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre in August as part of the 2009 Edinburgh People’s Festival.