Manchester's top 10 vegan friendly places.

Update: this post is at least 2 years out of date, new places exist and some of these places have sadly closed down. I've made a new list of  Top 10 vegan places in Manchester 2015 so click that link for a more up to date list.

For the first time ever on my blog I thought I'd do a review of something. I have recently moved back to Manchester after 2 years of living back in Lancashire. As a vegan, I have been delighted by the choice of vegan friendly shops, cafes and restaurants there are in Manchester. I thought I'd do a review of my top 10 places to go in Manchester for vegans. Since I've been asked why places in Greater Manchester are not on this list, I will clarify that this list is for the City of Manchester only. I might end up doing a Greater Manchester (excluding the city) list at some point when I've tried more places. This list will probably change order, and 2 or 3 of them will not even make my top 10 on another day. Plus the fact that new places pop up every now and again will mean the list will change even more. There are even some places I have yet to check out. Here's Happy Cow's list of veggie-friendly places in Manchester: http://www.happycow.net/europe/england/manchester/

Runner-ups:

• Dough Pizza Kitchen, City Centre
• YeoPans, Chorlton
• Hunters, City Centre
• Go Falafel, City Centre & Fallowfield
• Bistro 1847, City Centre & Chorlton
• On The Corner, Chorlton
• Falafel, Rusholme/Curry Mile
• Odd/Odder/Oddest, City Centre/Oxford Road/Chorlton

10. This & That, City Centre

This & That is the best place in Manchester to buy rice and 3. Haven't ever heard of rice and 3? Well it's simple, you get a portion of rice and then you get to pick 3 different curries from a range of curries. It's usually less than a fiver and there are 3 or 4 places around the Northern Quarter and the Green Quarter that do this.

9. Safad, Gay Village

Plain and simple, the best falafel and houmous wrap in Manchester. Quite cheap as well. Otherwise Safad is just your average kebab house. Situated on the street behind Canal Street, it is a perfect place to eat after a night out at Satan's Hollow.

8. Mod's Veggie Cafe @ The Thirsty Scholar, City Centre (near Oxford Road Train Station)

Mod's cafe has changed venues over the years and was best when it's was Mod Pop Cafe on Oldham Street at a shop called Pop, however it has since moved back to Thirsty Scholar. A great place for a quick burger and chips at a cheap price in a central location. The beer's not bad either. Run by ska and northern soul DJ Mod, whose partner runs Manchester Vegan Society. Not entirely vegan, but entirely vegetarian.

Thirsty Scholar website: http://www.thirstyscholar.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MODSVEGGIEVEGANCAFE

7. Earth Cafe, City Centre

Earth Cafe is 100% vegan, except for the fact they offer cow's milk with tea/coffee. Based in the Northern Quarter, Earth offers lots of rich, filling and healthy vegan meals. Really wholesome food. It's a shame this place isn't open late because I would love to eat out here before doing something in the city centre.

Website: http://www.earthcafe.co/

6. Fuel Cafe Bar, Withington

This cafe was the first place I ever tried sweet potato wedges, and along with sweet chilli sauce it is amazing. This is probably the most southern entry to this list. One of the best places for a vegan breakfast, or a vegan falafel burger. The room upstairs is free hire and lots of people put bands on there as well as artsy sort of events. The bar is excellent, and has lots of organic choice (although I don't drink alcohol so what do I know?). By public transport you just need to get any bus from city centre to Didsbury and get off at Withington and it's on the main high street, Wilmslow Road. A really nice treat.

Website: http://fuelcafebar.co.uk/

5. Anand's Vegetarian Deli & Pan Centre, Rusholme/Curry Mile















Sitting on Manchester's curry mile, Anand's is a great cheap place to get some Asian cuisine, particularly assortment of various deep fried deli delights. They also have a large range of fresh curries, but not the usual ones you get in Indian restaurants. You can even take things home with you cold as if it's a shop. Really good value for money and well worth the visit. 100% vegetarian, but not 100% vegan, but they are very helpful if you tell them you're vegan. Please request soya milk with your tea/coffee so they stock it more often if the demand is high enough for them.


Facebook (I can't seem to find a website): https://www.facebook.com/AnandsDeli

4. The 8th Day Supermarket & Cafe, City Centre/University area

This was one of the first veggie places I ever discovered in Manchester. Sitting right next to the student's union of the university I went to, Manchester Metropolitan University on Oxford Road, I went to this place for my lunch on an almost daily basis. I first started going here on the way to seeing bands at the Manchester Academies. Run as a workers co-op with lots of ethical principles. Upstairs is a vegetarian supermarket full of all sorts of ethical brands, downstairs is a vegetarian cafe. The cafe has quite a varied menu and range of cakes, nearly half of them vegan. 8th Day cafe is my favourite place in Manchester to have a vegan breakfast, without a doubt. As well as various groceries the upstairs has a deli counter where you can get lots of  vegan cake or pasties heated to take out if you just want something quick and cheap on your lunch. It is towards the more expensive end of places that are vegan friendly however, but not too extortionate.

Website: http://8thday.coop/

3. Teatime Collective, Hulme

Originally just a way of someone sharing food with friends, later progressed to catering at fairs and festivals and protest camps and as of September a new cafe & vegan ice cream parlour based in St Wilfred's Centre in Hulme. The latest edition to Manchester's vegan family. This cafe is really cheap and very good quality. At the moment the menu changes every day, as does different the flavours of the ice creams. They do a lot of pies, sandwiches and stews, etc. Very cheap food, but quite a small cafe if the weather is bad outside. Takeaway is available.

Website: http://www.teatimecollective.co.uk/

2. V Revolution, City Centre

One of the latest entirely vegan cafes in Manchester, opened around a year and a half ago. Based on Oldham Street not far from Aflecks Palace. Set up as a place for punk and vegan lifestyle, selling punk and hardcore records as well as lots of vegan junk food. Yes foodwise, this place in Manchester's answer to Vx in London. If you ever wanted to try a vegan Mars bar or a vegan Reeses peanut butter chocolate cupcakes, you can get them here. They also do lots of ace vegan burger bar style food. Burgers, hot dogs, bacon, cheese toasties (they have Vegusto and Veganic brands!), soft drinks and cakes. Their prices are fairly reasonable. Oh and they also sell some cool zines. This is a place you can take a non-vegan and they probably wouldn't complain much.

Website/Facebook (they fail at having a real website): https://www.facebook.com/vrevolutionuk

1. Unicorn Grocery, Chorlton

Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton is a co-operative grocery supermarket which happens to be 100% entirely vegan. This month Unicorn celebrates it's 17 birthday. Founded in 1996, Unicorn is owned and managed entirely by it's permanent members of staff who all get an equal say in how the business is run and an equal pay and share of the profits. Unicorn has a strict set of principles which involves ethical sourcing of products; healthy, sugar free and animal product free products; sustainable employment for their members; as low an environmental impact as possible (no items are ever flown in by plane) and supporting the local communities. 1% of their wage bill goes to local projects which fit their principles and 4% of their wage bill goes to helping poor people in the economic south of the world set up their own businesses.

The model Unicorn apply involves buying as much raw ingredients as possible in bulk (by the pallet) and packaging it themselves. This way they manage to keep their products at prices competitive with supermarkets. They offer almost every type of food you could want in a vegan kitchen, and also alcohol, children's clothes, toiletries, gardening supplies, a vast range of teas/coffees, etc etc etc. They support lots of local and regional small organic growers and food suppliers. Their annual turnover is more than £4 million. All in all, excellent ethically sourced vegan wholefoods at really cheap prices. I believe this to be the single best supermarket in the entire of the UK. If your town or city would like one of these, Unicorn have produced a guide to setting one up and would also be happy to speak to you and give you advice.

Website: http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/

The Tories are coming to Manchester!

So it's conference season again and we've already had Greens & Lib-Dems conferences with Labour's conference ending tomorrow. This Sunday the Conservative Party are coming to Manchester until next Wednesday. This will mean for perhaps a whole week several roads will be closed to give way for delegates to the conference. It also means there will be a lot of people protesting in Manchester. This Sunday the TUC have organised a march against the NHS reforms the coalition government has brought forward where I'm expecting at least 5,000 people to show up.

The Conservatives came to Manchester just 2 years ago to the same venue, Manchester Central (formerly the GMEX Centre) and I was at the march then. Difficult to estimate figures of how many people turned up, but it was several thousand. Now that we've seen a lot of the reforms which were promised 2 years ago, I expect a lot more people to show up this time round. I was at the back of the march with the animal rights activists who oppose the government's plan for the badger cull, which has now gone ahead in 2 pilot zones (see my previous post on the badger cull here: http://jakewelsh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/why-badger-cull-should-not-go-ahead.html). There were roughly 500 animal rights activists. Stuck at the end I wasn't sure if we were getting the most coverage that we could. But at least we were together and not all over the place, mixed up with everyone else.

Lots of people up and down the country are angry with what this government is doing. Sweeping welfare reforms that have torn families apart. The bedroom tax that means some people have to move out of a cheap 2 or 3 bedroom house and move to a much more expensive 1 bed flat all in the name of saving money while multi-millionaires who have 10 spare bedrooms don't get any penalties. The introduction of Universal Credit will make it harder for people to budget, and will reduce the amount of benefits people could claim. New private contracts in the NHS which signal the deepening of privatisation of the NHS. The badger cull will murder over 70% of all wild badgers in England. Major cuts to the budgets of almost all councils in the country. All this while the richest people in the country have been getting a 5% tax break. There's more than enough reason to come out and protest.

The march is starting at Liverpool Street and sets off around 11am. The march will finish at Whitworth Park at the beginning of Rusholme/Curry Mile so hey we can all go for a curry of falafel afterwards! I'll possibly be there with the anti-badger cull group again, but there's plenty of other groups you can join in along the march. I'll see you there, right?

Privatise the Royal Mail? Not even Thatcher tried that!

The Royal Mail is up for sale. At least that's what the government's Secretary of State for Business,
Innovation and Skills Vince Cable is saying. It was announced last week that the Royal Mail will be floated on the stock exchange in the upcoming weeks[1]. Under the plans, workers at the Royal Mail will be offered 10% of the shares of the company, with outside shareholders given the chance to buy the remaining 90% of shares. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) which represents around 100,000 Royal Mail staff has announced a ballot of it's members on the question of a strike in protest of these plans. Results are expected on 3rd of October[1].

Last November I started a casual Christmas job with the Royal Mail at the Preston Mail Centre, and I filled in a CWU membership application form on the day I started work. I found the regional office for the CWU by accident on the way home from the interview for the job, seeing a big sign with the words "Royal Mail is not for sale" outside a building. I knew that was something I had to be involved in during my time at Royal Mail so I went into the office and asked for literature straight away. During my time at the Royal Mail I learnt a lot about changes going on there over the last decade or two. One worker told me that highly paid members of staff whose work was largely bureaucratic office work and not necessary work were made redundant, saving the company money. A fellow Christmas casual who had been doing Christmas work there for over a decade told me that when he first stated working there, the number of casual workers were outnumbered by regular members of staff and each year since the numbers of regular staff had decreased while the number of temporary casual workers had increased and now outnumbered regular staff. Other regional mail centres such as Bolton MC and Warrington MC had closed down in recent years, putting more weight and pressure on remaining sites and leaving Preston the only mail centre between Manchester and Carlise. In recent years the Royal Mail has delivered post and packages for other companies who collected the mail (and payment) and paid the Royal Mail to deliver it on their behalf. Now more than half of Royal Mail deliveries are for other companies.

I soon found out how effective and radical the CWU is. It was the first workplace I had entered where there were whole noticeboards for a trade union. The union also had a library installed in the workplace. I actually got to work with my trade union rep. In October 2012 one worker was suspended from Preston Central Delivery Officer for having "an argument" with a manager. Workers at the office went on strike in protest and called for the manager to be suspended while an investigation took place[2]. This was the sort of union I wanted to be involved in. It was refreshing as I had heard that most unions are happier to compromise in negotiations with employers than ballot it's own membership for a strike, with USDAW having a "no strike agreement" with Tesco.

Our government is arguing that the Royal Mail needs to be privatised so it can raise more money so it can properly invest and compete with modern companies. I agree that it could definitely benefit from more investment, but I don't see why this has to come from the private sector? I don't even believe that the private sector would invest in the Royal Mail, I haven't seen evidence that this will happen. What I fear is more likely to happen under privatisation is the freedom to cut more costs. This will mean lower wages, less jobs and less benefits at the work place for workers. The same Tory message was spread in the 80s under Thatcher - privatised companies based purely on making as much profit as possible no matter what will deliver a more cost effective and cheaper service. However, most privatised industries (take for example trains) have made services more expensive. Private companies serve only to make as much money for their owners, directors and shareholders. Public industries serve to provide services that are needed or of use to people. If public services are not run well, that isn't an argument for privatisation, it is an argument for better public infrastructure, management and investment. If the Royal Mail needs more investment, then that is an argument to raise taxes so the public can pay for it. There is a hidden agenda with Tory-led governments and that is to privatise public industries so that taxes can be lowered, and rich business owners have more freedom to keep earning big amounts of money while paying employees as little as they can get away with. Low tax, small government.

However, not even Thatcher dared to sell off the world's oldest postal service (founded in 1516) to the highest bidder and she was known for viciously privatising our public sector. This government is pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable to be privatised and what isn't. There have been some services which have in modern history been in public hands, and it has generally been accepted that they belong in public hands - schools, the NHS & hospitals, the police, fire fighters, roads, tax collection, prisons and your local postman (or postwomen) and post office. This government has started privatising some of these. G4S now do the security in prisons. NHS health contracts have been given to private companies. The head of your local police authority is now elected by voters and will have greater influence on how the police force is to be run in your area. Now the Royal Mail will be added to this list. We can't afford to let this happen and give a gateway to further public services being handed over to the private sector.

Why the badger cull should not go ahead

Did you know that the UK government wants to kill the majority of wild badgers in England? This vicious act is known as the badger cull and the excuse given is to combat bovine TB. Over the last couple of weeks they started 2 trial zones for culling badgers - Somerset and Gloucestershire. If the trials are successful, then the cull will be taken to the majority of the country. The plan is to murder over 70% of our wild badgers across the country.

Let's look at why this is happening shall we? England has high levels of bovine TB in cattle that has been on the increase since the 1980s. It is true that wild badgers can carry bovine TB and can pass it onto cattle. DEFRA (Department for Environmental and Rural Affairs) is suggesting that culling badgers will lead to a 16% reduction in bovine TB cases[1]. DEFRA and the government is using that as the reason, or the excuse for the badger cull. Bare in mind that this is a Tory-led coalition government and the Tories are well known for being in favour of killing wildlife for fun. They were fierce opponents to the ban on fox hunting and have threatened to repel the ban. David Cameron enjoys shooting deer and only last month was moaning about a bad back which prevented him from going deer stalking[2]. I contacted the MP for Wyre and Preston North where I am registered to vote, Tory MP Ben Wallace and I received a lengthy reply stating that while he doesn't like to see wildlife culled, we must protect British farmers from the dangers of bovine TB carrying badgers as the economic consequences of doing otherwise are unaffordable. I also spoke to the MP for Preston where I was living at the time, Labour MP Mark Hendrick. He told me that he had worked on a report in the 90s with Margaret Becket (or Harriet Harman, I can't quite remember) which showed that culling badgers does not solve the problem of bovine TB and in fact can increase cases of bovine TB. So there is scientific evidence to suggest that culling badgers does not get rid of bovine TB, and that such a cull could increase cases due to dispersing populations of badgers. Some badger activists have suggested that since it's supposed to be illegal to hunt foxes, the Tories want to provide a different animal which can be hunted for pleasure. Others have suggested that the government are using the badger cull as a scapegoat for the real cause of bovine TB - bad farming practices.

Lots of countries across Europe have high populations of the European badger, yet do not have high levels of bovine TB. Why is this? Well, frankly it's down to different farming methods. The UK is the 4th most densely populated country in Europe, after San Marino, Holland and Belgium. We are also one of the largest consumers and producers of meat in Europe. This leads to having intense farming practices where bovine TB can be spread much more easily. Following the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 farmers restocked their cattle without checking the new cattle for bovine TB and that has never really been dealt with properly since[3]. And if the government's own report suggests a badger cull will reduce bovine TB cases by around 16% then surely badgers must not be the main cause of bovine TB. In fact, the majority of badgers are healthy and not infected with bovine TB, and it is very difficult to distinguish between healthy and infected badgers. How else are we going to deal with the other 84% of bovine TB cases? Here's one suggestion - vaccinations. David Cameron has stated that vaccinating badgers would cost more than a cull of badgers. But this is simply not true, the government have estimated a cost for vaccinating badgers £2,250/sq km/year but the combined estimate for the cull and cost to police the cull will reach a total of £2,429/sq km/year[4]. There currently isn't a vaccination for cattle that is safe and ready to use, but one is being tested and will be ready in around 5-10 years time.

How will the cull take place? Farmers in the pilot areas are to go out at night and shoot badgers. Some badgers will be trapped before being shot. The farmers are not allowed to shoot in the day time for fear of being too close to members of the public. Farmers are going out in secret so it's difficult to find out where they will be.

So what can you do to help badgers? Firstly and from my point of view most importantly you can turn vegan. Turning vegan is not only good for your health and the environment it can help save the badgers. Reduce the demand for beef and dairy and you reduce the demand for cattle to be bred. If we had no demand for cattle then there would be no excuse for the badger cull.

Now is the time to act as culling has started in the pilot zones. Contact your local hunt sabotage group (search through the list here: http://hsa.enviroweb.org/index.php/get-involved/localgroups) and see if they're going to visit the pilot areas. Farmers cannot shoot if members of the public are around so activists are going out at night wearing hi-vis clothes. There are camps in both areas where activists can stay if they want. You can join Brian May's Badger Team campaign: http://www.teambadger.org.uk/. You can get involved in your local Badger Trust group (find your local group here: http://www.badger.org.uk/content/groups.asp). On Sunday 29th of September at 11am in Manchester you can join us on the Tory conference march and tell the government to stop this brutal slaughter of our innocent wildlife. I will be there along with Greens for Animal Protection (GAP, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreensForAnimalProtection Twitter: https://twitter.com/Greens4Animals) and other Green Party members opposed to the cull. For more information visit the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/498833810194210/. I'll see you there, come and say hello!

The NEED for a living wage.

In Britain today we have several different minimum wages.  Every October minimum wage is supposed to go up, ideally but not always in line with inflation. This year minimum wage for over 21s will rise by 12p to £6.31 an hour with the rate for 18-20 year olds going up by 5p to £5.03 per hour. Minimum wage for apprentices will rise by 3p to £2.68 an hour. This rise is below inflation rates. The Living Wage Foundation calls for the minimum wage to be replaced with a living wage, a wage that truly reflects the genuine minimum costs to have an acceptable standard of living. To this end they call for the living wage to be set differently for the London region as London is a more expensive place to live and work in. They are calling for a living wage of £8.55 per hour in London and £7.45 per hour outside of London.

The minimum wage was introduced in the UK under Tony Blair's Labour government with the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. It was in part a response to the declining trade union movement which led to less bargaining power for workers and thus lower wages. Initially it had two levels of minimum wage, £3.60 for adults aged 21 or over and £3.00 for those aged 18 to 20. There was opposition from Conservative MPs and business owners claiming that businesses will have to sack people as they would not be able to afford to employ them any longer. Fortunately however this did not happen on mass when minimum wage was introduced. In 2003 a minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds was introduced at £3.00, while 18-20 year olds had £3.80 and over 21s £4.50. In 2010 a minimum wage for apprenticeships was introduced and set at £2.50 an hour. This may look like a good thing, but having a minimum wage for apprenticeships much lower than normal minimum wage has resulted in many jobs being described as an apprenticeship so that a company can get away with paying someone less money.

There is one big problem with the minimum wage. Before the minimum wage was introduced companies had to pay a competitive rate of pay. Since minimum wage has been introduced many employers have lowered their pay to minimum wage, or slightly higher. Competitive rates of pay in some industries have become about how much above minimum wage a job will pay. Often companies will justify low pay by stating something along the lines of "well it is a whole 50p above minimum wage". This wouldn't be a problem if the minimum wage was more than enough to live on, but it barely is.

Years of minimum wage being increased below inflation levels has brought more people and more families into poverty. This has pushed low paid workers into poorer areas, which are often further away from work which increases both travel time and travel cost. There are vast areas of London and the rest of the country where people on minimum wage just cannot afford to live in. God bless any minimum wage worker with children as they are unlikely to be able to afford to treat their children to a holiday or other such things many of us have taken for granted in our childhood. Child poverty really gets to me, and is a strong reason why I am an eco-socialist. People need to be paid a decent wage so we can help avoid child poverty. All children deserve a good happy childhood.

Another big problem with minimum wage is that it is set so low that workers on minimum wage can claim benefits which costs the government a lot of money. Working Tax Credits, currently set around £50-55 a week to any low paid worker over 25 years old working 30 hours or more is proof alone that minimum wage should be increased by at least £1.66. £29.91 billion was spent on tax credits in 2011-12, a whooping £25 billion more and more than 6 times higher than all job seeker's allowance[1]. This money is basically subsidising businesses who should be paying a higher wage. There are a whole host of other benefits that are going to people in low paid jobs. Housing benefit is the second largest state benefit after state pensions and a lot of this is being paid to people currently in work. Subsidising low wages is an expensive job for the government. Increasing minimum wage to the living wage would lower the amount the government spends on helping out low paid workers.

The idea that increasing the pay of the lowest paid will lead to financial ruin for businesses is absurd. The industries which employ people on minimum wage are also the industries with the largest turnover of staff. A high turnover of staff leads to more time and money spent on training up new members of staff. A lower turnover of staff and a higher satisfaction level for staff leads to higher productivity in the workplace. The living wage offers just that - happier and more productive workforces. It would save some businesses money rather than cost them extra money.

The Living Wage has a lot of support throughout society. The Green Party's policy supports the living wage in absence of a citizen's income:

"WR361 To these ends we propose (i) a Citizens Income payable to every citizen as a basic right, funded by an ecological and genuinely progressive taxation system, and (ii) a significant role for unions and workers to ensure decent wage levels. In the absence of a fully developed Citizens Income scheme, we support (a) the idea of minimum wage legislation, set at a level to combat social and economic injustice and the poverty and economic insecurity associated with low pay, and (b) the payment of decent benefits to low-and un-waged people.[2]"

Many councils across the country are becoming living wage employers, including the Green administration in Brighton and Lancaster where the Greens hold the balance of power. The London 2012 Olympics was the first ever living wage Olympics. It's time for the government to seriously consider making the minimum wage the living wage.

Politics of the punk scene

The other weekend was the annual Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool which features a lot of world famous punk bands. I've been going for about 7 years now, the last few years of which I've been getting in for free by helping set up the punk art stall. On the first day of the festival, the Thursday there was only one band I was really excited about seeing and that was Leftöver Crack. I've seen this band twice before at Rebellion Festival. The singer Stza Crack (as he is known solo) said something that really got me thinking. He said that a lot of bands, even at that festival talk about unity but they don't mean it and that there is no place in the punk scene for homophobia, racism or sexism. Something that I had noticed over the years in the general punk scene is they have tended to reject homophobia, racism and sexism more and more over the years, yet here Stza was claiming that at least at that festival some of the bands playing promote or at least do not reject those ideas. Over the weekend I saw the proof that he was telling the truth. I heard about some "macho-man style" sexism on the very first day, saw someone wearing a Skrewdriver (famous for forming the Rock Against Communist group in the 80s which promoted far-right views) t-shirt on the second day and I even saw someone with a false "Viking" helmet which had a sticker on the front with the union jack and the words "march or die" and on the back had a sticker saying "anti-racist is a code word for anti-white". Previous years at the festival I have witnessed people wearing fascist shirts with slogans like "White Power" and record stalls selling CDs from neo-Nazi punk bands. I did not realise there was still this vast wide range of political opinion within the punk scene.

To understand why punk attracts people from so many different political backgrounds let's start with asking what is punk? Well everyone seems to have their own definition of what punk is. To me punk is just a music genre (or a group of music genres) with sub-genres which happens to attract a subculture defined by clothes and hair fashion as well as an attraction to certain political ideologies. To others punk is a way of life, to look like a punk, listen to little but punk, to have punk tattoos and to have most of your friends as well as social life also into the punk way of life. To some it's a political movement where bands express their political views through music and literature given out at punk gigs. Some of those people say to be a punk band you don't even have to play punk music. The truth of the matter is no-one has a right or wrong idea about what punk is. Punk is whatever it means to you.

Politics has been at the heart of punk since it's very conception. From the very early days there's always been pretty much every form of politics within punk - capitalism, conservatism, liberalism, communism, anarchism, fascism, apolitical, etc. If you can name a political ideology there's probably punks somewhere singing and talking about it. There's also been a lot of punks who don't bother with politics and prefer their lyrics to be comical or romantic. The Lancashire town I grew up in, Poulton-le-Fylde, was home to one of the most famous political bands of all-time, Skrewdriver. Skrewdriver were more famous for their politics than their music, despite the original line-up not being political at all. Their singer Ian Stuart Donaldson who remained the only founding member of the band throughout it's existence became a leading spokesperson for the National Front and the National Front's North West organiser. He later went on to form Rock Against Communism, a network of bands promoting fascist and neo-Nazi ideals. I think it's fair to say that Ian Stuart and the later Skrewdriver line-ups have been perhaps the most famous and influential far-right punk band. Ian Stuart was killed in a car crash in 1993 and MDC (who support far-left politics) wrote the song "Nazis Shouldn't Drive" about him. Along with Skrewdriver there was a whole host of far-right punk bands in the 1980s, but that side of punk seems to have died down, along with the wider far-right political movement which gets a revival every time there's a recession.

However, there has always been a strong anti-fascist and anti-racist trend within punk. During the 80s, partly as a reaction to rise of neo-Nazi Oi! & skinhead punk bands the SHARP movement was formed. This stood for Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. At it's height, far more punks and bands were associated to SHARP than far-right punk movements. Throughout the 80s punk and two-tone ska had many crossovers which helped the punk movement be more accepting of non-whites as many prominent ska bands (such as The Specials, The Beat and The Selecter) had black members.

Around the same time as the far-right punk bands were forming, another massively influential branch of political punk was also forming, anarcho-punk. Possibly the most famous and earliest anarcho-punk band was Crass who inspired a sub-genre of punk and a culture behind it which is still flourishing today. Here you had a punk movement that was involved in animal rights, environmental direct actions, squatting, DIY ethics, protests and promoting anarchism. Now there is two ways to look at anarcho-punk. The first is as an actual sub-genre of punk with a specific sound different to and more aggressive than classical punk, along with an accompanying subculture. Anarcho-punks (sometimes called crusty punks) often have dreadlocks or unwashed hair, wear denim jackets, covered in sewed on patches, black tattoos and facial piercings. The other way to look at anarcho-punk is purely as a political movement, and this is how most people involved in anarcho-punk see it. To those involved in the anarcho-punk scene, all you have to do to also be involved in anarcho-punk is to follow anarchist politics. This was most obvious when Chumbawumba were performing at anarcho-punk shows and being heavily involved in the scene, despite not playing any typical genre of punk, and who later became famous for the world famous pop single Tubthumping (aka I Get Knocked Down) and playing their later career as a folk band.

Of course a punk band doesn't have to be political at all, and many of my favourite punk bands have never been political. However, I think a band is missing a huge opportunity to influence the world for the better if their lyrics aren't political. With so many things wrong in the world I struggle to see how non-political topics could ever be more important. A lot of punk bands have influenced me and changed me for the better forever. If it wasn't for Goldfinger (particularly their singer John Feldman) I wouldn't have become aware of all the animal cruelty and exploitation in the world and turned vegan at the age of 17. Anti-Flag taught me to oppose imperialistic wars and war criminal heads of state. NOFX taught me to be critical of the state. Leftöver Crack, Star Fucking Hipsters and The Filaments taught me that the police protect the state, corporations and the rich rather than the people and are violent towards anyone who goes against the rich. Ghost Mice taught me about anarchist lifestyles such as skipping (aka dumpster diving). ONSIND taught me that you can be male and involved in the feminist movement. The Autonomads taught me that shoplifting from major supermarkets only harms the pockets of the ultra-rich supermarket bosses. Defiance, Ohio taught me that bicycles are an environmentally friendly way to travel, cars are not (yes, even Toyota Prius cars are not good for the environment). Citizen Fish taught me that televisions are stopping people from thinking, and making them dumber and more apathetic. If it wasn't for punk bands talking about these issues I would either still be ignorant to them, or would have discovered them as a later point in my life. I still think there's a long way to go, and some of the methods of spreading good political messages and ridding the world of bad political messages need massive improvement. However, the world is politically a better place with punk in it.

Here's my favourite song about politics in the punk scene, Up The Punks by Ghost Mice:

The arguments for Citizen's Income

If you've ever wanted to know what it was the pushed me over the edge and join the Green Party, it was discovering their policy on Citizen's Income. What is Citizen's Income I hear you ask? Well, it is a universal benefit that is not means-tested which everyone of working age will get and it will replace benefits such as Job Seekers Allowance and other out of work benefits. All people whether in work or not would receive perhaps something in the region of £90 a week (or whatever a decent minimum amount someone needs to live on will be in the future) on top of any earnings they may receive. Of course there would still be other benefits such as housing benefit, disability benefits, child benefits, etc for those people who needed that extra help.

What a radical and crazy idea, everyone of working age receiving perhaps £90 a week from the government on top of any earnings they get. What's the point in this? Surely people who are earning enough do not need extra money. Why should those financially well off get free benefits off the state? I'd like to remind you that even the very richest people in society receive free services from the state. Libraries, hospitals, refuge collection, well lit and paved streets (alright, the streets aren't always well paved), schools, the police force, the fire brigade, etc. These are all basically free benefits that are not means-tested and are available to every citizen in the country. You could argue that these services are not free to everyone as they are paid for out of tax and rightly so. But they are free at the point of use, and you do not have to prove that you come under some forms of criteria before you are allowed to use the service for free. Could you imagine what it'd be like if these services were only free to the poorest in society? I could just imagine Daily Mail readers hounding those poorest in society for being "benefit scroungers" and belittling and demoralising those who cannot through any fault of their own find well paid work. Well, actually no I don't see that happening, I don't think even well-off people would stand for being charged every time they wanted access to an NHS hospital or having to give the police force their debit card number. When it comes to those public services everyone is seen and treated as equals. There isn't much class divide in a hospital or library. Imagine if more benefits were non-means-tested. In some parts of the country the unemployed can claim free or reduced cost bus passes. A worker travelling on the same bus may have to pay £17 a week or £40 a month for the same bus pass, which is a reasonable chunk of their salary gone on travel expenses. There would be far less begrudging of the poorest in society in the buses if everyone in the country was entitled to a free bus pass. Instead of cutting a benefit that the unemployed receive and perhaps depend on, making it a benefit that all in society are entitled to will eliminate the division between the unemployed or low-waged getting something for free that other people have to work to afford. This forms part of the principle of Citizen's Income.

Isn't this just encouraging people not to work? The answer to that question is yes and no. The amount for Citizen's Income is only a little higher than the current Job Seekers Allowance. Those claiming JSA often struggle for money, and therefore when it comes round to buying interview clothes, getting the bus to look for work or travel to an interview, having access to a computer with the internet at their own home, etc sometimes they simply just cannot afford the basics to get them back into work. Having that little extra will help them when they find they need to buy a suit and shoes for an interview, or with getting a bus to town to hand out CVs to potential employers. Far too often unemployed people get stressed and worried about money when they could be focussing on finding work.

Similar to the Universal Credit that the current coalition government are trying to phase in, if you gain any form of employment you would keep all of your Citizen's Income. And unlike Universal Credit you would still receive your entire Citizen's Income if your income went up. This is an incentive to work. Currently if you work then your benefits go down and if you work over 16 hours a week you cannot claim any Job Seekers Allowance and you may be worse off if housing benefit and other benefits get reduced. With Citizen's Income you will always be financially better off in work. However, I will not pretend that Citizen's Income will make everyone want to find employment. It won't. There does need to be other measures to increase employment as well as make employment a more attractive proposal. So there would be people on Citizen's Income who will not try to look for any paid work whatsoever. Ultimately what I have to say to this is that does not matter. We live in a society that over produces. Over the last few decades production methods have gotten more and more efficient and machines now do the work that men and women used to do. Factories need to employ far fewer people to produce more goods than they did a century ago. In the 1970's and 80's people were told that these machines and computers would lead to people working less. This hasn't been the case, and working hours have actually increased dramatically. There are far more jobs in service roles than in production these days. Sales and marketing jobs are abundant. As a society, we do not need all of these new jobs that have been created. Pizza Hut often pay someone to stand in the street holding a sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of the nearest Pizza Hut. This is a job role that isn't needed by anyone, no-one need to see that sign, people can find Pizza Hut if they want to without the need of that person. I would argue that we are at a stage where society could easily provide the basics for everyone without the need for everyone to be in full time employment. More than a third of the food in this country is thrown away. More and more items are purposely manufactured to break easily so that people will keep buying those items and more items are produced in order to be used once and then thrown away. Computers, mobile phones, cars, video games consoles, and other technology is designed so that every few months or years people will need to update and buy a whole new version. A lot of this technology could be designed so that in order to get the new upgrade you only have to buy a small part and get that fitted rather than buying a whole new model. We can easily cut the total amount of hours worked. This brings me onto my next point.

Citizen's Income may actually increase employment. How? At present lots of people are over-worked and feel the need to work lots of hours to be able to afford a decent standard of living. There are people in full-time employment who would like some extra free time. Perhaps they've got children and would like to spend more time with their family. Everybody having an extra £90 a week in their pockets would allow more people to reduce their hours if they wished. This would mean employers would have surplus hours for employees and may have to employ more people. It's Green Party policy to reduce a full-time working week from 36 hours a week to 26 hours a week so that there would be more hours for people currently working less than 26 hours. The other benefit of this is the net contribution to the private sector. If more people are working, and if everyone has an extra £90 a week, more people can afford to spend more. People are more likely to visit their local shops, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, etc. This will result in those places employing more people, and then those extra new employees will themselves have more money to spend in the private sector.

But how will this all be paid for? Can we afford it? Along with Green Party policy to raise tax for the richest in society, and to tackle tax evasion and avoidance as well as other policies such as the Robin Hood Tax and clamping down on tax heavens, Citizen's Income can become affordable. Corporate tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax heavens costs the UK government an estimate £95 billion [1]. Let's say for arguments sake that this is 42 million people in the UK of working age and let's also say that Citizen's Income would be £90 a week. That would be £3.78 billion per week or £196.56 billion a year. The UK government currently spends £4.91 billion a year on Job Seekers Allowance[2]. A further total of £40.41 billion on in-work benefits including income support and working tax credits which would be saved if minimum wage was raised to a reasonable level, something that Green Party policy supports[2]. On top of that everyone on disability benefit would have £90 out of their disability benefit replaced with Citizen's Income. Roughly estimated that's 3.25 people[3], so that's another £15.21 billion. That makes £60.93 billion out of current benefit spending which would go towards Citizen's Income. That leaves a shortfall of £135.63 billion to make up. During the Second World War the highest level of income tax was 99.25%. In the 1950's and 60's this was reduced to 90%. In 1979 when Thatcher got into power it was 83%. By 1988 it had been reduced to 40%. At the present it is 45% but only for earnings over £150,000. Along with the £95 billion for corporate tax avoidance and tax evasion, reversing the declining trend of low levels of tax for top earners would easily cover more than the shortfall of £135.63 billion. Not to mention the potential extra income tax from the possibility of more people being in employment.

None of the above however give the real reason why I support Citizen's Income, just added extras. The anarcho-communist within me believes everyone should have the right to the basics in life - a roof over their head, food on the table, clothes to wear - a basic decent minimum standard of living, while at the same time I believe that if someone wants luxuries they should have to work for those luxuries. Citizen's Income would achieve this, giving people enough money to afford the basics in life while not giving enough money to afford many luxuries. All in all, society would be a bit of a better place with Citizen's Income. There'd be reduced poverty, possible extra employment, less class divide and greater equality.

For further reading:

• Clive Lord's blog on Citizen's Income (Clive introduced Citizen's Income as Green Party policy) - http://clivelord.wordpress.com/
• Citizen's Income Trust - http://www.citizensincome.org/
• Young Greens on Citizen's Income - http://younggreens.greenparty.org.uk/AboutUs/Policy/CitizensIncome