Archive for October, 2011|Monthly archive page

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Occupied Press Club: Apply Within!

In Rory MacKinnon on October 31, 2011 at 11:09 pm

No big bloated essays for now – just a notice that I’ve been talking to Ryan of the Occupied Wall Street Journal about putting together an unofficial network of correspondents at occupations worldwide. In the same way that the papers are reflecting the issues in each individual community, a bit of international coverage would offer an unfiltered view of daily life in the camps.

I’m not camping full-time, nor would I expect anyone else to, but you would need to be visiting/camping at least 1-2 days a week and get along to the main events since the point is to source these stories from protesters on the ground. If you are living there full-time, even better.

And best of all would be if you’re covering an occupation in a non-English speaking country (or where English is not the language of choice). This is an international movement and it would be a shame if our readers didn’t hear about all the important things going on in Europe and Asia and the Middle East and Central America. Read the rest of this entry »

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What Would Jesus Donate?: The Big Money Behind St Paul’s

In Rory MacKinnon on October 29, 2011 at 10:44 pm

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[First published in The Morning Star, 29/10/11. This piece was filed on Thursday, the day before the Cathedral announced it would take legal action to evict the protesters.]

The public furore around London’s occupation movement hit a new peak on Thursday when the Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral quit, reportedly over internal pressure to take legal action against the social activists of Occupy London Stock Exchange who have sought sanctuary on the cathedral’s steps for the last fortnight.

The Revd Giles Fraser, who the campers regard as an ally within the church, issued a statement just days before his resignation insisting that rumours the cathedral had closed its doors for commercial reasons were “complete nonsense.”

But in light of his sudden exit and the cathedral’s loss of income – an estimated £20,000 a day – it’s worth taking a look at who does control the cathedral’s purse strings. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Occupied Times Of London: Issue 1 Out Now!

In Rory MacKinnon on October 28, 2011 at 12:14 am

My job at the Morning Star has trucked me off to all sorts of events this year: anti-war demos, anti-cuts marches, the defence of Britain’s biggest Irish Traveller camp, a student occupation up at Glasgow University and of course a bunch of trade union conferences. But Occupy London Stock Exchange is the only one so far where they’ve actually started their own newspaper instead — and I’ve somehow found myself on the editorial team.

Issue 1 of The Occupied Times of London is out today: 2000 free print copies floating around central London and an online version here. It’s an independent weekly paper, with no control or influence from the camp’s Media Working Group (which handles press releases and all that sort of thing). The staff are all unpaid volunteers, as is the printer Aldgate Press, and contributors and content are anyone from camp residents on daily life to international commentators on the occupation movement as a whole (rumour has it Noam Chomsky is working on something for the next issue). Read the rest of this entry »

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Fox & Werritty: The Middleman Who Wasn’t There

In Rory MacKinnon on October 22, 2011 at 12:24 pm

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[First published in the Morning Star, 22/10/11.]

“When is a lobbying scandal not a lobbying scandal?,” asked spin doctor Gill Morris in a Huffington Post blog earlier this week.

Ms Morris, whose firm Connect Public Affairs bills everyone from Age UK to health workers’ union Unison, was adamant the Werritty affair of the last fortnight simply didn’t count.

“The fact is, Werritty is not a lobbyist, nor is he like any lobbyist I know,” she wrote. “So why the usual knee jerk reaction?”

It’s certainly true that the way Adam Werritty cultivated his relationship with former defence secretary Liam Fox was fairly unorthodox: a “personal friend” who dropped in on Dr Fox at work 22 times since he took office, accompanied him overseas on 18 known occasions – several of which involved government business, during which Werritty organised private meetings with foreign politicians and senior officials – and even bandied around faux-House of Commons business cards describing himself as “Advisor (sic) to the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP.” Read the rest of this entry »

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