Iconic band Massive Attack has today announced the cancellation of its planned show at the ACC venue in Liverpool, citing the council-owned company’s unwillingness to cancel an electronic weapons fair this autumn. The group tweeted:
The band, which has created some of the most memorable tracks and videos, including the unforgettable Teardrop and Unfinished Sympathy and more recently The Spoils and Voodoo in my Blood, whose videos featured actresses Cate Blanchett and Rosamund Pike respectively, is well known for its principled political and anti-war positions, opposing the Iraq war and working with Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition, as well as raising funds to help young people in Palestine and for Palestinian refugees in a number of countries.
The move has been welcomed by the grassroots campaign in the city against the ‘death fair’, which the city’s mayor has claimed she is unable to cancel despite the council’s ownership of the venue. A protest against the event will be held in the city centre tomorrow at 12.30:
Campaigners have also mounted a legal challenge to the mayor’s position, with the Public Interest Law Centre stating that she is relying on an ‘unlawful and improper delegation of powers’ by not intervening.
The Labour party ‘whipped’ councillors not to oppose the event. However, more than sixty councillors signed a public statement against the event. Mayor Joanne Anderson eventually also signed, despite saying she is powerless to cancel it. Liverpool council voted last year, under the previous mayor Anderson, to have an ‘ethical charter’ against such events, but this was not enacted.
Tomorrow’s protest march will start from Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral at 12.30pm and will feature Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, actresses Maxine Peake and Lindzi Germain, musician Lowkey and an array of speakers from the Palestinian and Yemeni communities.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Never knew they had any live dates coming up, let alone in Liverpool. Why can’t they just switch venues to the Echo Arena?
Same place, new sponsors! Was Echo, then M&S now run by ACC [as far as I understand].
“Death Fair” a very apt description.
God I’m so behind the times. I really should take a closer interest in corporate sponsorship but, y’know, yaaawwwn!
It seems ACC is a conference hall next door to the arena, though outside the tweet mentioned in the article, there’s no evidence ANYWHERE that this show was ever scheduled. Not according to any ticket site or even the band’s own website! Hmmm…
SIR starmer,
1️⃣. Do you support arms fairs❓
2️⃣. Do you support DAME cressida dick’s continued failure at the Met despite her overseeing repeated catastrophees❓❓
3️⃣. Do you believe the Commissioner, having led the Metropolitan Police as “INSTITUTIONALLY CORRUPT”, DAME cressida dick should continue despite REPEATEDLY refusing to accept her gross irresponsibility and deadly failures thus guaranteed to continue failing the public❓❓❓
4️⃣. Do you agree with Pritti Patel & Sadiq Khan allowing Dame Dick to continue “leading” her “Institutionally Corrupt” Metropolitan Police❔❔❔
🟦⚠️🟥🟦⚠️🟥🟦⚠️🟥
Signpost. Do you support DAME cressida dick’s continued failure at the Met despite her overseeing repeated catastrophees❓etc…
I suspect there’s a whopper of a cover up in the Met and it goes back about 37 years to the murder of Daniel Morgan in 1987. Police corruption, government coruption and the Murdoch mafia. It can’t stay suppressed for much longer. Follow the Byline links.
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/06/15/the-daniel-morgan-report-press-criminality-nothing-to-see-here/
Nemtona, i share your suspicions. But truth will out. A cosy stitch up, hence no surprise Priti PatelIt is a key FRONT keeping DAME crass dick in place. Think of it, Theresa May CORRECTLY dismissed Patel after her DIY foreign policy trips to the occupiers of Palestine. Patel should have been prosecuted and given a lifetime ban from public office🚫
BUT Johnson dragged her from the bin. V much standard practise THROUGHOUT The Establishment eg BBC, the police etc, Civil Service… Pawns controlled by doings they’d rather keep hidden. The unintended consequences include THEIR “Institutionally Corrupt” clique. BUT like backroom deals, we are COMPLETELY locked out and become even further away from their minds… except at elections🚫
Consider: MPs Expenses Scandal. Allegedly, MPs were ACTIVELY & AGGRESSIVELY encouraged by Whips, to claim expenses. WHY??? I believe to have something with which to “control” MPs. Whip them in line to eg vote for an illegal invasion despite their judgement that the case was fraudulent🚫
The ONLY MPs who resisted the devious attempts to corrupt them re expenses, were Jeremy, George Galloway, Ken Livingstone, and i think Tony Benn. There maybe a handful of others, but i think Jeremy’s, George’s & Ken’s were under £5.00 per YEAR if not ZERO✴️✴️✴️
Jeremy, Ken and George found it unimaginable to bill the public for obscenities. No primary home switching, moat cleanings, tree cuttings, TVs 4 husband’s PORN watching (Jacqui Smith’s husband), no duck house refurbishments… the list is almost endless. Therefore Jeremy and the other Socialists, needed no SHREDDING of receipts & records b4 the Expenses Investigation… as one well known bastard did. Surely a perversion of the course of justice… No❓❓❓
Which reminds me, SIR starmer is the only ex DPP inflicted on the public as a party “leader”. We really need to have his views on DAME dick and MPs Expenses Abuse Scandal🚫
I heard a once Political Editor of an inappropriately respected broadsheet at the time, say: WE KNEW of the EXPENSES ABUSE for YEARS, but did NOT report it, or the MPs would not have given us stories🚫
That stuck in my mind. It was admitted without the slightest unease. Can’t remember the responses of others but suspect they were stunned as i was. Not by the revelation, which should surprise no one, but by the oily arrogance. Quite remarkable.
As jaw dropping as DAME dick saying she LOOKED into the MATTER PERSONALLY, and found NO case to answer. That was re Michael Gove’s PUBLIC admission that he regularly indulged in Class A Drug COCAINE at his DINNER PARTIES. … Who parties alone??? Supplier/s, encouragers, abettors WORSE than the doers… direct causers of DEADLY turf wars of illegal drugs to Gove types… BUT DAME DICK finds NO CASE TO ANSWER… hmmm🚫
Very few countries PERPETUALLY claim to be decency deliverers abroad using guns, bombs and bloodshed than, ours with a Metropolitan Police Commissioner than DAME dick🚫
But back to the once Political Editor and one who carry on it’s daily tooling to make the world a worse place:
1️⃣. What trumps MPs, SIR & Lady this & that, Lord & Baroness Hokum & Pokum – SHAMELESSLY robbing the public; THE definition of greedy and utterly corrupt❔
2️⃣. What else did that editor in particular, deliberately hide from us❔
3️⃣. By results the Establishment is as corrupt as it always was, so who benefits from the collusion to keep nasty secrets❔
A current media rent a tool, reminds me v much of ex political editor above. Same oleaginous repellence + ALWAYS defending the most inexcusable starmer… SIR & johnson’s doings. Think of any stinking thing and both operators come to mind. Like the defunct tool the current tooler is everywhere everyday, claiming wrong is OK… with glee as if getting some strange pleasure
🟥🥎🟦🟥🥎🟦🟥🥎🟦
Plus a helping hand from MI5
ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT FROM THE MOST INTERESTING BAND OF THE PAST 40 YEARS. A GREAT RESUME OF POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT. THANK YOU FOR THE LINKS, STEVEN.
Steady on, Brian. You’re forgetting Radiohead!
Sorry to go off topic, but I hear that this week’s Universal Credit debate got cancelled. what’s going on?
I hope trouble t mill goldbach….Can a Tory have a conscience?
goldbach – 07/09 Jacob Rees-Mogg has told parliament that an opposition day debate, in which Labour had been planning to force a vote on a cut to Universal Credit, will not take place so that MPs can vote on the plan to raise National Insurance instead.
There was no need to cancel the opposition day the Tories just wanted to avoid the embarrassment of the vote against the UC cut
What a shame I at first thought you meant a “massive attack on the warmongers event….I was nearly celebrating..whod a thunk?
Respect to “MASSIVE ATTACK”.
Solidarity with “STOP THE LIVERPOOL ARMS FAIR”
Anything that brings pressure and media attention against this disgusting British business is welcome
I agree. We could pretty soon end up like America where arms sales are an integral part of the economy that’s too big to do without. Then you get people voting against their own best interests in the name of jobs.
The arms industry, one of the most corrupt on the planet where sales often depend upon bribery.
Unfortunately, the economy is already distorted by arms sales and related manufacture.
As manufacturing in the UK declined … Much of it going to EU countries … All that has been left in many areas is defence-related manufacture.
The best example is ship-building.
We still have military ship-yards (BAE-Yarrows in Glasgow and BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness).
Our non-military ship-building is almost extinct.
I worked in a major metals-processing company.
There were 6500 of us when I started.
All the non-military stuff slowly got stripped away until the works was dominated by the military work.
The works then closed and the military stuff went mostly to Germany.
None of this happens by accident.
The important parts of it were quietly carved up by the big players in Europe.
A sad truth Johnsco1. My father was an engineer. He was one of the early casualties. Bastards made him pick and choose who was being laid off (Dad was the foreman). When he’d finished the awful job of telling blokes they’d have no job to support themselves and their families, they laid him off.
Working for yourself is the only way out of the poverty trap nowadays. According to figures released today, 80% of the UK economy is services…Quite how an economy can have such a turnover without actually making anything is beyond me. It isnt really ideal either.
Military and nuclear industries are why Barrow-in-Furness got saddled with appalling MPs like Woodcock.
Find myself wondering if we will see a Bansky appear in Liverpool between now and the end of the “fair”
(Wonder what the tombola is like?)
I’m working on it 🙂
Beware BAE Systems. This company has for decades been the Tory gov’t choice for defence contracts. Did I say defence contracts? Only one company need apply.
Labour ahead in the latest YouGov poll
Con: 33% (-5 from 2-3 Sep)
Lab: 35% (+1)
Lib Dem: 10% (+2)
Green: 9% (-1)
SNP: 5% (n/c)
Reform UK: 5% (+2)
Just saw a report of this and thought “I’d bet a pound to a penny” and, sure enough, I was right.
All those pensioners doing surveys for Tory owned YouGov don’t relish having to pay £85 grand towards the cost of care when they bought their houses for £2 or £3 grand and they’re now worth a small fortune. They’d much rather young people payed the full cost of their care. But hey-ho, they’ll still all vote Tory at the next election.
Never a truer word Lundiel, never a truer word….
Happy days Mr Turd Polisher….
Your polishing is evidently working. Great work…..
Paula Surridge (political scientist)
@p_surridge
Obvious caution around a single poll – but the changes between 2/3rd Sept and 8/9th Sept @yougov
polls particularly interesting in the oldest age group (65+) where Con share is down 9 points but also Lab share up 5 points.
https://twitter.com/p_surridge/status/1436240291644813322
I see Labour have gained a point, in the polls. Well done, K… Oh, just, a moment.
Ah, I see, Labour have gained a point in the polls because Johnson and the Tories have dropped 5 points. No, no, that’s not right. Just, a moment.
Tories drop 5, Labour up 1…ah, yes… Libdems, up 2 and RefornUK(who they?) up 2.
So, as you were, then. Labour, still a load of bol*ocks.
George – It is always quite irritating that these polling companies fail to inform us of the confidence level they require for their data and the associated confidence interval. Unless these data are provided, it is not possible to be clear on meaning of the survey. In this case it is extremely likely that the 5% drop in support noted for the Conservatives does indeed represent a drop, though there should be some indication given as to what the CI is (e.g. =/- 1% or +/- 2%). Similarly for the other parties. A +2% result is quite likely to represent a genuine gain and +1% may well represent a genuine gain. However, it’s not worth getting excited about small changes without knowing the confidence level and CI.
We’ll see what the situation is when we have real polls like the forthcoming council by-elections, and maybe we might be treated to a parliamentary one within the next 12 months – I often allow myself to hope that one of the crowd of wreckers in the LP will find the need to spend more time with her/his family.
goldbach – Who are you trying to impress?
Hehehe, that stung him. He gets so few opportunities to crow about Starmer’s briefcase Labour and you ruined his fun.
lundiel – Not at all, I was simply pointing out that goldbach was busy polishing their own hubris.
Reform UK = UKIPers. A group Starmer was hoping to attract with his football, police, army and flags tweets.
‘Meanwhile……………….
The Merchants of Death.
With their fancy polished sparkling goods.
That blip, and ping then beam!
But the recipients of this product.
Often die with a piercing scream.
Yet the cold capitalist observer he/she thinks:
Are my shares up?
Barbarianism is as Barbarianism does.’
Meanwhile The Times reports (10/9/21) that under the Tories the MOD have just spent £3.5b on 14 new tanks that actually make the crew unwell.
Oh how we need a World run by Left Wing Democratic Socialists WITH diverse working people that puts human need first. X
I see they ordered 489 of them in 2014, before the advent of modern anti-tank missiles which strike the tank on top where it’s at armour is thinnest, they’ve piled more armour on top but they weren’t designed for the extra weight. The armed forces really needs to be brought into the future. We have parachute regiments when the very idea of parachuting troops onto a battlefield is ridiculous with modern weapons, they’d be decimated. Ships are also totally exposed sitting ducks with no defence for hypersonic missiles. Unfortunately, no political party dares to call time on these madmen.