Over the past few years it has become almost impossible to hand out leaflets in many UK town and city centres. Using powers contained in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, local authorities have introduced leafleting zones within which people must…
Supporters of the Manifesto Club’s Visiting Artist campaign were among signatories to an English-PEN-led letter to the Daily Telegraph today, calling for a reform of the points-based visa system. SIR – Since its introduction in 2008, it has become clear that the points-based visa system, introduced to manage migration to the United Kingdom, is inappropriate for short-term visits by artists. Writers and performers who have long been welcomed by Britain now find that they are required to undergo a visa application process that is needlessly bureaucratic and intrusive. Non-European Union artists wishing to enter the country have been treated poorly, either through…
Oxford City Council has just taken the decision to pass a leafleting zone. This will mean that everybody from student societies to a local theatre will have to buy a council licence to hand out leaflets in the city centre. These rules…
Guest post from Dr Stuart Waiton, Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee and co-founder of Take a Liberty (Scotland) ‘No one should be subjected to intolerance, prejudice or violence in 21st Century Scotland’. So reads the Scottish Executive website discussing Banning Orders, introduced in 2006, orders that can ban abusive or bigoted fans from attending any football game anywhere in the world for up to ten years. Ironically, as the authoritarian discussion about how to rid Scotland of sectarianism rumbles on it appears that the Scottish Government are illustrating their own far more worrying form of intolerance, prejudice and violence. Tolerance,…
An antiques trader has been banned by an exclusion order from areas of the Portobello road, for ‘persistent leafleting and agitation of market traders’. The pensioner, Marion Gettleson, takes a strong stand against planned changes to the market – basically, Kensington and Chelsea council and landlords’ policy to favour big brands over the ‘messy’ traders. One landlord obtained an exclusion order against Marion Gettleson, preventing her from visiting his arcades – showing the legal means available today for clamping down on leafleting and other activities in public space. Our Campaign Against Leafleting Bans focuses on no-leafleting zones, but we are discovering more…
Parks are traditionally mixed use spaces – for kids playing, ball games, drinking or eating, walking dogs…. Of course, sometimes these activities get in the way of each other, but generally people are reasonable and negotiate the space. Now we are seeing more zoning of public space, with specialist dog walking zones (no kids), designated drinking zones (drunks only), children’s play areas (no unaccompanied adults). Towns including Peterborough have proposed designated ‘wet zones’ – ie, areas of the park where street drinkers are allowed to hang out (drinking is banned everywhere else). Meanwhile, parks in Washington State are planning to ban kids…
Important video about tango dancers barred from the UK, as a result of the suspicious and bureaucratic points-based visa system…