Three controversial IWCA motions voted down by city councillors at the reconvened Full Oxford City Council meeting on 16th January serve to further illustrate the huge divide between local working class popular opinion and the opinion of their cloistered political representatives.
Labour's success at twice squeezing controversial IWCA questions and Motion's off the Oxford City Council meeting agenda seems to have back-fired.
Labour and Lib Dem councillors have voted against an IWCA amendment that could have paved the way for social housing to be built on land owned by Ruskin College.
IWCA Athletics Club Town Hall Trip
A delegation of young IWCA Athletics Club members paid a pre-Christmas visit to Oxford Town on Monday 19th December.
As Stuart Craft will be leaving the City Council next Spring after 10 years as an elected City Councillor to concentrate more on vital grassroots IWCA work, it was decided that it would be good to give our youngsters an unofficial guided tour of the impressive 19th century listed building and to grab one of the last opportunities to witness the IWCA in action in the Council chamber.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Weeks in advance of tonight's Leys Area Forum, councillors were asked for issues they would like submitted to the agenda.In response, IWCA City Councillor, Stuart Craft, asked for the following ideas to be included in the agenda:
The Blackbird Leys Boxing Club; the resurgent drug dealing problem on the estate and how best to tackle it; changing rooms for Oxford Blackbirds Football Club and fresh thinking on youth provision
Pool Update
In a blatant disregard for the feelings of local residents, Oxford City Council contractors today started work laying gas mains on the proposed Blackbird Leys swimming pool site - jumping the gun on the decision of a residents' application for Town Green status for the area.
All that glitters isn't gold
Independent Working Class Association councillor, Stuart Craft, explains why he's backing residents' campaigns to stop the council's flagship plans for a new swimming pool in Blackbird Leys
The IWCA Athletics Club
The IWCA Athletics Club has been formed to encourage youngsters and adults from Blackbird Leys and the surrounding area to get involved in outdoor sports.
The type of community engagement that mainstream politics has abandoned
IWCA youth football tournament seeks to reclaim community engagement as a legimate political activity ... as well as providing an enjoyable day out for families in several working class communities.
Sacked postal workers win battle to clear names
CWU union representative Steven Gill and sacked colleague John Doran have won their appeals against dismissal and the two workers, employed at the main sorting centre in Cowley, have
got their jobs back ... On the Oxford IWCA website.
Tight budget for the city
Labour shows true colours by pushing through 4% council tax rise, agreeing to privatise leisure services and rejecting IWCA proposal to redistribute money to working class
areas ... On the Oxford IWCA website.
Press silence over gun incident
Suppressing the facts won't work. Violent crime will only be stopped if the police are made accountable ...
Right: Councillor Stuart Craft outside the Spar shop where, in January, a gun was pulled on two men who intervened to help a lad being brutally attacked by a teenage gang.
Council rents to rise by over 6% as Oxford tenants overpay by £16 million
Along with a council tax increase of over 4%, council tenants in Oxford will have to contend with an inflation busting average rent increase of 6.25%. Meanwhile Andrew Smith MP and his wife, Labour councillor
Val, are sitting pretty with two houses, one in London bought with the help of the taxpayer ...
Local right of way survives two world wars but is closed to the public with New Labour councillors' help
The German car giant has got its way. Winey Magistrate's Court granted BMW's application to close Bridleway 75 ...
Cuckoo in the nest
Highlighting the dangers of outdated boilers in council properties ...
Taking the PCSO?
Community support officers: tackling crime or wasting time? By IWCA councillor Stuart Craft ...
Antisocial motorcycle riders confronted
Swift action by IWCA activist Dave Troth ensured two nuisance riders were stopped in their tracks in August ...
Peers Academy plans explained
Labour councillors reject call to put children's interests first ...
Postal strike: the other side of the story
Striking postal workers have repeatedly appeared on the front page of the local papers in recent months. Hundreds of column inches have been given over to the industrial action and its effect
on the service, yet when it comes to investigating the root cause of the problems there has been a deafening silence. We look at the other side of the story ...
Bridleway 75 revisited
IWCA councillor Stuart Craft joined Green councillors Sid Phelps and Nula Young to appear at Witney Magistrate's Court for the second time on 9 October to give evidence against BMW in its
attempt to close Bridleway 75, which runs through the car plant, between Garsington Road and Horspath Road ...
Swings and roundabouts
Playing politics with our play areas ...
For more news stories see recent news
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Working Class Rule in Working Class Areas! |
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For the first time in a hundred years the working class is without a voice, without influence, without political representation. The IWCA is a working class organisation independent of any existing political party. Our purpose is to give the working class the opportunity to directly influence the political decisions that affect us all. With New Labour intent on continuing the Conservative attack on working class communities it is clear that we must now organise ourselves in our own interests. If we fail to do this no one else will do it for us.
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