From: dave-AT-skatta.demon.co.uk
Subject: Welfare Cuts Leaflets (0/3) (eng)
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 03:35:21 GMT


Clyde wrote :

>... i'm searching for ways to frame our propaganda and our presence
>at this demo that doesn't just demand the return of the previous welfare
>system, that doesn't just demand state regulated programs.  How can we, in
>organizing against these cutbacks, further our struggle for a
>self-determined society.  What goals/strategies can we add to this movement
>which don't fit in the mold of state controled social services.  Goals that
>aren't just theoretical, but ones that we actually have a chance at
>attaining in the short run.
>

i'm posting three examples of text from anti-welfare cuts leaflets
produced in the past in the UK. The three are all from slightly
different perspectives.

Obviously the particular situations aren't going to match at all but
they might be interesting even if not directly useful.

They are posted as "Welfare Cuts Leaflet 1/3" to "3/3".

The first is from a leaflet produced by unemployed members of the
London Workers Group in 1983 which was distributed fairly widely. It
was an A3 leaflet aimed at claimants which explained some current
changes in welfare benefit arrangements and how they would affect
claimants, and gave some advice and background. I've left off the
details of the actual changes which aren't very interesting now.

The second was produced in London in 1985 for a left organised
anti-cuts demo. Aimed at the left activists it is a rather more
agressively polemical attack on the idea of defending the Welfare
State and supporting the Labour Party. The organisers of the march had
produced a distinctively designed poster to advertise it. We copied
the design of the poster so it looked vaguely official but stuck this
rant into it. (This assisted in getting them accepted). It was written
in haste to a deadline (and shows it) however I still like bits of it,
and I still think that  "The Welfare State needs a kick in the
Tentacles".

(To explain some of the references : Fowler was a Conservative
Government Minister responsible for initiating a 'reform' of aspects
of the Social Security (Welfare) system. Kinnock was then Labour Party
leader, Meacher was then Labour Party social security spokesman. The
Beveridge Report  was published by the wartime coalition Government in
1944 and helped lay  the basis of the post-war welfare state in
Britain under the Attlee Labour Government).

The third was produced  (I think in Glasgow) in 1993 and was
distributed on the May Day march and more widely. Like the first
leaflet it combined details of (then) current changes and cuts with
analysis. Again I have omitted the purely factual material.

dave


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