INTRODUCTION

There has been a hiatus in my coverage of Marxism 2018 because I had no opportunity to blog on Sunday, due to the tight meetings schedule and my subsequent journey home, was working on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and travelling virtually all day yesterday (getting from northwest Norfolk to southeast Cornwall by public transport takes a long time). I have plans for several more posts about Marxism 2018, a batch of posts about Cornwall, and at least one work-related post in the near future. 

FIRST MEETING: JAN NIELSEN ON THE POLITICS OF FOOD

This was a good though very disturbing start to the day. Some of the things that the speaker revealed about what is done to our food were quite shocking. There was an excellent discussion.

MEETING 2: WHY DOES CAPITALISM LOVE PLASTIC?

I will be covering this meeting in a later post along with several other environment related meetings. For the moment here is a photograph from the room:

MEETING 3: MARXISM AND RELIGION

The thrust of this meeting was that we are always willing to work with people no matter what their religion, or indeed whether they have one or not. Most people at this event are not religious themselves but would always consider arguig against religion to be a waste of time.

DEMOLITIONS TO SOCIAL CLEANSING – THE CLASS WAR ON HOUSING

This meeting, excellently chaired by Moyra from the Justice for Grenfell campaign, began with a small disappointment. One of the scheduled speakers, Emma Dent Coad MP, was unable to get away from parliament to make her contribution and sent her apologies. The other two speakers were housing campaigner Eileen Short and London Assembly member and housing expert Sian Berry from the Green Party. I was particularly pleased to finally get to here Ms Berry (have a look at my coverage of the 2016 London Mayoral Election and my “Fantasy Cabinet” post for more about my opinions of Ms Berry).

She made an excellent speech, searing criticism of current housing policy and some good suggestions of her own. 

Eileen Short was also excellent, and there were some great stories in the discussion. 

INJUSTICE AND THE BRITISH STATE

This meeting, which took place at The Venue (in it’s third incarnation, having started life as Manning Hall and then had a few years as Room 101), featured Sheila Coleman from the Hillsborough Campaign, Brian Richardson and Gareth Peirce. It was a superb ending to the day.