Events

Elbit - Leicester Palestine Action   Gaza Activists from Palestine Action have been mounting action at UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS) in Meridian East Business Park in Leicester. The factory is owned by Israeli-owned arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. We will have a speaker to talk about what has been happening in Leicester.   Palestine Action was founded on 30 July 2020 when activists broke into and spray-painted the interior of Elbit Systems' UK headquarters in London. Palestine Action is a pro-Palestinian protest network that uses direct action tactics to shut down and disrupt multinational arms dealers. In particular, the group targets UK-based operations that provide weapons used against the Palestinian people. Palestine Action use civil direct action methods that have resulted in its members being arrested. Their methods include protest, occupat...

Please note the change of meeting place  (by about 200 yards).    Meet at University Road entrance next to the Chaplaincy Centre University Road, Leicester, England LE1 7RH Ned Newitt: Welford Road Cemetery Tour & Picnic   Ned Newitt will conduct a tour of the graves of local Jacobins, Chartists, Radicals, & Secularists. Ned will provide details of their lives and there will be a picnic at the end. (weather permitting) - Bring some food to share. An umbrella and walking shoes are suggested.   All welcome. Please advise by email to  welford@lsec.org.uk if you intend joining the tour. Photo by NotFromUtrecht - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9491637

  This is the first showing in Leicester of this original 72-minute documentary. It features murder, Cold War conspiracies, Black Power, the end of the Empire, and shows how that connects to the policing, surveillance practices, and social movements of today.  

Indian Troops in WW1 Trenches Bill Leigh   After the outbreak of the Great War, 100,000 men and 7,000 horses were shipped the 10,000 km from Mumbai to Marseilles. Many of these men and horses died in France and this talk was last given there in the coastal resort of Hardelot, where some of those men are buried.   Bill Leigh was formerly an academic in Britain, West Africa and the Caribbean, then a secondary school teacher for the European Union in the Netherlands, Italy, Britain and Brussels. Having published research in theoretical physics and fiction for children, after retirement from the British School in Warsaw he took a degree in History, writing a dissertation on Truth in History and High-Energy Physics.   All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome. ...

The Renters’ Reform Bill Dave Brazier   Dave Brazier - The Renters’ Reform Bill Every day, 172 private renting families in England are handed a Section 21 no-fault eviction notice by their landlord – that is one every eight minutes. The government promised that their Renters Reform Bill would create a fairer, safer system for renters. But after months of parliamentary debate, it’s disappointing and full of loopholes for rogue landlords to squeeze through.   Like many 18 year olds Dave came to Leicester to go to University. But unlike most of them Dave has never left. He dropped out from Uni for a year and helped to run the Leicester Family Squatting Group. Collecting 50p per week from each of the squatted properties was Dave claims the most difficult debt collection challenge he has ever faced. Returning to Uni he picked up a degree in Economics and pr...

The Great Central Gazette Rhys Everquill   Rhys, managing editor of the Great Central Gazette, will discuss the question “Are co-operatives the answer to the crisis in local journalism?”   Rhys Everquill is a journalist and managing editor of Impress member publication Great Central Gazette, an independent, not-for-profit newspaper based in Leicester.    Having undertaken an undergraduate degree in drama, Rhys made the switch to investigative journalism and, in March 2023, was part of the team that set up Great Central Gazette.   All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome.

Firesnake   Kate Smurthwaite   Join the comedian and activist for a brilliant (achievable) alternative future. Kate asks us to contemplate whether being foot soldiers in the death march of disaster capitalism is really as much fun as we hoped. Kate Smurthwaite is a British comedian and political activist.  She has appeared on British television and radio as a pundit, offering opinion and comment on subjects ranging from politics to religion. She performs stand-up around the UK and overseas including an annual comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe and is a patron of Humanists UK and vice chair of Abortion Rights UK. All welcome - admission free .   Please consider donating towards the cost of the performance.