Freedom News

Shock eviction of Cornerhouse centre puts 20 people on streets

Homeless people rounded on Andy Burnham’s Labour administation in Manchester today after 20 people were rousted out of the well-regarded Cornerhouse squatted centre in an early-morning raid. Manchester Activist Network, which has been heavily involved in the space, said today they will be looking to hold highly-paid council bosses to account for promises made during

Social Centres update: Common house in trouble, Partisan nears opening

Radical social centres across Britain have run into financial issues recently, with business rates rises causing trouble for Larc in east London and the Cowley Club in Brighton this year. For the Common House however cash problems have followed on from the loss of their major funding grant — and they’re in dire need of

Manchester has a radical social centre again

A new collectively-run space dedicated to bringing Manchester’s disparate networks of activism together was opened yesterday, nearly a decade on from the fire which put the city’s last major radical social centre out of commission. Based on the upper floor of 19 Cheetham Hill Road, the Partisan group has set up in a similar way to other recent

Case study: Charity chugging in the north-west

A Plan C member in Manchester writes as part of the group’s Worker Enquiry series of articles… The job was simple. Working as a member of a major hospice and nursing charity street team my role would be to sign people up for regular monthly payments to the charity. These ranged from “as little as 4

Solidarity call for man hospitalised while protecting mum and child from EDL

A grassroots aid group called for solidarity donations yesterday to help a man who was hospitalised when he tried to protect a woman and her young daughter from EDL thugs. The largest EDL rally in some time rampaged through Manchester on Sunday, breaking through police lines and intimidating people in the centre of the city, including abuse

Call COBRA, that’ll sort it

The reaction to any terror bombing in any Western nation is as predictable as the tides and, with its own eccentricities, Britain is no exception. First, a selection of political worthies mouth the Standardised Incident Phrase “my thoughts are with the victims” — whose names they will mostly not know or care to remember a

Manchester’s self-organised homeless challenge Andy Burnham to join them

  Organisers at squatted former arts space Cornerhouse have called on new Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to go a step further than simple charity donations and engage directly with homeless people in finding solutions to the city’s rough sleeping crisis. Cornerhouse, owned by Network Rail, has been occupied by homeless people and Manchester Activist Network (MAN) since January and

Empty Cages announce first No More Prisons conference

The Empty Cages Collective, a solidarity group supporting prison abolitionists in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff and London, is backing a major new conference aimed at growing the movement nationally and gearing up for a campaign to fight the government as it pushes forward building new megaprisons. The first of the new giant facilities, HMP Berwyn near