Nancy Astor: another statue to fling in the sea
Nancy Astor
in fancy plaster
in copper not in alabaster
Issues and campaigns: History
Pages from (or about) the past. Those who do not learn from its mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
Wigan Diggers’ Festival
Janine joins the roster of artists performing at this annual labour movement shindig, which celebrates the life and ideas of Wigan born and bred Gerrard Winstanley and the 17th Century Diggers‘ (True Leveller) Movement. The full Wigan Diggers’ festival line-up: … Read more
Tourette’s, neurodiversity and class: the case of Madame Dampierre
In 1825, Paris physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard assessed a French noblewoman in her twenties who, from the age of seven, had ‘ticked and blasphemed‘. She was one of ten people with similar symptoms described in an article by Itard. … Read more
Speaking about Minnie Lansbury at HMP Holloway
Janine will tell the story of one of Holloway prison’s former residents at this event to mark the seventh anniversary of the prison’s closure and promote proposals for a progressive Women’s Building in its place. Venue: entrance to HMP Holloway, … Read more
Poplar: the Borough that Fought Back and Won
… and why it matters today By Janine Booth, published in RMT News. The two biggest employers in the east London borough of Poplar one hundred years were the railways and the docks. Our forerunner unions had plenty of members … Read more
Fallen Idol
after Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a bruised and smiling activist, elated, vindicated in their deed, who’d tossed into the harbour’s swell at Bristol the form of Portland stone to fishes feed Of one whose eight-foot statue’d … Read more
Us and Them
A golden shovel based on the final stanza of The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley. They hold us down but still we rise, deference dies, we bite them down to size. Like Jayaben roars, we are the lions, … Read more
Video: Talking about the Poplar Rebellion
In 2011, Janine spoke at an event hosted (and filmed) by Reel News, about the Poplar Rates Rebellion.
Disability History Month online launch
This year’s Disability History Month has two themes: sex and relationships, and hidden impairments. Janine will be one of a panel of speakers.
Info Panel: Remembering the Poplar Rates Rebellion
This information panel (picture), written by Janine, has been posted by Tower Hamlets Council to accompany the newly-renovated Hale Street mural, which pays tribute to the Poplar councillors. The text is below. After the ‘Great War’, London’s East Enders lived … Read more
I, Minnie Lansbury
At 3pm, Janine speaks on a panel about Minnie Lansbury and the Poplar rates rebellion in a seminar taking place immediately before the premiere of a new play on this subject at 5pm. Venue: RADA Studios, 16 Chenies Street, London … Read more
Poplar arrests centenary: lessons for today
Today (1 September 2021) is the centenary of the first arrests of Poplar’s rebel councillors. More about this auspicious occasion and its relevance today in my article on Labour Hub.
Praise Without Pay’s …
A century ago, in August 1921, Labour Councillor Jack Wooster told crowds demonstrating in support of Poplar’s rebel councillors that “Sympathy without relief [the name back then for welfare benefits] is like mustard without beef”. —- Sympathy without relief is … Read more
Poeting for Locomotion no.1
Watch this online event on Facebook here. Locomotion No. 1 Fundraiser – Bring it home… for good! Performing at the event: 6.00pm (BST) -6.05 – Tony Stowers (introduction about the benefit) 6.05-6.20 – Nazim Khan 6.20-6.40 – Singer of the … Read more
Poplar’s rates victory: Ten key points
One hundred years ago, a big movement grew in the east London borough of Poplar, headed by thirty councillors who went to prison rather than levy extortionate rates or cut services to the working-class population that elected them. ‘Poplarism’ won. … Read more
‘A Terrible Betrayal’: the centenary of ‘Black Friday’
Published in Solidarity 588, 14 April 2021 Long before ‘Black Friday’ became the name for the first day of the Christmas shopping season, it was the name that the labour movement gave to the day on which trade union leaders … Read more
Equalising the Rates, Resisting the Cuts
– a discussion and comparison of and commentary on tactics then and now – 1921 and 2021 One hundred years ago, the Labour council of the east London Borough of Poplar went to prison rather than inflict cuts or rate … Read more
‘Something like a Miracle’: Labour, Poplar and Local Government after WW1
How did Labour win big in the local elections after the First World War, and why did this lead to the rates crisis in Poplar in 1921? About this Event Before 1919 Labour had but a toe-hold in local government … Read more
Women of the Poplar rebellion
Published by Women’s Fightback 25, Winter/Spring 2021 Our story is set just after the first world war in Poplar, an east London borough with a population of 160,000 people crammed into the docklands in the bend of the River Thames … Read more
History Lessons
after Eventide by the Faith Brothers At the first opportunity, I dropped history – lists of dates of kings, queens and gilded greats, handed out from books by teachers who looked just as down about it as we felt. It … Read more