Bank of England’s Glasgow office targetted by Citizens United

Citizens United has struck again. The group has protested, consistently for several years, about bad banking practices.  Today they  marched into the Glasgow offices of the Bank of England, and stood and delivered their message to the stunned staff for fully half an hour till police arrived and invited the protesters to leave. Which they did.

The peaceful demonstration was the 15th the group has engineered since October 2010. They called for bankers to be called to account and, with the current  ’libor’ scandal, insist the top bankers should be prosecuted.

‘We call them banksters, not bankers’ said spokesman Sean Clerkin. ‘They should be prosecuted. The libor rates fixing cartel is a disgrace. This has affected everyone in this country. Small businesses are paying more to borrow, householders are paying more for mortgages.  Ordinary workers are having to take cuts in rates or be paid off. All senior bankers  should be subjected to the law as we are. They should be charged with fraud. If found guilty, they should be sent to prison.’

A comment was requested from the Bank of England but at the time of putting this story on line, no one had responded. On following up the request, a recorded message at the Bank’s number  said all operators were busy and invited the caller to try again later.

Inspector Derek Forsyth of Strathclyde Police was the lead officer of eight who attended the demonstration. After the event he requested that Citizens United inform the police in advance of any future protests so that the appropriate number of officers could be deployed, saving police resources and time.

The group is the same one which confronted former Scottish Labour Party leader Ian Gray in Central Station to ask what he was going to do about bankers then,  in the run up to the Scottish Parliament elections.  In trying to avoid them he ran out of the station but was cornered by them in a sandwich shop.

 

 

Theatre Nemo in Saughton Prison

Theatre Nemo were in Saughton Prison in Edinburgh last month as eight inmates hosted their short film entitled ‘Does Anyone Know’.

Dealing with general life issues the inmates produced the film in 40 hours through drama workshops and support from the campaigning theatre group based in Glasgow.

As reported previously in the LOCAL NEWS, Theatre Nemo have worked on similar projects in Barlinnie Prison for several years.

Nemo’s founder and director, Isobel McCue, told LOCAL NEWS: ‘This is the first time we have worked with Saughton and what they produced was wonderful. We’d like to work with them again. It is not an easy option for inmates to take part in drama coaching. But it helps them to develop social skills.’

The Saughton men created every aspect of their film through to production and editing.