Members should consult their HWG emails to register for these June discussion meetings.
Fake News and Politics – the issues for Labour
Tuesday 1 June at 7.30pm
We have heard so much about Fake News over the last few years; it particularly emerged over the 2016 Referendum in Britain and was a constant theme in the USA during the Trump presidency but how serious a problem is it?
Is false information being widely spread by social media through deliberate campaigns and is this undermining our democracy. Misleading stories and even false information has been spread before most notably the Zinoviev letter before the 1924 general election but the impression is that this is very much more widespread now and likely to continue to be so. And so very much more dangerous to the integrity of our electoral system.
Speakers include:
Ivor Gaber – Professor of Political Journalism, University of Sussex [and former member of HWG CLP]
Chi Onwurah MP – Shadow Minister in two departments, Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and in Digital, Media and Sport.
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Nurses Not Nukes
Thursday 10 June 7.30pm
The Tory government recently announced it planned to increase military spending by £16 billion. It also said health sector workers would receive a tiny 1% pay rise, possibly rising later to 2.1%. But does the UK really want or need nukes rather than nurses?
Speakers are:
Dr Yannis Gourtsoyannis, member of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee;
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Murad Qureshi, Chair of the Stop the War Coalition
Catherine West, MP for Hornsey & Wood Green
Speaker biographies:
Dr Yannis Gourtsoyannis is a junior doctor specialising in Infectious Diseases. He is an active BMA member and NHS campaigner. As a former member of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee he helped organise local and national industrial action. He is also a member of Medact, supporting health professionals working together for a world where all can exercise the human right to health.
Kate Hudson is the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Media Officer for Left Unity. She served as Chair of CND from 2003 to 2010. She has been an officer of the Stop the War Coalition since 2002, and founded Socialist Resistance. Her published works include CND – Now More Than Ever: The Story of a Peace Movement; Breaking the South Slav Dream: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia; European Communism Since 1989; The New European Left: a socialism for the twenty-first century; Free Movement and Beyond: agenda setting for Brexit Britain and CND at 60 – Britain’s Most Enduring Mass Movement,
Murad Qureshi, Former Chair of the Stop the War Coalition is also a former Member of the London Assembly. He worked in Housing and Regeneration for 15 years, helping establish housing associations and co-ops in the East End. He founded the Labour Party affiliated Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA). He was a former board member of BRAC UK, an international NGO seeking to alleviate poverty and empower the poor.