The Nottiingham Mayday celebrations for 2011 took place in Victoria Park and the Market Square with a march between.
Why were we celebrating? Mayday has been going at least since 1886 when workers in the USA began a general strike for an 8-hour day. See photos on Indymedia (including Chesterfield as well as Nottingham and reports about both).
Why were we marching, demonstrating and making public speeches? Take a look at this list of services due to close in the city and county. Many more are closing or threatened. Get in touch with Notts SOS (or comment on this artilcle) if your service is not listed here.
How much more will we be forced to work or suffer cuts to pay, pensions and services to bail out the debt and bank bail-outs caused by capitalist speculators and sanctioned by our rulers?
I couldn’t find the Notts Welfare Rights Service on this list. This excellent service was deleted in March 2011 as a result of NCC budget cuts. In the last year at a cost of £1Million to run theservice it accrued extra benefit entitlements of £10M for some of the poorest people in Notts.