What are the consequences of inequality and unrestrained markets regarding the working class families?

This is the chant of 1,500 protesters marching across Tower Bridge in London on a very wet and very cold Saturday afternoon in January. This was the very boisterous and loud section of the ‘March for Homes’, which started in Shoreditch in east London and led by the FocusE15 campaign. A group of young mothers and their children which were forcibly evicted out of a homeless hostel in 2013; the hostel sits in the shadow of the billion pound developments of the Olympic Park and the Westfield Shopping Centre. The campaign and fight of the Focus E15 mothers is just one example of the terrible and cruel ways that working class families and young mothers in particular are being treated in austerity Britain. This is the consequence of inequality gone mad, unrestrained markets, and a lack of empathy for those who struggle to survive in a rampant neo-liberal campaign for wealth and more wealth to be redistributed upwards.

The Speaker:

 Dr Lisa McKenzie, is a research fellow as part of the Great British Class Survey Team at London School of Economics. Her current research examines what is happening to working class families, and how precarious their lives have become because of the structuring forces of the open market. Drawing upon her previous research in St Ann’s in Nottingham she will show how working class people and their communities have been de-valued to such an extent the land that they live is worth more than them.

 Date: Thursday, 21 January 2016
 Time: 4pm-6pm
 Venue: Room 6.345