‘Live From T’Shed #4’ and my #lockdownsolidarity money from last week raised £1500 to help kickstart this brand new collaboration in Hull.

‘Unity Shop’ is part food bank, part advice centre, part place to call in a crisis and will be based at the Kurdish Community Centre off Spring Bank.

My £1500 has been matched by trade unions to give us a fighting fund we will be putting to good use as soon as possible.

Massive thanks to Joe Francis and all at Hull and District Trades Council for listening to my rants about the need for grassroots street level involvement right in the heart of communities so often abandoned by party politics, and consequently all too often breeding grounds for the Far Right. In the new post-lockdown financial reality there needs to be Unity Shops up and down this land demonstrating the sort of solidarity and spirit we preach but often don’t practice. Now is the time to walk it like we talk it, to get ahead of the future and change tomorrow for the better.

If you are struggling to make ends meet, having to choose between heating and eating, living under the shadow of eviction or any of the multiple often invisible tragedies of life on the bread line in work or out, we will be there.

As ever my comrade-in-crayons Kevin Pearson has delivered us a logo, and as ever my comrades in Hull are the first to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in, could not be prouder to stand with all.

Can’t say how much it means to be offered space by the city’s Kurdish Community, and we stand in solidarity with them as we look to shape a better future for all.

So if you see me banging the drum for this, you’ll know what I’m ranting about.

You can find out everything you need to know about Hull Unity Shop here:

https://sites.google.com/view/the-unity-shop/home

and it is absolutely fantastic, so please do.

This is just the start.