Ian Bone

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This aricle is about the British anarchist; for other uses, see Ian Bone (disambiguation).

Ian Bone (born August 28, 1947), is a prominent English anarchist in Great Britain.

Bone was an active anarchist throughout the 1960s to early 1990s. Initially he set up the anarchist agit-mag Alarm in Swansea. In the 1980s, with others, he set up the anarchist paper Class War. The confrontational style of the paper led to Bone becoming an infamous figure in the politics of the 1980s. His personal stock was at its highest when he appeared on the Jonathan Ross show.

Ian Bone has since distanced himself from Class War.^{[citation needed]} Bone was famously dubbed 'The Most Dangerous Man in Britain' by British tabloid newspaper The Sunday People.^[1]

Based in London for most of the 1980s, he moved to Bristol in the early 1990s where he became involved in various campaigns, but often keeping a low profile.

In 2001 Bone started the Vote Nobody campaign which encouraged residents in Easton, Bristol to turn out for the local election and vote for 'Nobody'.

Bone attended the founding meeting of Bristol Indymedia.

In that same year he started The Bristolian, a scandal-sheet that purported to give "independent news from Bristol that the other papers won't touch". Freely distributed throughout the bars and pubs of Bristol -- and by Bone himself in Bristol's Corn Street -- the newssheet gained a weekly circulation of over 15,000. He wrote much of the paper himself, but was assisted by local journalist Roy Norris, and by his long-term partner Jane Nicholl. In 2003, the success of The Bristolian led to the Bristolian Party, which stood in the local elections in an attempt to mobilise widespread discontent with Bristol City Council's policies. Bone was criticised by some in the anarchist community for his involvement with this campaign.^{[citation needed]} On May 1, 2003 a total of 2,560 people voted for the Bristolian Party, which gained an 8% share of the vote within the 12 wards they contested.

The Bristolian was runner-up for the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in 2005.^[2] It ceased publication shortly afterwards.

On December 6, 2006 Bone appeared on Channel 4's current affairs discussion show Starkey's Last Word, alongside Ed Vaizey and Harriet Harman, discussing the Iraq war.^[3]

On October 27, 2006 Bone led a meeting at the London Anarchist Book Fair.

In December 2007, Bone sold the film rights to his bestselling book Bash the Rich to cult British film maker Greg Hall for £10.^[4] A blog has since been created to follow the film from its conception to release.^[5]