Neither Labour nor Tory

Unhealthy obsession with dangerous policies

2010-10-30T22:35:00.009+01:00

I feel I must decry Ed Miliband, for his condemnation of the London firefighters strike. They are striking to defend not just their pay, conditions and jobs, but those of all public sector workers. Of course the strike is set to cause disruption - the whole idea of a strike is to have the maximum impact, in order to make the bullying bosses back off. So expecting the firefighters to postpone their strike is a bit like expecting Christmas card makers to go on strike in August :P

But my main condemnation must go to the Con Dems themselves, both in London - currently run by Boris Johnson - and nationally, who are attacking public services, including the fire brigade. And it's not surprising the fire brigade are not being taken seriously by the Con Dems, who have recently launched an attack on Health and Safety itself.

The Establishment media go out of their way to ridicule health and safety, by citing ridiculous examples - which often have little to do with health and safety, but possibly have a less savoury underlying motive (eg when cinemas used to cover up disability prejudice against people in wheelchairs by bleating 'fire risk'). Indeed, the Health & Safety Executive website even has a section dedicated to debunking many of these pernicious myths.

The real root cause of the capitalist Establishment's hostility to health and safety is that it costs money. Extra time must be taken to ensure safe practices are carried out, and investment must be made in safe equipment. But the cost of dangerous practices is far greater, in terms of human life - as the sinking in the 1980s of the Townsend Thoresen ferry Herald of Free Enterprise, and the Potters Bar train disaster, show only too well. On an international level, this year alone we have seen the environmental catastrophe caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the caribbean, and the trapping underground of Chilean miners. If the Con Dems have their way, how many more lives will be sacrificed on the bloody altar of profit?

Also of note are plans to restrict the operation of personal injury lawyers - as if workers who are injured, as a result of negligence in the pursuit of profit, ain't entitled to compensation. This is often justified by the capitalist Establishment pointing to a 'culture of litigation'. Well, if it's litigious lawsuits they really want to stop, allow me to suggest a few they could clamp down on:

Record and film companies suing the kegs off teenagers who file-share a few records and videos online
Establishment radio stations suing free (aka "pirate") radio stations for alleged 'loss of advertising revenue'
Draconian use of the libel laws to stifle the truth about capitalist businesses, as epitomised by the McLibel trial
Last but certainly not least, the anti-union laws must be repealed, to stop bosses bullying unions to end lawful and necessary strikes!

As Halloween approaches, I must say, I'm not scared of the ghosties. But I am scared of the ghoulies (typo) which the Con Dem government are talking :/

Healthcare may cure us, but Atos make us sick!

2010-10-26T15:34:00.003+01:00

Probably one of the worst measures being pushed forward by the Con Dems, is attacking people on disability benefits and forcing them to look for work. In typical privateering style, one nasty piece of work (ie the Con Dems) have got the DWP to contract out this nasty piece of work to a private company called Atos. So far, Atos' claim to fame has been to force people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis, terminal cancer and heart failure to look for work :/ (Perhaps it's just as well Atos weren't around in 1666, or the entire population of Eyam would have been deemed 'fit for work'! And none of this staying within the town to stop the plague from spreading, they would have to travel to look for work!)

In and of itself, this is a cold-blooded act by an evil Tory government hell bent on trampling on basic human rights, let alone workers' rights. But the repercussions of this move go further still. Such measures paint a false picture of disabled people as being lazy, unproductive 'drains on society' - a lie backed up by endless media brainwash designed to prop up this capitalist atrocity, with newspaper reports stating that only 6% of Incapacity Benefit claimants are 'genuine'. What they really mean is that very few people who need the benefits they deserve, are actually entitled to them under this regime :(

No wonder, then, people with disabilities, including those who are looking for work (not easy at the moment!), are suffering increasing amounts of prejudice and discrimination. This means that people who have been forced off (the already meagre) Incapacity Benefit are far less likely to actually find work, and far more likely to end up staying on the (even more stingy) Jobseekers Allowance.

A heavy dose of hypocrisy also applies. There have been cases of people laid off from work due to ill health, only to be told by Atos that they are "perfectly fit for work". This has additional repercussions when it comes to claiming for necessary adaptations, mobility payments, and non-state related benefits like payment protection insurance. (Unemployment payment protection insurance is so ridden with loopholes that you can lose it for taking temporary work, for sucks fake :/ ). No wonder there is a campaign to have Atos sacked - such as the Sack Atos online petition, which I urge readers to sign!

Atos Healthcare (sic) is a division of Atos Origin, an IT company. So it's hardly surprising their staff are mostly number-crunchers, making assessments on a 'points system' based on questions. Following a policy which seems to be created by mad social-scientists, who seem hell-bent on pushing sick people into work and seeing who survives. Well, since they love medical tests so much, maybe the Con Dems and the bosses of Atos should volunteer as guinea pigs for Huntingdon Life Science, and take the place of a few poor animals, in having medical experiments carried out on them :P

Certainly, you can't call these people doctors. The real role of doctors is to rid us of the parasites, such as viruses and (unfriendly) bacteria which make us ill.

Meanwhile, the role of socialists is to rid us of parasites (such as the Con Dems and the Atos bosses) who make us sick !!!

Broken records

2010-10-24T15:46:00.004+01:00

So Nick Clegg, leader of the LSD and deputy PM in the Con Dems, has been on Desert Island Discs. Dunno how much his choices say about him, although David Bowie "Life On Mars" is kinda appropriate - after all, he doesn't seem to live on this planet :P

It got me thinking, what records do we think could be dedicated to this lover of capitalism and lap-dog of Cameron? Well, here's a few suggestions:

Phats & Small "Turn Around" - he's certainly done a 180 on his pre-election promises!

Crazy World of Arthur Brown "Fire" - like the bonfire of public services he is overseeing.

Carol Bayer Sager "You're Moving Out Today" - could be dedicated to the council house tenants who will be shafted by the Con Dems' ending of council homes for life.

Soul II Soul "Keep On Movin'" - on a bus, dedicated to the unemployed :/

Jonathan Butler "Lies" - he told enough of those prior to the election!

Luther Vandross "I Really Didn't Mean It" - what he could now say about his pre-election promises!

Simply Red "Money's Too Tight To Mention" - well, unless you're a banker, boss or Con Dem fat cat!

Kaiser Chiefs "I Predict A Riot" - well, I certainly can, the way this government's pissing on us.

Finally, I think a certain record by Ivor Biggun kinda suits him. I think you know which one ...

A plague on both houses

2010-10-17T17:08:00.004+01:00

Well, when asked why I'm so pissed off with the Con Dems, I don't really know where to start. So I'll start with their policy on housing, notably their stupid idea of forcing out of council houses people who they think don't need social housing anymore.

On the one hand, it is true that the lack of social housing is a problem. But it's not the fault of people who currently live in social housing. I'll take this opportunity to clear up a few other myths while I'm here; the shortage of decent housing is also NOT caused by:

immigrants - who too often are forced into substandard, overcramped and overpriced accommodation.
asylum seekers - the lucky ones who are not in detention centres, end up in hostel accommodation.
disabled people - we don't cause any more damage than the average person, and most damage to properties is due not to the tenants, but to neglect and cost-cutting by the landlord.
gay people - I'm not even sure what excuses landlords give for discriminating against gay people. And whatever excuses they do have, I don't wanna hear them anyway :P

The problem of a lack of affordable housing is one which has been caused by decades of under-investment in council house building, and the selling off of council housing that started in the 1980's under Mrs Thatcher. This has escalated over the years, with whole swathes of council housing being privatised in the past 10 years. Sadly, the only winners have been privateer landlords who are now more able to abuse their power over tenants. And control-freak parents whose grown up kids have little choice but to stay at home. And the bureaucracy in charge of homeless charities :(

In any case, forcing people out of social housing, and into the clutches of anti-social private landlords, will not solve the problem. And I don't use the term 'anti-social' lightly; I have personal experience of private landlords accusing tenants of non-payment of rent (despite payment being easily provable), and even borrowing money off their own tenants!

It will be even worse for people in oppressed minorities who are turfed out of their council house, on a whim by the Con Dem scum. I have experienced overt disability prejudice while looking for accommodation, and know of gay people who have been evicted by homophobic landlords. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Private landlords fall well within the middle class, and it the middle class have a far greater interest than workers, in perpetuating ideologies which benefit the capitalist system - such as prejudice. One of the reasons why the bulk of the Nazi BNP's membership is made up of the middle class.

At the same time, I certainly don't expect the Con Dem gits to do anything to mitigate this prejudice. Even before the election, Tory bastard Chris Grayling said that guest house owners should have the right to turn away gay people. And John Major's Tory government deliberately scuppered the Disabled People's Civil Rights Bill, so we instead ended up with anti-disablism legislation which is so weak and pitiful, I'm surprised it's not the star of Children In Need :P

The only answer to the lack of social housing is to increase the supply of decent, affordable council housing. Apart from the obvious funding solutions, such as taxing the rich and scrapping Trident, I have a few additional proposals:

A supertax on empty properties (which would also encourage landlords to rent out their housing at a lower rate, to get tenants in). And a superdupertax on properties which have been neglected to the point of dereliction, such as those left boarded-up for months on end.
The ending of privatisation of social housing, in the form of PFI or ALMO's. Since privatisation adds the extra cost of profit for parasitical bosses, it is far cheaper for councils to build the housing themselves.
The compulsory nationalisation, without compensation to the owner, of all properties belonging to landlords who abuse their position - whether by overcharging tenants or by discriminating against oppressed minorities.

All these measures, and more, we will have to fight tooth and nail for. A good campaigning organisation I can recommend is Defend Council Housing.

Only by fighting on this issue, and against every attack on our living standards, can we make sure that people get to stay in their homes, as well as their jobs.

And make sure the Con Dems get chucked out of the House Of Commons !!!

Use your Ed, Miliband!

2010-10-13T15:20:00.007+01:00

Well, it's been a year since I last posted on this blog. A hurricane of a year, both politically and personally. But now the dust has (sort of) settled, it's time to look at where we stand now politically ...

Considering the viciousness of the Con Dem attacks on our benefits, services and civil rights, it's easy to forget that the Con Dems really have no right to have power, let alone abuse it like they have. Despite the massive unpopularity of New Labour under Brown, the Tories did not get a landslide - more like a slight fall of dust :P In fact, the election results weren't a massive move to the right; the Nazi BNP failed to win a single seat, as did the hard-right UKIP. In fact, in some areas there was a shift to the left; Labour regained Chesterfield from the Liberal Democrats and, probably more importantly, the Green Party won their first MP in Brighton Pavilion.

Back to the point, the Tories did not win a majority, and can only govern with the collaboration of the LSD, sorry, Lib Dems. And many, possibly most, people who voted Lib Dem did so because they thought the Lib Dems were actually to the left of Labour, let alone the Tories. Indeed, some of the Lib Dems' election promises - which have now been thrown out of the top window of a tower block - were quite left wing, such as scrapping Trident. Many Lib Dem voters will now be bitterly disappointed.

While this disappointment is perfectly understandable, an analysis of the Lib Dems shows it is probably misplaced. After all, the Lib Dems are the result of a merger (back in the 1980's) between the nakedly capitalist Liberal Party on the one hand, and the proto-blairite SDP wich consisted of ex-Labour members who split because they considered Labour too left-wing. Hardly the credentials for a progressive anti-capitalist party :\

Following the election fiasco, came the contest for the new Labour leader. Although I personally backed Diane Abbott, I was glad Ed Miliband beat the nakedly Blairite David Miliband. So it is a shame that, having become Labour leader, Ed seems more interested in pandering to the same middle class, and kow towing to the same right wing, that Bliar et al pandered to, rather than standing up for the unions and for socialism.

Small wonder, then, that Ed's idea of opposing the Con Dems' proposed hike in tuition fees involves him reaching out to Lib Dem MPs who may rebel. Yet the Lib Dems have so far been no more than the Tories' lap dog, allowing the Tories to get away with slashing and burning jobs and services, forcing sick and disabled people to look for work, while continuing to squander fortunes on the bankers and Trident. With this in mind, at best, hoping for disaffected Lib Dems to stop a hike in fees seems to be like watering the lightning tree :(

What Ed should really be doing is not reaching out to a bunch of opportunists who would sell their @$$ for a tiny slice of power. Instead, he should be reaching out to the unions who built and continue to fund Labour. He should unconditionally support strikes by the students' NUS union, the lecturers' UCU union, and the unions of all workers affected by this attack on the right to education. And less of the carp (typo) about "irresponsible" strikes, when strikes are the only thing which can now stop this utterly irresponsible Con Dem government!

Indeed, it is imperative that we support all strikes by all unions, and all protests by all community groups and organisations, against all cuts and attacks by this coalition of Tory vermin and Lib Dem backstabbers :P

The recent protest outside the Tory Party conference in Birmingham must be just the beginning. The Con Dem government aims to ramp up its attacks on workers, students, immigrants, disabled people, etc etc. So we must ramp up our resistance to the Con Dems. And condemn the Con Dems to hell !!!

ASBO's all round!

2009-09-07T17:40:00.004+01:00

Much comment has been made on Drinking Banning Orders, also known as 'booze asbos', which recently came into force (BBC News: New 'booze Asbos' come under fire). This legislation has been under fire from across the political spectrum, for various different reasons.

Some of the criticisms can be easily dismissed, notably the plaintive cry that the law should instead be targeting young / teenage / underage drinkers yet again. As if 'underage' drinkers haven't already had endless crackdowns upon them, for donkeys' years. And as if yet another crackdown on said will, by now, have a significant impact upon underage drinking - let alone, upon problem drinking as a whole.

If anything, it does make a refreshing change for the Establishment to finally be looking beyond the usual scapegoat of young people, and be trying a different approach to the problems associated with excessive drinking. But here my praise for the measures ends. And is outweighed by genuine criticisms of the legislation, as made by groups such as Liberty.

Most obviously, like any ASBOs, the Drinking Banning Orders are another way of 'short circuiting' the process of law by using civil orders to criminalise behaviour. ASBOs are also tainted by their reliance on unreliable, even hearsay, evidence. And by their use in petty circumstances - pirate broadcasters, kids playing football, even pensioners feeding birds, have all been subject to ASBOs. Can we really be certain that Drinking Banning Orders will not be used in similarly petty circumstances?

And how will these orders be enforced? The only way I can see them being enforced is by every pub and off licence checking the identity of every customer, of any age, to check they're not on a 'banned' list. Yes, everyone who is or appears to be under 25, already has this to put up with. But I really don't see 'levelling down' our civil liberties as a step in the right direction! Then, there's going to have to be a register of banned drinkers, which would have to be accessible to every alcohol outlet and the workers therein - with all the privacy issues that entails.

It is also ironic that the Drinking Banning Orders can be used on anyone aged over 16, despite the legal drinking age being 18. Seems yet another case of the Establishment's double standards, which mean someone aged 16 is deemed responsible enough to be punished for alcohol-related offences but not responsible enough to be allowed to buy alcohol in the first place.

But perhaps the most important point to make about Drinking Banning Orders, is that much of the anti-social behaviour associated with binge drinking can already be dealt with by existing laws. Violence, threatening behaviour, criminal damage, harassment (including racial and sexual harassment) were all criminal offences, the last time I checked! If these laws are not being enforced, how would yet another gimmick like booze asbos make us any safer ???

Then again, I guess it all comes down to the system's priorities. Violence - whether drunken or otherwise - tends to be a crime against the individual. And crimes against the individual tend to be, in the eyes of the system (which includes the law and its enforcers), a poor cinderella compared with crimes against the Establishment and crimes against the system itself.

Small wonder, then, we now have the grotesque situation where soldiers returning from Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, are told by their Army bosses to 'get pissed and have a fight' rather than seek counselling (Daily Mirror: The scandal of our troops who are left with no support for traumas). Maybe, among the laws the Armed Forces have opted-out from, are the laws banning common assault :P Seriously, though, it is telling that violence is sometimes encouraged as a way of 'letting off steam'.

And not just within the Army. Every community is blighted by recession, job insecurity and hyper-unemployment, and many poople are only too eager to drink as a means of escaping the stress. At the same time, the Establishment would much rather see workers batter each other after a few drinks, than see us unite against them and their capitalist system which is ruining our lives.

We must not fall for the Establishment's crocodile tears about lives 'ruined by drink'. But at the same time, we must realise that drinking can never be a permanent solution to our problems. Only unity against the capitalist system can truly make things better. And leave the Establishment, rather than us, suffering the following morning!

British workers must support Stalin

2009-06-21T13:28:00.011+01:00

There are at least two important industrial struggles taking place in the UK at the moment. One is the brave fight of the Lindsey Oil Refinery constuction workers, who were sacked following a wildcat strike against redundancies. (Socialist Worker 20th June 2009: The sacking of the Lindsey workers is a challenge for the whole working class) All socialists must give our full backing to the Lindsey strikers, and to all sympathy walkouts across the UK - such as those at several power stations, other oil refineries and a biofuels plant (BBC News 19th June 2009: Oil plant sackings spark walkouts).

At the same time, however, we should be sceptical about the slogan used by some (by no means all!) supporters of the strike, of "British jobs for British workers". Such slogans pander to nationalism, and risk exacerbating the problem of racism towards immigrants. This is especially unwelcome following the rise of the Nazi BNP - I'm not saying the Euro Election results were frightening, but after watching the Euro election broadcast I had to watch A Nightmare On Elm Street for a bit of light relief ...

We must always remember that immigrant workers are never the problem. Where British workers' pay and conditions are being undercut - whether by foreign workers or by other British agency workers - the problem lies with the fat cat bosses who are cutting costs and boosting their fat profits by employing the cheapest labour possible. So the answer - far from attacking immigrant workers - is to fight for immigrant labour to be employed alongside British labour, on exactly the same, decent, pay and working conditions. This would not only eliminate the under-cutting of existing workers' pay and conditions, it would also eliminate the ruthless exploitation of new workers.

The key to this being achieved, is the struggle by immigrant workers for decent pay and conditions, as seen in another important struggle - that of the SOAS cleaners in London. A strike has been taking place against the sacking of Jose Stalin Bermudez, a Unison union official who was sacked by management. Stalin invoked the wrath of SOAS' management after he helped low paid Latin American cleaners demonstrate against non-payment of wages and for a London Living Wage (Socialist Worker 6th June 2009: Strike in defence of victimised union activist at Soas). Since then, the SOAS cleaners have been treated just as, or even more, diabolically than the Lindsay strikers; SOAS management gave no resistance to, perhaps even collaborated with, a raid by immigration officers which led to the arrest and deportation of several cleaners - who had taken part in action for decent pay and conditions and in support of Stalin (Socialist Worker 20th June 2009: Soas: Did bosses target their cleaners for deportation?). On a positive note, this raid and its aftermath led to occupations by SOAS students in support of the cleaners.

What we need is for the white working class, such as those striking at Lindsay against redundancy, to link with immigrant workers, such as the SOAS cleaners striking against low pay and exploitation. The workers' struggles must then be linked to struggles by students fighting against education cuts and tuition fees, and unemployed and disabled workers fighting against cuts in benefits and unreasonable conditions for claiming benefits.

If such unity could be forged, not only could it undercut racists such as the Nazi BNP. It could create a perfect storm which could sink not only the so-called Labour government and its plastic opposition in the form of the Tories, but the entire capitalist system.

Economic League, economic hooligans

2009-03-20T16:33:00.005Z

I'm very glad to see the shutting down of the Consulting Association, an employment blacklisting organisation which kept files on political activists and trade unionists, and even people who raised health and safety concerns (Socialist Worker: Construction blacklist: Bosses pay £2.20 to destroy lives). And I will be very interested to see what legal action is taken against those who ran, and those companies which subscribed to, the Consulting Assholeciation.

If you think you may be on the Construction Association blacklist, you can check with the Information Commissioner's Office. Their Consulting Association info page tells you not only how to check your details, but also lists the companies which suscribed to the CA.

Personally, I'd like to see every company who subscribed to them raided, and their bosses prosecuted for not only blackisting but also for aiding and abetting a blacklisting organisation. Let's face it, 'just looking' is absolutely no excuse in the case of, for example, kiddie porn. And a number of organisations, including the NSPCC, have cited a link between unemployment and poverty - the end result of blacklisting! - and child abuse. So I'd just love to see all involved locked in a cell with Gary Glitter, Ian Huntley et al. And the key recycled!

I know, that's hardly likely to happen. Especially when you bear in mind that the state has an unhappy history of keeping files on political dissidents; back in the 1980's (and probably more recently), MI5 kept numerous files on socialists and even used to infiltrate left-wing political parties.

At the same time, the laws passed in 1999 banning blacklists are welcome - even if it did take a f***ing decade for them to be enforced! Back in the 80's and before, a blacklisting organisation called the Economic League used to operate legally. And, whereas the Consulting Association seems to have most of its subscribing companies in the construction industry, the Economic League had a much larger range of subscribing companies, including Ford motor cars, Tate and Lyle sugar (who also subscribed to Caprim, the first 'son of Economic League'), and McDonalds (citation on McSpotlight).

One of the major factors which brought down the Ecch-onomic League in the early 90's, was consumer boycotts of products made by subscribing companies. In the case of large construction companies, direct consumer boycotts are less practicable. But that does not mean there is nothing we can do.

Pressure must be put on councils and public service bodies, through the unions, to stop using the services of companies which use blacklists. Such companies should especially be banned from PFI projects - such as Academies. If such a company ends up running an Academy (construction firms have already sponsored academies), how would we know that kids attending such schools, who showed signs of not agreeing with the capitalist Establishment (and who could blame them ???), wouldn't end up on such a blacklist ?!?

Apart from anything else, this is yet another argument against academies and the creeping privatisation of education! And we shouldn't stop at re-nationalising our schools, hospitals, etc.

Every company which has used such a blacklist should also be nationalised. Without compensation to their criminal bosses!

Radio pirates and Establishment raiders

2009-03-07T15:44:00.005Z

It seems to be open season again on pirate radio, or free radio as I prefer to call it (BBC News: Pirate radio 'puts lives at risk').

The allegations of pirate radio causing interference go back to at least the 1980's, probably before that, and are as grossly exaggerated now as they were then. Besides, the constant crackdowns on free radio stations can, if anything, have a counter-productive effect where it comes to the elimination of interference. As penalties for 'illegal broadcasting' increase and the severity of studio raids increase - now even records and CDs can be confiscated, as well as broadcasting equipment - free radio operators take steps to avoid the studio being located. One is the use of 'link transmitters' on non-broadcast frequencies, which massively increases the risk of them being on a frequency used by emergency services or aircraft. As is the case with drugs, criminalisation has created a risk which really need not have been there.

In any case, the Establishment are being hypocritical, whining about free radio 'putting lives at risk' while, at the same time, the maintenance of emergency service radio equipment is being cut back. For example, one of the companies involved in the maintenance of radios for the emergency services, Arqiva, has just made a large number of people redundant (including myself :-( ). I fail to see how scaling back the maintenance of such vital radio equipment can increase the reliability of emergency services' communications :-P

There are also constant - again grossly exaggerated - reports from the Establishment media, about pirate stations being involved with illegal drug-related rave parties. Again, when the mainstream broadcasters continue to irresponsibly promote alcohol, which kills more people and causes more violence than illegal drugs, the stench of hypocrisy is overpowering!

The real reasons for the crackdown on free radio are twofold. The most obvious one is that the legal stations - which, despite calling themselves 'local radio', are increasingly owned by a handful of medis giants - don't want competition eating into their fat profits.

The less obvious, but maybe more important, reason for the Establishment's hatred for free radio, is also to do with competition - for ideas. The mainstream broadcasters have, over the past few years, increasingly become a mouthpiece for Establishment propaganda. For example, the broadcast media played an important part in encouraging people to support the Iraq war in 2003, and during the Gaza conflict, the mainstream news reports were heavily biased in favour of Israel. Then there's the endless adverts for military recruitment, against 'benefit fraud', etc. The last thing the Establishment want is alternative broadcasters eroding the ability of their media to indoctrinate the masses.

Not that all pirate radio is inherently progressive. In my time on the free radio scene, I came across a few characters who were just as alienated and brainwashed as many in wider society. But at their best, community-based pirates can and have given a side of the news not generally heard on the mainstream stations, and helped promote local activity against racism. For example, in the 90's, the Birmingham pirate PCRL had a phone-in programme about the threat of the BNP and how to deal with it.

What we need is broadcasting by the community, aiming to inform and serve the community. Not by big business, aiming to promote the Establishment's agenda and maximise profits.

Armless presenters and brainless morons

2009-02-23T22:21:00.005Z

A number of parents have been campaigning to have Cerrie Bernell, a one-armed TV presenter, removed from CBeebies (Digital Spy: Disabled BBC presenter 'scaring' children). Apart from this being a horribly right-wing disablist campaign, I have a number of other issues with it ...

First of all, I fail to see how pre-school children are 'scared' by a disabled presenter. Young children are not prejudiced, for one simple reason. The Establishment's indoctrination which creates and reinforces prejudice, of any kind, is a slow, gradual, 'drip-drip' process rather than a rapid one. So young children simply haven't yet been exposed to enough of the subtle Establishment propaganda, to yet be brainwashed into oppressive thinking!

Secondly, if they were genuinely interested in stopping kids being scared, they would be far better off campaigning for the complete abolition of corporal punishment, which is still used to instil fear into kids. And the abolition of the SAT tests, which create undue worry among kids who become scared of failure at a very young age. Unlike any TV programme (including the likes of DeadEnders, whose violent storylines are far more scary than any portrayal of disability will ever be!), the belt or the exam result do not have an 'off' switch!

Last but not least, it is not kids who will end up 'having nightmares'. It is disabled people, indeed people of any oppressed minority, when these bigoted gits' campaigns bolster the support of murderous far-right Nazi parties. Indeed, the racist fire whose flames have been fanned by New Labour's increasing attacks on immigration, has led already to the BNP winning a council by-election in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Thankfully, prejudice can be countered and anger redirected against the real enemy. Intervention by the left in recent strikes against foreign labour has successfully won many workers to see that their real enemies are the bosses, not migrant workers who are being exploited while British workers' wages and conditions are undercut. And that the real answer is not to say 'British jobs for British workers', but to instead demand equal and decent pay and conditions for all workers.

It is this message of unity which we must use to counter not only the Nazis' message of hate in the run up to the European elections, but also to counter the capitalist Establishment's divide-and-rule tactics which weaken us all!

And I believe in Santa Claus too

2008-12-26T15:10:00.004Z

Merry Christmas to one and all, or so the cliche goes. If only that were true! While the Establishment are trying to use Christmas to get us to put our class conflicts aside and join together in celebrating this contrived 'season of goodwill', the fact of the matter is that Christmas is a time when class differences are as stark as ever. This year more so than most.

While the capitalists are using Christmas (or should that be Cashmas?) as a marketing ploy, ramming TV adverts down our throat which scream 'have a merry Christmas if you buy our seasonal offers', many people facing redundancy in 2009 - such as Woolworths, MFI, Arqiva (myself included) , HBOS and many other companies' employees - will be welcoming Christmas about as much as the average turkey :-(

To add insult to injury, this closet Tory so-called Labour government - which has poured so much money into protecting the capitalist Establishment's profits but done sweet FA to protect workers' jobs - is now hell-bent on punishing those who will become unemployed and have to claim benefits. Especially insulting is the attack on disability benefits; forcing people to look for jobs which they may be able to do, while doing more or less exactly nothing to force employers to adapt so that people with disabilities are able to do more jobs, is putting the onus once more on the individual rather than society to adapt. In short, it is a blatant return to the medical model of disability, rather than the much-preferred social model.

Even for those in work, saving for next Xmas will be a pain. Following what happened to unFarepak, and with even banks such as Northern Rock and HBOS going belly up, where can we keep our money? We could put it in Under The Mattress Bank, but there it will be at risk of being taken by thieves. A bit like saving with companies like Farepak or putting it in a bank, really :-P

Yet it is perfectly possible to save jobs. Failing companies should be nationalised, and priority should be given to saving workers' jobs not bailing out the fat cat bosses.

At the same time, a shorter working week and more holidays, with no loss of pay, would create jobs. On that score, I do have a lot of respect for the Labour MEPs who recently defied Brown and their own Labour government, and voted in Europe to end Britain's opt-out from the 48 hour maximum working week. This would also improve safety, as tired workers are unsafe workers; as someone whose car was recently badly damaged by an accident involving a truck on the A1, a comment by a union leader that overworked drivers can be as dangerous as drunk drivers really struck a chord with me. But not, it seems, with the bunch of jerks who call themselves 'our' government :-(

Yet just as depressing, is the fact that the left - which could be offering a real alternative to the McReformism of New Labour - is currently fighting like cat and dog. So, despite how I started this blog article, I am ending it with a plea for peace and goodwill. The whole left - both factions of the SWP and Respect, the Socialist Party and other socialist parties, Greens, left-wing Labour, anarchists, trade unionists - must put our differences aside and fight the real enemy. Namely, the capitalist Establishment and its client System.

Then, and only then, can we really wish for - whether we have had a merry Xmas or not - a happy New Year!

Warning: BBFC ruling contains Establishment prejudice

2008-12-02T17:48:00.007Z

While reading DANmail today, I came across a thread about how the BBFC have given the label "disability themes" to the disability-related film Special People, along with a 12A rating (The Independent: Director's anger over comedy film's 'disability' warning). So not only have the capitalist Establishment brainwashed people into seeing disability as a negative, they're now also expecting us to view it as being just as taboo as "sex scenes", "violence" and "bad language" :-(

Well, while they're at it, I can think of a few more deserving "warnings" they could put on films. Films from Top Gun to BFG could include "Warning: contains glorification of militarism". A few, such as Who Dares Wins, could include "Warning: contains blatant right-wing propaganda". Many old Western films could include "Warning: contains negative images of American Indians". While countless more should warn that they contain negative or patronising images of a racist, sexist or - last but not least - disablist nature.

As well as challenging prejudices about people with disabilities, the fact that Special People is a relatively low-budget film (presumably by an independent company) can't have done it any favours among the capitalist Establishment, whose numbers include the bosses of the big Hollywood film companies. Not to mention overpaid actors, and writers. (Maybe Harry Potter films could have a "Warning: proceeds from this film may help fund a sell-out right-wing pseudo-workers' party" :-P )

For a more rational and more detailed description of Special People, check out Eye For Film's review of the film. Even better, it may be worth watching it for yourself.

Anti-fascists should not be bleary eyed

2008-11-22T16:26:00.005Z

In the wake of the BNP's list-leak disaster, Labour MP Hazel Blears is quite right to lay the belt into the BNP by describing them as 'playing on people's apprehensions and peddling "pernicious but plausible lies"' (BBC News: Blears sounds warning about BNP). She also rightly claims that the BNP has been successful because working-class people feel 'ignored by mainstream politicians'. At the same time, however, she seems very vague about how we should deal with this problem.

Why is this important? Because there is also a pernicious argument within the mainstream parties, Labour included, that we should try to undercut the BNP's support by pandering to some of its demands. This has seen Blears' own New Labour government bring in ever tougher rules on immigration and ever more draconian crackdowns on asylum seekers, while harping on about 'Britishness' and the need for ethnic minorities to become more assimilated into 'British society'. Yet far from undercutting the BNP, such measures have boosted them by legitimising their racist beliefs, and allowing them to set the political agenda.

At the same time, the New Labour government is introducing measures, such as further attacks on benefits at a time when unemployment is increasing (BBC News: Welfare plan 'may cause poverty'). Such actions not only increase people's alienation from mainstream politics, they also fuel the misery and despair on which the fascists feed.

In order to attack the fascists and their racist ideas - which handicap our ability to unite against reactionary measures such as welfare cuts - we need to take on their myths, not pander to them. However much British people's living standards have been attacked, they are - contrary to the right-wing myths peddled by the capitalist media and Establishment - still better than those suffered by asylum seekers. Asylum seekers do not get council houses, they are housed in spartan accommodation reserved for asylum seekers, forced to live on benefits (increasingly in the form of vouchers) of less money than that given to British nationals, and are subject to constant surveillance - even having their possessions checked to make sure they don't own 'luxuries'. For the truth about asylum in the UK, check out the Refugee Council website, which has a section devoted to refuting myths about asylum seekers. And the theatre show "They get free mobiles, don't they?" by the Banner Theatre Company, gives an excellent insight into the real lives of asylum seekers.

Speaking of unappealing 'safe havens', the BNP certainly ain't a safe haven for people - white people included - who are disillusioned with the Establishment parties. Even leaving aside their racist, oppressive and violent politics and behaviour, let us not forget how the BNP's membership list ended up online. It is widely believed to have been caused by an internal dispute within the BNP, in which one member who was forced out decided to execute a 'scorched earth policy' on the BNP. This is not an aberration, the BNP have had a simmering feud since last year (Searchlight Hope Not Hate: Internal splits threaten BNP's chances in London Assembly poll). Indeed, the anti-democratic nature of fascist parties, internally as well as externally, tends to create splits and splinters; the BNP itself formed in the early 1980s from a split within the National Front. And the intolerant nature of fascism tends to make such disagreements erupt pyroclastically - the epitome of such loose-cannon behaviour was the Night of the Long Knives purge, back in Nazi Germany, when Hitler murdered his own SA storm troopers!

So what can we do when we become bitter and disillusioned with our government and its Establishment rivals? What we need to do is build a left wing alternative, which can unite workers, regardless of colour, sex, sexuality or disability, into a movement which can challenge the capitalist Establishment and its puppet politicians from below. Then we can effectively challenge cuts in benefits, job losses etc without blaming the most marginalised within society. What's more, by creating unity against the such acts of the capitalist system, we can sow the seeds of a movement which can eventually destroy the capitaist system itself. And create a socialist society which is free of racism, prejudice, poverty, unemployment and misery.

Black and white, gay and straight, able bodied and disabled - UNITE AND FIGHT!!!

Blundering Nazis Pwned!

2008-11-21T17:56:00.004Z

We've all been enjoying schadenfreude over the BNP's membership list ending up online (Love Music Hate Racism: Fascist public servants exposed as BNP chickens come home to roost). And LOLing as the BNP's reactions are hilariously hypocritical - bleating about their members being placed in danger (one word: Redwatch!) and wanting to use the Human Rights Act (which the BNP wants to repeal) against those who posted the list online.

Having said that, I would not like to see a witch-hunt against those on the list for a number of reasons. Firstly, it may give false creedence to the pernicious myth that anti-fascists are "as bad as the fascists". Yes, this myth ignores the fact that, unlike the fascists, we do not target people on the basis of unchangeable characteristics such as colour or disability, in fact we only target their poisoned ideology. What's more, UAF has welcomed former National Front and BNP members who have seen the error of their ways, ie it is perfectly possible for people to stop being fascists. Whereas I've never seen a black man become white (with the possible exception of Michael Jackson, LOL). Nevertheless, the "as bad as they are" myth continues, and has been parroted by the less aware in the wake of the BNP list leak. So we should not encourage it.

Even more importantly, there are questions about the accuracy of the list. Even if names haven't been deliberately added (let's fact it, we've only got the BNP's "highly trustworthy" word for that), there are people on the list who naively joined the BNP briefly and who now condemn what the BNP actually stands for - such as the Reverend John Stanton (Searchlight: Church leader withdraws support for the BNP). Others may never have actually been members at all, like a worker at Windsor Castle (BBC News: BNP members 'targeted by threats'). Even in the case of the Merseyside policeman, maybe the Police need more accurate evidence than the online membership list before sacking him ... perhaps they could obtain such evidence by raiding the office of the local BNP branch where he is apparently a member :D

Where the list will come in useful, however, is for locating areas where there is a cluster of BNP members, or areas near a BNP organiser, and leafleting these areas with anti-fascist literature and building a movement in said areas against the BNP and its toxic ideology.

BTW The laughs at the BNP's expense don't stop here ... check out the LOLGRIFFIN blog :-)

Total eclipse of the brain

2008-11-10T21:26:00.008Z

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has really dropped a clanger (more like the Bells of St Clements :-P ) with his description of Barack Obama, the next president of the USA (for those who've been on holiday on another planet!) as "tanned" (BBC News: Berlusconi says Obama is 'tanned')

Berlusconi was quick to deny that he was being racist. That's as maybe, but I'm afraid his defence really isn't made any easier by the fact that his Forza Italia party is governing Italy in coalition with the fascist MSI party and the horribly right-wing Northern League. (Ironically, although the Northern League want separation of their 'Padua' region from Italy, their closest UK equivalent politically is probably the Ulster Unionists). Or the fact that his government has taken a hard stance against immigration, and attacks on immigrants and Roma gypsies in Italy have increased massively under his rule.

Besides, I always thought there was something a bit dodgy about a party (Forza Italia) which is named after a football chant. Then again, it's perhaps just as well Berlusconi wasn't English, or he'd probably have named his party 'You're Shit And We Know You Are' ...

Over to America, I'm glad Obama won the election for a number of reasons. Firstly, the election of a black man as US President has given 'the bird' to America's racist past (epitomised by the 'Jim Crow' apartheid laws in the southern US during the early half of the 20th Century). It also proves beyond reasonable doubt that racism is not, as many on the right allege, an indelible part of 'human nature'. But perhaps even more importantly, Obama's election owed at least as much to grass-roots local campaigning by working class activists as it did to rich donors. Hopefully, the high illusions among many in Obama will be translated into activism to shift his administration, and America in general, to the left.

Back to Berlusconi, he is best known as a media baron who owns several TV and radio stations in Italy - a factor which no doubt helped his election campaign. Yet back in the 1970's, when he took on and broke the Italian RAI state monopoly in broadcasting, he was considered by some to be almost a liberator of the airwaves. By the 1990's, he was coming rather close to creating his own national TV monopoly - so, hardly surprising that soon after he came to power, Italian broadcasting was re-regulated and the first raids in decades took place on a number of unlicenced TV stations.

Yet, despite Berlusconi's media empire, he is not all-powerful. He was voted out of power after his first term in office, only to be re-elected when the centre-left Olive Tree coalition let down its supporters (sound familiar?) More importantly, his government and the Italian capitalist Establishment of which he is a part, can be broken by Italian working class activity such as strikes and protests.

Stuff Forza Italia - I'd rather be singing Bandiera Rossa :-)

Blog off, Blears!

2008-11-08T12:05:00.004Z

Ah well, I guess we should be flattered that political blogs are obviously a big enough thorn in the side of the government, for a government minister to attack us (BBC News: Blears attacks political bloggers). But Blears' knee-jerk attacks on those who disagree with her, and the way her government is going, do nobody any favours - least of all herself and her government!

Far from "fuelling disengagement" with politics, as Ms Blears alleges, blogs are one way in which ordinary people can re-engage with a political scene which many feel is becoming increasingly remote from working class people. If anything is fuelling disengagement, it is the flood of reactionary right-wing policies which are often driven by the needs of the capitalist Establishment, and the out-of-touch rantings of government ministers in tabloids like The Sun and the News Of The Establishment, sorry, World. Indeed, one government minister even pitched his reactionary immigration legislation at Sun readers (BBC News: Woolas ' looking to Sun readers'). If you ask me, Blears' attack on grass-roots blogs while remaining silent on ministers spouting, even signalling new legislation, via the tabloids, seems to be a case of the Establishment's "seeming hypocrisy" which Blears berates us for unearthing :-P

Ms Blears does have a point when she says some blogs are right-wing - even some blogs which are allegedly left-wing (notably those of the so-called 'decent left'), in supporting wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and (in the case of Harry's Place) even 42 days detention for 'terror suspects', often have de-facto reactionary right-wing undercurrents. But there are many left-wing blogs out there, many some way to the left of Blears and her fellow New Labourites (easy I know!) - such as Snowball's excellent Adventures in Historical Materialism blog. Blogging is also invaluable in getting across news which is not covered by the Establishment media, which Blears' friends are so in love with. Especially in more repressive regimes (eg Burma during the military regime), or areas under foreign occupation (eg Iraq and Palestine).

Yet, at the same time, it is true that blogging on its own is very limited as to how much social change (or 'added value' to use Blears' Newspeak) it can bring. For real social change, we need to confront the capitalist Establishment in real space.

Which is why this blog urges all readers (that means you!) to actively support, and get involved with, every strike, every protest against cuts in services and attacks on our living standards, to become actively involved in your trade union, and - last but not least - become actively involved in politics by joining a truly working class political organisation, such as the Socialist Workers Party!

A stinky Trump in the face of conservation

2008-11-04T17:26:00.002Z

It beggars belief that the Scottish government has given planning permission for Trump International to build a massive golf course, which will result in the environmental rape of a Site of Special Scientific Interest (RSPB: "Greener Scotland" is sold down the river). Especially considering Trump's immature attitude that the site is developed exactly as he wishes or not at all - he even turned down an alternative design commissioned by the RSPB, which would have saved the SSSI!

Now I've nothing intrinsically against golf as a sport (although I don't play it myself), but I do have a problem with the creation of golf courses when it involves the destruction of wild habitats - just as I dislike the endless building of supermarkets, yuppie houses and PFI projects when they involve the destruction of wild spaces, kids' playing fields, etc. I also dislike the way many golf clubs have astronomical membership fees which effectively exclude working class people (indeed, some operate as a clique with an invitation-only membership policy which the Freemasons would be proud of! ) The Trump International development, a playground for the rich (and, seemingly, the pet project of Mr Trump himself) seems to epitomise both the environmentally destructive and socially exclusive aspects, which give golf a piss-poor name.

The Scottish government's granting of planning permission for this monstrosity also says it all about how the Scottish National Party can be every bit as bad, when it comes to kow-towing to the rich and powerful, as the other Establishment parties. Especially when we contrast their incredibly permissive attitude towards Trump, with their refusal to overturn the homophobic rule which prevents gay people from giving blood (BBC News: Gay blood donor appeal rejected). No wonder homophobic bosses like Stagecoach magnate Brian Souter feel at home in the SNP :-(

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of an independent Scotland. But if its rulers continue to allow the capitalist Establishment - whether American capitalists like Trump or Scottish capitalists like Souter - to run the show, such independence will feel very hollow for working class people in Scotland.

Which is why, in the coming Glenrothes by-election, I will be cheering for Louise McLeary, the Solidarity candidate.

Immoral Monetarist Fools

2008-10-21T17:23:00.004+01:00

Despite his apology for having an affair (BBC News: IMF chief apologises for affair), I have no sympathy for the director of the International Monetary Fund. But my grievance with the IMF runs far deeper than this sex scandal, whatever its implications.

The IMF is a tool of the international capitalist Establishment, largely controlled by the rich and powerful G8 countries (including Britain and the US), which effectively holds the purse strings of poor countries which are heavily in debt. And uses this power to impose destructive neoliberal policies, such as privatisation and cut backs in essential services such as health care and subsidies, in return for limited debt relief and even more limited aid (which often has more strings attached than Tracy Island :-P )

But even in terms of the sex scandal, I don't feel any sympathy for him. Especially not while teachers who have affairs with students over the age of 16 are still put on the Sex Offenders Register (BBC News: Sex laws are 'unfair to teachers'). If it is the case that teachers are a special case because of their position of power over students, why should it stop with teachers? I am incredulous that any boss, of any organisation, does not have a position of power over his or her employees. (That includes MPs who have affairs with their secretaries!) But whatever the outcome of the investigation, the IMF boss is extremely unlikely to suffer such hardships as being labelled a sex offender.

And before anyone accuses me of making light of 'child abuse', I must point out that the IMF, and the policies which it imposes on the Third World on behalf of rich capitalist countries, are responsible for mass child abuse. Malnutrition of children is still widespread, as poor countries sell crops which should be used for feeding their population, in order to meet debt repayments. Children still die from easily preventable diseases, as healthcare budgets are slashed as part of 'restructuring', and large pharmaceutical companies fix prices beyond the reach of millions of poverty stricken people (while making profits which would make the average Mafia drug cartel jealous :-P )

Then again, removing the boss of the IMF is not really the answer, either. The entire institution, along with other proxies for the international capitalist Establishment such as the WTO, should be shut down. And capitalism internationally must be overthrown, and replaced with a socialist system which is run for people not profit, need not greed.

On the one hand, we must not let the capitalist Establishment fool us into placing all the blame on corrupt Third World dictatorships. But on the other hand, we must at the same time support the workers in Third World countries who are fighting against their own corrupt regimes, while at the same time building a workers' fightback against the corrupt regime at home!

As Marx said: "Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains".

Return of the living dead

2008-10-03T17:27:00.003+01:00

It was bad enough Brown surviving past the recent Labour Party conference; despite the unease within Labour and calls for him to go, nobody in Labour has yer backed this up with any serious attempts to force a leadership contest. Yet to add insult to injury, his recent cabinet reshuffle - which would, at best, have been "watering the lightning tree" - he brought back the arch-Bliarite Peter Mandelson. What next, a return of Bliar himself?

Then again, the resurrection of Mandelson's rather chequered political career does seem eerily appropriate. With not only Brown and his Labour government, but even the capitalist system, seeming to be "dead men walking".

Meanwhile, the attempts to rescue capitalism itself - not only in the UK and Europe, but even in the US - appear on the surface to be a return to old-fashioned state investment in the economy. Yet this international rescue package is far from F-A-B for the workers; billions of pounds, which could have been spent on public services and welfare, have instead been spent on protecting the bankers, the capitalist Establishment and, above all, their beloved capitalist system. The nationalisation of Bradford and Bingley epitomises how nationalisation is often in the interests of the capitalist system - while the government has nationalised B&B's debts, the assets, including B&B branches, have been sold off to Santander (sounds like reverse-asset stripping to me!) So B&B workers' jobs are still at peril, the privateers continue to make profits while workers will end up paying for the crisis in the form of higher taxes and/or cuts in public services.

Small wonder, then, right-wingers like George W Bush have backed this international rescue (not so much Thunderbirds as Chunderbirds :-P ) of capitalism. As has the Tory leader, David Cameron.

Speaking of the Tories, after a brief period in which they sometimes seemed to be attacking Labour from the left (!?!), they seem to have resurrected their reactionary right-wing policies. Like being even tougher on benefit claimants than New Labour, and wanting to improve discipline in schools by encouraging people leaving the Army to re-train as teachers (I'm all for 'swords into ploughshares', but I don't think this idea is anything of the sort!) Meanwhile, I heard on the radio earlier today that there are renewed calls to bring back the cane in schools. Welcome to Abu Ghraib High ...

But what's really scary is the potential revival of a really grotesque corpse. As the Establishment parties lay the belt into immigrants it can only lead to more racism, while their attacks on incapacity benefit claimants have already been leading to an unwelcome rise in disability prejudice. Such prejudice is what feeds the Nazis, who - despite their ideas being utterly discredited in 1930s Germany - were never properly buried. The stinking corpse of Nazism has been stirring for some time, and must be stopped before it terrorises entire communities.

Yet there is also hope. Not so long ago, strikes, industrial action and trade union power were written off for dead. Yet there has been a revival of strikes over pay in recent years. And as the credit crunch bites harder, there is a good chance that workers' militancy will return to haunt the Establishment.

But it must not stop with strikes over pay. While encouraging industrial action in our own workplaces and supporting other workers who are on strike, we must generalise these strikes into a political movement which can take on not just individual employers, but also the capitalist system itself.

As Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto: A spectre is haunting Europe. The Spectre of Communism.

Personally, I prefer Andrex

2008-09-19T17:43:00.004+01:00

A vile leaflet has been distributed across Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, grossly libelling Muslims by accusing them of being responsible for the heroin trade. To add insult to injury, the Crown Prosecution Service has dismissed any chance of prosecuting the perpetrators by claiming it does not constitute incitement to racial hatred (BBC News: Muslim Police anger over leaflet). F**king hell! I bet the German Nazis would have wished that bunch of prats were in charge of the Nuremburg War Trials :-|

However the heroin comes to the UK, its trade has a long and sorry history of Western collaboration - from the 19th century Opium Wars, in which Britain went to war for the right to push opium in China (which is how Britain gained control of Hong Kong, which we didn't relinquish until 1999), through to the CIA turning a blind eye to the Mujahedin (precursers of the Taliban) in Afghanistan selling heroin to finance their war against their (at the time) Russian occupiers. And the main areas in the UK for heroin addiction are those which never fully recovered from the loss of jobs caused by the pit and steelworks closures in the 1980s and early 1990's (such as my home village), which left a pool of despair on which drug pushers profit. The culprits for this are the Tories (who were in government at the time) in particular, and the capitalist Establishment in general - not Muslims.

Yet this is far from the first time Muslims have been slandered by Nazis - Muslims are constantly vilified as "terrorists", "woman oppressors" and have even been blamed for child prostitution. And Islamophobia is, sadly, not confined to Nazis - all the Establishment political parties, even some who claim to be 'left' (notably the so-called "decent left") have opportunistically slagged off Muslims, misquoting the Koran and mis-representing the Establishment in oppressive middle-eastern regimes (such as Saudi Arabia) as typical of Islam. All this feeds prejudice against Asians, let alone Muslims, and gives a false credence to the racist rantings of Nazi groups like the BNP.

I personally am very grateful to the decent majority of Muslims, who have given enormous backing and help to the Stop The War Coalition and to the Respect Coalition. And before slagging off Islam, we should remember that extremists within Christianity have committed some repulsive acts of repression towards women (such as the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland), and even terrorist acts (such as bombing abortion clinics in the US). And the biggest danger to world peace is George W Bush, a born-again Christian :-P

Well, if the CPS and Police aren't going to stop Nazis stirring up racial hatred against Muslims, it's up to ordinary working class people who abhor racism to act directly. You can help build the campaign against fascism by joining Unite Against Fascism, and taking part in action such as leafleting to expose the truth about what the Nazis stand for.

A big demo is taking place tomorrow against the BNP's rally in Stoke On Trent, where the Nazi BNP have 9 councillors and even have all 3 councillors in one ward (scary or what!)

I urge everyone reading this blog to come to this demo, and any future demos against the Nazis where they organise. And help drive the Nazis back into the gutter where they belong!

Penguin protesters and kangaroo courts

2008-09-11T22:17:00.003+01:00

It's not every day the Home Office attacks a local council for eroding civil liberties - yet that is exactly what has happened due to Telford & Wrekin Council's policy regarding adults without kids in parks (Shropshire Star: Home Office attacks park policy)!

For once, I agree with the Home Office. It is a dangerous erosion of freedom of movement, when council staff are able to question, even expel, people from public spaces. It also adds weight to some people's concerns that single people are an oppressed group - there is a pernicious myth that single men over a certain age (often around 40) are more likely to be paedophiles (there is nothing really new about this - back in the 80's, when homosexuality was much less tolerated than today, the same group was often labelled "gay"). Not only is this oppressive, it ignores the fact that most sexual (let alone physical) abuse of children happens within the family.

As for the Telford case, it seems to have a political edge. The policy came to light when two Stop The War campaigners were handing out leaflets about climate change, dressed as penguins (to symbolise those in most danger from climate change). Now I've heard of paediatricians being confused with paedophiles, but never penguins :-P

On a more serious note, the park was not only a convenient place for the protest, it was also quite appropriate; anyone doing any outdoor activity this (and last) summer will have been all too aware of how climate change has caused the British summer weather to be increasingly unpredictable (and miserable to boot).

Yet not only were the protesters told to move, they were also told they needed Police CRB checks to hand out leaflets! At this rate, we'll soon need an Enhanced CRB disclosure to go birdwatching :-| If, that is, the poor old robins, blackbirds, blue tits, etc don't all go extinct due to climate change :-(

The council later tried to back-track, saying they only question people "acting suspiciously" in parks etc. Yet"acting suspiciously" is so ill-defined as to be a weasel-word, covering a wide range of behaviour. Including, it seems, peaceful protesting :-(

Also worthy of note is the fact that Telford and Wrekin Council is effectively Tory controlled (the Tories have 27 seats there, exactly half the total, according to their website's political make up of the council web page). Ah well, so much for the Tories' hypocritical bleating about the "nanny state". And their equally shallow environmental pretensions - which already took a knock earlier this week, when a coalition of environmental groups - from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, to the RSPB and the National Trust - produced a report stating that all 3 of the UK's main Establishment parties are failing on the issue of climate change (BBC News: Parties 'fail on climate change')

So, the capitalist Establishment are attacking both the environment and civil liberties. So it's up to civil libertarians and environmentalists to unite. Anong with trade unionists, anti-racists, gay rights activists, and all groups under attack from the system.

Then maybe we can launch a successful attack on the capitalist system, and the capitalist Establishment who it serves. And kick them out - of power!

When love and hate collide?

2008-09-09T17:30:00.002+01:00

Despite the scare stories about the Large Hadron Collider, this will almost certainly not be my last blog article. In fact, the chances of the LHC creating a black hole which will swallow the world are virtually negligible, and I am more scared of the world ending as a result of the capitalist Establishment's obsession with warfare, in the shape of nuclear weapons (such as Trident) and the "son of Star Wars". At the same time, however, I wonder just how disconnected the LHC really is from the Western military machine.

There has been a long and bloody history of scientific discoveries, which could have greatly benefited humanity, being hijacked by the military - for example, would Einstein really have approved of his work in atomic physics being responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War arms race, and the continuing waste of resources in new, potentially even deadlier, nuclear weapons???

What's more, the military continues to be one of the main funders of scientific research in universities, as well as having its own research facilities (eg Porton Down in the UK). And wouldn't the western imperialist war machine just love the ability to research into using artificial black holes as a super-weapon ...

It also seems kinda odd that the LHC was built at a cost of £5 billion (BBC News: CERN collider ready for power-up), while public services and welfare across Europe are suffering cut-backs. But whether or not the LHC has any military connection, it is clear that imperialist militarism has created a black hole of its own.

The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the £76 billion being squandered on replacement Trident nuclear weapons, have left a black hole in funding for welfare and public services!

Will depression turn to anger?

2008-09-02T21:36:00.002+01:00

Depression, recession, credit crunch, slowdown ... whatever word you use, the British economy's stuffed, or soon will be. And even this capitalism-loving New Labour government knows it, as shown by Chancellor Alistair Darling's admission that we are in for a severe recession. What I'm more sceptical about, is the apparent belief that the UK is in a better position to weather the storm than elsewhere.

Recessions are not some natural event, like the weather (although the weather this year seems less natural, and more the result of climate change, but that's a topic worthy of a discussion all of its own!). Recessions are built into capitalism. For capitalists to make profits, ie exploit their workers, they must pay their workers less than the money they make by selling the goods which the workers produce. Since capitalism forces all companies to do this (or go bankrupt), a situation is soon reached where more goods are produced than workers have money to buy.

As time goes on, it is also no accident that booms are becoming shallower - ie with smaller increases in living standards - and busts are getting more severe. This is because it is also the nature of capitalism for the capitalists' rate of profit to fall - due to increased investment in machines and technology. In a rational world, the advances in technology would make life easier for us, liberating us from work. Yet under capitalism, technology has forced the capitalists to exploit us more, making us work harder and for longer hours while paying us less :-(

This time around, the recession is likely to be made especially severe by the one thing which has allowed the system to avoid recession for a relatively long time - debt. Capitalist companies have been able to drive real wages down and still make profits, because relatively cheap loans have been relatively easily available to workers. Trouble is, a growing number of people are now unable to pay these loans back - hence the "credit crunch".

Other factors have come into play, such as the rising fuel prices. Oil is still at a high price, largely aggravated by the illegal and murderous Iraq war and the west generally p**ing off the other oil producing countries (such as Iran) in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the gas prices can't possible be helped by the West hypocritically sabre-rattling with Russia, a large producer of gas. Notably over Russia's invasion of Georgia. After all, the West would never launch an un-provoked invasion of another country, would we Bush and Bliar :-P

A recession will doubtless cause massive hardship, as millions of people are made unemployed and plunged into poverty. Yet the sickening thing is, although goods will no longer be profitable for capitalists to produce, they won't be needed any less by workers. So any job losses must be resisted by strikes, and we must support any and all workers who take strike action to defend their - and our - jobs and livelihoods.

But most of all, we must generalise these economic strikes into a political movement. Only then can we achieve the ultimate goal of getting rid of the capitalist system, which is obviously failing even by its own standards.

And replacing it with a socialist system, based on human need not corporate greed, on people not profit!

All that Glitters

2008-08-28T21:54:00.007+01:00

Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that I have absolutely no sympathy for Gary Glitter, or any paedophile. His actions were grossly exploitative of children, and as such are indefensible. Yet, as the media feeding-frenzy on his less-than-welcome return to the UK subsides, there are issues raised which need addressing (and, despite the endless coverage of the Glitter story, weren't addressed by the mainstream media).

Most notable was Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's riding the wave of revulsion of Glitter's crimes, by announcing the populist measure of extending the ban on convicted sex offenders travelling abroad. Yet, as Ecpat UK have stated, "British law enforcement has the tools to protect children abroad, they just don't use them" (Ecpat UK: New Report Shows Government Failure in Combating Child Sex Tourism). Besides, concentrating exclusively on child sex tourism overlooks the fact that all sex tourism is undesirable, as adult prostitutes in the Third World (and sometimes in the West) are vulnerable and often heavily exploited and abused. Surely the best way to reduce the problem of child prostitution is to enact measures to protect the welfare of all sex workers. (My views on prostitution in general have been covered in an earlier blog article, Pimping an alternative).

Since the increased restrictions on foreign travel appear un-necessary, this begs another question: Is the Sex Offenders Register primarily designed to protect children from abuse (as it was originally touted), or as a punitive measure? And if it is designed to be punitive rather than protective, should it perhaps be used more sparingly?

True, some necessary restrictions are punitive by nature; such as the travel bans already available in British law, and the restrictions on what employment people on the Sex Offenders Register can have. But occasionally, this goes well beyond the scope of protecting children; last year, a contestant was removed from ITV's Britain's Got Talent show because he was on the Sex Offenders Register, for a crime so heinous he was given a Conditional Discharge in court. (The irony is not lost on me that ITV has also shown I Smack And I'm Proud, despite protest from the NSPCC)

Indeed, not everyone on the Sex Offenders Register is a paedophile, or even a molester. People have ended up on the Register for acts of consenting BDSM activity among adults, for example.

There is also the situation of people being placed on the Sex Offenders Register after receiving a formal caution, for offences not considered serious enough to go to court. Yet many people will agree to a formal caution rather than end up in court, with the publicity and stigma that often entails - especially when it comes to an offence as taboo as sex crime.

The Sex Offenders Register seems to have much in common with ASBOs, also originally touted as a means of "protecting the community" rather than as a punitive measure. Likewise, people often end up with ASBOs, which often carry heavy restrictions, for behaviour which would not necessarily result in a court conviction. Finally, both ASBO's and orders to sign the Sex Offenders Register seem to be handed out like flyers :-P

What is also scary is the way "child abuse" has been hijacked by the Establishment, almost to the point of it becoming a weasel-word. In previous blog articles I've talked about how photographing even your own kids in a public place is now about as socially acceptable as telling sick jokes at a funeral :( More recently, there was talk by local authorities of getting social services to investigate the families of overweight kids. Around the same time, there were local news reports of kids being sent warning letters for playing games on the street. Well, maybe I'm missing something, but preventing kids from getting exercise outdoors sounds to me like a very funny way of tackling childhood obesity!

But perhaps most importantly of all, epitomised by the Glitter coverage is the way the media portrays child abuse as solely the act of sick individuals. Yet, in reality, most child abuse occurs within the family. And, far from an aberration, it is often institutionalised within the capitalist system.

Physical abuse traces its roots back to the Industrial Revolution and child labour; children were forced to work for long hours doing unpleasant work, and had to be forced into doing so by beatings. Even as child labour was largely abolished, "reasonable chastisement" continued to be promoted as a way of keeping kids subservient to the rules of the system. Even to this day, the government still refuses to outlaw smacking completely :(

Child sex abuse is more complicated, and has never been directly encouraged by the Establishment. But that does not let the capitalist system off the hook. The perversion of sexual relationships into a patriarchal situation where the man dominates the woman (as mentioned in my Iris can't see the truth blog article), mixed with the situation where children are similarly dominated by adults, is a fertile breeding ground for sick individuals to take sexual pleasure by exercising their domination on the most vulnerable people in society, ie children. People like Glitter are sick and obnoxious monkeys, but let's not take our eye off the organ grinder...

Capitalism is the main sex offender. As such, it should not be allowed anywhere near our schools and youth services. Nor should it be allowed, via war and imperialism, to travel abroad.

If I had my way, it would be permanently taken out of circulation!

Salmond the brave? Or just stupid?

2008-08-24T10:34:00.006+01:00

To say that Scottish people "didn't mind the economic side so much" of Mrs Thatcher's policies is either a very brave comment to make, or a very stupid one (BBC News: Salmond defends Thatcher comments). Working class people across most of the UK, but especially Scotland, suffered at the hands of Thatcher's mine and steelwork closures, Poll Tax, union bashing, and other neoliberal economic policies (as continued by Major, Blair and Brown).

True, Thatcher's social policies weren't good either. Yet, for all Thatcher is remembered for attacking civil liberties, she actually passed fewer laws curtailing social freedom than Bliar has done. Much of the social repression under Thatcher was tied in with her economic actions, such as the Thatcherite anti-union laws (still not repealed by Bliar or Brown) and the police victimisation of striking miners.

One notable stand-alone curtailment of social freedom by Thatcher, was Section 28 - a homophobic law banning the "promotion of homosexuality", which tended to have a chilling effect on any rational discussion of homosexuality. At the same time, Establishment-propagated brainwashing at the time was most definitely anti gay - small wonder, then, that at the time homosexuality was often considered as socially unacceptable as paedophilia is now!

But who has been one of the greatest defenders of Section 28 into the 1990's? Brian Souter, the arch-capitalist boss of Stagecoach buses, who has also been responsible for cutbacks in bus services and fare hikes in many areas. And was, in the late 90s, a supporter of the SNP (BBC News: Stagecoach tycoon donates to SNP).

On many issues, the SNP appears to the left of New Labour and the Tories (dead easy :-P ), such as their opposition to student tuition fees. Yet in other ways, they follow the Establishment parties close behind. SNP controlled councils have embraced privatisation and PFI with as much enthusiasm as their Tory and New Labour counterparts, while on the social front, they have championed such reactionary measures as the raising of the age for buying alcohol to 21 (BBC News: Drink age 'could be raised to 21').

So, whatever Salmond actually meant by his Thatcher comments, we cannot trust the SNP to defend the working class from the capitalist Establishment's attacks on us, either on the economic or social fronts. In elections, Scottish workers should vote for Solidarity. More importantly, we should support workers who are resisting the attacks of the Scottish political Establishment, such as the council workers there who recently went on strike (Solidarity website: Massive response to council workers' strike rocks employer)

Workers - not only in Scotland, not only in the UK, but all across the world - must unite in strikes, demonstrations and other extra-parliamentary actions, to defend ourselves from attacks on our wages and civil liberties. Not only by our immediate bosses, but by the capitalist Establishment in general, including those elected into government. Regardless of which party is attacking us!!!

Don't talk wet!

2008-08-12T22:01:00.004+01:00

Many views have been expressed both for and against Brown in recent weeks (bet you can't guess which side I'm on...). But, in the midst of all the speculation as to whether or not there's going to be a leadership challenge in the autumn (I hope there is!), I notice one piece of unintentional comic relief. Namely, John Prescott's comparison of New Labour to the Titanic (BBC News: Valid point but unfortunate metaphor).

Prescott was intending to say that the Titanic was sunk by the iceberg, not by its captain. Yet what Prescott seems to have overlooked, is that the Titanic was sailing rather too fast in an area known to be hazardous due to icebergs. What's more, there was pressure on the Titanic crew to recklessly increase the speed, in order to cut the journey time and maximise White Star Line's profits.

Likewise, the economic problems of the UK, and the government's seeming inability to deal effectively with them, have been - at best - greatly exacerbated by the New Labour government's commitment to neoliberal free-market policies. Fuel, food and water price hikes are all the product of the free market's pursuit of profit at all costs, and the credit crunch is the result of poverty wages leading people to borrow money which they become unable to pay back. Yet rather than consider renationalisation of the energy companies, price curbs and a decent minimum wage, this government is hell bent on further privatisation (often in the form of PFI) and shifting the tax burden onto the poor. Hardly a recipe for economic stability, let alone social justice!

Back to the Titanic - where the White Star Line rode roughshod over the safety and welfare of its passengers - this has been repeated time and time again. Most obviously, we saw it in the Herald of Free Enterprise sinking in the 1980's, but we have also seen it in Railtrack's many avoidable train disasters, and on countless building sites etc.

But staying with the nautical theme, the film The Perfect Storm has at least one parallel with Titanic. Although it was a hurricane which sunk the Andrea Gail, the crew of sword-fishermen were under pressure to get back to shore as quickly as possible, in order to 'set the market' for the swordfish which they caught. Which is why the Andrea Gail ended up sailing through, and sinking in, a vicious hurricane.

Speaking of perfect storms, the economic gloom and the government's disastrous poll ratings, seem to be combining with an increase in industrial action (such as the recent local government workers' strike) and grassroots protests (such as the recent protests against E-ON's new coal power station in Kent). Hopefully these will come together to create a political hurricane from the left which will not only sink Brown and his New Labour cronies, but also shipwreck the capitalist system which is so beloved by all Establishment politicians :-)

Police can shove curfews up their bottom

2008-08-09T23:06:00.006+01:00

I never did like youth curfews, ever since Jack Straw first mooted the idea back in 1996 - for more details, see my No Curfews website. The arguments against the Redruth curfew (BBC News: Redruth curfew two weeks on) are no less valid; what is of questionable validity is the Police's claim that this curfew is "voluntary" and the result of "bottom up" policing.

It is true that the capitalist Establishment can sometimes exercise control over people without coercion being used; for example, people who pander to the Establishment's divide-and-rule tactics by being racist, sexist, homophobic, disablist and - last but not least - ageist, are rarely forced into such behaviour or rewarded for their actions. But, since such prejudice is the result of sustained brainwashing by the Establishment over a long period, it is highly debatable whether such behaviour can be called "voluntary".

Besides, the Redruth curfew is hardly non-coercive. As the BBC News report states, the Police "can issue social orders against parents or children who flout the curfew" - which makes it about as "voluntary" as a request by your boss :-(

As for "bottom up" policing - did the Police's "consensus" include the views of the local young people, whose liberties are being swept away by the curfew? Indeed, a number of adults, notably a local representative of the Childrens Rights Alliance, has blasted the curfew as unfair. And how much were the local population consulted on whether money could be spent on youth facilities rather than illegal wars, Trident missiles, tax breaks for the rich, etc?

Indeed, this "voluntary" curfew should not only be seen as an attack on the civil rights of young people. It should also be seen as a warning of the implications of other "voluntary" measures, such as "voluntary" opt-outs from maximum working hours (which, even if there is no enforcement of longer working hours by employers, can result in the erosion of real wages as employers can expect workers to make up the shortfall from a living wage by working overtime).

On the other hand, I am all for "bottom up" rather than "top down". Not only the legal system, but also government and the economy should be run from the bottom up, by workers committees. This will necessitate a revolution, followed by the government, bosses and the capitalist Establishment being forced into a "voluntary" surrender of their power to workers!

Brown down Warwick avenue with a duff mandate

2008-07-27T20:01:00.005+01:00

Brown is his usual right-wing self, at Labour's National Policy Forum - a meeting between Labour ministers, activists and trade unionists, held at Warwick University (BBC News: Labour rejects union strike calls). He has rejected calls to scrap the Tory anti-union laws or commit to free school meals for all primary school pupils, yet plans were approved for a welfare crackdown, ID cards, and new nuclear power stations.

Fair enough, the NPF did agree on a few progressive measures; namely to reduce the voting age to 16, make the House of Lords an elected body, and extend the full minimum wage to people aged 21 rather than 22. Yet these are more than outweighed by the reactionary measures being pushed by Brown et al, and will do more or less exactly nothing to reverse Labour's recent self-inflicted misfortunes :-(

Brown's cockiness would be bad enough at the best of times, but it is made worse by the fact that recent election results - most recently in Glasgow East - show that Brown has no popular mandate for his policies. Indeed, calls for a leadership contest from within his own Labour Party, imply he has no popular mandate as leader - except perhaps as the leader of a desert island :-P

The Glasgow East result was rather interesting in a number of ways. The swing from Labour to the SNP was approx 22%, greater than that in other by-elections from Labour to the Tories. Since the SNP is to the left of Labour on a number of issues, such as university tuition fees, this should scotch (no pun intended!) the myth that the Labour meltdown is due to British people moving to the right. On a sadder note, it's a terrible shame the SSP / Solidarity split occurred, because the combined votes of the SSP and Solidarity would have been enough to push the Liberal Democrats into 5th place (BBC News: Glasgow East result in full)

Meanwhile, Brown whines that he does not want "a return to the 1970's". Yet the strikes of the 1970's, culminating in the Winter of Discontent, were not caused by the trade union laws of the time being too permissive. They were caused by workers' real wages and living standards being attacked by a right-wing Labour government, while their wages were being eroded by massive inflation. Ring any bells ?!?

Already the general secretary of the GMB, one of Britain's biggest unions, has called for a leadership contest (BBC News: PM 'must face leader challenge'). And unions are becoming more willing to take strike action to defend their members, as seen in the recent local government workers' strike.

Since union contributions to Labour still make up a substantial percentage of Labour's income, it's time they asked for something back in return. The unions must demand Brown repeals the anti-trade union laws, and that's just the start! They must also demand that Brown immediately reverses his decision to scrap the 10p tax rate, stops attacking striking workers, funds public services properly, gives decent wage increases to public sector workers, pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and cancels the Trident nuclear weapons programme. And, most importantly of all, demand that he starts listening to the workers who voted for him, and whose unions fund his party, rather than the fat cats who now seem to be dictating Labour policy.

Or steps down now, and makes way for someone who will !!!

Revolutionaries still top of the Class

2008-07-22T21:39:00.004+01:00

Maybe the Equality and Human Rights Commission are attempting to fill the vacuum left by the right-wing shift of Labour and the collapse of electoral representation of the left. Or maybe they're attempting to protect the Establishment by trying to buy off the increasing support among workers for strikes and industrial action. Either way, it seems kinda surreal that Trevor Philips, the head of the EHRC, wants to extend its remit and focus on the issue of class (BBC News: Fight class divide, says Phillips).

Although this is dubbed 'a radical departure' from the organisation's remit, it will be very interesting to see how Philips and the EHRC view the issue of class, in practice. There is some confusion about what defines a person's class, with some seeing it as typified by cultural differences - the cliched 'cloth caps and whippets' of the working class, and 'airs and graces' of the so-called upper class (leading some people to mistakenly see contemporary bosses such as Richard Branson as 'working class heroes'). Yet class is not defined by culture or interests, or even purely by earnings or type of work. Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production; the ruling capitalist class (so-called 'upper class') own and control the means of production, and profit directly from the goods and services produced. The working class, by contrast, have no such ownership or control of our workplaces, and can only survive by selling our labour - which the capitalist class goes on to profit from.

A report by the EHRC - an amalgamation of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Commission for Racial Equality, and Disability Rights Commission - rightly states that 'there is too much vertical division in Britain between social classes'. Yet let us not forget that class also exists across the 'horizontal' divisions of race, sex, sexuality and disability - there are now a minority of black, Asian, gay and disabled bosses, who are just as ruthlessly exploitative as their white counterparts. And despite the pernicious myth of the White Working Class™, white workers have far more in common with black and Asian workers than we will ever have with white British bosses.

What all capitalist bosses have in common is that they must maximise their exploitation of workers, while workers all share this exploitation. Although both are subject to forms of alienation, ie the divorce of our living standards from our own efforts, the alienation suffered by workers makes us feel insignificant, while the bosses feel an inflated sense of power. Small wonder, then, that the boss of British Gas, Jake Ulrich, responds to customers' fury and despair at the hyper-inflation in gas prices - out of which he stands to make fat profits - by telling us to 'wear two jumpers' (The Independent: How to beat 60% rise in gas prices? Wear two jumpers, says energy boss). Personally, I'd love to see Mr Ulrich wear two concrete shoes :-P

What workers also have in common is our ability, through collective strike action, to attack not only our bosses, but also the capitalist system which they are at the head of. Without workers' labour, their profits soon disappear!

It is also pointed out that Trevor Phillips is advocating an 'implicitly political policy', from an organisation which is supposed to be 'apolitical'. Yet this is the EHRC's greatest weakness, and not just on the issue of class. Racism, sexism, homophobia and disablism are political, they were created by the development of capitalism and are still perpetuated by the capitalist system, not least as a means of 'divide and rule'. Likewise, any opposition to such oppression, if it is to be effective, must take a political form.

Likewise, class cannot simply be reformed away by bosses being told to be a bit kinder to workers. Class, and the exploitation of one class by another, are a central part of class societies such as capitalism. The only way to solve once and for all the issue of class, is for the exploiting capitalist class to be smashed by a workers revolution, and for workers to take control. In the meantime, strike action by workers is much more effective not only for improving workers' pay and conditions, but also for challenging the political and economic structures which perpetuate class inequality, than any number of mealy-mouthed speeches by NGOs and their bureaucrats will ever be. ,

As Marx said in The Communist Manifesto: "Every class struggle is a political struggle"!

New Labour's Freudian slip

2008-07-20T20:58:00.005+01:00

So soon after the Tories announced plans to set up boot camps for young unemployed people, New Labour have shown their 'me too' attitude by planning to force long-term unemployed people onto workfare (BBC News: 'Work for dole' proposals leaked). This plan seems to have been inspired by an ill-founded allegation in February by David Freud - the government's welfare officer and also an investment banker (so much for Labour being the party of the working class :-P ) - that fewer than a third of incapacity benefits are legitimate claimants.

Such a move would be hideously reactionary at the best of times. But it beggars belief that the government has the cheek to announce it now, when unemployment is rising and more and more companies are announcing job losses due to the credit crunch and economic slowdown :-(

Workfare, in whatever guise, has not helped people into secure, well paid jobs. Indeed, the low wages associated with workfare schemes, from 'work for dole' to the YTS schemes of the 1980s, encourage companies to take on low-paid workfarers with next to no employment rights - rather than taking on more full paid staff with full employment rights. Funny way to improve the job market!

At the same time, there is a pernicious development which seems to be eroding the job prospects of substantial numbers of people. After sacking a 'too fat' firefighter (BBC News: Strike ballot over 'fat' fireman) rather than re-deploying him in another job within the Grampian fire service, their assistant fire chief officer said the service's policy required crew "to be able to perform all the potential requirements of a modern firefighter". Such an argument is used to oppose the military being covered by anti-discrimination legislation (see Red Disability's article on disability discrimination in the UK armed forces). As support staff in emergency services such as Police, Fire and Ambulance services are cut back due to cost-cutting, can we see more cases of the skills and abilities necessary for all remaining employees becoming more stringently enforced - with negative implications for substantial numbers of employees, eg employees with disabilities ?

If the government genuinely want to get more people into work, they should put a stop to cost-cutting which is forcing lay-offs of staff in the public sector. And take action to stop companies closing production facilities in the UK, in order to transfer the work abroad where wages are cheaper - for example, any factories, call centres etc which are closed should be nationalised, without compensation to their fat cat owners! But this government won't attack the fat cats who give New Labour lots of money, oh no, it's much easier for them to kick those of us who have already been cast aside by their friends in the capitalist Establishment :-(

So both the Tories and New Labour are united in attacking workers, including unemployed workers. That's because both are part of the capitalist Establishment, which is united in defending and enhancing the capitalist system by increasing the exploitation of workers, as far as they can.

Yet workers can also defend ourselves, if we unite. We have seen the power of united workers in the local government workers' strikes on Wednesday and Thursday (Socialist Worker: Strikers have power to win). Yet this is only the beginning. If enough workers across the economy take strike action, the strikes can go beyond economic demands and start raising political demands. Eventually this can lead to a revolutionary situation, as detailed in Rosa Luxemburg "The Mass Strike".

As Marx said in The Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

Spring botch

2008-07-17T21:08:00.004+01:00

So those in charge of the Labour Party have decided to axe next year's spring conference, allegedly to save the party money (BBC news: Labour axes its spring conference). Personally, I think they could save money better if they chose a less posh venue (a common practice of smaller parties such as the Greens), stayed in cheap-and-cheerful B&B's (like most of their members do when on holiday), and didn't go so over the top on heavy-handed security.

Even so, I can't help wondering if the real reason for the cancellation of the spring conference, is to avoid Labour Party activists and trade unionists from asking too many awkward questions. Especially at a time when New Labour's appeal to its left-wing members, and even its trade union donors, is - understandably - increasingly threadbare.

Not that the mandarins at the helm of New Labour have ever liked too many awkward questions. Remember back in 2005, when Walter Wolfgang heckled (at the time) foreign secretary Jack Straw over the illegal, murderous and unjustifiable Iraq war - and was physically removed from the conference by security guards, and had his security pass confiscated. After such more recent obscene blunders as the 10p tax fiasco, they couldn't possibly be trying to avoid similar angry exchanges at conference, could they?

Besides, the Iraq war hasn't gone away either. As the death toll of the illegal occupation rises, both of Iraqis and British soldiers, the protests continue with every death and every anniversary of this atrocity.

What's more, the military death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan are having a negative impact of Armed Forces recruitment; I can't help thinking this is the real reason behind measures such as increasing the compensation for military personnel wounded on duty. Admittedly this is welcome, as is the plan to give free university education to all soldiers who have served 6 years or more. Then again, how about bringing back free university education for everybody, by scrapping tuition fees and bringing back decent grants. Education is a right, not a privelege, and such a move would be enormously beneficial to the economy by providing highly skilled workers. And would cost a fraction of the cost of the Iraq war and occupation, let alone that in Afghanistan.

Speaking of cost, if the Labour Party is so hard up they have to resort to penny-pinching measures such as scrapping their conference, they have only themselves to blame. It is because of the Blairites and Brownites dragging the party so far to the right and alienating so many working class supporters, that Labour Party membership has plummeted since 1997, a number of unions have stopped donations (most recently, Unison are questioning their donations to Labour), and an increasing number of trade unionists are opting out of their unions' political levy.

To put Labour on a "long term stable financial footing", it's not the spring conference which needs to be ditched. Instead, they must ditch the entire right-wing New Labour Blair Rich Project, and get back to representing the unions. And the working class, who not only provided most of Labour's past support (both financial and political), but who elected them in the first place!

Electoral dysfunction?

2008-07-13T14:13:00.003+01:00

The crisis within Respect reached a new low recently, as our remaining 3 councillors in Tower Hamlets - including, most shockinghly, Oliur Rahman - defected to Labour (Respect's statement on the defection). In addition, one Respect Renewal councillor there has also defected to Labour (Respect Renewal statement on the matter). This is exspecially shocking, coming so soon after Labour's disastrous results recently.Tickets for the Titanic, anyone :-P

Sadly, this does show clearly the problem with bourgeois democracy in general, and with the UK electoral system in particular, which is heavily biased against small and fledgling (no cat jokes, please!) parties.

On a happier note, the Nazi BNP were prevented from winning in a recent council by-election in Eckington - Labour won, the BNP came 4th with 11% of the vote. Although they still got over 200 votes too many, and we must still be vigilant, it at least proved my fears that they may win (I myself suffered abuse from Nazis in Eckington as long ago as 2000) wrong.

Also on an uplifting note, the Green Party came a good second in the recent Haltemprice (David Davis' seat) with over 7% of the vote. According to the Green Party report of the Haltemprice result, their vote in Brighton Pavilion has now surpassed that of Labour, so they may get their first MP at the next general election.

But all this is still eclipsed by the Respect crisis. Especially at a time when the Establishment parties are pissing on us more than ever; Brown gives us hyper-inflation then tells us to 'stop wasting food', while the Tories want to bring in boot camps (reminiscent of the 'skivvy schools' of the early 20th century) for young unemployed people (BBC News: Tories outline plans for jobless). Has the left, left us in the lurch?

One crumb of comfort is the coming by-election in Glasgow East, where both Solidarity and the SSP are standing, not to mention the Scottish Greens. What's more, if Labour lose this by-election, we may well see the back of Brown in September.

But far more hope can be gained by ignoring the electoral mess, and looking instead to the extra-parliamentary fightback. The Shell tanker drivers led the way by winning a 14% pay rise over 2 years, and this has been followed by a number of significant strikes - notably the strike this coming Wednesday and Thursday by 650,000 local government workers (Socialist Worker: 650,000 workers to strike against Brown's pay freeze). I urge all readers of this blog to support this, and any other, strike. It is by striking, that the working class exercise real power and can take on not only their bosses and the government, but the capitalist system in general.

Real power does not lie in parliament (although many politicians do!). Real power lies in the boardrooms of the big capitalist companies who control the capitalist system, including the British state. But it also lies among organised workers, without whose labour, not only the capitalists' profits, but also their power, will dwindle to nothing.

Stuff the politicians ... the workers have the real power!

Who stands for what, and where?

2008-06-29T11:03:00.005+01:00

The electoral drama rolls on ... most recently, we saw the Labour Party candidate in Henley (Boris Johnson's old seat) beaten into 5th place, behind the Green Party and the BNP. Thankfully the Greens beat the BNP into 4th place, although sadly the BNP still gained at the expense of Labour.

This rather savage pruning of the red rose was, rather unexpectedly, followed not by calls for Brown's head, but by others in the Labour party supporting him. The most recent being ex-London mayor, (ex-Red) Ken Livingstone, who has urged Brown to "hang on in there". I almost agree with that statement, just remove the "on in there" :-P

At the same time, the Tories, who have for the past few years tried to hide their right-wing pro-Establishment nature, are getting ever more naked - and it ain't a pretty sight! One Tory was reported in the Daily Express as supporting sending the SAS into Zimbabwe (Daily Express: Send in the SAS to oust evil Mugabe say Tories) - who wants Iraq Mk II ?!? And Boris Johnson has overseen the return of police heavy-handedness, during the recent London demo against the visit of the war criminal George W Bush (Indymedia: Anti-Bush visit protest marred by police violence and snatch arrests).

Looking towards the next big by-election, in David Davis' Haltemprice constituency, neither New Labour nor the Lib Dems are standing. But there is some opposition to Tory David Davis from the left; both the Green Party and the Socialist Equality Party are fielding candidates in this by-election. Unfavourably, so are the Nazi National Front and the far-right English Democrats. So this election will be one to watch.

Less high profile but much closer to home, the Nazi BNP are standing in a Derbyshire County Council by-election in Eckington. An anti-Nazi leafleting campaign is taking place every weekend up to the election on July 3rd; UAF leaflets and leaflets from Searchlight / Hope Not Hate, are being distributed to all houses in the Eckington constituency. So far there has, thankfully, been no activity (eg leaflets and canvassing) noted from the BNP in the Eckington area. Yet, considering the BNP got councillors elected nearby in Amber Valley and Rotherham, there is no cause for complacency! But you can keep the Nazis at bay, by helping to leaflet in aeas where Nazis are standing or trying to build, and donating to and joining Unite Against Fascism.

Whatever happens in the coming by-elections, it is also increasingly clear that the need for a left alternative is as great as ever. So I urge anyone reading to help build a parliamentary left alternative by joining the Respect Coalition.

Perhaps even more importantly, we need to build an extra-parliamentary left party, which is organised in workplaces and communities, and can build an effective fightback against whichever government is in power. The Socialist Workers Party is that party.

Inflated egos of the capitalist Establishment

2008-06-24T18:24:00.003+01:00

It seems timely that, on Saturday's Love Music Hate Racism anti-BNP demo in London, slogans were chanted which openly attacked the Tories - the first time I have heard such slogans on demos since the late 1990s. Timely, because the Tory leader David Camoran is backing tough action on strikes (BBC News - Council workers vote for strike) - nakedly showing the Tories' union-bashing which we saw so much of in the 1980's, epitomised by the brutality of the state during the 1984 miners' strike.

This is accompanied by ill-founded allegations that large pay rises - such as that won by the successful fuel tanker drivers' strike - are fuelling inflation. This may have been the case if the inflation was demand-pull inflation, in which a surplus of money in the economy causes inflation because people are able to pay more for goods and services, leading to demand outstripping supply. Yet the vast majority of pay rises across the UK have been woefully inadequate, well below the rate of inflation (which is, for necessities on which working class people spend most of our income, well above the official 3% figure). So it ain't demand-pull inflation.

It is cost-push inflation, caused by a massive increase in costs of production, notably raw materials. Such as oil (see my earlier article on Peak Oil). Such inflation has massively eroded workers' living standards, pushing many workers - especially lower paid workers - into poverty. The strikers are not greedy, only wanting a living wage!

Mr Cameron also alleges that New Labour will shy away from attacking strikers, believing unions have a "stranglehold" over the Labour party and can "dictate terms". I'm not saying Mr Cameron must be on another planet, but I understand this news was relayed to us by SETI :-P

Indeed, chancellor Alistair Darling has, at best naively, called for pay restraint (BBC News: Darling calls for pay restraint). To be fair, possibly as a result of increased union activity and his party's unpopularity, he has this time attacked large pay rises "from the boardroom to the shopfloor". But he has not made clear if this "restraint" should also be applied to bonuses and share options, which make up a substantial percentage of the fat cat bosses' excessive take home pay.

Even if the inflation was demand-pull and caused by excessive money in the economy, it should not be the workers - already underpaid and overworked - who should suffer. It should be the fat cat bosses, whose wages are paid from the exploitation of workers, who should take a pay cut. Especially considering it is their lavish lifestyles, not to mention the nature of the capitalist system which they support, which is aggravating the problem of peak oil (not to mention destroying our planet).

So, for the striking workers in local government and Highlands and Islands airports, and others considering strike action, I have the following message:

Good luck ... and GO FOR IT !!!

Something fundamentally wrong with the universe?

2008-06-16T21:59:00.006+01:00

I really don't know how much more bizarre things can get!

First we saw a Labour government launch a diabolical attack on our civil liberties by allowing terror suspects to be locked up for 42 days without charge - almost akin to internment without trial. This is especially scary when it comes so soon after the case of a university student being locked up and tried for downloading materially freely available online, from a US government website!

What's more, in a situation reminiscent of the last Tory government under John Major, they could not get the law allowing 42 day detention passed without the support of the Ulster Unionists. Let alone how a lot of Labour members must feel about their leaders passing draconian legislation with the support of arch right-wing protestant-chauvenists whose MPs include an arch homophobe (see my last blog article); I wonder how the New Labour members of Opus Dei, a fundamentalist Catholic sect, must feel about their own government collaborating with equally fundamentalist Protestant supremacists!

Yet then we had the spectacle of David Davis, a right wing Tory who supports the reintroduction of the death penalty and opposed the repeal of the homophobic Section 28 law, presenting himself as a champion of liberty and human rights, by taking the Chiltern Hundreds over the passing of the 42 day law. This led to the even more sorry spectacle of the Lib Dems giving him not only unconditional but seemingly uncritical support, even to the extent of pledging not to stand a candidate against him in the resulting by-election.

Labour also seem set not to stand a candidate against Davis, for a different reason - Gordon Brown decried Davis' filibuster as "a stunt that has become a farce". Well, Mr Brown, considering some of your government's actions - notably the 10p tax fiasco - you'd know all about stunts which became farces, wouldn't you :-(

That doesn't mean the election will go uncontested, however. The former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, has vowed to stand against Davis. On a pro-42 day detention, and - considering the content of his former newspaper - probably generally an anti-civil liberties platform. Ah well, I guess this won't be the first time Labour has had a total eclipse by The Sun; indeed, under Bliar, it was hard to tell whether The Sun was a mouthpiece for Bliar or whether Bliar was allowing Rupert Murdoch to turn Britain into a tabloidocracy.

My reaction to the whole mess is, Yersinia Pestis on all the dwellings of the candidates and parties involved. Also, why have the left been sidelined once again?

Actually, we haven't. While the Establishment are having fun and games in Westminster, the real activity is happening at ground level. There has been a significant increase in strikes, notably the Shell tanker drivers' strike which has led to petrol stations running out of fuel - Back Of The Net :-) Then there's protests on the streets, such as the one on Sunday against the war criminal George W Bush's visit to London, and the mass demo and concert in London against the BNP this coming Saturday.

Forget parliament - the real power lies with the workers!

Iris can't see the truth

2008-06-10T22:29:00.002+01:00

Ulster Unionists never were known for their tolerance of minorities (especially Catholics!), but the latest rantings from a DUP MP really does hark back to the dark ages. Iris Robinson has called homosexuality an abomination, and urged gay people to seek psychiatric counselling (BBC News: New criticism over MP's gay views)

Despite reforms which have improved the rights of gay people - such as civil partnerships, equalisation of the age of consent, and the scrapping of the hated section 28 - such ill-informed comments prove that homophobia remains a significant problem in society.

By far the most pernicious myth is that homosexuality is allegedly akin to paedophilia. This is completely wrong. The vast majority of gay sex involves consenting partners, whereas this cannot be the case with paedophilia because children are not sexually active and therefore unable to consent to sex.

Yet such assertations are backed up by spurious 'evidence' that a large percentage of child sex abuse cases involve men abusing boys. This is scientifically b******s, ignoring the fact that adult men are attractive to women, and may therefore also be attractive to (arguably) a minority of men also. Children, by contrast, are not sexually attractive, so paedophilia is purely a psychological issue. This also means that the physical differences between boys and girls are less pronounced than those between men and women, so paedophiles are more likely to be 'attracted' (I use the term loosely) to either sex - ie sexual abuse of boys is nothing to do with the abuser being gay.

Then there's the issue of homosexuality being 'un-natural'. Wrong again - evidence of homosexuality has been found in wild animals.

At the same time, however, so-called 'normal' heterosexual sex has been perverted. Partly by the media and the capitalist Establishment indoctrinating us as to what the 'ideal woman' should look like, through soft-porn such as Page 3, and glamour images of supermodels (are they called models because they're made entirely of plastic :-P ) being rammed down our throats. This leads women to go to extremes to fit the artificial model of beauty, such as plastic surgery, and women - even young girls - to develop potentially fatal conditions such as anorexia and bulimia.

Then there's the perversion of human relationships, promoted by the capitalist Establishment, which places men in a position of power over women and demands that women must be subservient to be attractive. No wonder there is the problem of some men being violent and abusive towards women.

So the real perverts are the capitalist Establishment. And considering the way they've trampled on the rights and welfare of young people, privatised schools and cut back youth clubs - I certainly wouldn't want them anywhere near my kids!

Driven to drink

2008-06-03T22:13:00.004+01:00

There's nothing new about the under-age drinking moral panic, it was around in the 1980s and possibly before. But it has reached new heights (BBC News: Parents to get youth drink guide) with parents of under-age drinkers being threatened with parenting classes and prosecution, and encouragement (on pain of possible licence revocation) of sellers of alcohol to check the ID of anyone under 25 (a way of marketing ID cards to young people, perhaps?)

To be fair, there is one good reason why young people drinking excess alcohol is unwelcome - the increased health risks. Yet these vary from age to age, making the blanket ban on alcohol sales to anyone under 18, unfair. And counter-productive - as mentioned in the report, it is widely believed that "the illicit nature of alcohol added to its allure." The best way to reduce under-age drinking is to stop the irresponsible marketing of alcohol, by cheap promotions and advertising campaigns (which often appeal to young people).

Besides, the most often quoted reason for the clampdowns on under-age drinking is that it "leads to anti-social behaviour" - a message rammed down out throat by actual adverts, and by biased newspaper reports and "crime documentaries" (often seen especially on the smaller Freeview channels). Such Establishment propaganda masquerading as "news" or "public information" creates the impression that all under-age drinking leads to violence and vandalism. Yet not only is this overly simplistic, it also ignores the fact that much alcohol-related crime, including violent crime, is carried out by people over 18 and even well over 25. And is sometimes taken less seriously by the law than under-age drinking, as it can be harder to prove. (A few years ago, me and members of my family suffered a campaign of harassment by an alcoholic, in which he frequently threatened violence.) Indeed, it tends to be drunken adults, rather than teenagers, who are responsible for drunken wife-beating and child abuse, and drink-driving - less obvious to the public than "rowdy teenagers", but just a little more serious!

Even for young people who don't drink, the moral panic on under-age drinking has negative effects. Much entertainment, including discos and live bands, takes place in licenced premises (whether pubs or nightclubs) - which have always tended to exclude kids, and ever more stringent licencing laws are making this problem more acute, not less. No wonder, then, kids often have little to do but hang around on the streets. Where they are more likely to end up being enticed into joining a group of binge-drinkers.

And who can blame kids for wanting to "act grown-up" (of which drinking alcohol is often seen as a part), when they have to to get into half of the entertainment venues :-(

Enough to drive you to drink ... trebles all round!

What a fuel believes

2008-05-31T21:42:00.003+01:00

It all seems very nice on the surface, the government wanting to help people on low incomes to pay fuel bills. But I can't help feeling apprehensive about the means, namely the plans by the government to share data on benefit claimants with energy companies (BBC News: Fuel poverty action plan unveiled). Even ignoring this government's cavalier, even contemptuous, attitude towards privacy, we have seen their lack of competence at handling and transferring peoples' data with the loss of numerous data CDs (see my blog entry on this subject, from November 2007).

True, the energy companies are ripping customers off and making sky-high profits from astronomical fuel price rises. But rather than attacking the profiteering fat cats, the government is merely asking them to be a bit kinder to people on low incomes, and transfer them to a cheaper tariff if possible. Ah well, I guess it saves the government from paying decent benefits. Or making the exploitative bosses pay decent wages, so there are fewer people on low incomes. Or making those on lower incomes pay less tax, eg by properly reinstating the 10p tax rate.

So how should we deal with fuel poverty? How about renationalising the energy companies, and bringing the prices down for all of us. And then the income from energy sales, instead of going to fat cat shareholders, could all be spent dealing with fuel poverty, and on energy efficiency and home insulation which would also benefit the environment. Instead of bargaining, with the energy companies, the privacy of the poorest members of society, for a few crumbs from their fat profits!

Brown's kick in the balls

2008-05-27T14:04:00.003+01:00

I was in force twelve gales of laughter yesterday, when I read in the Daily Mirror how Gordon Brown had sent a message of sympathy to Chelsea footballer John Terry (Daily Mirror: Gordon Brown tells sad John Terry: I know how you feel!). Now I'm not the world's biggest football fan (although I have a soft spot for Robbie Fowler when, back in 1997, he was fined £900 by UEFA for wearing a T-shirt supporting the striking Liverpool Dockers). But I think the blunders and savage attacks on working people by Brown and his government, have a rather more serious impact on most people's lives than a f**king missed penalty!!!

A senior Labour spokesman then fawned over Brown, saying this proved that he "believes in standing by people when they are in trouble". Yeah, right. That must be why he has still ruled out proper compensation for everyone who has been belted by the 10p tax fiasco, let alone even considered reinstating the 10p tax rate. And why he has blocked EU laws designed to protect agency workers (Socialist Worker: Gordon Brown leads Europe in blocking agency workers’ rights). And why he has refused to support, and even attacked, striking workers. So, as for Brown telling Terry he has "nothing to be ashamed of"; well, I wish I could say the same about Brown :-(

Small wonder, then, that New Labour got caned in the Crewe and Nantwich by election - and in the council elections at the beginning of the month. Although I have no joy in seeing the Tories take the seat, it's arguable how much it was a shift to the right, at least among the voters. In fact, it did seem kinda surreal that New Labour were attacking the Tories from the right, playing the law and order card, while the Tories were attacking New Labour from the left, over the 10p tax obscenity. (Cue 'Twilight Zone' music ...)

Brown's cynical attempt to look like a 'man of the people' by aligning himself with popular culture like football, kinda reminds me of Tony Bliar's "Cool Britannia", in which Bliar tried to get kudos by associating himself with pop music. Well, on the subject of pop music, my message to New Labour is a line from "Going Underground" by The Jam ...

"What you give is what you get, you've made your bed, you'd better lie in it!" :-P

Boris cuts off his petrol pumps to spite his nozzle

2008-05-26T13:45:00.004+01:00

With oil prices at hyper-inflation levels, it seems strange that anyone - much less, the mayor of a city with a large public transport network - would turn up his nose at cheap oil. Yet that is exactly what Boris Johnson, the new Tory Mayor of London, has done. The oil in question is from Venezuela (BBC News: Mayor to end Venezuelan oil deal)

Mr Johnson's excuse for ending the oil deal is that the deal is, allegedly, "funded by the people of a country where many people live in extreme poverty". True, there is still widespread poverty in Venezuela. But Venezuela's elected leader, Hugo Chavez, has done more for the poor people of his country, and to address the poverty issue, than most leaders internationally, let alone in Latin America.

Chavez has nationalised a number of industries, notably Venezuela's oil, and used the revenues gained to embark on social programmes including welfare, health and education - which have massively benefited the Venezuelan poor. Small wonder, then, that Hugo Chavez has been enormously popular. Popular enough not only to be re-elected on a number of occasions, but also to survive a vilification campaign by the Venezuelan establishment media - notably the tabloid-esque private TV stations - and even an attempted military coup!

It was partly because of Chavez popularity, not just in Venezuela but among workers internationally, that the previous London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, made a deal with him to keep his remaining (albeit rapidly diminishing) credibility among the left. At the same time, Chavez' popularity among workers has an equal and opposite unpopularity among the capitalist Establishment, notably in the US, who are angry with his nationalisation programme - especially the oil nationalisation and his attacks on the mega-profits of the oil multinationals who were operating in Venezuela.

It is against this backdrop that the real reasons for Johnson's ending of the oil deal with London, become more obvious. The Tories are still no friends of the working class, as has been shown by their recently-announced intention to introduced workfare for young unemployed people (BBC News: Tory work plan for young jobless).

Admittedly, I'd be lying if I said Venezuela was a socialist paradise. It is still a top-down society in which reforms and wealth redistribution are carried out on behalf of, rather than by, the working class itself (similar to countries such as Cuba). My nose would grow further still if I then said that Ken Livingstone was the ideal choice for London Mayor. Although Livingstone has been committed to the anti-war campaign and the fight against racism and oppression, his economic policies have been flawed, as he has endorsed privatisation on the London tube, attacked strikes, and defended non-domiciles who earn obscene amounts of money but pay little if any tax.

But electing a Tory Mayor of London, and siding with the imperialist Western Establishment against a fledgling social-democratic economy like Venezuela, is not the way forward. The only way to achieve a socialist society, from London to Caracas, is for the working class in all countries to unite against the capitalist Establishment in all countries.

Cheeky holiday

2008-05-19T21:01:00.004+01:00

A government-backed study has recommended the creation of a new public holiday, Armed Forces Day (BBC News: Backing for Armed Forces Day plan). At a time when there is a significant shortfall in recruitment to the Armed Forces, as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, would it be cynical of me to ask if this was another ploy by the government to promote militarism? As someone who (for my sins in a previous life?) grew up in the 1980's, the idea of an Armed Forces Day cunjures up images of the public military parades in Red Square, Moscow, during Russia's Stalinist (ie so called "communist") days!

There have been a number of ideas put forward recently, to encourage more people to join the Army. Gordon Brown (or should that be Bliar Mk II?) has said young people should be encouraged to join the Army Cadets - despite the fact that, in many areas, the Army Cadets are the dominant (if not the only) organisation providing youth activities. This is hardly surprising, considering the Cadets have an £80 million budget at a time when council youth clubs are being cut back, and many youth organisations now find it increasingly difficult to recruit organisers etc (not helped by measures brought in over the past 5+ years to combat Paedophiles™). There are now proposals to increase Cadets involvement in state schools (The Independent: Use the force: Why ministers want all pupils to learn to fight) - no doubt tied in with the de-facto privatisation of schools which comes with Academies (for more info on Academies, see the Anti-Academies Alliance website).

One idea I do agree with, however, is the proposal to ban discrimination against army soldiers in uniform. Opposition to war and the military should not be allowed to translate into abuse of soldiers who have little say over where they are sent to fight. Instead, such anger should be targeted at those who give the orders - namely the Army Generals and the Government. (Now how about the MOD dropping its own exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation, eg the Disability Discrimination Act ?)

Then again, while the government and MOD cry crocodile tears about the abuse of military personnel, they are the worst for riding roughshod over their own soldiers' rights and welfare. By keeping soldiers in sub-standard accommodation, ill-equipping them for battle, and - last but certainly not least - sending them to fight and die in illegal, immoral and unjustifiable wars :-(

It would be extremely difficult to argue against another public holiday, however. Especially when UK workers have fewer paid holidays per year than elsewhere in Europe. But I can think of at least 2 possible holidays, which do not involve promoting militarism. How about a Peace Day, celebrating peace and opposition to war. Or Diversity Day, celebrating the contributions to society made by minorities and opposition to all oppressions, eg racism, sexism, homophobia, disablism.

But there's one holiday I'd love to celebrate in my lifetime ...

Overthrow of Capitalism and Imperialism Day !

Oil peaks and noses in troughs

2008-05-17T18:04:00.005+01:00

Possibly as a result of the incredible inflation of oil prices, the concept of 'peak oil' is gaining recognition. Peak oil theory is based on the idea that oil production has reached its peak, and is now declining.

At one extreme, the oil and petroleum industries, and the capitalist system which is heavily dependent on oil, are in denial about peak oil. There are other factors which have led to the crazy rises in oil prices, notably the Iraq war and capitalist speculation in oil. But, even if oil production hasn't peaked yet, it is clear that - especially at its current rate of usage - the oil supply cannot last forever!

Meanwhile, some claim that peak oil will cause the end of life as we know it, leading to an end in all industrial production and to social upheaval, maybe even widespread war. (We are already seeing a war for oil in Iraq, and threats of similar oil wars in Iran and Syria). A few claim there is nothing we can do to halt the decline of society as we know it.

Yet there are several ways in which we can reduce the impact of peak oil. The most obvious is to reduce the use of private cars and transportation of goods, as I described in more detail in my earlier blog article, The road to Hell. Air travel is also very fuel hungry, and suggestions for its reduction were made in my Planes, planet and planning blog article.

For heating and electricity, we need to move towards renewable energy such as wind, wave and solar power. And to reduce our energy usage by more efficient heating, refridgeration, lighting and other equipment - for example, all TVs, videos, computers and similar electronic equipment should be designed to not need to be kept on standby. All buildings should be properly insulated to reduce the use of energy for heating. Much energy is especially wasted by businesses - shop lighting, notably neon signs, are often kept on even when the shops are closed. And lit-up advertising boards should be banned, as a needless waste of energy!

Oil does have other uses, such as plastic. There should be far more efforts made to recycle plastic, including the effective labelling of plastic types used in equipment so the plastic can be more easily recycled. Indeed, the recycling of all materials will help conserve energy, as less energy is used to recycle materials (over 90% less in the case of aluminium, for example) than to create materials from scratch. Even better, plastic or even glass bottles and other containers could be collected, cleaned and re-used. There are already efforts made to encourage recycling, such as supermarkets are now encouraging consumers to re-use carrier bags, but far more can be done, and needs to be done!

Another possibility is to look at ways in which plastics could be made from crops, in the same way that biofuels are. But biofuels etc should not be considered a substitute for using energy and resources more wisely. I have nothing in principle against biofuels (my own car is run on biodiesel), and - especially when made from recycled waste oil, eg from fish and chip shops - they can be part of the solution. But, unless our use of fuel for transport is significantly reduced, it would not be possible to grow enough crops to supply the needed amount of biofuels. Indeed, current attempts to substitute biofuels for oil without addressing the root cause of the problem (wasteful fuel consumption), are already aggravating rises in food prices - as mentioned in my Feeding us bull article. Said article also describes how we can reduce the need for oil-based fertilisers, by techniques such as crop rotation.

Whatever happens to the oil supply, we simply cannot keep using fossil fuels at the rate we are. Burning oil, gas or coal is also leading to global warming, which in turn leads to harmful climate change - from droughts and increased desertification, to violent weather and flooding. To prevent climate change destroying the planet, action is needed now!

All the measures I have described cannot be effectively delivered by capitalism. The sole aim of capitalist production is profit, and the required action to reduce energy use will hit profits. Over-production, which wastes precious resources (such as oil), is also built into the capitalist system. The only answer is to replace capitalism with a socialist system, where production is for human need not corporate greed.

So, peak oil or no peak oil, we are faced with the same stark choice - socialism or barbarism.

Feeding us bull

2008-05-16T17:29:00.006+01:00

It's open season on fat people again. First we were accused of being a drain on the NHS - creating a moral panic which led to reactionary policies, from a reduction in choice for school meals and the banning of certain foods from school lunch boxes, through to the threat of overweight people being denied NHS treatment. Well, now we're accused of being responsible for the rising food and oil prices (BBC News: Obese blamed for the world's ills). We'll be responsible for the assassination of Princess Diana next :-P

I'll deal with the oil situation in the next blog article. As for the food prices, there are a number of reasons for the hyper-inflation of food prices - none of which are due to obesity!

One reason is reduced crop yields, partly due to the negative effects of climate change, from droughts and increased desertification on the one hand, to floods caused by increasingly violent storms (as seen by the recent cyclone in Burma) on the other. Climate change can only be dealt with by reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, by reducing car use and moving towards renewable energy - as I will deal with in more detail in my next article.

Crop yields have also been reduced in some areas due to soil erosion as a result of monoculture - the growing of the same crop year after year. Many third world countries are forced by debt to grow cash crops which they can then export; to hell not only with feeding their own people but also with protecting their own environment :-( The solution - drop all third world debt NOW!

Monoculture has also depleted the natural nutrients in large areas of arable land, necessitating the increased use of fertilisers, not to mention environmentally damaging pesticides and herbicides. A far more efficient, not to mention ecologically sound, system would be to use a form of crop rotation, ie growing different crops on different land at different times. Crop rotation was used successfully even in the Middle Ages, but with current technology allowing soil sampling and analysis, and an increased range of potential crops available for planting, it would almost certainly be even more viable today. But it would require collective ownership and cultivation of the land, and its use to grow food etc. for human need and not cash crops for private profit.

Even in the UK, farmers have moved away from growing food because they have been paid very little for it - due to the stranglehold of the big supermarkets, which take unfair advantage of their market dominance as a buyer of produce and pay the farmers as little as they can. Then they take unfair advantage of their market dominance as a seller, charging the consumer as much as they can get away with. And then they pocket the difference, in the form of fat profits. No wonder then, farmers in the UK, as well as abroad, are switching to non-food crops - notably for biofuels. (The biofuels situation will be covered in more detail also in my next article).

Finally, the rising price of foodstuffs (due to the above factors) has been massively amplified by hoarding and speculation. With a recession looming and the property market already in recession, investors have moved towards investing in commodities. With the food price rising, food is seen as a good investment, and to hell with those who now can't afford to eat it :-(

There is still more than enough food to go round. If people are at risk of starvation, it has nothing to do with fat people.

But it has everything to do with fat cats, and the capitalist system which does their bidding!

Still no love for Darling

2008-05-13T21:27:00.005+01:00

So New Labour's half-hearted apology for the scrapping of the 10p tax rate, is to be followed by a quarter-hearted compensation package. Namely, an increase in the personal tax allowance for anyone earning up to £40,835 per year (BBC News: Basic rate taxpayers to get £120). Sorry, but this isn't what we asked for, for 2 reasons.

Firstly, not all households will be properly compensated, and certainly not all workers! 1.1 million households will still lose out (as I feared in my earlier blog entry), but these "will see their loss at least halved". Well, whoopee-do! How dare this pathetic excuse for a Labour government still be so arrogant as to think anyone can afford to suffer a drop in take-home wages? After all, prices aren't exactly falling, are they ?!?

Secondly, again as I feared, this so-called 'compensation measure' is to be introduced in September. And tough luck to any low-earner (and his/her family) who hoped to have a summer holiday in August this year :-(

Last but not least, it is benefiting people earning up to £40k per year, well above the £18k level at which workers lost out when the 10p tax rate was removed. This isn't even compensation, it's yet another example of this bunch of closet Tories trying to get Middle England votes :-(

I demand, as do the Socialist Workers Party, that the 10p tax rate is reinstated immediately. Then again, I do feel it's only fair to repay the favour to New Labour for their pathetic effort ...

I hope only some of their MPs lose their seats at the next election :-P

Theft of our rights

2008-05-11T21:15:00.003+01:00

A new database is due to come on-line, with the sole purpose of blacklisting people whose previous employers have accused them of theft - even when no criminal charges were brought (BBC News: Bust-up with the boss?).

I have always been against the use of unproven criminal allegations being used to stop people getting jobs; I never liked the use of the 'enhanced disclosure' section of CRB checks for working with kids, which included failed convictions (as opposed to actual convictions, or even formal cautions). Indeed, in the past, people were blacklisted by employers for activities which weren't even criminal - both the state organisation MI5 and the private Economic League held lists of left-wing and anti-Establishment political activists and even union activists, which employers (both state and private) used to avoid employing people who they did not agree with politically.

It also seems to me that the Establishment's attitudes towards employing criminals have changed massively in the past 10 years. Back in 1999, the British Army was actually recruiting in prisons (BBC News: Army prison recruitment confirmed). Maybe I'm missing the point, but I'd personally feel just a little safer if a criminal had a cash register than if he had a gun!

The biggest problem for me with this blacklist is that it relies on unproven allegations. miscarriages of justice occur even within the legal system, where a crime must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. How many more miscarriages of justice will occur within a system where the mere say-so of the boss, even another employee, who an employee has had a personality clash with, could ruin someone's chances of working again? And would this not be a charter for racists etc who, rather than dismiss someone overtly due to prejudice, can instead concoct allegations of theft or dishonesty?

The National Staff Dismissal Register was set up by as a joint venture between the British Retail Consortium and the Home Office - hardly surprising, considering the Home Office also introduced ASBOs, which similarly rely upon unproven allegations and can severely restrict a person's rights without needing the burden of proof required for a criminal conviction :-(

Then again, some thieves will remain secure in their jobs. Bosses of big business have fat salaries which are largely dependent on how much profit they make their company - and profit is nothing more than exploitation, ie the theft of their workers' labour. Yet such thieves, far from being placed on a blacklist, would be welcomed on the boardroom of a rival company even more if they increased the level of theft of their workers' labour, meaning higher profits.

Capitalism is a crime - together we can crack it!

Two wrongs can take a right

2008-05-10T23:47:00.005+01:00

Still on the subject of New Labour's fanaticism for law and order, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has urged Police to 'harass young thugs' (BBC News: Harass young thugs, police urged)

There are a number of problems with this tabloidocratic idea. Firstly, it legitimises police harassment, which is unsavoury at the best of times. Even worse, what is there now to stop incidents of police racial harassment, which have occurred in the past - indeed, it is understood to have been police harassment of young black people which was the flash-point triggering riots (such as those in Brixton, Handsworth and Toxteth) in the 1980's. Even now, black people are significantly more likely to be stopped and searched by Police than white people, a problem which is hardly likely to be helped by Ms Smith saying that police harassment is a good thing!

Then, there's the nature of the harassment that Jacqui Smith is advocating - namely, the persistent checking of 'thugs' for fairly trivial offences such as benefit fraud and TV licence evasion. Is this an admission that the government has passed so many laws (literally hundreds, possibly even thousands since 1997!) that the Police can't enforce them all, so they need to enforce them selectively? If so, I guess this kills the myth of everyone being equal in the eyes of the law :-P

Finally, what is a 'young thug'? Don't get me wrong, I have no time at all for bullies who threaten people, i've been on the wrong end of quite a few myself over the years. But I don't think 'playing them at their own game' is the answer, especially when the Establishment's definition of 'thug' seems to not necessarily be the same as how ordinary people understand the term. One of the criteria mentioned in the BBC News article is 'street drinking' which, like drug use, underage drinking etc, is not a violent or threatening act in and of itself. Also mentioned is breach of ASBO's - yet some of the ASBOs served are unfair, occasionally ridiculous (some examples are quoted on the ASBOwatch website).

This isn't the first time a Home Secretary has suggested the increased use of a flawed practice by the police. Back in 2004, David Blunkett urged police to increase the use of police informants ('coppers' narks', 'green giros'. 'PFI CSI's', call them what you will) - despite the fact that many informants abuse their near-untouchable status to commit more crimes, violence and bullying included :-(

Then again, if Ms Smith really wants the Police to harass some thugs, I can point them in the direction of a few. In Westminster, there is a gang of people who have instigated mass violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have indulged in threatening behaviour towards Iran and Syria. Maybe the Police could also investigate these people for theft from low paid workers, vandalism of public services, milking House of Commons expenses , etc, etc :-P

High time for decriminalisation

2008-05-08T21:54:00.005+01:00

Having lost so miserably in the recent elections, I hoped this New Labour government may have learned some lessons. Sadly, they've learned the wrong lessons, and now think their main chance of recovery is to be more like the Tories. (Indeed, in some cases, to be more Tory than the Tories). Such is the case with law and order.

So it is perhaps not surprising that cannabis has now been uprated to a class B drug, from class C, carrying tougher penalties for sale and possession (BBC News: Cannabis laws to be strengthened). This is despite the fact that cannabis is not addictive (unlike tobacco and even alcohol), has very few proven harmful effects (the alleged link between schizophrenia and cannabis use is far from definite),and deaths from cannabis use are few and far between. Last but not least, the government has even ignored an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs review, which recommended cannabis stay class C - despite the fact that the report was itself commissioned by the government! Ah well, typical I guess of the arrogance of this government, always thinks it knows best and won't listen to reason :-(

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite aware that not all cannabis use is in any way progressive; nowadays a cannabis user is just as likely to be a brainwashed lumpenproletarian with right-wing oppressive ideas, as he/she is to be a progressive peace-loving hippy. But, just because cannabis use has spread beyond the hippy movement, doesn't make it, in and of itself, any more harmful.

What will make it more harmful is increased prohibition, driving it further underground and its suppliers further into the criminal underworld. The more illegal a product is, the greater are the profits to be made by those prepared to break the law by selling it - and these profits are often made by underhand means such as mixing the drug with similar looking but potentially harmful products, as is often done with class A drugs such as heroin.

It's not just recreational users who will suffer, either. Cannabis has numerous medicinal uses, including as treatments for multiple sclerosis, arthritis, etc. Yet this government, and the previous Tory government, have persistently refused to consider making cannabis available on prescription or even licence it for medicinal use - which is why we are still seeing people arrested, even jailed, for using or supplying cannabis for medicinal use. This problem can only be made worse by the government's decision to increase the penalties for its use.

The drugs moral panic, which will be fed by the decision to reclassify cannabis, also has wider implications. In many areas it takes on a racist edge, as black people are more likely to be arrested, searched, and prosecuted for drug use than white people. (This was also the case in 1990's America, where the 'war on drugs' was often nicknamed the 'war on blacks').

Personally, I think cannabis should be legalised and regulated. It is one of the less dangerous drugs - responsible for far fewer deaths than tobacco and alcohol, which are both legal.

I also think hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine should be decriminalised, as this would allow addicts to be able to get help without fear of arrest and prosecution. I would supply 'safe' (or as safe as possible!) uncut heroin, cocaine etc on prescription - removing much theft-related crime, by addicts who steal to fund their habit, not to mention removing a source of income from gangsters.

In fact, I think Jacqui Smith, Gordon Brown etc should all be prescribed a nice big spliff. It might make them lighten up and mellow out, and expand their narrow minds, for a change!

If you tolerate this

2008-05-04T19:42:00.005+01:00

The single scariest result from this years's election, as I said in my last article, is the accelerating rise of the Nazi BNP. As well as a seat on the Greater London Assembly, they have also gained 10 councillors nationally - including 3 in Rotherham and 2 in the Amber Valley of Derbyshire, both "in my back yard". How could this have happened?

The most obvious answer is disillusionment with the Labour government, and the lack of a credible left alternative in most areas, leading people to turn to the right wing. People in areas where employment was decimated by the last Tory government, where coal mines and steel works were shut by Thatcher and then Major (such as South Yorkshire, including Rotherham) will be rather unlikely to vote Tory! Which often leaves just the BNP as a protest vote.

At the same time, there has been an increase in reactionary right-wing thinking, driven by the capitalist Establishment. The media-created myth of the White Working Class™, moral panics about Terrorism™ and the scapegoating of asylum seekers, have all acted as a catalyst for racist bellyfeel, and vice versa. Meanwhile, constant attacks on Incapacity Benefit and its claimants, have catalysed with disablist bellyfeel. ('Bellyfeel' is an Orwellian expression, used in '1984', to describe deep-seated feelings and beliefs, often confused with 'common sense', which are the result of alienation mixed with prolonged and sustained mass-brainwashing by the Establishment. Often confused with 'human nature'). Under these circumstances, the discriminatory and oppressive b***s*** of the Nazis gains an undeserved hearing.

Last but not least, the anti-fascist movement seems to be increasingly fragmented. Since the Anti-Nazi League seemed to split into Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism, even though the two groups campaign together, they sometimes feel like two separate entities. At least compared with the days of the Anti Nazi League, which organised both the music festivals and the leafleting and campaigning on the ground.

But a potentially more serious division occurred when Searchlight - a long standing anti-fascist organisation, best known for Searchlight newspaper/magazine, with much respect among the left - made a tactical error by seeming to promote a Labour vote as the way to keep the BNP out. (Hardly a good way to build a united front with anti-fascists not only across the left, but also Lib Dems and even Tories who oppose the racist and anti-democratic beliefs of the Nazis). Meanwhile, Searchlight - often under the 'Hope Hot Hate' banner - have moved towards advertising campaigns (eg adverts on buses) and links with national newspapers such as the Daily Mirror. Useful as these tactics are as a tool for spreading the anti-fascist message, they are no substitute for effective grassroots campaigning in the communities where the BNP are attempting to build support. Likewise, the support of celebrities such as Alan Sugar, although welcome, is no substitute for mass support among the workers and minority groups who will suffer if the Nazis ever get real power.

To beat back the Nazis, unity is the key. Even if the left can't unite in opposition to the government, we must unite in opposition to the fascists.

The consequences of our failure to do so could be catastrophic. Maybe even fatal :(

Mayday means SOS for the left

2008-05-03T21:20:00.004+01:00

The recent election results were not only terrible for the government, but also dire for the left. New Labour lost massively but, instead of the left gaining, it was the right-wing who capitalised on their unpopularity.

The Tories tore ahead not only in the council elections, but also took control of the Greater London Assembly, and Tory Boris Johnson became the London Mayor, unseating Ken Livingstone. The UKIP also gained 3 councillors. But, most horifically of all, the Nazi BNP gained 10 councillors and even gained a seat on the GLA.

The reasons for Labour losing so terribly are obvious; war (notably the Iraq war), privatisation, rising prices, and the shift of the tax burden onto poor workers (epitomised by the scrapping of the 10p tax rate). This was not so much a tragedy as the "chickens coming home to roost", and will hopefully be the final nail in Brown's coffin.

But what about the real left? Respect, severely damaged by the split last year, was obviously still not in shape to provide a serious alternative to New Labour. It wasn't all bad news though; Respect came very close to gaining another councillor in Preston, coming a very close second. We also came second in a number of other council wards, including Maxine Bowler in Sheffield Burngreave (obviously my efforts during the election campaign weren't wasted, lol). In a number of wards, we pushed the Tories - the main winners nationally - into 3rd or even 4th place!

There are another few rays of light penetrating the hurricane. The breakaway Respect Renewal gained another councillor in Birmingham. The Green Party gained 5 councillors nationally (including one in Sheffield), despite being seen as 'anti-car' (which is not a good label to have in these days of extortionate fuel prices!).

Even so, these are very grim times for the left. Our main hope of recovery is unity; all left-wing parties must remember that we have more in common than that which divides us, and certainly more in common with each other than we will ever have with the Establishment.

The call for unity also goes out to the working class in general - we also have more in common with each other than we can ever have with the bosses and the capitalist Establishment. Which is why we should support every strike, campaign and fight by workers. Especially as we now face more overtly right-wing councillors, GLA representatives, etc.

Turning on a 10p?

2008-04-26T21:27:00.003+01:00

It really must be the political "silly season", when the leader of the Tories is urging low-paid working people to punish the Labour government by voting Tory (BBC News: Tories keep heat on 10p tax row). This comes hot on the heels of the comment, also from Dave Cameron, that Gordon Brown was "weak".

Yes, Mr Brown's government's actions were weak. Instead of scrapping the hated 200% tax hike on the lowest paid workers, we only hear vague promises of "looking into" compensation for the 'losers' in the autumn. This is too little too late, and will still leave millions of people skint for months - over the summer holiday season, to boot. Then, there is absolutely no guarantee that there won't still be losers.

Yet "weak" is a term which equally applies to Mr Cameron's criticism of this shabby affair. He made little reference to these issues, preferring to focus on a (verging on the ad hominem) attack on Mr Brown - so much so that I genuinely didn't know whether he was slagging off Mr Brown for not back-tracking enough, or slagging him off for back-tracking at all!

Perhaps as comic relief, the 10p tax affair has brought out not only the worst in the Establishment politicians, but also the biggest clangers. Chancellor Alistair Darling moaned that it would be "irresponsible" to reverse the 10p tax rate. Well, Mr Darling, I don't see what's so "responsible" about waging an illegal war in Iraq, squandering billions on nuclear weapons which could destroy the world and make humans extinct, while letting our public services and quality of life go down the toilet!!!

Then, a Blairite lord seemed to slide into a parallel universe where Gordon Brown 'reminded us of how good Tony Blair was' ?!? Sorry to be obtuse, and I'm not letting Brown off the hook, but I seem to remember that many of the most unpopular measures of this government - the Iraq war, PFI, raising the age to buy tobacco, and last but not least, the scrapping of the 10p tax rate - were initiated under Bliar's leadership!

But Cameron's suggestion that workers would be better under the Tories is equally laughable. I seem to remember, when the Tories were in power in the 80's and early 90's, they really pissed on workers' living standards and shifted the tax burden onto the lower paid. Not least by the hated Poll Tax, which took riots in London to get rid not only of the Poll Tax but also its creator, Margaret Thatcher.

There are far better ways to give New Labout the belting it so richly deserves. You can vote for numerous left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party, the Green Party, the Socialist Labour Party, or (peg placed on nose) the breakaway Respect Renewal. Even the Liberal Democrats (peg placed over other nostril) would be a better protest vote than the Tories.

But to really teach Brown, Darling and his clique, a lesson they won't soon forget, vote Respect - standing in London as the Left List, and in several council elections throughout Britain, as the Left Party. See the Respect Coalition website for more info about Respect, where we are standing, and how you can help our election campaigns.

What the working class needs is a party which will not sell out to a right-wing agenda to gain middle class votes.

What the working class needs is a party which will not kow-tow to the bosses and the ruling class.

What the working class needs is a party which is run by and for the working class.

The Respect Coalition is that party !!!

Oil support the refinery strike

2008-04-22T17:57:00.003+01:00

Workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery are due to strike on Saturday and Sunday, over attempts by the company to raid the workers' pension fund (BBC News: Government warning over fuel row). I support the strike, even at risk of hardship to myself (being a 100-mile-a-day commuter), just as I support the teachers' strike and public sector workers' strike planned for Thursday 24th.

I am especially appalled by the actions of Grangemouth's owners, Ineos, which could condemn their workers to poverty in old age - remember Robert Maxwell! In any case, with petrol (and diesel) prices at £1.stupid per litre and skyrocketing, what possible excuse do they have for raiding their workers' pensions? It can't possibly be low profits !!!

Meanwhile, not only the UK government, but also the SNP-dominated Scottish Assembly, are whining about the workers striking because of the disruption it will cause, barely mentioning the despicable actions of the oil bosses. Well, personally, I think Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has the right idea:

Nationalise the oil industry now!!!

Low paid need Robin Hood not robbin' bleeders!

2008-04-06T21:02:00.004+01:00

So Business Secretary John Hutton has ruled out a rethink on then government's decision to make low earners pay more tax, by scrapping the 10p tax band (BBC News: 'No rethink' on tax rate - Hutton). Well, it won't adversely affect him and his fat-cat cronies, who are on rather more than £18k per year, will it!

It will, however, further impoverish millions of low-paid people, including the 5 million poorest households. It will lay the belt into people who are already struggling with price hikes on energy, petrol and water. It can only add to the already scary number of people becoming insolvent every year :-( If anyone reading this still has any illusions that the New Labour party still gives a flying f**k about working class people, for f**k's sake WAKE UP !!!

People often ask, how can we afford to give more money to less well off people. Well, for starters, it is workers who actually create the wealth (both in the UK and throughout the world), which is siphoned off by the rich fat-cats who this government are currently in bed with.

But paying more money to low paid workers is not only important from a social justice angle. It would also benefit the economy hugely, as people on lower incomes tend to spend more of their money on goods and services - hence keeping more people in work - than the rich. Keynesian economics believes more spending is the best way to boost the economy, but has generally involved printing money and therefore increasing the rate of inflation (which is already way too high!) Taxing the rich to improve the income of poorer workers would remove this problem; the same amount of money would still be in the economy, it would just be distributed better.

If the government won't listen, it's time for us to act. We should support the underpaid public sector workers who are on strike on April 24th, and push for strikes in our own workplaces.

We should also look to replacing this penny-pinching, rich loving, backstabbing government with something better. To this end, I urge all readers to not only vote Respect in the GLA, London Mayor and local council elections; but also to join Respect, and help your local Respect candidate with electioneering. (More details of your local candidates will be posted on the Respect Coalition website). We should also continue to actively support Respect and its candidates between the elections.

Then, maybe when the next general election comes around, it will be the parliamentary majorities of Hutton, Brown, darling and there other right-wing supporters in the government, which will be robbed and left for dead in a dark alley!

Bullies, Nazis and Perverts

2008-04-05T15:39:00.008+01:00

It's not every day the BNP has to remove someone from their election candidates list for being too extreme! Yet that is exactly what has happened to Nick Eriksen, the second on their list for the Greater London Assenbly elections. And boy, is he extreme!

Nick has implied that rape is not a serious crime, stating that 'rape is simply sex' (Searchlight's Stop The BNP article: Public perception was reason for sacking BNP ‘rape lie’ candidate). Rape is not simply sex, it is probably the worst form of sexual abuse. Sex should be consenting and enjoyable by both partners, not forced on one person by another.

Not that sexism is rare among the far right. Indeed, back in the 1930's, the German Nazis also had an appallingly sexist attitude towards women. One of the Nazis' slogans used about women was 'Kinder, Kuche, Kirk" (apologies if I've got the order wrong), which means Children, Cooking and Church. No wonder, then, modern day Nazis have a similar contempt for women's rights!

The BNP have not removed Nick because his comments were offensive, simply because they may have damaged the BNP's public image (as if it had one!) in the run up to the GLA and local council elections. As the Searchlight article states; "An official statement by the party avoided stating that Nick Eriksen’s comments about women in his own Sir John Bull blog were actually offensive and outrageous, but was concerned only about how they would have been perceived." Nick's comments also expose the hypocrisy of the BNP which, only a few years ago, was campaigning on the racist lie that Asian men in Bradford were pimping young white girls (oh, please!), and that Islam is allegedly spread by rape (give me a break!)

As for Nick's comment that calling rape a serious crime "is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence"; well, force-feeding anyone anything is generally an act of abuse. A possible exception to this would be if the woman is having a severe hypo - and, when you consider that diabetic people were among the 'useless eaters' exterminated by the German Nazis in the 1930's, I don't think that was quite what he had in mind!

Sadly, sexism is not confined to Nazis, it is common among the right-wing capitalist Establishment. The epitome is when the Establishment, media and even judges imply that some women deserve to be raped because of their lifestyle and choice of clothing, but it also exists on a more 'background' level. Advertisers use sexism to sell products and newspapers, helping to promote an image of 'beauty' which is unrealistic and leads many young women to develop the potentially fatal anorexia and bulimia. There are frequent attacks on single parents, working women and the right to abortion. Women are expected to share the double-burden of working and bringing up children, and women's average earnings are still lower than those of men.

Yet, as Nick Eriksen's rantings prove, voting for the false alternative of the BNP will not address any of these issues. Only a socialist alternative can improve the rights and working conditions not only of women, but also of men.

Licence to drive you nuts

2008-03-31T20:03:00.004+01:00

The political silly season continues, and now it's the Tories' turn to come up with a ridiculous idea - extending the TV licence fee to fund not only the BBC, but also fund ITV, Channel 4 etc (BBC News: Tories plan to share licence fee)

To achieve this, either the TV licence fee will have to rise even higher, or there will have to be even more cutbacks in the BBC. This will lead not only to yet more job losses (I never forgave the Tories for BBC Transmission making me redundant back in 1995, and I have 'no love lost' for New Labour for continuing to force the BBC to cut jobs), but also to poorer programmes - the reverse of what the proposal allegedly aims to achieve!

For ages, the alleged 'raisin d'etre' of having both the BBC and independent TV companies was: The BBC, being state funded and not reliant on advertising, did not need to chase ratings or impose self-censorship to please the advertisers. ITV, conversely, had a revenue stream independent of the state, and was therefore, theoretically, less prone to state interference in broadcasting. Yet, with creeping privatisation having taken place within the BBC for some time (starting with BBC Transmission in the late 90's), can we be 100% sure they are still free from commercial pressures? As for ITV, it has always de facto had to watch its @$ due to the ITV licencing system over the years, and bidding for state funding will surely only make matters worse in that respect.

The Tories' aim is to introduce competition into broadcasting, in the same way that contracting out and tendering within the BBC has introduced a form of competition there. Strange, then, that the capitalist Establishment's love of broadcasting competition has stark limits when it comes to free community radio. Birmingham unlicenced community radio station PCRL had already suffered over 100 DTI (now Ofcom) raids by 1998, and some London pirates got belted even harder :-(

Yet there is a point in having a state-funded non-commercial broadcaster, which can not only cater for minority groups, but also provide an alternative to populist carp (typo) like Big Bother, I'm A Nonentity and Brat Camp Xray. But the licence fee should be scrapped; it is a steeply regressive form of taxation, effectively making poor families with an old TV pay the same licence fee as a rich capitalist with a 2000" plasma-screen TV in every room. Instead, the BBC should be funded by income tax (which should itself be focused more on taxing the rich, but I've already covered that in earlier entries).

On the other hand, I also think there should be independent broadcasters. Independent not only of the state, but also of capitalist advertisers, fat cat shareholders, and the capitalist Establishment in general. They should be run by their workers - programme producers, actors, presenters, musicians, technicians, etc. Programmes should aim to serve the whole community, rather than doing the bidding of the rich and powerful by distracting us with alienated drivel and brainwashing us with biased, sensationalistic 'news and documentary' programmes.

In short, there should be radio and TV by the community, for the community!

Now Mumia must be freed!

2008-03-30T19:40:00.003+01:00

The news that Mumia Abu Jamal is no longer on death row in the US (BBC News: US court overturns death sentence) is welcome as far as it goes. But it is no cause for celebration - Mumia has not been freed, and has not even been granted the retrial he has been demanding for decades, merely a new sentencing hearing.

Mumia Abu Jamal is a former member of the Black Panther Party, a socialist organisation which fought for black people's rights in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following the smashing of the Black Panthers by the American Establishment, he went on to become a journalist and radio presenter. In 1981, while working part-time as a taxi driver, he was framed for the murder of a policeman. After an extremely flawed trial, where racism was abundant, he was sentenced to death. Yet, even while he was on death row, Mumia - a brave and deeply political man - continued to write about the injustices of capitalist society, raging against the system yet rarely mentioning his own plight! For more info about Mumia and his campaign, visit the Free Mumia Abu Jamal Coalition website.

Mumia's case, sadly, is far from unique. Indeed, it is the tip of a grotesque iceberg; the death penalty is routinely used in many US states - especially Texas, from where president George W Bush hails. A disproportionate number of people executed in the US are black, even people with learning difficulties or mental illness have been put to death. No wonder anti-capital punishment campaigners in the US call to an end to "the racist death penalty"!

Thankfully, here in the UK, we no longer have the death penalty - despite regular calls from sections of the Establishment, notably Tory MPs and their allies in the right-wing press, to have it brought back. The thought of bringing back capital punishment fills me with horror as, like the US, the UK has no shortage of miscarriages of justice; prominent examples include the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and Bridgewater Four. And as the government passes more and more 'catch all' laws (such as ever more ill-defined "anti-terrorist" legislation), and as Police are demanding - and being granted - more and more powers, the risk of such miscarriages of justice can only increase.

I guess there's no wonder the US Establishment (and sections of the UK Establishment) are so gung-ho about the death penalty. To see how cheaply they value life, we only have to look at their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other country which refuses to do the imperialist West's bidding, where men, women and children are slaughtered for oil, money and power.

Mumia is no murderer, and should be free. Bush, Blair, Brown et al, on the other hand, are murderers who should be rotting in jail!

Political genes are pants science

2008-03-28T17:28:00.007Z

Why am I a socialist? Is it because I have seen too much of the social damage that capitalism has done to society? Is it because, as a person with disabilities, I have come to hate the system which perpetuates my oppression? Well, according to some genetic scientists - and Lib Dem MP Matthew Taylor - it is all in my genes! (BBC News: The search for the 'political' gene)

This comes soon after the recent claim that happiness is genetic (BBC News: Genes 'play key happiness role'). The implications of this are, if you're unhappy, it's got nothing to do with poverty, oppression or over-work, it's all in your genes. How very convenient for the capitalist Establishment!

The idea of our behaviour being genetically influenced, is nothing new. Back in the late 1990s, a 'gay gene' was supposedly discovered. It was hoped that, if it became accepted that homosexuality was genetic, and therefore 'natural', homophobia would decrease. Such a notion, however well-intentioned, was rather naive; skin colour, for example, is genetically influenced, but that has not stopped racism. So, hardly surprisingly, soon after the 'discovery' of the 'gay gene', some right-wingers were speculating about 'curing homosexuality'.

To make matters worse, the 'gay gene' was followed by a glut of dodgy claims to have found genetic links with behaviour - including a 'homelessness gene'! Perhaps the most poisonous piece of bad genetic science was a hideously right-wing book by Chris Brand called The Bell Curve (Bell End more like :-P ), which suggested a genetic link between intelligence and race, and slanderously claimed to 'prove' that black people were less intelligent than whites. The Socialist Review article "Born Or Bred?", from July 1996, covers the topic in more detail.

The idea that behaviour is influenced by genes is very convenient to the capitalist Establishment, as it denies the role of society and material circumstances - which capitalism has had a detrimental effect upon - in determining peoples' behaviour and character. In that respect, it seems to be an extension of the medical model of disability - which similarly implies that disabled people's handicaps are due to a flaw with their body, which must be cured, rather than an intolerant and non-inclusive society and built environment.

A further potential negative implication of' genetics (real or bogus) is the potential for (real or equally bogus) tests for medical conditions - or medicalised behaviour. There is then a danger of the results of such tests being used to deny people employment, insurance, etc. Who needs MI5 or the Economic League, when a simple blood test will do the same job :-(

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against science and research. I'm against bad science, like the politically motivated "behavioural genes", and research which will benefit the capitalist Establishment while attacking working class people (eg nuclear weapons development).

So, it's not our politics which are influenced by genetic factors. On the contrary, it's genetic research which is influenced by political factors, namely the right-wing agenda of the capitalist Establishment.

Kids' web pages and employers' black books

2008-03-27T19:55:00.009Z

While the media is harping on about a government-backed review of the classification of video games (BBC News: Video games face ratings overhaul), another - in my opinion more important - computer-related issue is being largely ignored.

The Childrens' Charities Coalition for Internet Safety is lobbying the government to take serious action against strange people looking at kids' social networking sites and gleaning info which can be used against the kids. Who, I hear you ask? Paedophiles? Cyber bullies? Conmen? How about potential employers and admissions tutors!

An open letter to Margaret Moran MP (linked to on the NCH information page) calls on the government to outlaw the practice of using information on private social-networking sites as a basis for deciding who to employ in a job or give a place on a university/college course. Quite rightly, too!

For some time, there has been a yuk-factor about strangers viewing online photos of young people, due to its (real or perceived) connotations with paedophilia. Yet, when a survey "appeared to show that one in five employers admitted that they used the internet to check on candidates" (according to the CCCIS letter mentioned), it seems that unwarranted viewing of text information can easily be as damaging to young people as viewing photos of them.

Not that employment blacklisting is anything new. Back in the 1980's, there was a shadowy organisation called the Economic League which used to keep files on 'political activists' so employers would know not to employ them. A number of large multinational companies, including banks, contributed to and used the services of the Economic League.

Fair enough, the Economic League was very different from social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo - the Economic League deliberately damaged people's careers, whereas social networking sites do so accidentally, as a result of carelessness; either on their part or that of those who post their profiles there.

The aims of the CCCIS letter and campaign, namely stopping discrimination based on information posted while still at school, are aims which I support. However, maybe the focus on banning the use of such profiles to influence employment and admissions decisions, may make such a law difficult to enforce. Perhaps the emphasis should instead be on preserving the privacy of using such sites.

I think social networking sites should, by default, make all profiles and postings Private, unless the user him/herself expressly wishes to make them public. All sale to, or sharing of personal information with, other companies and organisations should be banned (who needs spam anyway??) All personal profiles and message groups should be kept out of the eye of search engines (easy enough to achieve by using robots.txt commands). All this is well within the means of the large social networking sites which are mainly used by young people; MySpace, for example, is largely owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International media empire.

While we're waiting for such measures to be implemented (and it may be a long wait), there are still things we can do to protect our own privacy. For more info, see the Information Commissioner's Office's Keeping your personal info personal section.

The lesson today is how to die

2008-03-25T17:46:00.004Z

Good to see the teachers' NUT union (they've been rather active recently!) voting to oppose military recruitment in schools (BBC News: Teachers reject 'Army propaganda'). Especially since this comes against a backdrop of the increasing unpopularity of imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US death toll in Iraq exceeding 4000 (BBC News: US military Iraq toll hits 4000), the UK death toll there exceeding 100, and 1.22 MILLION Iraqis killed in Iraq (Stop The War Coalition: Iraq study: 1,220,580 murdered since invasion)

The NUT's decision is especially welcome, since it also comes against a backdrop of the military Establishment - government politicians included - using incidents of harassment of soldiers as an excuse to attempt to stifle any criticism of the military. This has led to the attempts to gag former soldiers who have spoken out against the war, such as Ben Griffin who spoke at the Stop The War rally in London on 15th March (report on STW website). The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, has even gone so far as to tell coroners giving verdicts on dead soldiers, not to criticise the armed forces! (BBC News: Minister in soldier inquests plea)

I decry any harassment of soldiers, who are, like Gordon Gentle (son of Rose Gentle, of Military Families Against The War) who was one of the first British soldiers to be killed fighting in Iraq, brave people who have been sent into an unjust war by their leaders. Yet to call them 'lions led by donkeys' would be a grave insult - to donkeys!

Yet, as the number of Armed Forces recruits drops to the point where the military has a recruitment shortfall, it's not just in schools where this 'military grooming' of kids is taking place. The Army themselves have websites devoted to recruitment, advertised on TV, and in many areas the Army Cadets are the dominant (if not the only) free-time activities for young people. In the US it's even worse, with social networking sites, YouTube, and even video games being used as tools for Armed Forces recruitment.

But there is hope. Even as the Iraq War started back in 2003, many school students walked out of school to take part in anti-war protests (who says kids don't understand politics!), and there was no shortage of young people on the March 15th Stop The War rally.

And it is quite probable that many more young people would be less interested in joining the Armed Forces if they knew what such a career choice really entails. This will be hard when they are subjected to an onslaught of propaganda glamorising the Armed Forces, which does not mention the down sides of military life (eg having to kill, risking being killed, being subject to heavy discipline).

If anyone reading (that means you!) knows any young people who are thinking of signing up to the Army, Navy or RAF, you can help them make a more informed choice by suggesting they visit the Before You Sign Up website.

Freedom of speech

2008-03-24T12:49:00.001Z

A recent news report in the Education section of BBC News, on speech therapy (Speech problems 'need attention') got me thinking. As a follower of the social model of disability, and as someone with speech disabilities myself, I think speech disabilities are probably one of the most obvious examples of a disability where the social implications massively outweigh the medical implications. So, although I think there should be free speech therapy for those who actually want it, I also think that social change would benefit people with speech disabilities far more than any amount of medical intervention.

Speech disabilities, however caused, are one of the most obvious disabilities and therefore the hardest to hide away - hence people with speech disabilities are often the butt of prejudice and discrimination (see my article on speech disabilities on the Red Disability website). Yet, as with all disabilities, the oppression of people with speech disabilities has nothing to do with 'human nature' (as often asserted) but is caused by the capitalist system (see Red Disability's Roots of disability oppression aticle).

As for why speech disabilities are currently being targeted by the Establishment as something which needs to be 'cured', I suspect this may be to do with the shift in UK employment from manufacturing work to service industries such as catering, office work, call centres etc. Disability, far from being 'given by nature', is largely defined by the contemporary needs of capitalist labour (see Red Disability's Changing face of disability article)

At the same time, it is not only speech disabilities which can result in speech-related oppression. The Establishment has always had a problem with slang, especially youth slang, citing it as a barrier to effective communication (which is rather hypocritical when you realise that official documents, forms included, are often written in inaccessible language!). Then there's the xenophobic carp (typo) about how immigrants should learn to speak English, as part of the promotion of a (artificial and alienated) 'Britishness' which is currently being promoted by the Establishment. Even within the UK, regional dialects and - even more importantly - perceived 'class differences' in speech, often carry negative implications within this capitalist society.

All these prejudices are not just oppressive to individuals, they lead to a more oppressive, 'cloning', society. Instead of trying to make individuals (with disabilities or otherwise) fit into the strait jacket of capitalist society, we need to fight for a more tolerant, more diverse, less oppressive, socialist society.

Teach the government a lesson!

2008-03-23T14:10:00.005Z

Good to see teachers' union, the NUT, balloting for strike action over pay (BBC News: Teachers to ballot on pay strikes).

The government's assertation, that the teachers' 2.45% pay offer is above the rate of inflation, beggars belief - especially when you consider the recent hyper-inflation in energy and fuel prices (electricity and gas up by about 15%, petrol and diesel up by well over 20% in the last year). Indeed, very recently, the criteria for measuring inflation were changed (BBC News: Muffins enter typical UK 'basket') - I wonder why ?!?

At the same time, teachers have seen increasing workloads as the government impose changes to the curriculum, adding to the existing high workloads (on both teachers and kids!) caused by SAT tests and the pressures of league tables. The raising of the school leaving age to 18 will not help matters, either!

At the same time, I don't agree with all the NUT have said recently. Their blaming of children and their parents for problems in the classroom (BBC News: Spoilt children 'disrupt schools') has reactionary overtones in two ways. Firstly, it ignores the real reasons kids are increasingly demoralised, due to increased workload (we're back to the SAT's), fewer facilities for kids both in and out of schools, parents stressed out due to increased workload and declining living standards, and lack of a real future. Secondly, it gives the 'green light' for the government to further attack the benefits and living standards of families, single parents etc, saying the kids are over-indulged.

The planned teachers' strikes are very welcome, but their best hope of victory will be if they make links with, and support the struggles of, other workers - namely the parents of the kids in their classrooms.

Liberals and democracy

2008-03-16T21:09:00.004Z

So sorry to see the Lib Dems have caught the disease of populism, and ill-thought-out populism to boot. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's idea of reducing the number of MPs (BBC News: Clegg wants to see 150 fewer MPs), while popular (understandable considering the abuses of expenses etc), would have a detrimental effect on the number of elected representatives (while still leaving the unelected holders of power, ie the bosses and bureaucrats, in place).

Some of the ideas of the Lib Dems I can support, such as acap on individual donations to parties, and proportional representation (I personally like the Eireann PR system, based on Single Transferrable Vote). Yet, even with PR, the representation of minority parties (such as Respect and the Greens) would be adversely affected if the number of MPs was reduced - thereby increasing the percentage of the vote needed by a party to pass the threshold at which a member could be chosen from the party list.

I also think his idea of asking people who go to vote, if they want the state to make a £3 donation to their chosen party, is flawed. It's bad enough being accosted by credit card salespeople in shopping centres and motorway service stations, and being phoned to ask you if you'd like insurance / double glazing / to take part in a "survey", without being subjected to intrusive questioning at the ballot box!

But enough of what I don't want ... here's a few suggestions of my own, for reforms which I think should be made to parliament and the voting system:

Firstly, if we really must save money on democratic rule, a good start would be to reduce the wages and expenses of MPs - to that of the average worker (approx £25,000 per year and the cost of renting a 'cheap and cheerful' flat or B&B). This would also make MPs have more experience of the lives of working class voters, who elected them in the first place!

Next, a severe cap on individual donations to parties, to stop rich capitalists buying political influence. And democratisation of the political funds of all trade unions, so union members can decide where their unions' (indirectly their own!) money is donated, rather than it going automatically to the Labour Party (as is currently the case in too many unions).

The voting age should be lowered to 13. Already, some reformist politicians, even in the main parties, have expressed an interest in the lowering of the voting age to 16. This is welcome, but it doesn't go far enough. It is debatable whether we really need a voting age at all, and certainly teenagers have shown - contrary to assertations by the Establishment - that they do have political understanding; back in 2003, many school students walked out of classes to take part in anti-war demos when the Iraq war started. Besides, reducing the voting age would stop teenagers being seen as a 'soft target' for repressive legislation!

All people with disabilities should be allowed to vote, and any legislation preventing this should be immediately repealed. In addition, all measures should be taken to make sure that people with disabilities are able to vote. Such as accessible polling stations, ballot cards in Braille, and state-provided transport to polling stations on election day.

The law banning prisoners from voting should also be repealed; in addition to the glut of laws which potentially carry a jail sentence, many are already jailed for petty offences already (many people, especially women, are in jail for not paying fines, including fines given for not having a TV licence or defaulting on poll tax payments). And, as the Birmingham Six and Bridgewater Four will tell you, miscarriages of justice do occur!

Yet even these measures will not give workers full power. The real power lies largely in the hands of rich capitalists in the boardrooms of big business, and with unelected bureaucrats (notably the heads of the Police and Armed Forces) who do the capitalists' bidding. Yet it can just as easily lie with working class people; a strike can deprive the bosses of protits, and make them give concessions to their workers. And when it comes to influencing decisions by the Establishment, one large demonstration is worth more than a thousand mealy-mouthed speeches by MPs.

As the chant went on yesterday's Stop The War demonstration in London: "This is what democracy looks like!"

Enough to make you swear

2008-03-11T20:56:00.009Z

I see the latest kooky plan from Mr Brown's advisers, is to make all school-leavers swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country (BBC News: Pupils 'to take allegiance oath') This comes against a backdrop of the Establishment promoting nationalistic jingoism dressed up as 'defending British culture', as epitomised by the BBC's hideously racistly promoted 'White season' (Socialist Worker: The truth about the 'white working class') which implies that immigration is eroding British culture. Nothing could be further than the truth; as well as contributing enormously to the British economy, immigrants have made an invaluable contribution to British society and culture.

As for the allegiance to the Queen - well, I am a republican who has no time for the bunch of hereditary parasites known as the Royal Family. They came to power many centuries ago by war and bullying, and are still an integral part of the Establishment (although, to be fair, Elizabeth II is probably the most benign monarch Britain has had to date).

They are little more than talentless and over-rated showbiz celebrities, wheeled out by the media every time they want to take our attention away, whenever the Establishment is in deep shi ... crisis. A recent example is the "big news" about Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan, reported in an 'action man' style by the Establishment media; let's all forget the 5th anniversary of the illegal and murderous war in Iraq (and the fact that the Afghanistan war is little better, either morally or in terms of success!)

Among opponents of the Royal Family, it is often stated that they are in fact German in origin. This is true, but it is also beside the point. Although the Establishment use the Royals as a symbol of the British people, British workers have more in common with German workers - or Indian, African, Japanese, Chinese, or Martian workers - than we will ever have with ruling class Establishment figures like the Queen.

Sadly, it comes as no surprise that Gordon Brown and his cronies have a hand in this ridiculous plan. His New Labour party's love affair with the capitalist Establishment yesterday plumbed new depths, as they chose a City fund manager as their new general secretary (BBC News: Labour's general secretary named). If you ask me, surely it's time the trade unions got a divorce from this increasingly unfaithful (and sometimes abusive) partner, and started supporting a party which truly looks after workers' interests!

Back to the Royals, getting rid of them would be a good start. But it would not be enough; in many capitalist republics, such as the USA, the working class is no better off than in the UK. The Royal family are merely one of the public faces of the Establishment, which includes unelected rich company bosses and owners, and top bureaucrats (such as the heads of the Police and Armed Forces). For true workers' power, all the capitalist Establishment must be done away with.

Including Brown and his cronies, his plastic opponents in the Tory party, and any politician whose 'oath of allegiance' is to the interests of the rich and powerful!

Planes, planet and planning

2008-03-02T01:05:00.002Z

On Wednesday morning, protesters from the environmental group Plane Stupid held a protest on the roof of the Houses of Parliament (BBC News: Inquiry into Commons roof protest) against plans to expand Heathrow airport. (After the earthquake that morning, for them to scale the Houses of Parliament, they're braver than me!) Predictably, they were arrested. Even more predictably, their protest was decried by the government, with comments that decisions should be taken inside parliament, not on its roof. But if you ask me, considering some of the decisions taken by MPs in parliament, maybe they should have been taken falling off the roof :-P

Seriously, climate change is a serious issue and does have to be dealt with. From sea level rises threatening coastal regions to worsening famines in Africa, from Hurricane Katrina to last June's floods in the UK, climate change threatens nothing less than the survival of this planet. And, even though it isn't the only cause, aircraft emissions are certainly one of the main causes of the greenhouse gases (such as CO2) which cause global warming.

Banning all plane travel would be rather draconian, as it would reduce people's ability to travel and explore the world. But there are many ways in which it can be significantly reduced, making its effects easier to offset.

For starters, it is crazy that plane travel within the UK is often cheaper than train travel. This is partly due to the privatisation of the rail network, leading to chaotic competition causing inefficiency on the one hand and fat profits for the rail companies on the other. The railways, a natural monopoly, should be re-nationalised (especially when one considers also the deterioration in rail safety since privatisation).

Then there's the needless transportation of goods which could just as easily be produced locally (and sometimes are!), due to unregulated competition between companies, even countries - rather than production and distribution according to need. This is aggravated by the tendency of companies to shift production abroad, where wages are cheaper - causing unemployment in the UK due to factory closures, and CO2 emissions as the goods then have to be transported huge distances to be sold here. This is yet another reason why factories threatened with closure should be nationalised - without compensation, as their owners have effectively abandoned them (and their workforce!)

And let's not forget the emissions from military aircraft - which are often supersonic, leading to greater CO2 emissions. All those bombing raids on Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as killing thousands and f**king up the local environments with the bombs (including Depleted Uranium), are also contributing to global warming which is damaging the environment globally - including the UK and US!

Finally, in many cases, people flying abroad has less to do with seeing the world, and more to do with escaping the British weather. (After last summer - again, due to climate change, who can blame them?) This could be reduced by the investment in British seaside resorts, to provide all-weather leisure and entertainment; I see no reason why Center Parcs-style resorts could not be built near the seaside, encouraging more people to holiday in Margate rather than Marguerita. As well as reducing the production of greenhouse gases, this would also provide employment and regeneration for run-down seaside resorts.

All this could be paid for by taxing air travel, especially first class and business class, and punitive taxes on private planes chartered by the rich. And taxing the fat cat profits of the air companies.

But for now, it seems the politicians' crocodile tears for the environment are unlikely to be matched by effective action, just hollow speeches. And I dread to think of the contribution to global warming caused by all that hot air :-(

Prescription for the disease of capitalism

2008-02-28T21:09:00.005Z

After all I've said about charities, one of them - the Citizens Advice Bureau - has made a recommendation I wholeheartedly agree with. Namely, the scrapping of prescription charges (BBC News: Prescription charge review call).

Let's face it, people don't generally fall ill for a laugh, and it's bad enough being ill without having to pay for the privilege. What's more, there's some rather unfair anomolies in the prescriptions system; A BBC News article from February 2006 ('Scrap cancer prescription charges') details how people with some conditions (eg diabetes and epilepsy) get free prescriptions, while those with other conditions (eg cancer and multiple sclerosis) do not. Surely charging people for the drugs necessary to treat their conditions, or bring them under control, is rather discriminatory.

Also in the news today, nicotine patches are now approved for people under the age of 18 (BBC News: Child nicotine patches approved). This is very welcome, albeit rather late; the timing is especially bad, being several months after the smoking age was raised to 18. Surely, if the government had to raise the age for buying tobacco (a move which I personally opposed), it would have been better Nicotine Replacement Therapy to have been available beforehand, so young people could have had a chance to quit smoking before the new law came into effect!

Still, while the government are encouraging us to get healthy - by cracking down on smoking, drinking, and what we eat - maybe now they will heed the CAB's advice and scrap prescription charges. That would be good news. However, if this government acted with anything resembling consistency, it would be rare news. So rare, in fact, it would probably be followed by a weather report forecasting blizzards in Hell :-(

So, predictably, government ministers in England are still refusing to drop the charge (although in Scotland and Wales, where Labour has to share power with other parties, free prescriptions have already been or are being introduced). Despite the fact that the charge puts people off collecting their prescriptions - hardly a recipe for a healthy nation!

Instead, they talk about 'cost neutral' ways of tweaking the system. Charming ... there was no talk of cost-neutrality when it came to the dangerous Trident nuclear weapons replacement, the murderous Iraq war, the bailing out of failed banks and financial institutions, etc. But when it comes to making people healthy, even saving lives, this government - allegedly a Labour government - is too mean to supply the necessary funding.

They also bleat that abolishing prescription charges 'would significantly reduce the money available to deliver other health priorities'. Well, I can suggest a few measures to enable not only universal free prescriptions, but also an end to the prescriptions 'postcode lottery' and an increase in the range of treatments available.

First, there's the obvious; tax the rich, pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and scrap Trident.

Then, scrap the wasteful PFI projects - in which private companies build hospitals and clinic, and the taxpayer ends up paying not only for the running of the hospitals, but also for the profits raked in by the privateers involved.

Finally, nationalise the drug companies - and stop them from milking not only the NHS, but anyone who buys their over-priced medecines. Drug prices are kept high by the patenting system which ensures they have a monopoly on their drugs for many years, despite the social implications of their legalised profiteering. The effects of this are even more stark in the Third World, where producers of generic drugs to treat diseases such as AIDS, have been shut down for breach of 'intellectual property' laws.

All this will mean taking on the capitalist system - that is the only cure for the epidemic of greed and corruption which is sweeping through not only the health system, but through all of society.

H2O bosses Go2L !

2008-02-22T17:43:00.005Z

As if the energy price hikes weren't bad enough, water companies are set to fleece us with price rises (Daily Mirror: Homeowners to face more financial misery with soaring water bills). What's more, the water regulator Ofwat has given the water companies the go ahead for this inflation-busting price hike. Bloody typical; capitalist business gets whatever it asks for, while workers have to fight hard for anything remotely resembling a living wage rise, and then we get denounced by the media and government :-(

I've already mentioned the energy companies mugging us in a previous entry, and at least they had half a point when they said the price of importing energy has gone up; it has (although, as I also mentioned, western capitalism is largely the author of its own misfortune there). The same is not true of water, in a wet country like Britain. If anything, last summer, many parts of the UK (even my own village) had rather too much water, thanks to climate change (due mostly to irresponsible energy use by the capitalist system, which raising the prices for domestic consumers will do little to address).

Ever since privatisation, the water companies have been p1$$ing on us. Back in the summer of 1995, we had the spectacle of droughts and water rationing, and the demands for more water metering - which hits poor people and families with kids hardest. Yes, the summer of 1995 was hot, but it was preceeded not only by a wet winter and spring, but by three wet and miserable years (summers included). It was reported in Socialist Worker at the time that Yorkshire Water, one of the worst affected, had sold off reservoir land for houses during this period! Not to mention skimping on pipe repairs while paying their fat cat directors huge salaries and bonuses.

Water should be re-nationalised, water meters scrapped, and the privateer water rats drowned!

Doctorin' the job description

2008-02-20T21:54:00.003Z

Like most workers, doctors are certainly being hammered by this government. Plans to force them to work longer hours and open at weekends and evenings, while at the same wanting local doctors' surgeries to merge into 'super clinics', will have a negative impact on the welfare of both doctors and, in many cases, the quality of care they can give their patients.

Then there's plans to force doctors to ride roughshod over the doctor-patient confidentiality rule, by making them report any suspected knife crime. I don't like knife crime (nor do I know anybody who does!), but I feel the abandoning of doctor-patient confidentiality is the start of a dangerous slippery slope. For starters, it would make it easier for right-wingers to reverse the "Gillick ruling" which allows people under 18 to get contraception without parental consent; removing this would put many young people off getting contraception, leading to a rise in teenage pregnancies and STD infections among young people. And where would it stop; would doctors have to inform employers and insurance companies when a person is diagnosed with a condition (eg asthma or diabetes), potentially leading to unfair discrimination? Or report injuries sustained during consensual BDSM activity? Or cannabis use? Or injuries sustained while walking on the grass?

But now it's really getting stupid. Not content with press-ganging doctors to help them in their crusade to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit, health secretary Alan Johnson now want doctors to clamp down in people in work who get ill and need a doctors' sick note while they recover at home (BBC News: Bid to tackle 'sick-note culture'). According to the report, 'He has urged GPs to issue "well notes" setting out what tasks a worker can perform instead of certificates automatically signing them off.' Oh, so as well as acting as policemen, doctors are now expected to act as career advisers as well ?!?

If the government really wants workers to perform what tasks we can, they can take some serious action against employers who still refuse to employ people with disabilities which do not affect their core job, and remove all exemptions from the Disability Discrimination Act (a number of employers are still exempt, eg the military). And they can sort out the problem of insurers refusing to insure people with some disabilities to work in certain industries, such as construction. But this would mean taking on the capitalist Establishment. Instead, they seem hell-bent on hammering working class people, whether in work or on benefits.

Well, if you ask me, the government are onviously unfit to do their job. But I dunno what jobs the doctors would find Brown, Johnson, etc fit to do. Personally, I don't even think they'd be fit to shovel $#!t !!!!

Northern Rock 'n' role of nationalisation

2008-02-18T21:16:00.003Z

I welcome, as far as it goes, the government's plan to nationalise the Northern Rock bank (BBC News: Northern Rock to be nationalised). Although I think the nationalisation should be permanent, not temporary as is planned.

I also doubt the government's motives; they have done little or nothing to save manufacturing industry or stop factory closures, even in the case of the Northern Rock nationalisation there are likely to be job losses. I suspect the nationalisation of Northern Rock may have rather more to do with protecting the financial sector and the security of (especially rival banks and financial institutions') investors' profits, than with safeguarding jobs or the savings of small investors.

Having said that, most nationalisations have been to benefit the capitalist system, rather than society. Some, like Northern Rock now and various car companies in the past (some of which were merged into British Leyland), have been ailing companies bought by the government to keep them going. In some cases, the nationalisation provided less direct but still tangible benefits to the capitalist system; nationalised energy (coal, electricity and gas) provided cheap energy for British manufacturing companies, while British Rail provided cheap transport for goods. Others provided less tangible benefits; the NHS provided a healthier and more productive workforce, while the education system provided a skilled workforce.

Also, nationalisation is not akin to socialism. Nationalised companies have always had a class-based structure, with managers overseeing workers, on far better pay and conditions than those of the workers which they are exploiting, on behalf of the state. Indeed, state capitalist regimes - such as the former USSR and its satellites - had an entire nationalised economy.

But nationalised industries are still preferable to private companies, for a number of reasons. Mainly, because private companies must pay a dividend to their owners or shareholders, less of the money earned by the company ends up spent on the workers and/or services.

Also, nationalisation is by far the best way to run natural monopolies, ie companies with a national infrastructure (eg railways, electricity, telephones, water). In the case of private competition, duplication of this infrastructure would be wasteful both of money and of natural resources. In the case of a private monopoly, the company would be able to make grotesque excess profits due to the lack of competition.

In my opinion, the government should nationalise not only Northern Rock, but all banks and financial institutions (the 'commanding heights' of the capitalist economy). And why stop there? Industries privatised, under prime ministers from Thatcher to Brown, should be re-nationalised.

Especially the energy companies; British Gas, the Electricity companies and BP were sold off and/or deregulated in the 1980's; leading to the current wave of private profiteering from the ridiculously high energy prices. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had the right idea, when he recently nationalised Venezuela's oil industry.

But nationalisation not the full solution to capitalist exploitation. The real answer is for companies and industries to be run by the workers, for the benefit of society.

This will take a revolution to achieve.

That's not Respect

2008-02-16T23:57:00.004Z

It's certainly been a stormy week for the left.

First, Respect - still recovering from the split last year, when George Galloway and numerous others left to form Respect Renewal - recently suffered a defection to the Tories (Respect website: Statement from Respect on Cllr Ahmed Hussain's resignation). The first surprising thing about this is that Mr Hussein - who originally broke from the Labour Party to join Respect - has now gone to the Tories, arguably an even more severe move rightwards than if he had re-joined Labour. (Or maybe he just wants to try out all the various parties, in which case maybe, next election, he'll stand for the Monster Raving Loony Party ...) The second is that he is one of those who stayed with original Respect (sometimes known online as Respect SWP), so why did he leave now? Especially when, last but not least, Respect seems to be recovering; enough to get reasonable votes in both of the recent council by-elections in Leyton and in Preston Tulketh (Respect website: Respect beats Tories to take third place in Leyton).

Then, Lothian and Borders Police decide to charge three members of Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity party in Scotland with perjury (Solidarity Scotland website: Solidarity members charged with perjury). I'm still not convinced of assertations that this prosecution is apolitical, nor is Iain Macwhirter of The Guardian (Guardian Unlimited: King of the swingers?); and, even though Scottish police may have some degree of independence from the UK, they still swear their allegiance to 'the Crown' - a proxy for the anglo-centric British Establishment.

All the while, in the background, there is wrangling over the use of the name Respect which has still not been resolved. Which is why, technically, we stood in the two recent by-elections as Independent candidates, and look very likely to do so in the May council elections.

Hopefully the crises within Respect and Solidarity will be sorted out, and I wish both Respect and Solidarity the very best of luck. However, if luck fails us totally, what are we going to do?

Personally, I think we should not rule out the option of registering the Socialist Workers Party with the Electoral Commission, and standing SWP candidates in elections. OK, so we tried that in the late 1970s and didn't do very well. But a lot has changed since then.

Firstly, the SWP has grown much bigger since then, and has become much better known, especially since the early 1990's. The SWP was probably the left-wing party that benefited the most from the fall of the Stalinist (so-called "communist") regimes in the former USSR and Eastern Europe, because of our long-stated view that such regimes were, in reality. state capitalist.

Secondly, the Labour Party now is very different from how it was in the late 70's. Then, it was still just about recognisable as a workers' party, albeit a crap one. Over the Blair and Brown years, any pretence at socialism has been slowly dropped by Labour - notably the scrapping of clause 4, and the replacement of its commitment to the most equitable distribution of wealth, with something about the madness, sorry, rigours of the market.

In any case, standing in elections as the SWP would not stop us from joining any left-wing coalition in the future. But it would give us the necessary independence to be able to 'go it alone' if necessary.

That's just my personal opinion (as is the rest of this blog!). Comments and opinions are, as always, welcome.

Bad faith, hopeless, and charity

2008-02-15T17:18:00.004Z

In what appears at first glance to be a rare proposal for re-distribution of wealth, Labour MP Frank Field has stated that he wants people earning over £15,000 per year to pay 10% more tax, or give it to charity (BBC News: MP Field's 'tax or charity' call). Although it seems welcome on the surface, it is also rather flawed, and his comments contradictory.

Most contradictory is his dewy-eyed admiration of Margaret Thatcher, and his assertion that 'his proposals would fulfil Margaret Thatcher's dream of a "giving culture".' (Frank and Maggie sitting in a tree ...) If I were him, I would ask any former miner or steelworker for a second opinion on Thatcher's 'generosity' :-(

I totally disagree with big business using charity as a 'get out of jail free card' for failure to fulfill its social obligations, and am rather dubious about charity in general.

For starters, some charities are horribly right wing and have overt right-wing intentions. Anti-abortion charities such as Life, fundamentalist Christian 'family' charities, 'public' (really private!) schools, even the (now thankfully defunkt) hated employment black-lister the Economic League, all have or have had had charity status.

Even charities with laudable aims have acted in a right-wing manner. In recent years, we have seen the road safety charity Brake supporting measures which unfairly target young drivers, and Alcohol Concern putting an undue emphasis on under-age (rather than general problem) drinking. I can't help but think, if charities were tempted to rely even more on wealthy (and generally right wing) donors than they are now, their policies and practices would veer further to the right.

Further back, in the early 20th century, groups like the Christian Brothers and even Barnardo's were involved in 'child migration', the transportation of orphan kids to places like Australia - where many suffered neglect, abuse, and were often used as virtual slave labour, with the connivance of both the Australian and British Establishments.

Even today, charities sometimes do more harm than good. Notably with their fundraising campaigns; disabled people, and people in Third World countries, are often portrayed as helpless inferiors who need our charity to live. (My views on disability charities can be found at Red Disability: What's wrong with charities?)

However, Frank Field is also partly right. The rich should pay more tax. And should not be able to donate their way out of it.

But why only 10% more? The vast majority of high earners get their money by exploiting workers, paying us far less than the value of the goods and services we produce. Profit, ie money received by a company over and above what they pay in wages etc, is nothing more than 'excess labour' over and above what we are paid fairly for. In other words, profit is exploitation, and those who manage companies are profiting from exploitation.

We should bleed the bastards dry!

Mosquitos and other vermin

2008-02-13T17:21:00.007Z

Glad to hear there is now a campaign against the Mosquito, a device which makes a high-pitched unpleasant noise, audible only to young people (under the age of 25) due to its high frequency. The campaign not only has youth groups and civil liberties groups like Liberty involved, it even has the backing of the Childrens' Commissioner. (Liberty website: Help us stamp out the mosquito)

The whole idea of creating a virtual exclusion zone for young people using what is tantamount to sonic warfare, is abhorrent enough. Innocent kids, babies included (whose parents may be unaware of the presence of the Mosquito), are affected just as much as the small minority of criminals. (This is also my argument against dispersal orders and curfews on young people). Not only is use of the Mosquito a form of child abuse, it may even be economically counter-productive; it risks actually losing shops money, by deterring young people from shopping there!

There have also been cases of kids living near to shops using the Mosquito suffering from the noise. Yesterday morning on the radio, a report mentioned a kid living in a flat opposite a shop being kept awake at 1am by a Mosquito. If a young person was playing music at 1am loud enough to keep people awake, he/she would soon get as ASBO!

Then there's another issue ... if kids can hear it, what about animals? It's hardly fair on dogs (and their owners) going for a walk, cats living nearby, and birds flying nearby.

Despite all this, the government have said they're not going to ban the Mosquito. Surprise, surprise, considering this government always did care more about capitalist businesses than about ordinary people. Then again, it sometimes seems like the only thing the government don't want to ban. For example, in the last blog entry, I described how the government want to ban P2P file sharing.

Thought for today: maybe someone should release the sound from a Mosquito as a record, then hammer everyone using the device for illegally playing copyrighted audio :-P

Don't Take Away The Music

2008-02-12T22:06:00.000Z

Maybe in my entry last month about the proposed Australian internet censorship, when I asked why they don't go the whole hog and ban file sharing, I should have taken heed of the cliche: "Careful what you wish for, you might just get it" ... I see the UK government are planning to throw P2P file sharers off our internet connections (BBC News: Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban').

This is scary for a number of reasons (I'll exercise my right to silence on the main one, LOL). For one, will they end up cutting off the internet connections of people whose podcasts or streamed internet broadcasts use copyrighted records? This would be censorship on a par with the Marine Offences Act of 1967, and a diabolical erosion of free speech :-(

For another, how will the ISP know if we are sharing copyrighted material unless they start monitoring our internet usage? Seems like an invasion of privacy which may affect all internet users, not just file sharers.

As for file sharing itself, it seems to me the capitalist record companies are looking for a scapegoat for their falling profits. There's nothing new about the Peer 2 Peer moral panic; back in the 1980's and early 1990's it was home taping that was "killing music", even as the record companies were exploiting their artists. Perhaps the epitome of this exploitation was the Bluebells; it was reported at the time when their "Young At Heart" record re-entered the charts in the early 90s, they never saw a penny for their Top 10 re-entry because of a clause in their contract. (Even though I personally can't stand the record, I like even less the way the Bluebells were treated!)

In fact, some amount of file sharing can actually help the artists in that it helps promote the bands and their music. A bit like the playing of their records on the radio; some bands actually used to pay to have their records playlisted by radio stations (pirate as well as legal) because of the increased sales of the records and interest in the bands' live performances etc. Fast forward to the late 1990's, some bands (notably Rage Against The Machine) supported Napster when it was under fire from the record companies and the capitalist Establishment, and said they were happy to have their songs shared online.

And it says it all when the government are siding with the record companies, against working people who - unlike government ministers - can't really afford the cost of CDs these days. (Although, considering the government's track record with CD's, they probably keep losing them LOL).

Ah well, I remember in 1997 when New Labour's anthem was D-Ream "Things Can Only Get Better". Considering their track record since, can I suggest a new anthem for them? How about Edwin Starr "It Ain't Fair" :-P

House of Common Criminals

2008-02-05T17:30:00.000Z

The $#!t has now hit the fan about the abuse of parliamentary expenses.

This comes hot on the heels of the scandal of illegal donations to MPs - although, if you ask me, all donations from rich individuals should be illegal, as they can lead to MPs taking more notice of unelected rich capitalists than of the (predominantly working class) electorate (as if they didn't already).

Also, why did they need to resort to taking bribes from the rich, when they've got such a lucrative Bisto Express, leeching "expenses" from the taxpayer.

Then again, what is interesting is that it has been Labour MPs who have been implicated in taking private donations, while Tory MPs have been implicated in taking publically-funded parliamentary expenses. Funny, I always thought the Tories were more in favour of private funding than public funding. And I still remember the good old days when Labour were more in favour of public funding than private profiteering.

It's not even as if MPs are poorly paid. If anything, it's the cushy pay and conditions of being an MP which makes even working class people, once elected, drift away from those who elected them and end up licking the @$$es of the capitalist Establishment.

I think MPs should earn the average workers' wage (approx £22,000/year), travelling expenses should be limited to second class rail fare, and MPs' accommodation in London should be a cheap-and-cheerful B&B or small flat. Just like what is afforded to most workers, when we are on work attachment away from home.

After all, while MPs get to give sinecurs to their family and the mortgages paid on their second homes, no such luxuries are afforded to those who have been failed by the capitalist system which all major parties love. We now have the grotesque spectacle of an allegedly Labour housing minister, Caroline Flint, threatening jobless people that they may risk losing their council or social housing if they don't find work (BBC News: 'Work or lose home' says minister)

If you ask me, MPs should be made to do the job they are paid to do, and listen to the working class people (who voted them in and whose taxes are paying their wages!). Or face getting kicked out of the House Of Commons :-P

Take That, capitalist Establishment!

2008-01-15T22:24:00.000Z

I am really glad to hear that the EMI workers, 2000 of whom are facing redundancy (BBC News: EMI set to cut up to 2,000 jobs), have an unusual yet potentially powerful ally.

Robbie Williams, who started his career with boy band Take That, is "on strike" - with-holding his next album in protest at the dispicable way in which EMI are treating their workers (BBC News: Robbie Williams 'goes on strike')

I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by this development. I didn't have a lot of time for Robbie Williams, following the controversy a couple of years ago concerning his "Rudebox" record; the line about "special olympics" pi$$ed off a number of disability rights supporters, myself included.

But now, he seems to have found his conscience, and is siding with the workers - without whom there would be no CDs, from Robbie or any other EMI artist!

It is easy to pooh-pooh successful recording artists, who (like Robbie) do have high incomes. Yet it must also be remembered that pop stars' careers (like those of sports stars and actors) are often short, and - due to their high level of specialisation - work following their artistic careers is often hard to come by. So their income during their period of success has to last them for the rest of their lives. This makes pop stars more a part of the working class, than many (either pop stars or traditional workers) would think! On that note, I'd also like to give my backing to the Hollywood Script-writers' strike in the USA.

Indeed, a number of pop stars have had left-wing political leanings. There's the obvious, music rebels such as Rage Against The Machine. But there's also others who started within the pop music mainstream; eg George Michael, known for his anti-war stance, started with the 1980's boy band Wham!

It's been suggested that, as part of his strike, Robbie could put his next album online for free download. Nice idea! If you're reading this, Robbie, how about your next album featuring a cover version of The Internationale, or The Red Flag :-)

Power and money

2008-01-12T17:43:00.000Z

A new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK has just been given the go-ahead by the government (BBC News: New nuclear plants get go-ahead). Nice timing for the government, coming so soon after hikes in the price of energy - notably electricity and gas for home use, and the continuing increases in the price of oil (and petrol).

The Establishment do have a point when they say the hike in energy prices is partly due to price rises and crises to do with imported fuel, notably gas and oil. (It's also partly due to a hike in the fat profits of the energy companies, but that's another story!) However, the UK's energy prices being at the mercy of foreign suppliers, is the Establishment's own fault, for two main reasons.

Firstly, very little has been done to encourage self-sufficiency, in fact the reverse. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the UK's coal industry was decimated, and thousands of miners were made unemployed and mining communities devastated - as electricity generation first started to use cheap imported coal, and then moved to oil and gas-powered electricity generators.

More recently, too little effort has been made to move towards renewable energy such as wind power - despite the UK having one of the most abundant sources of wind energy in Europe. Too little is done to encourage and, more importantly, enable, energy conservation (eg making insulation etc affordable to working class people).

Secondly, some of the blame for the hyper-inflation in fuel prices must lie with Western international policy. The Iraq war and occupation, and threats of military action against Iran, are causing uncertainty (to put it mildly) for oil supplies. The occupation of Afghanistan, and resistance thereto, will have implications for the security of gas pipelines in the region and, more importantly, relations with former Soviet republics in the region - Russia included (who supply a fair percentage of the natural gas consumed by the West).

In both cases, the rush to go nuclear is not a step in the right direction. Ecological concerns (of which there are many) aside, nuclear power will not enhance the UK's energy self-sufficiency. Uranium, like gas and oil, is imported - making its supply and price, potentially, just as much at the mercy of foreign suppliers. Nor is nuclear power cheap; it is actually more expensive than wind-produced electricity, let alone coal-produced. It just seems cheap because it is heavily subsidised by the government. Why?

The real reason for the Establishments love for nuclear power is that it supplies weapons-grade material, as used in nuclear weapons. Which is why the go-ahead for the new nuclear power stations comes "hot on the heels" of the government's decision to replace/upgrade the Trident nuclear weapons system. And Trident is a symptom of the Establishment's imperialist foreign policy, which has aggravated the international tensions responsible for the unstable energy supply and price!

Colourful Balls-up and the bad dream academy

2008-01-12T01:16:00.000Z

So the Schools secretary, Ed Balls, doesn't know the correct order of the colours in a rainbow (BBC News: Rainbow error makes Balls blush)

I guess that's hardly surprising, when you consider how hard it is to distinguish New Labour red from Tory true blue :-P

Sadly, this is not the only mistake the government have made over education. In many areas, including the north Derbyshire town of Shirebrook, the private sector is being introduced into schools in a big way. Rather than old, dilapidated school buildings being replaced using public funds, the existing schools are being replaced by private "academies". (For more details, check out the Anti-Academies Alliance)

When a school becomes an Academy, the private "sponsor" not only owns the school buildings and even the land, they also dictate the school curriculum and admissions policy. Sponsors of academies include Carphone Warehouse and the used car dealer Vardy, what do they know about running schools ?!? Another Academy is sponsored by an evangelistic Christian fundamentalist. And can we be sure that, in the not too distant future, Academies won't be run by horribly right-wing companies which discriminate against minority groups? I myself have in the past experiencd disability discrimination from a computer training company - heaven forbid they may end up running an Academy :-(

What we need are schools run by the community, by the teachers, parents and, last but not least, the students themselves. Paid for by taxing the rich - not inviting them to re-create the schools, as "educational production-lines" creating future workers for their own companies.

Establishment parties' race to the gutter

2008-01-08T21:30:00.000Z

As the tories attack first Incapacity Benefit claimants and then job seekers (BBC News: Tories plan 'work for benefits'), I am reminded of the Tory government of the 1980s into the mid 1990s. Such right-wing attacks on working class people who have been failed by the capitalist system, were and are the true face of the Conservatives - despite Cameron's attempts to give the Tory party an image make-over.

Of course, New Labour have continued such attacks - including attacks on incapacity benefit - with gusto. Little wonder, then, New Labour's only option is to attack the Tories for 'plagiarising' their policies. (A 'plagiarism' on both their houses, if you ask me :-P )

So far, the Lib Dems have taken a line to the left of both the Tories and Labour (piss easy!), describing the Tory proposals as "hollow rhetoric designed to sound tough rather than helping people back to work". So far so good, although it will be very interesting to see how the Lib Dems' policies develop, now Nick Clegg (a moderniser) is in charge. I see Clegg has hired the man who ran Thatcher's advertising campaign in the 1987 election (Clegg hires Thatcher campaign man); OK, so it's not quite on a par with inviting Thatcher to Downing Street and discussing policy with her over dinner, but it still ain't a good omen!

To overcome the right-wing attacks on us by all the Establishment parties, we need a real alternative. Thankfully, we've still got one. Respect hasn't gone away, and is once again coming up fighting. We are standing a candidate in a Preston council by-election in February (Socialist Worker: Join the Respect campaign in key Preston council by-election). I urge all readers who can, to get involved in this campaign - a victory, or at least a good showing for Respect, in this by-election, will help us immensely when it comes to the main council elections in May, and the general election in a couple of years time.

Web of control

2008-01-01T14:42:00.000Z

I was glad to see the Australian Tory government of Howard voted out, if only for their role in supporting the occupation of Iraq. Yet, so soon after their election victory, Australia's new Labor government is going the same way as its British namesake.

They want internet service providers in Australia to filter web content, the stated aim being to protect families from pornography and violent web content (BBC News: Australia plans tough web rules). This move has been condemned by civil libertarians, but the Australian telecommunications minister, Stephen Conroy, is dismissive - saying that "if people equated freedom of speech with watching child pornography" he would disagree with them.

Child pornography (indeed paedophilia in general) has many parallels with terrorism; universally disliked and virtually impossible to defend, it is often used as the "thin end of the wedge" to drive through measures which may potentially have draconian consequences.

In this case, as soon as the state starts encouraging internet censorship, it is unlikely to stop with child porn. Will they then block file sharing sites, unlicenced web broadcasters and podcasters, left-wing or other anti-Establishment political sites? When I see how anti-terrorism legislation has been abused, I am not so sure :-(

As for protecting families and children from porn and violent images, there are already several programs which can be used, many of them free, such as KidSurf, Kidsplorer, etc.

I find myself wondering, why is Australia one of the first countries to consider such a move? Could it have anything to do with Australia being home to the media baron Rupert Murdoch - who has more time for populism than he has for human rights (his News of the World newspaper in the UK fuelled the notorious paedophile witch hunts back in 2000, and his papers regularly vilify immigrants in the name of "protecting us from terrorism")? After all, Mr Murdoch seems to exert a lot of political influence, not least upon the UK Labour Party. He couldn't possibly be exerting such influence on their Australian namesake, could he?

You don't know Jack, Straw!

2007-12-31T13:44:00.000Z

I've never been a fan of Jack Straw. In 1996, even before New Labour were elected, he enraged me with his (later implemented) plans for curfews on young people (my views on curfews can be found at the No Curfews On Kids website). And while in government, he has proved to be a horrible right-winger.

So alarm bells rang when he made his recent comments that the Tories are 'resonating' with the British public (BBC News: Tories 'resonating', admits Straw). He then says New Labour must 'adapt' to survive; I fear by that, he means the government must move even further to the right-wing.

His out-of-touch comments echo the excuse given by the government and the Establishment to explain the low voter turnout back in 2001, that people were not voting because they were "contented". As if the many people who had lost jobs when several factories (eg Ericsson's UK mobile phone factories) closed, the people with disabilities who were having their benefits attacked, and others , were 'contented'!!!

This time, to be fair, Jack Straw does acknowledge "the government's recent woes" - although he fails to mention that the New Labour government has been the best-selling (miaou!) author of its misfortunes.

Yes, the Tories are ahead in the opinion polls. But that is less likely to be due to the Tories gaining in popularity, and is more likely due to the other parties failing to gain from the government's growing unpopularity. The Liberal Democrats have had a question-mark hanging over them during the leadership contest, as it was impossible to know what policies their next leader would pursue. The Green Party have been deciding whether to have a leader at all (personally I think they would have been better off staying without a single leader). UKIP never really recovered from when their leader, Robert Killjoy Sulk, took off a few years ago, to form Veritass. Respect are still recovering from when their leader took off, and took a substantial number of members with him. On a happier note, the BNP has split in two (detailed on the Stop The BNP website), following internal strife (Night of the Long Handbags, perhaps :-P)

But none of this makes the Tories a good alternative. After a brief and shallow attempt by Cameron to move the Tories away from Thatcher and Major, the party has reverted to its nasty right-wing self, with such right-wing proposals as the imprisonment of immigrants who overstay their visa. And there have been rumblings of disquiet among a number of traditional Tories, who dislike Cameron's attempts to modernise the party (for better or for worse). So, in the longer term, the Tories may well suffer the same in-fighting which has plagued the other parties lately.

In a way, Straw is right to say that "the government must adapt in order to survive". It must stop pandering to the capitalist Establishment, and start listening to the working class people who elected it in the first place!

Solidarity with Tommy Sheridan against the Establishment

2007-12-16T20:43:00.000Z

Tommy Sheridan, the founder of the left-wing Solidarity party in Scotland, has been arrested on charges of Perjury (BBC News: Sheridan charged in perjury probe). These charges date back to August 2006, when he successfully sued Murdoch's News Of The World newspaper (hardly a bastion of the truth!) for libel.

This won't be the first time the Establishment have launched a vindictive campaign against someone who has opposed them and exposed their lies. A similar campaign was launched against George Galloway, the founder of Respect; the capitalist Establishment tried time and time again to frame him on allegations that he was in support of, and even took money from, Saddam Hussein's regime. However disappointed I am with the split within Respect, I remain certain that Galloway was not involved in any corruption to do with Saddam Hussein or Iraqi oil.

It also seems a bit too coincidental that Sheridan has been arrested now of all times. Just as the government are in deep $#!t over missing CDs, dodgy donations, the return of fuel protests, and a number of strikes and protests. Surely they wouldn't be trying to recover support among Scottish workers by discrediting the left-wing opposition, could they ?!?

Swimming against a tide of hate

2007-11-25T20:40:00.000Z

It's not often I agree with something I read in the Daily Telegraph. (No, this has absolutely nothing to do with Respect and the split between the SWP and George Galloway, lol). Or have any sympathy for the military. But then I read the Daily Telegraph's Disabled veterans jeered at swimming pool news report.

It really is appalling how common disability prejudice is in our supposedly "civilised" society, and how deep it runs. This ignorance is far from unprecedented; as far back as 1998 I was banned from using certain facilities at a local swimming pool because of my disability, and 2 years ago the parents of a disabled girl (involved with the local "A pool for Megan" charity) were abused by other parents at a local country park for "scaring their kids".

What is unusual this time is that disabled combat veterans - normally treated as heroes, even by the Establishment - are the subject of such abuse. It is true that our soldiers - who have been recklessly sent to fight illegal, immoral and dangerous wars by our government, for the benefit of the British and American capitalist Establishments, and have been killed and maimed for oil - deserve far better than this!

Yet it does feel bitterly ironic that disabled military veterans are now on the receiving end of such prejudice; back in 2000, a heavily-charged debate about whether people with disabilities should be employed in non-combat jobs within the armed forces flared up, as a result of General Guthrie (then head of the British Army) decrying such a possibility. (My views on this issue can be found at Red Disability's Disability and the British Armed Forces article - which has itself attracted an amount of feedback, both positive and negative).

The usual myth parroted by the Establishment is that disability prejudice is a part of "human nature" and therefore "apolitical". But disability discrimination and prejudice are very much a product of capitalism and propagated by the capitalist Establishment - my views on that matter can be found in more detail on Red Disability's Is Human Nature a barrier to Disability Rights article.

More recently, it seems too coincidental that disability prejudice is rearing its ugly head again, so soon after the government has announced plans for yet another attack on Incapacity Benefit claimants. Apolitical? Maybe. Maybe the German Nazis sent over 100, 000 disabled people to the gas chambers just for a laugh ...

The individual parents responsible for such abuse should be dealt with; what I find "scary" is that such parents are not just brainwashed themselves, they are actively helping the Establishment to brainwash their kids with such poisonous prejudice. (Although the idea of "naming and shaming" them goes even further than my idea, mooted in July in my Register of emotion article on this blog, for a "hate crime offenders register"!)

But to stop others like them, we must first get rid of the root cause not just of disability prejudice (see Red Disability's Got a problem? article) but also of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and countless other forms of oppression. Namely, the capitalist system.

The road to Hell

2007-11-23T14:28:00.000Z

It's virtually impossible not to sympathise with the road hauliers who are threatening to re-start fuel price protests, and I - along with countless other motorists - wish them luck. Caught between the taxman bleeding me dry, and the capitalist petrol companies forever hiking the fuel prices (and their profits), I certainly feel more badly stung than someone who's had a naked romp in an ongaonga tree!

As if the petrol price hikes aren't bad enough, the ever increasing car tax and the threatened road-pricing plans are also igniting considerable anger. What's more, the new structure of car tax discriminates against older cars, driven predominantly by working class people who can't afford newer models - my car is a 1.9 litre Renault Laguna diesel, in a high tax bracket because it's over 1.5 litre. and was made before 2002. (OK, maybe it's a "chavmobile", but 1.9 litre for a diesel car is hardly a "gas guzzler" is it ?!?)

All, officially, in the name of cutting CO2 emissions from cars and protecting the planet. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting the planet and stopping the greenhouse effect, and on a selfish level I'd like to see less traffic on the roads - it's no fun at all being stood for ages in traffic jams (or, to be politically correct, "congestion") when you're already late for work.

However, I'm extremely sceptical about whether the increasing costs of motoring are going to have much - if any - impact on car use. Any motorist who's run into debt paying for fuel, taken out an IVA to pay for the car tax and insurance, and auctioned their organs on ebay to pay for repairs, will tell you that motoring ain't cheap!

So what is the solution? To answer that, we must look at what is causing the problem...

Many of us (myself included) must commute long distances to work. This can be traced to the decimation of local jobs, notably the closure of coal mines and steelworks in the 1980s and early 1990s, and there have been several factory closures and cutbacks in public sector jobs since. Not just under the Tories, but also under the current Labour government which is now laying the belt into those of us who now have to travel much longer distances (50 miles in my case) to work.

It's not just to work we have to travel. Local shops are being replaced by out-of-town shopping centres, so we must travel to do shopping. And the "school run" has been aggravated by the increasing selection in schools, gathering pace as a result of the government's obsession with new PFI schools and "specialist" acedemies, leading many kids to travel larger distances to school.

At the same time, public transport has seen cutbacks in services and/or fare hikes as a result in privatisation, and the profit motive now takes priority over the welfare of commuters, let alone the environment.

The closure of local workplaces and the centralisation of production in a few large workplaces (often abroad) has at the same time increased the number of lorries on the road, as goods must be transported further than when they were producd locally. What's more, back in the 1980s, we saw a massive increase in the number of lorries as a result of Thatcherite moves to weaken the railway unions, by encouraging the use of road transport. So it is sweet and fitting that the lorry drivers are now turning against the same capitalist Establishment which gave them that power (but has so long denied them the wages and working conditions they are entitled to).

So any bogus solution based on attacking motorists in the wallet, or any other underhand method (such as making it harder for young drivers to get driving licences and easier to lose their licences, or charging disabled drivers for parking), ain't gonna have much effect. Just as taxing cigarettes heavily is not going to deal with the nicoting addiction, so taxing road transport more heavily is not going to deal with society's addiction to the motor car.

The answers lie in:

creating more local jobs and services, to reduce commuting by workers and excessive transportation of manufactured goods
renationalising public transport to provide affordable, regular and frequent services (including off-peak services, to accommodate shift workers)
central planning of the distribution of goods and services - it is wasteful when two lorries carrying the same product pass each other on the motorway, going in opposite directions!

Only these measures can properly protect both the planet, and the living wages of ordinary working class commuters.

Who will face the music over missing disks?

2007-11-21T17:19:00.000Z

In a category 5 blunder, 2 computer disks containing the details of 25 million people - children included - have been lost. These disks contained sensitive data relating to child benefit claims, and the blunder was by HM Revenue & Customs. (BBC News: UK families put on fraud alert).

The immediate fall guy for this fiasco seems likely to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. Not that I have any sympathy at all for Ali D; he is a horrible right wing Blairite, who was responsible in 2001 for the government's first wave of attacks on Incapacity Benefit claimants. But the buck certainly does not stop there ...

Catastrophic mistakes like this are made much more likely as a result of overworked civil servants due to an understaffed civil service. For this, Gordon Brown himself must shoulder a heavy responsibility - even before he became Prime Minister, as far back as the early 2000s, he moved to decimate the number of civil service jobs in the name of a "war on bureaucracy". (Yeah, I know that sounds good coming from a government which has brought in more petty legislation than it's possible to keep track of, but that's the phrase I seem to remember them using!)

Whether or not Brown, or Ali D for that matter, end up resigning, there will be repercussions. For starters, they'll find it virtually impossible (I hope!) to force through their "pet project" of ID cards, since nobody trusts the government to hold information about us now. And the fact that a private courier, TNT, were responsible for the loss, will hit the government's plans to privatise the Post Office.

Ah well, you can tell when the government are in deep $#!t. Because they always try to take people's minds off it, by dredging up the threat from the bogeyman of the week. This week it's the turn of under-age drinkers (BBC News: PM urges action on alcohol sales).

So, if you're under 21 years old or look it, you'd best have some ID, to avoid being given the Spanish Inquisistion by the sales staff when you go to buy alcohol. Of course, you could apply for a government/police approved proof of age card, by giving your details to whoever is in charge of issuing these cards.

You never know, maybe these details will end up on the follow up disk to HMRC's current smash hit :-P

Shove Trident up Brown's ass!

2007-11-03T23:30:00.000Z

Although the political scene seems bloody depressing at the moment, there is a rare ray of light shining through the hurricane. And it's from a rather unusual source - namely the Liberal Democrats.

One of the main contenders for the Liberal Democrat leadership, Chris Huhne, has pledged to scrap Trident if he is elected (BBC News: Trident divides Huhne and Clegg). For a number of years, I've considered the Lib Dems as the best of the 3 main parties, if only for their support for Proportional Representation and the lowering of the voting age to 16. But if Huhne is elected, I will be very glad because, for first time since the 1980s, we will have a party opposed to the lethally dangerous, squanderously wasteful, abhorrent monstrosity that is the Trident nuclear weapons system - which the government have committed themselves to squandering £76 billion of taxpayers money on replacing.

I have been anti-nuclear weapons for a very long time. In fact, I left the Labour Party (OK, I admit, I used to be a Labour Party member, how embarrassing) back in 1988 when they sold out on nuclear disarmament.

To read the truth about nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to world peace, and how to campaign against them, you could do far worse than visit the CND website or the Stop The War website.

Hitting a sour note

2007-10-25T19:58:00.000+01:00

Probably the most frustrating (depressing, even) aspect of the current disunity among the left in general, and the troubles within Respect in particular, is that it is happening at a time when we need an alternative to the Establishment parties more than ever. While we are fighting amongst ourselves, the Establishment in general, and the government in particular, are at their most able to piss on working class people with impunity. And that's exactly what they are doing...

The latest example is the government's continuing refusal to ban the smacking of kids - completely ignoring advice from Children's Commissioners from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the NSPCC (none of whom are exactly radical!) The continuing legality of physical child abuse would be bad enough anyway, and is made worse by the sheer hypocrisy of it all - the same government and Establishment which refuses to ban smacking, has often hypocritically used the excuse of "protecting children from abuse" to draft legislation and other measures which curtail our civil liberties.

Needless to Say, the Tories are behind New Labour on this one. just as New Labour have become like the Tories, so the reverse also applies. Meanwhile, the real left opposition (as opposed to the nakedly capitalist, pro-Establishment governing party which masquerades as a "workers' party" when it suits them) are at each others' throats.

We desperately need to stop fighting each other, and unite to give the Establishment the good belting it deserves. The sooner the better.

Otherwise not only young people, but the working class in general, certainly won't "thank us later" :-(

Black police showing out for the white cop?

2007-10-22T22:17:00.000+01:00

The outgoing (good riddance!) president of the National Black Police Association has called for an increase in the stop-and-search of young people by Police (BBC News: Call to increase stop and search). Such a move would not only alienate young people, who have already seen their rights eroded by dispersal orders, ASBOs, increasingly strict age restrictions, etc. Even some senior black police officers have warned that it would, in effect, lead to more black kids being targeted, as a result of racial profiling - already, black youth are 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.

Before I go any further, I'd like to point out two points.

First, I have no sympathy for gang members who engage in criminal activity, or carry weapons such as guns and knives - one only has to look at America to see the horrendous results of guns being in common use (freely available in the USA), namely an appallingly high murder rate, including the horrendous school campus shootings which are becoming increasinly common.

Secondly, I have no animosity towards individual Police officers - many joined the Police with the laudable aim of making their communities safer, many are from working class backgrounds (it should be noted that crime disproportionately affects working class communities).

My argument is with the Police as an institution - an arm of the state, which is run by the capitalist Establishment, the Police's job is to do the bidding of said Establishment. Indeed, the same capitalist Establishment, and its puppet political parties, are responsible for the increasingly unjust and repressive laws which the Police's job is to enforce.

In addition, the alienated (in the Marxist sense) nature of policing tends to make police officers see people as either victims or criminals, rather than as people. This can encourage stereotyping of groups of people (eg racial profiling), and is exacerbated by the "canteen culture" which is notably strong in the Police.

It is these factors which have led not only to the call for more stop and search, and for increasing Police powers in the form of ASBOs etc, but also to horrific mistakes such as the killing of Brazilian "terror suspect" Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, and the botched hunt for the murderers of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in the early 1990s.

At the same time, the Police are not immune from the pressures affecting other public sector (and most private sector) workers, to meet targets. The resulting need to "keep the numbers up" on arrests etc runs the risk of Police anding up chasing easy targets, often petty criminals, rather than the real scumbags whose arrest and conviction takes more time, effort and resources. The need to meet targets may also lead to the increasing use of police informants (a practice which is locally nick-named the "green giro"), which can sometimes do more harm than good to the community when these informants abuse their near-immunity from arrest and prosecution.

So what is the answer? We don't agree with vigilanteism, which leads to self-appointed vigilantes meting out their own definition of "justice". The dangers of vigilante "justice" were epitomised by the "anti-paedophile" mobs of the early 200s, which led to innocent people being killed due to hearsay, and even a paediatrician (child doctor, for any News of the World readers out there!) being hounded out of his home by threats.

What I would like to see, is the laws being made by working class people for working class people, to protect us and our community rather than the Establishment and the capitalist system. The enforcement of these laws could not be carried out by the existing state - it would necessitate the creation of a workers' militia, run by and for workers.

For this to happen, workers would first need a revolution to overthrow the capitalist Establishment and smash the capitalist system.

New Labour on borrowed time?

2007-09-13T22:29:00.000+01:00

Alistair Darling, the chancellor, has issued a warning on consumer debt (BBC News: Chancellor warns on consumer debt). Since he daren't attack the rich bankers (typo?) and had said he has no plans for tighter regulation, he has resorted to hectoring those who borrow money.

But why are so many people borrowing so much, and running into debt. Darling, along with many in the capitalist Establishment of which he is a part, is implying that if we run into debt we are either greedy or feckless.

Surely the rising level of debt has nothing to do with low wages, increased living costs, Brown's attacks on public sector pay, the increases in tax for the less well off while reducing the taxes on the rich, and the increasing struggle of many people and their families to make ends meet - has it?

Besides, what right has Mr Darling to lecture us on debt, when his own New Labour party is in debt to the tune of over £20 million, despite its donations from rich tycoons (BBC News: Labour gets most cash from donors). Then again, maybe they were hoping to consolidate their debts into an easy-to-afford Lordship ...

Of course, when politicians run up debts to rich capitalists, it's not their car, house or possessions which get sold.

It's their principles that get sold out. And their voters that get sold down the river :-(

Striking a blow for the working class

2007-09-11T22:35:00.000+01:00

I'm very glad to see the TUC have voted for co-ordinated industrial action this autumn, against this government's attacks on public sector wages (BBC News report: Unions back 'co-ordinated' action)

So far, we've already seen a number of strikes; the Prison Officer's strike (backed by Respect), the London Underground RMT strike (likewise), Post strikes (Socialist Worker report), NHS disputes, need I go on? And this is just the beginning ...

Brown has proved just as bad as Bliar when it comes to trade union support, threatening the prison officers' union with legal action and dismissing union demands for an above-inflation wage increase (BBC News: Brown rejects unions' pay demands). Hardly surprising New Labore (mis-spelling) are as bad as the Tories; like the Tories, they are getting an increasing percentage of their money from rich capitalists and not from working class people (most recently, Lord Sainsbury chucked £2 million in their direction).

Trade union industrial action is most welcome, and I support it utterly.

In addition, there are other ways in which the unions could kick New Labour's Brown eye. For starters, W-H-Y-? are so many trade unions still using their Political Funds to prop up a government which does nothing but kick them, and their members, in the teeth??? I think all unions should democratise their political funds, and follow the lead of the RMT and PCS by no longer giving their money to Labour.

True, Trade Unions do need the support of a political party, which can complement industrial action in the workplace by fighting for their members in Parliament and councils. And we need a party which will listen to our demands and represent our class, not the bosses and capitalists.

But New Labour ain't that party!!!

Suspension of disbelief

2007-07-17T22:04:00.000+01:00

Why is everyone so horrible to George Galloway? Less than 2 weeks after he was heckled during a meeting at Marxism, the political Establishment are now planning to suspend him from the House of Commons for 18 days.

His crime? To defend himself against a smear campaign that he was acting dishonestly in relation to the Mariam Appeal, of which he was involved. (If you are unaware of the Mariam appeal, you can find more details about it on Wikipedia). And to make his accusers look like the muppets they are!

Mr Galloway's response can be found on the Respect Coalition website. To put things into context, it helps if you bear the following in mind:

Firstly, the Mariam Appeal was not a charity, nor was it set up as one. It was a campaign against the sanctions on Iraq (which banned many medical items, even insulin!), by highlighting the suffering they caused to children with cancer (such as Mariam).

Secondly, the Oil For Food programme in Iraq was not managed or overseen by Saddam Hussein's regime or the ruling Baath Party. It was instigated by the USA, was a tool of the Western Establishment, and had to follow strict rules - notable on what Iraq could or could not import.

Thirdly, the fact that the Mariam Appeal may or may not have received donations from people who may have been less than perfectly honest, does not detract from the appeal's aims or motives. I seem to remember that, before his death, the pensions thief Robert Maxwell was famous for his charitable donations. Are all the charities he donated to, now to be investigated??? Much more recently, Labour Party fundraisers now seem to welcome criminals ... not to mention a convicted rapist :-(

As for the claim that George Galloway is bringing the House of Commons into disrepute ...

It doesn't need his help, mate!

Outside the realm of sanity

2007-06-29T17:20:00.000+01:00

As the joy of Bliar being forced out ebbs away, I now face the prospect of life under Brown.

I never had any illusions in him - he is a right wing bastard who, as Chancellor, abolished the 10p tax rate and in doing so made poor people pay more tax so the middle class could pay less tax. He also supported Bliar on most issues, notably the murderous Iraq war. So I am not disappointed by his latest move - ie bringing "outsiders" into his government, rather than give an inch to the left within his own party.

The most sickening of these appointment is to award the job of Trade minister - the head of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - to former CBI chief Sir Digby Jones.

In case you don't already know, the CBI - Confederation of British Industry (or should that be Capitalist Bastards Inc?) - is the organisation of the bosses of big business, the capitalist exploiters in the UK. Not that New Labour has ever given a $h!t about regulating the worst excesses of big business, allowing them to sack workers and move jobs abroad while giving themselves obscene pay rises and bonuses. But now the capitalist Establishment have one of their own in charge of them - er, not to mention a former CBI boss overseeing them - there's no chance of this government doing anything for the increasingly exploited workers.

If you ask me, "outsiders" is perhaps a misleading term. Rather than seeing them as outside the Labour Party, it proves how much the Labour Party is now inside the Capitalist Establishment of which Digby et al are fully paid up members!

The reasons for New Labore (typo) being so in bed with the Capitalist Establishment were made clearer than ever by an article in last week's Socialist Worker. An article about Private Equity Firms (the politically correct expression for Asset Strippers) describes how such firms and their current and former bosses have donated millions of pounds to New Labour. No wonder Brown reckons the Labour Farty can afford to reduce yet forther the (already pathetic) influence of the Trade Union bureaucracy within the party.

Financially, he probably can, with New Labour getting millions of pounds from capitalists - including those with the morals of a Great White. However, in terms of activism, and votes, he may yet regret dissing the millions of workers who put Labour into power in the first place.

The Respect Coalition is attracting an ever increasing number of workers disenchanted with the fake workers party that is New Labour, and has already unseated numerous Labour councillors - and at least one Labour MP - in working class areas. With your help, we can unseat more of these sell-outs!

What the working class needs is a party which will not sell out to a right-wing agenda to gain middle and ruling class votes.

What the working class needs is a party which will not kow tow to the bosses and the capitalist class.

What the working class needs is a party which is run by and for the working class.

The Respect Coalition is that party !!!!!

Lost in translation

2007-06-11T21:52:00.000+01:00

So Ruth Kelly, the Blairite communities secretary, wants to cut translation (BBC News: Translation help 'should be cut'). This is touted as part of a drive to make all immigrants learn English, but it will in fact mean immigrants who do not speak good English are likely to be effectively denied help and access to many services. Especially when you consider that the funding for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes has been cut (Socialist Worker: "Demonstrating for Esol: out to stop language cuts")

One area in which translation is especially valuable is in legal proceedings, such as police interviews and court cases. Coupled with institutionalised Islamophobia and institutional racism in general, a lack of translation facilities - and foreign defendants not properly understanding the proceedings - is likely to lead to more miscarriages of justice. Ah well, I suppose it means the Establishment can lock up more innocent people without having to extend the period of detention without trial ...

Forcing the English language on people, through international imperialism and by repressive behaviour at home, is not new. The whole push for immigrants to speak English (it has been suggested they even speak English, rather than their native language, at home!), has echoes of the hated Welsh Not which was common in 19th Century Wales. The Welsh Not was hung round the neck of school kids who spoke Welsh, and the last kid to still speak Welsh was beaten. (I sure hope the Establishment today don't go as far as using child abuse to force people to speak English ...). Personally, I'd love to see a Welsh "Knot" around the necks of Ruth Kelly and all the other xenophobic bastards in the government and in the Establishment in general!

As I've said before, if the Establishment really want us all to start using English, they can start using it themselves. Instead of confusing us all with jargon and soundbites - such as "modernisation" to mean "selling out", "rationalisation" to mean mass redundancies and cutbacks, and "integration" to mean cloning!

Register of emotion

2007-06-07T17:48:00.000+01:00

I see the Home Secretary John Reid wants to bring in a Terrorist Offenders Register, similar to the Sex Offenders Register (BBC News: Terror detention to be reviewed).

This isn't the only link between sex offences (notably paedophilia) and terrorism (notably terrorist bombings). Both are terrible crimes which horrify the vast majority of people, of all races and religions. At the same time, both are the subject of a moral panic, which in its wake has brought legislation and other measures which are rather more controversial.

Last week's Socialist Worker had on its front page, an article about an Asian muslim who was arrested in London for taking a photo which the Police thought was connected to terrorism ... a photo of Tower Bridge! (Socialist Worker: I took a picture of tower bridge and was arrested for terrorism). This has stark parallels with the moral panic over innocent photos of children (my views can be found on this web page).

As for the Offenders Register, the problems - as with the Sex Offenders Register - are not so much with the idea itself, as how it is likely to be implemented. Miscarriages of justice have occurred with the Sex Offenders Register, the Birmingham Sunday Mercury in 2004 reported the case of a 14 year old girl being forced to sign the Sex Offenders Register for a crime which she was later cleared of in court (Sunday Mercury: Little girl forced to sign sex offenders' register). In addition, a Liberty report from 2002 notes that "Only a fraction of the 18,500 names currently on it pose a real threat to children or the wider public. The Register should be cleared of (for example) people involved in consensual gay sex, so that the Register is properly focussed on people who pose a real danger, and so the authorities who use the Register and monitor those on it can concentrate on real dangers." (Sex Offences White Paper: Liberty Initial Response).

I have also heard about people being encouraged to accept Police cautions for offences such as child pornography, on rather flimsy evidence, and ending up on the Sex Offences Register, rather than see the alleged offence go to court. Not sure how true this is, but the worrying thing is, in these days when civil liberties are under constant attack, it sounds believable.

Would a Terrorist Offenders Register be much better? Well, we can really trust the same Police who killed the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menzes on the London Underground, to never make a mistake in their identification of a terrorist, can't we?

Then again, some people really do deserve to be on the Terrorist Offences Register. Such as the British politician who took us into an illegal war in 2003 and masterminded the illegal bombing of Iraq. (Not that we need a register to know his whereabouts right now - his every movement and action, no matter how trivial, seems to be all over the media, >yawn<).

Also, why should it only be sex offenders and terrorists who are on a register? Just as the Sex Offenders Register and the Terrorist Offenders Register are to protect innocent people from sickos, I think there should also be a Hate Crime Offences Register. This would detail people convicted of hate offences such as racism, sexism, disablism and homophobia. In addition, people cautioned for crimes which would not necessarily reach court, such as verbal abuse or "making fun", would also be forced to sign the register so their activities would be monitored and they could be prevented from working where they may abuse members of minority groups. After all, it could be argued that racist language and name-calling leads in the end to racist murders.

Do your homework Hodge!

2007-05-27T17:31:00.000+01:00

Government minister Margaret Hodge's poisoned views about immigrants and council houses really are extreme - even the Nazi BNP has said that her remarks "echo" theirs! (BBC News: Hodge views echo our policy - BNP)

The attitude of racists (and of many brainwashed morons) is that immigrants allegedly get preferential treatment when it comes to housing. This isn't the case, even with council housing. Most immigrants are immediately housed in private accommodation, often bed-and-breakfast or similar, while many refugees are housed in hostels or even detention centres like Campsfield. Immigrants have to, and always have had to, join the same queue for council housing as British nationals.

Occasionally, clusters (for want of a better word) of immigrants do become eligible for council housing. This is because they tend to arrive in the UK in clusters. This may be because they have fled their own country due to the onset of war, persecution by their regime, or natural disaster. Or it may be because they have come to fill a shortage of labour, especially if they have skills for which there is a shortage at the time. Either way, after a certain time, they eventually reach the front of the queue and are housed in council (or similar council-provided) housing.

In the case of private accommodation, immigrants certainly do not get preferential treatment - quite the reverse, in fact. Like any oppressed minority, they are more likely to experience prejudice and be turned down or given inferior treatment by private landlords. (As a person with disabilities, I have personally experienced prejudice when looking for accommodation in the past. Even, in one case, blatant disablist abuse!) It hardly seems fair to, when they eventually become eligible for a secure home, tell them they must go to the back of the queue again :-(

The answer is to invest in building more council houses and renovating the existing council houses, and stop the creeping privatisation of the council housing stock. Not to blame immigrants, or anyone else, for the shortage of decent affordable housing - when the blame lies entirely with this government and the previous Tory government, who started the sale of council houses.

It's not just in housing where New Labour politicians seem to be racing with racists! Within the past year, Tony Blair himself parroted the myth that gun crime is perpetuated by black youth. And for a number of years, Islamophobia in the name of "stopping terrorism" and attacks on asylum seekers seem to have been the norm for this government. Along with calls for immigrants and their families to speak English even at home.

Well, I sometimes wish politicians and the Establishment in general, would speak English. Rather than their first languages of soundbites, spin, gibberish, and increasingly right-wing nastiness!

Pimping an alternative

2007-05-23T21:46:00.000+01:00

I notice the Home Office are now running radio adverts against kerb-crawling for prostitutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of prostitution at all - it is degrading, exploitative and often dangerous work for the people (mostly women) involved. However, I am extremely sceptical about whether cracking down on prostitutes, or even their prospective clients, is really the answer.

Prostitution is hardly their first career choice. Rather, they are desperate people - according to the Home Office's own web page on the subject, "up to 95% of those involved in street-based prostitution are problem drug-users" (ie drug addicts) ", and many are homeless". Many are desperate for the income they receive from prostitution, and are unlikely to stop - rather, the problems will be driven underground.

The dangers associated with prostitution were highlighted in December last year, when 5 prostitutes were killed in Suffolk. Any crackdown will make prostitutes and their clients less likely to co-operate with Police and give information regarding violence (in the extreme case, murder) towards prostitutes. Indeed, it is often stated that in the Netherlands, where prostitution is tolerated, the incidence of violence towards prostitutes - and sex crimes in general - is much lower than in the UK.

The radio adverts emphasise the fact that kerb crawlers can be caught on CCTV. Now if we are to believe the propaganda in support of CCTV, it is supposed to make people safer. Surely, then, chasing prostitutes into relatively secluded or remote areas without CCTV, will make them more at risk!

What, then, is the answer? One possibility is for licenced brothels, preferably run as sex workers' co-operatives. In addition, regular health checks - notably STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) checks - and safe sex education, free condoms etc for prostitutes would greatly improve the welfare of prostitutes, as well as helping to reduce the incidence of STD's in the wider population.

I also think there should be efforts to bring sex workers (prostitutes included) into trade unions. This would not be unprecedented; in the USA in the 1910's and 1920's, the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, often known as the "Wobblies") was the first to organise prostitutes. (source: The Lucy Parsons Project - Women in Textiles)

Then again, when the current government sometimes seems nearly as hostile to trade unions taking industrial action as its Tory predecessor, I don't think they'll support that idea. They'll feel much more at home taking a moralising stance against prostitutes and their clients :-(

Disability rights or capitalist wrongs?

2007-05-22T22:18:00.000+01:00

Remploy, a company which employs workers with disabilities, has announced plans to close 43 factories (BBC News "Disability firm to close 43 sites") - leading to calls for strike action from a number of trade unions, notably the GMB, which represent Remploy workers (GMB website: "Unions move to national strike at Remploy").

A number of disability charities have supported the closures: the BBC News article reports "Mencap, Mind, Radar, Scope, Leonard Cheshire and the Royal National Institute of Deaf People have said disabled people were more likely to have fulfilling lives by working in an 'inclusive environment'." However, the Remploy Trade Union Consortium have criticised Remploy for planning to close factories in areas of already high unemployment, and the charities for acting against the wishes of disabled workers.

Ideally, I believe it would be better if disabled and non-disabled workers worked together in non-segregated workplaces, on equal wages and equal terms and conditions of employment. However, closing factories - of whatever nature - in areas of high unemployment is unlikely to achieve this. Especially when according to Scope's own Time To Get Equal website, "In summer 2003, only 49% of disabled people of working age were in work, compared to 81% of non-disabled people in work." More likely, the factory closures would make more people with disabilities equal to non-disabled unemployed people!

In my Red Disability article on charities, I have previously argued that disability charities have always tended to operate on behalf of, rather than for, people with disabilities. The charities involved seem to be proving that point, by ignoring the wishes of the Remploy workers themselves.

Meanwhile, Remploy themselves have admitted the real reason for the factory closures - cost cutting. Whatever their public image, Remploy are acting just like any capitalist company, obsessed by profit and loss with the workers ultimately paying the price.

In reality, the best way to create an inclusive environment is by comprehensive equal rights legislation (with no exemptions), and the creation of decently paid jobs for all workers by investment in public services. Not by sacking workers, whether disabled or not!

Snooping plan doubleplusungood

2007-05-21T22:03:00.001+01:00

The ridiculous authoritarian ideas just keep coming, it seems. The latest Home Office proposals are to make it compulsory for council workers, charity workers and doctors to tell Police when they suspect someone could (I emphasise could) commit a violent crime. (BBC News Staff asked to 'snoop' for police)

What's wrong with that? Where do I start? First of all, it would put working class council workers in danger of reprisals, at a time when their working conditions are already being eroded. Along with charity workers, some of whom are volunteers; a lot less people would be so happy to volunteer their time if they knew they were seen as potential grasses and treated accordingly by people they are hoping to help. As for expecting doctors to report their patients to Police, surely that breaches the doctors' oath of patient confidentiality!

As for the criteria for determining if someone is likely to commit a violent crime: "Possible warning signs could include heavy drinking, mental health problems or a violent family background."

The law seems to provide yet another means of hammering people with mental illnesses (most of whom are not dangerous), who have already been hammered a few years ago by the Mental Health Act. But it is the latter criteria that is the most pernicious, as it seems based on the flawed assumption that "the abused abuse". Besides, how will they define "violent family background"? Considering the $#!t that used to pass for "reasonable chastisement", a substantial percentage of the population of Airstrip One, sorry, the UK, possibly fall into that category!

Recently, even the Police themselves - hardly a bastion of left-wing liberalism! - bemoaned the situation where they were arresting people for minor offences, just to meet stupid targets. Just how creating a situation, where Police are to be informed of every possible tendency towards criminality, is likely to reduce the Police's workload, I fail to see! Rather, it is likely to create yet more miscarriages of justice.

Don't get me wrong, I am against all forms of violence, and would be happy to help the Police bring the perpetrators of violence to justice. So I have a few suggestions as to who should be investigated ...

In 2003, Tony Blair, a resident of 10 Downing Street, instigated a vicious, murderous, illegal war on Iraq in which thousands of civilians, men, women and children, were killed and maimed. A number of government ministers including Tony's next door neighbour, soon to move into Tony's current address, supported this act of violence in which offensive weapons such as cluster bombs were used. Another ringleader of this gang was George Dubya Bush, currently resident in the White House in the USA. It's time all involved were brought to justice!

Who watches the watchmen?

2007-05-18T18:07:00.000+01:00

The RIP Act, anti terrorist legislation, the Criminal Justice Act, enhanced CRB disclosures, talking CCTV, etc etc - every time an illiberal act is passed, the cry goes out - not justfrom the government, but from the Establishment in general - that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

So how come a large number of MPs, from both of the main Establishment parties, are supporting a Private Members Bill which would exempt MPs from the Freedom if Information Act ???

What's more, Gordon Brown - whose coronation as Prime Minister (there will now be no election for the post-Bliar Labour Party leader) is due in June - will not oppose the Bill (BBC News: Brown will not block secrecy bid). So much for his claims to want"to build the trust of the British people in our democracy" (BBC News: Brown makes pitch to lead Britain).

It's not hard to see why (once again) both Labour and "opposition" Tory MPs are backing this pernicious piece of legislation. The Tories started the sleaze ball rolling in the 1990s, and it has continued to snowball under Blair's New Labour government (I wonder how much peerages go for on ebay nowadays ...)

But there is an alternative to the soap-opera that is official "politics". While New Labour hurtles down Coronation street, a group of Eastenders - Respect councillors, the main opposition in Tower Hamlets - are making every effort to make their council accountable to their local constituents. And George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, is doing likewise nationally.

Hopefully in the coming years, the representation of Respect will increase not just in the East End, but nationally. We have already seen the start of this process, with Respect gaining 2 extra councillors this year.

Then, New Labour and Tory politicians and their mates in the Establisment will have nowhere to hide and plenty to fear!

Sparkling Wiggles creators, get a life!

2007-05-15T17:34:00.000+01:00

On the subject of YouTube, I'm glad to see they appear to have removed the appalling "Sparkling Wiggles" video.

If you aren't aware, "Sparkling Wiggles" has a 4 year old girl with a speech disability being encouraged to say "Sparkling Wiggles", because her pronunciation makes it sound like a racist phrase.

Some have argued it's not racist because the girl doesn't know what she's saying. What is true is that the girl isn't being racist.

But the video is racist, and the adults (parents?) encouraging the kid to say "sparkling wiggles" are being racist by treating it as a huge joke.

And disablist. I myself have a speech disability, so I know how it feels. Throughout my life, I've had problems with brainwashed morons encouraging me to say phrases which I have difficulty saying, just for a few alienated laughs.

In fact, this video and other cases (such as the recent case of two adults who were prosecuted for goading their kids to fight while being recorded with a camcorder) have made me question my belief that non-pornographic video recording of children is virtually harmless.

Then again, I still think it's sheer hypocrisy that Establishment TV stations get away with broadcasting reactionary carp (typo) like Brat Camp and I Smack And I'm Proud - both of which show cruelty to kids, to a massive audience. After all, if theres any truth in the Establishment's assertation that paedophiles may get sick fantasies from watching recordings of Nativity plays etc., I dread to think what must run through the same nonces' minds after watching the aforementioned video nasties masquerading as "reality TV" :-(

YouTube and whose army?

2007-05-15T17:21:00.000+01:00

I see the US military have banned their soldiers from using YouTube, as well as several other websites - including social networking sites such as MySpace. (BBC News: US blocks soldiers from websites)

I think this is appalling. Whatever my views on war and the role of the military (UK, US and weherever), I do think soldiers should be entitled to certain rights. Such as the right to communicate with their family and friends, when they are stationed abroad.

What's more, it seems hypocritical for the US military Establishment to ban their soldiers from using such sites when, as the same article states, "The Pentagon only recently started posting its own videos on YouTube, showing soldiers in action in Iraq in a move designed to reach out to a younger audience and to show the successes of the US military" - ie for recruitment and propaganda purposes.

The excuse given for the ban is "they've (sites such as YouTube and Myspace) had an impact on bandwidth resources and network availability". Considering the sheer amount of money spent bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, I am incredulous that the military can't afford a few more gigabytes of bandwidth for their own soldiers.

In the past, videos from Iraq - taken on mobile phones - have appeared on video sharing sites similar to YouTube. Some of these show the less pleasant reality of life in Iraq, rather than the sanitized view we so often see on the Establishment TV stations.

The ban couldn't possibly be to stifle any news and views contrary to the official line - ie that of Bush, Bliar and the Establishment in both the US and UK - reaching the public gaze. Could it?

Shirebrook Respect victory in Derbyshire Times

2007-05-10T21:51:00.000+01:00

It's not often I have anything good to say about the local press. But the Derbyshire Times (based in Chesterfield) did have good coverage of Ray Holmes' victory for Respect in Shirebrook.

Respect party hits Labour stronghold

What's more, they referred to Respect as the "left wing Respect party" - makes a pleasant change from the press' usual habit of referring to us as the "anti war Respect party", which implies (wrongly) that we are a single issue party.

By contrast, the Mansfield Chad concentrated more on Labour's loss of the seat than on Respect's glorious victory:

Well known Shirebrook councillor is election casualty

Tony Blair, you are the weakest link ...

2007-05-10T17:18:00.000+01:00

Today, Bliar announced he is to quit as Prime Minister on 27th June. Good riddance (although, sadly, it means we've still got to put up with the right-wing, closet Tory, warmongering, capitalist bastard for another 7 weeks). Needless to say, I won't be "wanting more" as the media seem to think we will (RU listening Gordon Brown ?!?).

Across the English Channel, it seems to be a different story. The right-wing French Tory Sarkozy has won the French presidential elections, beating the Socialist Party (French equivalent of our Labour Party) candidate Royal (I never thought I'd prefer a Royal to a president!).

Among those to congratulate Sarkozy on his victory, with a fawning speech on YouTube, is none other than Tony Bliar. Hardly surprising really, Bliar has a long and sorry history of sucking up to right wing members of the Establishment, both at home and abroad.

The epitome of this is Bliar's craven support for the US president George W Bush, including sending our troops to fight in the murderous and immoral (and in the case of Iraq, illegal) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are countless other examples.

Soon after Bliar entered Downing Street in 1997, he met Margaret Thatcher - the Tory prime minister responsible for butchering the coal and steel industry, taking us to war in the Malvinas, and privatising everything that wasn't nailed down. Since then, he certainly seems to have taken Mrs Thatcher's advice to heart!

In 2000, he praised Army chief General Guthrie for his appalling speech which sneered at the "culture of litigation" and belittled the idea that people with disabilities could be employed in the Armed Forces. (My views on the latter subject can be found my Disability and the British Armed Forces article on the Red Disability website).

Then in 2005, he was quick to defend Ian Blair, the chief of the Metropolitan Police, after the Brazilian worker Jean Charles de Menenzes was shot dead by the Metropolitan Police. (Thought you didn't like gangs with guns, Mr Bliar!)

Throughout his reign, he seems to have been a fan of the right-wing Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch, no wonder this government's policies sometimes seem to have been influenced by The Sun and the Snooze of the World newspapers :-(

Then there's the former Italian prime minister Silvio Burlusconi, who is not only a media baron (this time associated mostly with owning several TV networks in Italy), but who invited the fascist MSI and the (similar to the Ulster Unionists) Northern League, into his government coalition. Not to mention alleged links with the Mafia.

Ah well, I guess Bliar has at least admitted making a mistake. Not for taking us into the illegal war in Iraq, pissing on the working class by sucking up to the rich, or belting our civil liberties. His biggest mistake, he says, was being too soft on poor people and thinking he could solve anti social behaviour in poor areas by investment and increasing the living standards of the most deprived people in society! He now thinks he can hold back the tide of social decline, like a Cnut (the ancient Briton king that is!), by more repressive laws, increased use of ASBOs etc.

His resignation is long overdue. As I've already stated, however, I'm very sceptical whether Brown will be much better.

I'll be celebrating the end of Bliar. But the fight against Blairism goes on!