What have the unions ever done for us?

Snoopers Charter

I have written the following to my MP, Sir Peter Bottomly.
I do not expect it to do any good but he will not be able to say none of his constituents are opposed to Teresa May's activities.
I am concerned about the Investigatory Powers Bill. I fail to see how continually restricting the rights of the citizen will do anything against terrorism. Governments have notoriously used these powers against their political opponents rather than against terrorism. Peace campaigners and trade unionists have had their rights infringed. These people are not terrorists but Teresa May seems intent on treating them as such. There are many examples like that of John Catt http://derekmcmillan1951.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/police-squander-our-money-attacking.html

Please vote Jane Nellist 1 for BOLD LEADERSHIP and A STRATEGY TO WIN

From October 28, ballot papers will be arriving at NUT members' homes
for the NUT Vice-President election.

Jane is campaigning for a National Charter for all teachers which gives:
● A life outside school - minimum 20% PPA in all sectors
● No more than 1265 directed hours, 195 days
● An end to performance-related pay
● Limits on observations and marking
● Retirement at 60 - not 68
● Abolish Ofsted/Estyn
● A pay rise to compensate for the huge losses we have suffered

"The iron fist of the Tories has been exposed. Performance-pay has been
imposed and our pensions cut. They have stood by and watched our
workload get ever greater.
Not content with stopping teachers moving up the pay scale, now they
want to force teachers back off the Upper Pay Scale too!
Teachers are suffering and leaving in droves. Colleagues are being
driven out of a profession they once loved. We have to act.

The NUT's campaigns have not yet been enough to protect teachers and
education. Government attacks on schools and teachers will continue with
a ferocity that will require our Union and our members to stand firm and
fight. That will also require strong, effective, bold leadership. I
believe that I have the experience and commitment to help provide
that lead as NUT Vice-President.
I am a Primary teacher and currently the National Executive member for
the West Midlands. As Joint Secretary of Coventry NUT for the last 15
years, I have been responsible for managing casework and negotiations
with the Local Authority and Academy managers.

I am a formidable campaigner against cuts and on community based issues,
working closely with other trade unions in our local anti-cuts groups
and Trades Council.
I am proud of the work I have done in creating new NUT policy through
motions I have written and steered through Conference on Domestic
Violence and to oppose the discrimination of older women teachers.
I am a founder member of LANAC, Local Associations for National Action,
which has been instrumental in pushing the Union to develop a real
strategy to win.
I want to see one teachers' trade union but one that will use that
strength and unity to fight and win for teachers and education.

Jeremy Corbyn's victory has shown the growing mood to stand up to
Government attacks, a mood we must now build upon.
To protect our working conditions, trade union rights and the learning
conditions of pupils, we need bold leadership and a serious strategy
that will rebuild national action so that teachers can seize back our
lives and our professionalism".

Corbyn's nuclear stance

The i newspaper has made much of Jeremy Corbyn's assertion that he would not use nuclear weapons. They put it to a number of senior Labour figures who apparently blamed him for saying out loud what everybody knew - he is a lifelong opponent of nuclear war.

I do not for a moment think Jeremy Corbyn's Labour critics would launch a nuclear holocaust so what is this war of words about?

Any PM is bound by international treaty not to use nuclear weapons (The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 1970). It is nice to think the Labour leader is not a psychotic killer with no respect for international law.

Socialist Reviews

Death Agony of Capitalism

The Miranda Revolution

Blairites for war

People have been expelled for not agreeing with 'the aims and objectives of the Labour Party'. I have searched diligently and I cannot find 'nuclear holocaust' as a Labour aim or objective. Are the Blairites going to expel themselves? 

NUT Supply Teachers' Network

Please keep working to build a turn out for the October 28 lobby of supply teaching agencies.

We will be meeting at the NUT HQ Hamilton House (close to Euston Station) at 11.30 am. The lobby of the agencies will be from about 12.00 - 12.30 more details to follow. For cost reasons some people will need to get a later train so you can go straight to the lobby, don't worry if you can't make the 11.30 at Hamilton House.

There is a suggestion that we finish the lobby by going to the PCS picket at the National Gallery. this is an all out strike against privatisation and the sacking of a union rep.

National Anthem?

The gutter press were all ready with the headline "HYPOCRITE!" if Corbyn had sung the National Anthem. Patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel. For the Tory press it is the first refuge.

Andrew Marr's Schoolboy errors

This is a very clever and witty fantasy on the workings of the "corridors of power." I will not reveal the plot but suffice it to say the title is not what it seems! The caricatures are finely drawn and wicked.

Andrew Marr's book shows him to be a political insider. This is both his strength and his weakness. In the Labour Party leadership elections 2015, Marr made a series of schoolboy errors. He knew the "insiders" but the vote was decided by outsiders he struggles to understand. Young people, people on zero hours contracts struggling to make ends meet and people described by Ian Duncan Smith as "abnormal" and treated as scroungers.

"Corbyn will make Labour unelectable" is an opinion. Marr presented it as a fact. A Year 7 pupil would be told off for such an error. Presenting opinion as fact is virtually the definition of propaganda. Likewise Marr and the rest of the BBC news organisation spend time promoting the views of the Blairites. The result of the election was that the Blairites were comprehensively defeated. That was a massive miscalculation. The Blairites are rich and powerful. The people who voted in the election were not. They are beyond Andrew Marr's experience it would seem.

 #socialistreviews

BBC Bias

The BBC is a publicly funded body with a mandate to report issues in a balanced manner without fear or favour. The coverage of the Labour Party leadership election fell far below that standard and the BBC should apologise for showing such bias.

The press is beholden to millionaires and expresses their prejudices. "You pays your money and you takes your choice." With the BBC we pay the money and we deserve a balanced and thoughtful approach to major issues of public policy rather than derision and innuendo.
1) The BBC gave publicity to supporters of Tony Blair which was disproportionate to their importance. They were comprehensively defeated in the leadership election.
2) The BBC referred to the eventual winner, Jeremy Corbyn as "a joke candidate" and there has so far been no apology for this lapse of journalistic standards.
3) The focus on ridiculing Jeremy Corbyn meant that the other candidates were virtually ignored.
4) The "Anyone but Corbyn" slogan suggested there was nothing to choose between the other candidates.

http://derekmcmillan.com/

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http://derekmcmillan.com/

Hamish McRae - a disgrace to journalism.

In a frankly disgraceful article in The Independent today, a man called Hamish McRae equates Socialism with Stalinism. How anybody could regard this as "news" is an interesting question. McRae joins with the gutter press in a denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn.

Have these gentlemen not noticed that their increasingly hysterical denunciations do not seem to be working? They are not as omnipotent as they think they are.

Equating Stalinism and Socialism is called an amalgam. It was a debating trick used widely by Stalinists.
Fascists oppose us.
Trotsky opposes us.
Therefore Trotsky is a fascist.

The smug McRae should be proud.
I expect the rich pay him well for his fawning admiration.

New Labour chicanery

The Blairites have excluded an 84-year-old from voting in the leadership election. Is he a Tory or (God forbid) a member of the Socialist Party? Oh no apparently he is "not on the electoral register". This is what is known as "a lie."

He has been on the electoral register for 63 years. He voted in the last election. He has been disqualified because his vote was for Jeremy Corbyn. They have no shame.

His letter to the Labour Party remains unanswered.

Silly Season story in the i

Journalists live in a strange world where party leaders take all the decisions. The policy of women-only carriages - adopted on British railways in the 1950s -is not an invention of Jeremy Corbyn nor would it necessarily become policy if he were elected. By the same logic the Daily Mail insisted a Corbyn government would have us all eating cold baked beans. Probably not!

In other news, Andy Burnham was put on the spot about whether Labour was ready for a female Labour leader. A female socialist would make an excellent leader. A Margaret Thatcher clone probably less so. Liz Kendall was on the BBC rubbishing the trade unions and lauding free schools.

I did not have a vote in this election - being one of the reds under Harriet Harman's bed apparently - but it is a significant development in British politics as Rodney K Kreizman explains here 

Optimism/-Hope-Scorn /Derision……Possibilities abound. Let’s recognise them!

I received this from Rodney K Kreizman:
 
After 40 years approx. (Thatcher 1979) of reactionary Government’s, abandonments of opposition in the form of New labours conversion to the Free market and the removal of Clause4…swings, ever further to the right, widespread Free Market madness, privatisations, that all but made the UK a mirror image of the USA where they emulated the politics of attacks on the working classes, in the name of free Markets, and consumer choices. 

We have now reached a plateau of huge inequalities, widespread poverty even for those in work, very tiny actual trade union sector covering about a quarter of the workforce but predominantly in the Public Sector, indebtedness as a fact of life, non-existent Pension jobs sector, where only Teachers and MPs and Civil Servants have pensions, the poverty of the British worker is apparent all over Europe except to the British Workers, who see themselves as carrying the rest of Europe, a myth perpetuated by UKIP, and the right wing of the Tory Party.
 We are really unable to live and work to bring our families up in a decent standard which in general take at least 2 decent salaries to do. 

We work longer hours that all the rest of the countries in Old EC Europe.  Long hour’s equals ever greater exploitation of ones labours. Also, it a moral obligation, to put the huge hours in to get a medium to reasonable living out of the job. Amongst this mayhem the leadership battle in the Labour Party explodes into a one sided landslide for a hard left candidate, who really didn’t want the job of Leader at all?  Around 400 thousand predominantly young people, sign up to join the Labour Party to become Labour and join, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the leadership, and the heart and soul of the Labour Party.
 
 They are totally out of step with the ruling elites, that want any of the other three candidates, but certainly not Corbyn’s Socialist vision, however, it’s the” Socialist vision” that gives hope and optimism to the millions out there. Hence the paradox.  We have to state quite unreservedly that this re-emergence of new forces to the Left has strengthened the Left generally as it has given us a boost of new fresh young forces that all movement needs to sustain a future development. When we cease to be able to enthuse and give hope to the youth we are failing in our basic tasks to re-generate ourselves and our political philosophy. So what is the Corbyn version? Well it seems more Keynesian, Aggregate Demand management, than really Socialist. Although its lots more return to the Public Sector, Rail, Transport, Utilities, Power, abandonment of £100 Billion Trident Nuclear Deterrent, but the public sector deal is done, with additional Industrial Democracy, which is the real winner for me.! 
So a major return to a sort of Post War UK that we had under the Atlee 1945 Gov’t.  The difference between then and now is that in the main the ownership of the companies we Nationalised were British owned or majority shareholding was based in the UK.. Now our Water is owned by both French and German Utilities and USA utilities, so the ownership of the Cartels and Companies being taken into public ownership, is now much more widespread in their shareholding.
What then should responsible Socialists be doing to aid and abet this process, and how do we relate to it ? Not with scorn and derision, and I’ve seen it all before, not with irresponsible paternalism, at their fumbling for the correct terms and words to express their anger and outrage at the naked exploitation that goes on all around them all day and all night long, not by laughing at them or being indulgent, or by just ignoring what’s happening. We have a responsibility to lead by example. We have a duty to recognise the possibilities that exist now, and help to turn todays “Corbynite idealists” into tomorrows “ Class struggle materialists and fighters for Socialism “ in the future !   That’s our job and that’s our role. Not scorn and derision !  That’s the real tasks for real Marxists and real Socialists  of whatever variety ! We have to lead by example.  We have to show we can work in coalitions, we can work together to defeat the Tory  forces of reaction, and we can, and must work together, towards common desired objectives!
We work on Anti Austerity Campaigns (Wage Freezes) we work on smashing austerity for the poor, and super profits for the rich. We work on re-establishing Public Ownership of Transport Rail. Utilities, Power, we organise and lead struggles against Markets in Housing, Education, Health, other necessary parts of our needs in the UK.
 
It’s the taking part of real time real life struggles that show where the balance of forces is, and how we can organise to beat them, and build both a new party and a movement,  that can lead the way for these ….and other future struggles in the UK.

A watershed in Labour?

I think some comrades have underestimated the situation. Labour is a capitalist party pursuing privatisation at home and war abroad. Those who oppose this agenda are already being ruthlessly witch-hunted. If Corbyn elected the battle will not end. It will begin.

"Factional nutters of the world unite!"

The i newspaper quotes a "senior Labour figure" describing anyone who opposes austerity as "a factional nutter". The privileged Westminster elite have a choice. They can just ignore the attacks on the poor. In abstaining on the Welfare cuts that is exactly what they have done.

Andy Burnham excuses this behaviour by saying that he had "cabinet responsibility" and could not vote against a decision of the shadow cabinet. In 1951 a young man called Harold Wilson was faced with a similar dilemma. He chose to resign from the cabinet rather than support an attack by Gaitskell on the NHS. To fall lower in the test than Harold Wilson is not a good start for a would-be leader.

The poor do not have a choice. The disabled do not have a choice. Public sector workers do not have a choice. They either oppose the politics of austerity or they let a government of, by and for the millionaires trample all over them.

So why didn't they flock to Labour in the election? Because Labour, Tory and Liberal were all offering similar flavours of austerity. 

Mark Steel satirises the attitude of the right wing towards new Labour Party members - they are horrified that people will join Labour to vote for socialism.

Whatever the outcome of the leadership election, the fight against austerity will continue. The trade unions will be in the front line of that fight because they have no choice. 

There is a lobby of the TUC on 13th September. It is time for the TUC to get off its knees. "factional nutters" of the world unite!

The rally will begin at 1PM on Sunday 13 September in the Charlotte Room of the Grand Hotel, 97-99 King’s Road, Brighton, BN1 2FW.

Burnhamites crass manoeuvres

Enlisting Lord Kinnock of Humbug to support Burnham was an act of crass stupidity.

The latest move by Harriet Harman is to warn all MPs that new Labour members might be dangerous lefties. Kinnock witch-hunted his political opponents who were fighting the Tories in ways he did not approve (and showed up his pathetic leadership). 

Is Harman engaged in a pre-emptive  witch hunt?

Heart treatment

Today I was discharged from hospital following free heart treatment  In America it would cost 3-11 thousand dollars for cardiac catheterisation. Let Cameron and his Eton chums have their way and that is what we will get. 

And I was treated by people that cheeky Adolf Farage would hate 😀

http://cuppajoebooks.tumblr.com/

Click to follow

What the fox?

The government are set to ditch the ban on fox hunting. Bad news for foxes but of course this is more important than the NHS or care for the sick and disabled. Their next proposal? Hunting the poor with dogs?

We now know the SNP has shot their fox! Oh that smarts! 

Left Books

Left books are now stocking The Miranda Revolution. I am very pleased about this because I have a long association with Left Books (dating back to 1968)

The right to die could be the only right we have left!

As the politicians are hell-bent on destroying human rights isn't it nice to know they have our best interests at heart. A private member's bill will go before the Commons in September which will give us "the right to die."

I appreciate that the courts may well deal leniently with someone who assists a terminally ill person to die. If however it is decided that killing disabled people is no longer murder it really will prove that we are "children of a lesser God."

And why is the media narrative all about people who want to assist suicide and never about disabled people who want to live?

 

http://derekmcmillan.com/

Human Rights "in context"

The government denies any abolition of human rights. They will just give them a context. The Government's "context" for human rights is that of the old National Front, "put Britain first". The NF had many admirers of Adolf Hitler who, you may remember, had his own context for human rights too. The disgusting xenophobia of UKIP is pushing the Tories to the right. They did not need much pushing.

"Britain First" is a neo-Nazi group which campaigns against the human rights act, against mosques and against migrants. Interesting bedfellows, Mr Cameron.

The rich have all the rights they want or need. Under Gove, the concept of "universal human rights" will get a kicking. And anyone who literally gets a kicking from British forces overseas will lose the right to have their day in court.

For Cameron, human rights are a nuisance. They are an example of the EU interfering in the right of the Conservatives to do whatever they want. For many people that is the only use the EU has: once in a while it stays the hand of the Conservatives. Now the Bullingdon bullies can give you a good old fashioned clip round the ear without anyone interfering.

There is an article in The Independent about this.

Many people have speculated that the Tories' desire to get rid of human rights shows exactly how inhuman this government is going to be.

The Daily Mirror is suggesting a number of ways to oppose the Tories. The most extraordinary is the suggestion that you "join a political party" and their list of parties included UKIP and the DUP for crying out loud! It does not include TUSC.

Other suggestions include joining a trade union which is more sensible than any other. We need strong unions whichever shower is in power.



Don't mourn, organise

Racism is the first refuge of a scoundrel.

On 6 April a change was made in the renewal of Discretionary Leave to Remain. Until 5th April all applicants for renewal had to fill a form with about 15 pages in it, most of the pages were in fact redundant if the person had committed no offences over the 2½ or 3 years since they had been granted DLR. There was no fee - only the postage cost.

The change means that applicants have to fill in a 32-page form and also have to pay £649 per individual, including dependant infants, plus a further £600 per person for a brand new "Immigration Health Surcharge". There is also charge of £40 per person for their "Biometric Residence Permit", unless they have one already. But most people don't have one because it was introduced more recently than 3 years ago.

This means that a family of three, for example will be paying £4,000. Where are they supposed to find that kind of money? MPs sit on massive expense accounts. Migrants do not.

 

The biometric Residence Permit identifies the person as a "migrant". It is the equivalent of the Yellow Star which Jews had to wear in Nazi Germany.

The Labour Traitors are remarkably quiet on this issue.

Your parliamentary candidates might be completely useless. The Labour Traitors are remarkably quiet on this issue.

If so I sympathise. You could however write to them so they cannot claim “none of my constituents is concerned about this issue”

 #tmr
#TUSC
 

http://derekmcmillan.com

World Book Night

The event at Worthing Library was packed out. The speaker was Juliet West. She is the author of Before the Fall. A former journalist, she was inspired to write the novel by an old story which was brought to light when she was working for the Daily Mail. The story was about a love triangle in the First World War and the fact that the information came in Coroners' records will tell you the tale is not a laugh a minute.

For me the most interesting exchange was the final question from the audience, "How do you know something you have written is good?"

Juliet West's response was to say that if the writing is flowing really well it will probably need extensive re-writing. She went on to say that she has come to enjoy rewriting because "at least then you have something to work on."

http://derekmcmillan.com/

Robin Hood Tax and Peter Bottomley

Personally I favour expropriating the 1% but as requested by 38 degrees, I have sent the following letter about the modest proposal for a "Robin Hood" tax..


I'm a constituent in the parliamentary seat that you are contesting, I would like to know your views on the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), popularly known as the Robin Hood Tax. My reason for asking this question is that I will be asking all your opponents the same question and I will vote, and encourage others to vote, on the basis of the answer I receive. If the answer I receive is nothing or yet another complaint about 38 degrees, I will draw my own conclusions.

Currently, on the European mainland, 11 countries including France, Germany, Italy and Spain are about to introduce an FTT. The revenue will not go to Brussels but to their own Exchequers and, if all assets discussed are included, it has the potential to raise in the region of £30 billion a year.

That money could be used to pay back the cost of bailing out the financial sector and the on-going problems the global financial crisis caused, as well as ensuring that international commitments to combat global poverty and climate change are met.

The financial sector can certainly afford this tax - which would be charged at a fraction of 1% on finance firms rather than individuals – in the same way that it has borne tens of billions in fines due to a host of misdemeanours from product mis-selling to rigging currency rates. Moreover, an FTT would improve the financial system by tackling short-termism and reducing destabilising activities such as High Frequency Trading.

It is often forgotten that the UK currently has an FTT - the 0.5% Stamp Duty on share transactions, which successfully raises £3bn a year. I think the UK should extend our existing FTT to other financial transactions, joining other European countries, to regulate and tax the financial sector more. 

Every day, we hear that there will be more and more cuts. Surely it is high time the sector behind the financial crisis bears a greater burden of the costs of sorting it out.

I look forward to hearing your views.

*Please email ppc@robinhoodtax.org.uk for more information or if you'd like to declare your position on the Robin Hood Tax, which will then be published on the Robin Hood Tax campaign's website: robinhoodtax.org.uk

The nuclear option

Will a Labour nuclear war be "nicer" than a Tory nuclear war?

#TUSC

UKIP split over education and NHS privatisation

Rank and file UKippers have signed the NUT Stand up for Education
petition supporting "a qualified teacher in every classroom." They want
to go back to the old days when they were educated by qualified teachers
and believe their children definitely deserve the same. They usually
then go onto a rant about migrants but that seems to be a tic with Ukippers.

Tim (nasty but dim) Cross - UKIP's rising star in Worthing West -
categorically supported private education, free schools, unqualified
teachers - the whole Tory mess. So long as there were no migrants
involved of course.

ON NHS privatisation however he opposed privatisation. He wanted the NHS
"the way it used to be." He was silent on how that was supposed to work
without half of the nurses and a quarter of the doctors who are - let's
whisper it - migrants.

#TUSC

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http://derekmcmillan.com

Candidates debate

Well done Worthing "Skeptics in the Pub" for organising the candidates'
debate in West Worthing on 13th April. This was a great evening even
though one member of the audience, thanking the chairman, said that it
had convinced him not to vote for any of them.
(My report is not unbiased - beware of unbiased reports, they are seldom
what they seem!)
The questions from the audience were wide-ranging and the candidates had
time to answer all of them. That would make for a long report so I will
jump to the final question (it happened to be mine!)
"What use is Trident? Is there nothing else we could be spending public
money on?"

Sir Peter Bottomly clearly thought the issue was far too complicated for
us (dare I say "plebs"?) to understand but he went on to say that he
wanted a nuclear deterrent but it had to be "transparent". So far so honest.

Tim Cross of UKIP was disappointing on this question because he clearly
had not given it any thought. He just repeated the mantra that we needed
to spend billions on Trident "to defend ourselves." How we defend
ourselves against home-grown suicide bombers with Trident was beyond his
ken.

Ms Thorpe (now there is a Liberal name from the past!) fumbled over
whether a like-for-like Trident replacement was a good idea but opted
for a bargain basement nuclear deterrent. That does sound a little unsafe.

David Aherne had at least done his homework. He pointed out that use of
Trident would break the UN Charter and the 1996 ruling of the
International Court of Justice - both of which Britain is signed up to.
He was against it - it is not very green to have a nuclear war.

We got two for the price of one from Jimmy Deen. He admitted Miliband's
love for Trident is one of the romances of the decade but he himself was
opposed to it.

Two audience comments,

"It makes no sense for Hazel Thorpe to say how important education is
when her party famously supported tuition fees."

"Tim (Cross) is nasty but dim. To blame everything on immigrants makes
him look foolish."

I could also mention that Bottomley does come across as smug; David
Aherne isn't going to set the world on fire (that wouldn't be very
environmentally friendly anyhow) and if you vote for the nice Labour
Candidate will it be enough to stop the nasty consequences?
Nobody who voted for that nice young Tony Blair thought they were voting
for the Iraq war!
And I repeat my thanks to Worthing Skeptics in the Pub - a good time was
had by all.

If I had the chance I would vote Socialist! There are no Trade Unionist
and Socialist Coalition candidates in Worthing West. Not this time.


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http://derekmcmillan.com

Champagne for Conservatives, porridge for pensioners! Believe in better #TUSC #socialistreviews

Clarkson and friend want you to vote Tory

No need for anti-racism?

According to the Institute for Race Relations, a body Nigel Farage could do without, "More than 500 black and ethnic minority individuals have died in suspicious circumstances while in state detention over the past 24 years, but not a single official has been successfully prosecuted." I wonder how Ukippers feel about this.

The i talks about "UKIP in meltdown." Is it not rather that the more extreme racist views are heard from UKIP the more such ideas gain in credibility. The media-fuelled hysteria over immigration allows politicians of all parties to make racist statements. The media seldom interview migrants. Migrants are only seen as shadowy figures and linked to terrorism, unemployment, NHS waiting lists - you name it. The migrant is the new scapegoat for all the ills of capitalism.

And the real villains of the piece? Only TUSC seem to be talking about the one percent who hog all the wealth and will use any dirty trick to make sure they keep hold of it!

All the politicians are receiving dirty money from hedge funds, even indirectly the dictatorship in Kazakstan who keep Blair in clover. Only TUSC relies on money from ordinary people. And today they need it more than ever.

http://derekmcmillan.com/

Hysteria against migrants

BBC South East have produced an exposé of people trafficking. In the run up to the election we can expect more and more coverage about migrants. The BBC like to appear respectable and not racist but the choice of the issue of immigration rather than the issue of racism gives the impression that the first is a problem but the second is not worthy of TV coverage.

The link is here

What was missing was any compassion for the migrants. They were not seen as human beings. There were plenty of interviews but the BBC refused to talk to any of the migrants. Their stories were likely to be more interesting than this hysterical exposé.

What was their crime? Going to Italy. You would think Ukippers everywhere would cheer about migrants leaving the country but no.

The gutter press will be full of anti-migrant stories of course. If you expected any better from the BBC you will have been disappointed.

How to contact The Guardian

Well first you have to want to contact The Guardian and it is not for everybody. However they have a very useful page with detailed information as follows
Click here

Pursuing this theme, I found The Times have a similar page
Click here
Under most circumstances you are better off stapling a hedgehog to your face than contacting a Murdoch newspaper!

The Independent is a bit more complicated but anyone who works there can usually be contacted by initial.surname@independent.co.uk

Quirky Take on the Election

The Pet Dog Democratic Party Manifesto

Click here to try before you buy


The 2015 general election seems to have been going on since 2010. If you want an antidote to the boring platitudes from boring platitudinarians then look no further. This book has parts which are laugh-out-loud funny. It starts with an interesting alternative to shaking hands based on the behaviour of dogs and it gets funnier.

In addition there is a sustained and persistent political satire. You will notice I avoided the adjective "dogged". It is a gentle satire but none the less effective for that.

I would not dream of suggesting Rosemary J Kind is barking  (after all she publishes my short stories). I will just say that it is a good thing Alfie Dog has a level head on his shoulders.

Buy this book.

Trainers on the ground?

Private Eye derided Cameron's posturing over the Ukraine. No boots on the ground just trainers.

Napoleon, then Hitler, now Cameron wants to take on Russia. History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.

Napoleon Cameron has not got a cat in Hell's chance of winning against Russia. NATO is playing a stupid and dangerous game but it is not the politicians' lives on the line. They will send better people than themselves out to die.

And who said it was the white man's burden to go out and sort out a complex civil war in which an ethnic minority Russian community feel under threat and Moscow sees its chance to defend its borders against NATO incursions? It was probably Kipling. It might have been Michael Gove. This ludicrous sabre-rattling ahead of an election should fool nobody. A Government in deep trouble at home tries to divert attention by baiting the Russian bear.

The Western powers are playing a very dangerous game. It is one thing to attack a country they know very well did not have weapons of mass destruction. I don't think the Russian ICBMs are a convenient fiction. They are real enough.

And when pensioners and the unemployed have to make hard decisions because of lack of money, we suddenly have billions to squander on this dangerous nonsense? Have we?

Six Book Challenge

The Six Book Challenge involves reading six books in six months. You can do this.

The website has all sorts of possibilities to swap information about books so I recommend you give it a try. If you are a teacher, your pupils can take part too.

http://derekmcmillan.com

Where does an honest man get 100000 pounds from?

Blair's 100000 bribe to the Labour Party disposes of the lie that Miliband has broken with the crimes of the Blair years. If they had a shred of dignity they would tell Blair to take his blood money and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

More simply it could be used to help widows and orphans in Iraq. Blair lied. People died.

Blair is currently the paid lackey of the regime in Kazakhstan. Now a handful of the millions of dollars which he receives for helping this regime are in the hands of Labour candidates. They should hang their heads in shame.

#socialistreviews

Police squander our money attacking peace campaigner

John Catt is a political campaigner against war. He is 90 years old. The cops have squandered a fortune pursuing him through the courts for their right to keep surveillance records on someone who has committed no crime. The Supreme Court has ruled that the police are well within their rights to use anti-terror legislation against a political opponent with no link to terrorism.

This is the final nail in the coffin of the pretense that anti-terror laws are not used against the government't domestic opponents who are pursuing peaceful lawful protest.

The main purpose of the anti-terror legislation is to terrorise anyone who criticises the government's international policy which could charitably be described as brute force and ignorance.

Long live John Catt. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

No place to call home

No Place to call home is reviewed in the Independent here

The programme shows how the policies of the government (the 'hard decisions' Ian Duncan Smith and his millionaire colleagues have had to make) have affected the lives of the poor. The program itself, which I watched by accident, is harrowing in parts and heartening in others.

It is harrowing when it shows how the council can wash their hands of a family because they are intentionally homeless. How many politicians with their fat expenses have had to live a winter without heating because their landlord cannot be bothered to fix the boiler? Would they choose to leave that house and make themselves 'intentionally homeless'?

It is heartening in showing how the families manage to survive in these appalling circumstances. In the end they are superior to the politicians who think of themselves as their betters.

Iain Duncan Smith should be nailed to a chair and forced to watch this programme. It is evidence of why the politicians would like to ditch the BBC in favour of Rupert Murdoch. TV is already mainly celebrity bullshit and repeats. They would prefer it to be 100 percent.

And none of the political class could care less about this. Well "don't care" was made to care. You can vote against this canaille. You can vote for socialist and anti-cuts candidates.

...

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Who will defend the NHS

Michael Sheen defends the NHS and calls the Labour Traitors to account.
An excellent speech. "For God's sake believe in something." MPs are too busy with their expense accounts to care.

 Vote for anti-privatisation candidates. Vote TUSC

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Save the NHS Stop TTIP

TTIP could be a death sentence for the NHS

*Public Meeting* 

*St Paul’s Chapel Road Worthing* 

*Thursday 19th March 7pm* 

*Speakers: * 
Guy Taylor – Global Justice 

Tom Lines – UNITE Brighton Stalls and videos 

The Lime Café will be open Question and answer time Please come along and support this event and please publicise it among your friends, family and colleagues. There is a facebook page: 
Worthing against TTIP 

#socialistreviews

Saturday Night Reader "Not Charming" story

Click here for the story

Fire Services cuts will cost lives.

From Tony Morris - retired firefighter and still fighting!
There is a facebook page to "like"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972996713053/

Dear All,

 

I am writing to as many organisations as possible to highlight the dangers of planned fire service cuts in West Sussex.

 

It is in everyone's interest to sign the Stop fire engine and firefighter cuts in West Sussex online petition to show the County Council that it is a step too far.

 

These cuts will result in longer response times, more deaths, more injuries and more property damage. For example, the removal of second fire engines from Midhurst, Petworth and Storrington will, according to WSCC's own figures, cost an extra loss of life every 3 years and £67,000 extra damage. Yet it will only save £63,000. Other cuts mean an extra death every other year and £80,000 extra damage.

 

Things are already bad with the availability of retained (part time) crewed fire engines dropping 16% below standard last year. Some stations are actually not available more often than they are available. This and previous cuts have seen response times increase, and latest figures show that West Sussex had the most fire deaths and injuries, per head of population, of any area in the southeast, including London, for the second year running.

 

If we get at least 3,000 signatures the Council will have to debate the petition at a public meeting. Please note that that the Council say only signatures from people living, working or studying in West Sussex and showing a valid West Sussex post code will be counted. If you live outside the County please use your West Sussex work or study address and postcode instead.

Please circulate this as widely as possible.

 

Tony

Tax Dodgers on the number 7 bus

Tax dodgers cost us an estimated £3.6 billion pounds. We have all felt the cuts in health and welfare which result. The dynamic government response has been, for example, to put some adverts on the number 7 bus route in Durrington warning tax dodgers that the government is watching them.

It may have escaped their attention that Stefano Pessina does not take the number 7 bus - it does not go to Monaco where this worthy preaches the gospel of tax dodging. Pessina attacks the mild attempts of the Labour Party to tackle tax dodging. Stopping the tax dodgers will "ruin the country" apparently. I assume he refers to Monaco. This is a man who makes us pay his taxes for him and he has the cheek to lecture the government.The Daily Mail has the cheek to quote him as a business man when his only business seems to be monkey-business with the tax system.

There is a worthy petition online from War on Want, 

http://waronwant.org/component/content/article/300-financial-systems-take-action/18272-tdb-ppc

However if you want the millionaire tax-dodgers expropriated you might be better off voting for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. They are proposing rather more than a few pathetic posters on the number 7 bus.

#socialistreviews

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Pensioner suicide over benefit cuts. Cameron remains smug

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-tragic-tale-of-the-pensioner-who-killed-himself-after-begging-for-help-over-benefit-cuts-10029754.html

Malcolm Burge killed himself after being hounded for a bill of 800 pounds. He did not borrow 800 pounds. No. Incompetent bureaucrats at Newham overpaid his housing benefit. Then the same incompetent bureaucrats started hounding him to repay the money. This was a man who had never had800 pounds in his life. His housing benefit had been halved but the incompetent bureaucrats failed to catch up with the change for six months.

He killed himself by setting himself on fire. There are more details of the story in the Independent and the Guardian.

The Daily Mail which brands all benefit claimants as "fat frauds" does not seem interested in the story.
Cameron remains smug.

#socialistreviews

Life on Planet Nicky Morgan

This sounds very good: "We will expect every pupil by the age of 11 to know their times tables off by heart, to perform long division and complex multiplication and to be able to read a novel,"

Now who could possibly object to that? If this doesn't happen then clearly it will be all the fault of the teachers.

She laid particular emphasis on the 12 times table in her Andrew Marr show interview because as we all know there are 12 pennies in a shilling so the 12 times table is vital for life. What Marr failed to do was to test her with some Maths questions - that usually silences Tory MPs. It almost silenced Boris Johnson but he was soon his obnoxious blustering self.

I am getting a class set of Ulysses because obviously the government requires them to read a novel and they don't come more novel than that. Unless she defines "a novel" it remains a piece of nonsense and an unmeasurable target.

And rote learning of tables? This is a nod to UKIP's back to the 1950s stance. In those days pupils could recite the tables and frequently didn't understand what they were saying. That is why teachers revolted against parrot learning. Only polly-ticians believe in it. (sorry)

And all of Nicky Morgan's insubstantial promises refer to 2020. By then Nicky Morgan will be a distant memory. Five years is a long time in politics. Do the Maths.

Based on 16 years answering pleas for help from stressed teachers.

You can try before you buy on Kindle Click here

Leicestershire FBU fight for the future

Miranda Revolution withdrawn

The Miranda Revolution has been temporarily withdrawn from sale.

I'll be back!

Snobbery and Hypocrisy

According to the BBC
"Scores of England's top private secondaries expect to be at the bottom of the school league tables, following confusion over International GCSEs.

"School leaders dismissed this year's tables as a "nonsense", with many schools "caught unawares" by a shift in which qualifications are recognised."

Well welcome to our world! You can be branded failures because the government has moved the goalposts. This happens to thousands of working class pupils all over the country on a regular basis. And did the private schools kick up a fuss about it? No. Did they protest? No. Did they say anything at all when the "nonsense" league tables made them look good. No.

It seems the main item on their curriculum is hypocrisy.

Beheadings and torture make Blair "uncomfortable."

Tony Blair eulogised the autocratic dictator King Abdullah, one of the world's richest monarchs. Although he made the Taliban look like liberals and he had a taste for beheading to rival that of ISIS, he supported the ambitions of Bush and his poodle Blair in the Iraq war.

Blair brought euphemism to a new high when interviewed by BBC Television News.He said that the beheadings and torture in Saudi Arabia were "uncomfortable." I imagine they were, but not for Teflon Tony of course.

Building snowmen or "driving a car without a penis" are criminal offences in Saudi Arabia as is any criticism of the regime. Raif Badawi has been the centre of a worldwide campaign after being sentenced to a thousand lashes for speaking his mind. "Uncomfortable," Mr Blair?
The beheadings take place in public and some victims are provided with painkillers beforehand. A woman accused of killing her daughter was beheaded without the aid of painkillers so she was able to protest her innocence to the end. It took three attempts to behead her. "Uncomfortable," Mr Blair?

Saudi Arabia enjoys the support of American Imperialism and of the British government. The same people who hypocritically denounce the barbarity of ISIS turn a blind eye to the barbarity of the "progressive" monarch Abdullah.

Abdullah and his ilk belong in the trash can of history. Workers who resist the regime deserve all the support the working class movement in the UK can give them. The very fact that the likes of Blair, to give him his full title, mass-murdering war criminal Tony Blair, support the Saudi dictatorship should be enough to convince socialists that there is nothing progressive about them.

#socialistreviews


 

Fracking Tories dirtying the waters

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are used to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States each year. Have you considered the possible consequences for the water supply in West Sussex of allowing Fracking companies to use vast quantities of water when we have already experienced hosepipe bans because of a water shortages?

I have written to my MP for what it is worth. He tends either to fail to respond to letters or to complain about his workload rather than answering the question. However he cannot claim nobody has written to him about this.

With an election in the offing, pressure on MPs might slow down the fracking oil companies. However, a more permanent solution would be to take them into public ownership under workers' management to ensure that environmental concerns are not ignored.

The picture shows fracking brine. A pint or two might change Bottomley's mind :)

Islamophobia is the anti-terrorism of an idiot

Pickles letter to Muslims is a finely crafted insult. Consider the following.

"Your parents were perhaps married in church. You know a church when you see one. If asked you could probably recite The Lord's Prayer with 60 percent accuracy. This makes you a Christian. Mass-murdering war criminal Tony Blair claims to be a Christian. So in a way it is all your fault. Be more British!"

The demonisation of the Muslim community is part of the ongoing campaign by the Nasty Party to show they can out-UKIP the kippers.

Islamophobia is the anti-terrorism of an idiot.

If you want to "do something" about terrorism, do something about poverty. Or do something about slurs like Pickles'. To attack a whole community while claiming loudly that you do not want to do so is what we call "a lie" - Pickles could look it up in a dictionary.

People who want a real change will be voting Socialist. The rest are scarcely worth a cross on the ballot paper.

#socialistreviews


 

Dentists breaking the rules.

I have often wondered about the anatomical knowledge of dentists who examine your teeth and then charge you an arm and a leg.

Now the i newspaper has drawn attention to a problem I am familiar with. Dentists refuse NHS treatment and then ask patients to pay private charges. A survey by "Which" apparently found that 51 percent of people who visited a dentist in the last six monghts did not see a price list. One in five patents said they were not clear about the exact charges. This makes it impossible to compare private and NHS charges.

Patients requiring treatment should never be asked to pay for it privately. Seeking NHS treatment at a Worthing dentist is like telling someone you have leprosy and would like to come to tea!

Still best not to p*ss off the person with the drill in their hand perhaps!

http://derekmcmillan.com/

MLK Day

Today marks MLK day as people all over the world remember Martin Luther King. Socialists also remember Rosa Parks and the thousands of working class people who made the civil rights movement possible.
Responding to the victimisation of Rosa Parks for sitting down on a bus (when she was supposed to stand so a white passenger could sit down) 90 percent of  Montgomery's black citizens supported a boycott of the bus company. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is a model of solidarity.

The vicious assassination of Martin Luther King for speaking his mind in the land of the free was evidence of how far civil rights had to go in 1968

And the shooting of Michael Brown last year showed how far they still have to go.

American socialists "Socialist Alternative" commemorate MLK Day and discuss the way forward from here.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/

The nasty party in full spate

Paymaster General Francis Maude went on an anti-union rant which shocked his audience in Barnham, West Sussex for Any Questions on 16 January. The Conservatives got 36.1 percent of the vote in the election and Frances Maude himself only got 38 percent of the eligible vote in Horsham. However they intend to impose a quota of 40% on trade union ballots.

Maude raged about trade unions “endangering public safety” and “inconveniencing millions”. This is so even when unions strike over safety issues – at least in the doublespeak of the Conservatives. Even Liberal Norman Baker had to demur at Maude's union-bashing pose. He reasserted the right to strike, something Maude is not so keen on.

Sadiq Khan observed, “the nasty party is back.” They have never been away, Sadiq! 

He did however categorically reject the Tories' proposals and defended the role played by trade unions in bringing about health and safety laws, equal pay, maternity rights, part time workers having rights and improvements in pensions. This is what we wanted to hear but we will have to see if a Labour government takes the same attitude to the trade unions.

Maude and Dia Chakravarty from the Taxpayers Alliance argued that the cuts were 'eliminating waste' which is fine until you fall ill and need a hospital bed or you lose your job and need help.

Conservatives seldom talk about class war, they are too busy fighting it. It was instructive to hear the nasty party in full spate. Workers need a party to fight their corner as fiercely as Maude and his ilk fight for the bosses.

#socialistreviews


 

Socialist Alternative mark Martin Luther King Day

MLK Day Rally and March:

Fight racism, police brutality, and poverty!

This Monday, January 19th

Garfield High School

23rd Ave and Jefferson St

9:30 am: Workshops

10:00 am: Rally

12 noon: March

Mike Brown, Eric Garner and the countless other victims of racist police violence did not die in vain. Beginning in Ferguson, black youth, joined by thousands of others, have built a movement to honor their memory under the banner #BlackLivesMatter which has become the most significant challenge to racism in the US in 40 years. We must continue building this movement through massive protests, student walkouts and strikes that disrupt "business as usual" and challenge racism and poverty.

Alongside police murders, Black communities across the country face higher unemployment, worse schools, less good jobs and decreased services compared to white counterparts. This is built into the overall system of exploitation and oppression rooted in American capitalism. To build a sustained mass movement that most effectively asserts that "Black Lives Matter," we need to struggle for economic justice, a $15 an hour minimum wage, fully-funded quality schools and a jobs program to put the unemployed to work.

March with Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative to demand an end to racism, police brutality and poverty!

*Socialist Alternative will be hosting a workshop at 9:30 am entitled "Fight for your Right to Affordable Housing Now! How to build a movement to stop rent hikes, win rent control, and massively expand affordable housing in Seattle." with speakers Ubah Warsame (East African Community Activist and Housing Justice Advocate) and Carlos Hernandez (Fast Food Worker Activist and Organizer).  The workshop will discuss the lessons from the victory in defeating "Stepping Forward" and how we can spread the grassroots movement to win affordable housing and rent control.

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 And the sculptor's art shows what a heartless brute Ozymandias was and the inscription makes a boast comparable to Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich". You can no doubt think of other examples of arrogant rulers of today and yesterday. Shelley points out that the high and mighty of today can be brought to nothing tomorrow.