My collection of reviews on Amazon includes this
Available for download now

Read it and you will be jumping the gun because it has not appeared in Socialism Today yet :) I had to listen to Ed Miliband toadying to Margaret Thatcher on the BBC News. A particularly nauseating token of what "One Nation Labour" has become.

Miliband on Miliband

Parliamentary Socialism by Ralph Miliband

Second Edition 1972

ISBN 0850361354

The first time I tried to get a copy of this book in 1972 I was confronted by a very angry librarian who demanded to know “Are you one of those people who go around libraries asking for books?” Clearly I had quite the wrong idea about what libraries are for. I recommend that you get this book from the library quickly before the politicians close down the lot.

Although this book is from the 1970s it could have been written as a searing criticism of the present Labour leadership. The small detail is that they have continued the process which Miliband outlines by making the Labour Party a servant of the rich and powerful.The supreme irony is that it is Ed Miliband who is currently leading “One Nation Labour!”

The book traces the development of parliamentary socialism through the first six decades of the twentieth century but it is by no means simply a matter of historical interest. Ralph Miliband's criticism of the Labour leadership in the 1960s was that all the reforms for which they genuinely crusaded were “deliberately set within the context of an economic system whose basic features were accepted...the changes of which he (Wilson) spoke, if they were to be as far-reaching as he proclaimed to be necessary, would require precisely the kind of challenge to that economic system which his whole approach precluded.”

The book records how Wilson discussed with Lord Cromer, the Governor of the Bank of England, who insisted that all-round cuts in expenditure were incumbent on any government regardless of party. Wilson retorted that he was not prepared to go as far as Lord Cromer wished. “There is a Tory way of carrying out Tory policies and there is a Labour way of carrying out Tory policies. It may readily be granted that the government carried out Tory cuts in a Labour way, with heart-searching, qualifications, exceptions and so forth. But carry them out it did, all the same. And thus cleared the way for the more drastic application of Tory policies by their Tory successors.”

Conservative Chancellor Maudling taunted the Labour leadership that “it is true that they have inherited our problems. They seem also to have inherited our solutions.”

In fact in this century with such things as academies and privatisation of the health service it is fair to say that New Labour trod where Tories would have feared to go and this enabled the Tories to go much further.

Throughout the book there is a vivid contrast between the willingness of the working class to sacrifice and struggle and the yearning after “pelf and place” which pre-occupied the overwhelming majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Right from the start there was an alternative way to use parliament. As far back as 1907 there was an Independent Labour Party MP called Victor Grayson. Miliband records that “His impassioned zeal for pressing the cause of the unemployed soon involved him in angry 'scenes' in the House of Commons, and led to his suspension from it. Grayson's activities were profoundly embarrassing to his colleagues, both because these activities were deemed to compromise the Labour Group's respectability, and also because they offered to the activists a striking contrast with the Group's own lack of impact.

It is well to recall this when most workers are asking, if they think of Labour at all, “What are they doing?” and to imagine the impact which a Victor Grayson (or for that matter a Dave Nellist or a Joe Higgins) would have on the situation.

Themes throughout the book are the Labour Party insistence on “gradualism” - which has been described as the idea that you can skin a tiger claw by claw – a rejection of the class struggle in place of their bowdlerisation of the Owenite view that the classes could be reconciled, an urge for respectability and a tendency for compromise with the Liberals. Does this ring any bells?

The decisive test came with the General Strike of 1926. Miliband records in detail how the government prepared for the conflict. Then comes the chilling phrase “Labour did not prepare.” At the present time the TUC has been charged with making preparations for a general strike. Frances O'Grady reported on these preparations to the South East TUC last year. Apparently she had been talking to her lawyers! Hands up those who can remember a mass movement of the working class led by lawyers.

This book stands as a stark repudiation of everything the Labour leadership has come to stand for. Whereas Wilson is roundly condemned for supporting the Vietnam War, the left was sufficiently vertibrate in the 1960s to prevent him sending troops. While Gaitskell tried to remove Socialism from Labour's constitution the trade unions got in his way. Not so Tony Blair who succeeded in removing Clause Four and making the Labour Party into a party of privatisation and war.

The book is a brilliant and meticulously argued account of Labour history. Ralph Miliband did not see it as his job to point out how the left should respond. That is something we will have to do for ourselves.

Tony Benn is fond of listing the various groupings on the left to suggest there is no alternative to the Labour Party. It is clear that the Labour Party is no longer a party of the working class and it is the trade unions – i.e. primarily the rank and file – who will have to break with Labour and create a new party of the working class. This book will be a valuable weapon in the arsenal of those who want to bring that about.

Derek McMillan

08 04 2013

Available for download now

Table of Contents

Miliband on Miliband
Les Miserables 2012

The Apprentice final

Fahrenheit 9/11

Remember me Rescue me

The Exception to the Rulers

The Media in Question

A Child called 'It'

The Root of All Evil

Battleship Potemkin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

The Chatterley Affair

V for Vendetta

Forget you had a daughter

Two lives

Life on the Screen

Borgen

Ideological dimensions of Taxi Driver

The Iron Lady in meltdown

Various Pets Alive and Dead

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher will mainly be remembered for the Poll Tax. It must have exasperated her advisers to patiently explain that every political and financial expert opposed it when asked for advice.

One objection was that it was unfair but she did not waste a moment with that. So long as she told us it was fair and called it a community charge not a poll tax all would be well.

The other problem was that it was unworkable. This would make any sane person pause but the lady was not for turning.

Common sense would tell you that you cannot tax people who have no money but she had her answer. Non-payers were imprisoned. At the height of the campaign against the poll tax there were 15 million non-payers. They were people of principle who would not pay and people in poverty who could not pay. The most arrogant megalomaniac would pause before imprisoning 15 million people. It was the sheer logistics which defeated her.

She was not for turning but her own party turned her out and the poll tax was a major factor in her ignominious defeat.

Of course the bankers will be drinking a glass in her beloved memory. However we should spare a thought for the miners' wives and the Argentine widows. For them the passing of the Iron Lady must be a cause of deep emotion.

Derek McMillan

BBC shame - grovelling to Thatcher

BBC coverage of Thatcher in the self-styled "news broadcast" was disgusting sycophantic drivel. They grovel to Thatcher the same way they did to Jimmy Saville!

Book and film reviews for “The Socialist”

I was once a full-time employee of The Socialist – weekly paper of the UK Socialist Party. I was privileged to work with Ted Grant, Keith Dickenson, Peter Taaffe, Roger Silverman, Clair Doyle, the brilliant cartoonist Alan Hardman, Dave Galashan and Pete Jarvis. I attended Editorial Board meetings although I was a “technical” full-timer, not a political one.

I could write volumes about my work there. I will however pay tribute to just two people. Ted Grant was responsible for converting many people to the ideas of socialism. Born in South Africa, he still had a trace of a South African accent. Whenever I hear that accent I am reminded of Ted. He had devoted his life to socialism since before the war. He contributed to Socialist Appeal, Socialist Fight and The Militant (which was the name of The Socialist when I started work there). He was also quite an infuriating person to work with because he had a painstaking approach to his articles and tested deadlines to destruction.

Peter Taaffe is a left-wing activist from Liverpool and devotee of Everton football club. I first met him on a train to a Young Socialist conference. At that time he was the only person working for the paper full-time. When Ted Grant ignored the signs in the British Labour Party (the expulsion of socialists and the adoption of privatisation, inequality and war as items of policy) Peter Taaffe had to lead the fledgling Socialist Party. I still remember how he wore his voice out addressing meetings. After having a sore throat for a long time he attended a doctor who told him he had chronic pharyngitis. He came back to the office amused at this diagnosis because pharyngitis means “a sore throat” and chronic means “for a long time”!

I still write reviews of books and films for The Socialist. My friends assume that I am writing for “the” only remaining Socialist in the world but things are not that bad. I also write for Socialism Today which is a monthly journal. Some have suggested “Socialism Tomorrow” or “Socialism the day after” but we shall see.

During the banking crisis, the BBC broadcaster, Sarah Kennedy, joked that “The TUC have a demonstration against capitalism this weekend. They are bringing it forward because capitalism may not last that long.” Yet capitalism did survive the banking crisis and every family in the land knows how it survived. It survived at our expense. Bankers still get million pound bonuses (I always think six months in prison would do them more good) and we get cuts in wages, pensions and social services.

Perhaps it is those who believe in capitalism who are living in cloud cuckoo land.

I have collected some of my reviews. The most recent is a review of Parliamentary Socialism entitled "Miliband on Miliband". The earliest is a review of Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle which is simply the most fascinating insight into the strange world of cyberspace that I have ever come across.

I review things which move or interest me.That is the advantage of freelance writing.

Available for download now

Table of Contents
 

Miliband on Miliband
Les Miserables 2012

The Apprentice final

Fahrenheit 9/11

Remember me Rescue me

The Exception to the Rulers

The Media in Question

A Child called 'It'

The Root of All Evil

Battleship Potemkin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

The Chatterley Affair

V for Vendetta

Forget you had a daughter

Two lives

Life on the Screen

Borgen

Ideological dimensions of Taxi Driver

The Iron Lady in meltdown

Various Pets Alive and Dead

Reds under Ian Grayson's bed

A disgraceful Guardian article by Jessica Shepherd attacking left wing teachers was worthy of the Daily Mail. The picture it sent around the world was a burning left wing newspaper. Do the oddly named 'broad left' approve of burning newspapers? Will they start on books next?

This does not seem to be a good time to divide the union with a witch hunt against reds under the beds

I do not read Socialist Worker. In fact I read the Broad Left leaflets at conference. I would oppose burning them :-)

Disability Hate Crime - Cameron has blood on his hands

More than 1,700 disability hate crimes were recorded by police in
England and Wales in 2011-12. The Joint Inspectorate report published
on 21 March said that disability hate crime was in fact under-reported
and blamed the reluctance of police officers to ask callers whether
they were disabled or not.

The largest disability hate crime has been the behaviour of the
Department of Work and Pensions who contracted ATOS to reduce the
number of claimants for Disability Living Allowance. Many
well-publicised cases have ATOS insisting that for example a man in a
coma, and another claimant who was blind and deaf and unable to walk
were "fit for work" and clearly just scroungers.

And the accomplices of this crime are the gutter press who have waged
an unceasing campaign against "scroungers" and fuelled the hatred
which allows disability hate crime to take place.

Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her disabled daughter Francecca
Hardwick in 2007 after repeated complaints to police about harassment
by youths.

However the police were quick enough to act when anti-ATOS campaigner
Beth Tichbourne took part in a peaceful protest and yelled at Cameron
"you have blood on your hands."

On the 30 November 2012 David Cameron was booed as he came on stage to
turn on the Witney Christmas Lights. You can watch a video of him
trying to drown out any criticism by awkwardly getting the crowd to
cheer for everyone from themselves to the Queen on YouTube. Kind of
funny. Also, kind of not funny.

Beth Tichbourne told the Black Triangle Campaign:

'I find it very weird watching the video, because while this was going
on I was being beaten up by the police on the other side of the stage.

'I have never been so scared: my face was being pushed into the
ground, I could feel blood coming from my nose, there was someone
putting their whole weight on my back while someone else was stamping
on my knees, along with various people grabbing and twisting my limbs.
And then the officer on my back moved a knee up onto the back of my
neck.'

Beth received a fine of £747. Small change in the pocket of a
millionaire like Cameron. It is more than a month's income for her.

So as you can see the police can act hard enough when the issue is
important enough. When it comes to dealing with disability hate crime,
it seems they are too embarrassed.

A website http://calumslist.org/ lists 30 deaths attributable to the
Tory/Liberal one-sided war on the poor called "Welfare Reform."
Cameron actually does have blood on his hands. Quite a lot of it!


http://classroomteachermanual.blogspot.com

Waiting for New Labour

Only go to the doctor if you are not ill.

The definition of a banker is someone who will lend you an umbrella so long as it is not raining. The Demos Think Tank has decided to adopt the same approach to health care and welfare.

A report published on 12 March has called for patients who exercise regularly and avoid fatty foods to go to the front of the queue. They have also suggested that welfare claimants should be penalised for not "behaving responsibly."

So anyone who is unwell is to blame for their condition and should be punished. People in wheelchairs ought to go out jogging. People who can only afford Sainsbury's basics should be penalised for not buying fresh vegetables. Demos have also suggested that the supermarkets should help to spy on claimants "with the claimant's consent". And if they withhold their consent? Back to the end of the queue!

This is not a million miles from the antics of ATOS who said that a man in a coma was "fit for work". In both cases the "all sick people are scroungers" and "it's all their own fault anyway" philosophy prevails.

It came as no surprise when Westminster Tories suggested that people on benefits who they judged to be too fat (or too thin or too tall or too short presumably) were not entitled to benefits. What is surprising perhaps is that Demos describes itself as a "left of centre" think tank.

I wonder where Demos think "the centre" is. Somewhere to the right of the Daily Mail perhaps. Nothing signals the degeneracy of New Labour more than the "tough on scroungers" rhetoric which is now emerging. Tough on scroungers except MPs. Tough on scroungers except the bosses of corporations who vote themselves massive bonuses. And tough on scroungers except the filthy rich who live on unearned income.

And of course Demos members and New Labour ministers can always get to the front of the queue for health care by going private. Old Labour used to object to that sort of thing - New Labour has a more flexible morality.

What's wonga with the Office of Fair Trading?

Will self-regulation work for bloodsuckers?

Like a drugged watchdog, the Office Of Fair Trading has finally, very slowly, woken up to the disgusting behaviour of the short-term high-interest loan sharks.



One wonders why on earth they have taken so long. One wonders why they are so painfully slow to do something about it, or more precisely to threaten that they might do something about it.



If you or I were guilty of extortion the police would not give us 12 weeks to improve our performance, they would bang us up right away.



The OFT has rattled its rusty sabre and warned the loan sharks that they just might do something if they do not regulate themselves.



I might mention that the food industry 'regulates itself' and you can't say neigh to that!



A cynical person might think that the half million donation to the Tory Party of Adrian Beecroft, the major shareholder in Wonga.com has something to do with it.



Wonga are very kind people who will help you out of a tight spot financially and then quite reasonably charge you 4,000% for the trouble ...



Yes, that is 4,000 percent. A lot of money. The most recent estimate is that Beecroft's company has gone from a capital of £17 million to a nice fat £384 million, mainly at the expense of people on low incomes who can only get credit from loan sharks.



Now if Wonga were to reduce their eye-watering interest rates to one which is merely extortionate the OFT will be able to claim a major victory.



Other payday loan sharks manage on a mere 2,000%. This is still enough to make your blood boil but that is no bad thing in the cold weather. After all, it is the only heating you will be able to afford, isn't it?

The ARK Swimarathon Team

Eight swimmers, 188 lengths in 55 minutes,

Go ARK!

Fundraising for the ARK Horsham. An estimated 500 pounds.

Ken Loach on Question Time

Ken Loach on Question Time was applauded when he said we need a broad movement of the left to fight against the sell-off of the NHS and privatisation.
He was interrupted by Dimbleby telling a time-worn lie that a party of the left will lose votes.
Wiseacres like Dimbleby were actually certain that Labour could not win the 1945 election because their programme was so radical. When Labour did win they developed amnesia and now Dimbleby pretends it did not happen at all because it was impossible.
This is the election Dimbleby pretends did not occur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945

Eat horse and do as you're told - serial school bully Wilshaw

Michael Wilshaw, OFSTED head and serial school bully, has turned his unwanted attentions to governors.

He said many had their priorities wrong and ignored fundamental aspects of education such as teaching standards, student behaviour and school culture.

Instead, they spent time worrying about "marginal" issues such as school lunches, uniforms or the "girl's loo", which often led to critical inspectorate reports.
The idea that food is unimportant is ludicrous and he has carefully chosen to make this stricture in the middle of a scandal about food standards. Can we look forward to him force-feeding horseburgers to children using the model of Selwyn Gummer who notoriously force-fed his daughter a burger to "prove" it was safe to eat?
However the more sinister side of this rant is the clear intention to replace governors who represent the concerns of parents and the community with GOVEnors who represent the government''s priorities and are of course "business friendly".
An example, a scandalous example, was St Bede's School in Cambridge where a long-standing governor and trade unionist was removed for failing to support academy staus.

Curiously another person specification for governors was "to be able to think critically." So it seems that on planet Gove you can only think critically if you agree with the Academy program.


--
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http://classroomteachermanual.blogspot.com

Dear Francis

I know people are reluctant to write to MPs because they think they are useless. Some are also reluctant to write because the union provides a standard letter which they might take exception to. It is also the case that MPs can ignore standard letters and an individual one is often more likely to get a response.

I have written to my MP as follows. You can use the NUT website to write your own letter.

Dear Francis,

I think that Mr Gove's humiliating climb-down over the ill-conceived EBACC proposals should act as a warning. I am writing to you as one of your constituents and as a retired teacher to ask that you write to Mr Gove to communicate my concerns and warn him of the hazards of his damaging proposals.

In particular, Mr Gove's insistence on "Performance Related Pay" is going to be damaging to the collegiate nature of teaching. It would be a shame if instead of co-operating with each other, teachers were forced to compete for scarce financial rewards.

Individualised pay decisions are very likely to lead to favouritism. The only way to prevent that would be an expensive interventionist micro-management of education which Mr Gove pretends to oppose.

With best wishes.

I don't know if he will take the "best wishes" as ironic or not. I note that my spelling checker thinks Gove is a mistake. I couldn't possibly comment.

LOL

This cartoon in "the i" today celebrates Gove's defeat over EBACC. However his performance pay chicanery remains a threat to teachers.

Only obedient teachers will be getting pay rises in future if Gove gets his way. The union was founded to oppose performance related pay.

There is a facebook page for those who want to comment on Gove's plans and the union's response.

Click here

A close-run thing - Teachers' Union leaders want your views

How the NUT Executive voted on strike action. It was a close run thing! They would like to hear from rank and file NUT members about whether to call strike action in the summer term.

22 Against

1. CUMBRIA:
ALAN RUTTER a.rutter@executive.nut.org.uk

2. NORTH-EAST:
IAN GRAYSON i.grayson@executive.nut.org.uk

3. NORTH YORKS:
ANNE SWIFT a.swift@executive.nut.org.uk

4. BRADFORD/LEEDS:
HAZEL DANSON h.danson@executive.nut.org.uk

5. LANCASHIRE:
SIMON JONES s.jones@executive.nut.org.uk

6. and 7. MANCHESTER/ ROCHDALE/WIGAN:
JAY BARRY j.barry@executive.nut.org.uk
and
NICK WIGMORE n.wigmore@executive.nut.org.uk

8. CHESHIRE/MERSEYSIDE:
EDDIE RITSON e.ritson@executive.nut.org.uk

9. DERBYSHIRE:
JOHN HOLMES j.holmes@executive.nut.org.uk

10. SHROPS/STAFFS:
LINDA GOODWIN l.goodwin@executive.nut.org.uk

11. GLOUCS/WARKS:
JOHN PEMBERTHY j.pemberthy@executive.nut.org.uk

12. CAMBS/SUFFOLK:
GRAHAM WHITE g.white@executive.nut.org.uk

13. ESSEX:
JERRY GLAZIER j.glazier@executive.nut.org.uk

14. HANTS:
AMANDA MARTIN a.martin@executive.nut.org.uk

15. WEST SUSSEX/SURREY:
VERONICA PEPPIATT v.peppiatt@executive.nut.org.uk

16. EAST SUSSEX/KENT:
DAVE BRINSON d.brinson@executive.nut.org.uk

17. DORSET/SOMERSET:
ROBIN HEAD r.head@executive.nut.org.uk

18, 19, 20. WALES:
ANGELA JARDINE a.jardine@executive.nut.org.uk
NEIL FODEN n.foden@executive.nut.org.uk
CLARE JONES c.jones@executive.nut.org.uk

21. TREASURER:
IAN MURCH i.murch@executive.nut.org.uk

22. VICE-PRESIDENT:
BETH DAVIES b.davies@executive.nut.org.uk

20 FOR:

1. BRADFORD/LEEDS:
PATRICK MURPHY p.murphy@executive.nut.org.uk

2. BARNSLEY/SHEFFIELD:
ROY BOWSER r.bowser@executive.nut.org.uk

3. LEIECSTERSHIRE:
IAN LEAVER i.leaver@executive.nut.org.uk

4. and 5. WEST MIDLANDS:
TONY TONKS t.tonks@executive.nut.org.uk
ROGER KING r.king@executive.nut.org.uk

6. HERTS/BEDS:
HEATHER MCKENZIE h.mckenzie@executive.nut.org.uk

7. BUCKS/OXFORDSHIRE:
GAWAIN LITTLE g.little@executive.nut.org.uk

8. BRISTOL/WILTS:
ANNE LEMON a.lemon@executive.nut.org.uk

9. CORNWALL/DEVON:
BARRIE FROST b.frost@executive.nut.org.uk

10, 11. INNER LONDON:
MARTIN POWELL-DAVIES m.powell-davies@executive.nut.org.uk
ALEX KENNY a.kenny@executive.nut.org.uk

12,13,14,15 OUTER LONDON
DAVE HARVEY d.harvey@executive.nut.org.uk
DOMINIC BYRNE d.byrne@executive.nut.org.uk
NICK GRANT n.grant@executive.nut.org.uk
MARILYN BATER m.bater@executive.nut.org.uk

16,17,18 EQUALITIES SEATS:
MANDY HUDSON m.hudson@executive.nut.org.uk
ANNETTE PRYCE a.pryce@executive.nut.org.uk
BETTY JOSEPH b.joseph@executive.nut.org.uk

19. VICE-PRESIDENT:
MAX HYDE m.hyde@executive.nut.org.uk

20. EX-PRESIDENT:
JULIE LYON-TAYLOR j.lyon-taylor@executive.nut.org.uk

NOT VOTING as PRESIDENT:
MARILYN HARROP m.harrop@executive.nut.org.uk

Teachers' Union leaders want your views.

How the NUT Executive voted on strike action. It was a close run thing! They would like to hear from rank and file NUT members about whether to call strike action in the summer term.

22 Against

1. CUMBRIA:
ALAN RUTTER a.rutter@executive.nut.org.uk

2. NORTH-EAST:
IAN GRAYSON i.grayson@executive.nut.org.uk

3. NORTH YORKS:
ANNE SWIFT a.swift@executive.nut.org.uk

4. BRADFORD/LEEDS:
HAZEL DANSON h.danson@executive.nut.org.uk

5. LANCASHIRE:
SIMON JONES s.jones@executive.nut.org.uk

6. and 7. MANCHESTER/ ROCHDALE/WIGAN:
JAY BARRY j.barry@executive.nut.org.uk
and
NICK WIGMORE n.wigmore@executive.nut.org.uk

8. CHESHIRE/MERSEYSIDE:
EDDIE RITSON e.ritson@executive.nut.org.uk

9. DERBYSHIRE:
JOHN HOLMES j.holmes@executive.nut.org.uk

10. SHROPS/STAFFS:
LINDA GOODWIN l.goodwin@executive.nut.org.uk

11. GLOUCS/WARKS:
JOHN PEMBERTHY j.pemberthy@executive.nut.org.uk

12. CAMBS/SUFFOLK:
GRAHAM WHITE g.white@executive.nut.org.uk

13. ESSEX:
JERRY GLAZIER j.glazier@executive.nut.org.uk

14. HANTS:
AMANDA MARTIN a.martin@executive.nut.org.uk

15. WEST SUSSEX/SURREY:
VERONICA PEPPIATT v.peppiatt@executive.nut.org.uk

16. EAST SUSSEX/KENT:
DAVE BRINSON d.brinson@executive.nut.org.uk

17. DORSET/SOMERSET:
ROBIN HEAD r.head@executive.nut.org.uk

18, 19, 20. WALES:
ANGELA JARDINE a.jardine@executive.nut.org.uk
NEIL FODEN n.foden@executive.nut.org.uk
CLARE JONES c.jones@executive.nut.org.uk

21. TREASURER:
IAN MURCH i.murch@executive.nut.org.uk

22. VICE-PRESIDENT:
BETH DAVIES b.davies@executive.nut.org.uk

20 FOR:

1. BRADFORD/LEEDS:
PATRICK MURPHY p.murphy@executive.nut.org.uk

2. BARNSLEY/SHEFFIELD:
ROY BOWSER r.bowser@executive.nut.org.uk

3. LEIECSTERSHIRE:
IAN LEAVER i.leaver@executive.nut.org.uk

4. and 5. WEST MIDLANDS:
TONY TONKS t.tonks@executive.nut.org.uk
ROGER KING r.king@executive.nut.org.uk

6. HERTS/BEDS:
HEATHER MCKENZIE h.mckenzie@executive.nut.org.uk

7. BUCKS/OXFORDSHIRE:
GAWAIN LITTLE g.little@executive.nut.org.uk

8. BRISTOL/WILTS:
ANNE LEMON a.lemon@executive.nut.org.uk

9. CORNWALL/DEVON:
BARRIE FROST b.frost@executive.nut.org.uk

10, 11. INNER LONDON:
MARTIN POWELL-DAVIES m.powell-davies@executive.nut.org.uk
ALEX KENNY a.kenny@executive.nut.org.uk

12,13,14,15 OUTER LONDON
DAVE HARVEY d.harvey@executive.nut.org.uk
DOMINIC BYRNE d.byrne@executive.nut.org.uk
NICK GRANT n.grant@executive.nut.org.uk
MARILYN BATER m.bater@executive.nut.org.uk

16,17,18 EQUALITIES SEATS:
MANDY HUDSON m.hudson@executive.nut.org.uk
ANNETTE PRYCE a.pryce@executive.nut.org.uk
BETTY JOSEPH b.joseph@executive.nut.org.uk

19. VICE-PRESIDENT:
MAX HYDE m.hyde@executive.nut.org.uk

20. EX-PRESIDENT:
JULIE LYON-TAYLOR j.lyon-taylor@executive.nut.org.uk

NOT VOTING as PRESIDENT:
MARILYN HARROP m.harrop@executive.nut.org.uk

Goldman Sachs of cash - don't you dare tax us!

Goldman Sachs made up to an estimated quarter of a billion pounds from speculating on food prices including wheat, maize and soy. The bank is accused of contributing to a growing global food crisis.

Goldman Sachs created the first commodity index funds which allow huge amounts of money to be gambled on prices.

Anti-poverty campaign group the World Development Movement released the estimate following the publication of Goldman Sachs' 2012 results. The group is calling for tough rules to curb financial speculation on food, to prevent banks and hedge funds driving up prices.

The US has passed legislation to limit speculation, but the controls have not been implemented due to a legal challenge from Wall Street spearheaded by an organisation calling itself "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association" Readers will be amazed to learn that Goldman Sachs is a leading member of this Association. Similar legislation is on the table at the EU, but the UK government has so far opposed effective controls. Unsurprisingly Goldman Sachs has lobbied against controls in both the US and the EU and they carry a lot more clout than the starving millions.

With the cheek of the devil, Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein denounced Cameron's purely verbal attack on tax dodgers, saying that holding people up for criticism for their tax arrangements risked "criminalising every right-thinking person who organises his or her affairs in a sensible way.

They make money. People starve because they cannot afford food. But God forbid that anyone should suggest they pay tax!

Derek McMillan

Archbishop of Westminster

Once again the newspapers refer to the Archbishop of Westminster as "the leader of Britain's Catholics." According to the catechism, the leader of Catholics everywhere is Jesus Christ. He instructed us to 'love one another as I have loved you' and made no exceptions. 

Blessed are the peacemakers (unless they're gay?)

Blessed are the poor (unless they're gay?)

Blessed are the meek (unless they're gay?)

Forgive those who trespass against you (unless they're gay?)

etc.

The situation in the church is in transition. Priests may not marry but there are half a dozen married priests in Arundel and Brighton. There are female chaplains and altar servers but not deacons and priests.

And one could say that Anglicans have problems of their own with gay priests required to be celebate whereas those who are straight are not. I couldn't possibly comment.

 

 

 

Lies, damned lies and benefit cuts!

The TUC has published research which shows government and media attacks on scroungers are based on lies.

On average members of the public think 41 percent of the welfare budget goes to the unemployed. This “fact” is used to justify attacking the unemployed as scroungers. In fact the figure is 3 percent. And any of the “hard-working taxpayers” of today could be denounced as the  “workshy scroungers” of  tomorrow if the recession throws them out of work.

Alongside the massive tax dodging of firms like Vodafone and Starbucks, the amount of benefit fraud is minuscule. The public are led to believe it is 27 percent of the welfare budget. The figure is actually less than one percent.

Alongside the legal and illegal expenses claims of MPs most fraud is tiny. This has not stopped the Tories of Westminster City Council from floating the idea of cutting benefit for people they deem too fat. And next week people they deem too thin or too tall no doubt. And what are these people supposed to do without benefits? “Die and reduce the surplus population” to quote that model of fiscal responsibility, Ebenezer Scrooge.

People in work are being asked to approve attacks on the unemployed because they get too much money. An example is an unemployed couple with two school-aged children. The approval is based on an imagined figure of £147. And what would people like to cut it to? Perhaps £111.45 which is the real figure.

The old adage would seem to be true. Figures can’t lie but liars can figure.

The Daily Express headlined “a new ice age”, “a cure for cancer” and “the economy is booming” in the same month. Why on earth believe it when they tell you 80 percent of benefit claimants are frauds?
The TUC has done a good job in commissioning this research. Public policy decisions should be based on the truth not convenient lies.

Tories wish to punish obesity

Shanghaied by HSBC

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) - chiefly famous for money-laundering - have also shanghaied millions of pounds from ordinary customers by a bit of jiggery pokery with Cash Machines.

If you accidentally leave your money in an ATM for about 30 seconds, the machine takes the money back and anyone would expect that the bank would refund the money to their account. RBS and HSBC do not think like that.

For years they have just quietly kept the money unless the customer specifically complains to them. HSBC was the last major bank to reluctantly and grudgingly agree to give ordinary customers their
money back.

With astonishing bravado they have insisted customers "don't call us -we have all the information to sort this out!"In other words it was not a mistake or oversight, they knew all about it.

If you or I tried a stunt like that we would be looking at the inside of a prison cell. Are the banks above the law?

Isn't it nice to know our money is safe in their hands?

Diary of a Common Soldier

I didn't know my father very well. He died when I was seven. However, I did get to know the young man who was a common soldier in the Second World War through reading his diary.
This diary is now available on Kindle thanks to my sister, the writer Janice Robinson. In the introduction there is the following story which my mother always repeated as a dire warning against being "too clever"

"My dad, F R McMillan, known to all but the family as "Mac" was an ordinary sort of chap. During the depression in the 1930s he took any job he could get and when he received his call-up papers in June 1940, he was a baker's roundsman.

"Being of a sarcastic nature, when asked if he wanted to go into the Navy or the RAF, he replied, "Is that all you have to offer?" And he was promptly sent into the Army."

Read his story.
Click on the link below:

Diary of a Common Soldier

STOPP Gove's performance pay chicanery

Only obedient teachers will be getting pay rises in future if Gove gets his way. The union was founded to oppose performance related pay.

There is a facebook page for those who want to comment on Gove's plans and the union's response.

Click here

ASOSA

ASOSA - yet another acronym to learn. This one refers to "Action Short of Strike Action." LANAC is the "Local Associations for National Action Campaign" which held a conference on 8th December in Leicester I attended with Mark Sandell who was suffering from the worst cold in history.

The LANAC conference was an opportunity to exchange experiences of Action Short of Strike Action. Although there are schools with good union organisation where the union group did not have to take action, the consensus was that ASOSA was giving more confidence to rank and file members of the union.

In some cases the union has had to threaten strike action to get recalcitrant heads to comply. This has generally been enough. In one case the union had had to take escalating strike action – one, two and three days before a head was persuaded to see sense. The consequence was that the union group was stronger at the end of it. The head had assumed the strike action would tail off. On the contrary, the picket line was bigger each time and attendance at union meetings went up.

The nature of the NUT ballot was that strike action could be taken at short notice so heads could not make use of delay to undermine the action.

This squares with the reports given to NUT South East Regional Committee in November.

Gove is threatening to cut teachers' pay still further with all pay rises being for “nice” teachers Some of the appalling bullying heads we have heard of will be the people who decide who's naughty or nice.

Moreover schools which are in dire financial straits may be forced to conclude that they have no nice teachers because they cannot afford to pay them!

Under these circumstances it is likely that there will have to be strike action. There was some discussion over whether this will require another ballot. Nevertheless there was a mood of confidence that the union will have to proceed to “phase two” and the NASUWT may be forced to the same conclusion.

Derek McMillan December 10^th 2012

UKIP want Gove for PM. God help us!

The rising popularity and respectibility of UKIP shows just how fed up with the mainstream political parties people must be. You would have to be pretty desperate to support a man who complains about the EU gravy train then claims £2 million in expenses

One Rotheram voter is quoted in The Guardian "What d'you call him? Le Fage? I saw him on the telly. He should be a comedian." which is about right.

But Labour's disgusting record of supporting cuts and lining their own pockets is unattractive to working class voters. The manufactured story about parents being unable to foster children because they are racist and this being linked to their UKIP membership played right into the hands of the UKIP comedians.

If you listen for five minutes to Farage you realise that a UKIP/Conservative coalition would not be a laughing matter. More tax cuts for the rich and more welfare cuts for the 99 percent, all washed down with a dose of rage against immigrants. The fact they want Gove as leader tells you all you need to know!

Derek McMillan

French page on Amazon

Amazon asked me to make a page for Amazon.fr . I have always been favourably impressed with the attitude of French people towards my attempts to speak their language. It was certainly a lot nicer than the response of my French teacher :)

So here it is

Amazon m'a demandé de faire une page pour Amazon.fr. J'ai toujours été favorablement impressionné par l'attitude des Français envers mes tentatives de parler leur langue. Il était certainement beaucoup plus agréable que la réponse de mon professeur de français

Stories from the Ark

As part of the adult literacy work undertaken by The Ark, one of our students is writing a story which is being blogged here
 
1) This story is being written using a laptop so that spelling mistakes can be corrected quickly and the final result looks OK.

2) Other people are involed in the story because there is an ongoing discussion about the narrative.

3) This is a really good way of boosting confidence and presenting a story to an audience.
People have many different routes into adult literacy but this kind of narrative is just one of them.

4) The problem with a lot of "easy" books is that they are aimed at children. This is not a children's narrative!

Nationwide proud to be the same?

I always liked that Nationwide advert, I expect you remember it, "we wont charge you for using your card abroad." I was disappointed with the commission charges for foreign travel which my current account attracted. I am always telling people how good Nationwide is.

Goodbye Mitt

Listening to the vicious little Republican "analyst" used by the BBC to provide "balance". He was named after that river that runs through Egypt and it seemed he was in denial himself.

However if this is what Republicans sound like in defeat, imagine how obnoxious they would be in victory. Perhaps it is that thought that has kept Obama in power.

Wave goodbye to the oven glove. People obviously thought Obama was the lesser evil.

South African Miners' leader at Socialism 2012

The six faces of Lara Croft

Letters to Lara

Now on Kindle
Click here
The "Letters to Lara" project took about a year. Pupils at a school in Sussex wrote letters to Lara Croft. This is not all that different from a frequent activity in English Literature - pupils writing to a character in a novel or play.

Gove 's apology is not enough

Michael Gove has written an apology to his French teacher in this
week's Radio Times. How amusing. Apparently he was a revolting
individual in those days too.

Whenever a secretary of state for education goes, teachers heave a
sigh of relief and pray to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes,
that the next one will be better.

We are still praying. Each one has new and wonderful "initiatives"
which are brought in without consulting teachers or parents and
usually against the advice of all education practitioners. Gove's
"Free School" fiasco is a case in point.

I am very pleased that Gove has apologised to his French teacher,
albeit thirty years late. I suppose that means that the rest of us
will just have to wait another thirty years. We won't all live that
long.

In any case, as any teacher can tell you, an apology is meaningless without a change in behaviour.

Austerity isn't working

The government response to the TUC march on 20th October was "we don't care what you plebs think, we won't change our brilliant policy." So no surprises there then. This means that Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow may well get their way and precipitate a general strike. See if the patricians will listen then :)

Commentators have noted that Miliband was booed when he tried to turn an anti-cuts rally into a pro-cuts rally. People are not keen on "nice Labour cuts" - or as one banner said "Labour = same cuts with a different knife".

The trade unions should stop throwing good money after bad Labour policies and fight for the policies they believe in:

* make the rich pay for the crisis they caused

* give the people the welfare state they deserve.

No more kowtowing to polticians. People should not fear their governments. Perhaps it is time governments started to fear the people.

Starbucks

Try going into a Starbucks and refusing to pay for your coffee. My guess is that you would soon find the long arm of the law on your shoulder. They would not tolerate anything so thoroughly dishonest.

However, although Starbucks have been regularly telling their investors that the UK business is highly profitable, they have been telling the taxman a different story. Reuters has compared Starbucks' two versions of events thus: "To its investors, it sells an espresso - strong and vibrant. The UK taxman gets a watered-down Americano." Indeed they have been legitimately claiming that their business in the UK shows a loss while raking in massive profits.

Household names like Starbucks and most famously Vodafone have been using accounting trickery which would get them labelled scroungers if they were unemployed or disabled.

But have no fear. Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander boasted that he intended to recruit a hundred more Revenue men to crack down on tax evasion. What he did not boast about was the fact that 1500 Revenue men and women have been sacked since this government was elected. This is taking disingenuous mendacity to an Olympic standard.

Derek McMillan
Mid-Sussex Socialist Party

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http://classroomteachermanual.blogspot.com

Academy Thought Control

How would Govey react if a local authority school were to insist that all governors support comprehensive education? I imagine he would turn fifty shades of blue and explode.

However, Academies are quite within their rights to sack governors who do not fulfil the person specification "fully supports academy status".

This came to light at St Bede's School in Cambridge where this clauise was used to remove a long-standing governor and trade unionist.

Curiously another person specification for governors was "to be able to think critically." So it seems that on planet Gove you can only think critically if you agree with the Academy program.

Local Associations for National Action

LANAC meeting 30 09 2012

http://nutlan.org.uk/

LANAC is the Local Associations for National Action Campaign. I attended this meeting on behalf of WSTA. 22 Associations were represented. Many were from urban areas but I did speak to a delegate from Leicestershire who clearly had many of the same issues as arise in spread-out areas like West Sussex.

There was a good businesslike discussion about the successes of the Action Short Of Strike Action. These successes are in advance of the actual date of the action and the result of discussions with sensible heads...and not-so-sensible ones.

Action has been taken in schools without a previous record of union activity and with bullying management styles in place. LANAC will share good practice and the union's action will educate heads into the notion that bullying is not necessary for school success.

Examples of the little victories will be posted onto the LANAC website – I was nominated to work on the website - and publicised on a facebook page and on twitter.

If there are cases of individual victimisation, it was thought that the ballot would enable schools to move straight to strike action, giving seven days' notice, without another ballot. It is likely that such action could be sustained so members are not out of pocket.

For the future, it is possible that such action could become generalised.

Meanwhile members of the NASUWT and the NUT are experiencing working together and improving the workload for teachers. This co-operation is despite the fact that some NASUWT members believe that they are forbidden to attend joint meetings with the NUT. An increasing number are turning a blind eye to this instruction.

The Action Short Of Strike Action is against the government and it was thought likely that it would be the prelude to national strike action.

LANAC will be seeking the widest possible support for the TUC demonstration on 20^th October. It is likely that co-ordinated strike action involving public sector workers will be necessary to turn the tide against austerity.

There will be a LANAC conference on 8^th December to review the state of the action.

Meanwhile here is a model resolution suggested by the vice-chair of the meeting, Sally Kincaid

Model resolution/petition on pensions/pay/workload

We welcome the overwhelming vote in the NUT ballot for action on workload and pay, to add to the existing NUT ballot for action in defence of our pensions, which mirrors the NASUWT votes over the same issues. Together these votes give both unions a clear mandate to defend teachers and education from the assault on all fronts we face from the Coalition government.

We welcome the joint statement by the NUT and NASUWT calling for non-strike action in all schools over workload as part of this battle, but we are worried that the statement contained no clear indication of a plan to move to national strike action.

We pledge ourselves to seek to coordinate the non strike sanctions and any local strikes with the widest layer of schools possible.

But we believe however that if we want to beat the government national strike action is by far our strongest weapon and is absolutely necessary.

We believe that there should be a move to a programme of such action as soon as possible, and certainly this term. We believe each union should do this alongside each other and/or other unions facing similar battles.

 We therefore call on both the NUT and NASUWT executives to pursue discussions with all these unions and agree dates for such national strike action starting this term at their next meetings in early October

NUT: Fax motions or completed petitions to 020 7387 8458 or email a scanned copy (for petitions) or motion with numbers attending the meeting to c.blower@nut.org.uk

NASUWT: Fax motions or completed petitions  to 0121 457 6208 or email a scanned copy (for petitions) or motion with numbers attending the meeting to chris.keates@mail.nasuwt.org.uk

We are all plebs as far as the ConDems are concerned

Mitchell has denied that he called the police officers plebs. Instead he has called them "liars". That is a charge for which they could lose their jobs. But of course he couldn't. Being a liar is more of a qualification for his job!

Lobby of the TUC by shop stewards network and socialists.

Action Against Austerity 

Statistics

Some odd statistics about this blog.

Pageviews
United States
5063
United Kingdom
1732
Russia
1192
Germany
615
Netherlands
595
Poland
203
South Korea
183
Ukraine
157
France
87
Canada
86

The number of people in the US reading this blog is very gratifying considering it is predominantly about British politics. The sales of Classroom Teacher Manual are higher in the US than in the UK too.

The 157 in the Ukraine is a surprise too!

The browser statistics show an interesting trend

Internet Explorer
5005 (42%)
Chrome
3892 (33%)
Firefox
1866 (15%)
Safari
467 (3%)
Opera
327 (2%)
GranParadiso
59 Mobile Safari
23 Netscape
23 Mobile
19 Java
Putting IE firmly in the lead. However this week's statistics tell a changing story:

Chrome
383 (71%)
Firefox
94 (17%)
Internet Explorer
27 (5%)
Safari
26 (4%)
Opera
4 Mobile Safari
3 BingPreview
The triumph of the Chrome it would seem.

The audience statistics for this week are:

United States
369
United Kingdom
137
Switzerland
11
Russia
11
Germany
5
Malaysia
3
Belgium
2
Poland
1

And a big Dzien dobry to my Polish reader!

Unqualified Disaster - how do we fight back?

This (union branch) notes that the government has brought in the use of unqualified teachers against the opposition of all teachers and heads organisations and a majority of parents. This was brought in without any discussion or consultation.
The government claim that this will enable schools to bring in "brilliant people" instead of teachers to teach our children. We reject this argument as false. Brilliant people are already invited to visit schools to talk to children and to answer questions. If they wanted to teach they would have been brilliant enough to get a teaching qualification.
The government's aim would appear to be teaching on the cheap. Our children deserve better.
We therefore call on other education stakeholders including governors, head teachers, parents' organisations and local councillors to protest this move and to write to Michael Gove telling him that they support the use of qualified teachers to teach our children. They should also query why they were not consulted about this drastic and irresponsible move.
School letterheadings and notices could contain the words "Qualified teachers only" to differentiate schools who care for their pupils enough to insist on qualified teachers. This is as important as hospitals employing qualified surgeons.
Parents have a right to know whether their children are being taught by qualified teachers.

Click here

Blair has a new master

It is official. No less a person than Mr Tony Blair the 'legacy Czar' of the 2012 Olympics insists that McDonalds and Coca Cola are perfectly healthy.  It is unlikely millionaire Blair has ever had to eat in a McDonalds, smell the kitchens or attempt to digest the food.

In the groundbreaking film 'supersize me', Morgan Spurlock monitored the effects of a McDonalds diet. These included a 13 percent increase in body mass and a cholesterol level of 230. In the American system 200 is the maximum safe level!

Clearly this is regarded as ideal for youth sports by Blair.  Ever ready to grovel to the corporations, The man who started out as Bush's poodle is now McDonald's new chicken McNugget.

Gove behaves like a pickpocket using the distraction of the Olympic Games

The government has sneaked in a proposal to allow academies to use unqualified staff to teach children. This is overwhelmingly opposed by parents and teachers but people had their eyes on the Olympic Opening Ceremony while this measure was introduced without discussion or negotiation.

Commenting on the Department for Education’s decision to remove the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

“This is a perverse decision by the DfE and a clear dereliction of duty.

“The NUT believes all children deserve to be taught by qualified teachers, and it's not just the profession that thinks so. Our 2011 ComRes poll showed that 89% of parents want a qualified teacher to teach their child, with just 1% comfortable about those without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) taking charge of a class.

“By his own admission, Michael Gove is relaxed about profit-making from schools. He takes his inspiration from Sweden where profits are being made by reducing the number of qualified teachers, and where educational standards have fallen. By contrast, the reason Finland scores so highly in international tables is because they value teachers, trust teachers and pay teachers well.

“Parents and teachers will see this as a cost-cutting measure that will cause irreparable damage to children’s education. Schools need a properly resourced team of qualified teachers and support staff, not lower investment dressed up as ‘freedoms’.

“The Government has no credible argument for removing the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers, so chooses instead to bury this decision in the hours leading up to the Olympics opening ceremony.”

For Kindle For ipad
For iphone
And also there is a free reader for the PC Click here

Short story on alfiedog.com

Click here

 

Do you feel entirely safe when walking through the crowded streets of the old city in Tunis? Well if you had Omar with you nothing could possibly go wrong!

John Terry BNP poster boy

The judgement that John Terry was using racial abuse "ironically" will
give a green light to every racist thug to claim "ooh it was all
irony. I was just quoting what this ******* **** said to me". The fact
that the language used on the pitch is traditionally disgusting is not
much of an excuse. If nobody ever has to face the consequences it will
go on being disgusting.

Pity the poor tax-dodger

Anyone who thinks the Conservatives lack compassion has only to look
at Philip Circus's column in the County Times "Cutting Tax is the best
way to reduce avoidance." Tories may have to take hard decisions to
cut money going to the old, the sick and the disabled but they are
genuinely fond of the tax dodger. And obviously the way to stop the
poor things dodging tax is to cut the tax. Thus a government hell-bent
on "deficit reduction" still spares a thought for the rich and
generously gives them tax cuts.

But does Circus's idea go far enough? Surely by his logic we should
leave our homes unlocked so there is less housebreaking, perhaps give
goods away from shops to discourage shoplifters, and abolish speed
limits so there is no more speeding.

Mr Circus is a bit of an anarchist on the quiet isn't he.

Euthanasia - don't let them put a red peg on you!

The House of Lords are debating "assisted suicide" soon.

Consequently the issue of assisted suicide (which might otherwise be
called murder
or manslaughter) is prominent in the media. What sticks in my mind is
listening to a young man in a wheelchair at a disabled teachers'
conference. What he said was "Whenever you see stories in the papers
on the lines of 'will I go to prison for helping my husband to die.'
you should ask why the newspapers are never interested in disabled
people who want to live but only in the people who want to kill us?"

Making euthanasia legal would make old and disabled people not fully
human and therefore not entitled to human rights. I understand the
courts may treat each case on its merits and temper justice with mercy
but we cannot write into law an absolute right to dispose of old and
disabled people.

And as they said in "Torchwood" if they put a red peg on you it means
the incinerator for you!

...says an old and disabled person!

Uppity Downs

At the National Disabled Teachers' Conference, Richard Rieser gave a
presentation on the views about disabled people typified by the
eugenicist movement supported by Darwin, Galton, Churchill and of
course ultimately by Hitler and the Third Reich.

He ended with a poem by Micheline Mason called Uppity Downs which puts
an alternative view.

I am glad to be able to report
To Messrs Darwin, Galton, Churchhill and Down
Hitler and the Third Reich
That your mission was a failure

Though you tried so hard to persuade us
With your learned accomplices
To believe in you nightmare
Requiring the extermination of the flawed,
The flawed have nonetheless flowered

Protected from your twisted plan
By unstoppable love,
Now released from the ghettos
People with Down Syndrome
And other endangered treasures
Are rising up all over the world
Getting uppity and visible

Artists and poets,
Actors and dancers
Some quiet and thoughtful,
Some noisy and fun,
A teacher, every one

You could say in fact
That your horrible experiment
Has not simply failed
But gloriously backfired!

Parents all fired up
With fierce and defensive love
For their targeted children
Have joined arms with the Flawed
And other progressive forces
To insist on inclusion for all
Replacing your elitist ideals
Of empire and Might –

Britain forever Ruling the Waves-
With a different dream
Taking hold in many places
Of a slower, more gentle world
In which being born human is enough
To evoke awe, wonder and respect
From each to all

The end of competition
The start of collaboration
A bottom-up revolution
Heralding a new world
In which it is safe for all of us
To be our selves

2007

Trade Unionists resist attack on disabled "scroungers"

There is - quite rightly - outrage when BNP and other far-right thugs
attack disabled people. Cameron and the media are doing just the same
thing, using their wealth and power rather than their fists.

Disabled people are among the hardest hit in the cuts and the
ideological assault echoes the eugenicist argument that disabled
people are "useless mouths." Cameron really ought to be careful
talking in these terms. For the general public there seem to be plenty
of "useless mouths" around the cabinet table, in the banks and in the
boardrooms.

The Disabled Teachers' Conference took place on the weekend of 30th
June to 1st July. Significantly the conference involved speakers from
UCU and PCS who are also involved in opposing the attack on disabled
people which is taking place. And the attack is ferocious.

Sasha Callaghan of UCU described a "reign of terror" by the
undeserving rich against the poor. "The government's attitude to the
poor harks back to the Poor Law of the 19th Century. Our past is in
front of us." The language used about disabled people; "scroungers,"
"shiftless" and "undeserving" echoes fascist rhetoric.

The NUT's Allan Grey added that in the light of Cameron's vicious
attacks on disabled people "it would believe the Labour Party would
represent us but I hardly need to say we can't."

The PCS representative, Austin Harney, revealed that PCS has balloted
on its political fund with the consequence that they will be able to
stand trade union candidates against pro-cuts candidates from any of
the political parties.

PCS members are being disciplined for merely telling claimants that
they have a right to "access to work" support. They have to accede to
requests but they can be in trouble for telling claimants their
rights.

The government attacks disabled people because they think they are
weak and have no allies. Certainly many of the charities on which
disabled people depend have folded in the face of the government
onslaught. Downing Street should be in the middle of a perfect storm
of recrimination from the charities but they are not. The butcher has
his big knife, but the lamb to be slaughtered has an open mind!

Only the trade union movement can provide the strong allies that
disabled people need. There was overwhelming enthusiasm for the TUC
anti-cuts demonstration in October but nobody wants to wait until
October before taking action against the government's disgraceful
attack on disabled people.

A R K spells ARK

The Ark charity is supported by churches all over Horsham and has been
generously supported by St Johns Church. Ark is there to help people who are
held back by homelessness, drug abuse, alcohol abuse or poverty. It
provides food and companionship, advice and understanding.

Ark is now offering free adult literacy classes with the support of
Kip McGrath. We have three qualified teachers offering their services
to anyone who wants to come. One of our students is even writing a
novel. The work in progress is available on
http://storiesfromhorshamark.blogspot.co.uk/

I have nothing but admiration for our students. Nobody feels
embarrassed if they cannot handle Maths but to admit "I can't read" is
very difficult. It takes courage to accept help.

Another project which has been discussed is setting up a night shelter
in winter. We have been inspired by the churches in Brighton who set
one up last February. Think back to the awful weather and imagine
trying to sleep rough in it.

Ark can always use enthusiastic volunteers and will make the best use
of your skills to help others. This is straightforward Christianity:
"Love one another as I have loved you".

http://thearkhorsham.org.uk/

20 October - advance warning

London

Saturday, 20 October 2012 - 12:00pm

The TUC has called a mass demonstration on 20 October against the cuts..

It will set off in London and march to Hyde Park for a rally.

For more details: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21056-f0.cfm

Can we assume co-operation from the police since they are also
demonstrating against public sector cuts?

The Apprentice – or who wants to work for a bully?

When I could drag myself away from the Royal Circus on the Thames, I
watched the final of The Apprentice. For those of you unfamiliar with
this theatre of cruelty the main character is a pantomime villain,
Lord Sugar, who gets to set tasks of varying degrees of daftness and
then humiliate the participants.

Sugar is a Labour Peer and acts like a less charming version of Lord
Vader. He urges his apprentices to give in to the dark side. After a
day of teamwork they are all forced to humiliate and denigrate each
other in the boardroom.

And what great ideas did these finalists come up with? One was yet
another bloody call centre – even one of Lord Vader's stormtroopers
thought this was a tawdry idea! Then there was a website to enable
people to buy ingredients for recipes. Lord Vader derided the whole
idea that people plan their meals before they cook them. One assumes
his Lordship has someone else to do that for him. A recruitment agency
proposed by someone who already runs a recruitment agency was the
winning idea.

And that leaves one. A fine wine hedge fund. If you want a symbol for
the degeneracy of capitalism this will do fine. This is not for people
who actually drink wine. No. It is for people who want to invest in
fine wine as a hedge against the economic crisis. You can see how this
is an idea to set the nation alight and improve the lives of millions
of ordinary people. Or perhaps you can't.

The apprentice is undemanding entertainment but if it is an exhibition
of the best in British entrepreneurs, heaven help us all.

Derek McMillan
Mid-Sussex Socialist Party

Thank you for the opportunity Lord Vader

Documentary highlights state of public services

The BBC "56 up" program follows the lives of individuals in an
unprecedented documentary narrative spanning the time since the
participants were seven. This week it highlighted the plight of public
services. Lifelong library service worker Lynn Johnson said "for the
last thirty years I have been banging my head against a brick wall but
now nobody is listening. They say that the work I do, anybody could do
it."

It is worth emphasising she lost her job as a result of "nice Labour
cuts" not "nasty Tory cuts."

Now, rather than being able to take early retirement her husband has
had to take on full time work to make ends meet. "the goalposts keep
getting higher" for retirement. "People who started work assuming they
could retire at sixty, find the situation has now totally changed."

She regrets the fact there "is no party of the left" although she says
she is not political... and adds "they haven't got a clue what they
are doing. Some people are never ever going to recover from it and
unfortunately they will be quite devastated. We have no more left-wing
Labour Party any more. Tony Blair saw to that. They all veer to the
right. "

You can still see it on Youtube if you type in "56 up documentary" and
it is well worth a look. On the same program a wealthy Tory barrister
boasts that there is no class society in Britain :) Lynn felt her work
promoting literacy and love of literature with children had been
worthwhile. How many rich Tory parasites can say the same?

Putin gets a new rottweiler?

Dog owners were reportedly outraged when Spin Doctor Alistair
Campbell, was described as Blair's rottweiler.

Campbell has been in the news recently in relation to the Leveson
Inquiry where he revealed for the first time that Blair's entourage
thought there was a problem with the relationship between the Murdoch
media and politicians - although there is no evidence they ever did
anything about this "problem".

He has now turned his talents elsewhere and will be a spin-doctor for
a firm whose clients include McDonalds, (who notoriously hired
million-dollar lawyers to attack two individuals for handing out
leaflets) Vodafone (whose tax affairs are regarded as a public
scandal) and Google (who have scant regard for the privacy of anyone
who uses their search engine). He will also be working for Tesco's
because every little helps.

Another client is Vladimir Putin. It is hard to tell whether this is a
step up or down after working for Blair. We can at least be sure he
wont be mocking Mr Putin for going to a "bog standard comprehensive".

If anyone wanted yet more evidence of the moral and political
bankruptcy of New Labour - well you couldn't make it up, could you?

Derek McMillan
Mid-Sussex Socialist Party

Merchants of Death grow fat - cuts for everyone else

Tough times... for some of us. For soldiers who have lost limbs the
government is going to cut their disability payments. For the weapon
manufacturers, the merchants of death, the government obsession with
playing soldiers has earned them a pretty penny.

The government was determined to buy the F38C joint strike fighter
plane but has now opted to buy the F38B. The cost of this blunder has
been variously estimated as 40 million pounds down the toilet or 100
million pounds down the toilet. That money could have provided some of
the "help for heroes" we all hear about.

It is good to know that this is what the government calls "fiscal
responsibility." No squandering money on health, welfare and pensions.
The cost of the F38C has actually doubled to two billion pounds.

Batting on a sticky wicket, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond claimed
that the decision to buy the F38C "was right at the time" but the
decision to buy the F38B was right now. Well for the time being
anyway.

It sounded on the BBC news as if he were saying they needed to fit
catflaps on the aircraft carriers but in fact they needed to fit
"catapults" and "traps". These public school boys know how to have fun
don't they? And it is with billions of pounds of our money they they
are having fun.

In addition to which the RAF air-to-air refuelling planes are alleged
to be costing the taxpayer a good 100 million pounds over the odds.

The question nobody asked, the "elephant in the room" was why on earth
the country can afford this profligate expenditure when everything
else needs to be cut. New Labour were silent on this because – you
guessed it – they suggested the F38B in the first place.

A real political opposition will not come from the hopelessly
out-of-touch political elite.

Rundown on the rich b*stards in the government

Who says the Daily Mail is good for nothing? Actually I do but this is a useful fact list

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