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Ark update

Ark is a local charity in Horsham helping people who are homeless or addicted or just plain poor. It also helps people like me. There isn't really a client/volunteer atmosphere at Ark. We are all in the same boat so to speak. 

On of the things I do is provide advice on ICT, numeracy and literacy. As part of the literacy work of Ark, one of our members has been writing a story. It is available here Over 400 people have looked at it so far. You could be the next :)

Site for short fiction Mayday update

There is no money in this but it is probably good publicity The site is http://www.short-fiction.co.uk

The story as of Mayday 2013 is as follows:

 

Bad Romance 628 readers

What's on the Television 192 readers

When I think about you 4187 readers - that is a lot of readers!

Mayday Socialist Reviews Thanks

Thanks to everyone who downloaded on Mayday. If you liked Socialist Reviews of Xavier's Recipe Book please feel free to make a comment on Amazon - doubly so if your surname is not McMillan! If you didn't like it, never mind :)

Socialist Reviews

Xavier's Cookbook

Pensioners of the world unite

Ian Duncan Smith has proposed that pensioners should hand back their bus passes and the meagre winter fuel allowance. Ian Duncan Smith is best remembered as the glutton who claimed £39 on expenses for his breakfast. We want it back – not the breakfast Ian, the money.


MPs – millionaire MPs – like Vince Cable have insisted that all “pensioners perks” should be taxed out of existence. Cable – a rich pensioner if ever there was one – does not need a bus pass. We pay for his travel – first class all the way.

They are giving hypocrisy a bad name! They are attacking pensioners while saying they cannot do anything about bankers' bonuses or (God forbid!) MPs expenses. They believe pensioners are weak. They are wrong. They believe pensioners have no allies. They are wrong.

When the sleeping giant (occasionally comatose giant!) of the TUC wakes up to its responsibilities and calls a general strike these wiseacres will have to learn to walk again. It will do them good to stand on their own two feet and learn to live in the real world.

Pensioners of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but Vince Cable!

  Click here to preview Socialist Reviews http://www.amazon.co.uk/Socialist-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00C9G7682/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1367232839&sr=8-2&keywords=socialist+reviews

Can I help you?

I run a helpline for stressed teachers. When I tell people this they frequently say “you must get a lot of calls” and add “it must be a real strain for them dealing with the little b******s”.

The second part is wrong. Curiously it is the big b******s who cause the most headaches for my callers. It is true that there are people who have been driven out of teaching by the behaviour of some pupils. The teacher is the first person who has ever said “no” to some pupils and the pupils do not like it. The potential for disruption in a school is considerable. One teacher quit in her first year because the classroom displays she lavished time and love on were continually vandalised. You realise this could have been the work of just one pupil.

However, teachers expect and can cope with most of the “challenging behaviour” of pupils. There is always the support and above all the knowledge of other teachers to fall back on. Other teachers will have knowledge of dealing with pupils and knowledge about the particular “challenging” individual in question.

No. The calls I get are about the overgrown playground bullies who have positions of power in education. Bullies in chief are Michael Gove and his henchman Michael Wilshaw. Wilshaw's first piece of advice to heads was “if morale is at an all-time low, you will know you are doing something right.” What a charmer.

If teachers are having problems (and that would be all of us at one time or another) then the Wilshaw style head does not offer support and advice. They just tell you what you already know. “Your results are not good enough.” Teach for a few years and you will realise that nothing is good enough for people like them.

I have even had one head who wants the staff to wear uniform. He will be getting them to salute him next. Since this was a unilateral change of contract we were able to dispute it. I had one caller who had been given a target of “driving” not the school bus as you might think but the English department. This is in Sussex and “we won't be druv!” is the county motto.

Over the last sixteen years I have had an insight into the dark side of education. People do not ring me up to say they are having a good time. I have also seen how the union can help people who are having problems and occasionally cut some of the worst heads and line managers down to size.

Excuse me, that's the phone.

Click here for Classroom Teacher Manual - the book of the helpline

E-petitions against Goveism

Gove wants to unilaterally worsen conditions for teachers and pupils. His implicit assumption is that teachers do not work hard enough. This will play well with the Tory blowhards he is appealing to but anyone who knows about education will query whether "more" invariably means "better". Otherwise why not have schools open 24 hours a day?

If schools want to lengthen the school day or cut holidays they have to consult and negotiate. Gove is just a bully. Teachers are good at dealing with bullies.

Do writing to your MP or e-petitions change the mind of a government which responds to criticism by literally going "yadda yadda yadda"? Probably not but as Tesco say, every little helps. The government assume everybody agrees with its policies just as they assume everybody loves Margaret Thatcher and was happy to pay millions for her funeral. 

One particularly useless Tory MP proclaimed to the local newspaper "nobody is against school x becoming an academy" because nobody had bothered to write to him.

Provide some evidence that they are lying.

 

There is a suggested petition to insist Gove has a go at teaching although that could be child abuse.

 There is also one against his proposed changes

 

 

 

 

 

Click here

Rallies for education organised by NASUWT and NUT

This is for those people who think the unions should be working together - which would be most teachers. I hope ATL members will take part too. Parents and governors will also be invited. Gove's attack on teachers and his philistine "yadda yadda yadda" attitude to criticism pose a threat to education.

Association	Venue	Date	Time & Speakers
Liverpool	Holiday Inn Liverpool City Centre Lime Street Liverpool L1 1NQ click for directions and map	Saturday 27 April 2013 click for parking	11am - 12.30pm Christine Blower General Secretary NUT, Patrick Roach Deputy General Secretary NASUWT
Manchester	Midland Hotel Peter Street Manchester M60 2DS click for directions and map	Saturday 27 April 2013 click for parking	11am - 12.30pm Chris Keates General Secretary NASUWT, Kevin Courtney Deputy General Secretary NUT
Birmingham	ICC Broad Street Birmingham B1 2EA click for directions and map	Saturday 11 May 2013 click for parking	11am - 12.30pm Chris Keates General Secretary NASUWT, Kevin Courtney Deputy General Secretary NUT
Leeds	The Hilton Leeds City Hotel Neville Street Leeds LS1 4BX click for directions and map	Saturday 11 May 2013	11am - 12.30pm Christine Blower General Secretary NUT, Patrick Roach Deputy General Secretary NASUWT
Cardiff	Motorpoint Arena Mary Ann Street Cardiff CF10 2EQ click for directions and map	Saturday 18 May 2013 click for parking	11am - 12.30pm Chris Keates General Secretary NASUWT, Kevin Courtney Deputy General Secretary NUT
Newcastle	Centre for Life Times Square Newcastle upon Tyne Tyne and Wear NE1 4EP click for directions and map http://classroomteacher.blogspot.com	Saturday 18 May 2013	11am - 12.30pm Christine Blower General Secretary NUT, Patrick Roach Deputy General Secretary NASUWT

Gove's pay cut for teachers

A new 2013 School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD),
confirming Gove’s divisive performance-pay plans, has been released on
the Department for Education website, along with a ‘Toolkit’ of
dangerous advice encouraging schools to set teacher against teacher.



For a summary, look on the LANAC website:


http://www.nutlan.org.uk/?q=node/8985

Click here

Frankie goes to St Pauls

Francis Maude, first "bastard" to put the knife into Maggie Thatcher, is the unlikely choice for organiser of the pro-Tory rally we are all paying 10 million pounds for today. Maude knew that Thatcherism would live on. When Thatcher only stole milk from children, it is now proposed to rob them of free school meals too. It is what the blessed Margaret would have wanted.

The old Tory lie about the royal family being "above politics" dies at this event. Although they reportedly despised Thatcher and her pretensions when she was alive, they are Thatcherites at heart. The views of the duke of Edinburgh who insists on referring to the Chinese as "slitty eyed" echo those of the Thatchers with their "golliwogs". More importantly a policy which puts the rich first is bound to appeal to the richest woman in Europe and her consort.

There will be protests at the funeral but if we are to bury Thatcherism it will require a concerted effort by the trade union movement. Labour lickspittles will be out in force today.  There is no hope that they will be of any use. A 24 hour general strike has been proposed - thanks to lobbying by the National Shop Stewards Network and others. It would be a good place to start.

The funeral of Thatcherism is coming. There will be no mourners by request :)

You know when you've been fraped

One of the irritating things about Facebook is the little tick box "keep me logged in". It frequently comes up with a tick already in it so if you do not have your wits about you - and I don't always have my wits about me! - then you are still logged in next time somebody uses the computer.

What happens then is what Angela's daughter Liz called "getting fraped". My experience of this has been harmless and salutary. One comment was posted ostensibly from me telling the world that I had just been fraped!

However, you might click "like" next to something on a website and suddenly find that you have just told all your 500 friends about it. That may not have been your intention.

The Teacher Support Network does issue advice on staying safe online. It is just a question of having your wits about you....come back wits, I need you now.

A fitting tribute to Thatcher

Where there was discord, Thatcher brought harmony as this photo illustrates.

Thatcher did not invent selfishness and greed. However, sane people have always shunned selfishness and greed as anti-social. Human solidarity predates Socialism by centuries. Our ancestors found out that they could achieve far more working together than they could by selfishness.

If, as Thatcher believed fervently, there was “no such thing as society” then it made no sense to talk about anything being “anti-social”. For the first time selfishness and greed were lauded as positive virtues. The virtues indeed of the hard working strivers.

Thatcher believed in hard work. She herself worked very hard. However the strivers who benefited most from Thatcherism were the spivs and speculators. They worked hard at making money. A pickpocket also works hard and an old fashioned Socialist might regard the pickpocket's activities as anti-social.

Indeed one simpering sycophant on the BBC gushed about how restricted the banks were before the blessed Margaret set them free from old-fashioned regulation. Then the commentator clearly realised what she had just said and started backtracking, “maybe that wasn't such a good thing!”

The other aspect of Thatcherism was described as “rolling back the state” as a means of setting free the hard-working strivers. Instead of subsidising the infrastructure for the public good, state money and assets found their way into private pockets. Far from demonstrating the power of capitalism, privatisation merely verified its rapacious nature. The resources of the public were plundered for the benefit of profiteers.

The state, in the form of Maggie's blue cavalry, rolled over the mining communities and the lives of thousands of people were devastated. For some strange reason a police truncheon on the head did not make them love Thatcher. How ungrateful.

So the first response to Thatcher's death was to push “Ding dong the witch is dead.” to the top of the Amazon charts and there were street celebrations.

This is not enough. We need a lasting memorial to Thatcher. For decades parents who saw selfish behaviour in their children would mutter “I blame Thatcher.”

Every time you do something Thatcher would hate; every time you help a neighbour, every time you express solidarity; every action you take which asserts that there is such a thing as society is a nail in the coffin of Thatcherism.

And the time is coming when it will be buried forever.

 Socialist Reviews now out on Kindle

A Tory political demonstration and we are paying for it

"The old saw that one shouldn’t speak ill of the recently dead cannot possibly apply to controversial figures in public life. It certainly didn’t apply to President Hugo Chavez who predeceased Margaret Thatcher amidst a blizzard of abuse." (George Galloway)

 It is nothing but hypocrisy when the same Tory blowhards who rubbished Chavez now start being pious.

I do not see eye to eye with George Galloway but no other member of parliament seems to want to speak up. Shame on the whole shower.

The government is intent on making Thatcher's funeral into a political demonstration and using the police to silence anyone who doesn't like it. She would have loved that.

When we bury Thatcherism it will not be a cause for grief but for celebration.

 Socialist Reviews now out on Kindle

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.