Farage is a National disgrace

Farage is in the debate on the #BBC but the Nazis do not have a single MP. 

It’s a novel way to commemorate D Day to have the bastard child of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun on TV.

The Big Lie

"A lie can be half way round the world while the truth is still getting its boots on" (Mark Twain)

Every reader of the disgusting Tory press, every ignoramus in the country now knows for a fact that Labour will costs £2000 on your tax bill. This has been verified by treasury civil servants. 

The only problem is that the treasury civil servants have denied that these are their figures, the Tories have inflated the amount substantially.

The best time for this big lie would have been on the eve of poll when the opposition did not have time to reply.

Not only is Sunak a liar (after all he is a politician) he is also an incompetent liar.

Colonel Hathi and National Service

National Service. 

"Now the aim of our patrol is a question rather droll, for to march and drill over vale and hill is a military goal."

Not only that but the Tories grabbed all the front pages of the newspapers with their lunatic scheme.

Justice for Pensioners

Whoever wins the election, pensioners will need to take them warmly by the throat to get justice. 

There is a magic money tree for war, the army and national service but no money for social services, the NHS or pensioners.

National Service

National Service is a new form of assisted dying for younger citizens. 

It is not likely Rishi’s dream will come true but how many slogans of Tory backwoodsmen will he adopt before 4th July?

Want one of these? Then vote for National Service

Election

Genocide

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/international-court-seeks-arrest-warrant-against-israel-pm-netanyahu-over-alleged-gaza-war-crimes/ar-BB1mI6CO

Biden has decided there is no genocide in Gaza but there is genocide against Israel. Strange.

"The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced he is seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as several Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes."

According to Wikipedia, "Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.". You were saying, Biden? Are Palestinians not people? Are they not starving? Are their children not being murdered wholesale?

The genocide Biden hasn't noticed.

Infected Blood Scandal

Is it too cynical to think the government is dragging its feet so that more of the people they would have to compensate will have died? 

Red in the face

It looks as though protestors have thrown a pot of paint over the latest toadying portrait of the king. Good for them. 

Militant Left

Some of the best times of my life were when I worked for Militant (now "The Socialist"). The Irish section of the Committee for a Workers International is "Militant Left".

Happy May Day

Happy May Day. 

'Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew,

Which in sleep had fallen on you ,

Ye are many—they are few.’

Shelley

Smeg

When I was about ten years old, my brother taught me how to fix a wardrobe door. The procedure involved swearing at the wardrobe. Then there was swearing at the screwdriver. Then there was swearing at anything else that came to hand. Perhaps he was swearing at life itself. He was a sailor so he was used to a working environment where swearing was hardly noticed.

As a pupil, I knew two things. One was that teachers did not swear and the other was that the staff room was out of bounds: even to open the door was taboo.

As a teacher, I was to realise these two things were linked. Teachers did not swear in the classroom. Pupils did, a lot of parents did but let a teacher say 'damn' and they would be damned.

Inside the staffroom, I learnt some of the most vehement and imaginative swearing I had ever encountered. This was led by the PE staff but they were not alone.

Other people have dealt with the issue of swearing by inventing terms of their own. “Blessed” is often used as a euphemism. Grant and Naylor came up with the word “smeg” to get round the BBC's sensitive ears. The Sci-Fi writer Larry Niven came up with “tanj” which is short for “There ain't no justice.”

So swearing is quite an issue. Knowing a lot of adjectives and adverbs is one cure. I once suggested to a pupil that he might improve the following piece of writing by varying the adjectives:

“It was a nice day so I thought it would be nice to go for a nice walk. I went to the park. It was nice.”

He came up with, “It was a bloody awful day so I thought it would be bloody awful...etc.”

Apparently, Dad said it all the time.

I believe teachers can learn to set a good example and use language in a creative way which makes the meaning clear without resorting to swearing. Then go into the staffroom and relieve their feelings in any way they deem appropriate.

Little Hitler

School uniform has been a vexed issue for many years. Most people accept that sixth formers (pupils in years 12 and 13) do not wear uniform and there is no falling away of academic achievement as a result.

However the situation at a school “somewhere in Sussex” was that the staff were being expected to wear uniform. From a trade union perspective this is quite straight-forward. The contract of employment did not specify uniform and that contract cannot be arbitrarily altered.

The staff response was very effective. They took to saluting the little Hitler who suggested the change and the individual was embarrassed into dropping the idea.

Lock up politicians for lying?

#thei newspaper reports massive public support for a law banning politicians from telling lies but have they considered how overcrowded the prisons are already? #tory #labour #lies

Freedom Come-All-Ye

Freedom Come-All-Ye

Traditional Trade Union and protest song from the 1960s

Roch the wind in the clear day's dawin
Blaws the cloods heilster-gowdie owre the bay
But there's mair nor a roch wind blawin
Thro the Great Glen o the warld the day
It's a thocht that wad gar oor rottans
Aa thae rogues that gang gallus fresh an gay
Tak the road an seek ither loanins
Wi thair ill-ploys tae sport an play

Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pitheid an clachan
Mourn the ships sailin doun the Broomielaw
Broken faimlies in lands we've hairriet
Will curse 'Scotlan the Brave' nae mair, nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o thair maisters bare

Sae come aa ye at hame wi freedom
Never heed whit the houdies croak for Doom
In yer hoos aa the bairns o Adam
Will find breid, barley-bree an paintit rooms
When Maclean meets wi's friens in Springburn
Aa thae roses an geans will turn tae blume
An the black lad frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers doun.

English translation

It's a rough wind in the clear day's dawning
Blows the clouds head-over-heels across the bay
But there's more than a rough wind blowing
Through the Great Glen of the world today
It's a thought that would make our rodents,
All those rogues who strut and swagger,
Take the road and seek other pastures
To carry out their wicked schemes

No more will our fine young men
March to war at the behest of jingoists and imperialists
Nor will young children from mining communities and rural hamlets
Mourn the ships sailing off down the River Clyde
Broken families in lands we've helped to oppress
Will never again have reason to curse the sound of advancing Scots
Black and white, united in friendship and marriage,
Will make the slums of the employers bare

So come all ye who love freedom
Pay no attention to the prophets of doom
In your house all the children of Adam
Will be welcomed with food, drink and clean bright accommodation
When MacLean returns to his people
All the roses and cherry trees will blossom
And the black guy from Nyanga
Will break the capitalist stranglehold on everyone's life

11298 downloads of my worksheets from the TES

They refer to me as "h" because I gave my name as H Elpline2.

That is a lot of downloads.

Rebus2

 Sid Vish without the gnu and us = SidVicious

Last Tango in Paris

The ten ant of Wilde fell Hall = The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Rwanda is not the Congo you know

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/question-time-audience-stunned-as-minister-chris-philp-asks-rwanda-is-a-different-country-to-congo-isn-t-it/ar-AA1nG8Ck

Policing minister Chris Philp appeared to confuse the countries of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Question Time.

An easy mistake to make. They are both foreign countries forsooth.

One word description of OFSTED

The government has kept its policy of "one word assessments" of schools by OFSTED. The somewhat insulting premise is that parents cannot understand more than one word.

As for OFSTED, I think it is a toss-up between ‘ignorant’ and ‘bullying’. 

And the government? ‘Inadequate’ would do. 

222 players on Puzzgrid

I presented this grid to my family on Thursday and then put it on Puzzgrid. As you can see 222 people have played it. Cor Blimey

Not Nice

"It was a nice day so I thought it would be nice to go for a nice walk. I went to the park where a lot of nice people were walking their dogs. It was nice."

You can believe me or not, just as you choose. This is from a piece of writing a pupil handed in to me. I have used it since as an exercise in finding alternatives to the word "nice",

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classroom-Teacher-Manual-advice-teachers/dp/1973773074

Gratitude

One way to master the complexities of logarithms is to sit in the back row of the class and make farting noises.

This was the strategy of a child who I found was called Jack Carter.

"Are you sending Carter to the sin bin,  sir?" 

From the air of anticipation in the class I guessed that Carter usually made a fuss about this.

Instead of sending him out, I focussed on explaining the lesson to him. The others were listening.

When the bell went, he said, "I quite like the sin bin actually."

I was overwhelmed by his gratitude.

58 Farm End

This is a first-class murder story. The characters are well-drawn and interesting and their relationships drive the plot.

As for the murder there are a number of red herrings and I was certainly surprised when the actual murderer was revealed. It keeps the reader guessing and speculating all the way through as suspicion switches from one character to another..

The details of life on a farm provide a backdrop to the story and it is set in the vicinity of Worthing which is an added attraction for those of us who live there.

I bought the paperback in Natty Noos in Horsham. There are also Kindle and Audible versions.

Intolerable

Sunak said the action of the Israeli Defence Force was "intolerable".
Was it intolerable enough to prevent the sale of arms to Israel?
Of course not!

As of 20 March, at least 196 humanitarians have been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since October 2023, according to figures compiled by the Aid Worker Security Database (AWDS) – the aid community’s main source for tracking attacks on aid workers. Data for 2023 and 2024 is not yet finalised, and the numbers are likely to rise, researchers say.

It is apparently impossible for Israel to feed Palestinian children who are starving but it is possible to bomb them.

The Israeli Defence Force is engaged in crimes against humanity. So are the Israeli media. For them the genocide in Gaza simply does not exist.

The Legend of Loof Lirpa

In 1793 the health ministry of Norway was tasked with measuring the feet of all the citizens. The runaway winner of the contest was a little-known man called Loof Lirpa.

His picture, alongside a picture of his feet with a normal-sized pair of feet for comparison, appeared in the newspapers of the day, there were two. The King awarded Loof a thousand Kroner which could be expected to keep him in comfort for the rest of his days.

In those days there were no shoe sizes so Loof had to have his shoes specially made. Fortunately his father came from a long line of cobblers.

Loof decided to set out exploring. The first country he discovered was Denmark. Norwegians had heard of Denmark but hitherto they had thought of it as a mythic land inhabited by giants. Danes are similar in size to Norwegians and in fact Loof, with his prodigious feet, was regarded as a giant by them. He was introduced to the King who told him of another land which the Danes greatly feared. In modern times it is known as Sweden.

Loof walked to Sweden where he found that the land of Abba was in fact a rather peaceful place. In fact he married and raised twelve children in Sweden. There was a mistranslation of his writings about Sweden which were published posthumously forty years later. From this people in Norway got the impression that far from being a pacific nation, Sweden was in fact in the Pacific.

He was mourned in Sweden, Denmark and eventually in his native Norway.

Note – as this is written in English, I have followed the tradition of spelling Loof Lirpa's name backwards.

Punished for an opinion

An Israeli teacher was fired from his job, arrested, and placed in solitary confinement for criticising the actions of Israel’s military.

Meir Baruchin’s only “crime” was a Facebook post he made the day after Hamas’s attack on Israel that said: “Horrific images are pouring in from Gaza. Entire families were wiped out … Anyone who thinks this is justified because of what happened yesterday should unfriend themselves. I ask everyone else to do everything possible to stop this madness. Stop it now. Not later, Now!!!”

The Minister Answers the Question

"Now look. We have spent unprecedented sums and lessons have been learnt."

"What are you talking about minister?"

"That is not the point. Going forward we expect to see a massive improvement up and down the country."

"An improvement in?"

"There is an ongoing inquiry and it would be inappropriate for me to comment."

"Will you answer the question, minister?"

"We expect to see spectacular developments but you have to remember we have had Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The opposition has no policy."

"That is all we have time for. Thank you very much, Minister."

"My pleasure."

My favourite line from "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling was backward-looking and Imperialist but still managed to write some well-loved stories and the most popular poem in the English language.

And then there were None

This was a very "professional" amateur production by the Ferring Amateur Dramatic Society.

"Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine."

The unfolding story weaves together the poem about the ten little Soldier Boys and the guilty secrets of the ten guests.

Without revealing any spoilers, this is a very well-constructed enactment of a classic Agatha Christie story.

It would be invidious to single out any of the actors because they work together as  a team. The result is a splendid evening out.

There is even wine!

• 
  

A safe place

The Conservatives can no longer call themselves the party of law and order.

The Rwanda Bill places party politics above the law.

Calling Rwanda a safe country is contrary to all the human rights surveys. Safe if you like being tortured! 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/10/rwanda-unlawful-military-detention-torture

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/rwanda

Two reports from Human Rights Watch. A safe place? 

 Safe eh? How many MPs would like that?

he Tories do not like torture. They would rather subcontract it to the Rwanda government which has plenty of practice.

 

A Question for Starmer

Do you think your efforts to combat anti-semitism are helped or hindered by the slaughter of children by the Israeli Defence Force? Discuss. #starmer #labour #gaza #genocide

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General Election Challenge

Convention Gathers In Birmingham To Discuss United General Election Challenge
 

Representatives of twelve different campaign groups and socialist organisations are meeting this weekend (on Saturday 3rd) in a Convention to Organise a Working Class Challenge at the General Election. 

An agenda document has now been released by the Convention Arrangements Committee, which is available at https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Convention-Agenda-document.pdf.

The Convention will start with an opening session which has been given the title, ‘Do we want a common election challenge? And is it possible?’. 

Participating in this discussion will be the Convention co-hosting organisations – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), the Socialist Party, System Change (formerly Resist), the Campaign for a Mass Workers Party, the TUSC Independent Socialists, and Socialist Students – alongside the newly-formed Transform Party, the Social Justice Party, the Workers Party of Britain, and the Organising Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) campaign group who are promoting a single independent left candidacy for Sir Keir Starmer’s Holborn & St Pancras constituency seat.

One of the issues to be resolved in this session will be whether the participants believe that a joint election challenge should attempt to contest enough seats at the general election – at least 98 candidates – to reach the broadcasting authorities ‘fair media coverage’ qualifying threshold. 

This is sometimes misleadingly referred to only as a benchmark to qualify for a party election broadcast.  But while it does indeed guarantee an election broadcast – which is obviously not unimportant – it is more than that in providing a lever to achieve the biggest possible access for a socialist working class alternative message across all the establishment media outlets. 

Still time to register!

That is why, while it is welcome that twelve organisations are coming together in Birmingham to discuss what can be done, the Convention Arrangements Committee has also expressed its disappointment that not every socialist group considering standing candidates in the general election has so far taken up the invitation to attend.

Last November, for example, the Communist Party of Britain, a leading influence on the Morning Star newspaper, agreed at its biennial Congress “to contest as many constituencies in the forthcoming general election as resources reasonably allow in order to raise the red flag for public ownership, a wealth tax” etc, although it would not be able to reach the ‘fair media coverage’ threshold on its own.  So why not then collaborate with other socialists to most effectively ‘raise the red flag’, while preserving its own independent identity and profile?

The same point applies to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which rightly recognised at its annual conference in January that “an important section of the working class to whom we seek to relate will not vote Labour”, and that the “emergence of left alternatives to Labour is more important”.  Nevertheless, it went on, “none of the likely electoral challenges to the left of Labour are likely to ask the SWP to join as an independent revolutionary formation.  We could not consider membership on any other basis”. 

But that is precisely one of the proposals being discussed at the Convention – Proposition Five in the Convention agenda document – that “individual candidates and organisations participating in the joint election challenge shall retain at all times responsibility for their own campaigns, including the right to promote their own organisation and policies that go beyond the core platform”. 

If the SWP, or the Communist Party, feel that this is still too restrictive why not come to the Convention and explain what other guarantees they would need?  There’s still time!

The Convention is being held on Saturday and registration remains open – which can be done by completing the form at https://www.tusc.org.uk/convention_registration_form/

In-person attendance is open to any socialist organisation or campaign group that is considering supporting or standing candidates in the general election (who can appoint up to ten delegates); elected trade union officers or reps (attending in a personal capacity); resigned-from-Labour or independent socialist councillors; and individual members of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) who are not members of one of the TUSC component organisations or organisations otherwise represented at the Convention.  The time has come to take decisions!

Zoom attendance is also available for visitors, who are asked to pay the same registration fee (£5 waged or £2 unwaged or low-waged) as in-person attendees to help meet the costs of the event.

Solidarity,
The TUSC Team

The Evil Quizmaster

Song Lyrics 1

1) You think you've lost your love, well I saw her yesterday

a) she's still mad at you

b) she said 'hi'

c) It's you she's thinking of.

2) Gloria

a) in Excelsis

b) give me your answer do

c) pride of our alley

3) Daisy

a) in Excelsis

b) give me your answer do

c) pride of our alley

4) Sally

a) in Excelsis

b) give me your answer do

c) pride of our alley

5) Hello darkness my old friend

a) How are you?

b) I've come to talk with you again

c) long time no see

6) You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy

a) when the gas bill comes

b) when skies are grey

c) when skies are blue

7) Who were "Tryin' to catch the Devil's herd, across these endless skies"

a) ghostriders in the sky

b) the police

c) clouds

8) Who was asked to come into the garden

a) Alan

b) Maud

c) Reginald

9) Ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley

a) wide enough

b) low enough

c) long enough

10) Pack up your troubles in what?

a) a suitcase

b) a cupboard

c) your old kit bag

11) What are we going to build in England's green and pleasant land?

a) a skyscraper

b) a castle

c) Jerusalem

12) And you told her you'd never kissed a girl before so what must you do?

a) hold your hand out naughty boy

b) behave yourself

c) stop it at once

13) What is the password for "Hernando's Hideaway"?

a) open sesame

b) Casablanca

c) you and I were sent by Joe

14) Why was the little white bull unhappy?

a) his mother was cross with him

b) only black bulls go to the bullring

c) he had a tummy ache

15) What happens to mother brown if they catch her bending?

a) they get annoyed

b) the say she's cheating

c) they'll saw her legs right off

16) By yon bonnie banks & by yon bonnie braes, refers to

a) Loch Ness

b) Loch Lomond

c) Ullswater

17) Where do the deer and the antelope play?

a) home on the range

b) home in the Gorbals

c) home with the old folks

18) Bonnie and Clyde were pretty lookin' people but whose children?

a) different parents

b) the devil

c) unknown parents

19) The grand old duke of York

a) had ten thousand acres

b) had ten thousand pounds

c) had ten thousand men

20) How many men on a dead man's chest

a) one

b) fifteen

c) two

Have a go at the questions before looking at the answers!

Ans 1) c 2) a 3) b 4) c 5) b

6) b 7) a 8) b 9) b 10) c

11) c 12) a 13) c 14) b 15) c

16) b 17) a 18) b 19) c 20) b