Tuesday, November 03, 2015

Snoopers Charter

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

Monday, October 26, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, October 01, 2015

Corbyn's nuclear stance

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

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

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















Monday, September 28, 2015

Blairites for war

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

Sunday, September 27, 2015

NUT Supply Teachers' Network



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



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

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

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

National Anthem?

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


Sunday, September 13, 2015

Andrew Marr's Schoolboy errors

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

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

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

 #socialistreviews


BBC Bias



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

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





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Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Hamish McRae - a disgrace to journalism.

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

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

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

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

Friday, September 04, 2015

New Labour chicanery

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

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

His letter to the Labour Party remains unanswered.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Silly Season story in the i

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

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

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

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

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

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

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


We work longer hours that all the rest of the countries in Old EC Europe.  Long hour’s equals ever greater exploitation of ones labours. Also, it a moral obligation, to put the huge hours in to get a medium to reasonable living out of the job. Amongst this mayhem the leadership battle in the Labour Party explodes into a one sided landslide for a hard left candidate, who really didn’t want the job of Leader at all?  Around 400 thousand predominantly young people, sign up to join the Labour Party to become Labour and join, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the leadership, and the heart and soul of the Labour Party.
 

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

It’s the taking part of real time real life struggles that show where the balance of forces is, and how we can organise to beat them, and build both a new party and a movement,  that can lead the way for these ….and other future struggles in the UK.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

A watershed in Labour?

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

Friday, August 14, 2015

"Factional nutters of the world unite!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Burnhamites crass manoeuvres

Enlisting Lord Kinnock of Humbug to support Burnham was an act of crass stupidity.
The latest move by Harriet Harman is to warn all MPs that new Labour members might be dangerous lefties. Kinnock witch-hunted his political opponents who were fighting the Tories in ways he did not approve (and showed up his pathetic leadership). 
Is Harman engaged in a pre-emptive  witch hunt?

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Heart treatment

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

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



Friday, July 10, 2015

What the fox?

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

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

Monday, June 15, 2015

Left Books

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

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

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

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

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

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