Socialist Reviews free on 1st June

I write reviews of books and films for The Socialist and Socialism Today. The book will be free on 1st June and very reasonably priced thereafter (99 cents in America and the equivalent in the UK and elsewhere) Click here

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. They assert that Socialism is impractical but what could be more impractical then a society which robs the poor to give to the rich?

I have collected some of my reviews here. 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.

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
Why I became a Socialist

My Amazon profiles

You've heard of Oxfam. Well this is Oxcred

Oxcred is a scheme in Oxford (hence the name) for a mutual credit scheme. I googled it and they thought I wanted OFSTED! Does any teacher really want OFSTED?

•    The idea is to create a social economy, one freed from the control of the banks, the speculators and the megacorporations.
•    Oxcred will seek to encourage community, co-operation and mutualism.
•    It will seek to encourage local trade, production and consumption of locally produced goods.
•    This social economy will be aided by the creation of a new currency in Oxford called the oxcred.
•    This currency will be issued by and under under the democratic control of its members.

It is an indication of the extent to which people distrust the banks that a scheme like Oxcred is being proposed. In the absence of a mass party representing working people it makes sense to take measures of self-defence like mutual credit even if the banks will do all in their power to subvert it if it becomes a threat to them. Remember how the building societies were hijacked by profiteers with only Nationwide surviving the onslaught.

Click here to find out more

War profiteer 1919 could be 2013

Requires no comment really 

Thatcherism is alive

This happened to me today. It has probably happened to you so many times it seems commonplace. It was a hot day and I tried to buy some water. There was no price on the water displayed outside the shop but I soon found out it was five Euros for 3 litres!

I declined. To be exact I told the shopkeeper what I thought of him and declined.

I then bought 3 litres of water for 50 cents at another shop.

If I were to try to steal 4 euros 50 from somebody I would wind up in prison. Lock up the profiteers!

Word game resource

If you like word games you will find this useful. It was created while playing "Bookworm" but the information is also useful for Scrabble, bananas, Lexicon and other wordgames.

Click here and see what you think

 

Left Challenge in NUT VP election

Socialist Party member Martin Powell-Davies will be standing for Vice President of the NUT. He has already received the backing of the Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC) and is now seeking nominations from NUT branches.

There is more information here

http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/martin-powell-davies-to-stand-for-nut.html

Gmail account hacked

My gmail account has been hacked. I apologise to anyone who has received dodgy emails ostensibly from my account. I have had a go at tightening up security on the account and keeping my fingers crossed.

I had this problem some time ago with yahoo and deleted all my yahoo contacts. This was a bit drastic so I hope I don't have to do the same for gmail.

British Heart Foundation gaffe

I have a lot of time for the British Heart Foundation for the obvious reason that I have heart disease. I was concerned that the latest Heart Matters magazine features Vinnie Jones. I threw it away.

Jones was the presenter of the infamous Soccer's Hard Men video, which featured archived footage of himself and many other "hard men" of the game, and included advice for budding "hard men". After the release of the video, Jones was fined £20,000 and given a six-month ban (suspended for three years) for "bringing the game into disrepute". Jones boasted that " I've taken violence off the terraces and onto the pitch".
He has subsequently had a career as a thug in films.

One wonders whether this is the best possible image for the British Heart Foundation.

A verbal contract? Is it worth the paper it's written on?

A nasty piece of work this morning. I am still running the West Sussex NUT Helpline pro tem. A member has agreed to work two days a week as this fits in with childcare arrangments. The head insists that the member agreed to three days a week. Three days a week would be impossible for them. Head charmingly hinted they seek work elsewhere.

The head is taking advantage of the Goldwyn adage that "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on" (It should of course have been an oral contract but Goldwyn was Goldwyn)

I suggested the member should set out their objections in writing and request a meeting with the head.
Members are entitled to be accompanied at meetings:
Ideally by the NUT rep
Failing that an NUT member
Failing that another member of staff.
They should certainly take a record of the discussion since this seems to be a shortcoming of previous negotiations.
It is most important to have clear objectives for the meeting. It is most often the person with a clear agenda who gets their own way.

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

Levellers

Levellers' Day is a fortnight away on 18 May.


The Levellers were predecessors of today's socialists. Their demands were not socialist but they went far beyond anything Cromwell was likely to countenance.

One summary of their demands is here

Link to Levellers' Day

Blog update

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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 :)