There are stories about the Twittens of Durrington, a surly shop assistant, a teacher who gets in a bit of a pickle, robbers, horoscopes, the future, a project to help the homeless, ghosts and a clairvoyant trickster. There is also a longer story which is a revised version of "The Mirror of Eternity" which deals with time travel.
The water companies have had decades to prepare for the drought. In fact the money which could have created the infrastructure to cope with the demand has been siphoned off to shareholders in record profits. In all over 60 billion pounds have been paid to shareholders since 1991.
Hosepipe bans are a
stupid knee-jerk response to the crisis which the water
companies caused. They are blaming and punishing the victims.
Consumers do not waste water on the same scale as water
companies. Imagine our hosepipes wasting 3,000 million litres of water!
Leakages peaked five years after the privatisation of the
water companies.
If you are finding it difficult to water the garden, you probably have a fat cat sitting on the hosepipe!
These are my notes from the conference.
The importance the union attaches to retired members is shown by the fact Kevin came to address the conference.
NEU Priority Campaigns for 2022
Cost of Living
The costs of living crisis is bearing down on those least able to cope. Relative poverty is a disgrace but we are getting stories of hungry children. It is also bearing down on support staff colleagues and pensioners.
Nobody is saying 8% is too ambitious for the pay claim now.
There will be a ballot over strike action in October.
Co-ordination of NEU with the unions for support staff will be important in any proposed strike action.
Right now there has to be a political pressure on the government for a windfall tax on the rich to help those most affected by cost of living.
We are mobilising for the TUC demonstration on 18 June.
We are not used to
organising, we have got out of the habit. We are getting back into it!
Workload
This job used to be different.
Teachers and support staff have to fight against a bureaucracy which does not trust them. The joy in teaching is something teachers have to fight for.
Recruitment is at an all-time low.
Other jobs can work from home. The government will have to pay for this lack of flexibility in teaching.
We are seeking to motivate action at school level. There have been successes in having work/life balance policies in individual schools and academy trusts .
The disgrace of the Schools Bill being put to parliament.
It should be dealing with all the problems -
mental health problems post lockdown
recruitment and retention
Schools being turned into exam factories
The central issue in the Bill is structural. They want more Academies. At the present rate it would take forty years to academise every school.
The government data is flawed. The national statistical authority has taken this on board and expressed concern to the government.
There is no evidence that multi academy trusts improve school performance.
One reason schools oppose joining is that they cannot leave.
We can put grit in the
wheels.
Legal challenges and strike action have both been effective.
A letter is going out to schools to promote this.
Kevin is the one on the right.
This book was written by Manobi Bandyopadhyay in collaboration with Mukherjee Pandey.
The introduction is uncompromising:
"To all those people who humiliated me and called me subhuman, pushing me to the brink of my life. It is because of them that I discovered my strength and fought my way back to life. I hope my book inspires those who are like me and helps them win."
When Manobi was born as a boy he was regarded as "a gift of Goddess Lakshmi". For decades all Manobi's attempts to cope with being "a girl in a boy's body" and later a "woman in a man's body" were met with humiliation and simple confusion from family and colleagues.
Doctors routinely advised Manobi that the treatment for this condition was to "be a man" and the kind of "conversion therapy" which gay people have faced in the UK and the US was recommended.
It was a struggle to find a doctor who would perform the sex-change operation which Manobi needed. Many people in the same condition can only make use of amateur surgeons and that is as dangerous as it sounds.
Manobi is the founder and editor of a magazine which still exists called Abomanob which means "subhuman", a name which reflects the kind of abuse which transgendered people have had to put up with. The magazine gives a voice to transgendered people in a society where simply to be accepted and treated with common decency is a struggle.
It is an inspiring book and it will help explain what transgendered people have to face
every day. Socialists should read this book.
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Amartya Sen explores the role of argument in a wide range of spheres in Indian life.
Respectful dialogue is a more effective way of dealing with differences than simply demonising or denouncing an opponent. He praises the idea of secularism but he contrasts the Indian view of secularism (which also exists elsewhere) which involves treating other religions with respect with the view which seeks to suppress religion. He cites the French ban on religious dress for muslim girls as an example but the world is full of them.
The author is no Socialist but it is very telling for a Socialist to read his view that the inequalities of religion, gender, sexuality and caste are all exacerbated by the inequalities of class. He cites inter alia the fact that India has had a female head of state whereas France, Japan and the USA have never done so. The position of the affluent women is fundamentally different from the position of working-class women. I first heard this line of argument from the UK Socialist Party's Peter Taaffe in 1969.
He points to India's continued status as a united country and a democracy in which power goes from one party to another without violence as two examples of the power of argument.
It is a thought-provoking work. It is also easy to read and enjoy.
This article in The Socialist is by Sarah Welch, West Sussex Socialist Party
The link is here
In 2019-20, the former chief executive of the Tory council in West Sussex received a £265,000 exit package. Financial statements for 2020-21 reveal three more large payouts.
The executive director for adults and health received £110,473. The former director for communities received £88,358. And another received £34,000.
In total, 43 exit deals cost the council £1.1m in 2020-21. The cost for 2019-20 was roughly the same for almost double the number of exit packages at 81.
There have been large payouts to recruitment agencies. Hamptons Resourcing received £173,400 and McLean Partnership received £249,423.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money just wasted.
We are waiting to hear what cuts are being made to our service, adult social care. We think it will be over £2 million. The council constantly tells us that it has no money, and has "difficult decisions to make".
In 2018, I was part of a campaign group fighting to keep my son's centre open. We attended one of the council committee meetings. When they adjourned for lunch and we walked through the dining area, we saw their five-star buffet, including waiter service and wine.
Our local paper, Chichester Observer, has pointed out that the only other West Sussex residents in receipt of free food are some school children dependent on their parents' benefit levels. They only receive £15 supermarket vouchers a week in school holidays.
The council's gluttony is an insult to the people who have just had their Universal Credit cut, and all those that have been forced to use food banks. It's yet another example of the greed and mismanagement at the top.
We need an end to cuts, and democratic workers' control to run the services that we all need.
The Tories should not be called ‘dodgy’ by Zarah Sultana.
I withdraw the word ‘dodgy’, how about ‘suspect’/‘crooked’/‘shifty’/‘dicey’ or ‘knavish’? Just call them ‘Tories.’
"Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori" was a phrase they taught public
school boys. "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country." or
better yet get your servants to go off and die on your behalf
obviously.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . .
.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
--
http://derekmcmillan.com/
"Last week, Unite's policy conference in Liverpool took a major step to
challenging pro-austerity councils and budgets. A motion proposed by the
union's local authority section leadership included:
"Conference is therefore extremely concerned, disappointed and our
members are angry that Labour Councils continue to make cuts and
privatise our services. We also note the negative role played by Labour
councillors on the boards of organisations which tender for services.
Conference agrees that Unite must now adopt a policy calling on Labour
Councils to set legal, balanced no cuts needs based budgets."
Unite throws down the gauntlet. And TUSC, which has led the way in
calling for no cuts, needs-based budgets, is now preparing the widest
challenge of anti-austerity candidates for May 2022.
Those local elections, scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 5th
2022, are for all 32 unitary councils in Scotland and the 22 single-tier
authorities in Wales. In England, there are scheduled elections for all
32 London borough councils, 34 Metropolitan district councils, and 82
district councils.
Also on the same day, there will be Mayoral elections in Watford and the
London boroughs of Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets. The
South Yorkshire Metro-Mayor position established in 2018 is also up for
election in May 2022.
The local elections in Scotland, Wales, London and Birmingham – and
Harrogate, Huntingdonshire, Newcastle-under-Lyme and South
Cambridgeshire – are ‘all-up’ contests, with every councillor up for
election, usually in multi-seat wards. Most other elections will be for
one-third of the councillors in single-seat contests but some may be
‘all-up’ elections following ward boundary changes or council
reorganisation.
Of the 202 councils holding elections next May, 88 are currently
Labour-led, with Labour holding an overall majority or are the largest
party in a coalition administration.
There are still ongoing boundary reviews and council re-organisations to
be factored in, but a current estimate is that May 2022 will see 6,751 councillors elected in 3,949 wards, a bigger electoral test in terms of local council seats to be contested than in 2021.
TUSC agents, and potential TUSC agents, are invited to this
important briefing meeting on Wednesday which will deal with some of the
practical organisational tasks needed for the People's Budget campaigns
and the preparation for the 2022 elections.
More information on People's Budgets and full listings of the 2022 elections are available at:
https://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/450.pdf (Preparing a People's Budget)
https://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/451.pdf (Campaign Pack)
https://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/448.pdf (Directory of Elections)."
Today I found a number of my books being sold second hand on eBay.
The link is here
Three bookshops are now selling my books on eBay and then there is "Socialist Books" who sell online but not through eBay.
