Fu Ying, the Chinese ambassador to Britain, attended the Young Icebreakers Launch sponsored by the 48 Group Club at the evening of May Day, and addressed about 200 attendants present at the celebration at the invitation of the Club Chairman, Stephen Perry.
In her speech, Fu Ying congratulated again on the 55th anniversary of the 48 Group Club, which was celebrated in Beijing last month. The Club's history can be traced back to the early 1950s, in spite of the trading boycott and blockade placed by Western countries on China, a group of British business leaders, including Jack Perry, founder of the Club, and 15 other representatives from British companies, embarked on an 'Icebreaking Mission' to China. Known as 'Icebreakers' they were the first group of Westerners to do business with the newly-born People's Republic of China.
55 years ago, it took Jack Perry, the Club Founder, 7 days to get to Hong Kong, and then another 4 days to arrive in Beijing via Hong Kong; while today the present Club Chairman, Stephen Perry takes only 9-plus hours to fly from London to Beijing. The geographical distance has been dramatically shortened, but the distance, in perception and credibility, still exists, and the information gap between China and the West has yet to be bridged.
Over half a century elapsed, and China as well as the world at large has witnessed a fundamental change. If a thick layer of ice used to block China and the West from knowing each other, a new layer of ice emerges today to block the Westerners from understanding China, resulting in mutual trust crisis on both sides.
Fu Ying cited a recent survey conducted by Point Zero by saying that 80 percent of the Chinese people admit having the repulsive feelings toward the Westerners, likewise, the Europeans who deem China the No.1 threat have doubled in number since last year. In the U.S, 31 percent of the interviewees think China poses a threat more serious than Iraq and DPRK. The confrontation between the Chinese and people in the West has unprecedentedly escalated.
Recently some Westerners slammed China on issues like Tibet and the Olympics, which terribly hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. The Olympic Games is cherished so much as a gala by the Chinese, especially the Chinese youth, that in 2001, when China won the bidding to be the host, they stormed into the Tian An Men Square to celebrate throughout the night, most of them young people. When they are concentrating on the preparations for hosting the Games, and with sincerity waiting for the big day to welcome friends from all over the world and to showcase the new look of China, some people with ulterior motives or political ambitions are anxious to take the chance to disrupt and sabotage the Olympic Games, using whatever means at their disposal to denigrate China from the distorted reports to harassing the torch relay.
This despicable practice aroused repulsion and indignation among the Chinese people. However, many Westerners believe that the Chinese have been brainwashed by the government in light of their assumption that there is no speech freedom in China. Therefore, the patriotism of the Chinese people is accused of the orgies of nationalism.
Fu Ying added that it is naive and arrogant to think that the whole population of 1.3 billion has been brainwashed. She believed that there exists information deficit on the Western side, which is directly responsible for the gap of information and acknowledgement about China and the Chinese people. The knowledge of many Western media and public about China is lagged behind for at least two decades.
Fu stressed that no books about the present China available in most of the bookstores in Britain, and if any, the book must be written with strong bias or even hatred toward China, while in China, we can find enough books on offer to help us better understand Britain.
On China's human rights issue, Fu said that some Western media tend to simplify the human rights status of a population of 1.3 billion into a few cases. China's human rights have bearing on the essential interest of the mass of the Chinese people. China's media have all along exposed the ugly cases to the general public, such as environmental pollution, corruption and forced labour. China's government is not trying to cover the ugly sides but trying actively to work out solutions to these problems so as to best safeguard the interest of the public. The Western media should comply with journalism ethics to be fair and objective and abide by the Chinese laws in their reporting on China. China is willing to open its door to the outside media, grant them permission to make a complete and free coverage of the Olympics, similarly, the Western media should prove credible and trustworthy among the Chinese public.
Fu also elaborated on the achievements China has scored following its 30 years of reform and opening up to the outside world in her speech, and by pointing out 'ice' formed in between the mutual communication and trust, she then went on to address the importance of the young generation as the icebreakers.
The 48 Group Club was established in early 1950s with the aim to promote culture exchanges and trade between China and Britain. During the past 55 years, the Club has used its unique links and understanding of China to continue its visionary work and has grown from strength to strength. At present, it has over 300 members, including business and political leaders, and runs an extensive program of networking events, successfully paving the way for the 'Icebreaking Mission' and establishing trade relations between China and Great Britain.
People’s Daily (Beijing)
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
May Day in London
SEVERAL thousand workers gathered last Thursday 1st May at Clerkenwell Green, outside Marx House, for the start of the annual May Day march organised by the London May Day Committee, which includes the South East Region TUC (Sertuc).
Dozens of trade union banners were present as were the usual colourful and vocal contingents from various Turkish and Kurdish community groups. They marched along the Clerkenwell Road, through Holborn, Archway and the Strand to Trafalgar Square for a rally.
Boris set for clash with Tube unions
NEW LONDON Mayor Boris Johnson said he would seek a “no-strike” deal with unions on the London Underground if he won the election.
Johnson boasted his election manifesto: “I will look to reduce the disruption caused by strikes on the Tube by negotiating a no-strike deal with the unions.”
In return for agreeing not to strike the unions will get “the security provided by having the pay negotiations conducted by an independent arbiter”, whose final decision will be binding.
But as soon as Johnson took office the unions made it clear there was no possibility of any such deal happening, leaving Johnson facing his first defeat.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union – the biggest of the Tube unions, said his union “would be mad to give up the right to strike”.
“It would be insane for us to surrender our democratic rights – our human right – to withdraw our labour to defend our interests,” he added. “The RMT wants good industrial relations with the Mayor but it will never enter into a no-strike agreement.”
Other Tube union leaders agreed; Keith Norman, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, warned that Johnson would be heading for “mass confrontation” if he didn’t back down.
Norman said: “If Johnson tries to force a no-strike deal then London will have to get ready for mass confrontation. Boris has shown that he is not interested in negotiation or compromise.”
And Gerry Doherty, general secretary of TSSA, the second largest Tube union, said the union could not imagine what Johnson would offer for it to agree such a deal. “We don’t know where he is coming from.
“He is saying that we will have to give up our right (to strike.) I cannot conceive what on earth he could put on the table (to agree a no-strike deal.).”
Doherty added that strike action was the last and sometimes only weapon to use. “It is not just about pay, it is also about conditions.”
On many occasions the Tube unions have used industrial action – or the threat of industrial action – over vital safety issues that affect passengers as well as Tube workers.
All three unions said they would refuse to accept binding arbitration.
Now it seems that Johnson is facing a collision with the unions and faces having to back down or face a Tube strike.
The unions have also sent a strong message to Johnson that they will oppose any attempt to re-privatise the maintenance work on the Tube infrastructure that was being done by the failed company Metronet. That company failed in its task and collapsed leaving taxpayers with a £2 billion bill.
Transport for London will take over its responsibilities soon in a schedule put in place by Ken Livingstone. The unions have warned Johnson not to reverse this decision.
Johnson is also preparing to scrap London’s 350 bendy buses and replace them with a new version of the Routemaster. He has launched a competition to design the new bus.Many motorists do not like the long bendy buses but they carry up to 138 passengers and with three sets of doors they load and unload very quickly.
Being single-deckers makes all the seats accessible to the elderly and those encumbered with young children or heavy shopping or luggage. They also have more space for pushchairs and wheelchairs.
But it seems that Johnson has got his sums wrong the cost of replacing the bendies has risen from £8 million to £100 million.
Johnson boasted his election manifesto: “I will look to reduce the disruption caused by strikes on the Tube by negotiating a no-strike deal with the unions.”
In return for agreeing not to strike the unions will get “the security provided by having the pay negotiations conducted by an independent arbiter”, whose final decision will be binding.
But as soon as Johnson took office the unions made it clear there was no possibility of any such deal happening, leaving Johnson facing his first defeat.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union – the biggest of the Tube unions, said his union “would be mad to give up the right to strike”.
“It would be insane for us to surrender our democratic rights – our human right – to withdraw our labour to defend our interests,” he added. “The RMT wants good industrial relations with the Mayor but it will never enter into a no-strike agreement.”
Other Tube union leaders agreed; Keith Norman, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, warned that Johnson would be heading for “mass confrontation” if he didn’t back down.
Norman said: “If Johnson tries to force a no-strike deal then London will have to get ready for mass confrontation. Boris has shown that he is not interested in negotiation or compromise.”
And Gerry Doherty, general secretary of TSSA, the second largest Tube union, said the union could not imagine what Johnson would offer for it to agree such a deal. “We don’t know where he is coming from.
“He is saying that we will have to give up our right (to strike.) I cannot conceive what on earth he could put on the table (to agree a no-strike deal.).”
Doherty added that strike action was the last and sometimes only weapon to use. “It is not just about pay, it is also about conditions.”
On many occasions the Tube unions have used industrial action – or the threat of industrial action – over vital safety issues that affect passengers as well as Tube workers.
All three unions said they would refuse to accept binding arbitration.
Now it seems that Johnson is facing a collision with the unions and faces having to back down or face a Tube strike.
The unions have also sent a strong message to Johnson that they will oppose any attempt to re-privatise the maintenance work on the Tube infrastructure that was being done by the failed company Metronet. That company failed in its task and collapsed leaving taxpayers with a £2 billion bill.
Transport for London will take over its responsibilities soon in a schedule put in place by Ken Livingstone. The unions have warned Johnson not to reverse this decision.
Johnson is also preparing to scrap London’s 350 bendy buses and replace them with a new version of the Routemaster. He has launched a competition to design the new bus.Many motorists do not like the long bendy buses but they carry up to 138 passengers and with three sets of doors they load and unload very quickly.
Being single-deckers makes all the seats accessible to the elderly and those encumbered with young children or heavy shopping or luggage. They also have more space for pushchairs and wheelchairs.
But it seems that Johnson has got his sums wrong the cost of replacing the bendies has risen from £8 million to £100 million.
Bad news for Londoners
LAST THURSDAY’S local election results were a disaster for Gordon Brown’s “New Labour” policies as the Tories made huge gains – including the crucial position of London Mayor for Boris Johnson. This is a vote of no confidence in Brown’s leadership and not a vote for Cameron and the evidence is that in Wales and Scotland, where voters had the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction by voting for Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party rather than Tory, this is what they did and the Tories failed to gain ground.
It also showed the voters virtually ignored all other small and fringe parties, including the Liberal Democrats who have little to distinguish them from the Tories or New Labour. Throughout the country the total turnout was low, indicating high levels of dissatisfaction for the whole bourgeois electoral process.
In London, a turn out of 45 per cent was considered high. Although the Tories won the prize seat of Mayor, the Labour vote in London held up and increased a little on the last election. Labour gained one Greater London Assembly (GLA) seat, Brent and Harrow, back form the Tories.
What swung it for Johnson was the very high turnout for the Tories in the outer London suburbs, especially in Bromley and Bexley which achieved a 60 per cent turn out.
This is partly due to an organised campaign over the last year by a motorists’ lobby, based in Bromley, against the extension of the congestion charge to the Blackwall Tunnel and parts of Greenwich near the river that suffer highest pollution levels, along with highest levels of childhood asthma, in London. The motorists of Bromley and Bexley all drive through this area as they commute into London and are prepared to defend their right to continue to do so, unhindered by the congestion charge.
Now in power in County Hall, Johnson has declared that his priority is to make public transport “safer” by introducing metal scanner arches at busy Tube and railway stations. Clearly he has never travelled in the rush hour and has no idea of the delays, queues and anger that will result. Unless the idea is thrown out quickly, it will drive yet more commuters to use their cars rather than public transport – another win for the motor lobby.
Tube travellers can also expect to find themselves in the front line of the coming battle between Johnson and the RMT, Aslef and TSSA as Johnson tries to impose a ban on strikes on the Tube.
The neo-Nazi British National Party gained one seat on the GLA – a result of the proportional representation system that invariably helps the extreme right fringe. Nevertheless this is a lot less than the BNP hoped for and throughout the country they tended to lose seats they had won before; but they gained a few new ones and finished with more seats than before. It is a sign that people rarely vote BNP twice.
The fringe left parties achieved very low votes – at best interpreted as a message that those who are disillusioned with bourgeois democracy often cannot be bothered to vote. The reality is that the fringe left parties, in order to make themselves electable, drop all their old pretensions to Marxism or Leninism, all ideas of revolution and end up simply as left-wing bourgeois social democrat parties – trying to occupy the same political ground as Labour. And they cannot compete against the giant party that already occupies that position. So they lose their money, their time, their effort, their principles and their morale at every election.
And for all their criticisms of Ken Livingstone – many of them justified – the members of these fringe parties still find themselves depressed at the prospects of London governed by Johnson’s policies, which will be far, far worse.
Voting Labour is never going to bring socialism – that will take a revolution. But in current circumstances, in the short term, it is still the best option for the working class. And we should remember that the most important battles for the working class are taking place in work places, local communities and on the streets – voting has only ever been a small part of the overall struggle against the ruling class.
It also showed the voters virtually ignored all other small and fringe parties, including the Liberal Democrats who have little to distinguish them from the Tories or New Labour. Throughout the country the total turnout was low, indicating high levels of dissatisfaction for the whole bourgeois electoral process.
In London, a turn out of 45 per cent was considered high. Although the Tories won the prize seat of Mayor, the Labour vote in London held up and increased a little on the last election. Labour gained one Greater London Assembly (GLA) seat, Brent and Harrow, back form the Tories.
What swung it for Johnson was the very high turnout for the Tories in the outer London suburbs, especially in Bromley and Bexley which achieved a 60 per cent turn out.
This is partly due to an organised campaign over the last year by a motorists’ lobby, based in Bromley, against the extension of the congestion charge to the Blackwall Tunnel and parts of Greenwich near the river that suffer highest pollution levels, along with highest levels of childhood asthma, in London. The motorists of Bromley and Bexley all drive through this area as they commute into London and are prepared to defend their right to continue to do so, unhindered by the congestion charge.
Now in power in County Hall, Johnson has declared that his priority is to make public transport “safer” by introducing metal scanner arches at busy Tube and railway stations. Clearly he has never travelled in the rush hour and has no idea of the delays, queues and anger that will result. Unless the idea is thrown out quickly, it will drive yet more commuters to use their cars rather than public transport – another win for the motor lobby.
Tube travellers can also expect to find themselves in the front line of the coming battle between Johnson and the RMT, Aslef and TSSA as Johnson tries to impose a ban on strikes on the Tube.
The neo-Nazi British National Party gained one seat on the GLA – a result of the proportional representation system that invariably helps the extreme right fringe. Nevertheless this is a lot less than the BNP hoped for and throughout the country they tended to lose seats they had won before; but they gained a few new ones and finished with more seats than before. It is a sign that people rarely vote BNP twice.
The fringe left parties achieved very low votes – at best interpreted as a message that those who are disillusioned with bourgeois democracy often cannot be bothered to vote. The reality is that the fringe left parties, in order to make themselves electable, drop all their old pretensions to Marxism or Leninism, all ideas of revolution and end up simply as left-wing bourgeois social democrat parties – trying to occupy the same political ground as Labour. And they cannot compete against the giant party that already occupies that position. So they lose their money, their time, their effort, their principles and their morale at every election.
And for all their criticisms of Ken Livingstone – many of them justified – the members of these fringe parties still find themselves depressed at the prospects of London governed by Johnson’s policies, which will be far, far worse.
Voting Labour is never going to bring socialism – that will take a revolution. But in current circumstances, in the short term, it is still the best option for the working class. And we should remember that the most important battles for the working class are taking place in work places, local communities and on the streets – voting has only ever been a small part of the overall struggle against the ruling class.
London round-up
Union fights Co-op for recognition
THE GMB general union last Saturday in Croydon launched a public campaign to end de-recognition in Co-op Funeralcare.
The lobby of Co-op Funeralcare was attended by a donkey outside the meeting, accompanied by placards saying: “The Co-op: another case of lions led by donkeys”.
GMB Central Executive Council on 22nd April 2008 gave the go ahead for a high profile public campaign to persuade the Co-op’s rank and file members to reverse a decision by Co- op senior managers to end recognition for GMB in Co-operative Funeralcare.
In 2006 David Hendry took over as boss of Co-operative Funeralcare. He set about introducing changes which met with resistance from his funeral staff, particularly those in London and Southern England who are members of GMB.
He also inherited problems with low pay in this service particularly for employees in the high cost areas like London and the South East. This had led to strike action in November 2004 when the members rejected the pay offer.
These staff are members of a very old funeral workers’ union that merged with the Furniture and Timber workers’ union who in turn merged with GMB. It has been a recognised union in the Co-op funeral care service for more than a century.
Rather than deal with the pay and other industrial relations issues being raised by GMB members in this service, the senior management in the Co-op choose to tear up the century-old recognition agreement with GMB.
Five hundred GMB members learned of this decision in December 2006 when the Co-op issued the news by press release. Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary commenting on the launch of the public campaign to get the message to co-op members who GMB consider to be the lions said: “Paul Kenny GMB General Secretary, Brendan Barber General Secretary of TUC, and Dave Prentis Unison General Secretary, who is also chair of Unity Trust bank co-owned with the Co-op, tried privately to get this stupid decision reversed.
“However the Co-op went ahead and derecognised GMB from 1st April 2007. Since then GMB shop stewards have been victimised and harassed as the Co-op has tried to force them out of their union against their will.
“The Co-op will not be allowed to get away with this disgraceful and stupid decision. It is a basic human right for workers to be able to choose to continue to belong to the union of their choice. The Co-op will be shunned until the decision is reversed.”
Abortion rights lobby
CAMPAIGNERS for a women’s right to choose lobbied their MPs in the lobby of the House of Commons last Wednesday concerning the forthcoming first debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, scheduled for Monday 12th May.
Abortion opponents have made it clear they intend to use the Bill to drive back women’s rights.
The organisers of the lobby – Abortion Rights – say the lobby was intended to demonstrate to MPs the strength of opposition to that agenda, speak to and win the argument with MPs and to hear from leading politicians, scientists, women’s movement and trade union supporters about why abortion rights must be supported.
Supporters of the events included: the Family Planning Association, TUC, STUC, NUS, Unison, Unite the union, UCU, GMB, PCS, Napo, Aslef, RMT, FBU, Sertuc and others.
Campaigners are urging all progressives to write to their MPs to urge them to vote to defend women’s abortion rights during the forthcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill debates.
The anti-choice lobby is already very active – MPs are receiving dozens of letters, postcards and e-mails. We cannot allow this vociferous minority to dominate the abortion debate!
THE GMB general union last Saturday in Croydon launched a public campaign to end de-recognition in Co-op Funeralcare.
The lobby of Co-op Funeralcare was attended by a donkey outside the meeting, accompanied by placards saying: “The Co-op: another case of lions led by donkeys”.
GMB Central Executive Council on 22nd April 2008 gave the go ahead for a high profile public campaign to persuade the Co-op’s rank and file members to reverse a decision by Co- op senior managers to end recognition for GMB in Co-operative Funeralcare.
In 2006 David Hendry took over as boss of Co-operative Funeralcare. He set about introducing changes which met with resistance from his funeral staff, particularly those in London and Southern England who are members of GMB.
He also inherited problems with low pay in this service particularly for employees in the high cost areas like London and the South East. This had led to strike action in November 2004 when the members rejected the pay offer.
These staff are members of a very old funeral workers’ union that merged with the Furniture and Timber workers’ union who in turn merged with GMB. It has been a recognised union in the Co-op funeral care service for more than a century.
Rather than deal with the pay and other industrial relations issues being raised by GMB members in this service, the senior management in the Co-op choose to tear up the century-old recognition agreement with GMB.
Five hundred GMB members learned of this decision in December 2006 when the Co-op issued the news by press release. Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary commenting on the launch of the public campaign to get the message to co-op members who GMB consider to be the lions said: “Paul Kenny GMB General Secretary, Brendan Barber General Secretary of TUC, and Dave Prentis Unison General Secretary, who is also chair of Unity Trust bank co-owned with the Co-op, tried privately to get this stupid decision reversed.
“However the Co-op went ahead and derecognised GMB from 1st April 2007. Since then GMB shop stewards have been victimised and harassed as the Co-op has tried to force them out of their union against their will.
“The Co-op will not be allowed to get away with this disgraceful and stupid decision. It is a basic human right for workers to be able to choose to continue to belong to the union of their choice. The Co-op will be shunned until the decision is reversed.”
Abortion rights lobby
CAMPAIGNERS for a women’s right to choose lobbied their MPs in the lobby of the House of Commons last Wednesday concerning the forthcoming first debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, scheduled for Monday 12th May.
Abortion opponents have made it clear they intend to use the Bill to drive back women’s rights.
The organisers of the lobby – Abortion Rights – say the lobby was intended to demonstrate to MPs the strength of opposition to that agenda, speak to and win the argument with MPs and to hear from leading politicians, scientists, women’s movement and trade union supporters about why abortion rights must be supported.
Supporters of the events included: the Family Planning Association, TUC, STUC, NUS, Unison, Unite the union, UCU, GMB, PCS, Napo, Aslef, RMT, FBU, Sertuc and others.
Campaigners are urging all progressives to write to their MPs to urge them to vote to defend women’s abortion rights during the forthcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill debates.
The anti-choice lobby is already very active – MPs are receiving dozens of letters, postcards and e-mails. We cannot allow this vociferous minority to dominate the abortion debate!
Saturday, May 03, 2008
MAY DAY!
MILLIONS of working people celebrated May Day across the world this week. In the socialist countries it’s a holiday celebrating international labour; in the struggling world where the unions are part of the liberation movement it’s a festival of solidarity and in the imperialist heartlands, not least of all in Britain, it’s a day of demonstrations of the organised working class to raise the demands of the class in struggle against capitalist exploitation and oppression.
May Day is a day of solidarity and a time for reflection, when we pause to remember the first modern May Day back in 1886 and the fight for the 8 hour day. It ended in the murder of six strikers by the police in Chicago and the deaths of eight police a few days later in a bombing during a union protest in the city’s Haymarket Square. Eight trade union leaders were arrested and four convicted on trumped up charges and executed by the State of Illinois.
Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were executed by the State of Illinois in 1887. In 1889 the First International, the International Working Men’s Association, declared May Day an international working class holiday to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs and the red flag, representing the blood of working class martyrs – the martyred dead of Labour’s anthem – was adopted as the international symbol of the working class.
We’ve come a long way since then. We’ve seen the Great October Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union; the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that led to the founding of people’s democracies in Europe and in the countries that smashed the chains of colonialism in the post-war era. We witnessed the tragic counter-revolutionary wave that destroyed the USSR and the socialist states of Europe in the late 1980s and now we’re part of the fight-back for peace and socialism that is sweeping the world of the 21st century from Venezuela to Nepal.
Just a few years ago the imperialists were bragging that socialism was “dead”. Francis Fukuyama, the American neo-conservative bourgeois philosopher, who helped draw up the “Project for the New American Century”, was going around bragging that the struggle between ideologies was largely over, ending so he thought with the victory of bourgeois “democracy” that would pave the way for the “new world order” led by US imperialism. Now Professor Fukuyama is having second thoughts. He now believes the Iraq war was a mistake. He has distanced himself from the neo-con doctrines he once embraced as the American dream of world domination dies on the streets of Baghdad and the mountains of the Himalayas.
As the imperialist world totters on the brink of a great depression it’s clear that capitalism cannot solve the problems of the world. Capitalism cannot feed, clothe or educate the billions of the world nor can it stave off the ecological disaster that is largely its own creation.
Socialism is the only answer. It’s a fact that all the wealth of Britain and all the wealth of the world is produced by workers slaving away in the fields and mines and factories. What is also true is that, outside the remaining socialist countries, working people receive only a miserably fraction of the wealth that they produce every day of their lives. Only socialism can end this. That’s why we remember and celebrate May Day – to unite and fight for workers rights and the communist ideal. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy – not the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie or the myths of the social democrats – can end the class system and free working people from their slavery.
May Day is a day of solidarity and a time for reflection, when we pause to remember the first modern May Day back in 1886 and the fight for the 8 hour day. It ended in the murder of six strikers by the police in Chicago and the deaths of eight police a few days later in a bombing during a union protest in the city’s Haymarket Square. Eight trade union leaders were arrested and four convicted on trumped up charges and executed by the State of Illinois.
Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were executed by the State of Illinois in 1887. In 1889 the First International, the International Working Men’s Association, declared May Day an international working class holiday to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs and the red flag, representing the blood of working class martyrs – the martyred dead of Labour’s anthem – was adopted as the international symbol of the working class.
We’ve come a long way since then. We’ve seen the Great October Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union; the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that led to the founding of people’s democracies in Europe and in the countries that smashed the chains of colonialism in the post-war era. We witnessed the tragic counter-revolutionary wave that destroyed the USSR and the socialist states of Europe in the late 1980s and now we’re part of the fight-back for peace and socialism that is sweeping the world of the 21st century from Venezuela to Nepal.
Just a few years ago the imperialists were bragging that socialism was “dead”. Francis Fukuyama, the American neo-conservative bourgeois philosopher, who helped draw up the “Project for the New American Century”, was going around bragging that the struggle between ideologies was largely over, ending so he thought with the victory of bourgeois “democracy” that would pave the way for the “new world order” led by US imperialism. Now Professor Fukuyama is having second thoughts. He now believes the Iraq war was a mistake. He has distanced himself from the neo-con doctrines he once embraced as the American dream of world domination dies on the streets of Baghdad and the mountains of the Himalayas.
As the imperialist world totters on the brink of a great depression it’s clear that capitalism cannot solve the problems of the world. Capitalism cannot feed, clothe or educate the billions of the world nor can it stave off the ecological disaster that is largely its own creation.
Socialism is the only answer. It’s a fact that all the wealth of Britain and all the wealth of the world is produced by workers slaving away in the fields and mines and factories. What is also true is that, outside the remaining socialist countries, working people receive only a miserably fraction of the wealth that they produce every day of their lives. Only socialism can end this. That’s why we remember and celebrate May Day – to unite and fight for workers rights and the communist ideal. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy – not the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie or the myths of the social democrats – can end the class system and free working people from their slavery.
London news round-up
Love Music Hate Racism Carnival
THIRTY years ago hundreds of thousands of anti-racists and anti-fascists marched from central London to the East End’s Victoria Park for a Rock concert and rally against the fascist National Front that gave birth to the Rock Against Racism movement. And last Sunday, again, well over 100,000 anti-fascists and anti-racists marked the event with another giant Rock concert and rally in Victoria Park that included many veterans of the original event and a whole new generation of young people who “Love music and hate racism”.
Unfortunately the anti-fascist message is just as much needed now as 30 years ago as the fascist British National Party – assuming a thin veneer of respectability – is trying to make gains in local elections.
The Clash’s Paul Simonon was back last Sunday, alongside Damon Albarn in their band The Good, The Bad and The Queen, Hard-Fi and many more, to restate the case against fascism.
The event was sponsored by trade unions including Unison and PCS and union leaders and politicians – including Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone – made brief speeches and remembered anti-fascist music heroes like Paul Robeson and Woody Guthrie between the songs.
Their message was backed up by the music in songs from reggae singer Natty, who described cultural alienation over fat fairground organ in No Place for I and I, or R&B singer Jay Sean who proclaimed his British Indianness.
Also on the bill were The Paddingtons, Roll Deep’s Wiley -- featuring grime crew, Babyshambles’ Drew McConnell, X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene and a version of The Clash’s White Riot from 1978.
Most of all, the crowd who assembled, came, went and came back again in the course of a long day and evening emphasised that the BNP could never hope to raise such a rally.
Singer Morrissey also helped to sponsor the event with a contribution of £28,000. The former Smiths frontman said he decided to help fund Sunday’s event after a sponsor – thought to actually be NME – pulled out of supporting the campaign.
Posting on his website www.true-to-you.net before the event, Morrissey said: “This is a historic event spreading an important, anti-racist, message so it must be allowed to go ahead. This is something I am committed to and we appreciate everyone coming together so quickly to make it happen.” Lee Billingham, from Love Music Hate Racism, said: “After an expected contribution to the carnival from a major sponsor fell through, we contacted Morrissey – and other artists who support the cause – to ask for their help, and we’re extremely grateful for Morrissey’s generous financial contribution.”
Ring of Democracy
TRADE UNIONS in London last Monday braved local flooding to stage a “Ring of Democracy” around London’s County Hall to remind voters in the coming local elections to keep the fascist British National Party out of the capital’s democratic machinery.
Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary for the TUC in London, said: “London rightly has a reputation as a world class city with progressive politics and cohesive communities, a vibrant forward looking city, strengthened by many cultures. The far-right, with its politics of hatred and bigotry, wants to destroy the very diversity that makes London such as fantastic place to live and work.
“Unions in London, campaign groups, community groups, faith leaders and individual Londoners will come together 28th April to foster the politics of hope and oppose the politics of hatred.”
The public appeal to keep the far-right out of London was supported by some of the hundreds of Unison members employed at the Greater London Authority, representatives of community groups, faith groups and anti-racist campaigners.
Unfortunately the local flooding that day meant that County Hall was closed and workers sent home but union members gave support to the rally.
Linda Perks, Regional Secretary of Unison Greater London said: “Unison members that are employed at the GLA are proud of their role in supporting the good governance of London, especially of its commitment to equalities at work and in the community.
“They believe that a breakthrough for the far-right in the GLA elections, 1st May, would be hugely detrimental to London’s interests and would have an appalling impact on their lives at work.”
The demonstration coincided with the arrival of the London Workers’ Memorial Day march at County Hall and the two events gave mutual support to each other.
THIRTY years ago hundreds of thousands of anti-racists and anti-fascists marched from central London to the East End’s Victoria Park for a Rock concert and rally against the fascist National Front that gave birth to the Rock Against Racism movement. And last Sunday, again, well over 100,000 anti-fascists and anti-racists marked the event with another giant Rock concert and rally in Victoria Park that included many veterans of the original event and a whole new generation of young people who “Love music and hate racism”.
Unfortunately the anti-fascist message is just as much needed now as 30 years ago as the fascist British National Party – assuming a thin veneer of respectability – is trying to make gains in local elections.
The Clash’s Paul Simonon was back last Sunday, alongside Damon Albarn in their band The Good, The Bad and The Queen, Hard-Fi and many more, to restate the case against fascism.
The event was sponsored by trade unions including Unison and PCS and union leaders and politicians – including Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone – made brief speeches and remembered anti-fascist music heroes like Paul Robeson and Woody Guthrie between the songs.
Their message was backed up by the music in songs from reggae singer Natty, who described cultural alienation over fat fairground organ in No Place for I and I, or R&B singer Jay Sean who proclaimed his British Indianness.
Also on the bill were The Paddingtons, Roll Deep’s Wiley -- featuring grime crew, Babyshambles’ Drew McConnell, X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene and a version of The Clash’s White Riot from 1978.
Most of all, the crowd who assembled, came, went and came back again in the course of a long day and evening emphasised that the BNP could never hope to raise such a rally.
Singer Morrissey also helped to sponsor the event with a contribution of £28,000. The former Smiths frontman said he decided to help fund Sunday’s event after a sponsor – thought to actually be NME – pulled out of supporting the campaign.
Posting on his website www.true-to-you.net before the event, Morrissey said: “This is a historic event spreading an important, anti-racist, message so it must be allowed to go ahead. This is something I am committed to and we appreciate everyone coming together so quickly to make it happen.” Lee Billingham, from Love Music Hate Racism, said: “After an expected contribution to the carnival from a major sponsor fell through, we contacted Morrissey – and other artists who support the cause – to ask for their help, and we’re extremely grateful for Morrissey’s generous financial contribution.”
Ring of Democracy
TRADE UNIONS in London last Monday braved local flooding to stage a “Ring of Democracy” around London’s County Hall to remind voters in the coming local elections to keep the fascist British National Party out of the capital’s democratic machinery.
Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary for the TUC in London, said: “London rightly has a reputation as a world class city with progressive politics and cohesive communities, a vibrant forward looking city, strengthened by many cultures. The far-right, with its politics of hatred and bigotry, wants to destroy the very diversity that makes London such as fantastic place to live and work.
“Unions in London, campaign groups, community groups, faith leaders and individual Londoners will come together 28th April to foster the politics of hope and oppose the politics of hatred.”
The public appeal to keep the far-right out of London was supported by some of the hundreds of Unison members employed at the Greater London Authority, representatives of community groups, faith groups and anti-racist campaigners.
Unfortunately the local flooding that day meant that County Hall was closed and workers sent home but union members gave support to the rally.
Linda Perks, Regional Secretary of Unison Greater London said: “Unison members that are employed at the GLA are proud of their role in supporting the good governance of London, especially of its commitment to equalities at work and in the community.
“They believe that a breakthrough for the far-right in the GLA elections, 1st May, would be hugely detrimental to London’s interests and would have an appalling impact on their lives at work.”
The demonstration coincided with the arrival of the London Workers’ Memorial Day march at County Hall and the two events gave mutual support to each other.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Battle for London
The 2008 London mayoral election is the most bitterly fought since the Greater London Authority was set up in 2000, 14 years after the Greater London Council was abolished by Margaret Thatcher.
It is seen by the Tories and their backers as a test-run for winning the next general election, while Livingstone is carrying the burden of dwindling working class support for Labour as it drifts even further to the right under Gordon Brown.
The United for Ken campaign, set up by the Labour Party pressure group Compass, calls this campaign “a battle between the forces of progress versus reaction in the nation as a whole”.
The campaign’s statement, endorsed by trade leaders, Labour MPs and activists, academics and artists, says there has been “no greater threat since Margaret Thatcher shut down London democracy in 1986”.
Since 2000 Livingstone, with relatively limited powers, has achieved more in terms of housing, transport, policing and the environment than any government, local or national, in the past three decades. London is now regarded around the world as a model for running a major city.
His main challenger, tory Boris Johnson, has no actual experience of government apart from being MP for Henley-on-Thames and shadow minister for higher education. His candidacy betrays the lack of experience talent the tories are able to field.Livingstone himself is an ordinary Londoner, but Johnson has few links with the capital and has lived the life of a privileged grandee.
Livingstone was born in Lambeth, educated at Tulse Hill Comprehensive, and became a local councillor in Lambeth in 1971.Johnson was born in New York, educated at the European School in Brussels, Ashdown House, Eton, and Oxford, where he was a leading member of the Bullingdon Club, known for drunken binges and “trashing” restaurants.
He regrets the end of colonialism, is an enthusiastic supporter of George Bush and Iraq war, opposed the Kyoto climate treaty, is against the welfare state, wants the "teaching" of homosexuality in schools to end, and has even attacked chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign for healthier school dinners.
Stark choice for Londoners
He is against the highly popular £25 charge on high-emission ’Chelsea tractors’, and plans to scrap Livingstone’s 50% affordable housing policy, claiming “quotas are not the answer”.
He has a long record of nauseating bigotry, overseeing an editorial saying the the people of Liverpool had a "deeply unattractive psyche" for their reactions to the death of Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley and the Hillsborough tragedy .
He has written of "orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing" in Papua New Guinea, described "tribal warriors breaking out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief” (Tony Blair), and says the Commonwealth supplies the Queen with “cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies." According to journalist Rod Liddle he refers to black Africans in private as "piccaninnies".
It is hard to put such a history of comments behind you, yet Johnson rebuked people attacking his comments for “going on about this kind of thing” and “trivialising the debate”.
He has attracted powerful support, from the Evening Standard, part of the Daily Mail group, and from media supporters of neocon thinking, some posing as “leftists”.
Londoners face a stark choice in this election. Livingstone, despite his faults, is a true Londoner and seen as a man of the people who travels on public transport. As one elderly muslim resident said in broken english: “He’s the best man, he only demands to help the poorer people”.
Johnson is London’s own George Bush, trying desperately to pose as progressive. He is not up to the task of running London, but if he wins we can be sure he will turn the clock back to the worst times of class privilege and division.
Working class Londoners have seen through the media blitz for Johnson and the lies to undermining Livingstone. But the most crucial task is to mobilise the class to come out and vote on May 1st.
It is seen by the Tories and their backers as a test-run for winning the next general election, while Livingstone is carrying the burden of dwindling working class support for Labour as it drifts even further to the right under Gordon Brown.
The United for Ken campaign, set up by the Labour Party pressure group Compass, calls this campaign “a battle between the forces of progress versus reaction in the nation as a whole”.
The campaign’s statement, endorsed by trade leaders, Labour MPs and activists, academics and artists, says there has been “no greater threat since Margaret Thatcher shut down London democracy in 1986”.
Since 2000 Livingstone, with relatively limited powers, has achieved more in terms of housing, transport, policing and the environment than any government, local or national, in the past three decades. London is now regarded around the world as a model for running a major city.
His main challenger, tory Boris Johnson, has no actual experience of government apart from being MP for Henley-on-Thames and shadow minister for higher education. His candidacy betrays the lack of experience talent the tories are able to field.Livingstone himself is an ordinary Londoner, but Johnson has few links with the capital and has lived the life of a privileged grandee.
Livingstone was born in Lambeth, educated at Tulse Hill Comprehensive, and became a local councillor in Lambeth in 1971.Johnson was born in New York, educated at the European School in Brussels, Ashdown House, Eton, and Oxford, where he was a leading member of the Bullingdon Club, known for drunken binges and “trashing” restaurants.
He regrets the end of colonialism, is an enthusiastic supporter of George Bush and Iraq war, opposed the Kyoto climate treaty, is against the welfare state, wants the "teaching" of homosexuality in schools to end, and has even attacked chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign for healthier school dinners.
Stark choice for Londoners
He is against the highly popular £25 charge on high-emission ’Chelsea tractors’, and plans to scrap Livingstone’s 50% affordable housing policy, claiming “quotas are not the answer”.
He has a long record of nauseating bigotry, overseeing an editorial saying the the people of Liverpool had a "deeply unattractive psyche" for their reactions to the death of Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley and the Hillsborough tragedy .
He has written of "orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing" in Papua New Guinea, described "tribal warriors breaking out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief” (Tony Blair), and says the Commonwealth supplies the Queen with “cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies." According to journalist Rod Liddle he refers to black Africans in private as "piccaninnies".
It is hard to put such a history of comments behind you, yet Johnson rebuked people attacking his comments for “going on about this kind of thing” and “trivialising the debate”.
He has attracted powerful support, from the Evening Standard, part of the Daily Mail group, and from media supporters of neocon thinking, some posing as “leftists”.
Londoners face a stark choice in this election. Livingstone, despite his faults, is a true Londoner and seen as a man of the people who travels on public transport. As one elderly muslim resident said in broken english: “He’s the best man, he only demands to help the poorer people”.
Johnson is London’s own George Bush, trying desperately to pose as progressive. He is not up to the task of running London, but if he wins we can be sure he will turn the clock back to the worst times of class privilege and division.
Working class Londoners have seen through the media blitz for Johnson and the lies to undermining Livingstone. But the most crucial task is to mobilise the class to come out and vote on May 1st.
A neocon witch-hunt against Livingstone and Jasper
“The lead attack dog is of course the Daily Mail group's Evening Standard. It is being used day in and day out as a battering ram, not just against Ken Livingstone, but against the ideals of more democratic, egalitarian and sustainable politics. It is indeed the few using their wealth and influence over the many.” - Unite for Ken
The 2008 mayoral election in London is taking place in a very different atmosphere from those in 2000 and 2004. Livingstone has been targeted by a witch-hunt of McCarthyite proportions, and attacked from the right and the left.
The incessant corruption allegations against Livingstone’s race advisor Lee Jasper have undoubtedly affected Livingstone’s standing in the opinion polls, even if only temporarily.
Livingstone is the best-known politician in Britain to have opposed the Iraq and Afghan wars, and has become a target for British neocons supporting the ‘war on terror’. Boris Johnson's campaign is being run by Lynton Crosby, election manager for successive victories by Australia’s arch-warmonger and Washington stooge John Howard.
The Standard’s neo-con attack dogs
The Evening Standard is openly leading the anti-Livingstone bandwagon, which includes two apparently ‘left-wing’ journalists who have adopted right-wing neocon ideas - Martin Bright of the New Statesman and Observer columnist Nick Cohen.
Bright has warned that “a vote for Livingstone is a vote for a bully and a coward who is not worthy to lead this great city of ours". His pamphlet for the centre-right Policy Exchange think-tank attacking dialogue with the Muslim Council of Britain was praised by US neocon Richard Perle. He describes the Chávez government in Venezuela as linked to “Iran and cocaine-smuggling guerrillas".
Nick Cohen, after drinking with leading neocon Paul Wolfowitz in Annabel’s nightclub, described him as "a politician committed to extending human freedom."
He claims Livingstone is running London with a “secret Marxist cell” of “grimy conspirators of the totalitarian left” (ex-members of Socialist Action), and says Livingstone’s engagement with representatives of mainstream political Islam is appeasing the “Islamist far right”.
Insidious campaign tactics
Johnson and his influential backers are also using insidious campaign tactics to label anyone backing Livingstone as his “stooges”.
At a debate organised by the Evening Standard - without Livingstone’s presence - Michael Eboda, editor of black newspaper the New Nation, said Johnson’s racist comments in the past were "an extremely big obstacle to being able to work with what is almost 12 per cent of London's population."
But Observer journalist Nick Cohen warned Eboda, to "be careful" not to take Mr Livingstone's side as he had his own a history of "revolting" comments.
Eboda said he was “not on Livingstone's side, not in any way, shape or form."
But the main focus of the media onslaught has been on unproven allegations of financial impropriety against Lee Jasper, London’s leading black political figure.
Jasper has been cleared of any wrongdoing by both Scotland Yard and an independent audit. But that didn’t stop the Standard from devoting 10 front pages and 36 full-page articles to the allegations.
There have been only two arrests linked to the alleagations, in two out of the dozens of community groups receiving London Development Authority grants. Neither one was linked with Jasper.
“A spiteful and racist media campaign”
In the end it was revelations about his private life, and scores of reporters camping outside his home, which led him to resign in March.
According to Simon Woolley, head of Operation Black Vote, “the Standard wanted a scalp” and the pressure on him and his family became intolerable”.
Woolley, writing in The Voice, says Jasper has been the victim of a “spiteful and racist media campaign” which had subjected black organisations were to “shockingly disproportionate” levels of scrutiny.
“Right now our best defence is solidarity. We need to tell Jasper that we care and a wretched media that we will not be defeated,” he said.
Livingstone has also described the Standard’s allegations as a “racist smear campaign".
The intensity and nastiness of the campaign against Livingstone reflects powerful interests - big business and London’s wealthy elite - who are backing the Tory party and have no concern for policies which have benefited ordinary Londoners. But most working class Londoners know better than to believe the torrent of drivel flooding the media, and they know that their interests are best served by Livingstone.
Stop the BNP in London!
There is a very real danger of the British National Party winning one of the eleven proportionally elected seats on the Greater London Assembly by crossing the 5 per cent vote threshold on May 1st.
In 2004 the BNP fell just 5,000 votes short in with 4.8 per cent of the vote. Since then the BNP has emerged as a significant force in outer east London, with almost 8,000 votes in Barking and Dagenham in the 2005 general election.
In last year’s local elections the BNP’s share of the vote fell in many parts of the country, but as leading anti-fascist group Searchlight points out, despite the BNP’s recent internal splits the party “often does well despite itself”.
There is also the UKIP factor. In 2004 UKIP took 8.2 per cent of the vote in London, but since then has virtually collapsed in the capital. Many of its votes are likely to go to the Tories or the BNP.
Both UKIP and the BNP have done well on the outskirts of London rather than inner London, taking the white right-wing vote.The BNP needs just over 8 per cent to win two assembly seats, and 11 per cent to win three seats.
Searchlight’s Hope not Hate campaign is having its biggest mobilisation in London so far for the May 1 election. The anti-fascists’ most important weapon is boosting turnout and mobilising voters.
A large proportion of London voters from all ethnic backgrounds are strongly against the BNP. According to polls by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation the BNP is Britain's most disliked political party, with three-quarters saying they would never vote for it under any circumstances.
The factors which have helped the BNP gain support in recent years have not gone away, and most of the wards it is targeting are held by Labour, which is losing support in its old working class strongholds.
As part of the BBC’s White Season series on white working class alienation, Newsnight recently interviewed BNP leader Nick Griffin.
So the fight to stop the BNP in London is far from easy and there is much work to be done. The main groups mobilising the anti-fascist vote in the capital are Unite Against Fascism, which is chaired by London mayor Ken Livingstone, and the Hope not Hate campaign.
The 2008 mayoral election in London is taking place in a very different atmosphere from those in 2000 and 2004. Livingstone has been targeted by a witch-hunt of McCarthyite proportions, and attacked from the right and the left.
The incessant corruption allegations against Livingstone’s race advisor Lee Jasper have undoubtedly affected Livingstone’s standing in the opinion polls, even if only temporarily.
Livingstone is the best-known politician in Britain to have opposed the Iraq and Afghan wars, and has become a target for British neocons supporting the ‘war on terror’. Boris Johnson's campaign is being run by Lynton Crosby, election manager for successive victories by Australia’s arch-warmonger and Washington stooge John Howard.
The Standard’s neo-con attack dogs
The Evening Standard is openly leading the anti-Livingstone bandwagon, which includes two apparently ‘left-wing’ journalists who have adopted right-wing neocon ideas - Martin Bright of the New Statesman and Observer columnist Nick Cohen.
Bright has warned that “a vote for Livingstone is a vote for a bully and a coward who is not worthy to lead this great city of ours". His pamphlet for the centre-right Policy Exchange think-tank attacking dialogue with the Muslim Council of Britain was praised by US neocon Richard Perle. He describes the Chávez government in Venezuela as linked to “Iran and cocaine-smuggling guerrillas".
Nick Cohen, after drinking with leading neocon Paul Wolfowitz in Annabel’s nightclub, described him as "a politician committed to extending human freedom."
He claims Livingstone is running London with a “secret Marxist cell” of “grimy conspirators of the totalitarian left” (ex-members of Socialist Action), and says Livingstone’s engagement with representatives of mainstream political Islam is appeasing the “Islamist far right”.
Insidious campaign tactics
Johnson and his influential backers are also using insidious campaign tactics to label anyone backing Livingstone as his “stooges”.
At a debate organised by the Evening Standard - without Livingstone’s presence - Michael Eboda, editor of black newspaper the New Nation, said Johnson’s racist comments in the past were "an extremely big obstacle to being able to work with what is almost 12 per cent of London's population."
But Observer journalist Nick Cohen warned Eboda, to "be careful" not to take Mr Livingstone's side as he had his own a history of "revolting" comments.
Eboda said he was “not on Livingstone's side, not in any way, shape or form."
But the main focus of the media onslaught has been on unproven allegations of financial impropriety against Lee Jasper, London’s leading black political figure.
Jasper has been cleared of any wrongdoing by both Scotland Yard and an independent audit. But that didn’t stop the Standard from devoting 10 front pages and 36 full-page articles to the allegations.
There have been only two arrests linked to the alleagations, in two out of the dozens of community groups receiving London Development Authority grants. Neither one was linked with Jasper.
“A spiteful and racist media campaign”
In the end it was revelations about his private life, and scores of reporters camping outside his home, which led him to resign in March.
According to Simon Woolley, head of Operation Black Vote, “the Standard wanted a scalp” and the pressure on him and his family became intolerable”.
Woolley, writing in The Voice, says Jasper has been the victim of a “spiteful and racist media campaign” which had subjected black organisations were to “shockingly disproportionate” levels of scrutiny.
“Right now our best defence is solidarity. We need to tell Jasper that we care and a wretched media that we will not be defeated,” he said.
Livingstone has also described the Standard’s allegations as a “racist smear campaign".
The intensity and nastiness of the campaign against Livingstone reflects powerful interests - big business and London’s wealthy elite - who are backing the Tory party and have no concern for policies which have benefited ordinary Londoners. But most working class Londoners know better than to believe the torrent of drivel flooding the media, and they know that their interests are best served by Livingstone.
Stop the BNP in London!
There is a very real danger of the British National Party winning one of the eleven proportionally elected seats on the Greater London Assembly by crossing the 5 per cent vote threshold on May 1st.
In 2004 the BNP fell just 5,000 votes short in with 4.8 per cent of the vote. Since then the BNP has emerged as a significant force in outer east London, with almost 8,000 votes in Barking and Dagenham in the 2005 general election.
In last year’s local elections the BNP’s share of the vote fell in many parts of the country, but as leading anti-fascist group Searchlight points out, despite the BNP’s recent internal splits the party “often does well despite itself”.
There is also the UKIP factor. In 2004 UKIP took 8.2 per cent of the vote in London, but since then has virtually collapsed in the capital. Many of its votes are likely to go to the Tories or the BNP.
Both UKIP and the BNP have done well on the outskirts of London rather than inner London, taking the white right-wing vote.The BNP needs just over 8 per cent to win two assembly seats, and 11 per cent to win three seats.
Searchlight’s Hope not Hate campaign is having its biggest mobilisation in London so far for the May 1 election. The anti-fascists’ most important weapon is boosting turnout and mobilising voters.
A large proportion of London voters from all ethnic backgrounds are strongly against the BNP. According to polls by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation the BNP is Britain's most disliked political party, with three-quarters saying they would never vote for it under any circumstances.
The factors which have helped the BNP gain support in recent years have not gone away, and most of the wards it is targeting are held by Labour, which is losing support in its old working class strongholds.
As part of the BBC’s White Season series on white working class alienation, Newsnight recently interviewed BNP leader Nick Griffin.
So the fight to stop the BNP in London is far from easy and there is much work to be done. The main groups mobilising the anti-fascist vote in the capital are Unite Against Fascism, which is chaired by London mayor Ken Livingstone, and the Hope not Hate campaign.
The Battle for Transport
Ken Livingstone’s transport policies have been copied around the world. He pioneered travel cards and congestion charging, expanded the Freedom Pass, and is the first to seriously tackle vehicle pollution and boost London-wide cycling.
All this would be threatened under Boris Jonson, a climate change denialist and friend to road rather than public transport users.
He says Livingstone is “clobbering" motorists and opposes the £25 charge for larger cars, claiming it would have little impact on C02 emissions.
Johnson called Livingstone’s attempts to avoid part-privatisation of the tube – now exposed by the £2 billion Metronet fiasco - “ideological warfare”.
Livingstone points out that "from his transport plans nobody knows what he plans to do with the tube."
Freedom Pass
Livingstone plans to extend the Freedom Pass, used by pensioners and disabled people, to 24 hours a day if he is re-elected. He has already given free bus travel and tram to under-18s in full-time education.
Although Johnson’s website promises the Freedom Pass is an “untouchable right for London pensioners,” both he and Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick said the proposal was “eight years too late”.
In reality under a Tory or Lib Dem mayor there would almost certainly be no Freedom Pass at all.
Livingstone fought off Tory attempts in the House of Lords to remove his powers to operate the Freedom Pass, and last year the tories tried to replace free travel for under-18s with a far more restricted scheme in only six London boroughs.
No-strike deal
Johnson is currently holding secret talks to find a Transport for London head prepared to “take on” the Rail Maritime and Transport union, and proposes a no-strike agreement with the union.
Such a deal would be a recipe for staffing and safety cuts with far-reaching implications for London commuters.
An RMT spokesman said Johnson was “living in cloud cuckoo land if he believes this kind of approach could ever work. The RMT does not sign no-strike deals and would never give up its right to strike.”
Porsche v the people of London
German luxury car maker Porsche is threatening to challenge the £25 charge on high emission vehicles with a judicial review, calling it "unjust". A spokesman said “successful people from across the world” would be put off living in London by the charge.
The mayor's office has described the move as an attack the democratic right of Londoners to discourage the use of “gas guzzling and polluting vehicles”, and if successful would mean imposing high levels of pollution on Londoners.
The Stuttgart-based company has launched a website which says “Porsche is not prepared to sit by and watch a world class city indiscriminately damaged”. It claims that three out of four Londoners oppose the new charge.
Its poll, based on a sample of only 505 adults, included questions on how Londoners voted in the last mayoral election. It does not actually ask those polled whether they are against the CO2 charge, but says 68% thought it was too high. According to the mayor’s polling the charge is supported by 71% of Londoners.
The new charge is part of an environmental strategy – Britain’s first – including a clean air zone and spending £500m to encourage walking and cycling. The goal is a 60% reduction in London’s CO2 emissions by 2025.
Road pollution in London is known to cause severe health problems, and existing road taxes mean drivers of smaller cars are effectively subsidising 4x4 drivers.
For once the wealthy – in this case around 30,000 4x4 and sports car drivers – are being targeted by the new charge, while the cleanest cars will pay nothing.
Motorists’ organisations have resorted to ludicrous arguments against the charge, such as the RAC Foundation’s claim that it "is gesture politics rather than a serious attempt to tackle London's air quality problems".
In fact Livingstone is the first politician in Britain to implement effective and co-ordinated transport and environmental policies, after decades of government support for road building and drivers, while public transport has been run down and privatised.
All this would be threatened under Boris Jonson, a climate change denialist and friend to road rather than public transport users.
He says Livingstone is “clobbering" motorists and opposes the £25 charge for larger cars, claiming it would have little impact on C02 emissions.
Johnson called Livingstone’s attempts to avoid part-privatisation of the tube – now exposed by the £2 billion Metronet fiasco - “ideological warfare”.
Livingstone points out that "from his transport plans nobody knows what he plans to do with the tube."
Freedom Pass
Livingstone plans to extend the Freedom Pass, used by pensioners and disabled people, to 24 hours a day if he is re-elected. He has already given free bus travel and tram to under-18s in full-time education.
Although Johnson’s website promises the Freedom Pass is an “untouchable right for London pensioners,” both he and Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick said the proposal was “eight years too late”.
In reality under a Tory or Lib Dem mayor there would almost certainly be no Freedom Pass at all.
Livingstone fought off Tory attempts in the House of Lords to remove his powers to operate the Freedom Pass, and last year the tories tried to replace free travel for under-18s with a far more restricted scheme in only six London boroughs.
No-strike deal
Johnson is currently holding secret talks to find a Transport for London head prepared to “take on” the Rail Maritime and Transport union, and proposes a no-strike agreement with the union.
Such a deal would be a recipe for staffing and safety cuts with far-reaching implications for London commuters.
An RMT spokesman said Johnson was “living in cloud cuckoo land if he believes this kind of approach could ever work. The RMT does not sign no-strike deals and would never give up its right to strike.”
Porsche v the people of London
German luxury car maker Porsche is threatening to challenge the £25 charge on high emission vehicles with a judicial review, calling it "unjust". A spokesman said “successful people from across the world” would be put off living in London by the charge.
The mayor's office has described the move as an attack the democratic right of Londoners to discourage the use of “gas guzzling and polluting vehicles”, and if successful would mean imposing high levels of pollution on Londoners.
The Stuttgart-based company has launched a website which says “Porsche is not prepared to sit by and watch a world class city indiscriminately damaged”. It claims that three out of four Londoners oppose the new charge.
Its poll, based on a sample of only 505 adults, included questions on how Londoners voted in the last mayoral election. It does not actually ask those polled whether they are against the CO2 charge, but says 68% thought it was too high. According to the mayor’s polling the charge is supported by 71% of Londoners.
The new charge is part of an environmental strategy – Britain’s first – including a clean air zone and spending £500m to encourage walking and cycling. The goal is a 60% reduction in London’s CO2 emissions by 2025.
Road pollution in London is known to cause severe health problems, and existing road taxes mean drivers of smaller cars are effectively subsidising 4x4 drivers.
For once the wealthy – in this case around 30,000 4x4 and sports car drivers – are being targeted by the new charge, while the cleanest cars will pay nothing.
Motorists’ organisations have resorted to ludicrous arguments against the charge, such as the RAC Foundation’s claim that it "is gesture politics rather than a serious attempt to tackle London's air quality problems".
In fact Livingstone is the first politician in Britain to implement effective and co-ordinated transport and environmental policies, after decades of government support for road building and drivers, while public transport has been run down and privatised.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Celebrating the birth of Kim Il Sung
Friends of Korea gathered at London’s Marx House last Saturday afternoon to celebrate the 96th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the great leader of the Korean people who liberated the country from Japanese colonialism and led the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea until his death in 1994.
NCP leader Andy Brooks along with Chris Coleman from the RCPB(ML) and Jong In Song from the Democratic Korean embassy in London all spoke about the DPRK’s support for national liberation and socialism and the celebration finished with music and a buffet that included Korean food to mark the occasion.
photo: Andy Brooks speaking
Thursday, April 10, 2008
On Protests and Censorship
NEARLY 20 years ago the supporters of Greenwich Against the Poll Tax saw an opportunity in the coming London Marathon to get a little media coverage for their campaign. The evening before the event fly-posters and slogan painters were out covering walls all along the route as it ran through the borough. On the day other supporters stood alongside the route holding placards and some living in high-rise flats had hand-painted bed-sheet banners unfurled from their windows. But anyone watching TV sports and news coverage or reading press coverage would have been totally unaware of the protests. Camera angles were carefully monitored and coverage edited to make the protests completely invisible.
Since then numerous other campaigns in all parts of the country that have tried to use major events to snatch a little publicity – campaigns to save hospitals, schools and many other causes – have been rendered invisible by well-oiled and skilful media censorship.
So those of us who have been engaged in such protests know full well that the media coverage last weekend of the progress of the Olympic flame through London, which dwelt on the efforts of protesters claiming to represent the people of Tibet, was giving those protesters all the support it could. And this was a deliberate and conscious decision by a mass media and state machine that has ignored and rendered virtually invisible peace protests involving hundreds of thousands of marchers through the capital. The only people who knew these massive events ever happened have been those who were physically present and those who watch foreign news bulletins – which do judge these demonstrations worthy of reporting.
Yet the capitalist British media have the nerve to accuse the Chinese authorities of failing to give enough reportage of the Olympic flame protests, which involved only a couple of hundred demonstrators at the most.
We may safely assume that when a protest involving a couple of hundred is given acres of news coverage in the mainstream media it has ruling class and Government support. Our government does not want openly to sabotage the Olympics – Britain has too much vested interest in the next games and, in this time of growing economic crisis, it wants to remain on civil terms with the government of the People’s Republic.
But Whitehall and Washington also want to use every opportunity for a back-handed swipe at the country that is proving that capitalist methods firmly controlled by socialist planning are providing a much healthier economy than their free-trade scramble for profits and unfettered greed.
The people responsible for “Shock and Awe”, for Guantanamo Bay, for Abu Ghraib, for Diego Garcia, for the death of Baha Mousa and for the slow murder of Palestine want to lecture the Chinese on human rights!
So they pick on a movement that wants to detach Tibet from China and drag it back to an age of mixed feudalism and slavery, where nearly half of all babies died before their first birthday and where families could be ordered to give up their very young sons to a life of religious and superstitious indoctrination. The imperialists portray this extreme right-wing and racist movement as a heroic band of martyrs fighting for national liberation.
Another event capturing media coverage it does not deserve is the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. Enoch Powell was an ambitious but not too bright right-wing Tory MP, who as Minister for Transport in the Macmillan government in the 1950s sent recruitment teams to the West Indies to encourage people there to come to work as bus drivers and conductors in London.
Later, following the Notting Hill race riots, he sought to gain popularity by campaigning against black immigration into Britain, making lurid predictions of civil strife between black and white communities. His claims became so outrageous even the Tory party had to dump him and he ended up in obscurity with the Ulster Unionists in the occupied north of Ireland.But it is worth noticing that his dire predictions have spectacularly failed to come true and that, generally, black and white workers are living and working peacefully alongside each other and that immigrant communities in Britain in general have made great contributions.
And now the patronising middle classes and intelligentsia have stopped trying to impose their version of integration, the process is happening naturally, on a basis of mutual respect and equality in the working class.
Since then numerous other campaigns in all parts of the country that have tried to use major events to snatch a little publicity – campaigns to save hospitals, schools and many other causes – have been rendered invisible by well-oiled and skilful media censorship.
So those of us who have been engaged in such protests know full well that the media coverage last weekend of the progress of the Olympic flame through London, which dwelt on the efforts of protesters claiming to represent the people of Tibet, was giving those protesters all the support it could. And this was a deliberate and conscious decision by a mass media and state machine that has ignored and rendered virtually invisible peace protests involving hundreds of thousands of marchers through the capital. The only people who knew these massive events ever happened have been those who were physically present and those who watch foreign news bulletins – which do judge these demonstrations worthy of reporting.
Yet the capitalist British media have the nerve to accuse the Chinese authorities of failing to give enough reportage of the Olympic flame protests, which involved only a couple of hundred demonstrators at the most.
We may safely assume that when a protest involving a couple of hundred is given acres of news coverage in the mainstream media it has ruling class and Government support. Our government does not want openly to sabotage the Olympics – Britain has too much vested interest in the next games and, in this time of growing economic crisis, it wants to remain on civil terms with the government of the People’s Republic.
But Whitehall and Washington also want to use every opportunity for a back-handed swipe at the country that is proving that capitalist methods firmly controlled by socialist planning are providing a much healthier economy than their free-trade scramble for profits and unfettered greed.
The people responsible for “Shock and Awe”, for Guantanamo Bay, for Abu Ghraib, for Diego Garcia, for the death of Baha Mousa and for the slow murder of Palestine want to lecture the Chinese on human rights!
So they pick on a movement that wants to detach Tibet from China and drag it back to an age of mixed feudalism and slavery, where nearly half of all babies died before their first birthday and where families could be ordered to give up their very young sons to a life of religious and superstitious indoctrination. The imperialists portray this extreme right-wing and racist movement as a heroic band of martyrs fighting for national liberation.
Another event capturing media coverage it does not deserve is the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. Enoch Powell was an ambitious but not too bright right-wing Tory MP, who as Minister for Transport in the Macmillan government in the 1950s sent recruitment teams to the West Indies to encourage people there to come to work as bus drivers and conductors in London.
Later, following the Notting Hill race riots, he sought to gain popularity by campaigning against black immigration into Britain, making lurid predictions of civil strife between black and white communities. His claims became so outrageous even the Tory party had to dump him and he ended up in obscurity with the Ulster Unionists in the occupied north of Ireland.But it is worth noticing that his dire predictions have spectacularly failed to come true and that, generally, black and white workers are living and working peacefully alongside each other and that immigrant communities in Britain in general have made great contributions.
And now the patronising middle classes and intelligentsia have stopped trying to impose their version of integration, the process is happening naturally, on a basis of mutual respect and equality in the working class.
London news roundup
Big changes in Pakistan
A WAVE of big changes in favour of popular democracy is sweeping Pakistan after a year of desperate efforts to suppress change by military dictator General Musharraf, culminating in the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, Taimur Rahman of the Communist Workers’ and Peasants’ Party told a meeting organised by the London District of the New Communist Party.
He explained the history of Pakistan, created as a land of landowners and indebted peasants with a powerful military clique, in contrast to the popular democratic traditions of India.
But the people of Pakistan want democracy, progress and prosperity. Taimur gave a brief history of popular democratic and working class movements in Pakistan and the formidable obstacles they have faced. Then he gave an eye-witness account of the recent elections there and the mood of the people. Now big advances are possible, and though this is not a socialist revolution, the unprecedented popular unity against Musharraf and his United States backers has created a mood of optimism.
Many had feared that Musharraf would rig elections earlier this year, with the lawyers and supreme chief of justice arrested and unable to supervise the polling process. But the vote against his party was so great after the death of Benazir Bhutto – which many suspect he had a hand in – that he could not hold back the tide of popular indignation. The religious right-wing also suffered heavy losses in the poll. The Communist Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, though it did not stand in the elections, has made many recruits and built important alliances with other progressive and trade union bodies.
European Court threat to London Olympics?
THE GIANT general union Unite warned that a judgement made last week by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could mean that London’s Olympics will either be built on poverty wages or not at all as industrial unrest spreads.
Unite is warning that the ECJs decision that a Polish subcontractor operating in Germany can lawfully pay construction workers less than half the German construction industry’s agreed wage could have a devastating affect on the building of London’s Olympic infrastructure.
Unite says the ECJs judgement could mean that foreign companies employing people in Britain can ignore employees’ collective agreements and legally pay workers below agreed wage levels.
The ECJ judgement on the Dirk Rüffert v. Land Niedersachsen case concerned a Polish subcontractor of the company Objekt und Bauregie, which paid employees working on a prison building site only 46.5 per cent of the prescribed industry minimum wage.
The ECJ decision found in favour of the company on the grounds of freedom of movement and the provision of services across the European Union.
Unite is now calling for the powers of the ECJ to be curbed to allow national governments and national courts to have sovereignty on collective agreements and collective action.
Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, said: “The European Court of Justice has made a number of decisions that we believe threaten EU countries with being forced to use cheaper agency labour, the undercutting our industry agreements and the ability of trade unions to defend them. Today’s judgement is by far the most damaging.
“This decision effectively means that foreign companies working here in the UK, or in any other European country, can flout domestic laws and collective agreements with regard to pay.
“This is a recipe for disaster and, if applied here in the UK, will cause massive industrial unrest and threaten the delivery of major infrastructure projects including the Olympics site.
“We are calling on the UK government and the European Parliament to act to ensure that minimum industry standards are upheld and we want the role of the ECJ, which has greater powers with regard to these vital issues, to be revisited.”
A WAVE of big changes in favour of popular democracy is sweeping Pakistan after a year of desperate efforts to suppress change by military dictator General Musharraf, culminating in the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, Taimur Rahman of the Communist Workers’ and Peasants’ Party told a meeting organised by the London District of the New Communist Party.
He explained the history of Pakistan, created as a land of landowners and indebted peasants with a powerful military clique, in contrast to the popular democratic traditions of India.
But the people of Pakistan want democracy, progress and prosperity. Taimur gave a brief history of popular democratic and working class movements in Pakistan and the formidable obstacles they have faced. Then he gave an eye-witness account of the recent elections there and the mood of the people. Now big advances are possible, and though this is not a socialist revolution, the unprecedented popular unity against Musharraf and his United States backers has created a mood of optimism.
Many had feared that Musharraf would rig elections earlier this year, with the lawyers and supreme chief of justice arrested and unable to supervise the polling process. But the vote against his party was so great after the death of Benazir Bhutto – which many suspect he had a hand in – that he could not hold back the tide of popular indignation. The religious right-wing also suffered heavy losses in the poll. The Communist Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, though it did not stand in the elections, has made many recruits and built important alliances with other progressive and trade union bodies.
European Court threat to London Olympics?
THE GIANT general union Unite warned that a judgement made last week by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could mean that London’s Olympics will either be built on poverty wages or not at all as industrial unrest spreads.
Unite is warning that the ECJs decision that a Polish subcontractor operating in Germany can lawfully pay construction workers less than half the German construction industry’s agreed wage could have a devastating affect on the building of London’s Olympic infrastructure.
Unite says the ECJs judgement could mean that foreign companies employing people in Britain can ignore employees’ collective agreements and legally pay workers below agreed wage levels.
The ECJ judgement on the Dirk Rüffert v. Land Niedersachsen case concerned a Polish subcontractor of the company Objekt und Bauregie, which paid employees working on a prison building site only 46.5 per cent of the prescribed industry minimum wage.
The ECJ decision found in favour of the company on the grounds of freedom of movement and the provision of services across the European Union.
Unite is now calling for the powers of the ECJ to be curbed to allow national governments and national courts to have sovereignty on collective agreements and collective action.
Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, said: “The European Court of Justice has made a number of decisions that we believe threaten EU countries with being forced to use cheaper agency labour, the undercutting our industry agreements and the ability of trade unions to defend them. Today’s judgement is by far the most damaging.
“This decision effectively means that foreign companies working here in the UK, or in any other European country, can flout domestic laws and collective agreements with regard to pay.
“This is a recipe for disaster and, if applied here in the UK, will cause massive industrial unrest and threaten the delivery of major infrastructure projects including the Olympics site.
“We are calling on the UK government and the European Parliament to act to ensure that minimum industry standards are upheld and we want the role of the ECJ, which has greater powers with regard to these vital issues, to be revisited.”
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Stopping the lying BNP
by Caroline Colebrook
THE FIRE Brigades Union was the co-sponsor, along with Philosophy Football and Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, of a packed event in the Offside Bar in the City Road Islington designed to raise funding and awareness of the current massive campaign running in the capital to prevent the neo-Nazi British National Party from gaining enough votes to win a seat on the Greater London Assembly in the May local elections.
Entertainers included comedian Shappi Khorsandi and the grime theatre of Decypher Collective – four young men who presented a rap poem about the way capitalist production methods entrap young workers both physically and mentally. Top of the bill was singer Billy Bragg.
He performed a Woody Guthrie number from the early 1940s, telling fascists they were bound to lose and the Internationale. He was presented with a £2,000 cheque from the FBU towards his Jail Doors Guitars programme which tours Britain’s prisons, giving guitars to prisoners and teaching them to play them as a way of raising morale and rehabilitation.
The prisoners find it easy to connect with the history of blues music and the music of people like Guthrie and Johnny Cash.
Two films were shown, one of the 2007 Hope Not Hate Campaign as the campaign bus toured council estates all around the country where BNP candidates were standing, bringing entertainment, music and anti-fascist campaigning to working class people.
The other film, Who Shot the Sheriff? marked the 30th anniversary of the 1978 Rock Against Racism Carnival and explored the role of music in mobilising anti-fascists against the National Front in the 1970s. It also showed the longstanding links between the rock band The Clash, which played at that event, and the FBU. The Clash raised money for the FBU during a strike in 1978.
That carnival is to be remembered and repeated with a Love Music Hate Racism Carnival on Sunday 27th April in Victoria Park, east London.
tribute
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack paid tribute to the thousands of volunteers and Searchlight regulars who have been working hard in recent week, distributing anti-BNP leaflets and the Hope Not Hate news sheet – Save the City we Love produced in conjunction with the Daily Mirror.
He and Billy Bragg both warned how plausible the BNP is becoming to some working class people who have been let down by the Labour government.
Billy Bragg is a native of Barking and reported that the BNP there are claiming to be “The Labour Party your mum and dad voted for” – taking up issues on the doorstep like housing, jobs and NHS cuts.
The BNP lies through its teeth and blames immigration for everything but both Bragg and Wrack emphasised the need to rebuild the Left, to take up these issues and fight for all working people as the best way of destroying BNP credibility.
Thousands of young trade unionists are becoming involved in leafleting and campaigning against the BNP – many who would think twice about campaigning for New Labour.
The civil service union PCS is a major sponsor of the coming Love Music Hate Racism Carnival, which aims to inspire another mass movement against racism and fascism and to mobilise a vote against racism in the Greater London Assembly and local council elections taking place a few days later.
PCS paid tribute to the group of political activists who got together 30 years ago with a group of musicians to form Rock Against Racism.
It was a movement formed in reaction to rising xenophobia and racism fuelled by Nazi organisations such as the National Front.
Bands including The Clash, Steel Pulse and the Tom Robinson Band helped create a political movement among music fans – the most memorable event being the Rock Against Racism “Carnival against the Nazis” in April 1978. beginning
A huge rally of 100,000 people marched the six miles from Trafalgar Square through London’s East End – the heart of National Front territory – to a concert in Victoria Park. The concert and march spelled the beginning of the end for the NF in the face of a young and diverse mass movement.
PCS is proud to support the “Love Music Hate Racism Carnival 2008 – Rock Against Racism 30th Anniversary”. The Carnival will see a diverse range of musicians uniting against racism and fascism. A lively carnival procession will also take place through London beforehand.
Acts confirmed so far include: Babyshambles RAR Allstars featuring Very Special Guests Jerry Dammers and Roll Deep, The Paddingtons and many more.
Billy Bragg will be there of course – as he was 30 years ago, a member of the massive audience at the event that politicised his career.
Speakers will include PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, Tony Benn, Derek Simpson (Unite), Weyman Bennett (LMHR) and Gemma Tumelty (NUS).
The public sector union Unison is also getting involved in combating the BNP threat encouraging people to vote as the surest way of seeing off the fascist organisation and stop it spreading its politics of hate.
Last year, the union played a key part in preventing a BNP breakthrough. It proves that local action works. But, the union says, there is no room for complacency.
The BNP currently enjoys the highest levels of support for a fascist party in British history. Doing nothing is not an option.
Unison branches and regions are working alongside other trade unions, local political parties and community groups to prevent the BNP making any electoral gains this year.
The London Hope Not Hate campaign is looking for volunteers on Tuesday 30th April to help with leafleting at every London Tube station. Anyone wishing to help should contact the campaign at www.hopenothate.org.uk and give details of which Tube station they would prefer to cover.
THE FIRE Brigades Union was the co-sponsor, along with Philosophy Football and Searchlight anti-fascist magazine, of a packed event in the Offside Bar in the City Road Islington designed to raise funding and awareness of the current massive campaign running in the capital to prevent the neo-Nazi British National Party from gaining enough votes to win a seat on the Greater London Assembly in the May local elections.
Entertainers included comedian Shappi Khorsandi and the grime theatre of Decypher Collective – four young men who presented a rap poem about the way capitalist production methods entrap young workers both physically and mentally. Top of the bill was singer Billy Bragg.
He performed a Woody Guthrie number from the early 1940s, telling fascists they were bound to lose and the Internationale. He was presented with a £2,000 cheque from the FBU towards his Jail Doors Guitars programme which tours Britain’s prisons, giving guitars to prisoners and teaching them to play them as a way of raising morale and rehabilitation.
The prisoners find it easy to connect with the history of blues music and the music of people like Guthrie and Johnny Cash.
Two films were shown, one of the 2007 Hope Not Hate Campaign as the campaign bus toured council estates all around the country where BNP candidates were standing, bringing entertainment, music and anti-fascist campaigning to working class people.
The other film, Who Shot the Sheriff? marked the 30th anniversary of the 1978 Rock Against Racism Carnival and explored the role of music in mobilising anti-fascists against the National Front in the 1970s. It also showed the longstanding links between the rock band The Clash, which played at that event, and the FBU. The Clash raised money for the FBU during a strike in 1978.
That carnival is to be remembered and repeated with a Love Music Hate Racism Carnival on Sunday 27th April in Victoria Park, east London.
tribute
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack paid tribute to the thousands of volunteers and Searchlight regulars who have been working hard in recent week, distributing anti-BNP leaflets and the Hope Not Hate news sheet – Save the City we Love produced in conjunction with the Daily Mirror.
He and Billy Bragg both warned how plausible the BNP is becoming to some working class people who have been let down by the Labour government.
Billy Bragg is a native of Barking and reported that the BNP there are claiming to be “The Labour Party your mum and dad voted for” – taking up issues on the doorstep like housing, jobs and NHS cuts.
The BNP lies through its teeth and blames immigration for everything but both Bragg and Wrack emphasised the need to rebuild the Left, to take up these issues and fight for all working people as the best way of destroying BNP credibility.
Thousands of young trade unionists are becoming involved in leafleting and campaigning against the BNP – many who would think twice about campaigning for New Labour.
The civil service union PCS is a major sponsor of the coming Love Music Hate Racism Carnival, which aims to inspire another mass movement against racism and fascism and to mobilise a vote against racism in the Greater London Assembly and local council elections taking place a few days later.
PCS paid tribute to the group of political activists who got together 30 years ago with a group of musicians to form Rock Against Racism.
It was a movement formed in reaction to rising xenophobia and racism fuelled by Nazi organisations such as the National Front.
Bands including The Clash, Steel Pulse and the Tom Robinson Band helped create a political movement among music fans – the most memorable event being the Rock Against Racism “Carnival against the Nazis” in April 1978. beginning
A huge rally of 100,000 people marched the six miles from Trafalgar Square through London’s East End – the heart of National Front territory – to a concert in Victoria Park. The concert and march spelled the beginning of the end for the NF in the face of a young and diverse mass movement.
PCS is proud to support the “Love Music Hate Racism Carnival 2008 – Rock Against Racism 30th Anniversary”. The Carnival will see a diverse range of musicians uniting against racism and fascism. A lively carnival procession will also take place through London beforehand.
Acts confirmed so far include: Babyshambles RAR Allstars featuring Very Special Guests Jerry Dammers and Roll Deep, The Paddingtons and many more.
Billy Bragg will be there of course – as he was 30 years ago, a member of the massive audience at the event that politicised his career.
Speakers will include PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, Tony Benn, Derek Simpson (Unite), Weyman Bennett (LMHR) and Gemma Tumelty (NUS).
The public sector union Unison is also getting involved in combating the BNP threat encouraging people to vote as the surest way of seeing off the fascist organisation and stop it spreading its politics of hate.
Last year, the union played a key part in preventing a BNP breakthrough. It proves that local action works. But, the union says, there is no room for complacency.
The BNP currently enjoys the highest levels of support for a fascist party in British history. Doing nothing is not an option.
Unison branches and regions are working alongside other trade unions, local political parties and community groups to prevent the BNP making any electoral gains this year.
The London Hope Not Hate campaign is looking for volunteers on Tuesday 30th April to help with leafleting at every London Tube station. Anyone wishing to help should contact the campaign at www.hopenothate.org.uk and give details of which Tube station they would prefer to cover.
Saving the NHS from profit-mongers
CAMPAIGNERS last Monday protested outside the Department of Health in Whitehall over plans for three GP surgeries in Camden to be taken over by an American commercial health company. Keep Our NHS Public say the issue now occupies the “front line” in their battle against privatisation of the NHS. Camden Primary Care Trust’s decision to award the contract for the three surgeries to United Health had led to an outcry by local people.
One patient, Barbara Saunders, is attempting to block the contract by seeking a judicial review that the consultation was not carried out properly. Last week around 200 residents gave a no confidence vote in their PCT. The borough’s health scrutiny committee will now look into the issue.
The Prime Minister had refocused privatisation on primary care, having moved it away from hospital services to some extent by scrapping plans for third wave independent sector treatments centres and the pulling out of seven already under development last November.
The plan for United Health to run the Brunswick Medical Centre in Bloomsbury, the King’s Cross Road Practice and the Camden Road Surgery from April, would correspond with this.
But in London as elsewhere, it is not a plan with widespread public approval. In a statement the campaigners note: “The American multinational appears to have been favoured due to its promise of substantial cost cutting, sparking fear among patients that the standard of care will decline.”
Professor Wendy Savage, retired obstetrician and campaign supporter said: “We hear all the rhetoric about a patient-led NHS, but that seems to mean nothing if the patients disagree with the Government’s privatisation policies.”
And last Saturday around 200 campaigners marched from Blackheath through Lewisham, past Lewisham Hospital to protest at plans to close the Accident and Emergency Unit there.
The protest was supported by local Mayor Steve Bullock, who said: “Over the last few weeks a whole range of people across the borough have made it clear they are very, very concerned about any threat to Lewisham Hospital, especially accident and emergency and maternity services.”
The march was organised by the Greenwich and Lewisham pensioners’ forums. Frances Hook, chairwoman of Keep Our NHS Public, said: “We will be highlighting our belief that the A Picture of Health consultation has been neither fair nor transparent.
“We want a moratorium on the A Picture of Health because not everyone knows about the proposals and many of those who do have just found them confusing.”
The Picture of Health document proposes a series of options that could lead to the closure of one or more of four hospitals in Lewisham, Bromley, Woolwich and Sidcup and would hit services in all of them.
Far from having too many A&E units, attendances at south-east London’s A&Es increased by 28 per cent between 2002 and 2006. Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich would be expected to increase its emergency admissions by 40 per cent under these plans even though it often diverts ambulances to Queen Mary’s in Sidcup because of lack of beds.
One patient, Barbara Saunders, is attempting to block the contract by seeking a judicial review that the consultation was not carried out properly. Last week around 200 residents gave a no confidence vote in their PCT. The borough’s health scrutiny committee will now look into the issue.
The Prime Minister had refocused privatisation on primary care, having moved it away from hospital services to some extent by scrapping plans for third wave independent sector treatments centres and the pulling out of seven already under development last November.
The plan for United Health to run the Brunswick Medical Centre in Bloomsbury, the King’s Cross Road Practice and the Camden Road Surgery from April, would correspond with this.
But in London as elsewhere, it is not a plan with widespread public approval. In a statement the campaigners note: “The American multinational appears to have been favoured due to its promise of substantial cost cutting, sparking fear among patients that the standard of care will decline.”
Professor Wendy Savage, retired obstetrician and campaign supporter said: “We hear all the rhetoric about a patient-led NHS, but that seems to mean nothing if the patients disagree with the Government’s privatisation policies.”
And last Saturday around 200 campaigners marched from Blackheath through Lewisham, past Lewisham Hospital to protest at plans to close the Accident and Emergency Unit there.
The protest was supported by local Mayor Steve Bullock, who said: “Over the last few weeks a whole range of people across the borough have made it clear they are very, very concerned about any threat to Lewisham Hospital, especially accident and emergency and maternity services.”
The march was organised by the Greenwich and Lewisham pensioners’ forums. Frances Hook, chairwoman of Keep Our NHS Public, said: “We will be highlighting our belief that the A Picture of Health consultation has been neither fair nor transparent.
“We want a moratorium on the A Picture of Health because not everyone knows about the proposals and many of those who do have just found them confusing.”
The Picture of Health document proposes a series of options that could lead to the closure of one or more of four hospitals in Lewisham, Bromley, Woolwich and Sidcup and would hit services in all of them.
Far from having too many A&E units, attendances at south-east London’s A&Es increased by 28 per cent between 2002 and 2006. Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich would be expected to increase its emergency admissions by 40 per cent under these plans even though it often diverts ambulances to Queen Mary’s in Sidcup because of lack of beds.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Dalai Lama plays his cards
IN LONDON Tibetan exiles and their dupes have been demonstrating outside the Chinese embassy in support of the separatist gangs that plunged parts of the Tibetan capital into violence last weekend. There can be no doubt that the London protests and similar demonstrations taking place across the world have been organised by the Dalai Lama clique and his “Free Tibet” movement and there are ample facts and plenty of evidence to prove that the recent riot in Lhasa was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai Lama clique.
Tibet became part of China in the 13th century and this was recognised by all the local Tibetan feudal leaders down the ages, including the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. This was recognised by the Dalai Lama after China’s liberation and the establishment of the people’s republic in 1949. But in 1959 the feudal landlords and reactionary religious leaders fearful of democratic reforms launched an armed rebellion, backed by the CIA and India, to preserve the serf system. It was crushed and the “god-king” of Tibet fled to India where he still holds court in exile.
The Tibetan people swept the reactionaries and feudalists aside and established a people’s government in Tibet. The million serfs and slaves stood up for themselves, no longer the property of their masters to be traded, transferred or used to pay a debt in kind or by labour.
But in India the Dalai Lama clique has constantly sought to sabotage and disrupt the forward march of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Dalai Lama wants his throne back and the reactionaries want to restore the wretched feudal system that held the Tibetan people in thrall for centuries. Behind them are the sinister forces of imperialism working to undermine and destabilise the People’s Republic of China, the economic giant of Asia.
The Dalai Lama is a hypocrite who claims he stands for the Buddhist teachings of peace and harmony. Last weekend’s violence, led by his agents, has torn the mask from his face. But the days of serfdom and slavery are long gone in China and they will never come back. We stand with the Chinese and Tibetan people defending their people’s government.
Tibet became part of China in the 13th century and this was recognised by all the local Tibetan feudal leaders down the ages, including the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. This was recognised by the Dalai Lama after China’s liberation and the establishment of the people’s republic in 1949. But in 1959 the feudal landlords and reactionary religious leaders fearful of democratic reforms launched an armed rebellion, backed by the CIA and India, to preserve the serf system. It was crushed and the “god-king” of Tibet fled to India where he still holds court in exile.
The Tibetan people swept the reactionaries and feudalists aside and established a people’s government in Tibet. The million serfs and slaves stood up for themselves, no longer the property of their masters to be traded, transferred or used to pay a debt in kind or by labour.
But in India the Dalai Lama clique has constantly sought to sabotage and disrupt the forward march of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Dalai Lama wants his throne back and the reactionaries want to restore the wretched feudal system that held the Tibetan people in thrall for centuries. Behind them are the sinister forces of imperialism working to undermine and destabilise the People’s Republic of China, the economic giant of Asia.
The Dalai Lama is a hypocrite who claims he stands for the Buddhist teachings of peace and harmony. Last weekend’s violence, led by his agents, has torn the mask from his face. But the days of serfdom and slavery are long gone in China and they will never come back. We stand with the Chinese and Tibetan people defending their people’s government.
Friday, March 21, 2008
London fight for asbestos victims
THE CONSTRUCTION union Ucatt is backing a campaign to overturn a Law Lords’ ruling that prevents the victims of asbestos-related illnesses from claiming thousands of pounds in compensation.
The campaign is also backed by Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas, who attended an event at Barking Town Hall, along with union activists last week to launch a campaign to restore payments to workers exposed to dust from the Cape Asbestos factory in Harts Lane, Barking, which closed in 1968.
The campaign involves people sending postcards to justice secretary Jack Straw asking him to reintroduce payments to people suffering from scarring of the lungs, known as pleural plaques, caused by exposure to asbestos. Their protest follows a legal ruling last year that pleural plaques would no longer be a compensatable illness.
Cruddas said: “This is vital for this area. The local incidence of asbestos-related diseases is the highest in London.
Mesothelioma is the highest for women in the country and in the top 10 for men. That’s why it’s so important.
“The Law Lords’ decision has saved billions for insurance companies. It’s a working class disease of which people sitting in the Lords know very little about.”
Health statistics reveal Barking and Dagenham has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related diseases in the country, and up to 25 people die from diseases associated with exposure to it every year.
The campaign is also backed by Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas, who attended an event at Barking Town Hall, along with union activists last week to launch a campaign to restore payments to workers exposed to dust from the Cape Asbestos factory in Harts Lane, Barking, which closed in 1968.
The campaign involves people sending postcards to justice secretary Jack Straw asking him to reintroduce payments to people suffering from scarring of the lungs, known as pleural plaques, caused by exposure to asbestos. Their protest follows a legal ruling last year that pleural plaques would no longer be a compensatable illness.
Cruddas said: “This is vital for this area. The local incidence of asbestos-related diseases is the highest in London.
Mesothelioma is the highest for women in the country and in the top 10 for men. That’s why it’s so important.
“The Law Lords’ decision has saved billions for insurance companies. It’s a working class disease of which people sitting in the Lords know very little about.”
Health statistics reveal Barking and Dagenham has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related diseases in the country, and up to 25 people die from diseases associated with exposure to it every year.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
NEW COMMUNIST Party comrades and friends gathered at Party centre on Saturday 8th March for a social to commemorate the life and works of Karl Marx.
As usual at these events there was plenty of good food and drink and on this occasion Cuban music.
Guests included Comrade Jong In Song from the Embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, who gave an inspiring account of the way in which young Koreans are taught and encouraged to become fighters and campaigners for socialist advance and progress.
And he offered to address any schools or seminars on Marxism and on the Juché philosophy that the NCP might have planned. Comrades told him he would be certain to be taken up on that offer sometime later this year.
NCP general secretary Andy Brooks also spoke on the difficulties and privations that Marx faced while he was doing most of his writings in London and the impact of those works on today’s world.
A collection raised £1,300 for the New Worker.
photo: Comrade Jong In Song and Alex Kempshall
Honouring Marx
THE PROMISED rain held off last Friday as a large group of people from all corners of the world gathered in Highgate Cemetery, north London, to mark the 125th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx.
Those gathered included ambassadors and diplomats from People’s China, Vietnam, South Africa and Cuba together with Danish and German communists, a large party of Chinese students from Westminster College and the regular London-based communist stalwarts of the struggle.
Flowers were laid at the base of the huge tomb, including red roses laid by New Communist Party central committee member Robert Laurie.
Professor John Callow gave a short speech, in which he mentioned the recently published book Marx in London that he has co-authored.
He said his work was an attempt to rescue the real Marx from a welter of tradition and ritual and promote the content of Marx’s writings. “Marxism is not a rigid dogma but a living way of interpreting the political, social and economic processes that are happening all around us,” he said.
photo: Robert Laurie from the NCP at the tomb
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
BNP police infiltrator convicted
THE BRITISH National Party’s efforts to try to pass itself off as a normal respectable party took a severe blow last week after a south London BNP member who had infiltrated the police was convicted on weapons charges. Searchlight anti-fascist magazine has reported that at the turn of the year officers from the Post Office Security Team based at London’s main sorting office at Mount Pleasant intercepted a package from the United States that contained a Tazer gun, known as a stun gun, now in widening use by the Metropolitan Police Service.
The addressee was a 23-year-old man, Ellis Hammond. The PO security team passed on the address and details of the contents of the package to the police in southeast London. It took them only minutes to realise that Hammond was a serving officer in the Police Community Safety Unit based in their command area.
In no time they were at his family home detaining him and carrying out what was said to be a very thorough search. They found the following: one CS tear gas canister, one police-style ASP retractable baton, one pair of Metropolitan Police issue Handcuffs, one knuckle duster and eight combat knives.
They also found DVDs containing hate material, various items of BNP literature, some obscene material, 25-30 mainly imported T-shirts from the US bearing Nazi and white power group symbols and hardline racist and Nazi slogans, four BB guns, one replica AK47 assault rifle and one copy of The Turner Diaries.
This is the US publication that has served as a blueprint for Nazi terrorism in the US, written by the late William Pearce, a close friend of the BNP who has played host to them at his National Alliance HQ in the US and was guest of honour at a BNP annual meeting in east London some years ago.
And finally, to top it off, they found a BNP membership card.
By sheer coincidence Hammond had left his mobile phone on a table in the canteen at the police station where he was stationed. A police officer turned it on hoping to find the identity of the owner but instead found a message from the BNP to Hammond. The officer acted with haste and sensibly reported it to one of his senior officers, who were already in the picture about the Tazer gun.
Hammond must have lied about his BNP connections to be eligible to join the Police Community Safety Unit and he appears to have had ambitions to become a full police officer.
He was not active in any of his nearest three BNP branches and appears not to have acted in a racist or fascist way or drawn attention to himself as a member of the unit.
Last week he appeared at Bexley Magistrates’ Court and pleaded guilty to two charges under the Firearms Act for possession and purchase of prohibited weapons relating to the Tazer gun and the CS gas spray, both of which carry prison sentences.
One would have expected the magistrates to send him to the Crown Court with a view to custody of longer than six months, the limit of magistrates’ powers, particularly as he had lied to join the Police Service and was a member of a banned organisation as far as the police and prison service go.
We were astonished to hear that the case had been dealt with there and then and that he got a conditional discharge for 12 months. At the time of writing his name still appears on a police service website as a community beat officer.
In a separate case a suspected neo-Nazi accused of hoarding bomb-making materials at his Grimsby home has appeared in court to face terrorist charges.
Nathan Worrell, 34, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court via video link from Blakenhurst Prison, Worcestershire, for a short hearing.
Police allegedly found bomb-making manuals, weed killer and dismantled fireworks at his Cromwell Road flat, which was raided on 24th January.
Unemployed Worrell is also accused of possessing a collection of far-right wing political literature and propaganda. He is charged with possessing material for terrorist purposes and information useful for an act of terrorism.
He also faces a third charge of waging a racist campaign of harassment against an Asian man and his partner.
The addressee was a 23-year-old man, Ellis Hammond. The PO security team passed on the address and details of the contents of the package to the police in southeast London. It took them only minutes to realise that Hammond was a serving officer in the Police Community Safety Unit based in their command area.
In no time they were at his family home detaining him and carrying out what was said to be a very thorough search. They found the following: one CS tear gas canister, one police-style ASP retractable baton, one pair of Metropolitan Police issue Handcuffs, one knuckle duster and eight combat knives.
They also found DVDs containing hate material, various items of BNP literature, some obscene material, 25-30 mainly imported T-shirts from the US bearing Nazi and white power group symbols and hardline racist and Nazi slogans, four BB guns, one replica AK47 assault rifle and one copy of The Turner Diaries.
This is the US publication that has served as a blueprint for Nazi terrorism in the US, written by the late William Pearce, a close friend of the BNP who has played host to them at his National Alliance HQ in the US and was guest of honour at a BNP annual meeting in east London some years ago.
And finally, to top it off, they found a BNP membership card.
By sheer coincidence Hammond had left his mobile phone on a table in the canteen at the police station where he was stationed. A police officer turned it on hoping to find the identity of the owner but instead found a message from the BNP to Hammond. The officer acted with haste and sensibly reported it to one of his senior officers, who were already in the picture about the Tazer gun.
Hammond must have lied about his BNP connections to be eligible to join the Police Community Safety Unit and he appears to have had ambitions to become a full police officer.
He was not active in any of his nearest three BNP branches and appears not to have acted in a racist or fascist way or drawn attention to himself as a member of the unit.
Last week he appeared at Bexley Magistrates’ Court and pleaded guilty to two charges under the Firearms Act for possession and purchase of prohibited weapons relating to the Tazer gun and the CS gas spray, both of which carry prison sentences.
One would have expected the magistrates to send him to the Crown Court with a view to custody of longer than six months, the limit of magistrates’ powers, particularly as he had lied to join the Police Service and was a member of a banned organisation as far as the police and prison service go.
We were astonished to hear that the case had been dealt with there and then and that he got a conditional discharge for 12 months. At the time of writing his name still appears on a police service website as a community beat officer.
In a separate case a suspected neo-Nazi accused of hoarding bomb-making materials at his Grimsby home has appeared in court to face terrorist charges.
Nathan Worrell, 34, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court via video link from Blakenhurst Prison, Worcestershire, for a short hearing.
Police allegedly found bomb-making manuals, weed killer and dismantled fireworks at his Cromwell Road flat, which was raided on 24th January.
Unemployed Worrell is also accused of possessing a collection of far-right wing political literature and propaganda. He is charged with possessing material for terrorist purposes and information useful for an act of terrorism.
He also faces a third charge of waging a racist campaign of harassment against an Asian man and his partner.
Livingstone for London
London elects its Mayor in May. Ken Livingstone is the official Labour candidate. The leadership of that party may have been hi-jacked by scoundrels but it is still the only mass political party in Britain that has any potential whatever to giving a voice to Britain’s organised working class. And Livingstone’s record has been one of measures that have been of some benefit to London’s working class.
The Labour Party machine originally skewed its selection process to pick Yorkshireman Frank Dobson as its choice of candidate for the job. Livingstone quit the party to stand as an independent – though still holding the support of most of London’s Labour Party rank and file. He stood on a policy of opposing Tube privatisation. Though the Government imposed part privatisation of the Tube before handing control of it over to Livingstone, his stance has been more than vindicated in the dire performance and eventual collapse of Metronet, one of the two private companies involved in the part privatisation.
Livingstone has vastly improved the bus services. By and large the congestion charge has worked in lessening the gridlock in central London, though we would argue it weighs more heavily on low income drivers. Leading Green activists and campaigners acknowledge he is one of the very few elected mayors in the world with enough courage to take on the motor and oil industry lobbies in trying to reduce pollution in the capital.
And when it comes to the position of London Mayor, the alternative really is very much worse than Livingstone. Boris Johnson affects the public persona of a posh buffoon but he is really very reactionary and set on removing all barriers to his very rich class friends making as much profit as they can at the expense of ordinary Londoners.
All the advances made by Livingstone would be undone; the Tube would probably be fully privatised; travel concessions for children and the pensioners’ Freedom Pass would be under threat and developers would be allowed to run riot with no planning checks.
But the poll is likely to be a tight-run thing. People considering voting for alternative candidates or not voting at all should be aware that Boris is the only alternative to Ken and that a few votes going elsewhere could make all the difference and help Boris get in. Livingstone is not perfect but don’t wish a nightmare future on London. Save the Mayor, save London.
The Labour Party machine originally skewed its selection process to pick Yorkshireman Frank Dobson as its choice of candidate for the job. Livingstone quit the party to stand as an independent – though still holding the support of most of London’s Labour Party rank and file. He stood on a policy of opposing Tube privatisation. Though the Government imposed part privatisation of the Tube before handing control of it over to Livingstone, his stance has been more than vindicated in the dire performance and eventual collapse of Metronet, one of the two private companies involved in the part privatisation.
Livingstone has vastly improved the bus services. By and large the congestion charge has worked in lessening the gridlock in central London, though we would argue it weighs more heavily on low income drivers. Leading Green activists and campaigners acknowledge he is one of the very few elected mayors in the world with enough courage to take on the motor and oil industry lobbies in trying to reduce pollution in the capital.
And when it comes to the position of London Mayor, the alternative really is very much worse than Livingstone. Boris Johnson affects the public persona of a posh buffoon but he is really very reactionary and set on removing all barriers to his very rich class friends making as much profit as they can at the expense of ordinary Londoners.
All the advances made by Livingstone would be undone; the Tube would probably be fully privatised; travel concessions for children and the pensioners’ Freedom Pass would be under threat and developers would be allowed to run riot with no planning checks.
But the poll is likely to be a tight-run thing. People considering voting for alternative candidates or not voting at all should be aware that Boris is the only alternative to Ken and that a few votes going elsewhere could make all the difference and help Boris get in. Livingstone is not perfect but don’t wish a nightmare future on London. Save the Mayor, save London.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Campaigning against the BNP in London
THIS month the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight launched its campaign to stop the British National Party from winning seats in the London Assembly.
Searchlight editor Nick Lowles wrote: “Our objectives are simple. We need to prevent the BNP from gaining the five per cent in the London list vote that would give it one seat, the eight per cent which would gain it two and the 11 per cent which would see the party win three.
“Over the next three months we will undertake our largest, most targeted and sophisticated campaign to date.
“We will adapt the lessons from recent campaigns across the country and bring in new techniques that have been pioneered in the United States.
“Given the size of the London constituency, with around 5.3 million potential voters, there will be a much bigger emphasis on internet and email campaigning, though this will not come at the expense of community work, especially the enthusing of minority communities and the mobilisation of faith communities.”
“There must be no pretending that our task is straightforward. In last May’s local elections the BNP polled 14.7 per cent in the 742 wards it contested across the country. The highest average regional vote was in the Eastern region where the party achieved 19 per cent of the vote in the 65 wards contested.
“The BNP is hopeful of success. In the 2006 local elections the party polled 41 per cent in the wards it contested in Barking and Dagenham. It gained councillors in Havering and Redbridge, and overall it averaged 25 per cent of the vote in the 27 wards it contested.
“Its prospects will also be boosted by the virtual collapse of the UK Independence Party, whose London Assembly representatives now sit as the One London party.
“The election will also be an important dry run for next year’s all-important European elections. Victory here, rather than in London on its own, would take the BNP out of the political margins.
“Each MEP would receive at least £200,000 a year in salary and allowances, so would be able to employ several BNP members as staff, but just as importantly MEPs would give the fascists a credibility they currently do not have.
“So, given all of the above, is it certain the BNP will win? Absolutely not, but we will only be successful in preventing a BNP victory if we can launch the biggest anti-BNP campaign to date. And that means people getting active and increasing turnout".
To find out more please visit our campaign site http://www.hopenothate.org.uk
Searchlight editor Nick Lowles wrote: “Our objectives are simple. We need to prevent the BNP from gaining the five per cent in the London list vote that would give it one seat, the eight per cent which would gain it two and the 11 per cent which would see the party win three.
“Over the next three months we will undertake our largest, most targeted and sophisticated campaign to date.
“We will adapt the lessons from recent campaigns across the country and bring in new techniques that have been pioneered in the United States.
“Given the size of the London constituency, with around 5.3 million potential voters, there will be a much bigger emphasis on internet and email campaigning, though this will not come at the expense of community work, especially the enthusing of minority communities and the mobilisation of faith communities.”
“There must be no pretending that our task is straightforward. In last May’s local elections the BNP polled 14.7 per cent in the 742 wards it contested across the country. The highest average regional vote was in the Eastern region where the party achieved 19 per cent of the vote in the 65 wards contested.
“The BNP is hopeful of success. In the 2006 local elections the party polled 41 per cent in the wards it contested in Barking and Dagenham. It gained councillors in Havering and Redbridge, and overall it averaged 25 per cent of the vote in the 27 wards it contested.
“Its prospects will also be boosted by the virtual collapse of the UK Independence Party, whose London Assembly representatives now sit as the One London party.
“The election will also be an important dry run for next year’s all-important European elections. Victory here, rather than in London on its own, would take the BNP out of the political margins.
“Each MEP would receive at least £200,000 a year in salary and allowances, so would be able to employ several BNP members as staff, but just as importantly MEPs would give the fascists a credibility they currently do not have.
“So, given all of the above, is it certain the BNP will win? Absolutely not, but we will only be successful in preventing a BNP victory if we can launch the biggest anti-BNP campaign to date. And that means people getting active and increasing turnout".
To find out more please visit our campaign site http://www.hopenothate.org.uk
Friday, February 29, 2008
Pakistan in crisis
by Robert Laurie
A TIMELY London public meeting organised by the New Communist Party and the British South-Asia Solidarity Forum entitled “Pakistan in Crisis: Instability, Imperialism and Resistance” was held last week, just a few days after the recent parliamentary elections in Pakistan.
Both speakers were political exiles from Pakistan and the first, Mukhtar Rana, a former MP in the Pakistan Parliament served five years in jail for his work fight against military rule and currently campaigns on behalf of bonded labourers in Pakistan. The practice of bonded labour, which is little short of slavery, is theoretically banned under the Pakistan constitution, but flourishes in many parts of the country.
Mukhtar welcomed the defeat of the pro-American military dictator General Musharraf and paid particular tribute to the efforts of Pakistan’s lawyers whose sustained efforts forced Musharraf to step down from his military role.
However, he was sensibly cautious about the role of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which now looks set to form the next Pakistani government. The new leader of the PPP, the widower of the recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto was during her premiership known as “Mr Ten Per Cent” on account of his bribe taking during her spells as Prime Minister.
Mushtaq Lasharie, a Labour councillor in Kensington who was a political refugee from Pakistan spoke next. He was equally unimpressed by the PPP which has became increasingly right wing under pressure from Anglo-American imperialism. It now supports feudal landlords against workers and peasants. Political parties in Pakistan, he stated, are more like supporters clubs for politicians rather than ideologically based movements.
Valuable points were made from the floor of the packed meeting. The Solidarity Forum speaker stated that Pakistan was not in crisis itself, but the external crisis of imperialism was having a dire effect on Pakistan.
Pakistan is a large country with a population of around 170 million. Strategically situated near China and bordering Afghanistan and India it is too big a prize to be left in peace by imperialism.
photo:Mushtaq Lasharie; Neil Harris and Mukhtar Rana
London news round-up
£75,000 payout for sacked bus driver
BUS DRIVER Robert Latimer last week won £75,000 in compensation for being sacked for taking time off to recover from serious injuries after being attacked by a drunken passenger.
Latimer, from Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, was working in London at the time, driving a route notorious for assaults and abuse, according to his solicitors, when an aggressive passenger swung a bag of beer bottles at him.
The 63-year-old said: “I pushed myself against the cab window as far as I could because I knew what was coming, but it didn’t really help.
“He broke my arm in two places and damaged the muscle and ligaments in my shoulder.
“I kicked him in the face and kicked him out of the door of the bus.
“I got his hat and the police did a full DNA scan but he hasn’t been caught yet.”
Robert, who has lived in Sunderland all his life, moved to work in London after the bus bombings because there was a driver shortage and the wages were higher.
After the attack his doctor signed him off work and he sent letters from his GP to his employer, Travel London, but they stopped paying his salary and sick pay.
They kept contacting him to ask why he was not at work, and even though he was back in Sunderland they demanded he attend meetings in London.
Robert put in personal injury and unfair dismissal and disability discrimination claims. He was supported throughout by his trade union, GMB Northern, and their solicitors.
The bus company alleged Robert was the aggressor and attacked the passenger, even though Metropolitan Police reports showed otherwise.
Tommy Brennan, GMB Northern secretary, said: “Travel London has behaved appallingly and have showed complete disregard for the law in treating Robert Latimer in this disgraceful way.
“He was a victim of a serious crime and yet not only did they try to paint him as the aggressor, they refused to talk to the GMB or to give our member the right of a grievance hearing and to appeal against his sacking.”
Travel London has admitted it should have fitted Perspex screens to protect drivers, but refused to admit its failure to do so made it liable.
Science Museum staff dispute
STAFF at the National Science Museum last week have voted overwhelmingly to strike over pay and plans to close the civil service pension scheme to new members.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) working for the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) are furious that a below inflation pay offer has been imposed on them at a successful time for the museum.
Over 85 per cent of PCS members taking part voted to strike and over 70 per cent voted for industrial action short of a strike. Their colleagues who are members of Prospect also strongly backed industrial action in their ballot.
NMSI, which includes the Science Museum in London, also operates a trading company to generate income, and made an operating profit of over £1 million last year, exceeding its target by over 14 per cent.
Staff in the trading company are on worse terms and conditions than museum staff, including having no access to civil service pensions.
Other museums affected are the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, the National Railway Museum in York, and the Science Museum Swindon in Wiltshire.
Greenpeace protestors target Heathrow
FIVE MEMBERS of Greenpeace last week made their way through security at Heathrow airport last Monday to clamber on top of a newly-landed Boeing 777 airliner and unfurl a protest banner against plans for a third runway at the airport.
The protest continued for an hour after which the campaigners were arrested. But Heathrow authorities were embarrassed about the breach in their “anti-terrorist” security.
Protester Sarah Shoraka said she was surprised at how easily they had breached the airport’s security. She said she and her companions walked on to the taxiway after finding a set of security doors ajar. “The door was broken so there was no security. Once we got to doors and saw that they were partly open, we walked through calmly,” she said.
“Aviation is a huge polluter and yet the Government wants to double the size of Heathrow, which is already massive.”
The protest coincided with a demonstration in Whitehall against plans to expand Heathrow.
BUS DRIVER Robert Latimer last week won £75,000 in compensation for being sacked for taking time off to recover from serious injuries after being attacked by a drunken passenger.
Latimer, from Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, was working in London at the time, driving a route notorious for assaults and abuse, according to his solicitors, when an aggressive passenger swung a bag of beer bottles at him.
The 63-year-old said: “I pushed myself against the cab window as far as I could because I knew what was coming, but it didn’t really help.
“He broke my arm in two places and damaged the muscle and ligaments in my shoulder.
“I kicked him in the face and kicked him out of the door of the bus.
“I got his hat and the police did a full DNA scan but he hasn’t been caught yet.”
Robert, who has lived in Sunderland all his life, moved to work in London after the bus bombings because there was a driver shortage and the wages were higher.
After the attack his doctor signed him off work and he sent letters from his GP to his employer, Travel London, but they stopped paying his salary and sick pay.
They kept contacting him to ask why he was not at work, and even though he was back in Sunderland they demanded he attend meetings in London.
Robert put in personal injury and unfair dismissal and disability discrimination claims. He was supported throughout by his trade union, GMB Northern, and their solicitors.
The bus company alleged Robert was the aggressor and attacked the passenger, even though Metropolitan Police reports showed otherwise.
Tommy Brennan, GMB Northern secretary, said: “Travel London has behaved appallingly and have showed complete disregard for the law in treating Robert Latimer in this disgraceful way.
“He was a victim of a serious crime and yet not only did they try to paint him as the aggressor, they refused to talk to the GMB or to give our member the right of a grievance hearing and to appeal against his sacking.”
Travel London has admitted it should have fitted Perspex screens to protect drivers, but refused to admit its failure to do so made it liable.
Science Museum staff dispute
STAFF at the National Science Museum last week have voted overwhelmingly to strike over pay and plans to close the civil service pension scheme to new members.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) working for the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) are furious that a below inflation pay offer has been imposed on them at a successful time for the museum.
Over 85 per cent of PCS members taking part voted to strike and over 70 per cent voted for industrial action short of a strike. Their colleagues who are members of Prospect also strongly backed industrial action in their ballot.
NMSI, which includes the Science Museum in London, also operates a trading company to generate income, and made an operating profit of over £1 million last year, exceeding its target by over 14 per cent.
Staff in the trading company are on worse terms and conditions than museum staff, including having no access to civil service pensions.
Other museums affected are the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, the National Railway Museum in York, and the Science Museum Swindon in Wiltshire.
Greenpeace protestors target Heathrow
FIVE MEMBERS of Greenpeace last week made their way through security at Heathrow airport last Monday to clamber on top of a newly-landed Boeing 777 airliner and unfurl a protest banner against plans for a third runway at the airport.
The protest continued for an hour after which the campaigners were arrested. But Heathrow authorities were embarrassed about the breach in their “anti-terrorist” security.
Protester Sarah Shoraka said she was surprised at how easily they had breached the airport’s security. She said she and her companions walked on to the taxiway after finding a set of security doors ajar. “The door was broken so there was no security. Once we got to doors and saw that they were partly open, we walked through calmly,” she said.
“Aviation is a huge polluter and yet the Government wants to double the size of Heathrow, which is already massive.”
The protest coincided with a demonstration in Whitehall against plans to expand Heathrow.
Friday, February 22, 2008
London post offices axed
by Daphne Liddle
CAMPAIGNERS, pensioner groups and trade unions last week roundly condemned last Tuesday’s announcement of plans to close 169 London post offices plus 11 Crown post offices in the near future. That is one fifth of all London post offices and is part of a wider plan to close 25,000 post offices nationwide.
The Post Office claims that 90 per cent of Londoners will notice no difference.
Andy Furey, a national official of the Communication Workers’ Union, said: “London is disproportionately suffering from the Network Change closure programme, having already lost 30 per cent of its post offices since 2004.
“If these new closures and franchises go ahead then post offices in London will have been reduced by nearly 45 per cent since 2004. In addition to the 169 Post Offices today proposed for closure, a further 11 Crown Offices are set to close in the coming months at the cost of 170 jobs.
“To claim that these closures and franchising proposals will not affect local services is wilfully naïve. Franchising is not a viable option as it undermines the sustainability of the network by placing public service provision in the hands of private businesses.
“We believe the current network is sustainable but it needs investment from Government and a collaborative approach to business plans from Post Office Limited.”
He added: “The Post Office’s accounts, which recorded such heavy losses in the past financial year, have got the fingerprints of ministers all over them.
“The situation is quite clear. Unless the Government accepts it has a responsibility to maintain the Crown office network, the business will seek to make more savings and shut more offices.”
Amicus, which represents post office managers, will call for a review to improve efficiency and productivity. National officer Peter Skyte said: “Without further action by Government and the public, this will be the last post for Britain’s post office network.”
strongly object
A spokesperson for the Greater London Pensioners’ Association told the New Worker: “Obviously we are very much against any closures of post offices. We have not yet discussed this latest round of closures but we would strongly object in principle to any closures.
“If the Government can find £55 billion to save Northern Rock then it should be easy to find the £3 million a week they claim it takes to keep all of the country’s post offices open.”
The announcement of the imminent closures comes after Post Office Limited’s consultations exercise – though the results will not be published until after the May local elections. CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said: “Post office closures is a big political issue. It reduces the footprint of the network and threatens the universal service. The Post Office provides services which are worthy of investment and the current subsidy is a pittance compared to what other institutions receive.
“We don’t think the consultation process is adequate. It appears that even after consulting, POL will close the same number of offices as they initially earmarked.”
Andy Furey also commented on plans to franchise Post Office services to branches of WH Smith.
He said: “There is no evidence of communities anywhere in the country supporting closing or franchising of post offices.
“The closure and franchising programme has led to an abuse of public funds as staff have been offered tempting severance packages, but the reality is that WHSmith don’t want to pay for our members.
“Franchising undermines the sustainability of the network by placing public service provision in the hands of private businesses. If WHSmith were to go bust there is no guarantee that the 70 franchises it has taken on would remain. There appears to be a serious lack of planning in the process which concerns us deeply.”
London Mayor Ken Livingstone also opposes the cuts and has said he will call for a judicial review of the decision.
CAMPAIGNERS, pensioner groups and trade unions last week roundly condemned last Tuesday’s announcement of plans to close 169 London post offices plus 11 Crown post offices in the near future. That is one fifth of all London post offices and is part of a wider plan to close 25,000 post offices nationwide.
The Post Office claims that 90 per cent of Londoners will notice no difference.
Andy Furey, a national official of the Communication Workers’ Union, said: “London is disproportionately suffering from the Network Change closure programme, having already lost 30 per cent of its post offices since 2004.
“If these new closures and franchises go ahead then post offices in London will have been reduced by nearly 45 per cent since 2004. In addition to the 169 Post Offices today proposed for closure, a further 11 Crown Offices are set to close in the coming months at the cost of 170 jobs.
“To claim that these closures and franchising proposals will not affect local services is wilfully naïve. Franchising is not a viable option as it undermines the sustainability of the network by placing public service provision in the hands of private businesses.
“We believe the current network is sustainable but it needs investment from Government and a collaborative approach to business plans from Post Office Limited.”
He added: “The Post Office’s accounts, which recorded such heavy losses in the past financial year, have got the fingerprints of ministers all over them.
“The situation is quite clear. Unless the Government accepts it has a responsibility to maintain the Crown office network, the business will seek to make more savings and shut more offices.”
Amicus, which represents post office managers, will call for a review to improve efficiency and productivity. National officer Peter Skyte said: “Without further action by Government and the public, this will be the last post for Britain’s post office network.”
strongly object
A spokesperson for the Greater London Pensioners’ Association told the New Worker: “Obviously we are very much against any closures of post offices. We have not yet discussed this latest round of closures but we would strongly object in principle to any closures.
“If the Government can find £55 billion to save Northern Rock then it should be easy to find the £3 million a week they claim it takes to keep all of the country’s post offices open.”
The announcement of the imminent closures comes after Post Office Limited’s consultations exercise – though the results will not be published until after the May local elections. CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said: “Post office closures is a big political issue. It reduces the footprint of the network and threatens the universal service. The Post Office provides services which are worthy of investment and the current subsidy is a pittance compared to what other institutions receive.
“We don’t think the consultation process is adequate. It appears that even after consulting, POL will close the same number of offices as they initially earmarked.”
Andy Furey also commented on plans to franchise Post Office services to branches of WH Smith.
He said: “There is no evidence of communities anywhere in the country supporting closing or franchising of post offices.
“The closure and franchising programme has led to an abuse of public funds as staff have been offered tempting severance packages, but the reality is that WHSmith don’t want to pay for our members.
“Franchising undermines the sustainability of the network by placing public service provision in the hands of private businesses. If WHSmith were to go bust there is no guarantee that the 70 franchises it has taken on would remain. There appears to be a serious lack of planning in the process which concerns us deeply.”
London Mayor Ken Livingstone also opposes the cuts and has said he will call for a judicial review of the decision.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
London news round-up
China-UK women’s festival for London
THE CHINA-UK Women’s Cultural Festival will further enhance mutual understanding between women of the two countries and draw specific links between Beijing and London on hosting Olympic Games, a visiting Chinese official told the media in London on Monday.
Long Jiangwen, counsel of the International Department of All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), told a press conference that the week-long festival which started on Sunday is of great significance against the backdrop of the current China-Britain relation, which is now at its best.
An 80-strong Chinese women’s delegation led by Gu Xiulian, president of the ACWF, is the main force of the Chinese part of the festival co-sponsored by the ACWF, London Mayor’s Office and the Organising Committee for China Now, the largest ever Chinese cultural festival in Britain.
Main activities of the festival include a Forum on Women and the Olympics and Paralympics, a Photo Exhibition on Women in China, a popular variety performance called The Same Song-let’s sing together, meeting with Chinese women entrepreneurs, and a Chinese New Year show performed by a Chinese children’s troupe alongside some British children.
The China-UK Women’s Cultural Festival, as one of the highlights of China Now, is expected to showcase the progress of women and children’s care and well-being in China since China’s adoption of the policy of reform and opening-up in 1978.
“We hope the festival will further the understanding between women of China and Britain, fostering a closer friendship between the two peoples,” said Long.
Xinhua news agency
Unite to sponsor major anti-racism carnival
THE GIANT general union Unite last week announced that it will be the main sponsor for the biggest anti-racism event in London for over 30 years.
Unite has joined up with Love Music Hate Racism to mark the 30-year anniversary of the iconic 1978 RAR (Rock Against Racism) carnival and march.
The event will take place in East London’s Victoria Park on Sunday 27th April with Babyshambles to headline. The last seminal event took place on 30th April 1978 with Tom Robinson Band headlining.
Unite which has two million members, campaigns to promote fairness and justice for people in and out of the workplace. Equal rights are a key priority promoting equality of members of every ethnic or national origin.
Derek Simpson, Unite joint general secretary says: “Events like these that bring people together are vital to helping suppress the threat we face from racist organisations. These organisations are attempting to gain votes by playing off people’s disenchantment with politics and their insecurities.
“Unite is proud to support an event which will send out a strong message of unity to 80,000 Londoners days before the Greater London Authority election for London Mayor on 1st May.”
THE CHINA-UK Women’s Cultural Festival will further enhance mutual understanding between women of the two countries and draw specific links between Beijing and London on hosting Olympic Games, a visiting Chinese official told the media in London on Monday.
Long Jiangwen, counsel of the International Department of All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), told a press conference that the week-long festival which started on Sunday is of great significance against the backdrop of the current China-Britain relation, which is now at its best.
An 80-strong Chinese women’s delegation led by Gu Xiulian, president of the ACWF, is the main force of the Chinese part of the festival co-sponsored by the ACWF, London Mayor’s Office and the Organising Committee for China Now, the largest ever Chinese cultural festival in Britain.
Main activities of the festival include a Forum on Women and the Olympics and Paralympics, a Photo Exhibition on Women in China, a popular variety performance called The Same Song-let’s sing together, meeting with Chinese women entrepreneurs, and a Chinese New Year show performed by a Chinese children’s troupe alongside some British children.
The China-UK Women’s Cultural Festival, as one of the highlights of China Now, is expected to showcase the progress of women and children’s care and well-being in China since China’s adoption of the policy of reform and opening-up in 1978.
“We hope the festival will further the understanding between women of China and Britain, fostering a closer friendship between the two peoples,” said Long.
Xinhua news agency
Unite to sponsor major anti-racism carnival
THE GIANT general union Unite last week announced that it will be the main sponsor for the biggest anti-racism event in London for over 30 years.
Unite has joined up with Love Music Hate Racism to mark the 30-year anniversary of the iconic 1978 RAR (Rock Against Racism) carnival and march.
The event will take place in East London’s Victoria Park on Sunday 27th April with Babyshambles to headline. The last seminal event took place on 30th April 1978 with Tom Robinson Band headlining.
Unite which has two million members, campaigns to promote fairness and justice for people in and out of the workplace. Equal rights are a key priority promoting equality of members of every ethnic or national origin.
Derek Simpson, Unite joint general secretary says: “Events like these that bring people together are vital to helping suppress the threat we face from racist organisations. These organisations are attempting to gain votes by playing off people’s disenchantment with politics and their insecurities.
“Unite is proud to support an event which will send out a strong message of unity to 80,000 Londoners days before the Greater London Authority election for London Mayor on 1st May.”
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Making the poor pay
HOW LABOUR hopes to win the next election beggars belief if the new Housing Minister’s latest crackpot idea is put into practice. Caroline Flint, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, tells us that unemployed council and housing association tenants should seek work or face eviction.
She claims Labour wants to break the link between social housing and long-term unemployment. According to her department half of all households living in social housing and of working age were without work, and three quarters of these are under 25, while new statistics show that the number of unemployed council tenants has risen by 20 per cent to 55 per cent since 1981.
Flint says she wants to “begin a debate” about how to best serve the needs of people who live in social housing. But Flint’s mealy-mouthed concern for the unemployed is matched with venom and contempt for those far less fortunate than herself when she goes on to say: “Social housing should be based around the principle of something for something.”
It is, of course, a meaningless gesture that even the Tories, who normally grab any chance to screw the poor, have pointed out. Grant Shapps, the Tory Shadow Housing Minister who slept rough at Victoria Station over Christmas as a publicity stunt, points out that the Flint plan was meaningless as her proposals cannot be legally enforced.
“Ministers and local councils have a statutory duty to house homeless families with children and so they can’t boot them out of their houses without then providing alternative accommodation,” he said.
So why bother? Well the only obvious explanation is that Flint and her kind believe that this is the way to woo middle-class voters: reinforcing the prejudices of the Tory gutter press by implying that most benefit claimants are work-shy idlers living off the state.
Naturally enough the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think-tank, has backed the housing minister. “We’ve been left with a system that actually traps people on benefits,” they say. But people aren’t trapped by benefits. They’re trapped by class.
Some New Labour leaders certainly would like to bring in what they call a “radical overhaul” of the benefits system. What lies behind these weasel words is “workfare” – where the unemployed are forced to perform menial tasks in exchange for their welfare pittance – commonly used in Australia and the United States. It’s only one stage removed from the despicable workhouse system that existed in Britain until 1930.
The Labour Party was established to represent the unions and defend the rights of working people throughout the country. The great council house estates, the “homes fit for heroes” that went up between the wars, and the new towns built after the Second World War to end the slums of London and our other great cities, were monuments to Labour planning.
Now the campaign to restore powers to councils to build new affordable housing is left to the Labour Representation Committee and pressure groups while Brown & Co try to outbid the Tories by scapegoating people on benefits to get the reactionary vote. It’s an old trick and it doesn’t always work for the Tories either. Labour has no chance. The reactionary vote will go to the reactionary party. Labour needs to win back the masses who swept the Tories out of office in 1997.
It will only do that if it can offer real material improvements for working people in housing, education and health. Labour needs to win the active support of the millions in the trade union movement and that will only happen if the Government ends its policy of job cuts and wage restraint in the public sector and restores free collective bargaining by repealing the anti-union legislation passed during the Thatcher and Major eras. Above all Labour needs leaders who come from the rank-and-file and who reflect the demands of the organised working class. That fight-back begins in the unions at the grass-roots in every factory, office and council estate and above all in building a strong communist movement in Britain.
She claims Labour wants to break the link between social housing and long-term unemployment. According to her department half of all households living in social housing and of working age were without work, and three quarters of these are under 25, while new statistics show that the number of unemployed council tenants has risen by 20 per cent to 55 per cent since 1981.
Flint says she wants to “begin a debate” about how to best serve the needs of people who live in social housing. But Flint’s mealy-mouthed concern for the unemployed is matched with venom and contempt for those far less fortunate than herself when she goes on to say: “Social housing should be based around the principle of something for something.”
It is, of course, a meaningless gesture that even the Tories, who normally grab any chance to screw the poor, have pointed out. Grant Shapps, the Tory Shadow Housing Minister who slept rough at Victoria Station over Christmas as a publicity stunt, points out that the Flint plan was meaningless as her proposals cannot be legally enforced.
“Ministers and local councils have a statutory duty to house homeless families with children and so they can’t boot them out of their houses without then providing alternative accommodation,” he said.
So why bother? Well the only obvious explanation is that Flint and her kind believe that this is the way to woo middle-class voters: reinforcing the prejudices of the Tory gutter press by implying that most benefit claimants are work-shy idlers living off the state.
Naturally enough the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think-tank, has backed the housing minister. “We’ve been left with a system that actually traps people on benefits,” they say. But people aren’t trapped by benefits. They’re trapped by class.
Some New Labour leaders certainly would like to bring in what they call a “radical overhaul” of the benefits system. What lies behind these weasel words is “workfare” – where the unemployed are forced to perform menial tasks in exchange for their welfare pittance – commonly used in Australia and the United States. It’s only one stage removed from the despicable workhouse system that existed in Britain until 1930.
The Labour Party was established to represent the unions and defend the rights of working people throughout the country. The great council house estates, the “homes fit for heroes” that went up between the wars, and the new towns built after the Second World War to end the slums of London and our other great cities, were monuments to Labour planning.
Now the campaign to restore powers to councils to build new affordable housing is left to the Labour Representation Committee and pressure groups while Brown & Co try to outbid the Tories by scapegoating people on benefits to get the reactionary vote. It’s an old trick and it doesn’t always work for the Tories either. Labour has no chance. The reactionary vote will go to the reactionary party. Labour needs to win back the masses who swept the Tories out of office in 1997.
It will only do that if it can offer real material improvements for working people in housing, education and health. Labour needs to win the active support of the millions in the trade union movement and that will only happen if the Government ends its policy of job cuts and wage restraint in the public sector and restores free collective bargaining by repealing the anti-union legislation passed during the Thatcher and Major eras. Above all Labour needs leaders who come from the rank-and-file and who reflect the demands of the organised working class. That fight-back begins in the unions at the grass-roots in every factory, office and council estate and above all in building a strong communist movement in Britain.
Part of London's radical past
REVIEW
By Stella Moutafis
A radical history of Greenwich and Deptford by Terry Liddle, Freethought History Research Group, 83 Sowerby Close, London SE9 6EZ. 2007, 24pp, £3.00
EVER LOOKED into the working-class history of your local area?
If, like me, you are not a historian by inclination, you may not have come across much about this subject. Of course, there is information to be had – on the Internet... books on local history at the library... but, maybe, you could do with a few pointers to follow up.
Possibly the easiest way to appreciate the great social changes that have swept society over the centuries is through local studies. Back in the 1960s “local history” research was something left to librarians and 6th form projects but the interest in antiques and collectable “bygones” has been a boon to local historians. Few boroughs are without at least one pamphlet recording local lore. True most don’t go beyond the “yesteryear” of old picture postcards or the past 100 years. But some do delve beyond recording old buildings to tell us how working people lived in the past and how they struggled for a better future.
Well, if you live in the Greenwich and Deptford area in London, you are in luck because this pamphlet by Terry Liddle is most readable, and is wide-ranging.
You will probably agree with the author when he maintains that: “History is not about kings, bishops, capitalists...–but about people in struggle”. It is to the people that he dedicates this study.
This coverage starts at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt of the 14th century, continuing through to the popular resistance to fascist activity here in the 1970s. People and events with a local connection are set in the context of wider national developments. We learn of popular struggles of those working on the land, among seamen and dockworkers, and artisans along with the early development of trades unions and socialist political organisations by local people in Greenwich and Deptford. This short pamphlet is clear and concise and, importantly, annotated.
Rather than summarise the contents of Terry’s pamphlet in this review you would do much better to get hold of a copy and read his own words yourself!
But some brief details on the author and the publisher may be of interest.
Terry Liddle has always lived around this part of London. Educated locally, he has an honours degree in history. And he has practical experience in working class struggle at the sharp end. This includes serving as a branch official in the civil service union CPSA, involved in the Hither Green DSS strike against the employment there of BNP activist Malcolm Skeggs – which went so far as to be himself assaulted by fascist thugs!
He has been active in a succession of left and progressive organisations, from the early 1960s to the present, and has also been involved in the Humanist movement.
Terry is a founder and the secretary of the Freethought History Research Group –who are the publishers of this pamphlet. The aim of the Group is to “encourage interest and research into atheism, secularism, and related subjects”, producing reprints and original works in this field, and an annual journal.
Humanism maintains that humanity’s moral values are a product of our species’ social nature – and do not result from the diktat of some supernatural creator, so, also, this life on Earth is the only one we have.
Some of those readers who have been bombarding the New Worker letters columns with contributions on Jesus would be well advised to take note!
Friday, February 01, 2008
London protest at Gaza siege
London comrades joined hundreds of people gathered in Whitehall last Saturday evening to protest at the continuing Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, leading to severe shortages of food, medicines, clean water, fuel and electricity.
But the mood of the demonstrators was lightened by the news of the breaches in the wall built by the Israelis between Gaza and Egypt which had allowed thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to pour across into Egypt and stock up on essentials.
Though the Egyptian government is tied into agreements with the United States and Israel to maintain the wall, the ordinary Egyptian people welcomed their Palestinian neighbours and expressed solidarity with their plight.
Even Egyptian troops stood by as Palestinians poured across to enjoy a brief few hours of freedom from Israeli oppression.
But the mood of the demonstrators was lightened by the news of the breaches in the wall built by the Israelis between Gaza and Egypt which had allowed thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to pour across into Egypt and stock up on essentials.
Though the Egyptian government is tied into agreements with the United States and Israel to maintain the wall, the ordinary Egyptian people welcomed their Palestinian neighbours and expressed solidarity with their plight.
Even Egyptian troops stood by as Palestinians poured across to enjoy a brief few hours of freedom from Israeli oppression.
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