Primeval: Don't go there.....

Most people with sense would either go out on a Saturday to have fun or do something useful in building the class struggle. Oh no not me. I stayed in watched the new ITV action-adventure drama Primeval (I wonder if it will be a crime against the revolution?). The words “action” and “adventure” shouldn’t be used in the same sentence as Primeval ‘cos it was neither.

Nevertheless, Primeval begged, borrowed and stole storylines from other more superior sci-fi and action-adventure. I wonder if the writer indulged in a Spock like mind meld to cut and paste these stories together? Anyway, it consists of 6 characters with the leader of this Scooby gang being one archaeology lecturer, Dr Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall who is usually such a good actor as I have seen him on telly, film and the theatre…Oh why, Douglas?) where a backstory lurks about his wife who disappeared years ago.

His assistant is a leather clad young slick bloke who looks like he has wandered in off the set of Hollyoaks, clever lizard woman who works with reptiles (no jokes…), Home Office wonks x 2, weird student. I didn’t take too much attention regarding names. The storyline revolved around the Forest of Dean and strange goings on or should that be the Jurassic of Dean and hybrid dinosaurs. The dinosaurs come from this trippy time portal where Dr Nick and Gulf war veteran soldier go through (straight out of bloody Stargate that storyline…) and have look around. The bad hybrid dinosaur that looked like a cross between a walrus and a dog with fangs is hanging out in the town causing mayhem and it up to our Scooby gang to track it down.

The script is leaden, stilted and lumpy with no flow. The acting was atrocious and the characters are annoying (waving their torches around in that annoying X-Files way) and frankly I was hoping they would fall through the time portal and never grace the screen again. The humour was well, humourless (Hollyoaks lookalike says to dinosaur: "Pick on someone your own size...")

Obviously cash was not thrown at the special effects as it was all rubbery dinosaurs (probably free from a box of cereal and increased in size) and some CGI. You never really got to understand why this portal was there or who had been experimenting on the dinosaurs. Or do I care?

Obviously you will need to watch the whole 6 episodes for some kind of therapeutic closure . Put it like this, Torchwood rocked compared to this. I missed Shrek for this......

Charter flight to hell

On Monday the 12th February 2007, possibly 50+ Iraqis and Kurds will be forcibly removed by charter flight from RAF Brize Norton and taken to Northern Iraq. There have been demonstrations in London at Layx/Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres and Dallas Court Enforcement Unit in Manchester to protest against deportations.

Immigration officials have been arresting Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers during the past couple of weeks. John Reid warned the high court judges that he would no longer defer a deportation if a last-minute legal challenge was launched unless a full injunction was granted.

So even if an asylum seeker has legal proceedings regarding their immigration status it is not sufficient enough and they could still be deported. Immigration officials arrest more than the flight can hold just in case a judge grants a last minute injunction and someone from the “reserve list” can be slotted into that place. It is utterly obscene.

UNHCR estimates that 1.6 million Iraqis are displaced internally with another 1.8 million in neighbouring states. Most of these people are completely destitute. Many Iraqis now find international travel impossible as countries will turn away any Iraqi who does not have the latest type of Iraqi passport. Needless to say you can only get a new style passport if you know the right people.

And New Labour still say this war was fought to liberate Iraqis....

ASBO Nation

Definition of an anti-social behaviour order: “Causes or likely to have caused harassment or alarm or distress”.

Three-quarters of ASBOs are breached in the County Durham. And therefore the County of Durham has the privilege of coming top of the highest ASBO breach rates. Second is Dorset and third is Cleveland.

The national average of breached ASBOs is 47% compared to 74% from County of Durham. There is no consistency in the way ASBOs are being handed out especially highlighting over-zealous councils who seem to be dishing them out at a high rate.

The definition of an anti-social behaviour order is ambiguous and extremely broad meaning you can include really anyone who you don’t really like such as controling people from entering a certain geographical area to restricting a person’s right to associate with others.

Examples of ASBOs being imposed have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous such as swearing, being sarcastic (!!) to being seen in the garden in your underwear…..!!

How much more evidence does New Labour that ASBOs are not working? Yet John Reid et al are devising new anti-social behaviour orders .

Matt Foot argues from ASBO Concern: “The Government claimed that ASBOs would stop anti-social behaviour, but if you’ve got 74% being breached, it’s clear they are not working at all”.

This law reflects the attacks on mainly working class people and racism as ASBOs are being disproportionately used against young Black teenagers. New Labour said that children would only be issued with an ASBO as a worst case scenario but more than four in ten ASBOs have been imposed on young people aged 17 years or less.

This piece of draconian legislation is actively criminalising, stigmatising and scapegoating people from various sections of society. ASBOs have been used against anti-war protesters.

Just who is next on New Labour’s anti-social drive?

The Olympic con trick

This is an article I just wrote for Socialist Resistance:

At the recent meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Gilbert Felli, the Games’ executive director spoke of their concern that the bill for the London games in 2012 could be as much as £8 billion — compared with the original estimate of £2.375 billion. This overspend was totally predictable. According to the Auditor-General of New South Wales, the Sydney 2000 Games ended up costing over twice the pre-bid figures. In Athens, total costs was at least four times as high as the bid committee's initial budget.

The biggest financial impact is likely to fall on the voluntary sector which will lose an estmated £315 million as the Big Lottery Fund (BLF) will be "raided" to bail out the Olympics. This means, in practical terms, that the BLF won’t be able to fund any new programmes until 2013 and it would also have to make reductions of around £350 million in existing programmes. Sir Clive Booth, chair of the Big Lottery Fund argues this, "would have a chronic and damaging effect" on the fund’s mission to help charities and voluntary organisations. He added: "I don’t really see why all the wonderful good cause projects should have to subsidise the Olympics beyond what we have already done".

The alleged economic benefits of the Olymplics are also debatable, as the games further over heats the economy of London, to the detriment to the rest of Britain. For example, the Shetland Islands have just failed to find contractors interested in building a proposed £48 million High School project, depite funding being in place, because the major building companies are already fully committed to Olympic developments.

Ken Livingstone is saying this will be a Green Olympics, but these claims are rubbish. The Olympics will have a large and negative environmental impact. Most obviously, 50 mature trees will be felled in the Olympic zone located between Homerton Road and Stratford High Road, which incorporates the Bow Back Rivers. The river system of the Lower Lea which, according to the Environment Agency is very important in terms of its flood relief function will be destroyed with a network of concrete bridges and a large part of the waterways will be culverted, making the area much less sympathetic to wildlife. The Olympic stadium will rise to 50 metres and its shading effect on the surrounding land and waterways will be significant. A new 'park' is promised for after the Olympics, providing a greater amount of open space than now exists. This park will not be created until 2020 (8 years after the games), and meanwhile public amenity of the area will be lost. There are, as yet, no financial arrangements for the management of a new park, and no organisation has claimed they want to run it. By 2020, will anyone remember a park was promised?

But it is vitally important to also recognise that the ideology behind the Olympics is completely bankrupt, and of no benefit to working people. At its most blatant, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has admitted that £340 million will be channelled from the existing sports lottery distributors. So the Olympics will actually take money away from participative sport provision for ordinary people, and channel it towards elite professional athletes.
Already for the Beijing Olympics planned for 2008 UK Sport, the body that distributes funding under the World Class performance Programme is spending £57.5 million supporting just 320 elite competitors, plus a further £16 million to their sporting bodies. This Includes £600000 to support one professional weightlifter; £5.3 million for the equestrian team, £2 million for high diving, and over £1 million for the archery team.

The aim of UK Sport is to increase Britain’s Olympic medal tally. But note that the funding does not go towards sports where there is mass participation or even spectator interest. It is focussed onto activities where individuals can be groomed to produce maximum results. We will have the appalling spectacle of a flag waving extravaganza of national chauvinism, where the Queen and Prime Minister wrap themselves in the Union Jack; and we are encouraged to have a vicarious identification with elite athletes participating in sports that outside of the Olympic time none of us take any interest in, just because through accident they carry the same passport as us.

What is more, the training infrastructure and the development of sports science is much more advanced in the developed economies of the imperialist powers. So every four years the Olympics gives an opportunity for the great powers to ideologically demonstrate that their world dominance is underpinned by an implicit biological and racial superiority. This is one of the impetuses behind the prestige of holding the games – an orgy of conspicuous consumption that validates the host nation as a major power.

Wal-Mart: the high cost of downloading

Union busting exploitative capitalists Wal-Mart are entering the digital film market. They are planning to sell digital versions of about 3,000 films and television episodes and are hoping to squeeze out the competition and make a massive profit. Well, it is Wal-Mart and that's what they do best.

But the very big question for me (and the writer of the Guardian article) is whether there will be a version to download of the excellent film Wal-Mart: the high cost of low price.

Oh the irony. Oh and even better if it became their “best seller”. Sweet justice.

A tale of two coalitions

There was a very interesting post on Jim Jepp’s blog recently about the peace movement in Cambridge. In particular Jim relates how in Cambridge there is both a Stop the War Coalition group, and Campeace. This is far from unusual. In Manchester there is a Stop the War Coalition that has recently been reconstituted as quite a formal delegate body, and in parallel a “Stop the Warmongers” group that is more of an activist body. In Oxford the split is more bizarre, with a broad and inclusive Oxford Stop the War Coalition, that is an activist group with strong links with CND et al, and there is a separate “East Oxford STWC” that only includes the SWP!

I am a delegate from the South West to the national steering committee of STW, and a couple of weeks ago I went to the quarterly meeting in London. I don’t think it is appropriate to give a full report of that closed meeting, but it did occur to me that the Stop the War Coalition operates with two different organisational models.

At the national level it operates as a coalition of national organisations, like the SWP, CP, CND, Green Party, et al. This model of organisation sees the Coalition at a national level making decisions, and then the decisions being implemented in parallel by the different component organisations. This is the way that Birmingham and Manchester Stop the War Coalitions work as well.

But on the ground, there are a number of Stop the war groups made up of individual peace activists, who see it as their main political home, and who are not necessarily members of other political organisation. This is the way Bristol, Swindon and Oxford Stop the war groups operate. When STW used to have national council meetings with delegates from all the local groups it used to inspire me how diverse the STW groups are.

One of the problems we have in STW, is that there is no account taken of the fact that we are operating in two different way. This is a shame because they could be complementary.

At the moment I suspect that those who operate according to coalition of organisations model, see the local activist groups as conservative and ornery people who don’t enact the national decisions! And the local activist groups sometimes see the national coalition (and some of the groups in it) as trying to control them.

I have been active in the peace movement for a number of years now, and I am pleased to have learned a great deal from the older CND activists and other peace activist I have worked alongside. A lesson they learned as long ago as the 1950s is that the peace movement needs to work on the permissive principle – let a thousand flowers bloom – so that everyone respects the right of other peace activists to organise differently, and march to the beat of their own drums.

Finally, I will end by reporting that Andrew Murray, national chair of the STW gave a very mature and nuanced political introduction, that recognised that alongside the insurgency against the occupation there is also sectarian slaughter, and also he nodded towards the fact that the Iraqi government does have interests separate from the occupation forces, and is seen as having some legitimacy by very many Iraqis (after al they voted for it). Andrew argued that the continued presence of US/UK troops is an obstacle to resolving the violence, and we need to redouble our efforts to get British troops withdrawn, and to break Britain away from US foreign policy. Over the next 12 months our strategic direction needs to be demonstrating the bredth and depth of support for the anti-war movement, in particular to shift the balance of opinion amongst Labour MPs.

However we organise, through coalitions of organisations or local activist groups, we can all unite behind that task

Our anniversary

So we made a whole year of blogging, trying and not quite succeeding to post something new every day. Generally the mix as not been as good as it could have been, with perhaps less variety of voices than we aspired to and too many posts from me, but the mix is getting better, with more regular posts from Reuben, Toff, and Louise who we secured from Stroppyblog, just before the transfer window closed.

We are now getting quite lively comment on some threads, and an average of 200 or so readers per day, and it can be twice that if we post something particularly interesting.

Here are some of the highlights over the last year (this is a personal selection, and you may disagree):


On Basque terrorism:

We kept returning to the World cup, again and again.

On Fox hunting.

On racism:

I have posted a number of reports about me trip to Palestine, the best of which are about children in Bethlehem, and the settlers in Hebron.

We have had some debate about the ban on Smoking, and again:

BadMatthew posted an interesting report about the SWP’s Marxism event and disussed it beforehand as well.

We covered some rarely reported topics, such as slavery in Britain, and there was a report of the excellent Tolpuddle rally.

The English left largely failed to grasp what was going on in Scotland with the Sheridan court case, so I posted several times to explain the significance the perjury by Sheridan’s supporters.

The advantage of a blog is that you can also use it to develop your own ideas, and I am still coming to terms with the legacy that the left groups have on the socialist movement.

Will Cruddas eclipse McDonnell?

It seems to me that the more Jon Cruddas talks up his left credentials, the more negative impact this will have on John McDonnell’s campaign for leader.

Cruddas himself has a background as an ultra-Blairite, with a reputation of being able to maintain a good relationship with the unions. He was parachuted into a safe labour seat in 2001.

However, over the last couple of years he has increasingly distanced himself from the Blair project, and the whole New Labour strategy of “triangulating” around the issues that effect swing voters in marginal constituencies. Cruddas instead is arguing for policies that directly benefit labour core working class support.

The question here is not whether he is sincere, or whether he will deliver, but what is the political context, both of the election itself and afterwards.

We need to understand that Cruddas will probably (and however bizarrely) be the front runner left candidate for deputy leader – and that he will represent his campaign as being both loyal to Brown, and also demanding a change of direction from New Labour.

If the deputy leadership contest looks like taking on the characteristics of a real debate about the legacy of New Labour, and the future direction of the party, then this may reduce support for an actual challenge to Brown. What is more, the argument of whether or not Brown becoming leader unopposed will be seen as a coronation is likely to be overtaken by media attention to the deputy leadership, which will become a leadership contest by proxy, in the same way that the Healey/Benn contest was.

The three constituent parts of the Labour Party need to be discussed separately.

In electoral terms the MPs are very important because they are the gatekeepers who determine whether a candidate has the threshold of support to get on the ballot paper. Apart from literally a handful of hard left MPs, most of them have some aspirations to career advancement, and will want to be seen to be backing the winning leadership candidate, or at least won’t want to be associates with bad boy McDonnell. The chances of 44 of them backing McDonnell for leader is predicated upon there being a perceived need for a contest, and John attracting support wider than the committed left. But if the deputy contest is seen as being a real one, then why risk possible negative media coverage of the leadership contest, which may open up the idea that the party is divided, just when Cameron’s Tories are leading in the polls?

The union leaders want influence, and also want a change of direction. They will reason that backing Brown keeps them close to him, and they could maximise pressure on the new PM by backing a deputy leader closer to the unions’ agenda. As has been shown at the last two party conferences, the union leaders are very disciplined (or spineless, depending on your perspective) at sticking to their own agenda, and not supporting left initiatives over Iraq, etc. Cruddas himself has a good prospect of being not the “left candidate” but the “unions’ candidate”, in the same way that Callaghan was for leader. I think those union leaders wanting to pull Labour towards their own agenda may back Brown and Cruddas.

The individual membership is the least significant part of the party nowadays. McDonnell’s active support base is measurable in hundreds at most. (Which is not to say he might not get a reasonable vote (15% or so?) if he is the only challenger to Brown.) Actively backing McDonnell is to reject the strategic direction that the party has taken ever since Kinnock became leader, and only a very few will do so. Something has been made of the small numbers (re)joining the party to support McDonnell, but let us put that in perspective – Benn’s deputy leadership bid was based upon some 80000 leftists joining the party.

In my opinion, the reasonable vote that the grassroots alliance gets for the NEC elections in the constituencies is a safe protest against Blairism, within the context of overall domination of the party by the right. The left has no organisation at ward and CLP level in vast swathes of the country. Again, even in McDonnell stands, many members will want to demonstrate unity in the face of the Tories, and can signal their desire for change by voting for Cruddas.

For the left, inside and outside the party, the question is what is the best possible outcome of those that are actually on the agenda. The best possible result would be for McDonnell to stand, and do reasonably well. The next best thing is a strong vote for Cruddas, particularly from the unions. If Cruddas wins, or comes close, that will increase the leverage of organised labour over Brown. (It matters not one whit that Cruddas himself would be sure to disappoint as deputy)

(BTW, there is a very different take on this over at the epigone Lenin’s blog. This correctly identifies that Cruddas may be a stalking horse who prevents a real left candidate, but draws the incorrect tactical conclusion: it misses the point that if Cruddas becomes identified as the left candidate, then effectively he is the left candidate. I also disagree with the assessment that the UAF is a broader campaign that Searchlight.)

Wiping Israel off the map??

Frequently we hear that Iran is a dangerous threat becasue the president has threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

John Pilger’s article in Saturday’s Morning Star reminded us of what President Ahmadinejad of Iran actually said:

“A close examination of his notorious remark about Israel revels how it has been distorted.

“According to Juan Cole, US professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, and other Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be “wiped of the map”. He said “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”

“This, says Cole, “does not imply military action or killing anyone at all”. Ahmadinejad compared the demise of the Israeli regime to the dissolution of the Soviet Union”.

Indeed. The USSR, DDR, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and even Czechoslovakia have all vanished from the page of time.

Zionism, racism and apartheid

I attended an interesting meeting organised by Jews Against Zionism (JAZ) the other night on Zionism, racism and apartheid.

The two speakers were Lenni Brenner and Ori Davis. Both speakers gave their own analysis of the situation in Palestine.

The talks involved explaining the history of Zionism, how it originated, its class dimension and its political organisation including analyses of spiritual, revisionist and Labour Zionism. Lenni, for example, explained how racism is integral to Zionism. He talked about the collaboration that took place between the Zionists and the Nazis (his book “51 Documents”).

There was a contrast of the way that the Zionist state operates to the way that the apartheid state operated in South Africa. In the South African example the state regulated racism through acts of Parliament. With the apartheid system in S. Africa there was boycott and international sanctions. Israel is better at veiling its apartheid: no petty apartheid, for example in South Africa there was “whites only” recreational facilities etc but nothing as similar in Palestine. This veiling is very effective. But also, what was argued, was the economic function of apartheid in South Africa while in Palestine there is no role for the Palestinians as migrant labour is brought in. In other respects the conflicts are similar: essentially settler colonial conflicts


The history of the 1947 UN Resolution (181) which was a mandate that set out a Jewish State along with a Arab State and Jerusalem under international control. This gave legitimacy to the state of Israel and from 1948 onwards Arabs were ethnically cleansed and displaced. The Madrid and Oslo agreements of the 1990s only legitimised and perpetuated the continued colonialisation of Palestine and also with the bantustanization of the occupied territories.


What are the Palestinians or anyone who opposes Zionism to do? I support the fight for a single secular state. Mention was made of the role and organisational strength of the ANC (African National Congress). No similar resistance in Palestine is mobilised and organised like the ANC, especially the international links that the ANC built.

New Labour: war on the poor

The unholy trinity of Gordon Brown, Jim Murphy and John Hutton have been lately making their positions known on welfare reform aka getting skivers off the dole and getting feckless youth back into education.

First up is John Hutton who wants to see changes on lone parents’ benefits in them getting back into the workforce. At the moment single parents can claim Income Support until their youngest child turns 16 years. Hutton wants to reduce it to 12 years.

"If we are to eradicate child poverty, then I believe we will also need to go further in challenging existing assumptions about who - and at what point - someone should be in work."

Hutton sites Sweden which has around 80% of lone parents back at work as opposed to over 56% in the UK. Hutton fails to mention that money has been invested in the childcare system in Sweden.

As Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) argues, lone parents need good supportive and flexible working conditions (certainly the pay gap is amplified for women workers who return to the workplace) and the government should invest in high quality free child care and not harass and bully lone parents into working.

Many European countries spend 3 or 4 times more than the UK on child care provision. In Sweden the early system is an almost universal public service and in Finland every child has the right to a childcare from birth. While in the UK childcare is fragmented and beset with uncoordinated initiatives.

“The typical cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two is £142 a week in England, that's over £7300 a year; a rise of 27 per cent in five years – outstripping inflation by nearly 20 percent”.

Next on the agenda are people claiming incapacity benefit who refuse to attend back-to-work schemes could get their benefits cut.

“If one million incapacity benefit claimants return to work, the country would move closer to Labour's ambition of an 80% employment rate, Mr Hutton said as he unveiled the Welfare Reform Green Paper”.

But it not on the claimants’ terms it is on the government’s terms and this bullying will cause no end of distress to people with disabilities. The government is determined to attack people who experience discrimination and oppression in this society but have no plans to tighten up anti-discrimination laws and support people entering employment as opposed to forcing them against their will.

And the attacks keep coming thick and fast as Gordon Brown is threatening to take benefits from young people who refuse to take up education or training opportunities. “He wanted to ensure all aged 16 to 18 were in some form of education, as part of a drive to improve the UK's skills”.
Brown wants to double the apprenticeships but where from and what kind? Statistics indicate 267,000 of those aged 16 and 17 are not in education or training. And no attempt by New Labour in trying to understand why this is happening instead there will be further attacks. No mention of good quality training and day release, for example, where young people can learn a real trade and their options open to learn other skills.

New Labour won’t put in the money but they are happy to create misery. Why blame these young people when really it exposes the unequal educational system?

Last but certainly not least, is Jim Murphy (DWP minister) who is proposing to make it harder to prove someone is unfit for work. But don’t despair Jim’s got a blog dedicated to welfare reforms and tackling child poverty but unfortunately it is moderated though it aims to take a “cross section of views”…. Yeah right!

This souless government is hellbent on attacking some of the most powerless in this society and it has that strong Dickensian stench about it. When will we get the return of the Work Houses? A modern version of the Poor Law or is that the Welfare Reform Bill? “Cap in hand” charity dished out from religious organisations and finally the total dismantling of the welfare state. New Labour is deepening its vicious Dickensian character.

A Cu*t and a Liar

Yesterday the BBC's World at One, as well as other BBC news bulletins, "reported" that British forces in Iraq had engaged in battle the followers of a "religious cult". The Beeb did not enlighten us to the make-up of this "cult": was it Al Qaeda or some other Wahhabi or Salafi group. More likely it was just Sunni or Shia Iraqis. Perhaps this will be how the news will "report" Iraq. Everyone fighting the "coalition forces" are members of a "cult". If the Beeb has its way, the word "cult" will be on everyone's lips soon. It may be considered so incendiary that it may even be censored slightly from arousing too much feeling. Cu*t, perhaps?

Later, Newsnight Review, the leading arts review programme on UK television, had Michael Gove give his views on comedian Bill Bailey's stage show of work by Harold Pinter. The reactionary and exceptionally ugly Gove said watching Bailey do Pinter would be like having Chomsky do theatre. It'd be interesting for the "first ninety seconds until he denied the Bosnian massacres". Why would the beautiful Gove make a knowingly untrue and slanderous accusation? I know he's spent his life as a "journalist" doing just that, and is working overtime at slander by moonlighting as an MP. Could it be that he's a liar? Even beautiful people have their dark sides. One might imagine that the fluffy Martha Kearney, Newsnight's political editor who was doubling up as its Review host, would know something about politics and what leading thinkers have said and written. But no. Fluffy Martha sniggered at Gove's insights and startling wit. And yet she continues to wonder why she didn't get the gig as BBC's political editor, which went to the extremely weird Nick Robinson. Given a choice between weirdness and finding Michael Gove an interesting and funny cove, I'd choose weirdness any day.

All in all, it was a triumphant day for British journalism.

Two Parts of a Whole. October 1977

Mike Pearn’s blog has recently been publishing historical documents from the history of the International Socialists, (precursor of today's SWP) - for example the important statement on Industrial Work from 1971, and Duncan Hallas’s article from 1977 on electoral work, that is very relevent to today’s debates.

It is a very good idea, and as a contribution to that process here is an article from “Womens Voice” #10, from October 1977.

(by the way, the picture credit for the front cover reads: ""The determination that has kept Grunwick pickets going for over a year. Are the powerful trade unions now ready to help them?" - Grunwick was a long running union recognition dispute, led by Asian women. )

Two Parts of a Whole.

On 1 October women members of the Socialist Workers Party held a conference in Birmingham. Margaret Renn, the womens organiser of the Party, opened the conference. The following is a summary of her speech.

Socialism without womens liberation is a contradiction in words. Socialism would simply not be socialism if women were still oppressed.

It is also true that women cannot be liberated outside of a socialist society. It is not possible to achieve any liberation in a society like ours which depends on the oppression and exploitation of men and women.

Socialism and womens liberation are two parts of a whole. We can’t separate them in the way we work.

Work amongst women is essential to our work as socialists, it’s not an optional extra, something we do when we have time left over from all the other things we do. On the contrary, it’s the most important work we can undertake, because we understand the issues and events that effect women in a way that our male comrades cannot.

Where do we begin? Women at work are ones with power to change society. Look around at all the disputes that women have been involved in the last few weeks: Beechams, Batchelors, Kilwinning, the school cleaners and dinner ladies, women in hospitals. They are the ones fighting to change society. They are the women we are talking to.

But whilst most women work and organise at work, it is also true that most women have families, and are interested in the things that affect them most as mothers. When the woman jumped out of her high rise block there must have been thousands of women living at the top of thousands of high rise tower blocks thinking – that’s me, that could happen here.

Neither group of women are exclusive, but in our party you can count the number of industrial women members we have on the fingers of two hands. That’s the problem we have to face. Our magazine “Womens Voice” brings together al the issues that interest women. Sales are goin very well, and this month we expect to be printing 10000 copies. But it’s not enough on its own. How we use it to organise is what matters.

Womens committees within our branches and districts are a good idea, but we can’t involve the women who read the magazine in them. We need “Womens Voice” groups. Groups that will meet regularly and be ready to respond when things need organising. We should produce “Womens Voice” supporters cards for al those women who want to get involved in our activities. Then we will have the numbers so that next time a woman jumps out of her high rise block we can be putting a local bulletin into all the tower blocks in the area.

We have to be quick off the mark. On abortion, rape, lack of nurseries, we have to be able to stir womens imagination. That’s why our “Womens Voice” organisation is so important. Without it we won’t do anything.

We need to have the same sort of imaginative approach to women who work in factories. Selling “Womens Voice outside factories that employ large number of women, producing special “Womens Voice” bulletins can be deadly – if we see it as a ritual.

But if we are going down to the factories knowing that there will be women there interested in what we have to say, whether its about abortion of £15; if we go prepared to talk, prepared to involve women as quickly as possible in the production of the bulletins then it won’t become a routine.

It’s really very exciting. Think of all the womens factories that have been on strike this year. Then imagine the numbers that weren’t able to strike because they simply didn’t know what to do and no one, certainly not the union officials, was prepared to help them. They’re the women we want to be organising with.

The majority of women at this conference work. How many of you sell “Womens Voice” in your workplace? Do you know how good your maternity leave agreement is? What about the other things that the women you work with are always complaining about?

We are preparing a pamphlet on maternity leave for women in NALGO. We are also writing a pamphlet about women in the TGWU. Using these, and “Womens Voice” will help us build the rank and file movement amongst women workers. They need it most. Womens strikes are always being sold down the river by trade union officials. Unions take least interest in issues that affect their women members the most.

There is a lot for us to do, because we are trying to build something new: a socialist womens organisation that fights at once for womens liberation and socialism.

Nairobi World Social Forum

Farooq Tariq, General Secretary of the Labor party of Pakistan has circulated the following report, which makes me wonder whether the Social Forum movement is running out of steam:>

This is not the World Social Forum, I like to attend.

I attended the World Social Forum in Nairobi from 20 to 25th January 2007. I also attended the two days meeting of WSF International Council meeting at the same place after the WSF.

I like to say very simple. This is not the WSF I like to attend for the following technical, political and economical reasons.

The WSF in Nairobi was not held at the main city center but outside in a massive sports stadium. Away from the city center meant a very low participation by the local community. The very expensive rent paid to sports stadium also helped the costof WSF to go up.

The stadium stairs were transformed into meeting rooms for workshops and seminars. This arrangement was more suitable for a lecture than an interactive dialogue and open space tospeak about problems.

When a peacock dances in a jungle, no one is there to watch this beautiful tremendous effort of the peacock. So this WSF was like a peacock dancing in the jungle. The initial decision to hold the WSF in the city park was changed to this massive sports stadium on the reason to "secure" delegates from the local petty criminals. But mostof the delegates were staying at the city center. For this logic, the delegates were secure in the day time but were left to the mercy of the criminals in the evening.

The stadium was around 10 kilometer away from the city center.There was no proper information center at the stadium. One may have spent hours before finding a meeting room you want to attend. The volunteers were no where to be found and if you are lucky, they knew nothing. They were not properly briefed. All they knew that they are volunteers and they will be paid.

There was absolute no translations available. The translations had to be organized by those who had organized the event by themselves. This meant translation in one or maximum two languages. Many were left out of the proceedings. There were no proper justifications by the organizers why they were unable to organize the translations. All they had to say sorry. I heard later that the translation equipment was bought but was substandard. The organizers had not taken the help from Babel, the organization that had provided translations in at least seven languages during the past forums.

The WSF was very expensive. For Kenyans, the entry fee was $8, for Pakistanis and for those from South was $ 35 and for those from advance countries at least $100 must be paid for registration. One of the two local telephone company Celtel was contracted to collect the registration feealongside with their line. So, a business opportunity for Celtel was there to make maximum profit. After the protest of the locals and international radical forces and an act of defiance to open the gates for the locals, the organizers of the WAS were forced to reduce the fee for the locals. But who would know that the fee is been reduced.

The food on sale was very much expensive. The normal cost of a lunch was around $8. The half a litter of water bottle was sold for $ 0.70 and an ordinary juice packet was sold for $1.30. There was no simple free water was available. That meant a roaring business for the local and international water companies. All the trade that was carried out in the venue was not on normal local prices but may be ten times more for every single item. The local traders have paid a lot of money to the organizers to rent the place. So they were passing on the weight to those attending the WSF.

The toilets constructed for the venue was like those which are in the airplanes. Very expensive construction must have been one reason why the Forum final cost has gone up 3million US dollars. There were many tents erected around the venue with no one inside, thus adding the cost.

There was no mobalisation of the locals to attend the forum. No posters, banners or flayers around the city. All the locals knew that there is conference which will bring a lot of businessto the city. So, every one has raised the prices. From taxies to hotels, every one was busy in making money from those attending the WSF. It was like a loot bazaar and a one time chance to loot the buggers.

It was the most commercialized WSF of the three I had attended during the last three years.There was a lot of police and military at the venue. Every aspect of building the WSF was organized on contract. The presence of the state forces at the venue was adding to the harassment for the locals and international delegates. There was a lot of presence of the church in the venue. They had registered a lot of activities as well. There were some advocating the abortions and other aspects that the WSF principles do not allow. The WSF is not a religious place for the any religious institutions to preach what they are up to.

The local press reported that the organizers had claimed over 60,000 registered till the last day of the forum. It was a news and surprise for many who were looking where the 60,000are registered. The opening and closing ceremony was not attended by more than 5000 each. These two functions were held at a city park.

The opening ceremony had a 45 minutes speech by former president Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia boring every one and many left during the speech. I never heard that long speech on the opening ceremony. The former president was praised again and again by the organizers thus leaving a personality cult over the WSF. it was again against the spirit of the forum.

The maximum attendance at the WSF at any one time did not exceeded more than 10 to 15 thousands at the most. In fact, this WSF became the lowest attended WSF so far. The WSF must change its priorities in organizing the events. It should not be for those who has the money to attend but for those who can not affords to attend.

Galloway in parliament

Over at the home of SWP blogger, Richard Seymour (who rather immodestly calls himself Lenin), there is a video clip of Galloway’s speech to the Commons in the recent Iraq debate. The interesting thing about the picture is how it shows Galloway’s physical isolation, and body language discomfort.

He has found a place to stand in the farthest corner, and clearly has no relationships with other MPs. This is not a new development, and Alan Simpson MP said that in the run up to the crucial vote over war on 20th March 2003, Galloway played no part in helping other left MPs to lobby their Labour colleagues, even though at that stage he still had the Labour whip.

At one level of course the value of the House of Commons as an arena for political activity can be overestimated, but it can also be underestimated. In order to make progress we need to both understand the political context we are operating in, and also use what resources we have.

I discussed the current situation in the Labour Party in an article last year. “The Labour Party has a broadly progressive electoral constituency, and historical links with the trade union infrastructure, but it is in continued antagonism with both of these elements. Nevertheless, although the Party no longer articulates the aspirations of these support groups, they do provide a constraint upon it, and mediate the transformation of the Labour Party, so that it appears less dramatic than it is.”

No viable alternative to the Labour party can be built unless it relates to Labour’s electoral base, which means not only appearing as rupture from New Labour, but also stressing continuity with the historical traditions of Labour, and that means using every opportunity for parliamentary work alongside the Labour left. This is particularly important as the Trade Unions want parliamentary representation, and will never abandon the Labour party, however right wing it becomes, unless there is a viable parliamentary alternative.

The Labour Party stands at a critical juncture. The party’s infrastructure is irreversibly wedded to neo-liberalism, it is the party of war, privatisation and corruption, yet the left face the sobering prospect that John McDonnell may fail to get on the ballot for the leadership. Were Respect even remotely serious it would see the vital necessity for Galloway to work closely with other left MPs. But that would mean holding Galloway to account to the party, something that Respect's leadership have consistently opposed. The resource of having an MP is squandered.

Let us put this in context. Much comparison has been made between Galloway and Phil Piratin winning Stepney for the Communist party in 1945. In fact there were four left of Labour MPs elected that year. In addition to Piratin, Willie Gallagher retained his Fife seat for the CP, Naomi Mitchison won Chelmsford for the left wing Common Wealth party; and Independent Labour candidate, D N Pritt (the Galloway of his age?) was also returned to parliament.

Mitchison shortly joined the Labour Party, but Piratin, Gallagher and Pritt navigated through parliament to build a network of support with Labour MPs.

Although the CP was much bigger than any left group today (56000 members in 1945, 215 elected councillors, and a paid daily paper sale of 120000 (200000 on Saturdays)), the party struggled due to incorrect strategic decisions such as supporting the forcible merger by the Russians of the two left parties (KPD and SPD) in Germany, and supporting the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia – this damaged its reputation among many activists concerned about democracy. It was hindered not only by this Cold war polarisation, but also the Labour Party was revelling in its most heroic phase, and socialists were at home in it.

The achievements of the CP’s MPs are therefore even more remarkable. They worked alongside a group of other left MPs, including John Platts-Mills, Ian Mikardo, Lester Hutchinson, Leslie Solley, Sydney Silverman, Geoffrey Bing, Emrys Hughes, D. N. Pritt and William Warbey, and of course Konni Zilliacus.

It might seem fanciful to suggest that Labour would break with its left MPs today. Yet the ideological gap between Blair and the Campaign group is at least as great as the gap between Attlee and the left. No one can predict exactly what will happen, and the left MPs are out on a limb.

During the 1945 to 1951 parliament there were two sets of expulsions of Labour MPs: John Platt Mills was expelled in 1948 for organising support for socialists in the Italian election, and Zilliacus, Hutchinson and Solley were expelled in 1949 for opposing the formation of NATO. This could not have been predicted in 1945, and was partly the result of patient relationship building between the left Labour and Communist MPs, which meant involvement in mundane parliamentary routine together.

Had Respect spent the last three years building viable democratic branches that labour movement activists were comfortable in; and had Galloway worked to be an indivisible part of a left group of MPs, cooperating over parliamentary opposition to war and neo-liberalism, then we would be in an entirely different situation.

I have never read a convincing account by the SWP of how they see Respect's electoral acheivments fitting into the big picture. However in March 2005 I did have a chat with John Rees when we were both waiting to address an FBU branch. Rees said that a good electoral showing for the left could shift the political climate, and in his words "float all our boats". This does make sense as Respect supporters constantly talk about their high votes, fethishising this over the value of sustainable organisation, membership or relationship building. What is more, it does explain the Coalition model over a party organisation - as a good electoral showing for Respect would float the SWP's boat.

Should McDonnell’s campaign fail, it will reveal the strategic cul-de-sac that the Labour left finds itself in – yet none of them will for one second contemplate joining a hollowed out, undemocratic lash up between the SWP and a handful of local Muslim personalities, with a gadfly MP too busy for politics while he preens himself for a celebrity media career.

TU4John

Information......



Unfortunately, I couldn't make the TU4John meeting last night but don't despair as there's a good report by Marsha Jane over at Union Futures about the meeting and there's information about the new TU4John blog.

EU embargo punishes Palestinian children

Palestine's empty schools:
...

Yesterday’s report by the British committee of MPs, the Commons Select Committee on International Development, argued that the financial embargo of EU aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is having a disastrous effect.

This is certainly true, for example most schools in Palestine have been shut since March 2006, as the staff have not been paid and are therefore on strike. The photographs here show a school in the village of Beir Fajjar, where normally 80% of the girls go on the higher education. Their families know that success in education is an escape route for their children.

Britain and the EU is also silent while Israel withholds tax and customs revenues collected by them on behalf of the PA in occupied East Jeruslaelm, and Israel. This is Palestine's money, and the tax collectioon is a key term of the Oslo agreement, that Israel in now in breach of.

The violent context that Palestinian children are raised under, with an occupation army on their streets, is reflected by signs banning weapons in the schools.

The strike is causing extreme distress, and children are not being educated. The class for the oldest girls coming up the their university entrance exams is being taught just 2 or 3 hours per week on an unpaid voluntary basis by the head teacher.


Note that the financial embargo is intended to punish Hamas, but this town did not vote for Hamas, and the children have no vote at all. The graffiti by the school door is for the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

Sentinel and "censorship"

Readers may have noticed a number of postings from Sentinel complaining of censorship in some threads.

The background to this is that Sentinel has sought to post a number of comments that want to frame the debate about crime around the context of immigration. He has also posted comments that we feel inappropriate about Jews.

These comments have been deleted, as we do not want to provide a platform for these debates, and readers interested are referred to Sentinel’s own blog. Sentinel keeps re-posting them, and we keep deleting them.

We regard the accusation of censorship is inaccurate. We are not preventing Sentinel’s views being published elsewhere, but we do wish to exercise editorial control, to ensure that the SU blog remains a discussion forum for the left, and is not a space that colludes with the promotion in racist attitudes.

Sentinel may not personally be a racist, I don’t know, but to debate race and crime in the terms that he wishes to debate would provide a space for racists to join the discussion. There are plenty of other forums where that can take placed, and we do not wish to join them.

Currently, Sentinel is repeatedly posting nuisance comments to this blog, with the stated intention of forcing us to introduce comment moderation. We have no intention of introducing moderation, which would stifle debate, and instead we will delete inappropriate comments from Sentinel.

United Left winds up

Last weekend the United Left met in Glasgow to dissolve their organisation. The United Left was the platform within the SSP supportive of the current leadership.

It seems that now that the platforms hostile to the broad party concept, the SWP and CWI, have left the SSP, the United Left do not consider it necessary or desirable to continue as a separate organisation.

I am not sure of the wisdom of this move, because one of the problems over the last few years was the lack of any forum for those in the SSP committed to the broad party model to discuss strategy and tactics - as the former ISM platform was non-functional.

Without a transparent mechanism as a party platform then such discussions take place behind the scenes between individuals in the charmed inner circle. Which was to a large part the problem with how the Sheridan affair was handled.

And if the party is a broad one, then any mechanisms within the party as a whole to develop cadre must also be pluralistic. The strength of their being a transparent platform is that it can openly develop a Marxist cadre, while still allowing the party as a whole to be pluralist.

Gilad Atzmon threatens libel

Thanks to Tony Greenstein who posted this on UKLN e-list:

"Many people will be aware of who Gilad Atzmon is. An ex-Israeli jazz player and anti-Semite who has become a Christian fundamentalist.

"Sue Blackwell is the Birmingham University lecturer who successfully moved a motion at the Association of University Teachers 2005 Conference supporting a boycott of Israel. She has a 'Nazi Alert' webpage which features Atzmon and it is this he has taken exception to.

"Although Sue has not called Atzmon a neo-nazi or a Holocaust Denier, there is no doubt that when not consorting with the SWP he enjoys the convivial company of a variety of anti-Semitic fruitcakes such as Israel Shamir and Paul Eisen. His own website is replete with Jewish conspiracy articles. Atzmon has hired lawyers who have sent a letter threatening Sue with defamation proceedings. "

In a gesture of solidarity the Socialist Unity Blog reproduce here the contents of Sue's Web-page.

Sue Blackwell's site says:

Some notorious far-right individuals and organisations are jumping onto the Palestinian bandwagon in an attempt to hijack the cause of the Palestinian people for their own anti-semitic ends. Other people, who should know better, are supporting them. Recent examples are:

Gilad Atzmon - Jewish (ex-Israeli) Jazz musician who unfortunately supports Shamir and has distributed Eisen's articles. He has spoken and played music at the SWP's annual Marxism event. In 2005 he was recently invited to promote his recent book, "My one and only love", at Bookmarks, the SWP's London bookshop. This event was picketed by Jews Against Zionism. Here are some links:
SWP statement about the Bookmarks picket - entirely predictable and doesn't answer the crucial questions.
How did the far Left manage to slip into bed with the Jew-hating Right? David Aaronovitch in the Times, 28th June 2005.
Bizarre article by Mary Rizzo in Counterpunch - defending Atzmon while attacking Jewish socialist Tony Greenstein.
Why Palestinian Solidarity Activists Must Reject Anti-Semitism: A Reply to Mary Rizzo's "Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon" - Tony Greenstein's reply (published here since Counterpunch refused him a right of reply!)
Open Letter to Counterpunch: Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon and the Holocaust Deniers?
On Gilad Atzmon Report by Greg Dropkin on Labournet, 28th July 2005. This was circulated as part of an impromptu and free-running debate with Gilad Atzmon during his talk before the performance at the Manchester Jazz Festival.
The Socialist Workers Party - Apologists for Racism? Statement from Jews against Zionism, on the Socialist Unity website.