The Socialist Way

Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets won't stop them masses

2011-11-22T16:18:00.000Z

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian have poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square yet again, and of course into the streets of cities and towns from Alexandria to Suez, from Lower Egypt to the Nile Delta, remonstrating against the savage repression released by the army and the security forces over the past few days and demanding an end to the rule of the US-backed military junta.

Scores have been killed and over 2,000 wounded. Fierce street battles continued into the early morning hours of Tuesday in the streets surrounding Tahrir Square. An official at the main Cairo morgue confirmed to the Associated Press that the bodies of 35 victims of the crackdown had been brought there by Monday.

Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets supplied apparently by an American company along with live rounds have been used on those participating in the protests.

Among the wounded, some had lost eyes and suffered grievous head wounds from the tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, buckshot and live rounds fired at the unarmed demonstrators. Soldiers and state police were ordered to aim for the head. Other civilians were callously beaten with truncheons, some apparently to the point of death.

This is worst bout of violence in Egypt since the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak earlier in the year. Video footage has been circulating of police apparently beating protesters, including some lying on the ground. The International Federation for Human Rights accused the policemen of using live ammunition on protesters. Some reports indicated that demonstrators were responding by hurling stones and Molotov cocktails, but having been glued to Al Jazeera English live stream for the last few days I have not seen any evidence of such retaliation or retribution.

Crowds in Tahrir Square have been growing today in answer to a call for a one million man march in the capital and across the country.

Confronted with this new widespread and popular uprising, the country’s civilian cabinet, installed by the ruling military council and headed by former Mubarak minister Essam Sharaf, offered its resignation. The resignation, which was announced on state television, was seen by some as an attempt to placate the mass protests, possibly suggested and ordered behind the scenes by the military junta; if so this is just another political manoeuvre.

The one thing that stands out to me more than anything; is that the world of capitalism and the ruling classes and indeed throughout creation, is now in conflict and being challenged by the masses and multitudes who are increasingly questing and searching for something which is completely different to what we currently have, what that exactly is, has yet to be decided, but I think that we are on the road to some monumental change, that this is a time of history in the making; what we can expect in the next few months is anyone’s guess really, but let’s hope, pray and cross your fingers that it comes peacefully?”

swigs and roundabouts in Spain

2011-11-21T05:34:00.000Z

Modern electoral politics is like the game of swigs and roundabout’s; you take a mouthful of this and a mouthful of that and then you go on a trip on the political roundabout. In reality it's always a draught that the working class ends up in.

Take yesterday’s Spanish election for example, the right-wing Popular Party won the 2011 parliamentary election, according to the latest vote count, with the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) having now conceded defeat.

With 78 per cent of the poll now counted, the opposition Popular Party has won around 44 per cent of the vote and is expected to gain an out-and-out majority of 187 seats in the 350-seat lower house of the Spanish parliament, as Reuters reported shortly after the polls closed on Sunday.

The Socialists lost a third of their seats as voters dumped a government that presided over a dramatic economic slump which has left 23% of Spaniards out of work.

Outgoing Prime Minister Jose Luis Roderiguez Zapatero, who led the PSOE, introduced tough austerity measures in 2010, including a five per cent salary cut for public servants, a pension freeze and a rise in the retirement age from 65 to 67 years.

This has been for Spain the season of funerals, healthcare, education, transport, public services have all been declared dead, given symbolic burials by grim faced citizens, so deep have been the cuts in public spending. And a resigned population now awaits the axe to fall again, and it will.

Once hailed as one of Europe's success stories economically, politically and socially, Spain is facing problems of large deficits, 21 per cent unemployment (5 million are out of work with youth unemployment at 48 per cent), no growth and a generalised malaise. The Spanish socialists who spearheaded bold reforms such as gay marriage, legislation against domestic violence and the re-examination of Spain's fascist past, lost on the economic front. They went to bed with capitalism or rather tried to run it and the result annihilation at the polls.

Spain is a fine example really of the utter failure of the reformist road which can never be made to work in the interests of working people anywhere in the world, and it is in actuality time to get off that political roundabout.

Inspiration

2011-11-21T00:46:00.000Z

Sorry, that I have not been able to blog as much as I would have like during the last week; and rally, to be absolutely honest with you this is due to the fickle little fact that I had a falling-out with my mother; and over all things that of the Occupy Movement, which I found upsetting, and of course, made somewhat worse, because she is 75 young.

It seems very strange to have this generation difference of opinion at our time of life, and as I am myself almost 56, but then again this is indeed something that has been an issue ever since I decided that I was a Socialist many years ago now, and would do whatever I had to do, to be part of a movement that would bring change into this, the rotten world of capitalism.

I hold my contempt and abhorrence of the system that we are all forced to live under, with such passion, and yes, with such fury and with such intensity of “vehemence”. The sooner that we get rid of the hold that capitalism has on the world, could not be soon enough as far as I am concerned; it’s just a shame that along the road that one takes as an activist, that you have to fallout, as a consequence, with those you hold “close” and those you “love” indeed the most!”

Being a Socialist has a price tag that many a revolutionary will discover comes with the ideas and simple philosophies that we propagate; it’s not an easy path to take and the last thing that you intended was to take issue with family or friends, and it’s made much worse when you realise that they have been taken-in by the reactionary, backward-looking views put-out by the capitalist media, or that they somehow refuse to be freethinkers, instead they allow the print media or the BBC news to do the thinking for them. Sometimes I really do despair and feel the hurt when they try unintelligently to put you down and without recourse to facts. I feel and hate the ambiance of this situation, the hurt the emotion, the mountain that seems now even more the harder to climb; but you have to rise above it all, that’s part of the course, the passage that needs navigation, the tide, we need to turn back today and every day.

Some inspiration..

Doncaster is an unemployment black spot - do you hear that Ed Miliband?"

2011-11-16T14:33:00.000Z

Today’s unemployment statistics are I fear a foretaste of worst to come; and the Unemployment figures in parts of east London have risen by almost 16 per cent over the last year.

Figures released today showed the jobless totals in Newham have risen from 10,265 to 11,877 in the year to October, an increase of 15.7 per cent. In Tower Hamlets the figure rose to 11,486 from 10,147, a 13.2 per cent increase.

Of those unemployed, 3,295 in Newham are aged 18-24, while 3,424 are in that same bracket in Tower Hamlets.

London saw a rise of 10.8 per cent in unemployment, with the total seeking work now 236,912. The total number of people across the UK out of work is 2.62million, with 1.02million young people jobless. That's the highest total for 15 years.

Youth unemployment in the UK has risen above the politically sensitive 1 million mark, as fears grow of a lost generation of workers amid the worsening economic conditions.

Grimsby, Doncaster and Blackpool were named as black spots with high rates of young people not in education, employment or training. Parts of London, such as Hackney and Newham, also showed a similar pattern, according to the Work Foundation and Private Equity Foundation.

Oh yes Doncaster, were 20,000 pensioners are living in fuel poverty, now we are told this is a youth unemployment black spot, it is also the Town that Ed Miliband represents in the House of Commons – lucky then for him that he isn't the keys holder to 10 Downing Street.

In Miliband's Doncaster 20,000 pensioners live in fuel poverty

2011-11-16T07:48:00.000Z

In the UK 5.4 million households are currently living in fuel poverty and almost half of those are aged over 60. NEARLY 20,000 pensioners in Doncaster are living in fuel poverty, according to shocking new figures.

Figures also revealed around 88 more people aged over 65 died in Doncaster last winter than in any other season last year.

The findings show that around 80 per cent of these excess winter deaths were a result of circulatory or respiratory diseases, which are exacerbated by cold weather conditions.

As heating costs increase, campaigners are concerned that more elderly people will struggle to look after themselves this winter. In Surrey last year, 528 deaths were directly caused by winter weather with 39,414 households living in fuel poverty.

In case you didn't know Ed Miliband Leader of the Labour Party is a member of parliament for Doncaster – Is someone going to tell him?”

“You can't evict an idea whose time has come”

2011-11-16T07:08:00.000Z

Throughout the United States, city administrations are moving to break up encampments of the Occupy protests, and in the process trampling underfoot the constitutionally protected right of assembly, and I must add that I am not at all familiar with the US constitution, but whatever it is there can be no doubt that it’s been thrown out of the window with the many attacks that have taken place on evicting Occupy protests.

Police cleared out the Occupy camp in Oakland, California in a predawn raid on Monday, resulting in 32 arrests. This followed the shutting down of the Portland, Oregon encampment, in which 50 people were arrested. Last week, police used truncheons to hit unarmed students attempting to set up a camp at the University of California, Berkeley.

According to one tally, there have been over 3,600 arrests at Occupy protests, mostly in the United States, including 943 in New York City, 370 in Tucson, 352 in Chicago, 206 in Oakland and 153 in Boston.

Many of the raids have been carried out by police in riot gear, in some cases using rubber bullets and tear gas, as in last month’s attack on Occupy Oakland. Those arrested have been subjected to capricious and retaliatory measures, including high bail and trumped-up charges.

And of course yesterday the world witnessed, although the press by all accounts were barred and band from recording events at Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world. At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, police handed out notices from the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return in several hours, but without sleeping bags or tents.

The New York times reported that the clearing out of Zuccotti Park (Liberty Square) came as protesters announced on their website that they planned to "shut down Wall Street" with a demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the completion of two months of the beginning of the encampment, which has spurred similar demonstrations across the country. Whist I am still trying to familiarise myself with the exact details and sequence of yesterday’s events and recent developments since, my principal thoughts are that the Occupy Movement can only get stronger, and that eviction hands us the high ground as the saying now goes and spreads: “You can't evict an idea whose time has come”.

These events of course make you think of our own occupation at St. Paul’s and as I understand it the Corporation of London are considering new action to evict our camp, and I think in the next few days we will have a better idea of what’s going on in this regard, there really is no point in getting worked up about this just now, so whilst we sit back and take in a bit of stock, here is an interesting article about the London Protest published in The New York Times - Here

"Be wary of great leaders...Hope that there are many, many small leaders." - Pete Seeger

Newham to get its own Surface-to-air missiles

2011-11-15T15:54:00.000Z

Make of it what you will then, but today I am not what you would call a very un-happy person. I have discovered that here in Newham it is likely now, that we are to have Surface-to-air missiles deployed during the Olympics if deemed appropriate, the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, said yesterday, insisting "all necessary measures" would be taken to ensure security.

It would be the first time surface-to-air missiles have been deployed in Britain since the end of the Second World. And I ask, would it be thought of as insensitive to those many thousands who lost their lives during that war defending and living in a community that was hammered, pounded and pulverised by Luftwaffe during that terrible time in our local and national history, and of course it goes without saying let’s not forget what they the Royal Air Force did to the German nation, and just for the record: In the first months of the war, British strategic bombing (aerial attacks on the enemy’s industry and infrastructure) were bound by the belief that deliberate attacks on civilians and private property were illegal and unjustifiable. But by 1945, RAF Bomber Command was obliterating historic German cities overnight. It was a terrifying transformation in the nature of war, which saw industrial towns across Europe smashed to pieces and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed.

In the East End of London, from September 1940 to April 1941 East London was exposed we cannot forget, and perhaps, to one of the most constant and sustained periods of aerial bombing on record, the constant air raids took a heavy toll on the local population and because of this and the fact that the local population were still expected to man the docks with the loss of life inescapable, and the senior amongst us now still hold childhood memories, the vivid memories of the war, which they will never forget, it's as though it happened yesterday, they can tell many unique stories about the blitz. They recall the wailing air-raid sirens, the drone of enemy bombers, the sky filled with searchlights, thuds of heavy ack-ack, and then bombs screeching to earth and then the explosions, many escaped nightly to underground air-raid shelters, and in the morning, after the 'all clear' sounded, walked through streets of smouldering rubble and desolation in the aftermath of the air-raids, and often were to find their homes and shops destroyed and incendiary fires still burning. It is this memory etched, imprinted and still held by many here, that I would suggest that the deployment of Surface-to-air missiles is an insult and say’s in so many ways’- that the world has not moved on.

The Guardian newspaper recently reported that the United States was concerned about security at the Games and planned to send up to 1,000 of its agents, including 500 from the FBI, to protect American contestants and diplomats.

A decision to install air defence weaponry in London would follow a precedent set by previous Olympic hosts. China deployed a battery of surface-to-air missiles a kilometre south of its showpiece venues for the Beijing Games in 2008.

Greece placed dozens of US-made Patriot missiles around Athens around six weeks before the 2004 Olympics, the first summer games after the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

More than 6,000 British soldiers dressed as civilian security guards are expected to boost security at London’s Olympic venues, a source divulged to Reuters earlier this month, enhancing a force of at least 10,000 civilian guards and 12,000 police who are to have their own barracks built, so I suppose you could say that my neck of the woods, this impoverished London borough where the Olympics will make no real difference to the lives of many struggling with the reality of unemployment, poverty and homelessness are now to have weapons of mass destruction in addition to the imposition of thousands of state, civilian and private security personnel all for the Olympics, which is nothing more than a plaything of commercial convenience.

Corporate sponsors are paying £1.4billion towards the Games, but British taxpayers are thought to be stumping up £12billion – more than four times the original estimate.

Ticket sales are expected to offset just £500million of this. It has also emerged that the ballot for tickets favoured the wealthy, with more than half of those applying having had to risk bidding more than £1,000 to stand a chance, according to analysis. The corporate sponsors include Lloyds TSB – one of the banks bailed out by taxpayers – French energy firm EDF who have gained gold for constantly mugging their customers in this country, and Cadbury’s, sold to U.S. food giant Kraft. The following companies are what they call top Partners for the London 2012 Olympic Games: Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonald's, Omega, Panasonic Corporation, P&G, Samsung and Visa International.

Some of the above mentioned corporate sponsors will be household names to many like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s whose inclusion on this list says a great deal about the so-called Olympic movement, the promotion of healthy living and lifestyles particularly to the science they cast-out towards the young.

I personally found Atos to be interesting they earn millions from the DWP in connection with work they carry out on IT systems and have recently been chosen by Accenture to partner them in work for DWP IT services contract that will deliver the application development and maintenance services for its customer-facing systems including delivery of elements of the IT solution for the Universal Credit, the U.K. government’s program to simplify working-age benefits systems into a single streamlined system. The value of the Accenture contract could range from £50 million to £70 million per year. And of course Atos are one and the same company that runs the government "cruel" back-to-work interviews who include the terminally ill or those currently undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy being threatened with benefit cuts if they do not even attend the meetings, need I say any more.

Occupy Portland the protest that keeps coming back

2011-11-15T05:58:00.000Z

I have now become quite intrigued and absorbed with the occupy movement in America, on Sunday as I mentioned in a previous post, captivated to the developments as they accrued on the live feed provided from Occupy Portland as several hundred protesters tried to passively to resist and repel the brute force of the police, and yesterday it was the turn of Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

One notable development and occurrence in these modern day struggles of the international working class at home and aboard is the inclusion and part being played by social media and the rise of the citizen journalist. I was absolutely fascinated by the quality of both the commentary and clear images being streamed live from Occupy Oakland and subsequently stayed with it most of the day; the revolution is amazingly well prepared and very much hi-tech, even St Paul’s has its own media tent that’s playing an important part in the struggle.

Anyhow, at about 5 am their time, up to 1,000 police officers fully clad in heavy riot gear descended on the Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza and proved definitively that the hyper-militarised crowd control tactics that brought so much national and indeed now international attention to the city in recent weeks was an unnecessary uses of excessive force.

They the police looking like something out of a science-fiction film, moved swiftly and shut down a wide perimeter around the plaza and then moved up, block by block, in heavy lines, until the mass of protesters were pushed into an intersection nearby. Then, a large formation of riot police moved into the plaza itself, where they arrested 32 people who had chosen to remain in the camp in an act of civil disobedience ('bravo' 'bravo'), there was one fella going by the name of ‘Running Wolf’ who was left up a tree, in some sort of tree-house and don’t know if he was eventually arrested, I suspect he was.

There was also an interfaith tent and group who have since been reported as having been arrested whilst they being huddled together in a circle in silent prayer, prayed and then detained it appears.

Police were tearing down tents and clearing the plaza. There were no reports of injuries, which makes a change from the prior and previous (October 25th and the night of November 2^nd) assaults on the camp and the protesters.

While US police crowd control techniques are not or rarely pretty, people facing off with riot police as part of various occupations around the country probably don't really have a good sense of the force used during the first eviction of Occupy Oakland due to a media selected blackout. In all the tally of injuries for October 25 and November 2 was three broken hands, two head injuries (one of which, to Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, was quite severe), a ruptured spleen and minor injuries too numerous to list.

What these evictions had in common with the one two weeks before is that the end-game is just as unclear. Protesters again promise to reclaim the plaza as soon as police leave. The Oakland City Council has reportedly entertained a proposal to hire private security guards to keep the plaza clear, but this is a cash-strapped city and one has to believe that the Occupiers' resolve will outlast the city's private security budget.

Cameron & Osborne on the Run

2011-11-14T16:32:00.000Z

Here is something interesting for you all…

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

2011-11-14T09:56:00.000Z

Is it conceivable for a person from a very rich and privileged background to genuinely care about the plight of the poor? I really don’t know about that at all, but I think it is much harder for such a person to have any real comprehension of what it feels like to live in poverty, with little or no prospect and a diminishing possibility of escape, no matter how hard they work.

To call living on benefits in any shape or form a "lifestyle choice" is the most inconsiderate and insulting demonstration of titled insensitivity and ignorance to have crossed the lips of any politician or commentator in recent times.

There is no such thing as easy money, in fact there never has been unless of course you are one of the very few who own the means of production and are able to profit off-the-peg and from those who may think they are fortunate to have employment in these hard times of austerity and economic chaos to be able to earn some sort of a living, and then that’s no guarantee that you are any better off than those on the benefits treadmill.

When someone thinks of poverty, it’s usually imaged the physical likeness or representation of people who are out of work due to illness, unemployment or retirement that first come to mind. And as this year’s new levels for the national minimum wage were being introduced, the BBC’s Panorama programme discovered that many British workers are still being paid much less than the law states and finds the problem particularly acute especially in the care work sector. The programme went on to show that there is general agreement that minimum wage underpayment is widespread, the difficulties of investigation and proof mean there have only been seven criminal prosecutions over the national minimum wage in more than a decade. And I would suggest and suspect now in such an economic climate where these sorts of abuses are likely to occur more frequently.

The Tories hatred of the poor is so deep seated that since they came to power 80% of their work has reduced income for the poor. And like their predecessors in government New Labour, they have continued to use a stick against working people in attacking the welfare system and cultivating through fear the desired result that workers would be willing to take up low and part-time employment, also an important point to be made here, though, is that this "ideology" of the privatised family is a way of thinking which arises out of particular private property (class) relations and as such works to reproduce these class relations. In short, the idea that the parents (biological or adoptive) of a child are the ones responsible for the economic well-being of that child works to reproduce all the inequalities of class society that we have today.

I believe that "ideology" is gradually but increasingly being rejected today by a new emerging generation who are under no illusions that the system that kept workers in their place in the past is breaking down as it fails to meet expectations, as employment and opportunity for many permanently dries-up. The system of capitalism is stuck in a Cul-de-sac that it’s not getting out of it in a hurry or at all for that matter.

It seems that everywhere I go these day’s I hear the call being made not just for change but for ‘revolution’ and it may only be uttered and voiced at the moment by just a few thousand in Britain whenever, each and every time I attend an event, demonstration or occupation, but the most important factor is its being called for around the world and gaining traction. Yesterday I became transfixed and engrossed to the developments as they accrued on the live feed provided from Occupy Portland as Several hundred protesters, some wearing goggles and gas masks, marched past authorities and downtown on a Sunday, hours after riot police forced Occupy Portland demonstrators out of two encampments in parks. Police moved in shortly before noon and drove protesters into the street after dozens remained in the camps in defiance of city officials. The City Mayor Sam Adams had ordered that the camps be shut down on Saturday at midnight, citing unhealthy conditions and claiming that an increasing number of drug users and thieves were utilising, operating and exploiting the camps of with I am sure this was only a fabricated lie and tall tale to discredit and demean the occupy movement.

In other US cities over the weekend:

Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran who suffered a skull fracture during a police raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment, had been released from the hospital. Olsen was injured Oct. 25, and Occupy supporters around the country had rallied around his plight.

And for the third time in three days, Oakland city officials warned protesters that they did not have the right to camp in the plaza in front of City Hall and that they would face immediate arrest.

In Salt Lake City, police arrested 19 people Saturday when protesters refused to leave a park a day after a man was found dead inside his tent at the encampment.

Police in New York arrested 24 Occupy Albany protesters after they defied an 11 p.m. curfew in a state-owned park. They were charged with trespassing.

In Denver, authorities forced protesters to leave a downtown encampment and arrested four people for interfering with officers who removed illegally pitched tents.

In San Francisco, police said two demonstrators attacked two officers in separate incidents during a march.

I was also able to attend the occupation at St Paul’s yesterday afternoon, where sprits, enthusiasm, passion and support remain very high. I did notice some changes since my last visit that improve the camp more toilets and a new welfare tent set-up to deal and give support to comrades that had or have issues or personal problems to deal with, very thoughtful and considerate I thought. In addition I was able to attend the university tent and take part in a very lively debate on food sovereignty and reclaiming the global food system but more about that possibly in my next posting.

‘Your Country Needs You’

2011-11-12T19:24:00.000Z

The campaign to win the young to war has come a long way from that poster used in the ‘First Great War’ you know ‘Your Country Needs You’ and the pointing finger of Kitchener. "Your King and Country need You." And they came and died in their thousands innocently conned and dispossess of life by deceit. They put it on hoardings, on trams, on buses, on stations and warehouse walls, and even the notice board at the church hall had "Your King and Country need You."

Have you ever wondered just why it is that when a young man or women goes off to war and then comes back wounded or even worse still, killed, that we are asked to dig-deep into our pockets with the so-called poppy-appeal run by The Royal British Legion, an appeal that no one disputes brings some relief and help to the families of the wounded and killed, but why is this the case, when they have given-up or lost so much including life; so why is the government, the establishment, the ruling classes who made the wars, who forced the drafts and conscriptions by the use of legislated laws when it suited, when it was appropriate, not making and creating the provisions that meets the needs of those who fought in what is after all their many wars?

The precursor to The Royal British Legion was The Haig Fund a charity set up in 1921 by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig to assist ex-servicemen. Today, the Haig Fund continues to support veterans from all conflicts and other military actions involving British Armed Forces. Its members sell remembrance poppies in the weeks before Remembrance Day/Armistice Day. The words Haig Fund which I remember as a schoolboy in the 1960s are no longer inscribed in the centre of each poppy, and that maybe just as well when you consider that one of the greatest debates for almost a century now has involved the conduct of the British Commander-in-Chief during the Great War, Field Marshal Sir. Douglas Haig.

Many commentators and observers have referred to Haig as a 'butcher' who sent hundreds of thousands of men unnecessarily to their deaths. A large number of historians subscribe to this theory and savagely attack Haig as being responsible for the wholesale premeditated slaughter. I should really go into the deceptive role of The Royal British Legion; perhaps I will do that next year, so let’s move on.

As is usual at this time of the year, we are called upon to remember the dead, the fallen of wars; not only two ‘World Wars’ but of recent continuing wars in faraway places. Poppies sold, a festival of remembrance held and televised, boy-scouts, girl-guides, sea, air and army cadets, new and old soldiers march down to the local war memorial to repeat that yearly ritual, customary observance and practice.

The main event is held at the Cenotaph, the monument built to honour people whose remains are interred elsewhere or whose remains cannot be recovered and lie scattered across the fields and arable land of France; as was and still is the case for many casualties of that First Great War. The Cenotaph is in London’s Whitehall, stone’s throws from Downing Street were all decisions of war have been taken and plotted particularly in the last and current century. This year’s remembrance falls in the year that marks the 72th anniversary and outbreak of the Second World War and as usual the Queen and her Royal Family dressed-up as Fleet Admirals, Air Marshals and Field Marshals with medals and self-awarded honours, will join our political leaders in honouring by this act of remembrance the war dead, who we are told time and again, gave their lives for the freedoms that we (supposedly) enjoy today, even though they for the most part were conscripted, that’s forced to fight in the blood-red fields of war.

Wootton Bassett now Royal; with its cricket field, pubs and a centuries-old church became the focuses of international media attention, not unfortunately because of its idyllic picturesque village qualities; typical of an old English town in all respects; but one: until this year every corpse that returned from Britain's wars abroad passes through it. In what has become a public show of respect? Wootton Bassett is near Royal Air Force Lyneham, the base to which the country's war dead were returned. Commencing about four years ago, townspeople began gathering for the processions of each soldier as the body, in a flag-draped casket, was moved from Lyneham to a coroner's office in Oxford. The inaugural processions were attended by just a dozen saluting war veterans at first. Crowds then swelled to the thousands when the repetition of these sad processions became commonplace as the convoy of coffins through Wootton Bassett turned from a trickle to a stream.

Newspapers carried front page converge that included pictures of mothers, fathers, wives, children and in some cases distraught girlfriends’ of the fallen. Anyone who picks up a newspaper or owns a television set could not have failed to miss the risks that are involved and taken by the young in the modern wars that are Afghanistan and Iraq and have proven to be oh so deadly.

Every now and again, Cameron, and like his predecessors; before the exchange of insults during questions to the Prime Minster, will pay a tribute of hollow words acknowledging deceased military personnel. But with the public witnessing the return of so many young military casualties the pendulum of public opinion began to stick and stay put on questioning or opposing the military mission. The government in most recent years, sensing the public perception, gave support to an armed forces day, the idea being that parades and ceremonies’ would be held in every community around the war memorial to honour the role and function of armed forces personnel past and present - to use government language - honouring their commitment.

The British armed forces have some of the most difficult and far-flung commitments to maintain. Major commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq co-exist with others from peacekeeping in Cyprus to patrolling the Falkland Islands. To meet these commitments, an estimate is made of the required number of trained full-time personnel, known as the ‘trained requirement’. The actual number of trained personnel, known as the ‘trained strength’, is usually slightly less than requirement. The trained requirement in 2007 stood at 183,610; the trained strength stood at 177,760, of which 99,280 were in the army, 34,940 in the navy and 43,550 in the air force.

In terms of personnel, the UK regular armed forces are about the third-largest in Europe after Germany and France. Britain is the world’s largest military spender after of course the US, and our armed forces being the most stretched in the world, over £2 billion is spent each year on recruiting and training 20,000 new personnel to replace those who either leave or are killed on active duty. The armed forces, as the statistics show, draw their non-officer recruits mainly from among young people with low educational accomplishment living in poor communities. A large proportion joining for disadvantaged reasons, including the lack of civilian career choices; a survey in the Cardiff area in 2004 found that 40 per cent of army recruits were joining as a last resort and the army revelled in 2004 that while roughly 45 per cent of all young people leave school with 5 GCSE subjects graded A-C only, 17 per cent of all Army recruits in 2003–04 had English at A-C level, with the figure for Maths at about 10 per cent. On average Army> recruits have 0.9 of a GCSE at grade A-C. ... Records also show that 24 per cent of all Army applicants in 2003–04 were unemployed for a significant period before applying.

The killing locomotive that is the army always needs fuel to feed into its boiler, so tens of thousands of pounds are spent on newspapers and the media convincing youngsters to sign away (no apology) their lives. On the way back from visiting a friend, I found one of those free newspapers that are handed out every evening at tube stations in London and lying on the seat next to me on the train on which I was travelling, what caught my eye was a double-page spread advertisement placed in the London Metro by the army and, I assume, acting on instructions from the Ministry of Defence and the government. The advertisement carried the image of a beautiful young woman in combat fatigues. I have no reason to believe that this young person isn’t a serving member of the armed forces and with the looks of a model.

The advert had a personal testimony of army life given by Major Laura Blair, 31, (can you believe that name) who is a member of the Adjutant General’s Corps; they apparently specialise in HR Personnel. Laura, if she does exists, says wonderful things about army life and ends by advising anyone who may be interested in an army career to either pop into one of the Army Careers Offices dotted around London or visit the Army Show Rooms in Hounslow or Dalston to find out just what life in uniform could offer them.

Recruitment literature for army careers emphasises potential benefits: career interest and challenge, comradeship, the active lifestyle, travel and training opportunities. It omits to mention or obscures even blots out: the radical change from a civilian to a military lifestyle, ethical issues involved in killing, risks to physical and mental health, the legal obligations of enlistment, the state’s legal and moral obligations to its armed forces personnel, and the right of conscientious objection. By suggesting that soldiers are highly satisfied with army life, the literature also glosses over the ambivalent attitudes of the majority. The omissions conspire against the potential recruit’s right and responsibility to make an informed choice about whether to enlist. The literature also does little to enable parents to ask searching questions of their children and of recruiters in order to assure their children’s best interests.

One thing that remains the same about war is that workers fight it; and die in it; and that’s best summed-up by last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War and who died earlier this year. Henry John “Harry” Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009) – known as ‘the Last Tommy’ Harry, from what I can gather, hated war, and called it “organised murder, and nothing less.”

If a child is given a doll - If a child is given a gun

2011-11-12T11:15:00.000Z

Wilhelm Kahler

The above portrait and likeness is the image of my grandfather, from my mother’s side of the family. I first saw his likeness hang on the wall of my grandmothers flat in the early 1970s on a family Christmas visit to Germany.

Thousands of war veterans will March past the Cenotaph memorial in London to mark Remembrance Sunday. The Queen will lay the first wreath of poppies and senior royals will follow suit, then the PM and leading politicians and other dignitary’s. Remembrance events will take place around the country and in the theatres of modern wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

This year’s Remembrance Sunday falls exactly 93 years after the ending of World War I, Armistice Day.

World War II was humanity's deadliest war, causing tens of millions of deaths. The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II was roughly 72 million people, making it the deadliest and most destructive war in human history. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including 20 million deaths due to war-related famine and disease. The military toll was about 25 million, including the deaths of about 4 million prisoners of war in captivity. The Allies lost approximately 61 million people, and the Axis powers lost 11 million.

My grandfather Wilhelm Kahler was killed just weeks before the wars end, away from home in Russia at the ridiculously young age of less than forty years; he was one of 5.2 million German servicemen – that’s three in every ten mobilized, whose lives were prematurely taken along with 2.4 million innocent German civilians. More German soldiers lost their lives in the last twelve months of fighting than in the whole of the war. The crucial point is that to Hitler this monstrous toll meant nothing whatever, he once said:

“Life is horrible, coming into being, existing, and passing away, there’s always a killing. Everything that is born must later die. Humanity is a ridiculous cosmic bacterium.”

His statement only proving that war is evil, the dark side of humanity, it is the true tragedy, the triumph of disaster.

How can anyone praise war without stopping to reflect on the many horrors and revulsion's of pain the needless loss of life?”

If a child is given a doll

This post above I wrote originally in 2008 when I first started to blog and it has now become a tradition and practice in respect to remember at this time of the year not only my own grandfather but all those countless young men and women who were and still are cut down in the many theatres and fields of war. Since the end of the Second World War there have been over 250 major wars in which over 23 million people have been killed, tens of millions made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved.

In the history of warfare the twentieth century, and now continuing into the twenty-first stands out as the bloodiest and most brutal - three times more people have been killed in wars in the last ninety years than in all the previous five hundred. Only 11 years into the new millennium the world still wrestles with a welter of problems left over from the 20th century. There are still more than three dozen major active conflicts (those with over 1,000 casualties, both military and civilian) in the world.

Millions of children are caught up in conflicts in which they are not merely bystanders, but targets. Some fall victim to a general onslaught against civilians; others die as part of a calculated genocide. Still other children suffer the effects of sexual violence or the multiple deprivations of armed conflict that expose them to hunger or disease. Just as shocking, thousands of young people are cynically exploited as combatants.

In the past decade, around 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict, three times as many have been seriously injured or permanently disabled, and countless others have been forced to witness or even to take part in horrifying acts of violence.

In dozens of countries around the world, children have become direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, some 300,000 children are serving as soldiers in current armed conflicts. These young combatants participate in all aspects of contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts. Child soldiers are being used in more than thirty countries around the world. Because of their immaturity and lack of experience, child soldiers suffer higher casualties than their adult counterparts.

Yesterday on twitter I wrote: ‘If a child is given a doll to play with he/she will learn to love; if a child is given a toy gun to play with one day he/she may learn to kill.”

Hell-hole Called Britain!

2011-11-10T14:16:00.001Z

No one wouldhave missed the absolutely and without question appalling story of the couple Markand Helen Mullins who were found lying side by side in their home following anapparent tragic suicide pact.

Friendshave since spoken out of the pair’s struggle to access the correct benefits –leaving them living “hand to mouth” on food hand-outs from a Coventry soupkitchen which they walked five miles to each week.

Todaymuch is being made in the press of this story because Mark Mullins was anex-serviceman – oh shock and horror at this mere fact, actuality and thought,how can this happen to someone who has served his country and at this time ofthe year, whilst the Prime Minister David Cameron engages in the uselessunimportant ruckus in regard to the England football team being able to wear acommemorative poppy symbol on their kit when they play Spain on Saturday.

Truth isyou could not make this story up, service and mental health charities have nowdemanded an urgent investigation into the suicide pact of this Army veteran andhis wife who was suffering from what is said to be mild learning disabilities.

Thereare a number of things that come to mind here when I consider this story, firstis that irrespective of Mr Mullins service history this really shows up thestate, capitalism and the ruling class for what they are and how they use andtreat working people when they have no further use for them, and if thingscontinue on the path we are being taken down then we can expect to see ex-servicemen and women possibly selling lighters in cities and towns just to get by surviveand stay alive as they did after the First World War, the disfigured ragged,unwanted ex-soldiers, medalled, but ill, blind, maimed, selling matches,bootlaces, notepaper, trundling barrel-organs or standing with a melancholy dogor monkey beside a decrepit hurdy-gurdy.

Secondly,the whole tragedy and plight of the Mullins is only newsworthy because MrMullins had a service record, there are many thousands who's circumstances arejust as harsh and only occasionally do we learn of such a tragedy when ithappens to them, but how, just how many are being driven to such despair, we I presumewill never really get to know as the soup kitchen, the hand out and the food parcelmakes its reappearance in our society.

The reason Rome fell and the Students Demonstration.

2011-11-10T09:20:00.000Z

If there was ever confirmation that the fight, the class war was continuing at an acceptable steady pace, and had I really wanted it, then yesterday’s magnificent demonstration of students in central London was definitely it, and of course better not forget the electricians, plumbers and engineers from across the country who joined a rally at Blackfriars in support of those building workers fighting the bosses who intend cutting wages whilst expecting to make and profit from their exploitation still’, or indeed the Cab drivers who caused tailbacks around Trafalgar Square after holding a "mass drive-in" to protest over licensing rules.

I myself was not able to make it in the end to the demonstration due to other commitments that had to preform that day, namely that I run a begging pitch in East London which helps to supplement my pittance of what they call ‘Job Seekers Allowance’ but more about that later in the week.

I have no real idea myself of what the actual numbers were of those taking part, but I think we can safely say up to 10,000 students were not intimidated or put off by the disgraceful threats made by the police of "aggressive and antagonistic" tactics after publicising that baton rounds were being held in reserve for the protest.

In comparison to last year’s demonstration the turnout was much smaller but nevertheless impressive, big and beautiful.

If there is anything, any one lesson that we should take from what we witnessed yesterday it is this; this government is volatile as it is capricious and unpredictable. Cameron may talk hard but he and his government are weak; the candle light of this coalition could be puffed–out at any time, and that comrades, is a sure thing. That is what the students demonstrated and confirmed to me at least, yesterday.

And of course if this government were to fall it wouldn’t happen because Labour in the House of Commons was leading the cavalry, which will never happen, in and amongst these distinguished parliamentarians of the ruling class, for one thing Labour would hate to hold a general election whilst the coffers are a bit thin in the bank at the moment.

On Saturday last I made my way along to the Socialist Party’s London reception for the Jarrow Marchers, it was great and well done to them and the youngsters who marched the whole 330 miles from the North East, demanding, jobs, education and a decent future! A lot of hard work and steadfastness commitment went into organising this and they should be applauded, but if there was one little regret that I had, then it would be that sadly they were unable to link-up with the Occupy movement and the comrades from St Paul's who had a much bigger turnout marching down The Strand and past the Socialist Party event being held in Trafalgar Square and as it was breaking-up due in part to the unfortunate fact that the Socialist Party had another event organised in London latter that day, but that’s not a crime and it was probably pre-arranged months ago before St Paul’s was even thought of by those now camping out.

I really do think that St Paul’s is part of a worldwide, all-inclusive class-based movement of people standing up against the oppression of corporate power, it may not be everything to everyone but it is a start, it is a part of that new movement that I wrote about on this blog last year, a new movement that has no leaders and is winning support not just across the movement and party lines but more importantly in the greater community as a whole, that’s why it’s still there and enjoying much support from all sections of British society.

The ruling class, Cameron and the government hate this occupation that’s why he keeps going on about them at every given opportunity he can, he would love to see the Rottweiler dogs of the TSG cops smash the heads of peaceful protesters whether they are members of the Socialist Party or from St Paul’s (#OcuppyLSX).

Some comrade or other on Twitter sent me this following tweet:

“The reason Rome fell wasn't they were conquered it was because the leaders got too greedy. The people rose up against them”.

Capitalism a murderous infant and its appetite for slaughter

2011-11-08T23:21:00.000Z

I suppose you could say and truthfully at that; and of course, as well as being an unfortunate fact of life. That violence exists happens and occurs each and every day, everywhere and all-around the world.

Has there ever been a time in man’s history, during his evolution and progression when life has been violent free? And of course I mean everywhere in our lives, domestic, physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural, verbal, financial and the neglect along with the wheels of power and control of equality.

I don’t really know the answer myself, I have tried all so many times to think about it, but I cannot think or envisage a time in the world where it has been violence free.

I think that violence and abuse are best understood as a pattern of behaviour intended to establish power and maintain control over family, household members, intimate partners, colleagues or groups. The roots of all forms of violence and abuse are founded in the many types of inequality which continue to exist and grow in our society.

What is the place of violence in such notions of time?

Is it possible to write history without giving primacy to or celebrating violence? These questions are difficult ones I am sure you will agree; or do you think that it could be that "Violence is time-worthy; non-violence is not?”

"And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, and what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages" (Luke 3:14)

This message of John the Baptist to soldiers is more searching today than at any other time in our history. And yet it has been dismissed ignored and generally cast a side so many times throughout history, in one ostensibly Christian country after another.

If we consider, relatively modern history, it seems inane then that in wars such as the First and Second that the chaplains on both sides of the divide where enlisted to bless and give spiritual and religious guidance and comfort or whatever you want to call it to men who would go on to kill and be killed by each other.

Interestingly, when William, Duke of Normandy, invaded Britain in 1066 he had some priests on his staff. His brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, led his own hundred and twenty Knights into battle but because the Church objected to priests shedding blood with the sword, he used a mace as a weapon.

By the time of Henry VIII Chaplains had become more established and in 1621 Regimental Chaplains were mentioned in Standing Orders. Oliver Cromwell took things a stage further so that in the New Model Army of 1645 the status of Chaplains was regularised and most Regiments had their own Chaplain ... the Articles of War of 1662 specify the duties of Chaplains.

But it’s not the many contradictions, flaws and inconsistencies of organised religion in regard to war that I have running through my mind, but war itself, as we approach that time of the year in this country where we remember the sacrifice of those how gave up their lives in and during the act of war.

Capitalist society is the most bloody and warlike in human history. The graveyards are piled high with the dead from two world wars, Afghanistan, Iraq and let’s not forget Libya although there were no British troops or casualties on the ground as such. The Labour Party has backed every war, great and small, since it was founded. In spite of this workers have often taken to the streets to try and stop the carnage, time after time.

Capitalism was born a murderous infant and its appetite for slaughter has grown as it has aged. The first capitalist state, England, had no sooner settled accounts with Charles I and the old order than it turned to butchering the inhabitants of its first colonies in Ireland and Jamaica.

Weapons of mass destruction unimaginable before the development of industry has now killed millions, and the reality is it shows no sight or sign of ever giving up who will be next is the question to ask?” Are you thinking what I am – Iran?

Simple calls for peace do not go far enough because they do not address the question of how we get rid of the system which produces war. Also they fail to address the connection between war and the domestic policy of the ruling class. War and oppression abroad always go hand in hand with repression and exploitation at home.

In every war some or all of the following are inflicted on workers: strikes are banned; socialists, anti-war protesters and "aliens" are jailed or interned; taxes are raised and welfare cut; the press is censored; conscription is introduced; wages are lowered and working hours are lengthened; and chauvinism and racism are stoked.

So I contend that war and violence cannot solve working class problems. It (war) elevates violence into the position of arbitrator in place of the common desire for mutual peace happiness. Its effect is wholly evil. It corrupts all the participants by forcing them to concentrate on the best methods of producing misery and of killing each other. It elevates lying, cheating, disabling and murdering opponents into virtues, confers honours on those who practise these means most successfully. But shame of it all, is that young men and women in their most impressionable years have the vile methods of warfare imposed on them and are filled with the idea that violence and not understanding is the final solution in all problems. Many of those who have been subject to the atmosphere of war remain addicted to violence when the hostilities have come to an end, so is it any wonder that violence lingers on in our society.

No Gunpowder. No Treason. No Hidden Plot

2011-11-04T15:21:00.000Z

We are the 99% – come and show your support for the occupation of the London Stock Exchange and find out more about our cause.

5th November: No Gunpowder. No Treason. No Hidden Plot.

Rally at 2pm on the steps of St Paul’s followed by a peaceful March to Parliament. We will be distributing thousands of leaflets with our 8 point statement in central London.

We stand for progressive alternatives to making the majority pay for a crisis they did not create.

Speakers:

Caroline Lucas MP

John Pilger

Seumas Milne – Guardian

Kate Hudson – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

Josie Long – UK Uncut & award-winning comedian

Aaron Kiely, NUS Black Students’ Campaign

Stef Newton, NUS LGBT Campaign & National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts

Weymam Bennett, Unite Against Fascism

Housing Crisis and the Answer - Criminalising Squatting

2011-11-03T23:22:00.000Z

Now I did say that I would wright something about Squatting, and of course that bill that went through the House of Commons on Monday, which in effect once it becomes enacted and a live Law; ‘it will criminalise and out-law the act of squatting as we have come to know it. And I am not talking about the very few amongst and at an educated estimation, the many thousands that have no other alternative but to seek shelter and resolve their housing need by occupying an empty or otherwise abandoned property. I have read and even heard it said that this is some sort of a lifestyle, well having been a squatter in the past and granted many years ago now, I can tell you from experience there is nothing at all romantic or bohemian, carefree and alternative about wanting to put a roof over one’s head, not to mention the stress and not knowing just how long you have in any one place before you're moved on, and with councils and the authorities of specialists who now have acquired, and thanks to Thatcher and proceeding governments an arsenal of legislation to prise and dislodge the un-wanted. But this clearly has not been enough for that sacred and hallowed ‘moo-cow’ of private property, the very essential they say for the construction of a prosperous society, but in reality an affront of unfair practices’ for many. The history of squatting has a long and prominent place in our society and in the antiquity of working people.

In the post-war years the word 'squatting' has been used to describe and label the unauthorised, the illegitimate occupation of empty property (almost always publicly-owned) by homeless people. It seems to me that squatting can be seen as ideological, pragmatic and realistic. What I mean is that when Winstanley and the Diggers settled on land at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey in 1649, they were ideologists, dramatising a century of unauthorised encroachments by landlords. But there have also always been pragmatic squatters, relying on distant and absentee property-owners, to allow them the occupation of premises by default. The last thing they desired was publicity and the thing they most desired was a rent-book and security of tenure.In his book ‘the story of squatting in Britain since 1968, Steve Platt articulates the following:

For those people who fell between the twin stools of home ownership and council housing (i.e. those who would traditionally have been housed in the private sector), opportunities were shrinking, rents rocketing and security diminishing. This increasing desperation of people at the bottom end of the housing market together with the growing number of empty houses, led to the growth of squatting both in scale and scope.

So whilst that may be a fair appraisal and assessment up until the Thatcher period of time, still it is worthwhile and important to understand the decades that proceeding wars end in 1945 which revitalised the squatting movement because as always through necessity it was the only way forward when push came to shove.

At the end of the Second World War squatting started with what was known as the 'Vigilante campaign' which spread from Brighton to other seaside towns like Hastings and Southend. Committees of, largely, ex-servicemen, under cover of night, installed homeless families and their furniture in unoccupied houses - usually successfully, since no action could be taken to evict them once they were in, until the usually absentee property-owners could initiate legal proceedings against them.

In the following years the campaign grew because of the anomaly of the emptying-out of hundreds of army and air-force camps during the worst housing shortage the country had known. Impulsive and spontaneous individual actions began in Scunthorpe (which I am very pleased to say is my former home town), spread quickly to two other camps in Lincolnshire, and were followed by the occupation of several camps around Sheffield, where settlers formed a Squatters' Protection Society and linked up with the pioneer squatters at Scunthorpe. These events were rapidly followed by the seizure of hundreds of camps everywhere in Britain. The authorities at first disclaimed any responsibility for the squatters - passing the buck from one department to another – were eventually forced to recognise the occupations, and local authorities were instructed to turn on water and electricity supplies. In those years squatters won significant victories which pushed governments to address the housing shortages with a building program, the series of steps to be carried out by both Troy and Labour administrations.

And a passing thought as I move on is how noteworthy it is especially today that occupations played such a big part in moving government and people more importantly, into mass actions that resolve albeit temporally a housing problem; we would be very much mistaken, to think that social housing provision was to be a permanent fixture in the grand scheme of things – it never was meant to be!”

I myself joined the squatting movement in the back-end of the 1970s by then Thatcher was ripping into council housing which was always on the cards they just needed a leader of her calibre to do it and the successive governments of New Labour to keep the faith which they did and the rest is a housing crisis of such a magnitude now in the making – we haven’t seen anything yet, but it’s on the way.

On Monday evening central government politicians of all the major parties have proven to be unremittingly hostile to the housing needs of people. Once they discovered that squatting was a civil, rather than a criminal offence, governed by legislation dating back to the year 1381, they set about changing the situation, and that’s what they did because their first loyalty is to the system they run and support, their Criminal Law Act of 1977 (under Labour) failed to deter this country's 50,000 or so squatters, and in practice, so has the Criminal Justice Act of 1994 (Conservative). Mondays vote was to try and remedy the situation for the system they serve, in the end I think it will fail and turn and bite them all on the buttocks, we will see time will tell.

What squatters seek, and have always sought, is security of tenure, and indeed personal security. To adopt policies which will have the effect of criminalising them is nothing more than another aspect of the class war.

global jobs situation is calamitous

2011-11-03T05:56:00.000Z

Three years after the onset of the economic crisis in 2008, the global jobs situation is calamitous. According to the ILO, 80 million jobs would have to be added in the next two years just to reach pre-crisis employment levels. Basing itself on extraordinarily optimistic assumptions, the ILO anticipates that only half that number will be created

In the advanced industrial countries, including the United States and Europe, there are 13 million fewer jobs now then four years ago. Employment in these countries is not expected to recover until well past 2016. Youth unemployment is above 20 percent, and long-term unemployment has soared to record heights. (See “ILO report warns of sharp employment downturn, social unrest“)

Rough sleepers mugged

2011-11-02T15:26:00.000Z

Becoming or being made homeless, for whatever the reason, is only the beginning of many a problem’ that will happen occur and possibly re-occur in a life experienced on the streets, and god only knows how many more people will be forced onto our streets this time next year due in part now, to the anti-squatting legislation passed in the commons yesterday, in fact Shelter says about 35,000 Britons – one every two minutes – face the loss of their home in the run-up to Christmas.

A demonstration that took place outside the Houses of Parliament in the early hours of Tuesday morning resulted in 12 arrests. The protesters gathered to object to the proposed bill outlawing and criminalising squatting and met with the brutality of the police which is becoming all too common now. Whilst I may wright more about the impact (anti- squatting legislation) and the repercussions this will have in the next day or so, I in the meanwhile have decided to cut and post this article from the latest addition of ‘the Pavement’ a magazine produced for homeless people which I have been reading for a number of years.

In the approach to Christmas I will be reporting more on this blog about the life of homeless people, their struggles and the general escalation of a problem that has never been eradicated or ever will under the current system of capitalism. The story below is typical of what many homeless people experience on a daily basis but we don’t read about it in our newspapers because it’s not newsworthy and not in the interests of the system which most newspapers support to report such crimes against homeless people, after all when all is said and done, they are only homeless.

Rough sleepers mugged

Two rough sleepers have been mugged while collecting their benefits at a post office in South London.

The two men, one known to his friends as Chisel, were at the Post Office in Tulse Hill on midnight of Monday 25 July, when the incident took place. Having withdrawn their fortnightly benefits they went to a nearby shop to get some drinks. When they stepped outside they were confronted by two men claiming to be police officers. Although the attackers were not wearing police uniform they were wearing stab vests and carrying fake police badges.

The two men, described as aged 25-35, one black, one mixed-race, shoved the two rough sleepers into an alley and rifled through their pockets, taking £90. They then jumped into a car nearby and sped off. Unfortunately, neither of the victims was able to identify the car number plates.

Both men were reluctant to go the police. According to Ian Ross, a former rough sleeper who knows Chisel, he and his friend have had too many bad experiences with the police to want to get involved with them. Ian told The Pavement: “They feel like it’s a waste of time. They’ve had bad experiences with the police. They used to live in Waterloo and the police would come and harass them.”

Stealing from rough sleepers is nothing new either, as Ian told The Pavement: “I had a similar thing ten years ago, in the West End with four people trying to get stuff off me, so it’s not a new thing. I think they target homeless people and drug users because they know they won’t go to the police.”

The Church of England in the Pockets of the Sharks and Moneylenders

2011-11-01T17:06:00.000Z

British Christian groups have undertaken to protect the Occupy London tent-city out front of St Paul's cathedral by surrounding it with a "circle of prayer" in the event that the cathedral attempts to evict the protesters. I was also wondering whether or not this would apply also to the latest threat emanating from the City of London Corporation who will (at the time of writing) issue a letter at 12:00 GMT warning High Court action will follow unless the camp is cleared within 48 hours?

And so it seems then, the hardliners in the Corporation have had their fill now, of the differing and put over to deferring of a very indecisive divided and dithering clergy, not only at St. Paul’s but of the Church of England leadership as a whole.

In the meantime Home Secretary Theresa May has now called on the authorities to work together to move on the protesters, which is to be expected as the frustration within the British establishment escalates, very much due and owing to the media campaign backfiring on them; rather than the public’s opinion running against the protest and the camp its finding a shared empathy with and from thousands if not millions, that may be a bit optimistic but then again we live in times when anything is really possible, and capitalism in crises is on the back foot.

As the news filters through, that the cathedral's ‘rulers’ have agreed suspending a legal bid to remove activists from its grounds in favour of engaging with them, this must be seen as a face saving exercise and an unexpected triumph to OcuppyLSX and their many supporters. But let’s not get carried away here or lose sight of what this occupation is all about, it’s not a fight with the Church or St. Paul’s Cathedral higher-ranking and well paid clerics. I remind myself by reading the initial statement agreed by the assembly of 500 and the points they made originally on 16 October. Just to run through some of the points gives clarification and helps to stay focused, so here are an abbreviated few:

The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust.

We stand together with occupations all over the world.

We refuse to pay for the bankers’ crisis.

We do not accept cuts as either necessary or inevitable.

We support the strike on the 30^th November and the student action on the 9^th November.

We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to actions of our government and other in causing this oppression.

And although I have said that the occupation is not about a fight with the Church or St. Paul's there are facts and circumstances that cannot be ignored or overlooked, especially when we talk about democracy in its greater context and I am afraid the Church of England cannot escape its two bob’s worth here.

The Church as we have come to know it, is nothing more than a tool of the establishment and the state with the Queen at its head and a government who pick and select its leaders. If we take a closer look at St. Paul’s for instance, as indeed ANONYMOUS (UK) did, and so have others by the way; just to say I had the great pleasure meeting and chatting with ANONYMOUS (UK) yesterday whilst visiting the occupation. They did a little research into the people who help to run and support St. Paul's and who may have in my own opinion been trying to pull some of the strings of the dithering clergy, and as it were behind the closed doors of the Cathedral.

So here is a list of them for your perusal, and a further examination can be done over the Internet of that I am sure, this list is reproduced thanks to the Morning Star.

The Broad of St. Paul’s and Trustees

Chairman Sir John Stuttard, a former lord mayor and sheriff who racked up 30 years as a partner at the multinational auditors PriceWaterhouseCoopers, taking two years off in the early '80s to join the Central Policy Review Staff advising the Thatcher government's privatisation agenda.

Dame Helen Alexander DBE - deputy chairwoman of the right-wing Confederation of British Industry, the largest and most influential business lobby group in the country. Much like Sir John, she beams confidence in the neoliberal status quo.

Carol Sergeant CBE. Having worked as the Financial Services Authority's managing director for regulatory process and risk, Sergeant left in 2004 to join Lloyds TSB as its chief risk director.

John Spence OBE, Roger Gifford, the British head of Swedish merchant bank SEB and former master of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers, Gavin Ralston of the FTSE 100's Schroder Investment Management and former Met commissioner Lord Blair of Boughton - who since retiring in 2008 has retained a pension of around £160,000 a year, in addition to whatever savings he may have scraped together from his £240,000 annual salary.

All that leaves on the board is theatre director Joyce Hytner, the cathedral's fundraiser in the US John Harvey and Dean Knowles himself - not exactly a cross-section of Britain's civil society.

And as the Morning Star put it: “And that's just the trustees. The foundation's full list of current corporate donors consists of Lloyds, money managers to the mega-rich Fidelity and Sarasin & Partners, brokers BGC Partners and the London Stock Exchange itself.”

An Afternoon Spent at OcuppyLSX

2011-11-01T00:18:00.000Z

I am very pleased to say, that yesterday I was able to make it back to the occupation outside of St. Paul’s (OcuppyLSX.ORG), hadn’t been able to make it along since the comrades had set up camp almost 3 weeks ago now, and of course last week I was on that dreadful ‘Work Programme’. The camp and the protest being far more important, significant and imperative than the forced hoop jumping ordered by the government, so I was just glad to get back.

The nights are now drawing in but fortunately temperatures are rather mild for the time of year, it seems that someone up above is looking down favourably on the camp and the protesters; as the clocks went back at the weekend, thankfully, night-time temperatures have stubbornly hovered at 14C (57F) in the south-east, which is above the norm for this time of the year – that’s global warming for you then.

I was also glad to get away from Canning Town, sometimes it feels like an open prison, strange that I say that for I do like it here, but sometimes you just have to escape from it if you know what I mean. Traveling on my bicycle it’s not a long journey and quite enjoyable, down towards Limehouse, along Cable Street and towards the Tower of London, taking-in the view along the Thames Walk Way, finally into the City of London and the so-called square-mile arriving at St. Paul’s.

I had the clear impression on arrival that the community had decided to move the tents to one side as far as it was possible so as to placate and try and conciliate all the fuss and controversy that was made in regard to health and safety, the risk of fire (safety issues which were never fully explained) and all that. I must say that the camp is well organised, although tents for sleeping-out-in seemed to be squeezed, squished and squelched together but not crushed, a really amazing sight colourful and intriguing, people milling and mulling around or just sitting about chatting, a truly great atmosphere of togetherness and evident cooperation. And of course as you could imagine a police not so princely presence at hand, but let’s not think about them.

Taking my time and looking around the camp I found the information tent, where I inquired about the possibility of using the toilet, or rather for those of you who are more refined, sophisticated and cultured, the lavatory, I was told I could use the coffee shop just across the way or one of the pubs nearby, it seemed that the toilets on site were only for use in the evenings. There were plenty of people coming in and out of the information tent which was of standing height, full of information, leaflets a message book and general information about meetings and activities, and there was a university of life tent, used for discussions which probably included topics like the international banking crises or the effects of global warming, looking inside, it would easily take 60 people with cushions scattered around on the floor it looked fantastic.

It really is surprising what good use you can make of limited space; there was a free book lending library, a tent with a comrade playing a piano, a free tea and coffee tent, a larger marquee tasked with generally feeding the camp and supporters which was constantly on-going, food being donated all the time by well-wishers and sympathisers or just members of the public, who incidentally were making financial donations all the time while I was there.

Oh yes, and before I forget to mention it, there is also a large tent which had a sign on it that simply said:

“Meditation and Prayer Room, All Faiths and None”

Just a mention of some of the other tents will give you a really good idea how well this occupation is being run and organised by all those involved, like the legal and clothing tents. No one person is in charge and everyone has a say in the running of the camp through the general assemblies and working groups, a real democracy without leaders.

In fact there was a handmade poster which said:

“This is what Democracy looks like”

I made a note of some of the posters on display at the camp and thought it a good idea to share them in this post with you:

“No Alcohol No Drugs on Site”

“Power to the People - Hell - No We Won’t Go”

“Jesus’ did not go – He Drove the Moneylenders from the Temple”

“English Heritage Real Freedom Reborn Here October 2011”

I noticed that many office workers were taking a keen friendly interest in the camp, specking and conversing with protesters whist music and song was reverberating around the great Cathedral and for me it was a great afternoon spent only sad that I had to go home, but I will be back like the good penny that I am!”

Jarrow Marchers arrive in London

2011-10-31T16:21:00.000Z

The photograph above is indeed very dramatic, an activist holds up a crucifix as a barricade burns during the recent evictions from Dale Farm travellers' camp site. That one snapshot more than anyother brings it home, it is an illustration, an image of struggle and of war. Some will say that such a description is over the top and dramatic if not provocative, possibly rabble-rousing and even inflammatory. And do you know what, I don’t really care or give two hoots.

At the best of times I hate wars, I hate struggles and confrontations, but for all that still there is a war being waged in our so-called civilised society – it’s a class war.

The side that I am on has come about not through choice, but rather circumstance and birth, that’s the thing about this war’ you don’t pick the side you’re on, you are born into it and you grow up with it; of course a great many don’t realise it but that’s changing slowly, surely and unquestionably.

It’s as if people are beginning to awake from a long sleep, as if the penny has eventually dropped into the bottom of the box. Dale Farm, St Pauls, Public Sector Workers, Campaigns to Stop Cuts and Save Services, Students fighting the government’s education white paper and Workers fighting to halt pay cuts, such as the thousands of council workers across the country who are facing yet another onslaught and ambush of attacks on jobs, services, pay and conditions, or the construction workers who are fighting a 35 per-cent pay cut.

One hundred construction workers and supporters recently took part in a demonstration outside the Tate Modern in London, against the massive cuts in pay they are facing and their bosses are demanding. The industry is looking at a 35% pay cut for construction workers and has recently seen demonstration from Electricians, known as "Sparks" in and around London.

The UCATT General Secretary candidate, Michael Dooley, was there to give words of support and to lead the demonstration on a march that found them standing outside the Blackfriars construction site, which is being managed and run by large company, Balfour Beatty. Balfour Beatty one of the companies supporting the pay cuts and their workers are being asked to attend up and coming demonstrations being held in London, starting with November 9th national demonstration of students, this will link students, Occupy LSX at St Paul's Cathedral and Trade Unionist together; they make a very important connection as we move into the autumn, an autumn of resistance!

I can of course give chapter and verse of the attacks upon the living standards of working people, of the class war being waged against the poorest and most venerable in society, against the unemployed, the disabled, the young and the old in our unequal society of today, and with real, physical unfeigned psychological dogmatic vengeance.

In the weeks that lay ahead of us we have to take the opportunity to build bridges of unity to other sections of our class, we need like never before to support every campaign, every occupation, strike and initiative and class creativity that brings all the issues to the forefront of conciseness, which lights the fuse that further awakes the masses to new ideas and real possibilities.

On November the 5th, the Jarrow Marchers will arrive in London. They will have marched 330 miles from the North East, demanding, jobs, education and a decent future! Why not join the mass rally in central London that will greet them.

For further information look here…

November 9th national demo: route confirmed as students prepare for the autumn of resistance

2011-10-30T11:23:00.000Z

November 9th national demo: route confirmed as students prepare for the autumn of resistance

Contact: againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com and 07964791663

Route for 9th November national demo agreed by police

Tens of thousands expected to attend in fight over government’s education white paper

Demonstration will link up with St Paul’s Occupation, and will rally symbolically at Moorgate

Protest to be joined in the capital by thousands of striking electricians

Continued Here: November 9thnational demo: route confirmed as students prepare for the autumn of resistance

The clerics at St Paul's would do well to re-read the scriptures

2011-10-30T08:12:00.000Z

“Jesus made a whip of cords and he drove those who were selling livestock and changers of money out of the temple. He turned over the table of the money changers. He said to those who were selling doves: Take these away from here and do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”

When people stand together anything is possible, and who would have thought that the occupation currently taking place outside of St Pauls Cathedral would have generated so much interest, and indeed support in the larger community as a whole, which it has, as people keep asking me about the occupation, and in the face of such hostility from press, media, politicians and misguided leading clergy that run this great landmark of a Cathedral, and I have to say more like an on-going business concern rather than a house of prayer, a house of worship, a place surely to be with ‘God’ first and foremost in proclaiming the Christian gospel in words actions and providing services of Christian worship and praise. And yet to my mind what we have seen on display this last week is a few ‘grandee clerics’ who still think that ‘The Church of England’ is still the Tory party at prayer.

This now can only be seen as very damaging for this state establishment church of which the Queen is still its head and her governments have a big say in the appointment of its leaders, is it any wonder that there is a decline in attendance when such people like those in St Paul’s are running the show. After all there has been a 55% fall in attendance since 1980 and the decline in Church attendance is significantly higher than membership. This tells us that even amongst the membership the Church in general struggles to attract people to services, but will this badly handled situation at St Paul’s drive in yet another nail into its coffin I do wonder?

If the Church of England was the national football team they would have sacked the manager long ago.

Well it wasn’t really my intention originally to attack the church in this post, for there remains, and just like in the Labour Party, still some good people who nonetheless belong and follow the true light of the shepherd, so please except my profound apology if in any way I have caused you offence, and then I say it is not intended or directed at you!

As the blizzard of controversy continued to blow around over the handling of the Occupy London Stock Exchange demonstration and the possible camp eviction in partnership with the City of London Corporation, but now other Christian activists have said it was their duty to stand up for peaceful protest in the absence of support from St Paul's. One Christian protester, Tanya Paton, said: "We represent peace, unity and love.”

Christian groups have now drawn up plans to protect protesters by forming a ring of prayer around the camp outside St Paul's Cathedral, should an attempt be made to forcibly remove them.

Christian groups who have publicly sided with the protesters include one of the oldest Christian charities, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the oldest national student organisation, the Student Christian Movement, Christianity Uncut, the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and the Christian magazine Third Way. In addition, London Catholic Worker, the Society of Sacramental Socialists and Quaker groups have offered their support.

This is the second Sunday in succession that a post on this blog has taken on a religious theme albeit circuitously connected to Occupy London Stock Exchange (OLSX) protest, but just coming back to what I said at the beginning, this protest has cut through from side to side the real class hostility towards those who object to the growing inequalities that blight and disfigure the lives of millions not just here in Britain but around the world. The protest one of many being staged around the ecosphere of the world has won the support of people from all backgrounds and walks of life who agree that corporate greed and the worship of money has gone on for long enough and that people whoever they are should come first, the clerics at St Paul's would do well to re-read the scriptures, and then try to learn to love their neighbours even while they may live in temporary’ tents.

Youth unemployment - Capitalism the real rough-cut course of all our troubles!”

2011-10-29T08:21:00.000+01:00

I think I would best describe myself as having been fortunate to have left education and found employment in the 1970s, and quite easily really, and when you consider today, those who have just left school only a week or so ago, may not have such providence or good fortune.

For instance in the mid-1970s, 174 school leavers from two Nottinghamshire Schools left education and 32 per cent obtained the first job they applied for, whilst 86 per cent had jobs within a month.

My statistics are obtained from ‘The Transition from School to Work’ by M. West and P. Newton 1983. West and Newton’s book and study was one of the last British inquiries to be completed before school-leavers’ prospects changed radically. In their study they paid little attention to youth unemployment which was not really a problem back then, only in depressed regions and among specific ‘problem groups’ such as persistent truants, young offenders, and other young people who seemed unable to settle and hold onto any jobs.

In the 1970s training schemes did not feature at all, there were none except what was known as ‘Community Industry’, introduced in 1972 to cater specifically for those young people who were deemed incapable of obtaining or had problems of holding on to jobs that were then plentiful in most parts of the country.

The youth employment scene and, indeed, the entire process through which young people enter the work-force today, is very much different, or would that be an understatement.

The principal change has undoubtedly been the decline in youth employment itself. It is very true to say that unemployment levels throughout the workforce have become much higher and more persistently so since the 1970s than in the 1950s and 60s. This is a trend forced on by modern capitalist production, new methods of mass production connecting it with the new technology, rendering many crafts and trades totally redundant, not to forget an available easy to reach and cheap workforce in other parts of the developing world.

Recessions have been deeper than those experienced during the so-called thirty glorious years of almost continuous economic growth and full employment that lasted from 1945 up to the early 1970s. Subsequently there have been insufficient jobs to accommodate all would-be workers, and teenagers’ difficulties have been one aspect of the wider unemployment problem. However, employment among young people has declined much more sharply than the pace at which general unemployment has risen, and youth employment failed to recover during the economic boom in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Young people have normally been especially sensitive to any general trends in employment and unemployment. In times like this of rising unemployment young people have become particularly vulnerable for three reasons. First, employers slow down recruitment and this always has especially strong effects among newcomers to the labour market who have no existing jobs to hang on to. Secondly, when profit margins have been under pressure, employers have often made savings on training. Firms have been reluctant to train young people when they have felt unable to guarantee future employment. Employers have often taken the view that such training would waste young people’s time as well as the firms’ resources. Thirdly, in times of high unemployment school-leavers have needed to compete for jobs against displaced adults whose experience has often given them the edge. It is unnecessary to look beyond these factors to account for the spread of youth unemployment from the 1970s to the present day.

What may have sponged up the worst effects of visible youth unemployment such as further education provision which has now become unaffordable for many and means that many young people will be marooned on the sinking Ireland of mass unemployment, although we can expect the government to move and force young people to be placed on dead-end work experience schemes that are exploitative, authoritarian and will offer nothing for the future. Capitalist economies cannot generate enough quality jobs and have inevitable difficulties in keeping young people in transit for as long as is necessary, this I suggest was a factor that led to the summer riots. The social systems of the Western countries are producing more would-be workers, generally young people with good qualifications and modest or high aspirations, than can be accommodated in good jobs. It is this sort of social system which we have in Britain, a kind of disequilibrium and instability that capitalism has been unable or unwilling to fix since the 1970s means that today many young people’s transition from education to work will end in failure. Some may become, and forced into a new underclass. The most vulnerable individuals will be from the most disadvantaged backgrounds in terms of family structures, their parents’ employment records, and the levels of unemployment in their localities. It is likely that their parents, schools, and teachers, the young people themselves will continue to be blamed; anything and everything will be blamed except the system or capitalism the real rough-cut course of all our troubles!”

Exposed: Media fabricated 'empty tents' story at OccupyLSX

2011-10-28T20:05:00.000+01:00

I have not been to the occupation of St Paul’s as much as I would have liked in the two weeks since they set up camp outside this great Cathedral in the heart of the city of London’s financial centre as part of a world protest against the unfettered and unrestrained activities that plunged the world into crisis, that has thrown millions out of their homes or and employment and spread like a plague poverty and neediness want in one country after another.

Whatever we may think of this occupation there is one undeniable fact, and that goes for all the occupations, and that’s, they have highlighted to the populations of the world that we don’t have to just sit back and allow banks and other financial institutions to bleed us and society dry with sheer greed, complete and without restriction or qualification and backed up by elected and proven corrupted politicians in yet again, one country after another!

So today, the City of London Corporation and St Paul’s Cathedral have announced they will begin legal proceedings to evict the anti-capitalist protesters who have been camping in the heart of the capital’s financial district for the past fortnight. This has not come as any surprise; the powers that be have been clearly frustrated by the protest from the start, and with support within some quarters of the church have now been able to clear the way for eviction, having said that this may take months and to my mind can only harm the standing of the Church of England in the greater community.

Whilst I am still gathering my own thoughts on where the occupation goes from here, which I may blog about over the weekend I just wanted to promote the video below that disproves claims made in some newspapers this week that only 10 per cent of protesters were staying overnight. They the Occupy LSX, at St Paul's Cathedral have now made their own video in an attempt to prove that the thermal imaging software used to show their empty tents is flawed.

Top directors' earnings rose by almost half last year

2011-10-28T09:54:00.000+01:00

Just what more demonstrated amount of prove dose anyone need; that inequality in Britain is rife, widespread and rampant, than just one look at this morning’s news which is telling us that DIRECTORS in the country’s top companies have seen their pay rise by almost 50 per cent in the past year – sparking and quite rightly so condemnation and denunciation that they are failing to show restraint at a time when Britain could be heading for a double-dip recession – this is out of control greed comrades!

Average earnings among directors in FTSE 100 companies rose to just under £2.7 million according to research by Incomes Data Services (IDS) released today.

The figures come as a senior Bank of England policymaker warned reports from the retail sector suggested the economy had already begun to contract.

The soaring cost of childcare is forcing low-income families to turn down work or consider leaving their jobs, according to new research.

A report from Save the Children and The Daycare Trust has found that all parents, regardless of income, say they can’t afford not to work, but struggle to pay for childcare and that almost a quarter have got into debt because of childcare costs.

Some 80% of parents in severe poverty and currently in paid employment said they were in a similar position to as if they were not working after childcare costs were accounted for. Nearly two-thirds of parents living in severe poverty said they were struggling to pay for childcare compared to 37% of those on higher incomes.

British parents spend almost a third of their incomes on childcare – more than anywhere else in the world. The costs of childcare are now equal to what 41% of families send on their secured loan on their home or rent.

And let us not forget that these very same top directors have used tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people’s living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay!”

My first win on the Work Programme

2011-10-27T20:48:00.000+01:00

One in ten Londoners are now without a job; not surprising is it really, and if anything its set to get by far much worse in the months that lay ahead of us. So whilst London’s employment fell, 3.82 million Londoners are now in employment, which equates to a 34,000 quarterly fall.

The number of people out of work in Britain has hit its highest level in 17 years and youth unemployment has reached a record high as the economic slowdown continues to take its toll.

The Office for National Statistics said that 2.57 million people were out of work over the June to August period, the highest since the autumn of 1994. There were almost 1 million unemployed young people. And the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance last month increased by 17,500 to 1.6 million in September.

I think that it would be safe to say that London our capital city has become an unemployment black spot as almost a quarter of all working age Londoners are economically inactive – 1.3 million people.

Personally specking, I don’t think that the general situation will ever get any better as London has lost much in the way of industry that has packed up and gone elsewhere; and today it is being reported that London will lose around 27,000 financial jobs this year due to the euro zone debt crisis and economic stagnation in Britain as well as the prospects of financial regulation. London's economy has during the last 20 years experienced rapid de-industrialisation. Until the early 1960s London was still a major manufacturing centre but from then onwards manufacturing jobs disappeared very rapidly, a decline which was only partly offset by the growth of service jobs, and in particular local government.

Accompanying the changes in London's economic structure have been changes in its occupational structure. As manufacturing industry has declined, so have the skilled and semi-skilled, predominantly male, factory jobs which went with it.

I have to say and I have said this before on this blog Inner London is not being "Americanised": it is not on the way to becoming mainly a working-class city, a "polarised" city, or a vast ghetto for a black proletariat. The real risk for inner London is that it might well be gentrified with a vengeance, and be almost exclusively reserved for a selected higher-class stratum of our society.' Which comrades I am now going off the intended thread of this post.

All of which paints a very bleak picture for London, because when you lose jobs in one area it hits and affects another, if city workers are laid off in such numbers then this will inevitably have a knock-on effect on other jobs and business, a coffee bar, a sandwich shop or a local wine bar may close and its workers made unemployed and forced down to the dole office, but don’t worry for help is at hand and I kid you not –The Work Programme has arrived!

At the beginning of this week I was placed on the Programme’ no option but to attend and as they say, ‘you must attend its mandatory’, which as you know is another word for compulsory.

To me the mechanics and technicalities of the Programme are confusing and I am only just now getting to grips with who runs what, and in reality as far as I can ascertain is also very unclear to most other unemployed claimants; you are not really told a great deal about the Programme and find out about its worst aspects when referred onto it, as I did this week.

I was placed with a local charity known for work it does in my locality of Canning Town, Newham. This so-called charity ‘Community Links’ is a sub-contractor for an organisation called CDG which is an abbreviation and acronym for Careers Development Group. They claim to have been working as a charity for 30 years and committed to doing all they can in helping people back into work. In my mind this raises the question what exactly is a charity or passes for one these days, for it seems to be some tax fiddle and contrivance if you ask me! And any concern, charity that engages in this Programme should not be looked upon as being charitable in any real sense and meaning of the word, especially if this is all about strong-arming the unemployed into low paid employment or worst still throwing them off benefits so as to save money for the government’s wars and deficit reduction plans.

So I turned up on Monday morning and to my horror found that I was placed on a week-long intensive training course, granted only for a week from 9.30 till 4.30 with an hour break for lunch, but I found that after the morning session on the first day I could take no more of this nonsense of assessment, information and motivation, and I walked off and have not been back, today I requested a transfer to another programme provider that did not run such a course, they agreed reluctantly after I quoted from the CDG jobseekers welcome pack which states quite clearly the following:

“On the Work Programme, there are no set courses, days or hours in which everyone must attend. What you do is agreed between you and your advisor, and will depend entirely on what will help you find work”.

It was simple and I told them I had not agreed to this course, I was told that I had to go on it by my personal adviser, and simply he was wrong and I was right, and that’s what comes from having gained the experience and benefits of many years membership of the Labour and Trade Union Movement.

I am of course still on the Work Programme and there will be more battles to come but tonight I feel that after a very miserable start to the week it ends with a smile on my face. There will be more from me on the Work Programme as I have laid plans now to try and organise the unemployed in my area with the help of London Coalition Against Poverty who I meet this morning in Hackney.

Saving St Paul's Cathedral

2011-10-23T12:36:00.000+01:00

What a lovely Sunday morning comrades, sun shining up on high and of course my thoughts are with the comrades camped outside St Paul's in London who have now been urged by the cathedral authorities to move, amid concerns over health and safety and loss of income.

A spokesman told Radio 4's Sunday News, it was losing between £16,000 and £20,000 a day, well there you go all comes down to money yet again!

Specking to may mum about it this morning, she suggested just maybe the church is being leaned upon by the powers that be? Mum may well have a good point for a number of reasons, the establishment have no control over this peaceful protest that’s staged right bang in the middle of a very busy tourist area and route for them wishing to take in the London sights such as the Tower just down the road, indeed bad publicity and may even be an advertisement of encouragement to do the same when you get back home to your own country.

But coming back to that awful stuff we call money, God has given us more than 800 Scriptures about money. Here are a few of the many verses that will help you understand how God views finances, and seeing it is Sunday after all there can be nothing more appropriate for a Sunday morning post:

Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Proverbs 22:7

"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender."

Mark 10:21

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me

I like the last quote and was thinking that maybe the Queen who is the head of the church could heed and listen to the good advice that Jesus gave. I read this very morning that Her Majesty, The Queen is close to joining millions of her subjects in becoming a victim of fuel poverty. She has to heat four palaces and one castle and at a time when energy bills have risen by around 15 per cent but the Queen’s income has been frozen by the government, poor sod and dammit. A suggestion for Her Majesty, why not downsize, sell off some of your properties and split the proceeds between paying off your utility bills and at the same time helping out St Paul's – simple!”

Occupy Movement and Youth Fight for Jobs - build the Fight

2011-10-22T12:52:00.000+01:00

Hundreds of Thousands of people have taken to the streets throughout the world, and a new movement has come into being, the Occupy Movement is what I like to call it, and they have been a gathering in city centres right across the world, over 900 cities have hosted and seen co-ordinated protests directly or loosely affiliated to the Occupy cause.

It all started as you know in New York, the city that Francis Albert Sinatra sang about that never sleeps; 1,000 people first turned up in Wall Street just over a month ago now and then it snowballed around the globe standing up and against the status quo, the existing state of affairs in the fastidious, robbing finance canters of world capital. Backed up by capitalist supporting governments in hostility to this movement which has had its trials and tribulations to contend with, police brutality, political threats from the media winding up the establishment politicians of all the colours and many shades. However, there is one thing that stands up and stands out, they are a visible active live and living 24 hours a day antagonism to capitalism, whatever anyone thinks of their politics and demands especially on the left in some quarters of our movement.

Remember this comrades’ the world is in crisis and all around the global economy is failing like never before, an answer is not forthcoming and of course it never will.

In Britain the motherland of capitalism, we have a foul coalition in office, backed sometimes by a Labour opposition who are neither use nor ornament. The government introduce round after round of spending cuts whilst Labour play political checkers, not so fast, not so deep they keep bleeping, signalling no opposition or resistance.

And these attacks are directed at the vast majority of us. Savage attacks on the unemployed, sick and disabled sit alongside massive public sector redundancies which will create a fixed and permanent pool of unemployed labour that will be used to keep cost down and set worker against worker in competing as rivals for any opening that helps them escape the workhouse of dictatorial schemes such as the new work programme. We have seen attacks on parents, on education, on a health service being prepared with a whole castigating mountain of lies for privatisation; the Vultures and profit seeking scavengers are gathering comrades, the question is what are we going to do about it?

Back in 1971 you could buy a dozen eggs for 23p, take the family out to the pictures for 30p a head and fill up your car at 7p a litre. In the intervening years the costs of all these items have risen and living standards have started to fall. Workers are now facing a squeeze, the like of which many people have never witnessed before. The Institute of Fiscal Studies recently warned that households are looking at the largest fall in their disposable incomes since 1981, with data for the first 11 months of 2010-11 showing earnings falling by 3.8%. Pay is lagging behind inflation, meaning real earnings are likely to fall by at least 2% this year.

According to wealth boffins, the financial squeeze has worsened because there are fixed costs for today's worker which simply did not exist 40 years ago. The worker of 1971 was far less likely to own a car, a telephone or a television, and there are also costs like broadband, mobile phones and gadgets which many of us would not now care to live without, which tragically is a real shame, and this to some extent ties us all down to the horrible world of consumerism, consumer confidence is said to have tumbled for a fourth month in a row in September as unemployment increased and accelerating now towards 3 million 8.1 per cent in the three months through to August as the government affirmed its commitment to the biggest budget squeeze since World War II.

The hard times of austerity and a fight for capitalist survival is upon on us all; the upholders of capitalism whether that is Labour or Tory, and the one thing that is clear as daylight, they act on behalf of international capital as proven by the actions of the last and present government’s.

However, if we want to win, we need more than ever to be united and recognise that saying you are right is time wasting and not enough, the left should put any differences to one side and find the many things that unite us. The Occupy Movement is only one aspect of struggle, it may not be what some call perfect, and of course the easiest thing in the world is to sit at home and be an armchair critic, isn’t there already plenty of that from the capitalist media and for all the obvious reasons.

If we want to change the world, we will have to empower ourselves by winning over others to our side, that can only be done not from the side-lines of criticism, but by giving freely to support for such ideas and great campaigns like Occupy Movement and the current Socialist Party’s Jarrow march demonstration and rally when it reaches London on 5 November, 75 years on from when 200 unemployed men from Jarrow marched from their homes in the North East to London to demand jobs and an end to their poverty conditions. Throughout October Youth Fight for Jobs is marching the same route, taking the socialist message on the road and hopefully opening the eyes of many.

But let us be clear and honest, the biggest imaginable occupation or march won’t change the world unless it’s accompanied by mass direct action of the working classes, and its now time comrade’s to build in that direction and for those actions, don’t you think so?

There is an alternative

2011-10-21T09:55:00.000+01:00

“The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master’s interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence” Karl Marx

The world is rich in materials although some may be running short like fossil fuels, oil and gas won’t last for ever, but we have technology, knowledge and human “doing power” to the extent that if the world was organised in a different way everyone would enjoy a comfortable poverty-free life.

Why don’t we re-organise society to reap the benefits of these scientific advances? Because governments that people are hoodwinked, Influence by slyness are tricked and yes if you like deceived into electing, and yet all these entire capitalists’ governments look for solutions within the framework of money/wages/buying-and-selling system of society.

History shows us that capitalism was set up by a minority of people (the owners of capital) to run in the interests of that minority. If we all had enough capital we’d not be compelled to become wage slaves – then who would do the work?

So, if there’s no profit in it, there’s no production of it and no supply of it. That’s the way the system works today! If you can’t afford it, you’ll have to do or go without it, which includes food, housing and medication.

Some people (because they’ve been encouraged to think solely in terms of money, wages, buying and selling) will unquestionably dismiss any alternative as a far-off dream. Others will claim that human nature will make it impossible.

It’s essential that you understand and believe in the ability of people to change, or you give up any possibility of serious change in society.

The alternative is the world belonging to all the people, producing the things we need to live and enjoy life. Directly meeting people’s needs! This means no money, wages, buying and selling.

Why should we have to buy back what we’ve collectively produces?

This outmoded forced rationing system must go. There’s a world of abundance to work for. Work would be co-operatively organised on a voluntary basis. Everyone would have open access to what they need, and equal voice and vote in all decisions which would affect their lives – this is a world worth fighting for!

The Work Programme and Slavery - The Same Thing!"

2011-10-19T22:43:00.000+01:00

“The Work Programme will be the largest welfare-to-work programme the UK has seen since the 1930s.” Chris Grayling, 15 February 2011

At least 90% of organisations involved in delivering the Government's flagship back to work scheme, the Work Programme, risk having their contracts terminated because of unreachable performance targets set by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The Social Market Foundation, the think tank originally behind the idea for the Work Programme and responsible for the analysis, has said that without an urgent rethink of the performance criteria this could lead to the failure of the entire scheme with potentially dire consequences for the 2.4 million long term unemployed it is designed to help.

Not my words but the very words chosen and published by the respected eminent and politically independent Social Market Foundation.

There is only one way of looking at government policy in regard to resolving long term or otherwise the growing dole queue, and that’s like beating people with a stick into submission of taking up low paid employment. That’s what the Work Programme and all that came before it is really all about. I have a theory, a philosophy, a viewpoint and that’s this; capitalism would not be able to run itself without us.

Think about it for a moment – we run but don’t control the system. It’s true, without us the capitalists would have nothing; who would make their goods, who would build their towns and cities or construct them skyscrapers and towers that touch the sky, just who will keep the power flowing that kept the power on in the home, the factory, the office and enabled the banker to transfer billons and trillions at the flick as it seems of a switch – just who?

Capitalism is not something separate from our daily lives like a line of figures in the financial columns of a newspaper, or a media bulletin on the state of the economy. It's more intimate than that - something we experience daily in our social and work lives, in our family life, in our physical bodies and in the most intimate sense we have of ourselves. At best, it's an uncomfortable experience. Sometimes it's far, far worse than that.

For all capitalism's great potential to create abundance, it has no power to deliver. It is just not designed that way. And though for those of us who work for a living it often dangles personal fulfilment and real freedom before us, it sets them always just beyond our grasp.

The basics of life: water, food, shelter, heat and light. All and sundry should have these, right? Everyone should have these but millions don't and even here in the Britain, many struggle to obtain them. Why? Because the stinking capitalist profits system as exemplified above take the riches YOU have made and at the same time prevents access to these basics unless you can pay again, all in the name of profit. How about turning up the heat on them and pulling the plug on this system - instead we can unite and work towards putting a new socialist one in its place, where the necessities of life will be available to all.

You may have been told that slavery was abolished; you may have thought that slavery was abolished, well I have news for you it still exists and it’s intensifying, as always the master class will want to select the best workers to work its capitalist treadmills, and only the best will do.

The key to defining slavery is to look closely at the core characteristics in the life of a slave and in the slave’s relationship with their master or slaveholder the capitalist.

While most North Americans and Western Europeans tend to hold in their mind a picture of slavery that existed in the Deep South before 1865, slavery existed at the beginning of human history and has taken many forms over the past 5,000 years. Nearly every culture and historical period has known slavery, and it has been “packaged” differently at each time and place. The true nature of slavery, however, does not exist in the “packaging” or justifications for slavery.

Slavery exists first in the lives of slaves – what are you?

The Work Programme, which when you think about it, is a really nasty name and description for forcing people into wage slavery through instruction, command and or a course of lectures.

If we look closely at the lives of slaves throughout human history we find that the core characteristics of slavery are the same. Slavery means the loss of free will; it means that violence will be used to maintain control over the slave, and it means that the slave will be exploited, normally in some sort of economic activity. The truth is we are all born into this slavery and our lives will be controlled through violence which takes many forms such as the violence of being unemployed, not having enough money to keep body and soul, or a place of safety that provides shelter and warmth.

Normally we may think the life of a slave is marked by the fact that they receive no payment for their work, this is not true of modern slavery, the modern wage slave receives a subsistence, which means we have to keep going back for more for years on end or possibly as this government would like without an end, until we drop perhaps.

In the weeks that unfold I will be writing much more about being unemployed and forced onto and on the Work Programme, and what the Programme is like how it affects me and others, what I have to do and so on, as I think there should be a far greater understanding of what is going on in our society, and how those in and out of work are played against each other in order to own and control rule and divide, all in the interests of profit.

Inflation hits three-year high and food handouts get longer

2011-10-19T14:24:00.000+01:00

Household spending falls as inflation hits three-year high. Official statistics showed consumer price inflation rose more than expected to 5.2% in September from 4.5% in August – the highest since September 2008 – as household energy bills soared, and don’t we know it or rather feel it in our pockets!

The rise was largely driven by a jump in average gas bills of 13% and an increase of 7.5% in electricity bills in September.

Food and transport costs were also significantly higher than a year earlier – 6.4% and 8.9% respectively provoking warnings from economists that high inflation will hurt already flat economic growth as consumer spending falters.

One factor that has set the recent recession apart from other similarities is a fall in food purchases, not previously seen in downturns.

So is it any wonder that food charities who help the growing population who are going hungry in Britain, say they have seen a 20 per cent rise in demand for food.

September's consumer prices index (CPI) will be used to determine next April's rise in the basic state pension, piling pressure on the public purse but bringing little but some relief for hard-pressed pensioners.

As for those of us on other benefits especially JSA things are set to get harder still this winter.

Employment benefits, such as jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and income support are also calculated using the September CPI rate, meaning the JSA could increase by £3.31 to £70.81 a week, hardly enough to keep the wolfs from the door.

"Crikey. Batten down the hatches. Stock the nuclear bunker. Don your hard hats. Britain’s economic prospects have worsened so much in the past month that eight of the Bank of England’s nine rate-setters, who were happy to leave quantitative easing (QE) unchanged at £200bn in September, were rushing to add another £75bn just 30 days later." So said the Tory Daily Telegraph, and when they are articulating such scepticism should we worry?

The price of coal and another miner seriously incapacitated

2011-10-19T10:56:00.000+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

A miner was seriously incapacitated last Friday in a roof collapse at the Unity drift mine, in the Vale of Neath, Wales. The mine is just eight miles from the Gleision Colliery in the Swansea Valley, where four men died last month.

Wayne Morris, a 48-year-old miner, had been working with a group of up to eight others roughly one mile underground when the roof collapsed, trapping him under the rubble.

A rescue team was called out at approximately 9:30 a.m., and Morris was brought to the surface by colleagues before being airlifted to a hospital in Cardiff with suspected crush injuries to his spine and pelvis.

The occurrence come’s one month to the day after Charles Breslin, 62, David Powell, 50, Garry Jenkins, 39, and Phillip Hill, 45, died at Gleision Colliery on September 15. They were killed when a retaining wall holding back underground water failed, flooding the tunnel where they were working 90 metres underground. A post-mortem found they had drowned.

And in a new development a pit manager who survived the flooding incident in which the four miners died has been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence and manslaughter.

Malcolm Fyfield, 55, was held by officers from South Wales Police investigating the accident at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea last month.

According to some reports, Morris is the second worker to have been injured at the mine this year, following an incident in which falling shale broke the leg of a miner in March.

It is more than 25 years since the defeat of the year-long miners’ strike of 1984-1985, which saw mass pit closures and job losses, and the privatisation of the little industry that remained. Over the last years, the price of coal has soared, making its extraction extremely profitable, the question we must ask is the miner’s safety now being compromised.”

On the Work Programme

2011-10-19T02:52:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I got put on the Work Programme or rather I should say met for the first time my personal advisor, what an experience. The first thing he said to me is what can I do for you, which I found to be somewhat strange, or maybe it was a trick question trying to catch me out or something like that I am not really sure but I don’t like it.

The Work Programme and such schemes seem to be about getting into your mind-set, trying to change your frame of mind, trying to persuade you to lay bare and open up then prostitute, trull one’s self for capitalism and profit.

At my age, which is not young but not old either; life’s goals and ambitions have come and gone, my children have grown up and are doing their own thing, and now I am doing my own thing which I love with a real passion and have set a determined course – to make a real difference in the world to establish a truly socialist society and bring an end to the world run, owned and controlled by the blood sucking leaches who live by the profit and market dogma.

So what is the Work Programme, well I’m already on it (for 2 years) and around two and half million people are expected to be frogmarched onto the new Work Programme over the next five years, so Employment Minister Chris Grayling has said as the programme rolls out across the country, it came it to force in June.

The Work Programme is the latest big landmark in the delivery of the Government’s radical welfare reforms. It is the biggest single payment by results employment programme ever introduced and replaces much of the existing back to work support on offer with a programme that is built around what is perceived as meeting the needs of individual jobseekers.

Ministers are clear that the Work Programme will tackle the human consequences of what they see as endemic worklessness. Welfare to work providers around the country will now address the needs of the long-term unemployed claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance and those on long-term sickness benefits who may need more intensive support to help them into sustained employment.

Seen as a boost to the Big Society, 508 voluntary sector groups including Mencap, the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, youth charity The Prince’s Trust and Action for Blind People will all be involved in delivering the Work Programme.

"The Work Programme will tackle the endemic worklessness that has blighted so many of the country’s communities for decades. It is revolutionary in the way it tailors support to jobseekers’ individual needs and pays organisations primarily for getting people into sustained employment. (Employment Minister Chris Grayling).

So what is the down side to this gentle persuasion then?

Minimum sanction (first) for refusal, lateness, or failure to “actively participate” is 3 months (13 weeks)

Maximum sanction stands at 6 months. It is also possible for a person to get two sanctions in one scheme (i.e. for lateness, failure to actively participate etc.)

It is a standalone employment programme scheme that all JSA claimants may be subject to from Day 1 of their claim (no minimum entry)

A padding period of 2-3 weeks before a person who has previously completed the scheme could be placed back on it.

As I say I have been placed on it for two years, and I will make good use of reporting about the programme and my experience on this blog as I get into it, not that I opted for it you understand.

‘From Aigburth to Belmarsh The career of Elliot Morley MP as seen by two of his constituents (Part 5)

2011-10-18T21:05:00.000+01:00

The Ballot Box is simply a capitalist concession. Dropping pieces of paper into a hole in a box never did achieve emancipation of the working class, and in my opinion it never will.

The Reverend Friar Thomas J. Hagerty – and big thanks to Lansbury's Lido for the quote.

First off an apology, for the time it has taken me to write and put up this last part to my review of the excellent e-book - ‘From Aigburth to Belmarsh The career of Elliot Morley MP as seen by two of his constituents’.

I will take it up from where we left off in the last instalment, and you may recall that some friends and I decided to travel to Blackpool, to give support to a motion tabled at Blair’s first conference as the party leader and opposing the removal of Clause IV. The motion moved by Glasgow Maryhill Constituency Labour Party was passed by conference, but overturned by Blair the next year, just as he said it would.

I don’t think that anyone was under any illusion even then, that Clause IV would eventually be done away with; this was the defining moment for the New Labour project and they had now got the party in the bag, remember that slogan: ‘things can only get better’.

Just some information about Glasgow Maryhill, which was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons from 1918 until 2005 when it was subsumed into the new Glasgow North and Glasgow North East constituencies.

Whilst at that conference I was able to have a word with Jeremy Corbyn MP who kindly agreed to come up to Scunthorpe if we were able to organise a public meeting in defence of Clause IV, which we did a mouth or so later, and the meeting was very well attend but didn’t really have any impact on the local party as Morley had already done his magic, but we had put down a marker and let it be known to all that New Labour and Blair had opposition in the Constituency – a socialist opposition.

I remember picking Corbyn up from Doncaster Railway Station on a very cold, iced and freezing winters evening, and during the journey to the Scunthorpe Central Community Centre, Corbyn told me that he had a word with Morley in the commons, I suppose out of respect because he was speaking in his constituency, and yet the interesting thing is that Morley didn’t attend the meeting or even any of his supporters for that matter, having said that I think that his replacement, Nic Dakin would have.

By this time Morley was going around all the ward parties selling them the New Labour project and promising them that Blair was the man to deliver them from evil and return a Labour government. There is no question in my mind; Morley had become the standard carrier for New Labour on this side of the Humber, what with John Prescott in Hull and installed as Blair’s deputy, you could say; things could only get better for them.

It is amazing really to think that many thought Morley to be left wing and as the e-book puts it:

“While Hull City Council was never branded with the “Militant” status of Liverpool City Council in the 1980’s, the presence and influence of one of Liverpool’s own doubtless stoked the oppositions spin and to some degree built on Elliot’s reputation as a left winger. Rumours did however surface a few years later when he was standing for election accusing him of involvement with Liverpool’s Militant Tendency and receiving support from the Socialist Worker’s Party.”

I don’t think that Morley was ever left wing really, just an opportunist who went on to feather his own bed, and he wasn’t even good at that because he got caught-out in the end. But I have to say that although this is fact, and I may have been at times frustrated, irritated and unhappy about the drift and direction that the party was going or heading in under Blair and with yes, Morley’s help, I never ever felt any personal animosity or loathing towards Morley or his cohort’s and accomplice’s in the local party, and there were many locally such as his replacement Nic Dakin one time chair of the constituency party, although I must say that Nic is a thoroughly decent comrade although our politics may differ a great deal. However there were others who I could not say the same about off-hand even tied behind my back and a gun held to my head.

Ian Cawsey would be one such chappie; Ian had, as the e-book explains, worked and acted for Morley as an advisor prior to becoming an MP himself and this close association is put forward by some to have cost Ian his seat in the 2010 election, I personally don’t know about that because the seat was always considered to be a marginal that could swing either way at the best of times, depending of course which party was able to fill the electorate with its convincing rhetoric and bullshit the most (sorry about the crudeness).

I found Cawsey to be a smooth operator, inflexible, persuasive and set in Morley’s ways, politically specking that is, like slick elastic doing some of his, Morley’s dirty work behind the scenes; indeed I found this out for myself when after a period of time I decided that the time had come to break once more with the Labour Party or rather I should say New Labour.

It was the occasion of the first ever elections to the new North Lincolnshire Council in 1995 set up by the Tories as a Unitary Authority, and that some of us in the Crosby Community Association decided to contest the Frodingham and Town ward which was held by Labour. These local authorities were set up by the Local Government Act of 1992 which form a single tier of local government. I don’t know what we were thinking about at the time really, but three of us decided that we would do it and fight the Labour Party in a local election, for me it was a stand against New Labour and Morley and his buddies in the local party.

The local party had become a sham an imitation a pretence on what it used to be, this was born-out by the fact that one of the Labour Candidate’s some years latter was convicted for being a paedophile. David Spooner had held office for over twenty years as an elected councillor and high office in administration’s for Scunthorpe; however some years later he was arrested and charged for multiple counts of sexual abuse towards young boys, and served a prison sentence; the thing about this individual is that it was suspected in the local party for years but no one said anything.

Anyhow that aside we had a good election, standing as Resident Candidate’s we worked the ward with three leaflet drops and canvasing door to door where and when we could, with only a few helpers and supporters; the Labour Party were worried so much so that Morley ordered Cawsey to draw up an eve of the poll flyer appealing to the ward electorate not to vote for us and split the Labour vote, I remember this very well because we used the same printers as Labour and I happened to be in the print shop when Cawsey was delivering his art work, in fact he joked with me saying he had in his hand something very special and not for my eyes.

Well we didn’t win the election but we gave the Labour Party a good run and the local paper describing our count as electrifying, I came bottom of the poll with 250 votes but was more than happy at that. You can view the results here.

The next time that I was to take on the local Labour Party was in 1996 when we set-up the Socialist Labour Party, this is a story in its own right which one day I will wright up for the blog sometime soon I do hope. But for the purposes of this post I will just say that we in Scunthorpe were amongst the first to join comrade Arthur Scargill in launching it the Socialist Labour Party on 1 May 1996. It was initiated by leading trade unionists and campaign activists following the final abandonment by Tony Blair's New Labour and of any commitment to enlightened and progressive change for socialism in Britain. And like I say there is another story here for another time, in terms of the Morley story and with the help of comrade Arthur Scargill we were able to put up a Socialist to fight Morley in the 1997 general election the year of New Labour and Tony Blair, there campaign was ultimately a success and the party returned an unprecedented 418 MPs and began the first of three consecutive terms for Labour in government.

In closing this rather long review of Paul Rhoades and Jake London e-book – ‘From Aigburth to Belmarsh - The career of Elliot Morley MP’ as seen by two of his constituents.’

I just want to say one or two things that rest with me personally, first a big thank you to both Paul Rhoades and Jake London for producing the e-book which is in my opinion a very important account of not just the downfall of an MP who jiggled and fiddled £30,000 of expenses, but truly proves and demonstrates that power corrupts. Morley was the MP for Scunthorpe between 1987 and 2010, he pleaded guilty in April this year to two offences under the Theft Act after making false claims for conditional conveyance of property and reimbursements of £30,428 relating to his home in Winterton, close to his constituency, between 2004 and 2007. The Ex Labour environment minister and member until striped of his title and kicked off the Privy Council a body that advises the head of state, at the moment the Queen. The word “privy” means “private” or “secret”; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisor's to give confidential advice on affairs of state. I suppose that in some ways it was appropriate that Morley should become a member of this “secret society” of crooks and just look at what happens when crooks fall-out, it’s all in the e-book and I urge you all to read it.

My last thoughts will always be that we did the right thing in opposing Morley and New Labour in 1997 and then opposing them in government especially when I think of what came to pass – Afghanistan and Iraq – our conscience is clear.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

'From Aigburth to Belmarsh The career of Elliot Morley MP as seen by two of his constituents

Fuel Poverty and profit margins of £125 a year from every household

2011-10-17T10:24:00.000+01:00

Britain’s big energy companies are making profit margins of £125 a year from every household in the UK, up from just £15 in June, according to Ofgem, the energy regulator.

Today apparently Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, has called the energy companies to an emergency summit in London, where he will tell them to help consumers save money. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, believes that the meeting should be used to "crack some heads together" and demand ways from the industry to cut bills, according to Government sources.

Well I don’t have to remind comrades, that this is the result of past denationalisations and privatisations by the Tories, the high price which we all pay for now.

The big six energy firms – British Gas, Scottish Power, Scottish & Southern Energy, EDF, Eon and Npower have been robbing us for years and with impunity, and nothing that Cameron will do will change that:

"A market that puts the consumer first and gets these energy bills down as much as possible."

Environmentalists warn that household energy bills could rise by £300 a year by 2020 if Britain continues to rely on fossil fuels to meet its energy needs.

Energy bill increases over the last few years’ show no sign of abating, as new research predicts the government’s green agenda will add another 25% to energy bills by 2015.

4.0 million Households in England were classified as being in fuel poverty in 2009 (18% of all households). This is three time the number of households that were in fuel poverty at the low point in 2003, and there have been increases in each year since 2003.

So far in 2011, energy tariffs have increased by an average of 20%, pushing up the average annual household bill to £1,293.

This year, and this winter is going to be a very difficult one for many on low pay or benefits, already struggling with rising prices in the shops, the stark choose that many will be forced to make will be between buying food or paying for warmth this winter.

"We are the 99%" and "Bankers got a bailout, we got sold out".

2011-10-16T16:59:00.000+01:00

Occupy London Stock Exchange (@occupyLSX) which I attended yesterday for only a few hours because of work commitments, met with a really magnificent response, now that some sections of the media are reporting turn out to be over 3,000.

It was indeed a glorious autumn day, sun beaming down on the righteous gathered on and around the steeps of those assembled in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York have spread to cities around the world.

This weekend, all over the world, thousands of people occupied streets and squares around buildings that are associated with the excesses of the capitalist system that has run totally out of control, ruining many millions of people’s lives.

In London, the target is the stock exchange, in Frankfurt it’s the European Central Bank, in other cities it may just be a place that symbolizes unchecked financial lordliness of capital. The Occupy movement has gone global and drawing its inspiration from the Arab Spring protests that toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt, and have you noticed how western governments have tried and taken the credit for these revolutions, and then set about Libya?

It kicked off in New York’s Wall Street, with an idea propagated by a small magazine as I understand it; anyhow the start was somewhat humble and it was unclear what the purpose was of trying to occupy the heart of the American financial system because at first there was a media blackout as the establishment tried to play it down. The apparent media blackout or very limited coverage of both at first Wall Street and then our own Occupy London Stock Exchange (Occupy LSX) demonstrations, points towards media corporation investment interests. Social media and new Media is alight with anger towards the mainstream media who are voicing objection to what they perceive as siding against the protesters taking over the financial districts all over the world and in particular the Occupy London LSX protests.

The media has at times been conspicuous in its absence in covering what could be the most important demonstrations of this age because Occupy movement is growing in numbers and spreading across the planet at such an incredible rate and because social networking and New Media are more in touch with the people through default of interests and this is not going unnoticed amongst the general public which could ruin future credibility of the mainstream press if they are seen as censoring or rather under-prioritising the most important event of recent times, which is no bad thing comrades.

This is indeed a story repeated in many a capitalist county around the capitalist world, different expressions of resistance are appearing all around us every day, anti-authoritarian and class-based resistance is taken a hold, people are starting to organise together and what’s more without leaders as the general assembly held on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral is testament too, and to boot is the living evidence.

To tell you the truth it was one of the best demonstrations that I had ever had the pleasure of participating in, and nice not to see the usual handpicked platform of so-called left speakers addressing the great gathering, what’s great about this movement is there are no identifiable structures or leaders – how refreshing!”

Saturday's protests affected 950 cities across 80 countries, what an enormous achievement, but more than that this may mark the first time in modern history that the international working class community held hands across the continent and landmass of the whole planet, the start of something new I feel, this will worry many on the left trying to build a vanguard party, and no disrespect to comrades and friends in the versus contending parties.

This morning in London it is being reported that 250 protesters, who have erected about 70 tents outside St Paul's Cathedral, vowed to occupy the site indefinitely, mirroring the New York protest, they will need food and continuing support from comrades, please do what you can?”

Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that protests would not solve the problem, but admitted he had some sympathy for those affected by "too many debts built up by states “As a comrade pointed-out to me on Twitter this morning: “He also said "protesting gets you nowhere”. “Conveniently forgetting Tahrir Square.” Thank you comrade Jools Payne, @joolspayne.

The Times said the protests were “passionate but pointless.” I suppose we can expect this sort of negative press from the likes of Rupert Murdoch, and others.

A Time magazine national poll shows that in the US the Occupy movement has a 54 per cent favourable ranking. It turns out that some of the Occupy demands, like prosecuting ill-behaving Wall Streeters or raising taxes on wealthy people, are much more popular than expected, although I must say that these demands will not resolve the crisis of capitalism and are only tinkering with the system as the reformists do. Last week, Nobel Prize-winning former U.S. Vice President Al Gore wrote on his blog: “With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction. Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.” I for one would be worried that someone like Al Gore is trying to muscle on in, and what’s wrong with the system is that it has no floors for working people to stand on, but he would never admit that.

Just one other thing before I draw a close to this post’, and that must be about the role of police in these demonstrations, around the world the police are now being seen for what they really are and what their real business is – the protection of private property and wealth, not of the small house holder, but of the larger wealthy, filthy rich type and those who own the means of production, those companies that don’t pay their tax, like the 100 largest groups registered on the London Stock Exchange who have more than 34,000 subsidiaries and joint ventures between them. A quarter of these, over 8,000, are located in jurisdictions that offer low tax rates or require limited disclosure to other tax authorities, no one is policing them.

So the real crooks get away Scott-free every time, whist the rest of us are made to pay tax on everything we purchase as well as continually being mugged at the pay point.

I digress and diverge a little comrades; my point is this, yesterday’s protest was about many things rolled-up into one, but one thing that we can say with unashamed disgust or if you like anger is that yesterday’s police operation was aggressive and uncalled for most if not all comrades attended the demonstration with peaceful intensions, yet again we must condemn the police tactics of containment and kettling. However it is a tribute to those entire activists, that they were able to keep their cool and maintain a great protest, well done comrades all.

Thanks to Harpymarx for photographs

The Socialist Way

Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets won't stop them masses

Related articles

swigs and roundabouts in Spain

Related articles

Inspiration

Doncaster is an unemployment black spot - do you hear that Ed Miliband?"

Related articles

In Miliband's Doncaster 20,000 pensioners live in fuel poverty

Related articles

“You can't evict an idea whose time has come”

Newham to get its own Surface-to-air missiles

Related articles

Occupy Portland the protest that keeps coming back

Related articles

Cameron & Osborne on the Run

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

Related articles

‘Your Country Needs You’

If a child is given a doll - If a child is given a gun

Hell-hole Called Britain!

Related articles

The reason Rome fell and the Students Demonstration.

Related articles

Capitalism a murderous infant and its appetite for slaughter

Related articles

No Gunpowder. No Treason. No Hidden Plot

Housing Crisis and the Answer - Criminalising Squatting

global jobs situation is calamitous

Related articles

Rough sleepers mugged

Related articles

The Church of England in the Pockets of the Sharks and Moneylenders

Related articles

An Afternoon Spent at OcuppyLSX

Related articles

Jarrow Marchers arrive in London

Related articles

November 9th national demo: route confirmed as students prepare for the autumn of resistance

Related articles

The clerics at St Paul's would do well to re-read the scriptures

Related articles

Youth unemployment - Capitalism the real rough-cut course of all our troubles!”

Related articles

Exposed: Media fabricated 'empty tents' story at OccupyLSX

Related articles

Top directors' earnings rose by almost half last year

Related articles

My first win on the Work Programme

Related articles

Saving St Paul's Cathedral

Related articles

Occupy Movement and Youth Fight for Jobs - build the Fight

Related articles

There is an alternative

Related articles

The Work Programme and Slavery - The Same Thing!"

Related articles

Inflation hits three-year high and food handouts get longer

Related articles

The price of coal and another miner seriously incapacitated

Related articles

On the Work Programme

Related articles

‘From Aigburth to Belmarsh The career of Elliot Morley MP as seen by two of his constituents (Part 5)

Related articles

Fuel Poverty and profit margins of £125 a year from every household

Related articles

"We are the 99%" and "Bankers got a bailout, we got sold out".

Related articles