John Dickie-Northampton's dissenting voice

New Year-almost new blog

2012-01-02T15:01:00.005Z

The last time I blogged was in April last year.Being elderly and lazy I have relied on my weekly column in the Chronicle & Echo(every Wednesday in case you didn;t know!) to convey my thoughts and ramblings.

However a new year,a new dawn,a new epoch ...enough of the new already.

I have decided to try and do a blog a week to supplement the Wednesday opinion forming experience.

It will also help whoever has taken to tapping into my thought processes.

Consider the following:

Last week my column was a consideration of the political shifts taking place in this country and in general I drew attention to the rise and rise of Alex Salmond and the SNP.

The SNP have reinvented themselves from twenty or thirty years ago when they were simply 'tartan tories', tartan clad eegits more concerned about knitting porridge and hanging about on grouse moors communing with their flying relatives.

Salmond and a determined left of centre caucus has changed them into a radical social democratic party that have moved firmly into the place that Labour used to occupy in Scottish politics.

I have never had much time for Scottish Labour, for decades they have been corrupt sectarian bastards who have sat in huge majorities and done fuck all squared for the people of Scotland.

They got a bit of a fright a few years ago when Tommy Sheridan and the SSP terrified the bejasus out of them with a string of election victories in the last MSP elections.

But the SSP was built on too many sulphurous tendencies and internal conflicts to survivelong (ever the fate of small left wing groups) and the SLP breathed again.

But never lost its machine politics core or its exclusive brethren tendency.

After all Labour has been seen for decades as a nursery for Westminster shoo-ins, after all if they couldn't win a central belt seat they must have been real numpties.

So Labour neglected its heartlands and its natural constituencies.

The SNP picked up quickly that Scotland would not be won in the Highlands and Islands,but rather in the great urban centres and the west of Scotland.Jim Sillars the former Labour MP from Ayrshire proved that to them decades ago.

So Scotland will progress to independence,or a at least to an independent nation in a federal structure.Scotland may remain in a lose federation with England,Wales and a united Ireland but it will in due course have its own membership of the EU,its own foreign policy and its own defence capability.

having written my warning to Millipede and given praise to Alex, low and behold -'The Times',the day before my column announces Salmond as their politician of the year!

Now this week, my column, yet unpublished,speculates that the Republican primary in Iowa,due tomorrow,might well throw up Rick Santorum,the mildly barmy evangelical as the front runner.

Now I'm the first to admit that Obama hasn't lived up to his promise, after all Guantanamo is still open-for Christ's sake! and there is always the danger if things get squeaky for him then a pre-emptive strike on Iran is not out of the question-but compared to the crazies running for the GOP, Obama is at least on this planet.

Never in the field of human conflict can so many misfits,social inadequate s,religious bigots, dim bigots and simply the last remnants of a mediocre food chain have gathered together.

The only common feature is that they are all very rich and most would prefer to eat poor folk than have them vote for them!

With that background,I suggested the rise of Santorum ,though just as mad as a box of frogs,might be seen as a stop Romney candidate

My old comrade Don from SF put these thoughts in my mind in a private e-mail.

So what do I find in today's Times?

A editorial piece by John Bolton suggesting that mad Rick might be the winner!

Now Bolton is the former Bush ambassador to the United Nations and is the spitting image of Mr Pastry(or Jim Harker) and has all the political skills of Mr Pastry-but it is spooky!

Now knowing that Murdoch owns the Times what is going on here?

Are they intercepting my copy as it does to the Chron?

Are they intercepting my thoughts as they emerge from the keyboard?

Or am I the world's first political psychic?

In which case, can I tell myself the next winner at Towcester?

Excitement at fever pitch-Guildhall quietly snoozes

2011-04-29T14:06:00.004+01:00

Thursday was the night of a thousand dreams.Or at least it promised that-according to the Chronicle & Echo .If you didn't get there on time it would be difficult to get a seat.

Such was the hype for the Great Borough Council debate

.As it turned out there were many empty seats and most of those that were occupied were either local election candidates or their party groupies.

It was a well ordered and quite disciplined meeting, even the noxious BNP were listened to in sullen silence.

Their spokesman was so poor that the audience really couldn't be bothered to heckle him.They were probably mostly asleep,lulled into a comatose position by the speakers from the three main parties.

The report in Thursday's paper was painfully accurate.The three main parties were dreadful. Of the three 'leaders' only David Palethorpe of the Tories came across as anything like a human being.

The other two were as wooden and lifeless as most of the furniture in the Great Hall.Brian Hoare,the Lib-Dem leader was as stimulating and inspiring as an accountant explaining how the tax mechanism in medieval Sudan worked.

Lee Mason, the Labour leader had the world at her feet.She had nothing to lose and everything to gain.She could have inspired that audience to see a bright new future ahead for Northampton.

Unfortunately she sounded like the other half of Hoare's exposition of tax laws in medieval Sudan!

It was left to the Independent's-Tony Clarke,Malcolm Mildren and the others to inject some life into the whited sepulchre that was the debate about Northampton's future.

In essence it would appear that the Tories are going to sell off the housing stock,bring traffic to bits of Abington Street and talk to the Saints and the Cobblers quite soon!

Brian Hoare is going to continue dishing up more of the same,bearing in mind that the Con-Dem cuts would get bigger and bigger, oh and one day(someday) a brave new Grosvenor Centre would rise,and he'd talk to people.

Lee Mason promised that she too would talk to people,whether it was the same people that the other two might speak to was not made exactly clear.

My question to the platform was a simple one.Given NBC with cabinet is a one party state and scrutiny committees are also run by them,the only way for oppositions to operate is using the call in process.

How often over the last four years had the opposition groups used call in?

Palethorpe thought his group had invoked call in 3 times over four years.Lee Mason thought that her group had done about the same.

Malcolm Mildren said that the Independents had used call in about 8 times in eighteen months!

The comparison was stark and simple,the Tories don't need to use call in,they are simply waiting for control to fall in their lap.The Labour Party with only five members needed to use the council mechanisms to demonstrate their alternative-they have failed miserably!

So it was the tiny Independent group who showed the real strength of opposition for the last four years.

That was why on the night they shone as the individuals willing to challenge the vested interests on behalf ofv the people.

That's why for once an iIndependent,a Green, an SOS or a Socialist and TU is worth casting.

There were one or two other independents,notably Liam Costello who given half a chance would make a difference.

The Lib-Dems are always boasting that local elections are two horse races,this time there is a full field and not being a 'big' party is no handicap.

Wales wedding-excitement overwhelms me!

2011-04-24T16:13:00.005+01:00

A week to go before Mr and Mrs Wales big lad Bill gets hitched.I'm so excited about knowing what the lovely Kate (call me Catherine from now on peasant!) will be wearing!

Gosh will it be white? Or puce ? Or a little gold lame number?

Perhaps it will be a modified polo shirt with wee horses and polo mints embroidered on in cute sequin patterns?

What of his military uniforms will the Wales boy be wearing, and what medals?

And then his father, with his vast array of service uniforms.Will he be pondering now ? Will I be a Field Marshal on Friday? Or a Lord High Admiral ? Or maybe it's time I gave the Marshal of the Royal Air Force kit a bit of an airing!

Then the Lord High Everything will have to choose his medals and sashes and stars so that they will all be colour coordinated.

I expect he will discuss with his siblings what medals and stuff they are bedecking themselves with,so that they don't all turn up with the same honours on show.

It must take hours for the Windsor's to get their christmas tree finery sorted out.

No such problem for their Mum however, as Liz of Guelph gave them all their baubles anyway.

She'll just wear the odd clutch of diamonds,the odd row or ten of pearls and probably enough gold to pay off the national debt!

Every newspaper this Sunday carried page after page of detail about the wedding.Diagrams of whose sitting where in the Abbey and what second each of them will appear.

What I find particularly nauseating is the collection of 'other royals' who are turning up to rattle their jewellery,from a bunch of nasty Arab potentates who will then hurry home to murder some more of their people to a selection box of assorted former European monarchs who languish in splendid villas in Monaco living on stolen loot.

What also causes some anguish is that this bunch of deadbeats should engender such interest and respect from citizens worldwide.

I simply do not buy into the notion that the unelected sons and daughters of old German nobility should have any place in modern society.

The Germans themselves have got rid of the numpties,so why are we still supporting them?

Oh I forgot, they are symbols of our history and are above the cut and thrust of political life.They are pure and untainted and beloved and excuse me while I gag!

Andrew York ? His ex-wife?His dopey young brother? His haughty sister/ and then there is Charles...

I almost feel sorry for young Wales, it must be hard to be the son of a beautiful but empty headed breeding machine and an ugly,empty headed self important ignoramus.

But then we know who is paternal grandfather is......enough said!

The Royals own far too much of our country,they are after all the richest landowners in the country.

They offer nothing but arrogance and vacuity-it's time they were pensioned off like their European cousins, and invited to live using their own skills and abilities.

it would be inrteresting to seehow the Guelph family got on !

To AV or not AV?

2011-04-19T17:22:00.002+01:00

Three or four weeks ago I was absolutely sure that I would vote No in the great AV debate.

I can sense readers eyes starting to glaze over,but persevere, things as they say might get better!

I was willing to vote No simply because this silly little £480 million piece of froth was Clegg's price to obtain his red box and smirk-seat next to Cameron.It seemed too easy a target to give the dreadful little fart another good kicking-why?

"Because he deserves it!"

He still deserves a good kicking,but in truth the electorate on May 5th will give him the destruction of his political base that will set them back several decades.with a bit of luck back to the days when the entire Parliamentary Liberal party could fit into one taxi.

But then doubts started to fidget around in my brain.After all had I not always believed in proportional representation even before I had ever heard of Lib-Dems and seen the yellow of their little eyes!

Clegg was right when he called AV a squalid little compromise and it is still at best a halfway house.But it is possibly better than what we have now.

What exists today is the power and hegemony of the marketing manager and the fat chequebook.Wev saw that graphically in Northampton South when an absolutely useless Labour candidate who was not arsed about the town still managed to come second!

People voted for the brand and what was worse the power and influence of the telephone campaigns and the party political broadcasts.

What was of course even worse Binners won!Hardly first past the post more first past the plonker!!

My favourite form of democracy was the once powerful mass meeting.How enjoyable it used to be to see Jackie Dash speak to thousands of London dockers and then call for a show of hands:

"Right Brothers-how do you want to vote?"

Some of course always whined on about mass meetings being intimidatory in nature,but I always saw them as demonstrations of worker's solidarity and an affirmation of the power of the collective.

I'm sure there were some who would rather slink away and side with the bosses-but such meetings stiffened their resolve-that's for sure.

The day of the mass meeting is long gone,we have to work with what we have,and that is a pretty poor mess of pottage.

AV has one virtue and only one.It appears to annoy the Tories far more than anyone else.Most people really don't give a monkeys but it would seem the Tories are going berserk.

My old Dad always taught me that if a Tory says something's wrong, then invariably it's right!

Mind you he also said that the only good Tory was a dead Tory,that may however be a bit extreme.

So starting from a position of wanting to kick Clegg I have changed my strategic thinking and now feel even this dreary little adjustment may cause the Tories more grief , so on that profound balancing of all the sophisticated arguments that are raging about for me it comes down to the simple question.

Who do I dislike most?

And this time there is the added bonus that the objectionable toss-pot Lord Reid of Authoritarianism is on the Tory side too!

Put me down as a YES.

Time for some new thinking

2011-04-12T17:36:00.005+01:00

There is little real point in producing a local manifesto. That's why I'm surprised that the local Labour Party went to the trouble of getting their 12 page document printed at a proper printers,after all twelve pages is a lot of pages in which to say absolutely nothing!

It is no longer 'New Labour' , indeed it is not even the 'Labour Party' but in fact it is now the minimalist 'Northampton Labour'.

Is it possible that in four years it will become 'Northampton' or maybe just 'North' and deny any connection with any political party.

Probably the safest thing to do for a party that is now run from Attenborough in Nottingham- is that Lord Attenborough or just David?

And then the eye catching slogan 'Your voice in tough times'

If they are my voice in tough times then I think I'll stick to the Strepsils!

After all our voice in tough times couldn't even manage to put up a full slate of candidates, and threw away a number of seats in the North constituency that they should have won.

In tonight's Chron. Lee Mason, erstwhile head voice in tough times admits that at best the voice may only manage 15 seats- hardly a real voice-more a soft whisper behind closed doors.

In almost 40 years of membership with Northampton Labour Party there has never been such a poor effort to field sufficient candidates.The easy line at the moment is that "candidates failed to get their nominations in on time!"-Oh yeah!-That's why a Party has f*****g agents!

When I asked dear old Rawlings last week who his agent was back came the reply "Dick Barton"

As well as giving his age away John also revealed the state of the Party at the moment.

Perhaps the most ironic thing is that given the state of things at the moment it might have been expected that the biggest cock-ups would have appeared in the South constituency.

Yet it was in the North that the debacle spilled out-the CLP that was once under the iron rule of Sally Keeble and her minions.

Has the writ of Sal evaporated since she got her job with God in London?

A party that once had vision and ideas for both this town and the country has become a hollowed out vehicle for some ambitious retreads to get reunited with their allowances!

Consider the embarrassing manifesto. Six pledges;

1.To ensure front front line services are protected......and reliably delivered at an affordable cost.

that fair sets the pulses racing with excitement.

3.A strong working partnership with everyone who smiles nicely at us -and we will continue to support city status.

Not unitary you notice,although it does appear on page 9 almost as an afterthought.But they will keep the leader/cabinet model! Well goody-goody.

2.Coming in at two was the pledge to re-introduce neighbourhood wardens in their first budget.

Good pledge that, but they sort of spoil it on page 8 when they make a populist pledge:

"Northampton Labour will help to provide money to reintroduce neighbourhood wardens by freezing councillor allowances for two years."

That 'freeze' will produce somewhere around £9,000- about the cost of a neighbourhood warden's leg!

And what is worse the greedy bastards are only promising a two year freeze, so they will get a rise half way through the term.Even the bloody Tories have promised a four year freeze!

They then offered to speak to the Cobblers and Saints within 50 days,consult with everyone about the town centre and the only real pledge in the whole twelve pages is to "aim to half the number of homes not meeting the Decent Homes Standard"

A totally worthy pledge but one they know is dependent og government money and they know the likelihood of that coming will happen when hell freezes over.

What has happened to the Labour pa-r-t---y?

Everyone is innocent-OK!

2011-04-09T15:11:00.006+01:00

It is difficult to take the political mainstream seriously any more.The two and a half main parties appear to want to outdo each other in pained innocence and hurt pride.How could anyone not take them seriously?How could anyone not believe that they care deeply,sincerely,lovingly?

I read the Jemina Khan interview with Nick Clegg in this weeks' New Statesman'. She is not a particularly good writer and she was bending over backwards to me generous to the smuck,yet he still managed to come across as a shallow smarmy lightweight.

Policies?-pshaw!! Principles?-pshaw!! Ideas-Your havin' a laugh!

Clegg has only one policy,to get into the Cabinet at whatever the cost,his principles evaporated when he got into Cabinet and if he ever had an idea that vanished in the first sniff of the Cameron smooch.

Even a simple question-did he ever play tennis with Cameron became a no-er yes- response.He reminded me of a guide we once had in Beijing-the delightful Louis who when asked a question would answer 'no,no,no,er-yes'.

Louis was however extremely frank and very charming and quite quickly forgot the party line.

I suppose Clegg has that in common with Louis.

What I find nauseating about Lib-Dems generally is that they pretend to be some sort of new politics,but are sadly just as two faced and cynical as the others.Any casual reading of any faded Focus leaflet will remind you of just how vicious they can be.

The gospel according to the Lib-Dems is that in Northampton for instance everything before they won NBC four years ago was rubbish and hopeless,everything that has happened since has been down to the wonderful Lib-Dems!

Even winning Britain in Bloom was not about the people who planted the flowers but about the magnificent leadership and inspiration of St Trini of Crake.

Nationally the Tories are the worst ideologically driven government for over 100 years, and they have the fig leaf of Clegg that allows them to get away with whatever they like.

They are systematically selling the NHS to the lowest bidders and taking Clegg along to pretend that if a few councillors get on the new boards then democracy will be served.

Ironic really when you think that after May there will be very few Lib-Dem councillors to choose from!

Locally the Tories are biding their time,quite wisely they are putting little in their manifesto and their current commitments barely amount to a hill of beans-wait till they win and see what will emerge!

Finally my old party.

Nationally Milliband appears to be offering very little of substance, with a coalition going nowhere fast other than the most comprehensive destruction of the NHS and the dismantling of education,social security and pensions it should be possible for the Labour Party to galvanise resistance.

Yet it was the TUC who so far has taken the lead and offered at least some alternative.Of course the Labour Party is hampered by the posiution that says the only difference between us and the Con-Dems is that they are cutting faster than we would do!

Hardly a ringing endorsement of an alternative programme.Not least because many economists are saying quite clearly that reduction of 'the deficit' is not a priority-indeed not even close to the top of a priority list.

We have lived with a national debt since Henry VIII raised the debt to buy boats to invade France.

To compare the UK with Ireland,Greece and Portugal is also misleading tosh, and suggests not an analysis that will challenge the status quo,but rather a lazy and uninspiring position designed to keep a couple of hundred MP's in full time employment.

Locally the Labour Party,faced with an open goal of a lousy administration and a tired Tory opposition have managed to screw up bigtime.

Over the past 40 odd years Labour always managed to field candidates even in the safest of Tory seats.To miss out on 14 seats,some of which were almost certain Labour gains is a dreadful state of affairs and perhaps accurately reflects the poor state of local Labour.

Over the next few weeks there will be many,or those that are left,Labour loyalist blow hards who will claim it was a tactical move and they are going to win control.

I tghink you know the response.

That leaves the future locally uncertain, the best hope we have of resistance to the national ineptitude is the election here in Northampton of a block of independent minded councillors who will stand up for their communities and put need before political ambition and party hackery.

Over the years the Labour Party used to produce local councillors who did just that.Sometimes they were not stunning performers in the Council Chamber and sometimes they were too quiet for their own good.But there was a time when Northampton produced fine brave Councillors like the late Ron Linsdell, a working class socialist who stood for all that was good and positive in the labour movement and was a fine local representative.

Ron was an independent minded socialist-the sort of man who now appears in the ranks of the independents, the SOS group,and the Green Party.

This May could be the rebirth of localism as a force for change.

The sadness of it all

2011-04-03T17:05:00.007+01:00

Over the next few weeks I'll bump into some old friends trolling round the mean streets of Northampton.They will be delivering leaflets and maybe knocking on doors just like me!

The sadness is that a few will be members of a party that I gave almost forty years of my life to, working for in in the good times and the more frequent bad times.Even canvassing in the very bad times when mention of the Labour Party risked a mouthful of abuse-or worse!

I did not leave the Party, and in a sense it didn't leave me either, it was taken away from me by a small bunch of regional hacks with their own agenda and their willing local accomplices.

The sort of Labour Party members whom Lenin once described,but in a different context as "useful idiots".

But those in Northampton Labour Party who ensured that Tony,Peter and the rest who were either expelled or just walked away are that small band without ideals or principles who just wanted a tiny finger on power.

When Lee Barron stepped down as Castle Ward councillor and told the then group that he would be replaced 'by a big hitter' then the little green eyed monsters took over.

In a more tolerant age the party used to accommodate all sorts of people, we only got round to getting rid of the SDP when they formed an alternative party and stood seperately.

But over the years the party has allowed all sort of strange tghings, why even on May 5th there is a candidate standing who last time round crossed the council floor and even stood as a Lib-Dem candidate!

I'm not surprised that Johnny is standing in Delapre-the folk down there are used to candidates who stand for one party then switch when it suits them!

But at the last elections we did nothing wrong, faced with a sudden emergency we had a properly constituted ward meeting, with District Party and Constituency officers present and selected Tony Clarke quite legitimately-unlike the ward next door!

But no matter,the Labour Party in Northampton, which once fought the NEC to the point of suspension(oddly enough over the issue of the SDP) found it lacked the courage to fight and had lost the idea of solidarity.#

The rest is of course history!

Does this piece mean that I miss the Labour Party? Well I miss what once seemed like comradeship and a common ideology that drove me into the Party in the first place.

The labour Party however seems now to be a hollow shell.Bereft of ideas and unwilling to be brave in defence of the rights of the people.

How on earth can Miliband stand in front of a huge demonstration and tell them that there should be cuts-but slower ones than this dreadful government is making!

No there should not be cuts, even the Americans have realised that cutting back on infrastructure,jobs and education makes no sense!

When Brown tackled the banking collapse I had almost a hope that there was a glimmer of socialism lurking in there somewhere.

But then a paltry tax on the banks and no attempt to challenge the tax avoiders made his decisiveness as hollow as everything else!

When only 13 MP's vote against the muscle flexing that is Britain's response to the situation in Libya(and one of them is a f*****g Tory)that seems to me just how bad things have gotten.

Every cruise missile they unleash to eliminate one tank and 9 camels costs more than the youth service in Northamptonshire.

One of the candidates for SOS in Northamptonshire has a poster that suggests it's impossible to get a fag paper between the three main parties.

There was a time when that was not true-but today? Ritzla does come in three colours but it's the same fag paper!

Politics needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up.Just as the trade union movement was built factory by factory,mine by mine and the Labour Party was built local struggle by local struggle it's time to do it all over again!

So when I bump into my old comrades I will smile and wish them well, and wonder why if they have a socialist idea left between their ears they are still working for a discredited organisation.

Maybe they feel like those around the turn of the last century-oh about 1911 - who still campaigned for the Liberal Party as a new locally based workers' movement was developing around them.

This blog is back for the duration

2011-03-27T16:55:00.007+01:00

Usually you will find me pontificating on the Chronicle & Echo every Wednesday and I think that is probably enough.But the local elections that are rolling down the track mean that, along with the three Tory MP's I've been sent to the naughty step so that I won't excite and confuse the millions of local voters who are so easily led by the Chronicle & Echo.

Mind you the political assistants will be working overtime to produce a steady stream of 'original' letters from all the prospective Council candidates and surprise,surprise those letters will fit into a neat grid that will promote the Party line of the day.

Just for amusement look at what the national theme of the day as promoted in the nationals and on TV and then see how the local party faithful 'interpret'the centrally produced press releases!

Luckily for the Labour Party they will not even have to do the interpretation as it would seem their entire campaign is being run by the regional office in Nottingham.

On Saturday,along with about 250,000 other people we went down to London.But I have a confession to make,we did not march or rally.

I know we should have been there in Hyde Park hollerin' and yellin' for Ed Millipede,but to tell you the truth I share will the late great Phil Ochs the sentiment that 'I ain't marchin' any more'. Nothing personal Ed and Brendan but over the last forty years I've marched and chanted and messed about with the rough end of some very sweaty Met Police horses!And I had the hoof marks for days to prove it!

Added to which I've also got form for being in the right place and not bothering.Along with a bunch of Labour Club veterans we once went to see the Bayeaux Tapestry.But the meal and wine in the nearby cafe proved more of an attraction than a bunch of embroidered Normans.

We also missed the Turin Shroud one year, then the pull of a Turin restaurant serving champagne risotto outweighed a bit of fake linen!

So on Saturday we went to the Arts Theatre and watched a musical.

But not any old musical, it was a piece called 'Woody Sez' a wonderful four hander based on the songs , stories and life of Woody Guthrie.

Now it's possible Millipede might have been an inspiration but it was a racing certainty that the words and music of Woody would raise the spirits.

From his childhood in Okema Oklahoma through the terrible times of the Depression, the privations faced by the migrant workers of that period to the fight for the unions and the anti-fascist struggle.

It seems to me that we should all learn the truths of history,we don't really need a fresh faced young MP whose biggest struggle each day is to decide between a latte or an espresso but rather just listen to the songs of folk like Woody.

He sang about the bankers foreclosing on the poor farmers and share croppers.He sang about the union busting cops and he sang about the border police turning away the migrant workers.

To be sure Woody would have been on that march,as he was on a thousand others across America,as he was on every picket line 'from California to the New York Island'.

But the big difference was that he didn't require workers and their families to come to listen to him.He went to sing to them-where they were.

I'm probably getting cynical in my old age, and I'm not convinced that big rallies and demonstrations are the best way.Sure they make everyone feel good and give a sense of solidarity.But a million marched against the Iraq War and what happened?

Blair and Bush went ahead anyway, and the Lib-Dems got themselves some brownie points for being on the right side for once in their miserable god forsaken existence.

it was Marx who said(or maybe Lenin)) that history repeats itself,first as tragedy but then as farce and it seems to me we are at that point now.

Millipede will say fine thins at big rallies and people will go home feeling good and looking forward to the next Labour government.

But he has already said that he will introduce cuts "but more slowly" and he has already signed up the the coalition's adventure in Libya.According to the Sunday Times today that has already cost this' bankrupt' nation £33+ million ,and it's onlt Sunday!

We need a new politics that doesn't just listen but that leads.We need politics that isn't once again the old dog chained to its vomit.

Nor do we need the self indulgence of middle class twonks who think that kicking a chocolate egg around Fortnum & Masons is a revolutionary act!

What is needed is a new politics that starts once again within communities and local organisations and builds from the bottom up.

We need to regain the spirit of Guthrie and in the words of one of his great mentors:

"Don't mourn-Organise!"

Here endeth the first rant.

The coalition of dead men walking

2010-08-31T15:02:00.007+01:00

The last few weeks have been dreary to say the least.The only political action has been the birth of another Cameron sprog and the death of the Liberal -Democrats as a force in British politics.

The simple fact is that the Tories are lying so low that they are invuisible and they are allowing their junior partners to take all the flack-and the real punishment hasn't even started yet.

The Lib-Dems have proved nationally what we have known locally for three years, that they are hopeless in power and have only one ambition-to get into power.

This Tory government is going to be the worst since the Duke of Wellington, it will be brutal,ignorant and self serving.It will also be the cleverest Tory government and will achieve the narrow ideological purpose that it has set itself.

It will destroy the welfare state and it will ensure the hegemony of the rich and powerful for decades.

And all this will be done with the willing complicity of the Lib-Dem dupes-if they think partial electoral reform is the big issue-then they are more stupid than they look and sound.

Of course the problem is compounded by the collapse of the Labour Party.After all when they rail against dismantling the health service,creating a target driven public service,see the creation of more academies and the return of selective education.When the Tories roll out more PFI initiatives and weaken public housing what can the Labour leadership say?

Oh Gosh-you've pinched our ideas!

Just reading Chris Mullin's second volume of diaries that argument is self evident in the first few pages, when in 2005 a Tory MP gleefully tells Mullin the sad and obvious truth- a Tory government will continue Labour policies but more efficiently.

If people think that the Tories will be more generous on civil liberties,especially with their little Liberal helpmates-wait till you see the sort of immigration controls this lot will bring in.I expect they have envoys over in Paris as we speak taking notes on how Sarkosy is dealing with Roma's !

There was a time of course when we might have turned to the Unions to provide some resistance,but then we had a strong manufacturing sector and powerful union organisation throughout the private sector as well as within the public sector.

But years of attrition after Thatcher and the wholesale failure of Blair and Brown to restore any meaningful rights to trade unionists has left them weak and powerless.

There are fewer unionised workers today than at any time since the 1920's.

very soon the Tories and Liberals will pick a fight with a public sector union,probably a small one and they will be relentless in the pursuit of that union-and the hapless TUC and Labour Party-will they offer anything more than those cowards did when the miners took on the state-firstly in 1926 and then...?

With a ruthless government,its tame toadies and its weakened opposition what hope is there?Should we all put our collective head in a privatised expensive gas stove and hope for the worst?

Or do we need to see new forms of organisation emerge,perhaps syndicalist trade unions based on location rather than trade?

Should we hope for a resurgence of localised campaigning like the sort Lansbury led in Poplar?

Or should we hope that people will turn to Miliband-Ralph that is!

A tale of two cities

2010-07-05T14:20:00.002+01:00

A week or so ago we were sitting eating in a small restaurant in St Germain on a narrow cobbled street where almost 150 years ago the Parisian workers had raised barricades as part of the Paris Commune.

Those heroic Communards were commemorated by a small plaque on the wall opposite,and although they failed their memory lived on in international working class history.

So it was a strange serendipity that I found myself in Jubilee Gardens the following Saturday with three or four hundred people singing lustily 'The Internationale' .

we were taking part in the annual commemoration of the International Brigade volunteers who like the Communards before them rose up against oppression and fascism .

One of the French Brigades in Spain was called 'The Commune de Paris' Company in honour of their illustrious predecessors.

The British battalion had company names that were a little more prosaic-the 'Tom Mann Centuria' and the 'Major Attlee Company'

It was the first event on the South Bank where none of the five or six surviving Brigaders were able to attend,because of age and infirmity-but the spirit of those 3,200 men and women who went to fight as volunteers against the fascist forces was all around us.

I wonder what those tourists to London thought was happening when walking through the gardens heard the unmistakable melody and words of 'The Internationale' It might have given many a pause for thought!

What was inspiring was the presence,not only of representatives of the Spanish Embassy but also from the Regional Government of Catalonia,the only region in modern Spain that has an active department pledged to find the remains of all those victims of Franco,from Spain and abroad-and honour their memory.

Whilst it is important to always fight the multi headed hydra that is modern fascism and drive them from the political arena by whatever means possible it is also worth remembering that the real anti-fascist struggle is not simply an emotional spasm.

The real anti-fascist struggle can only be linked to the struggle for socialism.The two are inextricably linked.

There were many trade unionists there,notably the members from ASLEF, as well as folk from all the anti -fascist groups-including a beautiful banner from a group from Cable Street.

What was missing was any presence from the Labour Party-although at lunch afterwards with many old friends we talked animatedly about 'the Party'-but of course it wasn't the'Labour Party'.

When the call went out for volunteers there were many Labour Party members from all over Britain who went to fight in Spain, men and women who gave their lives atJarama,Brunete,the Ebro.They went to fight fascism but for Socialism too.

I wonder how many of the contenders for the Labour leadership care any more about Socialism?

I wonder if they could even spell the word?

Carve my name with pride

2010-05-31T17:17:00.002+01:00

The local BNP were upset by my column in the Chron & Echo last week.In case you missed it I was rejoicing in the fact that they got smashed in the General Election and was was especially encouraging was the good people of Barking wiped them off their Council there.

Fascism has had roots in the deprived areas of East London over the years,but time and time again the sensible East Londoners quicky see through the fascists and give them the bums rush.

it would appear that my celebration of the rout of tghe latter day Mosleyites upset the tender flowers that are the local BNP and on their blog they described me as a 'thoroughly nasty piece of work'

All I can say is that it takes one to know one!

Bollards to NBC!

2010-05-31T16:17:00.003+01:00

I've seen the fountain and its OK.Well it's hardly the sort of thing that takes the breath away,it is not exactly the Trevi Fountain, and indeed by gushing upwards instead of gently bubbling downwards its less a fountain-more a burst pipe.

But it's true to say that the children loved it, and it gave them pleasure,so in that sense it has a purpose.

But as an entrance to the medieval Market Square-frankly it sucks.

What is perhaps worse is the featureless clock on an aluminium pole-wonder how many passers by even noticed it? and worse still the bloody aluminium bollards that have appeared-in gay profusion near the fountain.

Why does this town have an obsession with ugly aluminium coloured bollards?They are everywhere-Gold Street and Marefair look much better these days-apart from the useless addition of what seem like dozens of the little silver coloured bo****ds.

Has someone on NBC got shares in the bollard factory or a relative with a big garden shed?

The other thing about the town scape is the absolute masses of street signs everywhere.

Sit on the portico with a coffee and count the street signs around-look at the top of Bridge street, there is one pointing down the street and two feet away another pointing up the street!

What has happened to planning?There is no sign of common sense in the signage in the town centre.

Lastly the plums.Other places have different sorts of revolutions, in Prague there was the velvet revolution, in the Ukraine there was the orange revolution and in Northampton-we manage to have the plum revolution!

The town has a long history of merry pranksters-the black painted footsteps from Bradlaugh's statue to the public toilet was a memorable jape(and should have been kept as a tourist attraction)

Today the standard has gone down if the best someone can come up with is a plum in the fountain!

Not even an aubergine.

The Lib-Dems have even stifled creative mischief-how boring can they get?

How many Milibands does it take to lead a Labour Party?

2010-05-16T16:23:00.004+01:00

So instead of kicking the Con/Lib love in into oblivion the next few months of Labour Party activity is going to be a beauty contest between a range of former ministers as to who should lead the rump of the Parliamentary Labour Party!

According to the Independent on Sunday Ed Balls is 'consulting his election team',no doubt lining up his supporters and creating a war chest.

I am reminded of Nolan who galloped up to Lord Cardigan before the Charge of the Light Brigade and waving his hand wildly told Cardigan to charge.

"There are your enemies M'Lord!"

Frankly right now who cares who leads the Labour Party.In the next few days the most serious and vicious assault on the standards of working people in this country is going to be initiated by the most unprincipled bunch of chancers since MacDonald's 'government of national unity'in 1929

The PLP are going to engage in hostilities,that is certain,but not with the enemy.

They will be doing their best to destroy factions within their own party,and the government will be given a free run to cut jobs and services at a rate unknown in our lifetimes.

But then a party that has no ideology to rely on,and frankly has no purpose other than to ensure its parliamentarians can draw salaries and expenses has lost the plot.

The only Miliband we need at this time is sadly dead.Ralph Miliband understood clearly the class nature of this society and what should be done.

Pity his sons,for all their alleged brightness never really bothered to read their own father's analysis.

Crock of Shit politics

2010-05-12T14:12:00.003+01:00

I am totally obliged to my Californian friends,Susan and Don,for their sound definition of modern British politics.

What we are living through is an absolute crock and I really don't know what is the worst aspect of the debacle.

Everyone is talking about 'change' and the 'new politics' and all that old guff,but it seems to me there is nothing new about changing 'long held principles' in the quest for naked power.

In order to get his arse in the ministerial limo Clegg it would seem all those cherished liberal policies were just so much tosh.

A few short days ago he and his colleagues were convinced that the Tory policy of beginning deep cuts in public spending immediately were damaging to recovery.

Yet Deputy Dawg Clegg will nod the cuts through without a thought to the damage they will do to the fabric of the country.

But then of course DDC will insist that it is all in the 'national interest'-I wonder how his poorer constituents in Sheffield will view the inevitable pain that his actions will cause?

But then again will he care? Will he care that the Tory policy of allowing any Tom,Dick or multi-millionaire can open a school at will?

Will he be at bothered that the Trident programme,that he argued rightly and passionately against will continue untroubled?

Will the privately educated Tory clone even stop to ponder his Party's traditional social democratic tradition as he cuddles up to that other public schoolboy.Truly the Jedward of British politics.

My Dad used to say 'what do you expect from a pig but a grunt!'and that about sums up the 'coalition'.

But I think on balance I'm more upset by the abdication of the New Labour Party.

In my youth there were numerous Trotskyite groups who peddled the line that if workers suffered enough they would turn to revolution out of desperation.

So New Labour have adopted the same philosophy,let the workers have a bit of the Tory/Lib-Dem lash and next time they will return in their droves to the New labour Party.

I never much liked Kinnock but at least his 'battered shield' view of the world was better than the cowardly line taken by this bunch.

it all smacks of the political class looking after themselves, and a sort of gentlemanly world view that its now someone else's turn!

The labour Party had a responsibility to try and look after their supporters,by whatever means possible.If that meant a minority government with the support of left leaning Lib-Dems, the SNP,Plaid,the Green and Sylvia Hermon-then so be it.

A rainbow coalition might have run into trouble, but it would have certainly been working in the interests of the nation that I believe needs to be looked after!

But it seems that to many in the PLP the most important issue is who will the next leader be!

What a crock we have before us.

Almost back up to speed

2010-03-21T17:55:00.005Z

At last I've been reunited with my blog.I had to go through several cyber hoops to restore this blog,mind you it hasn't been too distressful.I have been able to get on with my book and have made excellent progress.
The fearful symmetry of what I have been doing is that the behaviour of the Communist Party apparachniks in the 1850's seems so little different from their modern counterparts in the East Midlands Labour Party!
Marx was right,history does repeat itself,first time as tragedy the second time as farce!

So the Labour candidate for Northampton South,who is standing for re-election to Waltham Forest Council is once again facing both ways, he tells the people of Waltham Forest that he's only a paper candidate in Northampton and yet tells the Chronicle & Echo here that he's going to fight to win in Northampton.
Not so much a paper candidate-more a paper tiger!

Northampton deserves better,much better and so as each day passes the candidature of Tony Clarke looks stronger and far more credible.
Binners is a busted flush-even though his stage managed debate with Mr. L & G Church might proke more smoke than fire.
Varno is lurking at around 100 to 1 and is once again demonstrating his breathtaking shallowness-I watched him perform at a Scrutiny Committee call in earlier in the week and his mediocrity was only outclipsed by the rambings of Cllr.Brian Hoare.A leader of Council who has yet to understand the inner workings of a NBC microphone-it helps when you switch it on!
And Clyde Loakes is the MaCavity of local politics.Astonishingly with all that's happening in Northampton he finds it impossible to get here.
It's true a Labour Party loyalist in Duston,or maybe THE Labour Party loyalist imn Duston claimed that the mighty Clyde,(what 'ere may betide) has leafletted over in Duston.
Well if its the crap piece of printing I saw not going out in Castle Ward, then Duston's gain is nobody else's loss!
Loakes is clearly not a serious candidate, and with no active members to support him it is scandalous that the local Labour party is still taking money from unions who could be making more use of scarce resources helping striking workers.

But then of course,the Rehional labour party won't really care very much, they'll all be out helping Ms.Oldknow fight her seat in Nottinghamshire that she conveniently fell into!
A lesson Clyde, if you want a seat in the East Midlands-get a job as the office junior in the Regional Office.
This pesky General Election has meant that the 'political' columnists on the Chronicle & Echo are now in purdah until May 7th.That means Pandora,John Grosvenor and myself will have to write anodyne a-political material for a few
So if its anodyne and a-political I guess I'll be weiting a lot about the Lib-Dems for the next few weeks.

When will they ever learn?

2010-01-21T15:04:00.007Z

So at last someone in authority(I use that word loosely) has spotted the fact that Marefair and Gold Street,recently 'regenerated' and around six million pounds is not all it was cracked up to be!

As a matter of fact parts of the surface, the aesthetically beautiful granite bits,are cracking up.
We are told that it will cost aover a quarter million pounds to put the surface right, and the replacement will be aesthetically beautiful ashphalt.

And all after six months.

Yet whilst the work was going on the guys who were working on the job were telling local shopkeepers that the material being used was not suitable for the task(once again something not fit for purpose) and that the contractors had told the clients this right from the start.

The clients of course being NCC, NBC and WNDC.Remember ooh all those six months ago the proud notices proclaiming the scheme.In fact I think there is still one up on Black Lion Hill, and remember the fun and frolics in the rain when the project was opened.
How proud our Councillors were that day.How they wallowed in the public adulation.Well they had the little matter of cleaning and sealing the new pavements-but the mighty portfolio holder for Regeneration-Richard Church ensured that everything was neat and clean.
Nothing to rain on his parade that day!
But six months on, the pavements now have an interesting patina of used chewing gum once again, and where there once was uneaven clumps of nasty ashphalt there now are'uneaven clumps of nasty ashphalt'.
One thing you can be sure of in Northampton, whether its the Borough or the County, when everything changes sadly nothing changes!

Now we will see endless buck passing and the contractors and their workforce will take the bulk of the blame.But there is ample evidence that they made it clear that the materials would not do the job, but aesthetics prevailed over common sense.
In the end the contractors did what they were told, in the end the customer is always right.
Now the cusromer was the local authorities and the WNDC.I suspect they had endless meetings and consultations, site visits with Councillors in their pretty hard hats, and lots of press calls and photo opportunities.
It is likely that some junior planning officer relayed the contractors concerns-but of couurse image is everything these days-and regeneration needs a bright shiny image of modernity.
So who will take responsibility? Will it be the contractors? The Council officials? Or the elected members who oversaw the project and took the praise six months ago?

What's the betting that the final blame will lie with some poor sod in a quarry somewhere in Aberdeenshire whose never heard of bloody Northampton!

The end of the Labour Party

2009-12-06T15:36:00.004Z

The Sunday Times (6th December) published a dispiriting story that I think sums up the New Labour Party and the real end of the Labour Party that I once proudly belonged to for almost 40 years.
Paddy Tipping, the Labour MP for Sherwood in Nottinghamshire is stepping down at the next election.
The Party has decided that it will be an All Women Shortlist and it would appear that the front runner is Emille Oldknow,the Regional Director for the East Midlands.
The gist of the story is that another local woman is withdrawing from the selection process because of a series of dirty tricks originating from the Regional Office.

Oldknow is well known in Northampton South, almost singlehanded she and another numpty,Matt Forde(an adolescent organiser now dispatched ro work for the Mayor of somewhere) destroyed the party in this constituency.

She is simply a hack in the worst 'jobsworth' tradition.There was a time many years ago when the Party employed organisers who were competent at organising ,often a bit obsessed by the rulebook,but flexible enough to understand that the party was made up of volunteers who needed support not instructions.
Go to Labour Home and pump in Northampton South and you can read the whole awful saga of the destruction of a constituency party by the sheer uselessness and incompetence of the Regional Office.
Since a few of us were expelled two years ago we have demanded an open and public inquiry,and we would have settled for the outcome.
Instead of which they have continued to attack the CLP, suspended it, and are currently holding a series of show trials to expel the few remaining activists the party has left.
Oldknow is of course assured of a safe Labour seat, she has what is left of the party machine behind her(her boyfriend works directly for Gordon Brown) and after the xperiences in Northampton South,there can be little doubt that dirty tricks are going on to secure her the nomination.

But then only a few months ago attempts were made to parachute Georgia Gould into a Labour held seat, and as the election gets closer the Inner party clique who now run New Labour will ensure that all the favoured sons and daughters will find what they hope to be safe berths in Westminster.
Can this be true? Well in the same Sunday Times piece it indicated that Oldknow's boyfriend is also likely to find a nearby'safe' seat!
Years ago there used to be seats that appeared to be in the 'gift'of certain powerful unions.Now it would seem that such seats are the exclusive gift of what Chairman Mao used to call"the Top Party People in Authority taking the Capitalist Road'
Except our modern capitalist roaders are insignificant political pigmies interested only in being career politicians-they probably don't really care which party!

It's the Sun wot did it!

2009-11-11T15:01:00.005Z

Gordon Brown's short hand written notes to bereaved families struck me as a generous and humane gesture.Yet even such simple gestures become the stuff of political intrigue and frenzied speculation-dominating the news for days!
From such small beginnings whole empires can crumble.
parking an old car and leaving it with an out of date tax disc reminds us all where lack of attention to detail can lead!
So Gordon Brown has lousy handwriting, and his staff don't appear to check his out going mail.
The young soldier's mother is extremely upset and agitated at the apparent slight-and the Sun gets a whiff of a not very significant story!

Within hours Brown is a cruel and uncaring man, not fit to be PM, in fact probably not fit for anything other the politician's knackers yard.
A whole career shot down because he uses a felt tip pen and hasn't mastered joined up writing.

If that was a measure of failure then half of Fleet Street would be collecting P45's and the other half would be composing articles with a John Bull Printing Set with the 'w' missing.

The real question of course is why are their troops in Afghanistan in the first place?
Right at the outset I believe it is sometimes right to intervene in situations where fascism in any of its hydra headed forms is kikely to appear.The events in the former Yugoslavia proved that intervention was right,the only problem being that it was too late to prevent genocide.
There are other places where the threat of genocide or the development of extremely oppressive regiemes call for action.
Sadly however we in the West rarely intervene, we allowed apartheid to murder thousands without even the hint of sanctions.Yet for decades this country supported the US in imposing sanctions on Cuba.
A small nation whose crime against humanity has been exporting 40,000 of its doctors and health care workers to assist in the poorest countries of the world(more than all of the G20 countries put together!)
The Bush led coalition went into Iraq, a miserable little dictatorship, no better or worse than any other,to topple the evil 'Saddam'.
There was an easier way- to support the indigenous people and the Iraqi trade union movement who were trying internally to defeat the Ba'athist regieme.
But that was too simple, there might have been a popular left leaning government-oh and the big oil companies might not have got back in!

Then there is Afghanistan.The obvious reason we were told was to close down the terrorist cells that the Taliban were ptotecting.Given that there are fewer than a couplr of hundred Al Queda left then that was not really a valid objective,and given that most of them hang out with our friendly nuclear armed Pakistan Government anyway...
Then we were there to bring equal rights to the Afghan people and free them from the oppressive yoke of the Taliban.
Was that the same Taliban that we armed in order to fight the Russians and the pro-soviet government of Najibullah?
The Government that opened schools, health centres,education and equal rights for women, the breaking of medieval practices of the Taliban?
Shurely shome mishtake?
Do you see a pattern emerging.Cuba supporting healthcare-Communist led Aghanistan supporting healthcare-penny beginning to drop?
For the last few decades we have always been on the wrong side,defending the indefensible and opposing any progressive movement.
If we really wanted to hit at the heartland of international terrorism-apart from a small nuclear attack on Texas it would seem that Saudi Arabia, home of all those democracy loving princes ,would be the first target.
After all most of the world's terror 'gangs' have connections with that particular dictatorship.
Silly me! I forgot they were our allies!
The west is in Afghanistan simply once again to play the great game, to ensure that progressive forces throughout the middle and far east find it impossible to make common cause.
The presence of the West in Afghanistan is providing the same geopolitical purpose as continued support for the state of Israel does-the old imperialist function-divide and rule.And of course ensure the continued wealth and power of the oil companies-the modern day East India Company!
The only people who will defeat the Taliban will be the Afghan people, when freed from international intervention, the Taliban bandits, and the corrupt Afghan government.
If the UN gave every fatmer a tractor, grain and an opportunity for real education then the drug crop and the power of the warlords would be gone forever-and Gordon wouldn't need to scrawl tragic little letters.

Titter Ye not!

2009-09-18T16:03:00.008+01:00

In those far off times when Terry Wire and I shared the same party,if not always the same politics,Terry was the Chief Whip on the Labour group.
He had many fine qualities,he was utterly brutal and no member would ever have been allowed to abandon an old Astra in the Guildhall carpark for102 days and he was also a fine mimic.

Terry could do anyone,he was especially good with old tory buffers and did a mean Frankie Howerd.
I wonder if he did his Frankie to entertain David Milipede,the Foreign Secretary at the Ex-Servicemen's Club last night?
I bet they needed a few laughs.

Ions ago when I was a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate it was impossible to persuade the Regional labour Party to send a big name speaker.
Frankly it was almost impossible to get a small name speaker, the shadow Under Secretary for paperclips was usually as good as things got!
I'm sure after special pleading we once got the shadow Minister for the Health of Retired Greyhounds (East Midlands Region) and that was bliss!
How times have changed, yesterday Sally Keeble had harriet Harman,Deputy Leader of the Party in the afternoon and Clyde Loakes(who he?) had the Foreign Secretary no less to grace a 'fundraiser' for the Loaksey parliamentary fiefdom.
Mind you, the much vaunted 'big gun' was only allowed to speak to a private fund raising meeting(prop.T Wire impresario) and one suspects the audience was imported from other constituencies to make up for the glaring spaces caused by the suspension of senior CLP members.
I expect however Cllr. Tess Scott had recovered from her sudden illness that coincided with Monday's Council meeting and I expect she had her autograph book with her.
It is of course probable that in the crush she got Terry's signature instead of Dave's.
And very wise too, for the only public evidence of the state visit was a press photo of Milipede and a grinning Wire.
Of Loakes, the McCavity of local politics-not a trace.
So it raises two questions-is Terry the real Labour Party candidate in Northampton South? and secondly, given that Regional Office always handled important front bench visitors was this secret debacle down to Little Emillie?
As we are told proudly that the Regional Office are now running the CLP we must assume that the invisible visit of the Foreign Secretary is the first triumph of the dynamic duo-scarcely visible Emille and the totally invisible Clyde.
The Labour Party once stood for something worthwhile in this town and attracted the sacrifice of generations of fine and committed people.That it has been reduced to this shambolic performance once may have been a tragedy-now it is simply a farce.

The job of an opposition is to....well oppose

2009-09-16T13:52:00.007+01:00

It can be grim in the Council Chamber.There has always been a fanciful notion tthat it's best not to bring politics into local politics.
The current(although maybe not for much longer) leader of Northampton Borough Council cewrtainly does not like 'politics'.He refused to attend a meeting in the Guildhall that was called to discuss Sixfields and the Market Square and other issues because he said that it was'political'.
He then decided that complaints against him storing his untaxed car in the Guildhall car park was trivial and 'political'-the complaint initiated by a couple of us who were not 'bona fide' and indeed were'political'.
Leaving aside the fact that Tony Woods is the leader of a Liberal Democrat administration and last time I looked the Liberal Democrats claim to be a 'political' partyit is all rather strange.
Pete Seeger once said that everything is political-try singing the wrong hymn in the wrong church or try to persuade a child to eat his greens!

Nursery rhymes were often filled with political comment,'Mary Mary quite contrary' was an allegory about Mary Tudor and her attempt to rstore Catholicism just as 'Little Jack Horner' was a rhyme about her father Henry's closures of the monestries.
And if your ever tempted to croon the old ballad 'My bonnie Moorhen' remember your campaigning for the Jacobite cause.

Persuasion, discussion, arguement are all political processes that need to take place inorder to demonstrate that places like local councils are not monolithic bastions of little grey people who all agree with the supreme being in control.
The most important function therefore of the opposition,whether within the ruling administration or outside it is to test the executive,to challenge their ideas and to question their decisions.
As a callow young Labour councillor I was first an administration, but after one term became part of an opposition and remained that for many years.
With large Tory majorities we recognised that we had few opportunities to present an alternative view that the public might get to hear about.The press rarely if ever attended committee meetings and even Council meetings were sparsely attended.
But every six weeks or so the full Council meeting was the public platform that an effective opposition could use creatively.
In those far off days we had 'shadow' chairs of each committee and it was the job of the shadow to know their brief and to try and put pressure on the chair.It was especially true at budget time when Geoff Howes had gone through every budget and ensured that no stone was left unturned.
For many years I was shadow leisure spokesman and every meeting I relished roughing up dear old Fred Evans-who once his chief officer brief was used up he was on his own!
Council meetings are where the opposition can do the job it is supposed to do.Now I know the smaller the group the harder being effective can be,but Tony Clarke as a group of one has been more effective than all the others put together.
On Monday however the depths were reached.There are only five Labour members and on that day only two were present! The Leader was away, his deputy was away and the group whip was absent too!
Bad planning perhaps-maybe they were all at the TUC-oh no, they couldn't have been, for Councillor Tess Scott had agreed to second a motion put forward by a Liberal PPC attacking the local rail unions for their actions the previous Sunday.
Now apart from the fact they got the union wrong, they thought it was RMT when in fact it was ASLEF, and apart from the fact that it was none of the business of the local authority,and apart from the fact Cllr Scott hadn't discussed it with her colleagues it was all a bit tragic.
Luckily for Councillor Scott she fell ill at about 4l15pm that afternoon and was unable to second the Liberal's opportunistic motion.

But then I'm sure she will be able to explain her political rationale to her other group members at their next meeting to discuss tactics and I'm sure Keith Davies will be encouraged by Tess's political initiative,he was after all a staunch union activist in another rail union for many years(TSSA)
I'm sure also that when the crafty political brain that Tess so obviously has she will enjoy explaining her stance to Comrade Loakes and Brother Miliband when the Foreign Secretary addresses the assembled multitude(by invitation only) of Northampton South Labour Party at the Ex-servicemens Club in Sheep Street this Thursday. Perhaps Milipede will bring back tales of fraternal discussions from the TUC to regale the assembled brothers and sisters.

PS. When Loakes approaches ASLEF for an election bung will he take Tess with him as his political advisor?
PSS Is ASLEF still affiliated to the now suspended Northampton South CLP?

Boringate-sorry once more!

2009-08-25T14:07:00.005+01:00

I'd hoped that 'Astragate' was behind us, that the due process would take its 'due process 'course and Tony Woods would end up wishing he had done what he should have done in the first place.

On Tuesday morning I popped into my favourite little Italian cafe on Fish Street for my usual coffee.Sitting in a huddle by the counter the traditional conspirators of the Lib-Dem firmament-Cllrs Meredith,Church and the man of the moment-Woodsy!
"Morning Dennis,Morning Richard " and as Woods refused to acknowledge me " and morning to your friend!"
With that jaunty little greeting I went on to place my order.At that point Woods got up and rushed out of the cafe at an unusually fast pace-leaving his coffee.
"Something upset your friend!" I ventured a small piece of drollery.
At which point that nice Mr Church unleased a very nasty and very public piece of invective against me.I really didn't listen too carefully but the word 'shit' appeared to be his favourite word.
Let me make it clear once and for all.I do not like Tony Woods,I think he is a bully and an inept local politician(I'm sure those feelings are mutual)-but that's politics!
However when I reported his actions to the Standards Board it was on the request of NBC employees who felt they were not able to complain themselves.Subsequently it would appear that not even the Chief Executive was able to persuade Woods to do the right thing.

Political motivation? Probably that could be argued, but the fact that he was in the wrong and he knew it seems to me adequate justification.He could have ended this saga before it ever got started.
By the way for local Lib-Dem activist to argue in the letters column tonight(25th August) that he was doing his neigbours a favour by not parking in the street is a somewhat pathetic defence as the vehicle was untaxed.
Politics is not about being liked, or even about being popular, its about making judgements and hoping you've got it right.
Tony Woods made the wrong judgement and made the life of a number of NBC employees difficult.
Richard Church,in his abusive defence of the indefensible simply demonstrated how shallow and insecure the administration at the Guildhall appears to be.
A number of Lib-Dem supporters and putative Lib-Dem supporters have asked to keep personalities out of politics.
Well I may be a scruffy little muppet but I have yet to call an opponent a shit in a public cafe!
Mind you there is still time I suppose, or I could even invoke the John Prescott response.

Is Tony Woods a bona fide Councillor?

2009-08-19T15:02:00.005+01:00

After months of waiting the 'Astragate' report is now a public document and at last i can comment on it without fear of being thrown in the jug!
Astonishingly after having led a blameless and law abiding life for decades I have been threatened twice with legal action in the past six weeks.
The first is widely known, former Labour Councillor Les Marriott and almost but not quite County Councillor Tess Scott tried to get CC&BC TCexMPexPC and myself incarcerated for forgetting to put my address on an election letter.
It would appear that we have beaten that rap.
But then Francis Fernandez,NBC head honcho Borough Solicitor threatened me with all sorts of punishments(imprisonment,huge fines,losing my status as a bona fide citizen,having to listen to Tony Woods deone on...)if I released details of the Astragate complaint to the press.
As it happens I didn't need to, they already had a copy when they telephoned to confirm a detail.

I made the complaint to the Standards Board some time ago, alongside a former NCC member.In his response Cllr Woods claimed that it was not a 'bona fide complaint and was politically motivated'.
As to being 'bona fide', well I've been a tax paying citizen in this Borough for over 40 years!-Tony Woods I believe came in or around 2002-Get your bona fides out Tony!!
For the record I was asked to assist by long serving employees of NBC who knew I was both a former Council Leader(a decade of bona fides there Tony!) and an Honary Alderman(bit more bona fides Tone?) and that they had little confidence in the direct approach.

Given that Tony Woods ignored the Chief Executive three times, the Town Hall manager once and his own Chief Whip,Dennis Meredith it would seem that their lack of confidence in the supreme leader was well placed.

His other complaint that it was politically motivated is somewhat bizarre given that he is..er ..a local 'politician' but chimes in with his general world view.
Remember when there was a packed public meeting in the Guildhall some months ago and the same Cllr Woods refused to attend(even though he was in the building) because it was 'political'.
I understand that Woods likes to appear the hard man of local politics, and likes the fact that some of his group call him 'Stalin'- well Tony, lrts make it clear,your no JVS!
Indeed if you had any of his qualities half your group would be in a gulag near Daventry by now and the other half would be too!
By the way if you really think of yourself as Stalin-who in your group is your Beria?

I was wondering why you were looking so glum at the Pig concert and wondering around like 'little Billy no mates', you had obviously read the final report of Philip Mears.

Is it too late for NewLabour?

2009-07-26T15:54:00.007+01:00

Norwich North may well be the end of Newlabour as we know it.
Dozens of Labour MP's are tainted with the expenses scandal.Some very senior members,like Geoff Hoon,hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith are all deeply involved.
Brown promises to clean up, and the NEC create a 'star chamber' to root out the bad'uns.
Astonishingly only three NEC members make up the quasi judicial panel and the names of the accused are put forward by Nick Brown the Choef Whip and Ray Collins,the Party's General Secretary.
Si far a magnificent 5 members have appeared before the 'star chamber' and all have been instructed to stand down at the next election.
One of them Dr Ian Gibson, a well liked an competent local MP appeared before only 2 members according to press reports.
His offence was frankly on the lighter end of the scandal, but he was chopped, and as a decent 'sort of guy' resigned his seat.
Nothing has been said about serial house flippers such as Hoon and Blears, and I suspect most people were outraged when the grinning muppet flashed a huge cheque when she went to pay back! Contrition, embarassment,humility-Naw! Just her trademark inane grin!
So Gibson was sacrificed and the labour Party lost a good if somewhat radical member, and they then lost the by election in humiliating style.
A great deal of humbug has dominated the airwaves since last Thursday but there were two significant factors:
1.Traditional Labour voters didn't troll out and vote for alternatives,70% of former Labour supporters stayed at home.
2.The party had troble getting enough enthusiastic volunteers to leaflet the whole constituency.
Wonder where that vast cohort of MP's were during the election campaign?
Charles ClarkeMp for Norwich South described the defenestration of Ian Gibson as "arbitary,unfair,incompetent and unjust".
Absolutely right-but why didn't Clarke speak up ages ago and challenge the careerists who now run the Party/
If he had made his views known, and threatened to resign with Gibson in an act of solidarity-then things might well have been very different.
Trouble is most MP's would rather moan about Big Gordon than realise that the problem is not just a poor leadership.It is a problem of a party that he longer has a political vision and a party that has lost,one way or another,most of its active footsoldiers.
The ieony of Norwich North is that the Tory winner,Chloe Smith,looks and sounds like your average Blair Babe circa.1997.
In the papers today there are hints that other Labour MP's might quit to force other by elections,their purpose is to force Brown out.
A forlorn hope-they had their chance to show solidarity with Ian Gibson months ago, but they fancy hanging on to their parliamentary salaries for a few more months.
NewLabour has done more that simply weakened the ideological base of a once genuinely radical party,it has destroyed the real enthusiasm for socialist ideas and filled its upper echlons with a bunch of careerist numpties.
Truth to tell the next very small PLP will resemble a few dozen Chloe Smith's and not much else!

Sewing the Mailbags

2009-07-12T16:14:00.003+01:00

Regular readers to Tony's blog on NIV website will now be familiar with the saga of the Castle ward Two.Indeed someone appears to think that we are both inside at the moment sewing mailbags and pretending that we are Lord Archer and Jonathan Aitken.
No such luck, and I know that will upset some of our fans in the darker reaches of New Labour!

But what the story reveals is the poverty of political nous that sections of New Labour in Northampton demonstrate.
Les Marriott, onetime Labour Councillor and soulmate of Terry Wire was the agent at the County Council elections for Tess Scott.Once again the imposed candidate on Castle Ward Labour Party.

Strangely Marriott appears to enjoy his role in masterminding Calamity Scott's bids for power,last time he was so keen on ensuring she slipped into her Borough seat that he managed to lose his own in St.James.(On the last saturday before the Borough elections he was shoring up his own vote by chaperoning Ms.Scott in Spring Boroughs)
Marriott has been boasting that he was the one who reported our omission on the postal vote letter to all and sundry.his explaination appears to be that if he hadn't drawn attention to our malfeasance then someone else would

So it's now New labour policy to make their political mark by worrying about a letter that we sent to individual named electors in Castle Ward, with Tony's name, address, telephone number and signature all on prominent display.

A serious criminal act or someone wasting Police time?

But then what are the New Labour heroes doing?
Supporting NBC tenants in warden controlled accomodation who are at the sharp end of the cutbacks?
Well there was a demonstration lasr week with a rally addressed by Tony and Ron Mendel of the Trades Council.Binners was there,David Palethorpe was there, and even Malcolm Mildren of the Lib-Dems put in an appearance.
But the magnificent five New Labour Councillors? Not even a message of support from Leader Davies.
Equally important is the issue of privatisation of public services,delightfully described by Tony Woods as 'a market testing exercise'.
With the prospect of many job losses on the Borough and a reduction of services to residents,one might have thought that the issue was tailor made for a resurgent Labour Party looking to take on the Lib-Dems.
Tony Clarke has suggested a call in to examine the process, it would appear that Sally Keeble would welcome such a call in, as indeed would Joy Capstick and the Labour Party Local Government Commitee. Leader Davies is opposed such call in,I understand on the grounds that
1.He thought market testing was not such a bad idea and
2.The Lib-Dems have offered him a place on the committee reviewing the proposals.

So next week it seems highly probable that the local Tories will outflank Labour, anf it is even possible that some Lib-Dems will see the dangers ahead and will support call in.

But then Northampton New Labour have much more important issues to address-like our letter to postal voters in Castle Ward.

And what was the result M & S ?

A New Beginning

2009-06-10T15:33:00.002+01:00

It is a widely held view that the BNP won their two miserable seats in the European Parliament by taking votes from Labour.
Now it is true that the Labour vote declined dramatically and that the BNP picked up seats because of the lower turnout.That much is true and it is largely the result of the Labour Government fixing the threshold for seats at too low a level.

Could that simply be a result of an extremely generous impulse to assist minority views get an airing or a cynical view that maube Labour itself would need a lower threshold to keep itself in business?
Too cynical a view even for me to contemplate.

But Channel4 research reveals that whilst the large Labour abstentions helped the fascists reach the % points necessary,there was no widespread evidence that large numbers of voters were attracted to the fascist fold.

Firstly their actual vote was down on last time,despite the vast sums that they have claimed to have been able to spend on the election.

Secondly and perhaps more interestingly is the evidence that they attracted that section of the white working class,the manual workers who read the Sun and the Star and were working class Tory voters.
The simple and obvious fact is that the BNP have attracted exactly who has always been likely to vote extreme right anywhere in Europe.
Working class semi-skilled and lower middle class 'aspirational' have always been the targets of xenaphobic bigots and hatemongers.

Think redneck-the sort of mediocrity that always needs someone else to blame for their own failure.
You can bet your life that the average BNP voter blames everone and everything for what's gone wrong in their lives-only happy when they can point the finger and blame someone else.
Preferably of course an immigrant with a dark skin who will have taken "their job,their house,their hospital bed,the food out of their children's mouth,their wife,their children and probably even their pet"

Nick Griffin blames 'red thugs' for lobbing an egg at him, will he also condemn 'red,white and blue' thugs who intimidated a Labour counting agent at a polling station in Northampton on Thursday?
Why do I expect the ill named 'Northampton patriot' to bleat about needing proof and citing lack of Police involvement as proof that nothing happened?

But of course few people are willing to risk fascist intimidation-it has a long and ugly history!

The BNP did badly in Northampton, almost as badly as the Christian People's Alliance,keen defenders of the BNP's right to spew racist ideology, but as long as their is a white underclass determined to plead victimhood,then there is a leechlike political ideology willing to feed their paranoia.

Where did it all go wrong?

2009-05-20T14:57:00.002+01:00

I've canvassed for the Labour Party for about 40 years.I canvassed in the good times and in the bad times and in the very bad times.
In the early seventies,when parts of Duston were in Castle Ward I remember a leading trade union official who lived there sort of secretly pledged support but wouldn't put a poster up-in case the neighbours would be offended!
Times changed of course and that trade union official went on to be a prominent Borough and County Councillor.
When times were good everyone wanted to show that they were part of 'New Labour'-millionaires and TV personalities and honest fresh faced property developers and bankers all flashed their party affiliation like it was going out of fashion.

Of course New Labour lost some of the features that made the Labour party distinctive.Socialism was an early casualty, and not long afterwards even Social Democracy took a bit of a tumble-but what the hell! After 18 years of Tory misrule we were winning and it didn't much matter how we won.
Old lefties were derided and hounded into either silence or exile.The New Labour project was always about winning regardless of what we were winning.
And that's the rub, a Parliamentary Party consisting largely of chancers and opportunists.
Principles-that's Old Labour-policies-who cares as long as we win-ideology-that's even older than Old Labour.
So what you are left with is a hollowed out shell of an organisation and what is happening in Westminster today os the result of the destruction of the values of the Labour party.
The nepotism and cronyism is endemic in the Labour party because all it has been about over the last few years is winning
Lets win Mondeo man,lets win suburban middleclass,lets win businessmen,lets win the high rollers.
Parachute our gfavoured sons and daughters into 'safe' seats and get rid of the awkward squad-those who thought the Labour Party was a political Party that cared about social justice and equality.
The events two years ago in my own ward of Castle here in Northampton should have been warning enough.The regional Labour party,that once had some real power and influence in deciding policy and even had annual regional conferences is an invisible bunch of forelock tuggers.
Did you know it is impossible to get a list of members of the East Midland Regional Executive!
Invisible little grey apparachniks.

the Regional Director(no less) decided on some very flimsy evidence that Castle Ward was not fit to select its own candidate-and imposed a useless creature from outside(but luckily a friend of S.Keeble MP,friend of tumble driers everywhere)
Imposing candidates on Castle wardhas become a habit of the Regional Director and she has done it again for the County Council(same candidate)

Two years ago the Regional party ,without telling the local branch or constituency spent over £800 of members money getting this woman trailing home a very poor second.

This time round,with no ward organisation and over 70 other candidates facing meltdown,they intend to spend over £800 again to try and get this pathetic candidate back!

This is the evidence of a Party without purpose or principle,simply perpetuating their own clique because there is nothing left to do.

What they are doing in our ward is replicated up and down the country and reaches its apex in the ugliness that is the PLP saving its own bacon!

There is now no purpose in the presently constructed Labour Party.
Forty years of effort and the end result is Sally Keeble and Tess Scott!!
and an authoritarian right wing political machine that leaves great swathes of social reform untouched.
Socialism anyone?

Now is the time to come to the aid of the County

2009-05-08T14:39:00.004+01:00

No,I don't mean the County Cricket Club-too early in the season for that but rather the County Council.
June 4th sees the County Council elections and already the turn out predictions are dire.Some commentators are talking about a 20% turnout, and something similar for the European elections.

This is the anti-politics nation and we are caught in a national consensus of 'I can't be bothered'.

Anyone who has canvassed over the past twenty(or in my case forty) years has seen the decline in interest in political ideas and activism.In fact canvassers are as rare as hen's teeth these days and for a number of reasons:
1.the reluctance of people to open their front doors because of television/fear/indolence/or a simple lack of interest in anyone from outside!

It is frequently argued that the rejection of the political process represents a healthy cynicism-that frankly is bollocks!
What the rejection of the political process represents is a fear of getting involved in thinking about ideas and consequences.It is interesting to observe how many people say that they are not interested in politics and then come out with an astonishing dribble of half baked opinions and second hand anecdotal evidence that consists of hand me downs from the popular press.

Too many people talk and think scribble,and they of course are the raw material on which the bottom feeders of politics thrive.
The BNP and their ilk,UKIP and the Christian Peoples Allianceall exist in the shadowy world of anti ideological politics-the politics of hate,envy and bigotry.

Trouble is they exist in a vacuum that the major parties have created.Most particularly the Labour party,that over the past couple of decades have abandoned the social democratic/socialist principles it once stood for and become a party with no roots and no vision.

The labour party will evolve into radical party once again,but there may be a great deal of pain involved in that evolution and there will be casualties on the way.
But only a strong socialist party with a collective vision for the future will be able to resist the anti politics of the far right.
Part of that process will be the rebuilding of strong roots in the communities that need to work as communities,as local people organising together in the interests of all their neighbours.
The labour party was founded by trade unions who saw the need to combine together to improve the lives of everyone.
Right now we are back at the earliest stage of building such combinations and communities again.
That's why it may be necessary to create local centres to organise and fight on local issues and to encourage people to come from behind their front doors and forget whats on the TV-to hope again!
That's why the sort of campaign that Tony Clarke is fighting in Castle Ward is worth supporting!

And despite all the bluster and bravado the nazis of the BNP,with all the big bucks rolling into their coffers can only manage three miserable candidates in Northampton.

James Larkin Jones

2009-04-28T15:46:00.002+01:00

Somewhere along the line I missed the tributes to Jack Jones from Gordon Brown,Tony Blair,Peter Mandelson,Jacquie Smith and the rest of New Labour.
Obviously somewhere they have paid their tributes to one of the outstanding leafers of the Labour movement in the 20c.-it's just that I missed their comments.
I expect we may have to wait until fledging Labour MP Georgia Gould casts her formidable political intellect in Jack's direction before we get the definitive NuLabour spin on him.

his name gives his history away- born in Liverpool of Irish socialist parentage, a docker on Merseyside,a fighter with the International Brigades in Spai and the most formidable leader of the TGWU in its history.
The T&G has had some fine leaders,Ron Todd,Bill Morris,Moss Evans-but it has also had some stinkers-Arthur Deakin and Ernest Bevin spring immediately to mind!
But Jack had natural courage-he was wounded on the Ebro-and was a natural leafer.But he never compromised and dspite all the offers of wealth and power he never forgot who he was and what he represented.
There are many in New Labour who would call Jack a 'dinosaur' and desmiss his politics and his values as old fashioned and meaningless in the modern world.
Well if the choice is between a man like Jack Jones and a waste of space like Peter Mandelson or Derek Draper I think I know whose side I'm on!
In the same way that the late Jack Jones always knew whose side he was on.

"OK Jerk pork-come out with your rice up!-it's a fair cop!"

2009-04-22T16:06:00.002+01:00

Can you believe it?Eight of the Met's finest in stab proof vests alongside a small posse of Council officials entered a Caribbean restaurant and ordered it to be closed immediately because ot was operating within 400 yards of a school.
Thats right, because it was operating 'without planning permission 400 yards from a school AND a park the Council instructed that it be closed to prevent primary school children nipping in at lunchtime for a quick dose of cholesterol building jerk pork, rice and peas.
Now apart from the fact that it had been operating for three years unmolested and had only closed for re-furbishment, that it was not in fact a take-away,that it is surrounded by numerous fast food burgeries ,and the school that was being protected is a primary whose children are not allowed out at lunchtime anyway!

Apart from all that,how does it feel to live in a society where it is possible for a hard pressed Police service to be used to enforce a pointless council by-law in such a heavy handed way?

Presumably the logic is that if the youngsters walk say 410 yeard to the nearest MacDonalds they will have burnt off enough calories to justify the exclusion zone , or maube of course the little tubbies will have to run back to avoid being late for school and that way get fit!

An ingenious bit more of useless legislation invented by the well named Minister Balls.

But what is harder to believe that there is a Council anywhere in the UK who can be arsed to try and enforce such a regulation with a council leader prepared to defend this in public.

So step forward Clyde Loakes-leader of Waltham Forest Council and PPC for Northampton South.

I now understand why Loakes spends so little time in town-he has important legislation to implement down south!

Strange to say the school children that he is protecting so assidiously in Leytonstone from the perils of Caribbean jerk pork are the same ones who cluster around the ice-cream vans after school !
But Loakes is obviously a New Labour drone(sorry clone) prepared to do the bidding of any passing Cabinet Minister.
Could that be how he won the postal ballot in Northampton South so convincingly?

Where do you hide a cabinet minister?

2009-04-06T15:16:00.003+01:00

In the olden days when the labour party wanted people to notice what it was doing we invited the press to the opening of a matchbox.
In those far off days when I was a parliamentary candidate the visit of any old back bencher was an opportunity for the press to photograph some unknown old codger sitting outside Charles Street with me,an unknown young codger,mugging to camera!
How times have changed.
A couple of weeks Northampton South Labour Party had a visit from a cabinet minister-the iconic Hazel Blears(memorably described by Ann Treneman in The Times as the 'Duracell bunny') visited to town to support the almost newly selected (well about six months ago) invisible PPC.

Strangely the visit went unreported, no press,no photographs,no radio,no TV- just a deafening silence and an empty Hazel sized space where the cabinet minister should have been.
Why?
There are a number of explanations:
1.The Party are embarrassed by Hazel-that little packet of dynamite.
2.The party are embarrassed by their PPC-maybe he is especially ugly or wants to keep a low profile.
3.The Party are embarrassed that it couldn't afford to use the Labour Club and had to find a cheaper venue.
4.Northampton South has ticked the no publicity box.

Of course it is just possible that the combination of the eccentric cabinet minister and the monklike candidate is a step too far even for Northampton to contemplate.but it does raise the question- what on earth are they afraid of?

We are told that Haze met with a delegation of Post Office workers who were there to raise the issue of why the government wants to destroy the post Office as a public service and if it is true that the secretive PPC arranged that meeting one might have thought that he would have been pleased to publicise his role.
But maybe he's frightened of Trade Unions too!

One has to aeeume that if barack Obama turned up for ameeting in Northampton then Labour's PPC would turn up with a paper bag on his head.
There again its possible that the local party has been duped and they have selected a hologram-the ultimate New Labour creature!

Bye bye New Statesman-hello New Labour!

2009-03-25T13:53:00.003Z

For years I have subscribed to the New Statesman-through the dreary years of righteousness to the radical days of sort of dissent.
I've tolerated everything, the days when it thought it was the house organ of the now defunct SDP,when it thought it was the vanguard voice of the revolutionary proletariat-even the recent innovations of piles of shadow cabinet members writing about their compassion.
I thought I could cope with everything,until last week.
A special edition with a big glossy cover edited by Alastair Campbell!

Now much as I loathe Mandelson with a passion in all honesty the creepiness of Campbell puts even Mandelson in the shade.If you want to know just how dreadful it really was inside the blair big tent-read Campbell's diaries.They make even Adam Bolton's collection of trivia almost worthwhile.

We all knew the Labour party was in trouble when they invited mandelson back into the cabinet,not so much a big beast but a dainty dinosaur, and then the NS invite Campbell as guest editor.

Forget about rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic-now we're playing deck quoits.

It was really like Private Eye with no jokes(actually that's just like Private Eye).All that was missing was the word balloons on the glossy cover,but then Alex Ferguson and Allie himself gave ample opportunity to invent your own caption.
Inside the Private Eye theme continued.The jokey interview between Fergie and Allie,leaden in the extreme, then a diary from Sarah Brown with all the quotes from Gordon(just like the Supreme Leaders page in the Eye, and finally there was the Vicar of St Albion prating on about God!

You couldn't make it up if you tried.So who edits the next edition? Lord Gould's 22 year old daughter about to be parachuted into a safe Labour seat!

Clive Loakes has got it all wrong, if he wants to win a seat he should have got Philip Gould to adopt him,and became Alastairs love child by way of a focus group.

A deep feeling of unease

2009-03-21T15:49:00.002Z

I watched the 9/12 Lancers parade through Northampton Town Centre over a coffee and with a growing sense of unease.

it was abeautiful sunny day and the parade was a grand spectacular and the crowds were enormous but one had to ask -why?

Apart from the fact that the soldiers were not really local in any accepted sense, if you wanted a 'local' regiment then the Anglians or more appropriately the Pioneers were better bets.

Then again why at this time? I don't remember local parades when they came back from tours of duty in Ulster,or the Falklands for that matter.
Why did I get the feeling that it was all about instructions from on high to get a bit of gung ho patriotism for'our boys and girls' and the wonderful job they were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Best way to defuse unpopular wars is to run up the flag and see who salutes!

The demonstrations of patriotic zeal being re-enacted all over the country has really nothing to do with our returning heroes but cynically an attempt by the government to legitimise two useless wars under the guise of patriotism-the last refuge of the coward!

So if you don't support our heroes then somehow you are unpatriotic and are insulting the men and women who risk their lives 'protecting our freedom'

What utter balderdash, I have no doubt that our young men and women are brave and loyal,but in the end that is what they are paid to do and they act under orders.
it's a fair bet that most of them had never heard of Iraq or Afghanistan until they were sent there-and for what?

To prop up American oil interests in the middle east and reactionary war lords in the east!

Both wars are unecessary and meaningless in terms of 'protecting our freedom'.
It is not the fault of those young men and women that they had to go, it was the orders of the politicians-who should be ashamed that they ever got troops involved in the first place.

The old east India Company had it about right two hundred years ago.To protect their financial interests they raised their own mercenary army .it seems to me that if Exxon or Mobil or Esso want to protect their oil interests in the Middle east they should perhaps buy a company army-I wonder then if we would be so keen to rally round the flag!

Milk not for everyone

2009-03-11T17:28:00.003Z

Sean Penn won an academy award for his portrayal of the San Franciscan gay activist Harvey Milk in the movie'Milk'
You might have thought that a film that won the Best Actor award this year might have featured in the programmes of one or both of the town's main multi-plexes.

Not a bit of it! If you wanted to see Milk you had only three or four days up at Lings Forum.

It was a magnificent film, full of hope and optimism-something that we are all in short supply of at the moment,so anything that cheers the spirit is worth shouting about.
But what do we get,a short run,poorly advertised in a remote small local cinema.

Fair play to the managers at the Forum and indeed to NBC for keeping this last little bastion of cultural values alive in the Philistine Borough of Nothinghampton!

But why were the mainstream houses afraid to show Milk ?
They were williing to show the fairly routine and uninspirational Frost/Nixon and yet unwilling to show Milk-now it can hardly be because Sean Penn is not box office can it? Especially as the film got rave reviews and Penn a very well deserved oscar.
And further the film well reflected the Obama mood of hope- so what held the moguls back?
Homophobia perhaps ? A reluctance to show a gay man in a heroic role ?

A great sadness, for when the 'twinky bar' defence was put forward for Dan White's murderous action-the whole shallowness of US justice was exposed- and in the current climate a timely reminder.

What's the point of Peter Mandelson ?

2009-02-24T15:49:00.002Z

We all know that he is the grandson of Herbert Morrison.
Frankly if that old fraud was in any way related to me I would take strenuous efforts to keep quiet about that.
It is also said that he was once in the Young Communist League,but that must have been a passing nanosecond for there is little evidence of his connection.

Peter Mandelson is the perfect metaphor for the modern Labour Party-shallow,aimless and hopelessly authoritarian.
it takes some doing however in 48 hours or so to deliver three blows to the party that he is supposed to be committed to that will end ots electoral chances for a couple of decades.
Firstly we are told on the sunday press that he intends to halt the few progressive items left in the Queens speech of two months ago.Out goes extendended maternity leave,out goes protection for agency workers and out goes tougher equality legislation.
He has friends you understand in the 'business' world.
One of them is the Russian oligarch who owns LDV vans in the West Midlands.Mandelson has decided to stand aside and watch his billionaire chum close the van plant and lose about 6,000 jobs.
Well the only silver lining in that particular cloud is that Jacqui Smith will lose her matginal seat!

Thirdly he is determined to privatise a chunk of the Post Office,ensuring that again there will be massive job losses,the Labour Party will lose £1million from the CWU-and probably most of its activists too!
Yet the smirking bastard continues unhindered to wreak havoc.

To those old friends still in the Party and suffering from a vicious and unrelenting attack from the regional party hacks remember this-

They are the spawn of Mandelson not the children of the Labour party.
If you want to save the party the only thing you can do is to leave it and start building again from the ground up,
leave Lord Mandelson and his apperachniks the empty vessel they have so richly created.

There's a valley in Spain

2009-02-22T14:33:00.005Z

February 24th 1937

On that date just outside madrid a 25 year old Scot climbed out of a trench and went to pick up a wounded comrade who had been shot by a fascist machine gun.as he bent over to pick up his wounded comrade another bullet passed through the base of his spine.

his name was George Dickie and he was my father's younger brother, although on that hillside at Jarama he was known as Jack Brent and was registered as a Canadian.

He had not been long at the front but was considered an asset within the International Brigades,he had previously been a Cameron Highlander and thus had some experience of military life and handling weapons.
But not very much.

Geordie was part of the Canadian battalion,MacKenzie-Papineau who were attached to the American's-the Abraham Lincoln battalion and they were ordered to the front lines to replace the legendary Dimitrov's,who had been holding out against the fascist surge since February 11th.

Like so many other young men of the time Geordie had left his village school in Whithorn with little real education and little real prospect of work in depression ridden rural Scotland.A butcher's boy was not really a long term career move.

He had run off to join the army,and he stuck it for a couple of tears, but the bull and bullshit did for him as it did for many others.He was based near Invergordon so its possible that he heard about the 'mutiny'by the sailors on that base.After all the baldwin government were cutting the wages of the ratings whilst upping the salary of the officers.
Geordie was put in charge of the stores for a while, he and a mate 'liberated' a couple of suits and with a used train ticket went on the run to London.

He became Jack Brent while passing through Brent in North London.It's always been a family joke that he was lucky that Willesden Junction dodn't catch his eye that day.

He spent years drifting aeound London,taking odd jobs here and there,living in doss houses,living the life so graphically described in Orwell's book 'Down and out on London and Paris'
That was the period that he learned his politics, not in a university college but under circumstances of poverty and hardship.I suppose he could have gone any which way.

But seeing some blackshirts beating up a Jewish girl convinced Geordie that there was only one way as he waded in to help the girl and batter the fascists.

Probably the event that made the man who subsequently found himself on that Spanish hillside that cold February day.
Working class history is full of heroes and heroines largely un-named and unknown, but at least we know of the men and women who went to Spain.
There are only a small handful left today,perhaps most notable 93 year old Jack Jones.
He's worth a thousand mediocre Labour ministers and every second rate union leader ledt to whimper in his paid for union limo!

By the way you can read my columns that don't get on this blog every Wednesday in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/ or on http://www.northamptonindependentvoice.org

Where privatisation leads

2009-02-15T15:51:00.003Z

Want to know where privatisation leads?
Especially in the prison service?
Well consider the case of the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre,Pennsylvania.
There youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer,given hearings that lasted a minute or two,found guilty and sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offences.
Nothing out of the ordinary except that two judges,Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in kickbacks to send the kids to two privately run youth detention centres.

Yes-they took graft from the owners of private facilities -whose names ironically were PA Child Care LLC and a sister company Western PA Child Care LLA-and thousands of youngsters were locked up illegally.

The judges have both cut a plea bargain deal and will probably get 7 years apiece, so far nobody from the companies has been charged.

Interestingly Conahan shut down the county run juvenile prison in 2002 and then helped the two companies secure contracts worth tens of millions of dollars,and at least some of the contracts depended on the numbers locked up!

My friend and fellow monkey-man Don over in SF sent me this little publicised story and his comment says it all:
"There's a special place in Hell waiting for these two bastards.Another glowing success for privatisation".

Labour's long road halted?

2009-02-14T14:55:00.004Z

The essence of radical politics in this country has been an emphasis on localism.This has been particularly true in Northampton where despite the radical traditions of local workers-the influence of shoe workers-the dominant political force has been an institutional conservativism.
Oh its true that the shoeworkers elected Bradlaugh and Labouchere,but they were in many ways blips on the political landscape.
It was in local politics that radical traditions were first established in the 19c.

The traditional non-comformist spirit,including a healthy dose of congregationism,allowed for a strain of liberalism and subsequently a lively social democrat and labour influence.

Before there were SDF councillors in Northampton there were elected SDF members on the Bpard of Guardians-including the redoubtable Rose Scott, the wife of Councillor CJ Scott-who were amongst the earliest socialist activists in the town.Scott was elected for what was then North Ward-now most of modern Castle ward(old traditions die hard in these parts!)

But the real emphasis was always on providing local voices for the local community.
Sucessive governments throughout the last century tried to weaken and marginalise local government.
Centralist tendencies have always been a feature of Westminster Governments of whatever complexion-they abhor any rival power base of whatever hue.

I was first elected in 1973-the time of the last great upheaval in local government when County Boroughs (aka unitary authorities) like Northampton were abolished and the dog's breakfast that we know as two tier was introduced.

Mind you the creation then was done in a more organised way, indeed for the year 1973-74 the town had two Councils running in tandem, the old County Borough running down and the new District Council (NBC) running in.
It did allow the new authority a time to sort out its structures and the newly elected members to work out what they were doing.
Sadly the last structural re-organisation (around 2002/3) allowed for no such run in period and the cabinet system has shuffled on ever since.
It has been and continues to be a disaster.It was an attempt to mirror what happens in Parliament and even adopted the language and styles of Westminster-the only thing missing being the House of Lords!

What we have is in effect a one party state with no effective means of holding the execurive to account.
The 'cabinet' or 'portfolio holders' is as good an example of rampant cronyism that you could find-and the fact that'portfolio holders' get much larger allowances than the rest of the common herd,and their position is in the gift of the leader-then it is hardly surprising that the main beneficiaries of the system are toadying mediocrities.

But allowing for the fact that even under the old system Committee chairs were largely in the gift of the leader there were at least committees in place that included opposition members who could be involved in part of the decision making process.

It is alleged that the way the executive is held to account is through the scrutiny system.
Now given that the scrutiny committess are largely if not completely chaired by members of the administration-then the idea that they would hold their collegues to any sort of account is an insult to the intelligence.
Added to which the scrutiny process has little or no support to investigate the cabinet.
They are supposed to replicate parliamentary select committees,but without any research support,or indeed any means of examining decisions with professional assistance,from day one scrutiny was a toothless process.
And one of my last activities as a Councillor was to chair the Finance Scrutiny committee during the Keith Davies 'administration'.

We could of course question and examine decisions, but only after the ebvent-decisions were taken and then 'called in'-but that was always retrospective and the administration had done what it wanted.

Added to which the modern system now prevents any real examination by the whole Council.there are less meetings,and many important decisons are either taken in cabinet in private or delegated to officers.
There is considerable disquiet amongst opposition members=or at least some-well at least Tony Clarke!-about how little elected members are allowed to know about the Council of which they are members.
It is clear that that disquiet extends to many members of the Lib-Dem administration too,where many of their back benchers feel that they are being given the mushroom treatment-kept in the dark and fed bullshit!
For many years it was the Labour party that argued for strong local government, indeed through the Thatcher reich it was Labour local authorities that kept the resistance going.Neil Kinnock described Labour Councils as the 'battered shield' of democracy.
For years it was the likes of the Scottish authorities,the London Boroughs,Clay Cross ,Sheffield and yes,Liverpool,that gave hope and inspiration to those who wanted better.
It was the inspiration of many Labour Councillors that persuaded many of us to get involved and create if not quite the Socialist Republic of Northampton at least a few 'red bases'-People's castle ward for one!

The last reorganisation was a disaster and if there is to be any semblance of localism left a decade hence then efforts need to be made now.
Here in Northampton we can argie again with considerable vigour for a unitary authority for Northampton, an end to the absurd cabinet system that ctrates two and three tier councillors and maybe,just maybe-the idea of a proper champion for the town-a directly elected Mayor answerable to the whole electorate of Northampton.
It would be good to think that the Labour Party-for so long the champion of local accountability would be leading the charge against this woeful Lib-Dem administration.
But sadly the famous five are showing no inclination to lead on behalf of the people of Northampton.
The labour leadership is non existant and lies supine at the feet of the Lib-Dems!
But then they did rewatd Keith with a generous increase in his special responsibility allowance!
Responsibility for what?