This blog is back for the duration

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

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

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

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!

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?

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

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.