In about 45 days Scotland will be able to make the most important decision since they hammered the English aristocracy at Bannockburn.The vote for an independent Scotland is almost too important to leave to political parties that are more interested in partisan positioning than in the future,not just of Scotland but of the whole of the British Isles.
A free and independent Scotland,based on the principles of equality,justice and internationalism could be the blue touchpaper that will light the way to a fully functional federation of free and independent peoples who have no need of a patronising ruling class and an overbearing establishment.
I had better make it clear from the outset that I believe in an Independent Scotland, that can build a successful social democratic country with no need for nuclear weapons,sabre rattling military alliances, indeed no need for a military anyhow.Whilst the country could have a civil emergency force it has no need for a standing army-the days of 'gallant heilan' chiels saili' aff tae fight in some foreign field' is frankly historic mythology.
Andy Stewart may sing wistfully of dead Scottish Soldiers but I for one want to see no more young men leaving to protect BP oilfields anywhere.
However I do have one or two reservations about the SNP's campaign and some of the positions they have taken during the referendum campaign.
largely I think they have been far too timid.When the anglo-Scots aristocracy decided that they wanted sheep occupying their hillsides rather than people they set in motion the tragedy of the clearances.Thousands were dispossed and sent off to populate miserable parts of the empire.
Well Alex I think its time to repay the compliment and if they prefer sheep to people then Scotland should determine that it might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
Why have you agreed to keep as a titular head of state that miserable wee German offspring of the Saxe-Coberg-Gotha dynasty?
I have never thought much of the louche Stuart bunch, but then they are all much of a muchness.Let us be bold and follow the example of one ofv the greatest Scots of the last century.The great John McLean of Glasgow argued for a Scottish Socialist Republic and he argued that Scotland should play no part in the Imperialist WW1.
For that the establishment slung hin in Peterhead prison and the experience killed him
An independent Scottish Republic might encourage the others in these islands to see it possible to get rid of a whole layer of parasites.
Now what is interesting is the panic that the establishment and its media is demonstrating about the possibility of a Yes vote in Scotland.Now its no surprise that the Tories are leading the No charge, for most of my life they were known as the Unionist party=and of course they had and still have huge vested interests up there,after all they own most of the country!
Many of them view Scotland much in the way that TV ad used to run-'Daddy-chops', except in the aristos.view the equation as 'grouse-poor people'
The Lib-Dems of course will do anything that their masters tell them, and they have a few seats on the fringes to try and hold on to.
What depresses me most is the attitude of the Labour Party,once the repository of socialist idealism and vision North of the border is now no more than the parliamentary suppository of the London elite.
There are 41 Labour seats held in Scotland by 42 useless articles.
Even if you are outside the debate, just stop and think, what kind of campaign can it be that is
1.run by Alastair Darling, unique in being the least clever Edinburgh lawyer to ever leave the country and
2.Supported by Danny Alexander,George Galloway,david Bowie and Trinny and Susannah!
Enough said.
The only other mistake that Alex has made is not making provision for exiles to vote, it would have been quite easy, after all those of us born in Scotland have birth certificates issued in Edinburgh!
Simples.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Saturday, 21 June 2014
What on earth was Miliband thinking?
It really does not matter if Ed Miliband has no idea how to eat a bacon sandwich.Nor does it matter if he forgets the nbame of the Labour leader of Swindon.Nor in fact does it matter if he gets someone to tie is laces for him and wipe his little hands.
It does however matter if he is seen in 22 million copies of the Sun holding it up with an inane grin on his face trying to impress English football fans that he knows or cares about the progress of their team.
Had he wanted to show support then an England scarf would have been enough.
But the bloody Sun!
Especially as he knew just what a dreadful scurrilous rag that paper is, and indeed a few months ago he had courageously attacked the power of the gutter tabloids.
He must have known too that the Hillsborough Inquiry was nearing completion and that for many people on Merseyside nerves were raw.
And surely he must have known that The Sun is barely sold on Merseyside and surely someone tokld him that none of the 22 million copies would not be delivered in that area!
So why did he allow himself to be used in such a squalid way/
Because Cameron and Clegg also posed with the dreadful thing?
More reason for a sensible Labour politician to have refused point blank.
Of course Blair would happily have done the stunt, indeed he would willingly have worn a Sun paper hat on his head and pranced with another copy stuck up his arse.
As my Dad used to say:"What do you expect from a pig but a grunt!"
Miliband was sold as something different, as the antidote to all things Blair, we were told that he had a radical left leaning agenda that still had something to do with the party of Labour and the aspirations of working people.
Of course in our heart of hearts we all knew that was pure bollocks, it was simply more spin that was Alastair Campbell lite,that Miliband had been at the core of tghe Blair-Brown 'project' and nothing would change.
But socialists are optimistic souls, and knowing his father and mother and their serious commitment to socialism there was always a slight hope that like Clark Kent he would step into a phonebox and come out as Supersocialist!
We all should have known better, all we have had is a pale imitation, a raft of minimalist policies on obesity and probably traffic cones underpinned with a promise to continue the austerity programmes of the coalition.
Balls and Miliband are still wittering on about reducing the deficit and paying off the national debt!
It's a good thing that the Attlee government didn't want to pay off lend lease in the first three years and off to pay the debts of the east India Company too, otherwise the health service would have resembled Tannochbrae with only the corpse of Dr Cameron to treat the folk who called Janet.
Dr Findlay would have long since decamped to New Zealand!
Now we learn, right after his triumphant appearance as the paper boy for Murdoch, Milibands latest big idea is to cut support to the young unemployed unless they agree to (or more precisely coerced into) taking on training of some sort.
Training to do what?
learn how to work on minimum wages,on zero hour contracts,with no trade union rights and pay greedy landlords extortionate rents to live in grubby HIMO's?
Good and sensible comrades some how think that the Labour party might be better if Alan Johnston was leading it.Somehow I doubt it, he may have been a trade union general secretary and he may have an estuary accent but the sad truth is he too was part of the Blair-Brown 'project' and as Home Secretary he was almost as bad as Blunkett.
Theree still many good people working hard in the Labour Party to win the next election, but as far as I can see its a bit like that TV advert of the little girl pondering her choice between Daddy and chips
Saturday, 7 June 2014
Any lessons from the Newark By election?
Over the next few days the pundits and soothsayers,and many of the naysayers will be casting the chicken bones and interpreting what happened last Thursday.
I'll save you the trouble of masticating the press and give it to you straight.
The Tories held a safe seat, UKIP came a mediocre second, labour came a tragic third in the seat they won in 1997- and the Lib-Dems- well they came a magnificent sixth! A record failure in a long line of magnificent failures since they joined the Tory coalition as bag carriers.
Of course the expectation all round was that UKIP would do well, that they may even have snatched the seat,but of course it would appear that it was all down to superior organisation.Farage claimed that therec were a thousand Tories on the streets on election day, but of course there might have been ten thousand or a million or a zillion!
Poor old Farage could only turn out a few dozen blimps and even he couldn't be arsed to knock a few doors-despite having, according to his candidate 'the wow factor'
The real issue however is the dismal performance of Her majesty's loyal Opposition and the inescapable reality that Her majesty's Loyal Junior Coalition Partner is now an ex-party.
It is no more, it is defunct,it matters not who leads the miserable corpse,Nick Clegg, Vince
Cable or M.Mouse
The Green party put up a creditable performance, and once more humiliated the party of Government, even if only by a few votes.
There is a fairly universal view that the problem is 'connecting with the voters', which is just another way of saying that they are all saying the same thing with different nuanced phrases.
In saying that I include the obnoxious UKIP, because apart from their blood lust to leave Europe, thety carry the exact same baggage as the Tories, and increasingly hard to differentiate from the Lib-Dems and Labour.
In fact the only party competing on the national stage is the Green Party,they have a set of policies that do in fact present a radical alternative,but sadly they carry the baggage of their history and for most of their existance had a rather hazy left perspective and attracted some rather 'eccentric' followers.
That appears to be changing, but progress is slow and there is a rapid drift to right wing authoritarianism that will be difficult to stop, especially when you have a politically illiterate electorate who have lost the power to think creatively.
I watched a video interview of the late Ewan McColl who talked about his father,a foundry worker and his friends meeting in the Salford WM Club on a Friday evening for a pint and a discussuion.A group of working men, with little formal education, sitting in a smoky bar discussing the views of Hegel, the meaning of Darwinism, the nature of Capitalism and even the poetry of Shelley!
Of couse autoi didacts were not uncommon amongst wo9rkers in the early 20c.In mining villages the Miners Welfare always had a library as well as a bar, and Mechanics Institutes were alive to arguement and debate.
It was always said that the most literate of workers were the shoemakers, who whiled away the days of monotonous labour by reading or being read to.No coincidence that the great revolutions in Europe, from Wat Tyler to the French Revolution had large contingents of showemakers!
Henry Ford knew what he was doing when he introduced the production line.
So what do we go now?
Our first task must to be to constantly expose the shallow thinking of the far right populists.UKIP may indeed want out of the EU, but what useful purpose does a UKIP councillor serve on a local authority?
When you set up a rag bag bunch of misfits with a limited grasp of what needs to be done and how to do things, you tend to get the barmpots whose quotes have festooned the national press over the past few weeks.Remember how easy it was to dislodge the BNP councillors by posing them difficult questions-like how did they spell their names-or who wrote Charles Dickens 'Bleak House'?
But more than discrediting the mediocrities the left must be building bases in the communities where they live.They must be identified on a daily basis with the real problems that face people and break away from the arrogance of the elites.The left needs to use clear and unambiguous language.
UKIP and the other parties talk in sugary generalities,the left must avoid being too theoretical, too rhetorical and too censorious.
All my life left parties have behaved like religious sects, close shops that only the select could be part of, as long as they understood 'democratic centralism' and the vision that the General Strike would happen in three days time!
I'm still optimistic that the people can understand the need for dramatic change and will go along with it, in Scotland the Independence movement is wedded to an understanding that freedom comes with an increase in social justice and an ending of the grotesque inequalities that burden society.
And all over Europe left movements are getting organised.I have hopes that here in Britain Left Unity will become the catalyst for change.
I expect Barak Obama will rubbish us too!
I'll save you the trouble of masticating the press and give it to you straight.
The Tories held a safe seat, UKIP came a mediocre second, labour came a tragic third in the seat they won in 1997- and the Lib-Dems- well they came a magnificent sixth! A record failure in a long line of magnificent failures since they joined the Tory coalition as bag carriers.
Of course the expectation all round was that UKIP would do well, that they may even have snatched the seat,but of course it would appear that it was all down to superior organisation.Farage claimed that therec were a thousand Tories on the streets on election day, but of course there might have been ten thousand or a million or a zillion!
Poor old Farage could only turn out a few dozen blimps and even he couldn't be arsed to knock a few doors-despite having, according to his candidate 'the wow factor'
The real issue however is the dismal performance of Her majesty's loyal Opposition and the inescapable reality that Her majesty's Loyal Junior Coalition Partner is now an ex-party.
It is no more, it is defunct,it matters not who leads the miserable corpse,Nick Clegg, Vince
Cable or M.Mouse
The Green party put up a creditable performance, and once more humiliated the party of Government, even if only by a few votes.
There is a fairly universal view that the problem is 'connecting with the voters', which is just another way of saying that they are all saying the same thing with different nuanced phrases.
In saying that I include the obnoxious UKIP, because apart from their blood lust to leave Europe, thety carry the exact same baggage as the Tories, and increasingly hard to differentiate from the Lib-Dems and Labour.
In fact the only party competing on the national stage is the Green Party,they have a set of policies that do in fact present a radical alternative,but sadly they carry the baggage of their history and for most of their existance had a rather hazy left perspective and attracted some rather 'eccentric' followers.
That appears to be changing, but progress is slow and there is a rapid drift to right wing authoritarianism that will be difficult to stop, especially when you have a politically illiterate electorate who have lost the power to think creatively.
I watched a video interview of the late Ewan McColl who talked about his father,a foundry worker and his friends meeting in the Salford WM Club on a Friday evening for a pint and a discussuion.A group of working men, with little formal education, sitting in a smoky bar discussing the views of Hegel, the meaning of Darwinism, the nature of Capitalism and even the poetry of Shelley!
Of couse autoi didacts were not uncommon amongst wo9rkers in the early 20c.In mining villages the Miners Welfare always had a library as well as a bar, and Mechanics Institutes were alive to arguement and debate.
It was always said that the most literate of workers were the shoemakers, who whiled away the days of monotonous labour by reading or being read to.No coincidence that the great revolutions in Europe, from Wat Tyler to the French Revolution had large contingents of showemakers!
Henry Ford knew what he was doing when he introduced the production line.
So what do we go now?
Our first task must to be to constantly expose the shallow thinking of the far right populists.UKIP may indeed want out of the EU, but what useful purpose does a UKIP councillor serve on a local authority?
When you set up a rag bag bunch of misfits with a limited grasp of what needs to be done and how to do things, you tend to get the barmpots whose quotes have festooned the national press over the past few weeks.Remember how easy it was to dislodge the BNP councillors by posing them difficult questions-like how did they spell their names-or who wrote Charles Dickens 'Bleak House'?
But more than discrediting the mediocrities the left must be building bases in the communities where they live.They must be identified on a daily basis with the real problems that face people and break away from the arrogance of the elites.The left needs to use clear and unambiguous language.
UKIP and the other parties talk in sugary generalities,the left must avoid being too theoretical, too rhetorical and too censorious.
All my life left parties have behaved like religious sects, close shops that only the select could be part of, as long as they understood 'democratic centralism' and the vision that the General Strike would happen in three days time!
I'm still optimistic that the people can understand the need for dramatic change and will go along with it, in Scotland the Independence movement is wedded to an understanding that freedom comes with an increase in social justice and an ending of the grotesque inequalities that burden society.
And all over Europe left movements are getting organised.I have hopes that here in Britain Left Unity will become the catalyst for change.
I expect Barak Obama will rubbish us too!
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Is the drift tothe right inevitable?
For those of us on the left times are looking bleak at the moment.The election in India of the avowedly right wing BJP seems one more desperate victory for the forces of reaction.It is a party that grew out of a far right militant bunch that admired Hitler and has a history of violent racist attacks on minority communities.
They are simply not nice people.
Yet part of the problem is that the Congress Party played into their hands, the once leftist party of the struggle for Indian independence has become mired in nepotism and corruption.
And you don't have to look fae elsewhere to see the same traits emerging in political parties of the centre/centre left all over the world.
France, Germany,Italy,Spain,Ireland,Greece most of former Eastern Europe and you see the dame pattern emerging.
Left Parties often with proud radical traditions and history have become corrupt empty vessels that bear little resemblance to the movement that they grew from.
Even the once might ANC in South Africa is now led by people most socialists would cross the street to avoid.
How has it come to this?
Well I suppose the template in many ways is the Labour Party here.A party founded with the name 'labour' in its title.That should be the clue-a party for the people who labour by hand and by brain, a party created by working people's organisations to give them a voice in the democratic process.
A party that was different from all else that went before.
On the spectrum of socialist/social democratic parties in Europe the Labour party was always on the social democratic,gradualist wing,and liked the notion that it represented the respectable working class.From its foundations it preferred the section of the class that wore suits on a Sunday and were ideally Methodists with a trade.
However those pesky unskilled noisy workers kept joining and brought with them uncouth agitational habits like striking and demonstrating and causing class based mayhem.
As well as the rowdy street agitators the Labour Party also attracted a section of the intelligentsia who brought ideas,frequently more in keeping with the traditions of Marx than those of John Wesley.
However from whatever tradition they came they brought an idealism and a vision of the radical possibility of change.Not simply a little bit of liberal tinkering here and there but wholesale social engineering that changed the whole alance of the relationship between capital and labour.
Not for our forefathers the crumbs from the bosses table-they wanted the whole bloody bakery!
What was true in this country was true everywhere, the ideology of socialism was one that required the necessity of change with as little compromise as possible.
Gradually those principles were eroded away,but even as late at the mid 90's there seemed some possibility that change on a massive scale was just possible.Then came Thatcherism,the Chicago School.Monetarism and the collapse of the deformed workers. states throughout Europe.
None of this was really a surprise, as they were all pursuing the goal of the free market.
And to put it simply,once to accept the economics of the free market, then the ideas and the ideology follow s swiftly.
That means the values that sustained the socialist vision fly out of the winbdow, ideology is simply another commodity that you buy and sell, that you pick and choose according to taste.
Perhaps the defining moment in this country was when the cynical popinjay Peter Mandelson declared that he was 'relaxed about the filthy rich'
And so the habit of cutting corners,buying power and influence,and endemic corruption became the leitmotif of much that passes for social democracy today.
And that then lets the far right in, it allows them to posture about 'the political class' and how different they are to 'the mainstream'.Make no mistake the appeal of the sanctimonious pigs bladders like Farage and his ilk are difficult to fight because so many passes have been sold by the 'modernisers'.
Of course all the evidence show that they are just as corrupt and venal, just think of Berlusconi and he stands for all that is evil and unwholesome in the body politic.But then remember that he got his first start in Milan by cosying up to Craxi,the leader of the Socialist Party of Italy.
"You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Well right now the left internatonally needs to see which way the wind is blowing and start thinking about how we reform, and no, we won't take advice from the SWP and neither will we borrow Gordon Brown's fucking moral compass!
They are simply not nice people.
Yet part of the problem is that the Congress Party played into their hands, the once leftist party of the struggle for Indian independence has become mired in nepotism and corruption.
And you don't have to look fae elsewhere to see the same traits emerging in political parties of the centre/centre left all over the world.
France, Germany,Italy,Spain,Ireland,Greece most of former Eastern Europe and you see the dame pattern emerging.
Left Parties often with proud radical traditions and history have become corrupt empty vessels that bear little resemblance to the movement that they grew from.
Even the once might ANC in South Africa is now led by people most socialists would cross the street to avoid.
How has it come to this?
Well I suppose the template in many ways is the Labour Party here.A party founded with the name 'labour' in its title.That should be the clue-a party for the people who labour by hand and by brain, a party created by working people's organisations to give them a voice in the democratic process.
A party that was different from all else that went before.
On the spectrum of socialist/social democratic parties in Europe the Labour party was always on the social democratic,gradualist wing,and liked the notion that it represented the respectable working class.From its foundations it preferred the section of the class that wore suits on a Sunday and were ideally Methodists with a trade.
However those pesky unskilled noisy workers kept joining and brought with them uncouth agitational habits like striking and demonstrating and causing class based mayhem.
As well as the rowdy street agitators the Labour Party also attracted a section of the intelligentsia who brought ideas,frequently more in keeping with the traditions of Marx than those of John Wesley.
However from whatever tradition they came they brought an idealism and a vision of the radical possibility of change.Not simply a little bit of liberal tinkering here and there but wholesale social engineering that changed the whole alance of the relationship between capital and labour.
Not for our forefathers the crumbs from the bosses table-they wanted the whole bloody bakery!
What was true in this country was true everywhere, the ideology of socialism was one that required the necessity of change with as little compromise as possible.
Gradually those principles were eroded away,but even as late at the mid 90's there seemed some possibility that change on a massive scale was just possible.Then came Thatcherism,the Chicago School.Monetarism and the collapse of the deformed workers. states throughout Europe.
None of this was really a surprise, as they were all pursuing the goal of the free market.
And to put it simply,once to accept the economics of the free market, then the ideas and the ideology follow s swiftly.
That means the values that sustained the socialist vision fly out of the winbdow, ideology is simply another commodity that you buy and sell, that you pick and choose according to taste.
Perhaps the defining moment in this country was when the cynical popinjay Peter Mandelson declared that he was 'relaxed about the filthy rich'
And so the habit of cutting corners,buying power and influence,and endemic corruption became the leitmotif of much that passes for social democracy today.
And that then lets the far right in, it allows them to posture about 'the political class' and how different they are to 'the mainstream'.Make no mistake the appeal of the sanctimonious pigs bladders like Farage and his ilk are difficult to fight because so many passes have been sold by the 'modernisers'.
Of course all the evidence show that they are just as corrupt and venal, just think of Berlusconi and he stands for all that is evil and unwholesome in the body politic.But then remember that he got his first start in Milan by cosying up to Craxi,the leader of the Socialist Party of Italy.
"You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Well right now the left internatonally needs to see which way the wind is blowing and start thinking about how we reform, and no, we won't take advice from the SWP and neither will we borrow Gordon Brown's fucking moral compass!
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Desperate men do desperate things
It will be interesting to see who blames who if the whole referendum story in Scotland doesn't turn out quite how the masters of the universe predicted it would go.
Already they are blaming dreary Darling for making a complete arse of the 'No' campaign, and the Tories are getting ready to blame Labour for their failure to keep the Union intact and labour are blaming the Tories for only being half hearted in support of the status quo.
It could have all have been so different, and why didn't they see the possibilities coming down the road?
I believe passionately that an independent Scotland is the best solution, both in terms of the people of Scotland but also in the best interests of the working people of England too.
An independent Scotland might give the ;lacklustre labour movement in England some cojones.It might convince them that the only way is not Essex and that a progressive settlement is possible.
If Scotland can do without the obscenity that is Trident, why England could do without it too, and the £25 billion a throw on a useless submarine,commanded by the USA anyway,might be shown up as the waste it is so obviously.
One consequence of Scotland getting shot (sorry for the phrase) of Trident would be the thorny issue of where to relocate the bloody thing.
Fine when its in a berth up near Glasgow, a little more uncomfortable however if it had to be parked somewhere near the home counties-in Hampshire for instance!
If the nimbys don't like a few council houses or a downmarket supermarket on their doorstep-imagine their reaction to a fully armed nuclear sub skulking at the end of their waterfront?
That would certainly bugger up the property prices!
The Unionist parties have thrown everything at Scotland, including the cabinet,the shadow cabinet, the Bank of England,a herd of Generals,Admirals and Air Marshals, as well as bankers,oil companies and even Favid Bowie.
But those stubborn Celts appear to be ignoring the plaintive howls from the South and even being love bombed by Cameron and Miliband. You'll know when things are getting desperate when they send Clegg up on a sleeper to Aberdeen.
What I find strange is why the Tories are bothering.They instinctively hate Scotland and Scots, and of course the feeling in mutual.With only one MP in Scotland, as the joke goes, there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MP's.
It is easy to see why Miliband needs the Scottish seats, the 41 Labour MP's are his only hope in 2015.That's why that old hasbeen Gordon Brown was sent on the stump last week.His presence no doubt added many thousands of 'Yes' votes.
I bet Alex Salmond is praying that they enlist Tony Blair's silver tongue in the 'No' cause!
Yet it could have been different.If from the outset Scotland had beeen offered a Federal option, with the right to control more of the economy, foreign and defence policy as they affect Scotland and a greater degree of fiscal control, I suspect that would have met with approval all over Scotland, and in many parts of England not in thrall to the London hegemony.
It would have given Scotland an alternative to demonstrate that a social democrat, if not a socialist state could prosper away from the bleak negativity of austerity Faragism.
I am impressed however by the astute leadership of Alex Salmond and especially Nicola Sturgeon.They have both played a blinder and have gaugedthe mood of the coutry.
It is of course possible that the 'No' vote will prevail, the combination of all the big guns focussed on Scotland plus the scare tactics that are the stock in trade of the Unionists might still win.But the anger will still be there, and it will only be a matter of time....
Mind you id the SNP had promised to create a Scottish Republic,left Nato and nationalised the oil industry,rhen I think there would have been no contst!
Already they are blaming dreary Darling for making a complete arse of the 'No' campaign, and the Tories are getting ready to blame Labour for their failure to keep the Union intact and labour are blaming the Tories for only being half hearted in support of the status quo.
It could have all have been so different, and why didn't they see the possibilities coming down the road?
I believe passionately that an independent Scotland is the best solution, both in terms of the people of Scotland but also in the best interests of the working people of England too.
An independent Scotland might give the ;lacklustre labour movement in England some cojones.It might convince them that the only way is not Essex and that a progressive settlement is possible.
If Scotland can do without the obscenity that is Trident, why England could do without it too, and the £25 billion a throw on a useless submarine,commanded by the USA anyway,might be shown up as the waste it is so obviously.
One consequence of Scotland getting shot (sorry for the phrase) of Trident would be the thorny issue of where to relocate the bloody thing.
Fine when its in a berth up near Glasgow, a little more uncomfortable however if it had to be parked somewhere near the home counties-in Hampshire for instance!
If the nimbys don't like a few council houses or a downmarket supermarket on their doorstep-imagine their reaction to a fully armed nuclear sub skulking at the end of their waterfront?
That would certainly bugger up the property prices!
The Unionist parties have thrown everything at Scotland, including the cabinet,the shadow cabinet, the Bank of England,a herd of Generals,Admirals and Air Marshals, as well as bankers,oil companies and even Favid Bowie.
But those stubborn Celts appear to be ignoring the plaintive howls from the South and even being love bombed by Cameron and Miliband. You'll know when things are getting desperate when they send Clegg up on a sleeper to Aberdeen.
What I find strange is why the Tories are bothering.They instinctively hate Scotland and Scots, and of course the feeling in mutual.With only one MP in Scotland, as the joke goes, there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MP's.
It is easy to see why Miliband needs the Scottish seats, the 41 Labour MP's are his only hope in 2015.That's why that old hasbeen Gordon Brown was sent on the stump last week.His presence no doubt added many thousands of 'Yes' votes.
I bet Alex Salmond is praying that they enlist Tony Blair's silver tongue in the 'No' cause!
Yet it could have been different.If from the outset Scotland had beeen offered a Federal option, with the right to control more of the economy, foreign and defence policy as they affect Scotland and a greater degree of fiscal control, I suspect that would have met with approval all over Scotland, and in many parts of England not in thrall to the London hegemony.
It would have given Scotland an alternative to demonstrate that a social democrat, if not a socialist state could prosper away from the bleak negativity of austerity Faragism.
I am impressed however by the astute leadership of Alex Salmond and especially Nicola Sturgeon.They have both played a blinder and have gaugedthe mood of the coutry.
It is of course possible that the 'No' vote will prevail, the combination of all the big guns focussed on Scotland plus the scare tactics that are the stock in trade of the Unionists might still win.But the anger will still be there, and it will only be a matter of time....
Mind you id the SNP had promised to create a Scottish Republic,left Nato and nationalised the oil industry,rhen I think there would have been no contst!
Sunday, 13 April 2014
And you thought only the Stuarts had a divine right to rule!
Three hundred odd years ago the people of this country fought a civil war to end the divine right of Kings.
They almost got there,but sadly when the crunch came old Noll was disinterred and his head stuck on a pike.
The old order reverted, and whilst they lost the 'divine right' they retained the right of succession through a bunch of useless German princelings and princesses right up to the present day.
From the preposterous Hanoverians to the mediocre Saxe-Coberg-Gothas.
But at least we had an elected parliament that allowed some degree of democracy,albeit it took most of that 300 odd years to get anywhere near a free equal and working democracy.
For much of the time parliament was ruled by rich boys from top public schools,often from the landed gentry.many came from the military,the higher reaches of the legal profession and were frequently large landowners or obscenely rich factory owners.
Thinking about it not really much has changed!
But of course many of them, when the couldn't buy the odd totten pocket borough or the land where the borough itself stood made sure that the parliamentary power kept strictly in the family.
Most of the great landowners made sure that political power was dynastic-that seats passed from father to son in the usual ordered way.
Then about 100 years ago a great change appeared to happen, a small number of working stiffs got themselves elected,many started out as Liberals, but in 1900 the emergent trade unions decided that Liberal toffs with a scattering of working class Liberals did not really represent their interests.
The labour party was born.
A party that represented working people, their needs and their aspirations.
It was never a revolutionary party in the sense that the Levellers and even the Diggers were in Cromwell's' time.Indeed it was nothing like the great revolutionary parties and movements that were churning up Europe and had been since 1848.
What was important was that the Labour Party was not a party of privilege and was not one with a hereditary principle at its core.
But asa social democratic party it found itself a house divided.For decades it was never quite sure if it was a social democratic centralist party with a tinge of socialism or a socialist party with a tinge of social democracy.
Generations of good men and women gave their life to the party because they believed that whatever the foibles of the 'leadership' at any given time its collective heart was in the right place.
This has of course allowed it to degenerate , as the Thatcher era destroyed much of the strength and solidarity of the trade union movement the Labour Party, with no strong ideological core simply drifted into becoming another 'political' party.
So it attracted in growing numbers men and women who if push came to shove would join whatever party deemed to give them the best chance of a political career.It didn't really matter what the party stood for, as ling as they could chat up a selection meeting ot buy off a few local party officials or trade union hacks.
I well remember years back when an aspiring parliamentary candidate came to solicit support for the Northampton South constituency.
What a speaker the guy was and how he paraded his working class credentials before us.His father had been a miner, his granddad had been a miner, even as far as I can remember his fucking dog had been a miner.
He of course was a barrister! Now by the way in the House of Lords!
And where have we come to now?
Why the dynastic Labour Party.Neil Kinnock's son,married to the Prime Minister od Denmark no less has been selected for the safe labour seat of Aberavon (be interesting to see where his second home will be located-or maybe his third one)
Then we hear that Jack Straw's boy is going for a safe Labour seat(wasn't he once done for possession of drugs?) and it would appear that the offspring of the noble Lord Prescott is on the hunt for a safe Labour berth.
But if that all stinks of nepotism then the worst of all is that Euan Blair,son of you know who is hoping to be parachuted into the safe Labour seat of Bootle on Merseyside(majority 21,000) His claim is that as his mum came from Liverpool then thats alright!
Is it possible that in the whole of Merseyside the Labour Party there could not find a working class candidate?
Are they so bereft of talent that they need a London lad educated at Brompton Oratory to speak for those inarticulate scousers?
Is this what the workers party is now reduced to/
I know people can point to the Benn dynasty and say that it has happened on the left, but I suspect Hilary Benn was carefully vetted to make sure that his was not infected by the old mans radical politics and I suspect there were many in the party hierarchy who were nervous of another Benn.
Luckily they got one of their own.
The sad truth is that the party is now picking candidates few of whom have any trade union experience or local government experience either.
Clones by any other name,
A party whose idea of inspiration and values has nothing to do with Keir Hardie or Nye Bevan but rather Dolly the Sheep!
postscript
According to the local press in Liverpool Blair will only get a chance at the shortlist if the 81 year old sitting Mp decides to stand down voluntarily,then the party nationally can designate the seat a 'women only' shortlist.If however he decides to stand again-they can't.
The irony here is that it would appear that he too believes in a sort of hereditary principle(he wants his agent and the current leader of Sefton to replace him!)
So the outcome might be that young Blair,who part owns a £3 million property in London with his mother might end up representing one of the most impoverished constituencies in Britain!
postscript
According to the local press in Liverpool Blair will only get a chance at the shortlist if the 81 year old sitting Mp decides to stand down voluntarily,then the party nationally can designate the seat a 'women only' shortlist.If however he decides to stand again-they can't.
The irony here is that it would appear that he too believes in a sort of hereditary principle(he wants his agent and the current leader of Sefton to replace him!)
So the outcome might be that young Blair,who part owns a £3 million property in London with his mother might end up representing one of the most impoverished constituencies in Britain!
Saturday, 5 April 2014
Exquisitely Dumb-and she's the Culture Secretary!
Maria Miller is seriously dumb.The events over the past few days have revealed once again that national politicians think and behave like Plantaganet Monarchs.or worse Stuarts! They really seem to believe that they have some sort of divine right to rule,that are somehow part of a 'political class'.
Trouble is that the hysteria surrounding the narrative of 'Another fiddling MP' serves only the press and Nigel Farage.
I refuse to be stampeded into the lobby of the Daily Telegraph bleating about press freedom and the glories of a free press.
Lets get one thing straight from the outset this country does NOT have a free press.It has a bunch of censorious oligarchs as bad as any who hold sway in Russia.They own vast swathes of the media,they control much that passes for television,radio and the new technologies and all of the press.
The dailt Telegraph has for long been the authentic mouthpiece of the Tory Party, and will long remain so.What we are seeing is not an assertion of their freedom merely a shot across the bows of the Tory Party to remind them who the real masters of the universe are.
Next week the barclay brothers will get back to the usual business of beating up on trade unions, working people and all the myriad of demons they like to conjure up to frighten the masses.
Frankly I think it was despicable of any so called 'journalist' to doorstep and elderly couple and badger them about their living arrangements.
It was mean and shabby and not even central to the story.
The story was that Miller over claimed on her mortgage and when found out tried to bluster her way out, and when all else failed got her parliamentary mates to reduce her repayment from over £40k to about£5k.
That is the real scandal and that is what she should be punished for,not her parents and not about being rude to the House of Commons.
I'm also getting a bit fed up with Labour members standing on the dignity of the parliamentary process and aall the old guff about the sovereignty of the 'Mother of Parliaments'
What we have is a huge majority of time serving numpties.Without ideology and a reason for being in parliament its just another job and so many of them are interchangable.Remember only 13 Labour MP's had enough of the ideology of socialism to remember whose side they were on when it came to support people on benefits.
Apart from members of the SNP,PC and the Green Party the majority of 'honourable members' trooped into the coalition lobby to support further cuts.
And that's where Farage will win support.He is a sleazeball of monumental proportions.He is so like the poujadists of inter war France.But like his great mate Le Pen he is using populism to win popular support, and its interesting just to see how much exposure he and his sordid racists are getting in the popular press.
It is of course no coincidence.The one thing the political class, the media and the populist politicians most fear is a literate and organised working class.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the referendum in Scotland is that after many hundreds of years there is an awakening of political thought north of the border.
People are starting once again to think not just about what the press tells them to think but they are thinking and discussing ideas.
It's as if the Enlightenment has caught the public imagination once again.
Trouble is that the hysteria surrounding the narrative of 'Another fiddling MP' serves only the press and Nigel Farage.
I refuse to be stampeded into the lobby of the Daily Telegraph bleating about press freedom and the glories of a free press.
Lets get one thing straight from the outset this country does NOT have a free press.It has a bunch of censorious oligarchs as bad as any who hold sway in Russia.They own vast swathes of the media,they control much that passes for television,radio and the new technologies and all of the press.
The dailt Telegraph has for long been the authentic mouthpiece of the Tory Party, and will long remain so.What we are seeing is not an assertion of their freedom merely a shot across the bows of the Tory Party to remind them who the real masters of the universe are.
Next week the barclay brothers will get back to the usual business of beating up on trade unions, working people and all the myriad of demons they like to conjure up to frighten the masses.
Frankly I think it was despicable of any so called 'journalist' to doorstep and elderly couple and badger them about their living arrangements.
It was mean and shabby and not even central to the story.
The story was that Miller over claimed on her mortgage and when found out tried to bluster her way out, and when all else failed got her parliamentary mates to reduce her repayment from over £40k to about£5k.
That is the real scandal and that is what she should be punished for,not her parents and not about being rude to the House of Commons.
I'm also getting a bit fed up with Labour members standing on the dignity of the parliamentary process and aall the old guff about the sovereignty of the 'Mother of Parliaments'
What we have is a huge majority of time serving numpties.Without ideology and a reason for being in parliament its just another job and so many of them are interchangable.Remember only 13 Labour MP's had enough of the ideology of socialism to remember whose side they were on when it came to support people on benefits.
Apart from members of the SNP,PC and the Green Party the majority of 'honourable members' trooped into the coalition lobby to support further cuts.
And that's where Farage will win support.He is a sleazeball of monumental proportions.He is so like the poujadists of inter war France.But like his great mate Le Pen he is using populism to win popular support, and its interesting just to see how much exposure he and his sordid racists are getting in the popular press.
It is of course no coincidence.The one thing the political class, the media and the populist politicians most fear is a literate and organised working class.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the referendum in Scotland is that after many hundreds of years there is an awakening of political thought north of the border.
People are starting once again to think not just about what the press tells them to think but they are thinking and discussing ideas.
It's as if the Enlightenment has caught the public imagination once again.
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