This May I will have to vote?

This May I will have to vote, and for the first time in almost fifty years I have a problem.
When I was a student it was relatively easy, I was registered to vote in three places, In Hackney,in Whithorn and in Brighton.I could vote for Monty Goldman, the Communist candidate in London, George Thompson the SNP candidate in Scotland, or Dennis Hobden, the Labour candidate in Brighton.
It was really a no-brainer, Hobden was a left wing postman with a chance of winning Brighton kemptown for the first time.So my minuscule wee vote helped secure a Labour MP for the first time in Brighton-I really felt I had made a difference.
Since that election I have always voted Labour,sometimes even for myself.The only time I have not voted Labour was last time when I voted for Tony Clarke,and in truth he was real Labour as opposed to the ersatz vervison the Regional Labour Party foisted on the Northampton South constituency.
Incidentally after that election Mr Loakes vowed to return and fight to win once again....Mr Who?
In truth I really haven't a problem.
And if I had any doubts then the comments of Bliar convinced me- his absurd assertion that Miliband is too left wing shows very clearly the way the wind is blowing.Added to that the inane comments of the Rochdale MP who believes that Labour is too left wing, dominated by the unions and njeeds to support business(interestingly his idea of supporting business is to run a company that collapsed owing over £200,000-a good role model there!) and finally the awful knob that is Jim Murphy,the leader of Labour in Scotland.
Well with a triumvirate like that busily putting the boot into 'Red Ed' can there be any doubt where my vote will go this May?

Well for starters I cannot vote for any party that thinks the awful mess that is Afghanistan is some sort of victory.
Will Hutton wrote a very perceptive piece in the Observer:
"Britain has just suffered a humiliating defeat,the worst in more than half a century and,arguably,ranking with the worst in modern times.The truth is inescapable,we are no longer a great economic,technological or military power."  
He points out that none of the objectives that three Prime Minister and six Defence Secretaries set out to achieve.The situation is as bad, in fact probably worse than when the action started,opium harvests are at record levels, the Taliban are back in control of vast areas,the sock puppet government is corrupt and venal, and millions of pounds worth of equipment have be left,either destroyed or as gifts to the insurgents.
And after spending upwards of £40 billion the real price is 453 young men and women dead!
Nobody doubts their bravery and courage, but that they should die because of the vanity project of   a labour Prime Minister is beyond belief.
And why did it all happen/
Because Blair and Brown and Cameron and Clegg and all the rest of the jackasses-and that includes the obnoxious Farage really believed that they were 'fighting a war against terror'.
But then that was the Bush response to 9/11- a war against terrror! Now you can fight armies in the field, you may even have a little success with combatting a guerilla army(mind you the Americans came to grief in Vietnam)-but a war against terror?
It's a bit like fighting a war -oh yes,their phrase- against 'lone wolves'
If you believe that fighting in a romote desert in Southern Afghanistan will make the streets safer inNorthampton,then you must also believe in the tooth fairy and Mickey Mouse.

Of course Blair believed that losing young British lives in some way strengthened the 'special relationship' with the yanks, that showed how we could stand 'shoulder to shoulder' as brave allies.

Not quite how our brave allies saw us.
General Jack Keane, Chief of the US General Staff, speaking in 2013 at Sandhurst after the failures in Basra and Helmand:
"Gentlemen,you let us down,you let us down badly."
Further the US commander in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill said:
"The British made a mess of things in Helmand."
Truthis there is no special relationship, all we are for the neo-cons in Washingtonm, and all we ever have been, is a floating nuclear base where, if things get hot in Europe, the first missiles will knock out the Trident base in Scotland before they reach the US of A.
As long as we have Trident mooching around the British Isles, with the command in the hands of the pentagon-we have nothing, no special relationship, no heroic alliance,nothing but a juicy target- and that is unlikely to be a missile from Afghanistan or indeed any where else for that matter.
It is just the comfort blanket for the American strategists and some really expensive toys the the military bonehead in the MoD and their political clowns in Westminster.
To add insult to injury each Trident submarine comes in at £25 billion each, and the UK is committed to two of the fucking things, not to mention one and a half aircraft carriers with no aircraft, and aircraft that will be obsolete before they enter service.
So I know who I'm voting for-the party that promises to end the absurd pretention that this small island is an important military power.
In Scotland it would be easy-I'd note SNP, and  here its also very clear-I'll vote Green unless someone in the nacent Labour party can convince me that it's really a left wing party after all and Blair is right!
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Scottish labour listening-nae chance!

So the surprise election in Scotland has produced the surprise result!Jim Murphy has won the leadership of the Scottish labour Party
They have succeeded all expecations and elected a mutton pie with no mutton in it!
They had a chance,albeit a small one of electing a leader in Neil Findlay who had a connection with the traditional working class base in Scotland-9 of the affiliated trade unions wanted Findlay-but naw, the parliamentarians and the diminishing band of party members voted for the Trident loving,trade union hating,austerity embracing,vegetable(sorry vegetarian!)

The seventh leader in 14 years, it seems they change leader almost as frequently as Northampton Labour group on the Borough Council-and pribably with the same effect!

It seems to me that they learned nothing from the referendum.They relied on an unholy alliance of Tories,Lib-Dems and bankers to ensurev a No vote.It seems that they never noticed that their traditional bases of support, Glasgow, the west coast, and Dundee rejected the No campaign, and even worse from Labour's point of view-the young people of Scotland.
What sort of message does the Murphy acendancy send out to the people of Scotland so recently energised by the political debate of the referendum campaign?
Back to politics as usual!
And the new leader-why he isn't even a MSP- he sits in Westminster and will graciously let the people know next year his future plans.
Presumably he hoping that some old doddery Labour MSP will fall off his perch or another will generously give up his seat in Holyrood in exchange for....?
A nice wee peerage!
Murphy is the worst sort of Labour politician,self serving arrogant and about forty years too late.
I joined the Labour Party forty odd years ago, when there was still hope for a change and fight left in the party.There was a hunger for change that grew, not from the comfy benches of Westminster but in the workplaces-where the party still had factory branches and close links with the Trade Unions, and in the local councils where the fight against Tory policies was strongest.
Clay Cross,Liverpool,Lambeth,Glasgow,Sheffield,Greater London
Labour councillors lived and worked in their communities and were elected by their neighbours.the party didn't 'parachute' favoured sons and daughters into 'safe' seats-neither municipal or Westminster (well that's not strictly true, the Regional Organisation often manoeuvred favoured sons and daughters into winnable seats)
But it was still a different party,and there was always hope that something good might emerge.
To think that all that energy and hope would end up in the shape of Murphy and his clones throughout the collapsing structure of the party.
I(ndeed last week Northampton Party lost one of the finest community politicians I have known in my lifetime.Geoff Howes joined Duston labour Party at the age of 16.He was a Castle Ward Councillor for 25 years and never once swerved away from his commitment to the people he represented or the cause he believed in.
He stood up for his party when the going was tough and to admit to being a Labour Party activist was often difficult if not downright impossible.
Geoff led the labour group, was mayor and in 2001 was made an Honorary Freeman of the town.As chair of the finance commirree he scrutined spending with a forensic skill ,he held officers to account, but he also ensured that important voluntary groups like Women's Aid were supported.He instituted three year financial settlements that in many cases ensured survival.
He was expelled in 2009 for a minor infringement, and until his death was kept out of the party he gave his life to.
In the event their tribute was mean spirited and grudging,and that just about sums up the modern Labour Party.

Goodbye Hampstead man-hello anywhere else man!

So the knives are out for Ed Miliband.On Sunday the whole press pack wwere in full throat.how the rebellion has grown from a couple of MP's on Wednesday to 20 Front benchers on Sunday!

Everyone has an opinion, dead or alive, as long as they are members of Parliament or members of the House of Lords-exhumed to cast their opinions,hurl the goat entrails and pronounce the labour Party has no future!

The entertaining scenario,cast by so many commentators is that the party will prosper if as one called him Alan Johnston-'the postman over the water' takes control.

It would appear that the nation has fallen asleep in the tower,awaiting a peck on the cheek from the fragrant ex-postie and all round cheekie chappie and then the project will spring into life and the evil empire will be banished!

Hurrah !

Miliband is being traduced from all sides, from the right as the failed spawn of Satan, from the centre as the ineffectual 'Hampstead' intellectual and from the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party who are in mortal fear of losing their seats.

There is no doubt that Miliband has surrounded himself with a praetorian guard of time serving mediocrities , but truth to tell it would be hard to find anyone in the PLP who was not a time serving mediocrity, hand picked by the party machine to be as far from a socialist party as its possible to be without falling off the edge of  even the social democratic spectrum.

The so called 'left leaning' press have been just as hostile.Leaving aside the traditional voices of modernity and moderation-The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent all of whom have been cheer leading for the postie with no ambition(gentle cough of derision) although fair play to The Observer they did at the end of their gloom lader leader call for Ed to be more radical (fat chance that!)

leading the charge however,in quite a disgraceful way what The New Statesman' and its editor Jason Cowley.

I've beena subscriber to the Ns for more years than I care to think about and there was a time about 15 years ago when it had a cutting edge  and trenchant views.

However it has moved, once a Blair house journal(bad times) to critical of the Blair project(good times) to a wobbly Brownite phase  to where it now sits.

Frankly its the official voice of the fucking Church of England.It appears to be more interested in saving souls for God than discussing anything that smacks of socialist debate.

And that suits the New Labour Party( mark 2) after all when you have no real alternative to austerity and the coalition brand of dumpling politics-better a leap of faith in unseen and unknown forces than an ideology that works in the interests of the peoople.

We are told that its all about image, that Miliband is a bit geeky, that Johnson is a reformed horny handed son of toil and the rest are ,well just the rest!

If you want to see how far the Labour Party has degenerated just look who the machine is touting to lead the Labour Party in Scotland-Jim Murphy, whose intellectual claim to fame and evidence that he can get down with the masses has written a book-on football!

150 years of socialist endevour in Scotland and the best they can come up with  is a tosser who can write a book on football!.A tosser by the way who supports Trident,the Iraq war,further austerity,university tuition fees,even more austerity.He makes Blair look radical!

And if that list of disqualifications isn't enough he's not even a member of the Scottish Parliament-he sits in Westminster!

The mantra is that Ed lacks charisma, he has policies coming out of his ears but he lacks style on the doorstep.

That is utter tosh.

A bunch of sort of promises that appear to unravel hours after he makes them is not a coherent series of policies that will take this country forward.If you want to do a compare and contrast exercise look at the leadership the Nicola Sturgeon is giving to the SNP in SWcotland.In a few weeks that party has grown from about 25,000 to over 90,000.

Thats inspirational, thats energising people, that is creating a framework of social democratic policies that are transformational.

Whilst my homes for Miliband were never high (his late Father would have beebn a better leader) it does seem that he is being traduced not only by the traditional right wing forces, but by those in New Labour who want a scapegoat when it all falls apart next May.

In my view he has nothin to lose by re reading his Dad's writings and going for bust with a radical social democratic programme.

Anything is better than the current shambles.

 

Some idle thoughts on the Freedom of Northampton

Out of the blue, quite literally,came the offer from the Leader of the Council of the Freedom of Northampton.
What was more surprising was that I'm part of a triumvirate along with Keith barwell and Brian Bnley.What an opportunity to observe that staid old Northampton is honouring a onetime teenage Trotskyite,a onetime teenage Maoist and a onetime Co-op Bank clerk!
Such curious juxtapositions  come along very rarely and it's time to savour the incongruity of the event.

It is strange to be honoured by a Tory led Council, withy support from the labour party that quite rightly expelled me almost a decade ago.
I was nominated once before by the Labour party,when we were all lovey-dovey kissing comrades.That proposal was scuttled by the high minded Liberal Democrats who had no time for such expensive fripperies-although strangely they were no averse to the far more expensive frippery of the Mayoralty-especially when one of their own was getting the old fox fur round the shoulders.
I've been asked what you get with the 'Freedom' and why.Well simply I guess you get a scroll,maybe a wee box to put it in and a slug of NBC hand trodden red wine from the vineyards of sultry Duston.
I have told Marie that the box may come in handy to store my ashes-when of course I've finally fallen off my perch.
Our friend Bianca suggested that the box would not be big enough for my ashes-the lack of gravitas and respect the young now display.
Otherwise it is purely ceremonial, but for me its not about the ceremony and the stuff that surrounds that,any more than for years Councillors wear robes for the annual council meeting and other civic events.
As a young Councillor I railed at the archaic nature of robes and all that appeared to go with it,until it was gently pointed out to me that it was Labour Councillors almost 100 years ago who argued for robes because they created at least for a short time,the impression of equality in the Council chamber.
In the same way I used to chafe at school uniforms until it was pointed out to me that it was an egalitarian measure designed to ensure that wealthy children couldn't flaunt their wealth in front of poorer kids.
A good principle although in practice the absurd nature of school uniforms back in my day meant expensive and impractical outfits.But that's another story.

What in the end I think is that events like the 'freedom' are harmless sideshows,but serve to remind people that we still have local government.
Every national party goes on about localism as if it is the holy grail of political well-being, yet for decades we have seen the relentless strengthening of power at the centre at the expense of the locality.
I was first elected in 1973,and then we were seeing the start of the rapid decline of locally elected councils.1974 saw the restructuring of local government when places like Northampton lost County Borough status and were subsumed upwards into the County Council.
Now there are clearly siome services that benefit from a larger organisation,like policing,fire,and even education.But other serices sit better together-housing and social services,highway building and maintainance,refuse collection, parks and the like.
The princple should always be the closer the service is to the users who pay for it,the more likely it is to be successful.
But as powers disappeared,so did responsibility.When I first joined NBC we used to decide our rent levels,bus fares,how much we needed to raise for capital projects,and we had to justify what we were doing-not to faceless government apparatchiks in Whitehall,but to our own local electorate.
What I'm arguing for is strangely not far away from my last few posts abour independence in Scotland.
Local government badly needs independence from central government.
It is likely that over the coming weeks I will be questioned about my achievements whistle on council-I'm not sure I can answer that because it was always a team effort and that is really for others to judge.
However I do know my biggest failure, and that was the failure to win the battle of unitary Northampton.Elsewhere I have explained how that failure happened,but just as Scottish Independent will return like the swallows,so the case for a unitary Northampton will soon be back on the agenda.,        

Sic transit gloria Scotia

I make no apologies for returning to the issue of Scotland,nor quoting from the greatest Scots poet of the last century.Hugh McDiarmid (Dr. Christopher Murray Grieve) came from the borders and was passionate about both communism and Scottish nationalism.In one of his greatest poems he said of himself:
"A'm aye whaur extremes meet."
The events of the last few days might be the start of somewhere where indeed extremes meet!
There is no doubt why the main parties want the status quo to continue, for the Tories it is the old comfort blanket of the union as they know it, and it also allows them to park their noxious nuclear subs far awy from the quiet suburban streets of the deep south.
For the Lib-dems it means they can hang on to a few parliamentary seats, and come next May Lib-dem seats will be as rare as hen's teeth'
The depressing truth of this process is the cowardly nature of the Labour Party.They have had a power base in Scotland for decades and have squandered  their advantage.They are desperate to make the No vote happen because in simple terms its 41 Westminster seats that makes the difference between PM Miliband and,well.....!
most Scottish Labour Mp's, well all of them really,are sad disappointments- it must have been really hard to scour all of Scotland and end up with such a band of pathetic mediocrities.
If Douglas Alexander is the answer then it must have been a tragic question!
Of course it could have been so much different.
When the issue of the referendum was first raised then the Labour Party should have put forward different proposals.Instead of 'devo=max' that they are now all pinning their hopes on, the Labour Party should have seen that the old system was broken, that there was no such thing as British politics, but rather London politics and a rather large dispirited hinterland called 'everywhere else'.
The offer should have been made of a Federation of Independent countries, with their own tax system,welfare system, defence structure and domestic policies.
The Federal government would have been the Upper chamber,what we now know as the House of the Undeas(Lords), that would be elected from the constituent countries.
Its function would be to ensure continuity and forward planning for the four countries of the islands.
It would of course mean that each country could if it so wished become a republic, thus allowing the Republic of All of Ireland to be part of the Federation,At the same time if England, or anywhere else wanted to continue with the anacronism that is the House of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha,then they could-although the costs of that 'institution' would be borne by those who want her.
It would seem that there is an objection that the British Isles would lose tgheir place at the 'top' table,but in real terms that place ended when the Empire went -indeed some might argue that went when those pesky colonials won the American War of Independence.
In todays Observer I see that their political editor is arguing for a Federal solution,and it now  seems clear that had Labour proposed such a solution it might have found favour amongst many Scots.

Instead of which there is a dogs breakfast called 'Better together' of which the Tories have more or less washed their hands of "nothing to do with us guv",and Labour is left holding the tine, along with the Lib-Dems,Ukip, and the Orange Order-not forgetting of course two of the British Communist Parties!
In the Sunday Times today the figures are startling, the majority of young people,working class votes and a growing number of women and most significantly Labour voters are moving to the Yes column.

It is still too evenly balanced,but the raising of political consciousness and the sense of empowerment will not vanish,even if the No lobby win.That must be a source of real panic for Miliband.
For if those 35% of Labour voters supporting Indepence have made that awesome leap, as sure as hell they will not return to austerity-lite  next May.
It seems unlikely that Labour will be able to count on 41 seats north of the border ever again!
McDiarmid was an avowed atheist,but if by some chance he miscalculated on that one-I bet he's having a good laugh tonight!

What can you say about Clacton?

The old joke used to run ' Harwich for the continent,Eastbourne for the incontinent ' but what can we now say about Clacton?
Perhaps the new intolerant capital of Britain? or maybe the final resting place of white flight ?Or perhaps the final resting place of British, or more precisely English,political thought.

Douglas Carswell is just one more mediocre Tory backbencher, it is perhaps an ironic joke that so many of his former colleagues have described his an an 'intellectual'.
Well if he's a Tory intellectual this this country surely has need of a zeitgeist.But then the same Tory idolaters  raise Boris Johnston too and claim he is some sort of advanced thinker!
On that scale then I suppose Nigel Farage must be counted as the Einstein of the right.

Clacton looks like a dreary place, it can be no coincidence that within the constituency boundaries there is the poorest ward in Britain.Other towns have welcome to our town signs at the entrance, I guess Clacton has 'Abandon hope all you who enter here'.
It must be hard to get enthusiastic for a town that offers an unyielding diet of mediocrity, a place with no vision,no hope,a Dickensian throwback with no Dickens to speak up for the place.
Sad misbegotten places throw up sad misbegotten politicians and in the current climate of despair they gravitate to the party that speaks volumes not on behalf of the sad and desperate but rather howls at them.
And the cry is not one of hope but rather a message that says 'blame the other bloke', give the europeans a good kicking, or better still give 'Johnnie Foreigner' a good seeing off!
The irony of course that whilst immigration is top of the average Clactonians' hate list, there are hardly any migrants in the place.
Hardly surprising really, why would anyone seeking to make a better life for themselves and their family gravitate to a place where even Terry and June left several decades ago.
Ukip's pitch is that it is the anti-politics political party, that it is somehow different from all the rest.It makes a virtue out of the fact that it somehow says things that nobody else dare utter.
That of course is pure horse shit.What Ukip says is what many, if not most  hopeless back bench Tories really think and discuss behind cupped hands in the Commons bars.
Sadly we all know in our heart of hearts that there are several Labour MP's who think the same.Whilst they might not have the overt racist overtones of the far right, they share a belief that if only things went back to the time when MP's were allowed to lead unhindered and everyone knew their place...
We live in a country where elitism of the mediocre is the dominant ideology.It is a pattern of thought that wants to retain the status quo as long as possible.Thats why the campaign in Scotland for a No vote should not be called 'Better Together' but rather'Better as it was-for some of us'

There is however one small shining light in the horror that i9s Clacton, a Tory party dominated by the 'Lets get out of the EU' might just alert many more Scots that further Tory domination might mean an exit from Europe regardless of what the people of Scotland might want.
Schisms and tensions are starting to pull the fabric of the free market apart, if you can't have a free market in the movement of labour,how can you have a continuing free market in the movement of capital ?    

Soon every Scot must do their duty

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.