It goes with the territory, politics can sometimes be nasty,brutish and short!It is always possible that someone will not agree with you (heavens forbear!) and they will disagree with you, they might even shout at you, and if you were Spencer Percival they might even shoot you dead!
Fortunately the killing of politicians is a relatively rare occurance. In.In some parts of the world it is an operational hazard and assassins do operate,but even so it's still rare.
however what is far less rare is innocent civilians being killed by fanatics,the criminally insane,or high level bombardment from the air.
We are likely to see in the next few weeks and months many examples in Syria of what the American's euphemistically call 'collateral damage', it is likely that the odd school,hospital,old peoples home will be hit by a stray bomb that was aimed at a terrorist.
I'm afraid I take with a huge pinch of salt the notion that there exist such precision weapons that they can pinpoint with devastating accuracy the individual target.
"Wfo are we looking for Buddy ?"
"A guy with a beard and a dark skin"
"Hey, there's one know, he's going into that door!"
"That's the guy-go go go!"
"Gotcha- oh shit, there's another guy with a beard and dark skin..."
This whole bombing campaign is not going to work, and when we understand that each missile costs £30,000 a pop and they have already spent a seven figure sum in the last 48 hours,the cost the exercise is not worth the candle.
Indeed it would appear that most of the military expers and indeed military intelligence (surely a contradiction in terms!) agree that without the 70,000 fantasy army on the ground to in fact fight on a street by street basis the whole exercise is doomed to failure.Even Fallon the indefensible minister admits that the campaign will take years.
How many times does it have to be said, that this is not war as we knew it-it is not fucking Agincourt, with neat lines of men that stopped when it got dark, nor is it WW1 with neat lines of trenches where each inch cost hundreds of lives, nor is it WW2 where set battles were fought.
And it is certainly not a guerilla war like Vietnam ,where although the tactcs were different the NLF were a recognisable army with brilliant military tactics.
This time, despite what they say about Syria and Iraq it is a messy jigsaw of hundreds of competing armies,bands,a few mates, whatever, some on one side,some on the other,some on both.
And above all it is a 'war' against individuals.Even the worst examples of terror involve a tiny handful of crazies-some may have an ideology of some vague religious affinity (dreaming of thousands of celestial virgins ) some may be impressed by a 'religious cult' leader,some may be doped up to the yeballs and of course some may be keen to get their hands on a wad of Saudi Arabian dosh.
You fight these sort of people in two ways, firstly in Syria and Iraq by supporting the workers organisations that have patiently and systematically being fighting both the autocracies and theocracies for decades.When the kurdish people were crying out for support,what was the west doing ? Oh, I remember, helping their mates in Turkey suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Kurdish people for self determination.
At the same time, an economic embargo on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and an international embargo on arms sales to the despotic regimes would swiftly screw the power oof Isis, as indeed would an embargo on the oil companies who trade with them.
As to the 'terrorists' in Europe, effective policing coupled with a crack down on Islamaphobia might just work in our favour.It wasn't so long ago in this country that Irish people were victimised and discriminated against.
Finally the position of Her Majesties opposition.
I object in the strongest possible terms to Hilary Benn's assertion that bombing Syria is just like fighting fascism in the 1930's and especially his historically illiterate comparison between the bombing campaign and the men and women of the International Brigades who went to Spain.
The volunteers who went to Spain had a clear political understanding of the nature of fascism and what was needed to stop it, and they gave their lives in many cases for that cause. and of course,even though the Red airforce assisted the Republic with a small number of fighter planes, the only air war fought over Spain was that initiated by Germany and Italy which bombed cities towns and villages and killed thousands of civilians.
Or has been never seen the painting of Guernica!
Of course people are going to be bloody angry with Labour MP's who in a cavalier fashion belittle and riducule the growing number of citizens who say 'this war is not in my name',of course they will get angry responses, and some might even be construed as threats, but calling Danzuk a tosser or even suggesting that he would better serve humanity if he was missing the odd bit of his anatomy in no way compares to what he and his Tory and Lib-Dem mates have unleashed on innocent civilians.If there is a huge flood of desperate refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean in flimsy boats-who will take the responsibility.
Over the years I have taken a lot of political flack, a lot of personal criticism and quite a bit of threats from far right groups and others,why we've even had burning paper stuffed through our letterbox.
It is unpleasant and even a bit scary,but every action creates a reaction.
I'm sure many left MP's and Trade Union leaders have put up with offensive and vile behaviour ,even death treats.
If the threats to these MP's are credible,they have a remedy-they can call for Police protection.
The people of Raqqa have no such remedy.
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Sunday, 22 November 2015
With so many critics-You must be doing something right!
Hysteria takes many forms.The events in Paris last week revealed the extent of hysteria and has in fact played directly into the hands of a tiny bunch of criminally insane people.
In my Chronicle & Echo column out this Thursday I have enlarged on my theme that we are not at war.The 'war against terror' was a construct created by George W Bush,aided and abetted by Blair to justify the invasion of Iraq, the collapse of civil government in that country, the growth of sectarian strife in that country and the protecting of Western oil interests.
If you really want a worldwide criminal conspiracy-look no further!
What the Iraq war unleashed was a culture of gangsterism and criminality, with a rich strain of religious sectarianism and bigotry,fuelled by the breakdown of civil society and funded by the Saudi Royal family,their religious zealots and other assorted Arab states and the right wing Pakistani politicians.
There are hundreds of criminal gangs from Somalian pirates to human smugglers,arms dealers and drug cartels flourishing throughout the region.Some are of course better armed and have more influence and control more territory.They may call themselves a Caliphate and indeed have large stockpiles of arms and money,estimated at about two trillion dollars,but they are bandits preying on the people of that region.
And of course it will be the people of that region,properly supported and helped who will defeat the evil bastards.it will be the people that the West resolutely refused to support for decades, the Kurdish people, the trade unions in Iraq and Syria and the left leaning nationalists who wanted nothing more than control of their national oil reserves.
What we have seen happening in Western and African cities is in many ways unrelated criminal activity that is nothing more than copycat behaviours.
The fact that a number of them claim allegiance to Islam and think that martyrdom will earn them a load of virgins in eternal bliss is really a measure of how pathetic they are,evidence shows,particularly of the Parisian gang,is of an incompetent but dangerous bunch of petty criminals and drug users,some of whom wouldn't know a Koran if it fell on their heads.
You don't declare war on a handful of criminal misfits, if you did then half of British cabinet ministers since the Iraq war would be war criminals! (maybe I need to think that again!)
So because of a handful of crazed misfits the world is in turmoil,cities are closed down,intelligence agencies have billions thrown at them and we are rushing headlong into bombing towns and cities in Syria and iraq to 'punish' all those men women and children who live there+.
To describe what is happening as an over reaction is something of an understatement.Perhaps the idea is to create millions more refugees and thus completely depopulated most of thosr two countries-what a brilliant strategy.
Then of course as they hang out in squalid refugee camps or perish at sea, the young amongst them will bear no resentment to the bombers !
Of course there is no simple solution,but throwing bombs around sure as hell isn't even close to a solution.
Supporting the progressive forces within the Kurdish,Syrian and Iraqi populations would be a good start.Imposing sanctions on the paymasters in Saudi,Pakistan and the Gulf States might be another sensible step in trhe right direction.
In Europe, well instead of cutting police funding,employing more community officers to work on a day to day basis might be better than slinging pots of money at MI5 and MI6-whose track record we only have their word for.
Of course spending billions on Trident makes sense, always handy to be able to nuke the terror gangs in Paris or Brussels, that would kill more than thousands of people,it would also get us out of the EU!
There again it might dawn on some that there is a connection between structural poverty and disaffection amongst young people.Perhaps it is mere coincidence that in the Paris suburbs where some of the gang came from youth unemployment is running at 40%
What is the bold Labour Party doing ? Well it would appear from this Sunday's papers the PLP and a range of commentators are getting their rocks off by slagging off Jeremy Corbyn.(Nothing new there,but the viciousness is several notches higher)
What dangerous ideas has he got them all so riled ? Well he said for instance that 'shoot to kill' is not the first point of departure, and that the rule of law is what this nation is based on.
Well Jeremy, that's certainly a revolutionary concept,after all we have no examples recently of men in uniform shooting to kill then discovering their 'terrorist' was an innocent electrician or carrying a chairleg!
He has also had the audacity to suggest that maybe bombing civilians is not always the best way to win hearts and minds, well strangely his view has been echoed by peace loving military chiefs, who have noticed that more bombings don't always achieve the desired effect-unless they discovered a hidden hoarde of WMD's.
What else has he suggested,well the idea that involving the UN -that seems to be OK, but Cameron and many of the gung-ho Blairites seem determined to move with or without UN agreement,but thenn I forgot,they know all about real-politic!
What is truly depressing the the uniformity of the criticism, Barbara Ellen in the 'Observer' announces that she is a 'moderate' and has resigned from the Labour Party in protest, well pardon me,I've been reading the paper for years and was unaware that she had a Labour bone in her body-I obviously missed her secret socialist message.
In the same paper, Liz Kendall,onetime contender for the Labour leadership proclaims that it is 'unpatriotic'not to support Trident.
Everywhere else there are plots and whispers and pronouncements about the need to get rid of Jeremy, and they mostly come from within the Labour Party.
Mwemo to those disloyal trolls -who won the largestr ever vote in the Party's history and increased the membership fastest- clue- it wasn't Danzuk,Mann,Kendall or even Blunkett.
Just a thought.
In my Chronicle & Echo column out this Thursday I have enlarged on my theme that we are not at war.The 'war against terror' was a construct created by George W Bush,aided and abetted by Blair to justify the invasion of Iraq, the collapse of civil government in that country, the growth of sectarian strife in that country and the protecting of Western oil interests.
If you really want a worldwide criminal conspiracy-look no further!
What the Iraq war unleashed was a culture of gangsterism and criminality, with a rich strain of religious sectarianism and bigotry,fuelled by the breakdown of civil society and funded by the Saudi Royal family,their religious zealots and other assorted Arab states and the right wing Pakistani politicians.
There are hundreds of criminal gangs from Somalian pirates to human smugglers,arms dealers and drug cartels flourishing throughout the region.Some are of course better armed and have more influence and control more territory.They may call themselves a Caliphate and indeed have large stockpiles of arms and money,estimated at about two trillion dollars,but they are bandits preying on the people of that region.
And of course it will be the people of that region,properly supported and helped who will defeat the evil bastards.it will be the people that the West resolutely refused to support for decades, the Kurdish people, the trade unions in Iraq and Syria and the left leaning nationalists who wanted nothing more than control of their national oil reserves.
What we have seen happening in Western and African cities is in many ways unrelated criminal activity that is nothing more than copycat behaviours.
The fact that a number of them claim allegiance to Islam and think that martyrdom will earn them a load of virgins in eternal bliss is really a measure of how pathetic they are,evidence shows,particularly of the Parisian gang,is of an incompetent but dangerous bunch of petty criminals and drug users,some of whom wouldn't know a Koran if it fell on their heads.
You don't declare war on a handful of criminal misfits, if you did then half of British cabinet ministers since the Iraq war would be war criminals! (maybe I need to think that again!)
So because of a handful of crazed misfits the world is in turmoil,cities are closed down,intelligence agencies have billions thrown at them and we are rushing headlong into bombing towns and cities in Syria and iraq to 'punish' all those men women and children who live there+.
To describe what is happening as an over reaction is something of an understatement.Perhaps the idea is to create millions more refugees and thus completely depopulated most of thosr two countries-what a brilliant strategy.
Then of course as they hang out in squalid refugee camps or perish at sea, the young amongst them will bear no resentment to the bombers !
Of course there is no simple solution,but throwing bombs around sure as hell isn't even close to a solution.
Supporting the progressive forces within the Kurdish,Syrian and Iraqi populations would be a good start.Imposing sanctions on the paymasters in Saudi,Pakistan and the Gulf States might be another sensible step in trhe right direction.
In Europe, well instead of cutting police funding,employing more community officers to work on a day to day basis might be better than slinging pots of money at MI5 and MI6-whose track record we only have their word for.
Of course spending billions on Trident makes sense, always handy to be able to nuke the terror gangs in Paris or Brussels, that would kill more than thousands of people,it would also get us out of the EU!
There again it might dawn on some that there is a connection between structural poverty and disaffection amongst young people.Perhaps it is mere coincidence that in the Paris suburbs where some of the gang came from youth unemployment is running at 40%
What is the bold Labour Party doing ? Well it would appear from this Sunday's papers the PLP and a range of commentators are getting their rocks off by slagging off Jeremy Corbyn.(Nothing new there,but the viciousness is several notches higher)
What dangerous ideas has he got them all so riled ? Well he said for instance that 'shoot to kill' is not the first point of departure, and that the rule of law is what this nation is based on.
Well Jeremy, that's certainly a revolutionary concept,after all we have no examples recently of men in uniform shooting to kill then discovering their 'terrorist' was an innocent electrician or carrying a chairleg!
He has also had the audacity to suggest that maybe bombing civilians is not always the best way to win hearts and minds, well strangely his view has been echoed by peace loving military chiefs, who have noticed that more bombings don't always achieve the desired effect-unless they discovered a hidden hoarde of WMD's.
What else has he suggested,well the idea that involving the UN -that seems to be OK, but Cameron and many of the gung-ho Blairites seem determined to move with or without UN agreement,but thenn I forgot,they know all about real-politic!
What is truly depressing the the uniformity of the criticism, Barbara Ellen in the 'Observer' announces that she is a 'moderate' and has resigned from the Labour Party in protest, well pardon me,I've been reading the paper for years and was unaware that she had a Labour bone in her body-I obviously missed her secret socialist message.
In the same paper, Liz Kendall,onetime contender for the Labour leadership proclaims that it is 'unpatriotic'not to support Trident.
Everywhere else there are plots and whispers and pronouncements about the need to get rid of Jeremy, and they mostly come from within the Labour Party.
Mwemo to those disloyal trolls -who won the largestr ever vote in the Party's history and increased the membership fastest- clue- it wasn't Danzuk,Mann,Kendall or even Blunkett.
Just a thought.
Saturday, 24 October 2015
Why Hollywood does not understand 'the Suffragette
The film 'Suffragette' opened in this country to widespread acclaim. Despite however having Meryl Streep in it all for 90 seconds American audiences were to say the least sniffy.
Time magazine damned it with faint praise, drawing attention to the objections from Black activists that there were no black actors in the story and that the film relied on too many cliose-ups because it was a 'low budget' production.
If only Walt Disney studios had made the film,Victorian London would have been awash with singing cockney chimney sweeps,titled ladies in pearls with swishy satin dresses and probably dancing penguins too!
It is a remarkable film and should be shown in every school as a shot of reality.Indeed if I was programming British education I would team it as part of a double bill with Ken Loach's 'Spirit of 45'
In two films all you need to know about the last 100 odd years of British history- sorted!
I would have liked to have included 'Braveheart' too,but the presence of that Neanderthal Australian knobhead Mel Gibson sadly rules out William the Wallace s' story for the time being.
Some British critics have not been to kind either,although given one eminent 'critic' was Danny Finkelstein his opinion is barely worth the paper it was printed on.
His thesis was that votes for women was not won by the suffragettes but rather by the patient work over half a century by respectable campaign groups like those led by Millicent Fawcett, and anyway it was World War 1 'wot won it'.
Of course there is some truth in both those claims, the patient tireless work of those predominantly middle class ladies was an important part of the battle for the vote and it is true to say that the war was a catalyst for change.
It's also true to say that the WPSU that Mrs Pankhurst and her family led had a large element of middle class ladies involved-the Pankhursts themselves,Richard her husband was a doctor in Manchester-and a socialist freethinker to boot,but what the WPSU did was to kick the issue of 'Votes for Women' right onto the front pages and into the faces of the Ministers in Westminster.
The film however highlighted the role of working class women in the struggle.
It has long been known that many working class women were involved,Mary Kenny and the Northern mill girls are frequently cited, but the film focussed on London's east End, and the main character Maud Watts, was a browbeaten laundress in a sweatshop laundry in Bethnal Green where she had laboured for a pittance since childhood.
The notion that there were no black actors involved and the description in the publicity that the women were 'slaves' seems to have upset black activists.I think that reaction is a pity for two reasons, firstly of course there were few black workers in the East End in 1912,there were of course some,mostly men who had arrived as merchant seamen, and more significantly it was perfectly correct to describe the women as slaves, they were in every sense 'wage slaves'and were every bit victims of the system as black men and women.
Solidarity in struggle must always be a two way street.
The other American criticism was that the film didn't have the sweep and grandeur of the blockbuster epic.
Thank Christ for that.Edwardian London was dark,claustrophobic,insanitary and raw.It wasn't the technicolour world of Downton Abbey.Watching it you could smell the streets,the washing hanging out to dry and the decay all around.
Atmospheric it certainly was.
The other feature of the film was the understanding that most men were not villains, apart from some of the MP's and the lecherous laundry owner.Maud's husband simply did not understand what was going on, he was hard-working,poor and somewhat dim.Today we call men like that 'Sun' readers.
The Scotland yard detective, an Irishman was a subtle creation, an early intelligence/surveillance officer it was a recognition that they often get things wrong (even today) and the fact that he was Irish was a nod to conspiracy theorists and of course their concerns then about the dangers of Fenianism.
I wonder what nationality they would make such a character today?
The timing of the release of this film is a brilliant piece of serendipity.In the week it came out the Labour party launched a campaign to ensure as many people as possible are registered to vote.The Tories have changed the rules and it seems likely that maybe a million people will lose their right to vote.
They want to speed up the process and get it dusted off as quickly as possible.
In any other place and time it would be called gerrymandering!
If you see no other film this year,go see Suffragette- there are horrors in in,like the force feeding regime in Holloway, but the most moving is the way the Metropolitan Police break up the demonstration outside Parliament.
Direct action has always been the last resort of desperate people, the women in 1912 understood that,just as we a beginning to understand it again.
Everything changes-nothing changes!
.
Time magazine damned it with faint praise, drawing attention to the objections from Black activists that there were no black actors in the story and that the film relied on too many cliose-ups because it was a 'low budget' production.
If only Walt Disney studios had made the film,Victorian London would have been awash with singing cockney chimney sweeps,titled ladies in pearls with swishy satin dresses and probably dancing penguins too!
It is a remarkable film and should be shown in every school as a shot of reality.Indeed if I was programming British education I would team it as part of a double bill with Ken Loach's 'Spirit of 45'
In two films all you need to know about the last 100 odd years of British history- sorted!
I would have liked to have included 'Braveheart' too,but the presence of that Neanderthal Australian knobhead Mel Gibson sadly rules out William the Wallace s' story for the time being.
Some British critics have not been to kind either,although given one eminent 'critic' was Danny Finkelstein his opinion is barely worth the paper it was printed on.
His thesis was that votes for women was not won by the suffragettes but rather by the patient work over half a century by respectable campaign groups like those led by Millicent Fawcett, and anyway it was World War 1 'wot won it'.
Of course there is some truth in both those claims, the patient tireless work of those predominantly middle class ladies was an important part of the battle for the vote and it is true to say that the war was a catalyst for change.
It's also true to say that the WPSU that Mrs Pankhurst and her family led had a large element of middle class ladies involved-the Pankhursts themselves,Richard her husband was a doctor in Manchester-and a socialist freethinker to boot,but what the WPSU did was to kick the issue of 'Votes for Women' right onto the front pages and into the faces of the Ministers in Westminster.
The film however highlighted the role of working class women in the struggle.
It has long been known that many working class women were involved,Mary Kenny and the Northern mill girls are frequently cited, but the film focussed on London's east End, and the main character Maud Watts, was a browbeaten laundress in a sweatshop laundry in Bethnal Green where she had laboured for a pittance since childhood.
The notion that there were no black actors involved and the description in the publicity that the women were 'slaves' seems to have upset black activists.I think that reaction is a pity for two reasons, firstly of course there were few black workers in the East End in 1912,there were of course some,mostly men who had arrived as merchant seamen, and more significantly it was perfectly correct to describe the women as slaves, they were in every sense 'wage slaves'and were every bit victims of the system as black men and women.
Solidarity in struggle must always be a two way street.
The other American criticism was that the film didn't have the sweep and grandeur of the blockbuster epic.
Thank Christ for that.Edwardian London was dark,claustrophobic,insanitary and raw.It wasn't the technicolour world of Downton Abbey.Watching it you could smell the streets,the washing hanging out to dry and the decay all around.
Atmospheric it certainly was.
The other feature of the film was the understanding that most men were not villains, apart from some of the MP's and the lecherous laundry owner.Maud's husband simply did not understand what was going on, he was hard-working,poor and somewhat dim.Today we call men like that 'Sun' readers.
The Scotland yard detective, an Irishman was a subtle creation, an early intelligence/surveillance officer it was a recognition that they often get things wrong (even today) and the fact that he was Irish was a nod to conspiracy theorists and of course their concerns then about the dangers of Fenianism.
I wonder what nationality they would make such a character today?
The timing of the release of this film is a brilliant piece of serendipity.In the week it came out the Labour party launched a campaign to ensure as many people as possible are registered to vote.The Tories have changed the rules and it seems likely that maybe a million people will lose their right to vote.
They want to speed up the process and get it dusted off as quickly as possible.
In any other place and time it would be called gerrymandering!
If you see no other film this year,go see Suffragette- there are horrors in in,like the force feeding regime in Holloway, but the most moving is the way the Metropolitan Police break up the demonstration outside Parliament.
Direct action has always been the last resort of desperate people, the women in 1912 understood that,just as we a beginning to understand it again.
Everything changes-nothing changes!
.
Sunday, 4 October 2015
To understand oppression is to be a Jew.
It would appear today that the actress Maureen Lipman has left the Labour Party once again, she left it a few months ago but it seems,well according to the Mail on Sunday that she has decided to leave again.
Fine, there are a lot of people I think the Labour Party could lose, not least Blair,Mandelson,Danzuck and loads of others that should never really have been in the Labour Party,but I'm strangely sorry to see Lipman leave again.
I'm sorry not because I think she is a great loss but the reason she has given for her departure. It is an accusation of anti-Semitism that I find disturbing,and it's one that appears to be gaining currency on the more irrational fringes of pernicious anti- socialism.
It is interesting that whilst they link it to Jeremy Corbyn all the critics are at pain to explain that they do not believe that Jeremy himself is anti-Semitic but it is the trope of guilt by association, you're not an anti-Semite but you know someone who is.
I've written about this topic before and I'm sure I will again, but I think it is an argument worth repeating as often as necessary and as in the past I prefix it with a quote from a wonderful song by Ruthie Gorton:
"TO understand oppression is to be a Jew,
so Free Palestine now."
At a time in the world's history when millions are travelling the world dispossed of their homes,dying in dreadful conditions,suffering unimaginable hardship and being victims every which way they turn it's worth casting our minds back to the last great exodus of people all over Europe.
When World war Two ended millions wee fleeing persecution and cruelty from countries they no longer felt safe in. Most ofvthe refugees then were displaced Jewish families,victims of the holocaust without a state and without any prospect of finding one.
many went to America but a large number wanted their own homeland and the prospect of the State of Israel offered a sanctuary.
The Jewish homeland had beeen a dream of Zionists since the 19th century and of course that homeland was located in Palestine.
That was of course the big problem, because Palestine was already occupied by Palestinian Arabs who had settled for centuries.A difficult problem but frankly not an intractable one, after all the people were all Semitic and had a great deal in common, Arab tribes and Jewish tribes had lived peaceably foe centuries and indeed many of the early Zionist pioneers saw no great difficulties.
But of course what people saw and what great power politics wanted were two very different things.They was a world view,not a full blown conspiracy theory but one that recognised that the Middle East was the most important region in the world because it was the most important source of oil and anything that could keep the region volatile could allow for 'intervention' at any time.
Afterv all the theatre of war in WW2 was not about a few million miles of sand, it was about controlling the oil fieldsfor the future.Britain,France and the United States had powerful oil companies and they wanted a degree of instability in the region that would ensure their presence.
Since the end of WW2 thee has been turmoil and chaos in the region, the West has pursued an aggressive policy of supporting Israel financially and militarily, and at the same time picking and choosing various client states like Saudi Arabia,Quatar, and so on and encouraging division amongst Moslem people.
The Middle East has never had a days peace since the end of the last war, and the people throughout the region have paid a very heavy price .
What has been done cannot simply be 'undone', we see on a daily basis what is the human price of intervention-remember the WMD that Saddam was supposed to have and the consequences.
And our flexible approach to human rights violations, Assad is a cruel tyrant yet the Saudi Royal family are pussy cats who deserve all the high quality armaments we can flog to them!
But we are where we are, and as far as I can see the only long lasting solution lies in the two state option,guaranteed by effective United Nations action.
And any two nation solution must look beyond the current boundaries.It is intolerable that the palestinian people are confined to two overcrowded and insufficient ghettoes.Any permanent settlement must spread beyond current borders and must involve land annexed from other parts of the region.Saudi Arabia is a vast empty land that could easily accommodate large Palestinian communities-mind you that might mean them having to give up some oil reserves and embrace human rights,but I think they owe it to the Palestinian people.
I believe that the only solution is one of co-operation and the building of secular states throughout the region.Of course I'm aware of the reluctance of the great powers to give up their power bases, and the religious maniacs on all sides to abandon their primitive beliefs and a kinder vision of politics that places human worth and solidarity above all else.
And to do that most effectively we need to defeat the worst and greatest scourge of the human species-racism in all its forms!
Fine, there are a lot of people I think the Labour Party could lose, not least Blair,Mandelson,Danzuck and loads of others that should never really have been in the Labour Party,but I'm strangely sorry to see Lipman leave again.
I'm sorry not because I think she is a great loss but the reason she has given for her departure. It is an accusation of anti-Semitism that I find disturbing,and it's one that appears to be gaining currency on the more irrational fringes of pernicious anti- socialism.
It is interesting that whilst they link it to Jeremy Corbyn all the critics are at pain to explain that they do not believe that Jeremy himself is anti-Semitic but it is the trope of guilt by association, you're not an anti-Semite but you know someone who is.
I've written about this topic before and I'm sure I will again, but I think it is an argument worth repeating as often as necessary and as in the past I prefix it with a quote from a wonderful song by Ruthie Gorton:
"TO understand oppression is to be a Jew,
so Free Palestine now."
At a time in the world's history when millions are travelling the world dispossed of their homes,dying in dreadful conditions,suffering unimaginable hardship and being victims every which way they turn it's worth casting our minds back to the last great exodus of people all over Europe.
When World war Two ended millions wee fleeing persecution and cruelty from countries they no longer felt safe in. Most ofvthe refugees then were displaced Jewish families,victims of the holocaust without a state and without any prospect of finding one.
many went to America but a large number wanted their own homeland and the prospect of the State of Israel offered a sanctuary.
The Jewish homeland had beeen a dream of Zionists since the 19th century and of course that homeland was located in Palestine.
That was of course the big problem, because Palestine was already occupied by Palestinian Arabs who had settled for centuries.A difficult problem but frankly not an intractable one, after all the people were all Semitic and had a great deal in common, Arab tribes and Jewish tribes had lived peaceably foe centuries and indeed many of the early Zionist pioneers saw no great difficulties.
But of course what people saw and what great power politics wanted were two very different things.They was a world view,not a full blown conspiracy theory but one that recognised that the Middle East was the most important region in the world because it was the most important source of oil and anything that could keep the region volatile could allow for 'intervention' at any time.
Afterv all the theatre of war in WW2 was not about a few million miles of sand, it was about controlling the oil fieldsfor the future.Britain,France and the United States had powerful oil companies and they wanted a degree of instability in the region that would ensure their presence.
Since the end of WW2 thee has been turmoil and chaos in the region, the West has pursued an aggressive policy of supporting Israel financially and militarily, and at the same time picking and choosing various client states like Saudi Arabia,Quatar, and so on and encouraging division amongst Moslem people.
The Middle East has never had a days peace since the end of the last war, and the people throughout the region have paid a very heavy price .
What has been done cannot simply be 'undone', we see on a daily basis what is the human price of intervention-remember the WMD that Saddam was supposed to have and the consequences.
And our flexible approach to human rights violations, Assad is a cruel tyrant yet the Saudi Royal family are pussy cats who deserve all the high quality armaments we can flog to them!
But we are where we are, and as far as I can see the only long lasting solution lies in the two state option,guaranteed by effective United Nations action.
And any two nation solution must look beyond the current boundaries.It is intolerable that the palestinian people are confined to two overcrowded and insufficient ghettoes.Any permanent settlement must spread beyond current borders and must involve land annexed from other parts of the region.Saudi Arabia is a vast empty land that could easily accommodate large Palestinian communities-mind you that might mean them having to give up some oil reserves and embrace human rights,but I think they owe it to the Palestinian people.
I believe that the only solution is one of co-operation and the building of secular states throughout the region.Of course I'm aware of the reluctance of the great powers to give up their power bases, and the religious maniacs on all sides to abandon their primitive beliefs and a kinder vision of politics that places human worth and solidarity above all else.
And to do that most effectively we need to defeat the worst and greatest scourge of the human species-racism in all its forms!
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Suddenly Northampton's not such a nice place
A decent young Labour Councillor Gareth Eales published a straightforward appeal for compassion for the refugees .
Nothing unusual you might think with such a crisis facing so many millions of innocent people,fleeing not as a section of the press might imply as 'economic migrants' but simply folk terrified of the violence in their country.
Of course the world has seen it before,perhaps not on the scale its happening but then several countries from Syria through Iraq to Afghanistan are in perpetual turmoil.For a variety of reasons millions of people are in dreadful camps ior are risking everything to flee in unsafe boats ,victims of poverty,malnutrition,torture,imprisonment,unemployment,disease and even people smugglers.
hard to imagine such horrors in the 21st century.
Gareth publishes a thoughtful plea and what happens?
It would appear Northampton,a town I love and a community whose quiet Midland pragmatism I have enjoyed has become a snakepit of Katy Hopkins clones.
Hundreds of vile comments have appeared on Facebook and the Chronicle & Echo website threatening gareth and his family.Filthy depraved racists and their ilk have embarked on a crusade of vilification and hatred that has gone beyond anything I have seen or experienced in over 40 years of local politics.
I am sure that much of this is orchestrated by far right groups like 'Britain First', and appropriate name,one that they share with Father Coughlin's notorious fascist outfit 'America First' in the 1930's.
The great Woody Guthrie in a song said of them:
"They say America First but they mean America Last!"
What this bunch do is to denigrate this town's once proud record of being a haven for people fleeing persecution from all over the world.In my time on the Borough Council we were always able,in our small provincial way to offer support to people in distress.I can immediately call to mind the Chilean refugees after Pinochet's coup in 1973, the Vietnamese Boat People and the Bosnian people fleeing that horrible civil war.there were of course in that period others too.
The common factor that united them all was that they lost everything, that they were desperate and that they all contributed massively to the host community.
Some of the older people were able to return to their home when the crisis was over, I vividly recall a wonderful elderly Chilean couple,Don Cisternas and his wife Mina.Don Cisternas 'crime' had been to be a member of the Communist Party and his 'activity' was to be chairman of his village tractor fund!
For that they were forced to flee in old age half way across the world to a land where they didn't speak a word of English,with no family,no possessions,nothing.
We made them welcome as best we could but the other Chilean families were so kind and generous to the elderly couple and treated them with great respect and allowed them to function as creative senior citizens whilst they were here.
All the other families re-built their lives as best they could, worked in a variety of jobs, paid their taxes and played a part in the wider community.Their children went to school here,and many went on to university and now have key roles in a variety of professions.
What was true of the Chilean community was true of all the other refugee groups.They were not and are not 'scroungers' or 'benefit cheats' or whatever other epithets the mindless Sun readers think appropriate!
I think what shocked me most was not the crass ignorance of Gareth's critics, or the massive hypocrisy they displayed-imagine this, they are all so compassionate about homeless people and overcrowded families and low paid workers-all the groups that they have been vilifying as -oh let me guess 'scroungers' and ' benefit cheats' for so long.
Suddenly compassion is for 'British people' only but do I detect in that only a certain sort of 'British person'= you know -white!
These people remind me of the description the late great Phil Ochs offered in his song about the disgraceful racist government,judiciary and white supremacists of Mississippi in the 1960's
"Mississippi find some other country to be part of."
That's how I feel about some Northamptonians!
Nothing unusual you might think with such a crisis facing so many millions of innocent people,fleeing not as a section of the press might imply as 'economic migrants' but simply folk terrified of the violence in their country.
Of course the world has seen it before,perhaps not on the scale its happening but then several countries from Syria through Iraq to Afghanistan are in perpetual turmoil.For a variety of reasons millions of people are in dreadful camps ior are risking everything to flee in unsafe boats ,victims of poverty,malnutrition,torture,imprisonment,unemployment,disease and even people smugglers.
hard to imagine such horrors in the 21st century.
Gareth publishes a thoughtful plea and what happens?
It would appear Northampton,a town I love and a community whose quiet Midland pragmatism I have enjoyed has become a snakepit of Katy Hopkins clones.
Hundreds of vile comments have appeared on Facebook and the Chronicle & Echo website threatening gareth and his family.Filthy depraved racists and their ilk have embarked on a crusade of vilification and hatred that has gone beyond anything I have seen or experienced in over 40 years of local politics.
I am sure that much of this is orchestrated by far right groups like 'Britain First', and appropriate name,one that they share with Father Coughlin's notorious fascist outfit 'America First' in the 1930's.
The great Woody Guthrie in a song said of them:
"They say America First but they mean America Last!"
What this bunch do is to denigrate this town's once proud record of being a haven for people fleeing persecution from all over the world.In my time on the Borough Council we were always able,in our small provincial way to offer support to people in distress.I can immediately call to mind the Chilean refugees after Pinochet's coup in 1973, the Vietnamese Boat People and the Bosnian people fleeing that horrible civil war.there were of course in that period others too.
The common factor that united them all was that they lost everything, that they were desperate and that they all contributed massively to the host community.
Some of the older people were able to return to their home when the crisis was over, I vividly recall a wonderful elderly Chilean couple,Don Cisternas and his wife Mina.Don Cisternas 'crime' had been to be a member of the Communist Party and his 'activity' was to be chairman of his village tractor fund!
For that they were forced to flee in old age half way across the world to a land where they didn't speak a word of English,with no family,no possessions,nothing.
We made them welcome as best we could but the other Chilean families were so kind and generous to the elderly couple and treated them with great respect and allowed them to function as creative senior citizens whilst they were here.
All the other families re-built their lives as best they could, worked in a variety of jobs, paid their taxes and played a part in the wider community.Their children went to school here,and many went on to university and now have key roles in a variety of professions.
What was true of the Chilean community was true of all the other refugee groups.They were not and are not 'scroungers' or 'benefit cheats' or whatever other epithets the mindless Sun readers think appropriate!
I think what shocked me most was not the crass ignorance of Gareth's critics, or the massive hypocrisy they displayed-imagine this, they are all so compassionate about homeless people and overcrowded families and low paid workers-all the groups that they have been vilifying as -oh let me guess 'scroungers' and ' benefit cheats' for so long.
Suddenly compassion is for 'British people' only but do I detect in that only a certain sort of 'British person'= you know -white!
These people remind me of the description the late great Phil Ochs offered in his song about the disgraceful racist government,judiciary and white supremacists of Mississippi in the 1960's
"Mississippi find some other country to be part of."
That's how I feel about some Northamptonians!
Sunday, 23 August 2015
I bet the Labour party never knew it had so many friends !
All my experience in the Labour Party led me to one conclusion-what we needed most was a mass party,ideally of young idealistic people who wanted to change the world.You know like the young peop0le who came back after WW2 and wanted to end the squalor and ugliness of the preceding Tory decades-a world to win!
Over the last few weeks the Labour Party has tripled in size and can be almost called a mass party once again.
However it would appear that its the wrong mass!
A bit like the wrong leaves on the eail or the wrong weapons of mass destruction !
Not long ago we were told that Labour needed to attract people who had voted for other parties, Lib-Dems,Scot-nats,Green party, even Tories and UKIP supporters.We needed to build another big tent.
But now it seems what the Labour Party hierarchy meant was a not really so big a tent and one that could be trusted to vote like docile sheep for the next available mediocrity that sounded like the last available mediocrity and going back through a long line of mediocrities
Why does the Kinnock conference speech about generations of pig ignorant Kinnock's spring to mind?
now it is true that some mischievous Tories with a few bob to spare may have invested three quid (I bet they weren't members of Unite!) and its possible that the 'hard left' have infiltrated the party ranks.
But lets get this in some sort of perspective.
it is possible that a bunch of Tories have signed up-maybe the same Tory donors who have bunged Yvette Coopers' campaign £75K( or don't we talk about that!)
And maybe the 'far left' have mobilised all their supporters to join- well that's probably a few hundred at bes.Anyone who knows the nature of the left groups in this country knows two things, that there are not too many of them and the possibility of getting them to agree to any coherent joint strategy makes herding cats simle!
So what we really have is a large number of people who really desire change,who have seen mass movements emerge in Greece,Spain and Italy and especially Scotland and want to be part of that movement.
Can anyone in the Labour Party seriously suggest that the SNP knocked out 40 Labour MP's on a right wing programme?
What happened in Scotland was not about the charisma of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond , it was a recognition that austerity was destroying the fabric of their country and the Labour Party stood for absolutely nothing.
Who on earth would vote for Murphy and Alexander and the other numpties who were offering merely a shade less austerity than Cameron and Osborne.
Now of course all we have his the hysteria of the British press and the wheeling out of what are euphemistically called 'Labour grandees' on a daily basis to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn and his thousands of new young supporters.
I thought it was scraping the barrel with Blair,Mandelson,Danzuck, Blunkett and the rest, but the ramblings of Baroness Boothroyd probably reached a new low.Who can they pull out next ?
Expect to hear any day from Herbert Morrison or Ernie Bevin-or possibly the wise words of J Ramsay McDonald-that doyen of all things traditional Labour Party.
The machinations and gerrymandering of party officials will get worse and more sinister in the next three weeks,expect more people to be barred after they have cast their vote-and how does that work in a secret ballot?
We are told that they will comb the canvass returns to see how people voted.Having canvassed for almost 40 years I can assure anyone that canvass returns are as close to fiction as any novel by jeffery Archer (actually they're better than any fiction by Jeffery Archer) and anyway-I thought the whole point of the electorally concerned Labour Party was to win people back to the party, especially if in the past they voted elsewhere.
Seems an odd way to encourage them to support the Labour Party:
"Oh you voted Green in nineteen oatcake-your barred!"
I hope that Jeremy Corbyn wins and the Labour Party moves into a new trajectory, my great fear is that the forces of reaction, those fat cats who want to be in a meaningless shadow cabinet (you know the ones that Tim Farron is encouraging to join him and his 7 dwarves to become the 'real' opposition)
I(f they win then all the enthusiasm of the past few weeks will be lost, those new members will vanish like the summer snow,who wants a four year war of attrition in constituency after constituency.
I've been there and it is soul destroying.
In my lifetime the best thing that ever happened in the Labour Party when the SDP decamped .It is possible that the left will be in a much stronger position than it was in 1981,but Corbyn will have two major handicaps-the PLP and the Party organisatio0n.
Over the last few weeks the Labour Party has tripled in size and can be almost called a mass party once again.
However it would appear that its the wrong mass!
A bit like the wrong leaves on the eail or the wrong weapons of mass destruction !
Not long ago we were told that Labour needed to attract people who had voted for other parties, Lib-Dems,Scot-nats,Green party, even Tories and UKIP supporters.We needed to build another big tent.
But now it seems what the Labour Party hierarchy meant was a not really so big a tent and one that could be trusted to vote like docile sheep for the next available mediocrity that sounded like the last available mediocrity and going back through a long line of mediocrities
Why does the Kinnock conference speech about generations of pig ignorant Kinnock's spring to mind?
now it is true that some mischievous Tories with a few bob to spare may have invested three quid (I bet they weren't members of Unite!) and its possible that the 'hard left' have infiltrated the party ranks.
But lets get this in some sort of perspective.
it is possible that a bunch of Tories have signed up-maybe the same Tory donors who have bunged Yvette Coopers' campaign £75K( or don't we talk about that!)
And maybe the 'far left' have mobilised all their supporters to join- well that's probably a few hundred at bes.Anyone who knows the nature of the left groups in this country knows two things, that there are not too many of them and the possibility of getting them to agree to any coherent joint strategy makes herding cats simle!
So what we really have is a large number of people who really desire change,who have seen mass movements emerge in Greece,Spain and Italy and especially Scotland and want to be part of that movement.
Can anyone in the Labour Party seriously suggest that the SNP knocked out 40 Labour MP's on a right wing programme?
What happened in Scotland was not about the charisma of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond , it was a recognition that austerity was destroying the fabric of their country and the Labour Party stood for absolutely nothing.
Who on earth would vote for Murphy and Alexander and the other numpties who were offering merely a shade less austerity than Cameron and Osborne.
Now of course all we have his the hysteria of the British press and the wheeling out of what are euphemistically called 'Labour grandees' on a daily basis to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn and his thousands of new young supporters.
I thought it was scraping the barrel with Blair,Mandelson,Danzuck, Blunkett and the rest, but the ramblings of Baroness Boothroyd probably reached a new low.Who can they pull out next ?
Expect to hear any day from Herbert Morrison or Ernie Bevin-or possibly the wise words of J Ramsay McDonald-that doyen of all things traditional Labour Party.
The machinations and gerrymandering of party officials will get worse and more sinister in the next three weeks,expect more people to be barred after they have cast their vote-and how does that work in a secret ballot?
We are told that they will comb the canvass returns to see how people voted.Having canvassed for almost 40 years I can assure anyone that canvass returns are as close to fiction as any novel by jeffery Archer (actually they're better than any fiction by Jeffery Archer) and anyway-I thought the whole point of the electorally concerned Labour Party was to win people back to the party, especially if in the past they voted elsewhere.
Seems an odd way to encourage them to support the Labour Party:
"Oh you voted Green in nineteen oatcake-your barred!"
I hope that Jeremy Corbyn wins and the Labour Party moves into a new trajectory, my great fear is that the forces of reaction, those fat cats who want to be in a meaningless shadow cabinet (you know the ones that Tim Farron is encouraging to join him and his 7 dwarves to become the 'real' opposition)
I(f they win then all the enthusiasm of the past few weeks will be lost, those new members will vanish like the summer snow,who wants a four year war of attrition in constituency after constituency.
I've been there and it is soul destroying.
In my lifetime the best thing that ever happened in the Labour Party when the SDP decamped .It is possible that the left will be in a much stronger position than it was in 1981,but Corbyn will have two major handicaps-the PLP and the Party organisatio0n.
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
Now is thev time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.....maybe!
I'm in danger of becoming optimistic again about the future of the Labour Party.It is still a fairly difficult thing to come to terms with, but after the excitement and style that has engulfed young people in Scotland, Greece and Spain,couple the real enthusiasm for radical change actually happen here?
Even tiny stirrings in Vermont, where Bernie Saunders the self professed socialist State Senator has entered the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination-and hold your breath-may be in the lead on Iowa and maybe even in New Hampshire!
I know its unlikely but there is a small still voice that says after so many false dawns.
When Jeremy entered the race to lead the Labour Party I was pleased by somewhat apprehensive.I remembered the euphoria when Tony Benn stood for the Deputy leadership and the campaign that convulsed the Party then, and the narrowness of Healey's victory.But that was then and this is now.Since that time the Party has changed.Three terms of Blair has ensured that the Party is not even a cocial democratic shadow any more.To put in bluntly it is at best a party of technocrats who believe they can manage capitalism betterv that the Tories and the Lib-Dems. They have swallowed undigested the whole free market ideology and have managed to create a party that doesn't sound like a socialist party,walk like a socialist party, talk like a socialist party and worst of all think like socialist party.
Even the events in Scotland during the GE failed to make an impact=I listened to the candidates for leadership there and they sounded as shallow and bone headed as Jim Murphy did before he was swept away.I still find it hard to believe that Dugdale, the likely winner tweeted on Hiroshima Day that she was grateful that we had Trident!
And yet JC,despite all the hysteria about him appears to be pulling further ahead!The right are so desperate that they've pulled out Alastair Campbell to rubbish Jeremy. I.I thought bring Blair out of his estate was a desperate shot, and Johnston and Miliband D and Kinnock- but Campbell!
When in doubt they resort to the oldest fear tactic'entryism'.
It seems they never learn, why they even bring out the old warhorses of a different time,Derek Hatton, George Galloway,Dave Nellist and if they could get away with it the corpse of old Leon himself.
Their clai is that maybe most of the 100,000 + new members are closet trots of one sort or another.Well sweeties can I tell you this, if the 'far left' in this country had over 100,000 clandestine members, the last thing they would do is to join the Labour Party!
Of course it is not a takeover by other parties or even party.There is a genuine desire for radical change, for an anti-austerity programme that means something,for poitical solutions that mean something different, not more of the same but in a different bottle.
So in the absence of actual conspiracies they follow the next route, it's not what you belong to,or where your 'allegiance' lies, it's what you think and say.Mark Serwotka, the outstanding leader of the Civil Servants Union has been denied membership ' because of what he has said or written;.It seems that in the new Model Labour Party even thoughts have to be policed.
" Whilst i have never personally metTony Clarke and John Dickie I know through the local media they are long standing critics of the local Labour Party.Through colleagues in the Labour Party I also know both individuals have a track record of using unfounded rumours to undermine Labour councillors who happen to have a different view or agenda from them."
That is an extract of a letter from Councillor Nazim Choudary to the Regional LP officer George Carr-Williamson in January 2012.
It was part of his response to a complaint against him for assault brought by a young woman.
Strange as it may seem I was in the LP before Choudary was even born and astonishingly I have been a long standing critic of Labour policy and many of those who damaged the party by pushing wrong headed and anti socialist policies for all those decades.But throughout that period of membership I like many others believed that my interests and values were those of the Party I joined.I had no difficulty in agreeing with the statement my union asked me to sign.
I was expelled in 2007 for breaking the rules,although I was supporting the wishes of my ward, but that is of no matters.Like so many others both those who are joining today for the first time or re-joining after a period of disillusionment I hope the Party will go back to the values and principles it once stood for.
And if Jeremy does win there is one thing he must do right away-get rid of the full time apparatchiks who so disfiguew the Labour Party today.And maybe some of tghe careerists too!
Even tiny stirrings in Vermont, where Bernie Saunders the self professed socialist State Senator has entered the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination-and hold your breath-may be in the lead on Iowa and maybe even in New Hampshire!
I know its unlikely but there is a small still voice that says after so many false dawns.
When Jeremy entered the race to lead the Labour Party I was pleased by somewhat apprehensive.I remembered the euphoria when Tony Benn stood for the Deputy leadership and the campaign that convulsed the Party then, and the narrowness of Healey's victory.But that was then and this is now.Since that time the Party has changed.Three terms of Blair has ensured that the Party is not even a cocial democratic shadow any more.To put in bluntly it is at best a party of technocrats who believe they can manage capitalism betterv that the Tories and the Lib-Dems. They have swallowed undigested the whole free market ideology and have managed to create a party that doesn't sound like a socialist party,walk like a socialist party, talk like a socialist party and worst of all think like socialist party.
Even the events in Scotland during the GE failed to make an impact=I listened to the candidates for leadership there and they sounded as shallow and bone headed as Jim Murphy did before he was swept away.I still find it hard to believe that Dugdale, the likely winner tweeted on Hiroshima Day that she was grateful that we had Trident!
And yet JC,despite all the hysteria about him appears to be pulling further ahead!The right are so desperate that they've pulled out Alastair Campbell to rubbish Jeremy. I.I thought bring Blair out of his estate was a desperate shot, and Johnston and Miliband D and Kinnock- but Campbell!
When in doubt they resort to the oldest fear tactic'entryism'.
It seems they never learn, why they even bring out the old warhorses of a different time,Derek Hatton, George Galloway,Dave Nellist and if they could get away with it the corpse of old Leon himself.
Their clai is that maybe most of the 100,000 + new members are closet trots of one sort or another.Well sweeties can I tell you this, if the 'far left' in this country had over 100,000 clandestine members, the last thing they would do is to join the Labour Party!
Of course it is not a takeover by other parties or even party.There is a genuine desire for radical change, for an anti-austerity programme that means something,for poitical solutions that mean something different, not more of the same but in a different bottle.
So in the absence of actual conspiracies they follow the next route, it's not what you belong to,or where your 'allegiance' lies, it's what you think and say.Mark Serwotka, the outstanding leader of the Civil Servants Union has been denied membership ' because of what he has said or written;.It seems that in the new Model Labour Party even thoughts have to be policed.
" Whilst i have never personally metTony Clarke and John Dickie I know through the local media they are long standing critics of the local Labour Party.Through colleagues in the Labour Party I also know both individuals have a track record of using unfounded rumours to undermine Labour councillors who happen to have a different view or agenda from them."
That is an extract of a letter from Councillor Nazim Choudary to the Regional LP officer George Carr-Williamson in January 2012.
It was part of his response to a complaint against him for assault brought by a young woman.
Strange as it may seem I was in the LP before Choudary was even born and astonishingly I have been a long standing critic of Labour policy and many of those who damaged the party by pushing wrong headed and anti socialist policies for all those decades.But throughout that period of membership I like many others believed that my interests and values were those of the Party I joined.I had no difficulty in agreeing with the statement my union asked me to sign.
I was expelled in 2007 for breaking the rules,although I was supporting the wishes of my ward, but that is of no matters.Like so many others both those who are joining today for the first time or re-joining after a period of disillusionment I hope the Party will go back to the values and principles it once stood for.
And if Jeremy does win there is one thing he must do right away-get rid of the full time apparatchiks who so disfiguew the Labour Party today.And maybe some of tghe careerists too!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
