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Socialist Labour support STUC and SPSC call to Fly the Flag in Solidarity with Palestine.
 
The Socialist Labour Party in Scotland give our support to the call by the STUC and the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign to ask Celtic fans to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians by flying the Palestinian flag at Wednesday's match against Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv.
 
The Israeli government policy toward the Palestinians is akin to to the Apartheid policy of the white South African government that was ended twenty years ago. The South African people themselves were the prime movers of the ending of that racist aberration but international solidarity played an important role too. Celtic supporters can follow in that proud tradition by adding their voices to the international call for human rights, decency and a Palestinian homeland free from military occupation, intimidation and political interference from Israel.
 
Let the world see that Scotland and Scottish football supporters stand for human decency and democracy for the Palestinian people.
 
Socialist Labour Party Scotland.
 

 

 

Lockerbie – the Truth

 

 

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and the Elephant in the Room.

 

Comment by Dave Roberts SLP vice-president

 

The press and media are full of hysteria over the release of the convicted “Lockerbie bomber”. The moralising outrage stretches across the Atlantic. The Scottish Justice minister is being slated for going soft on terrorism by senior FBI officials, the SNP and Scotland are being threatened with international isolation and even pariah status. Mandelson, Brown, Blair and Straw are being accused of doing a grubby back room deal with the Libyans for oil contracts in exchange for the release of the “greatest murderer” in British History.

To add to their squirming misery Saif Gaddafi, Colonel Gaddafi’s second son has confirmed to the world’s media that al- Megrahi’s release has been on the table of every oil trade negotiation meeting during the last two years.

 

So has the Scottish and British establishment completely lost the plot and are they going soft on terrorism? Is the frantic scramble for oil now so paramount that it threatens a British rift with the US establishment?

In the smoke and mirrors of what passes for international diplomacy what is actually going on?

 

The answer is simple, if not even more troublesome for the British and American establishments and many of their media sycophants who insisted throughout the Lockerbie case in elevating their journalism to the dizzy heights of the gutter. 

 

The enormous elephant in the room that at the moment everyone is painfully trying to ignore is that al Megrahi is an innocent man and in that sense yet another victim of the Lockerbie bombing and the whole world was about to be told it and shown it.

 

Terminally ill he was given the opportunity of release on compassionate grounds in return for dropping his appeal. An appeal that would have proved that he was innocent, that he was fitted up by the British and American Governments in what Professor Robert Black (the lawyer  responsible for brokering the deal for the two accused of the bombing to stand trial in  the Netherlands under Scottish law) describes as one of the greatest travesties of justice in the history of the Scottish Judicial System.

 

An appeal that was welcomed by Dr Jim Swire .who lost his 28 year old daughter Flora in the bombing and who represents many of the families of the British victims because he knows al-Megrahi to be innocent, an appeal that would have shown that it was the British and American governments that engaged in a grubby deal with Syria and Iran to keep them out of Gulf War1 by lifting arms and trade sanctions and dropping the investigation into their involvement in the Lockerbie bombings. Until that time the investigation had centred on an Iranian sponsored Syrian/Palestinian revenge attack for the mass murder of 290 Iranian pilgrims when their civilian airliner was shot down by the American aircraft carrier Vincennes.

 

This grubby deal was done to allow the Americans to invade Iraq without Syrian and Iranian intervention and the investigation was conveniently realigned, pointing the finger at Libya, which paved the way for the American and British to commit mass murder in Iraq.

 

This is the substantive truth of the case which the British and American establishment fear would surface in any appeal.  A truth that many of the victims’ families are painfully aware of and now demand the evidence.

 

Dr Jim Swire often quotes a telling fact from Thatcher’s biography in which she triumphantly claims that since in the face of international condemnation, she agreed to join the Americans in the bombing of Tripoli Benghazi and much of costal Libya and specifically the targeting of Gaddafi’s home, a raid which left his 7 year old daughter dead, and another 280 civilians killed, “Libya had not been involved in any further attacks on western interests”.

 

Unfortunately for Mrs Thatcher, if the fabrication of Libyan involvement is to be believed, she seems to have forgotten that the biggest single attack on Western interests before 9/11, involving an American plane in British airspace and a death toll of 270, took place nearly 24 months after the bombing of Tripoli. Unless of course she knows something different?

 

It is Kafkaesque for Jack Straw, who with the rest of the Labour government has conspired to keep an innocent man in jail for 8 years whilst ensuring that the war criminal General Pinochet goes free, is titled the Minister for Justice.  Some Minister, Some justice ! 

 

Open the files, for a non- redacted public enquiry now and show some real compassion and justice for all the Lockerbie victims including Abdel Basset al- Megrahi!

 

Ends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMUNICATION WORKERS UNION

Glasgow & District Amalgamated Branch

Tam Dewar CWU Area Delivery Rep DG/KA

www.cwuglasgowdistrictamal.co.uk

tamdewar@yahoo.co.uk

The last national Postal strike in 2007 was concluded when the CWU and Royal Mail agreed a process to negotiate change in response to new technology. This Pay and Modernisation Agreement, endorsed by 60% of the membership, laid out a four phase process to conclude by April 2009 in a new pay and reward scheme and methods of working in Delivery.

From 2007 till 2009 the CWU agreed changes locally through the PMA which resulted in massive savings to Royal Mail. Some units were rewarded by a 50/50 bonus scheme, most units received no bonus. Lump sum awards and a 1.5% increase in basic pay in 2008 was largely self funded. Royal Mail has now walked away from the final phase of this Agreement, not only announcing a pay freeze, at a time of growing company profits, but introducing changes to working practises which affect members earnings and job security. Royal Mail have a view of future delivery jobs being largely part time.

The recent CWU national conference in Bournemouth was dominated by requests for industrial action from units throughout the UK in response to Royal Mail’s misuse and eventual abrogation of the Pay and Modernisation Agreement. Many members feel that if Royal Mail can walk away from this agreement then the CWU should declare the PMA dead and return to established ways of working. It is worthy of note that the Postal Executive which endorsed this Agreement was returned to office with around 10% of the membership voting.

Postal workers in the East of Scotland were the first to use the collective power of the CWU to resist the RM model of “Modernisation” spreading eastwards. Their action had such an effect on the service that Ayrshire managers (members of Unite) were ‘drafted’ to deliver mail. Now that members from the Ayrshire Coast will take to the picket line to explain their case, these managers will be occupied in Ayrshire.

Members in my home unit of Irvine took strike action on Saturday 20th June in response to Royal Mail managers who ignore agreements with the Union on working practises, only after months of talks at local level have been exhausted.

This may well be a prolonged action given the complete inability or unwillingness of senior RM managers to pay due regard to the wishes of the men and women who deliver and collect the mail. Although Irvine DO is the first to take action they will be followed by other units in Ayrshire unless Royal Mail negotiate “modernisation” plans.

Although the Irvine strike is local, in that it concerns the abuse of working practises and the intimidation and threats against senior serving and part time staff, it illustrates the attitudes of RM managers to national and local agreements. We need the protection, at local bargaining level, of a strong Union with national bargaining power.

In addition CWU members face the possible “Part Privatisation” of Royal Mail by a Labour Government elected with a mandate from the British electorate to maintain RM in public ownership. Likewise the Leadership of the CWU believed they had a similar commitment from the Labour Party through the “Warwick Agreement”.

My old Aunt, who read palms and tea leafs, had more accurate powers of prediction than the Leadership of the CWU have managed over what Labour will do next. Prior to the release of the Hooper report we were told that the CWU had a good working relationship with the Business Secretary John Hutton and that Labour would fulfil the “Warwick Agreement”. The very next day Hutton was replaced by Lord Mandelson, “Warwick” was forgotten and Labour intended to privatise Royal Mail. At a briefing in May we were told that the Prime Minster need CWU help out of the privatisation hole, Mandelson would be moved and the CWU view would prevail. Less than two weeks later the PM’s jacket is on a slack nail and Lord Mandelson rules supreme, showing no sign of backing off Privatisation. Not a lot of return for the £1m of CWU members money flowing into Labour coffers. On a more positive note the CWU have run a faultless campaign to influence the public and politicians on Royal Mail privatisation. It would make more sense to spend the political fund on more of the same as the legislative programme rolls on.

That it should be a Labour Government which proposes privatisation of Postal jobs holds it own paradox for Irvine workers. A clandestine meeting of the newly formed Ayrshire Miners Union met on Irvine Moor in 1887 to adopt resolutions advocating “the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Commons“. The Ayrshire miners, following the lead of James Keir Hardie, realised that industrial strength and political representation of the working class in parliament were necessary to change society for the better. Now that the political representation has been corrupted, despite the views of ordinary Labour members, we depend even more on our industrial strength to defend jobs and conditions.

　

　

　

　

Tam Dewar

(in a personal capacity)

　

　

　

 

 

 

THE MIAMI 5 DENIED JUSTICE

THE U.S. Supreme Court announced today, without explanation, its decision not to review the case of our Five comrades who are unjustly imprisoned in that country for struggling against anti-Cuban terrorism that is sponsored by the U.S. rulers. The judges did what the Obama administration requested of it.

In spite of the solid arguments made by the defense attorneys from the obvious and multiple legal violations committed during the whole trial, by ignoring the universal backing to the petition expressed by an unprecedented number of "friend of the Court" briefs, among them 10 Nobel prize recipients, hundreds of parliamentarians, and numerous U.S.

and international jurist organizations, of outstanding political and academic personalities the Supreme Court rejected the case, thus ignoring the demand of Humanity and its obligation to do justice.

We see manifested once more the arbitrariness of a corrupt and hypocritical system and its brutal treatment of our Five brothers.

Our struggle to win their freedom will not diminish for one instant. Now is the time to step up our actions, and not leave even one space uncovered or door unopened.

We are certain that Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando, Ramon, and Rene will continue leading this battle, as they have during these almost 11 years.

Responding to the infamous decision, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo

declared:

Based on the experience that we have had, I am not surprised by the Supreme Court s decision. I have no confidence at all in the justice system of the United States. There are no longer any doubts that our case has been, from the beginning, a political case, because not only did we have the necessasry legal arguments for the Court to review it, we also have the growing international support as reflected in the Amicus briefs presented to the Court in our favor. I repeat what I said one year ago, June 4, 2008, that as long as one person remains struggling outside, we will continue resisting until there is justice."

The struggle must be multiplied until the U.S. government is forced to put an end to this monstruous injustice and restore freedom to Gerardo, Ramon, Antonio, Fernando y Rene.

 

Presidency of the National Assembly of People s Power

June 15, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON 4 JUNE, 2009

 

 

VOTE

FOR THE

SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY

 

  

GET BRITAIN

OUT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

AND

BACK INTO THE WORLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur Scargill

Leader

Socialist Labour Party

 

 

GET BRITAIN BACK INTO THE WORLD

 

On 4th June the people of Britain have a chance to vote in one of the most important elections since the Second World War.

 

The Socialist Labour Party is committed to Britain’s complete withdrawal from the European Union which has been responsible for the destruction of our steel, coal, shipbuilding, engineering and motor car industries.

 

The European Union’s “free market” policy means the unrestricted movement of capital and labour, which has had dire consequences for people and jobs in Britain and throughout Europe.

 

Britain is now controlled by bureaucrats in Brussels whose policies have led to the privatization of our rail, electricity, gas and water, and now threaten to sell off our postal service.

 

The European Union, with its commitment to the “free market” has savagely attacked our National Health Service, education system and welfare provision, including care for the elderly.

 

The EU’s pursuit of globalization has caused economic chaos in Britain, resulting in two-and-a-half million being declared officially unemployed – The real figure is, in fact, over seven million.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Socialist Labour Party deplores the Labour Government, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats who handed out £50 billion to the banks and financial institutions which – together with the European Union – are responsible for the economic, social and political crisis that is currently faced by millions of people.

 

What the Government should have done was to put those bankers into brass handcuffs and lock them away for creating this situation in which millions of people have lost millions of pounds.

 

It’s a disgrace that this hand-out came only months after the Government refused to give just £100 million to help save Rover, the British car manufacturer, and save thousands of jobs.

 

The Socialist Labour Party would have given that £50 billion to help the people who risk losing their homes pay their mortgage payments. 

 

We would have given that money to people who are trapped by owing money, so that they could repay their debts and at the same time help stimulate a stagnating economy.

 

Our Party would take back into public and social ownership all the industries and services sold off by the Tory and Labour governments and would give help to our beleaguered fishing and farming industries.

 

We would help our farmers produce everything that we need plus additional food that could be sold on the world market – in exchange for those foods we do not produce here.

 

 

 

ENERGY

 

European Union policies have created a situation where, in addition to thousands losing their jobs, we are now importing 25% of our gas – including liquid gas - and oil from the most unstable areas in the world, at a cost of between £15 and £20 billion per year.

 

Over 90% of our coal industry has been closed, yet Britain imports 44 million tonnes of coal at a cost of £4 billion per year.

 

This policy is economic stupidity.  We have sufficient coal reserves from which we could produce all the oil, gas and petrochemicals which Britain needs, while we develop renewable energy and help employ thousands of British workers who currently have no work.

 

I am an environmentalist, active long before ‘Guardian’ commentators and so-called experts could even spell the word.  I say to all environmentalists: if you want to stop pollution, then you should demonstrate at all our ports and stop the import of filthy coal which produces far more CO2 than British deep-mine coal. 

 

Demonstrate at the giant opencast coal sites which despoil our countryside.  Demonstrate at the power stations that use some of the world’s dirtiest fuels like tar sand, shale oil and petcoke, which emit twice as much CO2 as Britain’s deep-mine coal.

 

We need to give proper funding to develop renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar power.  But we should also be campaigning for clean coal technology which would reduce CO2 emissions by 90%. 

 

 

An expanding and developing deep-mine coal industry in Britain taken back into public ownership would enable us to extract all the oil, all the gas and petro-chemicals that Britain needs, without spending billions of taxpayers’ money importing those products primarily because of European Union Directives and their free-market philosophy.

 

STEEL

 

Our steel industry which has been butchered by private enterprise  (again in line with European Union policies) should be returned to public ownership.  Our steel plants should be reopened, producing British steel using British deep-mine coal instead of imported or opencast coal.

 

TRANSPORT

 

We desperately need an integrated transport policy, with an efficient modern rail network.  Why can’t we have trains of the quality of the French TGV, instead of the rubbish on our main lines where people are cramped, crowded and uncomfortable, traveling on a  rail system that is not integrated, primarily because of privatization and European Union policies?

 

Our privatized rail network should also be taken back into public ownership  - and rebuilt to cover all parts of Britain.  It should be a service that meets the needs of people.

 

Our bus services should be taken back into local authority control.  It’s time we hi-jacked Stagecoach and take back what they hi-jacked from us!  Bus routes should cover all Britain’s communities, however remote.

 

 

POSTAL SERVICE

 

Our postal service should be entirely in public ownership, with no deliveries permitted by private companies whose only aim is profit, not providing basic communication between people and organizations.  It would not be a major task to recover what has been taken away from us, restoring thousands of butchered postal workers’ jobs, and at least ensure two deliveries a day, one in early morning and one in the afternoon.

 

TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

 

We would withdraw all our troops that are still in Iraq where they have been involved for 6 years in an unlawful occupation that has brought about the death of over 1 million people, many of them young men and women from Britain.

 

We would get out of Afghanistan – which has to date cost thousands of lives - and tell the Americans to do the same.

 

We want to see the billions of pounds spent on war used instead on our National Health Service, Education system and to help our pensioners.

 

 

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVCE

 

The billions spent on war should be used to establish the kind of National Health Service envisaged by Aneurin Bevan.  We would abolish hospital trusts and primary care trusts, and ban all private health care.

 

 

 

If people can get treated immediately in a private hospital with a private consultant,  there is no reason why they can’t get that treatment in a first-class NHS hospital, where all the doctors should be working full-time for the NHS!

 

The Socialist Labour Party would really get its teeth into today’s deplorable dental system and ensure that all dentists were part of the NHS, providing free treatment.

 

EDUCATION

 

We believe that all people have a basic right to free, high quality education from infancy through to old age. We want free pre-school social care for all children, and full-time, school-based, nursery provision from the age of three.

 

All fees and costs for student education should be the responsibility of the Government.  We not only want an end to student loans but an end to repayment by those who have had to take out loans.  It’s ironic that Government Ministers who benefited from a free education system now impose massive loans on young people and their families.

 

We would abolish all private schools and all faith schools, both of which deepen division within our society.

 

All education services and their assets must be returned to local public control. Education for children and adults is utterly incompatible with privatisation in any form, including competitive tendering.

 

 

 

CARE FOR THE ELDERLY

 

It is a national disgrace that the Tory Government and Labour Government, accept the policies of the European Union and have closed local authority homes which provided excellent care for the elderly, replacing them with private care homes whose primary purpose is making a profit. 

 

PENSIONS

 

Our pensioners should be given a State pension equal to the national average wage.  After a lifetime of working – including work in the home – men and women have the right to receive a decent pension.

 

If a Member of Parliament can get an annual pension of £42,000, there’s no reason why their constituents should not receive an annual pension of £24,000.

 

TAXATION

 

Alongside taking industries and services into public and social ownership, we need a taxation policy that makes sense, not a short-sighted unfair system which increasingly has depended on VAT, helps the rich and harms the poor.

 

A tax system cannot be fair when anyone receiving an income of £250,000 per year pays exactly the same tax (VAT) for goods or services as a pensioner or someone who is unemployed and struggling to survive on £100 a week.

 

 

The Labour Government, which is indistinguishable from the previous Tory Government, has raised the highest tax level to 50% -- a measure which will bring in peanuts, and do nothing to make those responsible for Britain’s financial, social and political crisis pay for that crisis.

 

We would abolish VAT and increase Corporation Tax.  We would restore direct tax or income tax in a system which will make the rich pay.  We would have sensible income tax bands, i.e.:

 

INCOME TAX BANDS

 

 

Income under £15,000 per year --No tax payable

 

 

Income between £15,000 and £25,000 -- 20% tax payable

 

 

Income between £25,000 and £40,000 --30% tax payable

 

 

Income between £40,000 and £50,000 --       40%  tax payable

 

 

Income between £50,000 and £100,000 ---50% tax payable

 

 

Income between £100,000 and £200,000 -- 60% tax payable

 

Income over £200,000 ---70% tax payable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EUROPEAN UNION MOVEMENT OF CAPITAL AND LABOUR

 

EU membership has led to poverty and unemployment that breed racism and xenophobia.

 

We do not accept the so-called free movement of capital and labour imposed by the European Union which has created a “free market” for the movement of industries, services and workers, with increasing exploitation and chaos.

 

The resulting situation is a growing threat to the economic and social stability of sovereign states. 

 

 

CAMPAIGN FOR A SOCIALIST BRITAIN

 

We hope people will support our policies which not only call for complete withdrawal from the European Union but call for a campaign for a Socialist Britain.

 

Some of our opponents – like UKIP – want to come out of the EU but maintain the capitalist system.

 

Other opponents who claim to be on the Left, like NO2EU, have to say the least, a tangled policy.  One leading member in London wants Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, whilst another leading member in Scotland wants to join.  NO2EU does not want Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

 

 

 

The only way to get withdrawal from the European Union and at the same time build the fight for an independent Socialist Britain is to cast your vote in the European Elections on 4 June for the Socialist Labour Party.

 

 

 

 

Arthur Scargill

Leader

                                                                                                                                                    Socialist Labour Party

 

SLP European Election Launch

Hay-on-Wye 23rd May 2009.

 

Arthur Scargill delivers a vigorous start to the SLP Euro election campaign

 

 

The Socialist Labour Party European Election Campaign was launched when Arthur Scargill spoke in the setting of Hay Castle at the Hay Festival on Saturday 23rd May.

The launch followed the SLP' Party Political Broadcast last week which triggered an unprecedented volume of response from interested viewers.

 

Scargill delivered a characteristically vigorous argument about the European Union's harmful effect on working people in every one of its member states. Multinational countries were helped to exploit labour by being allowed to move their operations between states to get the cheapest possible work force while leaving behind devastated communities. There was no obligation on anyone to support those left with unemployment, rising crime and consequent patterns of anti-social behaviour.

 

He wouldn't pay "a brass farthing" to bankers and financial institutions responsible for the economic crisis and instead would use that money, together with spending on Trident and handouts to private firms, to fund decent pensions to those who had spent their lives working for society. He named a figure of £24,000 a year. "Why can't pensioners receive a realistic amount when Members of Parliament are paid far more for a shorter term of service?" he wanted to know.

West Midlands and Welsh SLP candidates for the Euro elections l to r John Tyrrell, Liz Screen, Shangara Singh Bhatoe, Surinder Pal Virdee and Satbir Singh (Sheera) Johal

 

Neil Clark, a speaker from the Campaign for Public Ownership made the point that dissatisfaction with the consequences of private ownership, begun in 1979, was at "an all time high" among the public, yet all three of the main political parties were out of touch. In Britain we had the highest rail costs and in contrast to other countries prices increased at weekend’s when people wanted to visit family and loved ones.

 

The launch, covered by the BBC and local media, was rounded off with inspirational Socialist poetry and music from Wales.

 

Ends.

 

 

We have no need to exaggerate the success of the 25th Anniversary of the Miners' Strike meeting held last night at the Conway Hall London. The Times newspaper, no friend of ours, reports on the meeting below. The only thing they get wrong is the attendance which they estimate at 'several hundred'.  Conway Hall had every seat in stalls and balcony taken, with many, many more standing in both areas, as anyone lucky enough to be in attendance will testify, giving a more realistic audience figure of 700.

 

The Times 13th March 2009. 

 

 

Arthur Scargill demonstrates that he still knows how to captivate a crowd

 

Christine Buckley  Industrial Editor

 

It would have been easy to think from the rousing speech that he delivered last night to an anniversary event in London that Arthur Scargill had won the miners’ strike and that it had been more recent than 25 years ago.

The former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers was greeted as a hero by the audience in the Conway Hall, home to the Ethical Society. Several hundred people welcomed the man who led one of the biggest, and most significant, of all industrial disputes. Mr Scargill, despite all these years in an apparent political wilderness, is still box office.

But it is not just the history associated with the 71-year-old Mr Scargill. A good, sometimes humorous speaker, he can captivate an audience because he believes passionately in what he says, a rare quality in a world of spin and soundbite.

Sure, there was an element of preaching to the converted. The event, attended by the actor Ricky Tomlinson, was organised by the Socialist Labour Party, of which both are members. But this was not just an occasion for the diehards. The 25th anniversary of the year-long strike, which in many ways defined the Thatcher Government’s approach to the trade unions, has had far more resonance than the 20th. Possibly the economic crisis and Mr Scargill’s increased willingness to answer his critics have made the strike seem more important than it did five or ten years ago.

Last night he was defiant to the end, emotional about the working-class struggle and more than a little self-righteous about the difficulties that capitalism finds itself in. He quipped about how he had been criticised for being misguided: “One journalist said Scargill had been reading the wrong Soviet books. I disagree, I was reading the right one.”

He had no truck with those who said that he started the strike at precisely the wrong time – in the spring. Not true, he said. The NUM had begun preparations several months earlier, but the strike was forced on the union by the immediate closure of several mines when there had been an agreement on nine months’ notice. “We had no option.

We were facing a simple choice,” he declared. The lack of a national ballot for the strike was dealt with on a number of fronts – it was not necessary under the union’s regional structure, and anyway the union had had a national convention that had voted not to have a national ballot.

The lack of success was down partly to betrayal by other parts of the Labour movement. He blamed Neil Kinnock, as Labour leader, for not urging all workers to support the strike, and some unions for advocating crossing picket lines.

Mr Scargill also outlined the scale of the strike, which seems quite astonishing now. Twenty-thousand miners were injured in the course of it, 13,000 were arrested. The crucial stand-off, at the Orgreave coking plant, involved 10,000 miners and 8,500 police. Eleven miners were killed.

He was, even now, moved to tears by the treatment in the press of one of those who died. Joe Green, a miner killed outside the Ferry Bridge power station, was described as being a loner with few friends. Mr Scargill said: “Twelve thousand people attended Joe’s funeral.”

The former NUM leader addressed his audience at the Conway Hall under a carved inscription over the stage proclaiming: “To Thine Own Self Be True”. Few, perhaps, could doubt that of him.

Ends.

 

 

We could surrender - or stand and fight'

By Arthur Scargill
The Guardian
it has been 25 years since the miners' strike began - now, for the first time, the then president of the NUM writes his account of the most divisive and bitter industrial dispute in living memory

Twenty-five years ago, the Tory government led by Margaret
Thatcher declared war on the National Union of Mineworkers.
The Tories had been preparing for a showdown with the NUM
since before the 1979 general election. They could not
forget the victorious miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, the
second of which had brought down the Tory government in a
general election.

But the NUM's historic battle did not begin in March 1984,
as so many pundits claim. The seeds of the dispute had been
sown long before. A pit closure plan in 1981 resulted in
miners, including miners in Nottinghamshire, taking
unofficial strike action (without a ballot) and forcing
Thatcher into a U-turn, or in reality a body swerve.

At that time, Britain's coal industry was the most
efficient and technologically advanced in the world, a
result of a tripartite agreement, the Plan For Coal, signed
by a Labour government, the National Coal Board (NCB) and
the mining trade unions in 1974, and endorsed by Thatcher
in 1981. And yet, shortly after I became national president
of the NUM in 1982 I was sent anonymously a copy of a
secret plan prepared by NCB chiefs earmarking 95 pits for
closure, with the loss of 100,000 miners' jobs. This plan
had been prepared on government instructions following the
miners' successful unofficial strike in 1981.

I took this document to the union's National Executive
Committee (NEC) - its contents were not only denied by
government and NCB chiefs, but were disbelieved by militant
NUM leaders who had been assured that their pits had
long-term futures. However, the exposed revelations struck
a chord among our members throughout Britain's coalfields
where colliery managers - clearly acting on instructions
from above - had already begun unilaterally changing agreed
working practices, affecting shift patterns and
supplementary payments.

It became clear that the union would have to take action,
but of a type that would win maximum support and have a
unifying effect. The NEC accepted a report from me
recommending that we call a special national delegate
conference, and link our opposition to the pit closure plan
with a demand that the coal board negotiate the union's
wage claim. The NEC agreed, and the special conference was
held on 21 October 1983. Delegates from all NUM areas were
given a detailed report so that they could vote on what
action - if any - should be taken. Following a full debate,
they agreed to call a national overtime ban from 1 November
- until such time as the NCB withdrew its closure plan and
agreed to negotiate an increase in miners' wages with the
NUM.

Over the next four months, the overtime ban had an
extraordinary impact. It succeeded in reducing coal output
by 30%, or 12m tonnes, thus cutting national coal stocks to
about the same level as they had been during the miners'
unofficial strike in 1981.

Then, on 1 March 1984, acting I believe on national
instruction, NCB directors in four areas announced the
immediate closure of five pits: Cortonwood and Bullcliffe
Wood in Yorkshire, Herrington in Durham, Snowdown in Kent
and Polmaise in Scotland.

Coalfield reaction was electrifying. On Saturday 3 March,
accompanied by the NUM Yorkshire president, Jack Taylor, I
spoke at a packed meeting in South Yorkshire initially
organised to discuss various issues that had already
brought seven Yorkshire pits out on strike. I knew we had
to do everything possible to persuade our members to direct
their rage in a united way at the pit closure plan and its
threat to butcher our industry.

On Sunday evening Taylor and I attended a Yorkshire Brass
Band Festival in Sheffield city hall. By then I had
consulted my fellow national officials, the vice-president,
Michael McGahey, and the national secretary, Peter
Heathfield.

It was essential to present a united response to the NCB
and we agreed that, if the coal board planned to force pit
closures on an area by area basis, then we must respond at
least initially on that same basis. The NUM's rules
permitted areas to take official strike action if
authorised by our national executive committee in
accordance with Rule 41. If the NEC gave Scotland and
Yorkshire authorisation under this rule, it could galvanise
other areas to seek similar support for action against
closures.

During an interval in the concert, I used the back of a
programme to draft a strike resolution which I asked Taylor
to present the following morning to the Yorkshire area
council meeting. I told him that McGahey would be doing the
same thing at the same time in Scotland.

On 6 March, at a consultative meeting at NCB London
headquarters, the coal board chairman, Ian MacGregor, not
only confirmed what we had been expecting, but announced
that in addition to the five pits already earmarked for
immediate closure, a further 20 would be closed during the
coming year, with the loss of more than 20,000 jobs. This,
he said, was being done to take four million tonnes of
"unwanted" capacity out of the industry, and bring supply
into line with demand.

The Scotland and Yorkshire NUM areas did vote to seek
endorsement from the NEC for strike action, and at the NEC
meeting on 8 March were given authorisation under Rule 41.
South Wales and Kent then also asked for authorisation. The
NEC agreed, and confirmed that other areas could, if they
wished, do the same. We realised that the NCB announcement
on 6 March had amounted to a declaration of war. We could
either surrender right now, or stand and fight.

A question that has been raised time and time again over
the past 25 years is: why did the union not hold a national
strike ballot? Those who attack our struggle by vilifying
me usually say: "Scargill rejected calls for a ballot."

The real reason that NUM areas such as Nottinghamshire,
South Derbyshire and Leicestershire wanted a national
strike ballot was that they wanted the strike called off,
believing naively that their pits were safe.

Three years earlier, in 1981, there had been no ballot when
miners' unofficial strike action - involving Notts miners -
had caused Thatcher to retreat from mass closures (nor in
1972 when more than a million workers went on strike in
support of the Pentonville Five dockers who had been jailed
for defying government anti-union legislation).

McGahey argued that the union should not be
"constitutionalised" out of taking action, while the South
Wales area president, Emlyn Williams, told the NEC on 12
April 1984: "To hide behind a ballot is an act of
cowardice. I tell you this now ... decide what you like
about a ballot but our coalfield will be on strike and stay
on strike."

However, NUM areas had a right to ask the NEC to convene a
special national delegate conference (as we had when
calling the overtime ban) to determine whether delegates
mandated by their areas should vote for a national
individual ballot or reaffirm the decision of the NEC to
permit areas such as Scotland, Yorkshire, South Wales and
Kent to take strike action in accordance with Rule 41.

Our special conference was held on 19 April. McGahey,
Heathfield and I were aware from feedback that a slight
majority of areas favoured the demand for a national strike
ballot; therefore, we were expecting and had prepared for
that course of action with posters, ballot papers and
leaflets. A major campaign was ready to go for a "Yes" vote
in a national strike ballot.

At the conference, Heathfield told delegates in his opening
address: "I hope that we are sincere and honest enough to
recognise that a ballot should not be used and exercised as
a veto to prevent people in other areas defending their
jobs." His succinct reminder of the situation we were in
opened up an emotional debate to which speaker after
speaker made passionate and fiercely argued contributions.

Replying to that debate, I said: "This battle is certainly
about more than the miners' union. It is for the right to
work. It is for the right to preserve our pits. It is for
the right to preserve this industry ... We can all make
speeches, but at the end of the day we have got to stand up
and be counted ... We have got to come out and say not only
what we feel should be done, but do it because if we don't
do that, then we fail."

McGahey, Heathfield and I had done the arithmetic
beforehand, and were truly surprised that when the vote was
taken, delegates rejected calls for a national strike
ballot and decided instead to call on all miners to refuse
to cross picket lines - and join the 140,000 already on
strike. We later learned that members of one area
delegation had been so moved by the arguments put forward
in the debate that they'd held an impromptu meeting and
switched their vote in support of the area strikes in
accordance with Rule 41.

During the strike I was also criticised, indeed attacked -
by my own colleagues - for arguing that the NUM's prime
picketing targets should be power stations, ports, cement
works, steelworks and coking plants. But evidence now
available shows my argument was correct.

My passionate conviction that the Orgreave coking plant in
South Yorkshire should be selected as a main target was
rubbished at the time. Yet, it has now been revealed from
official sources that show coal stocks at steel plants -
particularly Scunthorpe in Yorkshire, Ravenscraig in
Scotland and Llanwern in Wales - were so low that these
works could only continue in production for a matter of
weeks, with Scunthorpe - where British Steel had already
laid off 160 workers due to coal shortages - actually
earmarked for closure by 18 June 1984.

The issue of dispensations that would allow provision of
coal supplies created divisions among the most militant
sections of the NUM. I had argued passionately that there
should be no dispensations for power stations, cement
works, steelworks or coking plants, whose coal stocks were
extremely low.

Many on the union's left - particularly those in the
Communist party - argued that the union had a
responsibility to ensure that a minimal amount of coal
could be delivered in order to keep the giant furnaces and
ovens "ticking over". Heathfield and a number of others on
the NUM left agreed with me that there should be no
dispensations and that if steelworks had to close down, as
British Steel's chairman, Bob Haslam, warned was
inevitable, then the responsibility lay firmly at the door
of the government, not the NUM.

Despite the passionate arguments made by Heathfield and
myself, areas did give dispensations. Two months went by
before it dawned on Yorkshire, South Wales and Scotland
that they had been outmanoeuvred by British Steel, and the
leadership of the steelworkers' union, and that British
Steel was moving far more coal than the dispensations
agreed with NUM areas. Yet there was still time to stop all
those giant steelworks, and if the steelworkers' union
would not cooperate with the NUM to stop all deliveries of
coal to the steelworks then the National Union of Seamen
and rail unions Aslef and NUR had already demonstrated that
they would stop all deliveries.

The scene was set for the battle of Orgreave.

Orgreave coking plant was a crucial target for mass
picketing. I knew that its coal supplies could be cut off
as had been the case at the Saltley coke depot in
Birmingham in 1972 - a turning point after which that
strike was soon settled.

Contrary to popular mythology, Orgreave was closed twice:
first on 27 May 1984, when together with dozens of others I
was injured on the picket line. Second, on 18 June, when
10,000 pickets faced 8,500 riot police in a scene
reminiscent of a battle in England's 17th-century civil
war.

So fierce was the conflict on 18 June that dozens of
pickets were hospitalised (including me), but the picketing
resulted in British Steel's chairman sending a telex
closing down Orgreave on a temporary basis - exactly as had
been the case at Saltley coke depot in Birmingham 12 years
before.

The fundamental difference between Saltley in 1972 and
Orgreave in 1984 was that in 1972 following the first
closure at Saltley, picketing on my demand was increased
the following day - while at Orgreave, on 19 June 1984, the
pickets were completely withdrawn by the NUM Yorkshire and
Derbyshire areas and other coalfield leaders, despite my
desperate urging that picketing be stepped up.

Had picketing at Orgreave been increased the day after 18
June, I have no doubt that Orgreave - and Scunthorpe -
would have faced immediate closure, forcing the government
to settle the strike.

For 25 years, I have been accused of refusing to negotiate
a settlement with the NCB, and of "snatching defeat from
the jaws of victory" - a blatant lie. The NUM settled the
strike on five separate occasions in 1984: on 8 June, 8
July, 18 July, 10 September, and 12 October. The first four
settlements were sabotaged or withdrawn following the
intervention of Thatcher.

The most important settlement terms were agreed between
leaders of the pit deputies' union Nacods and the NUM at
the offices of the conciliation service Acas on 12 October
1984 and included a demand that the NCB withdraw its pit
closure plan, give an undertaking that the five collieries
earmarked for immediate closure would be kept open, and
guarantee that no pit would be closed unless by joint
agreement it was deemed to be exhausted or unsafe.

Nacods members had recorded an 82% ballot vote for strike
action, and their leaders made clear to the NCB that unless
the Nacods-NUM terms were accepted, the Nacods strike would
go ahead.

I was later told by a Tory who had been a minister at the
time that when Thatcher was informed of the Nacods-NUM
agreement she announced to the cabinet "special committee"
that the government had no choice but to settle the strike
on the unions' terms.

However, when she learned that Nacods - despite pleas from
the TUC and the NUM - had called off their strike and
accepted a "modified" colliery review procedure, she
immediately withdrew the government's decision to settle.
Nacods' inexplicable decision led to the closure of 164
pits and the loss of 160,000 jobs.

The monumental betrayal by Nacods has never been explained
in a way that makes sense. Even the TUC recognised that the
Nacods settlement was a disaster.

The fact that Nacods leaders ignored pleas from the NUM and
TUC not to call off their strike or resile from their
agreement with the NUM not only adds mystery but poses the
question - whose hand did the moving, and why?

Over the years, I have repeatedly said that we didn't "come
close" to total victory in October 1984 - we had it, and at
the very point of victory we were betrayed. Only the Nacods
leaders know why.

A full account of the strike of 1984/85 is still to be
written. However, we have learned more and more about the
then Labour party leader, Neil Kinnock's treachery, the
betrayals by the TUC and the class collaboration of union
leaders such as Eric Hammond (the electricians' EETPU) and
John Lyons (Engineers and Managers Association), who
instructed their members to cross picket lines and did all
they could to defeat the miners.

We have also seen how many who, like Kinnock, bleated
constantly about the need for a ballot during the miners'
strike didn't call for the British people to have a ballot
in 2003 when Tony Blair took the nation into an unlawful
war and the occupation of Iraq.

During the past 25 years, many who have attacked the NUM,
and me, about the need for a ballot, or argued that we
selected the wrong targets have done so to cover their own
guilt at failing to give the miners a level of support that
would have stopped the Tories' pit closure programme and
thus changed the political direction of the nation. Britain
in 1984 was already a divided and degraded society - it has
become much more so in the 25 years since.

The NUM's struggle remains not only an inspiration for
workers but a warning to today's union leaders of their
responsibility to their members, and the need to challenge
both government and employers over all forms of injustice,
inequality and exploitation.

That is the legacy of the NUM's strike of 1984/85, a truly
historic fight that gave birth to the magnificent Women
Against Pit Closures and the miners' support groups. I have
always said that the greatest victory in the strike was the
struggle itself, a struggle that inspired millions of
people around the world.
• On 12 March, at 7.30pm, Arthur Scargill will be speaking on the lessons of the 1984/85 miners' strike at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, WC1

 
 

 

>>>>>> Flash: Workers seize plant as Waterford Crystal ordered shut
 
 
Hundreds of workers were occupying Ireland's world-famous Waterford
Crystal factory tonight after being told by text message they were
losing their jobs. Scuffles broke out as private security teams brought in by receivers
tried to keep back employees from storming the plant at Kilbarry,
outside Waterford city.
 
The glass-fronted entrance into the plant's lobby was smashed in the
melee.
 
Union officials, tipped off by former managers that the troubled
operation was to about to shut, had sent text messages to staff who
were at home, their wives and partners to scramble crowds towards the
factory.
 
Joe Kelly, an industrial engineer for 35 years at the Waterford
Wedgwood group-owned factory, which went into receivership earlier this
month, is one of those staging the sit-in.
 
"Most of us have put between 20 and 40 years' service into this company
and we are not being thrown on to the scrap heap by a receiver
appointed by Deloitte."
 
Hours after the occupation began this afternoon, Deloitte receiver
David Carson said in a statement that manufacturing will cease
immediately with the loss of 480 of the 800 jobs.
 
The visitors' centre in Waterford, one of Ireland's top tourist
attractions, will also close, he said.
 
"The decision to cease manufacturing does not necessarily preclude a
resumption of operations in Waterford in the future," the statement
said.
 
"The receiver is continuing negotiations with interested parties with a
view to a sale of the company's assets and those discussions are
focused on agreeing the terms upon which a transaction could be
completed."
 
Trade union Unite's regional secretary Jimmy Kelly, a former Waterford
Crystal worker among those occupying the plant, said workers were
furious after assurances they would be kept informed of any
developments.
 
"There's a lot of anger, people feel they've been betrayed," he said.
 
"We were in a process and we were given a commitment that we would be
kept briefed on any development, but the receiver went ahead today and
decided on the closure.
 
"What we are trying to do now is get the decision to close the place
reversed, or postponed for a few days to allow us to engage in that
process. This is not the way to treat people in the middle of
something."
 
He said there was no mood among the workers to leave the factory until
the shut down was overturned.
 
"People are not prepared to just pack up and forget about this. There's
a determination here, people are not going to just lie down," he said.
 
Gardai confirmed they were called to the scene but there have been no
arrests.
 
Worker Joe Kelly, who is also a Sinn Fein councillor in Waterford, was
one of those who rushed to summon workers to the plant.
 
"Because we are on short time, most of the workforce were at home, so
we initiated a campaign of text messaging to all the people we had in
our phones, and to our partners and our wives to contact people in the
area and get them back down to the factory to start the occupation," he
said.
 
"A security firm was put on the doors and they tried to prevent people
from entering the premises.
 
"Tensions were running very high, and when they opened the door to
allow one person in a surge of people charged the door and scuffles
broke out between the security people and the workers.
 
"Bodies ended up on the ground but there were no injuries."
 
Mr Kelly insisted that the occupation will last until they are assured
of an opportunity to try and save jobs.
 
"We have had offers from local businesses of food, drink and water free
of charge," he said.
 
He called on the Dublin government to intervene and stop the receiver
from closing the company while there are interested investors.
 
"This occupation is going to last as long as it has to last, until we
get a reasonable solution and there is a reasonable solution - there
are two major buyers interested. That makes this whole thing a farce.
 
 
 
 

Corus

 

Thousands of steel jobs to go as Capitalist crisis plunges to new depths.

Steel producer Corus have to day announced thousands of job losses throughout it's UK plants ,the company, a subsiduary of the Global Tata steel corporation, says that the destruction of jobs throughout the UK are necessary to improve it's annual profits by more than £200m. 600 jobs are to go at the Llanwern plant in Newport and a further 1,400 at other UK sites, including 713 in Rotherham, 108 at Wednesbury in the West Midlands, 93 in Scunthorpe, and 61 at Wolverhampton. The other affected Welsh plants include Shotton, Ammanford, and Pontardulais.  80 jobs are to go in Scotland out of 500. Corus operates two service centres in Bellshill and Midlothian and the Dalzell plate mill in Motherwell. The SLP condemns the destruction of these jobs and it's impact on local communities many of which are still suffering from the destruction of the coal mining industry in their areas. Only a nationalised steel industry as part and parcel  of  a planned  socialist economy can defend and develop our manufacturing base for the future.

 

LETTER FROM AMERICA 2
 

The Gospel According to Obama

 

by Bob Thompson

 

There has been much talk of Obama’s shift to the right. Some of his supporters express disappointment; others are still in denial. Gaza burns and Obama is silent and as we know silence betokens consent.

 

I don’t get it; Left, Right, these are meaningless terms in the American political vocabulary. So can we cut to the chase? America’s real rulers have signed off on this man! They have handed him the political keys to the kingdom! What in the world do Obama’s supporters expect him to be? I will speak to that in a bit; but first some news. Consider the bailout of Wall Street for which the President–elect voted, a bailout that properly should be dubbed the looting of the American treasury.

 

You have to hand it to Capital. Granted thievery is the name of their game, but highway robbery on this scale is not an easy trick; to steal over one trillion dollars in broad daylight amidst a standing ovation from the US congress is a scam that deserves a perverse admiration. One wag has compared it to Jesse James’ robbery of the Kansas City Fair in 1872, a robbery so perversely grand that it elicited a grudging awe from local reporters at the time. But Jesse James’ criminality pales when compared to our democratic congress and the thieves it represents. These gangsters knocked over Wall Street’s Vanity Fair last year: 9 banks emptied out of over 500 billion dollars; 8 trillion, deftly sucked out of the Down Jones; 2 trillion from the country’s pension and retirement accounts.

My jaw just drops thinking about the amount of worthless paper sold by these people. And don’t forget their total bonus money-- about 39 billion dollars. You have to hand it to them. Come to think of it that’s exactly what we did.

 

I am bemused but not surprised that Obama went along with this blatant robbery. He was a member of congress and what is our congress if not the lawyers, so to speak, of our rulers or rather the legal apparatus through which our real bosses carry out their own wishes? The rhetoric and lure of promise is one thing; the business of ruling quite another. It would be most bizarre if Obama kept his word. So, withdrawal from Iraq? Don’t hold your breath. Afghanistan? Look Out! Justice for the Palestinians? Obama looks on while Gaza burns in agony. 

 

President elect Obama retains Robert Gates as his secretary of Destruction—sorry Secretary of Defense-- a man whom Bush appointed. Hillary Clinton our Secretary of State to be was gung ho on “the war on terrorism.” A modicum of protection for American Industry? I hope you like long shots. There have been cries for a war crimes trial against Rumsfield—no word from Obama. The list goes on and we don’t want to use up megabytes. Yet Obamamania persists.

 

 

Now this may sound odd but bear with me. Part of the mania is   the Obamites visceral hatred of Bush. Now of course Bush is a monster. But is he worse than those who have so nobly preceded him? Yes, chant those who have made Obama an idol.

 “If only Bush had not stolen the election” then all would be…”   I believe the expression is “beer and skittles” And that is the worst delusion of all.

 

Let us then consider one issue; torture. Yes breaking news! Americans torture Iraqis routinely! The Republicans reaction is “so what?” No doubt they long for the good old days of 1965 when the CIA and MI6 drew up killing lists to aid Suharto in his massacre of the Indonesian Communist party.

 

Those still afflicted with Obamamania are—well Captain Renault in Casablanca puts it best “shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in this Casino!”

Bush and his gang are simply doing business as usual. Of course Bush is something out of Beowulf, but how much worse is he than Clinton the butcher of Serbia? In fact Ronald “It’s morning in America” Reagan probably had more people tortured in El Salvador than Bush has in Iraq or Guantanamo or wherever his captives are now “rendered”. Let’s face it torture is as American as cherry pie.  

 

Why in the world would Obama change the rules of the game? He is simply the latest minister of Capital, a ruling class that has no term limits. Governments change but the State endures. Obama supporters reject such an analysis as do most Americans. He is not yet President they argue. His appointees will serve at his pleasure and carry out his agenda. His turn to the right is tactical they maintain. After all he insists that the invitations to his inauguration be printed by a firm with a Union Shop—right?  The justifications become more desperate and hollow. Nevertheless I do understand their “passionate intensity”. They were voting in hopes of a better world.

I believe many saw their vote as a repudiation of racism.  The illusion is understandable. Barak Obama is the first black President of the USA, the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement so we are told, and I admit that when I saw Jesse Jackson in tears after the result was announced—Jackson was you might remember next to Dr. King when he was murdered—I was moved.

 

So though I understand that impulse behind his passionate support, I believe it terribly misguided.  The truth is that Capital in our global dystopia has shed any misgivings it may have had about the sex or race of its representatives. It has changed its appearance to suit changing times, and Barack Obama is the poster boy of that change.

  

Obama crusader’s unwillingness even in the face of his lurch to the right to see him as anything but an emblem of the USA’s remarkable ability to improve reveals something more important than an unwillingness to understand the election of a black president as nothing more than contemporary theatre; it reveals the limits of the American imagination. This is not an anti-American sneer. US Citizens are no more born with these imaginative limits than they are born with an imperialist gene.  The architects and propagandists of US Capital have done their work well. The whole demonic cultural apparatus of the US Imperium fortified and broadcast through its harrowing technology of cable television, computers, cell phones, i-phones, smart phones, i-pods, Blackberries and video games, cries out “Can’t stop thinking about tomorrow” the Clintonian theme song and latter day equivalent of “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

 

Not by chance was the pro-Obama internet site called moveon.org. Forget the past and look to the future the site implies, and that is dangerous. Historical amnesia allows our rulers to create a historical mythology.  Thus though Obama’s victory has no connection with the historic struggle for Black liberation, you would never know it. Indeed even that ferocious struggle is transformed into a chapter in the apparently never ending story of the crusade for democracy.

 

The US postal service has issued commemorative stamps with pictures of Dr. King, Jackie Robinson and even Paul Robeson. I have just learned that next month a stamp commemorating Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer will be issued. Mrs. Hamer, the wife of a Black share cropper was beaten to a pulp for attempting to register to vote. She went on to become a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and a leading force in the Civil Rights struggle. Remember her name. History will judge her as one of America’s great heroes.

Perhaps we shall soon see a stamp of Ella Baker another great participant in the struggle. I collect the stamps, but find it in no small measure ironic that these great men and women, so often demonized or harassed while they lived, are honored now that they are safely dead. They are gathered up into the sentimental narrative of American progress, a narrative that culminates with the coronation of Barack Obama.

 

Ends.

 

 

 

Socialist Labour Party

Leader: Arthur Scargill.

President: Paul Hardman, Vice President: Dave Roberts , General Secretary Ian Johnson

           PO BOX 112, Leigh, WN7 4WS                        Telephone: 0870 8503576

                                    Email: info@socialist-labour-party.org.uk

===================================================================

 

 

LONG LIVE THE CUBAN REVOLUTION  !

 

To Comrades Fidel and Raul Castro and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, to the Cuban people.

January 1st 2009 

The Leadership and National Executive committee of the Socialist Labour Party send their warmest fraternal greetings on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution . We salute the continued determination of the Cuban people to build a socialist alternative to the ravages and barbarism of modern day capitalism and Imperialism

  We  continue to marvel at the achievements that  the Cuban revolution  has brought in the fields of employment, education, science  health and social services to it’s people. We offer our sincere gratitude for the internationalist support the Cuban people have offered and continue to offer to the poor and oppressed throughout the world .

 We will never forget the role played by Cuban internationalists in bringing an end to the racist apartheid regime. We remain inspired by the leadership of the Cuban revolution, by Comrades  “Che”   and Fidel and all who fought 50 years ago to bring about a free, independent and socialist Cuba.

  We share with you the goals and aspirations for a world free of racial and economic injustices. We march shoulder to shoulder with the Cuban people to bring about a new world , a world at peace, a socialist world.

 

Tenemos un mundo que ganar!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Condemn Israeli onslaught on Gaza!

 

The murderous Israeli aerial blitzkrieg  of one and a half million Palestinians cooped up in the  Gaza ghetto of Occupied Palestine threatens a broader middle east conflict.

 

The Israeli administration itself is linking  Hamas’s rocketing of Zionist settlements   to Iran and support from  Iranian militants

In the face of  continued US and Zionist  threats Iran has just bought an advanced anti-aircraft missile defence system from Russia.

Added to this we are now in the interregnum period before George W Bush hands over the US presidency to Barrack Obama. Which the Zionists are clearly seeking to exploi

 In the mean time  The Labour  Party in Government in Britain are standing idly by no doubt taking their orders from their American and Zionist masters doing nothing to help the plight of the Palestinians Gazan injured in the Israeli bombing.  Never mind a a Socialist labour  government any civilised government would  break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and at least  supply much needed medical aid.

The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is the only alternative to the   collaborationist Labour party in government . The SLP in power would treat Israel as the  pariah fascist state that it is  and support the right of the Palestinian people to national self determination. And the unification of the Arab and Jewish working class in the region  Free Palestine  Stop the Zionist Blitzkrieg .

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Privatisation of Royal Mail

Brown & Mandelson signal no change from Blairism

 

The announcement by new Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson of the Governments acceptance of a proposal for the part privatisation (49%) of Royal Mail once more demonstrates the pro-capitalism of New Labour.

The Tories too are backing the contents of the Hooper report entitled ‘Modernise or Decline’. Veteran back bench MP Edward Leigh awoke from a ten year slumber to ‘welcome New Labour to Thatcherism’. The Liberal Democrats are also falling into line.

New Labour’s 2005 Election Manifesto commitment to a publicly owned Post Office has clearly been jettisoned.

So once again it will take an almighty struggle to defeat this alliance of Government and Opposition although the Communication Workers Union has done it before in 1994.

The Morning Star (Editorial 17th December 2008) calls for ‘trade union and local communities to unite in a protest movement of sufficient scale to put an end to this disgraceful betrayal of the people’. In reality only trade unionists can and will mount action against the continuing assault on their pay and conditions.

The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) reiterates its policy of withdrawal from the European Union (EU)- whose privatisation directives are a perpetual barrier to public ownership – and for the repeal of all the anti trade union laws.

The three main political parties all support the EU. They should be driven from office.

The SLP further calls on CWU members to campaign for its Conference and National Executive Committee to ballot for the disaffiliation of the CWU from the New Labour Party. It is senseless to pay a political levy to your executioner.

December 2008

 

 

Issued by Kingston and Surbiton, Esher and Walton Constituency Socialist Labour Parties c/o 17 Leas Close Chessington Surrey KT9 2EQ

 

 

 

SLP HOLD SUCCESSFUL CONGRESS IN BLACKPOOL.

 

The Socialist Labour Party concluded its successful Triennial Congress on the 15th November 2008 in Blackpool with a rousing speech from Leader Arthur Scargill who outlined the Party’s intention to contest every region in next year’s European elections and stand as many candidates as possible in the next UK general election.

 

Earlier comrades had debated important issues facing the working class today, including the energy and pension crises, rising unemployment levels and EU driven economic migration.

 

Throughout the day delegates had spoken passionately about the resolutions on the Congress agenda and it was clear there was a realisation that with the background of a raging economic crisis the Party was entering a crucial period and that public meetings and specific recruitment meetings, as called for by member Eric Tomlinson, should be held throughout the UK to promote the SLP programme and policies which give a socialist answer to this crisis.

 

Donations towards Party work were collected and SLP merchandise was sold and with the excellent social evening that followed it made for a very productive event, politically, organisationally and socially. 

 

Ends.

 

 

 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGE

 

Apparently when the G20 was mentioned to George Bush earlier this year by Kevin Rudd the Australian Prime Minister, Bush had to ask what it was. Unfortunately this is not another joke about the limited intellectual capacity of the outgoing US President but rather it reveals the insignificance of the G20 meeting held in Washington on 15th November. Despite the optimistic statements issued by the participants the underlying fact was that they had no collective answer to the deepening crisis facing their economies.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had already backtracked from his previous decision to buy up the ‘toxic assets’ of the financial institutions because of the sheer volume of debt involved, and updated forecasts by the IMF now signal that both the US and European economies amongst others, will be in recession throughout 2009.

With this background it is beyond ironic to hear the world leaders proclaim that capitalism is ‘the best possible system of government’, making one wonder what the worst system of government would be like!

Yet such rhetoric is stock in trade for the defenders of capitalism, feeding the general population with statements made purely for public consumption, while the reality is often the complete opposite to what is being said.

The Labour government has told workers for years that the economy could not afford above inflation wage rises, and that there was no money available for the development of health and education, yet the moment the wealthiest layers in society run into self-made problems, this same government suddenly find billions of pounds to bail the financial sector out.

Furthermore, in an attempt to placate the population at large Gordon Brown and his ministers announced that they have asked the mortgage lenders to explore all avenues to ensure that home repossessions only take place as a last resort, knowing full well that this is merely political spin and the reality is quite different.

Recent figures reveal a 40% increase in the number of home repossessions in the last six months alone. Moreover, the main culprit in repossessions is the government-owned Northern Rock, which has been responsible for more than 20% of the total, whilst also recruiting almost five hundred more people to work in its repossessions department. In addition, a recent court ruling, dragging up legislation from the 1920s, allows mortgage lenders to repossess properties even if they are a mere two months behind in missed payments. Does that sound like the action of last resort as promised by Brown?

Yet this financial sector that are now so quick to resort to repossessions, have had, on a worldwide basis over £5 trillion handed over to them to keep them afloat.

In the United States the emphatic victory of Barack Obama signified that the American population wanted a complete break with the policies of the Bush Administration, and far from being a question of race, Obama’s election demonstrated that in the final analysis it is not religion, gender or race that is the decisive factor but the deepening economic crisis and the class struggle it engenders that predominates.

However the hopes and aspirations that working people have invested in Obama will sooner rather than later be shattered as he gathers around him the same characters that have dominated both the Bush and Clinton administrations. Obama, no matter what his subjective intentions may have been, will defend capitalism at the expense of the interests of the millions of workers who put him in office, a situation that will result in increased social and industrial conflict.

In Britain the desperate attempt by the Brown government to control the crisis by cutting interest rates will not only see the collapse of the pound but will also raise the prospect of national bankruptcy, meanwhile doing nothing to prevent the rising levels of unemployment and the gutting of public services. Also, in an attempt to save the system, the Labour government will continue to pursue privatisation and wage cutting policies as they seek to make workers pay for a crisis not of their making and overturn every gain made by the working class over decades of struggle.   

In contrast and in opposition to the desires of capitalism, socialists should see this coming period as an opportunity for change. The political void now open must be filled by developing and promoting SLP policies that do represent and give voice to the best interests of the majority of the population.  

Ends.

 

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Below is an article of interest from a supporter in America.

 

Letter from America

 

The other day the US Army carried out a “raid” in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of at least seven people. The United States now feels that it has the “right” to attack any country at any time for any reason. I would add that this attack drew scant notice from the media –democrat or republican. The heated discussion of the day was the cost of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe. Even the collapse of the financial system was pushed off the front page.

 

How did we arrive at what I can only call an economy and culture of madness?

 

I do not pretend to be an economist (a dubious “expertise” in my view in any case) and the language in which experts attempt to portray the current financial collapse seems deliberately mystifying. Forgive me if I ignore them.

 

The current financial and cultural crises seem long overdue. Since the 1980’s the economy of the West has been driven by American consumerism. That consumerism—made possible by the enormous social capital generated by World War two is over. Dead. The wonder is it took so long.

 

Socialists (and I mean “Socialist” as it is understood by grown ups rather than American politicians) have always understood that Capital values profit over survival. The point seems so obvious as to be trivial; however, it seems to have been genuinely lost on experts like Greenspan (who confessed that his whole ideological and economic world view had been mistaken). Socialists have also always understood that capital must expand to survive. I have often reflected that I could be quite rich if I made it my business to rob all the houses in my neighborhood.  

 

The FED (which Greenspan ran) had been reducing interest rates for some time. I think it had reduced them to about 1.5%. The result was the intended and pernicious increased availability (so it seemed) of money. I should point out that this had been going on for years. For example: there was a time when you had to go to a bank and write a check to get cash. ATM machines assured the constant availability of Cash (as did Credit Cards).   However in the face of the FED’s reduction of interest rates    Capital, in the quest for greater returns did a monstrously stupid thing—it looked unto mortgages which had a return of say 5% and saw in them salvation. What had hitherto been controlled thievery became a wild west free for all.

 

Banks and Mortgage Lenders granted loans without making sure that people could repay them. Adjustable Mortgages became common. We call this lunacy  “deregulation”. Since the real standard of living among American’s had been declining for some time, it was not surprising that people could not pay their mortgages (or their credit card bills for that matter)—lenders began to go broke, banks started to fail and the crises became international.

 

The temptation is to blame Bush and his junta but much as I hate to say it that is not quite fair. The rules, or firewalls, such as they were, had begun to be destroyed by Reagan and Thatcher. Without them Bush, Cheney, Greenspan and the rest of the crew would not have emerged as Capital’s hit men.

 

There was surprisingly little resistance to Reagan. He was a “crusader” in the worst American tradition. He and his Republican and Democrat cronies began to destroy New Deal arrangements with astonishing rapidity. “Free Trade”—the unfettered flow of capital both monetary and human, effectively destroyed what little Trade Union resistance existed. Reagan’s tax cut caused a massive upward redistribution of wealth.

 

Thatcher was another matter. I remember following with impotent fury what was without doubt the greatest and most heroic working class struggle in the second half of the twentieth century—the great miner’s strike of 1984-5. Thatcher’s battle with the miners not only destroyed a great democratic firewall to the unfettered flow of capital but also destroyed the Labour party itself. Britain was turned into a one party state—just like the US.

I believe that had the miners been victorious, there would have been real consequences for not only British capital but for US Imperialism itself.

 

There was however one great firewall still remaining—the Soviet Union and the Socialist world. Whatever their defects, the Socialist community remained a massive affront to Capital—22 million Soviet lives are testimony to the monstrous historical attempt to remove this enormous impediment to the “crusade for democracy”. There is an important lesson here. Capital does not have to “win” a war against a Socialist country.   The enormous damage Fascism wrecked on the Soviet Union caused distortions in its political economy—distortions that made the tragedy of 1989-90 possible. The same thing happened in Vietnam.

 

This is all to say that by the Clinton years Capital had a free hand. A free hand for free trade and free destruction. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union only countries such as El Salvador or Vietnam had the happiness of feeling the effects of democratic crusade. After 1990 however, Europe itself was no longer immune. Bill Clinton presided over the destruction of Serbia.

 

Not only that. Capital’s free hand is also reflected in the massive amounts of privatization that occurred under Clinton’s regime. This privatization MUST be understood as linked with the massive introduction of technology into the political and cultural economy. One example: Cable television was a corner stone of what I like to call the “cell phone” culture that had existed in embryo previously but became horrifically incarnate under Clinton’s rule. Cable television—that is the privatization of television allowed Murdoch and others to construct a propaganda apparatus that may even bring a chuckle to Herr Goebbels down there in the 9th circle of Hell.

The introduction of technology-- Cat scans, MRI’s into medicine not only raised the cost of Medical care in the US but also lowered the quality of it.

In my youth a visit to a Doctor began with a detailed history lasting 30-45 minutes. These days 10 minutes seems to be the norm.  Economic and cultural arrangements are intertwined. Suffice to say that the cultural pathologies that sprung up in sports, education and personal relationships were as bizarre as they were inevitable.

 

Postscript 

 

US capital has plundered (and continues to plunder) the “third world” It effectively kidnaps and lynches leaders in Europe who refuse as we say “to get with the program” and effectively has reduced countries in Europe to third world status. What I had not realized was that it had no compunction about doing the same thing to the US itself. The problem seems to be that the costs of an economy of theft ironically outweigh its gains. 

 

 I recently went to a talk in a wealthy part of Boston given by a liberal economist. He argued that Obama was the new Roosevelt.  Obama, he claimed, would “regulate”. Obama our savior. I was surprised to hear one woman ask him “But who are the regulators?”--There was applause. Even the wealthy whose stocks have lost so much value somehow sensed that all of these ”experts” came out of the same stew pot—she was saying Obama’s regulation was like taking a shot of malaria for pneumonia.

 

Obama’s election seems to be a done deal. Conservatives are jumping ship. This desertion suggests to me that the “right-minded right” feels Obama is someone they can do business with. On the other hand, Obama has been making timid noises about leveling—or building wealth from the bottom up. Could it be that Capital has come to its senses?

Nah! The headline the other day was that Boston was having all of its new trains built—in South Korea.

 

We shall see.

 

 

 

 

A SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY LEAFLET

 

HOUSTON: WE HAVE A PROBLEM

 

The Bailout Illusion & the Crisis of Capitalism

 

 

 

 

   

Astronaut James Lovell is credited with the famous words ‘Houston: we have a problem’ (he actually said ‘Houston: we’ve had a problem’) transmitted to NASA from the ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar-landing mission, when it was crippled by an explosion during its 1970 flight. Lovell reveals that one of the most frequent questions he was later asked was ‘Did you have suicide pills on board?’

Although today, another catastrophe, the financial crisis hitting Wall Street and the rest of the world economy, has not as yet seen the financiers and bankers reaching for their suicide pills or jumping to their deaths from office windows, as occurred after the 1929 Wall Street crash, it has unfortunately already seen the rest of the population suffer thousands of home repossessions, the collapse of their pensions and a significant rise in unemployment. Perhaps today the financial sector is more confident that the burden of their crisis can be put entirely onto the backs of working people?

The bailout package recently pushed through the United States Senate and House of Representatives represents the greatest transfer of public money to the financial sector in US history, whilst offering no protection to the millions of workers and their families, who are the real victims of this unfolding social disaster. Moreover, the $700 billion bailout is merely a drop in the ocean because the full extent of the debts of the financial sector is estimated to run into trillions of dollars.

 

Likewise in the UK, the Brown government are committed to bailing out the banks and financial institutions and are perfectly willing to use taxpayers money to cover worthless mortgage-backed securities. Having already poured more than £100 billion into Northern Rock, more than the entire annual budget of the NHS, the government also agreed to cover Bradford & Bingleys £51 billion mortgages and loans, yet its savings arm and its 197 branches are to be taken over by the Spanish bank, Santander for a mere £600 million.

This bailing out of the financial sector by the Labour government, in effect privatising profits and socialising losses, is in sharp contrast to its attacks on welfare, pensions, health and education. Furthermore, by pumping billions of pounds of taxpayers money into the banks and financial institutions to keep them afloat and by guaranteeing to cover their losses and take on worthless securities, the government is running the risk of state bankruptcy.

The problem with once being hailed as the Chancellor who ‘overcame the economic cycle of boom and bust’ is that reality has a tendency to assert itself and deliver a hefty slap around one’s head. Gordon Brown should now know this better than most.

Yet he is currently proclaiming that he will do ‘whatever it takes to defend the British financial system’ and that ‘My job is night and day to work for the stability of the system’ apparently forgetting that capitalism is an inherently unstable economic system.

Moreover, current Chancellor Alistair Darling, trying hard to run Gordon Brown close for the title of the man who understands nothing, announced to the Commons on 6th October that ‘we will not rely on panic measures’ shortly before injecting a further £50 billion into the banking system backed with another £450 billion in short term loans and loan guarantees. (No panic there then).

 

This giveaway of Britain’s wealth was conducted behind closed doors between Brown and the financial elite, and was not put to any form of democratic discussion; with parliament only being informed after the deal was done.

 

This situation, whereby an unelected prime minister is giving away billions of pounds of public money to the wealthiest in society, with the British government having no direct control of the institutions he is pouring the money into, with neither Brown nor the financiers seeing any need to discuss this with any democratically elected representative, should serve as a warning that when the existence of capitalism is at stake, all talk of democracy and democratic norms go out of the window.

 

Subprime Mortgages

The current tendency to lay the blame for the crisis on US subprime mortgages and to say that capitalism at present is infested with financial risk-takers, and if only this tendency was curbed, we could return to a more ‘enlightened capitalism’ is sheer nonsense and shows a complete lack of understanding of capitalism and its workings.

Even a cursory glance over recent history reveals capitalism’s struggle to off-set the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The ending of the post-war boom period saw the suspending of the Bretton Woods agreement by the Nixon administration in 1971.

This agreement, made at the end of World War Two, was an attempt to stabilise the world economy by establishing the convertibility of the dollar into gold, however the falling rate of profit and the increasing debt of the main post-war economy, the United States, brought this to an end.

The result was that no currency had any objective measure of value and its exchange rate was dependent on such subjective factors as ‘moods’ and ‘confidence’ for what were, in effect, credit notes.

The rise of finance capital and the mass privatisation programmes of state industries beginning in the late 1970s, was followed in the 80s by the unregulated introduction of vast amounts of credit into the system; the proliferation of credit cards, building societies becoming banks and so forth, and the introduction of various financial instruments, of which subprime mortgages was merely one.

However these attempts to extract profit from workers outside the production process were necessary developments for capitalism to maintain the rate of profit, and not merely developments emanating from the desire of one capitalist politician or another. On the contrary, profound economic processes have led capitalism into the crisis it faces today.

Needless to say, the hedge fund manager or financial trader is not conscious of the contradictions within the system. For them an analysis covers weeks and months only, not decades or centuries. They do what they think is necessary to make their bonuses each month and have no regard for the social implications of their actions on the vast majority of the population.

 

 

Who Will Pay?

 

Poor children, during the depression

 

These historic processes have now led to record levels of social inequality, both in the US and UK whereby since 1997 alone, under this Labour government, the top one percent of Britain’s richest individuals have seen their wealth increase by 152 percent.

In contrast, the poorest 50 percent of the population have seen their share of the nation’s wealth actually decrease over the same period.

 

To now expect Britain, with its central role in the world’s financial markets, to somehow ‘maintain stability’ during the forthcoming period is pure wishful thinking on Brown and Darling’s part.

 

The crisis for Britain is compounded by the dominant role of finance capital in the economy. At the time of the 1945-51 Labour government, Britain’s economy was based on an 80% manufacturing base – today Britain has a manufacturing base of less than 20% with over 80% of the economy based in the service and financial sectors.

 

Consequently it now relies first and foremost on the speculative activities of its financial sector and has no fall-back position, meaning it is exposed more than most to any monetary crisis, especially one as deep as the current crisis.

 

Nevertheless the deepening financial crisis will only serve to spur on the Labour government’s privatisation plans as they attempt to impose the full effects of the crisis onto the backs of workers. It is their belief that every penny spent on unemployment and incapacity benefits, on pensions and on health, is a drain on profits.

 

Attempting to take the losses off the financial elite and impose them on the rest of the population will mean growing unemployment alongside massive cuts in public expenditure, affecting the health and education budgets and state pensions.

It is generally accepted, even in ruling circles, that the current economic crisis is the deepest since 1929. Let us recall: to overcome that crisis the world was plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930s, mass unemployment, followed by the rise of fascism and a world war costing the lives of millions of workers.

Shall we walk into that scenario again, this time with nuclear options?

This begs the response that the struggle for, and the establishing of, a socialist system is not merely a preference, but is an absolute necessity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk

 

 

 

On the 12th September 2008 Arthur Scargill gave a speech to a SLP public meeting in Lewes. With Arthur's permission we reproduce his speech notes below.
 
 

RECLAIM OUR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

 

TODAY IS THE 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RE-FOUNDING OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY, A PARTY ORIGINALLY FOUNDED BY THE LEGENDARY JAMES CONNOLLY IN 1903.

 

IT IS ALSO THE 82TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1926 GENERAL STRIKE, THE 24TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HISTORIC 1984/85 MINERS’ STRIKE AND THE 92TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EASTER RISING IN IRELAND IN 1916.

 

POVERTY

 

WE MEET AT A TIME WHEN BRITAIN AND THE WORLD ARE FACING AN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISIS ON A SCALE SIMILAR TO THAT IN THE WALL STREET CRASH AND THE MASS UNEMPLOYMENT OF THE 1930s.

 

IN BRITAIN TODAY, TEN MILLION PEOPLE LIVE ON OR BELOW THE POVERTY LINE - OVER ONE MILLION CHILDREN - ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL STATISTICS - DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH FOOD AND ARE CATEGORISED BY THE AUTHORITIES AS “GOING HUNGRY”.  OVER ONE AND A HALF MILLION PEOPLE ARE ON HOUSING WAITING LISTS AND OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE ARE REGARDED AS BEING HOMELESS.  AT THE SAME TIME, WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILLION BUILDING WORKERS UNEMPLOYED.

 

ENERGY AND FOOD COSTS

 

ENERGY AND FOOD COSTS HAVE ROCKETED AND THOUSANDS ARE NOW FACING THEIR OWN “ECONOMIC CRISIS” - - THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE THREATENED WITH THE REPOSSESSION OF THEIR HOMES BECAUSE INTEREST RATES HAVE GONE THROUGH THE ROOF.

 

CRISIS OF CAPITALISM

 

OUR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISIS HAS NOT BEEN CAUSED BY SOME SLIGHT DOWNTURN IN THE ECONOMIC MARKET.  IT HAS BEEN CAUSED BY THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM WHICH IS IN CRISIS AS A RESULT OF THE EU AND GLOBALISATION.

 

DISILLUSIONMENT WITH POLITICS AND POLITICIANS

 

TODAY, PEOPLE ARE DISILLUSIONED WITH POLITICS AND POLITICIANS.  THEY SAY - UNDERSTANDABLY - THAT THEY ARE ALL THE SAME AND, IN THE CASE OF THE TORIES, NEW LABOUR AND THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.

 

ALL THREE MAJOR PARTIES SUPPORT THE FREE MARKET, THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM, THE EUROPEAN UNION AND GLOBALISATION.  TODAY, ALL THREE PARTIES ARE THE SAME AND AS TONY BENN SAID, THE LABOUR PARTY HAS NEVER BEEN A SOCIALIST PARTY - - IT HAS ONLY BEEN A PARTY WITH SOME SOCIALISTS IN IT.

 

ALL THREE PARTIES APPEAR OBLIVIOUS TO THE POVERTY AND CRISIS WHICH WORKING PEOPLE HAVE TO FACE.  THE SCRAPPING OF THE 10p TAX BAND WAS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF THE DESIRE OF GORDON BROWN AND NEW LABOUR TO SUPPORT PRIVATE ENTERPRISE AT THE EXPENSE OF WORKING PEOPLE AND PENSIONERS.

 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS HAVE ALSO GOT POWERFUL POLITICAL OVERTONES.  AS A RESULT, WE SEE THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUALLY USING DIFFERENT FIGURES AS A MEANS OF CONFUSING PEOPLE AND HIDING THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS. 

 

RETAIL PRICE INDEX - CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPR)

 

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MEDIA NO LONGER USE THE INCREASE IN THE RETAIL PRICE INDEX AS A MEASURE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH OR SLUMP.  THEY USE A NEW SYSTEM WHICH THE MEDIA - POODLE-LIKE - HAVE MEEKLY ACCEPTED.  FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN THE GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED THAT IT WOULD MISS ITS ECONOMIC TARGET, IT SAID THAT INFLATION WAS 3% WHEN IN FACT THE INCREASE IN THE RETAIL PRICE INDEX - WHICH IS A FAR MORE ACCURATE MEASURE FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE - HAD RISEN TO 4.2%.

 

CRISIS

 

THE GOVERNMENT ALSO DELIBERATELY MISLEAD THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE REAL LEVEL OF UNEMPLOYMENT, THE STATE OF THE NHS, PENSIONS, EDUCATION, HOUSING, TRANSPORT, ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT, MILITARY EXPENDITURE, THE EUROPEAN UNION AND TAXATION.  THIS IS ALL DONE IN ORDER TO CONFUSE AND IT PROVIDES AN IDEAL BREEDING GROUND FOR RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA, HENCE THE GROWTH THROUGHOUT EUROPE OF THE FAR RIGHT EXACTLY AS WE SAW IN THE 1930s IN SPAIN, ITALY AND GERMANY AT A COST OF NEARLY 40 MILLION LIVES IN THE COURSE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE DESPERATE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM.

 

UNEMPLOYMENT

 

THE OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FIGURE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT IN 2008 WAS ONE AND A HALF MILLION.

HOWEVER, ACCORDING TO THE ROWNTREE FOUNDATION TRUST, THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE OF WORKING AGE i.e. BETWEEN 16 AND 65 WHO DO NOT HAVE A JOB IS 6 MILLION.

 

WE COULD HAVE FULL EMPLOYMENT PROVIDED WE INTRODUCE A FOUR-DAY WORKING WEEK, A BAN ON NON-ESSENTIAL OVERTIME AND VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT ON FULL PAY AT AGE 55.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

 

THE SLP SAID IN 1996 THAT BRITAIN’S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE WHICH AT THAT TIME COST £33 BILLION PER YEAR SHOULD BE INCREASED BY £15 BILLION PER YEAR. 

WE CALLED FOR AN END TO ALL PRIVATE HEALTH CARE - IN THE PAST EIGHT YEARS THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE SPENT £300 MILLION ON OUTSIDE PRIVATE CONSULTANTS, CONSULTANTS WHO SHOULD WORK EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.

 

IF THE EXPENDITURE THE SLP PROPOSED SPENDING ON THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE IN 1996 HAD BEEN CARRIED OUT, THE TOTAL EXPENDITURE ON BRITAIN’S NHS IN 2008 WOULD HAVE BEEN £213 BILLION. 

THIS SUM IS FAR IN EXCESS OF THE MEAGRE £95 BILLION ALLOCATED BY A LABOUR GOVERNMENT WHOSE PREOCCUPATION APPEARS TO BE THE PRIVATISATION OF THE HEALTH SERVICE RATHER THAN ADEQUATE AND PROPER FUNDING IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

 

THE COST OF THE NHS COULD EASILY BE MET OUT OF THE ANNUAL PROFITS OF BRITAIN’S TOP FIVE BANKS AND TOP FIVE OIL COMPANIES.  THIS PROFIT SHOULD BE GOING TO THE HEALTH OF THE NATION AND TO THOSE IN NEED AND NOT TO PRIVATE SHAREHOLDERS.

 

PENSIONS

 

THE SLP DEMANDED IN 1996 THAT THE “LINK” BETWEEN PENSION INCREASES AND THE INCREASE IN WAGES/SALARIES OR THE RETAIL PRICE INDEX – WHICHEVER WAS THE HIGHER – SHOULD BE RESTORED.  TO RESTORE THE LINK WOULD MEAN A 40% INCREASE FOR PENSIONERS AND COST £12 BILLION, AN AMOUNT WHICH COULD BE EASILY MET IF BRITAIN WITHDREW FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION.

WE DEMAND A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN STATE PENSIONS SO THAT WHEN A PERSON RETIRES, HE/SHE SHOULD RECEIVE A PENSION EQUAL TO THE CURRENT AVERAGE MEDIAN WAGE IN BRITAIN - £24,000 PER YEAR - INDEX-LINKED SO THAT ITS VALUE WILL BE MAINTAINED.

 

EUROPEAN UNION

 

THE EUROPEAN UNION WAS ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS THE EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET.  THE CONCEPT OF A EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET OR EUROPEAN UNION WAS ESTABLISHED NOT AS AN ECONOMIC MARKET BUT AS A POLITICAL UNION AND WAS SUPPORTED BY WINSTON CHURCHILL AND ROBERT SCHUMANN, THE FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER, WHO OPENLY DECLARED THAT THE AIM WAS TO CREATE A UNITED STATES OF EUROPE.

 

THERE HAVE BEEN FIVE MAJOR TREATIES SINCE 1951. THE TREATY OF PARIS ON 18 APRIL 1951 ESTABLISHED THE EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY WHOSE REAL AIM WAS TO DESTROY THE COAL MINING INDUSTRY WITHIN THE NEW EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET. 

IF BRITAIN AND OTHER NATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION HAD RETAINED THEIR COAL INDUSTRIES AND UTILISED THE COAL AND STEEL IN A CLEAN AND ACCEPTABLE WAY, WE WOULD NOT BE FACING AN ENERGY SHORTAGE AND IN BRITAIN WE WOULD HAVE ALL THE OIL, GAS, PETROCHEMICALS AND FUEL OIL TO BE COMPLETELY SELF-SUFFICIENT WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND BILLIONS ON AN UNSTABLE SUPPLY SYSTEM FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION AND THE MIDDLE EAST.

 

THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR VICIOUS CUTBACKS IN PUBLIC SERVICES, NATIONALISED AND MUNICIPAL OWNED ENTERPRISES WITH THE RESULT THAT WE HAVE SEEN UNEMPLOYMENT SOAR AND SERVICES DRAMATICALLY DECLINE.

 

EDUCATION

 

THE SLP ARGUED IN 1996 THAT WE HAD TO TACKLE EDUCATION ROOT AND BRANCH.  WE NEED TO ABOLISH ALL PRIVATE AND FAITH SCHOOLS AND ENSURE THAT OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

THIS REQUIRES AN ANNUAL INVESTMENT OF £10 BILLION PER YEAR, A SUM WHICH CAN EASILY BE PAID FOR OUT OF THE £200 BILLION ANNUAL PROFITS OF BRITAIN’S PRIVATISED INDUSTRIES AND SERVICES.   IF THE SLP’S POLICY HAD BEEN ADOPTED, EDUCATION INVESTMENT TODAY WOULD BE £97 BILLION COMPARED WITH THE £75 BILLION ALLOCATED BY NEW LABOUR.

 

HOUSING

 

THE SLP CALLED FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO BUILD OR REFURBISH ONE MILLION HOUSES PER YEAR, A POLICY WHICH WOULD HAVE ERADICATED HOMELESSNESS WITHIN FIVE YEARS.

 

TWELVE YEARS LATER WE FACE A MAJOR CRISIS WITH THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITHOUT A HOME, THOUSANDS FACING THE POSSIBILITY OF REPOSSESSION, A MORTGAGE CRISIS AND FEWER HOMES BEING BUILT OR REFURBISHED THAN EVER BEFORE.

THE ANSWER IS TO ENSURE THAT LOCAL AUTHORITIES MUST BUILD AFFORDABLE PUBLIC HOUSING AT AFFORDABLE RENTS SO THAT HOMELESSNESS BECOMES A THING OF THE PAST.

 

WE SHOULD END THE CRISIS IN THE MORTGAGE SECTOR BY TAKING ALL BANKS AND BUILDING SOCIETIES OR ANY OTHER BODY INTO COMMON OWNERSHIP SO THAT 100% MORTGAGES ARE AVAILABLE WITHOUT BANKS AND OTHER LENDERS PUTTING SHAREHOLDERS BEFORE THE NEEDS OF THE HOMELESS.

 

TRANSPORT

 

THE SLP CALLED FOR ALL TRANSPORT TO BE TAKEN INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP INCLUDING RAIL, BUS, TRAM, AIR AND WATER TRANSPORT SYSTEMS.  TRANSPORT SHOULD BE A POLICY WHICH SERVES THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE AND NOT THE PROFITS OF SHAREHOLDERS. 

AN INTEGRATED TRANSPORT POLICY IS A PRIORITY FOR BRITAIN AND ONE WHICH HAS MASSIVE IMPLICATIONS FOR ANY COMMITMENT FOR A CLEANER ENVIRONMENT.

 

FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REASONS, ALL TRANSPORT - ON LAND, SEA, RAIL, INLAND WATERWAYS AND AIR - SHOULD BE IN PUBLIC AND MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP, MANAGED IN A FULLY ACCOUNTABLE WAY AND COMPLIMENTING, NOT COMPETING, WITH EACH OTHER.

 

THE ENTIRE RAIL NETWORK SHOULD BE TAKEN BACK IMMEDIATELY INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL.  AT THE SAME TIME, BRITAIN’S AIRLINES, BUS AND TRAM SERVICES MUST BE TAKEN INTO OR BACK INTO PUBLIC OR MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP.
AN INTEGRATED TRANSPORT SYSTEM REQUIRES MASSIVE PUBLIC INVESTMENT, NOT PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVES (PFI).  THE RAISING OF CAPITAL TO DEVELOP OUR RAIL, BUS, TRAM AND WATERWAY NETWORKS SHOULD BE FUNDED BY CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

 

ENERGY

 

THE SLP HAS CONSISTENTLY ARGUED FOR AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BASED ON INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND THE ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR POWER. 

 

WE HAVE 1000 YEARS OF COAL RESERVES BENEATH OUR FEET.  IF WE PRODUCE 250 MILLION TONNES OF COAL PER YEAR FROM DEEP MINING IN BRITAIN - WHICH COULD BE DONE WITHIN TWO YEARS - WE COULD EXTRACT FROM UK DEEP MINE COAL, ALL THE OIL, GAS, PETROCHEMICALS AND STILL USE THE FUEL TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY FREE FROM CO2 EMISSIONS. 

 

ECONOMICS

 

THE COST OF PRODUCING ELECTRICITY FROM NUCLEAR ENERGY INCLUDING THE CONSTRUCTION COST, THE COST OF URANIUM, THE GENERATING COST AND THE DECOMMISSIONING COST - - - CURRENTLY £72 BILLION AND RISING - - - MEANS THAT NUCLEAR GENERATED ELECTRICITY IS 400% MORE EXPENSIVE THAN CLEAN COAL GENERATED ELECTRICITY. 

 

BRITAIN HAS OVER A THOUSAND YEARS OF DEEP MINE COAL RESERVES - - - NUCLEAR ENERGY ONLY MAKES SENSE TO THOSE WHO WANT TO PRODUCE NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR RENDER TRADE UNIONS TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE (AS A SECRET GOVERNMENT MINUTE DEMONSTRATED).

THERE ARE THREE REASONS WHY I WOULD NEVER BELIEVE GOVERNMENT OR THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY’S COSTINGS FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY.

(I)      THE FIGURES DON’T EXIST OR ARE MANIPULATED

(2)    IF THEY DID EXIST, THEY COULD NOT BE REVEALED FOR SECURITY WHICH THE GOVERNMENT WOULD CLAIM WOULD BE AGAINST THE NATIONAL INTEREST; AND

(3)    IF THEY DID EXIST, AND COULD BE RELEASED, I WOULDN’T BELIEVE THEM ANYWAY.

 

WE NEED TO DEVELOP ALTERNATIVE CLEAN ENERGIES SUCH AS WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, GEOTHERMAL AND, ABOVE ALL, SOLAR POWER BUT THE TIMESCALE FOR SOLAR POWER IS AT LEAST 40/50 YEARS AWAY.  THE ALTERNATIVE ENERGIES CURRENTLY SUPPLY ONLY 5% OF BRITAIN’S ELECTRICITY AND, OF COURSE, THEY CANNOT BE USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF STEEL OR CEMENT OR FOR OTHER INDUSTRY USES.

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

THE PUBLIC IS BEING MISLED BY SO-CALLED EXPERTS WHO CLAIM THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAUSED PRIMARILY BY CO2 EMISSIONS FROM COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS.

THE REALITY IS VERY DIFFERENT.  FOR EXAMPLE, THE DESTRUCTION OF A RAINFOREST THE SIZE OF EUROPE RELEASES THOUSANDS OF TONNES OF CO2 AND REMOVES THE TREES WHICH CAPTURE CO2 AND EMIT OXYGEN.  ENVIRONMENTALISTS, WHILST WELL-MEANING, ARE MISGUIDED.  THE DESTRUCTION OF TREES AND PLANTS RESULTS IN 20% OF ALL CO2 EMISSIONS WORLDWIDE.

 

THE SO-CALLED EXPERTS HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY EMISSIONS FROM POWER STATIONS HAVE SEEN AN INCREASE AND NOT THE DECREASE PROJECTED IN CO2 BETWEEN 1993 AND 2007.

IN 1993, THE UK WAS SUBJECTED TO A SECOND MASSIVE PIT CLOSURE PROGRAMME WITHIN 10 YEARS AND A SWITCH FROM COAL-FIRED ELECTRICITY GENERATION TO GAS-FIRED ELECTRICITY GENERATION.

 

THIS POLICY WHICH ITS SUPPORTERS CLAIM WOULD (a) BE MORE ECONOMIC AND (b) REDUCE DRAMATICALLY THE EMISSION OF CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) HAS HAD THE OPPOSITE EFFECT. 

 

IN 1993, POWER STATIONS PRODUCED 171.7 MILLION TONNES OF (CO2­), YET IN 2007, POWER STATIONS PRODUCED 180.2 MILLION TONNES OF CO2, 8.5 MILLION TONNES MORE OR AN INCREASE OF 5% IN 14 YEARS.

 

NEW COMBINED CYCLE GAS-FIRED POWER STATIONS PRODUCE 40% LESS CO2 THAN CONVENTIONAL COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS BUT THESE FIGURES ARE NOT MERELY MISLEADING, THEY AMOUNT TO A MONUMENTAL LIE.

FOR EXAMPLE, IF THE UK WAS TO CONSTRUCT NEW COMBINED CYCLE COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS EQUIPPED WITH NEW TECHNOLOGIES SUCH AS CARBON CAPTURE THEN A COAL-FIRED POWER STATION EQUIPPED WITH CARBON CAPTURE WOULD REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS BY MORE THAN 90%!

CARBON CAPTURE DOES WORK.  FOR EXAMPLE, A PILOT SCHEME IN CARLIFORNIA CAPTURES 800 TONNES OF CO2 PER DAY AND IT IS REASONABLE TO ASSUME THAT A 500 MW COAL-FIRED POWER STATION COULD BE CONSTRUCTED WITH A CARBON CAPTURE CAPACITY WHICH WOULD REDUCE UK POWER STANTION CO2 EMISSIONS BY OVER 90%.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW COMBINED CYCLE COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS WITH CARBON CAPTURE CAN BE A REALITY WITHIN 5 YEARS PROVIDED GOVERNMENTS WILL COMMIT THE FINANCE NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE THIS OBJECTIVE.

THE ALTERNATIVE IS NUCLEAR MADNESS WITH NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS - WHICH WILL TAKE 15 YEARS TO CONSTRUCT - AT A COST INCLUDING DECOMMISSIONING 400% HIGHER THAN THE COST OF A COAL-FIRED POWER STATION.

EQUALLY IMPORTANT, HOWEVER, IS THE FACT THAT BRITAIN’S INDIGENOUS GAS SUPPLY IS VIRTUALLY EXHAUSTED AND WE WILL HAVE TO IMPORT 90% OF OUR GAS WITHIN 5 YEARS.

 

OUR OIL RESERVES ARE VIRTUALLY EXHAUSTED AND WITHIN 10 YEARS WE WILL BE IMPORTING 80% OF OUR OIL.   

URANIUM - THE FUEL FOR NUCLEAR POWER - WILL EXHAUST WORLDWIDE IN 50 YEARS.

 

IN 2007, CO2 EMISSIONS EMANATED FROM THE FOLLOWING FUELS/SOURCES:

 

GAS                                        193.79 MILLION TONNES (35.62%)

OIL                                          184.9 MILLION TONNES (34.00%)

COAL                         150.5 MILLION TONNES (27.68%)

NON FUEL                14.5 MILLION TONNES (2.66%)

 

THE PROPORTIONS OF GREENHOUSE BASES WHICH ARE THE CAUSE OF THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT ARE: CARBONDIOXIDE 70%; METHANE 23% AND NITROUS OXIDE 7%.  METHANE IS 23 TIMES MORE POTENT AS A GREENHOUSE GAS THAN CO2 AND NITROUS OXIDE IS 296 TIMES MORE POTENT THAN CO2 OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS.

 

IT CAN BE SEEN THAT 378.69 MILLION TONNES OF CO2 OR 70% OF CO2 IS PRODUCED BY GAS AND OIL AND ONE HAS TO ASK THE QUESTION WHY ARE THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS NOT TARGETING THE REAL CULPRITS SUCH AS ROAD TRANSPORT, GAS USE, INCLUDING POWER STATIONS, INDUSTRY AND DOMESTIC USAGE?

 

NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT AN OPTION - - IT IS EXPENSIVE AND IS THE MOST DANGEROUS POWER SOURCE EVER INVENTED.  THE RATE OF CANCER AND LEUKAEMIA IN AND AROUND NUCLEAR STATIONS - - PARTICULARLY FOR CHILDREN - - IS 10% HIGHER THAN IN THE GENERAL POPULATION.

 

SAFETY

 

THE DISASTERS AT WINDSCALE IN 1957, THREE-MILE ISLAND IN 1979 AND CHERNOBYL IN 1986 WILL RESULT IN THE DEATHS OF BETWEEN 100,000 AND 200,000 - - - - THESE FIGURES ARE NOT A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION. 

 

DR ROBERT GALE PREDICTED OVER 100,000 DEATHS FROM CHERNOBYL ALONE AND RICHARD WEBB PREDICTED THAT UP TO 280,000 WOULD DIE OVER A 30 - 40 YEAR PERIOD FROM THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER.

 

URANIUM

 

IN THE PAST 158 YEARS, OVER 100,000 MINERS WORLDWIDE HAVE DIED IN THE COAL-MINING INDUSTRY.  COMPARE THIS UNACCEPTABLE FIGURE WITH THE PROJECTED DEATH RATE OF BETWEEN 100,000 AND 280,000 WHO WILL DIE AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION IN 1986. 

THESE FIGURES DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIED AS A RESULT OF RADIATION CONTAMINATION FROM MINING URANIUM OR THE NUMBERS OF WORKERS IN THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY WHO HAVE DIED AND NUMBERS OF PEOPLE IN THE GENERAL POPULATION IN AND AROUND NUCLEAR STATIONS WHO HAVE DIED AS A RESULT OF RADIATION CONTAMINATION.

TODAY, THE LEVEL OF RADIATION AT THE DISCHARGE PIPES AT SELLAFIELD INTO THE IRISH SEA IS 56 TIMES HIGHER THAN THE RADIATION LEVEL IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATOMIC TESTING AREA IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

 

TAXATION

 

SINCE 1997, THE BRITISH TAXPAYER HAS PAID SUBSTANTIALLY MORE – NOT LESS – IN TAXES.  THE AVERAGE BRITISH FAMILY IS WORSE OFF NOW THAN IN 1997 AND CONSIDERABLY WORSE OFF THAN 30 YEARS AGO. 

TAXES HAVE RISEN SINCE NEW LABOUR WAS ELECTED IN 1997.  MORTGAGE TAX RELIEF FOR HOUSE BUYERS HAS BEEN ABOLISHED AND THE TAX BURDEN HAS BEEN MOVED FROM DIRECT INCOME TAX ON TO INDIRECT VALUE ADDED TAX (VAT).  THIS INIQUITOUS TAX, INCREASED UNDER NEW LABOUR, WAS INTRODUCED AS PART OF THE PRICE BRITAIN HAS TO PAY FOR BEING A MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.

 

A TAX SYSTEM CANNOT BE FAIR WHEN A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE OR SOMEONE RECEIVING IN EXCESS OF £250,000 PER YEAR PAYS EXACTLY THE SAME TAX (VAT) FOR GOODS OR SERVICES AS SOMEONE WHO IS UNEMPLOYED OR A PENSIONER STRUGGLING ON £90.70 PER WEEK. 

 

OUR PARTY IS OPPOSED TO THE INTRODUCTION OF A FLAT RATE INCOME TAX SYSTEM.  ITS ONLY PURPOSE IS TO MOVE EVEN MORE OF THE BURDEN ON TO LOW-PAID WORKERS AND BENEFIT COMPANIES AND SHAREHOLDERS.

WE NEED NEW RATES OF INCOME TAX, THUS ENSURING THAT THOSE WHO EARN MOST PAY MOST.  THE FOLLOWING INCOME TAX BANDS WOULD BE INTRODUCED –

TAX BANDS

 

1.         INCOME UNDER £15,000                                                  NO TAX

2.         INCOME BETWEEN £15,000 - £25,000                           20%

3.         INCOME BETWEEN £25,000 - £40,000                           30%

4.         INCOME BETWEEN £40,000 - £50,000                           40%

5.         INCOME BETWEEN £50,000 - £100,000                        50%

6.         INCOME BETWEEN £100,000 - £200,000                      60%

7.         INCOME OVER £200,000                                                   70%

 

WE ARE COMMITTED TO THE INTRODUCTION OF A COMPLETELY NEW TAX SYSTEM – ONE WHICH WOULD ABOLISH THE INIQUITOUS VAT ALTOGETHER, AND TRANSFER TAX LIABILITY FROM INDIRECT TO DIRECT TAXATION.  WE WOULD INCREASE CORPORATION AND CAPITAL GAINS TAX BY 100%.

 

MILITARY MADNESS

 

WE HAVE WITNESSED OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS SUCCESSIVE TORY AND LABOUR GOVERNMENTS EMBARK ON MILITARY MADNESS COSTING BILLIONS OF POUNDS AND THOUSANDS OF LIVES.

 

THE WAR AND OCCUPATION IN IRAQ IS ILLEGAL AND HAS COST TO DATE OVER ONE MILLION LIVES INCLUDING THE LIVES OF YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN FROM OUR COUNTRY.  THOSE WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR LAUNCHING THE WAR IN IRAQ - INCLUDING GEORGE W BUSH AND TONY BLAIR - SHOULD BE FACING AN INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES.  THE COST TO DATE OF THE WAR IN IRAQ HAS BEEN OVER FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS AND COST THE LIVES OF OVER ONE MILLION PEOPLE.

 

THE USA AND BRITAIN ARGUE THAT THEY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO LAUNCH ATTACKS AGAINST COUNTRIES SUCH AS YUGOSLAVIA, IRAQ, AND AFGHANISTAN AND TO THREATEN OTHER NATIONS LIKE IRAN AND NORTH KOREA BECAUSE THEY DO NOT CONFORM TO WHAT BUSH AND BLAIR REGARD AS DEMOCRACY.

CONTRAST THEIR ACTION WITH THEIR LACK OF ACTION AGAINST COUNTRIES SUCH AS SAUDI ARABIA AND BURMA WHICH HAVE BEEN RULED BY UNELECTED MONARCHS AND MILITARY DICTATORSHIPS WITH THEIR FAILURE TO DEAL WITH THE DAILY SLAUGHTER BY THE FASCIST STATE OF ISRAEL AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE.

 

WE SHOULD ALL REMEMBER THAT ISRAEL WAS AN ARTIFICIALLY-CREATED STATE AND THAT ONLY 20% OF ITS JEWISH POPULATION WERE BORN IN THAT REGION, THE SAME PERCENTAGE AS THE NUMBER OF ARABS WHO WERE ALSO BORN IN THAT REGION.

 

IT IS TIME THAT ALL COUNTRIES EMPLOYED SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL.  I HAVE TO QUESTION WHY COUNTRIES LIKE EGYPT CONTINUE TO SUPPLY ISRAEL WITH OIL AND GAS, PARTICULARLY AT A TIME WHEN ISRAEL CUTS OFF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY TO THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP. 

ALL ARAB STATES SHOULD CUT OFF ALL CONTACT WITH ISRAEL AND ENSURE AS A FIRST STEP THAT ISRAEL WITHDRAW FROM THE TERRITORY IT HAS OCCUPIED UNLAWFULLY SINCE 1967.

 

 

SOCIALISM

 

THE SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY IS A NATURAL HOME FOR SOCIALISTS AND FOR THE MILLIONS THROUGHOUT BRITAIN WHO TODAY FEEL DISENFRANCHISED OR DISPOSSESSED, AND WHOSE LIVES ARE BLIGHTED BY HELPLESSNESS, HOPELESSNESS AND DESPAIR.

THE BIRTH OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY PRODUCED HOWLS OF PROTEST FROM ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM.

 

THEY INCLUDED BOTH OUR TRADITIONAL CLASS ENEMIES AND THOSE IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT - WHO CLAIM TO BE SUPPORTERS OF SOCIALISM - NEW LABOUR SUPPORTS PRIVATISATION, THE ‘FREE MARKET’ AND CAPITALISM – HOW CAN “LEFT MPs” REMAIN IN A  PARTY WHICH OPENLY SUPPORTS CAPITALISM, PRIVATISATION AND ARMED INTERVENTION IN IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND YUGOSLAVIA - AND WHICH OF COURSE OPPOSES SOCIALISM?

 

THE PROTEST AGAINST THE SLP CAME FROM ANGER AND FRUSTRATION WHICH WAS AND IS AN INEVITABLE REACTION OF A DEFINING MOMENT IN BRITISH POLITICS.  THERE IS NOTHING MORE PAINFUL THAN THE BIRTH OF A NEW IDEA, AND THE SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY HAS BEEN NO EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE.

 

HOWEVER, OUR PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES ARE FIRMLY ROOTED IN THE SOCIALIST VALUES OF OUR FOREBEARS WHO FOUGHT TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD. 

 

OUR PARTY WAS FOUNDED BY PEOPLE WHO FOUGHT CONSISTENTLY TO SAVE JOBS, PROTECT INDUSTRIES AND SERVICES FROM BUTCHERY.

 

FOUNDED TO SAVE COMMUNITIES THREATENED WITH EVERYTHING FROM UNEMPLOYMENT TO RACISM TO TOXIC WASTE, AND SECURE JUSTICE FOR ALL.

 

THE SOLUTION LIES IN ABOLISHING CAPITALISM AND REPLACING IT WITH A SOCIALIST SYSTEM WHOSE INSTITUTIONS REPRESENT THE PEOPLE AS A WHOLE, AND WHICH ARE DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED BY AND ACCOUNTABLE TO THEM.

 

WE WANT TO SECURE FOR THE PEOPLE A FULL RETURN OF ALL THE WEALTH GENERATED BY BRITAIN’S INDUSTRIES AND SERVICES ON THE BASIS OF COMMON AND SOCIAL OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND EXCHANGE.

 

WE ARE COMMITTED TO ESTABLISHING THE MOST EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF THAT WEALTH, ENSURING A FREE HEALTH SERVICE AT THE TIME OF NEED AND UPON DEMAND, TOGETHER WITH A FREE EDUCATION SYSTEM AVAILABLE TO ALL.

 

OUR PARTY IS COMMITTED TO FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY, MOVEMENT, SPEECH AND ASSOCIATION, AND TO PROMOTING AND PROTECTING AN ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THE EARTH’S RESOURCES ARE PROPERLY USED - NOT JUST FOR HUMAN BEINGS BUT FOR ALL OTHER FORMS OF LIFE.

 

DO WE ASK FOR TOO MUCH - THE LEGENDARY JAMES CONNOLLY ANSWERED THAT QUESTION WHEN HE SAID:

 

         SOME MEN FAINT HEARTED EVER SEEK

         OUR PROGRAMME TO RETOUCH

         AND WILL INSIST WHEN E’ER THEY SPEAK

         THAT WE DEMAND TOO MUCH

         ‘TIS PASSING STRANGE YET I DECLARE

         SUCH STATEMENTS CAUSE ME MIRTH

         FOR OUR DEMANDS MOST MODERATE ARE

         WE ONLY WANT THE EARTH.

 

 

 

 

Reflections on the Economic Meltdown by an Ordinary Joe.

 

 

$700 Billion, possibly double that, of US public funds given over to bailing out corrupt, failed, usurial fat cats. Unimaginable sums, trillions of dollars! So runs the US regime’s plan to rescue the financial markets. It has been described as a financial lifeboat. However, as a salvage plan, it makes the Titanic safety procedures look positively trustworthy and sound.

 

I learned a new phrase recently – Credit Default Swaps (CDS). CDS trading is the epitome of parasitic capitalism and is an illustration of why the big international investment banks are up to their ears in the financial muck.

 

A CDS is a credit derivative that is in turn is a derivative whose value derives from the credit risk on an underlying bond, loan or other financial asset. A derivative is a “financial instrument” whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables such as inflation, exchange rates, stock/share prices, interest rates etc.

 

The more one looks into the subject the more it becomes apparent that the management of financial trading is intentionally complex with a nefarious nature akin to a mafia run “numbers” game. CDS trading is the most widely traded credit derivative “product” and was valued by the Bank for International Settlements at $62.2 Trillion at the end of 2007 (up from $28.9 Trillion in December 2006). Other commentators have recently valued all derivative “worth” as high as $480 Trillion. This is said to be ten (10) times global GDP!

 

These mind bending figures illustrate just how feeble and flimsy George W. Bush’s “lifeboat” is. His (?) gamble is that by nationalising the relatively very small bad housing/mortgage debt this will “free” up banks to release credit averting a much wider impact and crash in the wider economy. It’s very much a gamble and the odds are long. In fact it’s a rank outsider.

You wouldn’t back it if it was a horse! One way or another we are moving into very difficult times where the working class will be expected to shoulder a burden unknown in modern times.

 

Arthur Scargill was first to point out the nature and depth of this economic crisis (you can see and hear him for yourself on a series of videos available on You Tube). As Arthur pointed out, we are heading for an economic disaster of a scale as bad as or worse than the 1930’s.

 

We are heading toward interesting and simultaneously dangerous and opportune times for revolutionary socialists. Capitalism, as we’ve known it for decades, is in a terminal state. Social Democratic parties have no answers and are in decline everywhere while the fascist right is a growing threat across Europe.

 

Only a party with socialist solutions can offer working people a vision and a possibility of a better world. Here in this country Socialist Labour has the policies, and also the organisation able to take us forward to socialism.

 

There is much work to be done.

 

 

James McDaid.

 

 

SNP in Government – All Change for the Status Quo 

 

by James McDaid

 

 

The Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2007 ushered in an SNP administration at Holyrood albeit with minority status. With 47 MSP’s to New Labour’s 46 in a 129 seat parliament the nationalists, with the support of the two Green members, have, for the first time taken over the reins of “power” in Scotland.

 

What difference, if any, have they made?

 

Firstly, to their credit, the SNP have begun the phasing out of prescription charges within the lifetime of the parliament. For many people, particularly those suffering from chronic conditions and reliant on a multi-prescription medical regimen, this is very welcome and in some cases literally a lifesaver. So top marks go to Salmond’s party for that initiative. However, beyond that, it would be difficult for even the most ardent nationalist to point to any other comparable advances.

 

Let’s look at the debit sheet.

 

Along with the commitment on Prescription Charges two other high profile commitments stood out in the 2007 SNP Manifesto: public finance and local taxation. How have the minority administration progressed these two pledges?

 

Public Finance.

 

The Conservatives introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in 1992 and New Labour’s re-branding gave us the Public Private Partnership (PPP) in 1997. Both these schemes have been correctly seen as being virtually identical and a short cut to enrichment for the city fat cats and the big corporations - for a relatively small “investment” guaranteed returns of a magnitude ten, twenty, fifty fold and more can be got. They are a rip-off that the public pay through the nose for and have been widely seen and understood as such by the majority of the population.

The SNP latched onto the public outrage and waxed lyrical about how they would put it right. What’s their idea? Instead of PFI/PPP we now have the proposed Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) as the new means of raising finance for public works.

But does it differ in any significant way from what we’ve had from the Tories and New Labour? The short answer for anyone that knows anything about Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR) restrictions imposed by European Union (EU) directive on member states is of course no – it can’t!

 

Short on detail as the announcement from Finance Secretary John Swinney was, some basics can be gleaned. Sir Angus Grossart, an investment banker with his own merchant bank Noble Grossart, will lead the “Trust”. The man has been described by The Times as “ the doyen of Edinburgh’s financial community” and “one of Scotland’s foremost movers and shakers, with several key directorships and a hand in 50 business ventures”.

The same article advises us that he has also been “criticised previously for his part in the “stewardship of the Fraser holding company, Scottish & Universal Investments. Sir Angus was accused of failing to check the accounts thoroughly”. Given recent events in the financial world is this really the man you would want to put in charge of the country’s public investment stategy? The only other significant detail about the SFT is that it will be an “arms length private company/consortium” charged with raising finance for public projects. In short is nothing more than PFI mark 3!

 

Local Government Finance.

 

Abolition of the reviled Council Tax was another pledge made by the SNP. Loathing for the Council Tax, introduced by the Tories in the 90’s, is so widespread that New Labour dare not raise its’ voice in opposition to its’ eradication despite their continuing support for the property based tax. The SNP have published sketchy details of their alternative Local Income Tax (LIT) for which they would need the support of at least two other parties in the parliament to introduce.

Two issues (there are many others) immediately leap out – the LIT does not live up to its’ name, a rate is to be set nationally meaning people in Dumfries will pay the same as people in Shetland and its’ introduction requires the support of the British Government including the maintenance of the current Council Tax benefit transfer from Westminster to Scotland of at least £400 million. This latter figure is likely to rise significantly given the coming recession but even with it included there is still a projected shortfall of up to £500 million that the SNP say could be met though “efficiency savings”. Workers and their unions usually interpret such language as shorthand for further cuts in essential public services.

 

Summary

 

In conclusion it can be said that with the exception of the prescription charges policy SNP government in Scotland has brought little real benefit to the Scottish people. A spin on PFI and a confused and under funded misnamed alternative for local government funding that constitute flagships holed below the water line before they’ve even been launched.

 

Could such a pathetic and paltry set of policies possibly energise the Scottish people into supporting the SNP’s proposed referendum on Scottish “independence” in 2010? Unlikely, unless the calculation is that it is the very nature of this measly programme that will allow the SNP to deceitfully point out how much more could be done if only we had independence (in Europe!) which along with the widespread and growing loathing of New Labour can be turned into a tidal wave of support for separation.

 

Much needs to be done by Socialist Labour in Scotland to publicise our policies on health and taxation that, along with the rest of our programme, put the SNP and all the other parties to shame and focus on the real needs of the Scottish people and not the fat cats and financiers so recently exposed as corrupt incompetents living off the backs of the working people of Scotland, England, Wales and throughout the world.

 

Ends.

For background information, in view of the ‘credit crisis’ developments in the capitalist economy, we are reissuing an article from 2001 by Ian Johnson which traces the rise of finance capital in the 20th Century.

 

 

NEW LABOUR AND THE RISE OF FINANCE CAPITAL.

 

When we talk about finance capital we are talking about the banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions and their representatives, in short, we are talking about ‘the City’.

 

This section of society does not manufacture anything, it does not build or create anything, yet it is now the most dominant sector in the U.K. Its chief objective is the movement of money in search of the biggest profit margin in the quickest possible time.

 

In the early part of the 20th century the financial sector was subjected to government controls and confined its activities to the sterling area of the Commonwealth, indeed, even through the latter part of the 1940s the stock market and merchant banking was at best static, and at worst transactions were actually in decline. In the 1950s the financial sector tried to break free from government controls but achieved only partial success. It was not until the late 1960s that the City really began to expand with the development of London as an off‑shore base for American money fleeing the low interest rates in the United States.

 

FINANCIAL INSTABILITY

 

This was followed in 1971 by the Tory Government removing controls on credit growth which meant that market forces, namely interest rates, would now control the growth of credit in the system. This led to an end to limits on lending and meant that banking would have greater control over British industry and the economy as a whole. This coincided with the ending of the post‑war Bretton Woods agreement which had backed paper money with real value by linking it to the gold standard at the rate of 35 dollars equalling an ounce of gold. Now however, paper money was being printed and was not backed by any real value whatsoever.

 

Between 1979 and 1982 Margaret Thatcher's Tory Government removed all remaining controls from the financial sector and left it virtually unregulated and unchallenged.

 

Thatcher abolished restrictions on bank lending and hire purchase transactions and lifted all controls over building society lending, thus starting them off on the road to becoming banks and creating the basis for the great credit explosion in the late 1980s.

The Tory Government crucially abolished all exchange controls with the immediate effect that capital previously invested in the U.K. began going abroad in search of greater and quicker profits. There has been hardly any investment in U.K. manufacturing since exchange controls were abolished.

 

The dominance of finance capital became obvious in the 1980s when manufacturing output fell by 25%, when house building plummeted and thousands slept on the street, yet the City boomed. The banks made so much money in the '80s that even the Tories eventually levied a national 'windfall tax', though this was compensated for by tax allowances on bad overseas loans.

The Tories and the financial sector were responsible for the squandering of North Sea oil revenue during this period, with not one penny invested in U.K. manufacturing. The City wanted to use it to recreate their earlier role of financiers of the world, and the Tories believed that North Sea oil had made sterling a petro‑currency which signalled the days of manufacturing were over and that Britain was on a path to becoming a post‑industrial service economy.

 

THE GREAT RIP OFF

 

The looting of the British economy for the benefit of the few reached its most obscene proportions with the privatisation process of state assets which was first elaborated in the Tory election manifesto of 1983 and which resulted in the following years with the privatisation of coal, steel, gas, electricity, water, railways, telecommunications, shipbuilding and also took part of the oil and road haulage industries. This is not to mention the devastation of council housing that took place in the same period.

 

The sell‑off of state assets was overseen by City merchant banks who acted as 'advisors' and received literally hundreds of millions of pounds in fees for this 'service'. This period will rightly go down in history as one of the great rip‑offs of all time.

 

Alongside this privatisation came the reform of the National Health Service, schools and universities, prisons, the police force and justice departments and their regulating authorities, with the plan being to remove them from the control of democratically elected local authorities and place them under the control of unelected quangos and Next Step Agencies. By such means the market mechanisms of compulsory competitive tendering, performance related and profit related pay and other such devices, were introduced into all public services.

 

 

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

Of course none of the above would have been possible without an attack on the traditional defensive organisations of the working class ‑ the trade unions. The destruction of the trade union movement was a clear objective of the Thatcher regime and resulted in confrontations with virtually all sections of workers. Indeed, the destruction of manufacturing and the move to a service based industry made it imperative for the ruling class to introduce anti‑trade union laws to shackle workers and reduce their ability to fight back.

That they were partially successful is a reflection not on the fighting capacity of the working class but on its social democratic leaders.

 

With a few honourable exceptions these politicians and trade union leaders functioned as policemen for the capitalist state against their own members. These careerists and opportunists are tied to capitalism, their status and significant salaries are dependent upon it, and forced into a situation where they have to choose, they will always come down on the side of the present system.

 

The introduction of new employment law effectively weakened the trade unions and created a more individualist labour market, moreover a labour market that would be open to the whims of a free market economy, modelled on the American labour market with its high levels of mobility, downward flexibility of wages and low employer costs.

 

As a result of these policies there has been an increase in part‑time and contract work and an ending of any traditional career with its accompanying security. Furthermore, many low‑skilled workers now earn less than the minimum needed to support a family, resulting in the diseases associated with poverty, TB, rickets and others, returning.

At the same time the restrictions on welfare entitlements, particularly with unemployment benefits such as the Job Seekers Allowance introduced in 1996, are designed to compel recipients to accept work at market‑driven rates.

 

NEW LABOUR

 

It was the finance sector that Blair's New Labour courted for over a year prior to the 1997 general election. They had to convince the financiers that they were the Party for them, and that they would continue to create the framework where they could operate freely. New Labour people threw so many banquets for these financial parasites that the City's nickname for the Labour Party is, 'the prawn cocktail party.'

 

Members of the then Shadow Cabinet began touring the dining rooms of the City of London assuring their hosts that Labour had no intention of bringing back exchange controls and had no intention of doing anything they would not approve of.

 

Stuart Bell MP went to New York on a trip paid for by Kleinwort Benson Securities to reassure Wall Street that the 'financial markets will be safe in the hands of a future Labour government.' (Sunday Telegraph 17th Dec. 1995). Consequently, by the beginning of 1996, the financial pages of the newspapers were full of articles in praise of Labour's policies. Thus the stage was set for New Labour to not only continue Tory policies but to take them farther than even the most right wing Tory dared to imagine.

 

The Labour Party had concluded that the only way to get elected was to accept the agenda of the Americans and the City, to be pro Nato, pro EEC and pro non regulation of the City.

 

Due to the massive exportation of British capital, which began during the Thatcher years, Britain now has the largest overseas investment after America, and this will dictate that they continue to support American political and military hegemony as the best way to protect those interests. Indeed, all the key Labour personnel are linked to the United States, with the intent to preserve the so‑called Anglo‑American special relationship, to compensate for British capitalism's long term decline.

 

Ian Johnson.

 

 

 

Crisis Deepens and the Poor Pay the Price

 

The deepening financial crisis gripping the capitalist system has already seen a swathe of banks and financial institutions go to the wall or be taken over or merged.

The list already contains household names of US and British finance and more will be added.

 

Moreover the interventions of the US Federal Reserve Board and the UK’s Bank of England carry with it the real threat of state bankruptcy.

 

Politicians and economists may belatedly throw up their hands in mock horror at the unregulated and unrestrained activities of the parasites of finance capital, yet they were all very well aware of what was going on long ago. Nevertheless, while these institutions were generating obscene amounts of profit for the few, at the expense of the majority of the population, they were content to say nothing. Only now, when the reckless speculation, criminal incompetence and sheer orgy of greed threatens to bring the entire global financial system crashing down do they murmur any criticism.

 

It is only three months ago that the Sunday Times ran a headline that boasted “Rich Get Richer under New Labour” and only last year that the City of London paid itself over £14 billion in bonuses alone. However there is no mention by our politicians and bourgeois economists that any of this amount should now be returned. On the contrary, the Brown government has told the working class, the very victims of the financial rogues, that they must accept below inflation pay rises, and that they must economise on their food purchases and be prepared for ‘difficult times’.

 

Moreover, what no British or US mainstream politician is mentioning is that the financial speculators and hedge funds have also played a crucial role in driving up basic commodity prices, including food items, that has resulted, according to the United Nations World Food Programme “in plunging more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger. This is the new face of hunger – the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are”. (WFP 22nd April 2008).

 

This occurred when, because of the approaching turmoil, the speculators moved out of the property, credit and debt markets and into food and raw materials, without a second thought for the catastrophic outcome this would mean for millions of the world’s poor.

 

Yet it is not these millions who the US and UK governments are now rushing to help; on the contrary, like the loyal servants of capitalism that they are, they are hurrying to assist the very financial institutions responsible for this increasing poverty and hunger.

 

Furthermore, the deepening financial chaos will only serve to spur on the Labour government’s privatisation plans and their attacks on welfare, pensions, health and education, as they attempt to impose the full effects of the crisis onto the backs of workers. It is their belief that every penny spent on unemployment and incapacity benefits, on pensions and on health, is a drain on profits.

 

Only the introduction of socialist policies can counter this unfolding nightmare and that means building the SLP into a Party capable of government. That is the task ahead.

 

Ends.

 

 
A Serbian view of life in modern Britain.
 
by Neil Clark.
 
There's a wonderfully frank interview with Manchester United's brilliant Serbian defender Nemanja Vidic given to the Russian magazine Football Weekly
 
Own goal: Nemanja Vidic has placed his long-term future at Manchester United in doubt
 
 "I will never stay to live in England, that's for sure. You get only a brief glimpse of sunlight before it's all cloudy again. The winters are mild, but in summer the temperatures seldom go higher than 20C. And it rains, rains, rains. "In Russia and Serbia the people's way of life is similar. In England it's totally different. Here they just don't have time to feel the joy of life."
"Throughout the week they all work so hard. They only talk to people at lunch break. Then in the evening they come home and watch the telly, so they can get up early for work the next day. The only time to meet friends is at weekends, but for football players it's the busiest time of all. It was much easier for me to adapt to Russia than England. In England I had no one to talk to. The first month was especially hard. I lived alone in a hotel, which I left only for training. I thought I would go crazy inside those four walls."


Well, I'm not a Serb but I agree with much of what Vidic says. Turbo-capitalist Britain is a country where money-making comes before social interraction and feeling the 'joy of life'. Moving to a neoliberal, privatised economy may have given us more material goods, but it's also made us less friendly and sociable. None of this has happened by chance- the big corporations who control our lives don't want sociable, affiliative people taking delight in the simplest of pleasures, but materialistic and perenially dissatisfied consumers. Britain is probably the hardest country in Europe for newcomers, like Nemanja Vidic, to forge deep and lasting friendships and that's because we have by far the most rapacious and profit-obsessed economic system.
And the worst thing of all, is that it's this dehumanising turbo-capitalist model that Britain, and America, are trying to impose on the rest of the world.

 

 

 

 

What is happening in the Caucasus?

The conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia is in effect a conflict between Russia and the United States. It is a conflict that has been building for some time.

To understand recent developments it is crucial to put it in context.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who were opposed to the break-up, have exercised self-rule. While many of the east European states fell under the economic and political control of the United States, these two areas, and similarly Belarus, did not; preferring to maintain their close relationship with Russia. Indeed in 1996 Belarus and Russia formed ‘the Union of Sovereign Republics.’

In contrast to this the United States, through the National Endowment for Democracy and other agencies, was creating and funding the so-called ‘colour revolutions’ in the Ukraine (the Orange Revolution) and Georgia (the Rose Revolution), which brought to power governments favourable to the US and governments that would open up their economies to the IMF and World Bank and oversee the wholesale privatisation of their state-run industries and the introduction of ‘free market’ economic measures. Moreover this strategy brought pro-US regimes onto Russia’s doorstep with the added threat to Russia being the stationing of US missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic and the urging by the Bush administration for both the Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO.

The US strategy of isolating and encircling Russia has been ongoing since 1991 with the ultimate aim being the destruction of an independent Russia and gaining access to its massive natural resources, particularly oil and gas.

On 31st July this year the German daily newspaper Junge Welt (jungewelt.de) ran an interview with Phillip Corwin who was the highest ranking United Nations civilian official in Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the interview he was asked why the United States wanted to destroy Yugoslavia. This is his reply:

“I think the main reason for the destruction of Yugoslavia was the ambition of NATO to move eastward. Although the Cold War had ended, the Cold Warriors were still in power. Washington still felt Russia was its biggest threat because it had so many nuclear weapons, and Washington wanted to move up to the borders of the former Soviet Union. (jungewelt.de 31st July 2008).

The Georgian attack on South Ossetia was part of the US/NATO strategy of moving towards the Russian border. Georgia is a US client state. Its President, Mikheil Saakashvili, is Harvard educated and a former employee of the New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler. The Georgian army is armed and trained by the US.

It is inconceivable that Georgia took military action without the approval of the United States.

One month before Georgia launched its attack the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Tbilisi and met with President Saakashvili and issued a provocative statement denouncing Russia and giving US backing for Georgia’s NATO membership.

What the Bush administration thought Russia’s response to the Georgian aggression would be is not known. But for the first time Russia militarily hit back at the US foreign policy strategy and immediately was accused by President Bush of ‘not respecting the sovereignty of nations.’ One wonders whether to laugh or cry at such hypocrisy.

Nevertheless, the announcement that US troops are being sent to the region, under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’ only emphasises that this whole US strategy carries with it the inherent threat of further conflicts and the unthinkable prospect of a nuclear war.

Ends.

 

 

Declaration of the Georgian Peace Committee.

Once more Georgia was launched into a situation of chaos and bloodshed. A new fratricidal war exploded with renewed strength on Georgian soil.

To our great disappointment, the alerts of the Georgian Peace Committee and of progressive personalities of Georgia on the pernicious character of the militarization of the country and on the danger of a pro-fascist and nationalist policy had no effect.

The authorities of Georgia once again organized a bloody war,feeling the support of some western countries and of regional and international organizations. It will take decades to cleanse the shame poured by the current holders of the power over the Georgian people.

The Georgian army--armed and trained by U.S. instructors and using also U.S. armaments--subjected the city of Tskhinvali to a barbaric destruction. The bombings killed Ossetian civilians, our brothers and sisters, children, women and elderly people. Over 2,000 inhabitants of Tskhinvali and of its surroundings died.

Hundreds of civilians of Georgian nationality also died, both in the conflict zone as well as on the entire territory of Georgia.

The Georgian Peace Committee expresses its deep condolences to the relatives and friends of those who have perished.

The entire responsibility for this fratricidal war, for thousands of children, women and elderly dead people, for the inhabitants of South Ossetia and of Georgia falls exclusively on the current President, on the Parliament and on the Government of Georgia.

The irresponsibility and the adventurism of the Saakashvili regime have no limits. The President of Georgia and his team, undoubtedly, are criminals and must be held responsible.

The Georgian Peace Committee declares and asks broad public opinion not to identify the current Georgian leadership with the people of Georgia, with the Georgian nation, and appeals to all to support the Georgian people in the struggle against the criminal regime of Saakashvili.

We appeal to all the political forces of Georgia, the social movements and the people of Georgia to unite in order to free the country from the Russian-phobic and pro-fascist anti popular regime of Saakashvili!

Tbilisi, Aug. 11, 2008

Georgian Peace Committee
0182. Apt. 2, quarter 8, house 10, massif 3, Tbilisi, Georgia
Tel: ++ 995 93 761363 Fax/Tel: ++ 995 32 731516

 

 

 

Neil Clark from the Campaign for Public Ownership writes:

 
The Competition Commission has called for BAA, the Spanish company that owns several of Britain's leading airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, to be broken up. But the answer to Britain's airport woes is not allowing yet more profit-hungry plcs to own and operate our airports, but simply to re-nationalise BAA. Here is my article from last summer on why renationalisation makes sense.


Across the political spectrum there is widespread agreement that Britain's airports, with their long queues, lack of seats and tacky, shopping mall atmosphere, are a national disgrace. But the solution is not to break up BAA's monopoly and introduce 'more competition' as some have suggested. The answer is to simply take BAA back into public ownership.

Sir Terence Conran, who designed Terminal One at Heathrow and the North Terminal in the 1960s, has contrasted the brief he received from the owners of the airports back then - the British state - with the instructions Lord (Richard) Rogers, the architect of Terminal 5, got from BAA.

Conran was told to put in as many seats as possible, with the priority being to make passengers 'relax and feel at ease'. At Terminal One there were only three shops.
The privatised BAA told Rogers to put in as few seats as possible: there will be only 700 seats for a terminal handling an average of 80,000 passengers a day when it opens in March 2008. BAA wants people to pay to sit down at the terminal's expensive cafes and restaurants - not sit down for free, eating their own sandwiches.

The approach perfectly illustrates the difference in ethos between a publicly-owned company, for whom profit is not the be all and end all, and a privatised one.
We can't blame BAA for treating every square foot at Heathrow as a profit centre: it's a private company which wants to maximise returns for its shareholders. But we can blame the politicians foolish enough to sell off BAA in the first place. Allowing other profit-hungry plcs to compete to run our airports would only mean more of the same.

If we really want Heathrow and our other airports to be comfortable and reasonably easy to negotiate, we need to change the whole philosophy under which they operate. And that means returning them to their most appropriate owners: the British public.

 

 

 

 

Coal isn't the climate enemy, Mr Monbiot. It's the solution

 

A Reply by Arthur Scargill to a pro-nuclear article by green campaigner George Monbiot.

 

 

 The Guardian  Friday August 8 2008

 

Has George Monbiot sold out on his environmental credentials or is he suffering from amnesia? In his article on these pages last Tuesday he states that he has now reached the point where he no longer cares whether or not the answer to climate change is nuclear - let it happen, he says.

Has he not read the evidence presented by environmentalists such as Tony Benn and me at the Windscale, Sizewell and Hinckley Point public inquiries? Is he unaware that nuclear-power generated electricity is the most expensive form of energy - 400% more expensive than coal - or that it received £6bn in subsidies, with £70bn to be paid by taxpayers in decommissioning costs? Is he unaware that there is no known way of disposing of nuclear waste, which will contaminate the planet for thousands of years? Has he forgotten the nuclear disasters at Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl?

We are facing an economic and political crisis on a scale similar to the Wall Street crash in 1929, the mass unemployment which affected the UK and Europe in the 1930s and the energy crisis in the early 70s.

We are facing a monumental energy crisis, yet we live on an island with more than 1,000 years of coal reserves from which we can provide all the electricity, oil, gas and petrochemicals that people need, without causing harm to the environment. Britain - despite its massive indigenous deep-mine coal reserves - has never had an integrated energy policy based on coal and renewables, and as a consequence we are now facing the worst energy crisis in our history.

Since the end of the second world war, both Labour and Tory governments have sought to replace Britain's vast coal reserves with a false promise of "cheap" imported oil, "cheap, safe" nuclear energy and "cheap" natural gas - policies that have not only cost the British people billions of pounds, but resulted in the near-extinction of Britain's deep-mine coal industry, the virtual exhaustion of North Sea gas and oil, and massive economic costs and environmental problems associated with nuclear power.

After the closure of 192 pits since 1980, the loss of 170,000 jobs and the closure or non-operation of nearly 70% of coal-fired power stations on the false premise that they were uneconomic and the worst polluter of carbon dioxide, it is reasonable to expect that there would have been a dramatic fall in CO2 emissions. But in fact CO2 emissions have actually increased - not that surprising, since more than 80% of CO2 emissions are produced by oil and gas from power stations, road transport, industry, shipping and domestic use. That fact alone should cause Monbiot to rethink.

Britain needs an integrated energy policy that will produce 250m tonnes of indigenous deep-mine clean coal per year - from which could be extracted all the electricity, oil, gas and petrochemicals that our people need.

All existing and new coal-fired power stations should be fitted with clean coal technology - including carbon capture that would remove all CO2 - and at the same time we should be developing a massive renewable energy policy based on wind, wave, tide, barrage, hydro, geothermal, solar power, together with insulation, conservation and reforestation.

We must end the import of coal, (currently 43m tonnes a year) which is produced by subsidies, "slave labour" and child labour, and end the import of shale oil, tar sands and other so-called unconventional oils, which are the dirtiest fuels on the planet but are being used to produce electricity.

We still do not know - because of the security and secrecy laws - the full extent of the disaster at Windscale (Sellafield) in 1957 or Three Mile Island in the US in 1979, but we do know that the incidence of cancer and leukaemia - particularly among children - is 10% higher in or around nuclear power stations, and we know from experts such as Robert Gale - who treated the victims at Chernobyl in 1986 - that more than 100,000 will die over a 30-year period.

We need an end to all nuclear-powered electricity generation, the most dangerous and uneconomic method of producing electricity. We need an end to deforestation, which is the cause of 20% of CO2 emissions worldwide, and an end to biofuel development - which not only produces substantial CO2 emissions but is causing mass starvation and higher food prices throughout the world.

Only by the introduction of a real integrated energy policy based on clean coal technology and renewable energies, can we begin to meet the needs of people in the UK and throughout the world.

I challenge George Monbiot to test out which is the most dangerous fuel - coal or nuclear power. I am prepared to go into a room full of CO2 for two minutes, if he is prepared to go into a room full of radiation for two minutes.

· Arthur Scargill is the leader of the Socialist Labour Party. He was president of the National Union of Mineworkers 1982-2002

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is an audio link to an interview Arthur gave to the Guardian in connection with this article. The recording lasts approximately 5 minutes.
 
 
Subject: Arthur sound recording of Guardian interview at the link

 
 

 

 

RICHARD HOLBROOKE & RADOVAN KARADZIC

 
 

Former United States negotiator Richard Holbrooke told CNN on the 31st July 2008 the claim that he "cut a deal" with the recently arrested Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was "completely false" (Quotes from CNN transcript -  interview with Richard Holbrooke 31st July 2008).

 

Holbrooke was the architect of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian conflict with most of the US strategic objectives achieved..

 
Holbrooke added, " of all the evil men of the Balkans, he is the worst."


   

The claim, made by Karadzic and his supporters alleged that the deal allowed him to retire from political life and avoid any politically driven 'war crimes charges' in exchange for keeping a low profile. 

 

So who to believe, Holbrooke or Karadzic? Surely Holbrooke would not try to deceive the public, as Colin Powell did via his presentation at the United Nations where he showed 'satellite photographs' of Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction?

 

We now know the answer, courtesy of the Serbian newspaper Kurir. Below you can read an English translation of the terms of the agreement.

 

It is worth bearing in mind that for the last ten years the United States government has portrayed Radovan Karadzic as one of the most wanted men on the planet. Oh the tangled webs we weave.
 

 

 

   
 

 

 


Obligations
1. RK is under obligation to submit his resignation to all the state and [political] party functions. Decision comes to force within 90 days, as needed to settle the necessary issues with the rest of leadership. Resignation has to be irretrievable. Influence the leading party officials in a direction of easing the resignation issue and the change in the hierarchy.
2. Until submitting his resignation, RK will not be reaching political or state decisions, nor will he influence others to reach decisions pertaining to any of the following:
2-1 Combat operations on the territory of BiH [Bosnia-Herzegovina]
2-2 Moving the civilian population
2-3 The international agreements: military, economic, security, regional integrations
2-4 Appointing the state, party, regional, cultural administrations, functionaries
2-5 Relocating the financial means
(in force from 5.11.03:30)

3. RK will withdraw from the public life. This includes refusing to give interviews, statements (in person or through the intermediaries), non-publishing [illegible] of political and current problems.

Obligations 2

1. United States Government is under obligation not to influence, directly or indirectly, the SDS leadership [Dr. Karadzic's political party] to affect dissolution of the party.
2. United States Government is making available the sum of 600,000 USD to RK, in the local currency. The sum is designated to enable RK's support in the 6 year period.
3. United States Government is making residential object available to RK, at the location agreed upon during the earlier verbal agreement.
4. United States Government is providing physical protection for RK, not less than 6 men.
5. United States Government has a duty to inform RK about every possible threat to his safety.
Final stipulations:
1. This agreement is permanent.
2. RK's violations of the agreement will be treated as a serious violation of the informal agreement, in the sense of the article 3 paragraph 25 of the Internal Regulations and in that sense it will be sanctioned with the immediate termination.
3. The agreement can be terminated through a mutual consent, or upon the initiative of United States Government.Signed by: Radovan Karadzic (on the left) and Richard Holbrooke (right).Copy of the agreement from Kurir, text of the agreement translated from Glas Javnosti

 

 
 
(Thanks to Neil Clark for bringing this to our attention).
 

 

 

Who is Going to Pay for the Capitalist Crisis?

 

 

Here is a list of Oil Company profits for the second quarter of 2008. (April to June).

Royal Dutch Shell -  $11.56 billion profit for the quarter.

ExxonMobil -  $10 billion profit for the quarter.

British Petroleum -  $9.5 billion profit for the quarter.

Total -   $7.3 billion profit for the quarter.

Chevron -   $5.68 billion profit for the quarter.

Conoco -   $5.4 billion profit for the quarter.

Eni SpA  - $5.36 billion profit for the quarter

StatoilHydro ASA - $3.7 billion profit for the quarter

Repsol YPE - $1.4 billion profit for the quarter.

A CBI statement, issued on the 4th August 2008 revealed that UK manufacturers are facing sharply rising costs and that output is set to decline across the majority of regions over the three months to October with significant job losses, adding that  ‘the climb in oil and other raw material prices over recent months has driven costs up significantly’.

 

In other words, to achieve the obscene levels of profit announced by the oil companies, thousands of workers will lose their jobs.

 

In this same quarter workers have faced rising costs of food and a 35% rise in energy costs. Home repossessions have risen by 40% compared to the same quarter last year with negative equity looming for thousands of households and a further rise in home repossessions forecast.

 

The day after the CBI statement the Brown government gave the Northern Rock bank a further £3 billion of taxpayers money to keep it afloat, at the same time as Northern Rock was announcing the sacking of 1300 of its workforce.

In the last six months 3,700 homes were repossessed by Northern Rock with a further 140,000 expected to be in jeopardy over the next 12 months.

It does not need an Einstein to predict which class in society is expected to pay for the crisis of capitalism, and it is certainly not the capitalists!

 

A FURTHER RISE IN GAS PRICES.

 

The day after announcing that with immediate effect gas prices will rise a further 35 per cent, Centrica plc, the parent company of British Gas has revealed a £992 million profit and declared a £144million dividend payout to its shareholders.

 

This latest hike in gas prices comes on top of a 16 per cent price rise less than six months ago. The latest dividend payout to shareholders represents, coincidentally, a rise for the shareholders of 16 per cent. There is no talk here of above inflation pay rises. 

 

These latest price rises, when added to the credit crisis and housing market collapse, the soaring cost of fuel and basic food items, mean that workers are facing a vicious onslaught on their standard of living.

 

Various Labour MPs express their 'shock' and 'dismay' at these recent gas price rises and consumer watchdog bodies wring their hands in anguish and state the obvious, "Customers will be outraged to learn that while they ponder how to make ends meet Centrica's shareholders are enjoying an increase in their dividends."

 

Yet neither the MPs nor the consumer bodies seem to grasp the reality that PLCs operate for profit, that’s what they do. They operate to gain maximum profit for their shareholders. Don’t Labour MPs know this? Why do they act surprised? Instead of simply lambasting a PLC for doing what every Tom, Dick and Harry knows that a PLC does, the real target, the real villains, should be named as the successive British governments who allowed the energy sector to be ripped apart in the first place. Beginning with Thatcher and her liberalisation dogma, and followed by Blair as her loyal pupil.

 

Yet there is a reactionary layer in society who are currently demanding a state funeral for former prime minister Thatcher. Clearly big business, including Centrica of course, will deem her worthy of a state funeral, after all, her policies created the environment within which the private companies could make a killing. But for the millions of people who will go cold this winter, and for the thousands that will die this winter in Britain because of lack of heat, these people may understandably suggest a rather different end for her.

 

Tony Woodley, joint leader of the Unite union commented on the gas price rises thus:

“This combination of massive profits and eye-watering price rises proves that the privatised provision of basic utilities has failed the public.”  Quite correct Mr Woodley. Why therefore, does the Unite union continue to provide funds for the very government who support this privatization of basic utilities, indeed are taking the privatisation process further than even the Tories dared to? The union are in effect saying to the Labour government, ‘here is our members money for you. Please go out and buy a bigger stick with which to hit us with.’

 

It is time that the trade union movement in general got off their knees and begun to truly represent the best interests of their members. It is time to fight back.

 

Ends

 

KOSOVO, THE KLA & MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

 

The more revelations that appear regarding the illegal US/NATO led aggression in the Balkans the more it exposes the sick and morally bankrupt condition of the Western leaders and their apologists.

 

 

Madeleine Albright was the United States Secretary of State during the enforced break-up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was she who became cheerleader for the KLA secessionists and even boasted in her memoirs that she argued with Colin Powell for the use of military force by asking, "What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can't use it?"

 

Albright, like most of the US establishment, seemed oblivious to the fact that the UN Charter forbids the forced break-up of nations, and UN Security Council resolution 1244 guaranteed the territorial integrity of Serbia.

However Albright’s disrespect for international law and human rights had already been confirmed in 1996 when in an interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes programme she was asked the following question relating to the effects of the sanctions on Iraq: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

 

Kosovo, now with the United States backed KLA firmly in control, declared ‘independence’ on the 6th February 2008. Journalist Heather Cottin commented on this development in her article for Global Research:

“The U.S. calls it “Operation Status.” The United Nations calls it “The Ahtisaari Plan.” It is the U.S./NATO “independence” project for Kosovo, which has been a province of Serbia since the 14th century. With NATO’s 17,000 troops backing it, Kosovo’s government is set to secede on Feb. 6, declaring itself a separate country.

Kosovo’s prime minister is Hashim Thaci, who was the leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK for its Albanian initials), which U.S. diplomat Robert Gelbard called “terrorist” in 1998, just before the U.S. started funding the UCK to use it against Yugoslavia. Thaci, whose UCK code name was “Snake,” and his UCK cronies are well funded by drug running and the European sex trade.”

Cottin adds: “Through lies and raw military power, the U.S. supported a pro-imperialist group of gangsters—the UCK—in the war against Yugoslavia, and this gang then took over Kosovo.

Washington and its NATO allies allowed this criminal element to drive over 200,000 Serbs, Roma people and other minorities out of Kosovo, and terrorize the impoverished Albanian population.”

 (‘Kosovo Secession Linked to Nato Expansion’ Heather Cottin, Global Research 3rd Feb 2008).

 

Moreover, the KLA leadership is currently under investigation following a resolution from the Russian delegation submitted to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) which demands “The facts about inhumane treatment of people and illegal trafficking of human organs in Kosovo.”

The resolution explains that the KLA kidnapped hundreds of Kosovo Serbs, Moldavians, Russians and Romanians at the end of the 1990s and took them to northern Albania where their vital organs were extracted in ‘illegal makeshift operating rooms, to be sold to the black market clinics.’ (Itar-Tass news agency 14th April 2008).

The resolution also states that ‘The highest Kosovo Albanian officials were involved in these crimes.’

 

Yet, in the search for greater profits and obtaining strategic goals, it seems that the US, and for that matter the UK government, were more than willing to look the other way as the KLA went about their gruesome business. For them, like the Mafia, ‘it was only business.’

 

Journalist Neil Clark explained in his 2007 Guardian article:

“Liberating" Kosovo from direct Belgrade control, achieved by the illegal 1999 bombardment of the rump Yugoslavia, has already brought rich pickings for US companies in the shape of the privatisation of socially owned assets.

Even more important, it has enabled the construction of Camp Bondsteel, the US's biggest "from scratch" military base since the Vietnam war, which jealously guards the route of the trans-Balkan Ambo pipeline, and guarantees western control of Caspian Sea oil supplies. The camp, which includes a detention facility used to house those detained during Nato operations in Kosovo, was described by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, as a "smaller version of Guantánamo" following a visit in November 2005.”

(‘The Emperor has Spoken’ Neil Clark Guardian, 13th June 2007).

 

Sometimes, particularly for the American elite it seems, it is not only mere greed that can be a motivation, as the following report from the US based Online Journal explains. The report is worth quoting at length:

:

“Former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, an adviser to the Barack Obama campaign and godmother of chief Obama foreign policy adviser Dr. Susan Rice, carried on an affair with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in a flagrant abuse of her office. WMR has received further confirmation from well-placed sources in Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo that Albright had Thaci at her virtual beck and call for sexual encounters. Thaci was in his late 20s and early 30s when he was having the affair with Albright, who was in her sixties at the time.

 

On December 10, 2007, WMR reported: “It is rumored that during negotiations on Kosovo in Rambouillet, France in 2000, [Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright had more than a diplomatic interest in Thaci, who was then 31. Thaci is to become the Prime Minister of Kosovo. The New York Daily News reported that when Albright walked into the hotel room of the Albanian delegation in Rambouillet at midnight, one Albanian told her to ‘go away’ and come back in five minutes. The Albanians thought Albright was a hotel cleaning lady. Albright reportedly exploded in rage and hurled explicit language at the Albanians.”

On February 17, 2008, WMR reported: “WMR has learned from sources who were in Kosovo at the time that Thaci was Albright’s virtual ‘toy boy’ and a frequent sex partner.”

 

Thaci’s close relationship with Albright allowed him to press Washington during both the Clinton and Bush administrations to support Kosovo’s independence cause. Currently, Kosovo,… has become a major center for the drug, cigarette, and weapons smuggling business, as well as human trafficking for purposes of prostitution. The ersatz nation,… is protected by an American military force with a major base at Camp Bondsteel.

(A)dditional confirmation that Albright was having sexual trysts with the leader of the KLA, despised as a terrorist by Serbia, made her untrustworthy to Belgrade and a laughing stock throughout the Balkans and the rest of Europe, according to French and German intelligence sources with whom WMR spoke.

(‘Clinton secretary of state had her own secretive trysts’. Wayne Marsden Reports, Online Journal 16th July 2008).

.

As one journalist wryly commented, ‘I've heard of film stars sleeping with directors in order to get a starring role, but I think this is the first time I've heard of anyone sleeping with a politician in order to get a new state.”

 

 

 

On the very day that KLA hardliner Hashim Thaci (having discarded his Balaclava and combat fatigues for a designer suit) was being warmly embraced by Mrs Albright for signing the Rambouillet 'peace' treaty, Europol was submitting a report for all European interior ministers on the connection between Thaci's organisation and the Albanian drug gangs that were supplying Western Europe with more than 75 per cent of its heroin.

 

 

ENDS.

 

 

 

 

 

Prime minister Gordon Brown’s answer to the crisis of capitalism is for workers to eat less. That was the meaning of the message he issued before traveling to the G8 summit in Japan.  Brown said “Food wastage and unnecessary purchases were contributing to price rises” and suggested that because workers were spending too much money on food purchases this was the reason that had left “many people struggling to pay bills.” 

Brown’s utterances coincided with release of the joint report from the US government and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which warned that world food prices will continue to rise rapidly for at least the next decade.

 

Fresh from instructing sovereign nations on how to run elections, the unelected Mr Brown continued “ Increased production in Africa could be part of the solution” without apparently realising that the African masses are being hit worst of all from the price rises attached to the basic staples of everyday diet such as rice and wheat.

 

What Brown’s nonsense obscures is the deepening crisis of the capitalist system itself. Although the financial institutions, since the collapse of the credit and property markets, have moved into speculation in the ‘futures’ market of oil and food, which has had the inevitable result of driving up prices, this is a mere symptom of a much deeper underlying crisis.

 

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known as the bankers’ bank, last month issued a warning which states, “The current market turmoil is without precedent in the postwar period. With a significant risk of recession in the US, compounded by sharply rising inflation in many countries, fears are building that the global economy might be at some kind of tipping point. These fears are not groundless.”

The BIS had previously warned, correctly, that the ‘credit bubble’ would burst and “culminate in a deflation that might be hard to manage.”

In other words the BIS are warning of a depression not seen since the 1930s and Gordon Brown’s statement on food purchasing is a clear warning that the effects of this depression will be dumped onto the backs of the working class. This is all the more clear when it is noted that the government, far from telling them to tighten their belts, have already given over £150 billion of taxpayers money to the banks and financial institutions to keep them afloat and to continue to pay lavish bonuses. 

 

What in effect is unraveling is the ideology which claims that ‘market forces’ are the highest and best mechanism for organising society. Moreover it is becoming ever more apparent to millions of people that capitalism is incapable of meeting even the most modest needs of the majority of the world’s population.

 

Ends. 

 

 

SLP CONDEMNS ANTI-CUBAN PROVOCATION

 

The Socialist Labour Party unreservedly condemns the latest anti -Cuban stunt perpetrated by the United States. Washington is organising and promoting it's so called "Cuba Solidarity day " on Wednesday 21st May. The reactionary US administration is promoting the day as an act of "solidarity" with so called prisoners of conscience in Cuba ,whilst it says it is also celebrating the 106th anniversary of Cuban independence from Spain. Any serious student of history will know that Cuban independence and the Cuban peoples' right to national self determination was delivered by not by the United states' defeat of Spain in 1902, but by the Cuban revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara and other Cuban patriots and socialists. Subsequently under the leadership of the communist party of Cuba,the Cuban people went on to build a socialist society,that despite 5 decades of  illegal economic blockades, assassination attempts and sabotage perpetrated by the United States, continues to deliver free universal education , free medical care, a lower infant mortality rate and higher literacy rate and life expectancy  than the united states. The Cuban people do not need to take any lessons on human rights from the United States. People  around the world who genuinely seek justice, equality and social progress will see this crass attempt to rewrite history as a pathetic provocation against the Cuban people and their right to national self determination. Hands off Cuba !

 

May  Local Elections 2008.

 

The SLP will be standing candidates in the May local elections, as it has done in every election since the founding of the Party in 1996.

 

It does so under conditions of capitalism’s increasing economic instability, brought into sharp focus by the nationalisation of Northern Rock. However this is not nationalisation in any true meaning of the word, but an attempt to prevent the financial meltdown of the British economy.

The reason that the major banks will no longer lend to each other is because they are well aware that the collateral offered, the assets, are worthless. Yet the Labour government has agreed to lend vast sums to Northern Rock regardless of this, and thereby raise the danger of national bankruptcy.

 

This approach of bailing out the millionaire executives operating in the financial world is in stark contrast to the government’s attitude to the thousands of working class families who were the victims of the Farepak collapse and is yet one more confirmation that this government only represents the rich and powerful in society.

 

The ‘credit crisis’ will be ongoing and is only exacerbated by recent government actions.

 

The coming period will see whole sections of workers thrown into struggle to defend living standards, welfare and pension rights and it is the SLP that is increasingly being seen as the only viable alternative to the current political and economic crisis which is impoverishing more and more layers of workers and at the same time denying them any political representation.

 

It is therefore the responsibility of our Party to participate in any such election so that workers, students, youth and the unemployed can have the opportunity to consider our programme and realise that it embodies the hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of the people of Britain.

 

Ends.

 

 

 

 

The Labour Government & the Disabled

 

Part One

"If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes."

David Freud. Labour government adviser on Welfare Reform.

 

David Freud is the government adviser and the author behind Labour’s Welfare to Work strategy, part of the Welfare Reform programme announced recently by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which claims that 1.9 million people on Incapacity Benefit, from a total of 2.6 million who qualify, are capable of seeking employment and should be taken off benefit.

Mr Freud offers no evidence to support the conclusion that such a vast number of people are in fact ‘malingerers’ so we must assume that amongst his many talents Mr Freud is a psychic.

Mr Freud claims that family GPs should not be entrusted with determining if people receive incapacity benefit or not, obviously unaware that GPs are not involved in that decision anyway.

Freud recommends the DWP use a private sector company who’s task it will be to get the sick and disabled off benefits and into work, any kind of work, and the outside company will be paid according to results, the more people driven off benefit the more the private sector company earns. As David Freud commented to the Telegraph of 2nd February 2008, the scheme can be extremely lucrative to the companies who throw people off benefits "We can pay masses” stressed Mr Freud.

In order to create the correct climate to enable the government to throw the sick and disabled off benefits, Freud and the government are launching a propaganda campaign designed to create the impression that basically anyone who claims benefits is a ‘scrounger’ and ‘malingerer’.

‘Now Public’ website commented:

“Benefits and Work believes that David Freud has breached the Civil Service Code in relation to honesty and integrity.
The continued portrayal of the majority of sick and disabled claimants as people who can and should be in work is causing real terror and misery for people who know this is not the case and who fear for the future.
His claims that two thirds of incapacity benefit claimants shouldn't be getting the benefit have been repeated throughout the media and by politicians, leading to a widespread belief that the majority of claimants are work shy scroungers rather than genuinely sick people. There is not a shred of evidence to support his utterly irresponsible guesstimate”.

In view of his radical assessment on the nature of health incapacity, what experience of the health service does Mr Freud actually possess?

The answer is none whatsoever, in fact his main work experience has been as an investment banker, most notably for Warburgs (now UBS) one of the leading British investment banks. Prior to that Freud worked at the stockbrokers Rowe & Pitman and, as he admitted in the Telegraph interview, it was during his time there that he engaged in activities that would today be classed as illegal. Also, it was during his work in the City that Freud confided to his deputy, “If the rest of the country knew what we were being paid, there would be tumbrels on the street and heads carried around on pikes." (A tumbrel is an open cart, especially used to carry condemned people to the guillotine during the French Revolution).  

A brief investigation into other Freud activities proves enlightening. According to an interview which appeared in the Guardian 4th August 2006, “a member of his own team called him the "Fraud Squad" because of his ability to heavily promote new share issues that subsequently tanked”.

Furthermore, it was Freud’s consortium that had to ask for a further £1.2bn from public coffers for the Channel rail link, and both Eurotunnel and Euro Disney flotations, in which he was also involved, are instances were “investors lost millions.” 

David Freud is no stranger to unpopular decisions as he himself boasted when commenting on the takeover of the Swedish tanker company Smedvig, which he called the "fastest hostile takeover recorded in Europe in modern times"

Producing the Freud Report for the DWP is not the first time he has worked closely with this Labour government. He was involved in the reckless move to privatise Britain’s air traffic control and put the safety of millions of passengers into the hands of private companies operating on a profit first policy. His hand can also be seen in the destruction and privatisation of Royal Mail and currently, as chief executive of the Portland Trust, he is advising on economic issues in the Middle East, meaning the continued privatisation of Iraq’s once state run industries.

That the Labour government should commission a Welfare Report from someone like David Freud reveals clearly this government’s intention to privatise all areas of the public sector and moreover, their willingness to attack the most vulnerable in society to do it.

To be continued.

 

 

The Labour Government & the Disabled

 

Part Two

Following the Department for Work and Pensions announcement of the Freud Report, which will mean using private sector companies to drive sick and disabled people off benefits and into employment, invariarably low paid, the Labour government came up with the spin that this move would enable disabled people ‘the dignity of working’ and the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.

To examine if these comments contain even an ounce of sincerity one only needs to look at the situation regarding the Remploy factories.

Remploy is a government-owned manufacturing firm which has more than 6,000 disabled employees in 83 factories around the UK, including highly skilled workers producing items such as furniture and electronics.

It was set up in 1944 to employ disabled Second World War veterans, with the first factory opening in 1946. More recently it has provided secure, supported employment for thousands of disabled people in the UK.

Last year the Labour government announced that 43 of these factories were to close. However, in an attempt to divide the solidarity of the workforce the government strategy is to shut these factories in stages and at present 28 are earmarked for closure, although it is obvious that once this figure is accomplished the remaining factories will then be targeted. 

In protest at the announced closures, on the 27th November 2007, a group of eleven Remploy workers occupied the foyer of the Department of Work and Pensions’ head office with three of them chaining themselves to chairs in the foyer.
The protesters chanted: ‘We want to see Peter Hain! ’ (then Work and Pensions secretary) and ‘Stop the factory closures!’
Police were called and after an hour’s stand-off Hain’s principal permanent secretary John Oliver came out to speak to the occupiers. Les Woodward of the GMB trade union, reminded him that Hain had promised at the Labour Party conference, to use public procurement to keep Remploy factories open and added “‘When the closure announcement was made on May 22, one person committed suicide.’

The Remploy workers were assured that Peter Hain “cares deeply about Remploy.”

 

On the 29th November 2007, just two days after they were assured that Peter Hain “cares deeply about Remploy” Hain, on behalf of the Labour government, confirmed that they would proceed with the closure of 28 Remploy factories, with the loss of 2,000 supported jobs and added in his House of Commons statement that the closure of some Remploy premises will cause ‘disappointment’

 

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said: “This government controlled operation has failed its people, its principles and its purpose”

Moreover, as the consortium of trade unions representing the workforce has stressed, most of Remploy's skilled workers now face a future of shelf-stacking or will never find jobs.

The Observer of 9th March 2008 quoted Remploy worker David Reed, "Everyone was very upset. We have a lot of people with severe learning difficulties and they were bewildered, trying to understand what was happening."

Mr Reed has been partially-sighted since being diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was seven, he works at the furniture factory in Aintree, near Liverpool, which is to close. He has been with Remploy for 20 years, and now feels he would find mainstream employment difficult. "Put me outside and I'll be treated like an idiot. If I had to go to Asda and Tesco, I couldn't make it across the car park without bumping into a car."

The social consequences of the Remploy closures can also be seen in a letter sent by Phil Davies, in his capacity as secretary of the consortium of trade unions, to James Purnell, the new Secretary of State for Works and Pensions in which Davies explained “When I visited York I was asked by a woman called Tracey why she will have to lose her job and what will happen to her friends? Tracy is 44 years of age and has severe learning difficulties; her father is 75 years old and he told me that he and her mother do not know what to do about caring for Tracey. ‘The evening and weekends are hard enough but for Tracey to lose her job at the Remploy factory will mean she will also lose her friends.’ Mr Purnell, you can stop this particular factory from closing, you can help Tracey and her comrades at York.”

However, given the choice between helping the ‘Tracey’s’ of this world, or further enriching the bankers and financial institutions, then for the Labour government there is simply no contest, in today’s parlance, it is a no-brainer.

Naturally, even after the demise of Peter Hain, the Labour government continued its attack on society’s most vulnerable and Phil Davies, also national secretary for the GMB union, ripped up his Labour party card in disgust. In his resignation letter he stated, “We have been misled by the Secretary of State, who made assurances at the 2007 Labour Party conference which he did not keep. I have been a national trade union officer for 20 years and have never seen workers treated in such a despicable way. Our members are being ignored and bullied into submission.”

 

The situation at Remploy exposes the spin and outright lies of the Labour government.

No mention here of ‘the dignity of working’ and giving the disabled the feeling that they are ‘contributing to society’.

At first glance it would appear contradictory that the government are, on the one hand, as acknowledged in the DWP Freud report, throwing the disabled off benefits and driving them into unsuitable and low paid work, and on the other hand, closing down Remploy factories which were specifically established to give the disabled meaningful and skilled work opportunities.

Such hypocrisy would not be new of course, but the fact is that there is an underlying consistency to the shameful behaviour of the Labour government, and that is that both of these apparently contradictory actions are designed to achieve the same result, the slashing of public spending.

This is not only in line with European Union directives to reduce public expenditure but continues the policy of shifting the wealth of society further away from the poor and into the hands of a rich elite.

It is this layer of the obscenely wealthy that all the mainstream parties now represent. In opposition to this the Socialist Labour Party seeks to construct a movement that will not pamper to the parasites of finance capital, but will truly represent the interests, hopes and aspirations, of the overwhelmimg majority of the people of Britain.    

Join us.

Ends

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CYprus elects first communist president.

 

 

 

 

 

The Socialist Labour Party sends warmest congratulations to Demetris Christofias on his historic election victory to the presidency of Cyprus.

We look forward with optimism to continued fraternal relations with Cyprus comrades and the AKEL.

Below is a brief report from Reuters  

 

Reuters report

24th Feb 2008.

 

Christofias becomes first communist Cyprus president

By Michele Kambas

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Demetris Christofias, Soviet educated and with a penchant for Che Guevara t-shirts, made history on Sunday becoming Cyprus's first communist president.

A builder's son from a village now in Turkish held north Cyprus, Christofias, 62, portrays himself as a moderate who is best placed to revive reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been separated since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. Christofias's Communist AKEL party has had traditionally good relations with Turkish Cypriots.

"We can find a common language of communication with Turkish Cypriots," said Christofias.

Created in 1926 as the Communist Party of Cyprus, AKEL, is the island's biggest party but had never before contested the presidency. It was instrumental in ensuring the election of five of the six presidents of the island post-independence in 1960.

Christofias backed incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos in 2003 but quit the governing alliance in July 2007, citing frustration at Papadopoulos's negotiation tactics on ending Cyprus's division.

Despite communism all but crumbling everywhere else in Europe, the AKEL headquarters still boast statues of Lenin and its members address one another as comrades.

Opinion polls often show him as one of the island's most popular politicians. A blunt speaker, he seldom attempts to cover up a heavy Cypriot accent.

He was educated in Moscow on a party scholarship and led the youth wing of AKEL. He was elected party Secretary-General in 1988 and elected president of Cyprus's parliament in 2001.

 Ends.

 

 

Police Stop Traffic and Make Their Own Count

 

 Report by Philip Chambers

 

 

 

Conservative estimates of 22,500 Police Officers and supporters demonstrating against their truncated pay rise were given by the Metropolitan Police as the official count on Wednesday 23 January.

The majority, wearing white caps with the slogan "Fair Play for Police" filled both sides of Park Lane before marching, for the first time since 1919, through the back streets of Victoria and past the Home Office.

 

Emphasis was on quiet determination rather than a militant display.  Even in front of the Home Office there was only the occasional cat-call.  It was left to a group of youngsters who had commandeered caps and placards to provide enthusiastic chants of support.

 

The march terminated at Millbank and the demonstrators then made their way to the House of Commons to lobby their members of Parliament.  Later a mass meeting was held in Central Hall addressed by Police Federation Chair, Jan Berry, who gave an emotional speech and received a standing ovation.

 

The demonstration was, of course, well mannered, crime and litter free.

 

New Labour has an uneasy tradition of ignoring mass demonstrations.  Police Federation members may therefore have to engage more vigorously with this Government - a Government who have public sector workers firmly in their sights to appease the latest crisis of capital.

 

Ends

 

 

 

 

 

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.

 

Recent press reports indicate that the Brown government is planning to nationalise the Northern Rock bank as a last resort because of failure to find a buyer in the private sector.

Whether this nationalisation plan actually takes place or not the issue deserves closer examination.  

 

The government plan is to bailout the bank with taxpayers money, dust it down and when stable hand it back over to the private sector, the very people who made a mess of it in the first place. This is not nationalisation in the accepted socialised sense, this is nationalisation for the benefit of capitalism, reminiscent of the kind of state takeovers that were seen in Germany during the 1930s.

Moreover, it makes a mockery of this government’s claim that there would be ‘no special favours’, a remark obviously aimed at individual sections of the trade union movement, and not at the financial sector, where we can see there are ‘special favours’ aplenty.  

 

Brown’s actions are sticking plaster stuff as the depth of the economic crisis is threatening the entire monetary system of capitalism.

 

The world’s largest bank, the United States Citigroup has just been propped up by foreign investment from South Korea, Singapore and Kuwait, this is on top of the money both the US Federal Reserve and the European Bank have already poured into the monetary system in an attempt to keep it afloat.

This is clearly a crisis of such proportions that Brown’s single sticking plaster solution for Northern Rock will prove woefully inadequate. Despite already throwing £55 billion at it, neither the government nor the bank know the exact amount of liabilities they are exposed to, and the reason that no banks will now lend to each other, as was previous practice, is because they are well aware that any loans may never be repaid and that banks now hold swathes of fictitious capital.

Therefore it is clear that Northern Rock is not the only bank with deep financial troubles, indeed all the British banks are affected.

The current worldwide financial crisis, brought to the fore by the collapse of the US ‘sub prime’ mortgage market, has not only hit Britain harder than most countries but will continue to send convulsions throughout the banking system.

 

Britain today has no manufacturing base of any substance, having been destroyed by both Tory and Labour governments. It now relies first and foremost on the speculative activities of its financial sector and has no fall-back position; consequently it is exposed more than most to any monetary crisis, especially one as deep as the current crisis. 

In these circumstances the answer is not to let the private sector act as parasites on the backs of the taxpayers but to take Northern Rock and all banks and financial institutions into real and lasting public ownership, without compensation to their executives and corporate shareholders.

Today, the UK carries a trade deficit of over £7 billion per month, the strength of the pound is falling, the housing market is over valued, personal debt has hit a record of £1.5 trillion and despite the recent cut in interest rates the average cost of a fixed rate mortgage is increasing.

Enough is enough, real and accountable public ownership, controlled by the people for the people, will secure peoples savings and will secure their homes; it is the only progressive answer to the economic madness we are now witnessing.

 

Ends.

 

 

 

 

 

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

 

 

When the US and UK launched their ‘shock and awe’ attack on the sovereign state of Iraq in 2003 the initial reason Tony Blair gave for such extreme, and illegal, actions was that Iraq not only possessed weapons of mass destruction but was ready to use them, indeed it could launch them at 45 minutes notice.

 

When this reason was exposed for what it was, outrageous and criminal propaganda, we were then told that the reason for the attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq was to get rid of Saddam Hussein and ‘free’ the Iraqi people from his dictatorship.

Yet when the occupation forces seized the country and set up the US sponsored government, its very first act was to change Iraq’s privatisation laws to allow the multinationals access to Iraqi industry, most importantly the oil industry.

How this would ‘free’ the Iraqi people was never explained; perhaps Mr Blair meant ‘freeing’ them from their country’s wealth?

 

Let us move on to January 2008. Tony Blair has left office and among his many new activities is his appointment as part-time advisor to the United States investment bank J.P.Morgan. His salary is $5 million per year. Sceptics may think that a $5million a year wage for a part-time post in an area where he has limited expertise is a little excessive. Sceptics may also wonder that if they are paying him this huge amount for so little of his time, was it the case that J.P.Morgan owed Mr Blair a favour for some good turn he may have initiated in the past?

 

The answer came via the Financial Times of 11th January 2008 where this announcement appeared ‘J.P.Morgan has been selected to run the new Trade Bank of Iraq.’

 

Needless to say this is a position that will see them make billions in future Iraqi oil production and was made possible by the illegal actions of Bush and Blair.

 

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, as practiced by the super-rich, criminal style of course.

 

Ends.

 

 

 

 

Following Gordon Brown's signing of the EU Constitution, sorry, Treaty, here are several news snippets supplied by our friends at TUAEUC (Trade Unions Against the EU Constitution). 

May we also take this opportunity to send seasonal greetings to all our members and supporters as we look forward to an eventful 2008.

 

4/12/07

German MEP's team costs £2.5m a year

The President of the European Parliament is under pressure to justify his 46-strong entourage. The office of Hans-Gert Poettering includes three drivers, 13 advisers and seven press officers. A conservative estimate of the total annual running costs of the German MEP's cabinet alone has been put at £2.5 million.

Telegraph

11/12/07

EU lawyers: "It is wrong to say the Charter will not apply to the UK and Poland"

Le Monde looks at the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It quotes unnamed "jurists at the European institutions" saying that it is wrong to say the Charter will not apply to the UK. It says: "What does the protocol mean, and what will its impact be? Jurists at the European institutions are being careful not to say, 'because the subject is politically sensitive.'  One thing is sure, according to them, 'It is wrong to say that the Charter will not apply to the United Kingdom and to Poland, but it will go back to the European Court of Justice to specify to what extent.'" 

 

EU agrees to slap high tariff rises on poor countries

EU trade ministers overwhelmingly agreed yesterday to go ahead in the new year with hefty tariff rises on imports from poor countries that refuse to sign controversial trade opening deals called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). EPAs replace a preferential regime ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation. The deadline is December 31 but some countries asked for more time, fearing that liberalisation under the EPAs would damage fledgling industries and deny them customs revenues.

 

In a comment piece in the Guardian, Phil Bloomer from Oxfam argues that EPAs are "harsh reciprocal trade arrangements that demand that some of the poorest countries in the world open their markets to EU goods, in some cases almost overnight. Until now, many countries have held out against the pressure, but as the December deadline approaches, some are giving in - choosing to guarantee existing exports at the expense of future industrial development and subsistence farmers' livelihoods."

FT AFP Times Independent Business Day Guardian - Bloomer

13/12/07

 

"Unwritten agreement" amongst EU leaders to avoid referendums

El Pais reports that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos said yesterday that the new EU treaty maintains "the essence and the compromise" of the EU Constitution, but eliminates the "constitutional clothes" of that document. He said "It is the treaty of the 21st century which inaugurates a new position for the EU as a global actor." Spanish MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo reportedly said that there was an "unwritten agreement" amongst EU politicians not to use referendums again, because public consultation "is used as a political instrument against Europe".

El Pais

18/12/07

 

NHS could lose revenue to hospitals overseas under EU health directive

The Times looks at the Commission's draft of the EU directive on cross-border healthcare, which obliges the NHS to fund outpatient treatments in Europe, provided that the patient has been referred by a medical professional and is suffering delays. The draft is to be published tomorrow. UK ministers are reportedly concerned that the directive could lead to great losses for the NHS and undermine Whitehall's control over the British healthcare system. Keith Pollard, Director of Treatment Abroad, a British company that places patients overseas, said: "The whole idea is to make an open market for healthcare throughout the EU. The NHS faces the prospect of losing revenue to hospitals overseas." 51 Labour MPs have now signed an early day motion calling for the Government to block the proposal, get your MP to sign.

Times EDM

 

 

Pilger: if a referendum is good enough for Venezuela, why not the UK?

John Pilger has an article in the Guardian, arguing that liberalism is in decline in the West. He notes that "The Whitehall executive has prerogative powers as effective as politburo decrees. Unlike Venezuela, critical issues such as the EU constitution or treaty are denied a referendum, regardless of Blair's 'solemn pledge'."

 

He also criticises EU trade policy: "behind a facade of liberal concern for the world's 'disadvantaged', such as waffle about millennium goals and anti-poverty stunts... the Brown government, together with its EU partners, is demanding vicious and punitive free-trade agreements that will devastate the economies of scores of impoverished African, Caribbean and Pacific nations."

Guardian

Ends.

 

 

 

 

Britain’s Growing Social Inequality.

 

A recent report by Citizens Advice has revealed that debt related problems have risen by 20% in the last year alone. Moreover the number of people wanting advice about bankruptcy rose by 53% over the same period.

 

Citizens Advice chief executive David Harker commented that people “are becoming overwhelmed by serious debt which can have a devastating impact on their lives. Even more worrying are the signs that people are struggling not only to repay credit but also to afford the day-to-day essentials.”

 

His comments were echoed by accountancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers who added that “things will get worse because of the upward rise in interest rates, high utility bills and transport costs.”

 

It is against the background of this growing debt crisis that workers are striving to obtain wage rises that will at least keep their head above water. Yet any wage rise below the current rate of inflation will in effect be a wage cut, and increase the hardship being experienced by more and more families.

 

However, workers will have gained little comfort from Gordon Brown’s speech to the TUC Congress in Brighton where he lectured the assembled delegates and stressed that, “Pay discipline is essential to maintain growth and create more jobs” and he compared the wages of British workers with their counterparts in the global workforce, “In Asia a worker is doing a week’s unskilled work for £20 a week.”

This is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s comments that “What the British workers have to understand is that they are competing with workers who will work for a bowl of rice a day.”

 

While Brown lectured the poorest paid in society about the need for ‘pay discipline’ and that the government ‘would not budge on this issue’ it is clear that he was not talking about all members of society.

Pay discipline and belt tightening apparently do not apply to Britain’s ruling elite. No talk of inflation busting pay rises crossed his lips when it involved New Labour’s friends in big business and the City of London.

 

The Office of National Statistics has confirmed that bonuses paid out this year in the City of London alone have reached a record £14 billion, an increase of 30% on last year. While bonuses across the business sector as a whole grew by 24% to £26 billion.

 

Millions of pounds have been paid out to Hedge Funds directors, despite the recently well publicized ‘credit crisis’ emanating from these groups. For instance two directors from GLG Partners hedge fund in London received bonuses of £200 million each!

 

The Times newspaper boasted that for Britain’s super-rich “Life just gets better and better.”

 

Moreover, 220 of Britain’s major businesses paid no corporation tax at all over the last twelve months and a further 210 paid less than £10 million. (National Audit Office report August 2007).

 

Just what section of society New Labour represent can be gleaned from the following fact. In 1997, when New Labour came to power, the combined wealth of Britain’s top 1000 individuals amounted to £100 billion. Today the combined wealth of the top 1000 individuals is well over £300 billion. Most of these individuals are not involved in creating or manufacturing anything useful to society as a whole, but operate in the areas of finance and speculation.

 

Given the above it is the height of hypocrisy on the part of the Government and mass media to claim that the recent RMT and Postal Workers industrial action, which was an attempt to secure jobs, working conditions and pension rights, was a case of workers being ‘greedy’ ‘selfish’ and ‘holding the country to ransom’.

This is worthy of George Orwell’s Newspeak.

 

However, the class battles that will result from the developing record levels of inequality can only be resolved in the interests of the majority of the British people by the socialist transformation of society and we ask workers to study the policies of the Socialist Labour Party and take the decision to join us in the task of achieving this transformation.

 

Ends.