The Alternative Queen's Speech

I'm speaking to you today from Sandringham - or is it Balmoral? No matter, it's one of the big houses or palaces I own and every Christmas Day I intrude on what enjoyment you might be having to foist a boring speech on you which is supposed to strike a thoughtful, humane note among the celebrations. I'm sitting in a sort of study and behind me is a window which opens onto the lush estate where my house stands.

I own these places because I’m a very rich woman – I’m worth about £250 million(1). Although I was born into this wealth and have never known what it is like to be poor, I shall be talking to you as if I’m the sort of ordinary, everyday grandmother you're likely to have a chat with in the bus queue or the doctor's waiting room or at the supermarket check-out. Except that I am the mother of the nation (for my recent ancestors it was of the Empire) unless Sharon Osborne manages to take that bit over as well. So for this broadcast I compose my face into this maternal expression -calm, caring, perceptive, wise.

A lot of people seem to believe that it's my speech, all thought up by me. Well I do have a say in it but it's really what the people I work for tell me to say. I’m what is called a constitutional monarch - I do what the government tell me -and if I kick over the traces I’ll end up like my Uncle Edward.

Whatever is in my speech the media people will report it as if its really profound, earth-shattering, historical. They'll dredge through the frigid platitudes in the hope of finding some small nugget of humour, or controversy or intelligence. Then they'll blow it up into a big headline -"Queen Says War's A Killer", that sort of thing. I don't blame them; media people are like everyone else - except those like me -they have to earn a living.

In case my speech comes over as too boring and trivial I try to touch on some real problems which you might be experiencing. Like being homeless or struggling with life in a slum or in a high rise or battling to keep up with the mortgage on a regimented semi somewhere. This is a bit of a cheek, coming from someone who owns these big houses but I can't let on about the real housing problem - like shopping at the supermarket or having to queue for the doctor its part of the wider poverty of all who work for their living.

This being Christmas I have to say something about children, to fit in with all that schmaltz about little faces aglow around the tree and so on. I drop hints that childhood is not all like that - about violent, broken families, drugs, crime, dead-end years in comprehensive schools. It wasn't like that for my children and grandchildren; they had the best of everything, their schools carefully chosen and their whole lives based on the confidence that they would never want for anything. Perhaps that's why I get so upset at all those news items about Britney Spears and so on . . .

I often refer to problems abroad which, I say sadly, are casting such a blight across the joys of this great Christian festival. Like war, famine, epidemics - always easy to talk about because they are going on somewhere all the time, wiping out millions every year. I pretend they're like social quirks which would go away if the Christmas spirit -peace on earth, goodwill to all and so on -were allowed to last all year. Some people might be awkward and ask about these problems being knit into the fabric of a social system which awards these great privileges to me and forces degradation onto you. But they're obviously suffering from a lack of that christmas spirit.

And that brings me to Christmas itself. All those singing cash registers. All that rubbish being sold. All that nonsense spouted from pulpits and in programmes like this one. I try to forget that Christmas is only a short break in the routine, year-in year-out, exploitation, poverty, conflict and insecurity which you endure and the wealth and capital accumulation which keeps me so cosy. That's what destroys people's hopes, distorts their lives, represses them, kills them. And I'm one of its most prominent figureheads.

But I mustn't go on like this. My job is to encourage the most massive diversion of your attention from reality into a circus world of noise and colour. Remember my wedding? My coronation? The jubilee? The weddings of my children? You loved them all, they made you forget where you really stand in the social order, what your lives are really like. And that is what I'm supposed to do, in this Christmas Day broadcast for example.

Well it's been nice getting this off my chest -a change from the usual twaddle. I’m off to watch Badder Santa Oh, there's something else . . . Merry Christmas. Suckers.

(Socialist Standard, December 1988)

(1) Latest estimate £271million .

Single Mums - Capitalist Style

The Daily Telegraph today tells us of a paternity settlement .

A businessman whose girlfriend gave birth to their son after a relationship five years ago has been ordered by the High Court to spend £2 million on buying a house for the boy and his mother in Bayswater, central London.
The father, said to have been worth £100 million in 2002, had argued that £800,000 would have been enough to buy a property in a cheaper part of the capital. But District Judge Million, whose ruling this month has just been released, stressed that "the area within London W2 should avoid properties where social problems may make the location less attractive

The judge refused to approve the mother's claim for £48,000 , the cost of her BMW 4x4 but thought that £30,000 "would have given a wide enough choice of good-quality cars suitable for the mother and child and, if necessary, any au-pair or nanny".

Certain single mums just don't end up in the council housing schemes or living on benefit , do they ?

Old and Forgotten - and Starving

The Scotsman reports more than 750,000 pensioners risk being left to starve in British hospitals because they are not properly fed . Age Concern said elderly patients were often abandoned with nothing to eat or given the wrong kind of food. It claimed some patients were too weak to feed themselves and in other cases food was out of their reach .

Gordon Lishman, Age Concern director-general, said: "The reality for many older patients is that they are at risk of malnutrition while they are in hospital...The prevalence of malnutrition in older patients is a disgrace. Being denied basic care should not be something which is overlooked on any ward. It puts health at risk and means longer stays in hospital."

Pauline Ford at the Royal College of Nursing said: "It's unacceptable if elderly patients are not getting the help they need to eat and drink."

The Scotsman previously reported death rates from malnutrition in Scotland continue to rise, with 105 death certificates last year naming the condition as the primary or a contributing cause. But the report also noted: "Death certificates may under-state the contribution of malnutrition to mortality in Scotland and therefore provide only an approximate guide to the extent of the problem."

Earlier this year, The Scotsman revealed that councils in Scotland were spending as little as 92p per meal for elderly people living in care homes .

And a fellow socialist blogger ( well , me , actually ) drew attention to how capitalist society treat our old folk who are past their sell-by date.

"Its a wonderful world" - for some

The Independent On Sunday today carries a report about the wealthy in the UK .

According to Tulip Financial Research, Britain has some 135,000 "high-net-worth" individuals, with liquid assets averaging £6.4millions . They are described as HNWs. People with tens of millions are UHNWs: ultra-high-net-worths.

Forbes magazine declared London to be the official billionaire's playground of the Western world, with 23 dollar billionaires .

The chef's table at Claridges, run by Gordon Ramsay, is the holy grail of the expense-account blowout - and it's booked up well into next year.
"It seats up to six, and the minimum spend is £550," says a spokesman. "Most bills are nudging £1,000 because they go for pretty decent wines. It's flying, though, as the place for City boys to celebrate or entertain clients. Things have never been better."

Stratstones of Mayfair, an Aston Martin dealership, report a six-month waiting list. "For some customers, it's a whim," says one salesman. "Others say, 'I haven't got that model in my collection.' It's a wonderful world."

At Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, Britain's poshest place to play, the membership lists are full; any new players are faced with a hefty bill for horseflesh. "To play at the low goal level, you need at least five or six ponies," says a spokesman. "But you can double or treble that for high goal. A polo pony will go for around £25,000 but at the top level people just keep hold of the best ones; they're priceless."

HNW tastes hark back to a bygone era. They have been partly responsible for a renaissance of the servant class. "The British would say, 'Here's Annie, who does the cleaning', but try to pretend she wasn't a servant," notes one domestic agent."These people have bought servants back with a vengeance. Filipino, Eastern European, whatever. They believe in servants, they want lots of them, and they want to jolly well dress them in uniforms and call them servants."

The capital's oldest families are still some of the wealthiest. Richard Beresford, compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List says that these people, "will be on the Rich List until an atomic bomb hits London or a Bolshevik revolution strips them of their assets".

The Duke of Westminster is Britain's third richest man and London's most powerful landlord, with a £6.6billion fortune. Roman Abramovich's swanky Belgravia address pales in comparison to the Duke's 100 acres of Mayfair and 200-acre Belgravia estates. Coming in second is the Earl of Cadogan, below, whose £1.9billion fortune includes 90 acres of Chelsea. And of course there are the royal parasitical princes , William and Harry, who have £30 million fortunes and now Charles plans to build for William a classically inspired six-bedroom two-storey house - less of a starter home, and more a starter palace.

Michael Spencer's wife hired Robbie Williams at a reported cost of £1million to sing at her husband's 50th birthday party. Spencer, CEO of InterCapital, is said to have been paid £5million in bonuses last year.

Madonna's decided to buy a £35,000 chinchilla fur coat from a Fendi store in Knightsbridge recently. She also splashed out on a brand new £3.6million venue for her fellow British Kabbalah followers .

Philip Green has amassed £3.6billion through a retail empire, including Bhs and the Arcadia Group.He spent millions on a three-day Bar Mitzvah for his son, with live concerts by Andrea Bocelli and Destiny's Child, and erected a giant synagogue in the garden, designed by his wife, Tina.

It's Us and Them - the Capitalist Class and the Working Class .

Pawnshops and Banks are they helping you?

East Kilbride’s Prince’s Mall has a pawnshop; very plush, clean and lined with trays of jewellery, brightly lit, not like the pawnshops I remember as a boy, where mum would scold you if you tried to look around the barriers to see who was in the next cubicle.
The rates are not cheap in Prince’s Mall and shops are opening and closing all the time. So what was business like. A notice at the entrance informed me that if I could demonstrate I was a victim of the Farepak scam, I could be assisted by an exclusive 80-day offer, which could amount to £1000.
The conditions were that I deposit any valuables, jewellery preferably, they would lend me money on this and provided I paid back the money before the 80 days were up, the loan would be interest free and the goods would be returned.
I leave you to work out the pitfalls of this scheme and make the point that workers were saving, I believe, to avoid getting into debt. Is this not what they are asked to do? Save for your old age! Could this be because your credit rating will be low on a crappy pension? Nevertheless, offers from credit unions and pawnshops is what is on offer. Debt is on offer as a solution to people trying to avoid debt.

Rich people like Maxwell plundered pension schemes. Other forms of pension theft are reported on this site. Directors of firms like Farepak, allegedly filter money from clients and move it into other parts of their business.
Where does all the loot go? Why can’t it be recovered and paid to the thousands of people (workers) who need this money?
People, who have saved their whole working life in pension schemes that have collapsed are bitterly disappointed. The government approved these schemes, which were registered, not like the Farepak scheme which was unregistered.
The campaign group, ‘Unfairpak’, protest to HBOS. (Banks like Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) are on target to make multi-billion pound profits), evidently, ‘ they could and should replace the £40 million scrimped and scraped throughout the year for a bit of cheer at Xmas’.

Working people are continually under attack at various levels. Wages, Housing, Unemployment, Rents etc. solutions are unobtainable, always will be, while we live in a capitalist society. Appeals to rich organisations for handouts will have very limited success.

Solution meaning solved requires a change in the way society is organised. Common Ownership of the means of production is the way forward for us all.

Corruption inquiry into £6bn Saudi arms deal dropped

This was in the Scotsman today and Wee Matt's comments below was posted up.
Yes well, the Scotsman,as scummilly establishment, as all the other newspapers, doesn't have this on the front page either.Its water everywhere,Diana Parasite Doolittle's inquest,who gives a toss,and a nice wee Xmas story,funny how the poor are rediscovered at Xmas.The UK is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world after the US.They are as perfidious and shabby as any arms dealers.If you are going to have capitalism you will have arms being produced for sale with a view of making a profit.'twas ever thus.It is not a cop-out to say we won't work for fighter aircraft producers,any more than it is a cop-out to refuse to take part in the army or other services', slaughter of fellow/sister workers under any circumstances.

Workers of all countries.and none, have nothing in common with employers of any country, including their own.

Their interest lies in making common cause with workers all over the world and removing capitalism and its infrastructures of government,nation- states,buying and selling markets.root branch and all and establishing a free access socialist/communist society,(not the state capitalism of the Bolshevics Leninists Trotsyists SSP'ers/Solidarity/SWP Respect,Old Labourists,War Mongerers also in their day) ,democratically controled ,locally,regionally and globally by all the world's citizens.Real socialism in other words,"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

http://www.worldsocialism.org

Liar , Liar ...Pants on Fire

When a senior civil servant , a member of the Senior Management Structure of the Foreign Office and First Secretary in the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York from December 1997 until June 2002 disputes all that the Prime Minister claimed for justifications for the Iraq War people should listen . In fact , people should know , yet this evidence until now was kept secret . The Independent carries his statement which has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs .

Carne Ross, one of Britain's key negotiators at the UN , alleges it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq :

That any potential military threat from Saddam Hussein's had been "effectively contained". Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited. There were approx 12 or so at the time unaccounted-for Scud missiles; Iraq's airforce was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness; its army was but a pale shadow of its earlier might; there was no evidence of any connection between Iraq and any terrorist organisation that might have planned an attack using Iraqi WMD. No intelligence that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or US .With the exception of Israel , none of Iraq's neighbours expressed any concern that they might be attacked .

That the UK warned the USA of "regime-change" and bringing down the Iraqi dictator which would lead to the chaos of Iraq collapsing which the world has since witnessed.

That "inertia" in the Foreign Office and the "inattention of key ministers" combined to stop the UK carrying out any co-ordinated and sustained attempt to address sanction- busting by Iraq, an approach which could have provided an alternative to war , and that the existing sanction system was having a damaging humanitarian effect.

That the clearest evidence of the illegality of the war is the fact that Britain had sought an authorising resolution from the United Nations Security Council and failed to get it.

That Hans Blix at no time stated unequivocally that Iraq was not cooperating with the inspectors. The Security Council reached no such judgement either.

That even when Blix and UNMOVIC were still inside Iraq carrying out the inspections , the UK and USA were conducting pre-invasion softening-up air attacks against Iraqi installations .

Blair , Bush - War Criminals . But it is Capitalism that must be condemned .

No War Between Peoples - No Peace Between Classes
The Only War Worth Fighting is the Class War

Being Taken to the Cleaners

Goldman Sachs is to pay its staff more than £8bn in salaries, benefits and Christmas bonuses this year. The handout follows another bumper year of profits for the US investment bank. Staff worldwide could expect to receive an average of £320,000 this year . Not bad at all for some .

But for the others - It's not too good .

Some 120 cleaners - who clean the Goldman Sachs London offices - campaign for Justice for Cleaners , to give every cleaner in the City of London a decent wage , sick pay, a pension, 20 days' holiday and bank holidays, as well as collective bargaining through the union.

The 120 cleaners employed by Mitie , a contractor, say their numbers have been cut but their workload has not. They are asking for a rise to a London living wage of £7.05 an hour from the presnt wage-rate of about £5.35 .

WAITING FOR SANITY(Or, "There isn't ant Sanity Clause.")

The following was written in 1935 by the noted humorist for The New Yorker S.J. Perelman (who, you may remember, also wrote scripts for the Marx Brothers, like "Horse Feathers" and "Monkey Business") -- and I thought sending you this forgotten
gem of Perelman's an appropriate way to mark the annual celebrations by the goyim of the birth of the foot-fetishist from Nazareth. And a merry Bah! Humbug! to you all, with best wishes for the new year.

WAITING FOR SANITY

A CHRISTMAS PLAYLET (With a Bow to Mr. Clifford Odets)

SCENE: The sweatshop of S. Claus, a manufacturer of children's toys,
on North Pole Street. Time: The night before Christmas. At rise, seven gnomes, Rankin, Panken, Rivkin, Riskin, Ruskin,Briskin, and Praskin, are discovered working furiously to fill orders piling up at stage right. The whir of lathes, the hum of motors,and the hiss of drying lacquer are so deafening that at times the dialogue cannot beheard, which is very vexing if you vex easily.

Note: the parts of Rankin, Panken, Rivkin, Riskin, Ruskin, Briskin, and Praskin are interchangeable, and may be secured directly from your dealer or the factory.

RISKIN (filing a Meccano girder, bitterly): A parasite, a leech, a blood-sucker--altogether a five-star nogoodnick!
Starvation wages we get so he can ride around in red team with reindeers!

RUSKIN (jeering): Hey, Karl Marx, whyn'tcha hire a hall?

RISKIN (sneering): Scab! Stool pIgeon! Company spy!

(They tangle and rain blows on each other. While waiting for these to dry, each
returns to his respective task.)

BRISKIN (sadly, to Panken): All day long I'm painting "Snow Queen" on these Flexible Flyers and my little Irving lays in a cold tenement with the gout.

PANKEN: You said before it was the mumps.

BRISKIN (with a fatalistic shrug): The mumps--the gout--go argue with City Hall.

PANKEN (kindly, passing him a bowl): Here, take a piece fruit.

BRISKIN (chewing): It ain't bad, for wax fruit.

PANKEN (with pride): I painted it myself.

BRISKIN (rejecting the fruit): Ptoo! Slave psychology!

RIVKIN (suddenly, half to himself, half to the Party)
:I got a belly full of stars, baby. You make me feel like I swallowed a Roman candle.

PRASKIN (curiously): What's with the kid?

RISKIN: What's wrong with all of us? The system! Two years he and Claus's daughter's been making googoo eyes behind the old man's back.

PRASKIN: So what?

RISKIN (scornfully): So what? Economic determinism!
What do you think the kid's name is--J. Pierpont Rivkin? He ain't even got for a bottle Dr. Brown's Celery Tonic. I tell you, it's like gall in my mouth two young people shouldn't have a room where they could make great music.

RANKIN (warningly): Shhh! Here she comes now!

(Stella Claus enters,carrying a portable phonograph. She and Rivkin embrace, place a record on the turntable, and begin a very slow waltz,unmindful that the phonograph is playing "Cohen on the Telephone.")

STELLA (dreamily): Love me, sugar?

RIVKIN: I can't sleep, I can't eat, that's how I love you. You're a double malted with two scoops of whipped cream; you're the moon rising over Mosholu Parkway; you're a two weeks' vacation at Camp Nitgedaiget! I'd pull down the Chrysler Building to
make a bobbie pin for your hair!

STELLA: I've got a stomach full of anguish. Oh, Rivvy,what'll we do?

PANKEN (sympathetically): Here, try a piece fruit.

RIVKIN (fiercely): Wax fruit--that's been my whole life! Imitations! Substitutes! Well, I'm through! Stella, tonight I'm telling your old man. He can't play mumblety-peg with two human beings!

(The tinkle of sleigh bells is heard offstage, followed by a voice shouting Whoa,Dasher! Whoa, Dancer!" A moment later S. Claus enters in a gust of mock snow. He is a pompous bourgeois of sixty-five who affects a white beard and a false air of benevolence. But tonight the ruddy color is missing from his cheeks, his step falters, and he moves heavily. The gnomes hastily replace the marzipan they
have been filching.)

STELLA (anxiously): Papa! What did the specialist say to you?

CLAUS (brokenly): The biggest professor in the country... the best cardiac man that money could buy... I tell you I was like a wild man.

STELLA: Pull yourself together, Sam!

CLAUS: It's no use. Adhesions, diabetes, sleeping sickness,decalcomania--oh, my God! I got to cut out climbing in chimneys, he says--me, Sanford Claus, the biggest toy concern in the world!

STELLA (soothingly): After all, it's only one man's opinion.

CLAUS: No, no, he cooked my goose. I'm like a broken uke after a Yosian picnic. Rivkin!

RIVKIN: Yes, Sam.

CLAUS: My boy, I've had my eye on you for a long time.
You and Stella thought you were too foxy for an old man, didn't you?
Well, let bygones be bygones. Stella, do you love this gnome?

STELLA (simply): He's the whole stage show at the Music Hall, Papa; he's Toscanini conducting Beethoven's Fifth; he's--

CLAUS (curtly): Enough already. Take him. From now on he's a partner in the firm. (As all exclaim, Claus holds up his hand for silence.)

And tonight he can take my route and make the deliveries. It's the least I could do for my own flesh and blood. (As the happy couple kiss, Claus wipes away a suspicious moisture and turns to the other gnomes.) Boys, do you know what day tomorrow is?

GNOMES (crowding around expectantly) Christmas!

CLAUS: Correct. When you look in your envelopes tonight, you'll find a little present from me--a forty per cent pay cut.And the first one who opens his trap--gets this. (As he holds up a tear-gas bomb and beams at them, the gnomes utter cries of joy, join hands, and dance around him shouting exultantly. All except Riskin and
Briskin, that is, who exchange a quick glance and go underground.)

CURTAIN
Did you like this here is another from the 1986 Socialist Standard, pen of Tone at My Space Socialist Standard Blog

Prison Blues

In a recent Scotsman article it is estimated that the Scottish prison population will reach American-type proportions . Prof Coyle, head of prison studies at Kings College in London, said Britain was "ten to 15 years behind the US", which he said was already using prisons as a quasi-welfare state. America has a prisoner rate of 738 per 100,000 head of population, nearly six times more than Scotland's rate of 139 per 100,000.

Presently standing at around 7,200 people prison service estimates that the number could hit 10,000 within the next decade but Professor Andrew Coyle, a former governor of Peterhead and Shotts prisons, yesterday said that if courts keep sending mentally ill people, along with offenders whose crimes arise from drug and alcohol addictions, to prison, Scotland could end up with a prison population as high as 35,000.

He notes that seven out of ten prisoners in Scotland have mental health problems, with seven per cent displaying "psychotic elements" and eighty per cent suffering drug addiction problems .

Prof Coyle said that, instead of being used as a "punishment of last resort" for serious criminals, prisons were increasingly being forced to cope with mentally ill people and other problematic cases, such as drug addicts, who should be diverted into the health service rather than the criminal justice system.

Prof Coyle said a lack of adequate facilities for people with mental health problems was fuelling the growth in the prison population.

"I'm talking about the 'too difficult' groups, the mentally disturbed, the drug addicts. People with these health issues are not being given the help they need through the health system. They then appear in the 'system' for committing crimes. That system simply isn't equipped for dealing with people with health and addiction problems."

And what has Scotland got to look forward to if it follows the American incarceration trend .

The USA has the most prisoners in the world .

A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.

China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners

Followed by Russia with 870,000.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population

Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries. King said various social programs, including those dealing with education, poverty, urban development, health care and child care, have failed.

"There are a number of social programs we have failed to deliver. There are systemic failures going on . A lot of these people then end up in the criminal justice system."

The easy fix of "lock em up and throw away the keys" isn't working . And the remedy of patching up and reforming the system don't change things either .

There requires to be a more profound and revolutionary approach to the causes of crime and all the many other social ills . Socialists cannot see prisons simply as the dumping grounds for the discarded and the despised .

Eugene Debs once said :-

" Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. "

OFF THE BALL AND ON THE BALL

Off the ball
Monday 4th December the football show hosted by Tam Cowan had for one of his guests George Galloway; the week previous he had Tommy Sheridan as a guest, George confessed he was a very good friend of Tommy.

The hilarity of the situations, both George and Tommy provided for Tam Cowan ensured a great night for the audience. Galloway was asked what was the one thing over and above everything else he would like done in the very unlikely scenario of him getting power.

This would be free meals in school for every child: a proposition well applauded by the audience. This indicated to me George knew this was a vote catcher.

Are socialists against children having a free meal?

George seeks power to administer capitalism and reforms like a free meal are among the many he supports. Reformism, within the Market System is what George is propagating as a solution to working class problems; he is off the ball because, Reformism doesn’t work. There have been many reforms to the capitalist system over the last hundred years and the poverty problems are still around in one way or another.

Socialists do not wish to administer capitalism but seeks the understanding of the working class in support of socialism where everything will be freely available as a right. Socialists elected to Parliament or to local councils would treat individual reforms on their merits, principally as to whether they would benefit the working class at large, or indeed the movement for socialism in particular. Socialism is a solution to all the poverty problems the working class suffer, that is what makes it a revolutionary solution.
If you want to be on the ball read ‘The Market System Must Go’ It’s in your interest, how do I know? Well I know you are a worker.

Workers of the World Unite

The BBC reports that textile workers in Bangladesh get paid as little as five pence an hour and the mainly female workers regularly spend 80 hours per week in "potential death trap" factories, according to anti-poverty group War On Want to make cheap clothes for UK companies Tesco, Asda and Primark.
Starting wages at the factories were as little as £8 a month, barely one third of the living wage in Bangladesh. War On Want added that wages rose to £16 per month for better-paid sewing machine operators, but that some workers spent up to 96 hours per week in the factories without even a day a week off.

"Bargain retailers such as Primark, Asda and Tesco are only able to sell at rock bottom prices in the UK because women workers in Bangladesh are being exploited," said War on Want chief executive Louise Richards. "The companies are not even living up to their own commitments towards their overseas suppliers."

But the working class don't take exploitation lying down . Previously the BBC has reported here and here thousands of garment workers resisting factory owners .

Pension Theft

A previous blog mentioned how the Clydesdale bank got a boost to their profits by cutting their employees pension entitlements . The Herald today reports that other companies have now gotten the same idea .

Standard Life recently commenced a 90-day consultation period with staff . The company's pensions working group has recommended to the board, led by chairman Sir Brian Stewart and chief executive Sandy Crombie, that it also adopt a career-average salary rather than its more beneficial pension scheme of "final-salary".
Stewart is reported in 2003 to be on a salary of £906,753 , and what it is now , who knows .
It is also nice to learn that Crombie earned £1.36m last year, including a bonus of £686,000 and that his pension jack-pot is worth £8.3m.
It's clear to say that neither in their old age will be scrimping and saving to pay their council tax and heating bills .

Meanwhile , another institution to have moved staff from final salary to career average pensions is the Cooperative Group, - yes , that local caring sharing Co-op . Interim financial statements for the year to July 29 show that Co-operative Bank alone booked an exceptional gain to profits of £109.2m stemming from the introduction of the new Co-operative group pension (average career earnings) plan. Not going to be much of a "divi" for their workers after a life-time of toil .

Good News for a change ?

Good News for a change ?

If you were to Google search for "migrant workers" or "East Europeans", on the Scotsman or BBC websites you will find a lot of disgusting racist emphasis on incoming workers to the U.K.

Scare stories abound about "our jobs" being under threat from fellow workers .The newspapers and media are full of loaded information telling us about this problem.
In the workplace derogatory comments about the incomers being "white Pakis",are not uncommon,indicators of prejudice,and antipathy which seems to know no bounds.

There is no question that the capitalist class will use every trick in their sordid book of tricks to drive down labour costs,but trade unionists, never mind socialists, should be alive to this and alert to the solution,in the short term,the class struggle, which is to make common cause with their fellow workers, taking on the employers and confounding their tricks.

Instead of spinelessly castigating their fellow workers from foreign lands,saddling them with responsibility for the native workers slavishness and capitulation to low wages, they should be making common cause,extending the hand of friendship and expressing solidarity with them to drive wages up.

This article link here from Duncan Campbell,whom I know is a pro-worker journalist, in a recent Guardian,sums up better what I have been trying to say.
"Poles are bringing many skills to this country. One of the most valuable could well be their much-needed involvement in the union movement and the part they play in providing just the kind of solidarity that many employers had hoped was now unfashionable."

I will only,add to this that the long term solution is Marx's one,of socialism/communism when he said to "Inscribe upon your banner the abolition of the wages system"

Unfortunately some workers will have to get up off their knees enough, to stop grovelling to the boss class, enough to be class conscious trade unionists, before they even begin to be socialists.

A nice little nest-egg for some

Are the press stories never ending about capitalists feather-bedding themselves ?

Yet again , The Herald reports and further to our earlier post , the Stagecoach owners , Brian Souter and Ann Gloag are preparing for a £104m pay day after the company disclosed plans to hand at least £400m of surplus cash back to investors. Souter, the chief executive who owns 15% of the company, will get £60m and Gloag, who has 11%, £44m. The windfall is their second in two years. In 2004 they divided £65m through the issue of a special class of shares which saw £250m returned to investors.

And for Stagecoach workers ??

Stagecoach shut its final salary pension scheme to all new staff members because of a funding shortfall in the scheme that stood at £103m at October 31 . Existing staff remaining in the scheme will be paying higher company pension contributions out of their wages .

And while we are talking about pension funds .

The Herald , also carries the story that by cutting staff pension benefits enabled Clydesdale Bank to boost profits by £145m this year . On April 1 the group moved staff from final salary pensions to inferior "career average" terms.
Chief executive Lynne Peacock, meanwhile, took home nearly £500,000 more in pay , picking up £1.1m in 2006 . This compares with her £600,000 in 2005 . This year's accounts disclose that "key management personnel" at Clydesdale group received £11m in pay and share-based benefits in 2006 compared with £8m last time .
No doubt their reward for restucturing the business at a cost of 1,700 jobs and the closure of a hundred branches .

Legal Eagles ( Vultures )

Continuing our series of "some have it cushy" , the Herald reports that partners at Scottish law firm McGrigors pocketed an average £40,000 pay rise last year, taking the typical annual package to almost £300,000.
Benefits for the firm's 650 other staff, including 350 non-partner lawyers, were more modest, with 14% of overall profit set aside for staff bonuses. That was equivalent to an average bonus of about £3000.
The firm acted in the Highland schools PFI programme. The £130m joint venture between Morrison Construction and Noble/3i was one of the largest education sector projects to close in the year.It also won a tender to provide legal advice to the North Solihull regeneration project, one of the largest in the UK, worth £1.8bn over the next 15 years. And the firm acted for Scotland-based oil company, Cairn Energy in negotiating its $1bn revolving finance facility with a syndicate of international commercial banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Capitalism proves rich pickings for the lawyers .

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - HenryVI Part 2 (Act IV, Scene II) .
On reflection , that may be a little too harsh a condemnation of the legal profession from Shakespeare .

Stoned in Iran

It's reported that currently, in Iran there are nine women sentenced to death by stoning on charges of adultery, compared to two men for the same offence . Most women sentenced to stoning are those found guilty of being accomplices in the murders of their husbands. In a few cases married women have been found guilty of prostitution . Women , if not married and found guilty of illicit sex, are sentenced to lashes the first three times. A fourth occasion can lead to the death penalty as happened to Atefeh Sahaleh, a 16-year-old girl from Neka in Northern Iran who was hanged in August 2004.

Iran made a verbal pledge to the European Union to stop stoning more than a decade ago and there was a moratorium by the Chief Justice, in December 2002, on execution by stoning. But there are reports by eye witnesses of the secret stoning of Zahra Gholami in Tehran's Evin prison in 1999. News of the stoning of a man, Abbas, and a woman, Mahboubeh, in the north-eastern city of Mashad, in May, have also emerged recently.
According to news reports the Mashad stoning was carried out in a cemetery. The two were first ritually washed as for corpses being prepared for burial and then wrapped in shrouds from head to toe. The woman was buried in the ground up to her chest and the man up to his waist. A secretly congregated crowd pelted them with stones until they were dead.

"Stoning is regarded as a highly sensitive issue by the regime and the religious and political establishment. There is so much reaction from the international community and human rights organisations to stoning news. This has made it taboo for journalists and news on the campaign is not given coverage by the press as they have been repeatedly warned to avoid it," a journalist told IPS.

Iranian laws discriminating against women can be found at The Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran (WFAFI) .

If , or more likely , when , the US launch its military attack against Iran , the usual suspects of the Anti-Imperialist Left in this country will be applauding the defence of the Iranian regime with the sacrifice of workers blood . The Socialist Party , on the otherhand , will be opposing any attack on Iran but denouncing both sides , saying a plague on both your houses , and hoping that the Iranian working class will reject the demand to lay down their lives for the Mullahs , just as we in the Socialist Party reject the myth that our enemy enemies are our friends .

They are even richer than I thought.

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.

But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.
It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income. What they mean by wealth in this study is what people own, less what they owe - their debts. The assets include land, buildings, animals and financial assets.

Building Profits

The Herald reports a company boss has paid himself an £18m dividend while he takes a year out from business. An employee at Front Line said Mr Ward had "semi-retired" and was taking a year out. He was expected to return next April to serve another six months before "finishing up".
John Ward , now one of Scotland's richest men with the pay-out, which came as he prepared to hand over the reins at Front Line Construction , owns 99% of the shares in Front Line, which was formed in June 1979. He will have received the vast bulk of the special dividend of £17,988,950 which the accounts show was paid to shareholders on April 6, the first day of the current tax year. A further £396,535 was paid later in the month, mostly in non-cash assets.

The Herald also mentions in the same article as an aside that Stewart Milne became the highest-paid director in Scotland last year when he drew a £5m salary from his Aberdeen-based building firm.

Nice to know that when Shelter reports 40,000 people were found to be homeless by local authorities in Scotland alone and that 1.6 million children in Britain are either homeless , trapped in temporary accommodation, or living in overcrowded or unfit housing some people are making a nice little earner and profit out of the construction industry.

Not too taxing for the rich

The Sunday Times commissioned Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, to calculate the scale of legal tax avoidance by the country’s wealthiest people.

UK billionaires paid income tax totalling just £14.7million on their £126 BILLION combined fortunes, and only a handful paid any capital gains tax. - and the bulk was paid by just one man , £9m of the £14.7m from James Dyson, the inventor , worth £1,050m

Out of the 54 billionaires in The Sunday Times Rich List , 32 of the individual billionaires or family groupings are calculated not to have paid any personal taxes on their fortunes .

Of the 22 billionaires who paid tax, this was mostly on share dividends paid by their companies. The wealthy usually choose to pay themselves in dividends rather than with a conventional salary — as the tax on dividends is at an effective rate of 25% rather than the 40% higher rate of income tax.

42 of the 54 billionaires make use of havens such as the Channel Islands, Switzerland and the Caribbean . Sir Richard Branson has a complicated series of offshore trusts and companies that own his business empire. Branson, whose wealth is calculated at £3,065m, pays relatively little tax as his wealth is tied up in these companies. Yes , that British patriot for all things British - except British taxes .

The Irish authorities release similar figures, which show that 184 people earning more than £1m last year paid no personal taxes.

The Socialist Party's condemnation of capitalism is not based on the workers being robbed by paying too much tax ( or see here for more detail ) . It is because we are exploited and get robbed at the point of production , to pay those capitalists their share dividends .

But the above is a useful reminder when we hear all that cant from the privileged about the scroungers and the fiddlers that the real culprits on a grand scale are themselves .

Fare comment!

Bus tycoons net a £75m Christmas bonus
The Stagecoach tycoon and his sister, Ann Gloag, have paid themselves an estimated £37.5m each as part of a massive handout to shareholders in the cash-rich firm.
They would require £125m in order to overhaul Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who is at number eight in the Scottish richest league. Any donations?

The Keir Hardie Myth

I note from the BBC that a memorial to one of the the founders of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, has been unveiled in his former constituency . And the unveiler of the bronze bust was no other than that pro-Iraqi War- propagandist Ann Clywd MP .
One shouldn't be so surprised because the real facts of Keir Hardie's supposed principled stand against the slaughter of World War One is not all that what one has been led to believe as this article in the Socialist Standard from 1961 reveals .

The Keir Hardie myth

The myth about Keir Hardie's attitude to war is very persistent. At an anti-Polaris rally in Glasgow last December, the Co-operative Movement representative had only to refer to him, ". . . if we could get Keir Hardie here. . ." to have his words drowned by applause. Whatever the sentiments of the audience may have been, it was certainly in error about Hardie's attitude to war.

In 1914, with the Great War drawing near, the Second International called for "Peace demonstrations" throughout Europe. On August 2nd, in Trafalgar Square, Hardie spoke at the "Peace demonstration". Sentimentality and emotionalism were offered in place of the sound education and organisation needed by the workers. Two days later the War began, and the Second International collapsed, its unsound base giving way beneath the strain. In the Labour Leader Hardie proclaimed, "The I.L.P. will at least stand firm. Keep the Red Flag flying!" Brave words indeed, but wholly false. For the I.L.P. turned out to be standing firm on one issue and that was on the question of party unity. To preserve this unity, to retain the greatest number of members within the fold, the most opportunist and unprincipled formulas were applied to justify the conduct of individual party members. The flag hoisted by Hardie and his fellow "Labour Leaders" was a clear and unmistakeable Union Jack. In articles directed at his electorate in Merthyr, Keir Hardie made his position clear.

"A nation at war must be united especially when its existence is at stake. In such filibustering expeditions as our own Boer War or the recent Italian war over Tripoli, where no national danger of any kind was involved there were many occasions for diversity of opinion and this was given voice to by the Socialist Party of Italy and the Stop the War Party in this country. Now the situation is different. With the boom of the enemy's guns within earshot, the lads who have gone forth by sea and land to fight their country's battles must not be disheartened by any discordant note at home." (Pioneer, Methyr 15th Aug., 1914).

The man who recoiled from the talk of waging the Class War was quite prepared to have workers serve "their Motherland" in Imperialist War; he wrote that

"We must see the war through, but we must also make ourselves so familiar with the facts as to be able to intervene at the earliest possible moment in the interests of peace" (Pioneer 15th Aug., 1914.)

Let no one be deceived by the mention of the "earliest possible moment" because for Hardie this was a very long way off and he was in fact prepared to support a long, drawn-out conflict in Europe. As he put it on 28th November, 1914,

"May I once again revert for the moment to the I.L.P. pamphlets? None of them clamour for
immediately stopping the war. That would be foolish in the extreme, until at least the Germans have been driven back across their own frontier, a consummation which, I fear, carries us forward through a long and dismal vista" (Pioneer, Merthyr).

Time after time Hardie fed workers the lie that they were part of a "nation " and as such were bound up in the quarrels of their masters. Not "International Working Class Solidarity". but "Class Collaboration" was his rallying cry, for Hardie was a patriot and proud of it.

"I am not a pro-German" he wrote, "and still less am I a pro-Russian. I am a pro-Briton, loving my country and caring for her people. Any war of aggression against the rights and
liberties of my country I would resist to the last drop of blood in my veins. But I have not seen, outside the columns of the yellow Jingo Press, any proofs that our interests as a nation were in any way imperilled or threatened by a war in which Austria and Germany and Russia and France were involved" (Pioneer,Merthyr. 22nd Aug 1914).

But although he was a patriot, Hardie would not appear on the official Government recruiting platforms. In the first place he could not stomach the crude jingoism and Imperialism that emerged from these platforms and secondly he wished to remain free to present the I.L.P. version of the events that had led to Britain's involvement in the war. He believed that if the people were toldfrankly about the "Secret Diplomacy" that had piloted Britain into the war, and
were shown how the war, though "unjust," had put the country in peril, the needed volunteers would emerge and there would be no need for jingoistic exhortations or conscription. This in Hardie's view was the "right method" and belief in this method led Hardie to boast that he had been instrumental (together with his colleagues) in securing more recruits for the Armed Forces
than his Liberal opponents.
Writing in the Pioneer of November 28th, 1914, Keir Hardie made his claim thus:

"I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake. But, frankly, were I once more young and anxious to enlist, I would resent more than anything the spectacle of young, strong, flippant upstarts, whether M.P.s or candidates, who had the audacity to ask me to do for my country what they had not the heart to do themselves. Of all causes, this surely is the one in which actions speak louder than words. If I can get the recruiting figures for Merthyr week by week. which I find a very difficult job, I hope by another week to be able to PROVE that whereas our Rink Meeting gave a stimulus to recruiting, those meetings at the Drill Hall at which the Liberal member or the Liberal candidate spoke, had the exactly opposite effect."

Hardie was so determined to prove his point that he tried on a number of occasions to obtain the relevant recruiting figures. The figures were refused him, but this did not daunt Hardie. In the meantime, his staunch supporter J.B. (John Barr). writing in the Pioneer enthusiastically endorsed Hardie's claim; he wrote. "I am still of the opinion that the Rink meeting gave a fillip to recruiting, and my opinion is based on the belief that the I.L.P. method is the right one. . ."

Two weeks later Hardie was able to proclaim that he had obtained the recruiting figures for his constituency and was able to make good his boast. He set out his claim in this manner:

"(1) That for the five weeks before the Rink Meeting. recruiting had been steadily going down week by week;
(2) that our I.L.P. meeting was held on Sunday, October 25th, and that for the next three
weeks the number of recruits secured in Merthyr kept steadily rising. . . If Mr.Jones challenges this statement I shall produce the figures, though not inclined to do so for very obvious patriotic reasons. Unlike my colleague I am more concerned with aiding the army than with trying to take a mean advantage of a political opponent" (Pioneer, 19th Dec., 1914).

Ample evidence exists to prove that in supporting the war Hardie in no way acted as a renegade. His actions were in fact in concord with the actions of his colleagues in the party leadership and these actions were never repudiated, but were endorsed and underwritten by the party as a whole.

MELVIN HARRIS

The Last Conflict

Now for some shameless plugging of a comrade's book .

The Last Conflict by Pieter Lawrence, Booksurge, 2006

One of the more pleasing aspects of the last couple of decades of socialist activity has been the proliferation of books written by socialists, previously quite a rare phenomenon. Almost all of these books have been non-fiction, either putting the case for socialism directly or else discussing the socialist movement itself. This book, by long-standing Socialist Party member Pieter Lawrence, is somewhat different. It is a work of fiction – and an interesting one too, in that while it is a gripping political novel set in Britain it doesn’t mention any political parties, and introduces the idea of socialism without ever explicitly identifying it as such.

Without giving too much away to future readers, it is about how a British government beset by economic difficulties and strikes handles a political crisis of a different sort – emerging news of a large comet that is heading towards Earth. Over time, it appears that if the Earth will not be directly hit by the comet, it will pass by closely enough to cause a missile bombardment from space. Fragments of rock would be detached by the comet hurtling through the Earth’s atmosphere in the type of future scenario envisaged by some current astronomers, and often argued to be the real cause of the disappearance of the dinosaurs from Earth tens of millions of years ago.

The novel focuses on the attempts by the government to cover-up news of the impending disaster and then, when mass public panic and disorder arises, to initiate a massive programme of civil defence involving the creation of deep shelters for the population, including the conversion of the London underground system.

Much of the action revolves around some of the main characters in the government and their thinking about how to handle the emerging crisis. As well as maintaining social control, not the least of their problems is a financial one. At a time when the government is already under severe financial pressure, the paid construction of a huge network of deep shelters across the country would be ruinous and logistically impossible. The government’s solution is to turn to voluntary labour, of the sort that had emerged during the economic crisis and strike wave when people had been encouraged by the government to volunteer to keep the hospitals and other essential services going. It soon emerges, however, that this sort of piecemeal voluntary labour is not enough, as materials need to be purchased and production facilities harnessed quickly and on a mammoth scale if the civil defences are to be constructed in time. So voluntary labour is generalised and supplemented by a credit note system and the requisitioning of factories, building materials, land and so on.

Such is the scale of the task however, that the majority of the population becomes involved and the credit note system – initially designed as a temporary measure – becomes meaningless as the government would never be able to pay back the massive credits owed to the working population and owners of capital when life returned to capitalist ‘normality’. The only solution is for the government – after much internal discussion and dissension – to decree a temporary cashless economy while the civil defences are built. There is a suspension of all paid economic activity and bank accounts, etc are frozen, with the population being able to directly access the goods and services produced by voluntary labour, assisted by a Second World War-type rationing system for some products. All of this occurs alongside massive campaigns and mobilisations from the general population desperate that nothing (whether shortage of resources or government reticence) should halt the vital work of civil defence, a programme which literally appears to be the only chance of human survival.

In this way, the novel cleverly introduces the idea of a society based on voluntary labour without wages, money and prices as the only way in which society as a whole can pull together sufficiently to direct the largest construction programme in the history of the planet, drawing on the type of ‘wartime spirit’ previously evident during the Blitz. To what extent this programme is successful, and for what happens when the comet finally passes by, you will need to read the book.

As a novel, the narrative is well-written and fast-paced. Indeed, even if you are not a socialist it is an exceptionally good read and this is one of its strengths. It has been written with a view to introducing the idea of a socialist society to people without the usual terminology (or, in fact, much political jargon as a whole) so that the idea slowly creeps up on the reader as they progress through the book. The characterisations are strong and believable, and help to anchor the story as one about humanity and people’s very fight for survival. In this respect it is compelling and, at times, gripping too.

The artistic licence of the fiction writer is called on only minimally, mainly perhaps with the somewhat UK-centred plotline to what is, by definition, a world phenomenon and crisis. Also, the work gives small and almost subliminal hints that it was written some time ago as in some respects the general political ‘feel’ is of Britain in the 1970s, before the internet and satellite TV, and in an era when Prime Ministers still made broadcasts to the nation pipe in hand. Indeed, whether some of the communication blackouts imposed by the government at various times in the story are achievable in today’s e-society is a moot point, though again this doesn’t seem to be a huge issue for the purposes of the plot and its underlying message.

The storyline of The Last Conflict is so cleverly woven, with the plot developing in clear stages, and the characterisation is so strong, that this is a work that would lend itself to other genres quite easily. At present, the physical binding of the book by the current publishers could be better and nothing would be more fitting for the book’s wider popularisation than if a TV dramatisation of the novel was what made it known to a mass audience. To this end, it is to be hoped that the book will find itself in the hands of someone with the opportunity and vision to put this into effect, because it could without doubt, and without a hint of exaggeration, make for one of the best political dramas ever shown on British televion.
DAP
From December's Socialist Standard

Noam Chomsky

Love him or loathe him , Noam Chomsky , the political commentator discusses his new book in an interview with Z-Net . It is called Perilous Power , co-authored by Gilbert Achcar and written in the form of a dialogue between them, and is all about the United States diplomatic manouverings in the Middle East . Chomsky certainly understands the motives of competing nations when it comes to foreign policies and their raison d'etre.

"Shalom:.. a lot of people in the antiwar movement were sort of cheering on France and Germany and Russia, and other governments that opposed the war. How reliable are these governments in their antiwar stances?
Chomsky: Their reliability is approximately zero. Sensible antiwar activists don't ally themselves with governments... Tomorrow they'll do the opposite, because they're acting out of pure cynicism -- power interests -- anyway"

And later:-

" Rulers like Chirac, Putin, or Schröder should definitely not be regarded as allies by the antiwar movement, especially since they are themselves hawkish warmongers when their interests are at stake. Russian forces are waging a terrible quasi-genocidal war in Chechnya. The French government still considers itself a colonial power in Africa, and behaves as such. Not to mention the fact that both France and Germany are involved in Afghanistan, along with the U.S. troops. To that we should add that although Paris and Berlin did not support the invasion of Iraq politically, technically speaking they did everything they could to facilitate it: the Germans, of course, by letting the whole U.S. military infrastructure on their territory be used for that purpose, the French by opening their airspace to U.S. warplanes. So we should not be fooled by such governments. "

Achcar points out :-

"The United States and British refusal to lift the embargo -- that is, to allow the lifting of the embargo if and when UN inspectors determined that Iraq had disarmed -- was rightly perceived by Paris and Moscow as a refusal to permit them to take advantage of the oil concessions they had been granted. And they very much saw the dedication of Washington and London to invade Iraq as a desire to snatch the prize from them. Actually one of the first proclamations after the invasion was that all contracts granted by Saddam Hussein were to be considered null and void. So that's the main reason why Paris and Moscow opposed that war."

And Chomsky's observations upon American lip-service to democracy can be biting .

"He [ Paul Wolfowitz] berated the Turkish military for not intervening to compel the government to overrule 95 percent of the population; he basically ordered them to apologize to the United States..."

The Socialist Party often find much merit in what Chomsky says but we do have our reservations , needless to say . Analysis of his ideas can be found in this article and reviews of two of his books here and here .

Free and Impartial and Balanced

...the US has said.

A US military statement said ...

It said...

...the statement said.

The US soldiers say...

... the statement said

It said...

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Salas said ...

Yup , it is nice to see some independent reporting from the BBC News in Iraq when it comes to investigating the slaughter of one man and five girls by American Marines tanks .
The youngest dead girl was just six-months-old and the eldest was aged only 10 -years- old .

One World , One People , One Solution

Pakistan , they claim , like many other Asian countries , is having a boom time . Growth has soared, foreign debt has been cut, and the nation's consumers have gone on one of history's greatest shopping sprees, splashing out in record numbers on anything from fridges and flats, to luxury cars. The World Bank has given the programme a big thumb's up, and foreign investors show signs of renewed interest.

But reported by the BBC , Kaiser Bengali , a Professor of economics at Szabist University, says many have gained nothing from all the reforms. Pakistan's Government insist the poor have gained under the new economic regime, but Professor Bengali does not agree .

Instead, he says, there has been an alarming growth in inequality.

"Try to imagine," he says, "a man who sees the expensive cars in the street, but comes home unable to feed his children, because he can't find work. He is angry."

"Or an educated man who cannot support his own parents. He becomes ashamed of himself."

"Anger may lead people into crime, or self harm. Suicide rates are going up," he says. "But people also turn to religious radicalism. We see this in Pakistan every day."

It is a great pity that all this anger and rage is not turned against the cause of their poverty , the capitalist system , and the solution being sought in the socialist alternative , rather than seeking it in the dead-end political cul-de-sacs of reformism and religion .

Howard Zinn Interview

Although we in the Socialist Party may have our differences with Howard Zinn , we aren't that sectarian that we do not find many of his observations and views insightful and educational . His book A Peoples History of the United States can be found on the book shelves of many members .

Here he is in a recent interview that can be seen on the radical news outlet Democracy News .

"...Well, do you get the feeling sometime that you’re living in an occupied country? Very often that’s a feeling I get when I wake up in the morning. I think, “I’m living in an occupied country. A small group of aliens have taken over the country and are trying to do with it what they will, you know, and really are.” I mean, they are alien to me. I mean, those people who are coming across the border from Mexico, they are not alien to me, you see. You know, Muslims who come to this country to live, they are not alien to me, you see. These demonstrations, these wonderful demonstrations that we have seen very recently on behalf of immigrant rights, say, and you’ve seen those signs saying, you know, “No human being is alien.” And I think that’s true. Except for the people in Washington, you see.

They’ve taken over the country. They’ve taken over the policy. They’ve driven us into two disastrous wars, disastrous for our country and even more disastrous for people in the Middle East. And they have sucked up the wealth of this country and given it to the rich, and given it to the multinationals, given it to Halliburton, given it to the makers of weapons. They’re ruining the environment. And they’re holding on to 10,000 nuclear weapons, while they want us to worry about the fact that Iran may, in ten years, get one nuclear weapon. You see, really, how mad can you be?

And the question is, how has this been allowed to happen? How have they gotten away with it? They’re not following the will of the people. I mean, they manufactured a will of the people for a very short time right after the war started, as governments are able to do right after the beginning of an armed conflict, in order to able to create an atmosphere of war hysteria. And so for a short time, they captivated the minds of the American people. That’s not true anymore. The American people have begun to understand what is going on and have turned against the policies in Washington, but of course they are still there. They are still in power. The question is, you know, how did they get away with that?

So, in trying to answer the question, I looked a little at the history of Nazi Germany. No, it’s not that we are Nazi Germany, but you can learn lessons from everybody and from anybody’s history. In this case, I was interested in the ideas of Hermann Göring, who, you may know, was second in command to Hitler, head of the Luftwaffe. And at the end of World War II, when the Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Hermann Göring was in prison along with other of the leaders of the Nazi regime. And he was visited in prison by a psychologist who was given the job of interviewing the defendants at Nuremberg.

And this psychologist took notes and, in fact, a couple of years after the war, wrote a book called Nuremberg Diary, in which he recorded -- put his notes in that book, and he recorded his conversation with Hermann Göring. And he asked Göring, how come that Hitler, the Nazis were able to get the German people to go along with such absurd and ruinous policies of war and aggression?” And I happen to have those notes with me. We always say, “We happen to have these things just, you know, by chance.”

And Göring said, “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.”

I was interested in that last line: “It works the same way in any country.” I mean, here, these are the Nazis. That’s the fascist regime. We are a democracy. But it works the same way in any country, whatever you call yourself. Whether you call yourself a totalitarian state or you call yourself a democracy, it works the same way, and that is, the leaders of the country are able to cajole or coerce and entice the people into war by scaring them, telling them they’re in danger, and threatening them and coercing them, that if they don’t go along, they will be considered unpatriotic. And this is what really happened in this country right after 9/11. And this is happened right after Bush raised the specter of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and got for a while the American people to go along with this...."

Rich benefactors and Poor benefactors!

SCOTLAND'S wealthiest man has pledged to give away his personal fortune of more than £600m to deserving causes.
Irvine Laidlaw, 63, the multi-millionaire businessman, philanthropist and the man who effectively finances the Scottish Conservatives single-handedly, made the promise as he was honoured at an awards ceremony for his lifetime of achievement in business.

Anyone who has attempted to save to be a millionaire, using the calculator in our article,
‘Think you are going to be a millionaire’ will surely agree with us this wealthy man didn’t save £600m; I think it’s undisputable, the working class, the creators of wealth, get a raw deal.
Will the working class be a deserving cause? I don’t think so. The money will be used for budding entrepreneurs who can continue the exploitation.
The accumulation of capital out of the profits produced by those who operate the means of production is what capitalism is all about. You can get rid of philanthropists, capitalist and worker varieties, by owning the means of production in common and producing for need not profit. Socialism is worth some thought.

Think you are going to be a millionaire ??

So you think you can save enough and become a millionaire in your life-time , do you ?

Then why not take the test .

This calculator will show you how long it will take you to become a millionaire.

Fill in the boxes and click Calculate to see how rich you'll be in the future and what you need to save to reach millionaire status.

Which , of course , all depends on your future . No redundancy . No ill health .

And , of course , the other economic factors . Mortgage increases . And any possible inflation . So what if you are a millionaire if it has worthless purchasing value .

Orwellian Newspeak

For the first time, the US Department of Agriculture's report on Americans' access to food, published last week, has omitted the word "hunger" in describing the condition of 11 million people who at times cannot afford to feed themselves in the US.

These people, among a group of 35 million who had trouble keeping food on the table at least part of last year, shall heretofore, according to the government, be described as experiencing "very low food security".

Justifying this shameless terminological sophistry , Mark Nord, a department sociologist and the lead author of the report, repeated this week that "hunger" is not a scientifically quantifiable term.

Representative Jim McGovern (Democrat, Massachusetts) , co-chairman of the Congressional Hunger Caucus - "hunger is a political condition".

And don't we Socialists damn well know it !!

George Galloway and Memories

For my first blog in Socialist Courier i would like to dedicate this song and video to that so-called socialist , George Galloway , the ex-Labour Party and now Respect MP , who said this :-

"... If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union , yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life..."

Read here and also here for our answer to Galloway's mis-placed and mis-guided regrets .

SPRAWLING PRAWNS

Sunday Mail 2006-11-20
Elaine C Smith asks, “Why are prawns caught by our fishermen on our shores flown across the world to Thailand for shelling then brought back here to be packaged?”

It’s a good question and I believe the answer could be in the contractual nature of the global capitalist system. The boss contracts the workers to do a job that makes him a profit, if the boss can sub the work out to someone else who thinks he can get workers to do the job even cheaper, well the boss does just that, no need to employ so many and still increase his profits. The sub-contractor makes a profit as well. That’s how the system works.

It reminded me of a firm I was working with in East Kilbride called Sakura Auto Parts
They were buying a lot of goods from China and packaging them in EK. They found it more profitable to get the goods packaged in China and of course that is just what was done. Who knows, maybe the Chinese bosses will contract out work just like the American bosses and British bosses are doing in other countries.

For the workers of no matter what country, finding a job (contract) will remain their global quest. A Global system needs a Global solution; the above is only one of the problems that require workers to THINK GLOBALLY, ACT GLOBALLY.

TIMESERVERS

The news that Scotland has now one of the highest prison populations in Europe, with 7,000 people locked up which is almost double what it was 20 years ago, caused a flurry of verbal activity amongst members of the Scottish Parliament. The SSP leader Colin Fox raised the question of new measures to deal with the problem at First Minister's Questions. The Labour leader Jack McConnell hit back at the SSP by pointing out that Rosie Kane of the SSP had served 7 days in nick because she wouldn't pay her fine just like her colleagues Carolyn Leckie and Tommy Sheridan. “If members of the Scottish Socialist Party would pay their fines, we would have had three less people who have been in prison in Scotland over the past few years”, Mr McConnell said. (Metro, 10 November) What neither the Scottish Socialist Party nor the Labour Party will ever state amidst their political mud-slinging is that a private property society must inevitably lead to crime and prisons. As supporters of the buying and selling system they can never attack the real cause of crime. RD

The Madness of Capitalism

...plans by Young's Seafood to ship hundreds of tonnes of langoustines caught in UK waters to a facility 6000 miles away in Thailand where they will be peeled by hand before going back to Annan in Dumfries and Galloway to be made into breaded scampi...
...It is estimated that shipping the scampi on a return journey to Thailand could stack up to as much as 50,000 tonnes a year more carbon dioxide emissions...

.
....Young's Seafood's factory at Annan is the largest breaded scampi facility in the UK, employing around 250 workers.
The process of shelling langoustine has been mechanised since the 1980s but scampi will now be peeled by hand at Young's sister company Findus in Thailand.
It will result in 120 redundancies in Annan and will mean that the scampi will make a 12,000-mile round trip before it goes on sale in in Scotland...
...In September, Dawnfresh , of Uddingston Lanarkshire, said it would begin sending its scampi to a processing plant in China. Around 70 Scots jobs were lost
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/74604.html

alan johnstone
homepage:- http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/

Oil keep going well , breaking heads till you break the spell

Green Oil Friendly BP

BP's US arm,after its tie-up with Amoco, is becoming America's most accident-prone business. Federal regulators have accused BP of price gouging. Its corroded pipelines have been leaking in Alaska. A BP oil spill has polluted the coast of California. Civil rights activists are picketing its petrol stations.Not only this, but aftershocking safety lapses that caused its Texas City oil refinery to explode last year, killing 15 people BP's yellow sunburst logo and its eco-friendly "Beyond Petroleum" slogan, which once won cautious admiration even from the green lobby, now leave a sour taste in the mouths of many Americans. BP's public image is at rock bottom and the company is seen by some as a rogue foreign interloper.

Meanwhile in Ireland Shelling out the violence : The Gardaí do what cops do worldwide in the service of the capitalist class and start breaking heads. A sit-down protest by environmental activists trying to stop Shell building a gas terminal in County Mayo was broken up by truncheon wielding police thugs yesterday in the latest clash over the future of Ireland's Corrib gas field. Campaigners, supported by many local residents, are demanding that the Anglo-Dutch oil company and its Norwegian partner, Statoil, build an offshore treatment plant instead of one at Bellanaboy, near Erris, in the far west of Ireland. Work on the site restarted earlier this month after an independent mediator failed to resolve the dispute. It should come as no surpise that the industry which enlisted the thugs of the Nigerian government to have Ken Saro Wiwa executed for similar environmental protests should resort to using the forces of the state wherever it is confronted and checked in its quest for profits. It is of course in the nature of capitalism Global as it is, to resort to any means fair or foul to deter a brake on its activities.Prepared to go to war if neccessity provides,it will hardly balk at breaking workers heads and hearts. The solution of course is a removal of the ownership and control of all the planets' resources from the hands of an elite group whether constituted in the state or individual capitalist enterprises and the establishment of a new society of, free access, common ownership and democratic control.In a word socialism.

Complied from a report by A. Ramsay.

Xmas every day for some!

Usually after Xmas, the problems of debt are the subject of discussion and advice in the newspapers. This year, result of the Farepak collapse, the discussion and advice is much earlier.

Scotland on Sunday report, that organisations such as Farepak are odious. They offer commission to someone in difficult circumstances, who then signs up all her friends, relatives and neighbours. They join because they know she needs the money.


The pressure for some to withdraw their money is resisted,
‘People like the idea that their money is ring-fenced’
‘People living on a very tight budget, perhaps who are disabled or have a disabled child, find it helps them to put away just a small amount each week for Christmas, and know they can't touch it. Otherwise when money gets tight, they say they would dip into it.’

They had entrusted small weekly amounts to some 25,000 agents around Britain, who were often relatives, neighbours and friends. This collapse has left 150,000 families facing a miserable festive season.
The Farepak Response Fund has been set up by the Family Fund charity. This fund closes 25th November and if funds were divided among the families concerned, each would receive £30,provided no administrations expenses are included.
Scottish money advisers and charities are calling for the establishment of a properly regulated not-for-profit savings club as a solution.

Socialists say it’s not members of the capitalist class who join savings clubs. Santa knows where to deliver the quality presents. He visits those homes regularly.

Socialism does not have a money system, it is a not for profit system; it has a distribution system. People will take according to their needs; Production will be reduced as needs are reduced. No need to save. Consider the benefits.

No Capitalism, No Debt!

Debt
Debt, a big problem? One could be deceived by the East Kilbride Mail November 1st
Which ran a heading, As town’s debt tops £6M; £6M doesn’t look a lot of debt for a town the size of EK, however, the Citizens Advice Bureau ( CAB) identified Greenhills as an area with money problems and won funding from the government to launch a debt service.

CAB manager for EK, Michelle Campbell: "As elsewhere in Scotland, consumer debt is now the biggest single issue we deal with at East Kilbride CAB.
"Debt is not just a question of people being feckless. Often we find that people can afford debt when they first take it on. "But then perhaps six months later they lose their job, fall pregnant or their relationship breaks down, disrupting their finances.
Poverty is also a major factor.
"If you're on a low income, you can often only access credit on the most expensive terms. A seemingly modest loan amount can soon spiral into an unmanageable debt.
"We are dealing with nearly 400 debt cases, with the sums owed totalling f.6,289,712.
"That's why we want to target those parts of the community which often need advice most.
"Earlier in the year our bureau identified Greenhills as an area that had no free cash-dispensing machines.

So we are not dealing with the town of East Kilbride, we have 400 people with an average debt about £16,000 resulting from some of the factors described above and little chance of a free cash-point dispensing machine according to
Metro November 2nd 06
Plans for cash machines in poor areas to be made free by Christmas have been rejected. The proposal by ATM operator Bank Machine would have made cashpoints free to use in deprived regions, with a capped charge for using the machines refunded by financial institutions. But Link, which runs the cash machine network, rejected the idea, saying it did not offer the best deal for bank and building society users. Critics also said it would push the cost of expensive fee charging-operators on to bank customers.

Debt collecting is a business and the working class will be hassled and hounded relentlessly should they lose employment, all the more reason to think about a change.

There can be no debt in a socialist world, the working class, i.e. the majority of the world’s population could eliminate this problem of capitalism overnight by establishing socialism

Breaking News

Oh what a lovely war

Abu Ghraib Offender Heads Back to Iraq Torture indispensible. --A military dog handler convicted for his role in the prisoner abuse scandal has been ordered back to help train the country's police. 02 Nov 2006 One of the men [Sgt. Santos Cardona] implicated in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal is returning to the scene of the crime. The U.S. military tells TIME that one of the soldiers convicted for his role in Abu Ghraib, having served his sentence, has just been sent back to serve in Iraq. His 23rd MP Company has been selected to train [!?!] Iraqi police. Lest it be thought that we are singling out this individual who has been brutalised in the service of his masters,let us be clear what our position is on this state of armed intervention,whether it is a war in any conventional sense of the word. The Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party state that the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists to conserve the monopoly of the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, and that in order to stop this robbery the workers must capture the powers of government, including the armed forces, so as to turn them into an agent of emancipation. That is unquestionably the Socialist position as it was expounded by Marx and Engels, the founders of scientific Socialism The Socialist position is as follows: In society to-day there are two classes – the propertyless or working class and an idle class who own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth. The latter use this ownership and control to force the workers to work for them, and to submit to being robbed of the greater part of the produce of their labour. The master class, being but a tenth of the population, can only keep possession of the means of production by their control (through the political machinery) of the armed forces. While the master class have that control it is hopeless for the workers to attempt to seize capitalist property. It is sheer madness, therefore, to expect that the capitalist class would, because the workers demand it, either abolish the armed forces or hand their control over to the working class. That would be to abolish themselves as a ruling class. Further, the interests of the capitalists of one country clash with those of the capitalists of other lands, especially in the matter of obtaining markets, and so long as capitalism lasts there will be this clash of interests, necessitating ever-increasing armaments and the inevitable appeal to arms. It is absurd then to waste time and energy in an endeavour to convince the capitalists that wars are superfluous and a curse under capitalism. ( The above is an extract from a 1910 Anti-war document) All the outcry about Iraq,Lebanon and so on just wont change anything until is is expedient for the powerful global elite who run capitalism to cut and run on this issue.One thing we can be sure about is the capitalist solution will give us more of the same . We need to begin the process of at least thinking about how to get rid of the cause of war, and make the capitalist system redundant.

Affordable Homes and Carbon emissions

East Kilbride Mail November 1st 2006
Buy new and save thousands on energy bills.
The last week in October was Energy Savings Week and to mark this event, Bryant Homes compared the fuel costs of similar sized brand new and second hand properties.
To shorten things, this resulted in savings of £776 a year, the average stay in any one property is eight years, so we are told, therefore a staggering £6,208 is saved.

I checked the cost of this new house, which was a detached family house, four bedrooms, double-glazing, cavity wall insulation and energy efficient appliances as standard. The range was from 350K to 400K. the interest per month would be between £1.896 and £2,166 if a figure of 6.5 per cent is used.
Well above what some workers could afford.

Cutting carbon emissions are urged on us as a means of saving the planet. People are concerned at the forecasted effects of global warming on “our planet”. We are urged to fill our kettle with just the water we need, not to leave TVs on standby and recycle etc.
Lots of people assist by doing as requested, in spite of the fact it’s not their planet. The planet Earth is owned and controlled by a small capitalist class and for the vast majority of the working class, carbon emissions depend on the wages they receive, e.g. if you are living in what is described as affordable housing, the quality means it could require more heating because it lacks proper insulation, is draughty etc.
That affordable house will be ready for recycling a lot sooner than a house built for a member of the capitalist class.

However don’t feel to guilty about putting more coal on the fire or switching on the gas fire.
The capitalist consumes vast amounts of energy in the profit system, a capitalist will not do anything to reduce carbon emissions unless his competitors do likewise.
The planet Earth owned in common, operating with no money, no wages, Socialism, would build various homes; the word affordable homes would be a relic of the past as all homes would be quality homes.