"MODERN" BRITAIN

There is a notion about that because in Britain we have a new political situation of political sharing that something has changed about the class division of society. It is just not true. "At St. James's club in London, a new toast is overheard: "To the Nineteen." This refers, as you no doubt spotted at once, to the 19 Old Etonians who have become prime ministers. Jolly good." (Sunday Times, 16 May) "Almost four-fifths of the new cabinet are millionaires, according to an analysis by The Sunday Times. As the government prepares to wield the axe on public spending, research reveals that 18 of the 23 full-time cabinet members have seven-figure fortunes, collectively worth about £50 million." (Sunday Times, 23 May) So modern Britain looks a lot like old Britain. The people who produce wealth - the working class are exploited by the owning class. Wake up workers we need a new society! RD

THIS IS DEMOCRACY?

"Almost four-fifths of the new cabinet are millionaires, according to an analysis by The Sunday Times. As the government prepares to wield the axe on public spending, research reveals that 18 of the 23 full-time cabinet members have seven-figure fortunes, collectively worth about £50 million." (Sunday Times, 23 May) RD

scottish child poverty

The number of children living in poverty has risen for the first time in more than a decade, figures have revealed.

Official statistics showed there were 210,000 youngsters in Scotland who were classed as being in relative poverty in 2008-09.

That is a rise of 10,000 on the previous year and means 21% of children are now affected by the problem.

Another success for the reformers !!!

Reading Notes

"In 1844, four years before Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto appeared, The Awl (Journal of the Shoemakers federation) wrote, " The division of society into the producing and non-producing classes, and the fact of the unequal distribution of value between the two, introduces us at once to another distinction – that of capital and labour…labour now becomes a commodity…Antagonism and opposition of interest is introduced into the community; capital and labour stand opposed." We hold that the state government functions as the legislative arm of the capitalist class, passing laws that legitimize and maintain theft and
exploitation by the capitalists. Zinn writes – " As soon as Jackson was elected president, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi began to pass laws to extend the states' rule over the Indians in their territory. These laws did away with the tribe as a legal unit, outlawed tribal meetings, took away the chiefs' powers, made the Indians subject to militia duty and state taxes, but denied them the right to vote, to bring suits, or to testify in court. Indian territory was divided up, to be distributed by state lottery. Whites were encouraged to settle on Indian land." A taste of things to come! John Ayers

Food for thought

In South Africa, two blacks were arrested for the murder of a white employer who had a reputation for beating and mistreating his employees and was even jailed for beating one farm worker so badly he was permanently brain-damaged. The black South Africans fear a white backlash – seems the more things change, the more they remain the same. Power structures seem to have continued much as before in that country.

For those who think we should start socialism within the capitalist system, a lesson is to be learned from the use of organic foods. After years of healthy growth, the appetite for these foods is shrinking because they cost more and when workers are being squeezed by the economy, something has to go. Organic food prices cannot compete with factory farming techniques. That's the system!

 If the Goldman Sachs fiasco weren't so tragic, it would be funny. Jay Leno commented," Just four days after Goldman Sachs cost investors $12 billion by failing to tell them that they were being investigated for fraud, they gave out another $5.4 billion in bonuses. Huh? Even Somali pirates are going, "Come on!" A Washington Post cartoon shows a policeman approaching two fat cat bankers under a Goldman sign. One whispers to the other," Tell him we're innocent, and we'll hedge that by betting against our acquittal." John Ayers

"MODERN" BRITAIN

"At St. James's club in London, a new toast is overheard: "To the Nineteen." This refers, as you no doubt spotted at once, to the 19 Old Etonians who have become prime ministers. Jolly good." (Sunday Times, 16 May) RD

THIS IS FRUGAL?

In an article praising the former Queen Mother for her parsimonious life style we learn that she even rented rather than bought a TV set for her Castle of Mey in Caithness. So how come she managed to run up an overdraft of £4 million with Coutts? We are told that she had threadbare carpets and wore the same Burberry raincoats for years and years. Before we sob gently into our tear-soaken handkerchiefs at such penury it is worth noting the last paragraph in this nonsensical article. "The Queen Mother received £643,000 annually from the civil list but still had to be bailed out by the Queen with a million or two a year." (Sunday Times, 16 May) RD

MONDAY MORNING BLUES

"The recession is raising stress levels so high that a quarter of workers are finding their weekends ruined by the Sunday blues - a dread of going back to he office the next day - according to a report. In a study to be launched tomorrow by the mental health charity Mind, employees were questioned about their levels of anxiety and more than 26% said they felt dread and apprehension the day before they were due to go back to work after a day or a weekend off. ...Other findings include effects on people's sleep patterns, high rates of illness and reports of extensive low morale. High rates of unpaid overtime were recorded, and almost all the people questioned were unhappy with their work-life balance." (Observer, 16 May) RD

city of discovery

In an article ex-Labour MP , John McAllion , describes his home-town of Dundee that provides some interesting statistics.

In the 19th century, the High Court Judge Lord Cockburn described Dundee as a "sink of atrocity which no moral flushing seems capable of cleansing". James Cameron, who began a career in journalism in the city in the 1930s, described the east coast town as a "symbol of a society that had gone sour".

A national study, "A Divided Britain", identified residents in many of the city's working class neighbourhoods as suffering from the "worst financial hardship in Britain". This was backed up by a contemporary Scottish Executive report showing that 46 per cent of resident households in the city had a net income of less than £10,000 a year while 55 per cent of the same households contained no-one who was working. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report branded Dundee as a city of poverty, teenage mothers and poor mental health.Dundee GPs were issuing more prescriptions for mental health problems than anywhere else in Scotland. After Glasgow, Dundee had Scotland's next highest concentration of poverty, overcrowding and drug abuse. The city retained its title as the teenage pregnancy capital of Scotland.

At the beginning of 2009 an English-based research group published a report "Cities Outlook 2009" warning of the impact of the recession on 64 cities across Britain. It ranked Dundee 54th of the 64 cities, claiming that it lacked economic prosperity, suffered from a shrinking population and was scarred by stubbornly high levels of social deprivation and benefit. Only Liverpool had a higher level of benefit claimants as a proportion of its working age population.

Annual business statistics issued at the end of 2008, revealed Dundee losing 60 manufacturing firms and 3000 manufacturing jobs in the eight years following 1998. By 2006, the city had become a service sector economy with four times as many workers working in services as in manufacturing. The average annual salary in the service sector was £8,900 a year less than in manufacturing.

The Dundee story has been about low pay, persistent poverty, joblessness and benefit dependency in a city where the hard lives of thousands of its working class citizens have been erased from the official record.

A PAPAL VIEW OF SOCIETY

There are many ways to look at society. What are the most important aspects of present day society? Socialists might say the fact that a third of the world is starving, or that we live in a society that could be annihilated in a nuclear holocaust or even that in the drive for profits we risk the delicate balance of the global environment. None of these considerations entered into the reasoning of the Pope when he recently visited Portugal. "The Pope yesterday condemned gay marriage and abortion as "among the most insidious and dangerous challenges" to society, as Portugal prepared to legalise same-sex partnerships next week. Benedict also criticised Catholics "ashamed" of their faith and too willing to "lend a hand to secularism". Ninety per cent of Portuguese define themselves as Catholic, but Portugal's society is increasingly secular, with far fewer than a third saying they attend Mass regularly." (Times, 14 May) Starvation, worldwide slaughter or global warming? Not as important as abortion or same-sex relationships according to His Holiness - no wonder the pews are emptying! RD

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?

"A diamond auction in Switzerland has seen a new record price per carat, with a blue, cushion-shaped 7.64 carat stone fetching 8.93m Swiss francs. The diamond, set in a yellow gold and platinum ring, went for twice its estimated price. A white emerald-cut 52.82 carat diamond fetched 8.8m Swiss francs, while an Alexandre Reza ring mounted with a 5.02 carat blue diamond sold for just over 7m Swiss francs. (BBC News, 13 May) RD

BEHIND THE ADVERTS

In order to protect its markets and possessions abroad the British capitalist class have got to have a trained band of killers on tap. This British army has got to be recruited afresh all the time - they grow old, they are maimed, they die. We have all seem those TV adverts that depict a military career as exciting and adventurous. One of the old adverts used to be "Its a man's life in the army" It would probably be more accurate today to be "Its an alcoholics life in the army". "Soldiers, sailors and airmen returning from the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq have been hitting the bottle in a dangerous fashion but have not suffered the tidal wave of mental problems that was predicted, researchers report today. The British military appears to have avoided the heavy toll that the conflicts have exacted on their American counterparts, where rates of post-traumatic stress disorder in returning troops have soared. One in seven UK military personnel deployed to the two countries were drinking heavily "at harmful levels" after returning, at rates 22 per cent higher than among those who remained at home." (Independent, 13 May) RD

"LAZY" WORKERS AGAIN

"A study of 6,000 British civil servants found that those who regularly worked 10 or 11-hour days were up to 60 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease or die younger than those who worked shorter hours. The research, published online in the European Heart Journal, found that people who worked three or more hours longer than a seven-hour day put their health at risk, possibly as a result of being more stressed and having less time to unwind." (Times, 12 May) RD

Food for thought

Toronto council members 'tasted welfare for a week' (Toronto Star, 07/04/10). The daughter of one wondered what her friends would think when they came to lunch of tinned salmon, chick peas, and peanut butter. Another councillor worries he won't get enough calories to sustain his running regime, while a third noted his ration was 'heavy on starch and processed foods high in salt'. Maybe we should give them credit for the effort but will it make any difference in the long run?
Carol Goar (Toronto Star) cites a report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities showing that poverty stalks our big cities but is not far behind in the smaller ones either. Poverty rates in the big cities was at 13.5% 19 years ago and today are at 21% for Toronto, 20% for Vancouver, and 15% for Montreal. Every level of government has been trying to down load the problem to those below them, "The federal government has capped its contributions to welfare and walked away from public housing and child care. The provinces have shifted part of their responsibility for social services to the municipalities " (who do not have the resources). On and on the problem goes, -the futility of reform. John Ayers

Poor and fat

Studies about the predictors of obesity in the UK have shown that the poorest are most likely to be obese. For example, one University of Glasgow study found that residents of an impoverished Glasgow neighbourhood were more than twice as likely to be obese compared with residents of an affluent neighbourhood only miles away. This pattern holds among children, teenagers and adults; men and women; and across ethnic groups.

In places such as Ethiopia (a low-income country that has had several serious famines in recent decades), the cheapest foods are the least calorie-dense; therefore, the poor systematically lack access to energy-rich foods, and have a higher likelihood of suffering from undernutrition and starvation. By contrast, in a city such as Glasgow, the cheapest foods are the most calorie-dense – kebabs, chips, crisps, pies and puddings, fizzy drinks etc – so the poor there are more at risk from obesity.

Deprived areas in cities , termed "food deserts" in the academic literature about obesity, fundamentally limit the food choices that poor people can make, thereby promoting unhealthy lifestyles, and ultimately, obesity.A basket of healthy food would cost more in a poor part of east London, for example, than it would in somewhere like Fulham.

Another issue is what is termed "food insecurity", or lack of regular, dependable access to food. This can also promote obesity. Imagine that you didn't know where your next meal would come from, and you had a large meal in front of you at the time: what would you do? I would eat the whole thing (probably more than my fill), so that if, in fact, I didn't get a meal later, I would have eaten enough for the day. Now, what if the next meal did come (again, in the same setting of insecurity about where the next meal would come from)? A cycle of insecurity-based overconsumption can set in, ultimately leading to obesity.

A study in the International Journal of Obesity upon following over 11,000 Britons for 33 years, showed that low parental social class at age seven was a significant predictor of obesity at age 33. If a factor as intractable as parental social class can influence obesity risk 26 years later, it is hardly helpful to blame every obese individual for his or her condition.

Lazy greedy workers ??

Teachers are working an extra 10 weeks a year without pay, according to new research by a major teaching union.A workload survey carried out by the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association has revealed that nearly 54% of teachers work 400 extra hours for their employers each year. The union uncovered that one in 10 teachers works more than 55 hours a week.Two out of every five secondary teachers said they were stressed during the working week.

Collected during December, February and March, the workload survey revealed that more than a quarter of teachers worked between 45 and 50 hours a week, 16% worked between 50 and 55 hours, and 10% regularly worked in excess of 55 hours.

The union also overwhelmingly voted to oppose the establishment of trust schools, which would see schools run by communities at arms-length from local authorities.The SSTA said trust schools are “about saving money, not about improving education”.

FIFTY YEARS OF FUTILITY

One of the oppositions to world socialism is that rather than have a complete transformation of society we could have piece by piece gradual change. Well let us look at how that has worked out in relation to the environment. "Sir David Attenborough has warned that Britain's wildlife is being destroyed thanks to man's impact on the environment. The naturalist made his comments in the foreword to a new book, Silent Summer, in which 40 prominent British ecologists explain how humankind is wiping out many species. It comes fifty years after the publication of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's acclaimed book on pollution of wildlife that helped the growth of the environmental movement worldwide and led to a ban of some pesticides in Britain." (Sunday Telegraph, 25 April) So fifty years after the alarm was sounded the position is even worse. That is gradualism for you! The drive for bigger and bigger profits means that the environment is of little importance. RD

Food for thought

On solving poverty, the Toronto Star editorial (27/03/10) noted that the recent provincial budget virtually ignored poverty even though they have repeatedly promised a reduction (25% over five years) since taking office (four years ago). They also, as previously reported cut the special diet allowance for those with medical problems but did increase welfare rates - by 1% (i.e. $5.85/month for a single person on $585/month – their generosity abounds!). The Star comments, "The primary goal, however, is clearly not to create a better programme but a cheaper one."In the same issue, an article by Mary Wells asks if a minimum wage is a  good idea. It has recently risen to $10.25/hr from $9.50 ($9.60 from $8.90 for under 18s working less than 28 hours/week and $8.90from $8.25 for those serving liquor. Presumably their wages will be made up with tips, or not.) The fear is that employment will fall as wages rise. Much better to have to struggle even harder and have a job. Great system! John Ayers

LOADED

"The world's richest man is the Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, worth $53.5 billion. Second and third are Bill Gates ($53 billion) and Warren Buffett ($47 billion). Christy Walton, the widow of the Wal-Mart magnate John Walton, is the richest woman." (Times, 7 May) RD

A SENSE OF VALUES?

"A New York buyer has paid a record £12,350 for a 50-year-old bottle of Macallan Whisky at the world's biggest whisky sale in Glasgow. It was one of more than 700 lots in McTear's rare and collectable whisky auction, in which a 50-year-old Glenfiddich sold for £10,600." (Times, 6 May) RD