Food for thought

Just in case you were waiting for the unions to bring about socialism, in Toronto the Labourers' union is suing the Carpenter's union alleging dirty tactics in the raiding wars going on in Toronto's construction industry. Obviously, do not expect a united front to end capitalism any time soon. Leave that to the World Socialist Movement!
Marx is often criticized for his statements relating to the growing immiseration of the working class because things have improved materially for workers in the northern hemisphere though not nearly as much as the capitalist class has improved its wealth. But the real evidence to corroborate Marx is that as soon as the way was paved for liberalizing capital, the owning class rushed into areas of weak laws to reproduce the conditions prevalent in the nineteenth century. Any description of third world working conditions could easily be included in M & E's descriptions of those times. The New York Times (March 3/ 2013) reports on the conditions of India's children working in the mines. Despite a landmark 2010 law mandating all children in India between the ages of 6 and 14 to be in school, some 28 million are working instead. One story tells of a seventeen-year-old who has worked in unbelievably unsafe conditions in the mines 'since he was a kid' and expects his four younger brothers to follow suit, and lives in a tarp-and-stick shaft near the mine without running water, toilet facilities, or heat. Where are those critics of Marx now ? What do they say? John Ayers

To a new world

Capitalism makes humanity suffer hunger, poverty and deprivation, bloody wars, oppression and state-approved torture. It destroys nature ruthlessly and our destiny should we not stop it on its this course, will be barbarism. A caring capitalism is like the unicorn: everyone's heard about it but nobody's seen one! Science and technology increases the slavery of mankind instead of emancipating it. The fetters of private and state property and the nation-state on the development of means of production have become unbearable. This situation means that the only way out before humanity’s actual existence becomes threatened is socialism. Enough is enough; we don't have to live this way.


The emancipation of humanity lies in socialism. Only the working class has the ability and the potential of putting an end to capitalism. "Ordinary" people hold enormous latent power in our hands. The ruling class are forever fearful of us discovering, and acting upon, that powerful truth. We do not have to put up with exploitation, discrimination, and oppression. We can look forward to the day working people - those of us who make society run - take political power in our own hands and run all of society! We can take our dreams of peace, equality and freedom and make them a reality. History is filled with examples of what people can achieve when they work together for the good of everyone. Our future is bright, and great struggles, with great outcomes are before us.

Food for thought

We've recently seen a massive outpouring of grief over the death of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, a man who, in the opinion of many, did an excellent job. Socialists can agree that he did indeed do an excellent job -- of muddying the waters. The improvements he made in nationalizing the country's largest private electric company and Telecommunications company and the steel making and cement industries were improvements made within capitalism, that are no improvements at all. It's largely forgotten that in 2002 he fired 18,000 workers in the state-run oil company for striking when he refused to agree to a non-binding referendum on his rule. Chavez was merely another leader to attempt to administer the running of capitalism and calling it socialism. If the minority own the tools of production, the land, and the resources, it's still capitalism. If the majority must work for wages in order to survive, it's still capitalism. And what is Chavez' legacy to the Venezuelan people? A deeply troubled and divided country with high unemployment and crime rate. The fewer "socialists" like Chavez, the better. John Ayers

Reading Notes

How the CIA was funded is revealed in Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes, History of the CIA". He writes, "The mechanics (of acquiring money) were surprisingly simple. After Congress approved the Marshall Plan, it appropriated about $13.7 billion over five years.
A nation that received aid from the plan had to set aside an equivalent sum in its own currency. Five per cent of those funds - $685 million all told -- was made available to the CIA through the overseas offices. It was a global money-laundering scheme that stayed secret until well after the cold war ended. Where the plan flourished in Europe and Asia, so would American spies." (page 32). Nothing to account for, no questions asked! The money allowed the cold war that wasted unbelievable amounts of social wealth that could have provided health care, education etc. to say nothing of the lives lost, to continue its destructive path for decades. Such is life under the madness of capitalism. John Ayers

Reforms and the Labour Party

Capitalism only continues to exist because people put up with it. Most people don’t see any alternative to working for wages, producing for profit and using money. They believe that it is capitalists, not workers by hand and by brain, who create wealth and that capitalists are doing us a favour by providing us with jobs. They believe that the world has always been divided into rich and poor, leaders and followers, rulers and ruled and that it always will be. These attitudes both reflect and sustain capitalism. And every time people get a chance to vote, most people support politicians who are committed to maintaining the capitalist system. So capitalism continues.
The ruling class are not a monolithic entity, all having exactly the same opinions. They do not all have the same ideas as to the best way of running the system from day to day, or year to year. All capitalists want to get the most out of their workers, obviously. But what is the best way of doing that? Some think they should rule largely by fear. Toe the line, accept long hours, low wages, and poor conditions, they say to their workers, or out you go. Alongside this “treat-’em-rough” school is the “pretend-to-be-nice” school who think that more humane methods are more profitable in the long run. Less primitive conditions in the workplace, a bit better treatment of families, somewhat less harsh handling of the unemployed, will all pay dividends, they think: be nice to your workers, and they will be nice to you.

Some reforms benefit workers. For instance, the 1948 NHS Act introduced free medical treatment. However, no reform is secure under capitalism. Since the end of the post-war boom, it has been downhill all the way. Successive governments, Labour as well as Tory, have cut back on their spending so as to leave more money for capitalist corporations to retain as profits. Things were by no means perfect pre-1970s but there were a lot more services provided, especially at local level, than there are today.

There was a time in the distant past when some in the Labour Party saw the introduction of free public services run by national or local government on a non-profit basis as stepping stones to socialism. Its 1945 manifesto declared that the Labour Party “is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain."  Hardly language which Labour’s leaders would use today. Though those Old Labourites were wrong in their belief that socialism can emerge gradually from a series of piecemeal reforms enacted under capitalism, they were right on one thing. In a socialist society education, housing, telecommunications, water, gas and electricity supply will be run as free public services on a non-profit basis, but as genuine services to people.

Now, the Labour Party has no vision beyond that of capitalism. Like every other Government it merely tries its hand at running capitalism. Their record of supporting wars, freezing wages, breaking strikes, and forming coalitions, with Tories and Liberals, should have been enough to finish them with the working class for keeps but the tragedy is that it didn’t and won’t.

Although from time to time a few members in the Labour “left-wing" still pay lip-service to an alternative society nothing they have ever said or done has advanced the workers cause one inch. While certain of their reforms might have helped the workers condition, in staving off unrest and discontent, they have also had the desired effect of giving the boss class a new lease of life. Socialists have no feeling whatever of gratitude toward the exploiters when they concede this or that reform. They usually take away with the left hand what they offer with the right that neutralises whatever good there may have been. Individual reforms may be to the advantage or disadvantage of the working class but capitalism reformed is still capitalism. No matter how beneficial or otherwise as is now usually the case individual reforms might be, the interest of the working class lies in overthrowing capitalism, not altering its workings. The fact is that, while workers can obtain some improvements, capitalism itself cannot be permanently reformed.
The working class’s support is needed for the ongoing existence of capitalism. Once we understand our real interest and begin to consciously organise to get it, no leader or deceiver in the Labour party is going to be able to deflect us from our course. Workers must first learn to distinguish between words and action. Until then the workers get the leaders and representatives they deserve and the system they choose.

Food for thought

On March 5^th, Ontario Tory leader, Tim Hudak, claimed unions and environmentalists are threatening Ontario's economic progress. We wonder what progress he's talking about. Hudak said, " I think it's just unfortunate that the NDP and Liberals seem to be so singularly focused on appeasing the public sector union bosses -- it's causing a province to go bankrupt and it's costing us jobs. Nobody is going to invest in a province that has huge debts. What the oil sands are to Alberta, what potash is to Saskatchewan, the Ring of Fire (northern resource exploitation) could be for the province of Ontario. It's too bad that the Liberals seem to be captured by radical environmental groups." Hudak's rant could be a case of trying to pit one group against another or it could be a case of he doesn't know what he's talking about. On average, the cost to the capitalist of wages is 7% of the total. Furthermore, if the effects of capitalism continue to wreck the environment, there won't be much left for Hudak to rant about. John Ayers

Rich Pickings For Some

The New York Times annually reports on the astonishing incomes enjoyed by the capitalist class, but they are not necessarily the richest packages out there. As they report they rely on filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission for public companies. That means they are missing entire categories of businesses: privately held corporations, most hedge funds and many private equity firms, but nevertheless some of their figures are staggering. 'Consider Leon Black, C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, among the largest private equity firms with $2.86 billion in 2012 revenue. He took in more than $125 million last year. ........ Steve Schwarzman, founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, took in $8.4 million in compensation last year, and his distributions earned him an additional $204 million. ............The wealth of executives at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was harder to determine, because it disclosed only distribution payouts on common units and not on the convertible ownership units held by top executives. But even excluding those payouts, the two co-chiefs at K.K.R., Henry R. Kravis and George R. Roberts, made more than $35 million each in compensation.' (New York Times, 10 April) RD

Fair Shares?

Socialism is not concerned with managing capitalism better but about a different kind of society. Socialists do not call for population control, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. Socialists don't call for “fair” shares of land or money to be handed out equally.

The socialist’s “fair share” for a member of the socialist commonwealth is the right of access and the satisfaction of their needs from the common store-house.
All previous societies have been rationed societies, based on scarcity of food, clothing and shelter. The modern world is also a society of scarcity, but with a difference.Today’s shortages are unnecessary; today’s scarcity is artificial. More than that: scarcity achieved at the expense of strenuous effort, ingenious organisation and the most sophisticated planning.
The abolition of classes is the equality at which socialists aim and the equality of access to the means of living. Such an equality would mean no one would be in a position to buy the services of others in order to make a profit, just as no one would be in the position of having to sell their energies in order to obtain a bare subsistence.

The world is haunted by a spectre – the spectre of abundance. Socialists do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but a cornucopia of plenty. Even with the present resources of production, it would immediately increase the wealth available for the workers' enjoyment. It would also render possible a considerable expansion of those resources in order that the free development of every individual should be translated from a dream into a reality. People themselves will decide when enough is enough.

The price of the cuts

Cuts in a range of welfare payments – including child benefit, tax credits, housing benefit and disability living allowance – will see the average Edinburgh household losing £2170 by 2016.

Some of the biggest cuts will come about as a result of the so-called bedroom tax which will cut housing benefit payments to households with spare bedrooms.

Figures from 2011-12 show that 15,500 households in Edinburgh – 60 per cent of all applicants – required a one-bedroom home. The annual number of one-bedroom city properties available to rent is around 500.

The tragic fact is that with the passing of Thatcher, her legacy, ‘Thatcherism’, remains government policy where the poorest who struggle to survive are the easiest targets for the implementation of austerity cuts.

Five Million In The Big Freeze

More than five million families in Britain are facing the threat of having their heating cut off after falling behind with their energy bills, an alarming report warns today. The research said the number of households struggling to pay their bills has jumped by around one million people over the last year. 'On average, they typically owe £123 to their energy supplier, raising fears they face being cut off if they do not eventually find the money to clear their debts. The report, from the comparison website Uswtich.com, said the number of cash-strapped families has jumped sharply over the last year from a total of four to five million.' (Daily Mail, 9 April) This is life in Mr Cameron "Big Society" - more like a big freeze society. RD

Growing Old Disgracefully

Workers who imagine that once their working lives are over they might enjoy the remainder of their days in some sort of comfort and security should be alarmed by this statement from the charity Age UK. 'Soaring numbers of elderly people are being forced to rely on handouts from friends and family to stay in care homes near their loved ones. Councils facing squeezed budgets are increasingly looking to move residents to cheaper homes, which often means they are passed 'like parcels' to alternatives hundreds of miles away. A third of those who are entitled to state help with care home fees – perhaps because they have exhausted their life savings on such bills – are being forced to meet spiralling costs themselves, charity Age UK said.' (Daily Mail, 9 April) Even after a lifetime of toil and anxiety it doesn't get any easier for some workers. RD

The Resistance

It is sad to report but employers are winning the class war. They’ve increased their production demands. They’ve extended employees’ work hours making us work longer or they have reduced the hours, making many of us part-time. They have cut or abolished benefits such as pensions, bonuses, sick leave and paid vacations. They have done away with employment contracts turning many into temporary free-lance staff.
Companies run roughshod over their employees with ultimatums. They tell us it is a “buyers market” so take our job rules or go. Or they use the other variant, the re-location threat, accept new working conditions or we go.

Without resistance, workers have no power. Resistance is everything. It is about pushing back. Demonstrating the willingness to fight. Standing our ground. Only with combined organisation can we do this effectively. Without the unions, without collective action, bully-boy management will continue to prevail in the class-war.

Rejoice...rejoice

Thousands took to the streets to celebrate the death of Thatcher. Immediately this drew strong condemnation and were described as “tasteless”, “horrible”, and “beneath all human decency.”

A massive media machine went into action aimed at removing her from criticism. The political battle over someone's memory is a political battle over policy. In Thatcher's case, they gloss over her history of supporting tyrants, of attacks on the poor and vulnerable and her onslaught against the unions - the very same policies as now being followed by Cameron. A reminder that under capitalism, very little changes.


People praising Thatcher should show some respect for her victims. Let us respect those who suffered everyday because of her policies, and have chosen her passing to wipe away the tears of pain and sorrow so they could in her own words “Rejoice...rejoice”

And then let us organise to make sure that the history she was party to does not repeat itself.

Startling Statistics

In a review of Leo Hollis's book "Cities Are Good For You" the writer Tom Chesshyre reveals some startling statistics. 'He travels to fast-growing Mumbai, where he takes in the world's most expensive house, the 27-storey, $1 billion home of a leading business man; with living spaces for 60 servants, parking for 160 cars and three helipads. He is damning of the growth of the global super-rich, pointing out that 90 per cent of the world's wealth belongs to the richest 1 per cent.' (Times, 8 April) He also mentions that in London the richest 10 per cent have 273 times more wealth than the bottom 10 per cent. RD

Capitaclysm

The rich wage wars to gain power, acquire plunder, and they leave behind death and destruction. The rich pursue economic policies that exploit the natural bounty of the world and leave behind a wasteland in their wake. While the capitalist class hoard the wealth of the world we, the working class, hoard resentments generally misplaced and misdirected upon those equally as deprived and bereft of power as we are. We fall easy prey to peddlers of false hope and propagandists. Human beings have proved so easy to control. We believe the fictions spinned regarding our identity and our interactions with the world. But you cannot force truth upon the deceived. They must see through the lies and fraud for themselves. We can't have a revolution unless we make it for ourselves


Class is seen as having three main tiers: upper, middle and lower and within these tiers, then there are usually two or three others added, dividing each “class” itself into upper, middle, and lower sections. So, instead of the concrete conception of class based on how people relate to the means of production, we have a pedantic strata of “upper middles” and “lower uppers” to distract us from the core antagonism in society: the contradiction between capitalist and worker. The so-called “middle class” don’t own their own means of production and have to work for a living like any other worker, even though they may make higher wages and salaries.

At the capitalism’s core lies conflict. The class struggle lies at the heart of capitalism. The conflict varies from hidden to open and from mild to violent. On one side, bosses pursue ever more profits that is produced by their workers. On the other side, workers seek ever more wages and better working conditions that reduce the profits available to employers. Thus a class struggle emerges. The interests of capital and labour are irreconcilable. For a member of the working class, it is the money they take home and the amount of work that they must do to earn it that is foremost in their mind, and – let’s not hide from the reality – it is to get the most for doing the least. However, for management, it is the entire opposite. They endeavour to extract the most work out of its workforce at the most minimum of cost. The inevitable class struggle, in other words. Reformism is the belief whereby this class conflict can be resolved amicably and it is a policy of class collaboration. History has shown that one group always exploits the other in order to keep its privilege.

Every day capitalism is becoming more interlaced and interwoven. Human communities come second place in capitalism time after time. Financial crises, like that recently experienced have far-reaching and disastrous effects upon the markets of the world, just as the disease of one human organ effects the whole body. The contagion of capitalism cannot be kept and confined within national boundaries but it spreads over the globe.

Socialism is international. For years we have affirmed it and argued it. History shows how the various countries develop along similar lines and how industrial conditions fashion the thoughts of men and drive their energies into the same channels irrespective of difference of nationality. We have examples to-day of the struggles which are going on in India, in Egypt and throughout Asia. In every country under the domination of capital the simple facts of the situation are driving the workers to see the cause of the trouble, and are forcing them to an understanding of the remedy. Wherever capitalism is, socialism accompanies it, much to the dismay of the ruling class. The conditions of life and the education of the world’s workers being almost identical and becoming ever more so, their capacity for understanding socialism and their progress towards it will be at about the same rate in every country under the highly centralised thraldom of capital. This furnishes the answer to those who prophesy that because of "uneven development" one country will be ready for the change before the others. The idea of establishing socialism in a hole and corner fashion is one which does not bear investigation. Ideas travel in human boots, and social evolution does not proceed spontaneously, nor is it philanthropically bestowed by governments. It rather takes shape partly through the natural agency of economic and political phenomena and partly through the pressures of the worker's mind itself which struggles for the realisation of its revolutionary aims.

The Socialist Party welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But unlike animals, we are endowed with rational thought and capable of long-term planning, and we must also seek to stop these skirmishes by winning the class war outright, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. Socialism is no mere utopian dream.

Capitalism is: “From each whatever you can get — to each whatever you can grab.”

Socialism is: “From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs.”

Welcome to Hell, Baroness Margaret

Socialist Courier has not much to say on Thatcher's passing away. All the other blogs have said most of it already. We will however add this.

Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!.....Deid! Deid! Deid!

Food for thought

For the last few years, Alberta's economy hasn't been as badly hit as the rest of Canada, mainly due to the demand for oil by China and the US...now things are not so rosy. The break-even price at which extraction is profitable varies from $65 to $100 a barrel. In recent months it has dropped considerably due to lack of pipe-line capacity to get oil to market, new sources of cheaper shale oil from fracking, and China's demand falling off. None of this bodes well for the Canadian economy. Under crapitalism it's the same old story -- great today, lousy tomorrow.
We have all heard enough about the pope but the Toronto Star reported that among the high and mighty Catholics to attend the papal installation was Robert Mugabe, undoubtedly embarrassing the Vatican given that he will likely stand trial one day at The Hague for crimes against humanity. The same article also carries a quote from the 'red bishop' Camara of Brazil, " If I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
The same paper reported that that the largest religious group is those who come under the heading 'Atheism, Agnosticism, or no religious affiliation (if you divide the Christians into Catholics and others). We have to remember that a very large percentage of the so-called religious are not, do not attend their church, and likely only put down a religion to hedge their bets just in case! Probably Canada's most religious province, Quebec up to the 1960s, went
through the Quiet revolution, i.e. took charge of their lives from the Catholic Church and dropped church attendance from 90% down to 5%. Religion really is an anachronism and most people realize that today.
The same issue detailed the sorry economic run of Latvia. After its economy tanked in 2008 -- twenty per cent contraction -- it received a seven billion euro loan from the International Monetary Fund. The usual set of accompanying austerity measures produced praise from IMF managing Director, Christine Lagarde, " You have pulled through...you have returned to strong growth...you have lowered budget deficits and kept government debt ratios to some of the lowest in the EU..blah, blah, blah. The reality for the average Latvian worker does not match the praise for the economy. As of 2010, 31% are classified as 'severely materially deprived', 300 000 people have left Latvia since 2000 looking elsewhere for jobs, and in 2012 the City of Riga served 759,250 hot meals for those with government vouchers. I wonder if Lagarde is cheering those figures! John Ayers

Same Poison, Different Bottle

We have a regrettable tendency to see what we want to see and rationalise what we already want to do. Scottish nationalists attribute Scotland’s ills to the constitutional link to England. Both Left and Right see independence as a panacea. Those on the Scottish Left who have added their voices to the campaign for independence have succumbed to ideas incompatible with the socialist transformation of society.

The Left has long subscribed to the principle of “self-determination” that small nations ought by right – assuming the support of its people – be given the right to cede from larger states and claim autonomy over their affairs but over the decades socialists have seen the divisive character of such nationalist campaigns. No serious socialist can be a committed to nationalism.

 “Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so." the historian Eric Hobsbawm has said.

Nationalism is the ideology of always putting one's nation first, often at the expense of other nations. It is not necessary to be a wealthy and powerful nation to carry out nationalistic policies and practices. Governments and corporations of every stripe engage in nationalistic practices in the name of patriotism.

The Left who support independence believe that once it has been achieved, the real fight for the future of Scotland will commence. To-day’s Left take Scotland’s radicalism for granted but go back just fifty years and a majority of Scots voted Conservative and sectarian prejudice still divided many working class communities. Go back a further fifty years or so, we find that left-wingers like Keir Hardie had to move to England to get elected.
Pre-union Scotland had its own feudal monarchy and its own pro-capitalist Protestant revolution and after 1707 its capitalist landlords, merchants and mill-owners continued to use the separate Scottish systems of law, religion and education to exploit their own people. The union with England made the Scottish ruling class a junior partner in securing the profits of colonial empire.

And today the Scottish capitalist class continue to parasitically feed off workers blood sweat and tears through the hedge funds and financial institutions of the City of London’s Square Mile and its satellite Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square. Scottish employers as a class draws on the support of the British State and does so jointly with employers in England and Wales. The economic power does not lie in Scotland. It still lies at a UK level, in Europe and around the rest of the world. Its top 20 companies are dominated by energy, particularly oil and gas multinationals and financial services corporations. With the exception of the drinks giant William Grant & Sons which is family owned, and Scottish Water which is state-owned, all the rest are public limited companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The most recent figures show that amongst larger enterprises (defined as those employing 250 people or more) 64% of employment and 78% of turnover is in enterprises where ultimate ownership and control is outside Scotland. Amongst larger firms in the manufacturing sector alone the results are even starker with 72% of employment and as much as 87% of turnover in companies owned outside of Scotland. These figures are based on Scottish registered companies only. They do not include big supermarket chains like Tesco and Asda, or military industrial companies like Rolls Royce and BAE Systems which have a huge turnover, and are major employers in Scotland but do not separately register here. The once familiar old South of Scotland Electricity Board (the SSEB) is now owned by the Spanish corporation Iberdrola and the French corporation EDF. A separate Scotland does not weaken finance capital.

Business is global. Capital flows are global. The capitalist’s first loyalty is to acquiring and expanding wealth. By the nature of their business and their lives today capitalists are inevitably pulled into a globalized world. They have much less connection and fewer ties to their national community. And their rewards are in the global world. As we witness in the recent exposures of Amazon and Starbucks and a host of other multi-nationals, Big Business has slipped the leash of national government and are no longer captive of a nation state.

In a world of globalisation, where countries are so interdependent it is near impossible to see how Scotland could be genuinely independent. Profits would most definitely continue to be being exported to London, Paris, Madrid or wherever and commercial decision will be made in these cities. Businessmen “sell out” their nation to other businessmen from abroad simply because they have more in common, in every practical sense, with other members of their class rather than the workers of their particular nationality.

The Socialist Party support neither an independent Scotland nor the status quo. Instead of wanting to separate Scottish workers from the English working class and elsewhere, recognising our shared class interests, we seek to join with working people across the world in creating a socialist alternative. Socialism, like capitalism, should know no boundaries and should look to the day when workers of all countries would become one great organisation. The answer to all the problems facing working men and women is not a flag, or a border or if powers lies in Edinburgh or London; it is the weight of the labour and trade union movement, united behind a commitment to make the politics of class, not nationality, its driving force. The priority for socialists should be common class interests not an exclusive nationalism. Independence will be the same poison but drunk from a different bottle.

The Socialist Party can certainly ascribe to James Connolly’s words when he said “For our demands most moderate are. We only want the earth.”

We're All In This Together

The recent budget with its welfare cuts and austere forecasts for the economic future must have depressed the Deputy Prime Minister and probably prompted him to take a break. 'Three days earlier, he sat stern-faced through the Coalition's latest 'we're all in it together' Budget. But with a flatlining economy and the row raging over benefits cuts, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg knew exactly where he needed to be – at his family's £7million, 20-room, Swiss ski chalet. Leaving the stress of austerity Britain behind, he jetted out with his family for an Easter getaway at the luxury villa nestling between fashionable Klosters and the resort of Davos.' (Daily Mail, 5 April) Clegg's family ski chalet has 20 rooms and is worth £7million and he has been skiing there since infancy. We don't suppose there is a problem about bedroom tax there. RD

Saudi justice

24-year-old Ali al-Khawahir will be deliberately paralysis for stabbing his friend in the back 10 years ago unless he pays his victim 1m Saudi riyals (£177,000) in compensation. diyya, blood money is paid instead of the implementation of qisas – legal retribution. Originally, the religious prescription to seek diyya in lieu of punishment was seen as a way of preventing bad blood fomenting between communities and encouraging compromise. In the modern age it commodifies justice, where the price of crime is arbitrarily determined by the state. An eye for an eye … unless you can afford to be spared. In an another case in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, a father sexually molested and murdered his five-year-old daughter, but avoided jail by paying money to her mother. It has become a way for the rich and the powerful to purchase impunity.


JEREMY PAXMAN:
You called (Saudi Arabia) a friend of the civilised world.

TONY BLAIR:
It is. In my view, what it is doing in respect of the Middle East now...

JEREMY PAXMAN:
It chops people's arms off. It tortures people.

TONY BLAIR:
They have their culture, their way of life."

 And we have larned never to bite the hand that feeds us!