Lenin’s Tomb
"Enclaves of cramped and immiserated existence".
Fuck me, I could be the new Dickens you know.
Lenin,
Elections are educational, middle class twats like you get to walk around council flats and see how the rest of us really live
then you can return to your bedsite/flatshare and moan about broken lifts in council flats and what fine noble people those working class chapies are
we just ignore you lot: new labour, respect, swp, etc just middle-class student types or mandelson wannabes, all the same when you get down to it
God, what a fanny.
Anyway, I hope the campaigning went well, Lenny.
You should see it up here. Canvassing for the SSP recently has been similar (I'd imagine) to asking people if they'd mind flogging themselves in the middle of the street.
boots - quite right. Ordinary working class voters show no interest in us middle class studenty tossers etc. They're much more interested in you middle class studenty tossers.
Callum - hope the SSP is picking up a bit? What's with the hostility? It's not the (admittedly terrible) Sheridan episode having its effect?
"hope the SSP is picking up a bit?"
Hardly.
The branches, once vibrant, are dying on their knees and the sectarianism is reaching critical levels.
The only good thing from my point of view is the relative vibrancy of the SSY.
"It's not the (admittedly terrible) Sheridan episode having its effect?"
It is, aye. People still love Tommy. He's the best working class socialist of his generation and the party hacks decided to stab him in the back and replace him with Fox. Don't get me wrong, Fox's a decent guy, but most people on the doorsteps either have a go because we got rid of Tommy or they don't know who Fox is.
It's not good.
I think we'll be lucky to have 2 MSP's after the 2007 elections.
This is from Boots' site:
"The working class is people dependent upon a wage or salary. This includes: ... Students who will need employment upon graduation."
How many proles in your 'party', then Boots?
I assumed Boots just put that in to emphasize that he's so working class, his homepage link is workingclass.net regardless of the content.
Callum - that sucks. There must, however, be a way back.
glenn - I expect 'boots' is an anarchist, and not inclined to parties and those sorts of Leninist machinations. There are sadly a number of lefties who are so self-hating as to think their ideology is abstract and middle-class and beyond the interest of your Ordinary Decent Working Class families, or who are so opportunistic as to try and smuggle their ideology into the very designation 'working class' without doing the necessary work on the ground.
Keep up the good work Len I,ev been canvassing for respect in Birmingham. Heres hoping for a breakthrough!
Birmingham should be perfect ground for a breakthrough after the results last time, David. Good luck.
I think Boots' site is linked to the (or a) SPGB, who would not claim to be anarchist, though they are very close in some ways.
Anyway, it's rarely worth trying to engage with someone who uses the term 'middle class' as a general insult.
It is a shame about the trajectory of the SSP. A couple years ago they were the ideal model of left allignment for quite a few in england.
It looks like the story of the election will be a BNP breakthrough. I worry that if I work Respect this will aid this. What shall I do, lenin?
Concerned Citizen, not a Lenin of any sort, historical or blogger, but check this out:
Admittedly, it's essentially saying "Vote Respect", but "Don't Vote Nazi" is priority number one. Which council elections are realistically under the threat of a BNP win, let alone breakthrough, though? Any links based on polls?
In the Canadian parliamentary elections this year, there was a really helpful site set up that let you see whether a specific riding had a close enough race to merit strategic voting against a party you really disliked (ok, though it let you choose, I'm pretty sure most were checking it regarding the Conservatives).
Hmm, didn't realize that links weren't allowed...anyway, I was linking to a post at Histomat.
" Like Marmite, we're either loved or loathed, and like Millwall, we don't care."
And so "respect" put up candidates in 3% of English seats.
Glad you've been on your journey of discovery today.
Where have you been for the previous couple of decades?
I suspect boots is a troll rather than an SPGB'er. At least, I hope no-one connected with the SPGB would use the absurdly un-Marxist term, "middle class."
And what's with his suggestion that living in a bedsit is a sign of bourgeois luxury? In my experience, a lot of people living in bedsits are those who, for whatever reason, have fallen through the cracks in council/social housing provision, facing lousy conditions, abusive landlords, and insecure tenancy. If anything, they may be worse off than people living in council flats.
Naah, bedsits is for gormy studenty losers you see, middle class radicals who discover Trotsky at Oxford and remain steadfastly socialist until they get their first job in the city.
That's the thinking process, if you can call that, behind "boots"'s use of the word.
Lenin:
"Well, those who are primarily concerned by the BNP threat must neither work or vote for Respect, and instead hold their nose and vote Labour. The Labour party are the only people who can beat the BNP in most of these areas."
A joke, surely?
The BNP is a distraction at best, something to fight when they pop up locally, but the usual nonsense about "vote the crook to keep the racist out" only benefits those parties who let the racist exist in the first place...
Well good luck to RESPECT in the local elections from comrades in Greece.
I was talking to a disillusioned leftie (a Brit and a Londoner) today about RESPECT standing in lots of seats in East London and he was amazed and pleased.
He rang his relatives up to tell them to vote RESPECT rather than not vote anymore. (Labour voters in the past).
So its West Ham for the Cup and RESPECT to sweep Tower Hamlets, in no particular order.
was about to post but Martin Wisse got their first and said it all. Have to find fault in the term humble plumber as having worked with many London plumbers I'm sure that none of them are humble. Criminal; maybe, elusive; certainly, miserable; often. humble; never.
I think we'll be lucky to have 2 MSP's after the 2007 elections
The SSP is reasonably well respected in Scotland even by people who vote for other parties. You don't hear the "loony left" epithet being shouted by people here very much. People who vote Libdem or SNP are ofter pretty sympathetic to the SSP or so it seems to me.
Waving the 'prolier than thou' flag atr the first opportunity is pretty much a sure sign that Boots has a little to do with real-life working class people as possible
The post from "lenin" saying "vote Labour to beat the BNP" was a forgery and has been deleted as such.
The SSP is reasonably well respected in Scotland even by people who vote for other parties. You don't hear the "loony left" epithet being shouted by people here very much. People who vote Libdem or SNP are ofter pretty sympathetic to the SSP or so it seems to me.
Hmmm. "Pretty sympathetic". Yes, I'm sure the SSP will be riding to power on a wave of "pretty sympathetic". What exactly is the point of being respected by people who won't vote for you?
Whereas, as lenin correctly put it, Respect is hated with a firey passion by the supporters of bourgeois parties, but that doesn't matter a damn if they do end up sweeping the East End.
Hello Lenin and everyone, this is some remarkable blog forum you've got going on here.
We've got a bit of a discussion going on re BNP risk in Tower Hamlets on the London Strategic Voter website (www.strategicvoter.org.uk), as well as loads of other discussions about the London local elections.
We've worked quite hard on the site and always interested to hear feedback. You're all welcome to visit and inform the debates. Actually you're not. We don't want that Pete bloke or his clones.
off topic but striking:
In Nablus, demonstrators shouted: "Mishaal has sold out to Syria and Iran."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/
...12779102075.htm
A useful article on Mishaal's 'civil war' speech is here:
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archiv...406/
report1.htm
Hi, I was there too yesterday canvassing for Respect along with a few friends. I am going to do the same in Tottenham today. Will you be there by any chance? My greatest wish would be to be able to actually vote Respect myself in the upcoming local elections, but we don't have a candidate standing in our area. Maybe one day. Did you listen to Galloway's radion show yesterday evening? I'll be glad when the elections are over and he can get back to dicussing political issues - when he is out of "purdah".
About the reception we got from people on the doorstep - yes it was indeed very welcoming. Amazingly so in some cases - and certainly not just from ethnic minorities as some people think. I think we had a less than hearty welcome from maybe two households but nothing much. The people we met yesterday overwhelmingly either liked or loved Respect. Let's hope that actually translates into votes!
From NYC...Best of luck to Respect in the election! BTW, the exposure of the 'fake sheik' made it into the nytimes and a bunch of other newspapers! The left's intervention in the congressional elections here is much more modest, but the gparty is running some good campaigns, especially todd chretien , todd4senate.org
peace and justice,
andrew
I am a former Bethnal Green resident (a middle-class studenty type) and I think local people are sick of being lied to, first by Thatcher and then by Blair. They are sick of the property boom which makes it impossible to stay in the East End (and locals are very proud and fiercely defensive of their area - the only time my barber left the East End was to go to Spain on holiday). The contrast between wealth and poverty is not just about the gentrification of the area, but the knowledge that billions of pounds are being traded every day literally a few yards away yet the streets are a mess and drug dealers are loitering outside the tube station trying to push drugs onto their kids.
There is also a racial divide, which I don't think Respect is tackling. Many don't like the Bangladeshis, although they don't have a problem with other racial groups. It's the insularity of the community and its way of life (not just Islam) that emphasise the differences between them and the rest. East Enders regard themselves as a diverse but unified community, but see the Bangladeshis as refusing to "fit in" (even if the Bangladeshis themselves are not actually causing any problems). I think that unless you come up with an answer to this issue, unless you can recognise this and state how there is a socialist East End answer to racial divisions, then I don't think you can defeat the BNP beast. You need to give people a reason to vote Respect based on the cultural values of the East End - for instance, how voting Respect could help integrate the community and represent it as a whole. The East End is not a natural BNP area, the community is not naturally racist, but there is a deep-seated animosity towards those that appear to segregate themselves from the community and seemingly run shops exclusively for themselves. You MUST deal with this and outwit the BNP.
Another thing: East End pride is deep. If you go around saying it is a collection of shitty housing estates, people will not appreciate it. They don't want to be a study into Dickensian-style poverty. I think they would rather have a party that wants to bring out the best that their community offers than one that points out all the faults they have to endure. They have pride, they cherish common sense and straight-talking, they want to be listened to and not lectured and above all things they want hope.
Also, there is great resentment of Labour and a perception that they are in thrall to some middle-class elite. The way Labour speaks to people in the East End is condescending and with the lanuage of a world that they - and most of us - do not inhabit: "initiatives", "partnerships", etc. What they need is an appreciation of their problems and a practical and common sense way to solve them - they are not interested in ideology and if you start quoting Lenin at them you will get and deserve a punch in the mush. Unfortunately, when I lived there, the only party that was really understood the way people think politically was the BNP. Respect has to change this situation and although I dislike the SWP, I hope it does make a difference.
The chaotic torsions of addresses in London - and the East End in particular - are legion, and legendary.
I can agree with that out of personal experience. I've been lost a few times. The problem is you get these really narrow back roads. Though I've faced the same problems in other areas, East London just stands out. Personally the best area not to get lost in is probably Kingston. Anyone have ideas of the worst areas in London to get lost?
I see the gherkin in the pic. A bit uncanny how close east london is to the centre.
Good to see you yesterday, Lenny, but a pity you dumped gritty proletarian Whitechapel for the leafy middle-class enclave of Weavers.
Re: Dan and racial divisions: what's been striking is the way in which the local political structures interact to reinforce these - though I will say that, despite the divisions imposed, the East End is a long way from the seething cauldron of hatred (etc, etc, insert cliche here) that Michael Young's last book seeks to portray.
The Labour Party's local operation is an interesting case here: they run virtually two different campaigns - not just in terms of the propaganda they produce (or produce under an assumed name, as in Shadwell), which is increasingly and explicitly communalist - but in terms of the organisation itself. Nice, well-meaning (poss. "middle-class") white "outsiders" are despatched to Bow and Bethnal Green and then told terrible stories about what Respect are doing in Whitechapel, Shadwell and points south. A real the-natives-are getting-restless situation; I've heard some really ludicrous nonsense regarding the so-called "Bengali vote" from Labour Party members.
Respect, by stark contrast, has genuinely broken down those barriers in the way it operates - of necessity, if you think that (eg, sorry to keep referring to it) Whitechapel is >50% non-Bengali, and you don't know how the turnout's going to go, you need to have united message across the ward to get anywhere. So it's anti-war everywhere, build more council houses everywhere, end corruption everywhere - and so on. (Closest Labour get to this is telling everyone they're going to issue more ASBOs.)
(NB: keep an eye out for the postal votes. There's a statement out from Birmingham Respect later today, I believe.)
Personally the best area not to get lost in is probably Kingston.
meant to say
Personally the best area to get lost in is probably Kingston.
Its easy to find your way through that area.
Meaders, they sent me out to that vicinity to start with on account of my unusually effette demeanour and apparel, but I promise I did go off to the nittier grittier areas in the afternoon.
oh, puh leeze
Is Pete Pete?
On Nepal, this is good: http://www.insn.org/
Pete, you're classic. Just classic. I'm sure you're actually just lenin in disguise, trying to make us laugh with a bit of delicious satire. At least, I hope so: I don't like to believe that anyone's as foolish as yourself.
D, those are really good comments, hope Respect takes them on board.
Meaders: Yes, electioneering is communalist in the East End. It is the symptom of using marketing gimmicks in which your message changes from place to place to suit each particular vote "market". The LibDems are particularly renowned for this. However, I'm not convinced it works.
In 1997, I heard Bangladeshi Tories rallying behind Muhammad Chowdhury (a brainless little shit and one of Fariah Allam's boyfriends) calling Oona King a black Jew whore (in Bengali so the media couldn't understand). They were even shouting it when John Major visited East London Mosque - Major was oblivious, but I was astounded. This kind of campaigning may have won over a certain group of fundamentalist Bangladeshis, but most voted for Oona.
Bengalis are not naturally communalist, but their politics are highly clientelist in nature (something I think that Respect has failed to grasp, based on what I have read about their candidate selection from the Weekly Worker). Contrary to popular perception, a Bengali will vote for a non-Bengali if they judge it to be in their own interests and if that candidate has leading community members behind him. As they are an immigrant population, local small businessmen who have sponsored many Bangladeshis to come and work in the restaurants or those who work for the community in some (eg doctors) wield immense power through their personal networks. These networks stretch back to Bangladesh and they are the foundation of Bengali society, which relies heavily on community leaders in the various crises that regularly hit Bangladesh when the state is incapable of stepping in. Winning support from the Bangladeshi community will not come about simply by talking about the Iraq War and the evils of Blair, but is about serving the interests of that community and its networks. I don't know how Respect, particularly its SWP contingent, can maintain Leninist ideological commitments with the ground realities of the East End and the necessities of community alliance building.
The problem is how to run a campaign that genuinely unites the entire East End behind a single message based on common problems. It is a trick Labour and the LibDems have not really mastered. It will be a learning curve for the SWP - which has not until recently had a good chance to promote its message in mainstream society and be confronted with the response of those it purports to represent - and I hope it changes that party for the better. There will be failures and successes and if the SWP is serious and not just a bunch of whingers, it will become more self-reflective and less arrogant.
I don't know how Respect, particularly its SWP contingent, can maintain Leninist ideological commitments with the ground realities of the East End and the necessities of community alliance building.
The answer is, we shouldn't remain attached to Leninism. We should have a resolutely left-wing programme, but going on about dead Russians will not win us any votes in the East End or anywhere else. If Respect takes control of the council, and the council takes action on the issues that matter to the community, they will get behind us, and our support will grow. If Respect takes control of the council and tries to apply the politics of Petrograd 1917 to London 2006, we will lose the respect of the communities and degenerate into just another irrelevant Trotskyite party.
I think Galloway understands this. I hope the SWP understand it too.
(I can already hear the cries of "Reformist!"...)
"Bengalis are not naturally communalist, but their politics are highly clientelist in nature ... "
I think all politics are "highly clientelist in nature".
Please note that Pete is banned. Don't answer him, don't acknowledge him, just ignore him. I know it's difficult, but he is deleted as soon as his comments are spotted. His whole futile effort shouldn't be adorned with your valuable attention.
JonoB et al: Respect is not a Leninist formation. The SWP is, and we make no apologies about our tradition and our politics. Respect is an alliance between reformists and revolutionaries, and as such its politics are radical and grassroots as well as electoral.
D - it's a mistake to describe Bengalis tout court as clientelist. Small businessmen certainly do business this way - we've hardly been shy in acknowledging this.
Other thing is, you profoundly misunderstand Leninism if you think that we have been on the doorsteps arguing for an immediate transfer of power to the workers. First of all, that is not an immediate prospect. Secondly, partly as a consequence of the former, it would not be congruent with Respect's electoral appeal. Thirdly, I think Ken McLeod had a point when he described Leninism as realpolitik for the poor. We are interested in alliances that will advance the interests of the working class, and as such we have been involved in repeated alliances and united fronts where revolutionary politics have not been to the fore. That's quite natural for a revolutionary party operating in non-revolutionary circumstances. Everyone knows what the SWP stands for, but those who work with us know that we don't impose our prerogatives and priorities on them.
Lastly - don't simply believe anything you read in Weekly Worker. It's a deeply sectarian and often inaccurate publication, as I have discovered through personal experience.
Lenin- I know that, and I never claimed otherwise. I believe our diversity is why we have been successful.
My point is that to be effective we (Respect) need to adopt reformist policies without compromising our principles. It's good that we have a revolutionary backbone to the party, and ultimately we should push for revolutionary change, but we should also be advancing policies that will make a real difference to people’s lives, not just talk about the revolution. Especially in local elections.
This is not a criticism; I think this is what we're already doing! I'm just saying we should take on board some of the comments that D made about how to appeal to the community as a whole.
Sorry, just read your other post. I quite agree.
(btw was Weekly Worker the one calling for a "Worker's Bomb" for Iran? I think I got into an argument with one of those guys on the March 18th demo)
... I stopped reading "the Hello! magazine of the left" a while ago, but surely not even Cloudy would be arguing for a workers' bomb for Iran, as absolutely no-one is under the impression that Iran is a degenerated workers' state?
You're probably right... One extreme left newspaper, being sold by a guy dressed like he'd just stepped out of Ten Days That Shook The World was arguing that if Iran got the bomb it would be better for the Iranian working class as it would reduce the chance of a US attack.
Which is of course horseshit. If Iran had a bomb it might deter the US, but a bomb has to be developed, and the minute Iran makes steps towards developing a bomb Tehran will get a close up look at all those lovely missiles the pentagon is just itching to use, which will hardly benefit the Iranian working class. In any case, I hope no-one in their right mind would want any country to have a nuclear bomb.
"It's good that we have a revolutionary backbone to the party, and ultimately we should push for revolutionary change, but we should also be advancing policies that will make a real difference to people’s lives, not just talk about the revolution."
Isn't revolution a policy that would really change life in Britain? Much more than a new bus route for Clapham or what have you...
Yeah, but a new bus route in Clapham is a hell of a lot easier for a local council to implement than nationwide proletariat revolution. I'm just saying we need a bit of both.
i wud gladly eat both my feet if i thought it would help get respect elected... sadly i dont think it will do much good so am going canvassing again tommorow.
heard that there were 300 odd ppl out in east london on saturday. foookin nora indeed
Heather B
I'm afraid Mushroom Cloud does argue for an Iranian bomb.
I stand corrected. I assumed that the Sparts only supported H-bombs for "deformed workers' states". Apparently they support H-bombs for *everyone*. Which at least has the virtue of consistency, although it looks more like Posadism than Trotskyism.
The BNP must have the highest media coverage/votes ratio of all the parties.
My sneeking suspicion is that the NewLabourite mainstream press have deliberately inflated its credibility in order to frighten genuinely decent people into having to vote NewLabour as the "Left" (don't laugh) alternative.
I bet Blairites, Tories and LibDems alike would all *love* it if the only alternative to them was fascism.
My impression is that Cameron & Co. have made a deal with the BNP, on the basis of the theory that the votes it will take will be primarily Labour ones.
Incidentally, although of course Iran has no intention of developing a bomb, perish the thought, it would have a deterrent effect if they did, as do those of North Korea. If Iraq had really had WMD of any kind, the UKUSA would have thought twice about invading it.
Needless to say according to my analysis statements like this from Cameron are just blinds:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
...xportaltop.html
Hello Glenn and others
Boots is a member of the Socialist Party of Canada, a sister party of the SPGB. Their page, "capitalism's gravediggers", is an independet piece of work that isn't officially endorsed.
Re. would the SPGB use "middle class". No, of course we wouldn'r. As is well known, we argue those that are referred to as "middle class" are workers too despite their work being salaried white collar work.
As for saying the SPGB are close to anarchists. Come again? The Socialist Party will be standing in the coming elections and has always argued that the working class needs to seize the powers of the state through class conscious political action - in Britain that means the vote and elections. Finally, with the abolition of classes witht the conversion of the means of production into common ownership, the need for a state machine goes.
We would of course say "the state is abolished" rather than use Engels' famous formulation of the state withering away, which is perhaps where the confusion with anarchism arises.
I hope that clears up matters.
Lenbo, you must have done Spitalfields and Banglatown, which was nice. I helped out round Mile End and Globe Town, where there was a joke nazi candidate. Between the blanket coverage for the nazis and the Labour party's generally going round playing different ethnic groups off each other (shrieking about asian communalism in Tower Hamlets while not only denegrating Lindsey German as a white, female socialist in Newham but doing a deal with Hizb-ut Tahrir in Shadwell, as well as letting them join Labour students) I found that Respect was still ahead on my canvass and that there was no enthusiasm for Labour, but there was a small but significant group of hardened racists who had raised their heads in the last month. Whereas, last year, the racists on the block kept their heads down, now they're out and proud.
on the basis of the theory that the votes it will take will be primarily Labour ones
Actually the BNP gets votes from all three parties, and more from the Tories and Lib Dems than from Labour. The notion that when working class Labour voters get pissed off they switch en masse to the BNP is a myth - the pattern is rather that they stay at home, while their more affluent neighbours come out and vote for the Nazis.
But disgruntled Old Labourites would be more inclined to come out and grudgingly vote NewLabour in the face of the rise of the BNP, don't you think?
As i say, this is why the NewLabourite press have worked hard since around 2001 to transform the public attitude towards the BNP from not even giving it a thought to "well, they may be extreme but they may have a point you know".
Although, on the face of it, that BBC Donal MacIntyre undercover investigation into the BNP was pointing out how bad they were, if you actually watched it the whole thrust of the programme seemed to be that the BNP at least had an answer to "the race problem", albeit an extreme one.
I was alarmed the following day when i went into work and quite a few 30s-40s lower middle class people (the types who read the Mail and the Express) were saying that, having seen the MacIntyre documentary, they could actually see where the BNP were coming from (??!!).
Similarly, that BBC undercover investigation into racism in the police, if you actually watched it, was trying to put the message across that police racism is not endemic but is really just "a few bad apples spoiling their otherwise spotless image".
I actually think it would be a good thing if the BNP took control over a local authority. Most of their candidates appear to have convictions for aggravated assault and they lack any real commitment to actually running council facilities - many don't bother even turning up to council meetings. They are an inept bunch of boneheads and if they ever won power in a local authority, they would be sunk within a few years. As one Jewish Holocaust survivor told me, "they are not neo-Nazis, they are fake Nazis" - her implication was that, like Prince Harry, they love the uniform but their depth of political understanding is very shallow. I want people to see beneath the veil of lies, deceit and hatred to see that, of all parties, the BNP is the worst in power because they are the most idiotic bunch of goons.
I was canvassing for Respect on Saturday and as much as it may sound like Lenin is having a whinge, it was one of the hardest days work of my life. Obviously, I am a student, but still, an effort. Luckily, the response was quite good. The only hassle I had was off one guy who went on a long anti-Respect rant (I stood there laughing) and a middle aged woman who looked like she was going to knife me. I'd fucking love it if we won a council - I'd scream my tiny lungs out in joy. Then we can start to look like a fairly serious party, instead of most just associating us with Galloway.
Come on now, D. Would you have said that in Germany in the late 20s/early 30s? 'Just let em into power -- then people will see what a bunch of goons they are.'
"it's a mistake to describe Bengalis tout court as clientelist. Small businessmen certainly do business this way - we've hardly been shy in acknowledging this."
Clientelism is strong, Lenny. It is an important aspect of Bangladeshi society, a survival mechanism. In return for patronage, community leaders receive unquestioning loyalty. Patronage in the East End Bangladeshi community comes in the form of work visas and housing. Back home, it is the only way impoverished communities have survived floods, famine and war. I have a friend who runs a restaurant in Banglatown who is a Respect supporter. As he votes Respect, so do his employees who are loyal to him because he was responsible for bringing them over from Sylhet. No-one is intimidated into voting one way or another, there is no fraud (at least, not as far as this business was concerned), it is just the way things work. The trouble is that this is misunderstood by political parties and by the wider community. What makes a community leader switch their support from Labour to Respect? It is not simply a matter of the war. It is the atrocious and corrupt way in which Tower Hamlets is run - particularly the abysmal housing situation (Oona King told me back in 1997 that her constituency contained a ward with the worst housing conditions in Europe and I don't think much has changed since then). And on that basis, I think everyone in the East End is unified. Housing, crime, drug abuse, education and racism are the main issues in Tower Hamlets and they unify people far more than the Iraq War.
Respect has to have practical answers to these issues. East Enders are not impressed by Grand Theory, they want results and they want to know that the people they vote for will make a genuine difference. It's not enough to moan about Blair, it is important to state what you are going to do.
I wish Respect the best of luck. The most optimistic result we're looking at is a LibDem-Respect coalition. But I think even a handful of committed councillors could make a genuine difference, even if they are in opposition.
Gardening, book clubs, lawn bowls, bungee jumping, marijuana cultivation, swingers clubs or SAGA holidays.
More fruitful retirement pursuits for Norman Geras to replace the futile Euston Manifesto.
Come on now, D. Would you have said that in Germany in the late 20s/early 30s? 'Just let em into power -- then people will see what a bunch of goons they are.'
"After Hitler, us" as the lunatic KPD line had it. Not good. Anyway.
There is a tightly-knit political culture in TH that New Labour has mercilessly exploited and cynically cultivated over the last 12 years, but I don't think it's due to "Bangladeshi culture" per se - I think it's something that starts out as a good way to defend a community against racism and hostility on the outside - the virutes of solidarity, mutual support, and all the rest - but that can (and has been) adopted by existing local political forces.
What's changing at the moment is that there's quite a backlash emerging against the way New Labour has exploited this, a backlash which is against the explicit corruption and theft at one end, but also the general sense that everything is decided through back-scratching and friends-of-friends. Some of this has come through in the local elections, I think - it's been interesting to see how the campaign in Shadwell (and, to a much lesser extent, Whitechapel) has quite deliberately broken with the "village politics" for more formal campaigning (systematic canvassing, public meetings, street rallies). As I said before, given the fragmentation of the Labour vote, it would be grave mistake for Respect to approach these elections on any other basis - we simply cannot rely on the village vote to deliver council seats, especially as the structures behind that vote appear to be breaking down somewhat.
On unifying issues, and practicalities: housing, housing, housing. All else stems from this. Most overcrowded borough in Europe and all that. Traditionally, it's been presented as a race issue (the Lib Dems being notoriously disgusting about this); of late, we've had New Labour "affordable housing" soft-soaping (this means one- and two-bed flats stuck on the bottom of yuppie apartments: not much use for, say, an average-size family, and barely "affordable" for anyone else.) Respect's broken with that by hammering home the demand for investment in council housing (there's £45m annually from council rents that council essentially just sits on!), and an end to stock transfer - ie part-privatisation of existing council stock.
I said it on my blog, but I don't think Respect will win control of TH council. Maybe just natural pessimism, but I think the vote is going to go all over the place. Even if we don't, however, a strong and credible opposition to New Labour-Lib Dem-Tory policy (indistinguishable on any practical basis) will be of immense benefit to the area.
The most optimistic result we're looking at is a LibDem-Respect coalition.
Labour's been talking this one up, but we wouldn't touch 'em with a barge-pole. Nasty, nasty people with a dismal history locally. Most likely is a "Grand Coalition": Labour-Tory-Lib Dem vs. Respect.
Meaders: The level of Labour-LibDem hostility in Tower Hamlets means that they would never be able to secure a coalition. I remember angry exchanges after a senior Labour councillor accused LibDem leader Janet Ludlow of taking drugs. The war between them is really bitter and I think the LibDems would actively seek a coalition with Respect. No way would they align with Labour.
As for the money generated through council house sales and rent profits, I think there are rules set by central government preventing councils from investing them in new housing stock. This is a complaint I have heard from councillors of all parties. The affordable housing element that is tagged onto all planning applications is similarly the result of central government policy-making. There is not a lot Respect could do about it even if it had control over the council.
The level of Labour-LibDem hostility in Tower Hamlets means that they would never be able to secure a coalition.
They don't hate them nearly as much as they hate us. Just wait and see.
As for the money generated through council house sales and rent profits, I think there are rules set by central government preventing councils from investing them in new housing stock... The affordable housing element that is tagged onto all planning applications is similarly the result of central government policy-making. There is not a lot Respect could do about it even if it had control over the council.
There are some rules about what can be done with the money. It remains to be seen if they will be enforced; George Lansbury is the model here, frankly.
There are both central and GLA (Ken-led) targets on "affordable" housing as part of planning gain. Fine, but we shouldn't pretend it is addressing the issue. The big problem with planning is the way TH council have rolled over and had their tummy tickled by various developers for the last 15 years or so, with sweet FA being delivered in planning gains (even the developers recognise this: I was talking to one on Friday who couldn't believe how slack they had been on prime development land.) It's obvious we could do more here - youth facilities, for example, are dire (partly as a result of mismanagement/corruption, botched semi-privatisation a few years back has really had an impact) and planning gain could be squeezed in this direction. (New Labour would rather bang on about ASBOs, naturally.)
There is an underlying problem with councils simply not having that much functional power any more (thank you, Mrs Thatcher) - a Respect council, if it is serious about delivering for local people, will be pushed onto a radical path a lot quicker than previous reformers.
Actually the BNP gets votes from all three parties, and more from the Tories and Lib Dems than from Labour.
-- I find this quite interesting, and your explanation sounds plausible ; is there any evidence for it though?
Meaders: I agree with you on the way Tower Hamlets is selling out to developers, but if Respect is to get any power in Tower Hamlets (and I think it won't get power) it will face the same constraints that every local authority faces up and town the country. Thatcher, Major and Blair have tied local authorities hands so tight that there is little room for manoeuvre - particularly on housing. Yet, there is a lot they could good. One TH council tenant (living in a dire block of flats behind Safeway off Roman Road) told me that he found green slime oozing out of the walls, but no-one in the council would act. The tenants wanted the place pulled down, but as far as I know it is still standing. When I was canvassing for Labour in 1997, someone tried to kill me by throwing a Pot Noodle at me from the top of that block - missed me by a couple of inches. The green slime issue could have been easily solved, but it wasn't - no wonder they tried to kill me.
Having worked as a youth worker (in Essex), I think there is plenty of waste in youth services. They remove one set of managers in a cost-cutting exercise, sell off youth centres after running them down and then realise that there is a problem with "idle" young people hanging around parks in "gangs" and set up useless "initiatives" (stupid word) to deal with the problem, employing more managers, etc, etc. The problem is that councillors and bureaucrats don't look beyond the current financial year. I don't think the situation would be much different in TH, probably worse.
The problem in TH is laziness and sloppy thinking by Labour as much as corruption and bad governance. I hope that Respect acts as a kind of watchdog against poor council management.
Good luck all
Big Al
Dublin
is there any evidence for it though?
Yup, the latest Rowntree Report into the BNP (which is actually much better than the lurid media hype would suggest). Other gems include the fact that the BNP vote is positively correlated to income, richer wards have a higher fascist vote than poorer ones within a council.
Download it here (PDF 776KB):
http://www.jrct.org.uk/core/docu...load.asp?
id=140
Rowan - I've seen a few reports supporting bat's point, so let me just dig around...
Yeah, according to Searchlight it is 'traditional Conservative voters who are making the switch':
In the January by-election [in Mount Tabor], the Conservative candidate limped home in fourth place with only 214 votes. As recently as May 2000, the Tories took the ward with over 650 votes.
In Pellan, where the Tory vote usually stands at around 150, they received just 19 votes. The BNP took 144. Similarly, Mount Tabor saw the Conservatives poll 79 votes where they would normally take 250. Again, these votes were lapped up by the BNP, which took 170 in the area. These figures are remarkable given the hardline nazi past of the candidate. That the switch was seemingly so easy is a deep cause for concern.
These figures reflect growing evidence that it is among Conservative voters that the BNP is attracting most support. Its best vote in Burnley came in Cliviger with Worsthorne, arguably the most affluent ward in Burnley.
In the Bradford ward of Eccleshill, the BNP got most of its votes in the polling boxes representing the more affluent areas of the ward. In Oldham, the BNP polled 29% in Royton North, a more prosperous ward compared to the others the BNP was contesting, despite very little campaigning. In London, the BNP secured one of its best votes in the Hillingdon ward of Harehills, another traditional Conservative area.
http://www.searchlightmagazine.c...mplate&
story=21
bat - looking at that link you provide, it appears to be the middling group that is most likely to vote BNP, with C1 and C2 groups more likely than AB or DE to support the Nazis. Of course, these are very shaky designations anyway, as any fool who has done market research knows.
From the report:
we found
a significant positive correlation (of 0.28) only for social
class C2 which confirms the view that the roots of their
appeal are among the lower middle classes. For social class
E, we found a negative correlation of 0.25 which indicates
that they receive little or no support in places with high
numbers of state beneficiaries and the poorest workers.
Certainly, where the BNP did stand, they were less likely
to do well in wards with the highest level of residents in this group.
Basically, the lower middle-class - shopkeepers, self-employed painters, brickies, plumbers and cab drivers - are once more confirmed as the Nazis social base.
The correlation with educational achievement is also interesting. BNP spokesman 'Dr' Phil Edwards (or Stuart Russell as he used to be called) once had a very unpleasant rant at some student interviewers (don't ask me why they interviewed him):
“I don’t have much time for students mate. They are no use to society, they should be weeded out. A lot of students are dissipating, drinking to excess, drug taking, and the music they listen to is ghastly.”
Talk about resentment. This could be the same Stuart Russell who wrote to the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opini...1/14/
dt1401.xml
Why did he change his name from Stuart Russell to Phil Edwards? And what is his doctorate in?
"the lower middle-class - shopkeepers, self-employed painters, brickies, plumbers and cab drivers"
I know a London black cab driver who is active in the SWP - he's white and married to an Indian and speak fluent Hindi. So, don't knock the cabbies. As for painters, plumbers and brickies, after being conned by some, I agree they are a bunch of Nazis who should be shot along with electricians, lawyers and estate agents. Or perhaps we could just extend the Dangerous Dogs act to include these professions and neuter the bastards.
That demographoic also nicely corresponds with the Daily Mail's demographics.
You don't hear the "loony left" epithet being shouted by people here very much. People who vote Libdem or SNP are ofter pretty sympathetic to the SSP or so it seems to me.
Dunno if I'd agree with that. In my experience (and I've known a few active Lib Dems, I'm sorry to say) the pejorative phrase "Trots" gets bandied about far too much. I think the other parties started to take the SSP a bit more seriously when they got 6 MSPs elected, but they've always been seen by the public as a one man party, and a Glasgow-centric party. I always voted for them when I was in Scotland, and still would do if I lived there now, but shafting Tommy was a bad move and will probably finish them.
As for the money generated through council house sales and rent profits, I think there are rules set by central government preventing councils from investing them in new housing stock. This is a complaint I have heard from councillors of all parties. The affordable housing element that is tagged onto all planning applications is similarly the result of central government policy-making. There is not a lot Respect could do about it even if it had control over the council.
This is true. Local councils have to give a proportion of their rent income back to central Government, who then redistribute it to 'needy' boroughs - mostly in London, I've been told (so Tower Hamlets presumably do quite well out of that arrangement). Money from Council house sales also goes back to central Government. Labour have made it clear the only way this situation can be changed is if the local authority's housing department is privatised, part-privatised, or transferred to the voluntary sector. Respect wouldn't be able to change that - not until they win a Westminster election!
with C1 and C2 groups more likely than AB or DE to support the Nazis
Exactly the same group in which all the ringleaders from 'firms' of football casuals are found. Fascist thuggery is a white-collar thang, it would appear.
bunch of Nazis who should be shot
You missed out joiners ;-)
One physically threatened me recently in my own living room, because I wouldn't pay him in full before he'd finished the job (did that once before, never saw the guy again). He even gave me a bullshit line about "having two kids to feed" when the cvnt made more in a day than I make in a week. Tradesmen are the fvcking bourgeousie as far as I'm concerned, and come the revolution, they'll all be shot. With bullets that don't do the job properly, leaving them rolling around in agony - at which point I'll charge them £50 to come round 3 days later and finish them off with a blunt instrument.
[takes deep breath]
Sorry about that.
As you were.
Given it was to be the big day out in Tower Hamlets for Nu Labour on Saturday - did anyone spot them? At one point in Spitalfields and Banglatown ward there was a couple of people studiously pouring over lists of names and stuff, but they were making a delivery.
So how many did they mobilise for Respect-bashing? Or am I right in thinking that this kind of behaviour, even in Nu Labour, is restricted to a few keyboard warriors?
If anyone else would like the Respect canvassing experience in TH, feel free to roll up to the Respect office in Club Row, E1 on any weekday at 5pm.
I love that students quote.
Thanks Bat, I shall read that Roundtree thing in toto.
But - Len - if Searchlight told me it was raining, I would break out the sun screen.
I live in Maghull on Merseyside. It is the lower-middle class centre of the universe - the type of nasty aspirational little shit-heap upon which the foundations of the Thatcher legacy were built. Just the sort of place where the BNP wouldn't do too badly.
It made number 37 in the Idler's Book of Crap Towns:
http://idler.co.uk/crap/?page_id=113
Indeed, cab drivers get special attention in the BNP's local elections manifesto. The party will apparently undertake to ensure, where local councils license cab firms, that the ownership/drivership of said firms "bears the closest possible relationship to the average make-up of the local population".
I believe BNP big-wig Mick Treacy is a cabbie. I seem to recall something about him saying he wouldn't have an Asian in the back of his cab.
My landlord in the East End was a black cab driver - he earned a hell of a lot, bought property and owned a mineral water company. You could never shut him up, but he wasn't a racist - he was always proud of the fact that he was brought up with "Greeks, Jews and Blacks" and I think the same goes for many people in the East End, at least the ones I knew. In my experience, people in the East End like the diversity. They don't like people who are lazy, dealing drugs or arrogant.
If you're out canvassing at the Bow end of Roman Road (off Grove Road), go to Gary's Fish Bar (run by Kyriakos - no-one could pronounce his name, so they call him Gary). It's the best chippy in London.
"I believe BNP big-wig Mick Treacy is a cabbie. I seem to recall something about him saying he wouldn't have an Asian in the back of his cab."
His local authority has a legal obligation to remove his cab license for that....
D - well, my partner's Greek, so I reckon I can get my tongue around Kyiakos. So to speak.
lenin
Don't forget his r.
Gary's Fish Bar is indeed wonderful.
Oh don't worry anticapitalista, I'll roll my tongue round his r. I'll take a good look at his Ps and Qs while I'm at it.
http://www.comedy-zone.net/image...arx-
groucho.jpg
Yup, I know him too. I think he's also a buhddist, which makes 3 SWP buhddists I know of.
Ps. Trolls, what you don't know is that, actually, the SWP is secretly formenting a buhddofascist conspiracy in conjuntion with Richard Gere, Roberto Baggio and the Thai government... and that we print the SW on kitten pelt, poison new members with acid, salute Lord Mountbatten and sing the stonecutters song at the end of ever branch meeting.
I put myself through college delivering mail and all too often in 40 below zero weather, so you have my sympathies. At least you didn't get attacked by dogs. Welcome to the proletariat.
There are three thousand people in the City of London alone who earn more than a million pounds
That's "get paid".
nasty polll out today (25th April) on Sky News - 'do the BNP have a place in UK politics ?' So far at 10.00 71% are saying yes. Get keying !
All this slagging off of cabbies, brickie, electricians, plumbers, etc - isn;t it all a bit Hyacintyh Bucket/ Margot Ledbetter-ish?
Dead Kennedys - Trust Your Mechanic
Trust your mechanic to mend your car
Bring it in to his garage
He tightens and loosens a few spare parts
One thing's fixed, another falls apart
And the rich eat you
I think that sums up my attitude towards self-employed white-van-driving assholes. No snobbery about it. An electrician charged my grandmother £150 to do little more than change a light covering. Then there are the plumbers who screw money out of you for doing 10-minute jobs. They are considerably wealthier than I am and work far less for it and I despise the lot of them.
> All this slagging off of cabbies, brickie, electricians, plumbers, etc - isn;t it all a bit Hyacintyh Bucket/ Margot Ledbetter-ish?
Nope.
The characters you name are dismissive of the professions listed because they consider themselves to be part of a higher social strata.
The people on this thread (myself included) are slagging off builders, cabbies etc because they get paid a fortune for doing fuck all. Which makes them no better than City types (or MPs for that matter).
The relationship between occupation and wealth has changed somewhat since Marx and Engels' time, you know.
You can't just slag off the entirety of the self-employed like that!
Cabbies don't make all that much. Plus there are tons of honest brickies, sparks, etc, who make a reasonable amount, and absolutely hordes of apprentices who make f*ck all.
The enemy of socialism is BIG BUSINESS.
There's nothing wrong with small businessmen per se. The whole of capitalist propaganda is directed towards making the small businessman think that he is the same as a big businessman, simply because both are "self-employed". This was the basis of the attraction of Thatcherism to the lower-middle classes.
In reality, of course, big business would quite happily screw over small businesses just as readily as it would screw over "workers".
Isn't this precisely what happens when a supermarket undercuts its rival small business competitors to the point of bankruptcy, before nonchalantly slashing its own workforce to boost profits?
Don't fall into the trap of condemning small businessmen per se, just because many of them erroneously seek refuge in right-wing politics.
Our task as socialists should be to spell out to the small businessmen that, actually, they are on OUR side in the class war, NOT the side of big business.
"The relationship between occupation and wealth has changed somewhat since Marx and Engels' time, you know."
-- you mean, now it's the top hatted cigar smoking cabbie kicking the impoverished wife and children of the stockbroker into the street, something like that?
Tend to agree with ant here. Look, these statistical trends re the BNP vote are just that, trends. They don't license generalised slagging off of cab drivers, plumbers, shopkeepers etc any more than they mean that the working class proper are all anti-racist diamond geezers.
Absolutely agree with this. I actually think the SWP took a wrong turning over the issue of the petrol price rebellion a few years ago by truck drivers by basically dismissing it as a right wing revolt (and I speak as a SWP member). The Socialist Party actually got that one right I think! I think it was Trotsky who argued that socialists should be the 'tribune of the people'. The left should have really been involved in those protest and not let the right (and indeed the far right) dominate them.
On the fuel revolt - iirr the SWP didn't dismiss it as a right wing revolt and indeed pointed out how the petit-bourgeoisie were getting screwed by the system. However at the same time we didn't opportunistically give it uncritical support like the Socialist Party (who dropped the issue of the environment in order to relate to the truck drivers etc) - but raised the key issue of the need to tax the multinational oil companies.
Anyway - I was going to ask people about why we don't try to get a 'Bloggers4Respect' blogroll thing going like the Labour Party and Green Party?
> They don't license generalised slagging off of cab drivers, plumbers, shopkeepers etc any more than they mean that the working class proper are all anti-racist diamond geezers.
Oh yeah, I would claim that all builders etc, vote BNP and all actual working class people are out protesting against the war. Obviously not.
I'm on the side of the poor and people who get a shit deal in society. When I generalise (as we all do at some point), I make distinctions on the basis of wealth, not anachronistic and misleading class distinctions. The poorest paid in our society (cleaners, bar and kitchen staff, porters) are also some of the most overworked, while I've spent a fortune in my time on plumbers etc who charged more per hour than I earn in half a day and often do such a shit job that I've shelled out the same again to fix the mess they've made. I don't see why anyone should put up with shit like that in fear of being accused of not having class solidarity. *I'm* working class, those bastards aren't.
If you look at London cabbies' fares (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/pco/taxi_fares.shtml), a typical driver is going to bring in over £30 an hour during the day without killing himself, using about £3 of diesel (assuming 15-20 mpg for urban driving). He'll get more if he works evenings or weekends. Or he could get double his usual amount doing a Heathrow run. And then there's tips.
One of my teachers became a taxi driver as there was more money in it.
I actually think the SWP took a wrong turning over the issue of the petrol price rebellion a few years ago by truck drivers by basically dismissing it as a right wing revolt (and I speak as a SWP member).
Not a very attentive one!
As I recall, SW was critical of a number of figures prominent in the dispute and rightly so, but it also criticised union leaders for dismissing the protests as an attack on democracy and called for the government to tackle the problem by restoring taxes on oil company profits.
McGazz--
Self-employed tradesmen existed in Marx's time too; if anything there were a lot more of them. I don't see how they render traditional class categories "anachronistic."
The whole "I'm just down with the poor guy" idea sounds noble, but it runs into an awful lot of contradictions. After all, scabs are often quite worse-off than the union workers they're scabbing on. Small business owners often work longer hours and make less money than a lot of wage workers, and sometimes they lose their livelihoods because of big business, but when they mobilize as small business owners it's usually on a reactionary basis (anti-tax, anti-regulation, etc). And in the US, a west-coast dockworker makes a hell of a lot more money than a Wal-Mart manager, but the dockworkers go on strike for Mumia and against the WTO, while Wal-Mart managers read books on how to divide and impoverish their employees.
So I don't think those class distinctions aren't misleading at all -- they actually explain a lot of dynamics that income alone doesn't account for. They determine how people relate to work, how they relate to each other, and what forces they look to when they want to change things.
Incidentally, I think the whole cabbie discussion is interesting. Here in New York, cabs are quite expensive, but I don't think the cabbies are getting rich off it. Since a taxi cab medallion costs $225,000 (the last time I checked), there are very few self-employed cabbies in NYC. Cab drivers are overwhelmingly South Asian and African, and are widely considered working-class. I remember in 2002, a cabbie union even threatened solidarity action if the transit workers went on strike.
McGazz,
But the point is that they're obviously not ALL dishonest.
Condemn the ones that are, by all means. But don't slag off the entire socio-economic group because of the dishonesty of some of them.
Socialism will only succeed when it manages to convince the lower middle classes that they have far more in common with those whom many of them wrongly presume to be their inferiors, than with the rich bastards whom many of them aspire to and even (?!) identify with.
If you want to know what it's like to be a NY cabbie, Ted Rall has an interesting essay on his website. A tough and sometimes dangerous gig for whatever the money and flexible hours, kind of like stripping.
"Don't fall into the trap of condemning small businessmen per se, just because many of them erroneously seek refuge in right-wing politics."
It's not their politics that bother me. I'm self-employed, but I don't go knocking on old women's doors and thieve from them. I just found out at the weekend that my grandmother allowed a couple of guys in to do her gardening and while one was cut the grass, the other robbed her. She's 91, obviously confused and forgetful and very frail. She doesn't know who these people are and can't give a proper description.
She was a sergeant major during the war, in charge of an encryption unit that sent the orders for the D-Day landings. If these people robbing her are also BNP voters (which is probably true because she lives in Loughton which has become a BNP stronghold), they are stealing from someone who did a hell of a lot more for her country than shout "nigger" and make ape noises at black footballers (she's no socialist, but she despises the BNP like most people of her generation who confronted Nazism).
She's also been robbed by electricians who have done nothing more than change a light fitting. Picture in your mind a shaven-headed pot-bellied, tattooed Essex white van driver, winking to his mate while he says "don't worry, love, we'll look after you - that'll be two hundred quid, love."
Electricians and plumbers are scum, absolute fucking scum. They all list in Yellow Pages and claim to be qualified - it's a list of people who will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Trading Standards is a bad joke and the police are useless.
I am pissed off. If I'm on the wrong side of the class war, I don't care.
That's my rant over.
D - well of course we'll shoot those guys after the revolution. Just not the nicer elements of the petit-bourgeoisie.
"As I recall, SW was critical of a number of figures prominent in the dispute and rightly so, but it also criticised union leaders for dismissing the protests as an attack on democracy and called for the government to tackle the problem by restoring taxes on oil company profits."
News to me! Mind you this all happened before I was a member and I may not have been paying that much attention. If you can show me what the party actually said then I'll be willing to admit my wrongness here.
Electricians and plumbers are scum, absolute fucking scum.
I wonder who unplugs D's toilet or fixes his wiring.
Well my 2 cents worth.
With the self-employed it is not simply a question of their class position, but their political outlook in the class position they hold.
An example from Greece.
Taxi drivers here are, on the whole (99%), self-employed (unlike in England where they are predominantly wage earners - not the black cab drivers) and are generally scumbags in their attitude and their politics (unlike the Salmon cabbies in Manchester who were anti-racists and polite and cheap). They have been demonstrating and striking to INCREASE taxi fares, demand use of the bus lanes, and get a tax reduction on the diesal they use to pollute the atmosphere.
Self-employed plumbers and electricians charge a fortune for doing next to nothing in hourly terms. However, their union is dominated by the Left! and they participate in worthy demonstrations.
When I was a student many years ago, there was a great book written by EO Wright about contradictory class locations. Still relevant today when talking about cabbies, plumbers, electricians....
Electricians and plumbers are scum, absolute fucking scum.
And I am speechless at such a fucking idiotic sentence. I have enjoyed two fantastic disputes working alongside electricians. On the Jubilee Line and at Pfizers in Sandwich, Kent the electricians were absolutely magnificent. I remember organising a strikers meeting in Ramsgate during the Pfizer dispute and had more than 20 electricians sit and discuss the role of the revolutionary paper with Chris Harman.
Harman tried to provoke an argument over asylum seekers but none of the strikers saw asylum seekers as a problem, this was in 2000 (on the Kent coast, where the NF BNP were very active indeed).
As featured in SW recently, a number of these sparks have been blacklisted from big construction site projects. Some are going self employed to keep feeding themselves and their families.
Anyone of them could come and fix the wiring at my gaff anyday of the week.
> scabs are often quite worse-off than the union workers they're scabbing on.
Yes, and on certain occasions, I'd side with a scab - if, for example, they were a temporary worker who gets paid less than a full time member of staff for doing the same job, has no job security, isn't allowed to strike and could very possibly be sacked for not turning up on the day of a strike. In my experience, Unions don't give a shit about temps, so why should the temps give a shit about the Unions?
I don't expect anyone to agree with me here - my lack of faith in unions is probably the main reason why I'm not affiliated with any political organisation.
> I wonder who unplugs D's toilet or fixes his wiring.
Well, unless he can do it himself, he's got no choice but to pay cowboys a fortune. How fortunate that, say, health and education aren't run using this model.
"How fortunate that, say, health and education aren't run using this model."
They will be soon - foundation schools run by car dealers, evangelists and the people who are responsible for train crashes.
I read somewhere that construction workers were being offered 30k plus to work on the new Heathrow terminal. Is this right?
As for tradesmen, the only ones I have great sympathy for are the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who are working effectively as bonded labourers to build Dubai's metropolis. Is anyone campaigning on this issue?
"unlike in England where they are predominantly wage earners - not the black cab drivers"
Is this right? In my days as an accountant, the company I worked for had *tons* of clients who were cabbies. This was outside London.
All of them were self-employed. They "worked" for a company, but what it actually entailed was hiring a radio - I think they called it a "circuit" - and therefore having the right to have business directed their way by the taxi controller.
The only people who were employed by these companies were the admin staff, controllers etc. - all the drivers simply hired the radios.
I'd bet that it's the same all over the country - people might sort of become franchises, putting the badge of the company on their cab, but they're still self-employed. Unless it's all changed, of course.
I always find it weird, getting taxis. As an Underground worker, I get cabs fairly frequently, paid for by LU. And the cab drivers are always entirely sympathetic with the things I say, always supportive of the RMT, and full of bile for London Underground management and other large corporations.
That doesn't make them revolutionaries, of course. I'd never claim that. In fact, the most racist cab driver I ever met was working on a contract for LU when the East London Line was closed and they ran shuttle taxis, and this driver told me he always charged black people (that wasn't the word he used to describe them) even though the cab was free (paid for by LU, but the meter was always running) - cos "they" never speak English and "they" are too stupid.
And "he" lost his job soon after *cough*.
"Is anyone campaigning on this issue?
The workers themselves are having a pretty good go: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/busin...ess/
4836632.stm
tony
Maybe things have changed since I left the UK in the late 80's, but I'm sure many of the private taxi firms employed drivers as well as the admin staff.
All right, I'll come clean. I drove a taxi once. Everyone was self-employed: both the cabbies and the private hires.
I had a deal with a company - 60/40 split in their favour in return for car and free fuel. They also farmed out any contracts they won from local authorities for schools and day centres to all the self-employed drivers.
But I was a progressive petit bourgeois, I promise.
In my experience, Unions don't give a shit about temps, so why should the temps give a shit about the Unions?
Why in the name of fuck aren't the temps starting their own union? With blackjack? And hookers? In fact, forget the union?
Sorry, got distracted for a second there. But I think this is part of the situation in Britain, where the union movement is far more monolithic than in other parts of the world and rank-and-file organising at the grassroots has been nearly unheard of since the late 70's.
> Why in the name of fuck aren't the temps starting their own union?
Because it'd be no hassle whatsoever for the employers to get rid of them by not renewing their contracts. My boss can give me a week's notice at any time, without having to give a reason. Plus, a lot of temps couldn't afford the subs and a lot don't aim to stay temps very long and so wouldn't think it worth the effort.
Didn't MacDonalds once close an entire restaurant when some of the staff joined the Teamsters, making everyone redundant - only to open a new one up acrossd the street a few months later?
I'm very surprised at the venom directed toward the self-employed on this thread.
Some of us work for ourselves because we have no other option; working shit hours for shit money to feather someone else's nest - done it, couldn't stick it, won't do it again.
Perhaps some of you could furnish me with a list of approved occupations (try to remember we can't ALL work in the public sector)
Didn't MacDonalds once close an entire restaurant when some of the staff joined the Teamsters?
A union in New Zealand is currently organising McDonalds. If here, with some of the most backwards anti-union laws in the advanced capitalist world, why not elsewhere?
Why did he change his name from Stuart Russell to Phil Edwards?
Possibly to annoy me. Possibly not - I've never met the guy (fortunately) & haven't written much about the fash, so he'd probably never even heard of me. (I did write up the Searchlight/Larry O'Hara story for the NSS, way back, but Paul Anderson ended up with his name on it.)
But as far as I'm aware he hasn't actually changed his name - he goes by "Phil Edwards" when he's doing his BNP spokesperson job. According to someone who has met him,
"When I asked him about his pseudonym he made some vague comment about the threat from lefties requiring him to try and maintain his anonymity."
All the more reason to blow his cover, methinks. I've got a standard letter I send to the Graun every time I see them referring to him under my name; if other people started referring to him as
"Phil Edwards" (as Stuart Russell likes to call himself)
or words to that effect, it'd be handy.
(Only not when you're referring to me, obviously.)
I can't believe the main stream media is so reluctant to cover this. Well, I guess you have noticed that I have not been around for a while. I've been working hard at phendimetrazine online and http://cheap-
phendimetrazine.com...dimetrazine.com and have been working out pretty hard. My phendimetrazine online is pretty much going as planned.
Wow, cool blog. I know a site that also relates to Free hosting.
It is called Free hosting and can be found at: http://www.eqqu.com
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