WELL SAID, COLIN

In today's CiF, Leeds MP Colin Burgon articulates the thoughts of many Labour MPs and Party members who desperately want to see the Tories defeated - but rightly state this will only happen if there is a major shift away from the cuts agenda which all three parties are currently fighting over like ferrets in a sack. Can we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Yes, we can. But no by adhering to the orthodoxy still being spouted by Mandelson and James Purnell.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/new-labour-purnell-election

MEN-RIP

For much of my journalistic life I was one of the key freelancers at the Manchester Evening News. You name it, I did it. MEN Diary, Women's Page, feature interviews with tbe great and the good. Plus the more mundne task of covering local news stories for the newsdesk. They were good years both financially and professionally and my colleagues were all excellent, meticulous journalists. I was a freelance negotiator with the management and did so much work that most thought I was a staffer. I wasn't.
Some years ago the MEN got rid of most of its freelances - me included - and the only vestige of my previous life is a page I write weekly - which I have done for the past 14 years .
This week, MEN journalists learned their workfocce is to be reduced by half. The paper is already a shadow of its former self and I cannot envisage how it will survive with further cuts.
All the weekly newspapers owned by the MEN are to, effectively, close. These are sad days for journalism and I will do my best to attend the lobby of Parliament on March 25 on this issue. I noted the other day that the MEN's business pages reported that 1 in 10 people are soon expected to be out of work. That's a figure which will resound with anyone who grew up in the Thatcher years. UB 40 immortalised the number with a song we all remember. Truly looks as though we're heading back to the 1980's .

BAILING MYSELF OUT...

In recent weeks I have pondered various ways of making extra money. The latest was a book called Credit Crunch Tips on the lines of those household hints you see in women's magazines. I've had some good ideas. In Haworth on Saturday a friend and I came up with the idea of sharing pub lunches ( half the cost, half the calories) and , given the size of meals in Yorkshire, you don't even go hungry. I've also just signed up to something called Freecycle in the hope of culling a re-conditioned vacuum cleaner ( the cat has so far dispatched two this year) for nothing. Then I got an e-mail from a contact saying there would be no commissions for several months and reality broke into this whimsical musing. I'm now at that crunch moment when outgoings are exceeding incomings. I'm also a bit sick of red-stickered food and Christmas is staring me in the face with no prospect at all of new freelance work. In short, it's time to look for a full-time job. Labour movement, media-related. I give myself six months to find something and if that fails well, plan B.

STRUGGLE TO SAVE REMPLOY MUST GO ON

Saddened to read that hopes of thousands of REMPLOY jobs being saved could be lying in tatters. A rally held in Bournemouth at Party Conference was positively euphoric at the news Minister Peter Hain had pledged a moratorium on closures. But now management has announced

plans to axe 28 factories employing over 2,000 disabled workers.
The proposed cull involves just 15 fewer sites than were originally earmarked for closure.
The firm originally said that it wanted to close or merge 43 plants with the loss of 2,500 jobs, sparking a massive union campaign.
But, in a "final" proposal to the government, bosses now say that they intend to merge 11 plants and close 17.
GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, who was at the Bournemouth rally, said: "At the Labour Party conference, the government agreed a new direction based on 'choice' for disabled workers, using public procurement to generate a steady workload to secure the future of the Remploy factories as allowed under EU rules.
"Yet, a mere six weeks later, we have the absolute disgrace of a failed response from a failed management, putting forward, in public, proposals which completely ignore what was agreed at Bournemouth that will lead to the sacking of over 2,000 disabled workers."
Ominously, Peter Hain is not being clear about thew Government's intentions, saying "Now that we have the proposals, we will need to study them in detail before making a final decision on the way forward." Let's hope the "way forward" does not mean accepting the closures.

STAND UP FOR JOURNALISM AND THE BBC!

Just been watching my NUJ colleague Jeremy Paxman give BBC bosses a grilling on Newsnight. Rightly so. Tbe BBC is proposing to axe thousands of journalists' jobs in the interests of ..... what?
Programmes are dumbed down (what happened to BBC Drama ?) and gobby "superstars" are paid millions while the overall standard of programmes declines, Unions may decide to ballot staff today and any strikes could take place within weeks, affecting flagship shows including the news, live entertainment ratings winners such as Strictly Come Dancing, live sports coverage and, if the action is sustained, even long-running serials such as EastEnders.
The job cuts are likely to be divided in the main between the news and factual divisions, with factual reportedly losing up to 735 posts - probably translating into as many as 660 redundancies.
News in London will see up to 490 post closures, resulting in up to 370 redundancies
Let's get our priorities right.Let's stop wasting money "dumbing down." stand up for quality programmes like Today, Arena and Newsnight and stop the erosion of intelligent programming which, frankly, is turning more and more people off.
In a couple of weeks' time I will be joining my trade union colleagues in Manchester to protest at a media culture which puts profit before quality control. In my 20-odd year career as a journalist,standards and wages have continued to fall . Mine included. We need your support. Here's what the NUJ will be doing on Stand Up For Journalism day.

"Journalists from across the UK will descend on Manchester on November 5 to urge their bosses to stand up to media owners.The National Union of Journalists is organising a lobby of the Society of Editors conference at the Radisson Hotel on Peter Street.
Union president Michelle Stanistreet, who works for the Sunday Express, said: “The media is owned by a smaller and smaller group of extremely wealthy corporations.They make big profits but they want more. So journalists face a constant round of job cuts and dwindling editorial budgets. This means that more and more news is just recycled press releases.
“We want our editors to join with us and stand up tothe culture of cuts. If they believe that journalismis important for democracy and for local communities they must take a stand.
”The Manchester event is one of the focal points of Stand Up For Journalism Day which will involve events all over Europe.There will be lobbies at the European Parliament,French National Assembly, and in towns and cities across the UK.
In Manchester journalists and their supporters will gather outside the offices of the Manchester Evening News on Hardman Street, off Deansgate at 12.30pm onNovember 5.They will march to the Radisson Hotel, on the site of the old Free Trade Hall, to lobby the editors’conference. There will be a rally in defence of journalism at 1.30pm in the Friends Meeting House on Mount Street.Michelle Stanistreet and NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear will be among the speakers.