TRIBUNE ON NORWICH NORTH.....

Tribune describes the Norwich north result as a "cack-handed, futile sacrifice" I could not agree more and the rest of the editorial is below.

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/07/30/the-real-lesson-of-norwich-north/

LET'S RE-CLAIM OUR RAILWAYS

For some time now I have boycotted the East Coast Line when travelling to London- too expensive, unreliable, and now running out of track as the rail unions protest at its profiteering.
In the autumn, it will be , temporarily we are told, , nationalised. It's blindingly obvious what the answer should be to the execrable track-record of National Express and other private companies.
The only answer, and what a great move electorally it would be for Labour, is to take the railways permanently back into public hands. As the editorial in the Morning Star indicates below.



http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/comment/time_brown_admits_defeat

EVENTS AND OTHER THINGS.......

I''m not blogging much at the moment. Largely because I am embroiled in the utterly selfish business of trying to seek gainful employment and it tends to take priority.
Tonight, some conversations with people re the Iraq inquiry which at least is going to be more transparent than originally envisaged. It remains to be seen what that will mean.
In a month which has been one of the bloodiest yet in Afghanistan, we can only hope that serious questions will be asked. And that they will be answered.
This dismal summer is not one exactly designed to re-charge the batteries but those of you in shouting distance might want to take part in or support the LRC cricket match on Saturday which looks sadly likely to suffer from the deluge we've had in West Yorkshire solidly over the past couple of weeks. It's raising funds for HOPI - Hands Off The People Of Iran.- and even if washed out there's a fund-raiser in the evening. See the new, improved website for details.
Back home, we have a fund-raiser Quiz Night next Thursday August 6 for my local Branch Labour Party at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. There will be a nuclear hot turkey curry ( made by me) and sundry other dishes to enjoy .

THAT'S RUBBISH!

Some people just don't know when to leave the stage and Esther Rantzen is one of them. As a youngster, I could not stand her That's Life programme with lots of smug presenters laughing like drains over singing dogs and suggestive vegetables. They had this slot where Esther, uusally wearing an Abigail's Party-type frock would "investigate" some consumer injustice which was in actuality just an excuse for her to parade her own ego.

Last year, she was making a prat of herself in the jungle in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here so, naturally, she now has political aspirations. Apparently, she has ignored the advice of almost everyone and is intent on standing in Luton South as a "people's candidate" What rubbish. Rantzen was a huge fan of Thatcher and supported those dreadful ralies they had in the 1980's with Keny Everett telling everyone to go and bomb Russia. The notion that she would be in any way credible is risible and sad. Still, a good boost for whoever the Labour candidate might be.

PURNELL AND THE SHAM "LEFT" PROJECT

There aren't many media channels open to the real Labour Left but one of them is the Guardian's Comment Is Free. For those who missed it the other day, here's John McDonnell's article on the spurious James Purnell and the spurious "Open Left" project. Most doors in the mainstream media may be closed to us but, thanks to the internet, we can still make our voices heard.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/25/labour-party-norwich-left?commentpage=2

RORY BREMNER AND MARK THOMAS BACK PROTEST OVER UNISON FOUR

PRESS RELEASE from the Socialist PartyIssued: 27th July 2009

Outrageous "racism" charge leads to union ban.

Four members of the public sector union Unison were last week banned from holding positions in their union following two years of investigations and hearings. A leaflet distributed at the 2007 Unison conference criticising the ruling out of resolutions relating to pay and accountability of full-time union officials and financing the Labour Party was found to have given "racist offence to members" for using a cartoon of the Three Wise Monkeys.

Based on this outrageous trumped up charge, the four have been found guilty and sentenced to a ban from office for three years for Glenn Kelly (NEC member and Bromley branch secretary) & Onay Kasab (Greenwich branch secretary), four years for Suzanne Muna (Housing Corporation branch secretary) and five years for Brian Debus (Hackney branch chair)!

To find four members, who have always opposed, fought and campaigned against racism, of effectively being racist themselves is not only outrageous but a terrible accusation for these four unison members to have to bear.
Such a slur is bound to cause difficulties in the future, especially when working and applying for jobs in the public sector. This has provoked anger and outrage both within Unison and in the wider trade union movement.
The priority of every union should be to defend its members from job losses, reduced hours and worse conditions which are being foisted on workers during this recession. However the Unison bureaucracy is instead narrowly focused on silencing any opposition to the Unison leadership, especially socialists with a track record of fighting for their members.

Unison activists and supporters of the four are organising a mass protest outside of Unison head office on Thursday 30th July to make their anger known and warn the leadership of the union that they will not quietly accept this unjust result.Protest outside Unison HQ, 1 Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9AJ on Thursday 30th July at 12noon.

Supporters of the four victimised trade unionists include the comedians Rory Bremner and Mark Thomas who had the following to say about the case:
"On the face of it, Unison are about to make themselves look a laughing stock. They need to be very aware of the widespread ridicule this will attract to their union and its leaders, and think again before the papers get hold of this and make them look foolish and authoritarian. They don't need this distraction"Rory Bremner

"I know Onay Kasab - Kas. I have had the privilege of working with him on the Ilisu Dam Campaign and on the issue of trade unionist deaths in Columbia. To accuse him of being racist is utter stupidity and madness... those who brought this charge need to take a lie down in a quiet room, possibly with whale music playing and get a rest or they need to acknowledge their actions are motivated by other factors."Mark Thomas

Further information and background material can be found at www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk.

MORE GRASSROOTS LABOUR......

There is an excellent post here on why Labour is in trouble - and why grassroots members should not get the blame. Welcome to my blogroll, Tim Cheetham, who is a councillor in Barnsley

http://cllrtim.blogspot.com/2009/07/5-things-i-hate-about-you.html

GRASSROOTS LABOUR

I never meant this blog to be a long-term thing but two years on from its original incarnation as a Labour leadership call to arms things have moved on and, although sometimes I'm pretty uninspired, I intend to carry on.
Grimmerupnorth was never going to delight the Labour establishment but the way I see it grassroots members who are utterly fed up with New Labour's "command and control" of Party democracy, Labour Party Conference, selection of PPCs and by-elections need to have a place where they can have their say. And more and more members are aghast at the way things are looking. More and more of them are contacting me personally.
I spoke this morning to someone who loyally trundled up to Norwich to help Chris Ostrowski in what turned out to be a pretty hopeless battle in the constituency. Her tales of bland election leaflets written by Party HQ, control freakery by paid Party officials, constituency members not doing any campaigning as they were so angry at Ian Gibson's treatment, were all horribly familiar. So incensed is she that she is hoping to organise direct action at the Labour Party Conference. As all the old channels have been more or less abolished ie resolutions, speaking from the floor, this seems to me an excellent idea. And let me make it clear.
This is not an LRC member, this is not a hardened leftie hack, this is an out and out Labour loyalist who has been radicalised by personal experience of the mistakes which contonue to be made by a Party machine which chooses favoured sons and daughters over local candidates in any winnable seat, stamps out dissent and most importantly ignores the common sense on policy and strategy from ordinary members whose only wish has been to see Labour succeed. The peson in question happens to be a PPC. She tells me she will write her own election leaflets because she cannot bear the meaningless guff which emanates from the powers-that-be. Unfortunately, and inevitably, she happens to be standing in an unwinnable seat.

FREE DEGREES AND TWO-TIER HIGHER EDUCATION - NO!

Earlier this week Alan Milburn presented a report to Gordon Brown on the future of higher education. I thought the suggestion on free university for stay-at-home students was well meaning, but wrong because it would create a two-tier system. But if today's report in the Sunday Times is anything to go by that is just the tip of the iceberg under plans which would drive an inexorable wedge between rich and poor students.
Apparently, elite universities will be able to charge up to £7000 a year for tuition fees while what is tellingly described as "former polytechnics" ie the less prestigious and less popular establishments which Lord Snooty and his pals would never consider, may offer free degrees.
It's not rocket science to predict that the public scholol alumni will contine to head for Oxbridge, Durham, the old-established redbricks et al ( as they always have) and those from less affluent backgrounds will just have to go for the cheapest option no matter how bright they are. Unless of course they want to cripple themselves with debt for life.
How can Labour even be thinking of backing these proposals This Party was created to make society more equal, not less. No marks whatsoever for this madness.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6727699.ece

NEW LRC WEBSITE GOES LIVE.......

Parliament may have broken up for the summer but life in the LRC goes on - and the new website is a welcome development which is a vast improvement on the previous URL and thanks to all involved for their excellent work. The new site includes better access to press releases, campaign news, videos and offers LRC members the opportunity to post their opinions on events as they happen. Today, LRC John McDonnell makes his views known on the Norwich by-election and says it's time for the NEC to apologise.

SCAPEGOATED BY THE NEC

Ian Gibson stood down in protest after being scapegoated by the NEC. The result is a Tory gain in Norwich North. People in the constituency weren't having it that their MP had done more wrong than others who stay in high office. So Labour has lost.
How many times do the NEC have to ignore the wishes of local constituencies before they accept they have made seriously bad decisions. All Ian Gibson did was sell his home to his daughter at a below market rate. Yes, a mistake but he did not" flip" his home or avoid capital gains tax, make outrageous claims for food and lavish luxuries. Those who did, including Hazel Blears, James Purnell, Shahid Malik, Alisdair Darling were not hauled up in front of the NEC and told they could not be MPs. Why not? The lack of consistency on MPs' expenses, and refusal to listen to grasssroots members, has cost Labour this seat.Bad call, bad mistake, and utterly unfair. Gibson was made a scapegoat for far greater transgressors. The NEC's "star chamber." has been an undemocratic, ineffective , and inconsistent disaster.

DEBATE ON THE LEFT IN HEBDEN BRIDGE......

Tomorrow night the Trades Club is hosting a debate on the future of the left and how to vote in the General Election to avoid a Tory Government. Platform is Hilary Wainwright (Red Pepper), Pete Lazenby (NUJ activist and Calder Branch Labour Party, our former Labour PPC Janet OOsthuysen and a representative from the Green Party.
I will be there, no doubt incurring the wrath of anarchists and others, by counselling that standing minority candidates only helps the Tories and that people must campaign for Labour , or at least vote Labour, as the best alternative. I will also be flagging up the LRC and urging people to join.
My tussle with the DWP this morning left me somewhat depressed and I got my cosmic comeuppance when my graphic designer got in touch to say he had just found a cheque for £50.00 which he hadn't paid in yet. I decided the only antodote to this further bad news was to resolve not to let the system get me down - and keep on keeping on. Right, off to council meeting........

THE SHARP END.

It is 25 years since I claimed welfare benefits. Today, on the advice of a fellow journalist also facing difficulties, I made enquiries about Working Tax Credits. It was no surprise, really, that I did not qualify. After all, I am a single person. And the fact I have a mortgage, council tax, heating and other utility bills to pay does not seem to register with the DWP.
So an income of £620 a month is deemed sufficient to live on. I've calculated my outgoings (excluding food) are around £550 a month. So that leaves £70 to buy food and survive. Less than £18 a week.
I should be grateful that for most of my working life I have been very far from this position. I should also be grateful that, in time, no doubt things will get better.
But this means-tested system, which offers nothing to single people seriously struggling , is a national disgrace.
Many politicians pay lip service to worrrying about the low-paid and the unemployed. They should try surviving on the breadline for a bit. Next time you hear one of them suggesting our benefits system is a licence to sit around and do nothing, and how generous the tax credits system is, rest assured this is utter rubbish.

I'M TOO EXHAUSTED BUT.......

I'm too exhausted and fed-up at the moment to blog at length. But a good post on Socialist Unity underlines why, in the run-up to the General Election, we have to gather our strengths, admit our weaknesses and mistakes, and try and stop a Tory Government. And the answer, frankly, is not to abandon the Labour Party
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4415#comments

FRANK McCOURT

I was rather sad yesterday to read of the death of Frank McCourt, author of bestseller Angela's Ashes. If I spend a lot of time reading Irish writers ( and I do) it's because a crucial part of my psyche is irredeemably steeped in Catholicism, sexual and religious repression and the legacy of my parents, who grew up in a poverty most these days would regard as unspeakable. In 1930's Manchester, it was par for the course if you were working-class.

McCourt was 78 when he died, a few years younger than my late mother who died of cancer one year after retiring in 1985 . She had three daughters and worked her socks off bringing us up, for the most part in low-paid jobs in smoky pubs which probably contributed to her early death. She was an intelligent woman whose "life chances" ( as they put it these days) were pretty grim from the off. She drilled into all of us the importance of education.

McCourt was ridiculed by the literary establishment for allegedly exaggerating the horrors of his own childhood in Limerick. They weren't that far removed from the tales my mother told of sleeping four-in-a-bed with her siblings, along with bed bugs for companions, and surviving on a spartan diet where the men got what meat there was and the children mopped up the gravy with chunks of bread.

My maternal grandmother never left the house due to an ulcerated leg which these days would be sorted out with antibiotics. Instead, a nurse attended once a week. Granny's diet consisted of boiled ham, Primula cheese, Lurpak butter and endless pots of tea because she had no teeth and was reluctant to invest in NHS dentures along with other modern trappings like electric light and TV. For most of her adult life, she ruled the roost in a rented house - now long demolished - where over the decades various members of the family would come over from the West of Ireland, get jobs on the building sites, and spend the weekends spending their earnings in the local pubs. My grandfather, diminutive in stature and built like a whippet, fought in the First World War and brought up five children on very little money. Occasional lodgers eked it out a bit. An education was out of the question for his children, despite the fact they were all bright. I just happened to be part of the lucky generation which followed.

Frank McCourt's only option was, like millions before him, to head to America where he eventually became a teacher. Angela's Ashes, though no literary masterpiece, was real and true and earned him a fortune.At 67, his life was finally transformed. Other books were written though none had the impact of the first. But Angela's Ashes is a pretty good testimony, an unforgettable picture of a vanished world. We should be thankful it has gone, but never forget that it existed.

SAME OLD SAME OLD.......

It's rather rich that James Purnell should attempt to defenestrate Gordon Brown and then start preaching to the rest of us how to "renew" the Labour Party.

Another day, another think-tank. More sharp suits and cue for sharpening of pens by Polly Toynbee and all the other Westminster political elite who seem to think they have the answers but just re-tread the same old lines.

Meanwhile unemployment continues to grow, people struggle more every day to pay the bills, and even Alan Milburn has realised that free university education might be the best option if you're to improve the "life chances" of working-class kids.

Milburn twas of course who two years ago launched the "20 20 Vision" think-tank to similar ballyhoo with his partner in crime Charles Clarke. It sank without trace.

The last thing, frankly, which Labour needs is more nebulous window-dressing and "debate" which clearly, as Roy Hattersley said on Newsnight, is basically a re-branding of Blairism under a "left" tag. Old bruiser Peter Kilfoyle MP was also right to point out that what Labour needs to do is listen to its members and get back to core values. That won't be done by a Demos brochure or yet another swanky website written by the usual suspects living lives far removed from the reality on the streets.

Let us also remind ourselves this is the same Purnell who advocated cutting welfare benefits and making people work for them while claiming £400 a month for food on top of a Cabinet salary. So all his talk of wealth redistribution and concern about inequality rings pretty hollow.

I read his piece in the Guardian today and it had nothing new to say, basically re-hashing the mantras about "choice" which we've heard so many times before. And we on the real Left know what that means. New Labour in another guise.

Purnell and his fellow plotters disgusted many in the Party with their bid to topple Gordon Brown. I don't think many will be listening to what he has to say. Sorry, James, we've heard it all before........

WHY WE'RE FIGHTING BACK

It would have been nice if the Halifax Courier had actually contacted me before writing the story below which today appears on its website. As usual, they have just quoted from the blog without ringing for more information. Still, it's largely accurate.
Our Branch, the largest in the constituency, has lost many of its activists as a result of the de-selection of Janet Oosthuysen by the NEC and then the subsequent concerns over the selection of Steph Booth, which were ignored again by the NEC. It is, however, suggested that it is only " a handful" of malcontents who are unhappy at the way things have panned out. This is not so.
My Branch, by far the biggest in the constituency, overwhelmingly supported Janet as our best candidate and later endorsed me and I'm grateful to have had the support of the clear majority of Branch members in the hustings.
As a consequence of what has happened our former Chair resigned from the Party with several others but by affiliating to the LRC, our Branch will be hoping to re-build and recruit new members so that we will continue to have a wide support base in our immediate locality, which will be needed in the period ahead if we are to survive as a campaigning Party.
Let's be clear. This constituency has lost many of its foot soldiers with many more disillusioned , disengaged and disaffected because of bad calls by the NEC. And also because of the "handful" of Party members who did not accept the fact a left PPC won fairly and squarely in the first place. And then launched a personal vendetta which, unfortunately, succeeded.
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/We39re-hanging-on-by-our.5472373.jp

WAITING IN THE WINGS.....

I'm quite glad that Parliament is shutting down this week as I've had more than enough of career politicians. "Courageous" Purnell has already landed himself a job with Demos and does nothing but carp about his former boss. Jacqui Smith was on the telly the other night bleating about how she should have had "training" to be Home Secretary. Poor dear....
Certain wisdoms can only be acquired by life experience and the problem is that most of our Cabinet has never faced the daily grind of an ordinary job and an ordinary life. People like Purnell were parachuted into safe seats (I know because his predecessor, Tom Pendry, boasted about it to me during a magazine interview a couple of years ago) They strut around thinking they are demi-gods when in fact they are devoid of any other principle other than self-interest.
MPs on already big salaries think they are perfectly entitled to claim every perk going, including £400 a month EXTRA for food, when most of their constituents are heading off to Lidl and struggling to hang onto their jobs.
The electorate has lost faith in its MPs and during the summer break they should think long and hard about how on earth they are going to re-build confidence and faith. Even the "party faithful" have had enough.
The good news is that in at least one London constituency , Brentford and Isleworth, the CLP is taking active steps to try and remove the gravy trainers. A shame Salford CLP did not take such a stance over Hazel Blears.
At the beginning of this year, I had aspirations to be a PPC. My only aspiration as of now is to try and get more work to pay the bills . I had a frenzied few days this week writing film and book reviews for an internet site only to discover that the average remuneration is about four pence per 250 words, It is not a career option......
When my fortunes improve, I will probably re-discover an enthusiasm for blogging. At the moment, along with millions of others, I'm just trying to survive. And hold together my local Labour Party branch which has almost fallen apart.

WAITING IN THE\ W

WAITING IN THE\ W