Pride & Prejudiced against Shrewsbury Pickets

Ricky Tomlinson’s criminal convictions to be re-examined

Appeal court to look again at case of Royle Family actor after claims he may have been unjustly jailed

Rob Evans

@robevansgdn

Tue 26 May 2020 16.19 BST

THIS WEEK, the Guardian reported that:
Documents discovered in the national archives have shown that a covert Whitehall unit had a “discreet but considerable hand” in the programme by supplying its makers with a large dossier about allegedly leftwing trade unionists.

The criminal convictions of actor Ricky Tomlinson, who starred in the TV comedy the Royle Family, are to be re-examined by appeal court judges after an official body suggested he may have been unjustly jailed.

Tomlinson and other trade unionists have been campaigning for years to clear their names after they were jailed during a strike in the 1970s.  On Tuesday, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the public body that scrutinises alleged miscarriages of justice, announced it had asked the court of appeal to review the cases of Tomlinson and others.

Tomlinson, 80, said it was “good news” and an opportunity to prove that he and 23 other men – known as the Shrewsbury 24 – were prosecuted in what amounted to a politically motivated attack on the trade union movement by the government, police and managers.  He worked as a plasterer in the construction industry before becoming well-known as as an actor in films such as Raining Stones and Riff-Raff.Tomlinson, was jailed in 1973 for two years during a strike after he was convicted of conspiring to intimidate and affray.  He had taken part in the first national building workers’ strike in 1972 to improve wages and safety regimes on sites.  Months after the strike ended, 24 trade unionists were arrested and prosecuted for offences including unlawful assembly, conspiracy to intimidate, affray and threatening behaviour while picketing.  After a series of three trials at Shrewsbury crown court in Shropshire, they were convicted of sentences ranging from three years 'to three months’ imprisonment suspended for two years.  For years, campaigners under the banner of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign have been gathering evidence seeking to clear the names of those convicted, who believed that they were persecuted in an attempt to suppress trade unionists at a time of increasing workers’ militancy.  The review body’s new decision means that it has to date asked the appeal court to re-examine the cases of 14 of those convicted, having investigated their claims: along with the six referred on Tuesday, eight had been referred in March.

Why can't we know the truth about a strike that happened 40 years ago? | Ricky Tomlinson

 

The CCRC initially refused to send the cases to the court of appeal but changed its decision after a legal challenge by some of the trade unionists.  Helen Pitcher, the CCRC’s chairman, acknowledged: ”Some will think this has not been the commission’s finest hour. ”  The CCRC said its decision was based on fresh evidence arising from a 1973 note that showed that some original statements had been destroyed.  The commission said this had not been shown to the lawyers defending the men at their original trial.  The CCRC also highlighted a television documentary, Red under the Bed, about leftwing trade unionists, which was broadcast during the first trial in 1972.  Lawyers for defendants had unsuccessfully argued at the trial that the documentary had unfairly influenced the jury.Documents discovered in the national archives have shown that a covert Whitehall unit had a “discreet but considerable hand” in the programme by supplying its makers with a large dossier about allegedly leftwing trade unionists.A Whitehall official noted what he called “a good effort” by the Information Research Department, the Foreign Office unit that had been set up during the cold war to produce anti-communist propaganda abroad.After Tomlinson was convicted, he was blacklisted and struggled to land work. He became an actor and got his break in the 1980s when he played Bobby Grant in the Channel 4 drama Brookside.• This article was amended on 28 May 2020 to include a breakdown of the 14 cases so far referred to the CCRC, and to explain the role of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign in gathering evidence.

Appeal

The Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) has ruled that the Court of Appeal should re-examine the criminal convictions imposed on several of the striking workers, including Tomlinson, who took part in the picket.  That decision by the CCRC was based on new evidence that indicated crucial statements had been destroyed, and of the “way in which the airing of the documentary was handled by the trial judge”.

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Test, Trace, Track, Isolate. Then What?

by Les May

I’M REASONABLY sure that the government will some day manage to get a system for testing, tracing, tracking and isolating of people suffering from Covid-19 working.  Probably not as well or as quickly as it has led us to believe, and probably relying on good old ‘shoe leather’ tracing more than the wonderful ‘app’ in which so much faith has been placed, but eventually.

This approach has been successful in South Korea where nationals face up to one year in jail and a fine of 10 million won (nearly £7000) with up to three years in jail and a fine of 20 million won for foreigners, if they fail to quarantine themselves for fourteen days.  Those coming to the UK will be told to isolate themselves for fourteen days with a penalty of £1,000 for those who fail to do so. There will be much smaller fines for residents.

But there seems to be one difference between the way the authorities in South Korea approach this and the way the UK government seem to be doing.  In South Korea those told to quarantine can expect visits to check that they are where they should be, which we are told will happen here, but in South Korea they also have food delivered to their door.

Since late March the advice has been that households where someone has Covid-19 should isolate for fourteen days.  This could become 28 days for some people if someone they live with only becomes symptomatic at the end of the isolation period.

If we are to learn to live with this virus isolation will continue to be an important part of the strategy and it may be required of some individuals more than once. People are more likely to do this if they can be sure that they will not have to worry about feeding themselves.  I’ve not heard anyone speaking for the government say that some thought has been given to the problem of how those who are in home quarantine will feed themselves.  These are practical problems and they need practical answers.  Why not involve local councils and ask them to set up a scheme appropriate to local needs?

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The Johnson Cummings Love-In

by Les May

WHEN the Tory party handed the keys of 10 Downing Street to Boris Johnson his first instinct was to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament by proroguing it.  This behaviour eventually found its way into the courts and Johnson was judged to have been a very naughty boy.

When the story emerged that an unelected ‘special adviser’ had driven someone suffering from Covid19 some 400km to another part of the country, when such actions were expressly forbidden by a law passed by his own government, Johnson’s first instinct was to behave in a way that would make it very difficult for any police force to investigate this matter, determine whether it was ‘reasonable travel’ and if necessary issue fines to both the driver and his passenger.  It is not for Johnson to decide whether Dominic Cummings’ actions fell within the definition of ‘reasonable travel’.

My understanding is that the Daily Mirror and the Guardian newspapers had approached Downing Street for comment before the story was published. The pair of them had plenty of time to ‘get their stories straight’.  First Johnson sought to exonerate Cummings by standing in front of the television cameras and saying that he ‘did not mark him down’.*   

Meanwhile Cummings was given to opportunity to get into ‘post facto rationalisation’ mode and prepare a long statement which he was then allowed to present to the assembled media over a 70 minute period in the Rose Garden of Number 10 Downing Street.  Take your pick of the excuses he gave for moving his Covid19 infected wife across the country; he was just being a good husband and father, he and his infected wife were likely to be ‘harassed’ if they quarantined themselves at their home address, it was all a ‘media plot’ anyhow.

What we are seeing here is Johnson using his power to subtly influence how the law operates. It will take a very strong minded senior police officer to insist on asking Dominic Cummings some pointed questions.  Fortunately they still exist. Johnson is not alone in this endeavour, Michael Gove tried to tell us that at the time the law was different from what the rest of us understood it to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/26/durham-police-open-investigation-into-dominic-cummings

The media have decided to concentrate on the ‘human story’ side of all this with accounts of spouses and children unable to be beside the bedside of a relative who died.   If the political parties take this line Johnson’s subtle abuse of power will go unnoticed and unchecked. Johnson and Cummings are well matched.  Spot the video clip where Cummings is using his thick black notebook to waft away the gaggle of reporters who are trying to ask him questions.   It rather reminded me of Hastings Banda and his fly whisk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Banda

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Unite's Len McCluskey & the lucrative libel lawyers

THE current PRIVATE EYE's TUC NEWS column reminded the Unite union's membership of 1.1m that though they may be worried for their jobs or in fear of Covid-19, their union is assuring the libel lawyers that they can count on bounteous harvest of refreshers following the lucrative case of Turley v Unite the Union.  Totting-up the costs of the trial which took up 7-days of court time, legal experts have told Private Eye 'the premium would be around £200,000' and the 'final bill to its luckless members members [of Unite] may be not far short of £2m.'

The Eye concludes:  'London's libel lawyers won't be going hungry any time soon.'  


However, only last January Ms Anna Turley was claiming on twitter that:

'Unite and Skwawkbox have failed to pay the damages and costs following my libel trial last month as ordered by the court. My solicitors are starting enforcement proceedings in the morning.' pic.twitter.com/pS8wpwIekF

— Anna Turley (@annaturley) January 16, 2020

At that time Guido Fawkes reported these developments on his Blog:
'In the latest development, the former MP has published a letter from her solicitors declaring given Unite’s failure to pay up, “The only conclusion we can draw is that your clients have deliberately chosen to cause further distress to Ms Turley or they are incompetent. Which is it?”, going on to say'

“We have prepared enforcement papers that will permit bailiffs to attend at your clinets’ premises to enforce the two final judgements. We shall issue these when the Court opens on Monday morning if the full judgement debts, together with ongoing interest, have not been satisfied.”

Guido Fawkes claimed:
This is much more entertaining than the Labour leadership contest…
UPDATE: Unite and Skwawkbox have finally coughed up

And Private Eye described the squabble as 'even by Labour's internecine standards it was a vicious fight.'

And then Ms. Turley was to announce on twitter:

'Unite & Skwawkbox have belatedly paid the damages and costs as ordered by the court. Proving after all that they are not above the law. What an avoidable waste of members’ money. Lesson is... don’t break the law.'

— Anna Turley (@annaturley) January 21, 2020

The judgement of Justice Nicklin J held that Unite was responsible for the defamatory statement because its Director of Communications sent the Second Defendant [Skwawkbox] a press summary fully aware that he intended to publish an article which would identify the Claimant and contain substantially the same defamatory sting about her 'being dishonest'.

The Defendant's Unite and Skwawkbox had claimed the Claimant “should have known” she was ineligible for Unite Community membership, but his Lordship emphasised that, even if that had been so, “negligence is unlikely to provide an objective basis upon which to reasonably suspect dishonesty” [134].

Skwawkbox the website that published the offending report had claimed that Turley, then Labour MP for Redcar, had called the leader of Unite an 'arsehole' and had joined Unite at cut price rate reserved 'exclusively for the unwaged' so she could 'undermine Jeremy Corbyn'.  Steve Walker, who runs Skwawkbox  according to the Mail Online 'Mr Walker, .... is the sales director and CEO of a company called Foojit, which provides mailing solutions to the NHS.'

Meanwhile Ms. Turley managed to lose her Redcar seat at last December's general election when the Labour Party backers Unite had declared in the High Court that she was 'not fit to be an MP'.  The £84,500  paid to Turley in aggravated damages, should help ease the pain of this defeat.  Probably Unite and its leader, Len McCluskey, now wish they had settled out of court when Turley's solicitors offered a settlement last June, if Unite agreed to pay her £25,000.  Now because the union refused this compromise it must now pay interest of 8% on the costs.  By rejecting this offer, it also lost the right to demand that Turley's legal advisors prove their costs were reasonable.

Ms Turley, MP for Redcar before losing her seat in the General Election, has said she was 'thrilled and relieved' after winning the case

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Rochdale Housing: Covid 19 & BAME Community

  Editorial Note:  NV was sent the e-mail below
from John Wilkins a friend of Zulfiqar Ali, who is
a former Rochdale Mayor.  We publish this without
comment, but we anticipate more information.  
Mr. Zulfiqar Ali writes:

Hi,

I am writing this email in concern to the high numbers of deaths within the black and minority ethnic community (BAME) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Amongst the numerous factors that may have contributed to the high number of deaths within this group.  One main factor that has been highlighted is overcrowding and poor housing situations. 

The government is uncertain on how to address these issues and improve the well being of the BAME community.  If these issues are not addressed in the near future it will have severe consequences for the communities. 

15 years ago, in the Manchester Metropolitan Borough the local council was given a golden opportunity to address the issue of poor housing and overcrowding within one of its wards that was identified as being one of the most deprived areas in Rochdale. 

The local council was given the European Regeneration SRBS funding to invest in community housing to resolve overcrowding and poor housing. 

Old housing and mill sites were allocated following numerous planning and consultations, it was proposed that affordable low cost right to buy homes would be built. 

Families in the community desired to live in the same community due to easily accessible amenities/ facilities i.e. school, healthcare and places of worship. 

Allocated sites included Nile Street, Edward Road and Gower Street. 

The local community was eagerly awaiting these developments.  In 2012 the proposal for the development was finalized.  But then the development project was given to ‘countryside housing’ who built the houses ‘to let’ for those in employment which was a major disappointment for the locals.

This would have been a good opportunity to tackle the issues of poor housing and over crowding by offering and affordable right to buy scheme rather than ‘to let’. This would have tackled the issue of over crowding and poor housing which is a main factor of transmission of disease during the pandemic. 

The WHO (World Health Organisation) identifies inadequate housing and overcrowding as one of the major factors in transmission of the disease. 

The local community is wanting answers to the issues raised in this email.

Regards,

Zulfiqar Ali

Former Mayor of Rochdale

Infection Control? What’s That?

by Les May

THE Care Quality Commission identified 3,200 deaths of elderly people who were receiving care in their own home in the twenty eight day period 10 April to 8 May.  This figure is about 2000 more than the average number of deaths for the same period in the past three years.   I am sorry to have to say that this jump in the numbers does not surprise me.

My wife and I are both in this age group. For our own protection we closed our door to the rest of the world on 21 March.  Two kind friends drop off food about once a week and we get occasional deliveries from a supermarket.  Milk is delivered to us three times a week.  Post arrives most days.

Before anything is allowed into the house it is either sterilised or quarantined for three days.  Cans and bottles are sprayed with diluted bleach, left for ten minutes, then washed bleach free.  Anything which is double wrapped, and most foods from supermarkets are, has the outer packing cut away with scissors, the food tipped out and the packaging goes straight into the outside bin.  Other food is quarantined.  Post which has come from a mailing list and will have been machine handled has the end of the envelope cut away, the contents tipped on to the floor and the envelope goes straight to the paper bin.  After the weekly waste collection the handles on the bins get the bleach treatment.  Hands which have touched anything which might be contaminated get the Lady Macbeth treatment.

Pedantic, careful, we don’t mind what you call us, we just intend to remain safe.

One of my neighbours who is much the same age as I, has been receiving ‘in home’ care since being discharged from hospital. There has been a regular stream of people involved in that care going in and house. I watch them. Some put on face masks, aprons and gloves, and some do not. Some come in clean white uniforms; most do not; they come in ‘clobber’ wearing backpacks. I have struck up conversations. If they come with some kind of PPE I mention how seldom this happens. I can usually guess, but ask politely, ‘are you Care Service or NHS’?

Yesterday I tried this with someone I could tell was from the NHS. When I mentioned how seldom people from the Care Service come with proper PPE the response was ‘We keep trying to get into their heads the importance of infection control’. Trying, but failing, it would seem.

Thankfully it is not my wife who is receiving ‘in home’ care. If it were I would not let the buggers in the house until they matched the standards of infection control I impose on myself.

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Just A Few Minor Details

by Les May

BETWEEN 10 May 1940 and 23 May 1945 Labour MPs were part of a coalition led by Winston Churchill.   Initially Clement Attlee was a member of the five man Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal.  From February 1942 Attlee was also Deputy Prime Minister.

In other words any planning for the post war world, including planning for an overhaul of the health care system, was as much done by Labour politicians as it was by those from other parties.   Labour didn’t just ‘get lucky’, implement existing plans drawn up by someone else and take all the credit for the formation of the NHS, as two recent contributors would have us believe.

Listening to Jeremy Hunt this morning I was left with the impression that one of the responses to the staggering number of deaths in Care Homes and similar facilities is likely to be a coming together of the Care Services and the NHS. This has been a long term ambition of Andy Burnham who has written and spoken about this since he was Health Secretary 2009-2010.   If, as I expect, legislation to bring this about will be in a future Queen’s Speech will the two recent contributors who are so keen to deny Labour credit for establishing the NHS be demanding that Burnham receives a share of the credit for a coming together of the care and health services?  Personally I am happy to give credit for this to whatever government brings it about.

As for the ‘Libertarian Left’ if it does not like the ‘statist’ model we have now it has had 73 years to bring into existence a viable alternative to the NHS and has done precisely nothing.   It is always ready to snipe from the sidelines, but never wants to devote time and energy to giving some thought to exactly how an alternative system would deliver specialist as well as routine care; how it would deal with epidemics of, for example, winter flu; provide a vaccination service for children which by its nature relies on ‘herd immunity’ to be fully effective; or how it would be funded.  What would its response to the Covid19 pandemic look like? How much thought has it given to international trade or international terrorism, cyber hacking or effective strategies to combat climate change?

Any answers to questions like this will be a long time coming, not least because so many of those who sail under the flag of the ‘Libertarian Left’ have lost themselves on the barren shores of ‘trans issues’, both for and against. 

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From whence did social welfare come?

 State Control or Social Initiatives?

 by Brian Bamford

LES MAY engaging with Carl Faulkner's comment and considering the founding of the NHS, writes:

'As my Libertarian friends endlessly remind me there were other schemes in operation even before the NHS was a gleam in anyone’s eye.

'Bevan would have been familiar with the Tredegar Medical Aid Society as he was the local MP. In return for contributions from its members it provided health care free at the point of use. (my emphasis)

'This model of funding was rejected by Bevan.'


Les clearly admires the Attlee government of 1945, which formed the first Labour majority government and in particular he favours its Keynesian approach to economic management aimed to maintain full employment, a mixed economy and a greatly enlarged system of social services provided by the state.  This amounts to a supreme faith in what in the 20th century amounted to Fabian managerialism.  It is a view that after the Second World War prevailed in which it was considered that as George Orwell observed in 1946:  'For quite fifty years past the general drift has almost certainly been towards oligarchy'*   (James Burnham & the Managerial Revolution [1946]).

At that time after the war it must have seemed that big government was onto a winner, and Orwell then felt able to write:  'The ever increasing concentration of industrial and financial power; the diminishing importance of the individual capitalist or shareholder, and the growth of the "managerial" class of scientists, technicians, and bureaucrats; the weakness of the proletariat against the centralized state; the increasing helplessness of small countries against big ones; the decay of representative institutions and the importance of one-party regimes...'

The problem with this approach is that it represented a shift from the capitalist and the dividend grabbers to a 'new boss class' of the technical elite functionaries blessed with cushy jobs and all on a generous state stipend.  As Orwell observed above it became 'the weakness of the proletariat against the centralized state'.  There was still the spirit of entitlement of the elite and the dependency of the working-class.

The difficulty is still that this analysis is too mechanical as well as managerial and top-down.  It lacks an evolutionary grasp of how the concept of social welfare entered and developed inside our culture.

Colin Ward described how the social concepts permeated sociologically:  'Anarchists are frequently told that their antipathy to the state is historically outmoded, since a main function of the modern state is the provision of social welfare.  They respond by stressing that social welfare in Britain did not originate from government, nor from the post-war National Insurance laws, nor with the the initiation of the National Health Service in 1948.'   **
 

Rather as Mr Ward argues:  'It evolved from the vast network of friendly societies and mutual aid organizations that sprung up through working-class self-help in the 19th century.'

This is what is implied by Carl Faulkner in his perceptive comment on this Blog:  'It could be argued that is was predictable that the NHS was established by a Labour government due to it being elected in 1945 - when plans for what was to be called the NHS were well advanced but lost in the mists of time.'

Indeed it was 'lost in the midst of time', as the anarchist Mr Ward explains:
'The founding father of the NHS was the then member of parliament for Tredegar in South Wales, Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Government's Minister of Health.  His constituency was the home of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, founded in1870 and surviving until 1995.'

It gave medical care for the local employed workers, who were mostly miners and steelworkers, but also (unlike the pre-1948 National Health Insurance) for the needs of dependents, children, the old, the non-employed: everyone living in the district.

A retired miner told Peter Hennessey that when Bevan initiated the National Health Service, 'We thought he was turning the country into one big Tredegar.'  Alas, it was not to be, and as Mr. Ward observes in his brief book:  'In practice the Health Service has been in a state of continuous reorganization ever since its foundation, but has never submitted to a local and federalized approach to medical care.'

More seriously Ward argues 'ever since full employment and the system of PAYE (automatic deduction of tax as a duty of employers) was introduced during the Second World War, the central government's Treasury has creamed off the cash that once supported local initiatives.' 

Furthermore, in keeping with the spirit of local spontaneity Colin Ward suggests:   
'If the pattern of local self-taxation on the Tredegar model had become the general pattern for health provision, this permanent daily need would not have become the plaything of central government financial policy.'

There is a price to pay for the pattern of State funding medical care applied by Nye Bevan and approved by Les May, and it now being played out as different governments enact various outsourcing schemes promote what Ward called 'the virtues of profit-making private enterprise.'


What follows from this debate is what will be the consequences of the pandemic for the psychology of the general population?  Will people look to the state for salvation in fear of a repeat performance of another potential pandemic threat or second wave?  If so, I suspect it will represent a reactionary response to the politics of the pandemic.




* Oligarchy, government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Oligarchies in which members of the ruling group are wealthy or exercise their power through their wealth are known as plutocracies.

**  'ANARCHISM: A Very Short Introduction' by Colin Ward (Oxford) 2004.

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Locked Onto Influenza Revisited

by Les May

Today Jeremy Hunt admitted that in the UK, as well as in much of Europe and the USA, the response to Covid19 had been based on how an Influenza pandemic would be dealt with. This would explain why testing was largely abandoned on or about 8 March.

Because the progress of Influenza epidemics is well understood, after initial testing to identify the Influenza strain which is circulating in the general population, it is usually abandoned with no deleterious effects. It may be restarted after the first peak of infections has passed if a second peak seems to be coming, in order to identify whether it is a different strain.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/04/locked-onto-influenza.html

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Watching A Politician Being Gently Skewered

by Les May

ALMOST every Sunday afternoon I watch the Politics Scotland programme. Unlike his English equivalents, the presenter Gordon Brewer, never tries to trap the politician he is questioning into a ‘TV moment’ just to boost his ego. Instead he is quiet, courteous, persistent and gets results.

A week ago I watched him question the Scottish Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, about the situation in Scottish care homes and specifically about the release of people from hospital into care homes.   She ‘waffled’ her way through an answer claiming that care homes should and could provide for such new residents an unrealistic level of nursing support.  On 15 May the guidance was changed, perhaps because Freeman realised she had been well and truly ‘skewered’.

Almost a half of the deaths in Scotland resulting from Covid19 disease have been in care homes.  At one such care home in Portree, the main town of the Isle of Skye, nearly all its 34 residents and half its staff have contracted Covid-19 and in the last 10 days seven residents have died, with dozens of staff sent home and told to self-isolate.

In order to stabilise the situation NHS Highland has stepped in to play a greater role in running of the home on Skye after the Care Inspectorate raised concerns.  The Scottish Government has announced it will fast -track emergency laws which will allow it to step in and take over the running of failing care homes.  On yesterday’s programme Gordon Brewer raised the question of whether the care home sector should be ‘Nationalised’.

Using the ‘N’ word will not be well received in some circles, but it is surely worth asking why we are farming out the nursing care of the elderly and frail to private companies, designed to return a profit,  instead of giving them the best nursing care available from NHS staff. 

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'Thank You Nye Bevan', Revisited

by Les May

  Carl Faulkner said...

'It could be argued that is was predictable that the NHS was established by a Labour government due to it being elected in 1945 - when plans for what was to be called the NHS were well advanced but lost in the mists of time.

'Contemporary news reports from 1944 demonstrate that plans for the NHS were already well advanced. They had moved on considerably from the Beveridge Report in 1942 (see: Towards A Healthier Britain - (Minister Of Health's Speech 1944)

'Unfortunately, the whole issue has been claimed by Labour and its supporters as 'theirs', with seemingly total and utter reverence towards one man.

'Like the substitute who makes his first appearance late on and scores the winning goal in the FA Cup finaal, it is often the politician who is in the right place at the right time, who receives all the praise - even if they never claimed nor asked for it themselves.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyjbUK88CB4

Thursday, 14 May 2020 at 17:49:00 BST

CARL Faulkner’s comment above about my original article rather misses the point of what I was trying to say.  As my Libertarian friends endlessly remind me there were other schemes in operation even before the NHS was a gleam in anyone’s eye.

Bevan would have been familiar with the Tredegar Medical Aid Society as he was the local MP. In return for contributions from its members it provided health care free at the point of use. (my emphasis)

This model of funding was rejected by Bevan.   The scheme that was eventually introduced was, and is, funded from taxation.  That is why I think we should be happy to say; ‘Thank you Nye Bevan’.   And I make no apology for saying so.

The advantages of not making it a contributory scheme can best be seen by contrasting it with National Insurance.  In the 1970s many married women were seduced into paying reduced NI contributions. When they reached the pensionable age for women they only then realised the disadvantage they had brought upon themselves.

At some point we are going to have to rethink how the elderly, infirm and disabled members of our society are cared for in order to bring some parity between the Care Service and the NHS in terms of provision of resources in the form of personnel and resources.   I would argue strongly for a service funded by taxation on the basis that we all run the same risk of needing such care at some time in our life just the same as we all run the same risk of needing care by the NHS.

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Spain’s gypsies target of coronavirus racism

Posted By: Progressive Spain 19th March 2020

An national federation of women’s groups from Spain’s Roma community has complained of a spate of racist and anti-gypsy messages being disseminated via both traditional and social media in Spain since the outbreak of the country’s coronavirus epidemic.

The Federación de Asociaciones de Mujeres Gitanas Fakali on Tuesday denounced what they say are racist episodes, including the dissemination of malicious fake news and information via social media that they say are “promoting racist psychosis in various parts of our country.”


The anti-gypsy xenophobia on social media include attacks on the Roma community in La Rioja, where a funeral in late-February for a member of the local gitano community brought together about a hundred people and is believed to have been the initial trigger for an outbreak of coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease in the province in and around the city of Haro.

In the nearby Basque Country, false claims were circulated via social messaging apps via an audio recording with a woman’s voice claiming that gitanos in the Basque capital of Vitoria were swarming the local health clinics, falsely claiming coronavirus symptoms so that they could be treated by healthworkers before others.

In a statement, the Fakali federation said that “Experience tells us that episodes of discrimination, racism and intolerance often flourish in the most difficult moments”.  The organization called for “calm and understanding” to prevail and encouraged all groups in Spanish society to “come together to beat COVID-19 and the virus of racism.”

► Click to read more news about Discrimination & Spain’s Roma community …

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Johnson blamed for ‘criminal negligence’ & ‘social murder’

item supplied by Joe Bailey

A TOP SAFETY law academic has accused prime minister Boris Johnson of criminality and ‘social murder’ after he called for an early return to work. Steve Tombs, professor in social policy and criminality at the Open University, said “the government must know that construction workers are exposed to and unwitting carriers of coronavirus. In my view this is criminal negligence, it’s manslaughter, it’s social murder.”  Professor Tombs was commenting in a Reel News online criticism of the government’s policy, featuring construction workers and their family members and construction, legal and safety experts. 

The video was produced by the grassroots Shut The Sites campaign, which is calling for the closure of all non-essential building sites and for all workers to be paid irrespective of whether they are employees, self-employed or agency workers. It says the same day the government urged all construction workers to return to work, Office of National Statistics figures showed “keeping sites open has led to three times as many deaths of construction workers as healthcare professionals.  Hundreds more will die if this appalling policy is allowed to continue - so Shut The Sites are calling for collective organisation to stop the carnage.”  It added:  “Construction workers on site are being encouraged to join a union and take action collectively to protect themselves and their families, alongside demonstrations by members of local communities at sites near them.”

It said all non-essential work should stop and any critical works must only continue “with the highest level of health and safety possible to protect workers.”  This week the government said local planning authorities were now expected to support the extension of site operating hours to 9pm in residential areas.  The ONS figures showed ‘Low-skilled workers in construction’ had a Covid-19 death rate of 25.9 per 100,000 males compared to the general working age population, five times the rate for ‘professionals’.
Reel News. Shut the Sites blog. Deaths in England and Wales related to Covid-19 by occupation, ONS, 11 May 2020.
The Guardian. Good Morning Britain. Construction Enquirer.

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Revolt of 1% against Spanish covid-19 ‘oppression’

RESIDENTS of Madrid’s upscale Salamanca neighborhood have been making headlines since Sunday with a series of street protests against the government over its handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Demonstrators have been using the words “dictatorial” and “oppression” to describe their situation under the ongoing lockdown.  Madrid, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, is still in the early stages of a national deescalation plan that is expected to end in late June, if there are no new spikes in transmission.

The protests reflect a view, held by some in Spain, that the state of alarm introduced in mid-March to combat the coronavirus pandemic is really an excuse for the central government to grab extra powers.  Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, of the Socialist Party (PSOE), heads a minority government and he has been facing growing difficulty to secure enough congressional support for back-to-back extensions to the state of alarm.

'We are in a dictatorial system, and I know what I’m talking about'

Magdalena, lawyer and protester

The sentiment mirrors similar feelings elsewhere in Europe, where protesters from across the political spectrum are beginning to demonstrate against prolonged confinement measures (see box below).  A recent report by Spain’s Civil Guard underscores the risk of social unrest in Spain if confinement measures are prolonged.

On Wednesday, around 100 locals banged on pots and pans on Núñez de Balboa street, without respecting social distancing rules.  There were couples, families and people with dogs.  Some marched with face masks that had tiny Spanish flags embroidered on them; others waved enormous flags instead.  The demonstrators called for the government to resign.

“I pay my taxes and we have a government that is doing nothing,” said María Jesús, 56, who was out with her husband Rafael, 60, and their son Pelayo, 16. “That is why I am walking and protesting.  You see these gloves?  I paid for them myself. And this face mask? I’ve paid for it, too.”

“We’ve even had to pay for our own [coronavirus] test,” added her husband.  “It cost me €80”

Wealthiest 1%

The Salamanca district is named after a 19th-century marquis who was instrumental in the area’s development.  It is home to more than 150,000 people, including the wealthiest 1% in all of Spain and the wealthiest 3% in the Madrid region.  Household income here is an average €50,376, compared with €33,000 in the region and €28,417 in Spain.

Asun (“I won’t tell you my surname, and you never ask a woman about her age”) is a civil servant who has been protesting every day since Monday.   “You’d think we were criminals with so many police around. There is no freedom. You should publish that [Pablo] Echenique and several other podemitas live around here,eh?” she said, alluding to leading members of the leftist Unidas Podemos group, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government.

“We are in a dictatorial system, and I know what I’m talking about,” said Magdalena, a local resident who works as a lawyer.  “They are applying a decree that bans our freedom.”

The demonstrations began on Sunday night.  Several residents say that a collective protest sprung up after several dozen youths gathered under the balcony of an apartment that was blaring out loud music.  Minutes later, a police van showed up and handed out fines to 12 members of the public for violating the lockdown rules.  Several residents criticized the police presence, crying out “Freedom!”

By Thursday, however, the street protests had all but disappeared, with just a few scattered people marching and chatting with reporters. One of them was Laura Domínguez, 39, whose dog Barri wore a Spanish flag as a cape.  “I am here because I am sick and tired,” said Domínguez, wearing a face mask and holding a cigarette.  “They’re creating a country of idlers.  And now they want to take everything away from me.”

Barri the dog wearing a Spanish flag.Manuel Viejo González

On Núñez de Balboa street, nearly 50% of residents voted for the conservative Popular Party (PP) at the last general election, held in November 2019, followed by the far-right Vox with 23%, the center-right Ciudadanos with 6.7%, and the Socialist Party (PSOE) with 5.4%. The leftist Más País and Unidas Podemos attracted less than 1% of the vote.

The regional premier of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the PP, has been encouraging these street demonstrations. “I hope people will go out on the street – the events of Núñez de Balboa are going to seem like a joke then,” she recently said. Meanwhile, Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida, also of the PP, said this week that “as long as [safety] conditions are maintained, everyone is free to voice their opinion.”

Vox leader Santiago Abascal has been pushing for anti-government demonstrations and challenging authorities to ban them, arguing that this would prove that fundamental freedoms are being violated. At a recent session of Congress to extend the state of alarm, Abascal said that his party would apply for permission to hold demonstrations against the government on the streets of Spain’s main cities, but that in order to respect social-distancing measures, the protests would be held inside vehicles rather than on foot.

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José Netto Gibraltarian syndicalist & Jack Jones

José Netto at the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la Frontera

by Brian Bamford

Editorial note:  I first met José Netto in 
March 1964, when I, my wife and baby 
6-month-old son (born in Denia, Alicante
had to leave Spain where we had been living 
and working for 12 month, and crossed the 
frontier in order to to comply with the then 
Spanish law. 

We had a 'letter of introduction' when we 
arrived at his council house in a working-
class area on the Rock.  He was living with 
his own young family and then worked on the 
tools in the Her Majesties Dockyard, but being 
an anarcho-syndicalist who had joined the 
then Syndicalist Worker's Federation 
while working in London in the 1950s.  
He and his mates helped to find me a job 
working as an electrician at the airport for
the Ministry of Defence repairing the landing 
lights on the airstrip.

One of José's close mates was Navarro, who was an 
anarchist supporter of the CNT, and had fought
for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in
following the military insurrection in July 1936.  

Although José was an anarcho-syndicalist in Gibraltar
the syndicalists were not sectarian and had close working
relations with historic labour leaders like Albert Risso*, 
who became the first president of the Gibraltar Confederation 
of Labour which, in 1963, merged with the  
Transport and General Workers' Union, now Unite.



* Albert Risso was one of the first political activists in the British territory of Gibraltar. at a very young age, he was one of the campaigners for the involvement of the Gibraltarian civilian population (and especially its working class) in governing the colony. In 1919, he was one of the members of a so-called "deputation of working men" who went to London to meet the Secretary of State for the Colonies and ask for the creation of a representative body that could succeed the Sanitary Commission, an unelected body whose members, usually belonging to the upper class, were nominated by the Governor. The campaign, driven by the trade unions, brought about the creation of the Gibraltar City Council in 1921.^{[2] 
By the start of World War II,[1] Risso was a foreman mechanic and a City Council employee. When most of Gibraltar's civilian population was evacuated, Risso was one of the few Gibraltarians that remained on The Rock.
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José Netto, the historic syndicalist anarchist trade union leader in Gibraltar in the last half of the 20th Century, visited the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la Frontera (Cádiz), on the 28th, January 2019, a few months after the donation of a library of this entidad of five volumes of the encyclopedia El hombre y la Tierra, a history of humanity written by Eliseo Reclus in 1905.  Reclus was a French scientist and creator of the Geografía Social, being one of the first theoreticians of anarchism and a man of action who participated in the Paris Commune, together with other famous historic activists.

These five volumes of El hombre y la tierra were edited in Barcelona en 1933. The translation is by Anselmo Lorenzo, the principle great leader of Spanish anarchism and its representative in the First International.

These volumes form part of the particular library of José Netto, and they were offered up from the hands of a syndicalist of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) when the Campo de Gibraltar had suffered in 1936, and  Spaniards in the area had struggled with death at the hands of the military coup that rose against the Second Republic.

José Netto received the books from a man who had been an exile since the 1950s and a few days after learning that that anarchist had committed suicide. The donation to the Casa de la Memoria was effected months later during the last session of the seminar of the Cursos de Verano de la Universidad de Cádiz in San Roque, the son of José Netto, Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.

In his visit to the Casa, José Netto, who now lives in Atajate (Málaga), had also donated two poster images of the Second Spanish Republic. 

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The donación to the Casa de la Memoria took effect during the last session of the seminar

la efectuó meses atrás, durante la última sesión del seminario de memoria histórica de los Cursos de Verano de la Universidad de Cádiz en San Roque, the son of José Netto, Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.

El histórico sindicalista de Gibraltar José Netto visita la Casa de la Memoria tras donar a la Biblioteca la enciclopedia de Eliseo Reclus

14/02/2019

Biblioteca para la Memoria, Libro de la semana

José Netto wrote the following obituary for Jack Jones of the T&G:

My relation with Jack stretches back to the late 60s early 70s when I was appointed District Officer in 1972, and he was the TGWU General Secretary.  He has always been my mentor, as we shared common ideology, and has been a tremendous influence in my professional development as a trade unionist.  He was responsible for financing the construction of our premises in Town Range, which at the beginning we used to call?  La Casa del Pueblo?  He played a very leading role in supporting our fight for parity of wages and salaries, against the MOD.  As the British and local government had rejected this claim, on the grounds that it could not be sustained economically, a fact that was later proved wrong.

The intention of the fascist forces in Spain, during the Franco regime, to strangle the economy, with its restrictions and the closure of the land frontier, was defeated by the contribution of the labour movement in Gibraltar, of which I feel very proud of.

I wish to pay tribute on behalf of the working class of Gibraltar, to this comrade, so that we never forget how much we owe to him.

Rest in peace, Bro. Jack.

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