Robert Harris on Boris Johnson

IN an interview over Lunch with the FT soon after General Election the writer, confident of Tony Blair, and political pundit, the classist Robert Harris, told Frederick Studeman that 'Every triumph has to be paid for,' he said, with an eye to his researches on classical Rome, believing Johnson will now have to deliver on his promises.  He added that Labour could be 'in quite a strong place in 2024 because the Tories won't have their two great advantages - "get Brexit done" and Jeremy Corbyn'.

There is a recognition however that it will be necessary to reorient the Labour party, and that would not be easy.

Meanwhile, Harris muses:  'One of the things I did learn from writing the Cicero books is the obvious one:  that in every great victory lie the seeds of subsequent defeat.'

His classical interpretation of the prime minister is that Johnson has a 'great man' view of power.   Harris says:  'He's, let's say, flexible in his approach.  I don't think he is guided.'

So expect some surprising twists and turns, the ditching of past policies and allies.  If Johnson wants to hold on to his newly won northern territories, then he can't have a hard, recession-inducing Brexit.

Boris is likened in the inerview to the Roman politician Publius Clodius Pulcher (died 52 B.C.) who was one of the leading demagogues in the 1st century B.C.  As tribune, he wielded nearly as much power as Julius Caesar or Pompey.

Harris says:  'One of the things that I did learn from writing the Cicero books is the obvious one: that in every great victory lie the seeds of subsequent defeat.'

Johnson will now have to deliver, according to Harris; adding 'Politics is just relentless.... nothing ever ends.  You get Brexit and then there'll be an NHS winter crisis.' 

*****************

Len McCluskey slams Corbyn's 'London mindset'!

THE Unite union leader Len McCluskey, while he trained his fire on Remain-backing members of the Shadow Cabinet, as well as centrist MPs who 'hankered after the New Labour past', the Unite general secretary claimed Labour needed 'a new leader early in the near future" who could "understand the communities that gave birth to the Labour movement.'
 
The comments - in a piece for HuffPost UK - are highly significant as Unite is Labour's biggest financial backer and the general secretary has previously been a staunch ally of Mr Corbyn.
It comes after Labour lost 60 seats in its worst election performance since 1935.

Mr Corbyn has vowed to quit after a 'period of reflection', and earlier on Friday said:  'The responsible thing to do is not to walk away from the whole thing, and I will not do that.'

Mr McCluskey reserved the majority of his criticism for senior Labour figires who had advocated for a pro-Remain position and led the party into a 'slow-motion collapse into the arms of the People’s Vote movement'.

He said:  It is pretty obvious where the essential reason for Thursday’s hugely disappointing result can be found.
'When our losses are concentrated in former coalfield constituencies and other post-industrial communities that voted heavily "Leave" in the 2016 referendum, and yet we happily retain our position in London more-or-less unscathed, it is staring us in the face.

'Others will try to make a different case, either because they have volubly hankered after the New Labour past throughout the years of Corbyn’s leadership of the party, or because they lack the honesty to accept the consequences of their advocacy of keeping Britain in the EU at any political price.'

But he also acknowledged 'mistakes' made by the party's leadership throughout its campaign, including what he called an 'incontinent rush of policies which appeared to offer everything to everyone immediately'.
 
Taking direct aim at the Labour leader, Mr McCluskey - who has previously backed the party's handling of anti-Jewish abuse - said Mr Corbyn's 'failure to apologise for anti-Semitism in the party when pressed to do so' had capped 'years of mishandling of this question'.

While he said Labour's Brexit position, backed at its party conference earlier this year, was 'the right and honourable one' he said it had been 'fatally undermined from the outset by leading members of the shadow cabinet rushing to the TV cameras' to promise to back Remain in a future referendum.

The Unite chief said:  'Both Labour’s target seats, and the ones most at risk in the north and the Midlands, were preponderantly in Leave-voting areas with very small Liberal Democrat and Green votes.  Put bluntly, there were far more coalfield seats to lose than there were Canterburys to win.

'As it is, a year of worrying about and placating exclusively Remain voters has produced the backlash which some of us predicted.  Better by far that we had stuck with some updated variation of the 2017 Brexit position, rather than its negation.'

Urging the party to 'rebuild, reflect on what went wrong and inevitably elect a new leader early in the near future', Mr McCluskey said:  'Corbyn has borne the brunt of one of the most sustained and unpleasant character assassinations in political history and done so with dignity.
'But alas some of the mud stuck and his leadership became an issue on the doorstep.'

And, in a thinly-veiled dig at Mr Corbyn, he said:  'The next leader needs to understand the communities that gave birth to the Labour movement, and realise that the whole country is not very like Labour London.
'As important as it is, too often, Labour addresses the metropolitan wing of its electoral coalition in terms of values – openness, tolerance, human rights – and the "traditional" working-class wing simply in terms of a material offer, as if their constituencies did not have their own values of solidarity and community.  That must change.'

************************************  

Tories take Monkey Town in the North!

 This is the story of a small, south-east Lancashire town called Heywood.   A place that is also rather affectionately (or disparagingly) known as 'Monkey Town’.

Old Heywood postcard.

*************

LAST NIGHT the Tory Party beat the Labour Party's incumbent, Liz McInnes, for the Heywood & Middleton constituency in Greater Manchester  to become the constituency’s first ever Tory MP, on a disastrous night for Labour nationally. 

The Tory victor, Mr Clarkson, agreed that national issues like Brexit likely contributed to his victory.

He said:  'It was a combination of factors. No result is about just one thing,

'Brexit was  an issue on the doorstep, but also people didn’t like Jeremy Corbyn - they didn’t want him to be Prime Minister - and that put a lot of people off voting Labour. A lot of people stayed at home.'

The former MP Liz McInnes, who had been MP for the constituency since 2014, remained at the count until the very end, putting on a brave face following the results, which saw the Conservatives receive 20,453 votes.  Ms McInnes came second with 19,790 votes.

The seat has, up until now, always been held by Labour.

This year, 47,641 ballots were issued, and 153 votes were rejected.  The new MP, Mr Clarkson was elected with a majority vote of just 663 votes, in one of the lowest turnouts in recent years.

*********************

Not a good night for Spanish Socialists

by Guy Hedgecoe, Madrid

Although Pedro Sánchez's [Spanish] Socialists have emerged as winners having suffered only slight losses in this election, the overall result is not a positive one for the acting prime minister.

With Podemos having lost some ground and Más País securing only a handful of seats, there is no clear left-wing majority.  The Socialists' arch-rivals on the right, the PP, have recovered many of the seats they lost in April's ballot.

If the country's longstanding political stalemate is to be broken, Mr Sánchez might have to seek the support of the PP [centre right], or else a third election in the space of one year could beckon.
Meanwhile, the huge surge by the nationalist Vox party makes it the country's third political force and it will now find it easier to set the agenda on the right. That is likely to hinder any attempts by Mr Sánchez to seek a conciliatory solution to the Catalan crisis.

The April election ended in deadlock, with parties failing to form a coalition by a September deadline, thus forcing Sunday's election.


To form a coalition now, they would need to form alliances with smaller, nationalist parties, analysts suggest.

Meanwhile, the PP and Vox could seek to make the most of their gains.

One PP politician said Prime Minister Sánchez should "start to think about going", given the early results.

******************

Catalan News: Pro-independence ERC party's win

IT was a historic general election for the pro-independence Esquerra party (ERC), which increased its number of seats to a record 15 in the Spanish parliament.

Winning six more seats than in it did in the last general election in June 2016, it is the first time since the 1930s that ERC has come first among the Catalan parties.

With the Junts per Catalunya party (JxCat) coming in with seven seats (one less than the last election), it means the pro-independence bloc in the Congress has an unprecedented 22 seats.

This could be significant, as Pedro Sánchez's Socialists, who won the election with 123 seats, may need the support of the pro-independence bloc to form a government.

Next among the parties in Catalonia came the Catalan Socialists (PSC), who went up five seats to 12, although the leftwing En Comú Podem party (ECP) was unable to maintain its good showing from three years ago, dropping from 12 seats to seven.

The unionist Ciutadans party (Cs) held on to its five seats, while the also unionist People's Party (PPC) lost five seats, dropping to just one.

It was also an historic night for the far-right Vox party, which entered parliament for the first time with one seat in Catalonia, and a further 23 in the Spanish wing of the party.

******

'We’ve Lost the Keys'

by Les May

I joined Rochdale Young Socialists in August 1960.  A month later, I was outside the Scarborough Conference demonstrating my support for a motion proposing unilateral nuclear disarmament.  Famously Hugh Gaitskell who was leader of the Labour Party at the time said;

‘We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent this, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable.  There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love.  We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party -- with its great past -- may retain its glory and its greatness.’

Labour was deeply divided over the issue, but it is generally accepted that Gaitskell, ‘lost the vote and won the argument’.  When he was challenged for the leadership by Harold Wilson, who presented himself as a ‘unity not civil war’ candidate and who shared Gaitskell’s scepticism about unilateralism, Gaitskell got two thirds of the vote, which at that time was confined to Labour MPs.

Sixty years later the arguments remain the same.   Is it Labour MPs who should determine policy and select the leader, or is it the wider membership of the Labour party?   Speaking today on BB2’s Politics Live programme Angela Smith, one of the ‘Not So Magnificent Seven’ who resigned from the party today, rather gave the game away when she said ‘We’ve lost the keys’.  Like it or not, after 2015 we have seen a power shift within the Labour party, away from MPs and to the members.

Unsurprisingly Labour members like it that way and are ready to be critical of their MP when they feel he or she is being less than supportive of Corbyn’s leadership and/or party policy.   They may have a point.  There are some constituencies which are ‘solid Labour’, but in most it takes a lot of effort by local Labour members to ‘get the vote out’.

Another of the MPs who left Labour, Luciana Berger, has successfully managed to conflate two quite separate issues; criticism of Corbyn and anti-semitism. Until they were withdrawn her local party was set to debate two motions;

'The UK is in crisis because of the appalling austerity policies of a government that serves the interests of the rich.  We need a Labour government under the socialist leadership of our twice-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn. Instead of fighting for a Labour government our MP is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be Prime Minister.

'The Tories are deeply divided, but millions are still suffering from their austerity policies.  We desperately need a socialist Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.  Our MP is continually criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories.'

Not by any stretch of the imagination can either of these be described as ‘anti-semitic’.  Nor do they seem to me to justify Chuka Umunna’s comment quoted in the Jewish Chronicle, ‘How about demanding her CLP treats her with the respect she deserves?’  Clearly Chuka still has not yet got used to the idea that Labour MPs are no longer in the driving seat.

That’s not to say that Berger has not been subjected to antisemitic abuse, she has.  But the evidence points to the fact that it is coming from people who have nothing to do with the Labour party.  This is what Wikipedia has to say:

‘In January 2013, it was reported that a Merseyside music promoter, Philip Hayes, had been convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence and fined £120 after an "antisemitic tirade" against Berger at the Liverpool Music Awards.

'In October 2014, Garron Helm, a member of the small neo-Nazi National Action youth group was imprisoned for four weeks after he sent an antisemitic tweet to Berger in August 2014, serving two weeks before being released.  Following the conviction, it was reported that similar messages to her were being posted on Twitter.  According to Berger in December 2014, "[a]t the height of the abuse, the police said I was the subject of 2,500 hate messages in the space of three days" using the same hashtag.

'During the 2015 general election, UK Independence Party parliamentary candidate for West Lancashire Jack Sen was suspended from the party after sending an allegedly antisemitic tweet to Berger.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine , a supporter of Helm, was convicted of racially-aggravated harassment of Berger in December 2016 and sentenced to two years.

'In February 2017, John Nimmo was sentenced to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to nine charges, including the sending of death threats and antisemitic messages to Berger.’

What Wikipedia also tells us it that in March 2018 Berger used Twitter to ask Jeremy Corbyn why he had queried the removal by a local council of an allegedly anti-semitic mural in 2012.   Using Twitter to do this rather than speaking to him directly or writing to him, suggests to me deliberate intent to cause trouble for Corbyn. 

*********** 

Baffling Ballot Box Probe

Editorial Note:  IN May 2017, Northern Voice produced the piece of investigative journalism below in which we tried to shed light on the shady goings on in the Spotland and Falinge ward.  That was at a time when mysteriously a marked ballot register disappeared without adequate explanation.  Since then the voting irregularities of the new Councillor Faisal Rana has further damaged the image of Rochdale.

*******

In Rochdale, a lack of curiosity at the top?

Written up by Les May based on research by Carl Faulkner and Brian Bamford

THERESA May’s ostensible reason for calling a General Election is that her slender majority of 12 was an obstacle to passing the legislation needed to cope with the fallout from the UK leaving the EU.  The cynical amongst you might wonder if it was not also an opportunity to distract attention from the fact that criminal charges are being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against at least 30 individuals in the Conservative party.  Some have been MPs in the 2015 parliament and contributing to Theresa’s slim majority, some will be candidates in this election and could be re-elected.   Electoral fraud isn’t just something that happens in other countries it happens here too.

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

It’s not just the Tories who have played fast and loose with the rules on election expenditure.  In recent years Labour and the LibDems have both been fined by the Electoral Commission for breaking election expense rules.  What makes the Tory case different is that the CPS is investigating whether there is evidence that candidates and their agents may be guilty of filing false spending returns. If they are both could be charged with fraud.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/alexandra-runswick/election-expenses_b_16146174.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-election-fraud-prosecutions-cps-election-campaign-result-overturn-battle-bus-a7689801.html

This type of fraud is easy to detect once you are alerted to what is happening.   There’s always a ‘paper trail’.  In fact a year ago as part of its ‘Check a Tory’ campaign the Daily Mirror put the election expenses of Tory MPs on line and invited readers to scrutinise them.  What’s much harder to detect is when a small group, with or without the tacit agreement of local party bosses, exploit weaknesses in the system to rig the ballot.  Having a system which ‘on paper’ is foolproof, is fallible if the people who are supposed to implement it fall down on the job.

In August 2015, the government put out a press release announcing that, ‘Sir Eric Pickles, the Government’s Anti-Corruption Champion’, was to review the question of electoral fraud.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-eric-pickles-to-examine-electoral-fraud

A year later it was published.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-eric-pickles-publishes-report-into-tackling-electoral-fraud 

So far so good.  But as I noted above any system is only as good as the people who implement it. This is what the Electoral Commission have to say about those people:

‘Local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Returning Officers (ROs) manage elections, and are uniquely placed to detect and prevent electoral fraud.  They should have robust plans in place to identify any suspicious behaviour and should work with the police to investigate any potential electoral fraud.’  (my emphasis)

But what actually happens when something ‘suspicious’ does occur.   Just how easy is it to get anyone to take notice?  Things seem to have changed in Rochdale since 2011 when ex-council leader Colin Lambert was outspoken about what needed to be done.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13192008 

Over a year ago Northern Voices was sent the extremely well documented correspondence between a candidate in the Spotland and Falinge ward at last years Rochdale Council elections, and the various bodies which are supposed to deal with questions of electoral fraud.  It runs to some 22 pages.

At that election a 'marked register' went missing.   It should have been handed to the Returning Officer at the point at which the ballot box and other official documents were delivered by the Presiding Officer at the close of poll. It was either accidentally lost or deliberately stolen.  There can be no reason why one of these alternative explanations should be favoured over the other.   If we are to take the fight against electoral fraud seriously the ‘precautionary principle’ suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary it should be assumed that it was stolen, the police should be informed to that effect and a full investigation launched.   It did not happen.

What is clear from this correspondence is that, in spite of Pickles bluster in The Telegraph:
'We should never be frightened to look under the rock when what is crawling underneath threatens us all. It is time to take action to take on the electoral crooks and defend Britain’s free and fair elections', when a complaint is made, no one wants to shoulder the responsibility for making sure that a proper investigation is launched.  It seems that Pickles was right about one thing, ‘the authorities are in a “state of denial” and are “turning a blind eye” to election fraud.’

Equally worrying is that the complainant, Carl Faulkner, who stood as an independent candidate, claims that he was not informed of the loss of the missing register as he should have been and that he was told ‘all candidates were informed about the missing register'.  Northern Voices made an effort to contact the other candidates to find out if and when they were told about the missing register.

Mick Coates, the Green candidate, was quite clear that he had not been officially informed that the mark register was missing.

Enquires with the Lib-Dems suggested that this was also the case with their candidate Matthew Allen, and Ian Duckworth, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, was unable to confirm that their candidate, Steven Scholes, had been informed either.

Wendy Cox the Labour candidate did not answer the question directly but said:  
'Thank you for your email. I have passed this to the electoral officer.'  

Quite why she felt she had to ask the electoral officer whether she had been informed, is unclear at this point.  A week later she was asked if there had been any response and replied suggesting that NV should contact the electoral officer directly.  On the 10th April the joint editor of NV wrote to the RMBC Chief Executive, Steve Rumbelow for clarification.

(His reply to the NV joint editor, Brian Bamford, is printed below together with the response of the original complainant, Carl Faulkner.  Copies of the full correspondence between the complainant and the various bodies which are supposed to deal with questions of electoral fraud can be made available by e-mail from Northern Voices.  It shows clearly that it was the complainant who initiated the contact with the Cabinet Office, Electoral Commission and Police not RMBC.)

The possibility that the register was in fact stolen has been excluded from consideration a priori, even though at the time an exhaustive and unsuccessful search was made at the polling station, and even of people’s cars.   The consequence of deciding that a register was ‘definitely lost’ not ‘possibly stolen’ is that there is a convenient ‘fall guy’ in the form of whoever was in charge of that polling station. They are deemed to have ‘lost’ it and their reputation must suffer as a consequence.

In all this the one thing that is very clear is that whoever told the complainant that ‘all candidates were informed about the missing register' was telling a porky pie. And these are the people we have to trust when it comes to combating electoral fraud.  Robust plans to identify potential electoral fraud?   I think not.

*******

Dear Mr Bamford
Thank you for your recent enquiry.  Please accept my apologies for the delay in response.
To clarify, the marked register is the copy of the electoral register used in polling stations. It serves as the record of who has voted in the election, and it is kept for a year after the election. The marked register does not indicate who electors voted for, nor does it contain ballot paper numbers. 

Legislation provides that a variety of parties are eligible to access copies of the marked register after an election. Anyone can inspect the marked register, but only certain people can purchase a copy. 

This includes individual candidates and political party representatives.  Usually, copies are requested by and provided to party representatives who would then disseminate the information to their colleagues, including candidates. 

All those who requested copies of the marked registers were informed that a register had not been returned following the close of poll and the steps that had been taken in an attempt to locate it, both immediately after the close of poll and in the days following the election. 

In addition, the Council has been in contact with the Cabinet Office, Electoral Commission and Police on the matter who were satisfied with the steps that had been taken and the measures put in place to prevent any future issues of a similar nature. 

Yours Sincerely
Steve Rumbelow

And here are Mr Faulkner’s observations:
1) Without him actually stating it, it is clear that people were only going to be informed if and when a copy of the register was requested. That is not the same as informing all candidates as a matter of course. It reiterates my position that there was a concerted attempt to conceal the incident by keeping quiet about it.

2) I feel he is attempting to downplay the importance of the marked register, by portraying it as nothing more than a post-election tool for political parties /candidates / interested persons.  This is not the case - it’s primary purpose is as an anti-fraud document - but one which can be utilised by political parties etc.

3) All contact with the police, Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission was initiated by me. They contacted RMBC - not the other way round as his response could be taken to mean.

4) What are the ‘steps’ put in place that did not exist before? The issue is not about how, who, why or exactly when the register went missing but that no candidates nor the police were informed at the time or during the following 21 days.

********

Richard Dawkins & 'Gut Methodology'

LAST week, Professor Richard Dawkins, formerly the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science, argued on Radio Four's Today program that humans should apply rational thought when trying to solve the world's problems to which the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby responded on Monday that acting out of love and through emotion is an important part of what makes us humans.

Speaking on the on the TODAY program last week, Dawkins had said people should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach.  'Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time.  But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think rationally.  Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.'

Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab, adding that 'evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the real world'.

However, responding to the good Professor Dawkins, the Archbishop of Canterbury, JustinWelby has said that the scientific method alone could not answer all of the big questions:
'The world is not entirely materialism.  It’s not entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.'

The archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of his deep sympathy for the family of Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old boy who died last week after a long legal battle, as well as the medics who treated him and the judges who presided over his case.

Justin Welby evoked the memory of his own daughter, Johanna, who died when she was less than a year old as he said the world could not be explained by rationality alone.

Welby was commenting on Prof Richard Dawkins' insistence last week on the primacy of evidence and reason, not emotion, when making big decisions.

'It’s quite well known that one of our own children died and we had to stand by the bed and they died when the life support was withdrawn. And I think that, in a case like that, I’m not going to say anything except that my heart breaks for the parents,' Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.

While he said evidence-based decision-making was important to him, he cited the Gard case as an example of where it could only be a part of the right approach.

Speaking on the same programme last week, Dawkins said people should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach.  'Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time. But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think rationally.  Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.'

Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab, adding that 'evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the real world'.

However, Welby has said it alone could not answer all of the big questions.
'The world is not entirely materialism. It’s not entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.'

Referring to the Gard case, which was at the centre of a long-running legal battle over the child’s care, Welby said any parent would 'fight for the life of their child as long as they could', adding: 'We know what that’s like.'

The judges and doctors who were treating Charlie at Great Ormond Street hospital came in for abuse as the case progressed through the courts, but the archbishop said that each person involved was worthy of sympathy because they wanted the best for Charlie.
'I’m sure they cared to the depth of their being about doing the right thing and it’s a very good example of where sometimes rational, evidence-based thinking is not the whole story.  The medics weren’t operating on that. They grieve when they lose a patient and particularly a child.
'I just feel deeply sorrowed by the whole thing and feel deeply, deeply, deeply for Charlie Gard’s parents and for all the rest of the people involved in the most tragic case. Sometimes, we want to come to clean, quick conclusions and it’s right just to pause and grieve.'

It must be extremely irritating for a passionate rationalist Professor like Professor Dawkins to cope with current political developments and the nature of human behaviour as it is being played out in the real world.  The scientific method of decision making is clearly not uppermost in most people's minds. 

In a study published today on the 2017 General election by Prof Ed Fieldhouse & Dr Chris Prosser of the University of Manchester, found:
'Despite Mrs May's claim that her reason for calling an early election was to get a mandate for the Brexit negotiations, the issue of Brexit itself had a relatively low profile during campaigning.
For much of the campaign, both the Conservatives and Labour focused on other issues.
But in the minds of the voters at least, the 2017 election was - as it promised to be ever since the referendum of June 2016 - the Brexit election'

The report says 'in the minds of the voters' but in the answer to the question:  'As far as you're concerned, what is the single most important issue facing the country at the present time?'
This research shows that more than one in three people chose Brexit or the EU, compared with fewer than one in 10 who mentioned the NHS or one in 20 who suggested the economy.

 It would seem that the driving force here as so often elsewhere in political decision-making is gut reactions rather than the ponderings of the scientific method as recommended by Prof. Dawkins.

Rochdale Election: Careerism vs Moral Compass

YESTERDAY, Rochdale Online editor gave his carefully calibrated opinion on the candidates in the  Rochdale election concluding with the controversal former MP, Simon Danczuk:
'We end with the most controversial candidate, the disgraced former MP Simon Danczuk, standing as an Independent - a man who has shown himself to be wholly unsuited to be an MP will fail to muster anything like the number of votes he expects. Not so low as to lose his deposit, as his many detractors are hoping, but low enough to deal his ego a blow.'
Mr. Danczuk, it will be remembered, increased his majority in the 2015 General Election and at that time the Manchester Evening News reported:
'Simon Danczuk held on to Rochdale for Labour - scooping the biggest majority ever seen in the constituency. 
'He polled 20,961, ahead of second-placed UKIP candidate Masud Mohammed, who claimed 8,519 votes.
'Conservative challenger Azi Ahmed came in third with 7,742 votes, followed by Liberal Democrat Andy Kelly with 4,667.'
It will also be remembered that in the May 1979 General Election, Cyril Smith increased his majority just after he'd been 'outed' as a bully and child abuser at Cambridge House in Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP). 
As a consequence of this perverse result one of the editors of RAP, later told me that he departed Rochdale forever, in disgust.

Every country has the government it deserves. Joseph de Maistre
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephdema138331.html

As Joseph de Maistre said:  'Every country gets the government it deserves'.

Every country has the government it deserves.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephdema138331.html

Perhaps every town like Rochdale, gets the MP it deserves!
The editor of Rochdale Online, himself reported to be a member of the Labour Party, wrote approvingly of Tony Lloyd the Labour candidate:
'Whilst he will not reach the lofty heights of the local Labour vote at the last general election (which was inflated by the Lib Dem collapse locally and nationally), Mr Lloyd's message of experience and a safe pair of hands still looks set to give him a reasonable majority.'
Hence, Rochdale may end up exchanging a degenerate form of politics with the colourful Mr. Danczuk for a 'safe' dyed-in-the-wool careerist in Mr. Lloyd.
If we were looking for moral compass we would have to casr our eyes elsewhere:  perhaps to  the outsider Andy Littlewood, standing as the 'Greater Manchester Homeless Voice' candidate or Andy Kelly, the Liberal Democrat, who almost single-handedly opposed the generous rises in councillor's allowances last December.

Banking Crisis, Blacklisting & Justice

Clearing the air in banking crisis & blacklist scandal
by Brian Bamford

LAST weekend, a Financial Times (FT) editorial explained the purpose of the legal process:

'The law tries cases and metes out punishment for a number of reasons.  Securing restitution for damage done and deterring future misdeeds are the most respectable and most often cited.  There ais subtler reason, though, one that is easily forgotten.  Justice often consists in simply setting the record straight, in saying  what happens in a clear, public and final way.  If this last element is neglected, old wounds can remain open.'

The F.T. editor was referring in this case to the financial crisis, and the current specific shareholder suit against the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as an example.  The RBS shareholders are after money compensation, and are seeking £700 million, claiming that they were misled by the bank ahead of a £12 billion rights issue in 2008, which was then followed by a state bailout and a further collapse in the value of the shares.  

Some of the shareholders who suffered from the shakedown by the bank and refused offers of a settlement say they want fundamental questions answered publicly.  'It's about seeing the ex-directors in court and for all what happened,' one said.

The F.T. editor focusing on the Royal Bank of Scotland writes:

'The shareholders would, more specifically, want to see former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin in the dock.  Mr Goodwin has, to a degree, been punished already.  He has lost his job, of course, and his knighthood was stripped away five years ago.  After a fight he was forced to accept a reduction in his pension.  But, aside from an appearance in front of a Commons inquiry, he has not had to answer publicly for what he happened at RBS or his role in it.'

Essentially neither the banking crisis nor, more importance to us, the issue of blacklisting in the British building trade is about one man or about one bank or about one construction company.  They are both issues of concern to the country as a whole. 

The banking and the financial crisis with its mis-selling and price-fixing scandals has ended up involving the tax-payer, and the state is still saddled with three-quarters of ownership of RBS.  And the government has recently accepted that it may never square the circle.  Yet, as the F.T. editor points out 'nearly a decade after the crisis, no senior UK bank executive has yet been a defendant in a civil or criminal trial as a result of the banking sectors' decimation by bad loans, risky funding and ill-structured products.'

The blacklisted workers in the British building trade would immediately recognise this scenario as described above.  Despite blacklisting on a vast scale which is in all probability continuing, no culpable executive in the construction industry has had to appear in person before a criminal court in this country.  True compensation has been paid by the companies to the victims of blacklisting in out-of-court settlements, but apart from people like Callum McAlpine having to appear in front of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee with his solicitor by his side, there has been no proper admission of guilt.  Indeed, Mr. McAlpine told the Scottish Affairs Select Committee he'd been advised by hie solicitor that he couldn't answer any questions on the grounds of.sub judice.

It does not seem that the blacklisted electricians on the British building sites will ever get full justice through the courts; Dave Smith, as an agency worker, recently lost his case at the European Court of Human Rights  That is 'full justice' of the kind of sense of justice which according to the F.T. editorial above 'consists in simply setting the record straight, in saying  what happens in a clear, public and final way.'

Consequently, unless  the Labour Party comes to power in the forthcoming general election and establishes an independent public inquiry into blacklisting as promised by some including the Blacklist Support Group, the air will never be cleared in the British building trade creating much disgruntlement among the workers and trade unionists, and construction companies will continue to impose forms of blacklisting throughout the industry.  Thus, old wounds will remain open in the British trade union movement.

Corbo will engage in tonight's BBC debate

JEREMY Corbyn has announced he will take part in the live TV General Election debate tonight on the BBC, and he has challenged Theresa May to join him.
The Tories will be represented by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, after Mrs May made clear that she would not take part in a face-to-face showdown with any other party leaders during the campaign.

The Labour leader will take part with the leaders of the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, and the SNP's leader at Westminster, at the BBC event, which is now being boycotted by the Prime Minister.

Mr. Corbyn tweeted:

Jeremy Corbyn‏Verified account @jeremycorbyn

.@Theresa_May come & debate me. Any time. Any place. Britain deserves to see the only two people who could be the next Prime Minister debate

Meanwhile, the Labour Party issued the following statement on behalf on Mr. Corbyn:

'I will be taking part in tonight’s debate because I believe we must give people the chance to hear and engage with the leaders of the main parties before they vote.

'I have never been afraid of a debate in my life. Labour’s campaign has been about taking our polices to people across the country and listening to the concerns of voters.

'The Tories have been conducting a stage-managed arms-length campaign and have treated the public with contempt. Refusing to join me in Cambridge tonight would be another sign of Theresa May’s weakness, not strength.'

Elections, Pitchford Inquiry & Vain Expectations?

 WE are publishing the newsletter below from the

Blacklist Support Group.  We publish it as we

always do, but without any great expectations

or hopes with regard to any kind of plebian victory 

resulting from the General Election.  While we may 

agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein that William the Conquer

got himself a good bargain in 1066, generally we side with

Orwell who said:  'The corruption that happens in England 
is seldom of that kind [overt].  Nearly always it is more in the 
nature of self-deception, of the right hand not knowing what 
the left hand doeth.  And being unconcious it is limited.'
(See The Lion & the Unicorn').  That is why, in the final
analysis, Northern Voices cannot fully embrace the optimism
of the Blacklist Support Group either with regard to the
Pitchford Inquiry or indeed in their expectations from a
Labour Government.  We wish the blacklist campaigners
well, but we cannot stomach the necessary self-deception
involved in promoting the Labour Party.
******

EVERY political party in the General Election is claiming to be the voice of the workers. Blacklisted construction workers know the score:

1. Labour pledges a public inquiry into blacklisting: That gets our vote!

http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/workers/

This pledge was announced by John McDonnell in St.George's Hall, Liverpool last week in front of the huge Blacklist Support Group banner.  

2. Article in today's Morning Star exposing the failure of the ECGR and British courts to protect blacklisted workers and challenging political parties to grant basic employment rights to all workers in the UK.   If workers rights cannot be protected by judges in the UK or the European Court of Human Rights, then it is time to change statutory legislation. 

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-dc1a-No-blacklist-justice-for-Britains-agency-staff

3. In the same week as the ECHR ruling above, blacklisted electrician Frank Morris, is sacked again. This time on an NHS hospital. Let's hear candidates queue up to call for Frank Morris to be reinstated.  

Reel News video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iKhQdLpUm4&t=129s

4. Spycops

New 59 page ruling from the undercover police public inquiry. Releasing the cover names of undercover police officers who spied on activists is a 'priority' but Lord Justice Pitchford allows Met Police another 12 months extension to carry out 'risk assessments' in preparation for more anonymity applications.  But the police are not engaged in 'delaying tactics', oh no.

https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20170502-ruling-MPS-applications-re-SDS.pdf

Victims boycott Scottish police internal investigation

http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2017/05/03/spycops-victims-boycott-scottish-inquiry/

Scottish activist spied on by police seeks judicial review to win a Scottish inquiry

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/undercover-policing-scotland/

Other than John McDonnell and Jenny Jones, most politicians have been surprisingly quiet about the spycops scandal. 

5. May Day greetings from the Blacklist Support Group to all sisters, brothers & comrades fighting for their rights around the globe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh6vCsfaKWU&t=3s

6. Dates for the diary:

Friday 5th May - Blacklisted worker turned academic Dr Jack Fawbert speaking on Corporate Crime 7 Blacklisting at Anglia ruskin University in Cambridge 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/anglia-ruskin-university-community-engagement-1110250731

22nd May - Last day to register to vote in General Election

https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

7. And finally:

Congratulations to the blacklisted workers and rank & file activists elected to represent construction on the UNITE Executive Council Frank Morris, Royston Bentham, Tony Seaman & Joseph Pisano

Blacklist Support Group

Liberal Democrat Welcomes Danczuk dumping

THIS morning The Independent reported that Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale, having been dumped by the Labour Party, 'is now thought to be considering standing as an independent and may also launch a legal challenge'.  
Last night, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Rochdale, Councillor Andy Kelly, issued the following statement:
'If Simon Danczuk cannot stand for Labour - then that's good news for our Town. The Liberal Democrats are fighting hard to win in June. We have dozens of new members and activists ready to give Rochdale the fresh start it deserves.'
Andy Kelly further speculates saying:

 'We fully expect Danczuk to stand as an Independent to pocket close to a whopping £40,000 redundancy package. It would be interesting to see whether the local Labour Party back him as they have continued to do throughout the scandals that have dragged our town down.'

A Labour Party spokesperson confirmed the decision about Mr Danczuk:
'After considering the case of Simon Danczuk in detail and speaking to him in an interview, the Labour party’s NEC endorsement panel today unanimously recommended that he should not be endorsed as a Labour candidate. 
'He will not be able to stand as a Labour candidate in any constituency at the general election,' the spokesperson told the Guardian.
Danczuk, who has been involved in a series of scandals, was been suspended from the party in December 2015, when he sent sex messages to a 17-year-old girl who was seeking a job.
Mr Danczuk has not yet formally responded to the Labour Party decision.

Simon Danczuk Dumped! by Labour Party

 SIMON Danczuk, the MP for Rochdale, has been rejected by the Labour Party National Executive Committee [NEC] as a candidate in the forthcoming general election. 
Today a Labour party spokesperson confirmed the decision to the Guardian saying:
'After considering the case of Simon Danczuk in detail and speaking to him in an interview, the Labour party’s NEC endorsement panel today unanimously recommended that he should not be endorsed as a Labour candidate.  He will not be able to stand as a Labour candidate in any constituency at the general election.'
Despite being banned as a candidate Danczuk has not been expelled from the party, the source said.
A friend of Danczuk said he was seeking advice over the decision.  He pointed out that Danczuk has previously been named as campaigner of the year in parliament and was commended for his work with constituents and over child abuse claims against the late MP Cyril Smith. This friend also said:  'Simon has made some silly mistakes and he’d be the first to admit that.  But let’s not forget it wasn’t long ago that he was forcing Tory ministers to stand up in the House of Commons and issue grovelling apologies, he was briefing Theresa May on why she needed to launch an independent child abuse inquiry and he was getting corrupt politicians jailed in Sri Lanka for killing his constituent.' 
The friend is no doubt refering to the seemingly endless expensive overarching public enquiry into child sex abuse, and which will not be published for donkey's years. 

The notorious MP was told by party officials that he would not be endorsed as a candidate for the Lancashire seat, which he has held since winning it from the Liberal Democrats in 2010.
Danczuk’s nearest rival at the 2015 election was a Ukip candidate who won about 8,500 votes, closely followed by a Conservative with about 7,700 votes.
NEC members are due to meet on 3 May to rubberstamp all the candidates selected for the 630 seats the party will contest across the UK, including sitting MPs.   Labour officials from party headquarters have told local Rochdale members that an official decision will be announced after the meeting on 3 May.
The deadline for Labour’s candidate nominations is 5 May.
His estranged wife Karen has also failed in her bid to be selected as a Labour candidate for Bury North in the upcoming election.

Taking Working Class Toryism seriously

by Andrew Wallace  (24/04/17)

 IN just a few weeks’ time the British working class will turn out in unprecedented numbers in order to support a right wing Conservative government, marking an apotheosis of trends in which working people of modest means have enthusiastically endorsed a party pursuing an historical agenda which would seem on the surface at least to be hostile to their interests.

However I would say that as a leftist because I have already accepted it as self-evident that a Conservative agenda is not commensurate with the interests of those at the bottom of our socio-economic hierarchy.  I have imbibed sufficient life experiences and also by way of exposure to arguments in books and articles over the years to convince me of the malevolence of their brand of free market fundamentalism.

So like many lefties I feel irked to say the least with that most heretical act of political deviancy, the perverse irrationalism of working class Toryism.  Social networks are presently going into overdrive as Corbynistas are confronted with the rude reality as many of their friends and family have the temerity to circulate a number of pugnacious right wing memes.  The echo chambers are being systemically punctured and we are being cumulatively disabused of the progressive habitats of alternative media.

And thereby hangs a dilemma for us to collectively confront, the left’s deep denial and impotence to comprehend, let alone combat, the reality of the great ‘heresy’.

‘Heresy’

Working class Toryism has a long standing history. Marx thought that the advent of universal suffrage equated with the ‘political supremacy of the working class’. 19^th century parliamentarians fretted that the Reform Acts would destroy their dominance. This of course never happened and Conservatives like Disraeli were canny in cultivating blue collar Tories.

As maverick social thinkers like Michael Collins (labelled a ‘bête noir of the liberal left’ for his ‘destructive nostalgia') have argued with increasing plausibility, the instincts and sentiments of certain traditional working class communities are often far removed from the left liberal worldview. His discussion of the costermongers of old delineates their Tory and royalist sympathies and their antipathy to anything that might constitute a bohemian socialist import.

Collins also breaks rank with liberal niceties when he talks of culture and the salience of race and the white working class. For Collins, multiculturalism has been used as a tool by a metropolitan elite to censor and marginalise the indigenous white left behind, inviting a backlash that further strengthens forces on the far right.

Powellism

Enoch Powell’s controversial Rivers of Blood speech from 1968 (described aptly by Stuart Hall’ essay as ‘A torpedo aimed at the boiler room of consensus’), was a powerful reminder of the traction and mass appeal of a right wing doyen.  Socialists of the day had no choice but to acknowledge Powell’s formidable appeal to many workers at this time, particularly when organised labour in the form of the dockers and building workers marched in his support.  As the International Socialists (forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party) conceded: The ready response to his speech has revealed the prevalence of racialist ideas among workers, inculcated by centuries of capitalism and imperialism

From Ragged Trousered bankruptcy to Vanguardism

Robert Tressell’s famous novel, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, is essentially an extended Socratic dialogue in the form of a novel, as the main protagonist, Frank Owen, engages with the congenital working class conservatism of his work colleagues.  The novel is actually a useful reminder as to socialism’s problematic nature with its ostensible working class base.  Owen has to go to great lengths to proselytise for the superior virtues and rationalism of socialism.  Owen’s fellow workers are highly resistant to left wing ideas and generally happy to acquiesce in the status quo.  This is surely a salutary reminder that such ideas are far from having a privileged locus and position in working class communities, there is no spontaneity or easy populist reception for socialism.  

On the contrary, socialism is now seen as a didactic radical import.  Without the hoped for organic growth of working class left wing movements, this would have to be remedied by vanguardism, thereby negating one of the original premises of socialist thought, that working class emancipation had to be the work of the working class themselves. Unfortunately as the unfolding of history goes, that innovation didn’t work out particularly world.

Acknowledging the reality of a rightist working class

We urgently need to understand the limitations of conventional leftism and the elephant in the room – how the working classes have defected on mass to the right.  There will be lots of heads banging against walls come June 9^th, but as I have argued here, this is not a new problem.   Each generation have to partake of this bitter fruit.  However we are still compounded by our collective delusions and failure to understand the reality on the ground.

Support for 'Hard Working' Rochdale MP

IN January, at a full meeting of Rochdale Council, Richard Farnell, the leader of the Council, said:

'MR. Danczuk (the MP for Rochdale) has a lot on his plate at the moment!' and 'I support any member of Parliament who works hard for this Borough.  I remember working with Geoffery Dickens (a former local Tory MP for Littleborough & Saddleworth)...  Simon Danczuk trounced Councillor Kelly... (at the General Election'.

He  was answering a question from Councillor Andy Kelly, Liberal Democrat, about his own support for the member of Parliament and dismissing Councillor Kelly's question as 'irrelevant'.  At that time the notorious Mr. Danczuk MP had just been suspended by the Labour Party for sexting a 17-year-old girl.

Hard working indeed; yesterday the Zelo-Street Blog reported on Mr Danczuk's recent conduct: 

'Take the issue of MP surgeries, a vital part of any Parliamentarian’s work, and one where Danczuk’s priorities have suddenly slipped. Last week, constituents who expected their MP to hold his surgery on the usual day - Friday - were disappointed to see him Tweeting “Busy weekly surgery today with @elsiewraighte: immigration; tenancy issues; housing benefit; Crown Prosecution Service decision; & more”, but on Thursday.

'Why would he hold his weekly surgery a day early? We had to wait until Saturday for the answer, when he again took to Twitter to tell “Really enjoyed watching @englandcricket yesterday & well done to @jbairstow21 & @jimmy9”.  Yes, when his constituents might have expected Simon Danczuk to be in Rochdale, listening to their problems and addressing their concerns, he was at Headingley watching the cricket.'

That's what you call flexible working conditions, a bit different from Zero Hours contracts. 

Triumph of the Right!

THE National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) has just announced in a recent e-mail that:
'In the splendour of the unelected House of Lords, through the mouthpiece of a hereditary monarch, the Tories who were elected by 24% of the electorate have announced plans for new anti-union laws.'


Indeed, the Government's Queen's speech did state plans to introduce more anti-union laws, but if recent history is anything to go by the establishment will have little to fear from the body which entitles itself the National Shop Stewards Network.  In fact the above quote just shows just how much the far left as well as the Labour Party delude themselves. 


The Tories may well have cornered merely 24% of the overall electorate; yet the figures show that combined vote share of the parties of the right (Conservatives, UKIP and the Ulster Unionists) increased to 50.5% of all votes cast.  And if the Liberal Democrats are included as a right-wing party then the figure is 58.4%.  The parties that may be classed as on the left (Labour, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP) got 39.8% of all the votes cast.


Years ago, the NSSN demonstrated its political impotence after the General Election in 2010, when it split-up, formed itself into an anti-cuts campaign, and became essentially a front for the Socialist Party.  At that time under the influence of some independent socialists, the then Chair of NSSN, Dave Chapple, and some independent syndicalists, many genuine trade unionists left the NSSN when it developed into a political runt supported by the RMT.  Since then it has failed to prevent any Government cuts.


The NSSN has shown itself to be a political irrelevance by participating in the recent elections in May 2015:
TUSC stood 135 parliamentary candidates across England, Wales and Scotland, and it had 619 candidates in the local elections.  The party gained 36,327 votes in the election, or 0.1% of the popular vote. No parliamentary seats were gained and no deposits were saved.


But if TUSC is a political irrelevance, the main stream Labour Party is now being describe as being in 'existential crisis'.  That means that the Labour Party ought to be questioning the very foundations of its own existence.  Thus we have a far left that is virtually non-existent, and a main-stream left in the Labour Party that has as I, and others, have said has outlived its mission.


Part of the problem, which needs further examination, is that the left in this country is patronizing towards the white working-class.  Left-wing politics here is based upon crude formulas, lazy analysis and cookbook thinking.


In The Observer, Nick Cohen wrote:
'The universities, left press, and the arts characterize the English middle class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot.  Meanwhile, they characterize the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic.'


The trouble with the English left is that it has got itself stuck in a kind of idée fixe, a mind-set or what Mr. Cohen calls a trance from which it needs to escape if it is going to have any impact on society. 

Media Lens on the Election

THE famous physicist Albert Einstein was fond of Gedankenexperimenten – thought experiments – which tested his understanding of physics problems and stimulated solutions to them. For example, when he was a teenager, Einstein asked himself, 'What would the world look like if I rode on a beam of light?' Pursuing this question, he eventually came up with the Special Theory of Relativity and the most famous equation in science, E=mc².
Imagine, then, this thought experiment. Consider how a general election might turn out if the media spectrum ran the whole gamut from the right - the BBC, Guardian and Independent, for example - to the hard right (the Mail, Sun, Express and so on). Some readers might object that the BBC, Guardian and the Independent are not right-wing at all, but centre or even left-liberal. But, as we have shown in numerous books and media alerts, these media organisations are embedded in powerful networks of big business, finance and establishment elites. Naturally, these are the one per cent - or even narrower - interests that corporate media largely serve and support. Such media do not even deserve to be called 'centre', if the term is to retain any meaning.
In this case, of course, a thought experiment is not required because reality carried out the experiment for us, with the results being all too obvious last Friday. The Tories were returned to Westminster with a 12-seat majority. Notably, they only had 37% support from a turnout of 66%. That means only 24% of the eligible electorate actually voted for a Tory government. Such is the undemocratic nature of the electoral system in the UK. The establishment wins every time.
As Neil Clark observes in an article for RT, there is a long history of British press scaremongering to prevent any threat to corporate and financial interests come election time. As usual, the Murdoch press led the way, with the Sun warning on April 30:

'A week today, Britain could be plunged into the abyss. A fragile left-wing Labour minority, led by Ed Miliband and his union paymasters and supported by the wreckers of the Scottish National Party, could take power... You can stop this. But only by voting Tory.'

The ludicrous warning about 'left-wing' Labour - a pro-business, pro-austerity party that has cut its roots from working people - was repeated across much of the press. Even the ostensible 'liberal' Independent, owned by the Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, came out in support of the Tories.
After weeks of debate about the likelihood of a hung Parliament and permutations of possible coalitions, opinion pollsters and professional pundits expressed surprise at the relatively comfortable Tory win. But for investigative reporter Nafeez Ahmed, the outcome was predictable. In a piece titled 'How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections', published the day after the election, Ahmed noted:

'The ultimate determinant of which party won the elections was the money behind their political campaigns.'

The Tory party was the biggest recipient of donations, 'the bulk of which came from financiers associated with banks, the hedge fund industry, and big business.'
In summary:

'the most important precondition for victory in Britain's broken democracy is the party's subservience to corporate power.'

"FIVE MORE YEARS OF TYRANNY!"

Charlotte Hughes stood for the  Green Party as their Parliamentary candidate for the seat of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the May 2015 General Election. A local community campaigner and social activist, Charlotte runs a blog called 'The Poor Side of  Life'. The following article which we are publishing in full, is taken from her blog:




"Shocked could be a word that I could use, but I won’t. Thatcher got voted in for a second and third term in Parliament despite much opposition. So then the Tory party got re elected it wasn’t so much of a shock, it felt like something had died in our country. Yes the Tories have regained their power and will no doubt use this power, unopposed by anyone to inflict the worst damage that has ever been known to the poorest in society. 

I was interviewed by a local paper whilst at the election count and the reporter said to me “How would you feel if the conservatives won the election?” I said that I would feel sick, I would cry. I would not be crying for myself  I would be crying for the people of this country. A country that will be systematicically destroyed and taken apart by the Tory party for the benefit of the rich. I don’t use the name that the Tory party have rebranded themselves with. The very name conservative does not suit them. The definition of the word conservative is to not like change, to be quiet. Well they are going to do exactly the opposite. We know this. They plan to dismantle this country as we know it bit by bit, piece by piece. Every single safety net that we have relied on will soon be gone. If it doesn’t benefit the rich then it will no longer exist. Make no mistake they don’t care for anyone who isn’t one of them.

My first experience of the Tory party began when Mrs thatcher came into power. Even as a child I knew that this would be bad. For the first time in my life I felt what it was like to be poor. We had holes in our shoes, filled by cardboard and had no money for anything other than to exist. If it wasn’t for my grandparents we wouldn’t have had new clothes. My father was an engineer, a trade he didn’t really like but it was a job and we depended on it. Back then we had local industry, and we depended on that industry. I was told that the Tory party were bad, they only looked out for themselves and he was right. As a result there was strikes, but as a child I knew that what they were fighting for was right. I remember arguing with my parents about this. But I always had this belief that we must stand up for what is right.

So what now? Do the people who have voted in this government again realise exactly what they have voted for? I doubt that they do. Many I suspect have read and believed the mainstream news and voted as a result of the innacurate stories in the newspapers. Here’s a list of what will most likely happen, now there is no one to stand in their way.

The snoopers charter will be passed. Say goodbye to your privacy.
The NHS will be sold. There is opposition to this and Caroline Lucas is the head of this opposition. I hope that she gets enough backing to prevent the sale of our precious NHS.
TTIP will happen. This will have vast implications on our country as a whole.
Zero hour contracts will increase. More likely they will become the norm.
The benfit sanctioning regime will become worse, if it possibly can.
Homelessness will increase massively.
No social housing will be built. 
The human rights act will be scrapped.
Climate change investments will be slashed.
The BBC TV license will be scrapped and a subscription based service introduced.
Employment regulations will be slashed, they will merge regulators and cut costs.
The Tory party want to reduce seats in parliament to 600 from 650. This will be pushed through as a priority, making it difficult for another party to get into power in 2020.
There will be a referendum in Europe.
Fracking plans will go ahead. 

Cameron’s majority is wafer thin and he now only has a majority of 10 very rebellious back benchers to whip. Maybe this will work in our favour….
What can we do now? 

All anti austerity parties need to now join together in solidarity. We need to put aside any differences and work together. By doing this we will form a very powerful opposition indeed. We didn’t quite get it right before the election but we can do now. And the Labour Party needs to become the left wing party that it used to be. They will gain more support if they stop cosying up to austerity ideas and plans. They need to start saying no. By supporting all people again not just working people. We also need to look at the SNP and learn from them. They started as a small minority party but have grown massively. 

We can survive this, and we will by joining together. If you work join a union, if you don’t join unite in the community. The Tory party will try and attack the unions as much as possible now. And whilst they haven’t acted as strongly as they should have done in the past I feel that they will start to act more strongly now. There’s strength in numbers and we need to remember that. 

Always remember that a compliant society is easy to control, a non compliant society isn’t easy to control. So let’s not make this easy for them. "