The DISHONOUR'S LIST by Christopher Draper

“Ye see yon birkie, c’ad a Lord,

Wha struts, and stares, and a’ that;

Though hundreds worship at his word,

He’s but a coof for a’ that”

His riband star and a’ that:

The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at a’ that!”

Robert Burns

OUR ABSURD SOCIETY is awash with champagne socialists courting popularity by railing against privilege and inequality whilst brown-nosing their way onto the Honours List…

1) Bea Campbell – Officer of the Order of the British Empire – Ms Campbell claimed that, 'The survival of an honours system clothed in royalism and imperialism is a reproach to New Labour' and insisted that 'every morsel, every cameo, scandal and chapter in the story of the Spencers, the Windsors, their servants, their scribes and us, confirms the case for a Republic'. Marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee, in 2002 she wrote, 'My republican hope is that when she dies, she takes the monarchy with her.' As the daughter of communist parents Bea joined the CP as a teenager, married a party member and joined him as a journalist on The Morning Star. Subsequently divorced, in 2009 she described herself in the Guardian as 'republican with politics rooted in Marxism and feminism' and accepted an OBE from the Queen!

2) Clement Attlee – Companion of Honour 1945, Order of Merit 1951, Earl 1955, Knight of the Order of the Garter 1956, – When the iconic Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee offered an Earldom to R H Tawney, the historian declined, expressing surprise “that Labour still valued such baubles” yet, pathetically, Attlee considered his bauble collection his career validation, boasting in a 1956 letter to his son;

'Few thought he was ever a starter –

There were many who thought themselves smarter –

But he ended PM

CH and OM

An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.'

3) Janet Street-Porter – Commander of the Order of the British Empire – Extravagantly vulgar and rebellious, JSP was born to unmarried working-class parents, had an illegal abortion as a schoolgirl and famously carved out a media career as the unbridled 'Voice of Yoof'. She famously described TV management as, 'male, middle-class, middle-aged and mediocre' and in 2015 called the BBC, 'a cosy middle-class' club prone to 'creeping fucking paralysis' yet having achieved fame upsetting establishment apple carts, in 2016 Janet Street Porter graciously accepted a CBE.

4) Paul Kenny – Knighthood – after spending most of his life employed as a full-time GMB union official in 2005 he was appointed acting General Secretary and elected unopposed the following year and again in 2010. At the 2012 GMB Conference he accused the Labour Party of elitism, 'Even good trade unionists don’t engage with the Labour Party. Everyone agrees it looks too much like a political elite'. In 2015 Paul Kenny knelt before the Queen and was Knighted.

5) Vanessa Redgrave – Commander of the Order of the British Empire – Acclaimed actor, from 1971 key member of the Troskyist Workers Revolutionary Party until expelled in the late 1980’s, has been a constant critic of British State policy from treatment of asylum seekers to 'the war on terror'. Curiously, this erstwhile revolutionary having accepted a CBE, declined being ennobled as a 'Dame' in 1999 although, 'I’m not agains't the royal family, they do many good things' but because she objected to being nominated by Tony Blair.

6) David Olusoga – Officer of the Order of the British Empire – brought up on a Gateshead council estate his family were forced to move after repeated racist attacks on their home. After studying the history of slavery at Liverpool University, Olusoga worked in television, first as a researcher and then a presenter. His authoritative, sustained criticism of British Imperialism has brought him fame and fortune; in 2019 he accepted appointment as an, 'Officer of the Order of the British Empire.'

7) Claire Fox – Peerage – Broadcaster and political panellist Fox joined the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1980 and for more than two decades was a key RCP activist, organiser and co-publisher of “Living Marxism”. She continued to work with former RCP associates after the Party, in the 2000’s, morphed into 'The Institute for Ideas'. Having called for abolition of the Lords and in 2015 tweeted congratulations to the Liberal Democrats for not taking up Peerages, in 2020 Claire Fox accepted the title 'Baroness' and membership of the House of Lords

.

8) John Prescott – Peerage – Trade union official and Labour Minister who played the role of pantomime 'working class hero'. In 2009 he boasted to the BBC, 'I’ve always felt very proud of Wales and being Welsh…I was born in Wales, went to school in Wales and my mother was Welsh. I’m Welsh. It’s my place of birth, my country' despite leaving Wales in 1942, aged four! Having previously described members of the House of Lords as 'The vermin in ermine' in 2010 he was delighted to join them as 'Baron Prescott of Kingston-Upon-Hull” insisting, “I need a peerage to save the planet!'

9) Shami Chakrabarti – Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Peerage – The daughter of Bengali parents, a human-rights lawyer with a long and honourable record of opposing the State’s excessive use of anti-terror legislation, its control orders and attempted imposition of identity cards. Committed to social equality, against privilege and the expansion of grammar schools she sent her own son to Dulwich College (annual fees £18,000) and in 2007 accepted a CBE followed in 2016 by a peerage when Baroness Chakrabarti joined the House of Lords.

10) Neil Kinnock – Peerage – after working for just three years as a WEA tutor in 1970 Kinnock began his long career as a professional, nominally left-wing, politician. On 19th November 1977 he wrote in Tribune, 'The House of Lords must go. Not to be replaced, not to be reformed in some life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished' In 2005 Kinnock accepted a peerage, becoming a 'Baron' and entered the House of Lords, where in 2009 he was joined by his equally 'left-wing' wife, who similarly accepted a Peerage and the title, Baroness!

Fortunately, amidst all the flotsam and jetsom of washed up politicians and media luvvies there are still people with integrity who refuse to bend the knee. Next time on NV I’ll unveil the REAL HONOURS LIST and identify honourable individuals who spurned these tawdry titles…

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Not A Clever Idea

by Les May

Just after the 2016 Referendum I met a someone who is a member of the Heywood and Middleton Constituency Labour party. He was not impressed that our MP, Liz McInnes, had resigned from her shadow post as communities and local government minister as a gesture of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn.

Now Liz is one of the few MPs who have ‘had a proper job’ before becoming an MP so I am happy to vote for her. (I also have it from an impeccable source that a political opponent once said admiringly of her that she was known as ‘The Rottweiler’ for her determination to defend workers’ rights.)

A little lamely I muttered something that she would have come under a lot of pressure to join the herd who were calling for Corbyn to go.

An enthusiastic Corbyn supporter he was having none of it! He argued that Labour MPs should listen to the views of members of the local party and could not expect members to do the leg work for them at election time if they didn’t. And he was quite right of course.

I remembered this conversation last night when I read the response of Joan Ryan, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, to losing a vote of no confidence at her local constituency party where she was accused of smearing Jeremy Corbyn.

So what was Ms Ryan’s response? She called the people who had voted against her ‘Trots, Stalinists, Communists and assorted hard left’.

Given that just over half of the people who attended the meeting voted against her, 94 out of 186, this may not have been the cleverest idea.  Why would any of these people who she has attacked in this unpleasant way want to go round the streets at the next election trying to persuade people to vote for her?

Joan Ryan is not a woman who is meticulous in checking her facts as you will see in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3dn-VV3czc

The video is about 26 minutes long.  The incident involving Joan Ryan starts at about 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

Chuka Ummuna’s recent comments are thought to have been prompted by the votes of no confidence in Joan Ryan and Chris Leslie.  It may just be a coincidence that both these MPs are members of the ‘Friends of Israel’ group. It may also be just a coincidence that Chuka Ummuna (and Angela Eagle) are seen in the video at the Friends of Israel stall asking to be updated. 

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Anarchist Federation Splits!

by Chris Draper

REJOICE – the Authoritarian Fraud has been exposed and the AF come unstuck!  Once several AF branches issued an ‘Unauthorised’ statement on the disruption of the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair we knew they’d be trouble.  

Sharp eyed observers spotted the pronouncement didn’t carry the imprimatur of AF’s Supreme Leader, KIM JONG HEATH and predicted he might press AF’s nuclear button.  Admittedly Northern Voices thought he’d incinerate the enemy – those branches and individuals who’d challenged THE PARTY LINE would be expelled but instead the worms revolted and the Supreme Leader along with his entire Politiburo were forced to walk the plank! – Rejoice!

This had to happen sooner or later.  In the words of 'Monty Python' this devastating split exemplified, 'The violence inherent in the (AF) system' for AF was never really Anarchist nor was it a Federation.   In reality, AF was nothing more than a small authoritarian political party, an ideological sect.

'Anarchist Federation' sounds very open and free – not only libertarian, but a federation composed of independent-minded local branches but the name was always a con, chosen for marketing purposes because the reality was deeply unappealing.  If we go back to 1980 the Supreme Leader’s sect called themselves the Libertarian Communist Group (LCG) with just 16 members who were regarded by most anarchists as at best, 'Anarcho-Trots'.

As if they were determined to rid themselves of the 'Anarcho' part of the label altogether LCG then fused with the Marxist 'Big Flame'!  By 1984 this Great Leap Forward had resulted in a party, BF, with a grand total of 17 members!

The next move was to abandon 'BF' and create the 'Anarchist Communist Federation', but as this moniker proved equally unappealing the sect adopted the more consumer-friendly but utterly deceptive 'Anarchist Federation'.   Anarchism is supposed to be a 'bottom-up' political philosophy, but this wasn’t AF practice.  Firstly there’s the Catechism or core of compulsory beliefs and policies, or 'Platform' as they prefer to call it.  

To join AF you not only had to fully embrace the Platform, but had to have your belief and sincerity tested.  Like the Moonies, a couple of party apparatchiks would call on prospective disciples to test out your worthiness before you were anointed with AF membership.  In a rare published interview, in 2003, the Supreme Leader, admitted,  'Each member has to agree with our ideas and is met by AF members before they join'.  Membership came at a cost, a compulsory levy on your income was demanded.  Lapses in regular payment or ideological deviation resulted in denunciation and expulsion.

Of course Comrade Nick Heath never referred to himself as, 'The Supreme Leader', he preferred instead to call himself 'Battle Scarred', but as his militancy was confined to a liking for abusive language and a career as a librarian perhaps he meant, 'Battle Scared'.

KIM JONG HEATH will doubtless come up with some new mini-political party although, rather amusingly, at the moment he calls his faction, 'Communist Anarchists',  whilst his Leicester ex-Politiburo associate names his faction, 'Anarchist Communists' !  A Federation of two.

There is a positive role for a genuine, open, bottom-up, 'Anarchist Federation' to play in Britain.  Perhaps the faction continuing the title, cleansed of the Supreme Leader’s sub-Marxist faction might fulfil that role but first they’ll have to ditch an awful inheritance of dishonest and authoritarian practice.  

Their published support for the violent disruption of the Bookfair suggests the new AF is no better than the old and in this instance Bakunin’s familiar aphorism seems appropriate:

 'The urge to destroy (the AF) is a creative urge.'

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The Irish Times on Trot Claim!

by Les May

IN an article I wrote on 20 July I drew attention to a report by the Media and Communications Department at London School of Economics and Political Science with the title 'Journalistic Representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the Mainstream Press: From Watchdog to Attackdog'.  The study analysed articles in eight national newspapers between 1 September and 1 November 2015, and included both right and left wing press. It found three areas where Corbyn has not been treated fairly; through lack of voice or misrepresentation;,through scorn, ridicule and personal attacks, and through association.

Tom Watson's claim that tens of thousands of new members are being manipulated by Trotskyists to turn the party into 'a vehicle for revolutionary socialism' seems to me not far from fantasy as Britain's two Trotskyist parties can muster only about 4,000 members between them. But it will no doubt be taken seriously in some sections of the English press.

A long article in Thursday's Irish Times by its London Editor, Denis Staunton, headed 'Trotsky claims reveal deep schism in Labour Party' provides an international perspective on this.  Some of his comments are worth repeating in full.

'MPs and much of the media are bewildered by Corbyn's enduring appeal among the membership and his ability to inspire so many to become active in politics for the first time.   His success owes much to his apparent authenticity, a refreshing change of style from the professional political class which has dominated both main parties for a generation.

'But Corbyn's support is also an expression of the membership's determination to be heard by a parliamentary party it sees – sometimes unjustly – as out of touch.  The fact that Smith is running on a platform which is ideologically almost identical to Corbyn's only serves to reinforce the impression among many party members that the MPs challenge to the leader was also a move against the membership.

'Watson's patronising suggestion that young members are the unwitting puppets of conniving old Trots reflects a broader attitude among Labour MPs which views the massive influx into the party as a threat rather than an opportunity.  If they wish to regain control of their party, MPs will have to win the argument among the membership.  To do that, they must first decide on the argument they want to make.'

Watson's claims seem to me singularly unhelpful.  Far from bridging the gap between Corbyn's supporters and the Parliamentary Labour Party they serve only to widen it as, even though he may wish to deny it, they are little more than a calculated insult to those who are inclined to vote for Corbyn.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/jeremy-corbyn-misrepresentaion-in-media.html

North West NSSN: Fag-End or Vanguard?

WHEN only nine turn up to a North West National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) meeting in Manchester, that proposes to co-ordinate activity to bring about the forcing of the TUC into setting 'a date for a second day of co-ordinated national industrial action', one is entitled to ask: 'are these people fleas pretending to be elephants?' It is true that among the nine activists present last night in the Subway sandwich bar on Peter Street, three unions, Unison, Unite and PCS were represented, but the decision to join with the new 'Left Unity' campaign suggests that the NSSN bosses now realise the folly of their decision a year ago to develop their own anti-cuts campaign.

That decision broke the back of the NSSN and caused the syndicalists and independent socialists to leave the organisation; leaving only the Socialist Party and a few fellow-travellers in control. Since then Bob Crow of the RMT union is reported to have said: 'The NSSN has lost some good people!'. The result was that by forcing out the syndicalists and independent activists the NSSN became an empty shell: just another anti-cuts group. The Socialist Party leaders of the NSSN talk big and claim they forced the TUC to call a national demo last March and more recently created the conditions for the co-ordinated public sector strikes on Nov. 30th but it has little conviction. In reality the leaders of the TUC had to be seen to take some action to justify their existence but they tend to be inconclusive events and probably undermine the morale of workers in the long run. These so-called 'general strikes' have been in operation in other European countries for years with often mixed results.

As part of a series of articles on 'Capitalism in Crisis' in the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman, wrote last Monday: 'The failure of the hard left to capitalise on the economic crisis testifies to how profoundly communism was discredited by the collapse of the Soviet system.' Alex Davidson of the PCS even bemoaned this collapse at last night's meeting with some qualification. The problem for the British Left, as well as the hard left, may go further than the fall of the Soviet Union. Some self-deception may be a necessary part of politics, but the self-delusion displayed at last night's meeting and of the left in this country is based in the lack of any serious alternative plan to combat the Coalition Government. That is why 'Resistance' is the most common word on the lips of the left: we've had the 'Coalition of Resistance' and now 'Unite the Resistance' - their form of 'resistance' is merely to react to the agenda set by the Government. No-where is there any attempt by the hard left or even the main stream Labour Party to present a plausible alternative program.

There are clearly problems of capitalism now, but the hard left is using the thinking tools of the stone age to deal with the consequences, and the Labour Party has no clear agenda. Gideon Rachman in his article quotes the Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci: 'The old is dying and the new cannot be born: in the interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms will appear.' Mr. Rachman writes: 'Gramsci's observation does resonate now - in an age of ideological confusion.' Perhaps it was too much to expect the folk at last night's meeting to have any fresh ideas: it was at least recognised that the trade unions had yet to recover from the defeats of the 1980s and 90s, and some had hopes that something may yet evolve out of the Occupy movement.

Taaffe Tells A Good Tale

WILL LINDA'S LOBSCOUSE REVOLUTION THREATEN THE COALITION?

THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING of the Spirit of Lobscouse about the Socialist Party! All those red round-faced folk with a west coast of Lancashire twang and glasses. Bespectacled Liverpudlian, Linda Taaffe (now living in London), wrote a triumphant report on the recent 'National Shop Stewards Network' (NSSN) London Conference [11/06/11] on pages 6 and 7 of the current issue of 'The Socialist' saying that the 'NSSN has gone from strength to strength over the last year' and that the 'NSSN has increased its presence and will continue to develop a respected role in the labour movement'.

Mrs Taaffe described the conference thus: 'A solid working class trade union conference' with '350 workers' in attendance and representing what Lynda writes was 'the best NSSN conference so far'. She tells us that 'this regular event is rapidly becoming a feature in the calendar of the labour movement.' Hence, the conference went on to unanimously support a resolution 'Saluting those unions who are balloting their members for strike action' on the 30th, June and declaring that the NSSN has 'produced 40,000 flyers and 15,000 placards all calling for a public-private sector general strike to stop ALL cuts and defend pensions.' This report was accompanied with a photo of Socialist Party veteran, Tony Mulheard, mouth open and fist clenched close to his throat threatening whatever or whoever should defy this noble Network. And well he might threaten, for Linda writes: 'We understand a couple of ... detractors snooped into the conference hall simply to do a head count'.

Who might these 'detractors' be one wonders? Well, none other than 'those who walked out from the NSSN in January ... after a democratic and open discussion', thus, writes Linda, leaving the 'NSSN stronger and more active'. 'Stronger and more active' maybe, but with a 'newly elected steering committee' cut to '24 trade unionists with positions in most of the major unions'. Last year's national NSSN steering committee had a membership of over 60 and the previous year it was over 50. It would seem that last January's breakaway from the NSSN by independent minded syndicalists and socialists has had its effect on the make up of the NSSN steering committee and Bob Crow, the General secretary of the RMT, has been reported as saying that the NSSN split resulted in the loss of some good people.

Linda Taaffe has now clarified the current dilemma for the Socialist Party and the NSSN; the NSSN may appear 'stronger' and more 'active' in so far as it is all of one mind being mainly a creature of the Socialist Party itself. Dialogue and discussion is no longer necessary because they can kid themselves that they are united. This is the illusionary strength of the narrow-minded and the monomaniac.

Thus the ingredients in the Network, or stew, are diminished in the same way that traditionally Lobscouse as a dish has less and more boring ingredients than Lancashire Hot-Pot. My copy of 'British Cookery' edited by Lizzie Boyd describes Lobscouse as being a nautical dish - a variation on Lancashire Hot-Pot - and constituting 'a monotonous diet' often including scrag end of neck of mutton, shin of beef, swedes, potatoes and carrots, while proper Lancashire Hot-Pot is from middle neck of lamb with lamb kidneys, sliced potatoes, onions, white stock and dripping traditionally served with red cabbage; in the case of Bolton Hot-Pot adding mushrooms and fresh oysters and some Lancashire cooks add curry powder. Compared to this Lobscouse, which traditionally was eaten by sailors on board ship with rock-hard ship's biscuits was a tedious affair, not unlike the Socialist Party itself. Hence, the National Shop Stewards Network today is a movement for monomaniacs which the British labour movement, with all its many faults, is not. In fact, the British labour movement is, if anything, too heterogeneous, too varied in its constituent parts.

The Strange Suicide of 'Stop the War'

'SUICIDE is Painless' was on a movie soundtrack in the 1970s, but last Monday (16th May) a strange event reportedly took place when the rampant revolutionaries of the Stop the War campaign were joined on the streets of London by a Libyan band of green flag waving supporters of Gadaffi; all calling for an end to the NATO backed 'No fly zone' over Libya. And the cry goes up 'Hands off Libya's Oil', from the agents of Gadaffi and the British Left alike; as a small dissident contingent of Libyan rebel protesters from the large Libyan community in Manchester joined by the well-known Manchester anarchist, John-the-Hat, heckled them in Whitehall.

Seldom since communists and Sir Oswald Mosley's blackshirts joined the same demonstration to protest at the time of the Edward VIII abdication has anything so odd happened. It was certainly a rum do last week seeing the stalwarts of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and neo-communists rubbing shoulders with Gadaffi's agents and followers. Stranger things happened in 1930s Germany of course, when the German Communists, on instructions from Moscow, supported a National Socialist (Nazi) plebiscite against the Social Democrat government of Prussia. According to the Italian novelist, Ignazio Silone, who wrote: 'On that occasion Communist groups were to be seen in harmonious unison with storm-troopers, forming "speaking choirs" in the courtyards of the big blocks of workers' flats and in the streets, urging the electors to vote against the Social Democrat government.'

Are we about to see a repeat of the folly of 1930s communism committed by the British Left? Are we witnessing the decline and fall of serious left-wing politics under what passes for British socialism? Are we seeing the strange suicide of 'Stop the War' as its members join hands with Gadaffi's pals?

What was reported to have happened in London on last Monday's 'Stop the War' demo is extraordinary but it is symptomatic of a movement that appears to have outlived its mission. Admittedly our source is from the Libyan rebel supporters in Manchester but there is a ring of truth in all this because the position of 'Stop the War', and much of the British Left, is objectively pro-Gadaffi.

MANCHESTER'S MAY DAY MESS

LAST SUNDAY - May Day - was a mess in Manchester and they can't blame the weather. The coalition Government may be an Eton Mess, but up here it was a May Day Mess. Less than two hundred miscellaneous politicos paraded round central Manchester on May Day in a celebration called by Manchester Trade Union Council. It was the kind of inconsequential and uneventful demo typical of the left up here but even more poorly attended than usual. The SWP was in evidence but it was more of a political than a trade union occasion and it did not match last Thursday's Workers Memorial Day rally by Greater Manchester Hazards Campaign which was a distinctly trade union do.

Geoff Brown, Secretary of Manchester TUC and an affiliate of the SWP, was up and down like a blue-arsed fly trying to get the rally off the ground but it was a total flop. I feel for him; he did his best but it showed the feebleness of the left round here. It might have something to do with the inability of the British left in general to get outside the incestuous political bubble. Yet these people are shortsighted and don't seem to help themselves. I asked him if he and the SWP were giving Dave Chapple, former Chair of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN), and those other non-Socialist Party dissidents, who broke away from the NSSN in January 'the run-around' or 'fobbing them off' and he assured NV that he and the SWP wasn't. Yet, despite everything that has happened and accused of 'dithering' by some, the SWP hang on in the NSSN with their principle enemy and competitor the Socialist Party and Linda Taaffe.

Stefan from the Greater Manchester County Association of Trade Union Councils was there pushing for yet another conference against the cuts. More and more conferences, more and more demos, more and more calls for a general strike: rhetoric, rhetoric let their be rhetoric. Fake enthusiasm, slogans, and blather. And on the edges of the rally, friction with the younger end who insisted on making music during the solemn speeches of the tired politicos. Steve North, newly elected to the job of Secretary of Salford City Unison, was there urging people on to fight the cuts and to go to an anti-cuts demo in Salford on Monday the 2nd, May: did many go? I fear not -  reports suggest 40 protested. Yet, Mr North managed to strut, snubbing the salesman of Northern Voices indignantly as if he had now moved on to higher things and the awesome ordeals of office in place of Ray Walker who he beat.

Then there was the food for those that could endure it: rice with spinach and lamb or a chicken leg perhaps - a truly May Day Mess. No threat to the Coalition and not up to the standards of the Eton Mess which is a desert of English origin including a mix of strawberries, meringue and cream traditionally served at Eton College's annual cricket game against the students of Winchester College.

Zusammenmarschieren & the 'New Syndicalists'

THIS MONTH a dispute broke out among the 'new syndicalists' formerly attached to the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) about how best to proceed and create a movement for radical syndicalism. The main argument was about the best tactics to use in the everyday world of work and the labour movement. The basis of the dispute was the dissembling behaviour of a union leader, in this case Bob Crow in his apparent support for the Socialist Party (formerly the Militant Tendency), against the other political groups in the NSSN.

One side argued that given the slippery vacillation of Bob Crow over this issue which led to large-scale resignations by syndicalists and others from the NSSN steering committee in January, was such that he and the half-baked political group - the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) - to which he and the Socialist Party are linked became a valid target for criticism and lampoon: after all, why had we resigned from the NSSN if we didn't want to hurt people's feelings? Others said that we should exercise foresight, be more pragmatic and restrained in our dealings and, it seems, avoid hurting the feelings of union leaders so that henceforth they would not be able 'to hold a justifiable public grudge in future'.

This confrontation in turn led to some interesting comments, one from 'Nick D' who wrote: 'I want to see syndicalism develop as an industrial and political force that moves millions. That requires pragmatism, to build power. Not anarcho political program in a vacuum (sic).' About a century ago the idea of syndicalism had a strong following among some groups of industrial workers and trade unionists in this country, and in 1912, the South Wales Miners published a syndicalist booklet called 'The Miners Next Step'.

One of the things that attracted me to these 'new syndicalists' with their historical roots in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Liberty & Solidarity was their down-to-earth, business-like approach to the trade unions and labour movement. Here were a group of young people who seemed to lack the antiquated sectarian baggage of the other affiliated anarcho-syndicalist organisations. But not being sectarian should not mean that we lose the critical vitamin when dealing with people like Bob Crow and smelly little political orthodoxies like their TUSC.

The call of 'Nick D' for 'an industrial and political force that moves millions' and 'power before programme' is what Wyndham Lewis called the 'associational habit' of mind and is very north European, very Anglo-Saxon and very retro. We had such a thing in the TUC for much of the last century up to about 1985: that is what Jimmy Pinkerton, international secretary of the Syndicalist Workers Federation circa 1960, used to call 'pure syndicalism' or 'syndicalism without the vision'. It ended with the defeat of the miners. In Germany, according to Ignazio Silone, it went some way to explain why the German workers' attitude toward fascism was different from that of the Spaniards. Silone wrote in 'School for Dictators' that 'the growth of big industry has been a powerful help in reinforcing the tendency of Germans - workers included - toward zusammenmarschieren (marching together).' His conclusion regarding the German workers was that 'individual initiative has been reduced to zero' and 'their interparty struggles are essentially struggles between different machines'.

Nick D's proposal for 'power before programme' would mean that the program or vision would be set by others such as the Labour Party or, shabby little shockers like the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition under Bob, Alex Gordon of the RMT and Linda Taaffe of the Socialist Party. This weekend will see the British Left marching together against the Government cuts in public services - zusammenmarschieren - like a machine but it will be an intellectually and morally bankrupt machine and one perhaps even more derelict than the Government of millionaires that we are protesting against.

Painful Paradoxies: Hitler praises 'Socialism', Bob Crow backs 'Socialist' Party - Black Jesse Owens kisses Nazi Leni

JUST OVER 75 years ago on the 8th, December 1934, Chancellor Hitler took sharp issue with his Minister of Economy Dr. Schacht in a speech in Nuremberg on the occasion of a celebration of the centenary of the German railways which, as he pointed out, 'is now state-owned and has developed along "Socialist lines".' That was the same week in December last year, that Bob Crow, Secretary of the RMT, threw in his lot with the 'Socialist' Party against the syndicalists, anarchists, SWP and other independent socialists on the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN).

It will be 40 years next year since the black athlete Jesse Owens kissed the 'old Nazi' photographer/ film-maker Leni Riefenstahl at the 1972 Munich Olympics, according to Leni: 'As Owens hugged and kissed me, we were both near to tears. Several guests began to clap, then the applause grew louder, intensifying into a storm. Confused and embarrassed, I left the reception.'

With these kind of painful paradoxies in mind I sent the email below to Bob Crow, National Secretary of the RMT union, who is linked to the 'Socialist' Party through his personal support for the political body Trade Union Socialist Coalition (TUSC) explaining my resignation from the National Shop Stewards Network that Bob's union helped to establish.

Dear Bob, 

Last week I gave in my resignation from the NSSN (National Shop Stewards Network). Normally I would not consider doing such a thing and would have just allowed my involvement to quietly lapse, because normally I wouldn't regard myself as that important in the way of things. This time, following Lynda Taaffe's (NSSN Secretary & Socialist Party leader) assurance that you had not been misled when you gave your backing to the Socialist Party, I have decided to join with the others in making a fuss and a statement. I do this because of nature of the immature takeover of the NSSN by the Socialist Party and having studied the policies of the TUSC and listened to Alex Gordon (President of the RMT union) at his Industrial Society talk in Manchester in December with his reference to exchange controls and British sovereignty, I fear that what you may end up with is national socialism without the racism. I say without the racism, but I think an unintended consequence of your position and that of Alex Gordon - with its nod to 'Little England' - could be a drift to the encouragement of xenophobia in this country. I know that TUSC has an etc. clause here & there that is internationalist in intent, but the underlying policy is reactionary and 'Little England'. I also heard Steve Headley at the special conference criticise Dave Chapple for 'taking his ball home': well does that mean that if we were in Germany in 1933 at the time of Hitler's triumph at the elections there we should behave like good Prussians and accept the result? Far better to behave like good Spaniards and Catalans in 1936 and be the first to confront the Fascists... 

Kind regards, 

Brian Bamford

The German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, in his speech in 1934, supported nationalisation, and the policy of TUSC is as follows: 'Stop all privatisation, including the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), and the immoral privatisation of prisons. Bring privatised public services and utilities back into public ownership under democratic control.' The form of 'democratic control' is not explained, there is no evidence here that it would differ much from Herbert Morrison's model as established in the 1940s.

DID BOB CROW PLAY FOOTSIE WITH SMELLY LITTLE ORTHODOXY?

MEANWHILE AT THE NSSN CONFERENCE NANCY TAAFFE STICKS UP FOR NORTH OF THE BORDER POLITICIAN TOMMY SHERIDAN

BEFORE Linda Taaffe could say 'Easy-Peasey!', or 'Higgledy-Piggledy!', or 'Hop-Skip-and-a-Jump!' Big Bob Crow had jumped into bed. Or so say some of the 'malas lenguas' - foul mouthed folk on the left who don't take a shine to the Socialist Party. Within a day of issuing an open letter to the National Shop Stewards Network and Socialist Party urging the 'maximum possible unity' and insisting 'there can be no question of any political party or organisation seeking to assume leadership of this struggle or setting up a new national organisation that would create disunity', Bob Crow seemingly went to bed with the Socialist Party. That is what his critics are now saying.

Readers must decide for themselves but on the 12th, January 2011, a statement was issued in the name of Bob Crow (RMT general secretary), Alex Gordon (RMT president), Bill Mullins (Socialist Party & co-organiser of the NSSN) and Linda Taaffe (Socialist Party and secretary of the NSSN) in which it was announced that 'Bob Crow and Alex Gordon agree with the proposal of the NSSN steering committee of 4th, December 2010 to launch an anti-cuts campaign...' That proposal was the motion that the Socialist Party and only the Socialist Party supported on the 4th December: all other parties, the syndicalists and those of no party opposed this motion preferring to avoid the process in which the NSSN became just another protest group or rent-a-mob.

What does this mean? It means, if the Socialist Party's critics don't resign, that the NSSN will become a junk shop for every fashionable fancy that the Socialist Party wants to use it for; and the other parties - the SWP, Permanent Revolution or the syndicalists - will serve the purpose of providing a fig leaf for a smelly little orthodoxy that has its roots in some distasteful politics on the left. Witness the recent perjury conviction of Scottish Tommy Sheridan, on behalf of whom Nancy Taaffe, daughter of Linda, shamelessly strode up to the NSSN rostrum on 22nd, January to uphold as a 'victim of capitalism' when what he seems to have done is roam around the downtown suburbs of Swinton with a woman journalist from the News of the World or offer himself as a copper's nark after the poll tax riots in the early 1990s. Or take Derek Hatton in Liverpool a prominent figure in the Militant Tendency, the forerunner of the Socialist Party, now there's a fine specimen of political rectitude for you. This is the unsavory politics which the Socialist Party is knee deep in. The only reason we had owt to do with them on the NSSN is because we thought they may have grown out of it. But alas, it seems we were wrong!

Where does Bob Crow stand on this and why did he turn a somersault overnight and line up with the Socialist Party knowing that it would lead to divisions? In the week following the 4th, December 2010 NSSN steering committee meeting at which the Socialist Party had asserted its control over the other groups on a vote of 21 to 17, I discussed the outcome in Manchester with Alex Gordon, President of the RMT, and he indicated that he was in touch with Linda Taaffe and disapproved of some of her critics. Alex Gordon, some will remember was formerly a member of the Direct Action Movement in the 1980s: an anarcho-syndicalist organisation linked to the Spanish CNT. I had a distinct impression then that he would side with the Socialist Party.

Bob Crow for his part has veered from taking a tactical position close to anarchist type direct action proclaiming a belief in civil disobedience and Swampy during last September's TUC Congress, but later on Radio 4's 'Any Questions' denouncing 'anarchist-style' actions at Millbank when it was raided by the students because it 'only benefited the insurance companies'. The Millbank attack was later shown to be a spontaneous student action. Now it seems with local elections looming in May, that Brother Crow is focused again on ballot box politics and that means the candidates of the Trade Union Socialist Coalition (TUSC). In the TUSC the Socialist Party is the dominant force and the current conflict in the industrial NSSN must now be an irritation if not a distraction.

When TUSC was formed in January 2010 the blog 'A Very Public Sociologist' asked: 'can TUSC break down the awful sectarian culture of the far left, and does it constitute a step toward a new left alternative'?

By provoking a vexatious conflict in the NSSN over the issue of anti-cuts the Socialist Party is closing down a culture of unity and creating resentment. The syndicalists which represented the fastest growing group on the NSSN steering committee - increasing from 3 or 4 to 14 in twelve months - have conducted themselves well in this dispute thanks in no small part to the skillful leadership of Dave Chapple (Chairman of the NSSN, Secretary of Bridgewater TUC and member of the CWU).

MAJORITY OF OFFICERS ON NATIONAL STEWARD BODY REJECT ONE PARTY RULE

Majority of NSSN Officers resign en-bloc

AT A MEETING immediately following Saturday 22nd January's NSSN anti-cuts conference, the majority of NSSN/Shop Stewards Network national officers-all of those not in the Socialist Party- have resigned.

This is the statement of four of these officers: Dave Chapple, Bob Archer, George Binette and Becca Kirkpatrick:

“1.We are all NSSN national officers. We have decided that we cannot continue to be activists in an organisation that, following the conference decision on 22nd January, is now controlled by the Socialist Party.

The NSSN was established to become a strong independent organisation of trades union activists, with trades council and trades union branch affiliates.

Its meetings cannot function as independent voting bodies if all major decisions are to be taken beforehand by the Socialist Party.

None of our trades council or trade union branch affiliates can continue to be linked to the NSSN on that basis.

2. 22nd January’s NSSN conference decision to set up a separate NSSN-led anti-cuts campaign-the third such organisation that exists-is a major strategic mistake for our part of the trade union movement.

It makes unity of the national anti-cuts movement harder not easier.

The essential NSSN anti-cuts task, of stiffening the resolve of the trades unions, locally and nationally, to fight cuts through co-ordinated strike action, will be set aside or de-prioritised.

It will ensure that the regional and local SSN groups-already weak and struggling in the main- will wither as they transfer time and energy to establishing-or duplicating-local anti-cuts campaigns.

At the Steering Committee of December 4th, six national officers and EVERY NON-SP STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER voted against this proposal, yet the Socialist Party has ignored this feeling despite our further appeals, knowing full well that our continued participation in the NSSN would be intolerable.

3. Ninety NSSN activists met after the end of that Saturday's conference and unanimously decided to continue the work of trade union activists' solidarity on an organised national basis. Please get in touch."

Dave Chapple, NSSN Chair; George Binnette, NSSN Treasurer;
Bob Archer, NSSN Communications Officer; Becca Kirkpatrick, NSSN Affiliations Officer

Taming the Trots: Anarchism’s Sisyphean Task

I think Bammy’s earlier ‘Eat Me ...’ commentary and trademark artistic flourish regarding the NSSN is pretty spot on but still misses the wider issues somewhat (we might also do without his recent fetish for dubbing people ‘schoolmistresses’).

I only went to one NSSN meeting – in Leicester some time ago – and generally, I thought it was quite positive (aside from the quasi-nationalistic posturing of the ‘No to EU’ bods). However, the fact remains that this grouping has once again descended into authoritarians vs. libertarians with the former employing force of numbers to dominate and the latter forced to withdraw. I think we all know that it won’t be long before the SP get bored and hop onto another bandwagon (likely taking the SWP with them whatever the current situation) but a shame that they’ll suck the life out of the NSSN before they do.

As I said in my talk at the last NAN (see ‘A Question of Degrees’ elsewhere on the blog), I think we’ve got to break our own boom and bust mentality and also, move on from this idea that we’ll somehow be able to guide the Trots or at least, use their recruiting skills to bring workers/students over to the ‘side of the angels’. As I further noted at the NAN, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that people will automatically see us a different from the Trots and other authoritarian leftists.

Elsewhere on this blog, Bammy identifies the miners’ struggle as militant but not radical and that’s just the position we keep putting ourselves in – protesting about the current system but not giving people any REAL alternative. And let’s face it, we shouldn’t have to work too hard to come up with something more appealing than the prevailing mainstream, whether it happens to be wearing its capitalist or ‘socialist’ clothes.

Of course, the reality is that we do have to work hard, both in the literal sense and the wider social/political sense, and workers are often tired and disillusioned - not just by work but also by constant attempts to mould us into model citizens of a present (capitalist) or future (state socialist/capitalist) authoritarian state. It’s hardly surprising that a majority seem so easily seduced into the ‘aspirational’ consumerist apathy of the wage/welfare slave even though the legacy of those home-owning, savings-laden, consumption-addicted baby boomers has proved not to be one of continued and equal affluence for all. In fact, the so-called ‘cultural revolution’ was less about class equality and more about transforming ‘workers’ into ‘consumers’ and ‘human resources’ - a programme of Friedmanite rebranding that reached fever pitch under ‘Blatcherism’ and must surely have reached its pus-infested end with the Con-Dems.

I really believe that making people aware that they can actually do things for themselves is the real heart of this issue and this starts with opting out of capitalism/nationalisation/state socialism via independent community energy, water, food and education schemes. I don’t mean the Greenpeace way of making grand individual gestures like fitting an expensive and essentially pointless wind turbine to the side of your house, or buying organic beans air freighted in from Africa, but community micro-generation schemes involving biomass (wood and waste), free water supplies/better waste management, local food schemes/networks and free (in all senses of the word) education for all.

Instead of lauding the Spanish anarchists for what they did all those years ago, we should be taking their example and abandoning the Greenpeace way for what might be called, with a perhaps hint of cliché, ‘the Durruti way’ – ‘not afraid of ruins ...’ and all that!

Utopian? Perhaps. But the point is that fighting the current system by trying to make IT change isn’t working – the SWP/Respect/the Stop the War Coalition are still lauding 2 million out on the streets against the war but that was 2003 and Iraq is a bigger mess than ever, Afghanistan more so and life for you average Jo looking pretty bleak in the rest of the world too.

Like the miners, we won’t win by just being militant, we’re only going to win by being radical as well. What have we got to lose? We keep going into these party-orientated collective endeavours and convincing ourselves that things are going to be different but they never are and it descends into the same old People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front crap. Come on, it’s not like a precedent for this wasn’t set years ago when Marx and Bakunin went handbags at twenty paces.

Very few of us shirk from proclaiming ourselves anarchist, libertarian communist or the many other labels we have adopted to distinguish ourselves from the four legs good, two legs bad/better’ herd but maybe this obsession with labels is starting to weigh us down as much as our obsession with history, taming the Trots and internal squabbles might be said to have done. Whether we like it or not, anarchism has been bastardised to represent all that the brainwashed masses find scary about daring to question whether they need government and the labour market to survive.

The Trots et al like to portray anarchists as a minority, which in the big scheme of things we probably are but so are they, as are Tories, Liberals, Labourites, Greens or whatever. Most people aren’t politically active or affiliated to any particular party or ideology and perhaps that’s because politics and ideology often appear disempowering by their very nature, i.e. they generally suppose that one person is more qualified that another to decide what is socially and perhaps more worryingly, ‘morally’, acceptable.

In her response to Bammy and the dissident NSSNers, Linda Taaffe talks of mud slinging, taking the ball home and proclaims that:

’A few stones hurled at us by those with bruised egos will not deflect us from this course.'

Accusations that dissenters within the NSSN have opened themselves up to by getting drawn into the same tired old tit-for-tat formula with the vanguardists yet again.

But perhaps this isn’t just about the need to distance ourselves from the insidiousness of the vanguard, whether it be elsewhere on the left or the pseudo-egalitarianism of mainstream civic culture and ‘Big Society’ – perhaps we also need to distance ourselves from labels, ideologies and ‘politics’ to some extent too. Ok, we shouldn’t feel compelled to stop calling ourselves anarchists because it offends the delicate sensibilities of other leftists and the misinformed mainstream but if we’re not prepared to actually show people, with practical examples, what makes us different, we might have no other choice.

To my mind, there’s nothing wrong with slinging mud and throwing stones when the target is legitimate (although Linda Taaffe should surely know that under anarchism the ball would be a communal asset and couldn’t, in theory, be taken home) but it might now be high time that we used the stones and mud at our disposal not for throwing but to build a real alternative.

Socialist Party Supremo Answers Her Critics

Linda Taaffe is defiant:
'A few stones hurled at us by those with bruised egos will not deflect us from our course'

REPLY TO STATEMENT BY DAVE CHAPPLE AND OTHERS

'I want to clarify some matters that are circulating regarding the outcome of the NSSN Anti-Cuts Conference on January 22nd.

It seems that some people, who are not “independents” but themselves have their own various political affiliations, have taken umbrage at the result of a democratic process. This was conducted on the basis of their prior negotiated agreement and consent about all the procedures to be followed at the Conference. Now, instead of taking up the real issues they prefer to throw mud at the Socialist Party comrades on the Steering Committee.

This is what happened

1) Two motions were brought to the Steering Committee on 4th December. After more than three hours of discussion one proposed by myself to set up an NSSN Anti-Cuts Campaign, was passed; the other recommending throwing our lot in with Right to Work and Coalition of Resistance was defeated. Our view was that we did not want to dissolve the NSSN into either of these organisations, but would work with them as and when.

2) Despite this vote we proposed putting the two motions AGAIN to the Anti-Cuts Conference. A procedure was negotiated. Equal time was given to each motion both in moving it, and in speaking from the floor. Two chairs decided on each side’s speakers. In all 15 from each side were heard. There was a credentials committee with one person from each side should there be any problems. Equal numbers of tellers, who were paired, counted the votes. Apart from a few, but important, introductory speakers the whole day was devoted to the discussion.

In the end the Majority Motion won 305 – 89. The vast majority of delegates who were real “independents” supported the majority motion. This is called democracy. As one delegate pointed out, it is a sad day when trade unionists, who lose the vote, threaten to take their ball home.

However, some have not only taken their ball home, they have also spread lies and misconceptions. Even before the Conference took place some tried to turn left general secretaries against the NSSN. This backfired.

Just today the Socialist Workers Party have published a statement saying that they will attend the next NSSN Steering Committee to “call on the Socialist Party to step back from their decision and work to re-unite the NSSN”. Yet the SWP members who are Officers have already taken the decision to divide the NSSN by resigning from the NSSN Steering committee.

This so-called “Majority of NSSN Officers” now complains about the influence of the Socialist Party. Yet I cannot think of any important initiative that was even suggested by these individuals. All the events, conferences, demonstrations, lobby of TUC etc were largely proposed and worked for by Socialist Party members on the Steering Committee. Some Officers whose first allegiance was to the Right to Work or Coalition of Resistance constantly sniped to undermine the integrity of the NSSN.

From the moment the NSSN was set up - as the result of a resolution of RMT - initially of only 12 members, its composition has always been made up of all shades on the left. From 2006 up to the present we have managed to work together. As a broad and inclusive Network there was freedom to organise in whatever way activists found useful.

At the time of the Conference there were 11 Officers, 5 in the Socialist Party, 2 in RTW/SWP, 2 Syndicalists, 1 in a small sect Permanent Revolution and 1 ex-WRP. It reflects very badly that these 6 people cannot accept a democratic vote.

The NSSN Steering Committee aims to continue with the work we have been doing, and which has won recognition from many in the trade union movement. Note how the FBU publicly praised the NSSN for our work in their strike, and at the same time condemned those in RTW for their denunciations of their leadership. We hope to intensify our efforts to help strengthen trade union organisation on the ground and prepare for the coming battles.

A few stones hurled at us by those with bruised egos will not deflect us from this course.'

Linda Taaffe

Tell Tale Tommy Tit!

Tommy Sheridan sent down for 3 years!

Yesterday, Tommy Sheridan, the Scottish socialist with a passion for Swinton's sunbeds, was sentenced 3 years for perjury. This is the latest chapter in a sorry affair that has seen Tommy's supporters accuse some of his former Scottish Socialist Party mates of conspiring in a 'vendetta' with the police and the News of the World to jail him. Yet the case against Tommy is detailed and the charge sheet can't easily be dismissed as 'trumped up' when all of it seems to relate to specifics in the original defamation trial including the claims that he and other attended Cupid's Healthclub, 13-17, Sutherland Street, Swinton, Manchester on two occasions in 1996 and 2002.

One charge reads: 'the truth being as you well knew, that on 9th, November 2004 at the Executive Committee meeting of the Scottish Socialist Party held at 70, Stanley Street, Glasgow, you did admit to attending said Cupid's in Manchester (sic) on two occasions in 1996 and 2002 and that you had visited said club with said Anvar Begum Khan'.

Despite this, Tommy's solicitor has said he will appeal against the conviction and would start legal proceedings against News International - the owner of the News of the World - the Metropolitan Police and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for hacking mobile phones for the paper.

However, many on the left have had their doubts about Tommy Sheridan since the days of the poll tax, when he denounced those who fought the police in the mass riot against the poll tax in London - which took place on 31 March 1990. That was the day before the tax was introduced in England and Wales. Shockingly Tommy on that occasion publicly threatened to "name names". The police had widely advertised for people to tell them the names of alleged rioters, and partly as a result of police acting on such information, and as a result over 100 individuals were jailed. One tweet yesterday reminded Tommy: 'What goes around comes around'.

There is something about these people on the British authoritarian left in parties like the Socialist Party and Militant - the mentality of the schoolmistress, the classroom creep and the tell tail tit.

'Eat me! Eat Us All! Eat Thyself!' and at that the Superannuated Schoolmistress bit his head off!

SELDOM since Goya painted 'Saturn Devouring His Son' in his series 'Pinturas Negras', has there been a more graphic illustration of self-destructive nature as that displayed at last Saturday's National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) Conference near Euston Station in London. Socialist Party prophetess, Linda Taaffe, had first proclaimed her party's controversial proposal for an 'All Britain Anti Cuts Campaign' promoting anti-cuts candidates at elections and setting up a 'Committee of 10' at last December's NSSN Steering Committee Meeting. Only her Socialist Party members backed this proposal during that long vexatious afternoon.

Marx has been described as 'the Machiavelli of the proletariat'. In his book 'School for Dictators' the Italian novelist, Ignazio Silone, wrote: 'In our own time, Marx - with different means and different intentions - fulfilled the same function as Machiavelli in the 1500's: he tried to clarify the real workings of capitalist society of his time, freeing it from the veils of German idealistic philosophy and of French humanitarianism.' Does the Socialist Party's desire to put local councillors on the spot by urging them to declare illegal budgets do anything to 'clarify the real workings of capitalist society of [our] time'?  Linda Taaffe may tell us - from her vast experience of the Poll Tax - that Getting councillors to do this, in the language of the schoolyard, is 'Easy-Peasy'.

Last Saturday, Linda Taaffe, a superannuated schoolmistress at the head of the Socialist Party, with high-pitch emotion moved her proposal at the NSSN Conference that she had hitherto described as 'Higgledy-Piggledy' but was now rewritten and tarted-up to exclude the former 'All Britain - Uber Alles' content and any reference to back anti-cuts candidates and thereby not to offend the anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists in the NSSN who Linda seemed to want to court against the SWP. Of the syndicalists the Socialist Party said they regarded them 'as mostly genuine in their arguments'. The SWP they claimed were self-serving in their opposition.

The Chair of the NSSN, Dave Chapple, a long term trade unionist and revolutionary syndicalist, had already made his position clear in his response to a complaint about his chairmanship at the NSSN Steering Committee: in a charge from a Socialist Party member that because of his conduct he was 'unfit to chair' the NSSN meetings and should stand down; Dave had retorted that this was a brilliant idea but 'Why stop at me?' Why not dispose of all the 17 members of the Steering Committee, including the Deputy Chair and Treasurer, who opposed the Socialist Party proposal and then the Socialist Party would have a free run without the vexed problem of having to persuade others of syndicalist and Marxist ilk? Dave Chapple was saying 'Eat Me! Eat Us All! Eat Thyself!' and that is what the Socialist Party, in its wisdom, did last Saturday afternoon. While the Socialist Party clearly lacks prudence in this respect one must wonder about some of the union officials who encouraged them in this endeavour.