GEORGE ORWELL's SOCIALISM

Wakefield Socialist History Group:

Brian Bamford's contribution to the event at the Red Shed

yesterday discussing George Orwell & Socialism 

(a more extensive report on the other four speakers will follow):

BECAUSE the subject of this talk is specifically about Orwell's socialism I ought to say what I won't be dealing with.  Orwell is such a vast subject, and he featured on Radio 4 only this week.

I’ll only be touching on Raymond Williams's differences with regard to Orwell. With regard to the philosophical issues, and what has been called the 'Plato Problem', the 'Chomsky Problem', and the 'Orwell Problem', I do not intend to tackle these unless someone should ask a question relevant to this.

Here I'm going to try to explain how Orwell was transformed into becoming a socialist.

In 2011, I gave some talks in Newcastle, London and Bristol dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.  About that time at a meeting of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, the historian Professor Preston had described George Orwell’s book 'Homage to Catalonia' by saying: 

'George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a book which I would rank alongside Spike Milligan's “Adolf Hitler: My part in His Downfall”, another interesting book by a footsoldier who played a small part in a much wider conflict'.

Since then Professor Preston has cheerfully repeated this claim from time to time.  He did it at a lecture at the Imperial War Museum; on 'Start the Week' with Andrew Marr; and on Radio 3 on 'Night Waves'.

At that time in 2011, as an ethnomethodologist, I was keen to show that Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' was an eye-witness account in the tradition of an ethnography rather than an attempt at historical analysis.

In December 1936, George Orwell left England for Spain, but he was STILL unsure  whether he would participate as a soldier or as a journalist.

Orwell's biographer Michael Shelden in his book 'Orwell - an Authorised Biography' writes:

‘...[Orwell] doubted whether he had the stamina or the skill to be a good soldier. And because of the chronic weakness of his lungs, he suspected// he would be turned down for health reasons if he tried to enlist. Yet he did not rule out joining one of the Spanish political militias if they could use him.

‘But he decided that the best way to serve the cause was to observe the war and write about it for the New Statesman or some other English paper that was sympathetic to the Republican government.’

We know now that in the end Orwell opted to join the POUM Militia.  And we know that Orwell kept a journal and wrote notes in the trenches.  It is now on record that this journal was seized by the communist police from his hotel room while he was on the run sleeping on building sites in Barcelona in May 1937.

When I made reference to doing an ethnography in my Bristol talk in 2011, I was invited to explain was an ethnography was.

The definition taken from the Glossary of terms written by Simon Coleman and Bob Simpson is that:
'Ethnography is the recording and analysis of a culture or society usually based on participant-observation and resulting in a written account of a people, a place or an institution.'

Before I go on to consider its limitations and the methodological problems of what Orwell is doing here and perhaps elsewhere, let me say something to my current talk:
Timothy Garton Ash, who reported on the wars in the Balkans described Orwell's book 'Homage to Catalonia' as a gold standard in war reporting, and the journalist Paul Foot in his Guardian review of the book claimed it made him into socialist.

Yet Orwell eludes to the fact that his Spanish experiences and the good fortune to be among Spaniards turned him into a socialist.  Before that he had been described as a Tory anarchist.
About half way through the book, on page 101 of my own Penguin edition, Orwell wrote:
'I had dropped into by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites.'
And he goes on:
'Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly but not all, of working-class origins, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality.'
He speaks of the sense of near perfect equality that he found up there on the Aragon front., and he says he felt he was 'experiencing a foretaste of socialism adding that he found 'ordinary class-divisions had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England.'
He writes that:
'No one was there except for us and the peasants, no one owned anyone else as his master.'

So, up there in the trenches South of the Pyrenees, Orwell concluded that for most people 'socialism means a classless society or it means nothing.'
Orwell also talks about the fashion to deny that socialism had anything to do with equality and he writes;
'In every country in the world a huge tribe of party hacks and sleek little professors are busy "proving" that socialism means no more than planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact.'
Orwell claims that 'the mystique of socialism is equality and it's this idea that attracts ordinary folk to socialism.'

That's what Orwell maintained in the 1930!
So for Orwell it was equality that mattered not left-wing Keynsianism or half-baked Fabianism.

I think it was over this distaste for 'planned state-capitalism' that Orwell and Raymond Williams differed.

So what is wrong with Orwell's book on Spain?

According to Professor Preston in the Guardian this year:
'However, limited to the time and place of Orwell's presence in Spain, Orwell situated on a quiet sector of a quiet front, his book would certainly not be there as a reliable analysis of the broader politics of the war, particularly of its international determinants.'
He clearly, says Preston, 'knew nothing of its origins or of the social crisis behind the Barcelona clashes.'
To grasp the bigger picture 'the broader politics of the war', Preston seems to be saying that to get the analysis right we will have to turn to proper historians who have the benefit of hindsight.
Perhaps the kind of historians like Gabriel Jackson, that Noam Chomsky describes and critiques in his essay 'OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP'.
In that essay, Chomsky argues that what these academic historians like Jackson tend to do is ignore the views of the workers in a struggle such as that in Spain. 

Look at what Professor Preston says about Spike Milligan's book, belittling 'footsoldiers'.  Or where he writes:
'Homage to Catalonia is a book about the Spanish war written from a narrow perspective, by someone who left out much that the professional historian could now encompass, supported as he is, by the enriched body of scholarship which has been published in Spanish, Catalan, and English... since 1996.'

With the greatest respect to Professor Preston and the rest of the community of scholars, I think we should remind ourselves of what Isaiah Berlin had to say and history and the historians.   To remind ourselves that no-one, not even Marx, managed in their powerful attempt to turn history into a science.

As an ethnomethodologist, it seems to me that history often verges on the art of advocacy.  Professor Preston's main gripe is that Orwell's book is the only book most people read about the Spanish war.

Why is Orwell's book so popular?  Why is it so widely read?

In the last few months I have just finished interviewing Joan Christopher about her husband Bill Christopher, who was a socialist and anarcho-syndicalist in the ILP, and she told me that Bill Christopher became politically transformed to socialism while serving in the Second World War.

Similarly, I have just discovered that the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was writing 'The Tractatus', while fighting in the Austrian army on the Russian front in the First World War experienced a similar transformation.  Before the war Wittgenstein had considered that he was preparing a book on logic, but after his experiences in the war he decided that he had written a book that was fundamentally ethical.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised then, that Orwell describes his transformation following his Spanish encounters thus:
'I was hardly conscious of the changes occurring in my own mind'.
Or where says on page 103 of the Penguin edition:
'I hope I can convey to you the atmosphere of the time.  The good luck of being among Spaniards with their innate decency, there ever present anarchist tinge.'
And when he writes this, unlike the 'sleek professors' and the historians, he's not trying to tell us something, he's not lecturing us as his readers, he's conveying something - he's showing us something of what it was like.  He's giving us a picture!

Orwell's memory broods over 'incidents that might seem too petty to be worth recalling':
'I am in the dug-out at Monte Pocero on the limestone ledge that serves as a bed.'
'I am... struggling to keep my balance and to tug a root of wild rosemary out of the ground.  High overhead meaningless bullets are singing.'

What Orwell is doing is showing us a picture of the underlying nature of the war.

Professor Preston feeds us facts and figures, while Orwell shows us something of the true nature of war.  Hence, 'Homage to Catalonia' is the most widely read book on the Spanish Civil War precisely because of this.

At my talk in Newcastle a lad there claimed that he'd stood where Orwell had stood on guard in Barcelona on guard on the Ramblas just opposite the Cafe Moka.  And he said that he didn't believe Orwell's account because he wouldn't have been able to see the Civil Guards across the street he was supposed to fire at.

Not being able to see everything symbolises the problem of Orwell's limitations.  The limitations of the eye-witness account; the limitation of the foot-soldier.

If we consider Tolstoy's Epilogue to 'War & Peace', we find that it was Napoleon not the foot-soldier who couldn't see the battle from where he was standing.  He couldn't see for all the smoke and dust produced in the battle.  Consequently, Napoleon had to depend on the dispatch riders whose messages were unreliable and useless, because the situation had changed in the time it had taken to reach their Emperor to get his orders.

Yet we find that at the Battle of Borodino, according to Tolstoy,  it was precisely the foot-soldiers and their morale that mattered, rather than the commands of the great man.

Regarding Orwell's lack of prior understanding of the Spanish conflict I want to say something.

I knew Vernon Richards the old editor of FREEDOM, the anarchist newspaper.  Vernon was close to Orwell in the 1930s and 40s, and he told me that Orwell didn't have much background knowledge of Spanish politics or indeed really deep understanding of the nature of the Spanish conflict before he went to Spain.

Orwell was really in the same situation as David in the Ken Loach film 'Land and Freedom'.  David was a bit of a scous bumpkin in the film, and he had to mature during the course of a two-hour film.  Yet precisely by being naive, both David, Orwell and the viewer, can begin eventually to see things as  we shall say, 'anthropologically strange'.  

Martha Gellhorn, who travelled around Spain during the Spanish Civil War reporting on events, shows us the importance of the on the spot account when she says:  'I wrote very fast, as I had to, afraid that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures, which were special to this moment and this place.'

Philp French in his Observer review of 'Land and Freedom' writes:

'David has a painful lesson that leads from naivety to maturity without making him a cynic.  He retains his belief in the essential decency of working people and their right to control their own destinies, individually and as a community.'

Hence, I believe it was an advantage from the point of view of an anthropological account that George Orwell didn't have any apriori made-up opinions when he first went to Spain.

******

Roberts Arundel Strike

STOCKPORT Trades Council will be hosting an evening of discussion about the Roberts Arundel strike fought in Stockport from November 1966.  The strike saw militant picket lines and 30,000 engineering workers from accross the north-west of England stopped work in support of the Stockport workers.

Jim Arnison, author of The One Million Pound Strike, described the dispute as one of the 'biggest strikes in the history of the trade union movement and involved the most basic freedom of all workers — the right to organise.'

Geoff Brown will deliver a short presentation on the strike using archived footage and then we will encourage further discussion.

Venue : 7 Miles Out Cafe, 20 Market Place, Stockport, SK1 1EY, Thursday 16 November

Doors open 7.00 p.m. for 7.30 p.m. start. All welcome. Refreshments will be available.

******

Dire Predictions at Momentum Meeting

TONIGHT's meeting of Rochdale's Momentum group at the Woolworth Social Club was a pensive affair, as the anxious supporters of the Rochdale Labour Party pondered the probability of disaster at next May's local elections if Richard Farnell, the present leader of the Labour group, hangs on to power as Labour leader of Rochdale Council.

I had expected a lively desire to dance on Councillor Farnell's grave, given his poor performance at last week's Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.  But the two dozen or so participants at tonight's event were gloomy about the future prospects for the local party.

The current official Labour Party position regarding the Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, is that it will not comment until the Inquiry publishes its report on the 26th, April 2018.

Richard Farnell could remain in office until then at least, given that it s estimated that about 70% of the Rochdale Labour Party councillors are still apparently giving him their support.

Tonight, it seemed, that only a miracle could rescue the Rochdale Labour Party in time for next year's local elections.

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Patriotism versus Nationalism.

by John Wilkins

I THOUGHT there needed to be a discussion about how people interpreted nationalism as opposed to patriotism after campaigning in the referendum last year.  A member of the public did not agree with my views he called me a traitor.  This annoyed me as I could not see why I could not be both patriotic and still stay in Europe.  I told him that my father, who was shot down over France a month before I was born, could definitely be called a patriot.
The recent outburst on twitter by President Trump over the 'kneeling protests' by NFL players, seemed to echo the views and anger shown by the right wing extremist I had met.
I was impressed by the calm and eloquent way Osi Umenyiora, ex NFL star and tv pundit spoke on the subject prior to tv coverage of a game.  Osi is a Nigerian American who said he valued the opportunities given him in the USA and claimed he would be prepared to give his life for his adopted country.  Commenting on Trump's tweet when he referred to the protesters as 'sons of bitches', Osi said he did not remember Trump using such language about white supremacists, one of whom killed a woman and injured others by driving his car into the counter protesters at a fascist rally in Charlottesville.
NFL players knelt for the national anthem in a respectful manner to highlight the numbers of black lives that had been lost to police violence.
The sport's national association issued a statement saying 'Sports are a unifying influence in our society, bringing people of differing backgrounds and beliefs together.' and 'Our respect for the national anthem has always been a hallmark of our pre-match events.'
Osi claimed that Trump had behaved contrary to the values of the founding fathers of the country with regard to the First Amendment of the Constitution.  This states there should be no 'abridging the freedom of speech,.....or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'  He therefore argues it is the President who is unpatriotic in not upholding citizen’s rights under the Constitution.
To help me distinguish between concepts of nationalism and patriotism I turned to dictionary definitions.
Nationalism. 'Extreme pride in the history, culture and successes of one's nation'. Chambers.
'Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.  (Oxford.)
'Advocacy of, or support for the political independence of a particular nation or people'. Oxford.
Patriotism. 'Loyalty to one's nation'.  (Chambers.)
'The feeling of loving your country more than any others and being proud of it'.
(Cambridge.)
Groups like The English Defence League take the first two definitions of nationalism to an extreme. President Trump does also in pushing through protectionist legislation on the economy and in his attitude to refugees.
Much of the world seems currently to reject the third definition when we see current struggles for independence of Catalonians, Biafrans, Kurds and Palestinians.
Patriotism comes into play when a country experiences war, takes part in sporting events, or celebrating achievements.  It needs to be shown now in the UK as we move out of Europe, whether we voted to leave or not, it is important that we show loyalty to our nation.
Patriotism can soon turn into a tribal form of nationalism in sport though.  It is possible to be loyal and patriotic to country or club without insulting, or showing aggression towards the opposition.
It is worth pointing out that November 2nd. is the 100th. Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which led later to the creation of Israel.  The UK soon lost sight of their promise in 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'.  Here I struggle to define myself as a patriot except that it should, like a true friend, be possible to point out mistakes our country has made.
I will finish by looking at our National Anthem, some verses contain some of the worst examples of nationalism.  We usually only sing the first verse but I remember Billy Connolly pointing out the sixth verse which is an example the first of the Oxford Dictionary definitions of nationalism.
Lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring
May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush.
If we have to have this outdated anthem I prefer Verse 4 and would be happier if that was retained and Verse 6 taken out.
Verse 4.
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be
And form one family
The wide world over.
It is our duty as citizens to be patriotic to our country but curb the excesses of nationalism. The world is shrinking as travel becomes easier and as 'no man can be an island unto himself', no nation can survive without creating relations with other

What Would You Have Done?

by Les May

RICHARD Farnell’s claim at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that he knew nothing of the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View which came to light in late 1991 and early 1992, seems somewhat implausible.  But this wasn’t a civil or criminal trial so ‘implausible’ is the most definitive thing that can be said.

The demand by one of the solicitors at the inquiry that he resign is just theatre; a bit of playing to the gallery to make it look as if he has earned his fees and that the inquiry has achieved something worthwhile.  Even so I find it difficult to imagine that Farnell has much of a future in Rochdale’s political scene.  Like Danczuk before him he has become a liability to Rochdale Labour party.

No doubt some of the careerists who discover they have backed the wrong horse, not once, but twice, will miss him; his numerous enemies will gloat and the rest will remind themselves of Jim Dobbin’s comments in 2014 that Farnell was perhaps unwise to take on the job of Leader with questions about Knowl View still unanswered.

I agree with Jim Dobbin.   But I also think that whether Farnell ‘knew’ or not is irrelevant.  Focusing on this distracts from the substantive issue of whether RMBC acted reasonably and appropriately when the Shepherd and Mellor reports of 1991 and 1992 referred to the high levels of sexual activity amongst the boys at Knowl View, some of it coercive in nature.  Would Farnell ‘knowing’ have made any difference?

The stories about Knowl View had already had an airing in the Independent on Sunday in September 1995 which no-one seemed to notice, least of all the people doing the shouting now. When they re-surfaced in 2012, with Danczuk fanning the flames, in the minds of the public the term ‘sexual abuse’ did not have its present increasingly elastic definition. It conjured up the idea of being something that adults did to children or other vulnerable individuals.  I doubt that in the minds of most people it encompassed situations where it was ‘boy on boy’ or where youngsters actively solicited homosexual contact.

The evidence points to the fact that where the contemporary evidence pointed to an adult having had sexual contact with one of the boys the police pursued the matter and prosecuted the individual concerned. What is less clear, at least to me, is the question of what is/was the legal status of the ‘boy on boy’ sexual activity, which appears to be what was going on at Knowl View.

Had it been a mixed school I don’t think this sort of query would have arisen. I’m not anti-feminist point scoring here when I say the lad, but not the girl, would probably have have been prosecuted.

So I’m going to ask YOU what YOU would have done if you were a senior council officer and the report prepared by sexual health worker Phil Shepherd had plopped onto YOUR desk at the end of 1991 and YOU had read;

‘The present situation within the school is described by the staff as follows:
One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school.

Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.  

'Reputedly five of the junior boys have been or are involved in 'cottaging' in and around public toilets.  Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part. 

'One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved.  The police are aware of the problem.  What action has been taken is not known. 

'One rent boy has been removed from the school.  The suggestion that he may return soon has angered the staff. 

'Some boys have been "forced" to have sex with others.

'This degree of sexual activity, if it is factual, points to fundamental problems within the school.’  (my emphasis, because the first action which was taken was to commission a psychologist to visit the school to ascertain whether the claims were true.)

So what would you have done? 
Would you have closed the school immediately even though it served three local authorities?
Would you have insisted on prosecuting the older boys who indulged in oral sex?
Would you have insisted that the boys involved in ‘forcing’ others be prosecuted?
Do you think the term "sexual abuse" is the best way of describing what was found?

The term I have repeatedly used about what was going on at Knowl View is ‘unsavoury’.  What people do in the privacy of their bedroom is not my business.  When these things happen in an institution like a school or a prison I find it distasteful.  They should not have happened at Knowl View.  They should not have been allowed to happen.   But they did.

The reason seems to be that in terms of priority special schools like this were at the back of the queue for resources, for visits from educational advisers and for adequate staffing.   As for the ‘naughty boys’ who were at Knowl View it may have been ‘out of sight, out of mind’, an attitude we perhaps all shared.   Also Rochdale MBC was busy reorganising its secondary education provision in the years immediately prior to 1990.   At the same time the Thatcher government was encouraging schools to ‘opt out’ of the Local Education Authority and some schools were holding ballots of parents.

The substantive question is, when confronted with a serious problem at Knowl View, which may well have been in part of their own making, did the officers concerned react appropriately or did they try to ‘cover it up’?   My view is that they acted appropriately and in a timely fashion.   If you disagree, I ask again, what would YOU have done?

I’m told there are people close to the local Labour parties who are talking about ‘a crisis of sexual abuse in Rochdale’.   If they are I can only ask, What crisis? If they talking it up as a means of bringing down Farnell there are two things to say. The first is that their efforts are redundant; Farnell has no longer any credibility and won’t want to face the electorate.  The second is that they are ‘piddling in the same pot’ as Simon Danczuk.  In 2014 Danczuk talked up the problems at Knowl View which looked like an effort to discredit Colin Lambert who has just delivered Labour an astonishing electoral result.  Is this really who they feel happy to be compared with?    Just look what happened to him.

Richard Farnell: Something to hide?

WHEN in June 2014 Rochdale MBC had begun a council-commissioned inquiry is into whether there was a town hall cover-up relating to possible sex abuse at Knowl View, the late Jim Dobbin,  then Labour MP for Heywood & Middleton, said it was the ‘wrong time’ for Richard Farnell to take power as leader of the Rochdale Council.  Mr Dobbin then reminded us that it was Richard Farnell, who had just taken over was also leader in the early 1990s when the Knowl View sex abuse scandal was first being investigated.

At that time Mr Dobbin told the Manchester Evening News:  

“I don’t think it’s very wise at this particular time, particularly with the inquiry going on into Knowl View.

“Richard was leader at the time these accusations were being made, so I don’t think it’s a very clever thing for Richard to do and if he had spoken to me about it I would have said so.”

This week, before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, Councillor Richard Farnell blamed senior officers for the scandal, which he said had only come to his attention in 2014.

Councillor Farnell had also been leader between 1986 and 1992, when boys in the council-run Knowl View school were being subjected to horrendous sexual abuse, including rape.

He went on to tell the inquiry - which is investigating institutionalised abuse across the country - repeatedly that he had never heard of any allegations relating to the school until recently, adding:

 'I am not prepared to accept personal responsibility for failing to take action in this matter.'

In a remarkable testimony to the national child abuse inquiry, Councillor Richard Farnell blamed senior officers for not having brief him of the scandal.

Coun Farnell was continually asked about his knowledge of the events by Brian Altman QC, who went on to point out that his own director of education, the director of social services, the chair of education and opposition members were all on record as all having been aware of the allegations.

Yet, Councillor Farnell has still insisted he had never been briefed.

This was a week in which an ex-Labour group chief whip councillor Peter Joinson accused the Rochdale council leader Richard Farnell of 'not telling the truth' to the child abuse inquiry, and of giving 'conflicting accounts' over the reports about sexual abuse at the Knowl View residential school in Norden, Rochdale.  And in turn Councillor Farnell went on to accuse Mr Joinson of faking a note, claiming it was an attempt to smear him owing to internal disputes within the local Labour Party in Rochdale.

In these circumstances of internal warfare in the local Labour Party ought the national Labour Party to be considering if it should suspend the local party?

Letter: Rochdale's Political Establishment

THE letter below first appear earlier this month on the Rochdale On-line website:

 

Dear Editor,

Rochdale's political establishment

It must be time for a change of Rochdale's political rulers. Time has moved on for the political establishment. Councillors from the largest parties have run the town over a considerable number of years and are no longer serving the best interest of residents and voters. Too many seem to think that they are so self important that they are entitled to a (34%) pay rise when their employees suffer..The Labour Party nationally may have moved on with fresh policies but the local Labour Party is rooted in the past and bears little resemblance to it. The local party, it should be remembered; promoted, supported and continually excused and defended a person who, as MP, brought this town into disrepute. They have also turned on the one Labour councillor who vocally objected to the 34% rise and stopped him from standing in next May's local election. There appears to be little tolerance for an alternative view,

It is time to replace greed, self interest and intolerance with positive actions and policies.

The councillors rise of 34% should betaken away with them making sacrifices like everyone else.We need positive policies for this town, not greed and self interest and intolerance. The councillors' should be making sacrifices like everyone else. For most councillors, an additional 10% cut in their pay would not be a great hardship.

The way in which the council allows builders to get out of legally binding agreements to provide community improvements is a scandal. If a figure is agreed when a planning application is made, the council should insist on full payment.Other issues are also worrying, the ongoing secrecy over the Turner Brothers site with the council being run ragged by the foreign based owners and the destruction of the Green Belt.

The local elections are a good time for independents and smaller parties, such as the Greens, who are concerned with promoting policies for the benefit of all of us. Remember, the May elections are about local issues and I would encourage people to vote for the best candidates with the will to improve the town.

Regards,

M.Coats

Justice For The Blacklisted Workers

by Alan Wainwright

First published on his Blog: Friday, 6th, October 2017

VICARIOUS LIABILITY

"Vicarious liability refers to a situation where someone is held responsible for the actions or omissions of another person. In a workplace context, an employer can be liable for the acts or omissions of its employees, provided it can be shown that they took place in the course of their employment".

The Current Excuse

Mr McCluskey states the following in his correspondence to members dated 24 August 2017.

"Presently Unite have a further 70 plus cases being taken for victims of Blacklisting. It is vitally important that any review of documentation does not disrupt that litigation"

This can be downloaded HERE.

That may be, but I have raised a number of significant facts, complete with the evidence to support them that fall outside of this scope, which Mr McCluskey has completely disregarded.

                                                         Internal Documents

Further, I have been handed internal documents that provide an insight into the current status of these claims. They read:

"Legal Services represent 41 new Claimants in High Court proceedings against the same construction companies, and individual directors, as in the successful group litigation concluded last year. The claims are for conspiracy, breach of Data Protection Act, breach of privacy and confidence rights and, in may cases, defamation. Individual Particulars of Loss have been calculated and the claims are currently due to be served on the companies by 1 August. Legal Services is coordinating a further 17 new claims on behalf of former Ucatt members".

A Claimant in these proceedings has informed me that five figure offers have already been made by the construction companies and that they have been advised by the union to reject these.

These new claims have absolutely nothing to do with the matters raised by me to Mr McCluskey in MY REPORT dated 29 May 2017 and therefore should not hamper any investigation into such.

Legal Advice

Over the next few weeks I will be meeting blacklisted workers who feel they had a gun held to their head to discuss their experiences of the High Court settlements and hear their concerns. 

With their permission, I will be relaying this information to a team of solicitors who are assisting me with this matter.

The discussions will be held in complete confidence and on an individual basis. No information will be passed onto the solicitors or other blacklisted workers without the consent of the individual.

If you would like to discuss this with me you can email me direct at alanwainwright1963@gmail.com

Alternatively, you can call me on 07399 530323

It has now been eight years since we got our Consulting Association files. Eight years in which blacklisted workers have been raising their concerns about the involvement of trade union officials in the blacklisting. The unions could have launched an independent inquiry into all this over the last eight years.

They have not done so and have no intention of doing so. 

******

Sohm Schools Support: A big thank you!

   "Below is the latest newsletter from Sohm Schools Support, the African educational charity run by Northern Voices contributor and former co-editor of Rochdale's Alternative Paper, John Walker and his wife, Sandra.  Full details of the charity can be found here: www.SohmSchoolsSupport..org.uk"

Most significant among the donations has been one we have received from Redbridge Rotary Club, for £250. The Club has been good friends of this charity, and we are always delighted to return, each year, to give them an update on life in the schools in Sohm, and to be able to show, quite explicitly, what their donations have funded.

Redbridge Rotary, significant  donors to SSS. Thank you!

  Progress this year with the Lower Basic school

As far as the Lower Basic (primary) school is concerned, this year we have been delighted - with our partners from Jersey - to fund the complete renovation of the outside toilet blocks of the school. We will publish photos of the completed project when we receive them, but understand from the school that the work has been satisfactorily completed.

Broken outdoor toilets at Sohm LBS  - now refurbished - thanks to SSS!

We also funded an internet router for the school.  MaLamin Gibba, the school's deputy head wrote to say:

We are learning to use it and in time, we will come to know much about it and be able to use it in the best interest of the school and the pupils.

  

We provided a much needed new printer scanner for the school. This enables them to print their own materials rather than having to travel the 15 miles to the regional office in Brikama to get it done. MaLamin, again:    

Having it eases all the hitches we were encountering in the previous years. This year we not only prepared and printed examination questions but we are also able to prepare materials we use in our administrative works as well as print schemes of work and lesson plans.

Perhaps our largest, on-going commitment to the school has been to fund a "homework club" for what we thought would be two hours a week, after school, for pupils who struggle to get space or quietness at home to study.  So popular has this become, that it is now running three nights a week, and is always packed!

Homework club, in SSS-funded  refurbished library

Most of the staff live in the village, and they continued to operate the scheme, on a voluntary basis, over the summer holidays, so that the scheme did not lose momentum.  We are obviously delighted by this!

In conclusion, MaLamin says a big than you to all our supporters: 

"Can you just imagine how much you are doing for the school? The great work you are doing for the school cannot easily be forgotten. They are visible more so, everything you do is put in our records and filed. Therefore, the amount spent on cash power (electricity supply, which we also fund - having wired the school up two years ago) is all receipted and filed. At this juncture we have nothing but to say thank you to you and all those who supporting us through you."

Deputy head MaLamin acting as "patient"  in recent SSS-funded First Aid training day

  Secondary school progress

The school has benefitted from a major classroom extension building this year - financed by our Jersey partners. And, splendid it looks too.

New Jersey-funded teaching  block in Senior Secondary school

Our major contribution to the school - apart from our annual stationery donation and the sponsorship of a number of poorer pupils - has been the funding of "additional classes" available for ALL students, of one hour per week in each of the core subjects of English and Maths, at the end of the school day.

As we have previously mentioned, progress in improving public examination results for the school since our involvement, five years ago, has been quite remarkable.  The school has shot up regional league tables and from being very much at the foot of these tables, it is now in the top two or three of performers.

The subjects where least progress has been made, however, has been in English and Maths - arguably the two most important - certainly when it comes to the jobs market.

Eighteen months ago we set out ambitious plans to address this, but funding (jointly with our Jersey partners) the "remedial" classes as they were originally dubbed. They proved very difficult to get off the ground, initially. Then, when they were up and running, the school - like all others in The Gambia - was hit by the country's political instability last December, and effectively closed for a month.

75% attendance at voluntary, extra-curricular,  SSS-funded additional classes in English and Maths

So, a second start was made this new year, and we are delighted to report on progress. We are provided with monthly attendance sheets and progress records - as part of our conditions for funding the scheme. These are subject to spot checks and independent verification by our Jersey partner's local agent in The Gambia.

The results have been most pleasing. Although the scheme is entirely voluntary and extra-curricular, average attendance at the classes has exceed over 75% in both subjects in every month, bar one, since its re-introduction.

The subject teachers and the school's principal review overall progress with the scheme each month and re-tweak it and set targets to be reached.  Regular reports go to the schools governors, who are delighted with the scheme's effectiveness.

This scheme has taken a while to come to fruition, but perseverance is showing pleasing signs of success.  The acid test, of course, will be in next year's public examination results.  We are crossing our fingers!

John Walker 07954 153 305 Gambia stuff: www.SohmSchoolsSupport.org.uk @GambiaSchools Forest Gate stuff: www.E7-NowAndThen.org, @E7_NowAndThen

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See For Yourself!

by Les May

FOR about a year after the publication of Simon Danczuk’s book in April 2014 the print and broadcast media were rarely free of stories about child sexual abuse and the need for an ‘overarching inquiry’.  The real and imagined stories about the goings on in Rochdale were rarely out of the news.

 Once the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) got going interest wained as reporting it properly involved analysing hundreds of pages of transcript.  So in general the media have ignored what the various Rochdale witnesses had to say or just given us a few of the ‘juicy bits’.

If you want to make your own mind up download and read the transcripts for yourself.  You can find them at
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents?t[38]=38&interval=&date[min]=&date[max]= 
see also:
 iicsa transcript 24 october 2017

If you find it difficult to access the website from this page move the cursor to the end of the above line, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor left along the line.  Once the whole line is marked press the right mouse button and select copy from the ‘drop down’ menu.  You can put this into your browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer etc) by pressing the right mouse button and selecting paste.

Half Baked Harriet

by Les May

FROM 1978 until 1982 Harriet Harman was the legal officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which later took the name Liberty. From 2001 to 2005 she was Solicitor General for England and Wales, the second highest-ranking member of the Supreme Court after the Attorney-General.  So you might think that she would have some respect for the due process of law.
But judging by Harriet’s recent comment, ‘I think that the absolute key to this, when I think about my own experience and think about the Harvey Weinstein thing, is we need a system of whistle-blowing, anonymous whistle-blowing’, one might begin to doubt it.
Once you introduce the term ‘whistle-blowing’ you imply some kind of immunity.  Coupled with anonymity it’s a recipe for ruining the lives of innocent men with no possibility of redress.  The kindest thing you can say about it is that it’s a half baked idea and would not have been out of place in the armoury of the East German Stasi.
If you think someone is breaking the law tell the police.  That protects both you and the person being accused. If the accusation has substance the police will investigate and prosecute.  If the accusation is malicious the police will prosecute you.  That is how it should be.
You can see the rest of Harriet’s comments at:
http://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/england/item/42707-whistle-blowing-hotlines-could-help-women-report-abuse-harriet-harman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

Fire & Petrol at the Royal Exchange

 

ON entering the Manchester Royal Exchange yesterday, for the first time ever my plastic M&S shopping bag was perused for explosives.  I've been going to the Royal Exchange since it opened in the 1970s with 'The Prince of Homburg' by Heinrich von Kleist, and I've never experienced a bag search before.  The performance was to be 'Parliament Square' written by James Fritz and directed by Jude Christian.

If we'd been visiting some show be it film or theatre, that had been put on by the politically-correct softies on the British left we might have been cautioned and pre-armed with trigger warnings before the kick-off.  Perhaps the Manchester bourgeoisie are bolder and made of sterner stuff than the local loco-lefties?

The blurb on the Box Office publicity flier says:  'How far would you go for what you believe in?'

Given that the Manchester Arena bombing only occurred on 22 May 2017, it may have been considered a bit risque to put this play on.  Although, the main character Kat is more in the style of a Buddhist Monk self-harming by dousing herself in petrol than Islamic extremist.

Raw, disturbing and compassionate, James Fritz’s searingly powerful play forces a confrontation with some of the most urgent questions we face.  What can one individual do to effect change?  And where do we choose to draw the line between absolute commitment and dangerous obsession? 

It's not that we come up here against the Kantian idea of a moral law* - The Categorical Imperative.  It's more about what we can we do to have impact on events and still stay sane?

*  The Kantian idea of a moral law:

‘For an action to be morally valid, you must only carry out that action if you believe all people should act in the same way.  If society acted exactly as you do, would this be morally acceptable?’

Income and Wealth. It’s a Carve Up

by Les May

THERE are estimated to be about 50 million adults, i.e. persons aged 18 or over, in the UK.   Based upon a sample 13,000 people the Financial Conduct Authority has identified a half of all adults, 25 million people, as potentially vulnerable to a change in circumstances.  About 13 million adults are considered to be just ‘surviving’ and at high risk of falling into financial difficulties. A similar number have been overdrawn in the past year and about 3 million have used an unauthorised overdraft.  For about the same number of adults expensive ‘pay day loans’ are the only way to make ends meet.  Seven million homeowners say they would struggle to pay if their mortgage rose by £100 a month.  A half of people who rent say they would struggle if their rent rose by less than £100 a month.

This is the bleak picture which emerges when one looks at the balance between income and expenditure.  A report by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has shown a similarly bleak picture with regard to the distribution of wealth in this country.

A quarter of adults have less than a £1000 in savings and one in eight adults have no cash savings whatsoever.  The wealthiest 10% of households own 45% of the country’s wealth and the least wealthy 50% own just 9%.  In cash equivalent terms that’s an average of £1,320,000 owned by each of the wealthiest 10% and an average of £3,200 by the bottom 50%. So much for the Tory vision of a ‘property owning democracy’ and of wealth ‘cascading down the generations’.

The picture all these numbers paint is that the UK is a country of vast inequality.  But if you are reeling at the onslaught of the numbers from these two reports don’t worry, you are unlikely to see much said about them in the press, even by those columnists and who like to style themselves a being ‘of the left’.  And of course some Labour politicians have far too much to worry about to bother their pretty little heads about something so mundane as inequality.

In the past ten days my paper has contained something about Harvey Weinstein on nine of them. Even the Radio Times got in on the act with a story about how an actress I had never heard of had been asked to audition in a bikini. Shock horror! There was me thinking that these women were all shrinking violets who shunned publicity.

Now I don’t doubt that there are men in the film business who think that ‘get your kit off’ is a chat up line. But if it offends you there is always the option of walking away.  And if think that will damage your career, then it’s decision time; career or virtue.  Yes it’s about power, but as Shakespeare didn’t quite put it, ‘Caesar would not be a wolf if the Romans were not sheep’.  As I said, it’s decision time ladies.

When I read stories like this the question I ask myself is ‘am I bovered’. The answer is ‘No!’.  Why should I concern myself with the goings on of a privileged few when I live in a country where 10% of the population each have 400 times the individual wealth of more than half of the rest of us?  Or when 3 million people have to take out ‘pay day loans’ at outrageous interest rates because they haven’t got a few hundred pounds in savings when a minor crisis arises.  What ‘power’ do these people have? What power has someone on a zero hours contract?

Yet the outrage is all about the dodgy goings on in Hollywood.  It’s certainly not about inequality. How many actresses have been propositioned in the US and UK I don’t know, but I can say with some certainty it won’t be in the millions.

Why is it that the Left is so unwilling to show its outrage at the inequity of British society?  Why is it that Harriet Harman, one time Deputy Leader of the Labour party, can seriously think that the biggest problem faced by society is that there aren’t any ‘whistle blowing hotlines’, so that women can complain about the Harvey Weinsteins of this world?  And just to remind you; Harman is the woman who urged Labour MPs not to oppose a Tory bill to cut benefits.

I’m still waiting for an answer to the question I posed in a recent NV article.

‘Why is it that people, and not just young people with their demands for ‘safe spaces’ and the like, cannot resist sniffing out and condemning anything they think smells of racism, sexism or homophobia, yet don’t show the same enthusiasm for combatting the rise in vast inequalities in both income and in wealth, the growth of zero hours contracts, the receding possibility that they will be able to live a dignified and not poverty filled old age, the demonisation of the poor as work shy scroungers, the lack of social housing and the increasing proportion of household income that is going to a new rentier class?’

I’m not looking to Harriet for an answer or to any of those columnists who style themselves as ‘of the Left’.

Free North Campaign

 NORTHERN REPUBLIC

Bulletin of the Free North Campaign

The Free North Campaign is a socialist, republican campaign group that

calls for ever-greater autonomy and self-government for the North of England. We do not support any single political party but stand in solidarity with progressive independence and regionalist movements around the world. We believe in the radical devolution of political and economic power away from

the London-centric elites to localcommunities and municipalities.

SOLIDARITY WITH CATALONIA!

The Free North Campaign sends its support and solidarity to the people of Catalonia in their historic struggle for freedom and independence from the Spanish state.Irrespective of

whether the October 1st referendum was legal or not (in the eyes of the Spanish government and courts), the violent response of the Madrid government must be condemned as a criminal act

.

The European Union must also be condemned for its predictably inadequate response to the oppressive Francoist tactics of the Rajoy government and the national police force.

The EU has demonstrated that its main concern is protecting the interest of Europe’s ruling elite, rather than defending the citizens of Europe.  During the Scottish referendum,  the British establishment used a combination of fear and insincere sycophancy to encourage Scots to vote No.  In contrast, the Spanish state broke bones, smashed heads open, stole ballot boxes and closed polling stations.  Anyone who was undecided about Catalan independence before the referendum can surely no longer be ambivalent about the issue now.

Catalan Nationalism contains liberal, conservative and left-wing shades of opinion. Our political sympathies naturally lie with those on the left; in the Catalan Parliament this is represented by the Republican Left of Cataloniaand the anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP).

Fundamentally any region which seeks to separate itself from a repressive and reactionary state deserves the support of progressives. Independence alone will not inevitably lead to social and economic justice, but it can significantly speed up the pace of radical change and deal a decisive blow to the ruling class.

******

The Free North Campaignwelcomes all supporters who broadly

agree with our principles. 

Email us at: freenorth@hotmail.co.uk

and followthe twitter account @Free_North.

For a ‘Council of the North'

Political leaders from Leeds, Merseyside, Manchester Newcastle and West Yorkshire

met recently to discuss forming a body to speak on behalf of Northern interests.

Andy Burnham, the metro mayor of Greater Manchester said:

“If the North is to get the investment it has been promised, and fulfil its vast potential, we must come together, work together, and speak with one voice. “Today’s meeting was an important step

towards achieving that. The North of England is getting organised and can no longer be ignored.”

Steve Rotheram, the metro mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said:  

“The UK is simply too London-centric and we need to be inventive and determined if we are goingto off-set its disproportionate influence andshare of national resources.”